Ann Garrison

CIUT Taylor Report on Victoire Ingabire's Trial

2011-10-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

Download: CIUT Taylor_Report on Victoire Ingabire's trial 09-05-2011.mp3

Victoire Ingabire is on trial in Kigali, Rwanda, for contesting the history of the Rwanda Genocide codified in the Rwandan Constitution, and thus, contesting the dictatorship of a Tutsi elite, and, their invasion, plunder, and de facto colonization of neighboring Congo. CUIT-Toronto Host Phil Taylor and I talked about her trial on its opening day, September 5, 2011.

Everything we said that day remains true, one month into the trial. We didn't have time to explain that the U.S. is one of Rwanda's top donors, but Rwanda Genocide survivor Aimable Mugara did so in his essay "Do American taxpayers really want to pay Rwanda to keep Victoire Ingabire behind bars?" published on the website of the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper.

When her trial resumed, after an adjournment, on October 4th, Victoire Ingabire herself said:

"Prosecution should stop misleading the public that I am afraid. I here reconfirm that I am not afraid at all and that I have never violated any law while being in Rwanda and outside of Rwanda. I did nothing wrong against my country."

Ann Garrison has moved from Blogger to Drupal

2011-07-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

This blog has moved to a Drupal website, anngarrison.com, with full search capabilities.

Political prisoner Ingabire under greater isolation

2011-05-07T07:46:00.000-07:00

Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza
remains in maximum security prison in Kigali, Rwanda,
where she has now been more isolated.

Kigali 06 May 2011

Ms. Victoire Ingabire, FDU-INKINGI chairperson and Rwandan political prisoner is spending her 204th day in captivity in maximum prison today.

More isolation measures are now in force. The party members who visited the prison today were not given a chance to see Ms. Ingabire. The jailers informed that they have orders to follow and that any other questions should be addressed to the Minister of internal Security.

On 29 April 2011 a dozen FDU-INKINGI party members were chased away by the maximum prison security staff. Security Minister Fazil Harelimana told the BBC-Kinyarwanda that Madame Victoire Ingabire “must herself submit in advance a list of 5 people prior to the visitation days because the government does not want anybody to disturb prisoners when they are watching TV, reading or enjoying their siesta." The political prisoner is incommunicado and has no means to pre-screen and shortlist her visitors days before. This is enormously inconvenient and has the direct effect of making visits impossible.

Since January 2011, the defense counsel has not been allowed to take confidential instructions from the client due to continuous and persistent monitoring of their discussions by security operatives. Prompt access has been often denied too. Those persistent violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are seriously compromising all chances for a fair trial in Rwanda.

We call upon President Paul Kagame and his government to consider the humanity of political prisoners and remove all those obstacles.

FDU-Inkingi

Boniface Twagirimana

Interim Vice President.

We also recommend to visit http://www.victoire-ingabire.com/.

Rwanda and the Pentagon's Predator Drones

2011-04-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

KPFA Weekend News, 04.23.2011:

KPFA Weekend News Host: The prevailing narrative of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide is that extremist Hutus massacred 800,000 or more Rwandan Tutsi and moderate Hutu, who tried to protect them. But, many scholars, journalists, and human rights investigators now argue that both Tutsi and Hutu massacred one another because of their ethnicity.

The truth is now more and more significant for all Africa, as NATO wages war in Libya, and U.S. policy lobbyists promote a proposal to use Predator Drones to "stop genocide," specifically to stop the next Rwanda or Darfur from happening elsewhere in Africa, such as Libya or Sudan. KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke to a Rwandan American legal scholar and a Rwandan Genocide survivor about the Rwandan massacres of 1994.

2011-04-21T20:25:00.000-07:00

Many social justice and environmental activists now decry as the cause of hunger and corporate land grabs, especially in Africa, to produce fuel for wealthier parts of the world.

Erlinder v. Kagame and Victor's History

2011-04-09T21:14:00.000-07:00

Rwanda Genocide, 1994.

KPFA Weekend News Anchor David Rosenberg: April 6th was the 17th anniversary of events that triggered the massacres that the world came to know as the Rwanda Genocide. The history of the 1994 genocide and the ensuing war in Rwanda's resource rich neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, are fiercely disputed by a growing number of scholars, journalists, and human rights investigators, and by Rwandan and Congolese opposition leaders, genocide survivors, exiles, and refugees. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, Rwanda's 43-year-old opposition leader, and mother of three, remains in Rwanda's 1930 maximum security prison, charged with terrorism and disputing the official Rwanda Genocide history. And, William Mitchell Law Professor and former National Lawyers Guild President Peter Erlinder has now published an 80-page, footnoted and documented report, in the DePaul University Law School's Journal of Justice, in which he argues that Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his Rwandan Patriotic Front regime bear responsibility for the Rwanda Genocide and Congo Wars.

Professor Peter Erlinder in handcuffs in a
Kigali courtroom, with Kennedy Ogetto, the
Kenyan ICTR lawyer who flew to Kigali to
defend him when he was arrested after
flying there to defend Victoire Ingabire
Umuhoza.

Last year Kagame arrested and imprisoned Erlinder in Rwanda, after he had traveled there to defend Ingabire, and last week the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda came close to sanctioning him for refusing to return to Arusha, Tanzania, to defend another client. Erlinder had said that he would not return because Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front agents might well assassinate, kidnap, or disappear him if he did. The court did not acknowledge Erlinder's claim that his life would be in danger in Arusha, but they did excuse him after his doctor reported that he suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome as a consequence of his arrest and imprisonment in Rwanda last year.

KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke to Professor Erlinder by phone from his office at William Mitchell College of Law, in St. Paul, Minneapolis:

Ann Garrison: Peter Erlinder, this story is still obscure to many KPFA listeners. Could you explain why Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda, would conceivably want to assassinate, kidnap, or disappear you?

Rwandan opposition leader
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza remains
in Rwanda's 1930 maximum security
prison charged with terrorism and
genocide ideology, i.e., disagreeing with
the official history of the Rwanda
Genocide.

Peter Erlinder: Well, during my work at the UN Tribunal, I had an opportunity to have access to the previously secret United Nations files that were kept by UN personnel in Rwanda during the time that's known as the genocide. And those documents tell a completely different story than the story the world has heard about what happened in Rwanda during that time. Also I was able to link that to US documents from the State Department, the CIA and the Pentagon and the documents from other countries.

And I used those documents to defend my client and he and other military officers were acquitted of the charge of conspiracy to commit genocide, which means there was no plan on the part of the previous government and military.

Ann Garrison: And do the documents that you've assembled demonstrate that President Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front regime are most responsible for the mass slaughter of 1994 which came to be the principle justification of the Kagame regime?

Peter Erlinder: Yeah, what the documents show is that the RPF were the dominant military power in Rwanda. They were responsible for assassinating the Rwandan and Burundian Presidents, which touched off the mass violence. They were in a position to stop the mass violence and didn't do so because of their desire to win the war. And then once they did seize power continued carrying out violence against civilians.

AfrobeatRadio

Ann Garrison: And what do those documents that you've assembled say about the ensuing Congo War?

Peter Erlinder: Well, the documents make clear that the RPF went on to carry out an invasion of the eastern Congo along with Uganda and then essentially to control the eastern Congo, which they do to this day. And that was accomplished because of ongoing support from the Pentagon, and then, unfortunately, it becomes clear that this support was covered up as the ICTR began to develop.

Ann Garrison: Links to Professor Erlinder's report on the Rwanda Genocide and Congo War can be found on the websites of the San Francisco Bay View and AfrobeatRadio.net.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

(SF Bay View link for press release and download link Erlinder's report, The United Nations Ad Hoc Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR-TPIR): International justice or judicially-constructed victors’ impunity?)

Hate Speech: An Argument for Genocide, in the OpEdNews???

2011-04-07T01:45:00.000-07:00

"Rwandans so poor to be sterilized"
Photo illustrating legal scholar Charles Kambanda's essay,
"Why sterilize the poor?"

Reading the OpEdNews, which the Wikipedia defines as a United States-based, progressive/liberal news, activism, and opinion website, on 04.06.2011, the 17th anniversary of the Rwanda Genocide, I came across some deeply dangerous, ethnic hate speech demonizing East/Central African Hutu people, in a piece of writing titled "Rwanda, a Light for the World."

This piece of writing had already been promoted to the site's #3 headline, risen to #39 on the list of most viewed posts, and been reposted to Facebook four times.

Its appearance, on a website that would never tolerate such talk of African Americans, Native Americans, or any other American ethnic group, demonstrates how widely accepted the official version of the Rwanda Genocide history, that Hutu extremists killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days, is----and, how widely accepted the consequent demonization and/or dehumanization of East/ Central African Hutu people is. In order for this to be published in the liberal, "progressive" OpEdNews, an OpEdNews editor had to approve it.

Most ethnic hate speech is based on inaccurate information, but even if the official version of the Rwanda Genocide history were accurate, it could not possibly justify this wholesale demonization of Hutu people, which comes very close to an overt argument for genocide and/or, one form of genocide--- the Kagame regime's plan to sterilize 700,000 adult Rwandan males, which legal scholar Charles Kambanda so eloquently deconstructs in "Rwanda: Why Sterilize the Poor?" (The majority of Rwandans are Hutu, and, very poor.)

Specifically, the author, Olga Bonfiglio, writes:

"Mass migrations have taken place since 1959 when Tutsi refugees spilled into the neighboring countries of Burundi, Congo, Uganda and Tanzania because Hutu regimes preached hate and discrimination. President Paul Kagame, who led the rebel army against the Hutu government in 1994 and subsequently quelled the 100-day genocide, was among those Tutsi families who fled to Uganda.

Since the Tutsi takeover of government, 3 million Hutu have left the country, some of them still lusting after Tutsi blood. This massive dislocation of the population is unsettling for Rwandans as well as for their neighbors who are forced to host refugees they don't want. Meanwhile, Rwanda remains one of the poorest, most densely-populated countries in the world with scarce resources to boot."

Even as she claims to be praising Rwanda a model for ethnic reconciliation, Bonfiglio sounds as though she would really like to exterminate---e.g., by sterilization---this Hutu refugee population which is "still lusting after Tutsi blood," and is such a burden, not only to neighboring countries who don't want them, but also to Rwanda, which is already so poor and overpopulated without them.

Rwandan President
Paul Kagame

Best I can say is that Bonfiglio at least acknowledges that there was a Tutsi takeover of the Rwandan government in 1994, a reality that Rwandan President Paul Kagame and most of his other propagandists are still trying to deny, claiming that they have instead abolished ethnic identification and privilege based on ethnic identification.

Bonfiglio seems strangely unable to perceive the contradictions between:

1) Her claim, like theirs, that Rwanda is "the light of the world," a model of reconciliation, and,

2) Her acknowledgment of an ethnic Tutsi takeover, and,

3) Her hate speech demonizing and dehumanizing Hutu people as so many have since the Tutsi, Rwandan Patriotic Front victory in the Rwandan Civil War of 1990-1994.

For alternative accounts of the violence known as the Rwanda Genocide, argued from evidence, listen to Professor Peter Erlinder Speaks on Rwanda Genocide, on AfrobeatRadio.net, read Professor Peter Erlinder's The United Nations Ad Hoc Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR-TPIR): International Justice or Victor's Impunity, and/or Michel Chussodovsky's Rwanda: Installing a US Protectorate in Central Africa, on Global Research.

California Fault Lines, Lawmakers, and Nuclear Power

2011-04-03T21:43:00.000-07:00

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KPFA Radio archive: http://goo.gl/meyWW.

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest: California has two operating nuclear power plants, San Onofre in Orange County, and PG&E's Diablo Canyon Plant in San Luis Obispo County, on the Central Coast. Both are on the coastline and both are built near earthquake faults. State Senator Alex Padilla has called for a special hearing at the State capitol on April 14 to examine the risks the two aging plants might pose. KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.

PG&E's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant on the
California Coast

KPFA/Ann Garrison: For the past five years the San Luis Obispo-based Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility has been urging California legislators and oversight agencies to require peer reviewed seismic studies to measure the risk of earthquake damage to Pacific Gas and Electric's (PG&E's) nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon and Southern California Edison's plant at San Onofre. The California Energy Commission has requested that the California Public Utilities Commission require PG&E do the latest, advanced 3-D studies on both old and new earthquake faults beneath Diablo Canyon before granting any ratepayer funding for its license renewal applications, but PG&E has opposed and fought the requirement to do the studies, and the CPUC has failed to act. Rochelle Becker, Executive Director of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, says that Japan's worsening nuclear catastrophe could have been California's, and that Californians should be able to insist that the studies be done now.

