Saturday, May 30, 2009

DRC needs China contracts and debt relief

KINSHASA - The Democratic Republic of Congo needs debt relief and deals with China to help ease the war-torn country out of poverty, the director general of the International Monetary Fund said.

Speaking to reporters at the end of a two-day visit to Kinshasa, Dominique Strauss-Kahn mentioned a contract signed between the two countries involving a Chinese loan of nine billion dollars.

Six billion was destined for developing the infrastructure and three for the mining sector, but part of the loan was to be paid back in mining shares, said Strauss-Kahn.

"The difficulty is that certain elements of the contract, in particular the guarantee guarantee on the mining part," constituted for the IMF an increase in the country's $11 billion debt burden, said Strauss-Kahn.

It was absurd for the country to have to choose between lightening its burden or taking the Chinese contract, he added.

"What we need is both the contract and the debt relief, the DRC needs both," said Strauss-Kahn.

The IMF chief recommended finding a format that would give the Chinese the guarantees they needed without worsening Kinshasa's debt burden.

The deal, first revealed in 2007, involves the renovation or building of more than 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles) of roads, more than 3,000 kilometres of railway, two dams, hospitals, accommodation and schools across the country.

In a press release issued after the meeting Strauss-Kahn added: "I welcomed President Kabila's agenda for tackling critical social and infrastructural needs, and which warrant increased public spending.

"Of course, such spending should take place within a clear debt sustainability framework."

But before the IMF could consider a new "poverty relief and growth facility" programme there had to be a positive resolution of the problem with the Sino-Congolese agreement, he said.

Congress And Its Concern For Central Africa

by Scott A Morgan

The US Congress has recently Introduced Legislation that will have the United States increase its Focus on Events in Central Africa. This is a region of the World where reports of Violence are the rule not the exception. Since 1994 it is believed that over 2 Million People have been killed and Millions have been Forced to Flee their homes or have been kidnapped.

In this the First year of the 111th Congress Two New Pieces of Legislation have been introduced. These Bills address two nations which just happen to be the Root Causes of the two Largest Grassroots Advocacy Movements in the United States. The Nations happen to be Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

First of all lets discuss the Longest Running Insurgency Currently ongoing in Africa. That is the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda. This Insurgency can trace it roots back to 1986. The Violence which had started in the Northern Region of Uganda and affected the Acholi People has turned into a Regional Conflict that has placed the Lives of Children at risk of being Kidnapped.

In December of last year after two failed attempts to sign a Peace Accord with the LRA the Ugandan Military with the Assistance of the DRC and Southern Sudan and some Logisitcal Support from the US Military attacked. Needless to say the LRA has counterattacked and the fighting has spread from the Congo to the Central African Republic and Sudan. Its interesting that this Counteroffensive did not set foot into Uganda itself.

Late in May 2009 Both Houses of Congress Introduced Legislation called the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. If passed this will be the Second Piece of Legislation that deals with Northern Uganda. In 2004 Congress Passed the Northern Uganda Crisis Repsonse Act. The 2009 Bill calls for the US to have a Comprehensive Strategy to Defeat the LRA and to aid in Both Restorative Justice and Addressing Poverty in Northern Uganda. The LRA also happens to be on the List of Terrorist Groups compiled by the US.

In Late April a Bill was Introduced in the Senate that highlighted the Concerns in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congo Conflict Minerals Act which was Introduced by Senator Brownback of Kansas seeks to address one of the root causes for the Strife in the Congo. The Eastern Part of the DRC is abundant in Natural Resources and overrun by Militia Groups.

In 2007 a report from the GAO (Government Accounting Office) found that the Mismanagement of Resources and their Illicit Trade were fueling Insurgent Movements in the Neighboring States. Earlier this year the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition found that "Use by the Information Communications Technology of mined Commodities that support Conflict like in the DRC is unacceptable."

Under this Bill Companies in the Tech Industry will have to Report to the Securities and Exchange Commission that the Raw Materials that they import will not be used to support any Conflict. This is a Step in the Right Direction. However no Specific Mention is made of other areas of contention such as the Sexual Abuse of Women by Armed Factions in the DRC.

These two Pieces of Legislation will garner a Decent Measure of Grassroots support within the United States. The Plight of Children of Northern Uganda has been an effective motivating Factor for several Activist Groups. In Recent Months the Situation in the Congo thanks to the Backlash against Operation Lightning Thunder has also seen an increase in the Activism by Concerned Americans.

Kudos should go to the Sponsors of these Pieces of Legislation. As someone who is Concerned with US Policy towards Africa I believe that in the Long Run these are two Good Ideas.

