Ota Benga Alliance For Peace, Healing and Dignity

Originally aired on June 6, 2007 on Guns & Butter, KPFA Radio.

Interview with journalist and human rights and genocide investigator, Keith Harmon Snow by Bonnie Faulkner. The new U.S. command, AFRICOM; the crisis in northern Uganda; the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa; military programs and covert operations; Somalia and Ethiopia; oil and mineral resources; the Darfur region of Sudan; NGOs.

Listen to interview.

Originally posted on the website of the New Statesman, June 14, 2007.

Within a decade, the US will be heavily dependent on African oil. Little wonder the Pentagon is preparing a strategy for the region.

The Pentagon is to reorganise its military command structure in response to growing fears that the United States is seriously ill-equipped to fight the war against terrorism in Africa. It is a dramatic move, and an admission that the US must reshape its whole military policy if it is to maintain control of Africa for the duration of what Donald Rumsfeld has called "the long war". Suddenly the world's most neglected con tinent is assuming an increasing global importance as the international oil industry begins to exploit more and more of the west coast of Africa's abundant reserves.

The Pentagon at present has five geographic Unified Combatant Commands around the world, and responsibility for Africa is awkwardly divided among three of these. Most of Africa - a batch of 43 countries - falls under the European Command (Eucom), with the remainder divided between the Pacific Command and Central Command (which also runs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). Now the Pentagon - under the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the defence department - is working on formal proposals for a unified military command for the continent under the name "Africom".

This significant shift in US relations with Africa comes in the face of myriad threats: fierce economic competition from Asia; increasing resource nationalism in Russia and South America; and instability in the Middle East that threatens to spill over into Africa.

The Pentagon hopes to finalise Africom's structure, location and budget this year. The expectation is that it can break free from Eucom and become operative by mid-2008.

"The break from Europe will occur before 30 September 2008," Professor Peter Pham, a US adviser on Africa to the Pentagon told the New Statesman. "The independent command should be up and running by this time next year."

A Pentagon source says the new command, which was originally given the green light by the controversial former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is likely to be led by William "Kip" Ward, the US army's only four-star African-American general. In 2005, Ward was appointed the US security envoy to the Middle East and he is reportedly close to President George W Bush. He also has boots-on-the-ground experience in Africa: he was a commander during Bill Clinton's ill-fated mission in Somalia in 1993 and he served as a military representative in Egypt in 1998. Ward is now the deputy head of Eucom.

America's new Africa strategy reflects its key priorities in the Middle East: oil and counter-terrorism. Currently, the US has in place the loosely defined Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative, incorporating an offshoot of Operation Enduring Freedom that is intended to keep terrorist networks out of the vast, unguarded Sahel. But the lack of a coherent and unified policy on Africa is, according to some observers, hampering America's efforts in the Middle East. US military sources estimate that up to a quarter of all foreign fighters in Iraq are from Africa, mostly from Algeria and Morocco.

Moreover, there is increasing alarm within the US defence establishment at the creeping "radicalisation" of Africa's Muslims, helped along by the export of hardline, Wahhabi-style clerics from the Arabian peninsula.

"The terrorist challenge [has] increased in Africa in the past year - it's gotten a new lease on life," according to Pham.

But it is the west's increasing dependency on African oil that gives particular urgency to these new directions in the fight against terrorism. Africa's enormous, and largely untapped, reserves are already more important to the west than most Americans recognise.

In March 2006, speaking before the Senate armed services committee, General James Jones, the then head of Eucom, said: "Africa currently provides over 15 per cent of US oil imports, and recent explorations in the Gulf of Guinea region indicate potential reserves that could account for 25-35 per cent of US imports within the next decade."

These high-quality reserves - West African oil is typically low in sulphur and thus ideal for refining - are easily accessible by sea to western Europe and the US. In 2005, the US imported more oil from the Gulf of Guinea than it did from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. Within the next ten years it will import more oil from Africa than from the entire Middle East. Western oil giants such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, France's Total and Britain's BP and Shell plan to invest tens of billions of dollars in sub-Saharan Africa (far in excess of "aid" inflows to the region).

But though the Gulf of Guinea is one of the few parts of the world where oil production is poised to increase exponentially in the near future, it is also one of the most unstable. In the big three producer countries, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Angola, oil wealth has been a curse for many, enriching political elites at the expense of impoverished citizens. Angola is now China's main supplier of crude oil, supplanting Saudi Arabia last year. The Chinese, along with the rest of oil- hungry Asia, are looking covetously at the entire region's reserves.

Realpolitik of what suits

Looming over West Africa is the spectre of the southern Niger Delta area, which accounts for most of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels a day. Conflict here offers a taste of what could afflict all of sub-Saharan Africa's oilfields. Since 2003, the Delta has become a virtual war zone as heavily armed rival gangs - with names such as the Black Axes and Vikings - battle for access to pipelines and demand a bigger cut of the petrodollar.

Oil theft, known as "bunkering", costs Nigeria some $4bn (£2.05bn) a year, while foreign companies have been forced to scale back production after kidnappings by Delta militants. Such uncertainties help send world oil prices sky-high.

The Pentagon's new Africa policy is to include a "substantial" humanitarian component, aimed partly at minimising unrest and crime. But the reality is that a bullish China is willing to offer billions in soft loans and infrastructure projects - all with no strings attached - to secure lucrative acreage.

