Tanzania is demanding almost $206 million in taxes from Russian state uranium company ARMZ, which has won a license to build the East African country's first uranium mine, the energy minister said on Thursday.
Atomredmetzoloto, or ARMZ is the mining arm of Rosatom, which also builds nuclear reactors.
Tanzania's tax claim relates to the Mkuju River project in southern Tanzania, which is operated by Toronto-listed Uranium One but owned by ARMZ, the Canadian uranium producer's majority shareholder.
"The Mkuju project … was sold in December 2010 to ARMZ of Russia after acquiring shares from the parent company, Mantra Resources of Australia," Energy and Minerals Minister Sospeter Muhongo said in a newspaper advertisement of his ministry's 2013/14 budget proposals, which were discussed in parliament on Wednesday.
"Following this deal … the Tanzania Revenue Authority is claiming $205.80 million, of which $196 million was supposed to have been paid as capital gains tax and $9.8 million as stamp duty."
Muhongo said the company had disputed the tax claim and the matter was now awaiting a court ruling.
Friday, May 31, 2013
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Friday, May 24, 2013
Tanzania Makes $206 Million Atomic Tax Claim
Tanzania Makes $206 Million Atomic Tax Claim
24 May 2013 | Issue 5133
Reuters
Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/tanzania-makes-206m-atomic-tax-claim/480436.html#ixzz2UJbEcDBZ
The Moscow Times
Putin Says Amnesty Plan for Businessmen Needs Refining
Putin Says Amnesty Plan for Businessmen Needs Refining
24 May 2013 | Issue 5133
Sergei Porter / Vedomosti
Titov, seen here in 2011, says economic crimes do not deserve jail terms.President Vladimir Putin, who was expected during a meeting with more than a hundred entrepreneurs on Thursday to give a nod to the State Duma to draft an amnesty act freeing thousands of imprisoned business people, said the concept needed more work, Russian television reported Thursday.
Putin said at the meeting in Voronezh — an industrial city south of Moscow — that Titov's proposal was still "rough," and should be discussed with the General Prosecutor's office and experts, "then conclusions should be made and a well-balanced decision reached."
Business ombudsman Boris Titov, who presented his proposal during the meeting, said in televised remarks that businesspeople can barely function in Russia because of "the number of obstacles that are put in their way."
Titov, a liberal-leaning former politician who has advocated such an amnesty for a long time, said earlier that 13,000 people could be freed by such a move.
The amnesty might also cover 100,000 more who received suspended sentences or huge fines or have spent lengthy terms in pretrial detention, having been accused of various economic crimes.
In many cases, investigators insist on keeping them locked up prior to trial as a form of pressure, despite legal safeguards that proscribe this, experts said.
Titov recently highlighted one of the most appalling cases in which businessman Iosif Katsyv, who was arrested in 2008, has spent five years in the pretrial detention.
The Rostov-on-Don businessman is suspected of defrauding Raffeisen Bank of about 1.3 billion rubles ($42 million) through a scheme involving illegal loans and money laundering. Katsyv denies the charges but is still in detention awaiting a trial after a local judge prolonged his arrest.
Putin meets Titov at the Kremlin in March. (kremlin.ru)Like the majority of business people who have run afoul of the law and are on trial or serving their sentence in prison colony, Katsyv is accused under article 159 article of the Russian criminal code, which refers to "swindling."
"This article is easy for investigators to work with, since many of its passages are rather murky," trial lawyer Eduard Sukharev said.
Titov has said that economic crimes should be punished by fines, not a jail term.
Yana Yakovleva, head of Business Solidarnost, a group that helps wrongly accused entrepreneurs, said a majority of cases under article 159 were "fabricated" by rivals in order to steal business.
She said, however, that an amnesty should have "clear definitions" for law enforcement officials to act upon. "It should really define who are entrepreneurs and who are not, otherwise the whole system will be left in chaos," said Yakovleva, who herself spent several months in pretrial detention, having been suspected of selling chemical products containing narcotic elements without a license. She was fully acquitted in 2008.
Liberal-leaning United Russia party deputy Viktor Zubarev said he supports full-scale amnesty for businessmen. "Even if some criminals will also get off, it would be a small percentage. I don't buy the idea of arresting the whole crowd to catch two spies," he said.
Law enforcement officials started to use article 159 against businessmen more extensively after other laws punishing economic crimes were softened during Dmitry Medvedev's presidency in 2010.
One such amendment said those who are accused in economic crimes should not be put in detention prior to a court hearing. The changes led to a 20 percent decrease of suspects being placed in pretrial detention, according to figures released by Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov in 2010.
The same amendments helped to cut the jail sentence of Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev from 13 to 11 years.
Experts said it was unclear if the amnesty would cover Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. Both are set to be freed by summer 2014.
Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/putin-says-amnesty-plan-for-businessmen-needs-refining/480448.html#ixzz2UJc04Yjr
The Moscow Times
Sh51.8m #gold shipment vanishes mysteriously from airport
Good People !!
Is Swiss Bank helping their customers to evade taxes
???
If so, is it legal for those holding public offices to deal in
Swiss Banking??? Could there be conflict of interests in
such situations ?? Is it an acceptable norm in the Global Market Place
where International public interests is traded?
Have your say........as, Investigative
would suffice.........
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
--- On Thu, 5/23/13, Lee Makwiny
From: Lee Makwiny
Subject: [PK] Sh51.8m #gold shipment vanishes mysteriously from airport
To: "progressive-kenyans"
Date: Thursday, May 23, 2013, 7:34 AM
Subject: [PK] Sh51.8m #gold shipment vanishes mysteriously from airport
To: "progressive-kenyans"
Date: Thursday, May 23, 2013, 7:34 AM
He he he he.
We know who went to Congo recently. Also, Mohamed Ali tweeted that someone was seen "trying to check' status of his account in the swiss.
Watch this space.
##############
$625,000 Worth Gold Shipment Got Lost At Miami
Airport
Published on May 17, 2013
A shipment of gold valued at $625,000
vanished in a suspected heist after arriving in Miami on an American Airlines
flight, authorities announced Thursday.
A police report says the gold, which arrived in a box, was brought on the flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to the Miami International Airport early Tuesday, WSVN reports.
The plane's cargo was unloaded by five crew members, but the box containing the gold disappeared after apparently being loaded onto a motorized luggage cart or tug, the report said.
The cart was found in front of a gate of the same terminal were the flight from Ecuador was unloaded, about an hour after workers emptied the cargo hold, but without the box containing the gold.
The police incident report did not say who owned the gold or what its final destination was and an American Airlines security official at the airport declined to comment to Reuters on the case, saying only that it was being investigated by the FBI.
"The FBI is aware of the situation," FBI spokesman Michael Leverock told Reuters in an email.
