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!

Read More

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.

Read More

Female Biopolitical Nonautonomy: French pundit Audrey Pulvar fired for being Minister's girlfriend

Last year, well before the kick-off of the French presidential

campaign, Martinican-born assertive political pundit and radio and TV

show hostess Audrey Pulvar, 40, was fired by Canal+, a French media

conglomerate partially-owned by COMCAST.





Canal+ called the firing a "suspension" and explained it as a

"cautionary" move motivated by "professional ethics."





A convoluted way to say that Pulvar's analytical "objectivity" had

been impaired beyond repair for being the live-in girlfriend of Arnaud

Montebourg, 49, one of the rising stars of the socialist party.





Well, that was only the beginning of Pulvar's professional troubles.





During the socialist primaries of last year, Pulvar raised eyebrows

for appearing at campaign stumps and events at the side of Montebourg

(photo above)--who was vying for the socialist party's presidential

nomination as one among François Hollande's 5 rivals.





And state-owned Radio France Internationale (RFI) quickly yanked

Pulvar from her morning political show.





Pulvar triggered renewed ethical questions during the presidential campaign.





She continued to appear as one of the cohosts of Laurent Ruquier's

weekend TV show "On n'est pas couché" (on state-owned France 2)--a

seemingly innocuous program whose guests include movie stars, writers,

and, occasionnally, political figures.





Last March, she "destroyed" (to use one media observer's phrase) on

that show Jean-François Copé, the pugnacious Secretary General of

Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party, who querulously shot back that Pulvar was

a politician masquerading as a journalist and that her airtime ought

to be counted down like any other politician, as mandated by the media

authority during political campaigns.





With the appointment of Montebourg at the helm of the Industry

Ministry (now fancifully renamed "Ministry of Productive Recovery"),

the ethical quandary of Pulvar turned from bad to untenable--what with

her blatant "conflict of interest," as the guild of journalists

charged.





The daily Le Monde reported on Monday, June 4, that Pulvar had just

tweeted that she's leaving the show "On n'est pas couché."





Le Monde adds that this announcement on Twitter occurs "a few days

after the president of [state-owned media group] France Télévisions,

Rémy Pflimlin, asked her to stop conducting political interviews."





This polite firing comes on the heels of yet another cancelation of of

her political radio program by France Inter.





Pulvar's Monday tweet was rancorous:





"Audrey PULVAR @ Audrey_PULVAR

Thanks y'all. I don't doubt that the honor of journalism has

henceforth been restored and the media have become neutral again. Ciao

viva!"





In a column that appeared in the daily Libération in November of last

year, Pulvar's response to her firing by Canal+ was more cogent:





"Thus, beyond my case today, a woman would still be condemned to think

as and through her male companion. She'd always be incapable of

freeing herself not only from her companion's thought, but also from

the feelings she has for him."





All the employers of Pulvar want her to come up with proposals for

"cultural" shows. In effect, they are killing her career of political

punditry.





She's not alone in that predicament.





Valérie Trierweiler, President Hollande's girlfriend, has just been

reassigned by the privately-owned weekly Paris Match from political

coverage to the "cultural events" section.





People are now remembering with a grain of sarcasm that Trierweiler

famously exclaimed to fellow journalists when her boyfriend won the

presidency: "There's no way my role would be that of a figurehead!"





Now, as it turns out, she's just what she vowed not to become because

of her association with her presidential boyfriend: a "potiche"

[figurehead] all the same.





Incidentally, Pierre Salviac, a rugby commentator tweeted on May 9,

advising other French female journalists to follow in the footsteps of

Trierweiler--derisively dubbed "rottweiler" by the Sarkozy campaign:





"fuck for success you'd get a shot at becoming France's First Lady ;-)"





Salviac was promptly fired on the same day by the commercial radio RTL

and the sports channel L'Equipe TV.





Anyway, Trierweiler already lost a political TV show last year for her

personal involvement with Hollande.





By contrast, former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's

Belgian-born girlfriend Chritine Ockrent, not only continued to be a

political reporter on French television after her partner's

ministerial appointment, but she was also elevated by Nicolas Sarkozy

to managerial positions overseeing French and Francophone radio and TV

channels.



Way to go, girl!





Ockrent meteoric rise was deemed scandalous by French journos, who

gave her the moniker of "Reine Ockrent," no doubt in reference to her

Belgian roots!