"It's like going back to a Cold War era of politics where the US backs one political faction because their political profile suits their requirements," says Patrick Smith, editor of the newsletter Africa Confidential, widely read in policy circles. "It's a move away from criteria of good governance to what is diplomatically convenient."

According to Nicholas Shaxson, author of Poisoned Wells: the Dirty Politics of African Oil, "[Africom] comes in the context of a growing conflict with China over our oil supplies."

Africom will significantly increase the US military presence on the continent. At present, the US has 1,500 troops stationed in Africa, principally at its military base in Djibouti, in the eastern horn. That could well double, according to Pham. The US is already conducting naval exercises off the Gulf of Guinea, in part with the intention of stopping Delta insurgents reaching offshore oil rigs. It also plans to beef up the military capacity of African governments to handle their dissidents, with additional "rapid-reaction" US forces available if needed. But - echoing charges levelled at US allies elsewhere in the "war on terror" - there are fears that the many authoritarian governments in sub-Saharan Africa might use such units to crack down on internal dissent.

Raising hackles

The increased US military presence is already apparent across the Red Sea from Iraq, where, in concert with Ethiopia, Washington has quietly opened up another front in its war on terror. The target: the Somalia-based Islamists whom the Americans claim were responsible for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Earlier this year, US special forces used air strikes against suspected al-Qaeda militants, killing scores.

FBI interrogators have also been despatched to Ethiopian jails, where hundreds of terror suspects - including Britons - have been held incommunicado since Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in December last year, according to Human Rights Watch. The problem with this more confrontational approach in Africa is apparent. "There's definitely a danger of the US [being] seen as an imperial exploiter," says Shaxson. "The military presence will raise hackles in certain countries - America will have to tread lightly."

Nonetheless, the Pentagon is hoping that Africom will signal a more constructive foreign policy in the region and a break with the past. "Politically [Africa] is important and that's going to increase in coming years," says Pham. "It's whether the US can sustain the initiative."

African oil: the numbers

22% of US crude oil imports came from Nigeria in the first quarter of 2007

25% of US crude imports came from Saudi Arabia in the same period

75% of the Nigerian government's income is oil-related

800,000 Nigerian estimate for barrels of oil lost each day through leaks, stoppages or theft by rebels

$2.3bn cost of building Chevron's Benguela Belize platform off the coast of Angola

Research by Jonathan Pearson

BBC News, June 11, 2007

A Democratic Republic of Congo commission is to review at least 60 mining contracts signed in the last decade, the government says.

Since March all negotiations on mining contracts have been suspended until the commission has finished its work.

DR Congo has vast mineral reserves, including gold, diamonds, 10% of the world's copper and more than a third of cobalt, used in mobile phones.

But few people have benefited and the wealth has attracted foreign looters.

The BBC's John James in Kinshasa says that since DR Congo's independence in 1960 its vast mineral wealth has been a key factor in the country's civil wars and instability.

After winning the country's first democratic elections in more than 40 years last year, the new government says it wants to make sure these resources are used for the benefit of its citizens.

Critics of President Joseph Kabila accuse him of agreeing deals with foreign mining companies which do not benefit local people.

The anti-corruption group, Global Witness, said it supported the decision to re-examine the contracts but said that if the process was to be credible, the government needed to ensure the highest standards of transparency and independence in the review process itself.

'Tragedy'

An earlier report by government consultants found some contracts lacked transparency, were signed without competitive bidding and made little attempt to get the best deal for the country.

Professor Peter Rosenblum from the US-based Carter Center is a consultant to the commission.

"The tragedy of the many tragedies in the Congo was that the people woke up after years of war and found that the family wealth had been given away, or sold off, or at least as far as people knew, it seemed to have just flitted away."

Vice-Minister for Mines Victor Kasongo says only six of the 60 mines are currently under operation.

He says that companies who have signed legitimate contracts will gain by having their contracts given more credibility.

"We want sustainability and also more than that we want development," he told the BBC.

The review is expected to take three months and could result in contracts being renegotiated.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6739999.stm

Published: 2007/06/11 16:54:40 GMT

Reuters, June 8, 2007

KINSHASA, June 7 (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo's copper and cobalt production should rise rapidly in the coming years as it reaps the benefit of private investment in its mining sector, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.

Following the first free elections in four decades last year and a return of stability to the southeastern Katanga province, the central African country's mineral heartland, investment by major mining companies has boomed over the past few years.

Mineral production -- which also includes gold and diamonds -- will rise as projects to rehabilitate long-abandoned mines and open new ones begin to go online early next year, Cyrille Briancon, head of the IMF's Africa division, said in Kinshasa.

"Beginning in early 2008, Congo should see growth in production if these projects advance as planned, and it should continue to grow fairly quickly through 2012 and 2013," he said.

"We should reach levels that this country has not seen for a very long time."

Once a world leader in mineral production, Congo exported more than 440,000 tonnes of copper in 1989 before a steady decline due to years of mismanagement followed by a 1998-2003 war crippled exports.

Companies operating or prospecting in Congo's fast-expanding mining sector include the world's largest diversified miner BHP Billiton and the world's third-biggest gold producer AngloGold Ashanti.

U.S. major Phelps Dodge, recently purchased by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc , is investing $650 million in its Tenke Fungureme project in Katanga.

