Letter dated 23 November 2009 from the Chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the DRC

Summary

Final report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The present report concludes that military operations against the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) have failed to dismantle the organization’s political and military structures on the ground in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The increasing rate of FDLR combatant defections and FDLR temporary removal from many of its bases are only a partial success, considering that the armed group has regrouped in a number of locations in the Kivus, and continues to recruit new fighters. The report shows that FDLR continues to benefit from residual but significant support from top commanders of the Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo (FARDC), particularly officers in the 10th military region (South Kivu), and has sealed strategic alliances with other armed groups in both North and South Kivu. External support networks, both regional and international, have been used by FDLR in the field to counteract the effects of “Kimia II” (FARDC-led military operations against FDLR), for instance networks in Burundi and the United Republic of Tanzania. The Group has also documented that FDLR has a far-reaching international diaspora network involved in the day-to-day running of the movement, the coordination of military and arms trafficking activities and the management of financial activities. This report presents two case studies on the involvement of individuals linked to faith-based organizations.

The Group investigated FDLR’s ongoing exploitation of natural resources in the Kivus, notably gold and cassiterite reserves, which the Group calculates continues to deliver millions of dollars in direct financing into the FDLR coffers. The present report illustrates how FDLR gold networks are tightly intertwined with trading networks operating within Uganda and Burundi as well as in the United Arab Emirates. The Group also documents that a number of mineral exporting companies, some of which were named in a previous report of the Group in 2008 (S/2008/773), continue to trade with FDLR. This report shows that end buyers for this cassiterite include the Malaysia Smelting Corporation, and the Thailand Smelting and Refining Company, which is held by Amalgamated Metals Corporation, based in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The report analyses the integration of non-State armed groups into FARDC through the rapid integration process in January 2009, as well as prior to and during the FARDC/Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) joint operations “Umoja Wetu” and “Kimia II”. In this context, the officer class of the Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CNDP), in particular General Bosco Ntaganda, has continued to retain heavy weapons acquired during its period of rebellion in spite of its official integration into FARDC and still controls revenue-generating activities and parallel local administrations. The Group also presents documentary evidence showing that General Ntaganda continues to act as the deputy operational commander of Kimia II.

CNDP military officers deployed as part of FARDC Kimia II operations have profited from their deployment in mineral-rich areas, notably at the Bisie mine in Walikale, North Kivu, and in the territory of Kalehe, in South Kivu. In both these areas, the FARDC commanding officers on the ground are former CNDP officers.

The Group includes evidence in the report showing direct involvement of CNDP military officials in the supply of minerals to a number of exporting houses in North and South Kivu, some of which also supply the international companies mentioned above.

The Group has monitored compliance with paragraph 5 of resolution 1807 (2008), by which the Security Council decided that all States are to notify the sanctions committee in advance regarding the shipment of arms and related material for the Democratic Republic of the Congo or any provision of assistance, advice or training related to military activities, especially given the Group’s findings on the continued diversion of FARDC military equipment to non-governmental armed groups, notably FDLR. The Group has conclusively documented irregular deliveries of arms to the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Sudan, as well as deliveries of trucks and aircraft that have been used by FARDC. The present report also documents the failure of a number of States to notify the sanctions committee of training they provided to FARDC.

The Group also reports on violations of human rights committed in contravention of subparagraphs 4 (d), (e) and (f) of resolution 1857 (2008) and concludes that FARDC and non-governmental armed groups continue to perpetrate human rights abuses, in the context of Kimia II operations in contravention of international humanitarian law. FARDC and FDLR have been involved in significant killings of civilians and other abuses from March to October 2009, causing additional waves of displacement of several hundred thousand civilians. The findings of the report underline the need for the urgent establishment of a vetting mechanism and the strengthening of accountability and the justice system in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A list of FARDC commanders currently deployed in the Kimia II operation with an established record of human rights abuses is annexed to the present report (annex 124).
The Federal Police of Germany arrested Mr. Ignace Murwanashyaka and Mr. Straton Musoni, the president and vice-president of FDLR respectively, on 17 November 2009, following the submission of the present report on 9 November 2009 by the Group of Experts to the Chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004). Mr. Murwanashyaka and Mr. Musoni were arrested on suspicion of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as on the basis of other charges related to the forming and membership of a foreign terrorist organization.

Al Jazeera Follow-Up on UN DR Congo Debacle

UN mission 'failing' in DR Congo
About 1,2000 FDLR fighters have surrendered since an army offensive was launched in March [AFP]

The United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo has failed to disarm Rwandan Hutu fighters, UN experts say.


According to a 93-page report for the UN Security Council, leaked on Wednesday, this has exacerbated conflict in the north of the country.

The report said that despite the mission in North and South Kivu provinces the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) was continuing to recruit and arm fighters.

"This report concludes that military operations against the FDLR have failed to dismantle the organisation's political and military structures on the ground in eastern DRC," it said.

The 25,000-strong UN force has been supporting a Congolese military offensive, launched in March as part of a deal to improve ties with neighbouring Rwanda, its enemy during a 1998-2003 war.

The five-member panel of experts sent to DRC to compile the report found that the Congolese offensive had had a devastating effect on the local population.

"Scores of villages have been raided and pillaged, thousands of houses have been burnt and several hundred thousand people have been displaced in order to escape from the violence generated by these military operations," the report said.

Mineral trading

Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, the spokesman for the UN force, said that the peacekeepers were "quite happy" with the results of the military operation, but acknowledged that "the humanitarian situation does not look as good".

"We were able to neutralise between 35 and 50 per cent of the FDLR combatants and as well we can say that the they are pushed out of the majority of their economic sites," he told Al Jazeera from Kinshasa.

However, the report concluded that although more than 1,200 of the FDLR's estimated 6,000-to-8,000 fighters have surrendered since the offensive began, it had been able replenish its ranks from both Congolese and Rwandan Hutus.

The group also continues to benefit from the riches generated by the areas vast mineral resources.

Companies continue to purchase minerals from jungle mines controlled and operated by FDLR supporters, while middlemen smuggle millions of dollars in gold to Dubai every year.

Official Congolese records show only a few kilos of gold are exported legally every year, but the country's own senate estimates that in reality 40 tonnes a year, worth about $1.24bn - leaves the country.

"The [UN] group calculates that the FDLR could earn at least several hundred thousand dollars and up to a few million dollars a year from this trade," the report said.

The FDLR was formed in refugee camps in eastern DRC housing mainly ethnic Hutus who had fled during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

But support networks in Africa, Europe and North America, now finance and command the fighters.

The experts tracked 240 calls between Ignance Murwanashyaka, an FDLR leader based in Germany, and DR Congo fighters, who in turn were in touch with contacts in 25 countries in Europe and America.

Unstable region

Guy Momat, a Congolese journalist and founder of Stop the Congo War UK, said there had been some improvements in North and South Kivu provinces since last year.

"In November 2008 the situation was worse than now: the town of Goma was close to falling to the forces of Laurent Nkunda and you can imagine what could have been the consequences, but now people have regained their place," he said.

About 25,000 UN peacekeepers have been deployed to eastern DR Congo [EPA]
"For the last 12 years that part of the Congo was not stable, so as an observer I think it will take time to bring a proper peace."

In return for Congo's pledges to tackle the Hutu rebels, some of whom helped orchestrate Rwanda's 1994 genocide, Rwanda arrested Nkunda, whose National Congress for the Defence of the People [CNDP] forces were then integrated into the army.



The most aggressive operations against the FDLR have been spearheaded by predominantly Tutsi former CNDP units, some of which are apparently under the command of General Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

"General Bosco Ntaganda was enforced by both Kinshasa and Kigali as the de facto military head of the CNDP, with specific instructions to manage and control former CNDP elements integrated in the [army]," the report said.

Under Ntaganda's leadership, integrated CNDP units are accused by the group of experts of widespread abuses including killings, rape, torture, forced labour, looting and extortion.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Al Jazeera Reports

Many dead in DR Congo boat accident

Travel is often limited to aircraft and boats that ply Congo's huge network of rivers [EPA]

At least 73 people have been killed after a boat sank on a lake in the west of the Democratic Republic of Congo, it has emerged.

DR Congo's branch of the Red Cross said on Saturday that a logging boat that was not authorized to take passengers sank during bad weather on Wednesday.

"We are at 272 survivors and 73 dead. These are bodies that we have found along the shores of the lake," Dominic Lutula, president of the Congolese Red Cross told the Reuters news agency.

"There are still some people missing. But we don't know how many because there was no ship's manifest," he said.

Bodies had been found on the shores of Lake Mai Ndombe.

'People missing'

The boat had been transporting logs on Lake Mai Ndombe in Bandundu province, the United Nations-sponsored Radio Okapi said.

Radio Okapi said the boat, owned by a logging company called Sodefor, sank at around 8:00pm (19:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

Despite its vast mineral wealth, roads are almost non-existent outside Congo's main towns.

Travel is often limited to aircraft and the boats that ply its huge network of rivers.

