Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Dag Hammarskjold: Was his death a crash or a conspiracy?
BBC News Magazine
17 September 2011 Last updated at 11:05 ET
Dag Hammarskjold: Was his death a crash or a conspiracy?
By Stephanie Hegarty BBC World Service
Exactly 50 years ago, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold died in a plane crash on a mission to prevent civil war in newly independent Congo. Suspicions that the plane was shot down, never fully laid to rest, are now again on the rise.
After his death, Mr Hammarskjold was described by US President John F Kennedy as the "greatest statesman of our century". He was a man with a vision of the UN as a "dynamic instrument" organising the world community, a protector of small nations, independent of the major powers, acting only in the interests of peace.
The only person to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize after his death, he established the first armed UN peacekeeping mission following the crisis in Suez.
Just after midnight on 18 September 1961, he was heading to negotiate a ceasefire in a mineral-rich breakaway region of Congo, where another of his peacekeeping missions was getting bogged down in the complex politics of decolonisation and Cold War rivalry.
But his DC6 aircraft crashed in darkness shortly before landing, in a forest near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia - now Zambia.
Knut Hammarskjold, his nephew, visited the crash site days later.
"It was just scattered all over the place, the pieces of the aircraft," he says. "I did not see any bodies, they had been removed earlier, I think."
He remembers the reaction at home in Sweden, where his uncle was a national hero.
"Everybody was so shocked. I can say the whole of Sweden was affected by this. All the shops had his picture in the window, and he had a state funeral which was very unusual for a foreign office person."
Iron will
Eight years earlier, when the members of the Security Council appointed the unassuming Swede secretary general, they could not have predicted the zeal he would bring to the job.
"He was a very spiritual, intellectual, cultured man, and that was all part of his mystical approach to life," says Dame Margaret Anstee, the first female under-secretary at the UN, who was starting out on a 40-year career at the organisation. "He had a certain reserve, and a certain unique kind of dignity."
But he soon gained a reputation for independence and daring, and instead of staying in his New York office, a hands-on approach became his trademark. He personally negotiated the release of 15 American airmen who had been imprisoned in China at a time when the People's Republic was not represented at the UN.
"He had the skills of mediation and persuasion, combined with this almost iron single-minded will of where he wanted to go," says Margaret Anstee.
"But of course by that very token it brought him into conflict with people who wanted to use the UN for their own ends."
In Congo, one issue was who should control the southern province of Katanga, rich in copper, uranium and tin. Belgium, the ex-colonial power, backed a secessionist movement led by Moise Tshombe, as did the UK and US who had mining interests in the region.
But Mr Hammarskjold from the start backed Congo's elected central authorities - the Soviet-backed government of prime minister Patrice Lumumba, and later, after Mr Lumumba was deposed and murdered, Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula.
Mr Hammarskjold wanted to pursue a negotiated solution between Mr Tshombe and the central government, a goal that became even more urgent after UN peacekeepers found themselves outgunned during an aggressive operation to drive foreign mercenaries from Katanga.
Mr Tshombe was waiting to talk to him in Ndola on the night he died.
Airbrushed photos
The crash of his aircraft has never been fully explained. Two investigations held in the British-run Central African Federation, which included Northern Rhodesia, were followed by an official UN inquiry, which concluded that foul play could not be ruled out. So people have never stopped coming forward with new explanations, and asking new questions.
Some 30 years after the crash, in 1992, two men who had served as UN representatives in Katanga just before and just after Hammarskjold's death - Conor Cruise O'Brien and George Ivan Smith - wrote a letter to the Guardian claiming to have evidence that the plane was shot down accidentally, by mercenaries. In their view, a warning shot intended to divert the plane to alternative talks with industrialists in Katanga, in fact hit the plane and caused it to crash.
In 1998 South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Desmond Tutu, published eight letters that suggested CIA, MI5 and South African intelligence were involved in sabotage of the aircraft. British officials responded that these were likely to be Soviet forgeries.
In 2005, the head of UN military information in Congo in 1961, Bjorn Egge, told the Aftenposten newspaper he had noticed a round hole in Hammarskjold's forehead when he saw the body in the mortuary. It could have been a bullet hole, he said, and it had been mysteriously airbrushed out of official photographs.
Over the past four years, Swedish aid worker Goran Bjorkdahl has carried out extensive research and British academic Susan Williams published a book on Thursday - Who Killed Hammarskjold? Both conclude that it is likely the plane was brought down.
Mr Bjorkdahl began his study after inheriting from his father, who had worked in Zambia in the 1970s, a piece of the plane fuselage containing unexplained small holes. He tracked down 12 witnesses, in whose accounts of the night three points appeared repeatedly:
The DC6 circled in the air two or three times before it crashed
A smaller plane flew above it
A bright light flashed in the sky above the large plane before it went down
Six witnesses also recall seeing uniformed personnel near the crash site that morning, even though official reports claim it was not located until after 15:00 that day.
The official inquiries held at the time also contain witness testimony referring to a second plane in the sky.
One of the key questions Ms Williams asks in her book is why this and other inconvenient observations were discounted, or in some cases doctored during the official Rhodesian investigations. She says it is clear to her that there was a cover-up.
She places particular emphasis on three of her discoveries:
The photographs of Hammarskjold after his death are either taken in such a way as to conceal the area around his right eye, or, where the eye is visible, they show evidence of having been touched up, possibly to hide a wound
The sole survivor of the crash, Harold Julien, said there was an explosion before the plane fell from the sky - his evidence was discounted in the original inquiry on the grounds that he was ill and sedated, but Ms Williams has found a doctor's statement insisting that he was lucid at the time (he died of his injuries within days)
A US intelligence officer at a listening station in Cyprus says he heard a cockpit recording from Ndola, in which a pilot talks of closing in on the DC6 - guns are heard firing, and then the words "I've hit it"
"There is no smoking gun, but there is a mass of evidence that points in the direction that the plane was shot down by a second plane," she told the BBC. "That is a far more convincing and supported explanation than any other."
There were a range of people, including white Rhodesians and the Belgian and British mining companies in Katanga, "with a sense of being at war with the UN and with African nationalism", she says - and with a motive for preventing Mr Hammarskjold and Mr Tshombe reaching a negotiated settlement.
Model diplomat
Mr Hammarskjold's main adviser at the time, Brian Urquhart, says it is "so wrong" to think that "at night without ground control you could shoot down a plane or even locate it". But Ms Williams says experts have told her that the DC6, on its way in to land at Ndola airport on a moonlit night, was a "sitting duck".
Ms Williams argues that the time has come for a new inquiry, and Mr Hammarskjold's nephew Knut is reported to have called for one himself, after hearing of Ms Williams' new evidence.
Fifty years later, his uncle is still a model for people working at the UN, says Knut Hammarskjold.
"Many, I've been told, still have his photo on their desks, and [former Secretary General] Kofi Annan says he always asks when there is a problem: 'What will Dag have done in this situation?'"
Dame Margaret Anstee says he had the courage to stand up for his principles and to the strong member states, which his successors have lacked.
"There was a tacit agreement never to have such a single-minded secretary general again," she says. "I think we can say they haven't."
Additional reporting by Stephen Mulvey
Susan Williams' book, Who Killed Hammarskjold?, is published by Hurst and Company.
BBC World Service's Witness programme on Monday reports on Dag Hammarskjold's life and death, featuring contributions from Knut Hammarskjold and Dame Margaret Anstee
BBC
BBC © 2011 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
17 September 2011 Last updated at 11:05 ET
Dag Hammarskjold: Was his death a crash or a conspiracy?
By Stephanie Hegarty BBC World Service
Exactly 50 years ago, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold died in a plane crash on a mission to prevent civil war in newly independent Congo. Suspicions that the plane was shot down, never fully laid to rest, are now again on the rise.
After his death, Mr Hammarskjold was described by US President John F Kennedy as the "greatest statesman of our century". He was a man with a vision of the UN as a "dynamic instrument" organising the world community, a protector of small nations, independent of the major powers, acting only in the interests of peace.
The only person to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize after his death, he established the first armed UN peacekeeping mission following the crisis in Suez.
Just after midnight on 18 September 1961, he was heading to negotiate a ceasefire in a mineral-rich breakaway region of Congo, where another of his peacekeeping missions was getting bogged down in the complex politics of decolonisation and Cold War rivalry.
But his DC6 aircraft crashed in darkness shortly before landing, in a forest near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia - now Zambia.
Knut Hammarskjold, his nephew, visited the crash site days later.
"It was just scattered all over the place, the pieces of the aircraft," he says. "I did not see any bodies, they had been removed earlier, I think."
He remembers the reaction at home in Sweden, where his uncle was a national hero.
"Everybody was so shocked. I can say the whole of Sweden was affected by this. All the shops had his picture in the window, and he had a state funeral which was very unusual for a foreign office person."
Iron will
Eight years earlier, when the members of the Security Council appointed the unassuming Swede secretary general, they could not have predicted the zeal he would bring to the job.
"He was a very spiritual, intellectual, cultured man, and that was all part of his mystical approach to life," says Dame Margaret Anstee, the first female under-secretary at the UN, who was starting out on a 40-year career at the organisation. "He had a certain reserve, and a certain unique kind of dignity."
