Chief Justice John Roberts as the Wizard of Twistifications: My post-ruling selection of the 3 best op-eds

(Full disclosure: I like Chief Justice Roberts's sucker punch at GOPers!)





One of the ironies of Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority

opinion to uphold the so-called Obamacare (Affordable Care Act), as

The Guardian aptly reminds readers in its article on the ruling, is

that then Senator Barack Obama voted nay at Roberts's Senate

confirmation.





And now, The Guardian speculates, the same Roberts may be handing

Obama his major argument to win his second term.





In fact, I feel that Chief Justice Roberts has also been very

accomodating to Obama from the very beginning of his presidency.





I remember that after Obama's bungled public oath of office on

Inauguration Day, Chief Justice Roberts went to the White House the

next day for a proper swearing-in private affair--of which to my

knowledge there are no video records.





(Watching with my daughter Elikia live events on CNN on Inauguration

Day, I told her that Dick Cheney was wheelchair bound as a way of

showing Obama his middle finger. I vaguely remember that they claimed

Cheney had hurt his back while lifting boxes: the guy had to move out

of the Naval Observatory! Baloney!)





Anyway, the argument of The Guardian may be flawed.





Though I'm not a proponent of essentialism, it's my biased opinion

that Americans by and large are a species adverse to taxes.





It's true that so-tagged tax-and-spend American liberals consider

filing their tax returns as their sacred duty to the commonwealth.





But even they often object to city, state, and federal impositions.





I lived for many years in the arch-liberal city of Cambridge,

Massachusetts, where I often watched, on Cambridge Community

Television, city councillors haggle over even the most insignificant

proposed tax hike.





I just read a blog that said that Roberts might have indeed just done

irreparable harm to the Obama campaign by deeming the "individual

mandate" a Congressional constitutional taxing authority.





Mitt Romney campaign could therefore package Obamacare as a massive

tax increase on the "American people" and carry the day.





Then, President Romney could "act" to repeal the A.C.A. when he takes

over come January 20, 2013.





I'll stop myselft right there...



As I don't presume to talk intelligibly about this complex ruling,

here's my short list of the 3 best opinion pieces I read in the

aftermath of the SCOTUS ruling and which I believe capture well its

gist (my pre-ruling opinion was mostly shaped by Jeffrey Toobin on The

New Yorker) :





1) The piece on The New Yorker by Ryan Lizza titled "Why Romney Won't

Repeal Obamacare," which lists the insurmountable obstacles to the

repeal of the A.C.A.





(Page Address: http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/06/why-romney-wont-repeal-obamacare.html)





2) "The guts of Roberts' ruling" (on The Chicago Tribune), brilliantly

written by Jonah Goldberg, where I learn that:





A) Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the minority opinion, charges that

Chief Justice Roberts "carries verbal wizardry too far, deep into the

forbidden land of the sophists."





(Justice Scalia is most definitely a wordsmith with a jeweled pen!)





B) Jeffrey Rosen, a constitutional scholar, "speaking on National

Public Radio, even celebrated Roberts' brilliance at finding a way to

save the reputation of the court by deploying what Thomas Jefferson

called 'twistifications.'"





(I thus discover that Jefferson's brain was wired like Jon Stewart's.)





(Page Address: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0629-goldberg-20120629,0,6123570.column)





3) The methodical exposition by Jonathan Hurley titled "Et tu,

Roberts? Federalism Falls By The Hand Of A Friend," where I learn

that:





A) The author--a liberal constitutional scholar, lawyer, professor,

blogger, and TV pundit-- has been all along against the "individual

mandate" of Obamacare.





B) In Chief Justice Roberts' ruling, there was short rise, then a hard

fall of all the sacrosanct principles of "Federalism."





(Page Address: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/29/et-tu-roberts/#more-50846)



***



PHOTO CREDITS: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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Louise Mushikiwabo's laughable pretext for next war & Kagame's wild claims about plot to bump Joseph Kabila

The pretext for the first Rwandan and allied forces' intervention in

the Congo was the right of hot pursuit, which is justifiable in

international law.





Then, armed Hutu genocidal maniacs had not only been given shelter on

Congolese soil but also free rein by Mobutu to wage a guerrilla

warfare against the newly established Rwandan regime.





That intervention ultimately resulted in regime change in the Congo.





Rwanda at first denied any direct involvement in its second armed

plundering venture into the Congo, claiming that the armed conflict

was strictly a Congolese civil war.





When this PR talking point became untenable in light of on-the-ground

facts, Rwanda ended up acknowledging the presence of its troops in the

Congo and invoked once again the same principle of the right of hot

pursuit.





After all, the genocidaires and their offsprings had by then morphed

into a vicious terrorist outfit called FDLR--a bane in the Great Lakes

region.





That war was later dubbed by Susan Rice Africa's World War.





Maybe the next military aggression Rwanda seems to be planning will be

called: Africa's First Bloggers-triggered War.





Well, that is, if we are to give credence to the ridiculous and

baseless claims made by Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo.





At a press briefing in New York this past Monday, Mushikiwabo claimed

to be shuddering at the alleged pre-genocide "bigotry" now taking

Congo and the Congolese blogosphere by storm.





"This is very reminiscent of the rhetoric just before the genocide

against the Tutsi in 1994," she said. "Certainly Rwanda keeps a very

close watch on that kind of pronouncements."





Adding:





"In our corner of the world, words quickly become deeds and

anti-Rwanda rhetoric carries grave consequences... More hateful

attacks can be feared as calls for Congolese worldwide to 'kill the

Tutsis' are being propagated over the internet."





This is either baseless paranoia or a cunning pre-emptive pretext for

the next Rwandan aggression.





But either way Mushikwabo isn't fooling anyone.





In my view, this is simply a very clumsy maneuver by Rwanda to attempt

exporting to the regional level the well-known trumped-up charge of

"spreading genocide ideology" that it routinely uses to suppress

domestic opposition.





Opposition leader Victoire Ingabire is rotting in prison on those very

same vaguely convenient charges.





What's even more worrisome is that Mushikiwabo's claims aren't the

only irresponsible utterances being proffered by Rwandan leaders these

past few days.





At his press conference of last week, President Paul Kagame made the

outlandish claim that last year he was approached by some unnamed

western countries to have Rwanda participate in a black ops mission to

bump Joseph Kabila!





Said Kagame:





"During the period of elections last year, this same international

community was running around. They came to us and said President

Kabila was becoming unserious, was not talking to them and that they

look for him and cannot access him. In the end they asked us if he

should be removed either by elections or other means.

I am going to spill some secrets here. At the end of the day, they

can't do anything. He is elected. Some reality has dawned on them and

they have to put up with him because they like Congo more than the

Congolese."





Today in Kinshasa, at his weekly press briefing, DRC Communication

Minister Lambert Mende was asked more specifically whether he believed

Kagame when he charged that "France [Sarkozy] and the UK [Cameron]"

wanted to have Kabila assassinated last year.





(I don't know through what verification process the journo posing the

question went from Kagame's "international community" to "France and

the UK.")





Strangely, Mende said he took Kagame's wild accusations "seriously."





Mende even used them as a cautionary tale for the Congolese media,

civil society and citizens who hold the west as the paragon of

democracy while some in the west show "no respect for the Congolese

people through their will expressed in democratic elections."





Mende was playing the role of the gullible sucker in the sitcom

written by Kagame.





Mende should have instead questioned the timing of Kagame suddenly and

conveniently spilling his explosive secrets just now.





What did Kagame contemporaneously do with his secrets? Did he share

them with DRC authorities? Did he go to the UN with them? Did he

convene a press briefing to denounce a callous plot against a brother

who'd seen his own father assassinated?





The answer to all those questions is obvious: No!





Kagame was with his back against the diplomatic wall when he made

those unsubtantiated allegations.





But these utterances should be a warning to the DRC and the

international community.





For whenever mystagogue Kagame is thus irrationnally contemptuous of

the DRC and the international community, he's all set to make the DRC

pay for some mysterious wrongs inflicted on him and Rwanda!

