A rant against iPhone 4s, the world's most Africa-unfriendly mobile

(On my improvised workbench with tools to chop off a standard SIM card

down to the size 12x16mm of a micro SIM card to fit into an iPhone 4s:

a razor blade, a tape measure, cissors, etc.)



***



I just read a rave review of the iPhone 4s written by Joshua Topolsky

and published on The Verge back in December 2011--some16 months after

the release of one of the famed Apple's flagship series.



(mobile.theverge.com/apple/2011/10/12/2484524/iphone-4s-review)



The review was so wildly laudatory that it contained this glistening

jewel of a blurb somewhere in its middle:



"If this were a car, it would be a Mercedes."



Well, Topolsky couldn't have been more right.



The iPhone 4s is a Mercedes equivalent of mobile phones all right. Fit

for the smooth autobahns of the First World, but unfit for the

rrough-and-tumble African boonies.



I'll go one step further and declare that all Apple products are

designed to annoy and disenfranchise African users.



And I am not just talking about the exorbitant prices of iPhones and

iPads in Africa...



Topolsky again:



"The glass back — while incredibly prone to shattering on impact —

feels as sleek and sexy as ever."



Is this supposed to make me feel good about this product in the Congo?

And, by the way, who's the reporter stupid enough to carry such a

fragile contraption in the field?



And that's only the beginning of the sad and silly story about this

idiots' phone.



In Africa, the quality of a good mobile phone like a Samsung

cellphone, besides sturdiness, is the practicality of swapping, even

in darkness, different SIM cards in your phone on the instant.



And your celerity and proficiency at swapping SIM cards could be the

difference between your staying alive and getting killed.

Now try and change your SIM card in the dark on an iPhone 4s.



Are you kidding me?



The first hurdle would be to find a pin--a paper clip, if you can

believe that!, as shown in iPhone 4s manuals--to insert into a

hair-thin hole to pull out the SIM card holder.



The second major hurdle is to place the SIM card on its holder and

push it back in.

Did I just say SIM card?



We are talking "micro SIM card" here, not the standard one. And the

iPhone 5 has even a tinier one, called "nano SIM card"!



In Kinshasa, most telephony companies' sales representatives don't

even know the first thing about the new tinier SIM cards!



After chopping off a standard SIM card of the Orange carrier down to

the size of a micro SIM card, I went the next day to get a genuine

micro SIM card from one of the shops of my favorite carrier--Vodacom.



The sales representative sold me a nano SIM card instead of a micro

one! I didn't have a paper clip on me to pull out the SIM holder on

the iPhone 4s nor did the sales agent. I only realized the mistake

when I got home.



I'll have to go back to the "vodashop" on Monday to have them correct

this mistake.

Now, go ahead and ask me why I acquired this stupid phone.



I didn't buy it. It's a holiday season gift from my daughter who's in

the US! I am a Samsung guy...



***



PHOTO: Alex Engwete

Read More

US Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson to House Armed Services Committee: M23’s military prowess provided by Rwandan government and Ugandan individuals

(PHOTO: Assistant Secretary Johnnie shaking hands after finishing a

testimony to Congress on Tuesday, May 25, 2010, in Room 2072 of the

Rayburn House Office Building, in Washington, DC)



***



Tuesday, May 25, 2010, Room 2072 of the Rabyburn House Office

Building, Washington DC



[Below is the full opening statement of the testimony delivered to the

House Armed Services Committee on December 19 by Assistant Secretary

for African Affairs Johnnie Carson.



Also, there was a full page ad in the Washington Post a couple of

days ago placed by pro-Rwandan lobbies about how DRC has to step up to

the plate in terms of better governance. As if this justified that, as

would have quipped Victor Hugo. Unfortunately, that ad is unavailable

online, only in hardcopy. I'm however attempting to get the text of

the ad for a comment on this blog.]



***



Update on the Evolving Security Situation in the Democratic Republic

of the Congo and Implications for U.S. National Security



Testimony



Johnnie Carson Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs



Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee



Washington, DC



December 19, 2012



Chairman McKeon, Ranking Member Smith, and members of the Committee.

Thank you for the invitation to testify today on the crisis unfolding

in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, also referred to as

the D.R.C., and our comprehensive response.



The security and humanitarian situation in the D.R.C. is the most

volatile and violent in Africa today. An estimated five million people

have lost their lives since 1998, and millions more have been uprooted

and displaced. The people of North and South Kivu provinces in

particular have faced repeated cycles of conflict, atrocities, and

displacement, with the current crisis simply being the latest

iteration. The rapid fall of Goma last month to the Congolese rebel

group, known as the M23, provided a stark reminder that the root

causes of the entrenched instability and recurring conflicts in the

D.R.C. and the region remain unresolved.



At the highest levels of the U.S. Government, we are committed to

helping the D.R.C. and its neighbors end this cycle of violence and

instability, so that we do not find ourselves back here in three

years, facing yet another crisis in the eastern D.R.C. Secretary

Clinton, Ambassador Rice, Under Secretary for Political Affairs

Sherman, and I have spoken or met with senior Congolese, Rwandan,

Ugandan, and UN officials to advocate for a rapid and peaceful

resolution to this crisis.



I traveled to the region last month with my British and French

counterparts to press the Congolese, Rwandan, and Ugandan Governments

to work together to stop the crisis and to address the underlying

causes of instability. All three governments reiterated to us their

commitment to these shared goals. In the UN Security Council, we have

taken action to ensure that five of the most senior and most abusive

M23commanders are now under targeted sanctions, and we have placed

those same individuals under U.S. sanctions.



Talks between the D.R.C. Government and the M23 began on December 9 in

Kampala, and are being mediated by Uganda as the chair of the

International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, known as the

ICGLR. While the sides have yet to begin substantive talks, the

current ceasefire is holding and the parties continue to express

commitment to a dialogue.



Much of the M23's military prowess and success would not have been

possible without outside support. There is a credible body of evidence

that corroborates the assertions of the UN Group of Experts that the

Rwandan Government provided significant military and political support

to the M23. While there is evidence of individuals from Uganda

providing support to the M23, we do not have a body of evidence

suggesting that the Ugandan Government has a policy of supporting the

M23. Nonetheless, we continue to urge the Ugandan Government to ensure

that supplies to the M23 do not originate in or transit through

Ugandan territory. We have not limited our response to diplomacy

alone. As required by the FY 2012 Appropriations Act, Secretary

Clinton suspended Foreign Military Financing, or FMF, to Rwanda in FY

2012 because of its support to the M23. The Department continues to

closely monitor reports of external support, and we will continue to

respond appropriately, including by reviewing our assistance, to deter

this support if it should develops.



The highest levels of the U.S. Government are committed to helping the

D.R.C. and the region achieve a sustainable peace. As my colleague Mr.

Chollet said, President Obama spoke yesterday with President Kagame

and underscored that any support to M23 is inconsistent with Rwanda's

desire for stability and peace in the region. President Obama

emphasized to President Kagame the importance of permanently ending

all support to armed groups in the D.R.C., abiding by the recent

communications he made in Kampala along with Presidents Kabila and

Museveni, and reaching a transparent and credible political agreement

that includes an end to impunity for M23 commanders and others who

have committed serious human rights abuses. President Obama believes

that from this crisis should emerge a political agreement that

addresses the underlying regional security, economic, and governance

issues while upholding the D.R.C.'s sovereignty and territorial

integrity. President Obama has also delivered the message to President

Kabila that the D.R.C. must take concrete steps toward security sector

reform and improved governance in order to reach a lasting peace in

the eastern D.R.C.



Looking forward, we are using all the tools at our disposal to help

address and end this crisis. We are monitoring humanitarian needs and

working to mobilize resources to ensure continued emergency assistance

to civilians in need. We are calling upon everyone involved in the

conflict to maintain the current cease-fire, to permit humanitarian

access, and to pursue a sustainable political resolution through

honest and meaningful dialogue.