Rochelle Becker, Executive Director,
Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility

Rochelle Becker: The one thing that separates California from every other reactor site in the nation is the seismic proximity. There are four active faults within 5 kilometers of Diablo Canyon, one 1800 feet away. There are several active faults offshore of San Onofre and there are new studies being done that have come out of the Baja quakes last year. We are focussing on what the State has jurisdiction to do. If we step into fighting nuclear power, fighting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, then we have a much greater hill to climb. And, we are on the other side of the country from the rest of the reactors' groups. We need to focus on California. We certainly support what everyone else is doing, but in California, it is California rights that should do this. It is California officials who are responsible.

KPFA: Updates on the challenge to re-licensing California's nuclear power plants will be posted to the website of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, a4nr.org, as the process unfolds.

For Pacifica/KPFA, I'm Ann Garrison.

The LRA Excuse for Ugandan Troops in Congo---Again

2011-04-02T23:20:00.000-07:00

LRA militia leader Joseph Kony

KPFA Audio link: http://goo.gl/0kSN9

KPFA Weekend News Anchor: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's state newspaper, The New Vision, has reported that the UN Security Council and the Democratic Republic of Congo have agreed to join Museveni's army, the Uganda People's Defense Force, in a new offensive to hunt Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, and Jamil Mukulu’s Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. The U.S.A.'s LRA Disarmament Act, which President Obama signed into law in 2010, authorizes funding, training, and collaboration with the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Defense, the US Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Intelligence Community to hunt down the LRA. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more:

Uganda and its neighbors, the
Democratic Republic of
Congo, Central African
Republic, and Sudan.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: The Security Council, and the Congolese and Ugandan Defense Ministers said that the Ugandan Army needs to launch this new military offensive in Congo and the Central African Republic, or CAR, because the LRA keep raping and killing civilians there, though the UN Mapping Report released on October 1st, 2010, documents the Ugandan Army's own civilian massacres, mass rapes, and other sexual atrocities in Congo.

Michael Kirkpatrick is a Black Star News contributor who has traveled back and forth to Uganda and its Acholi region frequently since 1998. He says that Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army are always the most convenient excuse for military intervention:

Black Star News contributor Michael
Kirkpatrick in Northern Uganda

Michael Kirkpatrick: There is a pattern of demonizing Joseph Kony for every atrocity and every crime. Joseph Kony has become demonized to justify military intervention by the U.S. and by other forces in that part of Africa. He's become a phantom menace. He's almost like this mysterious fog that is just creeping around Central Africa but he's been able to survive for over 20 years. He's nothing but a gang leader. He's a thug. He's a rag tag bunch of criminals that's somehow been able to survive for over 20 years. There's a reason he's been able to survive. He is the bad guy in the battle. To say that, somehow, modern armies haven't been able to capture, in twenty years, a rebel thug, is preposterous.

Uganda's Rolling Stone tabloid's cover story
about Islamic "homo generals" with ties
to the Lord's Resistance Army.

KPFA: Last November Uganda's fanatically homophobic tabloid newspaper Rolling Stone ran a story about what it called Islamic Homo Generals, meaning terrorists, with ties to the Lord's Resistance Army.

For Pacifica, KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Stopping Nuclear Power in California

2011-04-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

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Url for KPFA Radio archive above: http://goo.gl/8lFix.

I spoke with Rochelle Becker of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility about the statewide campaign to make the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) require Pacific Gas'n Electric (PG&E), and Southern California Edison (SCE), do further seismic studies before re-licensing their nuclear power plants, PG&E's Diablo Canyon plant and SCE's San Onofre Plant. This interview has played on KPFA-Berkeley, KMEC-Mendocino, both Pacifica radio stations in the State of California.

Pacific Gas'n Electric's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant
Url for KPFA radio archive: http://goo.gl/8lFix.

Navajo activists for another way, beyond coal and nuclear, after Japan

2011-03-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

Lori Goodman of Diné CARE, lifelong environmental
activist, of Citizens saUnited Against Ruining
Our Environment, and the Navajo Nation.
Photo: Craig Barrett

http://www.kpfa.org/

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KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest: In 1979, the same year as the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Navajo Nation suffered the worst uranium mining accident in U.S. history, when 1100 tons of mining tailings and 100 million gallons of radioactive water burst through an earthen dam, into the Rio Puerco, at a uranium mine in Church Rock, New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation.

In 2005, the Navajo Nation passed the world's first and only indigenous ban on uranium mining, but mining corporations and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have attempted to ignore or override that ban. KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke to lifelong Navajo environmentalist Lori Goodman, with Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment about the Navajo response to the Japanese nuclear catastrophe:

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Lori, how have the Navajo people reacted to the Japanese nuclear power catastrophe?

The Navajo Reservation is 26,000 square miles, in
Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. With a quarter
million people, it is the largest native nation in
the U.S.

Lori Goodman: Well, the Navajo people understand what's happening in Japan, and that the situation that they're in is because of the electrical power that they were receiving, in that case from a nuclear power plant. And, in the case of the Navajo people, we have two of the largest coal-fired and most polluting power plants in the western United States on the Navajo Nation. And so they see that as one and the same, and they also understand that there's a better way to generate electricity, by harnessing the sun and the wind.

KPFA: What is the stage of your renewable energy proposal. A lot of intellectual infrastructure but no capital source---is that still the case?

Lori Goodman: Ah, yes, it is. We really need the California ratepayers to go back and say "OK, we will buy energy from the Navajo Nation, from renewable energy sources."

KPFA: And are the mining corporations and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission still pressuring you, trying to ignore or override the historic uranium mining ban?

Lori Goodman: Yes, the day after it was signed, they all went into action to try and lift the ban, or sidestep. That's going on.

Warning not to drink
from the Rio Puerco,
1979, after the earthen dam at
U.S. Nuclear's uranium
mine burst. Eleven
hundred tons of tailings
and 100 million gallons of
radioactive water spilled
into the the river, before
Navajo miners, working
without protective gear,
could repair it.

KPFA: And what's the state of the attempt to clean up the toxic mess left by the many years of uranium mining?

Lori Goodman: Church Rock now is a Superfund site, but we have three other Superfund sites on the Navajo Nation from uranium mining. And there's also a need to have 20 or 30 more other Superfund sites, but unfortunately the Superfund has not been reauthorized, so there are no funds there, so people are dying and getting polluted daily.

KPFA: Lori, you're also on the Board of the Peace Development Fund. Would you like to say anything about the connection between nuclear power, weapons, and war?

Lori Goodman: Well, I think the Peace Development Fund sees that as one and the same. There's no such thing as peaceful nuclear energy. It's all destructive, as we see that being played out right now in Japan. And I do want to say that Peace Development Fund has set up donations for the communities that live next to the nuclear power plants in Japan, because we understand those people that live next to these plants are also environmental justice communities. So Peace Development Fund wants to ensure that those people get help because most of the time they're overlooked, just as we saw in Katrina.

KPFA: Lori, thank you. It's an honor to speak to you for KPFA.

Lori Goodman: Thank you for having me.

KPFA: Goodman also said that if California stopped using nuclear power, they would hugely reduce the pressure to overturn the Navajo uranium mining ban, the only native claim to resource sovereignty of its kind.

For Pacifica, KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.

KPFA Radio archive URL: http://goo.gl/NMkAS.

Can Barney out legislate Bahati?

2011-03-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

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KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: On Tuesday, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, moved a human rights amendment to the Financial Services Bill out of committee on a unanimous vote. The amendment urges the U.S. Treasury Department to advocate that multilateral development banks supported by the U.S. not assist nations engaging in gross human rights violations, including denial of the freedom of religion and physical persecution because of sexual orientation or gender identity. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power protest
against Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act,
a.k.a. Hang-the-Gays Bill, in New York City.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Congressman Barney Frank, in his press release about the amendment, used the physical persecution of sexual minorities in Uganda as an example of the sort of human rights violations that his amendment would discourage, so most of the press has interpreted it as being targeted singly at Uganda's pending Anti-Homosexuality Act, otherwise known as the Hang-the-Gays bill, or, the Bahati bill, after its author Ugandan Parliamentarian David Bahati. Last week the New Vision, Uganda's state-owned newspaper, reported that Uganda's Speaker of Parliament has summoned MPs to report on March 22 to take up “unfinished business,” including the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Liberian born Emira Woods, Co-Editor of the Institute for Policy Studies' Foreign Policy in Focus, and one of the African advocates at the March 2nd Congressional briefing on the UN Mapping Report on Congo atrocities, told KPFA that although LGBT rights activism had most likely inspired Frank to write the amendment, it should apply to the whole range of human rights violations. She added, however, that an enforcement mechanism is hard to imagine:

Emira Woods: With the amendment and press release coming forward, what Congressman Frank has done is call much needed attention to the anti-gay legislation and I think we should commend that, and yet I think it is difficult to imagine how that will be implemented by Treasury using its leverage on the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the other international financial institutions. I think this is an instance where a Congressman is using the political, sort of like a bully pulpit.

KPFA: And then you think the amendment's advocacy might be expanded to stop other gender violence such as the sexual terrorism in the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Emira Woods: I think its first important to applaud the attention that he's bringing to the issues of the anti-gay legislation in Uganda. That's huge. And I think it's much needed. And all of the champions and defenders of human rights broadly, of LGBT right in particular, throughout Africa, welcome the statements and the actions from Congressman Frank. So I think wee have to applaud that first. Acknowledge it, support it, strengthen it. And then, I think, moving further to encourage a similar bully pulpit be used to address the atrocities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

KPFA: For Pacifica, KFPA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Audio link: http://www.anngarrison.com/images/mp3s/barneyfranklgbt.mp3.

White Man's Burden: Affleck and Prendergast in Congress for Congo

2011-03-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

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Ben Affleck and John Prendergast in Congress,
March 6th, 2010 to testify at a House Foreign
Affairs Committee hearing on conflict in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. No
Congolese or African person testified.

KPFA News Anchor Cameron Jones: On Tuesday the House Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the Democratic Republic of Congo, the most lethal conflict in the world since World War II, which has continued since the International Rescue Committee estimated, over three years ago, that more than 5.4 million people had died in the conflict, most of whom died of hardship after being driven from their homes. The hearing featured the testimony of actor Ben Affleck, heiress and philanthropist Cindy McCain, and John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, a foreign policy lobbying project of the Center for American Progress. No Congolese, African, or even African American person testified. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Friends of the Congo's Executive Director Maurice Carney told KPFA that the absence of a Congolese or even African voice at the Congressional hearing on Congo's catastrophe was no surprise even in the age of President Barack Obama.

Maurice Carney: It's part of a long pattern of the colonization of information. You have experts who claim to be speaking on behalf of the Africans.

African scholars and activists Nii Akuetta, Claude
Gatebuke, Emira Wood, Jacques, Bahati, Nita Evele, and
Kambale Musavuli, the all African panelists at the
Great LakesAdvocates' Coalition March 2nd briefing on
the 2010 UN Mapping Report, which docuemtnts atrocities
committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
None of them were invited to the March 6th
Affleck/Prendergast Congressional hearing on Congo.
Photo credit: Arrian Lewis

KPFA: The African Great Lakes Advocacy Coalition had, six days earlier held a briefing on the UN Mapping Report, released on October 1, 2010, which documents mass atrocities in Congo, with an all African, including Congolese, panel. An intern from John Prendergast's ENOUGH Project was in attendance, asking questions, but, as Carney noted, none of the panel's all African speakers were invited to speak at Tuesday's hearing.

Affleck and Prendergast attributed most of Congo's violence to two militias, the Democratic Federation for the Liberation of Rwanda, on Congo's southeastern border with Rwanda, and the Lord's Resistance Army on its northeastern border with Uganda, but the African Great Lakes Advocates said that Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, both longstanding U.S. allies, are most responsible, and that this has been abundantly evidenced in the UN Mapping Report, and many previous UN reports referenced in the Mapping Report.

