The UN Security has no moral authority anywhere, but this is about Congo, weaponized rape and weaponized rape prosecution, organized by representatives of the Security Council, in eastern Congo. I responded, below, and on the KPFA Radio and Free Speech Radio News websites, to this segment from the Free Speech Radio News broadcast of January 21, 2011 regarding the weaponization of rape and rape prosecution in eastern Congo, which also aired on the KPFA Evening News the same day:
DRC arrests soldiers for rape
My response, as posted to the FSRN website:
Several of my Rwandan friends posted these responses on the KPFA Website:
Champ· 2 days ago
Ann you are correct about the reporting of the rape story in Eastern Congo as has been told by the UN Security council. This story was known by the UN Security Council for weeks before they said a word about it? Why did they come out with it when they did? Because a leaked shameful/embarrassing report about Rwanda and Uganda, darlings of the UN Security council was released. Who made the report? It was made by the UN Human Rights High Commissioner. Why was it blocked? Because the security council didn't want Rwanda's and Uganda's disgraceful atrocities, including possible genocide brought public. What did the Security Council do after they couldn't block the Human Rights High Commissioner report anymore? They screamed about the rape story to create a distraction, even though they hadn't even conducted an investigation.
KPFA would do best to investigate this rape story before reporting on it. They will find those involved in perpetrating the crime to be more diverse and will include Congo's regular army, the Rwandan army, and the Ugandan army and their proxies.
On the other hand, Ann has been spot on in her reports about the Rwandan and Ugandan army involvement in the atrocities in the region as well as both of these armies serving as the US proxy militias in conflicts in Africa. Ann, you are make KPFA listeners proud with your Africa reporting.
KPFA would do best to investigate this rape story before reporting on it. They will find those involved in perpetrating the crime to be more diverse and will include Congo's regular army, the Rwandan army, and the Ugandan army and their proxies.
On the other hand, Ann has been spot on in her reports about the Rwandan and Ugandan army involvement in the atrocities in the region as well as both of these armies serving as the US proxy militias in conflicts in Africa. Ann, you are make KPFA listeners proud with your Africa reporting.
As a survivor of the carnage that has engulfed Rwanda and neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, I was shocked by the bias in the report regarding the rape in DRC. The story talks about stopping impunity. It goes on to mention various sides of the conflict in DRC. But somehow it does not mention how the current president of Rwanda, General Kagame is the one who started the conflict in DRC. The United Nations is mentioned but somehow, there is no single mention of the October 1st, 2010 United Nations report that accused General Kagame's extremist Tutsi forces of rape as well as genocide.
That UN report said "The extensive use of edged weapons (primarily hammers) and the systematic massacres of survivors after the camps had been taken show that the numerous deaths cannot be attributed to the hazards of war or seen as equating to collateral damage. The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who were often undernourished and posed no threat to the attacking forces. Numerous serious attacks on the physical or mental integrity of members of the group were also committed, with a very high number of Hutus shot, raped, burnt or beaten. The systematic, methodological and premeditated nature of the attacks listed against the Hutus is also marked: these attacks took place in each location where refugees had been screened by the AFDL/APR over a vast area of the country. The pursuit lasted for months, and on occasion, the humanitarian assistance intended for them was deliberately blocked, particularly in the Orientale province, thus depriving them of resources essential to their survival. Thus the systematic and widespread attacks described in this report reveal a number of damning elements that, if proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide."
I expected better from KPFA. I expected more professional, unbiased reporting and that story was a total disappointment for me.
That UN report said "The extensive use of edged weapons (primarily hammers) and the systematic massacres of survivors after the camps had been taken show that the numerous deaths cannot be attributed to the hazards of war or seen as equating to collateral damage. The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who were often undernourished and posed no threat to the attacking forces. Numerous serious attacks on the physical or mental integrity of members of the group were also committed, with a very high number of Hutus shot, raped, burnt or beaten. The systematic, methodological and premeditated nature of the attacks listed against the Hutus is also marked: these attacks took place in each location where refugees had been screened by the AFDL/APR over a vast area of the country. The pursuit lasted for months, and on occasion, the humanitarian assistance intended for them was deliberately blocked, particularly in the Orientale province, thus depriving them of resources essential to their survival. Thus the systematic and widespread attacks described in this report reveal a number of damning elements that, if proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide."
I expected better from KPFA. I expected more professional, unbiased reporting and that story was a total disappointment for me.
This is not the first time that I have objected to FSRN's Africa reporting. I can't, at this point, remember an FSRN story on Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo that I have not objected to, and many of my African friends, including Rwandan journalist Eleneus Akanga, contributor to the Newsline EA, and Hampshire College Professor Susan Thomson went to the FSRN website to object to its false reconciliation story, Rwanda village brings together Hutus and Tutsis on path toward reconciliation. Zack Baddorf, FSRN Reporter and Board President Zack Baddorf, and the producer of that piece, failed to respond. Nathan Moore, FSRN Administrative Director, responded instead, but without addressing the fundamental issue---that, FSRN had reported a story of false reconciliation, as described by as Hampshire College Professor and Africa/Rwanda expert Susan Thomson wrote, in her response to that piece:
reaction to reconciliation village segment
SUBMITTED BY SUSAN THOMSON ON WED, 09/29/2010 - 18:49.
I am writing to express my concern about the quality of reporting on this piece. It reads as government propaganda, and indeed many of the reactions I've read thus far support this claim. However, I think the journalist is simply naive and perhaps a little lazy. It is certainly note the kind of reporting I expect from FSRN. It is important to go beyond the narratives of the ruling RPF to understand the various motivations and methods of killing as well as the structures of power put in place since (controlled as they are by the RPF) to understand and explain "reconciliation". Indeed, it is an affair of the heart, and of the stomach as poor and traumatised individuals are left to fend for themselves for their daily needs. At the same time the government is strictly monitoring their political activities to assure commitment to the "script" of national unity and reconciliation. In other words, if you ask people who have lived their lives in chronic adversity to speak about their real feelings in a government-controlled space like the reconciliation village what do you expect their answers to be? I am hungry? I can't send my children to school because I am not the right kind of survivor? Or I lost my health benefits because I didn't forgive correctly at gacaca? No. Of course not. So yes, there is tolerance, which is conceptually different than reconciliation. Tolerance means you have no option but to accept sharing with another individual. Reconciliation means something different, and in the Rwanda context it means to heal the heart. Such cultural clues go unrecognised on this shameful piece.
Stations throughout the Pacifica Network, with five sister stations in New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Houston, and many affiliated independent radio stations throughout the United States, play FSRN, and FSRN has, over the years, done a great deal of good reporting on other issues. So, I keep responding and suggesting that others, who understand what's wrong with FSRN's reporting on this part of the world, do the same. Here's the link, for writing to FSRN about their January 21st, 2011 broadcast: http://goo.gl/Vo4U0, and here's the link for KPFA Evening News, http://goo.gl/vU7IY.
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