While the talks between M23 and the D.R.C. Government continue, we

believe that direct dialogue between Presidents Kabila, Kagame, and

Museveni is paramount to achieving a long-term durable stability in

the region. Some of the root causes of this conflict can only be

addressed through government-to-government dialogue and negotiation.

These include issues of land tenure, refugee resettlement, the illegal

exploitation of natural resources, border security, and support

networks for armed groups.



While the responsibility to implement change rests first and foremost

with the governments of the region, we encourage the United Nations

Secretary-General to appoint a high-level UN Special Envoy to engage

the relevant countries on a sustained basis, help them reach a durable

political resolution, and ensure the successful implementation of that

resolution over the long-term.



Throughout this peacebuilding process, civilian protection is and must

remain a priority. The UN peacekeeping mission in the D.R.C., MONUSCO,

has come under very heavy scrutiny in recent weeks. While we believe

that MONUSCO's performance has been acceptable given the very

difficult circumstances, there is always room for improvement. We and

our fellow UN Security Council members and troop contributing

countries are reviewing the proposals on the table to improve

MONUSCO's capacity to protect civilians and counter armed groups. We

are encouraging our partners to ensure that any new efforts are

coordinated with, and perhaps even integrated into, the UN

peacekeeping efforts. In the meantime, we remain committed to

supporting MONUSCO's robust implementation of its current mandate.



The primary responsibility for protecting the D.R.C. and the Congolese

people rests with the D.R.C. Government itself. The crisis over the

past few months has demonstrated to devastating effect the critical

need for a professional and capable Congolese army that can protect

the country's citizens. To reach a sustainable peace, the D.R.C.

Government must accelerate its efforts towards comprehensive security

sector reform. We have and will continue to work with the D.R.C.

Government to professionalize its military, including continuing our

training to army officers and support to the armed forces' military

justice capacities.



Along with military reform, the D.R.C. Government must expand

governance across the country. The governance vacuum that exists in

parts of the country has allowed armed groups to set up parallel civil

administrations and to exploit the population. Efforts to expand

governance must include electoral reform, holding long-delayed

provincial and local elections, and strengthening state institutions

to provide much needed public services.



We believe that the time has come for the D.R.C. and the international

community to permanently break the cycle of violence and impunity that

exists in the region. Today's crisis is a deep tragedy, but it also

offers an opportunity to help the D.R.C. and the region to set a more

sustainable course toward peace, prosperity, and long-term security.

We urge the international community, the Great Lakes region, and the

Congolese people to demonstrate the resolve to achieve the peace and

prosperity that we know lays ahead for the D.R.C.



Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to

answering your questions.



(Source: www.state.gov/p/af/rls/rm/2012/202276.htm)

***

PHOTO: Alex Engwete

Read More

Change of M23 Tactics: Snipers at Goma, residents say

(Congolese National Police officers on their way to Goma after M23

withdrawal, November 30, 2012)



***



Goma's police second-in-command, Major Bertin Chirumana, was gunned

down in the night of last Friday to Saturday (14 to 15 December).



Major Bertin Chirumana was an element of GEMI, the contingent of the

National Congolese Police newly deployed in Goma after the withdrawal

of M23 from the provincial capital of North Kivu.



City authorities are treating the assassination as a mere sordid crime

and have even taken into custody one "suspect."



They're also blaming the crime wave engulfing the city on the more

than 1,500 inmates still at large after the mass prison break that

occurred when M23 seized the city.



But Goma residents think otherwise, and call the arrested suspect a "scapegoat."



They believe that M23 have left behind highly-trained snipers with

powerful sniper rifles at different quarters of the city.



They point to several residents recently cut down in an unexplained manner.



The alleged change of tactics by M23 has already reaped the palpable

benefit of plunging Goma into mass hysteria.



Residents have turned into vigilantes, lynching suspected criminals, a

MONUSCO peacekeeper told Radio France Internationale (RFI).



Those residents who can afford it are leaving Goma in droves, boarding

Bukavu-bound shuttle boats.



Two separate Goma sources told me today that at least 500 residents

have been leaving the city each day since the assassination of Major

Bertin Chirumana.



--With Radio France Internationale (RFI)--



***

PHOTO CREDITS: REUTERS/James Akena

Via: www.rfi.fr

Read More

Kabila's warlike State of the Nation Address: "War of aggression is being waged by Rwanda" & "Any new aggression attempt will be suicidal" to culprits

Photo of a TV screen during Joseph Kabila's State of the Nation

Address, Kinshasa, Saturday, December 15, 2012; picture taken at 10:53

HRS Kinshasa Time (GMT +1)



***



DRC President Joseph Kabila delivered this mid-morning a 30-minute

uncharacteristically warlike State of the Nation Address to both

houses of Parliament meeting in congress in the presence of the

diplomatic corps accredited to Kinshasa and the constituted bodies of

the Democratic Republic of Congo.



The address, carried live on state-owned radio and TV channel RTNC,

was also meant for the "residents of the Republic," to whom Kabila

threw some raw red meat.



As this year's State of the Nation Address occurs 225 days after the

launch of the Rwandan-fuelled M23 insurgency in North Kivu where large

swarths of that province are still under the insurgents' occupation,

it was therefore normal that Kabila's speech focus on the security and

humanitarian crises in eastern DRC.



From the outset of his address, Kabila named Rwanda as the culprit of

the war in North Kivu, saying that "the war of aggression is being

waged by Rwanda."



He reminded his audience that the accord of March 23, 2009, was

concluded with dozens of various armed groups operating in North Kivu

Province.



He was therefore gobsmacked to observe that only one of those groups

should come up afterwards to question that accord on the basis of ever

"fluctuating and elastic rationales."



But the real motivation of the insurgents and their backers are

well-known, Kabila claimed: it is to create chaos, which would then

obtain investments drying up in zones of insecurity, and thus to

justify the "balkanization" of the DRC.



Kabila also dwelled at length on the plight of the more than 1,000,000

IDPs who are now forced to live in subhuman conditions by those who

"murder, assassinate, kidnap, rape, forcibly recruit children, and

pillage" on a mass scale.



And for the innocent civilians and FARDC troops who were felled in

this "unjust war imposed on us," Kabila called for a minute of silence

to honor their memory.



He further assured the audience that despite the dire forecasts issued

by the assorted "prophets of doom," the DRC will pick itself up, for

it only had "lost a battle."



Kabila then expounded the 3-pronged "front" strategy deployed by his

government to bring the crisis in North Kivu to an end.



(Back in July of this year, DRC Media Minister Lambert Mende called

these 3 fronts a "triptych panel.")



The 3 fronts are diplomatic, political, and military fronts.



1) DIPLOMATIC FRONT



Kabila said that the "diplomatic offensive" unleashed by his

government achieved the following results: 5 summits convened by the

International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), 2 by the

Southern African Development Community (SADC), and actions at the

United Nations.



These efforts have obtained, among other things, SADC pledge to

mobilize its "Standby Force" in the upcoming deployment of the

so-called "Neutral Force."



Kabila also noted that despite its critical support to the FARDC,

MONUSCO has evinced, "in the current crisis, the limits of its

approach to our country" absent an utter revamping of its narrow

mandate.



2) POLITICAL FRONT



The ongoing talks at Kampala "with those who have plotted the

aggression against our country," Kabila claimed, were meant to expose

their "motivations" and "to clarify the stakes and establish

responsibilities."



3) MILITARY FRONT



The military setbacks suffered by the FARDC, Kabila argued, were also

an "opportunity" to "transform the war into an opportunity for

[national] unity" as well as to rethink the country's "priorities on

security."



Kabila also claimed to have realized that this war should translate

into concrete actions aimed at hastening the rhythm of the capacity

building in the security sector.