Maurice Carney,
Executive Director, Friends of the Congo

Maurice Carney: Both the FDLR and the LRA can enroll in the Museveni and Kagame School of Mass Atrocities and get a Ph.D., because the overwhelming suffering in the region has been triggered by U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda, led by their presidents. So, when you have people testifying in Congress and talking about FDLR and LRA, to the exclusion of U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda, you feel like you're in the twilight zone, lIke 'What are you talking about?' Friends of the Congo maintains that, based on the information that these groups present, we can't help but be led to the conclusion that they're looking to cover for U.S. strategic and economic interests because their presentations are marked by two striking exclusions. One, a discussion around Rwanda and Uganda, and two, a discussion around multinational corporations, the mining companies that are directly involved in the region.

KPFA: John Prendergast is most often introduced on talk shows, and in Congressional hearings, as an author and human rights advocate, but neither he nor the ENOUGH Project hide his previous employment as Director of African Affairs on Bill Clinton's National Security Council, and on the National Intelligence Council.

Ben Affleck made another celebrity appearance, last November, with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair John Kerry, at a press conference about foreign policy in Congo at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which is now headed by former Deputy Director of Defense John Hamre. Again, Maurice Carney:

Former Georgia Congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney held Congressional
hearings on the Congo conflict in 2001.

Maurice Carney: The people called in to testify are usually those who reinforce U.S. foreign policy in a particular region of the world, not those who challenge U.S. foreign policy. So that's just the way it works in Washington unless you connect with a progressive, such as Cynthia McKinney, when she was in the Congress. She brought in alternative views that exposed the role of U.S. foreign policy abroad. But we've yet to find another champion like Cynthia McKinney.

KPFA: A partial transcript of McKinney's 2001 Congressional hearings on Congo, can be found on the website of the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper with the title "End the Conflict in Congo." Keith Harmon Snow's essay "Ben Affleck, Rwanda, and Corporate Sustained Catastrophe" can be found on the Dissident Voice website.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Audio url: http://goo.gl/fe8iz.

Gaddafi's Libya, African refugees, and European xenophobia

2011-03-06T21:45:00.000-08:00

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KPFA Weekend News, 03.06.2011:
Audio url: http://bit.ly/gYgGzb

Vincent Harris reported that European governments
collaborated with Gaddafi to prevent migrants from
departing from making their way to Europe from Libya's
long Mediterranean coastline.

KPFA Weekend News Anchor David Landau: Black, Southern Africans in Libya are in peril consequent to both racism and Western media reports that Muammar Gaddafy is using quote unquote "African mercenaries," meaning Black, Southern Africans, to put down the Libyan uprising. Pleas for help have gone up on blogs in North Africa and both NGOS and multilateral organizations are seeking access, resources, and the relaxation of immigration restrictions, so as to evacuate those endangered. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Aljazeera English recorded the voice of this Nigerian, who goes by the name of Courage, after he escaped an attack in Libya this week:

Courage: When I was coming from my work, I looked on my back. There were car after me, chasing me. They said I should stop. I can't stop because they were holding cutlass and dangerous weapons with them. I was running for my life. If they had caught me that would have been the end of my life.

Vincent Harris, Dutch
creator of the blog Colored
Opinionsand host of Colored
Opinions Great Lakes Blogchat
on Blog Talk Radio.

KPFA: Vincent Harris, creator of the Netherlands-based blog Colored Opinions, spoke with KPFA about what he calls xenophobic, anti-immigrant politics in Europe. He says European governments have a history of collaboration with Gaddafi to maintain a buffer zone meant to restrict African immigration to Europe by boat from the Libyan coast. Harris said that constraining African immigration is a high priority of most European governments and that, in exchange for his help with this goal, Gaddafi received military training for his army, and acceptance in European capitols,:

Vincent Harris: They needed Gaddafi to solve this perceived problem, that Africans were crossing into Europe, from Libya. They worked together to make sure that no Africans go into Europe.

Harris added that North Africans are nevertheless likely to meet more xenophobia than Southern Africans in Europe because Europeans perceive North Africans as Muslims and Black, Southern Africans as Christians. He also reported that on March 3rd, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, urged the European Commission to appeal to EU member nations to help evacuate and offer protection to 4,000 sub-Saharan refugees who are currently trapped in Libya. Harris’s report, “Africans trapped in Gaddafy’s Libya” can be found on sfbayview.com and afrobeatradio.net.

For Pacifica, KPFA and Afrobeat Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Sudanese oil violence, post referendum

2011-03-05T21:38:00.000-08:00

KPFA Weekend News, 03.05.2011:

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Audio link: http://goo.gl/133F2

Host Cameron Jones: The Southern Sudanese people voted for independence from Northern Sudan in January of this year, but the hotly contested, oil rich Abyei region, between the districts now scheduled to join the independent states of North and South Sudan, did not vote with the rest of the country because North and South could not agree as to who would be eligible to vote. Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir vowed that he would not agree to Abyei becoming part of the South. This week clashes broke out again in Abyei, and the death toll is already reported to be over 100. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

Sudan's oil rich Abyei
district is in yellow.
Image: Wikimedia Commons

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Some sources claim that the Misseriya herdsmen identified with the North attacked the Dinka Ngok farmers identified with the South, but Government of Southern Sudan spokesperson Marial Benjamin Barnaba blamed the Sudanese Army and Popular Defense Forces loyal to Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir.

Marial Benjamin Barnaba: “The areas being attacked are north of Abyei and the people on the attack are the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Popular Defense Forces. This morning at nine fifty am, Makir village was completely burned down by the Sudanese Armed Forces which is being claimed to be Misseriya. And other attacks are pending. The citizens of Abyei, the Ngok Dinka in this areas, they have been moving southwards because of these continuous attacks and in fact most of the causalities have been the local police, plus the civilian population.”

Nile Fortune Managing Editor
Mugume Rwakaringi.

KPFA: Nile Fortune Editor and Contributor Mugume Rwakaringi told KPFA that the people of Abyei are trapped between the counter accusations of Khartoum and Juba, the capitols of Northern and Southern Sudan, and that traditional Misseriya herdsmen and Dinka Ngok farmers would peacefully co-exist, if not for the oil thirst of the outside forces driving the conflict.

In January, as soon as the votes for independence had been counted in Southern Sudan, Massachusetts Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry declared the U.S.A. would not leave Abyei behind.

John Kerry: “Let’s be clear. Even as today marks the end of one journey and the beginning of another, a lot of work remains ahead in the very new term in the next months of the CPA before July 9th, in order to resolve outstanding issues regarding oil revenues, borders, and of course Abyei and Darfur. Abyei is front and center on the agenda even today. Abyei is not being left behind, Abyei is not being forgotten.

KPFA: Mugume Rwakaringi's essay, "Who should save the Abyei people?" will be available tomorrow on the websites of the San Francisco Bay View and AfrobeatRadio. For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

No Funds for Tasers or War Criminals; Stop State Violence in San Francisco and Congo

2011-03-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

Julian Davis, listening and waiting to speak at the
San Francisco Police Commission hearing on
arming the SFPD with tasers as well as handguns.
Davis, President of the Booker T. Washington
Service Center, asked the Commissioners to
consider the role of tasers in the Oscar Grant
shooting and to consider disproportionate
impacts on communities of color. He asked
the Commissioners not only not to buy tasers
but also to stop wasting money studying them.

On Wednesday, February 24th, I attended a San Francisco Police Commission hearing to oppose arming the San Francisco Police with tasers as well as handguns. I've come to question the point of attending hearings like this because, for one, my side inevitably loses, whether it's about the Blue Angels, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and the Lennar Corporation in the Hunters' Point Shipyard, San Francisco's next mayor, or even a Board of Supervisors' resolution about the latest uproar at KPFA Radio, the Bay Area's Pacifica Radio station.

It often seems to me that we show up at City Hall hearings like this simply to help create facades of public process for Boards and Commissions that strike political deals or otherwise make up their minds long before the hearing starts.

KPFA News reporter
Sabrina Jacobs

I've therefore sworn I'd never again appear at one, but---never say never---I showed up last Wednesday after so many of the people I most admire in San Francisco urged attendance. Supervisor John Avalos offered his office to accommodate the overflow crowd, and I enjoyed the company, especially that of Sabrina Jacobs, who produced this report for KPFA News:

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(Audio link: http://goo.gl/bAQhf.)

Once again, and as always, every time I've been to City Hall, I was on the losing side. Commissioner Petra DeJesus, who cast the sole vote against more taser studies, said that no matter how they reworded what they were voting on, they were still voting to proceed toward taser use. Bob Offer-Westort, Civil Rights Organizer for San Francisco's Coalition on Homelessness, thought that those who attended the meeting had managed, at least, to buy time to organize.

And I at least felt honored to be among the crowd of doctors, lawyers, social workers, organizers, and activists who came to speak against taser use. Many had so much relevant experience and/or expertise that I found myself wondering what I could possibly add, but by the time I got a turn at the mike, the Western Regional Representative for Amnesty International (AI), had helped me find a few words, by telling the Commissioners that AI considers tasers a form of torture:

"I'm Ann Garrison, a long term resident, a District 8 voter, a journalist. In recent years I've cultivated expertise in US interventions and involvements in East/Central Africa: Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Sudan. I'm here in part because these are my friends, in the audience, but also because the culture that we impose on other parts of the world is something we create right here, every day, in public forums like this one, and in the decisions that come out of them. A few points about San Francisco's culture as it is now:

1) Every year San Francisco hosts Fleet Week and the Blue Angels Air Show, a celebration of global military dominance and the equation of might and right.

2) In January 2007, the nine-member Black Caucus of the California Legislature released “The State of Black California” report, which said that the disparity of wealth, income, and education between black and white people is greater in San Francisco than anywhere else in the state.

3) In July 2009, the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and the National Coalition for the Homeless released its "Homes not Handcuffs" report ranking San Francisco as the seventh meanest city to the homeless in the U.S.

Please don't add the police use of a weapon tantamount to torture to this list."

Three days later, I produced my own KPFA Weekend News report, below, about the March 2nd Congressional briefing on the UN Mapping Report documenting civilian massacres and atrocities, including mass weaponized rape, committed by the armies of African dictators that the U.S. has armed, trained, advised, and guided with logistical and intelligence support for many years.

This is to ask those who attended the Police Commission taser hearing to call Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Nancy Pelosi as well, and urge them to attend this briefing. (For Congressional contacts, see http://contactingthecongress.org/.)

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(Audio link: http://goo.gl/7FfZS.)

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: The Great Lakes Region of Africa Coalition of peace and social justice activists in the U.S. is preparing for a March 2nd Congressional briefing on the UN Mapping Report documenting atrocities committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report was leaked on August 26th, 2010, and officially released by the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights on October 1st.

President and General Paul Kagame leads the army whose
crimes in Congo are documented in the UN Mapping Report
leaked 08.26.2010, and officially released 10.01.2010.

The armies of Congo's neighbors to the east, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, and most of all that of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, are most implicated, but the U.S. continues to collaborate with all three militarily. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  International, multilingual broadcast headlines following the August 26th leak of the UN Mapping Report were later combined into this sound collage to introduce "The contradictions of General Paul Kagame:," a video posted to the Youtube and Jambo News, a publication covering Africa's Great Lakes Region:

Audio collage of headlines:  (Audio collage of broadcast headlines during the week following the 08.26.2010 leak of the report.)

KPFA: Despite the Mapping Report's documentation of atrocities including mass rape, civilian massacres, destruction of hospitals and other essential infrastructure, and even genocide, there have been no international criminal indictments. Within the last year Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, and Burundi's President Pierre Nkrunziza, all of whom are implicated in the UN report, held onto power in elections that much of the world understood as window dressing for dictatorship.

The U.S. and UK have continued to arm, train, and collaborate with the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi in Somalia, Sudan, and elsewhere on the African continent. Last July the Pentagon awarded Northrop Grumman and three other defense and security contractors a $500 million contract to train the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi and other African allies.

Jacques Bahati, Policy Analyst for the Washington D.C.-based Africa Faith and Justice Network spoke to KPFA about the Great Lakes Coalition's hopes for its March 2nd briefing on Capitol Hill:

Jacques Bahati: Our goal is to rally U.S. support for justice for the crimes committed by the Rwandan, Ugandan, and Burundian armies and their Congolese collaborators in the war against Congo in 1996 to 2003. Also we want the U.S. to take a clear stand on this issue, supporting the UN Mapping Report recommendations to set up an investigation to determine whether the targeted and massive killing of Congolese, Burundian, and Rwandan Hutu were a genocide.

KPFA:  There have been many Congressional hearings and many UN reports about this. What are you hoping might be different this time?