Accidents are frequent due to overloading, lack of maintenance, and lax enforcement of safety standards.

At least 14 people died in September after their boat sank on an isolated stretch of the Lualaba river in the southern province of Katanga.

Courtesy of

The UN Continues it Irresponsibility

UN News Service (New York)
Congo-Kinshasa: Security Council Renews Arms Embargo And Sanctions

30 November 2009

The Security Council today extended and expanded the arms embargo and related sanctions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which have been in place since 2003, for another year.

Council members voted unanimously to adopt a resolution continuing the regime of sanctions, which consists of an arms embargo against all armed groups that are not part of either the Government's integrated army (known as the FARDC) or police units, through 30 November next year.

The 15-member panel also extended the mandate of the Group of Experts dealing with the DRC for the same period, and expanded its remit to include the creation of recommendations on due diligence guidelines for the buying and processing of lucrative mineral products in the troubled African country.

The Group of Experts has been asked to focus its activities on North and South Kivu, Ituri and Orientale provinces in the east of the country, which remains plagued by fighting and unrest since the end of the DRC's brutal civil war earlier this decade.

The mandate of the Council subcommittee dealing with the DRC has also been expanded to take account of changing notification requirements for UN Member States complying with the embargo and sanctions.

EXPOSED! The UN Security Council is a farce

Africa Confidential (London)
Congo-Kinshasa: Diplomatic Double-Standards and an International Resource Grab are Stoking One of the Worst Wars in the World

25 November 2009

The United Nations Security Council's tenuous authority in Africa has been further threatened by an explosive new report from a UN Group of Experts* showing wide-ranging violations of the arms embargo on Congo-Kinshasa by both Western and African states.

The expert panel reports that killer militias in Eastern Congo have been receiving military orders from leaders based in Germany and France and getting finance from two Spanish-based charities linked to the Roman Catholic church in clear breach of the UN sanctions regime. The report also accuses the governments of Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and Congo-Kinshasa of allowing serious breaches of sanctions and the illegal export of mineral wealth.

After heated discussions at UN headquarters in New York on 20 November, several Council members want to dilute the report's recommendations – if not bury them, Africa Confidential has learned. The Council is due to meet again on 25 November to discuss the report, but China has been pushing for a substantive delay on any actions while the report is translated into another five languages.

This latest crisis for the UN's operations in Congo-Kinshasa follows growing concerns about relations between the Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo (Monuc) and the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) after the latter was found to have been involved in mass killings and rapes of civilians in Eastern Congo. The new report reinforces concerns voiced by some UN officials about the management of Monuc, the UN's most expensive peacekeeping operations costing over US$1 billion a year, under Alan Doss, the British diplomat who is currently UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Special Representative in Congo. Continuing criticism of the ineffectiveness of Monuc and its high cost are undermining diplomatic support for the mission.

Analysing internal Monuc reports and its information from its own sources the Expert Group concludes that military operations by the FARDC, first in conjunction first with the the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) and then with Monuc, against the Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) militia have had much less impact than the Kinshasa government and the UN have claimed.

It adds that the joint FARDC-RDF operation in North Kivu earlier this year, known as Umoja Wetu, was weakened by the embezzlement of several million US dollars of funds by senior FARDC and RDF commanders. Umoja Wetu was followed in March 2009 by Kimia II, an FARDC operation backed by Monuc, which the FARDC says has contained and greatly weakened the FDLR. Yet the Group's report states that since forming a tactical alliance with a predominantly Hunde militia in North Kivu as well as with its splinter faction RUD-URUNANA, the FDLR has been able to return in strength to the Masisi, Lubero and Walikale regions of the province. The report concludes that the FARDC's military operations have not succeeded in neutralising the FDLR, despite the intense humanitarian crisis they have provoked.

The previous UN panel report on Congo-Kinshasa, released last December, reported at length on secret collaboration between the FARDC and FDLR. This was followed in January, however, by a groundbreaking deal between Congo-Kinshasa's President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, which was widely assumed to mean, not least by the Security Council, that FARDC support for the FDLR would cease. Yet this latest report shows that the senior commanders of the FARDC's 10th military region, which roughly comprises South Kivu, continue to provide logistical support to the FDLR.

The commanders of the FARDC 10th military region, who the report claims are responsible for the provision of this logistical support, are General Pacifique Masunzu, a Banyamulenge (South Kivu Banyamulenge Tutsi) who broke with the Rwandan-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) back in 2003 and who clearly remains implacably opposed to the Rwandan government, and his deputy Colonel Baudouin Nakabaka, a former Mai-Mai fighter with close links to the FDLR.

Another interesting link to the FDLR and to a related and equally brutal Rwandan militia in eastern DRC called RUD-URUNANA, reveals the report, is Mbusa Nyamwisi, Congo-Kinshasa's Minister of Decentralisation. Mbusa Nyamwisi, who was previously Foreign Minister, has been linked by the report to Kasereka Maghulu, otherwise known as Kavatsi, who has apparently been helping RUD-URUNANA obtain food supplies, arms, ammunition and cash in return for minerals and timber.

One of the report's strongest findings is the extent of the FDLR's support network in Europe, and particularly in Germany and France. It shows that German-based Ignace Murwanashyaka is not only the FDLR President but also its supreme military commander, and that Straton Musoni, its German-based Vice-President, is also President of the militia's high command. The Deputy President of this high command is apparently Callixte Mbarushimana, the FDLR's France-based Executive Secretary. All three men have previously been sanctioned by the UN, which is supposed to mean that they are banned from international travel and that their bank accounts are frozen. But Etablissement Muyeye, one of the biggest mineral trading houses in Bukavu, organised the transfer of funds through Western Union to Murwanashyaka's associates in Germany on behalf of FDLR, the report shows.

The arrest of Murwanashyaka and Musoni by the German authorities last week on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity raises questions about timing. The German government had not previously acted against Murwanashyaka and Musoni despite evidence of their continued leadership role in the FDLR and appeals from the Rwandan government to take action. Some UN sources suggest Germany acted because it had heard about the UN report with details about the FDLR networks in Europe.

Germany's arrest of the two FDLR men puts pressure on France, which has not arrested Calixte Mbarushimana, and is criticised in the report for being reluctant to share information about the FDLR with the panel. The experts identified 21 telephone numbers in France that have been in contact with FDLR military satellite phones between September 2008 and August 2009. They asked the French government to collaborate and identify these numbers but the French authorities are yet to respond. Similarly, the French authorities have failed to respond to questions about FDLR leadership resident in France.

The networks are wider: the UN experts also identified money transfers from Belgium to the FDLR. They also complain about the lack of cooperation from Britain and the United States on enquires into phone numbers in contact with FDLR military satellite phones.

Also under scrutiny are those Roman Catholic networks which have provided continuing support to Hutu extremists before, during and after the genocide of 1994 in Rwanda. The panel names two Spanish charities linked with the Roman Catholic church, the Fundació S'Olivar and Inshuti, which are funded by the government of the Islas Baleares Province and have been providing financial support to the FDLR, which groups around youth recruited in refugee camps and young Congolese Hutus, the last quarter of the former militiamen and Forces Armées Rwandaiseselements. Fundació S'Olivar is run by Juan Carrero, a prominent figure in Spain who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. Inshuti used to be run by Joan Casoliva. Both men are cited in the report as being FDLR sympathisers and for being involved in pushing forward the prosecution of RPF officials in the Spanish courts. The authors of the report also gathered testimonies claiming that a Belgian brother of a charity called Constant Goetschalckxhas given money to the FDLR.

Another important revelation by the Group is that the FDLR and RUD-URUNANA have since early this year been recruiting hundreds of combatants from Rwandan refugee camps in Uganda, in particular from the camps of Nyakivale and Cyaka, under the noses of the Ugandan military which is supposed to have been preventing this. A key organiser is said to be the FDLR's 'Colonel' Wenceslas Nizeyimana, who is accused of facilitating a visit in 2006 by FDLR President Ignace Murwanyashyaka to Uganda in violation of a UN travel ban.

These findings embarrass Uganda, which is a temporary member of the UN Security Council, as do revelations in the report about Uganda's deep involvement in a thriving trade in gold mined from eastern Congolese sites controlled and taxed by the FDLR. The report says that Rajendra Vaya and J.V. Lodhia (also known as Chuni), who headed two Ugandan gold trading companies called UCI and Machanga which were previously sanctioned by the UN Security Council for buying gold from mines taxed by an assortment of Ituri militia, are the most active and are trading with the protection and connivance of the Ugandan authorities.

The report criticised the Ugandan government for supplying the Group with only 'incomplete and partial' customs declarations for the country's gold exports, and claims to have documentation showing that far more is going out then the official figures reveal. Almost all the Congolese gold being exported via Uganda, it seems, goes to Dubai, which has so far declined to respond to any of the Group's requests for further information.