But he soon gained a reputation for independence and daring, and instead of staying in his New York office, a hands-on approach became his trademark. He personally negotiated the release of 15 American airmen who had been imprisoned in China at a time when the People's Republic was not represented at the UN.
"He had the skills of mediation and persuasion, combined with this almost iron single-minded will of where he wanted to go," says Margaret Anstee.
"But of course by that very token it brought him into conflict with people who wanted to use the UN for their own ends."
In Congo, one issue was who should control the southern province of Katanga, rich in copper, uranium and tin. Belgium, the ex-colonial power, backed a secessionist movement led by Moise Tshombe, as did the UK and US who had mining interests in the region.
But Mr Hammarskjold from the start backed Congo's elected central authorities - the Soviet-backed government of prime minister Patrice Lumumba, and later, after Mr Lumumba was deposed and murdered, Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula.
Mr Hammarskjold wanted to pursue a negotiated solution between Mr Tshombe and the central government, a goal that became even more urgent after UN peacekeepers found themselves outgunned during an aggressive operation to drive foreign mercenaries from Katanga.
Mr Tshombe was waiting to talk to him in Ndola on the night he died.
Airbrushed photos
The crash of his aircraft has never been fully explained. Two investigations held in the British-run Central African Federation, which included Northern Rhodesia, were followed by an official UN inquiry, which concluded that foul play could not be ruled out. So people have never stopped coming forward with new explanations, and asking new questions.
Some 30 years after the crash, in 1992, two men who had served as UN representatives in Katanga just before and just after Hammarskjold's death - Conor Cruise O'Brien and George Ivan Smith - wrote a letter to the Guardian claiming to have evidence that the plane was shot down accidentally, by mercenaries. In their view, a warning shot intended to divert the plane to alternative talks with industrialists in Katanga, in fact hit the plane and caused it to crash.
In 1998 South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Desmond Tutu, published eight letters that suggested CIA, MI5 and South African intelligence were involved in sabotage of the aircraft. British officials responded that these were likely to be Soviet forgeries.
In 2005, the head of UN military information in Congo in 1961, Bjorn Egge, told the Aftenposten newspaper he had noticed a round hole in Hammarskjold's forehead when he saw the body in the mortuary. It could have been a bullet hole, he said, and it had been mysteriously airbrushed out of official photographs.
Over the past four years, Swedish aid worker Goran Bjorkdahl has carried out extensive research and British academic Susan Williams published a book on Thursday - Who Killed Hammarskjold? Both conclude that it is likely the plane was brought down.
Mr Bjorkdahl began his study after inheriting from his father, who had worked in Zambia in the 1970s, a piece of the plane fuselage containing unexplained small holes. He tracked down 12 witnesses, in whose accounts of the night three points appeared repeatedly:
The DC6 circled in the air two or three times before it crashed
A smaller plane flew above it
A bright light flashed in the sky above the large plane before it went down
Six witnesses also recall seeing uniformed personnel near the crash site that morning, even though official reports claim it was not located until after 15:00 that day.
The official inquiries held at the time also contain witness testimony referring to a second plane in the sky.
One of the key questions Ms Williams asks in her book is why this and other inconvenient observations were discounted, or in some cases doctored during the official Rhodesian investigations. She says it is clear to her that there was a cover-up.
She places particular emphasis on three of her discoveries:
The photographs of Hammarskjold after his death are either taken in such a way as to conceal the area around his right eye, or, where the eye is visible, they show evidence of having been touched up, possibly to hide a wound
The sole survivor of the crash, Harold Julien, said there was an explosion before the plane fell from the sky - his evidence was discounted in the original inquiry on the grounds that he was ill and sedated, but Ms Williams has found a doctor's statement insisting that he was lucid at the time (he died of his injuries within days)
A US intelligence officer at a listening station in Cyprus says he heard a cockpit recording from Ndola, in which a pilot talks of closing in on the DC6 - guns are heard firing, and then the words "I've hit it"
"There is no smoking gun, but there is a mass of evidence that points in the direction that the plane was shot down by a second plane," she told the BBC. "That is a far more convincing and supported explanation than any other."
There were a range of people, including white Rhodesians and the Belgian and British mining companies in Katanga, "with a sense of being at war with the UN and with African nationalism", she says - and with a motive for preventing Mr Hammarskjold and Mr Tshombe reaching a negotiated settlement.
Model diplomat
Mr Hammarskjold's main adviser at the time, Brian Urquhart, says it is "so wrong" to think that "at night without ground control you could shoot down a plane or even locate it". But Ms Williams says experts have told her that the DC6, on its way in to land at Ndola airport on a moonlit night, was a "sitting duck".
Ms Williams argues that the time has come for a new inquiry, and Mr Hammarskjold's nephew Knut is reported to have called for one himself, after hearing of Ms Williams' new evidence.
Fifty years later, his uncle is still a model for people working at the UN, says Knut Hammarskjold.
"Many, I've been told, still have his photo on their desks, and [former Secretary General] Kofi Annan says he always asks when there is a problem: 'What will Dag have done in this situation?'"
Dame Margaret Anstee says he had the courage to stand up for his principles and to the strong member states, which his successors have lacked.
"There was a tacit agreement never to have such a single-minded secretary general again," she says. "I think we can say they haven't."
Additional reporting by Stephen Mulvey
Susan Williams' book, Who Killed Hammarskjold?, is published by Hurst and Company.
BBC World Service's Witness programme on Monday reports on Dag Hammarskjold's life and death, featuring contributions from Knut Hammarskjold and Dame Margaret Anstee
BBC
BBC © 2011 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Blood In the Moblie-Trailer
Sunday, August 21 at 4pm
Tickets and event info:
www.sausalitofilmfestival.com/films/blood.html
http://www.sausalitofilmfestival.com/films2011.html
Sausalito Film Festival Office: 415 887-9506
Saturday, July 2, 2011
We Have Updated Our Website!
Come and see the new website! I am blogging live from the 2011 Annual Conference, it promises to be a good one.
Visit us here: www.lejabulela.org
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
ALMOST THERE
The Kalala Muzeu Health Center is up and 2 babies have been born already! This is a cause for a celebration, but there is still more work to be done. We need to have an equipment upgrade, interior design, power, and water all finalized to make this center live up to its potential.
visit www.lejabulela.org to learn how to help
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
In Memory of Floribert Chebeya
The lifeless body of Floribert Chebeya Bahizire was found in the back seat of his car on June 2 in a neighborhood not far from his home in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When he was last heard from, Floribert was on his way to meet the Inspector General of Police, John Numbi, known for his corruption and power; but otherwise the circumstances of Floribert's death are both unclear and suspicious. His loyal chauffeur, Fidele Bazan Edadi, is still missing.
Floribert was undoubtedly Congo's most prominent, committed, courageous human rights activist. From his early years when he won the Reebok Human Rights awards in 1992 for fighting the Mobutu dictatorship, through the national conference process, the civil war, the Laurent Kabila regime, the Congolese elections, and the current deteriorating dispensation – Floribert persevered, finally paying the ultimate price for his vision of a free and democratic Congo. He should be remembered as one of Congo's greatest freedom fighters, a leader of Africa's democratic movement, and an international human rights giant. His murder is an enormous outrage.
I first met Floribert about 20 years ago when he was visiting the U.S.; shortly thereafter, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) made its first grant to the organization he led, La Voix des Sans Voix, in 1991 for U.S.$31,289, "to support the VSV's efforts to increase the understanding of and commitment to human rights and democracy in Zaire through a civic education program that includes a monthly bulletin, audiovisual materials, and public meetings." It was the first grant NED made in Zaire, and there can be no question that Floribert paved the way and set the standard for all that followed.
Floribert was both gentle and fierce. His small stature, soft voice, thick glasses and warm smile belied the toughness and determination that landed him in and out of detention on multiple occasions, and that elevated him to be the widely acknowledged leader of Congo's human rights movement in several networks such as Droits de l'Homme Maintentant, and mentor to scores of human rights NGOs across the country. When the pressure and threats became too great, Floribert would send his wife and children across the river to Brazzaville, but he stayed behind in Kinshasa to continue his work. His family had to move from time to time for security reasons, but the occasions when I was honored to have dinner at his home were filled with the love and warmth of his devoted wife and children. When he spoke before mass audiences his eloquence and passion were captivating, but unlike so many other tribunes of the people, his integrity was incorruptible, he never lost his connection with the Congolese people whose voice he had become. I sat with him once as he interviewed an alleged recent victim of human rights abuse. He was delicate, yet probing, and rather than rushing to judgment, determined that her case was doubtful; promising to follow up with her later. He and the staff of VSV investigated and sought redress for hundreds of such cases.
Floribert was a realist. He understood politics, but never sacrificed principles. He was as unafraid to criticize American policies as those of his own government. When most other Congolese, including some human rights advocates, were denouncing the Tutsis and Banyamulenge after the Rwandan invasion, Floribert defended the rights of innocent civilians who were targets of human rights abuse no matter what their ethnicity. He had enormous energy. Leading a committed team, Voix de Sans Voix has issued hundreds of press statements over the years, meticulously documenting human rights abuses and denouncing them. VSV has likewise held hundreds of workshops, training conferences, civic education events, and campaigns. Floribert undoubtedly inspired hundreds of activists throughout the country who still cite VSV for getting them off the ground, showing them how to do human rights work, and counseling them on strategy. He distributed his Reebok Human Rights Award among other civil society organizations rather than keeping it for himself or even his own organization. His impact on the human rights movement and the understanding and appreciation for democracy in Congo was profound.