Jacques Bahati: Well, we can't get tired. We will continue to push and rally the international community for peace and stability of the region. Although they might not hear us or they haven't heard us, we believe that one day they will hear what we are saying, because the evidence is very clear. Many people died and justice has to be served.

President Barack Obama, as a Senator, authored Senate
Bill 2125, the Congo, Relief, Security, and
Democracy Promotion Act of 2006.

KPFA: Bahati also said that they would be asking Congress to push for implementation of Senate Bill 2125, the Obama Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006, and the only bill that President Obama, as a Senator, ushered into law on his own. The bill calls for appointment of a Special Envoy to the Congo, and for the cancellation of U.S. assistance to any country invading the Congo and plundering its resources, as the Mapping Report and previous UN reports demonstrate, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi have.

The Great Lakes Coalition is asking Americans to call their Senators and Congressmembers to ask them to attend the March 2nd briefing on the UN Mapping Report on Capitol Hill. For updates on the hearings, see the websites of the Africa Faith and Justice Network and Friends of the Congo.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Africa advocates head to Congress re Congo atrocities

2011-02-27T04:39:00.000-08:00

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KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: The Great Lakes Region of Africa Coalition of peace and social justice activists in the U.S. is preparing for a March 2nd Congressional briefing on the UN Mapping Report documenting atrocities committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report was leaked on August 26th, 2010, and officially released by the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights on October 1st.

President and General Paul Kagame leads the army whose
crimes in Congo are documented in the UN Mapping Report
leaked 08.26.2010, and officially released 10.01.2010.

The armies of Congo's neighbors to the east, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, and most of all that of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, are most implicated, but the U.S. continues to collaborate with all three militarily. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  International, multilingual broadcast headlines following the August 26th leak of the UN Mapping Report were later combined into this sound collage to introduce "The contradictions of General Paul Kagame:," a video posted to the Youtube and Jambo News, a publication covering Africa's Great Lakes Region:

Audio collage of headlines:  (Audio collage of broadcast headlines during the week following the 08.26.2010 leak of the report.)

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Despite the Mapping Report's documentation of atrocities including mass rape, civilian massacres, destruction of hospitals and other essential infrastructure, and even genocide, there have been no international criminal indictments. Within the last year Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, and Burundi's President Pierre Nkrunziza, all of whom are implicated in the UN report, held onto power in elections that much of the world understood as window dressing for dictatorship.

The U.S. and UK have continued to arm, train, and collaborate with the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi in Somalia, Sudan, and elsewhere on the African continent. Last July the Pentagon awarded Northrop Grumman and three other defense and security contractors a $500 million contract to train the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi and other African allies.

Jacques Bahati, Policy Analyst for the Washington D.C.-based Africa Faith and Justice Network spoke to KPFA about the Great Lakes Coalition's hopes for its March 2nd briefing on Capitol Hill:

Jacques Bahati: Our goal is to rally U.S. support for justice for the crimes committed by the Rwandan, Ugandan, and Burundian armies and their Congolese collaborators in the war against Congo in 1996 to 2003. Also we want the U.S. to take a clear stand on this issue, supporting the UN Mapping Report recommendations to set up an investigation to determine whether the targeted and massive killing of Congolese, Burundian, and Rwandan Hutu were a genocide.

KPFA:  There have been many Congressional hearings and many UN reports about this. What are you hoping might be different this time?

Jacques Bahati: Well, we can't get tired. We will continue to push and rally the international community for peace and stability of the region. Although they might not hear us or they haven't heard us, we believe that one day they will hear what we are saying, because the evidence is very clear. Many people died and justice has to be served.

President Barack Obama, as a Senator, authored Senate
Bill 2125, the Congo, Relief, Security, and Democracy
Promotion Act of 2006.

Ann Garrison: Bahati also said that they would be asking Congress to push for implementation of Senate Bill 2125, the Obama Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006, and the only bill that President Obama, as a Senator, ushered into law on his own. The bill calls for appointment of a Special Envoy to the Congo, and for the cancellation of U.S. assistance to any country invading the Congo and plundering its resources, as the Mapping Report and previous UN reports demonstrate, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi have.

The Great Lakes Coalition is asking Americans to call their Senators and Congressmembers to ask them to attend the March 2nd briefing on the UN Mapping Report on Capitol Hill. For updates on the hearings, see the websites of the Africa Faith and Justice Network and Friends of the Congo.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

(For Congressional contacts, see http://contactingthecongress.org/.)

Besigye rejects Museveni's rule

2011-02-21T14:25:00.000-08:00

KPFA Weekend News, 02.20.2011:

Audio link: http://goo.gl/3K2nu

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest: And this is KPFA/KPFB in Berkeley, or KFCF, 88.1 in Fresno. The program is the Weekend News; I'm Anthony Fest with David Landau. Turning now to news from Africa, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has been in power for the past 25 years, with military, diplomatic, and intelligence support from the U.S. He officially claimed victory in Uganda's presidential election this morning, but opposition parties and election observers claimed widespread election fraud. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni entered his 26th
year in power, after claiming victory, on 02.20.2011, in
yet another presidential election that opposition parties
declared fraudulent.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: In his introduction to a recent interview with Ugandan President Yoweri Musveni, Aljazeera host Mohammed Adow said that Museveni had joined the League of African Rulers whose only wish is to stay in power forever. In conversation with Museveni, the Aljazeera host asked whether he would ever consider retiring, and criticized his extreme concentration of power, in his own hands.

Aljazeera's Talk to Jazeera Host Mohammed Adow: Mr. President, your National Resistance Movement Party is run like a one man show, not an institution. You are the NRM and without you, some say, it's the end of the party.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni: Oh, they must be sick, because NRM has got nine million members now. Many of the things they do, I don't even know. So anybody who said that I'm running that huge organization alone must be sick in his head or her head.

KPFA: Opposition presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye and the Democracy Group, a non-partisan election monitoring team, were collecting their own election poll tallies after Ugandans went to the polls on Friday, so as to publish their own results, but Museveni's Communications Commission made that impossible by ordering telecom companies to jam their SMS message reception. Besigye, his party and other members of the opposition categorically rejected the election results, and denounced the National Electoral Commission which Museveni selected himself.

They also accused Museveni and his party of ballot stuffing, unsealed ballot boxes, voter intimidation by the army, flagrant vote buying, and using state resources to win. Commonwealth observers observed the same irregularities.

Commonwealth election observers spokesman: The power of incumbency in this general election, and during the campaign leading to it, was exercised to such an extent as to compromise severely the level playing field between the competing candidates and political parties.

KPFA: Poverty, especially among Uganda's majority subsistence farmers, was the opposition's central issue, but, poverty also made Ugandans vulnerable to widely reported, flagrant vote buying by the rullng party. Besigye urged hungry Ugandans to take the money, then vote against the thieves who gave it to them, but Job Collins, who ran for Youth Member of Parliament in Uganda's Northern Region, and other members of the opposition said that many impoverished Ugandans feel too disempowered to defy the authority of those who paid for their votes.

Speaking to the press, Besigye said that the opposition rejected not only the election results but also any legal authority based on them:

Dr. Kizza Besigye has rejected the authority of Ugandan
President Yoweri Museveni established by the
02.20.2011 election, because, he claims, it was fraudulent.

Dr. Kizza Besigye: We have rejected the outcome of this election. We are rejecting the leadership that emerges out of this sham election. And we are going to take steps, in consultation with the various people we have pointed out, all the stakeholders in our country, including the public, as to the means we are going to use to bring the country back to Constitutional rule.

KPFA: Africa peace and justice activists in the U.S. have stepped up their calls for the U.S. to stop supporting both the Museveni regime and the Rwandan regime of Paul Kagame since the October 1st release of the UN Mapping Report documenting their armies' war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Uganda: Museveni Claims Victory, Opposition Claims Fraud

2011-02-19T23:38:00.000-08:00

KPFA Weekend News, 02.19.2011

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Audio link: http://goo.gl/Ay90J

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: Ugandans voted in parliamentary, presidential, and local elections on Friday, after the Uganda Communications Commission’s telecom companies told bulk SMS providers to block messages containing key words or phrases such as “Tunisia,” “Egypt,” “Mubarak,” “Ben Ali” or “people power.” Uganda’s National Electoral Commission has projected President Yoweri Museveni the winner. Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986, with U.S. military, diplomatic, intelligence and financial support. KPFA’s Ann Garrison has more.

President Yoweri Museveni
celebrating his 26th year in power.

Ann Garrison: Before yesterday’s polls, Uganda's Daily Monitor reported that there were roughly 140,000 dead people, 5,000 people 110 years and older, and half a million foreigners on Uganda's voter rolls. Ugandan American newspaper editor Milton Allimadi wrote that, “The dead people might be so appalled that they’ll vote for the opposition this time,” but leading opposition presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye warned that ghost votes would be some of the most serious fraud.

He also predicted widespread vote buying by Museveni’s party and urged hungry Ugandans to take the money, get a good meal, then go out and vote against those who paid them:

Campaign posters for opposition candidates Anne Mugisha
and Dr. Kizza Besigye at a campaign rally in Uganda.

Dr. Kizza Besigye: Well, the money must be eaten. It is our money. It is not anybody else’s money. This is YOUR money. Eat it and vote against the thieves.

Ann Garrison: Today Anne Mugisha, a member of Besigye’s party and a candidate for Women’s Member of Parliament in Uganda’s Mbarara District, reported that one of her volunteers came close to being arrested for disturbing the peace when she objected to agents of Museveni’s party openly buying votes in a village square.

Mugisha, like Besigye, is reporting a host of election violations as the National Electoral Commission projects her as a second place finisher, but she says this is no surprise:

Anne Mugisha: It’s like walking into a casino knowing that the guy who owns it has to make a profit. Sometimes a few lucky people make some money but most of the time people lose. So this time around I lost. A few of our opposition people did scrape through, but the casino is owned by the ruling party and President Museveni, and they will definitely be looking to make a profit.

Ann Garrison: Dr. Kizza Besigye held a press conference at the end of the day today in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, to say that this year’s election had been even more rigged than before and that he will hold another press conference tomorrow to announce his response. Both he and opposition presidential candidate Olara Otunnu, before the polls, urged Ugandans not to accept the results that they knew would be rigged.

When asked what he would do if people protested, Museveni said that was simple, that he would lock them up.

Dominique Diomi, a survivor of the ongoing Congo conflict which has cost millions of lives, said that Ugandans are far from the only ones concerned about Museveni retaining his hold on power.

Dominique Diomi: It is a disgrace that Yoweri Museveni was even allowed to stand for the presidency again, after the UN Mapping Report which was released on October 1st last year, documented that his army perpetrated crimes against humanity and genocide and massacre of civilians in the Congo.

Ann Garrison: For updates on the Ugandan situation, see AfrobeatRadio.net and the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper. For Pacific, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.

Museveni's Casino: Anne Mugisha on Uganda's 2011 election

2011-02-19T10:46:00.000-08:00

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni
celebrates his 26th year in office.

Anne Mugisha

"We knew exactly what was going to happen in this election. We complained about the registers, we complained about the inflated numbers of people on the registers, we complained about the use of state resources in the election, but we still agreed to go in and participate. So that's like walking into a casino, knowing that the guy who owns it has to make a profit. Sometimes a few lucky people make some money. But most of the time people lose. So this time around I lost. A few of our opposition people did scrape through, but the casino is owned by the ruling party and President Museveni and they would definitely be looking to make a profit. So that's how I see this election, like a trip to the casino."

--Anne Mugisha, 2011 candidate for Women's Member of Parliament in Uganda's Mbarara District

That's one quote, from my conversation with Anne Mugisha, opposition candidate for Women's Member of Parliament in Uganda's Mbrara District, on 02.19.2011, the day after Uganda's 2011 presidential and parliamentary polls closed. She also reported that one of her volunteers came close to being arrested for objecting to the ruling National Resistance Movement's reps openly buying votes in the center of a village, and she talked about the need to build a culture of nonviolent protest in Uganda, a process that she said would take years. Here's the conversation:

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Audio link: http://goo.gl/fVKtL.

Museveni's Casino: Anne Mugisha on Uganda's 2011 election

2011-02-19T10:32:00.000-08:00

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni celebrates his 26th year in office.

