In search of Zawadi - Surviving DRC
By Mike Thomson
BBC News, Today programme
A very good article that looks into one of many lives destroyed.
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Although Zawadi Mongane's horrific story shocked me - and later much of the world - it is not an unusual story for this part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Zawadi says that during those terrible days two of her children were killed in front of her and her brother was decapitated with a machete after he refused to obey a command to rape her.
Yet her most painful memory, which she says still haunts her dreams, is when she was forced to hang her own baby.
Attacks in Rwanda genocide week
There have been two fatal attacks in Rwanda during a week of mourning for the victims of the 1994 genocide.
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Police said armed men threw a grenade at the genocide museum in the capital, killing one policeman and injuring another.
In a separate incident, a car was driven at speed through a commemoration procession, killing one person.
A BBC reporter in Rwanda says tensions remain between survivors and the many people who took part in the killings.
"This act of terrorism was intended to frighten people away from coming to the Kigali Memorial Centre, but has had the opposite effect," said James Smith, head of the Aegis Trust which runs the museum.
The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma in the capital, Kigali, says he saw more than 1,000 genocide survivors at the centre on Friday paying their respects to slain friends and relatives.
Mass graves found in Bas-Congo
KINSHASA, 11 April 2008 (IRIN) - A DRC human rights group has said mass graves with human remains have been found in the southwestern Bas-Congo Province where security forces recently clashed with followers of a religious sect.
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"The most recent of these graves, containing the remains of 20 bodies, was discovered on 31 March in Materne, between Boma and Matadi towns," Amigo Gonde, coordinator of the NGO, African Association for Human Rights (Asadho), told IRIN.
"The other two graves - discovered further away and several days earlier - contained some 30 bodies."
Gonde, who demanded an independent inquiry, said one of the graves had apparently been dug up. "The grave at Materne had been dug up by unidentified persons and its contents taken to an unknown place, but there are indications to suggest the bodies were indeed there," he said.
The remains, the NGO quoted local residents as saying, were suspected to be those of Bundu Dia Kongo sect followers because shreds of cloth and flags used by its members were found at the site.
Gonde denounced a continuing crackdown on the sect, saying security personnel were trying to apprehend some followers who had escaped into nearby forests.
It was barely a year ago that MONUC declared the situation in the port city of Matadi "back to normal", with shops, schools and businesses functioning. MONUC did however caution unconfirmed killings of BDK political religious sect members involved in the 2007 unrest and the inability to confirm a death toll for the province. It would now appear that issue has been laid to rest (no pun intended) and/or removed :cool:.
Winged Frogs and Ending Corruption in the Congo
This one was on the SWJ media round up. It is difficult for me not to laugh when I read this stuff. Consider:
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"The report must be in order," said Yangala, 62, a meticulous man in a khaki suit who explained how different things were when he worked for Mobutu's government. "In the old system, I would just take the public money and go drinking with women. When I moved to a different job, I would take the typing machine, the lamps, even the curtains -- I would put them in my house. Now there is no way. Now there is shame."
and
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Attempting to satisfy the rising expectations since the 2006 elections, the governor of Katanga, Moise Katumbi -- who presides over an area the size of France -- has made several symbolic gestures.
Though he has no official power to do so, he decreed a new minimum wage of $150 a month. He bought several ambulances and hearses with his own money. He levied new property taxes, planted roses at the airport and painted downtown shops in shades of salmon.
But provincial lawmakers here worry that such efforts will remain symbolic unless a culture of reform takes root, which they say would begin with the implementation of the new constitution.
More at Congo's 'Change of Mentality'
Provincial Officials Seek to End Graft, Mismanagement
Hidden Killers On the Loose
Kinshasa
The full extent of the threat posed by landmines and other unexploded ordnance in the Democratic Republic of Congo is unknown but the deadly weapons are a daily concern for tens of thousands of displaced people in the east.
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According to Mine Advisory Group (MAG) country director Marc Angibeaud, de-mining efforts through international NGOs such as MAG, Handicap International and DanChurchAid, have cleared the countryside of thousands of anti-personnel mines and UXO, especially in Equateur, Maniema, Katanga and South Kivu provinces.
Work has also been done by the commercial de-mining company, Mechem.
From June 2007 to January 2008, more than 28,000 sqkm of land was cleared; over 3,500 weapons, 5,000 UXO and 35,000 items of ammunition destroyed, and mine education sessions conducted for over 10,000 people. De-miners have also been trained.
"Clearance activities have not only prevented accidents from explosions but also freed land for agriculture and rendered safe many roads and a water source crucial to the villagers' daily activities," MAG noted in a 31 January statement.
"The destruction of the ammunition also means it will not be available for trafficking - a significant problem in the Great Lakes region - thus contributing to regional peace-building."
No military solution in DRC' says ex-UN general
Major General Patrick Cammaert is optimistic as to the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he served as deputy commander in chief of the Peace Mission until February last year.