Scott A Morgan is an independent columnist who publishes Confused Eagle on the Internet

Children in Congo forced into exorcisms

Updated 5/21/2009 12:58 PM | Comments 229 | Recommend 29

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Enlarge	By Almin Karamehmedovic, ABC News

Pastor Moise Tshombe claims to remove evil spirits from children, pouring hot candle wax on a girl's belly.

By Dan Harris, Special for USA TODAY

Isaac Mananga, 10, and his half sister Chanel, 7, knelt on the dirt floor of the church, staring up at the pastor through scared, confused eyes.

Standing before a wooden cross, Pastor Moise Tshombe, in a robe adorned with pictures of Jesus, went into a trance. Claiming to be speaking through the Holy Spirit, he declared, "These children are witches."

Moments later, with Isaac and Chanel by her side, the children's grandmother, Marie Nzenze, said she believed the charges. "God has spoken through the mouth of the prophet," she said. "God has not lied."

According to a United Nations report issued this year, a growing number of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo are being accused of witchcraft and subjected to violent exorcisms by religious leaders, in which they are often beaten, burned, starved and even murdered. The relatively new phenomenon has become one of the main causes in Central Africa for humanitarian groups, which are organizing programs to protect children's rights and educate pastors on the dangers of accusing children.

Ties to poverty

Liana Bianchi, the administrative director for the humanitarian group Africare, says the trend is partly the result of decades of war and economic decline in the Congo. The non-profit group Save the Children estimates that 70% of the roughly 15,000 street children in Kinshasa, the capital, were kicked out of their homes after being accused of witchcraft.

"In my opinion," Bianchi said, "poverty is really at the root of child abandonment. Accusations of witchcraft have become socially acceptable reasons for why a family turns a child out on the street."

The practice, which has also been reported in Nigeria and Angola, can be lucrative for the priests who perform them.

Pastor Tshombe charged Julie Moseka $50 to exorcise her emaciated daughter, Noella, 8. The average annual salary in Congo is $100.

During the ceremony, Pastor Tshombe and three of his aides held Noella's spindly limbs down and poured hot candle wax on her belly while she screamed and cried. Then the pastor bit down hard and pulled the skin on her stomach, pretending to pull demonic flesh out of her.

In an interview afterward, Tshombe acknowledged the ritual can be painful, but he says it's necessary because otherwise the children would not be "cured."

When asked whether he thinks Jesus would approve of what he's doing, Tshombe said, "Why wouldn't he be happy? I'm just using the gifts given to me by the Holy Spirit."

Noella's mother, agreed. "It was imperative that it happen this way," she said, "because the child is accused of witchcraft."

The pastors who conduct such rituals are non-denominational, and most have no theological training, says Matondo Kasese of the humanitarian group Reejer. According to Arnold Mushiete, a social worker with a small Catholic organization called Our House, Congo's atmosphere of religious fervor, minimal education and rampant poverty makes for fertile territory for pastors who convince desperate parents that their children are the cause of their financial, medical and romantic problems.

"Formerly in our culture," Mushiete said, "the child was a precious being. Now, because of the church, children have become harmful beings."

Thrown into streets

Mushiete works with street children who have been accused of witchcraft. He says homeless children are frequently raped and beaten, even by police. Drug use is rampant. Girls often resort to prostitution, leaving their own babies to sleep on the side of the road at night while they sell themselves.

The Congolese legislature recently passed a law that makes it illegal to accuse children of witchcraft, but many activists, including Bianchi, say the law is not enforced.

Even the head of a special government commission to protect children accused of witchcraft said he thinks it is possible for children to be "sorcerers."

"You sometimes see a very little child with big eyes, black eyes, a distended stomach," said Theodore Luleka Mwanalwamba. "These are the physical aspects."

When asked how someone with his beliefs could protect children accused of witchcraft, he said the state has "the duty to save all the people who are in dangerous situations." He said cracking down on abusive pastors is difficult because "important people" are sometimes members of their churches.

Mushiete, the social worker, said he does not get discouraged. "The big work we want to do," he said, "is to sensitize the pastors, so they give another image of Jesus — not a Jesus who tortures children."

Harris is a reporter and anchor for ABC News. His report on children accused of witchcraft in Africa will air Thursday on Nightlineon ABC at 11:35 ET.

UN reports surge in rapes, killings in Congo

By The Associated Press

Published: Wed, May 20, 2009 - 9:16 am Last Updated: Wed, May 20, 2009 - 10:02 am

GENEVA (AP) Rapes, lootings and killings by Congolese military forces and rebels is on the rise in eastern Congo, the United Nations said Wednesday.