The report also says that the FDLR is receiving 'significant deliveries' of weapons and ammunition from Tanzania via Lake Tanganyika and strongly suggests the Tanzanian government knows all about it. The Tanzanian government's motivation, moots the panel, is to retain influence over illegal trade with Congo, including fuel smuggling from Tanzania to Congo and minerals smuggling in the other direction. The panel has email correspondence from Bande Ndagundi, a Congolese arms trafficker active in Tanzania and Burundi, talking about his high level contacts with Tanzanian officials. The panel shows Ndagundi has been in regular phone contact with the Tanzanian Ambassador to Burundi, who the panel's sources allege facilitates Ndagundi's activities.

The Group's report claims the Burundian government is allowing the FDLR to use its territory as a rear base and to recruit from there, and further finds that it may be facilitating a supply of arms to the militia from international dealers. It has long been known that Burundi was the main conduit for gold mined in South Kivu, since the country exports gold without producing it. Most, if not all, South Kivu's gold mines are controlled by one armed group or another, with the FDLR controlling a number of the best deposits.

Several FDLR ex-combatants interviewed by the experts stated that several hundred of fighters were recruited in Rwanda and infiltrated through Burundi into Congo-Kinshasa. There is little doubt that Burundi will dislike this report, in particular the mention that according to several testimonies and backed by phone records,'the FDLR maintain a relationship with Gen. Adolphe Nshimirimana, Burundi's head of intelligence'. Moreover, the experts found suspicious the attempted purchase in Malaysia by Burundian officials of 40,000 Steyer AUG assault rifles, which exceeded the needs of the Burundian police.

Several foreign mining houses continue to trade with the FDLR. End buyers for this cassiterite include the Malaysia Smelting Corporation and the Thailand Smelting and Refining Company (Thaisarco), held by the British-registered Amalgamated Metals Corporation. Furthermore, the fact that Thaisarco is supplied by African Ventures Ltd, a Samoan-registered company with a Hong Kong address, which is being used as a front company for the Swiss businessman Chris Huber, is also embarrassing; Huber was involved in the conflict coltan business during the 1998-2003 war in Eastern Congo and today he is also sourcing material from companies with close ties to FARDC officers from the former Congrés National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP, the ex-Congolese Tutsi guerilla force headed by Gen. Laurent Nkunda), who are in control of mines in the Walikale and Kalehe territories as well as companies buying from FDLR zones.

The report published a document showing how gold from these mines makes it into Burundi, focusing in particular on the role played by Bujumbura-based Mutoka Ruganyira. Ruganyira, it seems, is a good friend of Gen. Adolphe Nshimirimana, the director general of the Burundian intelligence services, and a business associate of Antwerp-based gold dealer Alain Goetz.Goetz, says the report, is linked not only to Ruganyira but also to a North Kivu-based company improbably called Glory Minerals, which also sources its gold from FDLR-controlled mines. Goetz has, however, denied the story, telling the panel he had not purchased gold from the DRC 'for several years'.

Among the Group's less surprising revelations are that North Korea and Sudan have violated UN Security Council resolution 1807 which imposes all states to notify the Sanctions Committee in advance regarding the shipment of arms for Congo.

China also supplied ammunition and equipment. The An Xin Jiang A vessel docked at Matadi in May 2009. China informed the Committee about the delivery but did not provide details about the cargo. China has been leading the charges against the expert report in the UN Security Council. South Africa, Angola and the USA, which train FARDC units, failed to notify the UN Sanctions Committee in advance on this provision of military assistance, advice or training. US authorities also failed to provide information on the bank account of a CNDP activist in Gisenyi.

Russia will face questions about the purchase of cassiterite by the Novosibirsk Integrated Tin Works company from ex-CNDP Congolese army officers and an attempted sale of military equipment including helicopter parts to the Congolese government in August 2009 by a Russian national named Dmitry Popov.

Of all governments in the region, Rwanda's seems to have earned the least criticism in this report – although it will also be embarrassed by revelations that Gen. Laurent Nkunda, the founder and former leader of the predominantly Congolese Tutsi CNDP who is supposed to be under detention in Rwanda, has been allowed to remain in contact with former associates and to exert a degree of control over the CNDP. The link with Chris Huber is also embarrassing. Huber used to ship minerals out of Rwanda during 1998-2003 via the state run Rwanda Metals, a company owned by the Rwandan Patriotic Forces (RPF).

The report says that the man who toppled Nkunda from the CNDP leadership, Jean Bosco Ntaganda, is the deputy commander of Kimia II despite being wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. The new US envoy to the Great Lakes region, Howard Wolpe, recently called on the Congolese government to hand Ntaganda over to the ICC, but Information Minister Lambert Mende retorted that the government was 'not yet ready' to do so. Ntaganda appears, meanwhile, to be building a military/business empire for himself in the Kivus, collecting taxes from mines now controlled by the FARDC's ex-CNDP units, illegal checkpoints, charcoal markets, the timber trade and border controls, and also centralising under his control a growing number of the CNDP's disparate arms caches.

The Group's report recommended that the UN Security Council request member states, like Germany, to prosecute violations of the sanctions regime by their nationals and leaders of armed groups residing in their territories, but we hear the recommendation is set to be rejected by the Council.

The Council also reacted with hostility to the panel's recommendation that it adopt a coordinated strategy for the full implementation of its previous anti-FDLR resolutions, and that it direct member states to share evidence they may have against the FDLR with each other and with the panel, apparently on the recommendation of France.

It will become clear on 25 November, when the Security Council is due to vote on a new resolution, how the Council has reacted to other recommendations from the panel. It recommends that member states clarify the due diligence obligation of companies under their jurisdiction operating in Congo's mineral trading sector, and that an eastern Congo cassiterite monitoring mechanism recently proposed by the International Tin Research Institute (ITRI) be widened to allow for the establishment of an independent monitoring team. The team should have a mandate to conduct spot checks on mineral shipments, acting on the basis of a 'clear definition' of what constitutes an illegal trading activity.

Given the hostility to the report from several members of the Security Council, the Group's future will depend heavily on the energy with which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon defends the panel, which he appointed and whose mandate he agreed. Yet the Group's report is so hard-hitting and wide-ranging in its targets that it is likely to provoke the same closing of ranks and quiet panic on the Security Council as previous reports on the illegal exploitation of minerals in Congo-Kinshasa

Criticisms of the USA's and China's military assistance to the Congo as 'inadequate', and of Russia's trying to secure new arms deals is likely to elicit hostility from three of the five permanent members. Yet the Council will not want to be seen to be blocking actions against governments and individuals breaking UN sanctions on support for the militias wreaking havoc in Eastern Congo. The Group of Experts appointed by Ban Ki-moon has delivered on its mandate by producing a report that is unusually well-researched, detailed and precise in its allegations.The Council will be risking its already waning credibility in eastern Congo if it rejects the report and the recommendations that flow from it.

*The UN Group of Experts consists of Raymond Debelle (Belgium), Kokouma Diallo (Guinea), Christian Dietrich (United States), Claudio Gramizzi (Italy) and Dinesh Mahtani (Britain).

Minerals Trading at High Rate

HONG KONG, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Gold surged to an all-time high above $1,200 an ounce on Wednesday, hitting a record for a second straight day, and Asian stocks advanced as investors chased riskier assets offering higher returns.

Spot gold rose 1 percent to $1,208.70 amid a broad rally in commodities on expectations of rising global demand, fueled by upbeat U.S. home sales and analysts' forecasts that China's economy could grow by 10 percent or more this quarter.

Copper touched its highest level in 15 months.

Gold was also supported by weakness in the U.S. dollar, which was again on the defensive while the euro and high-yielding currencies extended gains as investor risk appetite showed little sign of waning as it usually does heading into the year end.

The dollar was flat against a basket of major currencies, while the yen came off earlier lows amid disappointment that emergency steps announced the Bank of Japan on Tuesday, primarily short-term funding for banks, did not go further to tackle deflation or help alleviate upward pressure on the yen.

The yen was trading at 86.91 to the dollar, up from Tuesday's low of 87.54. It has gained more than 4 percent this year, raising worries that exports are growing less competitive, threatening to tip Japan back into recession.

Some analysts had expected the BOJ to signal a return to a narrow form of quantative easing seen in 2001-06, when it slashed interest rates to zero and flooded markets with cash in a bid to spur growth.

"The BOJ squandered any possible 'announcement effect' that would have bolstered the attempts to weaken the yen," said Glenn Maguire, chief economist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong. "The entire episode seems to have the notion of 'rushed' all over it."

OpEd: Conflict Minerals

Conflict Minerals: A Cover For US Allies and Western Mining Interests?

By Kambale Musavuli and Bodia Macharia (Friends of the Congo)

As global awareness grows around the Congo and the silence is finally
being broken on the current and historic exploitation of Black people
in the heart of Africa, a myriad of Western based prescriptions are
being proffered. Most of these prescriptions are devoid of social,
political, economic and historical context and are marked by
remarkable omissions. The conflict mineral approach or efforts
emanating from the United States and Europe are no exception to this
symptomatic approach which serves more to perpetuate the root causes
of Congos challenges than to resolve them.