Whether or not the gunman or the person who gave the orders is ever identified, we know who killed Floribert Chebeya. The Congolese political system has become increasingly repressive, human rights organizations are continually threatened, journalists have been murdered, the political opposition emasculated, and the rule of law flouted. In the east the vicious killings, looting, and mass rapes committed by the Congolese army continue unabated. The UN peacekeepers are being pressed to leave, and the prospects for any democratic elections in the future are fading. The Congolese people have lost one of their most ardent defenders. Floribert will be remembered among the pantheon of African martyrs and freedom fighters such as Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, and Tom Mboya. But those who committed this crime will not go unpunished. Floribert's death will not be in vain. This time, the torturers have gone too far, and the local and international furor over their act is already shaking the regime; Numbi has been suspended pending an investigation. And Floribert's many friends will not allow his vision of a free and democratic Congo to die. He would have demanded no less.
Dave Peterson is director of the National Endowment for Democracy's African Program. This article was originally published on 11 May 2011 on Save The Congo's website, and has been reprinted with the permission of the author.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Dr. Mukwege Wins International Honor
Brussels, 24 May 2011 – Esteemed Congolese gynecologist, Dr. Denis Mukwege, has been awarded the 2010/2011 King Baudouin International Development Prize for his commitment to helping thousands of women victims of rape and war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Dr. Mukwege founded Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, which offers free, comprehensive care for women victims. The specialized treatment offered at Panzi Hospital integrates psychological and physical treatment with social support to help cope with the stigma many victims face after they are assaulted. In the past 10 years, Dr. Mukwege and his team have treated more than 30,000 victims of sexual violence.
The prevalence of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo is widely recognized as one of the highest in the world. In the war-torn region, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of women have been raped or severely maimed. Sexual violence is used as a weapon of war by rebel forces, strategically perpetrated to institute a reign of fear in order to seize control of mineral-rich areas.
Beyond his work at Panzi Hospital, Dr. Mukwege has also gained recognition for advocating tirelessly on behalf of the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At risk to his own life, he has appealed to policymakers for increased protection for the women of the region and championed an integrated health care system that meets the unique challenges of violence and chaos in the Congo.
Dr. Peter Piot, Chairman of the King Baudouin Foundation and Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Dr. Mukwege is one of Africa’s great humanitarians whose work is a source of hope and inspiration for people across the African continent. Through his work as a doctor and advocate, Dr. Mukwege is shining a spotlight on one of the most pervasive and pernicious human rights abuses in the world – violence against women. His dedication and commitment to this issue are a perfect fit with the values of the Prize.”
Dr. Mukwege (in photo) received the Prize at the Royal Palace in Brussels, at a ceremony attended by King Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium and other esteemed guests such as Margot Wallstrom, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.
“It is a privilege and an honor for me to be receiving the King Baudouin International Development Prize. Most importantly, I am grateful for the opportunity to reiterate the critical need for all of us to take action for women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We cannot risk being silent on this grave injustice – destroying women means destroying life,” said Dr. Mukwege.
The King Baudouin International Development Prize was established in 1978 to recognize and support pioneers who have made outstanding contributions to addressing key challenges and advancing social progress in the developing world.
The Prize winner receives 150,000 euros (approximately US$210,000) and the opportunity to meet leaders of key international organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union. Past recipients of the Prize include such distinguished humanitarians and advocates as Ousmane Sy and Paulo Freire, both now recognized around the world for their innovative contributions to critical development challenges.
DR Congo Names Squad
Orange 2012 Afcon qualifier :DR Congo release rooster for Mauritius game
The DR Congo have published a list of 22 players to begin camping ahead of their crucial Orange 2012 Afcon qualifier against Mauritius.
Head coach,Robert Nouzaret made no change to the selection that thrashed Mauritius last March three nil as the same 22 players have been called up.However,the three players expelled from the squad for improper conduct during training were not called up.They are Larrys Mabiala (Nice), Cédric Mongongu (Monaco) et Dieumerci Mbokani (Wolfsburg). Nouzaret replaced them with 20 year old midfielder Andréa Mutombo Mbuyi who plies his trade in Belgium.The players are mostly from DR Congo’s leading club, TP Mazembe,recently expelled from the Orange CAF Champions League.
The 22 players called up
Goalkeepers: Robert Kidiaba (TP Mazembe), Parfait Mandanda (Altay, Turkey), Leya Matampi Vumi (DC Motema Pembe).
Defenders : Eric Nkulukuta (TP Mazembe), Rodrigue Dikaba (Beauvais, France), Joel Kimuaki (TP Mazembe), Pamphile Mihayo (TP Mazembe), Landry Mulemo (Bucaspor, Turkey), Simbi Ebunga (AS V.Club), Tshinyama Tsholola (Lokeren, Belgium), Christian Kinkela (AC Ajaccio, France).
Midfielders : Ilongo Ngassanya (DC Motema Pembe), Albert Milambo Mutamba (Beauvais, France), Youssouf Mulumbu (West Bromwich Albion, England), Hugues Bedi Mbenza (TP Mazembe), Matumona Zola (Mons, Belgium), Cédric Makiadi (Fribourg, Germany), Patou Kabangu (TP Mazembe), Andréa Mutombo Mbuyi (Saint-Trond, Belgium).
Striker: Yves Diba Ilunga (Najran, Saudi Arabia), Ilombe Mboyo Pelé (La Gantoise, Belgium), Alain Kaluyituka (TP Mazembe).
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Congo-Kinshasa: Kiss of Life for Pygmies
(source: allAfrica.com)
Bolenge — "Most of the houses in our villages are still made with small branches that we have collected, while our timber and our medicinal plants are taken by people who are enriching themselves elsewhere," said Ampiobo Amuri, a traditional pygmy chief.
"It's been several weeks now since I stopped listening to the requests of these people who come and bring us drink, give us used clothes, sometimes even salt, in exchange for our products," he said.
"I want our children to study," said Antoinette Ambulampo. "The animals and the trees have been taken ... When we arrive to work in the forests where someone has cut down the trees, we are hot. We work a lot for the people who come and court us."
IPS met Amuri and Ambulampo in the village of Bolenge, in the Equateur Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Marginalised minority
There are roughly 200,000 pygmies living in the forests of the Republic of congo, Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo - with smaller numbers as far east as Rwanda and Burundi, according to ethnologists Serge Bahuchet and Guy Philipart de Foy.
Across the Congo Basin, indigenous peoples are a marginalised minority. They often provide the workforce in the fields for others, exploited and sometimes paid in kind or with worthless scrip.
At the second International Forum of Indigenous Peoples, which took place from Mar. 16-18 at Ifondo in the Republic of Congo, Henri Ndjombo, that country's minister of forestry and sustainable development, acknowledged the suffering of indigenous peoples.
"We are going to have to come up with appropriate responses to indigenous peoples' problems for their survival, because they are up against a number of obstacles, notably, access to resources, which must be increasingly monitored. This is necessary in order for the development of alternative activities that allow this population to live better," he states.
There have been some successes in securing the rights of indigenous people in conjunction with conservation of the forest they traditionally depend on for a livelihood.
The international non-profit organisation The Forest Trust (TFT), based in Geneva, is part of a wider group whose work for the rights of pygmies Amuri views in a positive light. The TFT has announced the certification of sustainable environmental and humanitarian practices of an additional 571,000 hectares of forest managed by the Congolaise Industrielle des Bois (CIB), a logging company operating in the Congo basin.
TFT says this brings the total area of tropical forest under sustainable management in the Congo Basin to more than 5.3 million hectares.
The certification of the Loundoungou and Toukoulaka concessions, according to TFT, means that all of the forest regions under CIB's management have been certified by the independent standard-setting body, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a milestone in the protection of both the fragile environment of the forest and the livelihoods of local communities, especially semi-nomadic pygmies.
Certification alone not enough
But the lack of demand for sustainable wood and wood products (which command higher prices than other timber) could mean that the positive response of the industry to pressure from European and U.S. activists amounts to nothing, says TFT's executive director Scott Poynton.
"The consumers aren't there and the NGOs aren't pushing the sale of this certified wood. And without economic returns, the companies can't maintain these practices," he adds.
Robert Hunink of the CIB confirms that opportunities in the market are still lacking. "Nevertheless, the staff and management of the CIB are in support of the FSC process," he says. "The buyers will start to reward companies that have responded positively to the certification of their forestry operations."
Jerome Bokele, the first pygmy to be elected to the provincial legislature of Equateur Province, in the north-west of the DRC, said: "The certification of 571.000 hectares by the FSC is a good thing. But it's only an announcement. Thousands of logs are thrown into the Congo river - and often come from lawless exploitation of the tropical forests. More than 70 percent of the indigenous people in Africa are trapped in dire poverty..."
Odon Munsadi, an environmentalist in the DRC points out: "Environmental practices in this case involve the rational use of forests for their future existence. Bad practices lead to global warming and grassy plains."