Armed men have been running rampant in the volatile south Kivu region, where Congo's armed forces are preparing an offensive against rebel fighters accused of taking part in neighboring Rwanda's 1994 genocide, U.N. spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said.

"Rape is increasing in an absolutely dramatic manner," Byrs said.

She said provincial authorities registered 463 rapes during the first three months of this year, more than half the total for all of last year.

The situation worsened with the deployment of Congolese armed forces, "which commit rapes and lootings in areas of transit as well as in their zones of deployment," Byrs said.

Soldiers have been pillaging, seizing harvests and food and destroying houses, she said.

Many people are hiding in the forests during the day to escape the soldiers' violence, Byrs said.

"People have been killed with machetes, axes and knives, or burned alive."

More than 1,100 houses in three villages have been burned by rebels since mid-March, Byrs said.

Since March about 120,000 people have fled fighting and rebel reprisals, she added.

Angelina Jolie - War Criminal

Angelina Jolie attended court in The Hague yesterday, in relation to war crimes involving child soldiers in the Congo.

"Children deserve special protection. Using children in conflict is a heinous crime and destroys the very fabric of a society," said Jolie, who is a goodwill ambassador for the UN's refugee agency.

Jolie's statement, and her very position as a UN goodwill ambassador, makes her role in the Congo's ongoing war all the more heinous. Although news outlets like AFP may be awed by Jolie's celebrity status, Vulgar Marxism is immune to her starlet mind tricks! Vulgar Marxism insists that Jolie be brought to justice for the crimes she has committed!

Jolie is pictured above directing the aerial bombardment of a refugee camp outside the town of Wembo Nyama in the central region of the DR Congo in 2004. Throughout the 1990s, the actress was known to human rights advocates, war crimes investigators, and jungle-folk alike as "The Butcher of Sumbudjundu", in reference to her role in the massacre commited in the eastern forest settlement.

At the height of the conflict in the Congo, Jolie commanded a militia estimated by the International Crisis Group to number in the tens of thousands. The Congolese National People's Army for the Liberation of the Congolese Nation's People is believe to have receive tens of millions of dollars worth of arms and training from the CIA, and harboured several hundred suspected Rwandan war criminals, accused of perpetrating some of the most violent incidents in the Rwandan genocide. Driven by equal parts blood lust and megalomania - and acting much like Kurtz in Apocalypse Now - Jolie (pictured left, executing suspected deserters in 2001) is known to have used several thousand child soldiers as cannon fodder in battles against rival forces. Known as the Todd Bridges Brigades, named for the child actor who played Willis in the 1980s sitcom Diff'rent Strokes before embarking on a life of drug-fueled violent crime, child soldiers were commonly deployed by Jolie in fights with UN peacekeepers and other militias. Children who managed to escape the Todd Bridges Brigades and Jolie's vice-like grip spoke of occult rituals, including cannibalism, carried out in an attempt to carry favour with Jolie who claims to be the embodiment of the ancient Congolese River Goddess.

Vulgar Marxism will continue to advocate on behalf of the victims of Jolie's war crimes, and looks forward to the day when Angelina Jolie will once again visit The Hague - in chains, to answer for her crimes. If reports of Jolie's growing depression are true, she is perhaps finally coming to realise the true extent of the death and destruction she has caused. It is time the world learned the truth as well. Before it's too late.

what causes badvocacy?

I've gotten a fair amount of criticism for some posts on problems with various advocacy groups of late, both in comments and in the inbox. On Tuesday, an anonymous commenter asked the following excellent question:

"Do you think this current round of advocacy focusing on the conflict in Congo as a resource driven war is worse than no advocacy at all?"

Here's part of my answer:

"...as many others before me have pointed out, advocacy needs to be intelligent. When you present information that isn't accurately descriptive of the dynamics of the situation, advocacy groups can sometimes do more harm than good (See: Save Darfur, Invisible Children).

"Well-intentioned but off-base advocacy tends to lead to bad policy (and to celebrities traipsing around regions pontificating on issues they don't really understand). If advocacy doesn't help to solve crises and if it does little or nothing to improve the lives of those who are suffering, then, no, I don't think it's better than nothing."