Miami International serves as a major trans-shipment point for large quantities of gold produced in South America and exported primarily to Switzerland for refining.
The city has seen the trans-shipment of gold rise sharply in recent years as investors have turned to gold and its price has risen.
Gold is Miami's No. 1 import valued at almost $8 billion last year, mostly from Mexico and Colombia, and almost all destined for Switzerland, according to World City, a Miami-based publication that tracks trade data.
A police report says the gold, which arrived in a box, was brought on the flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to the Miami International Airport early Tuesday, WSVN reports.
The plane's cargo was unloaded by five crew members, but the box containing the gold disappeared after apparently being loaded onto a motorized luggage cart or tug, the report said.
The cart was found in front of a gate of the same terminal were the flight from Ecuador was unloaded, about an hour after workers emptied the cargo hold, but without the box containing the gold.
The police incident report did not say who owned the gold or what its final destination was and an American Airlines security official at the airport declined to comment to Reuters on the case, saying only that it was being investigated by the FBI.
"The FBI is aware of the situation," FBI spokesman Michael Leverock told Reuters in an email.
Miami International serves as a major trans-shipment point for large quantities of gold produced in South America and exported primarily to Switzerland for refining.
The city has seen the trans-shipment of gold rise sharply in recent years as investors have turned to gold and its price has risen.
Gold is Miami's No. 1 import valued at almost $8 billion last year, mostly from Mexico and Colombia, and almost all destined for Switzerland, according to World City, a Miami-based publication that tracks trade data.
Interview: Ndemo defends Ruto's use of a private
jet
Published on May 19, 2013
Find the latest news at http://www.ntv.co.ke
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Information permanent secretary Dr Bitange Ndemo has denied reports that the government had acquired a luxury jet for Deputy President William Ruto and whose payment across the year would cost about Sh100 million. Ndemo terming the reports as false and malicious, denied there was a one year contract with Vista Jet Company, the supplier of the jet saying that the flight was hired on a one off basis at a cost of Sh18. 5 million. Ndemo spoke to NTV's Larry Madowo on the matter,
Follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ntvkenya
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Information permanent secretary Dr Bitange Ndemo has denied reports that the government had acquired a luxury jet for Deputy President William Ruto and whose payment across the year would cost about Sh100 million. Ndemo terming the reports as false and malicious, denied there was a one year contract with Vista Jet Company, the supplier of the jet saying that the flight was hired on a one off basis at a cost of Sh18. 5 million. Ndemo spoke to NTV's Larry Madowo on the matter,
The 'hustler's' jet: Govt. says hiring of
Ruto's jet cost Sh18.5 million
Published on May 19, 2013
Find the latest news at http://www.ntv.co.ke
Follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ntvkenya
Like us on FaceBook http://www.facebook.com/ntvkenya
Information permanent secretary Dr Bitange Ndemo has denied reports that the government had acquired a luxury jet for Deputy President William Ruto and whose payment across the year would cost about Sh100 million. Ndemo terming the reports as false and malicious, denied there was a one year contract with Vista Jet Company, the supplier of the jet saying that the flight was hired on a one off basis at a cost of Sh18. 5 million. And as NTV's Sheila Sendeyo reports, Ndemo defended the move to charter a flight for the deputy president who is on a tour across Africa, saying that it was more cost effective than using a commercial flight.
Follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ntvkenya
Like us on FaceBook http://www.facebook.com/ntvkenya
Information permanent secretary Dr Bitange Ndemo has denied reports that the government had acquired a luxury jet for Deputy President William Ruto and whose payment across the year would cost about Sh100 million. Ndemo terming the reports as false and malicious, denied there was a one year contract with Vista Jet Company, the supplier of the jet saying that the flight was hired on a one off basis at a cost of Sh18. 5 million. And as NTV's Sheila Sendeyo reports, Ndemo defended the move to charter a flight for the deputy president who is on a tour across Africa, saying that it was more cost effective than using a commercial flight.
The hustler's jet: Fresh revelations on Ruto's luxury
jet
Published on May 20, 2013
Find the latest news at http://www.ntv.co.ke
Follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ntvkenya
Like us on FaceBook http://www.facebook.com/ntvkenya
NTV has obtained documents that confirm more than 25 million shillings was paid out to Vista jet the company that provided luxury jet service to Deputy president William Ruto and his entourage of 15 in the just concluded 4 countries tour. The government through the CInformation Permanent Secretary Dr. Bitange Ndemo denied spending such an amount instead accusing the Nation Newspaper of distorting facts. NTV's Ken Mijungu reports on a round trip that redefines the term hustler a popular slang word that means a struggling person.
Follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ntvkenya
Like us on FaceBook http://www.facebook.com/ntvkenya
NTV has obtained documents that confirm more than 25 million shillings was paid out to Vista jet the company that provided luxury jet service to Deputy president William Ruto and his entourage of 15 in the just concluded 4 countries tour. The government through the CInformation Permanent Secretary Dr. Bitange Ndemo denied spending such an amount instead accusing the Nation Newspaper of distorting facts. NTV's Ken Mijungu reports on a round trip that redefines the term hustler a popular slang word that means a struggling person.
Gold Shipment Vanishes in Mysterious Miami Airport Heist
Email
May 16, 2013 7:05pm
JAMES GORDON MEEK reports:
WASHINGTON – A $625,000 gold shipment vanished early Tuesday in a brazen
heist at Miami International Airport after it arrived aboard a jet from Ecuador,
police said.
As the FBI confirmed it was leading the hunt for the crooks, the pool of
suspects narrowed to the few who had authorized access to the bulk cargo area,
federal and police officials with knowledge of the case told ABC News on
Thursday.
The gold was spread among six boxes unloaded from American Airlines Flight
902, which arrived at 4:42 a.m. Tuesday morning from Guayaquil, Ecuador,
according to a Miami-Dade Police Department incident report.
Video surveillance tapes showed the boxes being unloaded from the plane
onto a cart, which was then moved to the opposite side of the airliner at 5:15
a.m., where a small vehicle called a “tug” towed it away.
Police reported that despite the video, it was “unknown who drove the
property around to the other side of the plane and left the property there,”
where the tug then drove the cart off-camera.
The cart was found an hour later — empty.
Those allowed into the restricted bulk cargo area in the airport’s
international arrivals section include cargo handlers and U.S. Customs and
Border Protection officers, but not federal Transportation Security
Administration officers, a senior U.S. official said.
“It was an inbound international flight so there was no TSA interaction at
all,” the senior U.S. official said. “CBP and ramp workers would be the only
ones that have contact.”
Five “subjects” who worked in the bulk cargo area that morning were
interviewed by investigators, but their names were blacked out in the Miami-Dade
Police Department’s incident report at the request of the FBI, a police official
said.
The CBP is the Department of Homeland Security agency responsible for
checking inbound cargo arriving from overseas.