"Certification can be a breath of oxygen for the indigenous people if there is rigorous monitoring and if they develop and come to the fore. If not, the theory will prevail," he warns.
Bolenge — "Most of the houses in our villages are still made with small branches that we have collected, while our timber and our medicinal plants are taken by people who are enriching themselves elsewhere," said Ampiobo Amuri, a traditional pygmy chief.
"It's been several weeks now since I stopped listening to the requests of these people who come and bring us drink, give us used clothes, sometimes even salt, in exchange for our products," he said.
"I want our children to study," said Antoinette Ambulampo. "The animals and the trees have been taken ... When we arrive to work in the forests where someone has cut down the trees, we are hot. We work a lot for the people who come and court us."
IPS met Amuri and Ambulampo in the village of Bolenge, in the Equateur Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Marginalised minority
There are roughly 200,000 pygmies living in the forests of the Republic of congo, Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo - with smaller numbers as far east as Rwanda and Burundi, according to ethnologists Serge Bahuchet and Guy Philipart de Foy.
Across the Congo Basin, indigenous peoples are a marginalised minority. They often provide the workforce in the fields for others, exploited and sometimes paid in kind or with worthless scrip.
At the second International Forum of Indigenous Peoples, which took place from Mar. 16-18 at Ifondo in the Republic of Congo, Henri Ndjombo, that country's minister of forestry and sustainable development, acknowledged the suffering of indigenous peoples.
"We are going to have to come up with appropriate responses to indigenous peoples' problems for their survival, because they are up against a number of obstacles, notably, access to resources, which must be increasingly monitored. This is necessary in order for the development of alternative activities that allow this population to live better," he states.
There have been some successes in securing the rights of indigenous people in conjunction with conservation of the forest they traditionally depend on for a livelihood.
The international non-profit organisation The Forest Trust (TFT), based in Geneva, is part of a wider group whose work for the rights of pygmies Amuri views in a positive light. The TFT has announced the certification of sustainable environmental and humanitarian practices of an additional 571,000 hectares of forest managed by the Congolaise Industrielle des Bois (CIB), a logging company operating in the Congo basin.
TFT says this brings the total area of tropical forest under sustainable management in the Congo Basin to more than 5.3 million hectares.
The certification of the Loundoungou and Toukoulaka concessions, according to TFT, means that all of the forest regions under CIB's management have been certified by the independent standard-setting body, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a milestone in the protection of both the fragile environment of the forest and the livelihoods of local communities, especially semi-nomadic pygmies.
Certification alone not enough
But the lack of demand for sustainable wood and wood products (which command higher prices than other timber) could mean that the positive response of the industry to pressure from European and U.S. activists amounts to nothing, says TFT's executive director Scott Poynton.
"The consumers aren't there and the NGOs aren't pushing the sale of this certified wood. And without economic returns, the companies can't maintain these practices," he adds.
Robert Hunink of the CIB confirms that opportunities in the market are still lacking. "Nevertheless, the staff and management of the CIB are in support of the FSC process," he says. "The buyers will start to reward companies that have responded positively to the certification of their forestry operations."
Jerome Bokele, the first pygmy to be elected to the provincial legislature of Equateur Province, in the north-west of the DRC, said: "The certification of 571.000 hectares by the FSC is a good thing. But it's only an announcement. Thousands of logs are thrown into the Congo river - and often come from lawless exploitation of the tropical forests. More than 70 percent of the indigenous people in Africa are trapped in dire poverty..."
Odon Munsadi, an environmentalist in the DRC points out: "Environmental practices in this case involve the rational use of forests for their future existence. Bad practices lead to global warming and grassy plains."
"Certification can be a breath of oxygen for the indigenous people if there is rigorous monitoring and if they develop and come to the fore. If not, the theory will prevail," he warns.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Great Public Health News in the DR Congo
DR CONGO INTRODUCES NEW VACCINE
AGAINST ONE OF ITS LEADING CAUSES OF CHILD DEATH
Pneumococcal vaccine reaching one of Africa’s largest countries
KINSHASA, 4 April 2011 – In an effort to drastically improve the chances of children reaching their fifth birthday, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today stepped up its immunization programme by including vaccines to combat pneumonia. Initially the expanded programme will be in two of the 11 provinces. Pneumonia is one of the biggest killers of children worldwide and is responsible for a quarter of all child deaths under five in DRC.
DRC First Lady Olive Lembe Kabila and Minister of Health Victor Makwenge Kaput joined parents and health workers in Kinshasa to witness the first child being immunized as part of the official introduction of pneumococcal vaccine into the national routine immunization programme.
On the same day in Paris, GAVI founding partner Bill Gates launched a European-wide awareness campaign to highlight the extraordinary life-saving opportunity that vaccines represent for donor countries.
Globally, pneumococcal disease, the most common and serious form of respiratory infections, kills over a million of people every year – including more than half a million children before their fifth birthday. It is the leading cause of pneumonia, which is the major cause of death among children aged below 5 years, contributing to 18 percent of under five deaths in developing countries.
“Today’s launch is an enormous moment for my country, where too many children die of this terrible disease,” said Mr Kaput. “Pneumonia causes suffering and death. Therefore we celebrate a wonderful day today. The global introduction of pneumococcal vaccination is a milestone in global health and will help us reduce child mortality.”
“The introduction of the pneumococcal vaccine and the systematic immunization of the children could save the life of 1 in 5 children dying from respiratory infectious diseases”, said Dr Léodégal Bazira, acting WHO Representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
With the second highest child mortality rates in world DRC faces major health challenges. A study conducted in 2004 by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) revealed that pneumonia killed at least 132,000 children under five in the country, making it the second biggest cause of death amongst under five children in the country after malaria. Only 42% of children suspected to have pneumonia are taken to an appropriate healthcare provider.
“With electricity, roads, and refrigerators in short supply, delivering vaccines to remote health centers in DRC is an enormous challenge,” said Pierrette Vu Thi, UNICEF Representative in DR Congo. “Together with its partners UNICEF is committed to ensure that all children in this country have the same access to this life-saving vaccine”.
As the world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF has been supporting vaccination efforts in DRC with supply, technical and financial support since 1963.
In the past five months, Nicaragua, Guyana, Yemen, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Mali introduced the pneumococcal vaccines thanks to the support from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) which brings together governments, UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other key players in global health.
GAVI has committed to support the introduction of pneumococcal vaccines in 19 developing countries by 2012 and, if it gets sufficient funding from its donors, plans to roll them out to more than 40 countries by 2015.
“Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective public health investments a government can make and we are counting on our donors to continue their strong backing for our life-saving mission,” said Helen Evans, GAVI interim CEO.
GAVI needs an additional US$ 3.7 billion over the next five years to continue its support for immunization in the world’s poorest countries and introduce new and underused vaccines including the pneumococcal vaccine and the rotavirus vaccine which tackles diarrhoea – the second biggest killer of children under five.
The roll-out of the pneumococcal vaccines in countries such as DRC has been made possible through an innovative finance mechanism pioneered by GAVI called the Advance Market Commitment (AMC).
With US$ 1.5 billion from Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Russian Federation, Norway, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a commitment of US$ 1.3 billion from GAVI, the AMC allowed the acceleration of production capacity by the two manufacturers who currently produce the vaccines. This has contributed to ensuring that this new generation of pneumococcal vaccines are affordable in developing countries, as they are now available at a fraction of the price chaired in developed countries.
Distributed by the African Press Organization on behalf of GAVI Alliance.
AGAINST ONE OF ITS LEADING CAUSES OF CHILD DEATH
Pneumococcal vaccine reaching one of Africa’s largest countries
KINSHASA, 4 April 2011 – In an effort to drastically improve the chances of children reaching their fifth birthday, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today stepped up its immunization programme by including vaccines to combat pneumonia. Initially the expanded programme will be in two of the 11 provinces. Pneumonia is one of the biggest killers of children worldwide and is responsible for a quarter of all child deaths under five in DRC.
DRC First Lady Olive Lembe Kabila and Minister of Health Victor Makwenge Kaput joined parents and health workers in Kinshasa to witness the first child being immunized as part of the official introduction of pneumococcal vaccine into the national routine immunization programme.
On the same day in Paris, GAVI founding partner Bill Gates launched a European-wide awareness campaign to highlight the extraordinary life-saving opportunity that vaccines represent for donor countries.
Globally, pneumococcal disease, the most common and serious form of respiratory infections, kills over a million of people every year – including more than half a million children before their fifth birthday. It is the leading cause of pneumonia, which is the major cause of death among children aged below 5 years, contributing to 18 percent of under five deaths in developing countries.
“Today’s launch is an enormous moment for my country, where too many children die of this terrible disease,” said Mr Kaput. “Pneumonia causes suffering and death. Therefore we celebrate a wonderful day today. The global introduction of pneumococcal vaccination is a milestone in global health and will help us reduce child mortality.”
“The introduction of the pneumococcal vaccine and the systematic immunization of the children could save the life of 1 in 5 children dying from respiratory infectious diseases”, said Dr Léodégal Bazira, acting WHO Representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
With the second highest child mortality rates in world DRC faces major health challenges. A study conducted in 2004 by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) revealed that pneumonia killed at least 132,000 children under five in the country, making it the second biggest cause of death amongst under five children in the country after malaria. Only 42% of children suspected to have pneumonia are taken to an appropriate healthcare provider.