Why is so much Africa-focused advocacy in the United States so off-base? What leads to bad advocacy, or badvocacy? ("Badvocacy" is a good catch-all term to describe advocacy that begins with great intentions to help those who are suffering, but that at best accomplishes nothing or at worst actually makes the problem even more difficult to solve.) I can think of a few reasons:

Oversimplification of the issue. Oversimplifying conflicts is probably the most common mistake American advocacy groups make. As George Kennan noted long ago, Americans tend to seek a single external source of evil for all of the world's problems. It makes sense that most of us would instinctively try to narrow complex conflicts down to make them understandable to normal people. After all, it's a lot easier to call the war in Congo a "resource war" than to explain that what's going on there now is actually a series of ongoing local conflicts over land, ethnicity, resources, and governance with local, national, regional, and international dimensions (some of which have to do with the civil and international wars of 1996 and 1998-2003 and others that do not) in which dozens of local defense militias, national armies, and rebel groups fight over various objectives that tend to change and alliances and loyalties that constantly shift. That doesn't really fit on a t-shirt.
Western-conceived solutions. The vast majority of peacekeeping missions, peacebuilding efforts, and conflict resolution plans are conceived in New York, Washington, and Brussels, often by people who have never or rarely visited the countries they purport to help. Perhaps you've noticed that these so-called solutions rarely work. That's why I'm a big believer in looking to local leaders to find answers whenever possible. As Suraj Sudhakar points out in a great post, that people are poor and live in a conflict zone does not mean they are stupid. Civil society leaders are well aware of their communities' problems. And they usually have ideas as to how to solve those problems, or at the very least to mitigate the effects of violent conflict on civilian populations. They speak the languages, know the cultures, and can mediate among the key players in local socio-political dynamics. This doesn't mean that there's no room for Western assistance. It does mean, however, that advocates on this side of the Atlantic should be asking intelligent victims of war what they think would help rather than insisting that the experts know best. We should listen to Somalis when they tell us that the development of a functioning coast guard would help to combat piracy better than ridiculous efforts to patrol half of the Indian Ocean. They know that of which they speak!
Focus on celebrities and trendiness rather than intelligent analysis. This is Save Darfur's problem. Everybody opposes genocide, of course, and the suffering of innocents is something we should all be committed to ending wherever it happens in the world. The problem, however, is that when people who are trained as actors and musicians start traipsing around war zones without having done any homework independent of the organization supporting their visits, we tend to get a narrative that isn't exactly representative of the facts. So Darfur in the popular imagination becomes not a civil war over changing land usability and land tenure rights with people doing horrible things on both sides, but rather becomes the nasty Arab government going after innocent black Darfuris. The reality, of course, is closer to the former description than the latter, but I don't expect Mia Farrow to know that. Because Mia Farrow is an actress.
Focus on the advocates rather than those they purport to help. Regular readers of this blog know that I am not a fan of Invisible Children's work, which is apparently a cardinal sin these days. (If Oprah likes them, clearly I'm in a first-class seat on the slow train to hell.) There are many reasons I think IC is not worth supporting, but among the most paramount is the fact that most of their advocacy isn't actually focused on Ugandan children, but rather on how their supporters feel about Ugandan children and the problem of the use of child soldiers. Hence a series of films that do more to tell us about the filmmakers than to explain the conflict, events that focus on protesters spending the night waiting to be "rescued" from their campouts, and a merchandise line that would appal any well-mannered Ugandan. As we've discussed before, for all their movies and talk show appearances, IC has done very little to actually help many Ugandan children, and they are very poorly regarded by Ugandans in the reason. Good advocacy isn't about the advocates; it's about the people who need others to stand up on their behalf.
The insistence that "we have to do something." Amanda at Wronging Rights has a fantastic post on this issue. (Also, anyone else jealous that Bill Easterly reads their blog?!?) The human impulse to protect others is a generally a good one. But insisting that WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING OR PEOPLE WILL KEEP DYING doesn't always mean that the "something" in question should be done. Too often, Westerners get involved in conflicts we don't really understand. And not surprisingly, bad things tend to ensue (cf Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.). That we don't know exactly what would solve the problem in a place like Somalia is not a good enough reason to take action for its own sake. The risk of doing more harm than good is too high. In many cases, it might be better to step back, make efforts to support local political solutions, and to focus on purely humanitarian assistance and civilian protection for awhile.
The white man's/woman's burden. Related to the problem of Western-conceived solutions to African problems, this is probably the most grating aspect of many Africa-focused adovcacy programs. Young people get excited about truly appalling situations, and, like generations of missionaries and colonists before them, they decide they're going to "Save Africa." This generally leads to discussions of being "a voice for the voiceless." Here's the problem with that: Africans aren't voiceless. In eleven years of experience on the continent, I've never met a citizen of an African state who didn't have opinions on his or her country and its state of affairs. It's true that many don't have access to platforms through which to speak to those in power, although the explosive growth of the African blogosphere suggests that cheap internet access is rapidly changing this state of affairs. There's a big difference between claiming to speak for someone and standing alongside those who want to change their own communities. Africa-focused advocacy could use a lot more of the latter.