CBP spokesmen told ABC News earlier today they were not aware of the
incident and referred all inquiries to the FBI.
Gold Shipment Vanishes in Mysterious Miami
Airport Heist
Updated Thursday, May 23rd 2013 at
14:09 GMT +3
A $625,000 (Sh51.8 million) gold shipment vanished early Tuesday in a
brazen heist at Miami International Airport after it arrived
aboard a jet from Ecuador, police said.
As the FBI confirmed it was leading the hunt for the
crooks, the pool of suspects narrowed to the few who had authorized access to
the bulk cargo area, federal and police officials with knowledge of the case
told ABC News on Thursday.
The gold was spread among six boxes unloaded from American Airlines Flight
902, which arrived at 4:42 a.m. Tuesday morning from Guayaquil, Ecuador,
according to a Miami-Dade Police Department incident
report.
Video surveillance tapes showed the boxes being unloaded from the plane
onto a cart, which was then moved to the opposite side of the airliner at 5:15
a.m., where a small vehicle called a “tug†towed it away.
Police reported that despite the video, it was “unknown who drove the
property around to the other side of the plane and left the property there,â€
where the tug then drove the cart off-camera.
The cart was found an hour later — empty.
Those allowed into the restricted bulk cargo area in the airport’s international arrivals section
include cargo handlers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, but not
federal Transportation Security Administration officers, a senior U.S. official
said.
“It was an inbound international flight so there was no TSA interaction
at all,†the senior U.S. official said. “CBP and ramp workers would be the
only ones that have contact.â€
Five “subjects†who worked in the bulk cargo area that morning were
interviewed by investigators, but their names were blacked out in the Miami-Dade Police Department’s incident report
at the request of the FBI, a police official said.
The CBP is the Department of Homeland Security agency responsible for
checking inbound cargo arriving from overseas.
CBP spokesmen told ABC News earlier today they were not aware of the
incident and referred all inquiries to the FBI.
-Adapted from ABC News
Gold shipment valued at $625,000 vanishes from Miami airport
Published
May 17, 2013
FoxNews.com
-
American Airlines planes taxi past a terminal at Miami International airport in Miami, Florida. (Reuters)
A shipment of gold valued at $625,000 vanished in a suspected heist after
arriving in Miami on an American Airlines flight, authorities announced
Thursday.
A police report says the gold, which arrived in a box, was brought on the
flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to the Miami International Airport early Tuesday,
WSVN reports.
The plane's cargo was unloaded by five crew members, but the box containing
the gold disappeared after apparently being loaded onto a motorized luggage cart
or tug, the report said.
The cart was found in front of a gate of the same terminal were the flight
from Ecuador was unloaded, about an hour after workers emptied the cargo hold,
but without the box containing the gold.
The police incident report did not say who owned the gold or what its final
destination was and an American Airlines security official at the
airport declined to comment to Reuters on the case, saying only that it was
being investigated by the FBI.
"The FBI is aware of the situation," FBI spokesman Michael Leverock told
Reuters in an email.
Miami International serves as a major trans-shipment point for large
quantities of gold produced in South America and exported primarily to
Switzerland for refining.
The city has seen the trans-shipment of gold rise sharply in recent years
as investors have turned to gold and its price has risen.
Gold is Miami's No. 1 import valued at almost $8 billion last year, mostly
from Mexico and Colombia, and
almost all destined for Switzerland, according to World City, a Miami-based
publication that tracks trade data.
Deputy President WILLIAM RUTO to tour African countries using PRIVATE JET – ICC Shuttle diplomacy
Deputy President William Ruto will from today
start an extensive tour around Africa, seeking support to defer the
International Criminal Court (ICC) cases facing him.
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/11/2012 10:52 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/jailed-ubs-employee-gets-104-million-irs-exposing-swiss-bank-account-holders
Ruto, who returned from The Hague on Tuesday
morning, will leave today on a private jet for Democratic Republic of Congo,
Congo Brazaville, Gabon, Nigeria and Algeria.
According to a source close to Ruto, he will
also be discussing trade talks with the respective Governments to make Kenya a
leading economic hub in Africa.
“Apart from discussing Government business, he
will also raise the ICC issue,” said one of Ruto handlers.
Kenya has already held discussions with all
East African leaders and secured promises of support for changes to the ICC
system.
Ruto now wants to tour West Africa and Central
Africa so that he can convince them to support changes to the ICC system.
In 2011, the then Vice President Kalonzo
Musyoka travelled extensively around the world seeking support to defer the ICC
cases. In the end, the Security Council declined to support any deferral.
Ruto together with President Uhuru Kenyatta and
radio presenter Joshua Sang have been indicted by the ICC court in connection
with 2007-08 Post Election Violence and their trials begins later this
year.
ICC mole MAKAU MUTUA REVEALS that cracks are emerging between UHURU and RUTO over ICC
Civil rights activist and International Criminal Court (ICC) mole Prof
Makau Mutua has sensationally stated that there are emerging differences between
President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto, over the ICC letter which
was written to the United Nations Security Council.
On his twitter account on Friday, Makau who is a Law Professor at Buffalo
Law School in US said there is a very high likelihood that Ruto disowned the
letter because he was not consulted by President Uhuru when the letter was being
written.
Prof Makau Mutua#Either Kenya UN envoy Macharia Kamau is a rogue, or
there’s trouble between Uhuru and Ruto over ICC
Ruto’s office releases Sh18m jet invoices
Ruto’s tour took him to Brazaville,
Libreville and Abuja. Photo/ DPPS
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 20 – Deputy President William Ruto’s office has
released documents to support their assertion that a jet which took him on a
tour of four African nations was a one-off hire at a cost of Sh18.5 million and
not Sh100 million as reported.
The documents include an invoice from the charter company whose jet
the deputy president used on the trip.
The invoice from VistaJet shows the deputy president’s office was billed on
May 16, the departure date. It was for a round trip from
Nairobi-Brazzaville-Libreville-Abuja-Nairobi.
Ruto’s office says he went to Congo Brazzaville, Gabon and Nigeria. He was
to travel to Algeria but went to Ghana instead.
In addition to the invoice, the deputy president’s office also released two
quotations from ABM Aviation and LadyLori Kenya which submitted competing
charter bids.
The quotations which were also received on May 16 appear to corroborate the
government’s assertion that they would have cost the tax payer more – ABM quoted
about Sh19,375,698 and LadyLori Sh19,658,269.
The deputy president’s office adds that had a commercial flight been used
by Ruto and those who accompanied him, the bill would have come to Sh20,725,799
and the trip would have taken six instead of three days.
“A comparative quotation was provided by a local travel agent indicating
that the cost to the four African destinations using regular commercial flights
would be Sh20,725,799 (USD 247,767) and would take six days to complete,” a
statement from the deputy president’s office reads.
