Africa Great Lakes Democracy Watch



Welcome to
Africa Great Lakes Democracy Watch Blog. Our objective is to promote the institutions of democracy,social justice,Human Rights,Peace, Freedom of Expression, and Respect to humanity in Rwanda,Uganda,DR Congo, Burundi,Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya,Ethiopia, and Somalia. We strongly believe that Africa will develop if only our presidents stop being rulers of men and become leaders of citizens. We support Breaking the Silence Campaign for DR Congo since we believe the democracy in Rwanda means peace in DRC. Follow this link to learn more about the origin of the war in both Rwanda and DR Congo:http://www.rwandadocumentsproject.net/gsdl/cgi-bin/library


Saturday, December 11, 2010

Obama’s Congo Moment: Genocide, the U.N. Report and Senate Bill 2125


Source: www.global research.ca

By Ann Garrison

Obama’s Congo Moment: Genocide, the U.N. Report and Senate Bill 2125

13 November 2010 Comments (0) Print This Post Print This Post
The official Oct. 1 release of the U.N. Report on Human Rights Abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1993-2003, documenting the Rwandan and Ugandan armies’ massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, should be a defining moment for President Barack Obama. How will the USA’s first African American president respond to the detailed and widely publicized U.N. documentation of genocide in the heart of Africa, committed by the USA’s longstanding military proxies, the armies of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni?
Few Americans realize that the Rwandan and Ugandan armies are armed and trained by the U.S. or that the U.S. military uses both countries as staging grounds, but they may learn about it now.
Few realize either that the sole piece of legislation that President Obama shepherded into law on his own, as a Senator, was S.B. 2125, the Obama Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006, in which, in Section 101(3), he quoted USAID:
“Given its size, population, and resources, the Congo is an important player in Africa and of long-term interest to the United States.”
Indeed. In 1982, the Congressional Budget Office’s “Cobalt: Policy Options for a Strategic Mineral” noted that cobalt alloys are critical to the aerospace and weapons industries, that the U.S. has no cobalt worth mining, that 64 percent of the world’s cobalt reserves are in the Katanga Copper Belt running from southeastern Congo into northern Zambia and that control of the region is therefore critical to the U.S. ability to manufacture for war.
Foreign powers and corporations’ determination to control Congo’s cobalt and the rest of its dense mineral resources has made the Congo conflict the most lethal since World War II.
Section 101(5) and (6) of Obama’s 2006 Congo legislation reads:
“(5) The most recent war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which erupted in 1998, spawned some of the world’s worst human rights atrocities and drew in six neighboring countries.
“(6) Despite the conclusion of a peace agreement and subsequent withdrawal of foreign forces in 2003, both the real and perceived presence of armed groups hostile to the Governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi continue to serve as a major source of regional instability and an apparent pretext for continued interference in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by its neighbors [Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi].”
What Obama identified as the “real and perceived presence of armed groups hostile to the Governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi” was, most of all, the real and perceived presence of “Hutu militias.” They were indeed the “pretext” for the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Army’s massacres of Hutu civilians, Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus, with the help of the Ugandan People’s Defence Force – massacres now documented in the U.N. report leaked to Le Monde on Aug. 26, then officially released Oct. 1.
Since Obama described the militias as “apparent pretext for continued interference” in 2006, we can assume that he understood them as such on his Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009, when Rwandan troops again moved into Congo. On that day, world headlines, alongside those he himself was making, included “Rwandan Troops enter D.R. Congo to hunt Hutu militias” (Telegraph), “Rwandan troops enter Congo to hunt Hutu rebels” (BBC) and “Rwandan troops enter Kivu to hunt Hutu rebels” (Radio France International).
On the same day, the Christian Science Monitor, in “Rwandan Troops enter Democratic Republic of the Congo,” reproduced the pretext that Obama had identified in S.B. 2125:
“Rwandan troops entered the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday to tackle a Rwandan Hutu militia whose leaders are accused of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide before fleeing to Congo.”
Since Obama understood the pretext in 2006, he no doubt understood it that day and no doubt understands it today, as Rwandan and Ugandan troops are rumored, once again, to be moving into Congo, despite international outcry about the U.N. report.
Hutu militias and other “rebel militias” in Congo can no longer serve as the devil, the eternal excuse or, as Obama said, the “apparent pretext for intervention in the Democratic Republic by Congo’s neighbors.” Most of all, they can no longer serve as the devil, the excuse and pretext for interventions by Paul Kagame, the general turned president and so long heroized as Rwanda’s savior, because Kagame’s own army’s massacres of Rwandan and Congolese Hutu civilians has now been documented in the U.N. report.
The leak and now the official release have finally magnified President, then-Senator, Obama’s obscure, still little known revision of the East-Central African story in his 2006 legislation, S.B. 2125, which then became Public Law 109-456.
Obama’s ‘Rwanda moment’?
John Prendergast and David Eggers, the ENOUGH Project’s tireless advocates for U.S. intervention in Sudan, suggested, in a New York Times op-ed that Obama’s “Rwanda moment,” like Bill Clinton’s in 1994, is now in Sudan, where, they say, Obama has a chance to do what Bill Clinton reputedly failed to do in Rwanda, intervene to stop genocide.
But Obama’s Rwanda, and Congo, moment is in Rwanda and Congo now, as the world reviews the U.N. report and Rwandan troops once again advance into Congo.
He doesn’t need to intervene but to stop intervening, by withdrawing the military support, weapons, training, logistics and intelligence for Kagame, support that has so long equaled intervention. If he did so, peace and human rights activists all over the world would stand behind him and the narrative revision that he quietly penned three years ago.
An Obama decision to stop supporting Kagame would go up against the last 30 years of Pentagon intervention in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, but the U.N. Report turns his 2006 narrative revision into an outright reversal – with the weight of the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights and growing international opinion behind it.
And Obama is the commander-in-chief, with absolute executive authority over the U.S. armed forces. Yes, he can, should he choose to.
This article was previously published in Global Research.
Written by Ann Garrison
Enhanced by Zemanta

