False Narrative: Whitewashing Rwanda Genocide (Keith Harmon Snow)

Here is a copy of an email received today (April 18, 2009) from Africa Press International with the following commentary by Milton Allimadi of The Black Star News, New York, USA. Sorry, I cannot vouch for its content but am publishing it here incase readers who come across it are able to agree or refute allegations made in the piece.

Global: Exposing Western Players In African Genocide

Genocide And New Speak

The Black Star News Editor’s Introduction: Ordinarily, we don't write introductions to articles or essays published in The Black Star News but the following column by Keith Harmon Snow warrants it.

Snow has been at the forefront, as has this newspaper, in exposing Western duplicity in Africa and how U.S. and U.K. corporate and government interests have caused the deaths of millions of Africans; all for the love of money.

In the end, the African actors, the bit players really, are the ones who are blamed; wars of blood money and profits are referred to euphemistically by major newspapers, including The New York Times as "tribal wars," so that Americans can nod their heads and continue on with their lives without bothering to ask any further questions.

After all, "tribal wars" are endemic to Africa; they always happen. Africans just wake up one day, grab machetes and start chopping off their neighbors' heads to satisfy "blood lust;" a term actually once used by Time magazine to explain what the magazine contended was the reason for the Rwanda massacres of 1994.

Meanwhile, no one writes about the Western companies that somehow just always happen to be around digging the gold and the diamonds and ferrying off the timber and the young Congolese girls, even as the chopping off of heads and limbs occur.

But Keith Harmon Snow, whose long report follows, is not with the program. He is the anti-New York Times kind of reporter; and the anti-New Yorker magazine; and, anti-BBC and anti-Washington Post kind of journalist.

In fact, he is beyond being a mere journalist. He is the type of forthright individual that corporate media would refer to as "radical," in order to impugn his reputation, without having to challenge him on a single fact. He salvages a little respectability for the profession of journalism, which has been corrupted by corporate media.

He is a crusader with a mission; his goal is to expose United States' and Britain's roles in the genocide in Uganda and in the Congo; with characters like Rwanda's president Paul Kagame and Uganda's Yoweri K. Museveni and Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir all playing the bit roles.

Snow writes long; he cannot help it because he feels the pain of the Congolese and the Ugandans and he wants someone somewhere --here in the United States and Britain-- to pay a price. He might be accused of being overly passionate; one has to be, when one feels the kind of indignation that Snow feels. When it is a matter of genocide no article can be too long.

Readers that bear with Snow and read all his words will learn information not found in the corporate media.

Corporate media are often accomplices to crimes against humanity. Sometimes in a most perverted manner. Take The New York Times' resident Sudanese genocide expert, Nicholas Kristoff. If Kristoff really cares about the suffering of Africans, and not just about winning a Pulitzer Prize as he did for his Sudanese crusade, don't you think he would lend his big pen to expose with equal passion the suffering of Congolese and Ugandan civilians; or might that lead to the indictment of Kagame and Museveni, "friends" of United States interests? Why would a humanitarian be selective in fighting against genocide unless there was a hidden agenda?

Thank the creator for the Internet. In the past, the world was held hostage to the tyranny of selective coverage and cover-ups by newspapers such as The New York Times and writers like Kristoff. He is a hero to Africans in his own mind. The Internet era has broken the monopoly of disinformation and misinformation once enjoyed by elite media.

Many years ago, George Orwell had warned against the dangers of propaganda, or what he called "New Speak." We hear New Speak every day; where everything is turned upside down, killers are praised, while innocents are marched off to shallow graves in the forests. New Speak celebrates murderers as heroes and denounces victims.

Although successive generations have always declared "never again;" and "not on our watch," as surely as the sun rises, humanity never fails and genocide always occurs. New Speak always exonerates the killers. New Speak is public relations disinformation; black becomes white; red is yellow; and bad is good.

Take Uganda's Yoweri Museveni as an example; he is a master New Speaker. He has single-handedly, with the assistance of U.K. and U.S. financing and military hardware, caused the deaths of more than eight million Africans --half a million or more in Uganda; one million in Rwanda; seven million in Congo. Yet, at least up until the time President George W. Bush left office, he was treated like some respected elder statesman of politics in the West.

He is such a smooth New Speaker that he attends the funerals of people whom he has reportedly eliminated in Uganda. He is such a smooth operator that he even secured an audience with President Bush in the White House in 2007 even though The Wall Street Journal had already reported on June 8, 2006, that he is being investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes committed by his troops and militia in Congo between 1998-2003 and conceivably, like Liberia's former president Charles Taylor, and like Sudan's president al-Bashir, he too may be indicted by the ICC.

While President Bush could ignore the inconvenient truth and entertain Museveni in the White House, praising him for fighting HIV/Aids, even as he used his other hand to eliminate millions of Africans, it is difficult to imagine how President Barack Obama, a constitutional law professor, could ignore the smell of blood emanating from the Ugandan. Then again, on this earth, anything is possible.

Rwanda's Kagame is another master New Speaker.  Earlier this week, he presided over memorial ceremonies for the victims of the 1994 massacres. Kagame indulges in this macabre exercise each year even though he was instrumental in the very genocide which he now "mourns": he commanded the invasion of Rwanda from Uganda in 1990 and a French court has concluded that he ordered the missile downing of the presidential plane carrying Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntayamira of Burundi, sparking the 100 days of mass murders.

Western media had also prepared the global community for the eventual demonization and criminalization of all Hutus --even the ones who never participated in the mass murders of 1994-- with a racist campaign against them in major magazines such as The New York Times magazine and The New Yorker, both with circulation in the millions.

One of the first media volleys against the Hutus was an article by Alex Shoumatoff, published on June 20, 1992 in The New Yorker, where he described people he had observed while travelling in Burundi, which has the same ethnic combustibility between the majority Hutus and minority Hutus; at that time Burundi’s army and government were controlled by the Tutsi minority.

"There were three obvious Tutsis," Shoumatoff wrote, of the people he saw in a taxi cab, "Tall, slender with high foreheads, prominent cheekbones, and narrow features." He added: "They were a different physical type from the five passengers who were short and stocky and had the flat noses and thick lips typical of Hutus."

Almost three months later, an even more insidious article by Shoumatoff, "Rwanda's Aristocratic Guerrillas," was published on December 13, 1992, in The New York Times magazine. By this time, the invasion of Rwanda was in its second year and the RPF had already committed numerous massacres against Hutu civilians, as a lexis-nexus search of news reports will reveal. These crimes were glossed over or ignored in Shoumatoff's article and all contemporary and subsequent accounts in major newspapers such as the Times.

Moreover, Shoumatoff was married to a Tutsi woman who was the first cousin of the RPF's spokesperson and he was met at Entebbe airport in Uganda by RPF officials who guided him to the zones they controlled. So, The New York Times knowingly participated in the demonization campaign against the Hutus, who make up 85% of the population in both Rwanda and Burundi.

"In the late 19th Century," Shoumatoff, acting as an unofficial propagandist for the invading army wrote in The New York Times magazine, describing Tutsis, "early ethnologists were fascinated by these 'languidly haughty' pastoral aristocrats whose high foreheads, aquiline noses and thin lips seemed more Caucasian than Negroid, and they classified them as 'false negroes.' In a popular theory of the day, the Tutsis were thought to be highly civilized people, the race of fallen Europeans, whose existence in Central Africa had been rumored for centuries."

Shoumatoff added, of the Tutsis: "They are not a race or a tribe, as often described, but a population, a stratum, a mystical, warrior-priest elite, like the Druids in Celtic society." As for the Hutus, they were far from resembling warrior priests: as Shoumatoff revealed, they were "short, stocky local Bantu agriculturalists." [To read more critique of Western media demonization of Africans, please see "The Hearts Of Darkness, How White Writers Created The Racist Image of Africa," (Black Star Books, 2005)]

Yes, henious crimes against humanity and war crimes occurred in Rwanda, not only in 1994, but right from the time of the Uganda-sponsored invasion in 1990. Yet, the account here shows, many people would rather pretend that the atrocities started in 1994.

Many of the people who participated in the crimes have been caught and tried; those prosecuted so far have been only Hutus.

The story can never be complete when others involved in the same crime are exonerated through New Speak--some are outside Rwanda, including Museveni, for sponsoring the invasion and reportedly for supplying the missile used to down Habyarimana's jet; others, indicted and unindicted criminals now govern Rwanda.

But ours is a mere introduction.
Let Keith Harmon Snow tell the sordid story.

False Narrative: Whitewashing Rwanda Genocide
By Keith Harmon Snow

On 12 February 2009, Alison Des Forges, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW) for more than 20 years, was killed when Continental Airlines Flight 3407 crashed on route to Buffalo, New York. Des Forges was widely cited as a staunch critic of the Rwandan military government controlled by Paul Kagame and the victors of the war in Rwanda, 1990-1994.

In the ongoing life-and-death struggle to reveal the truth about war crimes and genocide in Central Africa, competing factions on all sides have posthumously embraced Alison Des Forges as an activist challenging power and a purveyor of truth and justice against all odds.

Meanwhile, in March, 2009, based on false accusations of genocide issued by the Kagame regime—and given the close relations between Rwanda and the Barack Obama Administration’s former Clintonite officials—the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began the process of revisiting all immigration cases of Rwandan asylum seekers and criminalizing innocent refugees.

"In May of 1994, a few weeks into the killings of Tutsis in Rwanda," reported Amy Goodman, posthumously, on Democracy Now, Alison Des Forges "was among the first voices calling for the killings to be declared a genocide." Added Goodman: "She later became very critical of the Tutsi-led Rwandan government headed by Paul Kagame and its role in the mass killings in both Rwanda and neighboring Congo after 1994. Last year, she was barred from entering Rwanda."

To say that Des Forges was "amongst the first voices calling for the killings to be declared genocide" in 1994 is an Orwellian ruse. The genocide label applied by Alison Des Forges and certain human rights bodies in May of 1994 was misdirected, used to accuse and criminalize only the majority Hutu people and the remnants of the decapitated Habyarimana government; much as the genocide and war crimes accusations have been selectively applied against President Omar al-Bashir in Sudan.

 
The Clinton Administration refused to apply the genocide label: to do so might have compromised an ongoing U.S.-backed covert operation: the invasion of Rwanda by the Pentagon’s proxy force, the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A).

According to U.S. intelligence insider Wayne Madsen, Des Forges’ criticisms of the U.S.-brokered pact between Rwanda's President Paul Kagame and the Democratic Republic of Congo's President Joseph Kabila in December 2008 "earned her some powerful enemies ranging from the murderous Kagame, who will not think twice about sending his agents to silence critics abroad, and international interests who want nothing to prevent them from looting the DRC’s vast mineral and energy resources."

"With U.S. military forces of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) now backing a joint Ugandan-DRC offensive in the northeastern DRC to wipe out the Lord’s Resistance Army," wrote Madsen on 16 February 2009, "with hundreds of civilian casualties in the DRC and Uganda, and a secret pact worked out between Kabila and Kagame to permit Rwandan troops to occupy the eastern DRC, the target of both operations is securing the vast territory that is rich in commodities that the United States, Britain and Israel—all allies of Uganda and Rwanda—want badly.

Those commodities are gold, diamonds, columbium-tantalite (coltan), platinum and natural gas." Massive oil reserves are also at stake, with major concessions bifurcated by the international border. Ongoing petroleum sector investment (exploration and exploitation) in the region involves numerous western extraction companies—many being so-called petroleum "minors" likely fronting for larger corporations—including Hardman Resources, Heritage Oil and Gas, H Oil & Minerals, PetroSA, Tullow Oil, Vangold Resources, ContourGlobal Group, Tower Resources, Reservoir Capital Group, and Nexant (a Bechtel Corporation subsidiary).

Billed as a "tireless champion" and "leading light in African human rights," there is much more to this story than the western propaganda system has revealed: Alison Des Forges and Human Rights Watch (HRW) provided intelligence to the U.S. government at the time of the 1994 crises, and they have continued in this role to the present. Des Forges also supported the show trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), institutionalizing victor’s justice and shielding the Kagame regime.

Alison Des Forges came across to many people as a wonderful human being with great compassion and impeccable integrity. Indeed, this was my impression upon meeting her as well. She is said to have helped people who were being persecuted—no matter that they were Hutus or Tutsis—by the Rwandan regime that has for more than 19 years operated with impunity behind the misplaced and misappropriated moral currency of victimhood. In the recent past, Alison Des Forges spoke—to some limited degree—against the war crimes of the Kagame regime.

In life she did not speak about the deeper realities of "genocide in Rwanda", and she had plenty of chances. In fact, she is the primary purveyor of the inversion of truth that covered up the deeper U.S. role in the Rwanda "genocide", and she spent the past 10 years of her life explaining away the inconsistencies, covering up the facts, revising her own story when necessary, and manipulating public opinion about war crimes in the Great Lakes of Africa—in service to the U.S. government and powerful corporations involved in the plunder and depopulation of the region.

"Alison des Forges is a liar," Cameroonian journalist Charles Onana told me, in Paris, France, several years ago. Onana is the author of numerous exposés on war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in Central Africa, and he is the author of the book "The Secrets of the Rwandan Genocide, Investigations on the Mysteries of a President," published in French in 2001.

Kagame, Rwanda’s one-party president "elected" through rigged elections, sued Charles Onana for defamation in a French court in 2002; Kagame lost the original trial and the appeal. Kagame was the commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A) and a leading agent—with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and their U.S., U.K., Belgian and Israeli backers—behind the massive bloodshed and ongoing terrorism in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Congo, Sudan and Somalia.