The statement continues to explain that given a choice between a private
jet and commercial flights, the jet not only scored higher on account of the
cost but security as well.
“The aircraft provided by E-ADC Vista Jet EA Company had comparatively
better security requirements and safety features therefore providing the best
value at the lowest cost for the trip.”
The deputy president’s office goes on to explain that, “the plane the
deputy president used did not have a bed. It did not have a meeting room. It did
not have a shower and it did not have a kitchen other than the cabin crew
facility to serve.”
Ruto office seeks to calm storm over trip
Deputy President William Ruto’s
chartered jet is marketed as one of the finest executive planes in its class.
In Summary
- Documents seen by the Nation show the Deputy President was accompanied on the trip to Gabon, Congo, Nigeria and Algeria by 14 people who included MPs Josephine Lesuuda, Alice Ng’ang’a and Yusuf Chanzu.
Deputy President William Ruto Monday battled to clear the air on the hiring
of a luxury jet said to cost taxpayers Sh25 million every three months.
A statement from Mr Ruto’s office said quotations were sought from three
chartered aircraft service providers.
The statement said E-ADC African Development Corporation, a local partner
of VistaJet East Africa, quoted Sh18,564,000 ($221,000) all inclusive, LadyLori
Kenya Ltd wanted Sh19,728,744 ($234,866) excluding VAT and fees while ABM
Aviation demanded Sh19,213,670 ($231,490) excluding VAT and fees.
“A comparative quotation by a local travel agent indicated that the cost of
the trip using commercial flights would be Sh21,060,270 ($247,767) and would
take six days,” the statement said. It said the organisers recommended that the
service be provided by the lowest bidder, E-ADC.
“The aircraft provided by the company had better security and safety
features, providing value at the lowest cost,” the statement added.
Mr Ruto’s office also clarified that the plane did not have a bed, a
meeting room, shower or a kitchen other than the cabin crew facility.
Documents seen by the Nation show the Deputy President was
accompanied on the trip to Gabon, Congo, Nigeria and Algeria by 14 people who
included MPs Josephine Lesuuda, Alice Ng’ang’a and Yusuf Chanzu.
Others were Marianne Lang’att, Richard Lemoshira, Nelson Adeya, Daniel
Onyancha, James Mungai, Winston Adeli, Daniel Mutai, Farauk Kibet, John Kemboi,
Nicholas Kilisio and Elijah Ronoh.
On Monday, Information PS Bitange Ndemo said the cost of hiring the jet was
Sh18.5 million. He said the plane was hired on a one-off basis and the cost was
less than the Sh19 million quoted by local firms.
Yesterday, an invoice from the Deputy President’s office indicated that the
plane was hired for $221,000 or Sh18.5 million.
However, the Nation has an invoice from VistaJet for $300,000 (Sh25
million). The invoice indicates that the payment was an instalment for the first
quarter of the year.
A statement from Africa Development Corporation also said the invoice sent
to the office of the Deputy President was for $221,000.
“We are not aware of any other invoice of a higher amount,” the statement
said. It denied having a $1.2 million contract with the office of the Deputy
President.
Kenya: Ruto Begins ICC Shuttle Diplomacy
By Nzau Musau, 16 May 2013
DEPUTY President William Ruto is about to start a round of shuttle
diplomacy over the ICC.
Ruto arrived back from the Hague yesterday morning but will leave today in
a private jet for Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Gabon,
Nigeria and Algeria.
"Apart from discussing government business he will also raise the ICC
issue," said a source familiar with the trip yesterday. Kenya has already held
discussions with all East African leaders and secured promises of support for
changes to the ICC system.
At President Kenyatta's inauguration at Kasarani on April 9, Ugandan
president Yoweri Museveni blasted the ICC for interfering with local politics
and congratulated Kenyans for electing Uhuru and Ruto.
In 2011 then Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka travelled extensively around
the world seeking support to defer the ICC cases. In the end, the Security
Council declined to support any deferral.
Last week both Ruto and Attorney General Githu Muigai disowned a letter
written on May 2 by Kenya's Ambassador to the United Nations, Macharia Kamau,
requesting the UN Security Council to terminate the cases against Uhuru and
Ruto.
On Monday, Macharia wrote another to the current chair of the UN Security
Council, Kodjo Menan, seeking audience with the members to explain his first
letter.
"I hereby request as soon as possible and at your earliest opportunity for
an informal interactive dialogues between myself and the members of the Security
Council to further elucidate the contents of my letter and to discuss the
situation in Kenya and the ICC," he said.
Last Thursday the Security Council had a preliminary discussion of
Macharia's first letter but reached no agreement. Morocco suggested that the
concerns of the Kenyan delegation should be heard at the Security Council and
then referred to the working group on international tribunals, if deemed
necessary.
Argentina proposed that Kenya writes a letter to the Security Council
asking for a meeting or an interactive dialogue. Guatemala suggested that
Kenya's request for termination should be referred to the informal working group
on international tribunals.
Yesterday Ruto's status conference concluded in the Hague as his lawyer
asked the ICC judges to defer the start of his case to November and to allow the
case to proceed without him being present.
However the Office of the Prosecutor insisted yesterday, and on Tuesday,
that it expected Ruto to be physically present in the courtroom throughout his
trial.
Under a barrage of questions from Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, prosecutor
Cynthia Tai said the OTP expects the judges to issue a warrant of arrest against
Deputy President William Ruto if he does not turn up for trial pleading his
official commitments.
Ruto is seeking to waive his right to be present at the trial citing his
new responsibilities as the deputy president of Kenya. His co-accused Joshua
Sang initially made a similar request but his lawyer Katwa Kigen yesterday beat
a retreat and said his client will now attend the trial.
Eboe-Osuji interrogated both the prosecution and defence over the legality
and practicality of the request. "The defence is saying their client is under
Article 66 (1) innocent until proven guilty. Is there any specific right that
you can cite in this statute that compels the accused to be present against this
right to be presumed innocent?" the judge asked.
Tai said the prosecution is simply following the Rome Statute "The
requirement is a consequence of the process. We are at penultimate stage after a
series of stages. And the current stage demands his presence," Tai argued.
"We don't believe that a trial can proceed without the accused being
present. If he absconds, arrest warrant should be issued and have them brought
before you, in which case the proceedings will have to stop," she said.
Eboe-Osuji also challenged Ruto's lawyer Karim Khan over Ruto's
responsibilities as Deputy President. He asked Khan whether Ruto was compelled
to run for the office of deputy President or whether he sought the office after
the ICC had started proceedings against him.
"The road in politics is a long one, if God grants it. My client was
engaged in politics long before the proceedings. His current position as deputy
president is part of the journey," Khan responded.