Read More

FARDC & MONUSCO seize back Okapi Reserve but toll staggering in bloody wake of Warlord Morgan Ekasambaza and his militiamen

John Lukas, President of the Jacksonville, Fl-based White Oak

Conservation Center, Inc.--the non-profit organization running the

flagship Okapi Conservation Project (OCP) in the Ituri rainforest in

Orientale Province--confirmed, in a statement posted yesterday and

updated today, that FARDC and MONUSCO combat troops seized back the

wildlife reserve on Monday, June 25, from warlord Morgan Ekasambaza

and his militiamen.





The militiamen had been occupying the wildlife reserve for two days

while wreaking havoc in the surrounding towns and hamlets.





Lukas's full statement reads:





"Okapi Conservation Project (OCP) – Update, June 26, 2012

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Scott

Okapi Conservation Project (OCP) – Update

June 26, 2012 5:00 PM ET





"The Congolese army and UN troops are in control of Epulu and the road

is open through the Reserve. People are starting to come out of the

forest where they have been hiding the last 48 hours. There have been

many conflicting reports coming out of Epulu and we have decided to

wait to release more information until it can be verified by a known

reliable source. One of the ICCN senior rangerstraveled into Epulu

with UN forces and is making a thorough report on the situation at the

Station which he plans on filing late tonight or early in the morning.

Once we receive his report we will provide a detailed summary of his

findings. We have been in contact with a senior OCP staff member who

istrying to get back to Epulu and once he is there we will have access

to information on a regular basis. This is a trying time for all

involved and we appreciate your concern and support.





"The Wildlife Conservation Network has generously offered to accept

donations on behalf of the Okapi Conservation Project's emergency

fund.





"Go to www.WildNet.org/support/ and click on okapi on the pull down menu.





"John Lukas

President

White Oak Conservation Center, Inc.

1615 Riverside Ave

Jacksonville FL 32204

904-860-4686."





(Page Address: www.okapiconservation.org/uncategorized/okapi-conservation-project-ocp-update-june-26-2012/)





While one can certainly let out a sigh of relief over this

development, the fact remains that Mai-Mai terrorists led by warlord

Morgan Ekasambaza left a staggering toll in their wake: 15 okapis

killed for bushmeat, more than 26 people killed, and more than 70

women raped, according to various reports by Radio Okapi.





The occupation and the mayhem brought to the fore the shortcomings of

Congolese military planners.





A point hammered down by Ituri civil society leader Jean-Bosco Lalo,

who, according to Radio-Okapi, on Monday angrily told Gen Jean-Claude

Kifwa, the commander of FARDC 9th Military Region, at his press

briefing:





"You can't allow a town like Epulu to be besieged for more than 48

hours while we live in a country that's supposed to have an army!"





During those 48 hours, warlord Morgan Ekasambaza and his

blood-drenched bandits set up a makeshift road tolls charging $250 on

trucks coming from Bunia, Butembo and Goma en route to Kisangani.





Truckers who couldn't pay the toll saw their merchandise plundered and

their female passengers raped--including a student from Kinshasa on

her way to visit her family.





Morgan Ekasambaza is also reported to have replenished his war chest

with $25,000, the market value in the area of the 500 grams of gold

he'd seized from gold diggers and traders.





The flight of warlord Morgan Ekasambaza ends an 11-day crime and

killing spree during which these terrorists ran amok around and in

Epulu.





***



PHOTO: Okapis Kijana (male) and Tatu (female), 2010



PHOTO CREDITS: Facebook/Okapi Conservation Project (OCP)

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Rules of accommodation (Congo) vs. Negotiating for side effects (Rwanda): Comment on the Letter of DRC Foreign Minister to UNSG and UNSC Prez

On June 14, 2012, DRC Foreign Minister Raymond Tshibanda (photo above)

wrote a whining letter addressed to both the UN Secretary General and

the President of the the Security Council.





The letter was in care of Zénon Mukongo Ngay, the Congolese UN Chargé

d'affaires in New York, who forwarded it to the addressees on June 19.





Its subject concerned the "deterioration of the security situation in

the Province of North Kivu, in the eastern part of the country."





(See full text of the letter below this comment.)





The letter shows that the DRC is dangerously on the brink: militarily

powerless and diplomatically irrelevant.





Militarily





Africa's World War, the ongoing insurgencies, and various flashpoints

countrywide have thoroughly achieved the military objectives of DRC's

neighboring partners qua enemies--that is, quoting Clausewitz, "to

render the enemy [Congo] powerless."





Kinshasa media are relaying in their headlines of today glaring

examples of this military powerlessness:





1) While Congolese government officials were clamoring that the M23

insurgency had been almost squashed, it now transpires that this

"collection of notorious killers"--a description of M23 leaders

recently coined by Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High

Commission for Human Rights-- had in fact cut off drinking water

supply in Bunagana and 9 other surrounding hamlets of North Kivu since

June 11--causing dozens of thirst-related and water-borne diseases

death, according to the Kinshasa daily La Prosperité.





2) In northern DRC, armed militiamen have occupied the Okapi Preserve

of Epulu and are now carrying out wanton killings of okapis for game

meat.





Incapable of protecting its citizens and its resources, the government

is now resorting to whiners' diplomacy--diplomatic irrelevancy, as it

were--begging the UN on both knees: to deal with the country's

problems; and to please ward off a menace called Rwanda!





The letter makes clear that diplomacy has broken down between the DRC

and Rwanda; that the DRC has been diplomatically cheated by

Rwanda--and, incidentally in the past few days, by the US, which has

blocked the circulation and dissemination within the UNSC of the Annex

of a Report documentating Rwandan involvement in the recent deadly

destabilization of eastern Congo.





Some Congolese political pundits are even now calling this strange

episode at the UNSC the "Israelization of Rwanda by the US in the

African Great Lakes Region."





What is also clear in the letter is that the DRC can by no means wage

retributive war on its enemies. For the damning acts committed by

Rwanda against the DRC listed in the letter are grave enough to

warrant a casus belli from any state with a minimum of self-respect.





Reading Fred Ikle's "How Nations Negotiate" (1968) may give one an

inkling of the current diplomatic quandary of the DRC.





There's an essay by Angelo M. Codevilla--"Tools of Statecraft:

Diplomacy and War" published in 2008 on Foreign Policy Research

Institute (FPRI)--that provides in a nutshell Ikle's main insight in

that book.





I still have to read Ikle's book, but Codevilla's reading of it is

enough for my purpose here.





(Page Address: http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/1301.200801.codevilla.statecraftdiplomacywar.html)





Available Terms





The "available terms" or the stated objectives of the DRC and Rwanda

were incompabatible from the get go in the negotiations these two

countries have entered into for close to 4 years now--culminating in

the joint military operations against the FDLR.





Whereas the weakened DRC side was stating its objectives truthfully

like a hopeless sucker, Rwanda was dissembling.





Thus, Rwanda took the DRC on a fool's errand in those joint military

operations in pursuit of the ever elusive FDLR.





The question the DRC could have asked Rwanda then was the following:

You, guys, occupied the FDLR turf for 5 long years, how come you

didn't root them out?





At the time, the only Congolese official to see through the Rwandan

diplomatic farce was the then Speaker Vital Kamerhe. And the

objections he voiced cost him his Speakership job.





Absent this initial compatibility of "available terms," however, the

negotiations can't meaningfully proceed to the next step, that of the

"rules of accommodation" where parties, says Codevilla, make "sincere

proposals, honoring partial agreements, etc."





Rwanda: Negotiating for side effects





The letter of DRC Foreign Minister Raymond Tshibanda below reads like

a chronicle of mischiefs perpetrated by Rwanda and its proxies in the

Congo caused by this lack of the initial frame of reference Ikle calls

"available terms."





In fact, what Rwanda was doing all along was, quoting Codevilla again,

"'to negotiate for side effects'— to use the negotiations to undermine

the other side's government, sow dissention among its allies, deceive

it, pocket partial agreements and renege on commitments, buy time,

gather intelligence, etc."