Kabila appealed to the Congolese nation to take "ownership of the

stakes" in the security sector while warning citizens against the

pitfall of ethnic hatred.



What mostly thrilled Kinois, besides naming Rwanda as the aggressor,

was this stern warning addressed to those who wage wars on the Congo

"in recurrent manner":



"Any new aggression attempt will be suicidal" to its culprits, Kabila said.



***

PHOTO: Alex Engwete

Read More

The long-drawn-out seppuku of Susan Rice

A seppuku was a clean and quick lethal affair.



But in the case of Dr. Susan Rice, it seems to be a long-drawn-out

messy and botched thing.



In her opinion piece on the Washington Post about the Rice debacle,

Jennifer Rubin assumes that Susan Rice, a "political flunky to the

end," "dutifully limped away, well, after crawling out from under the

bus" where President Barack Obama had allegedly thrown her.



Rubin couldn't have been more wrong--though she rightly assesses that

Rice's "record on Africa was dreadful."



Rice isn't leaving on tiptoe, as it turns out.



In the same issue of the Washington Post that Rubin has her op-ed is

posted, Rice published a long-drawn-out a vitriolically rancorous

opinion piece in which she unpacks what she only outlined in her

letter to President Obama.



I think that deconstructionists would have had a field day parsing the

following glaring aporia in the 3rd paragraph of Rice's self-serving

defense.



In that paragraph, Rice first states that:



"When discussing Benghazi, I relied on fully cleared, unclassified

points provided by the intelligence community, which encapsulated

their best current assessment."



She then establishes that:



"These unclassified points were consistent with the classified

assessments I received as a senior policymaker."



O.K. then.



We get the following equation:



"unclassified points" = "classified assessments"



Without any transition to prepare us for the subsequent leap, Rice

then adds this non-sequitur which I capitalize below:



"It would have been irresponsible for me to substitute any personal

judgment for our government's and WRONG TO REVEAL CLASSIFIED

MATERIAL."



Oh my! The equation was in fact an inequation after all?!



If this "mediocre" (Secretary Hillary Clinton's assessment of Rice,

according to Rubin) who can get bogged down in the quagmire of a

paragraph of her own penning is the person President Obama has in mind

for the position of head of the US National Security Council (or wants

to keep as ambassador at the UN), then we ain't out of the woods yet!



(Jennifer Rubin's op-ed:

m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2012/12/13/susan-rice-withdraws/)



(Susan Rice's op-ed:

m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/susan-rice-my-withdrawal-from-secretary-of-state-consideration-was-right-call/2012/12/13/ad69b3fc-4578-11e2-9648-a2c323a991d6_story.html)





***

PHOTO CREDITS: Jim Young/Reuters

Via: guardiannews.com

Read More

Susan Rice's auspicious sappuku: Kudos to Sen. John McCain for stopping THE enemy of Congo

Right now, I don't give a damn about whatever partisan motives Sen.

John McCain might have harbored in going after Ambassador Susan Rice.



I'm just elated that the intense pressure Sen. McCain brought to bear

on the case of this unbecoming diplomat resulted in her abandoning her

quest to replace Secretary Hillary Clinton as the US top diplomat.



I particularly savored the Washington Post headline that hit me like a

sucker punch: "Rice withdraws as candidate for secretary of state."



Rice's letter to President Obama also showed that she'd have been in

over her head as the world's top diplomat.



The tone of her letter evinced the same arrogance and abrasiveness,

which some democrat stalwarts were reportedly pointing to as they

quietly kept pressuring Obama to reconsider her selection as secretary

of state.



Rice wrote to Obama:



"I respectfully request that you no longer consider my candidacy at this time."



Adding:



"The position of Secretary of State should never be politicized. . ..I

am saddened that we have reached this point, even before you have

decided whom to nominate. We cannot afford such an irresponsible

distraction from the most pressing issues facing the American people."



The problem with this statement is that it's plagiarized: it was the

Republicans who were claiming all along she'd end politicizing that

position.



And, by the way, who sent her on those strange errands on Sunday's

political talk shows to try and explain the unexplainable that

happened at Benghazi?



Wasn't that job Secretary Clinton's?



She shouldn't therefore describe as "irresponsible distraction" the

right of Sen. McCain and others to determine her motives in those

apparently insolicited fool's errands.



At any rate, Congolese are letting out a great sigh of relief as the

good news of Rice's auspicious sappuku sinks in.



At this critical juncture when the integrity of Congo is being

threatened by M23 and Kagame, the morale of the Congolese would have

been crushed at the prospect of having for four long years as the

world's second most powerful person Kagame's former lobbyist and an

active enabler of the military enterprise of pillages, massacres and

rapes of her erstwhile client.



Let's hope that Obama will kick her out of New York City and thus

hasten her final return at her garage at the Brookings Institution in

her native D.C. where she'd stop doing harm to the Congolese...for

good!



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Via: washingtonpost.com

Read More

Outrage of the Year: Susan Rice is an enabler of Kagame and M23 (New York Times)

(Dr. Susan Rice, US UN Ambassador)



***



This will no doubt go down as the outrage of the year: the role of an

enabler of Kagame and M23 that Susan Rice has been playing all along

at the United Nations.



In a devastating article written by Helene Cooper titled "U.N.

Ambassador Questioned on U.S. Role in Congo Violence" and published by

The New York Times today, it is revealed that



"Mr. Kagame's government was [Rice's] client when she worked at

Intellibridge, a strategic analysis firm

in Washington. Ms. Rice, who served

as the State Department's top African

affairs expert in the Clinton

administration, worked at the firm

with several other former Clinton

administration officials, including

David J. Rothkopf, who was an acting

under secretary in the Commerce

Department; Anthony Lake, Mr.

Clinton's national security adviser;

and John M. Deutch, who was

director of the Central Intelligence

Agency."



And that's "Ms. Rice has been

at the forefront of trying to shield the

Rwandan government, and Mr.

Kagame in particular, from

international censure, even as

several United Nations reports have

laid the blame for the violence in

Congo at Mr. Kagame's door."



In one most outrageous instance:



"Ms. Rice objected strongly

to a call by the French envoy, Gerard

Araud, for explicitly "naming and

shaming" Mr. Kagame and the

Rwandan government for its support

of M23, and to his proposal to

consider sanctions to pressure

Rwanda to abandon the rebel group.



" 'Listen Gerard,' she said, according

to the diplomat. 'This is the D.R.C. If

it weren't the M23 doing this, it

would be some other group.' The

exchange was reported in Foreign

Policy magazine last week."



And this is the irresponsiblr scatterbrain Obama wants to appoint as

Secretary Hillary Clinton's replacement!



Kudos to Jason Stearns, who is quoted in the article:



""The M23 would probably no longer

exist today without Rwandan

support," said Jason K. Stearns,

author of "Dancing in the Glory of

Monsters: The Collapse of Congo and

the Great War of Africa." "It stepped

in to prevent the movement from

collapsing and has been providing

critical military support for every

major offensive."



Find full article here:



mobile.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/world/un-envoy-rice-faulted-for-rwanda-tie-in-congo-conflict.xml

Read More

Donnybrook at Kampala

(M23 delegation arriving at Speke Resort & Conference Centre in

Kampala, Uganda, Sunday, December 9, 2012)



***



A donnybrook broke out at the start of the talks between the DRC and

the Rwandan proxy outfit of M23 on Sunday, December 9.



In contention was the rant delivered to the media by François

Rucogoza, M23 secretary general, to the effect that there's "bad

governance" in the DRC and that the country lacks "visionary

leadership."



Rucogoza also accused the DRC government of resorting to "ethnic

hatred," carrying out the "massacre" of 46 ex-CNDP officers at Dungu

(Orientale Province), and of harboring and maintaining armed groups

fighting against the governments of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda--namely

the Burundian FNL, the Rwandan FDLR, and the Ugandan ADF-NALU and LRA!