“With electricity, roads, and refrigerators in short supply, delivering vaccines to remote health centers in DRC is an enormous challenge,” said Pierrette Vu Thi, UNICEF Representative in DR Congo. “Together with its partners UNICEF is committed to ensure that all children in this country have the same access to this life-saving vaccine”.
As the world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF has been supporting vaccination efforts in DRC with supply, technical and financial support since 1963.
In the past five months, Nicaragua, Guyana, Yemen, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Mali introduced the pneumococcal vaccines thanks to the support from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) which brings together governments, UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other key players in global health.
GAVI has committed to support the introduction of pneumococcal vaccines in 19 developing countries by 2012 and, if it gets sufficient funding from its donors, plans to roll them out to more than 40 countries by 2015.
“Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective public health investments a government can make and we are counting on our donors to continue their strong backing for our life-saving mission,” said Helen Evans, GAVI interim CEO.
GAVI needs an additional US$ 3.7 billion over the next five years to continue its support for immunization in the world’s poorest countries and introduce new and underused vaccines including the pneumococcal vaccine and the rotavirus vaccine which tackles diarrhoea – the second biggest killer of children under five.
The roll-out of the pneumococcal vaccines in countries such as DRC has been made possible through an innovative finance mechanism pioneered by GAVI called the Advance Market Commitment (AMC).
With US$ 1.5 billion from Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Russian Federation, Norway, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a commitment of US$ 1.3 billion from GAVI, the AMC allowed the acceleration of production capacity by the two manufacturers who currently produce the vaccines. This has contributed to ensuring that this new generation of pneumococcal vaccines are affordable in developing countries, as they are now available at a fraction of the price chaired in developed countries.
Distributed by the African Press Organization on behalf of GAVI Alliance.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
UN Airplane Crash in the Capital
Taken from AlJazeera (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/04/2011450474968861.html)
Thirty-two people have been killed and one person survived when a United Nations plane crashed in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a UN spokesperson has said.
"We can confirm only one survivor out of the 33 people on board the ... plane," Farhan Haq said.
The plane crashed on Monday while attempting to land at the airport serving the capital city.
It was one of the worst disasters ever involving UN transport. Twenty UN workers were listed as on board the flight.
The plane was carrying UN officials and peacekeepers travelling from the northeastern city of Kisangani to Kinshasa's N'Djili airport, according to a statement from the UN mission known as MONUSCO.
The world body earlier said both Congolese and foreign nationals were on board the plane.
The operator of the plane, Georgian flag carrier Airzena Georgian Airways, said the crew was Georgian.
There were strong winds blowing at the time of the crash.
A UN source in Kinshasa, who asked not to be named, told the Reuters news agency: "The plane landed heavily, broke into two and caught fire."
A Reuters correspondent at the airport said the plane was completely destroyed and the wreckage was lying at the end of the runway.
The UN has a fleet of more than a dozen planes in the country with which the mission transports its personnel, journalists and staff of international and local non-governmental organisations.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Congolese Mining Reform
Congo-Kinshasa: New Rules for Miners
Kinshasa — Various stakeholders in the Democratic Republic of Congo's mining sector have signed a code of conduct designed to reduce fraud and increase transparency in an industry that has played a key role in the armed violence that has ravaged the east of the country for years, but there is still concern about illegal mining and the military's role.
The adoption of the code coincides with the lifting of a mining ban slapped on the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Maniema by President Joseph Kabila in a purported effort to rid the industry of the "mafia-like networks" that run much of it. It also comes before stringent legislation against the importation of conflict minerals due to be introduced by the US in April.
About 1.7 million people are displaced in DRC, mostly because of conflicts involving domestic and foreign armed groups in the east, a region rich in minerals such as gold, coltan, lithium, cassiterite and wolframite. Armed groups, including the DRC national army (FARDC), are heavily implicated in the industry.
"Shortly after President Kabila's [ban], we started taking measures aimed at ending the massive fraud that is rampant in eastern Congo's mining trade. We have deployed agents to trace minerals from digging areas to export locations and to label and certify them, so we can allow the mining trade to resume," Minister of Mines Martin Kabwelulu said at the end of a four-day seminar on the new code of conduct.
The seminar brought together national and regional government officials, representatives of artisanal miners, mineral buyers and traders, as well as civil society groups, all of whom signed up to the code.
Key measures include:
- All artisanal miners and mineral traders must obtain permits from provincial governments;
- Miners must sell only to authorized buyers. Such buyers must operate premises of solid construction;
- Selling within sites of exploitation is prohibited;
- Miners can work only in authorized areas;
- Minerals must be traded for domestic or foreign currency and must not be bartered;
- Traders must disclose their accounts to provincial mining officials and provide full contact details of their customers;
- A prohibition on the employment of children in mines; and
- Civil society groups will sensitize local populations about the new measures.
"Many trading posts closed after President Kabila banned the minerals trade in eastern DR Congo, so we have been waiting for this moment. We reached a point where our lives became harsh and we no longer had any other source of income," Bagalwa Basimine, a representative of a group of minerals merchants in South-Kivu province, told IRIN on the sidelines of the seminar.
DRC officials say the nature of the industry as was deprived the country of millions that could have been spent on development projects: whereas the provincial governments in North Kivu, South Kivu and Maniema earn on average US$100,000 a year, minerals smuggled to Rwanda and Burundi, they claim, earn those countries between $5 million and $10 million a year in tax revenue, according to South Kivu Governor Marcellin Cisambo.
"With these new regulations, people involved in mining will have to work with local authorities," said Paluku Kahongya, governor of North-Kivu Province. He added that anyone found to have links with armed groups would be excluded from the mining sector.
"If in a given area there is no health centre, they will have to work together to sponsor one; if there is no water supply, they have to fund one; if there is no school, they will sponsor the construction of schools since children living in areas where they dig for minerals have the right to attend school," he said. Both governors and traders are to invest in social development projects under the new rules.
Policing the military
Many are sceptical that the new regulations will successfully control armed groups and stop illegal mining. While the regulations have provided a list of requirements for different actors involved, they exclude a number of important groups mentioned in a report on illegal mining and armed groups submitted to the UN Security Council in November 2010 [ http://www.scribd.com/doc/44370265/Final-Report-of-the-Group-of-Experts-on-the-DRC-Nov-26-201 ].
"The code represents everyone who is supposed to be in the mining sector," Gregory Mthembu-Salter, a consultant for the report, told IRIN. "The people left out are people who are in the mining sector and shouldn't be. Obviously that's the armed groups and the FARDC. The Group of Experts has identified criminal networks in the FARDC and their illegal involvement in mining as one of the major threats to security in the affected provinces."
According to the report, this involvement extends to illegal taxation at mining sites, protection racketeering and coercive control and looting of mining areas.
The involvement of the army in mining, particularly those integrated into the military from rebel groups, has been a source of concern for some time. In September 2010, Kabila said he would move several battalions from the Kivu provinces, where soldiers are involved in mining, to other parts of the country.
Kabwelulu said additional measures had been put in place to prevent soldiers from mining. "The role of the army and other security services is to protect the country and pacify it in a post-war state. The army, police and security services have already been notified of the new regulations. Any soldier caught trading minerals is breaking the law and this means he should be punished."
But Annie Dunnebacke of Global Witness claims little has been done by the government to dislodge the military from the mines and that elements in the military tightened their grip on the mineral trade while the ban was in place. "Members of the national army make tens of millions of dollars per year through extortion at mine sites and along mineral transportation routes. Competition over control of the region's mineral wealth has become an incentive for all warring parties to keep on fighting," she told IRIN. Witnesses and human rights groups said government soldiers were sending young men into mines to dig up minerals for them shortly after the ban was introduced.
Mthembu-Salter said the situation could be improved if more stringent measures were put in place for soldiers caught mining. "The FARDC could commit to providing security at mine sites, but not being involved in any mining activities. Now an indication of seriousness in this regard might be for the military justice system to make some headway in their prosecutions of soldiers who have been caught doing this."
Kinshasa — Various stakeholders in the Democratic Republic of Congo's mining sector have signed a code of conduct designed to reduce fraud and increase transparency in an industry that has played a key role in the armed violence that has ravaged the east of the country for years, but there is still concern about illegal mining and the military's role.
The adoption of the code coincides with the lifting of a mining ban slapped on the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Maniema by President Joseph Kabila in a purported effort to rid the industry of the "mafia-like networks" that run much of it. It also comes before stringent legislation against the importation of conflict minerals due to be introduced by the US in April.
About 1.7 million people are displaced in DRC, mostly because of conflicts involving domestic and foreign armed groups in the east, a region rich in minerals such as gold, coltan, lithium, cassiterite and wolframite. Armed groups, including the DRC national army (FARDC), are heavily implicated in the industry.
"Shortly after President Kabila's [ban], we started taking measures aimed at ending the massive fraud that is rampant in eastern Congo's mining trade. We have deployed agents to trace minerals from digging areas to export locations and to label and certify them, so we can allow the mining trade to resume," Minister of Mines Martin Kabwelulu said at the end of a four-day seminar on the new code of conduct.