London-listed Nikanor Plc plans to bring $1.3 billion in outside investment.

POST-ELECTION PROGRESS

Briancon said the IMF was encouraged by progress made by Congo's government, appointed in February, towards reining in spending and increasing revenues.

"The tendencies over the past three months have been relatively good," he said.

A much-delayed 2007 budget, aimed at qualifying Congo for debt relief next year, was presented to parliament last month for approval.

The cash-strapped but potentially mineral-rich central African nation owes some $10 billion, and servicing external debt will consume more than half of the 2007 budget.

After more than a decade without IMF help, Congo secured a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) programme in 2002.

However, it missed its final set of targets and so never received the last payment.

Briancon said negotiations could open in late summer aimed at restarting the programme in early 2008.

Agence France Presse, June 9, 2007

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has decided to gradually open up state-owned companies to private partners to help boost economic growth, a top government official said Saturday.

The reform of public enterprises will help modernise the institutions and disengage the state from market activities in targetted sectors, including mines, water and electricity, hydrocarbons, transport, and telecommunications and finances.

The goal is to promote the public-private partnerships in sectors which drive the economy "in terms of contributing to the gross national product, to public finances, to foreign resources and employment," said Jeannine Mabunda, the minister of portfolio.

The state will disengage from a certain number of enterprises and proceed with "partial handovers," while excluding "any total privatisation at this stage," Mabunda said.

The steering committee for the reform of state companies, created in 2002 and supported by the World Bank, is charged with proposing the overall strategies, by sector and by company, and to assist the institutions in carrying out the reforms.

"The public enterprises must perform" and for that "competent representatives are needed," Mabunda said.

She criticised the "politicalisation" of the management of state companies during the DRC's period of political transition from 2003 until general elections last year.

During the transition, all the positions in the public institutions and companies were assigned by quotas set by the ruling parties of the former fighters during the country's five-year civil war who took part in the interim government.

Mabunda did not indicate how long it would take to institute these reforms, which must be directed by an inter-ministerial commission that is to expected to be created at a cabinet meeting next week.

Business Day, June 1, 2007

Johannesburg

MINERALS company Chrometco appears to have been compelled to move its planned copper and cobalt refinery from SA to the Democratic Republic of Congo, as that country takes an ever-harder line on minerals beneficiation.

The loss of jobs and investment to SA is an irony, as the South African government also has a policy insisting on local beneficiation of raw materials.

In early March, the governor of Congo's Katanga province closed the border post to Zambia for three weeks to trucks carrying unrefined copper and cobalt ore, on the grounds that Congolese laws prohibited the export of ore that could be processed locally.

The move trapped about 400 laden trucks. Mining companies said the Congo was blocking more than 5000 ton s a day of unrefined copper and cobalt due to be processed in Zambia.

Later, the prohibition was relaxed to permit copper concentrates to be exported.

Chrometco said last year it had completed a feasibility study on building a copper and cobalt refinery near Brits and would make a decision on whether to proceed when the funds were available.

But it said yesterday it had needed to revisit the project "because the long-term risk of obtaining raw ore from the Congo became an issue that the company could not ignore".

It did not cite Congo's government's recent clampdown. But it already has a joint venture partner in Congo with whom it had been discussing constructing a concentrator to upgrade copper ore being mined by artisanal miners at Kawama.

Finanz Nachrichten, June 6, 2007

Abbotsford, British Columbia (ots/PRNewswire) - ICS COPPER SYSTEMS LTD. (ICX:TSX.V) is pleased to announce that it has entered into two agreements with A&Cladava to develop a total of three exploration mining properties in the DRC.

The first agreement, dated 20th May 2007, is a joint venture agreement between ICS and A&Cladava, whereby, for a consideration of USD 23,200.00, ICS has acquired a 77% interest in a property to be called "ICS Tenke". This 24 square kilometre property is located immediately east of the world class Tenke Fungurume property in the Kolwezi region, Katanga Province, of DRC. No previous geological work is known to have been undertaken on the property.

The second agreement, dated the 21st May 2007, is a joint venture agreement between ICS and A&Cladava, whereby ICS, for a consideration of USD 42,000.00, has acquired a 77% interest in two properties, the first of Which is historically known as "CHANGULUBE", a 36 square kilometre property in the area of Sakania, in the District of Haut-Katanga in the Province of Katanga. The second property, historically known as "KASAMWA", is also a 36 Square kilometre property also in the area of Sakania, in the District of Haut-Katanga in the Province of Katanga. Minimal geological work was undertaken in colonial times (approx 1920's) with 33 wells being dug and several trenches dug with reports of gold being present but the historical record is incomplete.

ICS Management views these properties as early stage exploration projects and will undertake preliminary exploration programs to explore for the presence of gold and copper and cobalt.

The company's main focus of attention remains the drill programme at the Mokambo Mine in Zambia.

About ICS Copper Systems Ltd.

The Company aspires to developing into being a major African mining company centered on the copper belt of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia. It holds an option agreement to acquire up to 80% of the Mokambo Copper mine in Zambia, an option agreement to acquire 76% of the Musoshi Tailings in DRC and an option agreement to acquire 73.5% of a group of four mining concessions in DRC covering 5,366 square kilometres.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS (Signed) Graham A. Chisholm President and CEO No. 202 - 2526 Yale Court Rd., Abbotford, British Columbia Canada, V2S 8G9 Telephone: +1-604-859-3007, Fax: +1-604-859-3008 Email: graham@icscopper.com

The TSX venture exchange does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of this release.