DRC Foreign Affairs Minister Raymond Tshibanda, who is heading the

group of Congolese negotiators deemed this rant discourteous and laced

with untruths--pointing out that M23 had committed unspeakable crimes

in North Kivu. He threatened to quit the talks if he didn't have the

opportunit to address those "untruths" at the same venue by today,

Monday.



What could be expected of highway bandits who keep moving the goal

posts of their claims and demands since the inception of their crime

spree?



At any rate, these whimsical reasons for plunging the entire "region

into a coma of violence," according to Belgian journalist Colette

Braeckman, set a "dangerous precedent" that could backfire one day on

M23 backers:



"[I]f Kinshasa representatives could be compelled to discuss political

stakes with the spokespersons of a group that has been deemed

'negative force' and has in its ranks numerous war criminals, why in

the future couldn't Rwanda be impelled to open up an 'inter-Rwandan

dialogue' with its own 'negative forces,' the spokespersons of the

FDLR, who have just demonstrated, in recent attacks, their nuisance

capacity?



"And couldn't President Museveni be forced to discuss governance and

anti-corruption fight with his own rebels, the ADF-NALU or even the

atrocious Joseph Kony?"



There lies maybe the silver lining of this whole mess.



--(With Radio Okapi &

blog.lesoir.be/colette-braeckman/2012/12/06/kampala-comment-parler-du-non-dit/)



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Innocent Olenga / Radio Okapi

Read More

Dark Zero Thirty: "No waterboarding, no Bin Laden" (Frank Bruni)

(PHOTO: Jessica Chastain as CIA analyst Maya in "Dark Zero Thirty")



***



Reading the reviews of the movie "Zero Dark Thirty"--the military

equivalent for half past midnight--I suddenly remembered that in one

of the volumes of his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Edward

Gibbon notes in passing that enemies of the Roman Empire found quickly

enough that the earth had shrunk under their feet, that there was

virtually nowhere they could hide from the wrath of Rome.



After September Eleven, Osama Bin Laden discovered that carrying out

successfully acts of terror on American citizens on US soil was one

thing, but that hiding somewhere in the world from the vengeful wrath

of America was quite an impossible project.



The movie "Dark Zero Thirty"--the local time when the SEALs stormed

the Abbotabad compound--is, according to reviewers who've watched it,

a chronicle of the decade-odd long of the global manhunt to

locate--and kill--the fiend who had transformed mass murders of

civilians into acts of war.



By the way, forget Obama, those reviewers say. It's all about a female

CIA analyst whose "obsession" led straight to the Abbotabad compound.

And this isn't made up Hollywood stuff. It's fact!



The problem with the movie--and the real-life events it is

rendering--is the claim underlying the narrative that enhanced

interrogation techniques (torture) are "something of an information-

extracting necessity, repellent but fruitful," writes Frank Bruni on

The New York Times.



Bruni adds:



"No waterboarding, no Bin Laden: that's what 'Zero Dark Thirty'

appears to suggest."



Well, one would be hard put, I think, to blame those involved in those

waterboarding sessions as movie sequences build a direct correlation

(by juxtaposition) between those "payback" torture scenes and the

"bone-chilling, audio-only prologue of the voices of terrified

Americans trapped in the towering inferno of the World Trade Center."



Find Frank Bruni's op-ed here:



mobile.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/bruni-bin-laden-torture-and-hollywood.xml?f=28



Closer to home here, I feel pretty much a sense of kinship with those

intelligence agents enjoying waterboarding the enemies.



So no "political conundrum" for me and my "Rorschach" take of the

movie would be just this: utter enjoyment!



In fact, I've already waterboarded in my mind the entire cast of the

leadership of M23.



Not in a vain attempt to "extract" from them information implicating

President Kagame in the aggression against Congo, but just for the

sheer sake of waterboarding them for the "bone-chilling" barbaric acts

they've wreaked on innocent civilians.



"Dark Zero Thirty" opens December 19 in the US.



Enjoy!



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Columbia Pictures

Read More

National Conference of Catholic Bishops to DRC negotiators at Kampala: "Beware of these negotiations!"

(PHOTO: Mgr Nicolas Djomo, chair of DRC National Conference of Catholic Bishops)



***



Anger is growing in the DRC about the negotiations with the M23 outfit

at Kampala, Uganda.



Congolese from all walks of life are questioning the wisdom of the DRC

government to enter into secretive dialogues with insurgent and bandit

outfits without any parliament's mandate or any legal basis.



MP Martin Fayulu, the pro-Tshisekedi opposition firebrand was among

the first Congolese public personalities to slam the Kampala

negotiations.



Answering Kinshasa journos who were wondering why he turned down the

government's invitation to attend the Kampala negotions as an

observer, Fayulu said:



"To go and negotiate, to discuss over an accord whose ins and outs

nobody knows, what does that mean?"



(Fayulu was referring to the March 23, 2009 accord with CNDP, which

spawned its avatar, M23.)



But the sternest warning about those Kampala negotiations came from

the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (CENCO), which held a

3-day extraordinary session in Kinshasa (December 3-5).



At the close of that extraordinary session, CENCO issued a communiqué

that castigated M23 for acts of wanton violence they perpetrated in

North Kivu and warned the government about negotiations that could

result in the "balkanization" of the country.



The communiqué states in part:



"The war in North Kivu has obtained enormous damages [and] degradation

of the situation of human rights caused by M23 and [other] armed

groups, large-scale murders, rapes, kidnappings, conscriptions of

underaged children in the ranks of armed groups, illegal detentions

and taxations, acts of banditry, of destruction, and of pillage of the

national heritage and of private citizens, forced and massive

displacements of populations compelled to wandering in subhuman

conditions. And the fall of Goma had plunged all the Congolese into

consternation."



Pointing to the reports of the UN Group of Experts, the bishops issued

a stern warning to DRC negotiators who are now talking with M23;

insurgents who are "backed by foreign countries, including Rwanda and

Uganda"--an insurgency whose aim is the ''balkanization of the

country."



The bishops warn that the "balkanization" has had the same pattern

over the years:



"Identity and land tenure claims, refusal of the institutional order,

illegal exploitation of natural resources, forced displacement of

populations, recourse to violence with the aim of crumbling the

Democratic Republic of Congo."



Meanwhile in the streets of Kinshasa, "residents of the Republic" have

lost all respect for a government that sits around the same table with

those who have just raped Goma.



"Are people in government bewitched or what?" a Kinois angrily

wondered this evening at a "nganda," a sidewalk bar. "I mean, to go

negotiate in Uganda of all places? A hostile country? These people are

out of their minds, I tell you!"



***

PHOTO CREDITS: John Bompengo /Radio Okapi

Read More

Paul Kagame: "Man of the Moment" (Alexis Okeowo)

I just read this piece posted December 7, 2012, on The New Yorker by

Alexis Okeowo and titled "The Eight Most Fascinating Africans of

2012."



The cast of the eight fascinating Africans "doing innovative,

admirable, and sometimes destructive work" include, in their order of

apperance:



Malawian President Joyce Banda (I got misgivings about the wisdom of a

Prez who relies on prophetic visions of her Nigerian spiritual guide);

Cameroonian gay rights activist Alice Nkom; acclaimed Kenyan movie

director David "Tosh" Gitonga; Tanzanian MP Al-Shaymaa

Kwegyir--a woman and an albino; nineteen-year-old Ugandan student

Proscovia Oroma, appointed to Parliament for the remainder of the term

of her late farher; South African columnist Justice Malala; Nigerian

pop duo P-Square of identical twin brothers Peter and Paul Okoye; and

Great Lakes bogeyman numero uno, Paul Kagame.



A spoiler: Reading Okeowo's description of the man, something that was

hidden in plain sight suddenly leapt at me: Kagame is loco big time!