Article 27 of the Rome Statute says it shall apply to all persons without
any distinction based on official capacity. "It implies that what you are
seeking should not be granted on the basis of him being the deputy President,"
said Eboe-Osuji.
Khan replied that he is not seeking immunity for Ruto but only asking the
court to "tailor justice to the circumstances of the case".
The Office of the Public Counsel for Victims, Wilfred Nderitu, told the
judges that presence in court at trial is not a right but an obligation accepted
the world over.
"A criminal trial in the absence of the defendant is a concept that is
unknown especially in Kenya. It spells a death knell to the process of criminal
trial," Nderitu said, adding that the victims want the trial to start as soon as
possible.
Eboe-Osuji asked the prosecution why granting Ruto's request would have an
"extremely negative impact on how the court is perceived" yet there was no
negative impact at the pre-trial stage where they also did not need to be
present.
Prosecutor Tai insisted that the trial stage is different from the
pre-trial. She said it would set a precedent in future where every official on
trial will seek to be tried in absentia.
@@@@@@@@@@
Jailed UBS Employee Gets $104 Million From IRS For Exposing Swiss Bank Account Holders
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/jailed-ubs-employee-gets-104-million-irs-exposing-swiss-bank-account-holders
Just in case there wasn't enough excitement and fury directed at Swiss bank
account holders, which continue to dominate the presidential election "debate"
above such mundane topics as the economy, or, say, reality, here comes the IRS,
which as we noted yesterday collected $192 billion less than the government
spent in the month of August alone, and have awarded Bradely Birkenfeld, a former UBS employee who in 2008 pleaded
guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and was sentenced in 2009 to
40 months in prison, but received preferential whistleblower status after a
prior arrangement to expose numerous Americans with Swiss bank accounts, has
just been awarded $104 million.
From Reuters:
U.S. tax authorities have awarded $104 million to a whistleblower in a major tax fraud case against Swiss bank UBS AG that widened a government crackdown on Americans avoiding taxes in Switzerland, his lawyers said on Tuesday.Bradley Birkenfeld, freed last month from prison, was not present at the news conference where his attorneys announced the reward made under an Internal Revenue Service whistleblower program that has come in for some criticism in Congress.Birkenfeld had sought a large payout for his role in a tax-dodging case that resulted in early 2009 in UBS entering into a deferred prosecution agreement and paying $780 million in fines, penalties, interest and restitution.
Some more on the Birkenfeld pro- then anti-tax evasion odyssey:
Banking careerBirkenfeld began working at Credit Suisse in 1996, followed by Barclay's Bank in 1998.In October 2001, Birkenfeld began working at UBS in Geneva, Switzerland as a private banker. His principal job responsibility was to solicit wealthy Americans to invest in the bank and thus avoid paying U.S. taxes. Although UBS was not permitted to give investment advice in the U.S., the bank instructed Birkenfeld and other similar employees to lie about the purpose of their trips to the U.S. Birkenfeld advised American clients how to avoid IRS scrutiny, including placing cash and jewels in Swiss safe deposit boxes. One of Birkenfeld's wealthiest clients was a California real estate developer, Igor Olenicoff. In 2001 Olenicoff and Birkenfeld met in Geneva, the result of which was a transfer of $200 million to UBS accessible by credit cards supplied by Birkenfeld.Whistleblowing and arrestIn 2007, Birkenfeld decided to tell the DOJ what he knew about UBS's practices. At the same time, he wanted to take advantage of a new federal whistleblower law that could pay him up to 30% of any tax revenue recouped by the IRS as a result of Birkenfeld's information. Birkenfeld also wanted immunity from prosecution for his part in UBS's transactions. In April 2007, Birkenfeld's counsel sent the DOJ a summary of the Birkenfeld's information. The DOJ responded that it was not part of the IRS's whisteleblower program and that it would not grant Birkenfeld immunity. Nonetheless, Birkenfeld met with the DOJ. When communications between Birkenfeld and the DOJ stalled, Birkenfeld contacted the Securities and Exchange Commission, the IRS, and the U.S. Senate. In April 2008, Birkenfeld's lawyers told the DOJ that he would assist the DOJ in return for immunity. One or two months later, Birkenfeld was arrested. The DOJ's top tax lawyer said, "With regard to whistleblowers: those who seek to be treated as true whistleblowers need to know they must come in early and give complete and truthful disclosures.... Mr. Birkenfeld did not come in and give complete and truthful disclosures. Therefore, he is not entitled to whistleblower status."Birkenfeld's plea and sentencingOn June 19, 2008, Birkenfeld pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. On August 21, 2009, although the prosecution recommended 30 months, Birkenfeld was sentenced to 40 months in prison. He began serving his sentence on January 8, 2010. His projected release date is November 29, 2012.Birkenfield did not appeal the conviction. On April 15, 2010, his attorneys filed a Petition for Commutation of Sentence. As of July 7, 2012, Birkenfeld is still in prison in Pennsylvania
And now, he is $104 million richer.
Implication: Uncle Sam wants you, dear concerned citizen,
to expose all other such evil Swiss bank account holders (electoral campaign
implications here being painfully obvious). You will be richly rewarded. But
watch your back, dear concerned citizen, if you ever succeed in escaping into
the rarefied air of having 2 nickels to rub together, and decide to save them
not on US soil, for some inexplicable reason, but, say, Zurich
or Geneva.
Related News:
Is Swiss Bank
Legal................??????????
2012 Romney Releases Tax Returns, Had Tons of
Money in a Swiss Bank Account
Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 11:39 PM
It begins with 550 pages worth
of tax documents:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released tax records on Tuesday indicating he will pay $6.2 million in taxes on a total of $42.5 million in income over the years 2010 and 2011...he and his wife, Ann, paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010. They expect to pay a 15.4 percent rate when they file their returns for 2011...Romney's campaign officials stressed that his tax rate is based mostly on income from investments that are held in a blind trust. Romney's holdings include an undisclosed amount in funds based in the Grand Cayman Islands and other overseas entities.Romney advisers stressed that the holdings in the Caymans - along with those in a Swiss bank account that was closed in 2010 after an investment adviser decided it could be politically embarrassing to Romney - were reported on tax returns and were not vehicles to avoid taxes....The documents showed he and his wife contributed $7 million in charity over the two years, much of it going to his Mormon church.
So many questions. How many offshore tax havens has Mitt Romney dumped his
money into in his life? How much of Romney's Mormon church money went to the
fight against Prop 8? How much political pressure will it take for Romney to
release more returns? How much of his investments are devoted to job creation?
How much of it is tied up in European interests? According to the Washington Post, these
forms don't include Romney's net worth, the quarter-of-a-billion-dollars figure
that gets bandied about. Where is that money? Will we ever understand all the
nooks and crannies of Mitt Romney's tremendous fortune?