3 comments:

oakleyses said...

ray ban outlet, prada handbags, tory burch outlet online, christian louboutin, michael kors outlet online, coach purses, coach outlet, christian louboutin outlet, kate spade outlet, burberry outlet online, christian louboutin shoes, longchamp outlet, nike free, michael kors outlet, polo ralph lauren, michael kors outlet store, jordan shoes, red bottom shoes, louis vuitton outlet online, burberry outlet online, longchamp outlet online, coach outlet, michael kors outlet online, louis vuitton handbags, oakley vault, oakley sunglasses, gucci handbags, polo ralph lauren outlet, tiffany and co jewelry, prada outlet, louis vuitton outlet, chanel handbags, louis vuitton, kate spade outlet online, nike air max, true religion outlet, michael kors outlet online, ray ban sunglasses, nike outlet, nike air max, true religion, cheap oakley sunglasses, longchamp handbags, louis vuitton outlet, coach outlet store online, michael kors handbags, tiffany jewelry

oakleyses said...

wedding dresses, mac cosmetics, soccer shoes, soccer jerseys, canada goose outlet, insanity workout, canada goose, p90x workout, abercrombie and fitch, longchamp, nfl jerseys, ugg soldes, instyler ionic styler, giuseppe zanotti, canada goose outlet, reebok shoes, ghd, herve leger, nike huarache, ugg outlet, bottega veneta, jimmy choo shoes, celine handbags, ferragamo shoes, ugg, canada goose outlet, babyliss, mcm handbags, uggs outlet, asics shoes, north face jackets, lululemon outlet, north face jackets, hollister, marc jacobs outlet, replica watches, valentino shoes, uggs on sale, birkin bag, uggs outlet, nike roshe, vans outlet, chi flat iron, new balance outlet, nike trainers, beats headphones, ugg boots, mont blanc pens, ugg boots

oakleyses said...

moncler outlet, wedding dress, supra shoes, uggs canada, louboutin, coach outlet, canada goose, air max, ugg, lancel, moncler, converse, moncler outlet, louis vuitton canada, thomas sabo uk, moncler, pandora charms, canada goose, juicy couture outlet, links of london uk, swarovski uk, replica watches, juicy couture outlet, moncler, nike air max, swarovski jewelry, timberland shoes, montre femme, hollister, oakley, moncler, hollister clothing, ray ban, hollister canada, pandora uk, vans, pandora jewelry, baseball bats, ralph lauren, gucci, parajumpers outlet, converse shoes, moncler, canada goose pas cher, iphone 6 case, karen millen, canada goose, toms outlet