The conflict mineral approach has an obsessive focus on the FDLR and
other rebel groups while scant attention is paid to Uganda (which has
an International Court of Justice ruling against it for looting and
crimes against humanity in the Congo) and Rwanda (whose role in the
perpetuation of the conflict and looting of Congo is well documented
by UN reports and international arrest warrants for its top
officials). Rwanda is the main transit point for illicit minerals
coming from the Congo irrespective of the rebel group (FDLR, CNDP or
others) transporting the minerals. According to Dow Jones, Rwanda's
mining sector output grew 20% in 2008 from the year earlier due to
increased export volumes of tungsten, cassiterite and coltan, the
country's three leading minerals with which Rwanda is not well
endowed. In fact, should Rwanda continue to pilfer Congos minerals,
its annual mineral export revenues are expected to reach $200 million
by 2010. Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Herman Cohen says it best when he notes having controlled the Kivu
provinces for 12 years, Rwanda will not relinquish access to resources
that constitute a significant percentage of its gross national
product. As long as the West continues to give the Kagame regime
carte blanche, the conflict and instability will endure.

According to Global Witnesss 2009 report, Faced With A Gun What Can
you Do, Congolese government statistics and reports by the Group of
Experts and NGOs, Rwanda is one of the main conduits for illicit
minerals leaving the Congo. It is amazing that the conflict mineral
approach shout loudly about making sure that the trade in minerals
does not benefit armed groups but the biggest armed beneficiary of
Congos minerals is the Rwandan regime headed by Paul Kagame.
Nonetheless, the conflict mineral approach is remarkably silent about
Rwandas complicity in the fueling of the conflict in the Congo and
the fleecing of Congos riches.

Advocates of the conflict mineral approach would be far more credible
if they had ever called for any kind of pressure whatsoever on mining
companies that are directly involved in either fueling the conflict or
exploiting the Congolese people. The United Nations, The Congolese
Parliament, Carter Center, Southern Africa Resource Watch and several
other NGOs have documented corporations that have pilfered Congos
wealth and contributed to the perpetuation of the conflict. Some of
these companies include but are not limited to: Traxys, OM Group,
Blattner Elwyn Group, Freeport McMoran, Eagle Wings/Trinitech, Lundin,
Kemet, Banro, AngloGold Ashanti, Anvil Mining, and First Quantum.

The conflict mineral approach, like the Blood Diamond campaign from
which it draws its inspiration, is silent on the question of resource
sovereignty which has been a central question in the geo-strategic
battle for Congos mineral wealth. It was over this question of
resource sovereignty that the West assassinated Congos first
democratically elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba and stifled the
democratic aspirations of the Congolese people for over three decades
by installing and backing the dictator Joseph Mobutu. In addition, the
United States also backed the 1996 and 1998 invasions of Congo by
Rwanda and Uganda instead of supporting the non-violent, pro-democracy
forces inside the Congo. Unfortunately and to the chagrin of the
Congolese people, some of the strongest advocates of the conflict
mineral approach are former Clinton administration officials who
supported the invasions of Congo by Rwanda and Uganda. This may in
part explains the militaristic underbelly of the conflict mineral
approach, which has as its so-called second step a comprehensive
counterinsurgency.

The focus on the east of Congo falls in line with the long-held
obsession by some advocates in Washington who incessantly push for the
balkanization of the Congo. Their focus on Eastern Congo is
inadequate and does not fully take into account the nature and scope
of the dynamics in the entire country. Political decisions in
Kinshasa, the capital in the West, have a direct impact on the events
that unfold in the East of Congo and are central to any durable
solutions.

The central claim of the conflict mineral approach is to bring an end
to the conflict; however, the conflict can plausibly be brought to an
end much quicker through diplomatic and political means. The so-called
blood mineral route is not the quickest way to end the conflict. We
have already seen how quickly world pressure can work with the
sidelining of rebel leader Laurent Nkunda and the demobilization
and/or rearranging of his CNDP rebel group in January 2009, as a
result of global pressure placed on the CNDPs sponsor Paul Kagame of
Rwanda. More pressure needs to be placed on leaders such as Kagame and
Museveni who have been at the root of the conflict since 1996. The
FDLR can readily be pressured as well, especially with most of their
political leadership residing in the West, however this should be done
within a political framework, which brings all the players to the
table as opposed to the current militaristic, dichotomous, good-guy
bad-guy approach where the West sees Kagame and Museveni as the
good-guys and everyone else as bad. The picture is far grayer than
Black and White.

A robust political approach by the global community would entail the
following prescriptions:

1. Join Sweden and Netherlands in pressuring Rwanda to be a partner
for peace and a stabilizing presence in the region. The United States
and Great Britain in particular should apply more pressure on their
allies Rwanda and Uganda to the point of withholding aid if necessary.

2. Hold to account companies and individuals through sanctions
trafficking in minerals whether with rebel groups or neighboring
countries, particularly Rwanda and Uganda. Canada has chimed in as
well but has been deadly silent on the exploitative practices of its
mining companies in the Congo. Canada must do more to hold its mining
companies accountable as is called for in Bill C-300.

3. Encourage world leaders to be more engaged diplomatically and place
a higher priority on what is the deadliest conflict in the World since
World War Two.


4. Reject the militarization of the Great Lakes region represented by
AFRICOM, which has already resulted in the suffering of civilian
population; the strengthening of authoritarian figures such as
Ugandas Museveni (in power since 1986) and Rwandas Kagame (won the
2003 elections with 95 percent of the vote); and the restriction of
political space in their countries.



5. Demand of the Obama administration to be engaged differently from
its current military-laden approach and to take the lead in pursuing
an aggressive diplomatic path with an emphasis on pursuing a regional
political framework that can lead to lasting peace and stability.



To learn more about the current crisis in the Congo, visit
www.friendsofthecongo.org and join the global movement in support of
the people of the Congo at www.congoweek.org



Kambale Musavuli is spokesperson and student coordinator for Friends
of the Congo. He can be reached at kambale@friendsofthecongo.org



Bodia Macharia is the President of Friends of the Congo/ Canada. She
can be reached at bodia@friendsofthecongo.org

60 Minutes CBS: CONGO GOLD

Watch CBS News Videos Online

November 25, 2009   

Join Enough's John Prendergast and 60 Minutes 

This coming Sunday, November 29, CBS’ 60 Minutes - the most successful broadcast in television history - will turn its attention to the scourge of conflict minerals in Congo.  Earlier this year, Enough’s co-founder, John Prendergast, accompanied the 60 Minutes team to eastern Congo to investigate the impact that the minerals trade, and particularly gold, has on the conflict. Check your local listings for the proper channel and time.

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

Amalgamated Metals Corporation

Global Witness names British firms dealing with Congo rebels
By Tom Parry on Jul 21, 09 07:58 AM in Congo

THE chain that links violent militia in the Congo to the pin-striped suits of the City of London is revealed in a new report today.

FDLR troops march in Democratic Republic of Congo.jpg

Campaign group Global Witness has identified two British firms as buying minerals that are funding armed groups and fuelling the bloody ongoing conflict that has already killed millions.

One is Amalgamated Metals Corporation (AMC), the parent company of THAISARCO, the world's fifth-largest tin-producing company.

THAISARCO's main supplier is Panju, based in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which sells tin ore, coltan and gold from mines controlled by the main rebel group the FDLR, made up of extremists behind the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Among the main shareholders of AMC are Victor Herman Sher, Geoffrey Charles Leacroft Rowan and Giles Robbins, all of whom have appeared on the Sunday Times Rich List.

The other British firm identified by Global Witness is Afrimex, a small trading company located in Middlesex.

Campaigners claim Afrimex was found to be in breach of Office for Economic Development guidelines for buying from suppliers who made payments to rebels, but has continued trading with them.

For Global Witness, the report, called 'Faced with a gun, what can you do?', is further evidence that the British government has to clamp down on companies who deal with those involved in the DRC conflict.

It says mine ownership is carved up between the national Congolese army and the FDLR Hutu militia, who share the spoils of the trade.

Director Patrick Alley said: "The British government is the largest bilateral aid donor to the DRC and a key diplomatic player. Its failure to hold British companies to account is undermining its own efforts and allowing one of the main drivers of the conflict to continue unchecked.

"We have asked the government countless times to pay more attention to the role of minerals in fuelling the conflict, and yet it seems that they are more concerned with protecting their companies' economic interests."

Despite a recent UN-backed offensive, the FDLR has been accused of escalating its use of rape, forced labour and torture to subdue the already terrified people of the Eastern Congo jungle.

It controls access to valuable minerals like casserite and coltan, which are used to make mobile phones and computers.

Commenting on the recent increase in violence against civilians blamed on the FDLR, Marcel Stoessel, head of Oxfam in the DRC, said: "The offensive against the FDLR was supposed to bring peace to eastern Congo, but our survey shows people are living in constant fear of violent attack.