The man is unhinged, insane!



Here's Alexis Okeowo's description of Kagame (I reformat the text for

readability).



"In some ways, the Rwandan President Paul Kagame is the man of the moment.



"Accused of helping to orchestrate a rebellion in the eastern part of

the Democratic Republic of the Congo for political and material gain,

Kagame has, despite considerable evidence, continued to deny

involvement in some of the worst violence that has taken place in the

country

in years.



"He has remained defiant even as allies like the United States and the

United Kingdom pulled their aid to Rwanda, which makes up forty per

cent of the country's budget, as a result of that involvement.



"The international community, still grappling with its complicity in

the Rwandan genocide, is now being

forced to plead with him to pull back from a conflict that he won't

admit he has a hand in."



Read the full article here:



(m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/the-eight-most-fascinating-africans-of-2012.html)



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP

Via: www.guardian.co.uk

Read More

Tintin War's Final Episode: Brussels Appellate Court rules "Tintin in the Congo" not racist

(IMAGE 1: A frame from "Tintin in the Congo")



(PHOTO 2: Belgium-based Congolese Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, anti-Tintin

in the Congo crusader)



***



I have time and again denounced on this blog the frivolous crusade

against "Tintin in the Congo" launched about 4 years ago by the

fame-seeking mercurial Congolese student Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo.



Mondondo had filed a lawsuit against the Tintin series Belgian

publisher Casteman and SA Moulinsart, the company holding the

exclusive rights of the author known as Hergé (Rémi Georges).



Soon enough, the French government-funded

"anti-defamation-league"-like group called CRAN--Conseil Représentatif

des Associations Noires (the Representative Council of Black

Associations)--jumped into the bandwagon as co-plaintiff.



Mondondo and CRAN were suing "Tintin in the Congo," published in 1930,

on the basis of a 1981 Belgian law against racism.



They wanted Casterman and Moulinsart to "cease any commercial

exploitation" of the comic book, to have it removed from kids' library

bookshelves, and for copies of it in adult libraries to carry a

warning to readers about its alleged virulent racist content.



As their lawyer argued in lower court in a florid display of

political- correctness amok coupled with undigested psychobabble:



"The stereotypes contained in this book read by a countless number of

children have still consequences on their behavior currently."



(Last year I ranted at great length on this blog against another

instance of political-correcteness run amok in the form of the "recent

assault on Mark Twain in the U.S. where some wacky editors have just

taken upon themselves to replace in his "Huckleberry Finn" the words

"nigger(s)" and "Injian(s)" with respectively "slave(s)" and

"Indian(s)". And I linked the assault on "Huckleberry Finn" to

Mondondo's attacks against "Tintin in the Congo.")



Last year a Begian lower court ruled that "Tintin in the Congo" was

not racist, a ruling the plaintiffs immediately appealed.



And Wednesday, December 5, the Brussels Appellate Court affirmed the

trial court.



The opinion of the Appellate Court reads in part:



"If we were to follow the appellants, for whom it would suffice to

take into account the simple intent of publishing a book, that would

require banning today, for instance, the publication of some of the

works of Voltaire, whose racism, notably toward Blacks and Jews, was

inherent to his thought, as well as whole segments of literature,

which cannot be accepted [as] the passage of time must be taken into

account."



The Appellate Court further stated that Hergé didn't create a comic

strip in order to convey ideas of a"racist, hurtful, humiliating or

degrading nature toward Congolese."



Adding:



"Hergé limited himself to producing a work of fiction with the sole

objective of entertaining his readers. He carries out therein candid

and gentle humor."



The Appellate Court finally debunks the "new historicist" argument of

the plaintiffs by reminding them that Hergé, who never set foot in the

Congo to begin with, researched his subject--the Congo of the time--at

the Tervuren Colonial Museum and was therefore only reproducing the

stereotypes conveyed by the bourgeois Catholic milieu of that

Zeitgeist.



"It is above all a testament to the common history of Belgium and the

Congo at a given epoch," the Appellate Court concluded.



As the Congolese painter Tshibumba

Kanda Matulu--"disappeared" by Mobutu in Lubumbashi--once quipped in a

fieldwork interview with anthropologist Johannes Fabian on one of the

most vivid subplots in "Tintin au Congo":



"The leopard man should grab Tintin Instead a snake grabs the leopard

man."



Let's just hope that henceforth the leopard man Bienvenu Mbutu

Mondondo will leave Tintin alone and find another conspiracy theory to

waste his time on...



---With levif.be; lemonde.fr; & lefigaro.fr--



***

CREDITS: Image 1: lemonde.fr; & Photo 2: Internet sources.

Read More

My previous reports of the early demise of blogger-journo Charly Kasereka were greatly exaggerated

(PHOTO: An M23 goon about to carjack a Land Rover Defender belonging

to the Congolese social security administration, one among the more

than 300 official and private vehicles carjacked by his fellow looters

at Goma)



***



Blogger-journo Chaly Kasereka of the blog Actu du Kivu has finally

resurfaced in the aftermath of the 12-day occupation of Goma by the

M23 outfit of pillagers and mass murderers.



I first saw Kasereka at around midday Tuesday, December 4, commenting

on the French news channel France24 on the events at Kibumba--where he

was an embed with FARDC troops--and Goma.



Having seen action on the theater of military operation, Kasereka is

arguably the first genuine Congolese war reporter.



His TV appearance prompted me to check on his blog. And sure enough,

he had published a new post dated December 3, after a hiatus of

slightly more than two weeks--with dramatic pictures and a YouTube

video of the withdrawal of the M23 posses from Goma, which they still

besiege.



I'm just glad my previous reports of his early demise were greatly exaggerated.



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Charly Kasereka

Via: actudukivu.blogspot.com

Read More

Blaming the messenger: Media regulatory body has Radio Okapi frequencies jammed

(Alain Nkoy, left, and Abbé Jean-Bosco Bahala Okw'Ibale, respectively

vice-chairman and chair of CSAC, the DRC media regulatory authority)



***



The "Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel Congolais (CSAC)"--the DRC

media regulatory body--ordered Saturday, December 1, the systematic

jamming of Radio Okapi frequencies.



Officially, CSAC is charging that Radio Okapi has failed to submit its

"terms of reference," its "scope of work," and its "programming

schedule" to the regulatory body.



But that explanation doesn't fool anyone.



Everyone knows that Radio Okapi has irked authorities and a large

section of the Congolese by broadcasting an interview with Jean-Marie

Runiga, the political figurehead of the M23 outfit.



Officially, Radio Okapi signal was jammed for 3 days, but as of this

writing it's still scrambled.



Pressure is mounting however on CSAC to restore Radio Okapi signal.



Belgian Deputy Premier and Foreign Affairs Minister Didier Reynders,

MONUSCO's Chief of Mission Roger Meece, rights groups, and a

cross-section of listeners expressed their outrage at the blackout of

Radio Okapi frequencies.



Radio France Internationale (RFI)-- which was warned last week

alongside Radio Okapi by Media Minister Lambert Mende for

"demoralizing" the army and the citizenry by providing a platform to

"terrorists and enemies of the state"--risks also losing yet again its

FM signals in the DRC.





***

PHOTO CREDITS: John Bompengo

Via: www.radiookapi.net

Read More

A racist bastard called J. Peter Pham wants an M23-ruled ethnocratic state set up in North Kivu

(PHOTO: Dr. J. Peter Pham, Director of the Michael S. Ansari Africa

Center, Atlantic Council)



***



I got this very short impassioned and tearful email today sent from

Washington at 0:47 EST by the mother of my daughter Elikia:



"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/opinion/to-save-congo-let-it-fall-apart.html



How to fight this crap???"



The link was to the op-ed titled "To Save Congo, Let It Fall Apart," a

"crap" penned by one racist bastard, name of J. Peter Pham, and

published on the New York Times of November 30.