In his book, Onana accused Kagame of being the principle instigator of the missile attack of April 6, 1994 that brought down the plane carrying Rwanda's President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi's Cyprien Ntaryamira. Unlike the U.N.'s ongoing high-profile investigation of the murder of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri, no major power has pushed for a similar probe into the murder of the two African presidents.

Des Forges own death in a plane crash garnered major coverage.

"Leading light in African Human Rights killed in Buffalo Crash," reported the Pentagon’s mouthpiece, CNN. "Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, said she was ‘best known for her award-winning account of the genocide, Leave None to Tell the Story.’ She was truly wonderful, the epitome of the human rights activist—principled, dispassionate, committed to the truth and to using that truth to protect ordinary people."

Alison Des Forges first worked as a HRW agent in Rwanda in 1992; in 1993 she helped produce a major international document highly biased against the Rwandan Government and protective of the RPF/A invaders: "Report of the International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda since October 1, 1990."

In late 1992, the International Federation of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, the Inter-African Union for Human Rights and the Rights of Peoples, and the International Center for the Rights of the Individual and the Development of Democracy created the International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda since October 1, 1990. With 10 members from eight countries, the commission reported its findings in March 1993: Des Forges was co chairperson, one of the three principal writers, and translator of the French to English version.

The report noted that "hundreds of thousands" of Rwandans were made homeless and forced to flee, prior to January 1993, but these casualties of the RPF/A invasion were not attributed to international crimes of peace against a sovereign government committed by an invading army—the RPF/A guerrillas covertly backed by the U.S., Britain, Belgium and Israel—but instead merely to "war".

In other words, the initial act of aggression, the RPA/F invasion, was institutionally protected and the war crimes that set the stage for the conflagrations in Rwanda and Congo went unpunished.

Later in 1993, Rwandans Ferdinan d Nanimana and Joseph Mushyandi, representing four Rwandan organizations under the Rwanda Associations for the Defense of Human Rights, challenged the DesForges commission in their 26-page document, "A Commentary on the Report of the International Commission's Inquiry on the Violation of Human Rights in Rwanda since October 1990."

"How can an international commission be taken seriously when its members spent only two weeks extracting verbal and written evidence on human rights violations for a period of two years?" the authors wrote. They also pointed out that the commission spent less than two hours in areas controlled by the RPF/A rebels and that they could not visit all the 11 prefectures in the country because of demonstrations that blocked the roads. "Can there be any objective and credible conclusions in their report?"

Ferdinand Nanimana was later sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide. Many members of the Rwandan human rights organizations he worked with prior to April 1994 were subsequently killed. The rights and due process of Rwandan Hutus are systematically violated due to victor’s justice secured by the U.S., Europe, Israel and the proxy states Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. Bernard Ntuyahaga, a Major of the former Rwandan army (ex-FAR) accused of killing 10 Belgian soldiers and Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, surrendered to the ICTR to avoid extradition to Rwanda; he was tried in Belgium and sentenced to 20 years in prison on July 4, 2007.

Like other researchers who have endlessly perpetuated the disinformation, Des Forges made no attempts to correct the record. In 1992, human rights researchers Rakiya Omaar and Alex de Waal established the London-based NGO African Rights. In August 1995, African Rights published Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance, another pivotal "human rights" report that manufactured the "genocide" fabrications, set the stage for victor’s justice at the ICTR, and began the process of dehumanizing millions of Hutu people and protecting the true terrorists. In 1995, Omaar and de Waal recycled the disinformation in the left-leaning Covert Action Quarterly under the title "U.S. Complicity by Silence: Genocide in Rwanda."

Since 2003, Alex de Waal has been one of the primary disinformation conduits on Darfur, Sudan. "An intensive back and forth activity between this so-called British human rights organization, African Rights, and the intelligence services of the [Kagame] President’s office and the Rwandan military, has been observed," wrote Paul Rusesabagina, whose heroics was immortalized in the film Hotel Rwanda. "Her investigators are very close to the [RPF/A] military intelligence apparatus, and the modus operandi of both appears to be similar."

Alison Des Forges years-long "investigations" into the bloodshed of 1994 resulted in the fat treatise on genocide in Rwanda, "Leave None to Tell the Story," a book co-researched and co-written by Timothy Longman, now Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Vassar College. Longman and Des Forges produced numerous documents—based on field investigations in Congo (then Zaire), Rwanda and Burundi, from 1995 to 2008—touted as independent and unbiased human rights documents, all skewed by hidden interests.

According to a recent PBS Frontline eulogy, less than two weeks into the killing in April 1994 Des Forges met with officials in the U.S. State Department and National Security Council (NSC) and lobbied for their help. "We were not asking for U.S. troops," Frontline quotes her saying, "it was clear to us that there was no way that the U.S. was going to commit troops to Rwanda."

But the U.S. military was heavily backing the RPF/A tactically and strategically already. Key to the operation were "former" Special Operations Forces (Ronco Company) providing military equipment and ferrying RPA troops from Uganda to Rwanda; the Pentagon's logistical and communications support; Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA operatives. Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), was also collaborating with the RPF/A, serving the Pentagon interest.

Genocide in Rwanda became a massive psychological operation directed against media consumers using ghastly images—produced by RPA-embedded photographers like James Nachtwey and Gilles Peres—to infer that all cadavers were Tutsi victims of an orchestrated Hutu genocide; meanwhile the text was racist disinformation produced by Joshua Hammer. Newsweek, June 20, 1994.

ICTR defense attorney Christopher Black reports that reliable sources confirm that US Special forces were with the RPF all the way through the war. "My client testified in June that U.S. Hercules [C-130 military aircraft] were seen dropping troops in support of the RPF…"

Further, on 9 April 1994, three days after the so-called "mysterious plane crash" where Burundi's President Cyprien Ntaryamira and President Habyarimana were assassinated, some 330 U.S. marines landed at Bujumbura's airport in Burundi, ostensibly to "rescue Americans" in Rwanda.

More centrally however, Uganda—with U.S. trained forces and U.S. supplied weaponry—launched its war against Rwanda as a proxy force for the United States of America on October 1, 1990.

The result was a coup d’état: we won. The 2003 Frontline interview with Alison Des Forges exemplifies her continuing role in whitewashing U.S. involvement in war crimes and genocide in Central Africa. "Kagame received his military education under the Pentagon's Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) at the Command and General Staff College of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, beginning in 1990," wrote John E. Peck of the Association of African Scholars (2002). "His sidekick, Lt. Col. Frank Rusagara, got his JCET schooling at the U.S. Naval Academy in Monterey, California. Both were dispatched to Rwanda in time to oversee the RPF's takeover in 1994. Far from being an innocent bystander, the Washington Post revealed on July 12, 1998 that the United States not only gave Kagame $75 million in military assistance, but also sent Green Berets to train Kagame's forces (as well as their Ugandan rebel allies) in low intensity conflict (LIC) tactics. Pentagon subcontractor Ronco, masquerading as a de-mining company, also smuggled more weapons to RPF fighters in flagrant violation of UN sanctions. All of this U.S. largesse was put to lethal effect in the ethnic bloodbath that is still going on."

"This genocide resulted from the deliberate choice of a modern elite to foster hatred and fear to keep itself in power," Des Forges wrote, blaming "Hutu Power". However, her assertions about a "planned" Hutu genocide—"They seized control of the state and used its machinery and its authority to carry out the slaughter"—collapse under scrutiny.

From 1990 to 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), comprised most heavily of Ugandan soldiers led by Ugandan citizens like Paul Kagame, committed atrocity after atrocity as they forced their way to power in Kigali, always falsely accusing their enemies—the power-sharing government of then President Juvenal Habyarimana—of genocide.

"Kagame assigned some people to work with Alison Des Forges," says Ugandan Human Rights activist Remigius Kintu, "and also to assist her in fabricating and distorting stories to suit Tutsi propaganda plans."

According to the International Forum for Truth and Justice in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, whose discoveries resulted in the high courts of Spain issuing international indictments against 40 top RPF/A officials: "Between 1990 and 1994, the RPA waged a systematic, pre-planned, secretive but highly organized terrorist war aimed at eliminating the largest number of Rwandan people possible—bodies were hacked to pieces and incinerated en masse.

From 1994, once the RPA violently seized power, a terror regime was created, and developed, and a criminal structure parallel to the state was set up to pursue pre-determined kidnappings; torturing and raping of women and young girls; terrorist attacks (both directly and by simulating that the same had been perpetrated by the enemy); illegal detention of thousands of civilians; selective murdering; systematic elimination of corpses either by mass incineration or by throwing them into lakes and rivers; indiscriminate attacks against civilians based on pre-determined ethnic categories for the elimination of the predominant ethnic group; and also to carry out acts of war in Rwanda and Congo."

Before former President Habyarimana’s assassination on 6 April 1994, Des Forges, and the organizations she worked with, blamed the whole war crimes show on President Habyarimana and his government, they dismissed the illegal invasion and atrocities of the RPF/A, and they began calling it genocide against the Tutsis as early as 1992.

"In the Military II case Alison Des Forges admitted that she was funded by USAID when she was part of that so-called International Commission condemning the Rwandan Government [under Habyarimana] for human rights violations," reports Canadian Chris Black, a defense attorney at the ICTR, "and she admitted that she just took the word of the RPF and pro-RPF groups and that she did not deal with RPF atrocities, as she did not have the time."

Chris Black notes that Des Forges presented reports to the ICTR in certain legal cases that were decidedly doctored from the original reports presented in previous cases against other accused Hutu genocidaires, and that it was necessary to cross-examine Des Forges "very forcefully" to get her to agree that changes had been made to the reports presented as evidence in the case being tried.

"In her expert report in the 2006 Military II trial against General Ndindiliyimana," Chris Black adds, "she removed all the positive things she had said about him in her book and in her previous expert report in the [Colonel Théoneste] Bagasora case. When asked by me why she deleted the positive view of him at his own trial, and why she tried to hide the fact that he saved a lot of Tutsis, among other things, she had no explanation. It was a cheap, low thing to do and I can tell you even the judges here at the ICTR were not too happy about it."

On December 18, 2008, after the protracted ‘Military I’ trial, the judges at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda ruled that there was no conspiracy to commit genocide by former Rwandan military leaders affiliated with the former Habyarimana government. It was war, and the actions—far from a calculated genocide—were found by ICTR judges to be "war-time conditions".

"The media reports of the December 18 judgment [Military I] at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda focused primarily on the convictions of three of four former top military leaders, who were the supposed ‘masterminds’ of the Rwandan genocide," wrote ICTR defense lawyer Peter Erlinder. "But, as those who have followed the ICTR closely know, convictions of members of the former Rwandan government and military are scarcely newsworthy."

Since the inception of the ICTR its decisions have been decisively biased—victor’s justice—in favor of protecting the Kagame regime and its backers. Thus it is no surprise that the former top military leaders of the Habyarimana government—Colonel Théoneste Bagosora and Major Aloys Ntabakuze—were sentenced to life imprisonment for acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"The real news was that all of the top Rwandan military officers, including the supposedly infamous Colonel Bagosora, were found not guilty of conspiracy or planning to commit genocide," writes Erlinder. "And General Gratien Kabiligi, a senior member of the general staff, was acquitted of all charges! The others were found guilty of specific acts committed by subordinates, in specific places, at specific times—not an overall conspiracy to kill civilians, much less Tutsi civilians."

Now, after more than 15 years of massive western propaganda proclaiming an organized, systematic elimination of the Tutsi people by the Hutu leaders of the former Rwandan government, the official Rwanda genocide story has finally collapsed.

In contradistinction to the establishment narrative accusing the "Hutu leadership" of an "organized" and "planned" genocide were the countless acts of genocide committed through a spontaneous uprising of the Hutu masses—people who had been brutalized, disenfranchised, uprooted and forced from homes; people who had witnessed massacres and rapes of family members; people who were themselves the victims of brutal atrocities.

These were more than a million internally displaced Rwandan Hutus, people who had been terrorized by the Rwandan Patriotic Army from October 1990 to April 1994, as it butchered its way into Rwanda; and possibly a million Burundian refugees, Hutus who suffered massive reprisals in Burundi after the first civilian President, Melchior Ndadaye, a democratically elected Hutu, was assassinated by the Tutsi military in October 1993.

There is evidence that the RPA/F pursued "pseudo-operations"—death squads committing atrocities disguised as government soldiers—and evidence that at least some of the infamous Interahamwe militias pursued their campaigns of terror in the pay of the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army.

"She concealed the fact that from 1990 the war caused an unprecedented economic poverty and that the one million internally displaced people tore the social fabric apart!" wrote Dr. Helmut Strizek, a former German official who had called for Des Forges’ resignation from HRW.

"And these people knew that Tutsi rebels caused their misery. They did not wait for ‘instructions’ in order to revenge, once no one was able to maintain public order after the April 6 assassination and resumption of hostilities by the RPF."

"Alison Des Forges is no longer," writes Charles Onana. "Peace be with her soul! She nonetheless leaves behind her many victims of injustice, who she painstakingly accused, using false testimony, before the International Criminal Tribunal Court for Rwanda (ICTR)." Alison Des Forges provided expert testimony in 11 genocide trials before the ICTR, including the ‘Military I’ trials that condemned Col. Theoneste Bagosora and two others on December 18. Des Forges also testified in genocide trials in Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada.

Charles Onana continues: "Among her victims there is Jean-Paul Akayesu, the first to be condemned to life imprisonment for genocide. This man, who Alison Des Forges had accused without any proof against him, was even defended by a Tutsi from the Patriotic Rwandan Army [RPA] who had been party to the fabrication of the ‘incriminating’ evidence against him in Rwanda. The Tribunal never listened to this witness, but they did listen to Alison Des Forges."