Codevilla's conclusion is ominous:





"Disaster looms when one side follows the rules of accommodation while

the other negotiates for side effects."





And what's happening now in eastern Congo is nothing short of a

catastrophic disaster. For the people in the area, the Congolese

nation, and the stated goal of the country's reconstruction.





In plain English: Congo and the Congolese are fucked for the forseeable future!



*****



FROM UNSG DOCUMENTS:



[Identical letters dated 19 June 2012 from the Chargé d'affaires a.i.

of the Permanent Mission of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to

the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the

President of the Security Council]





On instructions from my Government, I have the honour to transmit

herewith a letter dated 14 June 2012 addressed to you by Raymond

Tshibanda N'tungamulongo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, International

Cooperation and Francophone Affairs of the Democratic Republic of the

Congo, concerning the deterioration of the security situation in the

Province of North Kivu, in the eastern part of the country (see

annex).





I should be grateful if you would have the present letter and its

annex circulated as a document of the Security Council.





( Signed ) Zénon Mukongo Ngay



Minister Counsellor



Chargé d'affaires a.i.





[Annex to the identical letters dated 19 June 2012 from the Chargé

d'affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of the Democratic Republic of

the Congo to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and

the President of the Security Council]





I have the honour to inform you that the security situation in the

Province of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is

deteriorating.





On 30 April 2012, a mutiny broke out in three units of the Armed

Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) in North and

South Kivu. Led by their former commander, Bosco Ntaganda, a number of

former members of the armed group known as Congrès national pour la

défense du peuple (CNDP), who had been integrated into the army

following the peace agreements signed in Goma in 2009, had deserted in

an attempt to launch a fresh armed rebellion.





Upon being routed by FARDC, these elements, numbering no more than a

few hundred out of the 4,000-odd men who had been integrated into the

army, fled into Virunga National Park, where they retreated into an

area of at most four square kilometres abutting the border with

Rwanda, among the hills around Runyonyi, Mbuzi and Tshianzu.





In a vain attempt to give a political character to what is in reality

nothing but a desperate attempt to evade the clutches of the justice

system, which were beginning to close on Bosco Ntaganda for the crimes

he had committed under the Union of Congolese Patriots in Ituri, the

rebels are shrewdly seeking to give themselves a new identity by

renaming their movement M23.





Their real motives in so doing, however, are unrelated to the

commitments entered into in 2009, which they assert have not been

honoured by the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.





The Government is concerned at the turn the situation is taking,

especially as this mutiny has resulted in the displacement of

thousands of Congolese families, thereby creating a fresh humanitarian

crisis.





The Government wishes to direct the attention of the Security Council

to the fact that, according to consistent information obtained from a

variety of sources, the rebels are receiving support from the

neighbouring country of Rwanda, and fighters are being systematically

recruited in that country. Both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of

the Congo are members of the African Union, the Economic Community of

the Great Lakes Countries and the International Conference on the

Great Lakes Region, and such support and recruitment activities

constitute violations of all the legal instruments freely entered into

by both countries in the framework of those organizations and of the

relevant Security Council resolutions.





In view of the seriousness of these facts, the Government took the

time to confirm them with its own resources. An investigation was

carried out, while concurrently the joint mechanisms established

several years ago by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda

were activated with a view to determining the facts on the ground.





The findings of that investigation and the enquiries of the joint

mechanisms now enable us to formulate the following conclusions:





1. Among the rebels there are some 200 to 300 individuals who were

recruited in Rwandan territory through an active network operating in

that neighbouring country.





2. A number of the fighters so recruited are Rwandan nationals who

were infiltrated into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they

underwent a minimum of training and were then deployed at the front

against FARDC.





3. Their numbers include minors and very young persons.





4. In their flight, the rebels abandoned all their armament, 38 tons

of it in all, which was recovered by FARDC. Yet it is noteworthy that

their firepower has greatly increased since their arrival in the

Runyonyi-Tshianzu-Mbuzi triangle, an area that abuts the boundary

between the Democratic Republic of the Congoand Rwanda.





5. Unnatural alliances have been formed. For example, members of the

Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), some of whom had

been repatriated to Rwanda by the United Nations Organization

Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

(MONUSCO), have joined the ranks of the rebels, as is clear from the

fact that a number of them have been captured at the front.





It appears from the foregoing that Rwandan territory has been used for

the preparation and perpetration of a plot which began as a mere

mutiny, but is evolving dangerously into an attempt to breach the

peace between two countries in the Great Lakes region, thereby

jeopardizing the progress that has been achieved in that connection

since 2009.





Accordingly, the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

urgently requests the Security Council to:





(a) Condemn the fresh attempt at rebellion led by former members of

CNDP, now calling itself M23;





(b) Reaffirm the inviolability of the sovereignty, territorial

integrity and independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo;





(c) Condemn the abuses and violations of human rights and

international humanitarian law, including population displacement,

that have been inflicted upon the Congolese people of the Provinces of

North and South Kivu and identify the members of M23 as being

responsible for those acts;





(d) Condemn the foreign support that M23 is receiving, and hold those

providing it jointly responsible for all the reprehensible acts

committed by that movement;





(e) Remind Rwanda of its international obligations and demand the

immediate, unconditional withdrawal of any members of its armed forces

who may be serving in the ranks of the rebels;





(f) Assume its responsibilities with respect to the relevant

provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and Security Council

resolutions, in order to terminate any foreign support for the rebels;





(g) Take all appropriate measures to terminate the activities of all

negative forces, including FDLR, CNDP and M23.





I take this opportunity to reiterate, on behalf ofthe Government of

the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that we very much appreciate the

effective partnership that has been established on the ground between

FARDC and MONUSCO. In particular, I should like to mention the

admirable role played by MONUSCO in protecting civilian populations

and supporting FARDC.





I should be grateful if you would have the present letter circulated

as a document of the Security Council.





( Signed ) Raymond Tshibanda N'tungamulongo

Read More

Self-proclaimed Prez Etienne Tshisekedi fires and sues UDPS Secretary General Jacquemain Shabani for theft of $300,000

When, on June 15, the pro-Kabila Kinshasa daily L'Avenir first broke

out the news--based on just one unamed "credible source"--of the

alleged theft of $300,000 from the party's coffers by UDPS outspoken

UDPS Secretary General Jacquemain Shabani (photo above), everyone

pooh-hooed the scoop as anti-Tshisekedi propaganda.





It turns out that L'Avenir got it right after all.





In fact, I suspect that L'Avenir might even have an embed in high

circles of UDPS, given the precision and reliabilty of information it

has always given on that party and its leadership.





Today, Shabani's alleged theft was front-page news on all Kinshasa tabloids.





Self-proclaimed president Etienne Tshisekedi has now not only

suspended Shabani, but he's also suing him.





During last year's general elections, Shabani is alleged to have

convinced Tshisekedi to give him $300,000 to manufacture party

membership cards.





Shabani was in fact bamboozling Tshisekedi all along when he told him

that once those cards were sold to UDPS members for $1 or $5 a

pop--depending on the quality of the card--the party could get a

windfall of up to $10m!





An alchemist who could turn lead into gold!





The elections have come and gone. And Tshisekedi has still to see one

red cent from the proceeds of the sales of those cards.





Furious at being taken for a ride, Tshisekedi first sued, then

suspended Shabani--replacing him with Bruno Mavungu Puati.





But, according to reporter Mukebayi Nkoso of the Kinshasa tabloid

CongoNews, on June 19, most of UDPS senior leaders converged on 521,

Rue Pétunia in Limete Commune--Tshisekedi's residence.





They all threatened to resign en masse on the spot if Tshisekedi

didn't drop his lawsuit against Shabani.





UDPS had first to carry out its internal investigation, they told

Tshisekedi, before filing a lawsuit.