I call "racist bastard" any scholar from the US--there are only

American scholars or researchers influenced by this kind of

"sectarian" American scholarship to come up with this kind of

crap--regardless of race--who'd concoct the political theory of

splitting the Congo all the while denying any agency to the Congolese

people.



This absurd theory and the racist bastards peddling it rear their ugly

heads every time there's a crisis in the Congo.



Before J. Peter Pham, there was a tandem of racist bastards called

Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills who, in 2009, were advocating to

Secretary Hillary Clinton, in their crappy ForeignPolicy.com article,

the annihilation of the Congolese nation.



(See my post of October 11, 2009 on those two scholarly punks here:

alexengwete.blogspot.com/2009/10/two-racist-scholars-mercenaries-as.html?m=1)



And before Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills, I am told, there was the

unlikely racist bastard called Susan Rice, who, during her tenure as

Under Secretary for African Affairs in the Clinton administration, was

also pushing for the fractioning of the Congo into micro-states.



That's why I'm crossing my fingers these days for Sen. John McCain

who, I wish, will succeed in his crusade to block Susan Rice as

Secretary Clinton replacement.



This goes a long way to show that those racist bastards have a

vestigial genealogy of sorts.



These racist bastards are all prolific postmodern theorists of

so-called "failed states" with little grasp of the anthropological

realities on the ground.



A quick look at the pile of crap left by J. Peter Pham in his New York

Times op-ed shows that these racist bastards often take leave of their

senses when it comes to offering realistic solutions to the Congo.



J. Peter Pham advocates for instance "breaking up a chronically failed

state [DRC] into smaller organic units whose members share broad

agreement or at least have common interests in personal and community

security."



Well, this brings to mind, as I pointed out in my post of October 2009

referenced above, the "smaller organic units" the apartheid regime

developed in South Africa, the infamous so-called "Bantustans."



Maybe J. Peter Pham doesn't know that the DRC holds more than 400

ethnic groups--large and small--which, if his theory were to be

implemented, would yield more than 400 ethnic "organic units" or

ethnocratic "républiquettes" or the weest and weirdest republics of

the world!



Welcome to the pre-colonial villages-states of the Congo Basin so

well-researched by historian Jan Vansina!



I do hope J. Peter Pham has made provosions for their mutual

diplomatic recognition and their recognition by the United Nations or

is this genius dreaming of creating instead 400 tiny rogue states.



What's more, no one knows who would be doing the actual "breaking up"

on the ground. Maybe J. Peter Pham has in mind the "international

community" or the UN, with him as chief expert in "breaking up" a

nation?



In my October 2009 post denouncing Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills, I

pointed to another essential characteristic of these racist bastards,

including their latest avatar, J. Peter Pham: unrestrained, pernicious

hubris in the form of what anthropologist Johannes Fabian calls

"denial of coevalness" to the Congolese.



I concluded that 2009 post by making this observation:



"In his book Time and the Other, Fabian theorized that

anthropologists, if not careful, could be prone to 'a split of

temporalities,' imagining the primitive others as caught in temporal

limbo, denying them 'coevalness.' Our two scholars-mercenaries show

the same symptoms of this 'denial of coevalness.'



"Congolese are primitives. They can't be agents of their own history.

They don't count.



"They are dough we could knead at will. Let's carve out the Congo into

several tiny states, like the villages-states of yore. Let's fragment

the place into Bantustans! ...



"Underneath the thin veneer of the scholarship of these intellectual

mercenaries festers a virulent racism. Not unlike the racism of

Leopold II. A racism so metastasized that those suffering from it are

unaware of their condition…"



Let's turn back to J. Peter Pham, who goes on to write:



"Others have dismissed the M23 leaders as 'warlords.' But warlords,

even if they do not acquire power through democratic means, tend to

provide some sort of political framework, often based on kinship ties

or ethnic solidarity, that is seen as legitimate.



"They also tend to provide some basic

security — which is more than the

questionably legitimate Kabila

government in Kinshasa provides for

most Congolese."



If you still didn't take seriously my calling these scholars "racist

bastards," that's the moment in J. Peter Pham's text that racism bares

itself naked in all its frightening ugliness.



But if you still continue to hold this impostor as a trailblazer in

political science, I suggest you read the piece by New York Times

reporter Jeffrey Gettleman titled "Dire Scene in Congolese City as

Rebels Begin to Leave" published December 1.



The heart-rendering article is uncannily hyperlinked to the crap left

by J. Peter Pham.



(See: www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/world/africa/alarming-picture-as-rebels-prepare-to-leave-goma.html?ref=opinion)



Gettleman writes:



"Human rights groups said that the M23 rebels who captured Goma last

week were now going on an assassination campaign as they prepared to

leave, creating a vortex of crime and confusion."



Adding:



"Residents said that at least 10 people in Goma had been assassinated

in the past 10 days, with many more disappearances.



"After one magistrate was struck in the face with a machete and nearly

killed last week, United Nations peacekeepers evacuated more than 20

other magistrates.



" 'We've confirmed several cases of targeted killings by the M23 in

and around Goma,' said Ms. [Ida] Sawyer, the Human Rights Watch

researcher.



"She said the victims included 'those who refused to join the M23 or

act as informants, individuals deemed uncooperative during looting

incidents, and other suspected 'enemies.' "



Maybe J. Peter Pham was suggesting all along that North Kivu be set up

as an M23-ruled ethnocratic micro-state that would purge itself

through ethnic cleansing of the kind documented by Human Rights Watch.



Let's give J. Peter Pham some benefit of the doubt.



He might have been too busy adding yet one crappier essay to the more

than "300 [crappy] essays" he's been authoring over the years to take

notice of yet another Letter written by UN Group of Experts Steve

Hege that documents the direct military intervention of Rwanda in the

assault on Goma--thereby debunking J. Peter Pham's stupid theory of

M23 as an "organic unit" indigenous to North Kivu.



Quoting again from Jeffrey Gettleman's article:



"[A] new letter to a United Nations Security Council committee said

that the Rwandan Army had crossed the border into Congo and had helped

the fighters capture Goma in the first place.



"Rwandan troops 'openly entered into Goma through one of the two

official border crossings,' said the letter, which was written by

Steve Hege, the coordinator of a United Nations investigative panel,

and was leaked by a third party."



In other words, J. Peter Pham should stop bloviating about places and

people he doesn't know the first thing about.



***

PHOTO CREDITS: www.acus.org

Read More

Standoff betweem MONUSCO and M23 at Goma airport over FARDC weapons & ammo

(PHOTO: "MONUSCO Force Commander (front left) to a meeting on the

security situation at Goma airport. Photo MONUSCO")



***



Though long columns of M23 were seen leaving Sake today, there was no

evidence however that the insurgents intended to hand over the city to

the DRC government's control.



In the latest development, there was some kind of a standoff between

MONUSCO and M23 when the latter had the chupatz to attempt to take

control of Goma airport and to seize the stash of weapons and ammo the

FARDC stored in depots at the airfield.



According to the Toronto Star reporters Melanie Gouby And Rukmini

Callimachi, "[MONUSCO] Spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai said the M23

rebels were trying to steal weapons belonging to the Congolese army."



In reaction, M23 said MONUSCO's refusal to abide by their diktat was a

deal breaker for the insurgents' promised withdrawal from Goma.



In the meantime, more than 200 cops who had arrived by boat on the

Lake Kivu from Bukavu to take over from M23 are stuck on their barges

at Goma harbor.



In Kinshasa, the Central Bank of Congo Governor Jean-Claude Masangu

denied reports that M23 robbers were able to blast open the vault of

the Goma branch.



Masangu said the vault is armored and the people holding its

combination happen to be right here in Kinshasa.