"I have also discovered during the course of my investigations into the ICTR that, at the start of the trial in 1997, she introduced a forged fax that was purported to be written by General Dallaire in 1994. This fax, maintained Des Forges, concerned the 'planning of genocide’."

New Yorker staff writer Philip Gourevitch spread the mythology of "The Genocide Fax" far and wide. Gourevitch’s first pro-RPF/A disinformation piece appeared in the New Yorker in December 1995; in May 1998 the New Yorker published Gourevitch’s "The Genocide Fax," a charade fed to him by Madeleine Albright’s undersecretary of state James Rubin.

Gourevitch’s fictional book "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" was funded by the euphemistically named U.S. Institute for Peace and written in league with the Kagame regime.

It is certainly possible that Alison Des Forges was unaware of the original fabrication, but she and Human Rights Watch never changed their tune, and they never denounced the fabrication.

Charles Onana continues: "It was on the basis of this false document that she called for the condemnation of Jean-Paul Akaseyu. To lend credibility to this first trial process, the ICTR, with astonishing lightness and irresponsibility, condemned this man to life. The Tribunal had no proof. The judicial dossier is slapdash and skimpy, but that has no importance. This was Alison Des Forges first great victory."

"She then decided to pursue a Rwandan refugee living in Canada: an ideal target," Onana adds, referring to Leon Mugesera. "He had the misfortune to be Hutu. For her, this man was a ‘planner of genocide’. But where is the proof? Alison Des Forges has none, but she wants to see this man in prison. Having deciphered or seen through Alison Des Forge’s arguments, the Judge of the Canadian Federal Tribunal concluded witheringly and without pity: ‘I note above all the relentlessness with which Mme Des Forges launched her diatribe against M. [Leon]Mugesera, and am astonished by the lack of care she has demonstrated in drawing up the report for the International Commission of Enquiry and in her Expert Assessment.’"

"The Canadian judge did not hesitate to qualify Mme. Des Forges as partisan, demonstrating ‘a prejudice or preconceived position against Léon Mugesera’. He concluded that she could not be considered an objective witness, adding that no correctly informed tribunal could take her allegations seriously. Nevertheless it was on the basis of the same arguments, and of the same fantasy report published in 1999, that she accused numerous Rwandans, all Hutu."

"CONTINENTAL SHIFT," one of Philip Gourevitch’s pivotal disinformation essays that appeared in the New Yorker, outlined the "new brand of African leader" exemplified by Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame: it is a whitewash of U.S.-backed terrorism. "It was thus that she devoted the penultimate day of her examination, during the process against the military, to presenting Colonel Bagosora, Hutu, as the king pin in the genocide.

The Tribunal in the long-running ‘Military I’ trial did not accept the ‘planning of genocide’ that Alison Des Forges never ceased to hammer on about by means of her pseudo-fax of 11 January 1994. She lied, lied and lied again. She tried a come-back or to recover her credibility by criticizing her ‘hero’ Paul Kagame, the organizer of the 6 April 1994 assassination of two presidents."

"Alison Des Forges finally dared to speak of the crimes committed by the Tutsi rebels of the RPF/A: the great taboo. It was a bit late but it assuaged her conscience. For those who were condemned by the ICTR, deliberately and unjustly recorded by her, there will be no justice for them. Can Alison Des Forges still hear their suffering and their pain? She who has done them so much harm—along with their families? She who claimed to defend the Rights of Man has without doubt violated the rights of many Rwandans, who will undoubtedly never forget her. Their homage to Mme. Des Forges would have been different, very different, to what her many friends in the media have to say."

Timothy Longman and Des Forges, the co-authors of the HRW treatise, "Leave None To Tell The Story," both worked with USAID, the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon. Des Forges was a member of the HRW board from 1988 and was "principal researcher" on Rwanda and Burundi, 1991-1994.

In this period Des Forges also consulted for USAID, and collaborated with the State Department, Pentagon, and National Security Council. Simultaneously, Des Forges worked with, informed and influenced U.S. Congress-people, Permanent Representatives at the United Nations, the U.N. Under-Secretary General, and U.N. Special Rapporteur for Rwanda and Special Rapporteur for Summary and Arbitrary Executions. Des Forges also pumped the disinformation into the academic world through her high-level ties to human rights committees, African and Africana Studies departments and the elite African Studies Association.

In the same period, Des Forges constantly influenced the U.S. media through special briefings to the editorial boards and reporters of the New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio, and Associated Press, and she was frequently presented as an "expert" on genocide in Rwanda for CNN, 60 Minutes, Nightline, All Things Considered, BBC, Radio France Internationale, and the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

Such relations explain the mass media’s consistency in producing the monolithic disinformation about Rwanda that shielded the illegal U.S.-backed and covert RPF/A- Ugandan guerrilla insurgency. The blanket media coverage falsely situated the "Rwanda genocide" as it is now widely misunderstood: 100 days of genocide, 800,000 to 1.2 million Tutsis killed with machetes; the "highly disciplined" RPF/A stopping the genocide.

Such is the disinformation that indoctrinated the English-speaking media consumers and created a mass psychological hysteria about Rwanda that persists to this day. Timothy Longman worked with Des Forges in Rwanda in 1994 and has worked regularly with both USAID and HRW on contracts in Congo, Burundi and Rwanda, throughout the late 1990’s and into the present; Longman worked in Rwanda on one USAID contract for Management Systems Incorporated, a firm whose clients include the Pentagon. Longman also worked as a consultant for HRW in the spring of 2000 conducting field research in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and producing "a detailed report on human rights conditions in rebel-controlled areas."
The Des Forges and Longman position vis-à-vis their whitewashing of the Tutsi-led RPF/A organized genocide in Rwanda certainly explains the sanitation of HRW reports, and it raises questions, for example, about how Human Rights Watch "researchers" navigate their "work" in rebel (read: Rwandan and Ugandan) controlled areas in DRC.

It also raises questions about how, why and when HRW does or doesn’t expose the western operatives, non-government organizations and multinational corporations: a singular example is the Human Rights Watch report that mildly exposes the criminal operations of Anglo-Gold Ashanti—a company partnered with the George H.W. Bush connected Barrick Gold Corporation—in eastern DRC.

HRW says nothing about Moto Gold, Mwana Africa, Banro Resources, Hardmann Oil, Tullow Oil, De Beers, H Oil & Minerals, OM Group, Metalurg, Kotecha, International Rescue Committee—and the many proxy armies, militias, gun-runners and other organized white collar war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Congo.

The role of HRW as an intelligence conduit to the U.S. Government is incidentally confirmed by Samantha Power in her book "A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide"—a whitewash of U.S. and allied war crimes for which she was rewarded with a Pulitzer Prize.

While Power’s "bystanders to genocide" thesis about Rwanda is a total inversion of the facts, she notes in passing that "Human Rights Watch supplied exemplary intelligence to the U.S. Government and lobbied in one-on-one meetings" in April and May 1994, and that Alison Des Forges and other HRW staff visited the White House on April 21, 1994. Samantha Power is currently a member of the National Security Council in the Obama Administration.

The mass media was flooded with "Rwanda genocide" disinformation between April and July of 1994, and advertising that served up subliminal seduction and white supremacy often surrounded these "news" clips.

Alison Des Forges continued to remain silent about Western corporate and military interests in the Great Lakes region to her death. A perfect example of this silence is the very unrevealing March 2008 interview by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum titled "Alison Des Forges: The Impact of Rwandan Genocide in Congo."

Timothy Longman also produces significant pro-US propaganda about Sudan. Thus it is important to note that amongst the key USAID conduits for disinformation and covert operations in Sudan today is Roger Winter, one of the primary architects of the RPF/A guerrilla war, organized from Washington in 1989, that led to the loss of millions of lives in the Great Lakes of Africa since October 1990.

Alison Des Forges, of course, never mentioned Roger Winter or his colleague in covert operations, Susan Rice, the Obama Administration’s Ambassador to the U.N. Of Roger Winter, Remigius Kintu, the Ugandan Human Rights activist says "he was the chief logistics boss for the RPF until their victory in 1994...."

"Roger Winter was with the RPA on the front lines in Rwanda and he regularly briefed the Clinton Administration of the RPA’s military achievements," says Jean Marie Vianney Higiro, former Rwandan official. "Alison Des Forges contributed to the RPF/A takeover of Rwanda. I have no doubt about that… I met her three times, first in 1995, and in 2004 she encouraged me to testify at the ICTR. I said 'no way: I will only testify if RPF officials are arrested.' She insisted I should testify, she was confident that the RPF were going to be arrested. I think she did not realize that the U.S. government would never accept that. She was something of an opportunist."

The zeal displayed by Alison Des Forges and Human Rights Watch in the pursuit of justice and human rights appears in sharp contradistinction to their absence of zeal in pursuing the architects of the criminal invasion of Rwanda on October 1, 1990, by Uganda, the double presidential assassinations of April 6, 1994, and all kinds of other murderous corporate conspiracies in Central Africa where foreign-financed wars are used as cover for illegal extraction of resources, particularly in the Congo.

Ironically, as the world this week commemorated the 15th Anniversary of the terrible mass murders that followed the assassination of the presidents, Rwandan asylum seekers that are critics of the Kagame regime live under perpetual fear of being hunted down, branded as genocide perpetrators, ostracized, and persecuted by an illegitimate dictatorship. Forty of the regime's military officials have been indicted for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by two international courts.

Kagame’s ruthless Directorate of Military Intelligence has dispatched agents to Europe to eliminate RPF opponents; some of these agents are operating under cover as bogus asylum-seekers in Europe and North America.

As of January 20, 2009 the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began reopening all cases of Rwandan asylum seekers, and is criminalizing and threatening to deport legitimate refugees to Rwanda, actions that violate the 1951 United Nations High Commission for Refugees Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

For more reporting by Keith Harmon Snow please see www.allthingspass.com
Please post your comments on the website or send them to milton@blackstarnews.com
"Speaking Truth To Empower."

Keith Harmon Snow is the 2009 Regent's Lecturer in Law & Society at the University of California Santa Barbara, recognized for over a decade of work, outside of academia, contesting official narratives on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide while also working as a genocide investigator for the United Nations and other bodies.

Milton Allimadi, Publisher/CEO
The Black Star News Publishing Co.
P.O. Box 64, New York, N.Y., 10025
(212) 481-7745
Please visit also visit www.blackstarnews.com

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The cost of war on LRA's Kony in DR Congo

From Peter Eichstaedt's blog post 13 April 2009:
War on Kony can be profitable

A story in the Daily Monitor reveals that, as many have suggested, the army is profiting from the recent three-month operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo against the Lord's Resistance Army.

This information only supports speculation that the Ugandan army didn't really want to capture Kony. After all, it would mean an end to the army's cash cow.

Enjoy this story by Chris Obore.

KAMPALA -- The revelation that the army spent Shs390 million a day during the three-month Garamba operation against the LRA, has divided some top army officers, Saturday Monitor has learnt.

The antagonism has also been worsened by the discovery that some junior army officers in collusion with their superiors had been stealing money meant for pensions and benefits for fallen and retired soldiers. Sources say the army chiefs are now trading accusations against each other over the leakage of that information to the public.

President Museveni, who is also Commander-in-Chief, has also demanded answers to what in military circles has been labelled “abnormal expenditure”.

Our sources said after Daily Monitor reported recently that the Garamba expedition against LRA’s Joseph Kony had drawn Shs35 billion ($17 million USD) from the public coffers, Mr Museveni reportedly called his top commanders and asked them to explain the huge expenditure.

“The President was furious with the Shs390 million a day bill, saying it is abnormal; the man was really hard on the army,” the source said.

Presenting a balance sheet of the Garamba operation to Parliament’s Defence and Internal Affairs Committee, the Chief of Defence Forces, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, justified the expenditure, saying although Kony was not captured, killed or forced to sign the agreement, the overall operation was a success as it had significantly impaired the rebels’ capacity to return and destabilise the country.

Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga, who appeared with the CDF, said the “little” money for the operation was not catered for in the budget, the reason his ministry was forced to ask for supplementary funding. MPs did not get details on how the money was spent.

But sources say Mr Museveni was not amused by the expenditure and accused some army officers of financial impropriety.

Apparently, the President was not aware of the huge expenditure until the story was carried by the Daily Monitor.

According to sources, on learning of the President’s dissatisfaction, a blame game at the defence ministry ensued, leading to the sudden transfer of the Undersecretary, Mr Fred Ogene.

Sources say some sections wanted Mr Ogene fired or interdicted but being a civil servant, it was not possible, considering the stringent laws governing his appointment.

But Defence and army spokesman Felix Kulayigye told Saturday Monitor: “He has been requesting for transfer for a long time, so I don’t believe he was forced out.”

Mr Ogene confirmed by telephone yesterday that he had been moved.“I don’t think the transfer has anything to do with Garamba; it might be but I was not told,” he said, adding: “I have been transferred to the President’s Office.”Mr Ogene, however, said what was given about Garamba expenditure was not the accountability but the highlights.

Pension scam

Meanwhile, Dr Kiyonga, has reportedly put more pressure on the army chiefs to explain why there was delayed detection of how money for pensions and benefits was stolen by paymasters.

Sunday Monitor reported recently that the army was investigating a racket involving officers who have been stealing money meant for retired soldiers and families of dead servicemen in a scandal that could eclipse the infamous ghost soldier scam that led to the sacking and prosecution of a former army commander.

The racket was being perpetrated through a chain of soldiers working in the Directorate of Records, Manpower Audit and Army Strength Management sections.

When the story was reported, Mr Kiyonga, who was then in South Africa attending to his ill relative, reportedly instructed his military assistant to dig into the matter.

When the military assistant swung into action, top army chiefs reportedly refused to cooperate because the investigation could end up at their doorsteps.