For further information: about the Company can be found on the website (http://www.icscopper.com) and SEDAR (www.sedar.com)

This story originally appeared on Yahoo Finance on May 29, 2007.

VANCOUVER, May 29 /CNW/ - El Nino Ventures Inc. ("El Nino") (TSX.V: ELN; OTCBB: ELNOF; Frankfurt: E7Q) is pleased to announce that it has acquired a 70 percent interest in a Joint Venture Agreement with GCP Group Ltd, a private Congolese company. El Nino holds it's initial 70 percent interest in Research Permits No. 5214, 5215, 5216 and 5217. These permits were granted by the Cadastre Miner of the DRC and covering 352 square kilometers in one of the most prospective exploration areas in the DRC-Zambian Copperbelt. The permits are located between Lubumbashi and Likasi and offer easy access for exploration which offers excellent infrastructure.

Harry Barr, Chairman of El Nino stated: "The acquisition of our first base metals project in the DRC allows our company to fulfill our mandate of exploring and developing base metal projects on an international scale. Our objective, simply stated, is to control one of the leading base metal and mineral exploration portfolios in the DRC."

On May 10th, 2006 Jean-Luc Roy was appointed President of El Nino and brought his extensive expertise in exploration and development in Africa to our company. Mr. Roy spent 19 years of his professional career working and living in Africa. In Africa Mr. Roy worked for Ashanti Gold and International Gold Resources. Before joining El Nino, Mr. Roy played an integral part in the development of First Quantum Minerals (FQM) in the DRC as Managing Director for five years. While in Africa Mr. Roy spearheaded teams that managed multi-million yearly exploration budgets, helped place three mines in production and was responsible for acquiring valuable land positions for various companies. Mr. Roy has negotiated agreements successfully at all levels of government in Africa.

About the DRC

The DRC Copperbelt hosts multiple world class deposits and the exploration potential is considered one of the best in the world. In late 2006 the DRC had it's first free election in 48 years and previous to that it established a new mining code in 2003. These events have created a renewed confidence for investors in the DRC. Major mining companies such as Phelps Dodge and First Quantum Minerals are now in construction on world class ore bodies. Several junior companies are now actively exploring for copper and other minerals in the DRC. Most known deposits in the DRC were found in the last 1940's and 50's. From 2000 several new deposits were found by companies like Anvil Mining and First Quantum Minerals. The potential for finding new world class ore bodies is considered excellent by the international mining community.

Our projects are in the same geological belt as properties that have yielded deposits and excellent copper values for companies like Anvil Mining Limited and Tiger Resources Limited. These projects are adjacent to land holdings held by major companies like BHP Billiton and Gecamines.

Jean Luc Roy, the President of El Nino states: "This significant new acquisition is the first step in our objective of controlling one of the leading base metal portfolio's in the DRC. I am confident from my years of working in the DRC that this new direction for El Nino will further accomplish our growth strategy which is to develop our existing projects and continue an aggressive acquisition program to acquire new projects and place them into production.

I was very fortunate to be part of one of the most successful companies in the DRC. The establishment of the new mining code in the DRC, and its first free election in late 2006, will allow El Nino's experienced management team to accomplish its DRC objectives and be one of the most aggressive new exploration development company in this region."

DRC Joint Venture Terms

Under the terms of the Agreement El Nino purchased a 70 percent interest in the Joint Venture with an option to acquire up to 90 percent of the project by coming to an agreement with our partners, over time. An initial cash payment of $250,000 USD will be made when all regulatory approvals have been received and upon titles of the properties being transferred to the new SPRL Congolese Company that is now being formed. Additional cash payments totaling $300,000 USD will be made in three annual installments. 300,000 shares of El Nino will initially be issued to GCP Group upon regulatory approval and 400,000 additional shares will be issued over a three year period to the GCP Group. El Nino will fund all exploration work but will retain the services of the CGP Group in an agreement to be negotiated at a later date to support administrative and logistical aspects of the project. This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval.

About El Nino Ventures Inc.

El Nino's growth strategy is to develop our existing projects and continue an aggressive acquisition program to acquire new projects and place them into production.

Our first new base metal acquisition in the DRC compliments our aggressive zinc exploration plan for the Bathurst Mining Camp with our partner Xstrata Zinc. In June 2007, our company begins a fully funded $4.5 million dollar exploration program which includes a 25,000 meter drill program which will use a minimum of three drill rigs drilling 24 hours a day for up to nine months.

EL Nino is also the owner and operator of the Bancroft Uranium projects. El Nino has optioned it's projects to Canam Uranium, and is being funded by them, and is currently completing its first round of drilling on up to eight uranium projects in an ex-producing Uranium camp. The drill results on the first phase are forthcoming.

El Nino is currently in its most aggressive acquisition phase of the company's history. El Nino has approximately $3.2 million in working capital.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

(signed)
Jean Luc Roy, President and COO

The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept
responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

CUSIP No. 28335E-10-6

This news release contains certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations are disclosed in the Company's documents filed from time to time with the British Columbia Securities Commission and the United States Securities & Exchange Commission.