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The Dutch general says that the DRC armed forces should be careful with their attacks on insurgent general Laurent Nkunda and the FDLR, a Rwandan rebel group also operating in the Eastern part.
Cammaert admits that military pressure is needed, but adds that it should prepare the ground for political talks both with Nkunda and the FDLR.
A relatively short video which from the start concludes UNAMIR was a failure and UN actions in the DRC were more successful, concluding optimism in the DRC's future with democracy and strong will :wry:
he Prosecutor vs. Jean-Pierre Bemba
Jeez, nabbed my neighbor and former VP of the DRC! How many folks could claim to have a .50 cal. nest in their front yard? He kept our neighborhood safe, often anything but quiet, and the Italian restaurant 'round the corner was booming with business during uprisings and civil wars :cool:
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ICC Arrest Jean-Pierre Bemba – massive sexual crimes in Central African Republic will not go unpunished The Hague, 24 May 2008
Jean-Pierre Bemba, charged by the ICC for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Central African Republic, was today arrested in the suburbs of Brussels, Belgium.
Mr. Bemba is chairman of the Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC), an armed group which intervened in the 2002-2003 armed conflict in Central African Republic (CAR) and pursued a plan of terrorizing and brutalizing innocent civilians, in particular during a campaign of massive rapes and looting. Mr Bemba had already used the same tactics in the past, in CAR, in the DRC, always leaving a trail of death and destruction behind him.
He is the first person arrested in the context of the ICC investigation in CAR which was opened by Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in May 2007. Further investigation are proceeding.
“This arrest was a complex and well-prepared operation’’ said Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo. “We are grateful to all countries involved, including Belgium which immediately executed the Arrest Warrant in accordance with their obligations under the Rome Statute. I am thankful to all those who assisted in tracing Mr. Bemba, to avoid any possibility of his escaping international justice”
The number of rapes carried out with shocking brutality is a particular feature of this case. “He had done it before in CAR, he had done it before in the DRC. He had to be stopped.” said Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo.
More at the link...
Rwandan genocide 'suspect' held
Kenyan police have confirmed they are carrying out DNA tests on a man suspected of being the most wanted criminal from the Rwandan genocide.
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... it could be Felicien Kabuga, a Rwandan businessman accused by the International Criminal Court of being a key financier of the Rwandan genocide.
They are seeking to establish whether the man they are holding is Mr Kabuga, a man with a $5m (£2.4m) bounty on his head.
He is accused of being one of the key figures behind the 1994 genocide in Rwanda where some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
In the past the Kenyan authorities have been accused of harbouring alleged war criminals and have been threatened with action from the UN security council.
Mobutu's money in Switzerland can bring up
all kinds of problems...
When 7.6 million dollars just isn't quite enough :eek:
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The politicians here are not going to saw off the branch they are sitting on.
Mobutu's money is the fruit of corruption, but politics haven't changed that much. When the government awards mining contracts to the Chinese without calling for tenders, it means commissions have been paid.
A Swiss court has ordered eight million Swiss francs to be unblocked in favour of the heirs of Mobutu Sese Seko, the former dictator of Zaire. The Swiss are trying to convince the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to send an envoy to collect the money in the name of the Congolese people, but Kinshasa doesn't seem to care.
When the sum in what appeared as only Mobutu's Swiss piggybank came up at a press conference concluding Calmy-Rey's visit, Kabila could hardly conceal his disappointment. "Unfortunately it is only eight million Swiss francs, not the tens of billions we expected." So, does Congo's current leader think that the game isn't worth the candle?
Congo ex-leader sent to The Hague
Ex-vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba of the DR Congo has been extradited to The Hague to face trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the CAR.
Hmmm, justice comes to Africa ? If they could catalog or even imagine what my neighbor did in his own country... he'd have been hung by the short and curlies several times... decades ago :rolleyes:
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Mr Bemba went into exile after being accused of high treason in his home country for refusing to disarm his militia after his defeat in presidential elections in 2006.
He was leader of the rebel group (and one of four vice-presidents in a transitional government), the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, which later became a political party.
selling them fake gold dust
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Originally Posted by
Stan
UN troops 'armed DR Congo rebels
"The UN has covered up claims that its troops in Democratic Republic of Congo gave arms to militias and smuggled gold and ivory, the BBC has learned."
Three Indian army officers have been let off with a warning over allegations of gold trafficking while they were UN peacekeepers in the DR Congo.
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A UN report said there was evidence that Indian troops in eastern Congo had traded gold and drugs with a militia involved in the Rwandan genocide.
Some Indian soldiers were alleged to have traded gold with the militia, bought drugs from them and even flown a UN helicopter into the Virunga National Park, where they exchanged ammunition for ivory.
Those soldiers have been let off with a warning.
Critics of the UN will argue that this is exactly what they expected and proves that allegations, no matter how serious, seldom result in the disciplining of the troops under its command.