The Chief of Staff Land Forces, Brig. Charles Angina, who had instigated a covert fact-finding operation using a combination of military intelligence and staff officers to establish the facts; and later arrested some culprits, reportedly got furious that the information had leaked to the media.

Now Brig. Angina has reportedly deployed operatives to find out how his confidential information ended up at Daily Monitor.

When Kiyonga returned from South Africa, sources say he wrote asking for more information regarding the Mafia-like racket that had been fleecing widows and orphans of fallen fighters but he is reportedly getting lukewarm response from top army chiefs.

Maj. Kulayigye said he was not aware that Mr Kiyonga had asked for answers to the pension graft in the army but promised to reach to his military assistant.

He, however, later called back saying: “All phones are off, so I can’t help you.”But Joint Chief of Staff, Brig. Robert Rusoke, said yesterday that when the matter first came up, “he ( Kiyonga) was not around.”“But the PS will brief him,” Brig. Rusoke said.

Asked what the army had done so far, Brig. Rusoke accused Saturday Monitor of trying to sabotage investigations.“What do want us to say? The matter is under investigation,” he said.He said the Defence permanent secretary “has been in contact with Ministry of Public Service” because “we are working together with Public Service to investigate the matter.”

Last financial year alone, while Shs53 billion was released for payment of benefits and pension, not more than Shs10 billion was actually paid out to beneficiaries. The rest disappeared.

DR Congo: ICC chief prosecutor amends Bemba charges

From Legal Brief 03 April 2009:
Chief prosecutor amends Bemba charges

Opposition politician Jean-Pierre Bemba says the International Criminal Court at The Hague will not prove him guilty of war crimes in his capacity as a military leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to a report on the IoL site, chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo amended charges against Bemba to state that he was the military chief of fighters sent into the Central African Republic in 2002-2003 to prop up the crumbling regime of then President Ange-Felix Patasse. Members of Bemba's Congolese Liberation Movement are accused of violent crimes in the CAR, where the group has its support base. The report notes that the ICC last month asked Moreno-Ocampo to amend the charges and target Bemba as a military rather than a political leader.

Full report on the IoL site.

- - -
Here is a copy of the report by AFP - via IoL 01 April 2009:
ICC cannot prove Bemba is guilty - party

Kinshasa - Opposition politician Jean-Pierre Bemba's party said on Wednesday that an international court in The Hague could not prove him guilty of war crimes in his capacity as a military leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Monday amended his charges against Bemba to state that he was military chief of fighters sent into the Central African Republic in 2002-2003 to prop up the crumbling regime of then president Ange-Felix Patasse.

Members of Bemba's Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) are accused of violent crimes in the CAR, bordering on the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the group has its support base.

The International Criminal Court on March 4 asked Moreno-Ocampo to amend the charges and target Bemba as a military rather than a political leader.

"We don't see how the prosecutor, even after changing his charge sheet, will prove that Bemba indeed commanded the troops sent to Central Africa," Francois Muamba, the MLC secretary-general, told reporters on Wednesday.

"We're confident and wait for what the judges will decide in June," Muamba said.

Pre-trial court sessions to decide whether there was a case against Bemba took place in mid-January, and judges were due to rule within 60 days, but that decision was postponed pending a new document from the prosecutor.

The initial charge sheet held Bemba politically responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes within the CAR, "in conjunction with others or through them".

However, those charges had to be amended, when the court asked Moreno-Ocampo to reconsider the type of crime Bemba had allegedly committed, saying that on the strength of prosecution evidence the charges matched a different possible crime.

Under a warrant issued by the ICC, Bemba, 44, was arrested in Brussels on May 24, 2008.

His MLC was one of several rebel forces that fought the DR Congo government in a 1998-2003 civil war across the vast Central African country.

Bemba later became vice-president in a lengthy peace process. He lost a presidential election to Joseph Kabila in 2006.

During their intervention in the CAR, Bemba's forces failed to keep Patasse in office. He was ousted by current President Francois Bozize.

However, MLC forces ran riot in the capital Bangui and were accused of widespread atrocities. - AFP

Bonobos dying at sanctuary in DR Congo - Help Save Bonobos

From The Frontline
By Rob Crilly, Nairobi
April 5, 2009
Help Save Bonobos

THERE is something distinctly human about Masisi, a baby bonobo. She could almost be a wide-eyed toddler as she reaches thirstily for a cuppa.

But this is no cute advertisement for a brand of tea.

Conservationists in the Democratic Republic of Congo have turned to the fortifying brew, laced with honey and lemon, to try to save a rare population of primates that has been struck down with a flu-like disease.

Six have died in the past month and another 10 bonobos have fallen desperately ill at a sanctuary close to the capital Kishasa.

You can follow their story and donate cash at http://www.friendsofbonobos.org/

- - -

From The Sunday Times
By Rob Crilly, Nairobi
April 5, 2009

Sanctuary can only watch as flu kills rare apes

Bonobos have been struck down with a flu-like illness in their sanctuary near Kinshasa

A MYSTERIOUS flu-like disease is sweeping through the imperilled bonobo apes in their last havens in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Six of the rare primates have died in the past month and another 10 have fallen seriously ill at a sanctuary close to the capital, Kinshasa. With chimpanzees, they are mankind’s closest living relatives.

Vanessa Woods, a researcher at Lola Ya Bonobo, said it was heartbreaking to watch. “It starts with a cough and then they get bunged up with mucus which runs down their faces. They end up lying on their stomachs because it’s the only way they can breathe,” she said.

“When they get really bad they disappear into the forest, fall down and there’s no way we can find them.”

The sanctuary was home to 60 of the endangered apes before the disease struck. Most had been found as babies after their parents were killed for bush meat.

This year the sanctuary lost one of its major donors because of the financial crisis, and there is little money for food, medicine or tests that might explain the cause of the illness.

Staff believe the outbreak is linked to a flu epidemic that swept through Kinshasa earlier this year. For now all they can do is feed the bonobos tea, just like human patients, and hope for the best. “We watched them grow up,” said Woods. “One of them, Lodja, reminded me of my niece, so to watch her clench up and die was awful.”

Last week volunteers cradled three-year-old bonobo Masisi and fed him sips of tea laced with honey and lemon from a cup.

Bonobos live in cooperative, peaceful groups, unlike chimpanzees which display a streak of violence, and scientists believe they may hold the key to understanding how human societies evolved.

About 10,000 bonobos are thought to exist in the wild although no one knows for sure. They live only in the war-torn Congo, where their habitat is under threat.

Paula Kahumbu, chief executive of WildlifeDirect, which runs an online conservation community, said the sanctuary was £22,000 in the red: “We desperately need donations to keep these bonobos alive.”

www.friendsofbonobos.org

LRA's Kony in Sakure, a village at the Sudan-Congo border, 45km South of Yambio?

According to Kony’s personal doctor Kotto Kpenze, Kony spent most of the past weeks in and out of ‘Nigeria’, a base he established in the Congolese jungle about 20 km from the Sudanese border.

Asked if they still received supplies, Kotto said Caritas had given them food and medicines in Nabanga in December. “I personally received the medicines.”

As for arms supplies, he said he had no knowledge of airdrops by the Khartoum Government or anybody else. He disclosed that the LRA raided a Congolese arms depot in the town of Faradje on Christmas Day. “The rebels stole a lot of guns, all Kalashnikovs, and three boxes of ammunition.”



Photo: Kony’s deputy Okot Odhiambo(left) and Kony’s personal doctor Kotto Kpenze

From Sunday Vision 04 April 2009 by Els de Temmerman
Joseph Kony’s deputy goes missing

OKOT Odhiambo, the Second-in-Command of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has not been communicating with his boss, Joseph Kony, since December and his whereabouts are unknown to the LRA leader.

This was revealed by Kony’s personal doctor, Kotto Kpenze, a 45-year-old medical assistant from the Central African Republic who was abducted by the LRA a year ago and escaped on Monday.

“Kony called his commanders for a meeting in December shortly after the joint military offensive started, when there were a lot of aerial bombardments and attacks by ground troops,” Kpenze told Sunday Vision in an exclusive interview in Yambio, Southern Sudan, on Thursday.

“But Odhiambo, who was leading a smaller group presumed to be behind us, did not show up for the meeting. Up to the day I escaped, Kony had not been able to establish contact with Odhiambo and he did not know his location.”

The information suggests a deepening rift between the LRA leader and his number two. Earlier press reports that Odhiambo had indicated he wanted to hand himself in with 40 fighters were dismissed by the UPDF.

However, the reports might have soured relations between the two leaders, with Odhiambo possibly fearing to meet the same fate as his predecessor, Vincent Otti. Otti was executed on October 2, 2007, according to defectors because he had advised his boss to sign the peace agreement and abandon rebellion, seen by Kony as a plot to have him arrested and killed.

For the same reason, Kony killed Vincent Otti’s predecessor, Otti Lagony, who was executed in December 1999 for suggesting to take advantage of the Amnesty Act.

The medical assistant from the Central African Republic, who spent the last 12 months with the LRA leader, also disclosed that Kony was generally in good health but would occasionally suffer from malaria and have regular attacks as a result of high tension.

“The tension bothered him the most. Whenever he received shocking news, he would collapse on the floor and I had to treat him with modern and traditional medicines,” he said.

Life in the bush had been tough ever since Operation Lightning Thunder started on December 14, according to Kony’s doctor.

“We were constantly on the move. UPDF soldiers were hot on our heels. They would be close to us all the time. We would eat at midnight and rest for two to three hours before starting to move again.”

Kpenze escaped on Monday, March 30, from Sakure, a village at the Sudan-Congo border, 45km South of Yambio, where Kony was still holed up a week ago.

“One of the commanders had been hit by a bullet in the leg. He was crying at night. Kony feared it would alert the enemy. He told me to hide him in the bush some distance away. I had to treat him from there. That is when I ran away.”

According to his doctor, Kony spent most of the past weeks in and out of ‘Nigeria’, a base he established in the Congolese jungle about 20 km from the Sudanese border.

“We would move away for a couple of nights but always returned to Nigeria. We stayed in thick forest and avoided homesteads since UPDF soldiers were passing through villages day and night.”

Kpenze estimated their group, which also included feared commander Dominic Ongwen, to be initially 800. This number included the women and babies born in captivity, among them Kony’s 42 wives and 25 children who are still with him.

In their group, the ‘doctor’ reckoned about 18 people had been killed and 30 wounded in the offensive, while many others escaped or were rescued.

Asked if they still received supplies, Kotto said Caritas had given them food and medicines in Nabanga in December. “I personally received the medicines.”

As for arms supplies, he said he had no knowledge of airdrops by the Khartoum Government or anybody else. He disclosed that the LRA raided a Congolese arms depot in the town of Faradje on Christmas Day. “The rebels stole a lot of guns, all Kalashnikovs, and three boxes of ammunition.”

Faradje is beyond the area where the UPDF was allowed to operate under the joint offensive of the armies of Congo, Uganda and Southern Sudan, which ended on March 14 when President Joseph Kabila ordered Uganda to leave Congo.

Asked how Kony managed to escape once again, Kpenze said he had a unique survival instinct and knew the forest in and out.

“He would send small groups of rebels in different directions to divert the attention of our pursuers. These units would often be attacked, while Kony would be in the middle and safe.”

Who is re-supplying the LRA?

Over the last week there have been a growing number of reports that the LRA has been re-supplied from the air.

The Sudanese government has routinely denied that it is re-supplying the LRA, but the question remains - how are the rebels managing to continue their operations if they have no outside backer?



Map source: BBC report 4 April 2009:
Who is re-supplying the LRA?

Ugandan rebel movement the Lord's Resistance Army, now based in the far north of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is continuing its attacks on civilians in DR Congo and southern Sudan, despite a three-month campaign to hunt the rebels down.

The BBC's Africa analyst, Martin Plaut, looks at how the LRA has survived and considers who might be re-supplying it.

On 14 December last year Ugandan aircraft attacked camps of the LRA in the remote Garamba National Park, in the north-east of the DR Congo.

The operation against the LRA - known as Lightning Thunder - was launched by Uganda, DR Congo and Sudan.

But despite fierce engagements, the rebels have not been defeated and are continuing a series of murderous attacks on civilians.

Around 100,000 Congolese and 60,000 southern Sudanese have been driven from their homes.

Scattered across a vast area of northern Congo and southern Sudan, the continued operations of the Lord's Resistance Army and their leader, Joseph Kony, are perhaps not surprising.

This is an area of dense forests and swamps - ideal territory for rebel attacks.

But what is less easy to understand is how the LRA manages to co-ordinate its ambushes when its forces are so dispersed.

Where do they get the satellite phones they use - as well as the ammunition, food and medicines their forces require?

'Air drops'

Over the last week there have been a growing number of reports that the LRA has been re-supplied from the air.

Late last month there was an attack on the village of Banda, which forced locals to evacuate the area.

This - according to the reports - was designed to clear the area for an air-drop to take place.

There is also the testimony from LRA abductees who managed to escape from the rebels.

They say that air-drops took place in a mountainous area called Karago, west of the town of Aba.

The United Nations mission in Congo, Monuc, says it has heard the rumours, but has no evidence that the air-drops are taking place.

"Our military seem sceptical that the reports are true, given the level of co-ordination that would be required on the ground," Monuc spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai told the BBC.

"But the fact is that we just don't know and often lack reliable, timely, actionable intelligence," he said.

Although there is no confirmation of these reports, they have come from several sources.

So where might the flights have originated?

Southern Sudanese officials have said openly that they believe that Khartoum continues to support the LRA.

The accusation has been denied by the LRA spokesman, David Matsanga, who told the BBC Focus on Africa programme that the suggestion is designed to frustrate attempts to re-launch the peace process.