Anne Mugisha

--Anne Mugisha, 2011 candidate for Women's Member of Parliament in Uganda's Mbarara District

That's one quote, from my conversation with Anne Mugisha, opposition candidate for Women's Member of Parliament in Uganda's Mbrara District, on 02.19.2011, the day after Uganda's 2011 presidential and parliamentary polls closed. She also reported that one of her volunteers came close to being arrested for objecting to the ruling National Resistance Movement's reps openly buying votes in the center of a village, and talked about the need to build a culture of nonviolent protest in Uganda, a process that she seems committed to but said would take years. Here's the conversation, just one paragraph fits into my KPFA Weekend News on Uganda's polls:

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Besigye to Ugandans: Eat Money Used to Buy Votes, then Vote Against the Thieves

2011-02-17T19:20:00.000-08:00

Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's President for the past 26 years,
and his rival presidential candidate, for the third time,
Dr. Kizza Besigye.

Ugandans began voting on Friday, February 18th, with the country's Daily Monitor reporting that there are 140,000 dead people, 5000 people 110 years and older, and half a million foreigners on the rolls.

"The dead people might be so appalled," said Ugandan American Newspaper Editor Milton Allimadi, that they might vote for the opposition this time.

Dr. Kizza Besigye urged any Ugandans selling their votes to Museveni and the NRM to eat the money, get a good meal, because it's their money; not anybody else's money.

"Eat it," he said, "and then go and vote against the thieves."

The Twitter hashtag for Uganda's election is #Ugandavotes.

Milton Allimadi on Uganda, Rwanda, and Uganda's 2011 Election

2011-02-14T17:24:00.000-08:00

Milton Allimadi, Ugandan American
Editor of the New York City-based
Black Star News.

On Saturday, 02.14, I spoke to Ugandan American Black Star News Editor Milton Allimadi, about Uganda's February 18th election for KPFA News and Afrobeat Radio, about whether or not Ugandan might follow Egypt after the February 18th polls that no one expects to be free or fair. That link is posted here on AfrobeatRadio.net, and this is a recording of our extended conversation, touching on:

- the European Union's election observers' mission,

- the Rwanda Genocide and the Acholi Genocide in Northern Uganda,

- the threat of war between Rwanda and Uganda, a backdrop to the Ugandan election, and, one possible explanation of the high level visit by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg and UnderSecretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson.

Allies of the U.S., enemies of each other. There
is considerable unease that Rwandan President
Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni,
will go to war after Uganda's February 18th
election, assuming Museveni remains in office.

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KPFA Weekend News: Uganda the next Egypt?

2011-02-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

KPFA Weekend News, 02.12.2011:

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KPFA Weekend News Anchor David Rosenberg: One of Uganda's three leading opposition presidential candidates, and others, predict that Uganda could become the next Egypt or Tunisia after next Friday's presidential and parliamentary elections, which few expect to be free or fair. Ann Garrison has more.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Last week the world watched Egyptians in the streets of Cairo, and heard voices of the Egyptian revolution on radio, TV, Facebook, Twitter, the blogosphere, and elsewhere on the Internet. They included the voice of this Egyptian street protestor, which nearly two million people have now heard on the Youtube alone:

Egyptian Street Protestor: We will not be silenced. Whether you are Christian, whether you are Muslim, or whether you are an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights, and we will have our rights, one way or the other. We will never be silenced.

KPFA: Milton Allimadi, Ugandan American editor of the New York City-based Black Star News says that Egypt's uprising was really a global uprising, with scenes beamed all around the world, and both Egyptians and Mubarak well aware that the rest of the world was watching. Allimadi also agrees with Dr. Kizza Besigye that Uganda could be next.

He spoke to KPFA from New York City:

Milton Allimadi: This should be seen as a sequence of events now, so the world will see this as interconnected. Egypt was seen as connected with Tunisia, so I see this as a possibility in Uganda as well. Ugandans are very savy; they're very sophisticated consumers of news and they watched developments in both Tunisia and Egypt very carefully.

KPFA: The majority of Ugandans are subsistence farmers. Do you have an idea of what kind of media and Internet access they have?

Milton Allimadi: The majority of Egyptians are subsistence farmers as well, but the people that are connected to Facebook, the Internet, and to Twitter, live in the large cities such as Cairo. The same applies to Uganda. The sophisticated Internet consumers of news live in cities such as Kampala, Entebbe, Jinja, Gulu, Mbarara, Masaka, and these are the ones that would likely show their protest in these urban areas and that's where it counts.

KPFA: So you think that, if there is an uprising, it will take place in the cities?

Milton Allimadi: Absolutely; these kinds of uprisings invariably take part in the cities. That's where most international, as well as local, media, are focussed and concentrated. And, in Uganda, I think there's a sense by international media that this is a ground changing election, because the BBC, which has traditionally been very apologetic and sympathetic to President Museveni, has now for the first time deployed a major contingent of reporters inside Uganda, so the coverage is going to be very different and very significant this time around.

KPFA: Do you know of any effort to block the news and or the Internet?

Milton Allimadi: Not yet, but there may be plans to do that come election time. And I know there are many organizations inside and outside Uganda who are working on setting up alternative networks to be able to disseminate information.

KPFA: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and Under Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson flew into Kampala, Uganda last week to meet with Uganda's three leading opposition presidential candidates, Kizza Besigye, Norbert Mao, and Olara Otunnu, all of whom told them that Friday's elections will not be free and fair. Steinberg and Carson then went on to meet with Ugandan President Yoweri Museven, who has been one of the U.S.A.'s closest allies and military collaborators since the end of the Cold War. Before leaving, Steinberg gave a speech at Kampala's Makerere University about the importance of free and fair elections, and protecting human rights for all, regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.

For a longer version of this interview with Milton Allimadi and for ongoing updates on Uganda's election, see the websites of the San Francisco Bay View and AfrobeatRadio.net.

For Pacifica/KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Whither Uganda? Election 2011

2011-02-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

Published in Uganda's Daily Monitor.

On February 6th, the day of my KPFA News report below, Uganda's Daily Monitor reported that US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, were in Uganda to speak to the three opposition presidential candidates, Kizza Besigye of Inter-Party Cooperation, Olara Otunnu of the Uganda Peoples Congress, and Norbert Mao of the Democratic Party, and that the meeting "formed the basis of their engagement with President Museveni." The Monitor also reported that "Uganda is a key strategic partner to the US in its role in maintaining regional stability."

Audio link: http://goo.gl/IhDnW.

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest: Uganda is approaching parliamentary and presidential elections on February 18th. The current regime of Yoweri Museveni imprisoned one of the leading candidates, Dr. Kizza Besigye, when he ran against Museveni in 2005 and 2006, but all charges were dropped and Besigye is running again this year. Internationally known human rights advocate Olara Otunnu, former U.N. Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict Zones returned from exile to run for president, and Norbert Mao, a Ugandan lawyer known for his negotiations to bring peace to Uganda's wartorn north, is running against Museveni as well. KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Uganda, appears to be having a real presidential election, unlike Rwanda, where two of three viable presidential candidates had been arrested before the election year was over and both remain in maximum security prison. Uganda's leading presidential candidates are actively campaigning, as are parliamentary candidates, though election violence is feared and few expect the election to be free or fair. Dr. Kizza Besigye has said that he will conduct his own presidential exit polls, though Museveni has threatened to arrest him if he does.

The main campaign issues are poverty, government corruption, and segregated education, which leaves children of the majority peasant population being shuffled through poor public schools, without acquiring any skills, while children of the elite attend private school.

Olara Otunnu, leader of the Uganda People's
Congress party, arrives for his nomination as
presidential candidate in the capital Kampala.

Presidential candidate Olara Otunnu, who attended primary and secondary school in a mud hut in Uganda's indigenous Acholi region, went on to Uganda's Makerere University and from there to Oxford and Harvard Law School, but he says that his story is not possible in Uganda now

Olara Otunnu: The education system, especially at the primary level and the elementary level, have completely collapsed. The government has abandoned the public schools, the government schools. And instead, with the corruption, the country has seen a mushrooming of top quality private schools for those who are very, very wealthy. And then, this completely collapsed the system for the vast majority of children. These schools are no longer able to lay the foundation for children who go on to secondary schools, who can become teachers, and doctors, and engineers, as it used to be in our school system.

KPFA: Melanie Nathan, Marin County Human Rights Commissioner, Editor/Contributor to LezGetReal, a Gay Girl's View of the World, and international LGBT activist says that damage to Uganda's public schools is a tragedy for Ugandans and for LGBT rights:

Melanie Nathan: Destroying pubic education, as Museveni has in Uganda, is a great way to encourage the fearful religious fundamentalism manipulated by those trying to institute homicidal homophobia with this Anti-Homosexuality Act, also known as the Hang-the-Gays Bill.

Uganda's Democratic Party presidential
candidate Norbert Mao, listened
to this woman in Kazo, Kiruhuura district.

KPFA: Many Congolese people, including Eric Kamba, of the Boston-based Congolese Development Center, would like to see Museveni voted out of office because of his army's war crimes in Congo, which have been documented in many UN reports. Kamba, a refugee from Congo's central Kasai Province, says that he would be assassinated if he went home because he has accused the Congolese President Joseph Kabila of corruption and collaboration with Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the invasion and occupation of Congo.

Eric Kamba: As an African, I would like to see Yoweri Museveni voted out of office because he caused the collapse of the most fundamental social institutions and high levels of poverty and corruption in his own country. As a Congolese refugee, I want to see his regime end because he invaded and occupied Congo, and is still plundering its natural resources. In 2008, the International Refugee Commission, estimated that there have been 5.4 million deaths due to the conflict in Congo, and there have been many more since 2008 that no one has counted.

KPFA: And what would you expect from Uganda's other presidential candidates?

Eric Kamba: Dr Kizza Besigye has spoken out against Uganda's invasion of Congo for years and the other leading presidential candidates oppose it as well; any of them would be a big improvement for Uganda, Congo, and Africa. Museveni has been clinging to power and terrorizing the whole Great Lakes Region for the past 25 years.

KPFA: For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

KPFA and AfrobeatRadio News: Melanie Nathan on Uganda's Slain LGBT Activist David Kato and International Human Rights Activism

2011-02-05T18:29:00.000-08:00

Rally at Harvey Milk Plaza, San Francisco, to honor slain

Ugandan LGBT rights activist David Kato, 02.03.2011.

International LGBT rights activist and LezGetReal Editor and Contributor Melanie Nathan speaking to KPFA and AfrobeatRadio.net:

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(URL: http://goo.gl/bEhC4.)
Extended interview with Melanie Nathan:

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(URL: http://goo.gl/FmOuH.)

Was Obama an accomplice in David Kato's murder?

2011-02-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

David Kato, LGBT activist, Advocacy Officer for
Sexual Minorities Uganda, slain by an assailant, who
broke into his home and hit him over the head
with a hammer until he was dead on 01.26.2011.

Would Ugandan LGBT advocate David Kato be alive if Barack Obama, the most powerful man in the world, had not asked Reverend Rick Warren to say the opening prayers, or invocation, at his inauguration on January 20, 2009, then attempted to justify the invitation with reference to Reverend Rick Warren's humanitarian work in Africa?

Warren had been a longstanding ally of Uganda's infamously homophobic Pastor Martin Ssempa, although outrage over Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, a.k.a. "Hang-the-Gays Bill," has since compelled him to take his distance.

In Uganda, Warren had, in March 2008, encouraged a schism in the Anglican Communion over gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson, and said "we shall not tolerate this aspect [homosexuality], not at all."

Warren had also, during his campaign for Proposition 8, California's gay marriage ban, equated homosexuality with incest, pedophilia and bestiality, in this interview on Beliefnet:

In 2008, after the outrage consequent to his invitation to Warren, Obama justified his invitation to Rick Warren as an instance of inclusion, including Reverend Rick Warren's voice as one of many in his inauguration:

Here is the White House statement of sorrow and affirmation of LGBT rights as fundamental human rights, in response to David Kato's murder in Uganda:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

January 27, 2011

Statement by the President on the Killing of David Kato

I am deeply saddened to learn of the murder of David Kato. In Uganda, David showed tremendous courage in speaking out against hate. He was a powerful advocate for fairness and freedom. The United States mourns his murder, and we recommit ourselves to David’s work.

At home and around the world, LGBT persons continue to be subjected to unconscionable bullying, discrimination, and hate. In the weeks preceding David Kato’s murder in Uganda, five members of the LGBT community in Honduras were also murdered. It is essential that the Governments of Uganda and Honduras investigate these killings and hold the perpetrators accountable.