Tshisekedi, somewhat convinced by the argument of his top aides, is

alleged to have instructed his lawyer, Khondo wa Khondo, to withdraw

the lawsuit.





But, 24 hours later, worked up by his son, Christian Tshisekedi, the

Sphinx of Limete reversed himself again. He told Khondo he's suing

after all.





No one knows whether these UDPS top brass would resign or not.





In the event that Shabani is being sued by Tshisekedi on trumped-up

charges, I was told by one professor of Kinshasa University, then this

sad episode would come out as poetic justice to some of Shabani's

estranged siblings.





They are mad at Shabani for joining Tshisekedi who, so they claim, was

so ungrateful to their late father, Dr Shabani--a chemistry professor

at Kinshasa University and a long-time UDPS senior member--that he

didn't even bother to attend his funerals.





They further charge that Tshisekedi only used their brother as a token

Swahili-speaker in his presidential bid so as to woo the eastern

provinces where the lingua franca is Swahili.





A soap-opera in the People's Repubic of Kinshasa...





***



PHOTO: John Bompengo/Radio Okapi

Read More

National Assembly: PM Augustin Matata Ponyo unveils his "results-centered" $8.9b FY 2012 Budget draft bill

For close to an hour of oratory exercise that started shortly after 11

this morning (Kinshasa Time: GMT+1), PM Augustin Matata Ponyo

presented his so-called "results-centered" $8.9b FY 2012 budget draft

bill.





A paltry 16% increase over the previous budget. Oh well, who said this

country is already out of the woods?





Up to now, the government has been dysfunctionally working in

quarterly-incremental budgets--the previous parliament having failed

to pass a budget for this year.





As a matter of fact, at the close of his presentation, PM Matata said

he'll be returning to the National Assembly to present the budget for

fiscal year 2013.





As of this writing, more than 200 MPs are lining up to debate the budget.





PM Matata started out, in the first constituent of his presentation,

with a baseline of the previous government's budget, which ended up

with more than $3b deficit.





Matata was, however, quite satisfied with the overall macroeconomic

perspectives, with the actual economic growth of 6.9% (compared with

the projected 6.8%).





One indicator was of some concern though: the rate of inflation stood

at 15.5% at the end of last year, sharply contrasting with the

projected 9.9%.





Matata attributed this inflationary flare-up and the budget deficit by

the price hikes caused by speculators when the Value Added Tax (VAT)

was introduced by the end of last year, the expenditures earmarked for

the Francophonie Summit, and the unanticipated security expenditures

in the restive Kivu provinces.





But Matata claimed that this situation will be brought under control

by a "pertinent targeting [of expenditures] for the remainder of the

year."





The second constituent of Matata's presentation was the recent

macroeconomic situation.





Matata claimed that two indicators were particularly positive and

stable: the external value of the Congolese currency and the price

rates of commodities and services.





He also said that the current inflation stands at 4.4%; and he

estimated that it'd be around 9% by this year's end.





Matata ended this section of his presentation by claiming that the

Central Bank of Congo (BCC) is now boasting $1.34b in foreign currency

reserves.





The third constituent of Matata's presentation consisted in giving the

overall perspective of the government's program and new budgetary

methodology.





Matata insisted that henceforth, there will always be a palpable link

between government stated policies and the budget. Hence, his

"results-centered" budgeting.





The government's global stated policy, Matata went on to say, was

Joseph Kabila's objective called "Modernity Revolution," which is

articulated along 6 major axes: institutional reforms, strengthening

of the macroeconomic performance, construction and repair of basic

infrastructures, reinforcement of capacities of human capital and

striving for new citizenship, and reinforcement of diplomacy.





In the last constituent of his presentation, Matata unpacked the

budget project itself.





Matata prefaced this section by reminding the plenary session that the

budget project took into account a few challenges lying ahead:

preparations of the organization of 2013 provincial and senatorial

elections; conclusion of negotiations with the IMF; and the National

Assembly's backlog of bills on public finances.





But Matata promised to meet his parts of the aforementioned challenges

through, once again, his methodology of "objectives-centered" approach

in budgeting.





Revisiting once more the country's macroeconomic situation, Matata

said that right now, the growth rate stands at 6% but might soar to

6.9% by this year's end; while the double-digit 12.7% rate of

inflation will be scaled down to 9.9 % at the end of the year.





Matata then unveiled the amount of the government's projected budget:

$8.9b--with $6b in internal revenues and $2.8b in external revenues

(bilateral and multilateral aid).





Matata claimed his government will mobilize the necessary internal

revenues by, among other things, strict limits on exonerations on

importations; the end of fuel subsidies; a crackdown across the board

on companies cheating on their taxes; rooting out sim boxes in mobile

telephony; an increase of taxes on investments to 30% (from the

current 22%); and revenues from taxes on mining and logging companies.





On the other hand, Matata's breakdown of expenditures is as follows:





1) Institutional reforms: 25.59%(decentralization, security sector,

human rights, gender and children, census, etc.).





In this section, the sum of $250m is earmarked for defense (ministry

and FARDC included), which is a joke, given the insurgency in eastern

DRC.





2) Macroeconomic stability: 25.19% (structural reforms, job creation

policy, stimulus to small and medium entreprises, microfinance,

telecommunications, tourism, etc.);





3) Infrastructures: 18.38% (roads, ports, airports and railroads,

river transport, etc.);





4) Social sector: 29% (healthcare, habitat, etc.);





5) Human capial and new citizenship : about 1%;





6) Diplomacy: about 1% or less.





Matata ended his presentation by reminding MPs, who, incidentally,

have only so far only passed one law in this legislature, that they

have a slew of financial bills to debate and pass into a law.





As I am posting this, Matata is weathering the storm of invectives

being thrown his way by opposition MPs among the more than 200 MPs who

are commenting on his proposed budget.





Matata is to return to the National Assembly in two or three days'

time to address the concerns raised by members of parliament.

Read More

No Comment: Ugandan Homophobic Ethics Minister SIMON LOKODO bans 38 NGOs that "exist to destroy traditions"

"I have established beyond reasonable doubt that the 38 NGOs, if not

even more, exist not for humanitarian reasons but to destroy the

traditions and culture of this country by promoting homosexuality.





We found that, on the pretext of humanitarian concerns, these

organisations are being used to promote negative cultures. They are

encouraging homosexuality as if it is the best form of sexual

behaviour.





If the NGOs continue to operate, they will be doing so illegally, they

will be apprehended and will have to face a court of law.





Homosexuality is illegal, unacceptable and strange to our culture. It

doesn't have any positive aspects at all. If homosexuality is

promulgated and legitimised, that will be like having no future of

society. There is no procreation between man and man or woman and

woman. We condemn it very strongly."





--Defrocked Catholic Priest and Uganda's Ethics and Integrity Minister

SIMON LOKODO

Wednesday, June 20, 2012





***



Quoted in The Guardian.





***



PHOTO CREDITS: Facebook/NTV (VIA: www.rfi.fr)

Read More

Paul Kagame raw and unplugged: Stop blaming me for Congo chaos... or else!

Reporter Edwin Musoni of the Kigali-based daily New Times gives today

lengthy excerpts of the acrimonious and rambling press briefing

President Paul Kagame held yesterday at Village Urugwiro, in the

Rwandan capital.





(Edwin Musoni's report, titled "Rwanda is not to blame for DRC's woes

– Kagame," can be found on this Page Address:

http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15029&a=55011)





Kagame's cranky and threatening rant came about the same time as

construably contemptuous statements of his Foreign Minister Louise

Mishikiwabo, who was concluding 2-day diplomatic and security meetings

in Kinshasa, were triggering rancorous snarks in the media and the

streets in the Congolese capital.





According to Musoni, "President Paul Kagame yesterday expressed

frustration over continued allegations that Rwanda is aiding rebel

groups in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)."





In Kinshasa, in the meantime, what was (mis)construed as contemptuous

was Mishikiwabo's denial of any Rwandan involvement in the M23

insurgency in the Kivus, and her adamant insistence that the only

single paramount security threat in eastern Congo is the FDLR.