============================================
THE KENYATTA WEALTH – MIND BOGGLING, an article published in “Expression
Today” (http://www.kenyanews.com/), prior to the 2002 general
election
The land owned by the Kenyatta family includes Taita Taveta farm (74,000
acres), Kahawa Sukari farm (29,000 acres), Gatundu farm, Thika farm, Brookside
farm, Muthaita farm, Green Lee Estate, Njagu farm in Juja, Kasarani farm (9,000
acres), Nakuru farm in Rongai near Moi’s home, a quarry in Dandora, Naivasha
Ranch and several farms in Nairobi. Government sources say that KPLC is
currently under pressure to buy the family’s Karen farm at Ksh. 350 million to
add to Uhuru’s campaign kitty. The combined acreage of all the land owned by the
Kenyatta family is equal to Nyanza province, sources at the Lands Ministry
say.
==============================================
The prospect of Uhuru Kenyatta succeeding Daniel arap Moi as president of
Kenya remains unbearable for many. But despite widespread disbelief and fury,
President Moi has pressed on with Project Uhuru in characteristic zeal and
defiance of public opinion. The raw determination by Moi and his minders to see
the younger Kenyatta occupy State House has ignited emotive questions about the
real intentions of the cartel behind the project. Public scepticism is based on
Mr Kenyatta’s rather obscure past and brief CV in public service.
The legacy of his late father, as well as the suspect motive of his
proposers have combined to work against Uhuru’s bid for the presidency. Because
he is unknown, it has been difficult for his critics to fight him politically
without appearing to be fighting President Moi, although it is for the same
reason that they have dismissed him off-hand. The failings of his father, Jomo
Kenyatta, and the phenomenon of anti Kikuyuism that his regime fomented, have
blossomed once again into a thick cloud of ethnicity that envelopes the country
on the eve of Moi’s exit. Uhuru’s forced candidacy is likely to hurt more than
heal the fragile nation that Moi will bequeath to his successor. Analysts
wracking their brains to understand Moi see an ulterior motive in his choice of
Uhuru as successor over, for example, George Saitoti, Raila Odinga, Katana
Ngala, Musalia Mudavadi or Kalonzo Musyoka.
When he attended the Queen of England’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in June
this year (i.e. June 2002), it was not immediately apparent to keen observers
that he could have received a direct personal invitation from the royal family.
It was assumed that he was merely representing President Moi. But it has emerged
from high-placed sources that, in fact, Uhuru could have been invited directly
by the British royalty in anticipation of his expected ascendance to the Kenyan
throne. The British Royalty and government, which have deep connections with the
Kenya government, was therefore acting with Moi’s nod.
Still, this could have passed as a minor event were it not that Britain,
the former colonial power is increasingly playing an influential role behind the
curtains in Kenya’s transition politics. A source at the British High Commission
in Nairobi, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that even before President
Moi made public his plans, the matter had been the subject of discussion at high
levels of the British government. Britain is Kenya government’s most trusted
foreign ally. It has substantive secret economic, military and political
(diplomatic) interests that it seeks to protect from unfriendly political
forces. The experience with Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has been
repossessing huge tracts of land owned by White farmers, has sent shivers of
potential repercussions in other former British colonies in Africa where land
continues to be a thorny issue.
Western donor countries are wary of any developments that will undermine a
peaceful transition in Kenya, one of the few countries in the region that has
avoided the pitfalls of open civil strife. Moi’s choice of Uhuru would appear to
have either been endorsed by the foreign interests, or they are willing to
kowtow to Moi’s wily schemes to facilitate his exit from the scene. At a public
rally in July President Moi found it necessary to reiterate that he would stick
by his pledge to British premier Tony Blair and U.S. President George Bush to
quit. But the question, of course, still remains, why Uhuru? The objective of
self-preservation strongly advanced by various analysts is driving Moi’s
management of the transition. The transition arithmetic revolves around the
desire of the ruling elite to protect their fabulous property and conceal the
retinue of irregular deals by both the Kenyatta and Moi regimes. Zambian
President Levy Mwanawasa’s handling of his predecessor, Fredrick Chiluba, has
fired the resolve of the Kenyan leadership to tighten any loose ends. While
Kenyatta was accused of encouraging an acquisitive spirit that laid the
foundation of the run-away corruption in the country, Moi has been accused of
running the nation aground through reckless nepotism and accumulation of
property by a few to the detriment of the country.
While Kenyatta will be remembered for his contribution in liberating the
nation from the colonial yoke, it is claimed in the Economics of the World
edited by Nita Wattas, when Kenya became independent it acquired new problems:
tribalism, nepotism, greed, bribery and corruption. Opportunities were offered
and eagerly seized by a few individuals who were concerned only with
accumulating as much wealth as possible. With recent Transparency International
statistics showing that corruption is festering, many Kenyans are yearning for a
clean break with the ignominious past. Uhuru Kenyatta, they reckon, is a
creation of Moi and the clique around him to perpetuate the plunder and the
legacy of British control. Both Moi and Kenyatta were products of conservative
English grooming entrusted with the protection of British interests.
While those interests may be preserved in furtherance of diplomacy, the
land question will require radical solutions from the next president. Land
featured prominently in the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission hearings and
will not be cured by palliatives such as the slow-punctured Njonjo-led Land
Commission. Both the Moi and Kenyatta regimes have used land as a political
incentive for loyalty. The ruling class accumulated huge tracts of land
initially owned by White settlers but taken over by the State for resettlement
of the squatters. The British government gave £ 50 million to a land transfer
scheme from settlers to African squatters, but Kenyatta used the money to buy
land from settlers and either dish it out to his closest cronies or apportion to
himself. That caused a rift between Kenyatta and the late J.M Kariuki who was
later assassinated. According to a Kenyan legislator who knows the Kenyatta
family well, the land on which Kenyatta and Jomo Kenyatta Universities are built
initially belonged to Basil Criticos. The government bought the land from him
under the above scheme, but transferred it to Kenyatta on the same day Criticos
transferred it to the government in 1972. It was through such fraudulent
processes that Kenyatta family and close associates acquired much of the prime
land in the country. The land owned by the Kenyatta family includes Taita Taveta
farm (74, 000 acres), Kahawa Sukari farm (29, 000 acres), Gatundu farm, Thika
farm, Brookside farm, Muthaita farm, Green Lee Estate, Njagu farm in Juja,
Kasarani farm (9, 000 acres), Nakuru farm in Rongai near Moi’s home, a quarry in
Dandora, Naivasha Ranch and several farms in Nairobi. Government sources say
that KPLC is currently under pressure to buy the family’s Karen farm at Ksh. 350
million to add to Uhuru’s campaign kitty. The combined acreage of all the land
owned by the Kenyatta family is equal to Nyanza province, sources at the Lands
Ministry say.