LGBT rights are not special rights; they are human rights. My Administration will continue to strongly support human rights and assistance work on behalf of LGBT persons abroad. We do this because we recognize the threat faced by leaders like David Kato, and we share their commitment to advancing freedom, fairness, and equality for all.

Of course we have to be glad that President Obama was moved, and/or obliged to make such a statement, but many questions remain unanswered, regarding Obama, Reverend Rick Warren, and the East African Presidents, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and Burundian President Pierre Nkrunziza, all three of whom have promoted the criminalization of homosexuality, and provided troops in service to the American military agenda in Africa.

Unlike other forms of violence in Africa, David Kato's murder, and Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, makes 10-20% of the world, regardless of racial and national identities, feel targeted.

Museveni Regime Denies Kato's Murder was Homophobic

2011-01-29T08:37:00.000-08:00

R.I.P. David Kato Kisule, Ugandan LGBT activist, and advocacy officer for

Sexual Minorities Uganda. Murdered by hammer blows to the head, by an

assailant who broke into his home in Kampala, Uganda, January 26, 2011,

weeks after he won a lawsuit against Uganda's Rolling Stone tabloid for

publishing his picture and those of other LGBT Ugandans and

urging "Hang them."

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Ugandan Deputy Police Spokesperson Vincent Sekate

"I would like to make it very clear. It is not linked to him being an activist of the sexual minorities. It was based in unrelated crime, which we are taking. . . we are taking it very serious and we are going to investigate up to the logical conclusion." -Ugandan Deputy Police Spokesperson Vincent Sekate

How can Ugandan Deputy Police Spokesperson Vincent Sekate, before doing an investigation, be so very sure that David Kato's murder had nothing to do with his being openly gay, or with his work as advocacy officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda? And why does the US keep throwing money and weaponry behind the regime that Sekate speaks for, that of Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda for the past 25 years? Why did my California Senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, co-sponsor a bill to further arm and empower the Museveni regime?

Why did all the most liberal Senators in the country, including Minnesota's Al Franken and even Vermont's Bernie Sanders, co-sponsor this bill, the so-called LRA Disarmament Act? Why does the bill bear fallen liberal icon Russ Feingold's name? I think the answer is the U.S. deployment of Ugandan mercenary troops in Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and as needed otherwise on the African continent, but LGBT rights organizations in the U.S. need to answer that question for themselves and decide what it means to them.

Note the headline, in the Rolling Stone tabloid, just beneath "100 Pictures of Uganda's Top Homos Leak": "UPDF Prepares for Sudan War." Black Star News Editor Milton Allimadi and others have identified that potential war as a war for Southern Sudanese oil, supported by Ugandan soldiers funded by the so-called LRA Disarmament Act. I called Milton Allimadi about the mobilization on the Ugandan/Sudanese border, and in the eastern Central African Republic for my KPFA Radio News Report: "Oil, African Genocide, and the USA's LRA Excuse."

Uganda's Rolling Stone tabloid included pictures of LGBT
activist David Kato and Bishop Christopher Senyonjo,
the heterosexual Ugandan Anglican Bishop dedicated to the
defense of LGBT rights. Note headline beneath, "UPDF
[Ugandan People's Defense Force] prepares for Sudan War."

Human Rights Campaign already has a fundraising letter out regarding David Kato's death, asking for contributions to counter the proudly plutocratic, aggressively homophobic organization known as The Fellowship, or The Family, but has not yet called on America's best known liberals, or on President and Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama, to explain their ongoing military, financial, and diplomatic for the Museveni regime yet.

There are plenty of votes to be won, political points to be made, even funds to be raised by political candidates as well as Human Rights Campaign, by issuing statements condemning David Kato's murder. Barbara Boxer and Barack Obama have both issued statements, but how much does this really mean when President and Commander-in-Chief Obama, and our most liberal legislators, including Boxer, continue to arm, and empower the president and military strongman who now denies, via his police spokesperson, that David Kato's murder was homophobic?

California Senator Barbara Boxer, co-sponsor of the
LRA Disarmament Act

And, if President Obama and Senator Boxer were serious about wanting to end homicidal homophobia, wouldn't they be funding education in Uganda rather than a major military mobilization to secure Southern Sudanese oil? All accounts are that Uganda's public education system is in shambles, that students are being shuffled from one grade to another without learning anything, and that only children of the wealthy get a real education---in private school.

Olara Otunnu, presidential candidate of the Ugandan People's Congress, told me that he himself went to school in a mud hut, in a village in Acholiland, where he got such a good foundation that he was able to go on to Makerere University in Kampala, then on to Oxford and Harvard Law School. But, he says, his story is no longer possible, not in Uganda as it is now.

Most people abandon the hellfire-and-brimstone fundamentalism that includes homicidal homophobia with education, literacy, and critical thinking, not with bullets, bombs, and mercenary troop deployments.

FSRN, PLEASE: The UN Security Council Has No Moral Authority in Congo

2011-01-26T18:27:00.000-08:00

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

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC, officials arrested a group of soldiers for their involvement in the rapes of dozens of women on New Year’s Day. They could be tried as early as next week. A UN spokesperson told Reuters that the commander who authorized the attack on the town of Fizi in the eastern part of the country has also been arrested. Human rights groups have long raised concern about armed groups using rape as a weapon of war in DRC. And some say sexual violence will continue if authorities fail to investigate and prosecute those responsible. The UN’s Jocelyne Sambira has more.

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My response, as posted to the FSRN website:

The UN Security Council Has No Moral Authority in Congo
new
SUBMITTED BY ANN GARRISON ON THU, 01/27/2011 - 02:32.
The Security Council has no moral authority whatsoever, but this is a response to your story citing the Security Council's moral authority with regard to the weaponization of rape, and the prosecution of rape, in eastern Congo.
The story described rape charges against the FDLR, a Rwandan Hutu militia, and against the FARDC, the Congolese Army, in eastern Congo, without any context about what those two groups really are, or, any context about the politicization of rape prosecutions in the region.
You cannot report this honestly and responsibly without explaining that the CNDP, another Rwandan and Ugandan militia, was integrated into the very Congolese Army it had been fighting in January 2009, in a new phase of the Rwandan and Ugandan Tutsi elite control of the region and its resources, with the backing of the real beneficiaries, the U.S. and the UK.
You cannot report it honestly and responsibly without attempting to explain who's charging and prosecuting whom for this, and why, and explaining the UN Security Council's political agenda in determining who charges and prosecutes whom.
This story, in a matter sure to satisfy the UN Security Council and the U.S. State Department, disregards the UN Mapping Report leaked on August 26th and released on October 1st, which documents the Ugandan and Rwandan armies' use of rape as a weapon in eastern Congo. No one from either the Rwandan or Ugandan armies is being prosecuted.
The report cites the UN Security Council as a moral authority, though nothing could be further from the truth, especially in eastern Congo and especially with regard to the weaponization of rape in eastern Congo.
Neither FSRN nor KPFA should be citing the UN Security Council as a moral authority in this situation, or any other.
That's the simplest starting point.
Who, for starters, are the permanent members of the Security Council? To be considered for membership, a nation must first of all have a nuclear bomb, and, the more the better, although China was admitted after only their second detonation, with only a few nuclear bombs.
India, one of the newer nuclear weapons states, is the most recent contender for a permanent Security Council seat as well. Japan seemed to be under consideration for awhile, despite not having a bomb, but it wasn't admitted. And Japan could never even have been considered if the world's most powerful nations hadn't known that it's so nuclear, and industrial, that it could build one in a long weekend.
The other prerequisite for becoming a permanent member of the Security Council, at the time it was formed, was being a victor in World War II, and the Security Council has been firmly committed to victor's justice ever since. In Rwanda and Congo, it has been committed to the justice that prosecutes the losers of the Rwandan Civil War, "Hutu genocidaires," at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR), and demonizes "Hutu militias," meaning the refugee army that retreated into eastern Congo. Hence, "Hutu militias" have been blamed, by the Security Council, for nearly all the violence done to the people of eastern Congo since 1994.
I recorded and then quoted ICTR defense lawyers Christopher Black and Peter Erlinder on victor's justice at the ICTR and other international tribunals on KPFA News, and in Global Research and the San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, http://goo.gl/X2PiY.
I should add, so that it doesn't seem like I'm unfairly attacking FSRN, that Democracy Now has made the same error, re the UN Security Council, on this issue. Democracy Now has also, however, radically improved its East/Central Africa reporting this year and given attention to the Mapping Report documenting atrocities, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocidal massacres of civilians, and mass, weaponized rape, committed most of all by the armies of Rwanda and Uganda in D.R. Congo. That should be a key reference point for any story about rape in eastern Congo now. I'd like to see FSRN keep the Mapping Report on hand, and see both FSRN and Democracy Now stop granting moral authority to the Security Council.
Like most of the Pacifica community, I value FSRN, but that's why I'm taking the time to say that it should do better, much better. Both the Pacifica audience, and the African people of the Great Lakes Region, deserve better. Sad to say, not reporting this story at all would have been much better than this.
-Ann Garrison, KPFA Weekend News Reporter, WBAI AfrobeatRadio Radio Producer, regular contributor to the San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, Global Research, and the Newsline EA (East Africa)

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.

Aimable Mugara· 1 day ago

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.

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.

Erlinder on Tour: Documents Prove U.S. Complicity in Rwanda Genocide and Congo Wars

2011-01-25T08:32:00.000-08:00

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KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: American Law Professor Peter Erlinder is set to begin a speaking tour to present his 70-page compilation of original UN documents and evidence, as well as his analysis of what actually happened in Rwanda between 1993 and 1995. Erlinder says that the U.S., its allies, and the Rwandan government are collaborators in an ongoing coverup of the truth at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.

Law Professor Peter Erlinder speaking
to the National Lawyers Guild, holding
a duplicate of the pink prison garb
he wore while incarcerated in Rwanda,
after traveling there in May of 2010
to defend opposition leader
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza,
who is now in prison herself.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Peter Erlinder, international criminal defense attorney, and law professor at Minnesota's William Mitchell College of Law, will begin his speaking tour at George Washington University Law School in Washington D.C. on January 24th, then visit Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania and Temple University Law Schools, then, Fordham University Law Shool and the Brecht Forum in New York City, and the University of Pittsburgh. The tour will coincide with DePaul University's Journal of Social Justice's publication of his original UN documents and evidence, and his analysis of what actually happened in Rwanda, at the time of the epic massacres now known as the Rwanda Genocide. Professor Erlinder spoke to KPFA from his home in St. Paul Minnesota:

KPFA: What do you think Americans most need to understand about what happened in Rwanda, and then in Congo? What does this have to do with us?

Peter Erlinder: Well, I think that what this has to do with us I'd like to answer first. The United States has played an active role in destabilizing the Great Lakes Region of Africa for the last 25 years. It's a role that the American people, however, do not understand, and because they don't understand it, they're not able to take action to change it. But with respect to Rwanda, what the evidence in the files show, that have been kept secret until I was able to get them, is that actually it was the Pentagon that created the RPF, grew them from 2500 to 25,000 troops in a period of two years, provided the material and the support necessary for them to take over the country, that at the same time the State Department was attempting to get the RPF to agree to give up its power and to enter into a minority position in the government, the Pentagon was continuing to support them and make them an even larger military force, so there was no incentive for them to give up their militarily superior position.

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the Rwandan opposition leader
that Professor Peter Erlinder traveled to Rwanda to defend
was taken, head shaven, handcuffed, and in pink prison garb,
to a Kigali court in handcuffs, where she was again denied
bail, on January 20, 2011.

And the American people should also know that the UN documents and US government documents from FOIA disclosures that we have show that a U.S. engineered cover-up of RPF crimes began in August of 1994 because the State Department found out that the Pentagon was actually behind the RPF and therefore was responsible fundamentally for the Rwanda Genocide. And that it's that connection to the United States that the American people don't know and is not acknowledged. That's also the reason that the Rwanda Tribunal has had to prosecute only one side, because if Kagame ever is prosecuted, it's quite sure that he will explain the role of the United States in making him who he is.

It's also true that in 1996 and 1998, Rwanda and Uganda, both with the support of the US and UK, invaded the eastern Congo and have occupied the eastern Congo since that time. Reports to the UN Security Council from experts that were engaged by the Security Council have reported repeatedly, 2001, 2, 3, 2008, 2010, that the armies of Uganda and Rwanda are occupying the eastern Congo, killing millions of people, at least six million, and raping the resources of the Congo. But unfortunately, because both of these are proxy armies that are convenient for the United States, we don't hear about those crimes, and the perpetrators of the crimes are not called before the International Criminal Court, and the American people are in a position where they don't realize that their country is actually responsible for the massive crimes in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and we should care about that greatly because these crimes are being done in our name.