But what really set off the wrath of the Kinois media and public was

Mishikiwabo's attempt at "educating" them about the actual regional

role of Rwanda:





"The [Congolese public] opinion should educated and must understand

that Rwanda has for a long time been working for the pacification of

the [African] Great Lakes region."





Given the tepid response of the Congolese government to Mishikiwabo's

tall tale, the opinion in the streets is that Rwanda is hollering far

and wide that it is the fearsome regional imperial power proffering

diktats to the hopelessly kowtowing Congolese state.





And the sampling reporter Edwin Musoni gives of Kagame's arrogant

"pronunciamentoes" in his press conference reinforces that perception.





Below is a limited sample I extracted from Edwin Musoni's more

comprehensive sampling.





It's Kagame unplugged, raw, and unleashed upon the international

community and the DRC:





"They claim they like Congo, but they don't like the Congolese, if

they liked Congolese we wouldn't have these problems of raping and

killing every day."





"[The UN behaves] as if the problem of Congo has been caused by Rwanda

or should be Rwanda's responsibility."





"Our main focus is to continue to work with the DRC and have good

relations with the Congolese people so that we solve our problem that

remains there--which is FDLR and the genocidaires".





On Laurent Nkunda:





"In 2009 when we had issues in DRC, but under the false presentation

of the problem, we remained engaged. In fact we tried to be

helpful….we have a situation of Laurent Nkunda which we are still

stuck with, we have had to bear every responsibility for him and the

situation that created him hoping that it would help in dealing with

the eastern Congo problems, but also hoping that it would result into

a solution for our problem--the FDLR which is based there."





"It was like we were even buying cooperation of the Congolese and the

international community so that our problem can be dealt with."





Says Musoni:





"[Kagame] said MONUSCO knew exactly where the FDLR military commander,

Sylvestre Mudacumura's headquarters was in (in DRC), but 'ignores all

that and instead asks us about Ntaganda.'"





On Congolese Rwandophones:





"Rwanda is not responsible for Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese who

happen to be in DRC, live there and happen to be called the citizens

of DRC."





"Rwanda has no responsibility for this, somebody else has

responsibility for this. How they became Congolese citizens, I cannot

explain; it's none of my business, I don't know about it."





But writes Musoni:





"Revealing some of the previously unreported crimes, President Kagame

cited an incident where 50 former CNDP soldiers who were to be

integrated in the Congolese army, were transferred from the eastern to

north-western DRC and 'killed because of their identity.' He said the

incident has never been reported because of a 'conspiracy of

silence.'"





Edwin Musoni adds that Kagame gave this piece of his mind as his last

warning to the international community and the DRC: Leave me alone or

else:





"Kagame said that if the same baseless allegations against Rwanda

continue, Kigali will be forced to 'draw a line and say, If you don't

want us to take part in solving the problem and just blackmail us, we

don't respond to blackmails; we will just say, Forget about us.'"



Wow!



A word to the wise is enough!



***



PHOTO: "President Kagame addressing journalists in Kigali yesterday at

Village Urugwiro."



PHOTO CREDITS: newtimes.co.rw

Read More

Laura Seay's "A view From Goma" in Warscapes: Congolism: Ecstatic travelogue as postmodern genre in producing subjects of knowledge

Following Edward Said's Orientalism, allow me the pedantry of coining

the word "Congolism" to describe the body of Othering knowledge on the

Congo being industrially produced these days by western postmodern

academic practioners of Central Africa.





As a body of knowledge, Congolism has all the combined infirmities

denounced in postmodern scholarship: theoretical expediency and

jingoism, fast-food packaging, dogmatism, rehashed received wisdom,

and, now, botched reporting.





There are, in Congolism, however, two supplementary methodological

infirmities: the "ecstatic" travelogue as academic genre, and the

abuse of multi-site ethnography.





These academics of the African boonies focus their energy and their

self-reflexive travelogues primarily on the Congo, the ever exciting

and tempting terra incognita where even the whackiest of "theories"

would get some foothold purchase.





Calling themselves "old Africa hands" or "Africa Watchers"--as Laura

Seay haughtily proclaimed herself to be, in an opinion piece published

in April in Foreign Policy magazine and pedantically entitled "How Not

To Write About Africa"--they are now training their theoretical big

guns on media reporters and correspondents on assignment in Africa.





For their ambition is to make the traditional genre of Africa

reporting exctinct altogether and to replace it with something that is

a cross between academic hogwash and advocacy--the latter purportedly

on behalf of hopeless Africans devoid of any agency and caught between

a "failed state" and the hard place of their miserable existence.





In a stinging rebuttal to Seay's embarrassing exercise in bloviation

titled "How do journalistes write about Africa?" that appeared one

month later, GlobalPost senior Africa correspondent Tristan McConnell

adds to my aforementioned list of infirmities of these academic

ecstatic travelogue writers.





They are fraudsters and con artists too, says McConnell, peddling

bloated, doctored and discrepant resumes--which means that they might

NOT know the first thing about what they're talking about.





Says McConnell:





"Another country listed as one of [Laura Seay's] 'areas of expertise'

is Somalia yet according to the CV posted on her website, she's never

been there."





McConnell also questions the two or three short stints Seay made in

eastern Congo as qualifications enough to produce meaningful knowledge

on the area.





Seay's response to these serious charges by McConnell is pathetic and

has a ring of an insult to serious scholars of the ilk of Johannes

Fabian who've carried out lengthy fieldwork in the Congo:





"Editors' note: Laura Seay has written to clarify this story, saying

that she has spent more time in Africa. 'I lived in Kenya in 1998, in

Cameroon in 2000, and was in DRC again in 2010, in addition to other

travel in 2003,' she writes."





Is this some kind of academic in-joke or what?





No, it isn't an in-joke, I am told, this is current vintage

multi-sited fieldwork in academia.





Oh my! then, fiedwork has gone to the dogs!





Incidentally, Foreign Policy magazine seems to be the watering hole or

the lair where these academic travelogue writers and postmodernist

rabid theorist wannabes congregate to bloviate.





After all, it's also in Foreign Policy that a few years back Jeffrey

Herbst and Greg Mills--two other multi-sited jingoistic experts on

"failed states"--published their torpid opinion piece entitled "There

is No Congo: Why the only way to help the Congo is to stop pretending

it exists."





(See my post of October 11, 2009, titled "Two Racist

Scholars-Mercenaries as Enemies of the Congolese People: JEFFREY

HERBST and GREG MILLS)





(Page Address: http://alexengwete.blogspot.com/2009/10/two-racist-scholars-mercenaries-as.html)





Well, Tristan McConnell published his rebuttal on May 29, 2012. He

should have waited just a few days, till June 9, when Seay had her

sophomoric piece titled "A View From Goma" published in Warscapes.





If this piece is a template of post-journalism and post-reporting on

Africa, then God help us all!





Uncannily, Seay's op-ed contains all the infirmities she was

purporting to denounce in her article on journalism methodology and

ethics in Foreign Policy, where she castigated "stories that fall prey

to pernicious stereotypes and tropes that dehumanize Africans …

fraught with factual errors, incomplete analysis, and stereotyping."





One example would suffice here.





In "A View From Goma," Seay peremptorily states:





"Most Congolese harbor deep prejudices against Tutsis as well as

Hutus. Known as Rwandaphones [sic] (those who speak Kinyarwanda, the

Rwandan language), these groups are viewed by non-Rwandaphone [re-sic]

Congolese as interloping outsiders who are not truly citizens of the

DRC."





I'd like to know on what scientifically designed opinion survey Seay

based such an all-out essentialization of the more than 60 million

Congolese citizens.





This would amount to "peremptorily state" that just because there are

KKK members in the US, most white American citizens are racists and

white supremacists!





I'd bet one dollar that no serious reporters currently working in

eastern Congo would entertain such sweeping generalizations in their

pieces.