"The Ugandan government is looking for ways of finishing the situation militarily, because they don't want to talk about what has happened," said Mr Matsanga.

"These accusations are coming now to inflame the situation," he added.

The Sudanese government has routinely denied that it is re-supplying the LRA, but the question remains - how are the rebels managing to continue their operations if they have no outside backer?

DR Congo: The LRA remains a significant destabilizing presence in Orientale Province

Source: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Date: 03 Apr 2009
DR Congo: Complex Emergency Fact Sheet #13 (FY 2009)
Note: The last fact sheet was dated March 4, 2009.

KEY DEVELOPMENTS

On March 15, Ugandan troops began withdrawing from northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), signaling the conclusion of the joint Ugandan, Sudanese, and Congolese military operation against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), according to international media reports. Launched on December 14, the operation resulted in the deaths of more than 90 LRA soldiers and the release of approximately 300 abducted civilians, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

On March 6, the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team (USAID/DART) demobilized as a result of the relative calm observed in most areas of North Kivu Province, indications of the potential for improved stability in the region, and decreased demand for immediate USAID/OFDA emergency reaction capacity in North Kivu and Orientale provinces.

CURRENT SITUATION

An improved security environment in many areas of North Kivu Province in recent weeks continues to facilitate the returns process. However, the recent increase in attacks by Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) forces attempting to reclaim lost territory and continued presence of National Congress of the Defense of the People (CNDP) elements have prevented widespread returns to other areas of North Kivu Province.

In recent weeks, OCHA has noted an increase in attacks against humanitarian organizations operating in North Kivu Province, from five reported incidents in January to 17 attacks between February 1 and March 4. The U.N. reports continuing attacks by unidentified armed individuals on non-governmental organization (NGO) vehicles using the Kichanga-Mweso road, on the border between Rutshuru and Masisi territories.

Despite ongoing access constraints, OCHA reported that approximately 80 percent of individuals displaced within North Kivu prior to 2009 remain accessible and currently receive humanitarian assistance as of March 11. In addition, the report indicated an estimated 30 percent of individuals displaced by violence in recent months currently receive humanitarian assistance. To ensure civilian protection and facilitate the delivery of emergency relief commodities, the U.N. Mission in the DRC (MONUC) has increased protection team deployments and patrols along key axes in North Kivu Province in recent weeks.

Displacement in North Kivu Province

Population movement remains fluid in eastern DRC, with humanitarian agencies indicating simultaneous returns and displacement in different areas of North Kivu Province. On February 28, OCHA released preliminary North Kivu displacement and IDP return figures compiled from NGO reports since January 1. Although OCHA continues to verify the figures, the report indicates nearly 265,000 IDPs returned to areas of origin, while violence and perceived insecurity resulted in 174,000 newly displaced individuals.

The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) noted that prevailing insecurity between March 5 and 11 had resulted in new displacement in Lubero Territory, while sporadic violence between armed groups had resulted in limited population movement in Masisi and Walikale territories.

According to OCHA, IDPs continue to return from spontaneous sites more frequently than from official Goma-area IDP camps. However, on March 4, OCHA reported that approximately 1,400 individuals had departed from Kibati I and Kibati II camps for areas of origin in southern Rutshuru Territory in recent weeks. According to UNHCR, the returns process has resulted in the resumption of agricultural activities in areas of origin.

In FY 2009, USAID/OFDA has provided more than $1.7 million to German Agro Action (GAA) for economy and market systems and agriculture and food security activities, as well as the provision of relief supplies and logistical support for more than 100,000 beneficiaries in North Kivu Province.

Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

Reported cholera cases continue to decline in North Kivu Province as a result of enhanced water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions. During the week of March 1, UNICEF reported 90 new cholera cases, a significant decline from 616 registered cases during the week of November 23.

In FY 2009, USAID/OFDA has provided nearly $1.8 million to Merlin for the provision of emergency health assistance, including WASH interventions, to more than 500,000 beneficiaries in eastern DRC.

Humanitarian Conditions in Orientale Province

The LRA remains a significant destabilizing presence in Orientale Province, despite recent joint Congolese, Ugandan, and Sudanese military operations. According to UNHCR, intensified LRA attacks since late February have resulted in new displacement, hindered assessment and registration activities, and impeded the delivery of emergency relief commodities.

According to Caritas, LRA forces abducted more than 200 people during an attack on Banda village, Ango Territory, on March 14 and 15. As of March 6, UNHCR reported that LRA attacks have resulted in the displacement of approximately 143,000 people since September 2008, including more than 43,000 IDPs in Dungu area, as well as 15,000 people displaced to Southern Sudan.

On March 4, UNICEF noted a lack of safe drinking water in Dungu resulting from increasing numbers of IDPs. In addition, UNICEF reported a critical humanitarian situation in Ngilima town caused by a lack of food, safe drinking water, and relief commodity deliveries.

On March 11, UNICEF reported the establishment of an air bridge between Bunia and Doruma towns due to overland access constraints. In the coming weeks, the airlift is scheduled to deliver 25 tons of emergency relief commodities to more than 15,000 displaced persons residing in Doruma.

In FY 2009, USAID/OFDA has provided $2 million to UNICEF's rapid response mechanism for logistical support and the provision of emergency relief commodities to conflict-affected persons, including beneficiaries in Orientale Province.

ICC: Trial of two DR Congo militia leaders, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolom, to open Sept 24

Note that the FPRI was a militia formed towards the end of 2002, with backing from Uganda, according to the ICC charge sheet.  Ituri is a mineral-rich district of DR Congo that borders Uganda and Sudan.

Trial of two DR Congo militia leaders to open Sept 24: ICC
Friday, 28 March 2009 report by AFP:

THE HAGUE — The trial of Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo, two former militia leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, will begin on September 24, the International Criminal Court announced Friday.

Both men are charged with having committed war crimes, including using child soldiers and attacking civilians, and crimes against humanity, including murder rape and sexual slavery.

Katanga, 30, also known as "Simba," or lion, is accused of having led the Patriotic Resistance Front in Ituri (FRPI), which operated in the east of the country.

The FPRI was a militia formed towards the end of 2002, with backing from Uganda, according to the ICC charge sheet.

Its members, who belonged to the Lendu and Ngiti ethnic groups, are suspected of having carried out massacres against the Hema ethnic group.

Ngudjolo, 37, is accused of having been the leader of the Nationalist Integrationist Front (FNI), which operated in the same district. The FNI was made up of Lendu fighters.

The charges against both men arise out of a joint attack on the village of Bororo, in Ituri on February 24, 2003, by the two groups they are alleged to have led.

A pre-trial chamber of the court decided earlier this month to join the two cases.

Ituri is a mineral-rich district of DR Congo that borders Uganda and Sudan with a population of between 3.5 and 5.5 million people made up of 18 different ethnic groups.

FDLR and PARECO have surrounded the village of Pinga, some 80 km north-east of Walikale in North Kivu

The various rebel attacks in North Kivu have since last year displaced over 250,000 people, while in Orientale region, nearly 190,000 have been displaced in the last six months, and some 16,000 refugees have fled to South Sudan.

Friday, 27 March 2009, report by UNHCR:
Displacement in the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

UNHCR is seriously concerned about the plight of thousands of civilians who have fled their homes to escape daily attacks by the many armed groups operating in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Heavily armed militia from the so called Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and an allied militia group, PARECO, have surrounded the village of Pinga, some 80 km north-east of Walikale in North Kivu. A joint UN assessment team, including UNHCR, which visited the area this week, has reported that FDLR and PARECO forces were sighted some 2 km on the south, west and north-west edges of Pinga, causing panic among its 8,500 population, including some 2,000 previously internally displaced persons.

According to local residents the armed groups have repeatedly raided villages in and around Pinga, robbing villagers of their meagre resources – basically food and money.

Meanwhile, further to the east, more than 20,000 people have been driven out Kirumba, Kayna and Kanyabonga villages in the Rutshuru district of North Kivu, by various armed groups over the past several weeks. The displaced fled into the forest after their homes were plundered and torched.

In the far north-eastern area of Haut Uele in Orientale province, a UNHCR convoy with 22 tonnes of much needed assistance destined for displaced people in Faradje was forced to turn back following reports of fresh Lords Resistance Army (LRA) attacks. The convoy, which had reached Kitambala, was forced to turn back to Aru on the DRC-Uganda border yesterday because of reported LRA attacks this week in Tadu, Munia and Sururu, some 80 km south of Faradje. The situation in Faradje is said to be tense and residents have begun to flee the town.

Further LRA attacks have also been reported in Amadi and Banda in the neighbouring district of Bas Uele. Local authorities say there is a heavy concentration of internally displaced people in the town of Dingila, where they have already registered some 2,800 displaced persons. The majority of the displaced are staying with host families, but others have sought refuge in the town's churches. Another 11,000 who left Banda have fled to Dakwa, 85 km from Banda, and some 6,000 to Amadi.

The various rebel attacks in North Kivu have since last year displaced over 250,000 people, while in Orientale region, nearly 190,000 have been displaced in the last six months, and some 16,000 refugees have fled to South Sudan.

France seeks to exploit Africa - DR Congo has major uranium reserves

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has continued his two-day African tour by visiting the neighbouring Republic of Congo, previously a French colony. He is expected in uranium-rich Niger on Friday.

Mr Sarkozy is joined by ministers and other executives from French firms - including France Telecom, cement maker Lafarge and construction group Vinci - chasing contracts in various sectors.

March 27, 2009 report from BBC News:
Sarkozy outlines Congo peace plan

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has suggested using the mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo to help bring peace to central Africa.

Addressing parliament in Kinshasa, he also praised Congolese President Joseph Kabila's joint operation with Rwanda against rebels earlier this year.

The region has been plagued by rival militias for more than a decade.

He said the region's people could become rich by working together or continue to fight and remain poor.

French nuclear giant Areva's chief executive has taken advantage of the visit to sign a deal to exploit uranium in DR Congo.

Sarkozy is forgetting that Congo has been sharing its wealth with the world for such a long time - what has it got in return?

Congo responds to Sarkozy

No further details were released but DR Congo has major uranium reserves and was the source of some of the raw material for the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in World War II.

Mr Sarkozy has continued his two-day African tour by visiting the neighbouring Republic of Congo, previously a French colony.
He is expected in uranium-rich Niger on Friday.

Mr Sarkozy is joined by ministers and other executives from French firms - including France Telecom, cement maker Lafarge and construction group Vinci - chasing contracts in various sectors.

Sarkozy's Africa policy shift

Addressing Kinshasa's national assembly in the first visit by a French president to the former Belgian colony in a quarter of a century, Mr Sarkozy suggested Kinshasa and its Great Lakes neighbours work together for their mutual benefit.

"The peoples of central Africa will not be changing their address.

"If they can develop good neighbourly relations, the peoples of central Africa will have a rich and peaceful life. If it's a case of might is right, the peoples of central Africa will stay poor and unhappy," he said.

He gained a round of applause from MPs for saying that Congolese sovereignty would not be violated.

Uproar

Preparations for the visit were overshadowed by comments Mr Sarkozy made in January when he suggested DR Congo share its mineral wealth with Rwanda as a way to end violence around the main eastern city of Goma.

The idea triggered uproar with the Congolese media accusing Paris of seeking a "Balkanisation" of the country and trying to use DR Congo's mineral wealth to help mend its ties with Rwanda.

Paris and Kigali have been at loggerheads for years over who is to blame for Rwanda's 1994 genocide, in which some 800,000 people were slaughtered.

Kinshasa resident Jean Pierre Mafuta told the BBC News website:

"What Mr Sarkozy is forgetting, is that DR Congo had been sharing its wealth, its people and its land with the world for such a long time - what has the Congo got in return?"

Ahead of the visit, aides in Mr Sarkozy's office said: "There is no French peace plan, no plan to share riches, it is not the right moment," reported AFP.

On Thursday Mr Sarkozy also praised as "brave" the Congolese leader's decision to invite Rwandan troops into his country in January for a five-week joint operation against rebel militias plaguing the neighbours' border.

The move was politically sensitive as Rwanda has twice invaded the country in recent years and many Congolese distrusted the Kigali forces' presence.

The aim of the military campaign was to flush out rebel forces each government has accused the other of backing and which have been at the heart of the region's conflicts since Rwanda's genocide.

The DR Congo parliament's speaker was forced to quit on Wednesday after criticising Mr Kabila's decision to let in the Rwandan troops.

Central African Republic catches 100 "fake" rebels

Central African Republic catches 100 "fake" rebels
From Reuters by Paul-Marin Ngoupana Wed Mar 11, 2009

DESSIKOU, Central African Republic, March 11 (Reuters) - Some 100 youths were caught posing as rebels in Central African Republic, hoping for cash and other benefits offered to fighters demobilising under a peace process, the government said.

The country, one of the poorest in the world despite its vast natural resources, is trying to implement a shaky peace process after years of civil conflicts and military coups.

"The group of 100 youths told us at the beginning of our discussions that some were from the APRD and some from the UFDR," Communications Minister Cyriaque Gonda told Reuters on Tuesday, referring to two of the country's rebel groups.

"At the end they admitted they had come from Bangui posing as ex-rebels to profit from the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process which will be starting soon," Gonda said at a disarmament camp in Dessikou where the men were caught, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of the capital Bangui.

Nineteen-year-old Bonaventure Gomtoua, one of those exposed as a fraud, told Reuters: "We were pushed to do this because in Bangui we are faced with unemployment and poverty."

The peace process between the country's government and a number of rebel groups began last year, but progress has been slow.

One rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Central African People (FDPC) rejected the government's peace deal last month and announced a new rebel alliance, saying the government had broken a number of its promises to the group.