KPFA: Peter Erlinder, thank you for speaking to KPFA. For Pacifica, KPFA, and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Audio link:
http://www.anngarrison.com/images/mp3s/erlindertour.mp3.

Erlinder on Tour: U.S. Is Responsible for Rwanda Genocide and Congo Wars

2011-01-25T02:49:00.000-08:00

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Law Professor Peter Erlinder
speaking to the National Lawyers Guild
last year, holding the pink prison garb
he wore while incarcerated in Rwanda,
after traveling there to defend Victoire
Ingabire Umuhoza, the Rwandan opposition leader who
is now in prison herself.

Rwandan opposition leaderVictoire Ingabire Umuhoza,
in pink prison garb, and with her head shaved was
led to court where she was again denied bail,
on January 20th, 2011.

It's also true that in 1996 and 1998, Rwanda and Uganda, both with the support of the US and UK, invaded the eastern Congo and have occupied the eastern Congo since that time. Reports to the UN Security Council from experts that were engaged by the Security Council have reported repeatedly, 2001, 2, 3, 2008, 2010, that the armies of Uganda and Rwanda are occupying the eastern Congo, killing millions of people, at least six million, and raping the resources of the Congo. But unfortunately, because both of these are proxy armies that are convenient for the United States, we don't hear about those crimes, and the perpetrators of the crimes are not called before the International Criminal Court, and the American people are in a position where they don't realize that their country is actually responsible for the massive crimes in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and we should care about that greatly because these crimes are being done in our name.

KPFA: Peter Erlinder, thank you for speaking to KPFA. For Pacifica, KPFA, and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Audio link:

http://www.anngarrison.com/images/mp3s/erlindertour.mp3.

Keith Harmon Snow on Obama's Invasion of Congo on his Inauguration Day

2011-01-24T22:05:00.000-08:00

Photo -- "Keith Harmon Snow asked to swap camera for RPG Rocket Launcher" -- FARDC Operation "Iron Fist" (spin-off), remote hills in or near Kahuzi Beiga National Park, South Kivu (province), DRC. Circa June 2006.

On Sunday, 01.23.2011, I called veteran Africa investigator Keith Harmon Snow for KPFA Weekend News regarding the second anniversary of the outset of the catastrophic 2009 Eastern Congo Offensive. As is always the case with “sound bite news,” I couldn’t include most of our conversation, but Keith was kind enough to write out his answers to the questions I’d sent for AfrobeatRadio.net. We at AfrobeatRadio consider Keith’s website, Conscious Being Alliance and the various audio recordings of his presentations, including, recently, his Lecture on Profiteering from Genocide in Central Africa, at the Brecht Forum in New York City, to be some of the best investigative reporting and analysis of African issues available. -Ann Garrison

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Most Americans, including those who campaigned hardest for Obama, would have a near impossible time making sense of this. Few would recognize the acronyms of the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF), the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), or the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

Keith Harmon Snow: There has been a US backed campaign to destabilize, depopulate, and colonize eastern Congo/Zaire since the first US-supported invasion of 1996, which occurred under William Jefferson Clinton, and which followed the US destabilization and coup d’etat in Rwanda. The US and its allies are deploying their proxy army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) — renamed the Rwandan Defense Forces or RDF about 10 years ago – in our secret campaign to balkanize Congo and create a Republic of the Volcanoes in this region. This would be an expansion of Rwanda achieved through the annexation of the Kivu provinces of Congo, possibly along with Maniema Province. Uganda for its part, with US support, would like to annex the Ituri province. These campaigns are backed by multinational corporations, and the goals are political, military and, mostly, economic.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: So, what sense does it make, to say that Barack Obama invaded Congo, the heart of Africa, on his Inauguration Day?

Keith Harmon Snow: The US backed military invasion of 20 January 2009 included US military commanders, special forces, military advisers, technicians and other US military personnel, and it involved weaponry supplied by the US and Britain.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Can you explain the CNDP militia and the significance of its integration into the Congolese army, the FARDC, on January 20, 2009?

Keith Harmon Snow: First, the name CNDP – Congress for the Defense of the People – couldn’t be further from the truth. The CNDP was a Rwandan Tutsi based militia that was created by Rwandan war criminals that had infiltrated Eastern Congo, infiltrated troops into eastern Congo, and that mobilized, armed and economically empowered Rwandan Tutsi civilians that had infiltrated eastern Congo in recent years and in recent decades. There was a tripartite agreement between Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame, Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni, and the president of Congo – another Rwandan – Joseph Kabila – which worked behind the massive propaganda of “peace talks” to advance the military campaign to infiltrate and control eastern Congo. By quote “integrating” these Rwandan militia elements into the Congolese National Army the Rwandan program was advanced through a kind of Trojan horse operation.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Can you explain the arrest of Laurent Nkunda and Bosco Ntaganda’s assumption of CNDP leadership in his place?

Keith Harmon Snow: This was a cosmetic move with no real importance, meant only to pacify certain international calls to arrest and remove the self-proclaimed General Laurent Nkundabatware. Both Nkunda and Bosco Ntaganda were documented war criminals. Nkunda of course knows too much, he is too much of a liability to Kagame, and so he is living a very good life at present in Rwanda.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: And, what about the UN Mapping Report leaked on August 26th, then finally released on October 1st?

Keith Harmon Snow: Well, that report, while revealing and progressive, in the sense of holding certain armies and individuals accountable for war crimes, was also a whitewash of the real situation. On one hand it introduced, for the first time, some credible evidence, produced by international bodies and the United Nations, that the Rwandan and Ugandan militaries committed genocide against unarmed Hutu people – mostly women and children – in Congo from circa 1995 to 1999. At the same time the evidence and facts are distorted and downplayed, and the criminality of Rwanda and Uganda are downplayed and even questioned, and the numbers of dead and kinds of atrocities are downplayed or distorted, and there is absolutely no mention of western agents or militaries or corporations involved in the killing. For example, we know the names of US diplomats, USAID officials, and military commanders involved in hunting down and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Hutus, mostly women and children.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: What do you think this operation, the 2009 Eastern Congo Offensive, which began on Obama’s Inauguration Day, says about the racial justice that many hoped the election of Barack Obama would represent?

Keith Harmon Snow: The operation called “Umoja Wetu” resulted in massive war crimes, and Barack Obama is no symbol or agent of racial equality, but just another US official involved in persecuting people of color everywhere, and through all sorts of horrible deprivations and war crimes.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: And what about the racism inherent in this mission to “hunt down Hutu militias”?

Keith Harmon Snow: Well, this is more nonsense—the whole “hunt for Hutu genocidaires was a key element of the psychological operation against the western English-speaking world to cover up for western imperialism and the commission of massive war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide—and plunder of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of minerals, timber, and lives. Under this psychological operation—using such propaganda films as Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April and Shake Hands With The Devil and Beyond the Gates—the English-speaking world suffers a collective mental illness about what really happened in Rwanda. Instead of the racist story about Hutus killing Tusis with machetes in 100 days of genocide, the truth is that the US, British and Israeli military and their Ugandan and Rwandan proxy forces are responsible for genocide against both Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, Congo and Burundi. Who are the victims? The innocent civilians in Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Congo and they are still suffering massively under US overt and covert operations in the Great Lakes region.

Many thanks to Ann Garrison, David Landau & Anthony Fest, and the KPFA Weekend News. -Keith Harmon Snow

Power Meeting: Lisa Shannon and Sarah Palin

2011-01-24T15:47:00.000-08:00

Much thanks to Lisa Shannon of Run for Congo Women, for helping me explain her work, which caused John Prendergast, in his book, "The ENOUGH Moment, Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes," and in conversation with the KPFA Morning Show on 09.08.2010, to call Ms Shannon a "Citizen Upstander, One of Congo's Champions in the United States."

Lisa Shannon, Author of "A Thousand Sisters"
and founder of Run for Congo Women.

Journal entry on Lisa Shanon's website, "A Thousand Sisters," the digital companion to her book.

Here's the opener to what John Prendergast wrote about Lisa Shannon, Citizen Upstander for Congo, in "The ENOUGH Moment":

I'd like to imagine that none of this requires further explanation, but see also:

Open Salon, "Bono Bashers, Clooney Patrols, and the Global Snark Brigade," http://goo.gl/C7D05.

Black Star News, "John Prendergast's Selective Outrage On African Crimes," http://goo.gl/lujOl.

Photos of the US and Rwandan Armies, courtesy of the Pentagon's Military.com

2011-01-21T15:21:00.000-08:00

US AFRICOM Commander William "Kip" Ward with
Rwandan Defense Minister James Kabarebe
in Kigali, Rwanda.

US AFRICOM Commander William

"Kip" Ward with Rwandan Army soldiers.

The Rwandan Army Band marching alongside a
U.S. Army transpo plane, from Charleston,
as Rwandan soldiers prepare to board.

Rwandan soldiers in a US military transport plane.

All photos courtesy of Military.com, and your tax dollars.

Anniversary: Obama's Invasion of Congo on Inauguration Day

2011-01-20T18:24:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, on January 20, 2009, Barack Obama, the U.S.A.'s first African American president, invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo, the heart of Africa, on his Inauguration Day.

Most Americans, including those who campaigned hardest for Obama, would have a hard time making sense of this, or of the military forces involved. Most would not recognize the acronyms of the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF), the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), the Ugandan People's Defense Force (UPDF), or the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

So, what sense does it make, to say that Barack Obama invaded Congo, the heart of Africa, on his Inauguration Day? It makes sense because:

1) On his Inauguration Day, Obama became the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

2) The Rwandan and Ugandan armies serve as the U.S. military's proxies in Africa.

The only media outlet willing and able to produce something akin to a news report about this was the Assassinated Press, in "Obama Invades the Congo on Inauguration Day."

I had been a guest on the KPFA Radio Morning Show the day before Obama's Inauguration, where I had tried to explain that Reverend Rick Warren, a world class homophobe, and Obama's controversial pick to say his inaugural invocation, was not a benevolent presence in Africa, as reported by Team Obama in their attempts at damage control. I later turned what I'd tried to explain into a video, "Imperial Evangelism."

But, I was so staggered by what happened the next day, during the Obama Inauguration, that I was unable to write about it for over a year and a half, not until October 1, 2010, when I wrote "Obama’s Congo moment: genocide, the U.N. report and Senate Bill 2125," an essay published first in the SF Bay View, then Global Research, the Black Star News, and The Newsline EA (East Africa).

Ugandan American Black Star News Editor Milton Allimadi, gave that report a more straightforward title: "Congo Genocide: Obama Knows the Real Story."

Obama Inauguration on screen, Times Square,
New York City, January 20, 2009.
Photo: Jeremy Gordon, Flckr

Today, two years after Obama's Inauguration Day, many of Obama's near fanatical 2008 supporters have turned away, calling him a disaster and searching for another candidate to step up and challenge him in the 2011 primary. But, what more can we expect from presidential elections that now cost well over half a billion dollars? The London Guardian reported, on October 23, that the Obama and McCain campaign costs were approaching $1 billion.

Though I myself felt psychologically battered by Obama fanatics by the end of the 2008 election, I can now hardly imagine a bigger waste of time than trying to knock Obama out of the Democratic primary in 2011.

Instead I would urge all those who campaigned for Obama, then turned away in disgust, to take some responsibility by reading Senate Bill 2125, the only Senate Bill that will ever bear Barack Obama's name alone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006. I explained why in my essay, "Obama’s Congo moment: Genocide, the U.N. report and Senate Bill 2125."

Obama did not have to invade Congo, the heart of Africa, on his Inauguration Day. He does not have to continue, now, to ignore the UN Mapping Report, released October 1st, which documents our proxy armies' war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal civilian massacres in Congo. Obama knows the truth about Congo; he knows that, as he wrote in his 2006 legislation, "the real and perceived presence of armed groups hostile to the Governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi continue to serve as a major source of regional instability and an apparent pretext for continued interference in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by its neighbors [Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi]."

But, the full force of the national security state now surrounding Obama could not be more invested in Congo, the most lethal conflict since World War II, which might well be understood as the back end of "the war."