The seminar brought together national and regional government officials, representatives of artisanal miners, mineral buyers and traders, as well as civil society groups, all of whom signed up to the code.
Key measures include:
- All artisanal miners and mineral traders must obtain permits from provincial governments;
- Miners must sell only to authorized buyers. Such buyers must operate premises of solid construction;
- Selling within sites of exploitation is prohibited;
- Miners can work only in authorized areas;
- Minerals must be traded for domestic or foreign currency and must not be bartered;
- Traders must disclose their accounts to provincial mining officials and provide full contact details of their customers;
- A prohibition on the employment of children in mines; and
- Civil society groups will sensitize local populations about the new measures.
"Many trading posts closed after President Kabila banned the minerals trade in eastern DR Congo, so we have been waiting for this moment. We reached a point where our lives became harsh and we no longer had any other source of income," Bagalwa Basimine, a representative of a group of minerals merchants in South-Kivu province, told IRIN on the sidelines of the seminar.
DRC officials say the nature of the industry as was deprived the country of millions that could have been spent on development projects: whereas the provincial governments in North Kivu, South Kivu and Maniema earn on average US$100,000 a year, minerals smuggled to Rwanda and Burundi, they claim, earn those countries between $5 million and $10 million a year in tax revenue, according to South Kivu Governor Marcellin Cisambo.
"With these new regulations, people involved in mining will have to work with local authorities," said Paluku Kahongya, governor of North-Kivu Province. He added that anyone found to have links with armed groups would be excluded from the mining sector.
"If in a given area there is no health centre, they will have to work together to sponsor one; if there is no water supply, they have to fund one; if there is no school, they will sponsor the construction of schools since children living in areas where they dig for minerals have the right to attend school," he said. Both governors and traders are to invest in social development projects under the new rules.
Policing the military
Many are sceptical that the new regulations will successfully control armed groups and stop illegal mining. While the regulations have provided a list of requirements for different actors involved, they exclude a number of important groups mentioned in a report on illegal mining and armed groups submitted to the UN Security Council in November 2010 [ http://www.scribd.com/doc/44370265/Final-Report-of-the-Group-of-Experts-on-the-DRC-Nov-26-201 ].
"The code represents everyone who is supposed to be in the mining sector," Gregory Mthembu-Salter, a consultant for the report, told IRIN. "The people left out are people who are in the mining sector and shouldn't be. Obviously that's the armed groups and the FARDC. The Group of Experts has identified criminal networks in the FARDC and their illegal involvement in mining as one of the major threats to security in the affected provinces."
According to the report, this involvement extends to illegal taxation at mining sites, protection racketeering and coercive control and looting of mining areas.
The involvement of the army in mining, particularly those integrated into the military from rebel groups, has been a source of concern for some time. In September 2010, Kabila said he would move several battalions from the Kivu provinces, where soldiers are involved in mining, to other parts of the country.
Kabwelulu said additional measures had been put in place to prevent soldiers from mining. "The role of the army and other security services is to protect the country and pacify it in a post-war state. The army, police and security services have already been notified of the new regulations. Any soldier caught trading minerals is breaking the law and this means he should be punished."
But Annie Dunnebacke of Global Witness claims little has been done by the government to dislodge the military from the mines and that elements in the military tightened their grip on the mineral trade while the ban was in place. "Members of the national army make tens of millions of dollars per year through extortion at mine sites and along mineral transportation routes. Competition over control of the region's mineral wealth has become an incentive for all warring parties to keep on fighting," she told IRIN. Witnesses and human rights groups said government soldiers were sending young men into mines to dig up minerals for them shortly after the ban was introduced.
Mthembu-Salter said the situation could be improved if more stringent measures were put in place for soldiers caught mining. "The FARDC could commit to providing security at mine sites, but not being involved in any mining activities. Now an indication of seriousness in this regard might be for the military justice system to make some headway in their prosecutions of soldiers who have been caught doing this."
Aqua Paradox
Congo-Kinshasa: In Water-Rich Nation, 50 Million People Lack Clean Water to Drink - UN
(http://allafrica.com/stories/201103230168.html)
An estimated 51 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) - or three quarters of the population - have no access to safe drinking water, even though the country holds over half of Africa's water reserves, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new study released today.
The country's troubled legacy of conflict, environmental degradation, rapid urbanization and under-investment in water infrastructure has seriously affected the availability of drinking water, UNEP said in the study, unveiled to coincide with World Water Day.
UNEP was among several participants at an event in the capital, Kinshasa, staged by the National Water and Sanitation Committee, which brought together government representatives, development partners, financial institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and researchers to discuss steps to address the DRC's water challenges.
Speaking at the forum, UNEP's DRC Programme Manager, Hassan Partow, said the study confirmed that despite recent progress, including water sector reforms, the scale of the challenge means that the country will not be able to meet its water targets under the UN-set Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which calls for reducing by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015.
The DRC would have to supply an additional 20.3 million people with safe drinking water by 2015 even to meets its national development goals, which are significantly below the MDGs water target, according to UNEP.
"Since peace was brokered in 2003, the Government has gradually managed to reverse the negative trend in water coverage that has plagued the DRC since its period of conflict and turmoil", said Mr. Partow. "This represents an important achievement which should be applauded."
"However, the stark reality is that the DRC has one of the fastest urbanization growth rates in the world and this is not being matched with adequate water and sanitation service delivery," he added.
Based on extensive fieldwork and stakeholder consultations across the country, the UNEP study found that inadequate water and sanitation delivery in the DRC's rapidly expanding urban centres is due to insufficient, aging and overloaded networks, combined with the degradation of critical water sources and watersheds, such as the Lukunga and N'Djili catchments, which provide millions of people with drinking water in Kinshasa.
According to the study, entitled "Water Issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo - Challenges and Opportunities," in addition to major infrastructure improvements, an investment of approximately $70 million over a five-year period is required to help strengthen the water sector.
UNEP recommends innovative strategies such as community-managed water supply systems in urban fringe areas and low-cost technical solutions, including communal tap areas and rainwater harvesting.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), meanwhile, drew attention to an estimated 37 million rural residents in DRC who risk contracting disease because they have no alternative but to draw untreated water directly from rivers or lakes that are likely to be contaminated.
"A child living in a Congolese village is four times more likely to drink contaminated water than someone in town. Yet, all children have equal right to survival and development of which drinking water is a vital component," said Pierrette Vu Thi, the UNICEF representative in DRC in a statement to mark the World Water Day.
More than 2 million Congolese children under the age of five, or one in five in that age group, are regularly sick with diarrhoea, according to figures from the country's department of health cited by UNICEF.
"The fact that we are unable to provide each family clean drinking water is an affront," said Ms. Vu Thi. "Too many children die because we do not respect our responsibility, and their deaths are ignored," she added
(http://allafrica.com/stories/201103230168.html)
An estimated 51 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) - or three quarters of the population - have no access to safe drinking water, even though the country holds over half of Africa's water reserves, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new study released today.
The country's troubled legacy of conflict, environmental degradation, rapid urbanization and under-investment in water infrastructure has seriously affected the availability of drinking water, UNEP said in the study, unveiled to coincide with World Water Day.
UNEP was among several participants at an event in the capital, Kinshasa, staged by the National Water and Sanitation Committee, which brought together government representatives, development partners, financial institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and researchers to discuss steps to address the DRC's water challenges.
Speaking at the forum, UNEP's DRC Programme Manager, Hassan Partow, said the study confirmed that despite recent progress, including water sector reforms, the scale of the challenge means that the country will not be able to meet its water targets under the UN-set Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which calls for reducing by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015.
The DRC would have to supply an additional 20.3 million people with safe drinking water by 2015 even to meets its national development goals, which are significantly below the MDGs water target, according to UNEP.
"Since peace was brokered in 2003, the Government has gradually managed to reverse the negative trend in water coverage that has plagued the DRC since its period of conflict and turmoil", said Mr. Partow. "This represents an important achievement which should be applauded."
"However, the stark reality is that the DRC has one of the fastest urbanization growth rates in the world and this is not being matched with adequate water and sanitation service delivery," he added.
Based on extensive fieldwork and stakeholder consultations across the country, the UNEP study found that inadequate water and sanitation delivery in the DRC's rapidly expanding urban centres is due to insufficient, aging and overloaded networks, combined with the degradation of critical water sources and watersheds, such as the Lukunga and N'Djili catchments, which provide millions of people with drinking water in Kinshasa.
According to the study, entitled "Water Issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo - Challenges and Opportunities," in addition to major infrastructure improvements, an investment of approximately $70 million over a five-year period is required to help strengthen the water sector.
UNEP recommends innovative strategies such as community-managed water supply systems in urban fringe areas and low-cost technical solutions, including communal tap areas and rainwater harvesting.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), meanwhile, drew attention to an estimated 37 million rural residents in DRC who risk contracting disease because they have no alternative but to draw untreated water directly from rivers or lakes that are likely to be contaminated.
"A child living in a Congolese village is four times more likely to drink contaminated water than someone in town. Yet, all children have equal right to survival and development of which drinking water is a vital component," said Pierrette Vu Thi, the UNICEF representative in DRC in a statement to mark the World Water Day.
