The few rare specimens among the endangered species of Congolesereaders ought to like, nay, LOVE Mark Twain. For one obvious reason:Mark Twain campaigned against the genocidal rule of the Belgian KingLeopold II in what was then the Congo Free State (1885-1908).Mark Twain's contribution to the international humanitarian campaignagainst the horrors taking place in the Congo Free State included hislittle known but gripping play-pamphlet "King Leopold's Soliloquy."A miracle of writing: in that play, Mark Twain calls King Leopold II a"dinosaur"--uncannily,...
Thursday, 6 January 2011
1) Kinshasa Cardinal Laurent Mosengwo at loggerheads with the Raïs; and 2) 71 Mobutu's ex-Presidential Guards arrested in Bas-Congo
Posted on 06:31 by Unknown
1. Kinshasa Cardinal Laurent Mosengwo Pasinya at loggerheads with the RaïsThe AMP, the presidential majority cartel of political parties,unveiled this week a project of constitutional amendment that wouldchange the 2-round mode of presidential election. The AMP officialtalking point to explain the constitutional change is that two roundsof election are onerous to be sustainable. But Radio-Trottoir claimsthat this mode of dispatching things in the very first round is donein order to avoid a scenario à la Côte d'Ivoire where Gbagbo, thefirst-round...
The gods must be crazy: Ivorian generals pledged allegiance to Gbagbo before God at a "military-religious" low mass!
Posted on 02:57 by Unknown
Jeune Afrique reporter Baudelaire Mieu reveals that in mid-August 2010Ivorian military and security top brass pledged allegiance to Gbagboat a "military-religious" meeting at the United Methodist Temple inthe Abidjan neighborhood of Cocody Ambassades (Jeune Afrique, 12-18December, 2010).Beside the fact that this shows that Gbagbo did plan to stay in powerway before the presidential election was held, the weird thing thatleaps out is that religion was factored in the political and militaryequation. Weird but a more and more common phenomenon in...
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Côte d'Ivoire: War for democracy in post-military age
Posted on 11:49 by Unknown
I recently heard on Radio France Internationale (RFI) athought-provoking discussion by two members of an extant school ofParisian geostrategists about the increasing irrelevance of wars insolving problems nowadays. In fact, according to one of them, we nowlive in a POST-MILITARY AGE!This sounds paradoxically counter-intuitive as there are so many flashpoints and armed conflicts of varying intensity around the globe. Butthe argument is instead to be understood in this wise: with the riseof guerrilla and insurgency capabilities that military invasions...
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