"This suffering is not inevitable. It is happening because world leaders have decided that collateral damage is an acceptable price to pay for removing the FDLR. But as the people we met can testify, that price is far too high."

DR CONGO: Urban Water Supply Needs Attention - IPS ipsnews.net

DR CONGO: Urban Water Supply Needs Attention - IPS ipsnews.net

Posted using ShareThis

DR CONGO:
Urban Water Supply Needs Attention

Emmanuel Chaco

KINSHASA, Nov 17 (IPS) - Kinshasa's population needs an estimated 700,000 cubic metres of water per day. The Régie de distribution des eaux (REGIDESO) produces only 425,000 cubic metres - vast neighbourhoods like Kitokimosi and Mpasa receive almost none of this water.
The situation in other parts of the country is similar if not worse.

"In total, only 22 percent of Congolese have access to drinking water, while the average in sub-Saharan Africa is around 60 percent," says Frank Bousquet, from the World Bank's Urban Potable Water Supply Project (known by its French acronym, PEMU).

"The lack of drinking water poses a significant threat to public health and it is the poor who pay the heaviest price for this inefficient service. They pay seven times more for a litre of water than they would if water services operated properly."

Jean-Pierre Kajangu, from the health economics programme at the School of Public Health at the University of Kinshasa says the situation is serious. "It's not just the health of residents of Kitokimosi and Mpasa, but the whole population of Kinshasa is at risk," he said.

"The water from wells and rivers gives rise to many health problems for us as women," says Sophie Nkeyi, who sells fish in the Kitokimosi market, "because we use it to bathe, to cook, to wash our clothes which we cannot even iron for lack of electricity."

She and her ten-year-old daughter are forced to visit the doctor regularly. "The doctor prescribes antibiotics and de-worming medicine against infections and intestinal parasites which we are exposed to by the water in rivers and pools" she told IPS.

Lydia Panzu says that, because of the physical strain of fetching water, she has suffered back problems for the past three years. "Back problems, neck problems, because I go back and forth two or three times a day, down into the valley to the river and back, each time with around 20 litres of water on my head,"the 16-year-old told IPS.

Short of resources

REGIDESO's technical and finance departments say the utility's poor performance is linked to its aging infrastructure.

"A key example is the Lukunga waterworks, with a capacity of 48,000 cubic metres a day, and which serves a million residents in two districts of Kinshasa. It was built in 1939 by the colonial powers and has not been substantially refurbished to this day," says David Ekwanza, director of exploitation at REGIDESO.

The lack of maintenance is a direct consequence of a shortage of financial resources. "And this lack of finances is principally due to the fact that government departments - who are the largest consumers - do not pay their monthly water bills," says Polycarpe Kabangu, head of finance at REGIDESO.

"These departments include government offices, the official residences of certain highly-placed politicians, public enterprises... who owe around 3.5 million dollars each month, representing 40 percent of the businesses' accounts, causing enormous financial difficulties, and making it impossible to rebuild the infrastructure and supply water across the city of Kinshasa as well as delaying payment of salaries to staff."

PEMU proposes to sustainably increase access to water in urban areas, in improve the water company's technical and financial effectiveness.

The project will focus on three things: "the restoration of financial viability; the creation of conditions for dynamic management which will transform this public enterprise into a social entity designed to increase managerial autonomy; as well as the renewal and upgrading of facilities in the three centres most likely to generate the revenue needed to restore balance and help support secondary centres."

Louise Yemba is tired of hearing promises about bringing water to Mpasa. "I think we need a project better than the others launched by the World Bank in DRC and whose effects have been limited to the Bank publicity."

The human rights activist from Mpasa doubts the project will be executed. "Or it will be badly carried out because of the poor quality of governance in the country and the paralysis of Congolese civil society - which must become aware of the role it has to play in putting pressure on the World Bank and the government to support all Congolese who don't have access to water," Yemba says.

Patrice Musoko, the coordinator of the Congolese Association of Consumers of Food Products, agrees that citizen action is the key.

"Civil society must put effective pressure on the government to reduce these arrears and pay their bills and allow REGIDESO to maintain its infrastructure and supply the neighbourhoods which are not yet served in Kinshasa. Civil society must also follow up to be sure that the money paid is effectively used to these ends."

But in a country still struggling with the effects of a series of armed conflicts and the breakdown of effective government, it will not be an easy task.

Tantalum Memorial from London 2008

Tantalum Memorial” 2008
a new artwork by Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji



“Tantalum Memorial” is a series of telephony-based memorials by the artists group Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji, to the people who have died as a result of the “coltan wars” in the Congo. The installation is constructed out of electromagnetic Strowger switches – the basis of the first automatic telephone exchange invented in 1888. The title of the work refers to the metal tantalum, an essential component of mobile phones

The movements and sounds of the switches are triggered by the phone calls of London's Congolese community as they participate in “Telephone Trottoire” – a concurrent project also built by the artists in collaboration with the Congolese radio program “Nostalgie Ya Mboka”. The precisely poised movements and sounds of the switches create a sculptural presence for this otherwise intangible network of circulating conversations. In “Tantalum Memorial”, Harwood, Wright, and Yokoji weave together the ambiguities of globalisation, transnational migration and our addiction to constant communication.

The “Coltan Wars”

Since August 1998 there have been 3.9 million deaths and over 361,000 refugees created by the so-called “coltan wars” in the Congo region. Coltan ore is mined for the metal tantalum - an essential component of mobile phones and other communication devices that is now coveted by dozens of international mining companies and warring local militias. Although the conflict has continued up to the present day it remains almost entirely unknown outside of Africa.

Almon Strowger


Almon Brown Strowger was born in Penfield near Rochester, New York. An undertaker by profession, he believed that the wife of a rival undertaker who worked at his local telephone exchange was routing customers through to her husband. His automatic telephone exchange made it possible to call someone directly instead of going through a human operator. The invention, patented on the 10th March 1891, is thought responsible for the conceptualization of modern telephone networks. His switches were in service until the 1990s when they were replaced by digital technologies made from tantalum.

“Telephone Trottoire”

“Telephone Trottoire” is a “social telephony” network aimed at the Congolese community in London, approximately 90% of whom are refugees or asylum seekers. In the Congo, where free speech has been censored for over forty years, people spread information while standing on street corners – by “radio trottoire” or “pavement radio”. Produced by the artists in collaboration with the Congolese radio programme “Nostalgie Ya Mboka”, “Telephone Trottoire” calls people up and invites them to pass around stories or topical news items over their phones.



“Tantalum Memorial – Reconstruction” was the first version in this series, commissioned for the Zero1 Biennial “Superlight” show at the San Jose Museum of Art, May 10th - August 31st, 2008. “Tantalum Memorial – Residue” was the second in the series, this time utilizing a 1938 telephone exchange rescued from the old Alumix factory in Bolzano, Italy. This was also the site of Manifesta 7 - the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, 19th July to 2nd November, 2008.

”Phone Wars” was made in collaboration with the Science Museum in London. This version triggered their old rack of strowger switches using the phone calls from a telephony project created with students from the John Roan School in Greenwich. By working with Congolese asylum seekers the young people recorded messages exploring the question of “where does your mobile phone come from?”



In February 2009 “Tantalum Memorial – Reconstruction” was shown at the UKS Gallery, Oslo as part of "Trapped in Amber". In Summer 2009, the installation will travel to Chalkwell Hall in Southend-on-Sea, Essex where it will launch the new centre for international arts organization Metal.

In 2009 “Tantalum Memorial” won the transmediale.09 award in Berlin.



“Tantalum Memorial – Reconstruction” is A FUSE Commissioned Residency for the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge, ZERO1, CADRE Laboratory and the Lucas Artists Program, Montalvo Arts Center.
“Tantalum Memorial – Residue” was commissioned by Manifesta7 (courtesy Manifesta7).

UN Reduces Support to DR Congo Army

Police 'killed' in north DR Congo

From Al Jazeera
UPDATED ON:
Friday, October 30, 2009
17:25 Mecca time, 14:25 GMT

Armed villagers have killed at least 47 policemen who were trying to intervene in ethnic clashes in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo, reports say.

A number of civilians were also killed in the violence which erupted in the village of Dongo in Equateur province early on Thursday, the UN-sponsored Radio Okapi said, citing local officials.

Residents from neighbouring villages representing two different ethnic groups have been clashing in recent months over fishing rights.

Government authorities in the capital, Kinshasa, said that they were aware of the clashes, but were unable to confirm the number of policemen or civilians killed.

"They've been fighting over fishing ponds. We know that there were clashes. There was fighting with machetes and with hunting rifles, but at present we don't know how many dead there are," Lambert Mende, DR Congo's information minister, said.

"The policemen were sent to re-establish order. I don't know why they would have been attacked," Mende said.

The violence is not linked to fighting in the DR Congo's east, in which Rwandan Hutu groups, who fled Rwanda after helping orchestrate the genocide in the 1990s, are accused of atrocities.