On Tuesday, 350 members of the FDPC protested at Camp Leclerc, a military camp being used for disarmament in Bouar, 375 km (235 miles) northwest of Bangui, over what they said was unfair treatment by the government.

A group of nearly 200 of them threatened to march on Bangui, but agreed to return to Camp Leclerc after authorities agreed to give them 16,000 CFA each ($31) and 5 million CFA francs ($9,750) a month to feed the group, an FDPC official said.

A senior advisor to President Francois Bozize said the peace process was on track.

"For now, the essentials are done. We can be sure that the demobilisation and reintegration campaign will start in two to three months," Dieudonne Stanislas Mbango told Reuters.

Regional instability and wars in neighbouring Chad, Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo have worsened internal conflicts in the landlocked former French colony, which has attracted some foreign investment in its rich mineral reserves.

French state-controlled nuclear energy group Areva (CEPFi.PA) is due to start mining uranium in Central African Republic in 2010.

London-listed Gem Diamonds (GEMD.L) has been prospecting for alluvial diamonds in some of the country's rivers, but scaled back its presence this year after disappointing early results. (Writing by Joseph Penney; editing by Alistair Thomson)

Ugandan LRA rebel commander "Lt. Col" Okello Yape killed in southwest of Ri-Kwangba, DR Congo

Uganda's top rebel commander killed in DR Congo
March 11, 2009 KAMPALA, March 10 (Xinhua) --

A senior commander of Uganda's notorious rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), has been killed during the on-going joint military operation to wipe out the rebel group holed up in northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"Lt. Col" Okello Yape, whose role in the LRA is not yet clear, was killed in southwest of Ri-Kwangba, a remote border area in southern Sudan, according to a statement of the Uganda People's Defense Force (UPDF) on Tuesday.

The UPDF has called Yape's death as "another blow to the LRA" following the recent capture of "Col." Thomas Kwoyello, a senior rebel commander alleged ranking 4th in the rebel group.

Kwoyello, who was shot in the stomach and captured last week during the operations in southeast of Ri-Kwangba, has been transferred here for treatment.

Six more LRA fighters were killed during the weekend skirmish while three abductees were freed, the statement said.

The joint military operation was launched mid-December last year by UPDF with forces from DRC and southern Sudan to flush out the LRA after its leader, Joseph Kony repeatedly refused to sign an already negotiated peace agreement.

The offensive has, however, attracted some criticism due to its failure to prevent retaliatory attacks on civilians by the rebel group. UN and humanitarian agencies estimate that the rebel group has killed some 900 civilians since late last year.

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni, who is paying a working visit to the U.K. early this week, was quoted by a State House statement on Monday saying that the rebel leadership "has a chance to take advantage of amnesty if he stops fighting."

The rebel leadership, including Kony and two of his top commanders, are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The LRA's two decade long insurgency has left tens of thousands of people killed and some two million uprooted in northern Uganda before it spilt into neighboring southern Sudan and DRC.

Editor: Yan

ICC seeks new charges for Congo warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba

March 6, 2009 THE HAGUE (AFP) —
ICC seeks new charges for Congo warlord

International Criminal Court judges asked prosecutors Thursday to refile charges against ex-DR Congo vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba so he can be tried for war crimes as a military, rather than political commander.

The court has "decided to adjourn (January's) confirmation of charges hearing... and to ask the prosecutor to consider submitting an amended document," a statement on the court's website said.

"In the decision of 4 March 2009, the Chamber indicates that the evidence submitted by the prosecutor appears to establish that a different crime, within the jurisdiction of the court, was committed."

The judges consider that the facts of the case "may amount to a different type of responsibility, namely the criminal liability as a commander or superior."

Lawyers for Bemba said in the January hearing that members of his militia group accused of atrocities in the Central African Republic (CAR) were not under his command.

They argued before the court in The Hague that the men, deployed in 2002 to help put down a coup, were under the command of then-CAR president Ange Felix Patasse.

The court has given the defence until 24 April 2009 to respond, with an opportunity for alleged victims to make submissions first.

Bemba -- a former DR Congo vice-president and presidential election loser in 2006 -- held a dual role as president and commander-in-chief of his Movement for the Liberation of Congo.

The former role may not allow the prosecution sufficient leeway to establish criminal responsibility.

The MLC entered the Central African Republic in an unsuccessful bid to stave off a coup against Patasse.

ICC prosecutors allege they committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including rape, torture and murder while on Central African territory.

The 46-year-old Bemba, who fled DR Congo in April 2007, was arrested on 24 May 2008 by Belgian authorities and transferred to the ICC on 3 July.

The prosecution is seeking to hold Bemba criminally responsible for five counts of war crimes and three counts of crimes against humanity including rape, torture and murder, committed on the territory of Central African Republic from October 2002 to March 2003.

David Nyekorach Matsanga, LRA Chief Peace Negotiator, told VOA the news of Kwoyelo’s capture could be a hoax

Uganda's LRA Rebel Spokesman Skeptical of Top Rebel Commander's Capture - From Voice of America by James Butty Washington, DC 05 March 2009:

A spokesman for the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels is denying Ugandan government announcement that it has captured a top LRA commander in a joint operations with the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

A Ugandan army spokesman says troops captured Thomas Kwoyelo, who is believed to be fourth-in-command of the rebel group Tuesday in the remote forests in northeastern Congo.

David Nyekorach Matsanga, LRA Chief Peace Negotiator, told VOA the news of Kwoyelo’s capture could be a hoax.

“Most of the time when the Ugandan government talks about capturing commanders or people surrendering it becomes a hoax. If they have said they have Kwoyelo with them, they should always bring Kwoyelo. We know who he is, we know what he looks like, and most people have doubted the picture they have put on TV is Kwoyelo’s picture,” he said.

The caption of a picture on a Ugandan government website shows a man the caption said was Kwoyelo being assisted by Ugandan army officers as he disembarks a plane on arrival at Entebbe military airbase.

Still Matsanga said the picture is part of Ugandan government propaganda to prove to the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo that the joint military operation in eastern Congo is working.

“That is not the Thomas that everybody knows, and therefore we don’t think it is proper because this is a story that was brought they wanted to justify their stay in Congo by saying the operation is going on very well. Yet this operation is going on very badly,” Matsanga said.

He said military operations against the LRA will not bring peace to northern Uganda. In fact Matsanga said it would only worsen the situation.

“This is why I went to Tanzania to deliver a petition to the Secretary General of the United Nations and to all the people concerned in this conflict, Riek Machar of Sudan and Salva Kiir of Sudan that there is need for a ceasefire followed by a discussion on the ICC arrest warrant (against LRA leader Joseph Kony),” he said.

Matsanga said ICC arrest warrants against Kony and some of top commanders should be suspended to allow the LRA leader and his fighters to assembly in the Congolese border town of Rikwamba to sign the final peace agreement.

Uganda army captures LRA commander Thomas Kwoyelo in DR Congo's NE Garamba National Park

From AFP 4 March 2009 (KAMPALA)
Uganda army captures rebel commander:

Uganda's army announced Wednesday the capture of a commander of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, the first top insurgent to be arrested in a three-month-old regional military drive against the militia.

Thomas Kwoyelo, believed to be the LRA's fourth-in-command, was seized in the Democratic Republic of Congo's northeastern Garamba National Park Tuesday, army spokesman Major Felix Kulayigye said.

"We had contact with the rebels yesterday. Thomas was injured and is now in our custody. We also have some of the fighters who were with him, while others ran away," Kulayigye told AFP.

Uganda, DR Congo and south Sudan armies launched a joint military operation against the rebels in December after elusive LRA chief Joseph Kony refused to sign a final peace deal with the Kampala government.

Kony is yet to be arrested and his fighters have killed hundreds of civilians while fleeing the onslaught.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his Congolese counterpart Joseph Kabila are to meet Wednesday to review the operation and decide whether Ugandan troops will remain in DR Congo.

Kabila had said Ugandan troops were to leave DR Congo by the end of February, but they have yet to withdraw.

Kony's rebels are accused of having raped and mutilated civilians, forcibly enlisting child soldiers and of massacring thousands during two decades of conflict.

DRC, Ugandan leaders to meet over joint operation against rebels

From African Press Agency 3 March 2009:
DRC, Ugandan leaders to meet over joint operation against rebels

APA Kampala (Uganda) Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni and his DR Congo counterpart Joseph Kabila are set to meet by the end of this week to discuss issues related to the ‘Operation Lightning Thunder’ which was aimed at flushing out the illusive rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) under the command of General Joseph Kony.

The two leaders will decide whether the Ugandan troops should continue pursuing the LRA within their hide out in the Garamba national park in Congolese territory or call off the operation.

The spokesman of the Ugandan military Major Felix Kulaigye confirmed on Tuesday that officers from the DRC and Uganda have been discussing the future of the joint armed operation they began three months ago against the rebels responsible for widespread atrocities inside Congo and Uganda.

The Congolese government is under pressure from nationalist politicians to end the joint operation. Kulaigye indicated that the two presidents are to meet this week to decide on the issue.

About 4,000 Ugandan troops are since last December involved in this operation codenamed ‘Lightning Thunder’ with a similar number of Congolese troops.

There are fears that the withdrawal of the Ugandan troops is likely to give room for the rebesl now in disarray to regroup, a challenge the two presidents are expected to discuss.

However, the exact date of the two leaders’ meeting has not yet been established.

US military provided 17 advisers, $1m in fuel, satellite phones and intelligence for raid on LRA in DR Congo

The US sent 17 advisers from AFRICOM to work with UPDF on Operation Lightning Thunder against LRA in DR Congo.

Source: Sunday Monitor report by Angelo Izama, Kampala 25 February 2009:
US, Uganda to discuss military cooperation

A US military official, Brig. Gen. D. Christopher Leins is in Uganda to discuss military cooperation.

This visit comes in the backdrop of a New York Times article which revealed details of US military assistance to the UPDF in operation “Lightning Thunder”.

The article said, at the request of Uganda, the US sent 17 advisers from its new Africa Command to which Gen. Leins belongs, to work with UPDF on the Garamba operation.

It also said the US military provided a million dollars in fuel as well as satellite phones and intelligence for the operation which it said was personally authorised by ex-US President George Bush.

Yesterday, Army Spokesman, Felix Kulayigye said the UPDF had made no further requests for assistance from the American military and that there was no “on-going” assistance currently to operation Lightning Thunder.

Earlier, the army in a press release said Gen. Leins and the Chief of Defence Forces Gen Aronda Nyakairima, met at the Ministry of Defence Headquarters in Mbuya and discussed mutual cooperation.

In a follow-up interview, Maj. Kulaigye said Lightning Thunder was only mentioned in brief and that the discussion was focused on training assistance for officers.

The US Embassy also said the hunt for Kony had not been discussed.

Rwanda priest Emmanuel Rukundo jailed for genocide

BBC report Friday, 27 February 2009
Rwanda priest jailed for genocide:

A former Rwandan priest has been given a 25-year jail sentence for committing genocide, sexual assault and kidnapping during the 1994 killings in Rwanda.

Emmanuel Rukundo, a former army chaplain, took part in the abduction of Tutsis who sought refuge at a seminary, many of whom were later killed.

A UN war crimes court also convicted him of the attempted rape of a young Tutsi woman.

Some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 100 days.

Rukundo was arrested in Geneva in 2001 and will receive credit for the time already spent in detention.

The court said that Rukundo monitored local Tutsis and was often accompanied by soldiers and militiamen during the violence.

"The accused was found to have abused his moral authority and influence to promote the abduction and killing of Tutsi refugees," the UN court said.

"Rukundo's acts were clearly part of the genocide," said Judge Joseph Asoka de Silva after the judgement had been delivered.

"When he committed these crimes, he intended to completely or partially destroy the Tutsi ethnic group."

Prosecutors had demanded life in prison for Rukundo.

He is the second Roman Catholic priest to have been convicted of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in the Tanzanian town of Arusha.

Rukundo has up to 30 days to appeal against his sentence.
- - -

RWANDA'S 1994 GENOCIDE

6 April: Rwandan Hutu President Habyarimana killed when plane shot down
April-July: An estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus killed
July: Tutsi-led rebel movement RPF captures Rwanda's capital Kigali
July: Two million Hutus flee to Zaire, now DR Congo

Ugandan LRA rebels attack across CAR border-colonel

Ugandan LRA rebels attack across CAR border-colonel
Wed Feb 25, 2009
By Paul-Marin Ngoupana

BANGUI, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Ugandan rebels crossed into Central African Republic and ambushed an army patrol triggering clashes that killed several fighters, a colonel in the republic's armed forces said on Wednesday.

The ambush raises fears of more attacks in Central African Republic by Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters fleeing a Ugandan-led multinational offensive against their hideouts in northern Democratic Republic of Congo.

"Our men were on a routine patrol on Friday when they were ambushed by LRA fighters," said the army colonel, who declined to be identified. The attack happened in the remote southeast of the country, which is sandwiched between Congo and Sudan.

"They were routed by the heavy retaliation from our soldiers. One of our officers and a soldier were injured ... I cannot give the exact number we killed, but those who survived were chased to the other side of the Sudan border," he said.

LRA rebels have killed nearly 900 civilians in a string of reprisal attacks against villages across the border in northeastern Congo since the Ugandan army began an offensive against their positions there in mid-December.

The LRA and its reclusive leader Joseph Kony has waged a 22-year war against the Kampala government, devastating northern Uganda through years of killing, looting and kidnapping of children as fighters, porters and sex slaves.

Kony and many of his fighters left their hideouts in southern Sudan in 2005 and established bases in northeast Congo's Garamba National Park, which Ugandan warplanes targeted in a bombing spree when it launched its latest campaign.