Big bombs drop out of jet fighter bombers and U.S. soldier die in the front end of the war in Afghanistan, and U.S. soldiers continue to die in Iraq, but in Congo, where our African proxies serve U.S. security state interests, rape and HIV seem to be the most lethal weapons.

Southern Africa's resources, and most of all Congo's, are essential to our military industries' ability to manufacture for war. The war in Congo is, as I wrote, on March 11, 2009, in the San Francisco Bay View, war for the sake of war itself.

African and Peace and Justice Activists Worldwide Must Defend a Free Internet

2011-01-20T09:58:00.000-08:00

I really can't say how important this is to peace and social justice activists. There is no way I could have built the network I've built or joined the community of Africa peace and social justice activists I've joined without the Internet. Some of the only hopeful news I could remember last year was the report of a new Internet infrastructure going up the West Coast of Africa and Europe. Get more info and join the mailing list at internetyouneed.

KPFA/Afrobeat News: Southern Sudan votes, but not oil rich Abyei

2011-01-15T19:53:00.000-08:00

Sudan's oil rich Abyei Territory did not vote
with the rest of Southern Sudan this week because
North and South could not agree on who would

be allowed to vote.

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KPFA Weekend News Host Rose Ketabchi:

The Southern Sudanese people finished voting in their referendum on independence today. A new African nation, Southern Sudan is expected to emerge as a result. However, the people of Sudan's hotly contested, oil rich region of Abyei did not vote with the rest of the South this week. KPFA's Ann Garrison reports.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:
Fighting began in the Abyei Territory, on the border of what are expected to become North and South Sudan, before the rest of the Southern Sudanese people began voting on independence last Sunday. Seventy-six people were reported dead as the fighting continued this week. Before the South began voting, Omar al-Bashir told Aljazeera that he would not accept Abyei's independence from the North:

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir:

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir

We will not accept Abyei to be part of the South. If any party takes any independent action over Abyei that would be the beginning of a conflict. That's why we say that the status quo in Abyei remains unchanged, with the same administration and components, until we reach a solution.

KPFA:
The Abyei Territory is an area of 4,038 square miles accorded special administrative status by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the Second Sudanese Civil War in 2005. It is not only oil rich but also very fertile agricultural land. The Dinka Ngoc farming people, who are aligned with the South, are Abyei's majority inhabitants, but the nomadic Misseriya herdsmen, aligned with the North, have grazing rights and Abyei is considered a historical bridge between North and South Sudan.

Mugume Rwakaringi, the Managing Editor of Nile Fortune, is the author of the magazine's November-December cover story "Why Abyei Oil Will Make or Break South Sudan Independence?" "On the map of Sudan itself, Abyei is a mere spot in the middle of the country," he wrote, "but because of its oil reserves, its importance is far beyond its size. Abyei is Sudan’s main oil producing region and by 2003, was responsible for over one-third of Sudan’s crude oil production.

Rwakaringi spoke to KPFA and AfrobeatRadio from Juba, the capitol of Southern Sudan:

Mugume Rwakaringi, Managing Editor of Nile Fortune,
based in Juba, South Sudan

Mugume Rwakaringi:

Concerning the reaction of the Sudanese people, if the Abyei people are not allowed to vote: If the Abyei issue is not resolved, then you would expect no stability in this region. That's why the Abyei is of concern for every Sudanese. They all want the Abyei crisis resolved. That's when they would be assured of stability in their country, be it the North or the South.

KPFA:
In NBC Dateline's December 3rd "Winds of War" report, NBC host Ann Curry asked UN Ambassador Susan Rice whether she will consider intervention by a multilateral military force if war breaks out again. Rice responded that she would not rule out anything.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, this is Ann Garrison.

(KPFA audio link: http://goo.gl/Q84jG.)

Bono Bashers, Clooney Patrols, and the International Humanitarian Snark Brigade

2011-01-12T00:49:00.000-08:00

Three cheers for Bono bashers, Clooney patrols, and the "international humanitarian blogosphere's snark brigade" cited by Joshua Keating, in his Foreign Policy essay, "Is George Clooney helping?" Without the brigade, the West would hear of nothing but the White Man's Burden as the Southern Sudanese people vote in their referendum on independence this week.

And what's George Clooney really concerned about in Sudan? Let's start with China, whom the U.S. is competing with, ever more fiercely, for Africa's resources, including Sudan's oil. Note the Telegraph, April 2008, "What George Clooney told Gordon Brown about China and Darfur":

"The shared cause that brought Clooney to No 10 after a tough night's partying is Darfur.

^{Although Olympic protests focus on Tibet, demonstrators also decry China's policies in Sudan. Anger against the 'Genocide Olympics' first crystallised when Steven Spielberg withdrew as artistic adviser to the Games after Beijing had refused to put pressure on President Omar al-Bashir to end the killing.}"

Of course Clooney, like Stephen Spielberg, and their pal John Prendergast, is also bothered by big bad Arabs, most of all by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who's been indicted by the ICC, the International Criminal Court, for war crimes in Darfur. Never mind that the U.S.A. and Israel, like China, Russia, and India, all refuse to sign and ratify the treaty that created the International Criminal Court, the Rome Statute, because signing might make both their leaders, maybe even heads of state, subject to the court's jurisdiction as well. As long as they don't sign and ratify, they're not, unless of course the UN Security Council refers their cases to the court, as they did that of Omar al-Bashir, since Sudan hasn't signed or ratified the Rome Statute either.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Clooney. Thy name is Bono; thy name is Prendergast; thy name is Kerry---John Kerry, the Senator from Massachusetts, one of the global oligarchy's top elected managers, also in Sudan for the referendum.

Hypocrisy thy name is UN Security Council. Three of your members, the U.S., China, and Russia, have not signed and ratified the Rome Statute and thus have not agreed to the jurisdiction of the ICC that you referred Omar al-Bashir's crimes to----although that doesn't stop George Clooney from invoking the moral authority of the Security Council in NBC Dateline's "Winds of War," at Stanford University, and wherever else he appears on behalf of the stop-genocide industrial complex.

ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH!!! ENOUGH of the ENOUGH Project, a mightily endowed "advocacy organization" lodged deep in the bowels of the Democratic Party, the Clintonista Center for American Progress, in D.C.

ENOUGH exists to make the national security state look like it's responding to constituents and activists, when it's really just responding to itself. ENOUGH's founder, John Prendergast, was the Director of African Affairs on Bill Clinton's National Security Council and Special Advisor to his Under-Secretary of State for African Affairs, Susan Rice, who is now Barack Obama's Ambassador to the UN.

That's the Susan Rice who is still best known to many for asking, during an interagency conference call on Rwanda, in 1994, “'If we use the word ‘genocide, and are seen as doing nothing, what will the effect on the November [congressional] election be?”

More recently, when asked by NBC Dateline if she would rule out a multilateral military force in response to renewed fighting in Sudan, UN Ambassador Susan Rice responded, "I'm not going to rule out anything."

I could hardly disagree more with Joshua Keating's description, of George Clooney's presence in Sudan as benign: "But for now at least, it's hard to see how Clooney's presence as a cheerleader is really hurting."

I quoted Clooney's remarks to NBC and explained further, in my January 8th WBAI AfrobeatRadio Special on the Southern Sudanese Referendum.

But, I do thank Keating for naming the "international humanitarian blogosphere's snark brigade," which I'm proud to march in, and for sharing the rest of the brigade's efforts, those of Laurenist, TexasinAfrica, and Wronging Rights, in this widely published Foreign Policy essay:

Partner content from:

Foreign Policy: Is George Clooney helping Sudan?

by JOSHUA KEATING

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

American actor George Clooney attends voting ceremonies during the first day of voting for the independence referendum in the southern Sudanese city of Juba. Clooney is in Sudan to advocate against genocide and to promote the satellite project that shows what's happening along the north-south border.

text size A A A

January 11, 2011

Joshua Keating is an associate editor atForeign Policy.

George Clooney's "anti-genocide paparazzi"seems to be dominating nearly every transmission coming out of south Sudan this week. Clooney, along with the Enough Project, Harvard researchers, and some of his wealthier Hollywood friends, have hired satellites to monitor troop movements along the north-south border, particularly the oil-rich region of Abyei. Clooney, active for years in the Save Darfur movement, has also become something of a celebrity spokesperson for the independence referendum. Naturally, the international humanitarian blogosphere's snark brigade is out in force.

Laurenist: "If you're anything like George Clooney, you lounge around on your yacht off the coast of Italy thinking up ways to save Africa."

Texas in Africa: "While John Prendergast, George Clooney, and other advocates who don't speak a word of Arabic have been raising fears about violence for months … the likelihood that a genocide or war will break out immediately seems to me to be slim to none."

Wronging Rights: "Clooney has described it as 'the best use of his celebrity.' Kinda just seems like he's trying to recruit a mercenary for Ocean's Fourteen."

Troubling as this morning's border violence is, there seems to be good reason for skepticism about the satellite project. The imagery the satellites provide isn't all that clear, showing about 8 square miles per computer-screen pixel, making it difficult to figure out just what's going on on the ground. That level of imprecision can be dangerous when trying to assign guilt or innocence in crimes against humanity. There's also the question of how much of a deterrent this type of monitoring really is.

Laurenist again:

In 2007, Amnesty International and the American Association for the Advancement of Science launched "Eyes on Darfur," a satellite project that monitored developments on the ground in Darfur. As you'll recall, mere months later, Darfur was saved after millions of people updated their Facebook statuses with a link to blurry photos of sand.

But what about Clooney's presence itself? The actor's use of the paparazzi and basketball as analogies for horrific human rights violations might be grating to those who study these issues seriously, but isn't it worthwhile to bring attention to an often overlooked conflict? Here's UN Dispatch's Mark Leon Goldberg:

I know some people (cough, cough, Bill Easterly, cough, cough) have hangups about celebrity activism. But does anyone really think that Sudan's upcoming referendum would be covered on a National Sunday morning broadcast without George Clooney's handsome face to greet viewers?

(Interestingly, Bono-basher-in-chief William Easterly doesn't appear to have weighed in yet.)

Clooney has his own words for the haters:

"I'm sick of it," he said. "If your cynicism means you stand on the sidelines and throw stones, I'm fine, I can take it. I could give a damn what you think. We're trying to save some lives. If you're cynical enough not to understand that, then get off your ass and do something. If you're angry at me, go do it yourself. Find another cause — I don't care. We're working, and we're going forward."

This kind of "at least I'm doing something" rhetoric drives development scholars absolutely bonkers and for good reason. But for now at least, it's hard to see how Clooney's presence as a cheerleader is really hurting. Once the referendum is over however, I hope he heads back to Lake Como. In international negotiations, a certain degree of obscurity can often be just as helpful as the media spotlight. Making a new country is a messy business anywhere, and in Southern Sudan, it's going to involve some very ugly compromises. (I wonder, for instance, what Clooney thinks about the Southern Sudanese government expelling Darfuri rebels in what seemed to be a conciliatory gesture to Khartoum.)

In the difficult weeks and months ahead, Southern Sudan will certainly need international help, but it should come from people with a slightly more extensive background in the situation. Most of all, it's probably not helpful for celebrities and the media to promote a narrative of the Juba government as the "good Sudan." Even in the best-case scenario, it's bound to be shattered pretty quickly.

In any event, the Southern Sudanese themselves seem pretty nonplussed about Danny Ocean's presence in their midst:

"Who is that man talking?" a Sudanese journalist asked, gesturing to a white man with a group of reporters around him. When told it was George Clooney, a movie star, the Sudanese journalist looked confused and walked away.

AfrobeatRadio Special on the Southern Sudanese Referendum on Independence

2011-01-08T17:45:00.000-08:00

Rev. Dr. Nikita Imani, Associate
Professor of Sociology at James
Madison University and ordained
minister in both the Baptist and
African Orthodox Churches spoke to
Afrobeat Radio about the Southern
Sudanese Referendum.

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Are peace and self-determination possible for the Sudanese people, despite troops amassing in both north and the south, and vast oil wealth, concentrated in the South and coveted by competitive foreign powers? Ann Garrison reports on Sudan Referendum January Sat 8, on WBAI 99.5 FM NY, streaming live @ WBAI.Org at 4:00 PM EST. Guests: Mugume D. Rwakaringi, Rev. Dr. Nikita Imani, Peter Erlinder, Milton Allimadi.

Audio link: http://www.anngarrison.com/images/mp3s/afrobeatequalized.mp3.

Voting began in Southern Sudan on their referendum on independence began on January 9, 2011.