Joseph Kabila, the DR Congo's president, said his forces are succeeding against Rwandan militias there.

'Gaining ground'

Speaking to reporters on Friday during a visit to South Africa, Kabila said the operation against the Rwandan Hutus would continue until he "controls the whole territory".

Kabila said the situation was starting to stabilise, nine months after the offensive began, and that civilians in the province of North Kivu have begun to return to their villages.

Hundreds of thousands had been displaced as a result of the fighting.

Kabila also said troops were "gaining ground" against Ugandan fighters in the country's vast, troubled north.

Ugandan and DRC forces began a co-ordinated operation against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) who spread into DR Congo territory in late 2008.

The LRA, engaged in one of Africa's longest-running conflicts against the Ugandan government, has also extended its reach into Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR).

University of California Berkeley DR Congo Lecture

Speaker: Filip Reyntjens, Professor & Chair, African Law and Politics, Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp
Sponsors: African Studies, Center for, Dutch Studies, Human Rights Center

Profesor Reyntjens will address the causes, outcomes, and extraordinary human toll of the successive wars in the Great Lakes Region of Africa since the early 1990s.

As part of this lecture, Professor Reyntjens will discuss his recent book which examines a decade-long period of instability, violence and state decay in Central Africa from 1996, when the war started, to 2006, when elections formally ended the political transition in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A unique combination of circumstances explain the unravelling of the conflicts: the collapsed Zairian/Congolese state; the continuation of the Rwandan civil war across borders; the shifting alliances in the region; the politics of identity in Rwanda, Burundi and eastern DRC; the ineptitude of the international community; and the emergence of privatized and criminalized public spaces and economies, linked to the global economy, but largely disconnected from the state – on whose territory the ‘entrepreneurs of insecurity’ function. As a complement to the existing literature, this book seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of concurrent developments in Zaire/DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda in African and international contexts. By adopting a non-chronological approach, it attempts to show the dynamics of the interrelationships between these realms and offers a toolkit for understanding the past and future of Central Africa.

Open to audience: All Audiences

Event Contact: 510-642-8338

Atrocities haunt DRC child soldiers

10/24/2009 10:17:49 AM

Militia brigades abducting children and forcing them to become soldiers, porters and sex slaves is a huge problem in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In the last few months, fighting between the DRC army and Rwandan Hutu rebels and other militias has intensified.

Aid agencies describe the situation as catastrophic, warning that recruitment is on the rise.

The children go through a terrifying ordeal as they are trained to kill almost as soon as they are recruited.

One tactic favoured by the militia is to force the child to murder a member of his own family

There are doubts whether such children will ever recover from their experience at the hands of the rebels - even if they escape, it takes time and a lot of rehabilitation before they are ready to go back to their families.

Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow reports from Goma in DRC.

BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL PASSES RESOLUTION FOR DR CONGO

The Berkeley City Council Breaks The Silence and calls on members of Congress, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, The United Nations and President Barack Obama to do more to bring an end to the conflict in the Congo.

Encourage your local political leaders to pass resolutions in support of the people of the Congo and call on world figures to do their part in bringing an end to the greatest scar on the human conscience of our time.

Join the global movement and build a worldwide consensus to end the conflict and suffering in the Congo.

Support the inaugural Congo in Harlem Film Festival, which culminates on Saturday, October 24, 2009.

Remember to get your Congo Week T-shirts.

Participate in a Congo Week activity in your locale.

THE RESOLUTION:
SUPPORTING CONGO WEEK FOR THE BAY AREA FRIENDS OF THE CONGO
WHEREAS, adoption of Congo Week October 18-24, 2009 for the BAY Area Friends of the Congo (BAFOTC); and
WHEREAS, Congo week calls for peace, justice and national reconciliation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and
WHEREAS, offers condolences for the lost lives and moral support for the survivors; and
WHEREAS, calls for the protection of the environment and endangered species in the Congo; and
WHEREAS, calls for an end to conflict and for the support by world leaders and people of good will across the globe in this effort; and
WHEREAS, call for the wrongful exploitation of the Congolese peoples’ resources, recognizing that these resources should not be a curse but rather a blessing, and that the Congolese people are the rightful beneficiaries of their great natural wealth; and
WHEREAS, encourages the community to observe this week by connecting with friends, fellow employees, and relatives as well as religious, school, and civic groups, to encourage in projects benefiting the people of the Congo; and
WHEREAS, supports community efforts in bringing this conflict to an end through education, policy and advocacy.
NOW THERFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the City of Berkeley that it directs the City Clerk to send the attached letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, US Senator Barbara Boxer, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and President Barack Obama, with a copy to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE:
Dear Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,
Since 1996 nearly six million children, women, and men have died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to conflict and hundreds of thousands more have been victims of unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity. Today, Congolese deaths continue at the rate of 45,000 each month.
These crimes against humanity threaten the peace, security and well-being of the Congo and its people, and those responsible for such crimes have largely gone unpunished.
The United Nations has named the Congo as the deadliest conflict in the world since World War Two.
For these reasons, the Berkeley City Council communicates its grave concern for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We urge that:
a) There be no use of the US military in the Congo. b) The US make a priority of supporting local Congolese institutions with a proven
record of delivering services to the people. c) The US government hold US corporations accountable for their actions in the
Congo. d) The US play a key role in facilitating a political-economic framework for ending
the conflicts in the Congo and the African Great Lakes region and relieving the
tremendous suffering of the region’s women, children and men. e) The US hold its allies Rwanda and Uganda accountable for their actions in the
Congo.
Berkeley City Council Berkeley, California
Cc: President Barack Obama Congresswoman Barbara Lee United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Congo Week Activities in the San Francisco Bay Area

Tuesday, October 20th: CONGOLESE DANCE w/ Makaya
@ Dance Mission, 3316 24th @ Mission, SF, Ca
Fee: $12 ($11 w/cell phone donation)
8-9:30pm

Wednesday, October 21st:
"Black King, Red Rubber,White Death" Film & Discussion w/Mike Kabangu
Congo Dance & Drum Presentation by Visual Sounds of Africa
SF State (Cesar Chavez Ctr.) 1650 Holloway Avenue, SF, Ca
Fee: Free w/cell phone donation, Time: 3-6pm

SFSU Congo-Diaspora Dance Workshop w/Lungusu Malonga, Rehema Bah, Isaura Brazil, Constant Massengo, Mbay Louvouezo, Lakiesha, Makaya & More...
SF State University, Jack Adams Hall, 1650 Holloway Avenue, SF, Ca
Fee: $10 ($8 w/cell phone donation), Time: 7:00-9:00pm

Friday, October 23rd:
"Be Part of a Change Agenda in the Congo" Presentation & Discussion by Dr. Patrick Cannon(CSUS), Nkusu Muanza, Boona Cheema & Muadi Mukenge w/ performances by local Congolese performing artists & groups
@The Humanist Hall, 390 27th St. Oakland, Ca
Fee: $5 (w/ cell phone donation) Time: 6:30 - 8:30 pm

Saturday, October 24th:
"Kongo Suite Congo" Dance Workshop w/Muisi-kongo Malonga & Regina Califa
Malonga Casquelourd Center, 1428 Alice St, (2nd Flr.) Oakland, Ca
Fee: $15 ($14 w/cell phone donation), 1:00-2:30pm

"The Heart of Africa" Film & Discussion
BlackDot Cafe , 1195 Pine St. Oakland, Ca
Fee: Free (w/cell phone donation), Time: 6:30-9:30pm
(Congolese Dinners for sale)

Information sent courtesy of the Congolese Dance & Drum Workshop & Fua Dia Congo performing arts
For more information, visit us at www.congolesecamp.org

For More Information on Congo Week Activities:
Contact Rehema Bah, AfricaTesito...Creating African reConnections
(510) 764-2449, africatesito@yahoo.com

Congo and Angola Agree to End Expulsions

Published 10/14/09 New York Times

By BARRY BEARAK

JOHANNESBURG — Tens of thousands of people — some of them wrenched from their homes with only the clothes on their backs — have been expelled recently from both Angola and Congo in what has been a tit-for-tat immigration dispute between two of Africa’s behemoth neighbors.

But after weeks of acrimony, with inflammatory statements a staple in the local news media, both countries on Tuesday finally agreed to suspend the expulsions, said Congo’s information minister, Lambert Mende.

“The two heads of state have reached an understanding, and something formal will be signed based on what has been agreed,” Mr. Mende said.

The expulsions began in Angola, where the government has been annoyed by the number of impoverished Congolese who cross the border. Some are fleeing the continuing war in their homeland, which has claimed millions of lives. Others cross in search of an economic lift, including those who hope to pluck a fortune from diamond fields.

Angola has often relied on mass expulsions to discourage the migrants, sending home waves of Congolese from 2003 onward, according to the United Nations. But this year’s expulsions were particularly upsetting.