The LRA fighters have since spread out and split up into several different groups.

Fearing they would cross the border, Central African Republic sent extra soldiers last month to step up patrols in its remote southeastern region, where LRA fighters invaded and kidnapped around 150 people in a looting spree in early 2008.

"The chief of staff sent several military detachments to reinforce our soldiers and they are mounting daily patrols to defend against any eventuality and prevent the LRA who have been hunted and dispersed in small groups in the forest of Congo and southern Sudan ending up in our territory," he said.

Isolated and chronically poor despite gold, diamond and uranium deposits, CAR faces its own internal conflicts.

Bands of gunmen and several rebel groups are still active in the north despite talks late last year that was meant to end years of instability. (Writing by Alistair Thomson; Editing by David Lewis and Katie Nguyen)

The Arrow Boys confront LRA in Sudan's Western Equatoria State

From Miraya FM (Sudan) Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Boys confront LRA in Western Equatoria:

A group of fighters known as arrow boys that are spread in various parts of Western Equatoria State expressed readiness to fight the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) that has engaged in attacks against civilians lately in the State.

The Arrow boys are group of boys who use traditional weapons such as bows, arrows, spears and clubs, treated with poisonous to fight the Lord Resistance Army LRA.

The arrow boys are all over the Western Equatoria State but particularly from Maridi, Mundri, Ezo and Ibba counties.

Raphael Monuku the head of the Arrow boys in Manikakara Payam in Ibba county, said that, "LRA movement appears to be a defeated movement, it has no access to ammunitions and any warfare machinery after joint military attacks launched by the Ugandan, and Congolese troops in mid December 2008.

Reports said that the LRA are using axes, knifes, and woods, to kill the innocent civilians.

The recent attacks on Manikakara in Western Equatoria State caused a lot of destructions and deaths both in Ibba and Maridi Counties.

As a result the citizens especially in the LRA spotted areas don't sleep anymore in their houses, in fear for a surprise attack by the rebels.

But the question remains, can the arrow boys with their manner of fighting be able to defeat the LRA after the Government of South Sudan refused to arm the citizens of Western Equatoria to defend themselves for security considerations.

- - -

Arrow Boys: A Ugandan Militia Fights Off the LRA

After terrorising Uganda for 20 years, the LRA has met its match.
By Peter Eichstaedt in Soroti, Uganda (No. 51, 19-Jan-2006)

At the Thursday market in Arapai, about ten kilometres outside of Soroti on Uganda’s dry eastern plains, you can get just about anything.

You can buy a cow, a goat, a bicycle, fat stalks of fresh sugar cane, dried peanuts, handmade rope, or even have your machete sharpened.

Fifty kilos of dried kasava root can be ground by hand on a flat stone into flour for bread that will feed you for a month.

The most popular item in the market is malwa, the locally made brew. It’s a lightly fermented grain served in clay pots with hot water and sipped through a long reed.

You can sit in the shade of the thatched roofs for several hours and drink all you want for about 25 US cents. It’s the way locals spend the day, meet friends and catch up on the latest news.

That locals safely walk miles to crowd this market is due to a feared homegrown militia called the Arrow Boys formed less than three years ago.

These local fighters have quickly become the only organised force to defeat the infamous Lords Resistance Army, which for the past 20 years has terrorised northern Uganda, southern Sudan and eastern Congo.

The LRA has kidnapped thousands of boys and girls, converting them into vicious child soldiers and sex slaves. Those who resist are brutally killed or maimed and left to die.

But the Arrow Boys are inflicting serious losses on the LRA.

When the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued indictments this past fall against LRA leader Joseph Kony and four of his top commanders, one was already dead.

“We put him out of action,” said Robert Adiama, one of the militia founders who served as its top intelligence officer. He is now the district’s top government official.

“The LRA faced their first blow in Teso,” he said of the region around Soroti, adding that the Arrow Boys killed or captured more than 40 LRA commanders in the past couple of years.

The key to the Arrow Boys’ success against the LRA has been strong community support and an efficient intelligence network.

“When the LRA is going to move south from Pader,” said Adiama, “we know about it three days ahead of time.” Pader is one of Uganda’s northern districts where the LRA continues to cause havoc despite the presence of the Uganda military.

“We help the people,” he said. “We prepare the community to respond and ask the government for help in doing it.”

The government support comes in weapons distributed throughout villages. And, when an LRA attack occurs, the militia is quickly formed and pursues the rebels.

“The only way to control the situation is rapid response,” explained Adiama.

Because the Arrow Boys have been so successful, they have been incorporated into the ranks of the Ugandan military and have received training, weapons and pay.

The Arrow Boys also protect the region against raids by the Karamajong, the notorious neighbouring ethnic group that has a reputation as cattle rustlers.

“They kill our people when they come,” said Adiama. “They steal our cattle.”

One Arrow Boys commander recently ordered Karamojong cattle rustlers to be shot on sight. The order has resulted in three deaths, one by hanging and decapitation.

“We are not an aggressive people,” insisted Adiama. “If they (Karamajong) want our cows, they can buy them. If they think we have their cows, take us to court.” Otherwise, he says, “armed men stealing cows should be shot”.

Because of years of attacks by the LRA and the Karamajong, thousands of Teso people live in the protected refugee camps serviced by the World Food Programme.

But this, he says, has created social problems, “The people of Teso are not used to camp life. It is like being in prison.”

Although some in the Arrow Boys recently have been accused of selling weapons for cash, skimming money from payrolls and random violence, it has not dampened local enthusiasm for them.

“They rescued me from the LRA,” said Daniel Emoru, a 40-year-old who rides a bicycle and sells pottery.

His father-in-law was killed by rebels and children from his village were taken. But with the Arrow Boys, he says, “We feel safe because the rebels no longer roam the area.”

In the village of the Arasai, where just two years ago the LRA killed 20 villagers and kidnapped four children, one of whom is still missing, the Arrow Boys are admired.

“If possible, they should increase their numbers,” said one villager as he and others played the traditional African game of komweso.

“They have worked hard,” said Jackie Okurut, 45, who weaves rope in the shade of his tiny stall at the Arapai market. “We are now in peace because they did good. Let them continue their work because the Karamajong are still bothering us.”

Under the shady pavilions where they serve malwa, the sentiment is the same. “We are now safe,” said Celestion Elibu, one of the patrons, “but we are still haunted by the memory of our dead relatives.”

Most still turn a wary eye to the north where the LRA remains active. Because of them and the Karamajong, the Arrow Boys remains a vital regional defense force.

“I have a lot of hope the security will improve as long as the government remains stable,” said Adiama, but quickly added, “while the LRA is active, the region is vulnerable.”



Villagers near the eastern Ugandan town of Soroti enjoy a game of omweso in a region cleared of LRA rebels the local militia called the Arrow Boys. Peter Eichstaedt photo.

Peter Eichstaedt is a senior editor with the Uganda Radio Network. URN correspondent Joseph Elunya contributed to this report.

Anglican Archbishop of Sudan has called on the UK and US to help catch Kony

BBC report 23 February 2009 by Martin Plaut, BBC Africa analyst - excerpt:

The Anglican Archbishop of Sudan has called on the UK and US to help catch Ugandan rebel, Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader, Joseph Kony.

Daniel Deng said he believes he is hiding in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan.

LRA attacks have increased since forces from Uganda, South Sudan and DR Congo launched an assault on him in December.

The archbishop told the BBC Mr Kony's capture appeared beyond the abilities of the governments of the region.

Central Africa has already suffered 20 years of terror inflicted by the LRA.

On a visit to London, the archbishop said that international support was needed to locate him and "bring him to book".

See full report: West asked to catch Uganda rebel.

Amnesty International USA demands that UNMIS tells ICC & MONUC of whereabouts of Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen

From Amnesty International USA
PRESS RELEASE
February 18, 2009

United Nations should not aid fugitives from international justice

Amnesty International is demanding that the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) co-operates with the International Criminal Court (ICC) by providing the whereabouts of Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen to facilitate their arrest and surrender.

In a letter to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sudan, Amnesty International expressed its concern that UNMIS were preparing to help return the two men, who are leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), to their native Uganda. Ugandan officials have repeatedly and publicly stated that they will not arrest and surrender the LRA leaders to the ICC.

“UNMIS is bound by the Negotiated Relationship Agreement between the ICC and the UN, which requires that the two bodies cooperate closely with each other,” said Martin Macpherson, Amnesty International’s International Law and Organizations programme. “If UNMIS were to hand the two men over to the Ugandan authorities, the UN would effectively help prevent their arrest and surrender to the ICC and this would amount to an obstruction of justice.”

Amnesty International urges UNMIS immediately to provide the ICC, as well as the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), with all information about the whereabouts of Odhiambo and Ongwen to facilitate their arrest and surrender to the ICC. The same information should be provided to any state that is able and willing to arrest and surrender the suspects to the ICC.

The organization also calls on UNMIS not to facilitate the return of the two men to Uganda unless Uganda pledges to arrest them immediately and surrender them to the ICC.

Background

The arrest warrant for Okot Odhiambo lists 10 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, enslavement and forced enlisting of children. The arrest warrant against Dominic Ongwen lists seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, enslavement and inhumane acts.

During 2008 and in the past months of 2009, LRA forces are believed to have abducted hundreds of people including women and children, and committed a number of other human rights violations, including unlawful killings, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, southern Sudan and the Central Africa Republic.

LRA fighters trapped: Congo spokesman

LRA fighters trapped: Congo spokesman
February 14, 2009 KINSHASA (AFP) —

The remnants of the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army are trapped by opposing forces in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo and will have to surrender, a Congolese government spokesman said Saturday.

"We think that Joseph Kony is with them," he said, referring to the head of the LRA, the target of a joint operation by Congolese, Ugandan and south Sudanese forces launched in December.

"The hard core of the Lord's Resistance Army is in a swampy forest in the Garamba national park," spokesman Lambert Mende told AFP, putting their numbers at about 250.

"They have no way out of these swamps except to surrender," he said.

Mende said the rest of the LRA had surrendered or disbanded, adding that the aim of the joint operation against the rebels had almost been achieved.

He said that Congolese President Joseph Kabila and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni would meet on the border between their two countries before the end of February to assess the situation.

The Ugandan spokesman for the joint operation said it was "just a matter of time" before the LRA was finally defeated, but refused to say how long it might take.

"Operations will... go on until Kony terrorists are routed out of DRC," Deo Akiiki said, adding that "reviewing will only occur where necessary."

Contacted by telephone from Kampala, Akiiki said the "LRA's capacity to abduct and kill has been gravely reduced since the ground forces took control of the situation."

"They are being starved and no longer have time to sit or plan as our forces reduce their numbers daily," he said. "We are sure we now have got all and it is a matter of time till we stop LRA madness once and for all."

Operation Lighting Thunder was launched on December 14 after Kony repeatedly balked at signing a peace agreement already inked by Kampala in April 2008.

The LRA began its rebellion against Kampala more than two decades ago and is accused of committing atrocities against civilians in northern Uganda, south Sudan, northeastern DR Congo and the Central African Republic.

The operation has been criticised for sparking revenge attacks by the rebels against unprotected civilians in the remote border region.

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said Tuesday that the LRA had carried out attacks of "appalling brutality," calling the situation "very worrying."

The United Nations said late last month that 130,000 people had been displaced in northern DR Congo after fresh LRA attacks.

Congo, Rwanda forces kill 40 Hutu rebels in air raids

From Bloomberg
Congo, Rwanda Forces Kill 40 Hutu Rebels in Air Raids (Update2)
By Franz Wild, February 13, 2009:

Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwandan military forces said they killed more than 40 Hutu rebels during air attacks.

The joint force yesterday staged an air raid on a group of commanders of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, who were meeting in Kashebere, in the Masisi area of Congo’s eastern North Kivu province, according to a statement signed by operations chief Lieutenant-General John Numbi.

Congolese and Rwandan forces are fighting together to oust the rebels from eastern Congo, a region from which they have staged attacks against Rwanda. The coalition “just moved into higher speed by using air support to increase pressure on” the FDLR, according to the statement.

About 4,000 Rwandan soldiers on Jan. 20 crossed into Congo’s North Kivu province to launch the joint mission to forcibly disarm the FDLR. The group’s leaders sought refuge in Congo’s forests after taking part in the killing of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the Rwanda genocide in 1994.

Several attempts to eradicate the Hutu rebels have triggered wars in the region in which more than 5 million people have died since 1998, mostly due to war-related hunger and disease.

FDLR Killings

In response to the offensive, the FDLR has “brutally slaughtered” about 100 civilians and raped more than a dozen women, including a nine-year-old girl, New York-based Human Rights Watch said today in an e-mailed statement. Others were stopped from leaving their villages, it said.

“The FDLR have a very ugly past, but we haven’t seen this level of violence in years,” Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch, said in the statement. “We’ve documented many abuses by FDLR forces, but these are killings of ghastly proportions.”

Ground forces destroyed a “heavily defended” FDLR division headquarters near Nyabiondo, about 70 kilometers (44 miles) northwest of Goma, the capital of North Kivu, according to the statement by the joint operations force.

“Here too the death toll is very heavy,” it said. “The survivors threw the bodies of their companions in the river.”

The FDLR accuses civilians who live near them of betraying its fighters, said Jerome Monobo, a civil society leader in Nyabiondo.

“The people are totally traumatized, they don’t know what to do,” Monobo said today on the phone from Nyabiondo. “They’re too scared to get food in the fields.”

FDLR spokesman Laforge Fis had two mobile phones switched off or out of network coverage when Bloomberg News called seeking comment.

Air Strikes

The air strikes came in response to FDLR fighters firing on a helicopter from the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo, Monuc, which was in the area to encourage rebels to disarm and return to Rwanda, according to the statement.