This story originally appeared in Z Magazine Online, February 2005 Volume 18 Number 2
The original is at http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Feb2005/snow0205.html

On November 26, 2004, television stations in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), began broadcasting alerts that a Rwandan invasion was underway. This followed days of repeated threats by President Paul Kagame to attack Hutu rebels based in the eastern DRC. Belgian and U.S. military sources in Kinshasa said that at least five battalions (1,500-3,000 troops) had penetrated the provinces of North and South Kivu from 5 different points. “This is a sizeable advance force for the Rwandan army,” said one military source in Kinshasa.

With Rwanda’s government continuing to deny their invasion, some 6,000 Rwandan troops had reportedly penetrated eastern DRC by December 4, making this tiny Rwanda’s third major invasion of its huge neighbor to the west.

According to the DRC government, troops of the Armed Forces for the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) had clashed with Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) at numerous locations by early December. The Monitor newspaper in Uganda reported December 6 that RDF troops passing illegally through Ugandan frontier areas had also clashed with Ugandan soldiers. The Monitor reported thousands of Congolese refu- gees fleeing into Uganda.

According to IRIN, news network of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, thousands of Congolese civilians were fleeing North Kivu province as of December 6, with civilians claiming executions and massacres as RDF troops burned and looted everything in their path. NGO staff in the region are bracing for the flood of tens of thousands of internally displaced persons.

These claims were echoed by Rwandan guerrilla groups based in the DRC. “According to our sources five Rwandan battalions are already in the DRC ready to create chaos,” reported Jean-Marie Higiro, former leader of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). “Kagame’s regime maintains its sponsorship to rebel DRC forces. Under all kinds of tricks, Kagame’s regime is able to continue to pull the strings in the DRC.”

He rejected claims that the Rwandan military is acting in self-defense. “Rwanda and its proxy armies in the DRC maintain an absolute cordon sanitaire at the Rwandan-Congolese border,” Higiro says. “How can Hutu rebels break through this cordon sanitaire and strike Rwanda, then retreat into the DRC without being intercepted?”

Higiro alleges that powerful interests in Washington had, as early as 1989, delineated the now-apparent Tutsi strategy of annexation of the eastern DRC and that there is a very powerful Tutsi lobby in Washington, DC.

Rwanda’s latest bid to annex the DRC’s Kivu provinces was called the “Third War of Occupation of Eastern Congo” by Congolese students who took to the streets of Kisangani in protest on December 4. Despite Rwanda’s official denials of aggression, Rwandan leaders had issued unambiguous warnings in recent days. “You have to make war to have peace,” Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame told United Nations Observer’s Mission In Congo (MONUC) peacekeeping forces on November 23. “We are preparing to return our forces to the DRC,” Rwanda’s regional cooperation minister, Protais Mitali, said on the 25th, according to Reuters. “We cannot watch as these extremist forces advance onto our territory.”

Reuters correspondent David Lewis in Kinshasa reported on November 26 that the Congolese army told the United Nations that its soldiers had clashed with Rwandan troops inside the DRC, although UN peacekeepers found no signs of any fighting, according to Lewis’s UN sources. Lewis also reported that clashes had taken place earlier in the week.

In Kinshasa, long-time Mobutu opposition party leader Etienne Tshisekedi from the Union for Democracy and Social Progress issued a communiqué warning that if Rwanda had again invaded the DRC, then the Congolese people must demonstrate against the UN Mission. May and June 2004 saw major demonstrations across the DRC where MONUC vehicles and homes rented by MONUC personnel were destroyed in protest of MONUCs perceived failure to defend the city of Goma from the invading forces of pro-Rwandan rebel groups in Congo. There are no U.S. military with the MONUC force in DRC.

Rwandan and Ugandan guerrilla groups continue to maintain a destabilizing presence in the eastern DRC, including the ex-Force Armee Rwandais (ex-FAR, the former Rwandan army), Interahamwe (the militia largely responsible for the 1994 genocide), Allied Democratic Forces for Uganda (ADF), and the People’s Redemption Army (PRA). The DRC government and international community have failed to implement the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) process called for by international peace accords.

Rwanda has repeatedly threatened to invade the DRC to attack Hutu rebels accused of genocide—Interahamwe and ex-FAR. The “genocidiares” fled Rwanda in 1994 and established themselves in Hutu refugee camps in eastern Zaire (as DRC was then known) with the help of the French intervention force Operation Tourquoise and support from Zaire’s 32-year dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. Rwanda also claimed that it must defend the Banyamulenge—Congolese Tutsis—from the ongoing genocide.

MONUC entered the DRC in 1999 after peace agreements signed in Lusaka, Zambia.

Subsequent peace accords in Sun City, South Africa and negotiations with rebels and militias in the eastern DRC ushered in a peace process under a transitional power-sharing government, implementing a joint UN/DRC program of DDR, and the promise of elections in 2005.

The disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program has largely been an empty promise. The DRC was formally cited at the UN Security Council on November 23 for its lack of cooperation in the arrest of people accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. In a UN press statement, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Hassan Bubacar Jallow from Gambia, told the Security Council that 14 indicted people were still at large and “the bulk of the fugitives continued to be based in the Democratic Republic of Congo.” The press release stated that the U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Danforth, called n the DRC and Kenya to arrest fugitives accused of inciting conflicts in the Great Lakes region on the border of DRC and Rwanda.