“We never challenged the expulsions themselves; we challenged the way they were being conducted — all the beating of people and looting their goods, even sometimes their clothes,” Mr. Mende said. “We began our own expulsions as a kind of retaliation.”

During 27 years of civil war, thousands of Angolans poured across the long, porous border into Congo. Many acquired refugee status, though this apparently failed to keep some from being ousted in recent sweeps.

“Most of those Angolans had been there for years, working in factories, doing small business, even teachers who were teaching in the schools,” said Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The largest share of the Angolans came from the western Congo province of Bas-Congo. Most of the Congolese expelled from Angola were taken from an area around the northwestern city of Soyo or the enclave of Cabinda.

Humanitarian agencies are concerned about the living conditions of about 40,000 uprooted people. Many have made it safely back to their original homes. But others are congregated near border checkpoints.

“The situation is very worrying,” Mr. Giuliano said. “There are potential risks, among them the lack of drinking water, the lack of sanitation.”

Relations between Angola and Congo have largely been cordial of late. Angola’s emergence from decades of war has allowed the government to exploit the country’s natural wealth in oil and diamonds. So far, the revenues have largely benefited a small elite. Two-thirds of the people get by on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank. Yet Angola is a lodestone for migrants.

Congo, too, has vast mineral wealth, unrealized as yet, which has been misallocated to war.

Deported Congolese tell of Angolan terror

By Edouardin M'Putu (AFP) – 6 days ago

YEMA, DR Congo — The Democratic Republic of Congo said it had agreed with Angola to halt tit-for-tat expulsions of each other's citizens as victims on Wednesday told of being subjected to brutal rapes and lootings when they were thrown out by Luanda.

Aid agencies have expressed concern about the expulsions that have left tens of thousands of people homeless on both sides of the border in recent weeks.

Kinshasa's Communications Minister Lambert Mende late Tuesday announced the end of the deportations which according to the UN involves 20,000 Angolans, and some 18,000 people going the other way.

"The expulsion measures against Congolese and Angolan nationals have been suspended by the two presidents," said Mende.

The move follows a meeting of foreign, interior and defence ministers of the two governments in Kinshasa on Tuesday, according to DR Congo's foreign ministry.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said last week that most of the Congolese expelled from Angola had fled to Bas-Congo province on the Atlantic coast, almost all of them arriving in August and September as the expulsions intensified.

Among them was Bibi, who said she and other women in her cell had been raped after being rounded up for deportation by Angolan police.

"Police woke me up at 4 o'clock in the morning, they ripped up my residence card and took me to a cell where I was raped, along with other women," said the 23-year-old who had worked in a market in Angola's oil-rich Cabinda enclave.

Nicolas Ndaye, a computer engineer, said he had a "very bad memory of the Angolans" after his three-year stay in Cabinda.

"I've travelled all over the world but what I lived through in Cabinda was hell, and yet there I was training computer technicians, invested 3,200 dollars, and I have a consular card."

"I've lost everything, except what I'm wearing," after being thrown into a truck packed with other Congolese and deported, said Ndaye, adding that he had been separated from his family.

During his deportation, he had counted "six dead, people who were thown off a vehicle moving at high speed towards the border."

"My wife told me about the mass rape of women in the cell where she was being held before being deported."

Ostensibly an operation to crackdown on illegals dubbed Operation Clean Up, Angola targeted migrants mainly from DR Congo and Republic of Congo, the two nations that surround its oil-rich Cabinda enclave and cut it off from the rest of the country.

Kinshasa responded in kind the following month, September, focusing on Angolan migrants.

Both countries say only illegal immigrants were targeted.

However, Jean-Claude Molo, 35, said: "Police told me they didn't care about my residence card. They stripped me, took my shoes off, and took 7,000 kwanza (about 60 dollars in Angolan currency) before dumping me in a cell."

Molo is now one of thousands of residents crammed into a makeshift camp in a car park in Yema, on the Congolese side of the border with Cabinda.

Desperate deportees have been arriving here in their hundreds in recent days, traumatised by the alleged brutality of the Angolan security forces.

Bibi, sheltering in a hut made of bamboo and palm fronds in the car-park, said: "Bandits tipped off the police where the Congolese were living, whether they were illegal or not, and we were stripped of our belongings.

"I would have lost my life if I had tried to hang on to anything. I saw people being beaten up and dying for their belongings."

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

Rape of a Nation

http://mediastorm.com/0022.htm
Click the link for a look at the DR Congo's ongoing crisis.

Break The Silence

Congo Week 2009 is now upon us! Everything you do this week, do it for the DR Congo.

General DR Congo facts (from www.congoweek.org)

History & Geography
1. Congo is situated in the heart of Africa straddling the equator.
2. Congo is bordered by nine other countries and is the size of Western Europe with a population of 65 million people.
3. The lingua franca is French however four major (Lingala, Kikongo, Tshiluba, and Swahili) languages are spoken among the over 250 ethnic groups.
4. Congo’s Ishango Bones, a binary counting system and lunar calendar, is one of the oldest mathematical artifacts in the world, dating to 20,000 BC.
5. The Kongo empire reigned during the period of African enslavement and prior to the Colonization era.
6. Congo was given to King Leopold II of Belgium at the 1884/85 Berlin Conference.
7. King Leopold II ruled Congo as his own personal property for 23 years (1885 – 1908) during which time approximately 10 million Congolese were slaughtered
8. Belgium took the Congo from King Leopold II in 1908 and ruled as colonial power until 1960.

Politics
1. Congo obtained independence from Belgium on June 30, 1960 under the elected leadership of Prime Minister Patrice Emery Lumumba who was summarily assassinated within months by Western powers and Congolese sycophants
2. Pursuant to Lumumba’s assassination, the United States installed and backed dictator Mobutu Se Seko for over three decades
3. U.S. allies, Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo twice (1996 & 1998) which resulted in the removal of Mobutu in 1997 and the unleashing of the deaths of nearly six million.
4. The overthrow of Mobutu resulted in the installation of Laurent Desire Kabila in 1997, who was assassinated in 2001 and followed by his son Joseph Kabila who is still in power after elections in 2006. The next elections will take place in 2011.

The Tragedy
1. Nearly six million people have died as a result of conflict and conflict related causes in the Congo since 1996. Forty-five thousand continue to die each month.
2. Hundreds of thousands of women have been raped as weapon of war
3. Eighty percent of the population lives on 30 cents or less per day
4. The international community is systematically looting Congo’s spectacular wealth

The Potential
1. Congo is a storehouse of strategic minerals (cobalt, copper, zinc, gold, diamond, silver, magnesium, germanium, uranium, coltan, petroleum and many other resources.
2. Congo has anywhere from 64% to 80% of the world’s reserve of coltan
3. Congo has 34 % of world’s cobalt and 10% of its copper
4. Congo is a part of the second largest rainforest in the world behind the Amazon
5. Congo has the hydro capacity to provide electricity for the entire African continent, southern Europe and parts of the Middle East.
6. Congo has the agricultural capacity to feed the entire world through 2050

Aid Workers Protest

Aid groups protest DR Congo deaths
10/13/2009 2:41:57 PM

Taken from Al Jazeera:http://m.aljazeera.net/?i=4360&artId=184702&showonly=1

More than 1,000 civilians have been killed since January in fighting between Rwandan Hutu rebels and UN-backed government forces in eastern Congo, rights groups say.

A coalition of 84 rights groups announced the figure on Tuesday in a report in which they sharply criticised UN peacekeepers for supporting a deadly government offensive against the rebels.

The report said nearly 900,000 civilians had been displaced in the offensive, while 7,000 women and girls had been raped.

"The human rights and humanitarian consequences of the current military operation are simply disastrous," Marcel Stoessel, of the UK-based aid agency Oxfam, said.

"UN peacekeepers, who have a mandate to protect civilians, urgently need to work with government forces to make sure civilians get the protection they need, or discontinue their support."

'Risk of backslide'

The UN mission said it must continue supporting government forces in their operation against the Hutu rebels, known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the Reuters news agency reported.

"The target still has to be the FDLR and the disarmament of the FDLR," Kevin Kennedy, a UN spokesman, said.

But he said the UN is making efforts to limit the cost to civilians.

"If you do not keep moving forward, and if you don't have the international community supporting the democratically elected government as a backstop to the army, there is a risk of backslide."

The offensive, launched in January, began in North Kivu with the backing of Rwanda, and has subsequently reached into South Kivu with the backing of the UN Security Council.

But the coalition of rights groups said civilians were paying the price of the offensive, with thousands caught between retaliatory rebel attacks.

Fugitive Captured!

Taken from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/world/africa/07rwanda.html?_r=2&hp

October 7, 2009
Rwandan Fugitive Is Captured in Uganda

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
NAIROBI, Kenya — One of the most wanted fugitives from Rwanda’s genocide, an intelligence officer accused of organizing the slaughter of civilians, including a ceremonial queen, was arrested in Uganda this week, Ugandan and Rwandan officials said Tuesday.