More than 2 million Congolese children under the age of five, or one in five in that age group, are regularly sick with diarrhoea, according to figures from the country's department of health cited by UNICEF.
"The fact that we are unable to provide each family clean drinking water is an affront," said Ms. Vu Thi. "Too many children die because we do not respect our responsibility, and their deaths are ignored," she added
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
False Flag or Seeds of Revolution?
27 February 2011 Last updated at 10:36 ET
From BBC Africa (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12591259)
DR Congo: Six killed in 'coup bid' against Kabila
Six people have been killed in an attack on a residence of the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
An "unidentified group of armed men" attacked the residence of President Joseph Kabila in the capital, Kinshasa, a government spokesman said, describing the raid as an attempted coup.
Mr Kabila's guards killed six of the men, the spokesman said.
Joseph Kabila took power in 2001 after his father, President Laurent Kabila, was assassinated.
He was later elected in his own right.
Plagued by violence
In 1998, DR Congo was plunged into a war in which more than five million people died - the deadliest conflict since World War II.
The conflict formally came to an end through a peace deal in 2003, but the east of the country is still plagued by army and militia violence.
"We have witnessed a coup attempt," said Information Minister Lambert Mende, according to Reuters news agency.
"A group of heavily armed people attacked the presidential palace. They were stopped at the first roadblock."
President Kabila was not in the building at the time of the attack at 1330 local time (1230GMT), Mr Mende said.
In addition to the six men killed, several others were detained, he added.
On 15 January, parliament backed a proposal by Mr Kabila to reduce presidential elections from two rounds to one.
The change means the winner can claim victory with less than 50% of the vote.
Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in November 2011.
From BBC Africa (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12591259)
DR Congo: Six killed in 'coup bid' against Kabila
Six people have been killed in an attack on a residence of the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
An "unidentified group of armed men" attacked the residence of President Joseph Kabila in the capital, Kinshasa, a government spokesman said, describing the raid as an attempted coup.
Mr Kabila's guards killed six of the men, the spokesman said.
Joseph Kabila took power in 2001 after his father, President Laurent Kabila, was assassinated.
He was later elected in his own right.
Plagued by violence
In 1998, DR Congo was plunged into a war in which more than five million people died - the deadliest conflict since World War II.
The conflict formally came to an end through a peace deal in 2003, but the east of the country is still plagued by army and militia violence.
"We have witnessed a coup attempt," said Information Minister Lambert Mende, according to Reuters news agency.
"A group of heavily armed people attacked the presidential palace. They were stopped at the first roadblock."
President Kabila was not in the building at the time of the attack at 1330 local time (1230GMT), Mr Mende said.
In addition to the six men killed, several others were detained, he added.
On 15 January, parliament backed a proposal by Mr Kabila to reduce presidential elections from two rounds to one.
The change means the winner can claim victory with less than 50% of the vote.
Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in November 2011.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Congolese Colonel Jailed for Mass Rape
DR Congo Colonel Kibibi Mutware Jailed for Mass Rape
taken from BBC NEWS
A military court in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo investigating a case of mass rape has sentenced Lt Col Kibibi Mutware to 20 years in jail.
He was found guilty of crimes against humanity for sending his troops to rape, beat up and loot from the population of Fizi on New Year's Day.
Forty-nine women came to testify in the court in in Baraka.
The BBC's Thomas Hubert says it is the first conviction of a commanding officer for rape in eastern DR Congo.
Humanitarian agencies regularly cite government troops as the largest single group of perpetrators of widespread sexual violence in the Kivu region, says our reporter, who is in the town of Baraka, not far from Fizi.
Anger
Sitting in a mobile open air court in Baraka, the military judges also sentenced three officers serving under Lt Col Mutware to 20 years and five soldiers to between 10 and 15 years.
Our reporter says some of the estimated 2,000 people who attended the verdict proceedings, reacted angrily to the sentences.
A victim of the mass rape in Fizi on New Year's day, who testified in court, and her child This woman is one of the 49 rape victims who gave evidence
Crowds surrounded the vehicles which took away the soldiers and began shouting.
"The people are not happy with this judgement; the people were expecting the death sentence," one man in the crowd told the BBC.
Lt Col Mutware is one of many former rebels who joined the army as part of peace agreements in 2009.
The judges said the state should pay compensation to the more than 60 women were raped on 1 January in Fizi.
Our reporter says it is unusual for such large numbers of victims in eastern DR Congo to be willing to testify against their rapists.
Ahead of the verdict, many of them gathered at the rape victims' centre in Fizi.
"I was fleeing the violence but unfortunately I met four soldiers," a 29-year-old mother of five told the BBC about the events on New Year's day.
"They began to tear the pants I was wearing. They took my child from my arms and left him on the ground. Then they had sex with me."
In August 2010, rebel forces were accused of raping hundreds of women, girls, men and boys around the town of Luvungi.
Map
The UN recorded some 11,000 rapes in 2010 - the true figure is believed to be much higher.
Our reporter says since January there have been other reports of sexual violence in an area where the Rwandan FDLR rebels are still active, 40km (about 25 miles) from Fizi.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres says it is planning to deploy a mobile clinic to the area on Monday after receiving credible reports of 30 new rapes last week.
It says it has treated more than 70 victims of rapes in two similar incidents in the area between 19 January and 4 February.
taken from BBC NEWS
A military court in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo investigating a case of mass rape has sentenced Lt Col Kibibi Mutware to 20 years in jail.
He was found guilty of crimes against humanity for sending his troops to rape, beat up and loot from the population of Fizi on New Year's Day.
Forty-nine women came to testify in the court in in Baraka.
The BBC's Thomas Hubert says it is the first conviction of a commanding officer for rape in eastern DR Congo.
Humanitarian agencies regularly cite government troops as the largest single group of perpetrators of widespread sexual violence in the Kivu region, says our reporter, who is in the town of Baraka, not far from Fizi.
Anger
Sitting in a mobile open air court in Baraka, the military judges also sentenced three officers serving under Lt Col Mutware to 20 years and five soldiers to between 10 and 15 years.
Our reporter says some of the estimated 2,000 people who attended the verdict proceedings, reacted angrily to the sentences.
A victim of the mass rape in Fizi on New Year's day, who testified in court, and her child This woman is one of the 49 rape victims who gave evidence
Crowds surrounded the vehicles which took away the soldiers and began shouting.
"The people are not happy with this judgement; the people were expecting the death sentence," one man in the crowd told the BBC.
Lt Col Mutware is one of many former rebels who joined the army as part of peace agreements in 2009.
The judges said the state should pay compensation to the more than 60 women were raped on 1 January in Fizi.
Our reporter says it is unusual for such large numbers of victims in eastern DR Congo to be willing to testify against their rapists.
Ahead of the verdict, many of them gathered at the rape victims' centre in Fizi.
"I was fleeing the violence but unfortunately I met four soldiers," a 29-year-old mother of five told the BBC about the events on New Year's day.
"They began to tear the pants I was wearing. They took my child from my arms and left him on the ground. Then they had sex with me."
In August 2010, rebel forces were accused of raping hundreds of women, girls, men and boys around the town of Luvungi.
Map
The UN recorded some 11,000 rapes in 2010 - the true figure is believed to be much higher.
Our reporter says since January there have been other reports of sexual violence in an area where the Rwandan FDLR rebels are still active, 40km (about 25 miles) from Fizi.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres says it is planning to deploy a mobile clinic to the area on Monday after receiving credible reports of 30 new rapes last week.
It says it has treated more than 70 victims of rapes in two similar incidents in the area between 19 January and 4 February.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Moise Katumbi: Football team owner determined to rebuild Congo
Moise Katumbi: Football team owner determined to rebuild Congo
From Tom Hayes, CNN
"I can't live without my soccer team," says Katumbi. If he had to choose between the governorship and being chairman of the team, "I think I'll go to my team," he says.
A self-made businessman, Katumbi worked his way up from selling fish as a teenager from the back of his brother's truck to becoming one of the DRC's most successful entrepreneurs.
His business acumen led to calls for him in 2007 to enter politics. That's something Katumbi says initially he was reluctant to do.
"After a lot of talking on the end they convinced me to try," he said. "I promised the president, if I'm not doing well I'm going to resign because I don't know politics."
Four years later, his success in regulating Katanga's previously chaotic natural mineral extraction, coupled with his efforts to accelerate the area's rebuilding process, have made him an increasingly important figure in a country still facing massive problems after years of conflict.
Determined to make a difference as a governor, Katumbi has launched a school improvement program to make sure all of the province's children have access to a decent education.
He estimates that presently only 30% of Katanga's children go to school. His goal is to take that figure as close to 100% as possible by 2015.
"Education is even more important than mining," Katumbi says. "If you don't have minerals at least the children will be educated. They are going to run this country properly because the future is these children."
But it's not just the education infrastructure that Katumbi wants to improve -- the governor's priorities include an ambitious road building program.
"There were no roads before -- you had to choose which roads to go on with journalists," he says. "Today you can go on any road. We have more than 1,000 kilometers of tar road. In Katanga you need 12,000 kilometers."