--With the Toronto Star, Radio Okapi, & Kinshasa media--



***

PHOTO CREDITS: www.monusco.org

Read More

Ben Affleck: "Congo urgently needs U.S. help" (Washington Post)

(PHOTO: TV screen grab of Ben Affleck testifying in Congress; date unknown)



***



Ben Affleck penned a gripping pro-Congolese people advocacy op-ed on

the crisis in Goma that was published today by the Washington Post.



The op-ed, titled "Congo urgently needs

U.S. help" and aimed at the American constituency opens, opens with

the usual heart-wrenching frustration in the face of the universal

indifference to the plight of the Congo:



"Last week, a heavily armed rebel militia, M23, took control of the

eastern Congolese city of Goma, the economic center and capital of the

country's North Kivu province. Unfortunately, to those of us who work

in eastern Congo , the only

surprise in this turn of events was how little attention it received."



Continue reading here:



m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ben-affleck-congo-urgently-needs-us-help/2012/11/29/828cd2c2-37ef-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Via: article.wn.com

Read More

Dicey near future prospects for Goma residents as M23 seal city northwest and north

(PHOTO: M23 casing the Goma branch of the Central Bank of Congo, on

Monday, November 26, prior to their heist of the next day)



***



Corroborative sources in Goma say that M23 were moving today some of

their troops north--as demanded last Saturday at Kampala by the

Declaration of the heads of state of the International Conference for

the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR)--and northwest, towards Sake, 25 km

away, a city they captured shortly after seizing the provincial

capital of North Kivu.



M23, who, by this maneuver, are thus making short shrift of the ICGLR

heads of state's Declaration, also appear to be leaving behind in the

city some of their heavily-armed troops clad in brand new DRC National

Police (PNC) uniforms.



In Kinshasa, government officials and politicos who were banking on

M23 cranking out cities and territories they conquered hand over fist

are up for a rude awakening!



(Talking of banks, DRC Media Minister Lambert Mende added more details

today about the heist carried out by M23 Tuesday at the Goma branch of

the Central Bank of Congo. M23 robbers apparently worked day and night

using time-tested bank robbery tools: electric saws, drills, blow

torches, sledge hammers, etc. They had commandeered generators

beforehand as there was no electricity in the city.)



This apparent redeployment, which in effect seals Goma, would for the

foreseeable future continue to cut off the city and its surroundings

from Bukavu and South Kivu.





***

PHOTO CREDITS: Jerome Delay / AP

Read More

MONUSCO Spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai: DRC Not Under Arms Embargo

(PHOTO: Madnodje Mounoubai, MONUSCO spokesman)



***



At the MONUSCO weekly press briefing of Wednesday, November 28,

MONUSCO Spokesperson Madnodje Mounoubai bristled at the notion long

peddled by supporters of President Joseph Kabila that the DRC is under

a crippling arms embargo.



That notion, now widespread in the DRC, was no doubt concocted to

justify the poor performance of the DRC in theaters of operations.



(Full disclosure: I've time and again repeated that false assertion on

this blog.)



Bristling at a question posed to him regarding this supposed arms

embargo, Madnodje Mounoubai retorted:



"This country is not under an [arms] embargo by the United Nations.

The embargo was imposed by the Security Council of the United Nations

in 2003 and it was lifted in 2008."



Madnodje Mounoubai was referring to UNSC Resolution 1807 of 31 March

2008 which, in its Paragraph A, Subparagraph 2, stipulates that the

Security Council "decides that":



"[...] the measures on arms, previously imposed by paragraph 20 of

resolution 1493 and paragraph 1 of resolution 1596, as renewed in

paragraph 1 above, shall no longer apply to the supply, sale or

transfer of arms and related materiel, and the provision of any

assistance, advice or training related to military activities to the

Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo [...]"



As a final nail in the coffin, Madnodje Mounoubai added:



"There's an embargo on arms destined to the DRC. But that only

concerns armed groups and not the Congolese government. There are

anyway rules that regulate the sale of weaponry. We're seen weaponry

paraded here on the [main Kinshasa] boulevard on the occasion of the

fiftieth anniversary of the independence of the DRC. Weapons are not

manufactured in the Congo. They were purchased somewhere!"



--With Radio Okapi & Kinshasa media--



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Aimé-Nzinga

Via: www.radiookapi.net

Read More

Continuous Outrage as Congolesse essence (New Yorker's Philip Gourevitch)

I retweeted today this powerful exercise in self-reflexive journalism

filed from Goma on November 27 by Philip Gourevitch and posted on the

New Yorker Web site.



There are blocks of the piece I disagree with, but overall the report

is a valid condensed vignette of the recent history of the DRC.



I also disagree with the piece's underlying essentialism and

essentialization of the Congolese--though "outrage as a Congolese

condition of being makes for disturbing lasting impression on one's

mind.



But that's precisely why this kind of "thick description" is called

self-reflexive reporting.



A TEASER:



"It is impossible to be Congolese," [Salvador Muhindo] said at one point,

"without being continuously outraged."



Read the colorful narrative here:



m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/11/outraged-in-congo.html



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Phil Moore/AFP/Getty

Read More

1) Die Hard at Goma: M23 Bank Loot: $17m; & 2) Howard Buffet restores water distribution to Goma

(PHOTO 1: Still of Hans Gruber [Alan Rickman], right, in "Die Hard" [1988])



(PHOTO 2: Howard Buffet "teaches Burundian farmers")



***



1) Die Hard at Goma: M23 Bank Loot: $17m



Fans of officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) in "Die Hard" (1988)

certainly remember the memorable moment in the movie when the villain

Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) lists his political outrageous and

impossible demands to authorities.



But soon enough you discover that Gruber's so-called demands are only

a smokescreen to cover up the robbery he's masterminded.



If you are a fan of Bruce Willis' movies and in case you forgot that

memorable moment, here's how it goes (courtesy Google):



"Hans Gruber: The following people are to be released from their captors.



"In Northern Ireland, the seven members of the New Provo Front. In

Canada, the five imprisoned leaders of Liberté de Quebec.



"In Sri Lanka, the nine members of the

Asian Dawn movement...



"John McClane : [listening on the radio]

What the fuck?



"Karl : [mouthing silently] Asian Dawn?



"Hans Gruber: [covers the radio] I read about them in Time magazine."



Now, in Goma, M23 leaders were behaving exactly like Hans Gruber with

their ever growing and changing list of outrageous and impossible

"conditions"--including a revision of the results of the November 2011

presidential election.



Just like Hans Gruber, M23 bandits had discovered their list of

"legitimate demands" by watching Congolese political TV shows.



Still, some people took seriously M23 highway bandits...



Until yesterday, when M23--not unlike Hans Gruber and his team of

robbers posing as terrorists with "legitimate grievances"--went to the

vault of the Goma branch of the Central Bank of Congo and blasted it

open with powerful explosive charges.



In Kinshasa, Central Bank officials estimate the loot of M23 bandits

at around $17 million--as well as an invaluable stash of gold bars!



People in Kinshasa are scratching their heads at the prospect of

seeing these thieves--who've even dismounted toilet sinks to ship them

to Rwanda!--remain at Goma airport as the ICGRL is scheming on doing.



***



2) Howard Buffet restores water distribution to Goma



Tapped by Virunga Park Chief Warden Dr. Emmanuel de Mérode, American

business leader and philantropist Howard Buffet helped restore water

distribution to Goma.



Here's the full account of of what I call the BUFFET'S GOMA WATER

MIRACLE posted by LuAnne on the Park's blog (I reformat the text for

readability):



"WATER FOR GOMA



"November 27th, 2012







"The aftermath of war can often be as

destructive as the war itself.



"Last week following the M23 rebel attack on Goma over a period of

three days, power lines to the city were cut causing a collapse of

many services including water to this city of over 1 million people.