Turning back to the case of Pulvar--and to that of France's

default-First Lady--it seems to me that sexism is lurching behind

these selective and stifling professional ethics.





In her column in Libération, Pulvar posed a serious theoretical issue

on the French female biopolitical nonautonomy.





Which would beg the following question: what if the woman in question

is from a different political sensibility than her male

companion--say, as Democrat James Carville used to spar with his

Republican wife Mary Matalin on the now-defunct CNN's Crossfire--would

she still be fired too, regardless?





Do these Parisian Cartesian pedants from Sciences Po seriously

consider politics and political punditry as objective sciences?





Maybe someone ought to tell them that "political science" could be

construed as an oxymoron!





In any case, Audrey Pulvar will be sorely missed by Kinshasa viewers

of TV5MONDE--the channel jointly owned by big Francophone countries

(Belgium, Canada, France, and Switzerland)--on which "On n'est pas

couché" is syndicated.



***



PHOTO CREDITS: www.actualites.fr

Read More

French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira: the new lightning rod for rightists

Among the 17 women in the 34-member cabinet of French Premier

Jean-Marc Ayrault, 60-year-old Justice Minister Christiane Taubira

leaps out at you as very special.





As a divorcee, Taubira had raised 5 kids as a single mom while

pursuing a demanding dual academic and political career.





A former professor of economics, Taubira is a published author who has

penned 5 books, including the best-seller "L'Esclavage raconté à ma

fille" [Slavery explained to my daughter].





Taubira has been representing French Guiana in France's National

Assembly since 1993 up to her appointment as Justice Minister on May

17.





But prior to being an MP, Taubira had a stint in the European

Parliament where she was a Rapporteur of a committee dealing with

cooperation with African countries.





In 2002, Taubira was a presidential candidate.





A 2001 French law bearing her name (Loi-Taubira) holds that the

Atlantic slave trade and slavery are crimes against humanity.





But until the win of the presidency by socialist François Mitterrand

in 1981, Taubira was an independantist pasionaria, fighting for the

independence of the French South American territory of Guiana.





At Taubira's appointment, rightists screamed that it was a "casting

error in Hollandie."





(Just as there was "Sarkoland" or "Sarkozie," Hollandie is what the

French are now calling the "universe" of President François Hollande.)





In anticipation of the legislative elections to be held on June 10

(1st round) and June 17 (2nd round), both former President Sarkozy's

center-right party UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) and Marine

Le Pen's far-right FN (Front National) now showcase Taubira's

appointment as emblematic of the derelict character of the new

administration.





While Marine Le Pen focuses on the independantist past of Taubira,

UMP's de facto leader Jean-François Copé castigates her "laxity"

towards criminals.





(One of the first major decisions Taubira is intent on taking is to

scrap criminal courts for minors introduced in 2011 by UMP-controlled

National Assembly and to reinstate juvenile courts.)





But those tactics don't fool anyone. It seems Taubira is simply a

target for being black.





At a campaign meeting held in a conference center in Paris on June 1,

Marine Le Pen told hundreds of her supporters that Hollande's choice

of Taubira--an independantist--was erratic, "nonsensical" and

"mind-boggling."





If this kind of vicious attacks against Taubira from the far-right is

understandable, those coming from the center-right are astonishing,

and smack of desperation as polls show that Hollande might slightly

tighten his grip on power with the aggregate win of the left in the

upcoming legislative election.





In 2007, Taubira turned down an offer by Nicolas Sarkozy to be a

minister in his first so-called "consensus government" that featured

some emblematic members of the left--such as Bernard Kouchner.





Besides, tough from the left, Taubira is a maverick who isn't even a

member of the Parti Socialiste (PS) and who, some in the entourage of

Holland fear, could turn out before long to be a thorn in the side of

the new president.





Maybe the closest that the racism underlying the vicious attacks

against Taubira came to the fore was when she announced she'd

reintroduce the bill recently scrapped by the Constitutional Council

on sexual harrassment.





Reacting to that decision, Eric Zemmour, a controversial radio and TV

commentator, said:





"Christiane Taubira has chosen her boogeymen. The youths of the

suburbs are in the good camp. White men are in the wrong one."



***



PHOTO CREDITS: Le Télégramme

Read More

The FARDC pulled a no-show at the second biennial African Land Forces Summit (ALFS) in Kampala

The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (acronymed FARDC)

pulled a no-show at the second biennial African Land Forces Summit

(ALFS).