Impunity for government soldiers and guerrillas alike remains endemic in the eastern DRC provinces of Orientale, Equateur, and the Kivus. According to a recent alert by Survivor’s Rights International, reports from isolated areas across the country indicate that populations continue to suffer wholesale extortion, racketeering, theft, rape, and other violence.

Rights groups accused all sides of exploiting ethnic conflict in the region. “Relations between the Banyamulenge and other Congolese groups have been strained and are frequently manipulated by politicians in both Rwanda and the DRC,” wrote Human Rights Watch in a June 2004 report, “War Crimes in Bukavu.” “The past six years of war have contributed to hostility against them as they are increasingly identified as ‘Rwandan’ by other Congolese. Rwanda has often justified its presence in DRC in part as an effort to protect the Banyamulenge people, though this was challenged in 2002 when they attacked the Banya- mulenge homelands killing scores of Banyamulenge civilians, shooting some of them from Rwandan helicopters.”

In a bold article that caught major international press on December 4, BBC journalist Robert Walker, who overflew the North Kivu region in a MONUC helicopter, reported that “President Kabila is getting away with a crime” because the DRC government was fabricating reports of war and Rwandan involvement in eastern DRC. However, by December 20, 2004, UNICEF was reporting “millions displaced by recent fighting.”

Central Africa’s Ongoing Genocide

Paul Kagame’s Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) invaded Rwanda from Uganda in 1990, launching a four-year campaign of guerrilla warfare. Open support for Rwanda’s then-Hutu-led government from French paratroopers failed to prevent the RPA victory of August 1994, following the coordinated genocide of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Tutsis by hard-line Hutus (FAR) and affiliated Interahamwe (Hutu) militias from April to July.

Critics such as Wayne Madsen, author of Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999, assert that Kagame and the RPA orchestrated the April 6, 1994 assassination of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi—shooting down their plane on its approach to Kigali airport with SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles taken from Iraq by France in 1991, then delivered by the U.S. military to Uganda, the base for RPA guerrilla operations against Rwanda prior to 1994.

Evidence was provided at a special hearing held by then Congressperson Cynthia McKinney at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC on April 6, 2001, the seventh anniversary of the assassinations. Journalist Charles Onana of Cameroon, author of The Secrets of the Rwandan Genocide, also aired claims of RPA involvement in the incident and was sued for defamation by Paul Kagame. A Paris court found in favor of Onana. Defense attorneys working at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) maintain that the standard figure of 800,000 Tutsis killed in the 1994 genocide is grossly inflated. At least three major films continue to circulate in the U.S., all furthering the pro-RPA and pro-Tutsi perspective of the Hutu genocide.

Paul Kagame, who was trained by the U.S. military at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has been a regular visitor at Harvard University, the James Baker III Institute in Houston, Texas, the White House, and the Pentagon. U.S., European, and South African military interests have continued to support various factions in Central Africa, arming militias and rebel groups through proxy armies from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in south Sudan. France’s presence in Central Africa is based out of Gabon, the major point of French miltary penetration on the continent.

Terror continued in Rwanda under the new RPA government of Paul Kagame, with Amnesty International documenting a pattern of assassinations, arbitrary imprisonment, and “disappearances.” Nearly all political opponents—Tutsi or Hutu—have been labeled “genocidiares” and Amnesty International has protested that some trials and executions of accused genocidiare collaborators have been tainted and politically-motivated.

The first Rwandan invasion of its huge neighbor to the west occurred in 1996. According to the influential “Africa Confidential” newsletter, Major Gen. Paul Kagame visited the Pentagon in August 1996, conferring with Washington prior to launching a grand plan to unseat Mobutu Sese Seko. While the U.S. public was consumed with the 1996 presidential elections, Rwanda was preparing its war against Zaire. It began with the shelling of Hutu refugee camps in eastern Congo with Katusha missiles, killing non-combatants.

RPA joined with the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) and the guerrilla army of Laurent Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL) in the “war of liberation” that subsequently ended long reign of President Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo (Zaire). Sources in the DRC quickly add that U.S. military personnel were seen advising the joint UPDF/RPA invasion which swiftly moved across the vast forested territory of Zaire.

Mobutu’s generals were reportedly contacted in advance by high-level U.S. officials in the region; most of those who agreed to support the U.S. invasion remain in high posts in the DRC today; other of Mobutu’s highest military were sacrificed one way or another.

Wayne Madsen reported that the U.S. established major communications and listening stations in Uganda’s Ruwenzori Mountains. Witnesses interviewed in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, support this claim. Communications equipment was also seen on Idjwe Island in Lake Kivu, on the DRC-Rwanda frontier.

Recent interviews with survivors across the country document crimes against humanity and acts of genocide committed against Congolese civilians by all sides in the ensuing war. “In May 1997, hundreds of unarmed Hutu refugees were massacred in the town of Mbandaka by soldiers of Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL), operating under apparent Rwandan Army (RPA) command,” wrote Human Rights Watch in June 1998. In an October 1997 report (“What Kabila is Hiding: Civilian Killings and Impunity in Congo”), Human Rights Watch concluded that “Rwandan troops had a role in some of the killings of Rwandan Hutu refugees on Zairean territory.”