In point of fact, serious reporters and scholars could inform Seay

that there are no majority tribes in the more than 400 ethnic groups

making up the Congolese nation; that one Rwandophone was the country's

vice-president; that Rwandophones are over-represented in senior ranks

of the army and the police; that the current boss of the national

police is General Charles Bisengimana, a Rwandophone; and that many

among the Congolese troops now hounding Ntaganda and his bandits are

Congolese Rwandophones!





And yes, if there are indeed some Congolese harboring prejudices

against other tribes or ethnic groups, most Congolese live in peace

with their neighbors.





This kind of crap masquerading as scholarship brings to mind Johannes

Fabian's "Out of Our Minds: Reason and Madness in the Exploration of

Central Africa."





Fabian demonstrated that western scholars-travelers roaming Africa

during the heroic times of exploration in the 19th century were often

operating in an "ecstatic" frame of mind--what with the ecstasy

induced by "the effects of alcohol, drugs, illness, sex, brutality,

and terror, as well as the role of conviviality, friendship, play, and

performance" in the very process of Othering that the production of

subjects of knowledge then entailed.





Seay and her other fellow crackpots have thus rediscovered the

colonial travelogue genre of yore; turning themselves, when faced with

the lack hard facts and evidence, into omniscient intersubjective

narrators and ventriloquists!





I'm predicting that this insipid genre will soon die its natural death

when such extreme postmodernist essentialism vanishes from academia;

when production of academic scholarship will return to the

fundamentals of hard work and sleuthing.



***



PHOTO: Laura E. Seay

CREDITS: http://lauraseay.wordpress.com/

Read More

Lambert Mende: DRC GOV plans to reformat citizens and journos urge crackdown and censorship on soft porn in women's fashion and music videos

Lambert Mende Omalanga is a busy man.





Mende has in charge the Media (in that capacity he's the government

spokesman), Relations with Parliament, and the Initiation to the New

Citizenship--or citizenry, if you will.





No one knew what this ministry of Initiation to the New Citizenship

was all about, until this past Thursday morning, when Mende unveiled

its "road map."





The setting was the drab dark green monochrome background of Studio-B

of the state-owned radio and TV channel RTNC (Radio-Télévision

Nationale Congolaise), with, in attendance, journos, students, and

pro-government representatives of civil society.





The road map of that fancy-sounding is very ambitious indeed:

"formatting the new citizen."





The ministry thus aims at "inculcating in each citizen capacities to

become role models for moral values and artisans of national peace and

concord; at convincing Congolese of the greatness of the nation and at

turning them into patriots ready to defend it; at mobilizing

everyone's energy against violence, injustices, impunity and

violations of rights and liberties."





Oh, that's not all.





The ministry also aim to "promote solidarity between different

segments of the nation, to bring the youths to seek perfection through

a rigorous personal organization and to have them strive for ethical

values of hard work, and [last but not least] to promote

panafricanism."





How is Mende going to achieve and implement all these lofty ideals? Simple...





There will be academic civic training modules, civic education in

primary and high schools, public service ads on radio and TV,

billboards, banners, leaflets, civic (video)games, mass campaigns,

seminars, civic contests, and prizes for excellence in civic

achievement!





Wow!





This is definitely a government that has tons of monies to throw away.





You'd have expected that in the Q & A session, journos would confront

Mende on this financial profligacy and properly deconstruct the

madness called government-sponsored initiation to the new citizenship.





Far from it...





The Q & A turned into a Congo Taliban 101 course.





Journos unplugged--and unleashed against new women's fashion and

against musicians-pornographers!





Journos urged Mende, as one of the priorities of the Ministry of the

Initiation to the New Citizenship, to crack down on soft porn in

women's fashion and on music viodeos.





Practically, journos told Mende, this crackdown would mean having cops

patrol the streets and nab women wearing tight low-rise jeans, tight

and cleavage-revealing blouses, tank tops, tight fit training pants,

etc.





In other words, Mende should set up a Congolese version of the Taliban

morality police!





The prudish journos also expressed their dismay at the soft porn in

music videos being shown on TV--what with indecent belly dances and

hip swivels, and, once again, tight low-rise pants showing women

nakedness against all biblical precepts!





Without mentioning by name soukouss star Koffi Olomide, journos

accused certain musicians turned pornographers of being shielded by

the powers that be for their notorious sycophancy.





Mende responded to these Taliban queries by pointing out that

unleashing cops upon "unbecoming" women would mean more bribes paid to

cops!





The solution would be to educate cops against corruption and to root

out outrageous fashion through education.





Mende denied that the government is shielding some pornographers. But

he promised to have a word with members of the National Censorship

Commission, which is also in his purview, to rein in on pornography in

music.





Well, Congo is the only country in the world where journos would call

for more censorship and urge morality police action targeting new

women's fashion.





Are these Taliban journos even aware that under Mobutu suits and ties

were banned and that women caught wearing pants were arrested and in

many cases raped by the youth wing of the party state?





In the evangelical-besieged Congo, a respectable woman must wear the

pagne, the sarong that is the local version of the Taliban burqa.





***



PHOTO: A Congolese dancer of soukouss star Werrason performs at the

Sfinks music festival in Belgium

Read More

Bloody donnybrook for Opposition Spokesperson job: Kamerhe and MP Badibanga with naked swords

While Jean-Bosco Ntaganda and his bandits are stalemating the FARDC

from "only two hills" (to use the strange phrase of Prime Minister

Augustin Matata, as if those two hills were not part of the DRC

territory), a bloody donnybrook has broken out in the People's

Republic of Kinshasa.





With naked swords, mind you!





This side of the Republic, however, the casus belli isn't over coltan

and other blood minerals; it's all about the lucrative job of

Opposition Spokesperson.





Forgetten, the much-touted "sacred union" of the Opposition against

the corrupt and Rwanda-abetting regime that has to be brought down at

all costs.





All of a sudden, venal politicos are stampeding and backstabbing one

another for the job of Opposition Spokesperson.





Who'd blame them? But let's back up a bit...





Article 8 of the Constitution clearly states that "the rights linked

to [the Opposition's] existence, its activities and its fight for the

democratic conquest of power are sacred."





The same article then goes on to state that an "organic law determines

the status of political opposition."





And just as mandated by that article of the Constitution, one such

"organic law" (Law N° 07/008) was passed on December 4, 2007, by the

National Assembly to formalize the status of the Opposition.





That law also creates the job of Opposition Spokesperson, who could

either be chosen by consensus or through a vote by members of the

opposition of both houses meeting in congress. Candidates vying for

that position could be either from the "parliamentary" or

"extraparliamentary" Opposition.





You have to read Article 21 of that law to understand the current

no-hold-barred fratricidal scrum for that job among Opposition pols:





"The Spokesperson of the Opposition has the rank of State Minister at

the national level and of Provincial Minister at the provincial level.

He/She enjoys the advantages and the immunities related to [these

positions]."





Oh boy! That's massive perks we're talking about here. Big wonga. And

impunity to do and say anything that crosses your mind. Impunity to

steal from state coffers. Same sin opposition politicos are now

bemoaning in their peers in government.





Monies and noise! That's a good definition of politics in the country

called Kinshasa.





Those at each other's throats now are former presidential candidate

Vital Kamerhe and UDPS MP Sammy Badibanga.





Both candidates have their hosts of problems though.





Kamerhe just can't shake the perception that he's Kabila's mole within

the opposition. The more he vilifies Kabila, the less credible he

sounds.





His position is further complicated by the campaign being waged

against him by International Criminal Court inmate Jean-Pierre Bemba

from his jail cell at the Scheveningen Prison Complex.





I don't see how Equateur Bangala MLC MPs, even without Bemba's

directive, could vote for a swahili speaker to be in yet another

position of political prominence.





Nevertheless, Kamerhe keeps deluding himself that as the erstwhile

Speaker, he might still have buddies left in the National Assembly.





Badibanga's pounding headache is that he and other UDPS MPs in the

National Assembly are considered by their party's leadership and rank

and file as traitors to self-proclaimed president Etienne Tshisekedi.