The ALFS was co-hosted by the United States Army Africa (USARAF)--the

army component of AFRICOM--and, for the first time, the Uganda

Peoples' Defence Forces (UPDF) at Speke Resort & Conference Center, at

Munyonyo, Kampala (May 14-18, 2012).





The first biennial ALFS was held in in Chantilly, Virginia , in 2010.





Besides USARAF Commander, Major General David R. Hogg, top AFRICOM

indefatigable fieldworker and Africa-trotter, Gen Carter F. Hand, also

attended the event.





As Lieutenant Gen Edward Katumba Wamala, UPDF Commander of Land

Forces, put it in the ALFS booklet, this kind of summit is a unique

venue where top brass of African infantry could share "experiences

during the formal and informal settings

provided" with senior officers of the world's most formidable land forces.







That's why USARAF Gen Hogg also advised that as the gathering was

primarily meant to "encourage candid dialogue with free exchange of

ideas, the summit [had to be]

closed to the public."





Land forces chiefs, top brass, technicians and civilian security

experts of the following 36 African countries (including those from

the African Union) intermingled and exchanged with their American

counterparts:





Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon,

8Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros,

Congo-Brazzaville, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia,

Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger,

Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan,

Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.





Yeah, that's right, even Zimbabwe was there!





Reading that list, I was baffled by the absence of the DRC, given that

US military advisors have trained Congolese battle-ready battalions,

and that on his fairly recent visit in Kinshasa Gen Ham promised a

continued training program for the FARDC .





Plus, with all the security woes besetting the Congo, you'd think the

FARDC top brass would jump at the first opportunity to rub elbows with

the best land forces officers the world and Africa could offer.





Queried by email for this blog post, a USARAF public affairs officer

told me that, "The DRC was invited to participate but declined the

invitation, and we did not ask for a reason."





"Perhaps your question has to be directed to the Minister of Defense

of the DRC," she further suggested. "All countries in Africa are

invited to attend. They do not have to apply. Some choose to attend

and others do not."





Hell! I'll then speculate about this no-show, sparing myself the grief

of looking around for an elusive Public Affairs Officer at the the DRC

Ministry of Defense who wouldn't even know the first thing about the

absence of Congolese officers at the ALFS--let alone what ALFS is all

about.





I'd then assume that the Congolese government might have wanted to be

spared a double humiliation.





Humiliation Number 1.





The FARDC's own chief of land forces, Major General Gabriel Amisi

Kumba aka Tango-Four, would have been out of his league among the

topnotch officers and guest speakers arrayed at the Kampala Summit.





Tango-Four got his commission when rebel groups merged with and were

integrated into the national armed forces. What possibly could he have

been talking about at lunch breaks with highly trained officers (many

of whom with university degrees and impressive resumes) who attended

the Summit?





Additionally, the theme of the Summit was: "The Strength of an Army

for the Nation and its People"--with all kind of complex topic

discussions, presentations, and grueling Q&A sessions.





Tango-Four might have been up to his ears!





(The solution could have been to

send instead the Congolese equivalent of the chairman of the Joint

Chiefs of Staffs, Gen Didier Etumba, who was trained in the Belgian

Royal Military Academy. The problem was that Gen Etumba was in eastern

Congo overseeing counterinsurgency operations.)





Humiliation Number 2.





Besides the staggering incompetence of the FARDC land forces

commander, there is also the fact that the current UDPF Land Forces

Commander Gen Edward Katumba Wamala worked under the late Gen James

Kazini as Operations Commander of the infamous and plunderous

"Operation Safe Haven" in DR Congo between 2000 and 2001.





An operation denounced by the UN that obtained countless of Congolese

civilian deaths and scandalous ill-gotten gains by corrupt Ugandan

military top brass--including Gen Kazini who President Yoweri was

compelled to fire in 2003.





Be that as it might, the DRC needs to get its act together by training

and appointing competent and meritorious officers in key positions.

Also, things ought to start from a clean slate somewhere, despite past

atrocities and injustices. Who could have imagined, as I think

President George W. Bush once remarked, that Gernany would today a US

ally?





After all, things had seemed to be moving in the right direction with

joint military operations with Uganda (against the LRA) and Rwanda

(against the FDLR).





Regional armed forces could only be strengthened by gatherings such as

the ALFS or by integrated maneuvers that have still to be designed and

implemented. For the mutual benefit of all involved, in enhanced

security and improved economies.



***

PHOTO CREDIT: USARAF

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