The fugitive, Idelphonse Nizeyimana, had been on the run for years. He was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2000 and charged with crimes against humanity and offenses related to genocide for orchestrating massacres of civilians, including whole families. He had been an intelligence officer in the former Rwandan Army and was the second in command of an elite military school in Rwanda before the country exploded in genocide in 1994.

More recently, Mr. Nizeyimana was a top commander of a rebel army of former Rwandan soldiers hiding out in the forests of eastern Congo, Rwandan officials said. That force, the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or FDLR, has been blamed for some of the most atrocious attacks in eastern Congo and is widely seen as a threat to regional peace.

Eric Kayiranga, a Rwandan police spokesman, said Mr. Nizeyimana was arrested in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, on Monday, though he did not have many details about the capture. According to the BBC, Mr. Nizeyimana was trying to travel to Kenya from Congo and was caught in Uganda with false papers.

“This guy was causing terror in Congo, and he was a threat to the region,” Mr. Kayiranga said. “His arrest is a success.”

The most notorious accusation against Mr. Nizeyimana was that he ordered a squad of soldiers to kidnap and execute a ceremonial Tutsi queen who was believed to be in her 80s at the beginning of the genocide in 1994. Local Rwandan courts have already convicted and punished several other men who were part of that killing.

Officials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is located in Arusha, Tanzania, said Mr. Nizeyimana would be extradited from Uganda to the tribunal, where he would stand trial. Already 47 of the genocide’s ringleaders, “the big fish,” as they are called in Tanzania, have been prosecuted at the tribunal, with all but a handful found guilty.

According to tribunal officials, Mr. Nizeyimana was one of the top four genocide suspects still on the run.

Oakland International Film Festival

Gilbert Mulamba's Street Children of Kinshasa will be shown at the Oakland International Film Festival. The festival starts October 8, 2009.

use the link below to get the film schedule:
http://www.oiff.org/filmschedule.pdf

Congo-Kinshasa: End Resource War, Urge Congolese Activists

Congo-Kinshasa: End Resource War, Urge Congolese Activists

Kambale Musavuli

22 September 2009

Guest Column

One hundred years ago, a global outrage surrounding the death of an estimated ten million Congolese resulted in the end the rule of King Leopold II of Belgium over the Congo. Ordinary people around the world from all walks of life stood at the side of the Congolese and demanded the end of the first recorded Congolese holocaust. A century later, the world finds itself facing the same issue where the Congolese people are subjected to unimaginable suffering.

Although advocacy for the Congo has a rich and illustrious tradition dating back to the dawn of the 20th century, contemporary advocacy is faced with unprecedented obstacles: corporate interests, the humanitarian industry, geo-strategic battles, the devaluation of black lives, and media caricatures and misrepresentation of Africans.

In 1908, international advocacy resulted in Congo being taken from King Leopold II and given to the Belgian state as a colony. The ultimate aim of today’s advocacy is to see the Congo removed from the clutches of multi-national corporations, foreign governments, multi-lateral institutions, the humanitarian industry and local elites and placed in the hands of the people of the Congo. The challenge of 21st century advocacy is for the affairs of the Congo to be determined by the people of the Congo.

Corporate Interests

American business interest in the Congo is focused primarily on the mining of resources such as tin, gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt, coltan, tungsten and uranium – including minerals vital to the aerospace, military, automobile, electronics and technology industries.

A number of American companies were listed in a 2002 United Nations document as being among companies accused of benefiting from the pilfering of Congo’s wealth.

Humanitarian industry

Unfortunately the humanitarian industry has been trapped in a “charity prism” in which Congo is viewed from the perspective of poverty, conflict, atrocities and depredation. One of the results is that the humanitarian industry is silent in the face of oppressive governments and often works in cahoots with exploitative corporations.

Probably the most deleterious effect of this way of viewing Congo is the military prescription that these institutions lobby for in Washington, DC. They often support policies that prolong conflict, prioritize military options and in the final analysis serve the propaganda of belligerent allies of the United States – such as Rwanda and Uganda – as well as U.S. corporate foreign policy interests.

In the final analysis, the humanitarian industry functions more as an instrument of Western soft power than as a genuine help to Africans. If they truly have the interests of the people of Africa and Congo at heart, their number one aim should be to put themselves out of business by calling for justice and not charity. When the people of Congo attain justice, charity will no longer be needed.

Geo-strategic Battle

Congo is a storehouse of geo-strategic minerals vital to the industrialization of great powers in the east, mainly China, and to the west’s efforts to maintain their economic and military dominance in the world.

Apart from Western investment, China has invested U.S. $9 billion in the Congo in a mineral for infrastructure swap with the Congolese government.

Congo’s location, size and mineral wealth are far too valuable to be left alone: it will be the playground of great power interests for the foreseeable future.

Devaluation of Black Lives

Nowhere outside Africa could the deaths of an estimated six million people in a 12-year period not cause a global outcry.

The United Nations says the conflict is the deadliest in the world since World War II, and the former Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland has said the Congo is “the worst killing field of our generation.”

Yet, the world community is silent. Doctors Without Borders has reported that Congo is one of the top 10 most underreported stories. We live in a world where black lives are undervalued and underappreciated.

But things do not have to remain this way. We can break the silence and change the attitudes and beliefs that have trapped the world in a mindset that undervalues a fellow member of the human family.

Pathological Media Prism

The mainstream media have presented the Congo crisis as an internecine tribal conflict with no discernible beginning or hope of ending, leaving people of goodwill hopeless, despondent and disempowered.

If more stories were presented that clearly articulate the true nature of the conflict – that of a resource war and that there are major identifiable players in Western backyards that we can hold accountable – we would see if a dramatically different response from consumers of the mainstream media.

We almost never see a Congolese scholar, thinker activist or intellectual articulating the issues of the Congo. Our people are almost always presented as hapless and in need of saving by Western do-gooders, usually a Hollywood star. Slain gorillas usually get more sympathy and in-depth analysis than the Congolese people.

Prescriptions

A global Congo movement is as important today as the anti-apartheid movement was yesterday. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki has presciently noted, “There cannot be a new Africa without a new Congo.”

Contrary to presentations by Western scholars and thinkers, the conflict in the Congo is not intractable. If the correct policies were implemented, the conflict could end quickly or at least be mitigated.

The two basic goals of today’s global movement in support of the people of the Congo are:

•    To bring an end to the resource war being waged on the backs of the Congolese people, particularly women and children, and
•    To ensure that the people of the Congo take control of their own future so they can determine how best to use their enormous resources for the benefit of their people and Africa at large.

Global pressure must be mobilized to call for a diplomatic and political approach to ending the conflict as opposed to the military heavy policies favored by the U.S. government, think tanks and humanitarian institutions in Washington, DC.

There is a growing global grassroots movement around the Congo. Thanks to the Internet, the Congolese can speak to the world uncensored. Inside the country, Congolese are organizing teach-ins and rallies. Congolese women are staging sit-ins, artists are using their talent to break the silence, and civil society is rallying to reconstruct our nation. Next month, from October 18 to 24, Friends of Congo and its allies will hold “Congo Week II,” a repeat of last year’s awareness-raising campaign.

As more people get involved, it is critical that the integrity of the movement be safeguarded. The last thing the people of the Congo need is for the movement to be “darfurized” – a process in which people are objectified and their struggle emptied of cultural and historical context. We must press for justice, not charity, and the Congolese must assert their role as agents of their own destiny.

Kambale Musavuli is the spokesperson and student coordinator for Friends of the Congo, an advocacy group based in Washington DC.

Copyright © 2009 allAfrica.com. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
AllAfrica - All the Time

FALLY IPUPA FIKIN 2009 PRESENTATION DE LA NOUVELLE DANCE "STANKY SLEGGY"

Thanks Isabelle!

Africans in the University

Several years ago, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University, stated his belief that very few of Harvard’s black students are the descendants of American slaves. He estimated that 75 percent of black students at Harvard were of African or Caribbean descent or were biracial. Now here is evidence that Professor Gates’ suspicions are correct.

A new study published in the journal Sociology of Education finds that black immigrants are more likely to be enrolled in the nation’s elite colleges and universities than African Americans. Furthermore, these children of African and Caribbean immigrants are more likely to be enrolled in our elite colleges than are white Americans.



The study found that 9.2 percent of the college-age blacks who immigrated to the United States, or who were children of parents who had immigrated to the United States, were enrolled at the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities. In contrast, only 2.4 percent of African-American students were enrolled in the elite group of colleges. Slightly more than 7 percent of white students were enrolled at these schools.



Overall, 75 percent of college-age black immigrants have at one time enrolled in college compared to 72 percent of college-age whites and 60 percent of college-age African Americans.



The results show that immigrant blacks came from families with incomes that were on average lower than those of whites. Immigrant blacks were significantly more likely than African Americans to come from traditional two-parent families.



(source) http://www.jbhe.com/latest/index090309.html#immigrants

(thanks Said!)