Close associates of Kenyatta such as Mbiyu Koinange, Kihika Kimani, Isaiah
Mathenge, Eliud Mahihu, Jackson Angaine, Paul Ngei, Daniel Arap Moi, Njoroge
Mungai, Charles Njonjo, Mwai Kibaki, Njenga Karume among other power brokers of
the time, were encouraged to acquire, and did acquire, as much land. The Moi
government has more or less followed similar policies. The political clique
around Moi, for example, is known to own huge chunks of land round the country,
much of which is lying fallow while the production that it is meant for has
ceased. In the North Eastern Province, for example, the current crop of
politicians in government owns chunks of land that, according to official
sources, they do not even know the location. The land is used for collateral
mortgage for bank loans. Having acquired land in this manner, the Kenyatta
government lacked the moral authority to effect any fundamental land
changes.
The white settler community had trust and confidence in him. Jeremy Murray
Brown writes in his book, Kenyatta, that the white community was happy when
Kenyatta showed that he was not going to push hard for land transfer and,
instead, acquired huge chunks of land for himself and his cronies. It was for
the same reason that the minority but influential Britons in Kenya impressed
upon their home government to support Moi’s ascendancy to power. Above all else,
Moi was seen as a moderate who espoused Western capitalism that glorified wealth
accumulation. Moi had been assimilated into the British system early when they
plucked him from his teaching career to make him a representative in the
colonial Legislative Council and he was a major plank of the colonial
administration in the suppression of the struggle for independence. Through the
then powerful Attorney General, Charles Njonjo, and cabinet minister, Mwai
Kibaki, Britain covertly and overtly supported Moi’s ascendance to power while
Moi gladly embraced them when he eventually took to the throne. London remains
the Kenya government’s overseas capital. This background is crucial for
understanding the undercurrents of the transition. It is not a coincidence that
Njonjo is today the Chairman of the Land Review Commission formed by President
Moi.
He is also one of the prominent figures behind the Uhuru-for-President
campaign. The British government has since the eruption of the land problem in
Zimbabwe been actively sponsoring civic groups to advocate for peaceful
resolution of the Kenyan land problem. Uhuru Kenyatta is an acceptable candidate
because he would not undermine the status quo without undermining himself. He is
anointed by both his economic class and history. Beside the land question, it is
the economic upper class in the country that is determining the course of the
transition politics. The country’s tiny economic – and largely political – elite
owes its mostly irregularly acquired fortune to proximity to power during the
Kenyatta and Moi regimes and it is determined to frustrate any change in
leadership that might introduce radical changes in governance.
Hence, while Raila, for example, may have the support of many ordinary
citizens because of his populist agenda, he does not enjoy favour among the
influential economic elite and Moi’s close allies. Raila’s earlier socialist
ideological leaning is still considered by the capitalist economic elite and
Western countries as his undoing. Kibaki is viewed as the more acceptable
compromise by some Western countries and lending agencies like IMF and the World
Bank. While these countries and agencies purport to be disgusted by corruption,
they have not been forceful where it matters most. Hence although all
indications are that Moi succession plan is aimed at perpetuating the corruption
that his government has presided over (his government has been fighting to stave
off pressure to prosecute those implicated in corruption) the western agencies
will not apply their influence in the interest of change.
The bill on prevention of corruption has failed to sail through parliament
due to the vested interest of influential government officials trying to obtain
amnesty. The prospect of a less “clean” president is viewed as a risk lest he
unleash anti-corruption dogs. Given Uhuru’s inexperience in the management of
public affairs (Moi has stated that he picked on Uhuru because he can be
“guided”) he would be vulnerable to manipulation. Indeed, significant opposition
to Uhuru is purely because he represents a bid by Moi to extend his rule by
proxy. Moi would rather have a less glamorous successor than one who would
outshine his legacy. It is against this background that Biwott’s resolve “to do
everything in his power to make sure that Moi’s choice of President wins,”
should be understood. The statement implies that the forces behind Project Uhuru
will pull all stops to succeed themselves, and sets the stage for a bruising
political duel. Will they succeed?
Mention of Uhuru Kenyatta evokes the 15-year political reign of his father,
Jomo Kenyatta, but hardly the fabulous fortune that the first president of Kenya
bequeathed to his family. The commercial interests of the Kenyatta family are
spread literally over every sector of the national economy in a way that is
rivalled only by the empire of its successor the Moi family. Indeed, the
prospect of the two families pooling their resources to direct them to a common
cause can be enervating to opponents. It is estimated that the two families and
their associates control about one fifth of the national wealth. If politics is
all about money, which in Kenya it is, then Uhuru is surely on the way to
becoming Kenya’s third president.
Inside sources say Uhuru’s campaign budget is estimated at Ksh.10 billion,
(Sh. 2 billion earmarked for mobilisation for the Kanu nominations and Sh. 8
billion for campaign proper). The Uhuru campaign targets to raise another Sh.5
billion from local and international well-wishers, which should push his
campaign kitty to a whopping Sh.15 billion. For comparison purposes, Kanu’s
re-election campaign in the infamous 1992 elections cost an estimated 8 billion
in paper money which drove the economy under. According to informed sources, the
Uhuru project has already received substantial pledges from Central Province
tycoons.
And although Moi has yet to invest his personal resources on the project,
the Uhuru project has unlimited access to State resources and machinery with the
intelligence , security services and the provincial administration already being
deployed to the project.. Well- placed sources confided in “Expression Today”
that the Kenyatta family withdrew Sh.2 billion from a Swiss Bank in mid-August
that was sunk into the nomination process which for all intents and purposes
were a mere formality. It is from this campaign fund that Shs 2.5 million was
withdrawn for use in the organisation of the Mungiki demonstrations in Nairobi
that raised eyebrows about apparent government complicity in the procession of
an illegal organisation. Despite police denials, confidential police sources
told “Expression Today” that the Mungiki demonstration was organised and
co-ordinated by the Special Branch, the department of the police force that is
supposed to have been disbanded two years ago and replaced by the National
Security Intelligence Service.
The highly liquid campaign has been spewing money all over the place.
Another Sh. 2.5 million was paid to Nakuru councillors to declare support for
the Uhuru Project while Ksh.50 million was disbursed to North Eastern Province
MPs for similar purposes. Before the North Eastern MPs announced their support
for Uhuru in Nairobi in early August, they had met President Moi at his Harambee
House office after which they held talks with Uhuru Kenyatta moments before they
made the public announcement. Impeccable sources say that the Pastoralists
Parliamentary Group also received monetary emoluments to embark on a spirited
campaign for Mr. Kenyatta within their communities.