Monuc confirmed its helicopter had been fired on. It couldn’t yet confirm the air strikes, military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich said today on the phone from Kinshasa, the capital.

Congo turned on the FDLR, with which it collaborated last year, UN investigators said in a December report, in exchange for Rwanda’s arrest of rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda. Rwanda on Jan. 22 detained Nkunda, whose fighters last year defeated Congo’s army in several battles, displacing 250,000 civilians in North Kivu.

Nkunda’s military chief General Jean Bosco Ntaganda, who last month deposed Nkunda, has since agreed to integrate his forces into Congo’s army and join the FDLR hunt.

Peacekeepers

Monuc, which has 6,300 peacekeepers in North Kivu, has been unable to protect civilians because they haven’t been informed about the strikes, Human Rights Watch said.

Another rebel group in Congo, Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army, responded to attacks by Congolese and Ugandan forces on its jungle headquarters by killing more than 900 civilians in the Haut-Uele region in December and January, according to the UN.

Congo’s President Joseph Kabila on Jan. 31 said Rwanda’s troops would leave before the end of this month. Ugandan troops, who are still pursuing the LRA near the border with Sudan, are scheduled to leave tomorrow, he said.

Congo’s 85th army brigade, which is made up of former militia fighters, has left a mining zone it controlled in the western Walikale region of North Kivu to be integrated with other forces, army spokesman Captain Olivier Hamuli said today by phone from Goma.

The news was welcomed by tin miner Kivu Resources Ltd., which in October suspended plans to develop its Mpama Bisie concession, the country’s biggest, because of the insecurity the soldiers caused.

Congo, Africa’s top tin producer, ships three-quarters of its tin exports out of Goma.

“We’re hoping they will keep the military off the mine now,” Kivu Resources Managing Director in Congo Brian Christophers said by phone from Johannesburg. “If the security is correct, we’ll return, but we still have to wait and see.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Franz Wild in Johannesburg at fwild@bloomberg.net.

Lubanga–incarcerated in The Hague, thousands of miles away from his stronghold–still wields great influence in Ituri

From Coalition for the ICC's blog In Situ 6 February 200 by Freddy Kitoko
The future of the ICC rests on the success of its first trial

Since the Lubanga trial opened on 26 January, we in the Congo have been closely watching proceedings unfold at the International Criminal Court. The trial’s opening sparked keen interest among victims affected both directly and indirectly by the successive abuses of power that the DRC has come to know. But the retraction of the statement made by an ex-child soldier witness who fought in Thomas Lubanga’s army, the U.P.C., has resulted in diminished interest among Congolese observers.

To us it is clear that Mr. Lubanga–incarcerated in The Hague, thousands of miles away from his stronghold–still wields great influence in Ituri where his supporters continue to almost blindly obey him. This was perhaps never more the case than when the Court announced it would suspend his trial. Large numbers of people in Ituri prepared for the return of “the liberator” as some referred to him.

Last week’s incident also highlights the fact that the Prosecutor’s office did not give sufficient guarantees to the witness, in terms of his own security and the security of his loved-ones who live in Ituri. His loved-ones could have easily been targets of retaliation by Lubanga’s followers who stand ready to receive their leader should he ever be released.

We have always expressed our concerns about the quality as well as the quantity of evidence that the prosecution holds and the way the victims and witnesses were selected. We hope that this episode is only a minor incident and that the rest of the trial will continue normally because in the end, the court is gambling with its credibility during this first, most historic of trials.

Freddy Kitoko is a Congolese lawyer with the Lubumbashi Bar and member of the human rights organization, African Association of Human Rights (ASADHO).

British, Ugandan army chiefs discuss volatile DR Congo, Somalia

British, Ugandan army chiefs discuss volatile DR Congo, Somalia
February 11 2009 report by Xinhua from waltainfo.com:

British and Ugandan army chiefs met here on Monday and discussed the security situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) and Somalia, a statement from the Ugandan army said.

According to the statement from the army's spokesman's office, Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of General Staff of the British Army and Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, Chief of Defense Force of Uganda People's Defense Force, discussed Uganda's hunt for rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army in eastern DR Congo and its peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

The statement did not give details of the discussions but said Gen. Dannatt had come to follow up on issues of mutual concern and military cooperation.

This was the first time since Uganda, a former British colony, gained independence in 1962 that a British general of that level visited the country.

Gen. Nyakairima said the Ugandan military has now built up capacity which has enabled it to defend the country and execute pan-African missions.

He told his guest that local problems need local solutions and therefore the need to build the capacity of the Ugandan army, since it plays a significant role in regional stability.

Gen. Dannatt pledged continued cooperation in training and capacity building of the Ugandan army, noting that Britain has historical ties with Africa and has a responsibility to maintain it.

DR Congo: New LRA attacks force Congolese to flee to Southern Sudan

Report from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Date: 10 Feb 2009:

DR Congo: New LRA attacks force Congolese to flee to Southern Sudan

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 10 February 2009, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

At least six people were killed and another 21 kidnapped Saturday night in an attack by the Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's resistance Army (LRA), on the town of Aba in the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The LRA rebels also plundered the local Protestant parish and hospital.

This latest attack sent thousands of Congolese fleeing to Southern Sudan. According to our team in Southern Sudan, some 5,000 Congolese refugees from Alba arrived over the weekend in the town of Lasu, some 50 kms from the DRC border. They said thousands more are on the way. The refugees told UNHCR staff in Lasu on Sunday that 90 per cent of Aba's 100,000 population had fled the town and many more could be expected to arrive in Southern Sudan in the next few days. Our team witnessed large concentrations of refugees in three locations along the Lasu-Yei road. The new arrivals are occupying schools and church buildings along the road.

People in DRC's north-eastern Oriental province have been exposed to brutal and deadly attacks by the LRA since last September. A rough estimate of the total number of people forcefully displaced since then now stands at almost 150,000. Some 900 Congolese have been killed by the Ugandan rebel group over the past five months in the north-east.

Meanwhile, our team in Dungu, a regional centre in the Haut Uele territory of the north-east DRC, trained 60 local Red Cross officials and others on conducting a re-registration exercise in the neighbouring villages around Dungu. The aim of the exercise is to obtain more accurate information about the displaced population and their intentions.

Relative calm is returning to areas around Dungu and our partners report the first signs of return to a number of villages north of the town. We continue to rush aid to the area. Over the weekend a second convoy of 14 trucks brought another shipment of plastic sheeting, blankets, sleeping mats, kitchen sets and soaps. These aid items will be distributed to the displaced population sheltering in the villages south of Dungu.

Peter Eichstaedt to speak at luncheon in Iowa Friday

From Press-Citizen Press-Citizen 10 February 2009:

Eichstaedt to speak at luncheon Friday

Peter Eichstaedt, Africa editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, will present "First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance" at a noon luncheon of the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council on Friday at Congregational Church, 30 N. Clinton St. in in Iowa City.

Eichstaedt has worked as a journalist and news media adviser in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Afghanistan and most recently Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. His book is based on his experiences and research in Uganda during 2005 and 2006.

He has been a journalist, editor and author for more than 30 years and was a recipient of a Fulbright grant in journalism in 1998-99 in Slovenia and Moldova. Eichstaedt's talk is part of a series of events celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council.

Masala will cater the event. Reservations are $7.50 for council members and $8.50 for nonmembers. The deadline to register is noon today.

For more information call 335-0351 or visit http://international.uiowa.edu.

Peter, if you are reading this I hope it will be possible for you to meet up with Dr. David Leffer who lives and works in Iowa. I've emailed this article to him today.



See Congo Watch January 09, 2009: Peter Eichstaedt's book on the LRA, First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army

Mandate given to UPDF to hunt for LRA inside DRC extended to Friday February 13

February 9, 2009 report from The Daily Monitor (Kampala) by Grace Matsiko & Agencies:

I’m ready to surrender - Odhiambo

Joseph Kony’s deputy in the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, Okot Odhiambo has said he is serious about surrendering to the UPDF after over two decades in rebel activities.

Odhiambo, told AFP, on Friday, that he is defecting with the presumed LRA’s third-in-command, Dominic Ongwen, a development once effected will further isolate Joseph Kony. Both commanders are wanted by the International Criminal Court.

Odhiambo, one of Kony’s trusted commanders had recently announced his intention to surrender to the UPDF but his announcement caused mixed reaction on whether he was serious. “I am very serious about defecting and I have spoken to the general (Kony) about this,” Odhiambo told the French news agency. Asked how Kony responded, Odhiambo said: “That is between me and the general.”

Odhiambo told the news agency by phone from his jungle hide-out that he had 120 LRA fighters with him. He said Kony was alive and unscathed by the bombing raids by the UPDF jet fighters on his headquarters on December 14.

Odhiambo and Ongwen decided to turn themselves in after the governments of Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo launched a joint military offensive to flush holdout LRA rebels in their border hide-outs. But Brig. Patrick Kankiriho, the UPDF officer commanding the joint raid, told Daily Monitor, that time was running out for Odhiambo and the other fighters to surrender. “We shall not take him seriously unless he surrenders. We are ready to give him any guarantees if he shows seriousness but he should remember that time is running out,” Brig. Kankiriho warned.

The spokesman for the UPDF troops in DRC, Capt. Deo Akiiki, said contrary to media reports that the 21-day mandate given to UPDF to hunt for LRA inside DRC ended on Friday, the deadline has been extended to this Friday (February 13). “We expect the military chiefs from both countries to review our operations and give a way forward,” Capt. Akiiki said. “This implies that they can either decide we (UPDF) continue the hunt for LRA or otherwise. So it isn’t correct to make conclusions for such a strategic meeting,” he added.

On January 23, the Chief of Defence Forces, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima and his DRC counterparts, held a meeting at Dungu joint task force tactical headquarters and extended the UPDF stay in Congo for 21 more days. This happened after the expiry of the initial 31 days and review of the situation on ground.

ICC trial of Lubanga off to an ‘inauspicious’ start

From The East African
ICC trial of Lubanga off to an ‘inauspicious’ start
By PAUL REDFERN
Saturday, February 7 2009

The International Criminal Court is being accused of failing the first practical test of its status as a war crime tribunal — in the way in which it has failed to asses the merits of key witnesses in the trial of the Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga.

The trial of Lubanga, which started in The Hague last week, faced confusion from the start over whether witnesses could face prosecution back in the Democratic Republic of Congo for what they say in The Hague.

Lubanga faces charges of using child soldiers, in a case which some hoped might pave the way for other show trials, such as for members of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda.

The Times newspaper said that most worrying of all was the “botched handling of the first witness, a former child soldier.

“Incredibly, the main prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who has been preparing for six years for this momentous occasion, failed to stay after his opening remarks last Monday. It was left to his deputy, Fatou Bensouda, to examine the first witness last Wednesday, a young man purported to have been recruited into Mr Lubanga’s militia. But with her clumsy questioning, Ms Bensouda failed to coax any cogent evidence out of him and she was left floundering as he returned after the lunch break to retract that he had even been a child soldier.”

The court was hastily adjourned and it has now heard that this vulnerable young man is considered “not in a proper condition to continue giving evidence” by the ICC’s Victims and Witnesses’ Unit.

“It was an inauspicious start for a noble project,” the Times said. “Who could dispute, in principle, that the world is not a better place for a forum that can pursue and prosecute its worst renegades? But it is not just in Court One at The Hague that the ICC is not living up to high expectations.

“The story has been well told of how Joseph Kony, leader of the murderous Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, walked out of peace talks with the government the moment he heard that the ICC had issued a warrant for mass murder against him.”

Questions have also arisen as to whether the search for peace in Sudan has been set back by the charges of alleged genocide and crimes against humanity which the ICC issued last July against President Omar al-Bashir.

One consequence has been that the African Union has now agreed a one-year suspension of the process against Mr al-Bashir on the grounds that it would damage the peace process in Sudan — amid claims that Africa is being unfairly targeted as a testing ground for the court.

Critics said that despite these controversies, the Lubanga case was a golden opportunity to show what international justice means in practice.

However, the Times pointed out that the court president, the British High Court judge Sir Adrian Fulford, had nearly called off the trial in the summer when it emerged that the prosecution had used confidentiality agreements to withhold possible exonerating evidence.

As a result, Sir Adrian had ordered that Mr Lubanga be set free because he could not receive a fair trial but he then allowed an appeal, which eventually led to the disclosure by the prosecution that allowed the trial to go ahead.

But the UK paper points out that there has also been “widespread concern at the narrow scope of the charges against Mr Lubanga, all three of which focus on his recruitment and use of child soldiers under the age of 15 and say nothing of allegations of systematic rape and other atrocities said to have been committed by his Union of Congolese Patriots.

“Fundamental to the success of the charges that Mr Lubanga does face will be the testimony of the child soldiers themselves,” the report said. “But if the first witness was chosen to showcase the court’s competence in dealing with this sensitive challenge, it chose badly.

“Although screened effectively from the press and public, and his voice disguised electronically, the unnamed witness could be seen by all in the courtroom. From his seat in a corner of the court, Mr Lubanga could be seen craning his neck to get a good look at him, to the surprise of Congolese journalists who thought he would be shielded from the warlord.”

Moreover, despite assurances that his identity would be protected, the prosecution asked the young witness his date of birth in open court and also the names of the friends he was with when allegedly recruited by Mr Lubanga’s militiamen.

“For a young man traumatised by war and facing a roomful of 20 lawyers and three judges for the first time, under the impression he would have his identity protected, the whole experience must have been disturbing, to say the least,” the Times said

Critics acknowledge that international justice is not easy, but the success of the ICC may well “depend on how it cares for the most vulnerable people caught up in its pursuit of high-profile quarry,” the report concludes.