Thousands of Hutu refugees were slaughtered in Mbandaka in May 1997, on the day that the AFDL arrived there. One eyewitness told this reporter: “We ran down to the beach [port] because we heard the shooting. I saw two people shot but there were bodies all lined up on the beach. The soldiers were also throwing dead bodies in the [Congo] river. There were a lot of Tutsi soldiers, but we couldn’t distinguish. I saw soldiers question one woman. The woman was not able to talk in [Congolese] Lingala. He said, ‘Yes, you are among the Rwandais Hutus. Turn, face the river, pray to your God, because you are about to meet your God.’ Then he shot her in the back with an automatic weapon.”

“U.S. special forces were involved,” asserted one DRC army captain interviewed recently in Kinshasa. The AFDL forces included UPDF, RPA, and U.S. military advisers, he claimed.

Colonel James Kabarebe, now Chief of Staff of the Rwanda Defense Forces, is said to have led the campaign to annihilate fleeing Hutu refugees. Kabarebe has been sited in UN reports for massive violations in Ituri. “Kabarebe was reportedly the biggest advocate of Rwandan support to [ethnic] militias,” wrote UN investigators in the MONUC “Special Report on Events in Ituri,” January 2002-December 2003. Rwanda armed, trained, and advised militias in Ituri, as it had in North and South Kivu provinces, the report found. The Ugandan military was similarly cited for atrocities.

The RPA joined with the UPDF to invade DRC again in 1998 after ADFL leader, Laurent Kabila, rejected U.S. and Bechtel Corporation plans for the newly liberated country and annulled mining contracts signed with some powerful Western companies before he had taken power—including America Mineral Fields, based in Hope, Arkansas and said to be linked to then-President Clinton through “Friend of Bill” investors. Kabila also ejected the Rwandan and Ugandan military allies that brought him to power.

The Congolese people call it the “war of aggression,” but it was dubbed “Africa’s First World War” by the western press, as it involved six regional nations, as well as arms and advisers from western countries. Troops from Rwanda and Uganda (now backing anti-Kabila rebels), as well as Zimbabwe (allied with the DRC government) worked with commercial agents to pilfer DRC’s ivory, diamonds, gold, timber, cobalt, and other natural resources. Foreign agents moved these plundered resources onto the international market, as militia groups raked in local profits.

At least 3.5 million people died due to warfare in the DRC, according to the International Rescue Committee report on the region. From 1999-2001, through networks of Rwandan military and commercial agents, Rwandan interests aligned with the state earned at least $240 million in the sale of coltan (columbo-tantalite)—a precious ore essential to Sony playstations, laptop computers, and cell phones. In December 2000 alone the main RPA-supported rebel group in the DRC earned some $600,000 in coltan sales. Coltan moved through criminal syndicates to U.S., Swiss, Belgian, and German clients. Rwandan syndicates continue to dominate the coltan trade out of eastern DRC, local sources claim.

Friends of the Earth and the UK-based group Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) filed a formal complaint with the U.S. State Department on August 4, 2004 against three U.S. companies accused by the UN Panel of Experts of fueling war. The UN panel’s three-year investigation implicated Cabot Corporation (Boston), Eagle Wings Resources International, and George Forrest’s OM Group (Ohio) in collaboration with various rebel groups trafficking in coltan from DRC. Current deputy director of the U.S. Treasury Department, Samuel Bodman, was CEO and chair of Cabot from 1997-2001.

It is important to note that the conflict in Central Africa revolves not around “governments” so much as militarized power blocks and multinational corporate alignments which are transnational. Thus while powerful U.S. government interests may back the Kagame and Museveni regimes in support of destabilization of Central Africa and the annexation of the Kivu and Orientale provinces, other powerful interests—such as the International Rescue Committee —maintain a constant international media presence that appears to be in conflict with that agenda, but which nevertheless exists as a major lobby in support of or defense of certain interests at the expense of certain others. Notable personalities on the IRC’s Boards of Directors and Overseers include Morton Abramowitz, Tom Brokaw, and Henry Kissinger.

An Unraveling Peace Process

The DRC frontier with Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi has remained the locus of instability and guerrilla warfare since at least 1994—long before the first Rwandan invasion of Congo in 1996—and the rising insecurity and terrorism has all but annihilated the local civilian population. North and South Kivu provinces continue to suffer from widespread violence and killings in the Goma and Bukavu areas are rampant. The Ituri region of Orinetale Province, bordering on Uganda, Sudan, and the Central African Republic, is cited as one of the bloodiest corners of the world by numerous human rights agencies. The UN Security Council’s “Special Report on Ituri,” outlines the history of conflict in Ituri, the role of Ugandan and Rwandan government forces in arming factions, bombing villages, massacring and torturing civilians, and provoking and, at times, abetting, acts of genocide.

Given the rising insecurity in Ituri in recent months, with assassinations and nightly shootings, the population in Bunia increasingly sees MONUC as a hostile and aggressive force of foreign military occupation. Said one Bunia resident formerly employed by MONUC: “Public opinion is that MONUC has done nothing. People thought that MONUC came here to bring peace, but to their surprise people find that MONUC is like a spectator in a football match. People are dying in their presence. People are being terrorized in their presence. People are being killed in there presence and MONUC is doing nothing.”