Despite the progress in Katanga, Katumbi says much still needs to be done to improve living conditions in an area with vast untapped deposits of raw materials.
He describes Congo as a "geological scandal," pointing out not only the country's abundance of minerals, but also its good quality of soil and availability of water.
"The people have seen a lot of change, which really is a small change for me," he says. What he's done in the province "maybe is 7% of my expectation, not even 10%."
He says he doesn't plan to be in power much longer but he hopes his successor can continue and even outdo the work he has started.
If Katumbi does step down, he'll have more time to indulge his other great passion -- football.
He says the potential for social change that football brings is one of the elements that have inspired his devotion to the sport.
"Soccer is something very good for the kids to do...to stay out of doing bad things," Katumbi says. "I like doing social programs for the people, that's why I'm in soccer. Soccer is social. I don't like anyone to suffer."
From Tom Hayes, CNN
"I can't live without my soccer team," says Katumbi. If he had to choose between the governorship and being chairman of the team, "I think I'll go to my team," he says.
A self-made businessman, Katumbi worked his way up from selling fish as a teenager from the back of his brother's truck to becoming one of the DRC's most successful entrepreneurs.
His business acumen led to calls for him in 2007 to enter politics. That's something Katumbi says initially he was reluctant to do.
"After a lot of talking on the end they convinced me to try," he said. "I promised the president, if I'm not doing well I'm going to resign because I don't know politics."
Four years later, his success in regulating Katanga's previously chaotic natural mineral extraction, coupled with his efforts to accelerate the area's rebuilding process, have made him an increasingly important figure in a country still facing massive problems after years of conflict.
Determined to make a difference as a governor, Katumbi has launched a school improvement program to make sure all of the province's children have access to a decent education.
He estimates that presently only 30% of Katanga's children go to school. His goal is to take that figure as close to 100% as possible by 2015.
"Education is even more important than mining," Katumbi says. "If you don't have minerals at least the children will be educated. They are going to run this country properly because the future is these children."
But it's not just the education infrastructure that Katumbi wants to improve -- the governor's priorities include an ambitious road building program.
"There were no roads before -- you had to choose which roads to go on with journalists," he says. "Today you can go on any road. We have more than 1,000 kilometers of tar road. In Katanga you need 12,000 kilometers."
Despite the progress in Katanga, Katumbi says much still needs to be done to improve living conditions in an area with vast untapped deposits of raw materials.
He describes Congo as a "geological scandal," pointing out not only the country's abundance of minerals, but also its good quality of soil and availability of water.
"The people have seen a lot of change, which really is a small change for me," he says. What he's done in the province "maybe is 7% of my expectation, not even 10%."
He says he doesn't plan to be in power much longer but he hopes his successor can continue and even outdo the work he has started.
If Katumbi does step down, he'll have more time to indulge his other great passion -- football.
He says the potential for social change that football brings is one of the elements that have inspired his devotion to the sport.
"Soccer is something very good for the kids to do...to stay out of doing bad things," Katumbi says. "I like doing social programs for the people, that's why I'm in soccer. Soccer is social. I don't like anyone to suffer."
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Remembering Lumumba
NY Times: An Assassination’s Long Shadow
January 16, 2011
By ADAM HOCHSCHILD
TODAY, millions of people on another continent are observing the 50th anniversary of an event few Americans remember, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. A slight, goateed man with black, half-framed glasses, the 35-year-old Lumumba was the first democratically chosen leader of the vast country, nearly as large as the United States east of the Mississippi, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This treasure house of natural resources had been a colony of Belgium, which for decades had made no plans for independence. But after clashes with Congolese nationalists, the Belgians hastily arranged the first national election in 1960, and in June of that year King Baudouin arrived to formally give the territory its freedom.
“It is now up to you, gentlemen,” he arrogantly told Congolese dignitaries, “to show that you are worthy of our confidence.”
The Belgians, and their European and American fellow investors, expected to continue collecting profits from Congo’s factories, plantations and lucrative mines, which produced diamonds, gold, uranium, copper and more. But they had not planned on Lumumba.
A dramatic, angry speech he gave in reply to Baudouin brought Congolese legislators to their feet cheering, left the king startled and frowning and caught the world’s attention. Lumumba spoke forcefully of the violence and humiliations of colonialism, from the ruthless theft of African land to the way that French-speaking colonists talked to Africans as adults do to children, using the familiar “tu” instead of the formal “vous.” Political independence was not enough, he said; Africans had to also benefit from the great wealth in their soil.
With no experience of self-rule and an empty treasury, his huge country was soon in turmoil. After failing to get aid from the United States, Lumumba declared he would turn to the Soviet Union. Thousands of Belgian officials who lingered on did their best to sabotage things: their code word for Lumumba in military radio transmissions was “Satan.” Shortly after he took office as prime minister, the C.I.A., with White House approval, ordered his assassination and dispatched an undercover agent with poison.
The would-be poisoners could not get close enough to Lumumba to do the job, so instead the United States and Belgium covertly funneled cash and aid to rival politicians who seized power and arrested the prime minister. Fearful of revolt by Lumumba’s supporters if he died in their hands, the new Congolese leaders ordered him flown to the copper-rich Katanga region in the country’s south, whose secession Belgium had just helped orchestrate. There, on Jan. 17, 1961, after being beaten and tortured, he was shot. It was a chilling moment that set off street demonstrations in many countries.
As a college student traveling through Africa on summer break, I was in Léopoldville (today’s Kinshasa), Congo’s capital, for a few days some six months after Lumumba’s murder. There was an air of tension and gloom in the city, jeeps full of soldiers were on patrol, and the streets quickly emptied at night. Above all, I remember the triumphant, macho satisfaction with which two young American Embassy officials — much later identified as C.I.A. men — talked with me over drinks about the death of someone they regarded not as an elected leader but as an upstart enemy of the United States.
Some weeks before his death, Lumumba had briefly escaped from house arrest and, with a small group of supporters, tried to flee to the eastern Congo, where a counter-government of his sympathizers had formed. The travelers had to traverse the Sankuru River, after which friendly territory began. Lumumba and several companions crossed the river in a dugout canoe to commandeer a ferry to go back and fetch the rest of the group, including his wife and son.
But by the time they returned to the other bank, government troops pursuing them had arrived. According to one survivor, Lumumba’s famous eloquence almost persuaded the soldiers to let them go. Events like this are often burnished in retrospect, but however the encounter happened, Lumumba seems to have risked his life to try to rescue the others, and the episode has found its way into film and fiction.
His legend has only become deeper because there is painful newsreel footage of him in captivity, soon after this moment, bound tightly with rope and trying to retain his dignity while being roughed up by his guards.
Patrice Lumumba had only a few short months in office and we have no way of knowing what would have happened had he lived. Would he have stuck to his ideals or, like too many African independence leaders, abandoned them for the temptations of wealth and power? In any event, leading his nation to the full economic autonomy he dreamed of would have been an almost impossible task. The Western governments and corporations arrayed against him were too powerful, and the resources in his control too weak: at independence his new country had fewer than three dozen university graduates among a black population of more than 15 million, and only three of some 5,000 senior positions in the civil service were filled by Congolese.
A half-century later, we should surely look back on the death of Lumumba with shame, for we helped install the men who deposed and killed him. In the scholarly journal Intelligence and National Security, Stephen R. Weissman, a former staff director of the House Subcommittee on Africa, recently pointed out that Lumumba’s violent end foreshadowed today’s American practice of “extraordinary rendition.” The Congolese politicians who planned Lumumba’s murder checked all their major moves with their Belgian and American backers, and the local C.I.A. station chief made no objection when they told him they were going to turn Lumumba over — render him, in today’s parlance — to the breakaway government of Katanga, which, everyone knew, could be counted on to kill him.
Still more fateful was what was to come. Four years later, one of Lumumba’s captors, an army officer named Joseph Mobutu, again with enthusiastic American support, staged a coup and began a disastrous, 32-year dictatorship. Just as geopolitics and a thirst for oil have today brought us unsavory allies like Saudi Arabia, so the cold war and a similar lust for natural resources did then. Mobutu was showered with more than $1 billion in American aid and enthusiastically welcomed to the White House by a succession of presidents; George H. W. Bush called him “one of our most valued friends.”
This valued friend bled his country dry, amassed a fortune estimated at $4 billion, jetted the world by rented Concorde and bought himself an array of grand villas in Europe and multiple palaces and a yacht at home. He let public services shrivel to nothing and roads and railways be swallowed by the rain forest. By 1997, when he was overthrown and died, his country was in a state of wreckage from which it has not yet recovered.
Since that time the fatal combination of enormous natural riches and the dysfunctional government Mobutu left has ignited a long, multisided war that has killed huge numbers of Congolese or forced them from their homes. Many factors cause a war, of course, especially one as bewilderingly complex as this one. But when visiting eastern Congo some months ago, I could not help but think that one thread leading to the human suffering I saw begins with the assassination of Lumumba.
We will never know the full death toll of the current conflict, but many believe it to be in the millions. Some of that blood is on our hands. Both ordering the murders of apparent enemies and then embracing their enemies as “valued friends” come with profound, long-term consequences — a lesson worth pondering on this anniversary.
***Adam Hochschild is the author of “King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa” and the forthcoming “To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918.”
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