Just the other day, queried on this subject by Radio France

Internationale (RFI), Jacquemain Shabani, Secretary General of UDPS--I

mean, the genuine, really real Tshisekedi's UDPS--responded with his

usual contempt for the traitors:





"These guys can do what they want to do... That group has nothing to

do with our party. They've chosen a path. They're free. We wish them

good luck!"





And luck is what Badibanga would need to pull this trick from his hat.





On top of the fatwa from genuine UDPS, the 42 UDPS MPs in the National

Assembly have split in two groups: 1) one is called UDPS/Tshisekedi;

2) and the other, to which belongs Badibanga, is called UDPS/FAC or

"Forces Acquises au Changement" [forces keen on change]!





Apart from these two highfliers, there are other small fries vying for

that position too. For you never know: luck might strike you unawares.

There's an expression in Kinshasa for that kind of fool's errand: to

throw a stone in the dark... in the hope it'd hit something.





And word is some big surprise might be in the offing. Like the big

upset Léon Kengo wa Dondo pulled in 2007 to become Senate President

against all odds.





In the meanwhile, Kinois in the streets aren't the least bit

interested by all these shenanigans. They know it ain't no Nollywood

soap opera, but the grim chronicle of their lives being stolen by

highway robbers!

Read More

Ethiopia Cyber Dragnet: Tor Project reveals deployment of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), with help of France Télécom

On May 31st, the Tor Project, whose software "Tor" helps, among other

things, organizations to safely use online data traffic and

cybercitizens to circumvent Internet control and censorship, released

on its website a terse technical statement flagging Ethiopia for

introducing Deep Packet Inspection (DPI).





Parts of the Tor Project statement reads:





"The Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation, which happens to be the

sole telecommunication service provider in Ethiopia, has deployed or

begun testing Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) of all Internet traffic. We

have previously analyzed the same kind of censorship in China, Iran,

and Kazakhstan.

Reports show that Tor stopped working a week ago -- even with bridges

configured. Websites such as https://gmail.com/ ,

https://facebook.com/ , https://twitter.com/ , and even

https://torproject.org/ continue to work."





The announcement by the Tor Project of this deployment of the cyber

dragnet by the Ethiopian government simmered for more than a month

until yesterday (Sunday, June 10), when it was first picked up by the

French daily La Croix, and then relayed today by the daily Le Monde.





The headline of La Croix captures the outrage of the French public

over the involvement of France Télécom, a telecommunications behemoth

in which the French state owns shares worth more than 13%, in this

massive operation of cybersurveillance:





"In Ethiopia, France Télécom aids and abets Internet censorship."





A story echoed today by Le Monde: "Ethiopia sets up a system of web

surveillance."





La Croix reports that Ethio Telecom has been in partnership with

France Télécom for almost two years now.





What's more, the CEO of Ethio Telecom, Jean-Michel Latute, a French

national, is a senior executive of France Télécom on assignment in

Addis Ababa, within the framework of this partnership.



Latute confirmed to La Croix the deployment of DPI on cybertraffic in Ethiopia.





While claiming that France Télécom has "nothing to do" with the

decision to undertake this vast scale operation of cybersurveillance,

Latute acknowledges that it's being implemented by his corporation and

sees great benefits in it.





Says Latute:





"We'll use parts of this service to monitor our bandwidth. It'll help

us avoid misuses by customers, who download tons of movies for

example. It's a very useful tool."





A "specious claim," points out La Croix, as Internet access in

Ethiopia, and all over Africa for that matter, is on an access as you

pay basis.





Connections are so slow in Ethiopia, La Croix further argues, it'd

take a week to download one movie.





Besides, the new Ethiopian antiterrorism law is so ridiculously

draconian that the use of Skype, whose protocol is hard to crack,

could land you 15 years in jail!





La Croix also notes that Ethiopian Telecommunications Minister

Gebremikael Debretsion is "opportunely" the former spy chief.





In that capacity, Debretsion was aptly nicknamed "The Jammer" for

effectively jamming short-wave radio signals of Voice of America and

Deutsche Welle; and Western TV channels.





Le Monde gives a chilling snapshot of what Deep Packet Inspection

would mean to Ethiopian Internet users:





"In a nutshell, it's somewhat the equivalent of reading the content of

a letter by exposing its envelope to light."





This is awful news for Africa.





As the seat of African Union (AU), Addis Ababa is the hub where

African leaders rub elbows.





The danger is that other authoritarian regimes might copy the Ethiopian example.





And to think that Erithrea is still seen by some as the only bad boy

in that mean neighborhood...



***



PHOTO: Anti-government demonstration in Addis Ababa in 2005.



CREDITS: www.lemonde.fr

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"The feast was not meant for us but for the locusts": Misfortunes never come singly in Mali

The FAO press release of this past Tuesday on the organization's

locusts advisory for West Africa begins in an ominously tone:





"Croplands in Niger and Mali are at imminent risk from Desert Locust

swarms that are moving southward from Algeria and Libya, FAO warned

today."





FAO is talking about an infestation that could spawn up to 80 million

locusts per kilometer square!





This looming scourge brought to my mind the flashback of the blind

beggar character in "The Swamp Dwellers," the gripping play by

Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.





When it started raining on his village, the beggar recalls, after

"land had lain barren for generations," it signalled "the moment that

the village became a clan, and the clan a household, and even that was

taken by Allah in one of his large hands and kneaded together with the

clay of the earth."





"But it turned out," the beggard goes on to recount his village's

plight with a lump in his throat, "to be an act of spite. The feast

was not meant for us,--but for the locusts."





For zillions of crop-devouring locusts suddenly set upon the crops and

in their wake left the village in a far worse state of devastation and

barreness than before.





That script is being rehearsed in impoverished and war-torn Mali--and

its neighbor, Niger.





At the beginning of this past month of May, in an interview with the

Bamako daily Le Républicain, Mohamed Koité, Mali's chief

meteorologist, was upbeat about the rainfall prospects for the

2012-2013 rainy season.





Koité also revealed that there was a task force made of meteorologists

and agriculturalists who would recommend to peasants the appropriate

time to sow or plant crops in each grid of the different agricultural

zones of Mali.





Koité went on to name some of those crops that he anticipated would

obtain good yields this season: corn, peanuts, niebe, etc, as well as

the ubiquitous but much maligned cotton.





This was at least one positive news in a country (and a region) always

on the brink of famine, after a streak of bad news that succeeded one

another as if to illustrate the old saying that has it that

misfortunes never come singly.





The series of bad news started with the invasion of Mali by the

northern barbarian hordes of pro-Gaddafi Tuareg mercenaries; followed

in quick order by:





1) the military coup;





2) the proclamation of independence of the Azawad (an independence

forced upon the majority of sedentary populations in the region by

roving swarms of heavily armed desert nomad bandits);





3) the savage beating of the post-coup interim president in the

presidential palace;





4) the mass rapes perpetrated by Tuaregs and their pro-Al Qaeda allies

in territories under their control, on top of countless other acts of

malfeasance.





But unfortunately, just as in "The Swamp Dwellers," rain comes not as

a blessing but as a curse in that region.





Excerpt from the FAO advisory:





"'How many locusts there are and how far they move will depend on two

major factors--the effectiveness of current control efforts in Algeria

and Libya and upcoming rainfall in the Sahel of West Africa,' said

Keith Cressman, FAO Senior Locust Forecasting Officer."





Cressman revealed, however, an additional culprit of the looming

outbreak of desert locusts.





He told The Financial Times:





"The fall of Gaddafi was an enormous factor, to be honest... It

depleted the Libyans' capacity to monitor and respond as they normally

would."





Anyway, if those locusts were to ever swarm Kinshasa, they'd be

welcomed as manna falling from the heavens.





We eat them as deep fried delicacies.