"Although the city sits on the edge of Lake Kivu, collecting water

from the lake by citizens and services such as hospitals is a bad

option and can lead to serious cholera epidemics within days, as

happened in the past in IDP and refugee camps.



"On Friday morning last week it became

clear that something needed to be done

quickly.



"Emmanuel called Howard Buffett,

a passionate supporter of Virunga National Park, to see if he would be

willing to purchase four big generators for the four main

water-pumping stations.



"By mid-day Howard had sent $200,000, generators were purchased, and

installation began.



"A team of Congolese engineers worked till late at night and through

the next day to get the generators installed and water

flowing again to the city.



"We would like to express our deepest

gratitude to the Howard G. Buffett

Foundation for their incredibly swift

response to a serious problem, helping to

prevent further tragedy for these

Congolese people."



(Source: gorillacd.org/2012/11/27/water-for-goma/)





***

PHOTO CREDITS: Photo 1: © Twentieth Century Fox, Via: www.imdb.com; &

Photo 2: Melissa L. Hickox, Via: online.wsj.com

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Wild Wild West: Highway bandits of M23 outfit loot Goma Central Bank branch

(PHOTO: Jean-Marie Runiga,

Bishop-Preacher of M23 bandits and looters)



***



To those--including the IGLR heads of state at Kampala Saturday--who

still believe M23 insurgents are rebels with some kind of cause other

than thieving, looting, and pillaging, this report filed from Goma

today by the Guardian's Pete Jones and titled "Congo rebels surround

central bank in Goma" should give pause.



The report reads in part:



"Congo rebels surround central bank in Goma M23 seen entering bank and

loading bags into cars after refusing to withdraw from city



"Congo rebels appeared to be looting the central bank in Goma after

refusing to withdraw from the city they captured last week .



"M23 fighters surrounded the bank early this afternoon and were seen

loading white bags into cars. The armed rebels looked nervous and

ordered the Guardian to leave the area.



"'They're looting the bank,' a UN

source said."



(Source: m.guardiannews.com/world/2012/nov/27/congo-rebels-defy-order-goma)



Well, Congo Central Bank authorities told the media in Kinshasa this

afternoon that serial numbers of all unused bills of Congolese Francs

at Goma branch are marked down and no one would ever be able to make

bulk purchases with those notes anywhere in the territory of the DRC.



Besides the looting at the bank, several dozens of official and

private vehicles have also been commandeered by M23 insurgents and

sent to Rwanda.



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Phil Moore/AFP/Getty Images

Via: www.guardiannews.com

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Burundi sources: Renegade Col. & mass murderer Jules Mutebusi about to ignite insurgency in the Ruzizi Plain

(PHOTO: Col. Jules Mutebusi)



***



According to whistleblowers in the Burundian military and intelligence

services, renegade Col. Jules Mutebusi is consolidating and expanding

a military build-up between Bwegera and Sange, in the Ruzizi Plain,

about a mere 60 km southwest of Bukavu, the provincial capital of

South Kivu Province.



The area abuts the Burundian province of Cibitoke.



But those sources couldn't provide me with evidence of actual

coordination between Mutebusi's militia and M23.



They insist however that Mutebusi has currently 400 men on the ground,

is briskly recruiting in Rwandophone-Congolese refugee camps in

Burundi while other recruits are coming from Rwanda via Burundian

territory.



They can't tell, however, whether the 400 men belong to Mutebusi's

core fighters who had retreated with him into Rwanda after being

pushed out of Bukavu--a city Mutebusi seized in June 2004--or if their

bulk is made up of new recruits.



They believe that Mutebusi is poised to ignite his insurgency in South

Kivu within two weeks' time.



They also firmly believe that Mutebusi is in cahoots with Burundian

President Pierre Nkurunziza.



They base this assessment on the fact that Mutebusi always talks as if

he wants to put as much distance as possible between him and

Nkurunziza.



Says one of the sources: ''Mutebusi always goes like, 'I don't trust

Nkurunziza. You talk to him and that very evening Kabila knows

everything!' In other words, he talks business with the man and knows

about his double-crosses!"



In any event, another one of those sources don't buy this negative

assessment of Nkurunziza as there's no way the latter could be unaware

of Mutebusi's activities in Bujumbura and in the refugee camps.



The whistleblowers believe that Mutebusi is a central piece in the

grand design of expansion into, and fracturing of, the Congo being

pursued by President Paul Kagame.



They fear that once Kagame would be done with the Congo, he'll turn

his attention towards Burundi.



And they are frustrated that Nkurunziza who has naively his sight on

the "crumbles from Kagame's Congo's spoils" doesn't see this looming

threat!



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Via: www.bbc.co.uk

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Radio-Trottoir: North Kivu no more part of DRC; it's a franchise granted to Rwanda

(PHOTO: Prez Mwai Kibaki, Joseph Kabila, and Yoweri Museveni; Kampala,

Uganda, Saturday, November 24, 2012)



***



President Joseph Kabila may have squandered Saturday all the respect

and political capital he still got left among Kinshasa residents--and

arguably among a vast number of Congolese citizens--with news of the

Kampala Declaration issued by the heads of states of the International

Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR).



(Among the ICGLR Kampala resolutions are the following: 1) M23 have to

move back to Kibumba, 20 km north of Goma, leaving behind a

company-strong force at Goma airport alongside an FARDC company in two

days' time, the clock running from Saturday--a call rejected by the

insurgents; and 2) the DRC government should listen to the "legitimate

grievances" of M23.)



"Did Kabila really sign in on this?"one angry bus rider fumed Sunday

evening. "Has he run mad or is he a walking zombie?"



The Kinshasa daily Le Potentiel was of the opinion that, by accepting

so-called "legitimate grievances" of M23, Kabila has by and large

undercut the DRC's own narrative, according to which M23 are Rwanda's

proxies and stooges, and Rwandan troops the backbone of the insurgent

outfit.



And now, after Saturday, charging Rwanda as the force behind M23 might

sound hollow, incoherent, and utterly untenable.



What is even more maddening to people is that Kabila took the

extraordinarily stupid step of meeting with one of M23 leaders on the

sidelines of the Kampala Summit--on top of the Rwandan insult of the

glaring no-show of President Paul Kagame.



Opposition politicians are trumpeting that the Kampala Summit has in

fact established that North Kivu is no more a DRC province but an

indefinite franchise granted to Rwanda by Kabila.



Comparisons with the Mideast were also rife on Sunday, after they were

opened up like a Pandora's box by Congolese music star Koffi Olomide

in a morning interview with state-owned RTNC TV channel.



Olomide said that the DRC is turning into Gaza where all people do all

day long is paradoxically to brag and "whine" at the same time under

the punishing bombardments by the Israeli aviation.



Olomide repeatedly jabbed at the FARDC for their poor performance, no

doubt thus savoring a sweet revenge at suspended Chief of Land Forces,

Gen. Gabriel Amisi aka Tango-Four, who had him trounced by his

bodyguards at Kinshasa Grand Hotel in February of this year.



Incidentally, calls are growing from civil society and opposition

political parties for the immediate arrest and prosecution of Gen.

Amisi for "treasonable acts" (selling weapons and ordnance to rebel

groups) that had resulted in the death of civilians.



Opposition MP Emery Ukundji, whose party--the FONUS, the Forces

Novatrices pour l'Union et la Solidarité (Innovative Forces for Union

and Solidarity)--is also calling for the arrest and prosecution of

Gen. Amisi, wants the entire cabinet sacked for "irresponsibility,

incompetence, and cowardice!"



Overall, morale is at its lowest in Kinshasa where there's now a total

disconnect between what's now being called a "government of cowards"

and denizens.



That may be why Kinshasa Gov. André Kimbuta has "unconstititionally"

banned all student demos for fear they'd target symbols of Kabila rule

and party in the Congolese capital.



***



PHOTO CREDITS: Via: www.groupelavenir.cd

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