“Firing incidents occur daily,” admitted one public information officer for MONUC. “I don’t think there is any area except maybe in Bunia [town] where the human rights situation is improving.”

Reports of MONUC personnel buying and transporting contraband goods—leopard and okapi skins, gold, ivory—are also widespread; one western photojournalist witnessed Belgian troops openly purchasing ivory; troops are immune to customs search and seizure.

Arms continue to flow into the region. Uganda’s government newspaper the New Vision reported on November 23 that arms shipments reportedly destined for the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), a regional militia aligned with Rwanda, were seized by the Armed Forces of the Congolese People (FAPC), a rival Congolese militia in control of the lucrative Ituri Province customs posts in northeastern DRC.

“According to local sources, local government officials have delivered firearms to civilians in Masisi, North Kivu, long the site of conflict between different political and military groups,” wrote Human Rights Watch on November 19. “Other shipments have been delivered to Ituri, another persistently troubled area in northeastern Congo. UN sources reported that some 300 Congolese high school students, refugees in neighboring Rwanda, abruptly left their schools and are said to be undergoing military training.”

According to recent reports from northern Ituri, the FAPC has reportedly executed child soldiers seeking to enter the DDR process and attacked the families and looted the homes of reintegrated ex-child soldiers. The UPC and the Force for National Liberation, another militia, continue to extort a weekly war tax from citizens, persecute those who refuse to comply, and terrorize the citizenry.

“All armed groups in Ituri have integrated children into their ranks,” wrote MONUC investigators. MONUC conservatively estimated “at least 40 percent of each militia force are children below the age of 18, with a significant minority below the age of 15.” The MONUC investigation found that Ugandan and Rwandan military were frequently training children abducted and forcibly or willingly recruited into DRC militias. MONUC documented cases where hundreds of children were taken by road or plane to Uganda or Rwanda for military training.

The UPC and the Force for National Liberation continue to extort a weekly war tax from citizens, persecute those who refuse to comply, and terrorize the citizenry. Said one witness, “The UPC is collecting money. They say, ‘Either you pay 100 francs Congolese or we come at night.’ Then when they come they cut off your hand or violate women.”

“Sexual violence is a national epidemic in DR Congo,” wrote Survivors Rights International (SRI) in a December 5, 2004 alert, “involving all military factions, both current and past military forces involved in the internal affairs of the DRC, and it appears to be sanctioned by all levels of military command.

SRI also reported that the presence of hundreds of internally displaced girls and women currently resident in Mbandaka has spawned commerce in prostitution and survival sex involving both Armed Forces of Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) and MONUC troops. “FARDC further prey on female sex workers by forcing sexual relations, raping those who refuse, and universally robbing desperate females of their livelihood,” SRI wrote.

Forgotten Resource Wars

Rwanda and Uganda continue to benefit from high-level military arrangements with the United States. Entebbe, Uganda is a forward base for U.S. Air Force operations in Central Africa. According to the Global Policy watchdog, there are 11 U.S. servicepeople permanently stationed in Entebbe. Sources in Uganda and the DRC confirm that weapons move freely through Entebbe airport from U.S. interests. The BBC reported March 23, 2004 that U.S. General Charles Wald confirmed that the U.S. is directly involved in the fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda. “I have met with [Uganda’s] President Museveni,’ Wald reported on the BBC. “I have heard personally that he is very pleased with the support we are giving him.... Its not just moral support.... But many things need to be kept a bit more private.”

In July 2004, members of the DRC military flew to Tampa, Florida to participate in an unfolding U.S. “anti-terrorism” military program called Golden Spear.

The Canadian mining firms Barrick Gold and Heritage Oil & Gas arrived with the Ugandan and Rwandan military during the “war of aggression” to exploit mining opportunities in the north. Barrick principals include former Canadian premier Brian Mulroney and former U.S. president George H.W. Bush. Heritage has secured contracts for the vast oil reserves of Semliki basin, beneath Lake Albert, on both the Congolese and Ugandan sides of the border. Heritage is reportedly tapping the Semliki petroleum reserves from the Ugandan side, where a huge pipeline to Mombasa, Kenya, worth billions of dollars, is now in the works.

According to a petroleum futures report (Africafront), Heritage Oil was poised to exploit the northern Lake Albert basin, southern Lake Albert basin, River Semliki basin, and Lake George and Lake Albert basin areas in partnership with the Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau (ZPEB) of China. Heritage is currently exploiting petroleum in neighboring war-torn Congo-Brazzaville in partnership with ZPEB. Notably, ZPEB is the petroleum firm currently operating behind the genocide of indigenous Anuak people in southeastern Ethiopia (see the December 12, 2004 report by Genocide Watch: “Operation Sunny Mountain”).

Ashanti Goldfields has reportedly secured a contract for the vast gold reserves at Mongwalu, north of Bunia. Ashanti has ties to South Africa and the British Crown and some sources in Bunia report that the Ashanti interest in nearby Mongwalu is guarded by Nepalese Gurkhas, possibly of the Gurkha Security Group based in Britain. The Clintonite multinational America Mineral Fields in May 2004 changed its name to Adastra Minerals and the corporation has multi-billion dollar copper and cobalt mining projects underway, in partnership with the Kabila government, in Katanga province. Elsewhere in DRC, major foreign mining and logging contracts are underway.

Meanwhile the death toll in Congo’s war has easily exceeded five million people.