What would you add to this list?

Update: Bill Easterly has a nice discussion of the "doing nothing" vs. "doing something" debate going on over at Aid Watch today.

posted by texasinafrica at 5/20/2009

Congo-Kinshasa: New Civilian Catastrophe Looms in East

Colin Thomas-Jensen and Rebecca Feeley

20 May 2009

guest column

A new offensive by the Congolese army, backed by United Nations peacekeepers, against Rwandan rebels ensconced in the lush forests of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is set to aggravate what is already one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

While the rebels are undoubtedly a scourge to the local population and a major driver of ongoing conflict in Central Africa, the military action planned will lead to more atrocities against Congolese civilians, create greater numbers of displaced and desperate people and, because of the UN’s involvement, do lasting damage to its peacekeeping.

Unlike Pakistan and Sri Lanka, where the current plight of civilians caught between government offensives and repugnant armed groups is being covered widely by the world’s media, a similar scenario is unfolding in the Congo without much international attention.

In the eastern DRC, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR – a group led by some of the architects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and bankrolled by their control of valuable mining areas – have terrorized Congolese civilians for nearly 15 years. We travel regularly to towns controlled by the rebels where the fear on the faces of local residents is jarring. Among a catalogue of abuses, they are responsible for vicious acts of sexual violence.

The rebels, who number about 6,000, must be removed from eastern Congo, and their genocidal leadership means that military force is almost certainly needed. However, their presence in and among the local population and their knowledge of the terrain create a conundrum for military planners.

When attacked, the FDLR melt into the forest to wait out their adversaries and then return to conduct reprisal attacks on civilians. This happened earlier this year after a month-long joint Rwandan-Congolese offensive. The number of FDLR fighters captured or killed was minimal, but the cost to civilians was immense. The fighting drove 250,000 people from their homes, and the FDLR responded by burning villages and raping and murdering hundreds of Congolese civilians.

This previous offensive and its tragic aftermath demonstrate again that the 17,000 UN peacekeepers in the Congo—the force tasked with protecting civilians—remains badly overstretched.

UN officials have asked repeatedly for reinforcements but member states have been pathetically slow to provide support. And so the latest offensive looks as though it will be depressingly similar to the previous one. The inept and abusive Congolese army, with limited support from an inadequate UN force, will spend three months trying to dislodge the FDLR from the towns and villages they occupy. It has the makings of a bloodbath.

It gets worse. One of the Congolese army commanders taking part in the operation is a wanted war criminal named Bosco Ntaganda. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Ntaganda for recruiting child soldiers, and he is directly implicated in the massacre of 150 civilians late last year.

UN officials tell us that Ntaganda’s name does not appear on the official list of commanders for the upcoming operation and that they trust the Congolese government’s assurances that he will not be involved. This is a dangerous leap of faith. Human Rights Watch accuses the UN of “burying its head in the sand.”

The UN will undermine its already limited credibility with frustrated Congolese civilians if the offensive goes ahead as planned. When civilians are attacked, Congolese politicians will undoubtedly blame the UN and the reputation of UN peacekeeping will suffer another blow.

How to prevent this from happening? The international community should take three immediate steps.

First, donors should urge Congolese President Joseph Kabila to delay the offensive. They should then work closely with his government to devise and support a more effective counter-insurgency operation in the future.

Second, the UN Security Council and Congo’s main donors should demand that the Congolese government immediately arrest Bosco Ntaganda and state unambiguously that peacekeepers will not support any operation in which he participates.

Relevant Links

Third, and related, donor governments should provide resources for a more muscular UN-led effort to encourage FDLR defections. While the FDLR’s leadership will likely fight to the death, most of the rank-and-file are susceptible to efforts to draw them out of the bush peacefully for repatriation to Rwanda or resettlement inside Congo.

Perhaps the only positive outcome of the first offensive was the defection of nearly 500 FDLR fighters in the first three months of this year—more than all of 2008. Building on this success will do more good for the people of eastern Congo than another catastrophic military offensive.

Colin Thomas-Jensen is policy advisor to Enough, a project to end genocide and crimes against humanity. Rebecca Feeley is an Enough field researcher based in eastern Congo.

MyCNCnews.com

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Saturday, May 30, 2009

DRC needs China contracts and debt relief