***



PHOTO: Swarm of desert locusts in Nouakchott, Mauritania



CREDITS: FAO

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Government of technomorons taunts hyperinflation beast: large denomination banknotes of Congolese Franc to be issued by July

The image above, photoshopped by Radio-Okapi to illustrate its June 5

scoop on the issue of the larger denomination bills of the Congolese

Franc--(ISO 4217 Currency Code CDF)--captures the bipolar dynamic of

currency circulation at the microeconomics level in the DRC.





On the right, there are wads of the CDF, which is (in)formally

shadowed in almost every transaction by the American dollar (USD), on

the left.





On the website of the International Organisation of Standardisation,

this dogging of the CDF by the USD is soberly described more elegantly

as follows:





"Our currency rankings show that the most popular Congo/Kinshasa Franc

exchange rate is the USD to CDF rate."





(ISO: "Currency codes are composed of a country's two-character

Internet country code plus a third character denoting the currency

unit.")





Before the launch of CDF in 1998, shortly after the fall of Mobutu,

the currency then called Zaire was likewise dogged by the USD.





Hence, the ubiquitous "cambistes" (money changers) at every street

corner of Kinshasa and other Congolese urban centers--then and now.





With the exception of the short-lived ban on dollar transactions under

the regime of Mzee Laurent Kabila--an impractical ban and a con that

died with the death of the assassinated president.





Even then, "cambistes" continued to briskly carry out their business

in back streets off of the main boulevards and thoroughfares. And,

when caught, they'd readily bribe arresting officers.





Most of the CDF wads of banknotes shown in the image above are in 500

denominations--the largest Congolese denomination in circulation

today.





Below CDF 500--today worth $0.50--there are only three other subunits

currently in circulation: 1) CDF 200; 2) CDF 100; and 3) CDF 50.





There were CDF banknotes in denominations of 1, 5, 10, and 20 that

have disappeared and died their natural death--without government

intervention.





There were also plans to issue subunits of CDF with face values of 1,

5, 10, 20, and 50 "centimes" (or cents)--all in paper currency. No

coins. But these Congolese "centimes" never saw the light of day.





You'd think that if the DRC wanted to tamper with its currency, it'd

first consolidate its foundation--namely, release smaller

denominations of the DRC, like the forgotten "centimes" or the smaller

bills that have since vanished into thin air.





Not a chance.





Congo is after all the topsy-turviest place in the world, and where

things are done willy-nilly. And where houses may be built from the

rooftop down the foundation.





Consider the following strange development.





Three days ago, Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister in charge of

Finance, Patrice Kitebi, told Radio Okapi that, by the beginning of

July of this year, the Banque Centrale du Congo (BCC) will issue large

denomination banknotes with face values of CDF 1,000; 5,000; and even

a whopping CDF face value of 10,000!





Said Kitebi:



"At the strictly technical level, there's an essential condition: the

global volume of the flowing liquidity should be in balance with the

needs of the economy."





He further told Radio Okapi that these denominations had already been

printed an unspecified number of years ago, and that the government

held back releasing them just over an "issue of opportunity."





And Kitebi confided to Radio-Okapi what this opportunity is all about:





"We figure that now, the moment is very opportune because we have a

macroeconomic stability that has been lasting for two years."





Mark that qualifier in Kitebi's sentence: "macroeconomic."





These guys have been soaring far too long in stratospheric altitudes

they've completely lost sight of the microeconomic ground zero level

where normal people walk.





Little wonder then that to balance their macroeconomic books, former

Finance Minister and current Prime Minister Matata Ponyo introduced at

the end of last year the 18%-TVA (Value-Added Tax).





Such opportune introduction that it triggered a spike of prices,

further eroding the already crippled purchasing power of impoverished

households right when they had to do their Christmas and New Year

shoppings.





Economists point out that the "macroeconomic stability" Minister

Delegate Kitebi is boasting about depends on volatile indicators, over

which a country such the DRC would have little control.





To be more charitable to the motives of the technomorons in charge of

finance, maybe they think that by simply issuing larger denominations

of CDF they'd motivate businesspeople and investors to transact

business in Congolese Franc, and not in dollars.



If such is truly their thinking, then they're deluding themselves.





There are companies and NGOs established in Congo that directly pay

their workers in dollars and make their transactions in dollars. And

Congolese entrepreneurs who deal with MONUSCO are compelled to bid and

be paid in USD.





I don't see any of these stakeholders relinquishing the stability of

the dollar and opting for a limping currency.





(God help us if they are thinking of banning the dollar again!)





Besides, last year, during the political campaign leading up to the

general general elections of November, the CDF exchange rates to the

dollar fluctuated so wildly that the Central Bank and then Finance

Minister Matata Ponyo himself had to resort to the Congolese version

of "quantitative easing" to stablilize the rates.





The end result of injecting into the economy these large denominations

would be to trigger brutal price increases of basic commodities and

consumer goods.





Which could even beget hyperinflation, ever larger banknote

denominations and, unavoidably, a spate of countrywide food riots.





Maybe the technocrats have forgotten that conservative estimates put

the rate of urban youth unemployment at 96% (a permanent security

risk), and that the 1993 urban military riots were caused by soldiers'

refusal to be paid in worthless 5-million Zaire banknotes!

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National Assembly: MP Jaynet Kabila designated as committee chairwoman amid Opposition outcry

Monday, June 4, was the 41st birthday of twin siblings Joseph Kabila,

President of the DRC, and Jaynet Kabila, unaffiliated national

MP--though she caucuses with her brother's Presidential Majority (PM).





Coincidentally, Monday also happened to be the day Speaker Aubin

Minaku had to introduce the new members of the Committee of the Wise

in a string of so-called "consensus" in-house moves aimed at

enhancing women's representation in the National Assembly.





As a matter of fact, a consensus had already emerged among leaders of

parliamentary caucuses that MP Jaynet Kabila will be the Chairwoman of

the Committee of the Wise.





But Opposition MP Albert-Fabrice Puela took to the floor with an

incidental motion contesting that the designation of the chair of that

committee should be determined by consensus.





It should rather go through a vote, MP Puela argued, according to

Article 43 of the Rules and Regulations of the National Assembly, and

not in closed-door meetings by presidents of parliamentary caucuses.





Without mentioning MP Jaynet Kabila by name, MP Puela further argued

that the basic "criterion of experience," as suggested in the rules

and regulations, wasn't "respected" in this case.





MP Puela therefore demanded that the chairmanship of the Committee of

the Wise be put to a vote by the plenary session.





(Many in the presidential majority accuses MP Puela of having an axe

to grind. In 2010, he was kicked out of MP Olivier Kamitatu's party

ARC [Alliance pour le Renouveau du Congo] for his out-of-control

ambition: he wanted to run for president!)





According to parliamentary rules, two MPs had to speak in support of

the incidental motion, and two others against it.





Amidst jeers and heckling by MPs from the majority, opposition MP (and

erstwhile impeached governor of Equateur Province) José Makila went

for the jugular.





He passionately claimed that Speaker Minaku was a serial violator of

the rules and regulations, and charged that he ought to show the

necessary "intellectual probity" of acknowledging his "missteps"

instead of dashing to an up-and-down vote on the motion of MP Puela.





Speaking for the majority, MP Emmanuel Ramazani Shadari argued that MP

Puela was making a step backward, for the plenary session had

previously decided to have a woman chair the Committe of the Wise, in

an attempt at achieving a semblance of gender parity in positions of

leadership in the National Assembly.





Opposition MP Emery Ukundji warned Speaker Aubin that his repeated

violations of the rules and regulations risk tarnishing the image of

the "temple of democracy" that the National Assembly is striving to

achieve.





Then, after a backbencher from the majority had forcefully argued that

there were no objective criteria for determining the wisdom or the

experience of an MP, the incidental motion of MP Puela was put to a

vote--and soundly defeated.





Following the vote, Speaker Minaku then introduced Chairwoman Jaynet

Kabila and the members of her Committee of the Wise.





A nice birthday present indeed...





The Committee of the Wise works as a mix of ombundsman and ethical

commission for MPs.

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