Indeed Moi has indirectly handed over control of some of the State organs
to the pro-Uhuru lobby. For example Uhuru is already receiving direct daily
briefings from the security intelligence, while his huge security detail has
been seconded from the State. This would seem to imply that Moi is already
allowing Uhuru to discharge some of his duties as though Uhuru’s ascendancy to
the throne is a fait accompli. Father’s Man Uhuru’s political and economic
influence stems from being the son of Jomo Kenyatta, which has been given
greater impetus by the support he has received from President Moi, whose
influence stems from his long reign, economic clout and incumbency. The
regrouping clique of the Moi and Kenyatta associates who control the nation
politically and economically also fronts Uhuru’s campaign.
The team from President Moi’s Rift Valley behind the Project Uhuru consists
of Moi’s favourite son, Gideon, Hosea Kiplagat, the chairman of the Co-operative
Bank and Moi’s nephew and aide, newly appointed Home Affairs minister William
Ruto, cantankerous Office of the President minister Julius Sunkuli, State House
Comptroller John Lokorio and Trade and Industry Minister, Nicholas Biwott.
Biwott has been President Moi’s confidante for three decades and was initially
reluctant to support the project but has assumed the role of the most
influential man behind the project. These prime movers of the project are a
recurrent feature of most economic and political activities of the Moi
regime.
Politicians and businessmen from Central Province who owe their economic
and political success to the Kenyatta era are also championing Project Uhuru.
The key players in this group are former Attorney General Charles Njonjo, former
foreign affairs minister and Kenyatta’s doctor, Njoroge Mungai; former Gema
chairman and Democratic Party patron Njenga Karume, and shadowy former minister
Arthur Magugu who has become a regular visitor to State House. Tycoon Stanley
Githunguri, Uhuru’s uncle George Muhoho and his mother, Mama Ngina Kenyatta, are
said to be generating the finances for the campaign. It is remembered that
Njonjo played a key role in the Kenyatta succession, ensuring that Moi succeeded
Kenyatta.
After a long period in the cold, Moi recalled Njonjo back to political
limelight by appointing him to symbolic positions from where he has been
crafting the transition. The Kenyatta family shares several business interests
with several of these personalities. For example, according to well-placed
sources, the family has had substantial interests in the transport sector that
it is slowly ceding to Njenga Karume, the former DP patron whose recent public
pronouncement of his support for Uhuru was viewed as long overdue. But the
family still retains much of its interests in the shipping industry, where the
Moi family controls substantial business.
But the Kenyatta family has its tentacles in virtually all sectors of the
economy. They include Brookside Dairy where Uhuru has been a Managing Director
until recently when his younger brother, Muhoho Kenyatta, took over. They also
have substantial interests in the hotel industry (Heritage Hotels chain -Voyager
and Silver Beach hotels in Mombasa as well as Blue Post Hotel in Thika.) The
family also owns the countrywide timber firm, Timsales. The family has a major
stakes in Commercial Bank of Africa, Prestige Hotels in Taveta, Hilton Hotel and
real estate, including residential houses near Nairobi State House.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Challenging Uhuru Kenyatta as “Richest Person in Kenya”
Forbes classification criteria questioned; Uhuru’s wealth is stolen wealth
Uhuru Kenyatta is a beneficiary of stolen
wealth from the people of Kenya and should not be on Fotbes list
Forbes Magazine recently published a list of Africa’s 40 richest
persons with Uhuru Kenyatta ranked 26th and number one richest person in Kenya.
His net worth is an estimated $500 million, which translates to almost 50
billion Kenyan Shillings.
This is how Forbes described his wealth: “Kenya’s Deputy Prime Minister
Uhuru Kenyatta is the son of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, and heir to
some of the largest land holdings in Kenya. He owns at least 500,000 acres of
prime land spread across the country. The land was acquired by his father in the
1960s and 1970s when the British colonial government and the World Bank funded a
settlement transfer fund scheme that enabled government officials and wealthy
Kenyans to acquire land from the British at very low prices. Uhuru and his
family also own Brookside Dairies, Kenya’s largest dairy company, as well as
stakes in popular television station K24 and a commercial bank in Nairobi, among
other interests.”
In a WikiLeaks cable dated June 26th 2009, former US ambassador to Kenya
Michael Ranneberger described Uhuru’s wealth this way: “Although his wealth is
the inheritance from his father’s corruption, the Kenyatta family still holds a
special status”. Yet another description from veteran Kenyan journalist and
lecturer Joe Kadhi on his blog ‘Msemakweli’ goes: “Among the haves, Uhuru
represents the pinnacle of cornucopia. He has wealth he hardly worked for.
Wealth that was acquired by his father through the use of despotic powers. All
this, when children of true freedom fighters are languishing in indescribable
poverty, caused by the exploitation by the very people who opposed the fight for
independence.”
Did Forbes investigate the origins of Uhuru Kenyatta’s wealth? According to
the magazine, it does not include political leaders on its list of the richest
because it is not easy to calculate how they have generated their wealth.
Ironically, Uhuru is a Member of Parliament for Gatundu South, Leader of KANU
Party and Deputy Prime Minister. Information on its website notes that: “Forbes
has long separated rulers and dictators from our annual rankings of the World’s
Billionaires, distinguishing between personal, entrepreneurial wealth and wealth
derived largely from positions of power, where lines often blur between what is
owned by the country and what is owned by the individual.” How many generations
does it take to “clean” allegedly ill-begotten wealth?
Since Uhuru is now on the Forbes list, Moi’s son Gideon should be
considered at a certain point because his father was also president, yet
gathered wealth unscrupulously as noted in the Kroll Report commissioned by
president Kibaki in 2003 and submitted in 2004. It is alleged that Moi and his
relatives “siphoned off more than £1bn+ of government money.” Gideon Moi was
then worth £550m.
Kenyatta: The biggest land grabber in Kenyan
history
The naming of Uhuru as Kenya’s richest man generated mixed reactions from Kenyans in the social media. Many felt that his father Jomo Kenyatta, used his position as president to grab land and accumulate enormous wealth. There are documents indicating that Jomo Kenyatta acquired land through resettlement schemes organized by the then British government and the World Bank. Uhuru Kenyatta has mentioned in the past that his wealth belongs to the “Kenyatta family”. In November 2010, the online business magazine “Africa Investor” wrote that Uhuru had estimated his family’s wealth at $10 billion.
The naming of Uhuru as Kenya’s richest man generated mixed reactions from Kenyans in the social media. Many felt that his father Jomo Kenyatta, used his position as president to grab land and accumulate enormous wealth. There are documents indicating that Jomo Kenyatta acquired land through resettlement schemes organized by the then British government and the World Bank. Uhuru Kenyatta has mentioned in the past that his wealth belongs to the “Kenyatta family”. In November 2010, the online business magazine “Africa Investor” wrote that Uhuru had estimated his family’s wealth at $10 billion.
Journalist John Kamau reported in 2009 that by September 1963, Jomo
Kenyatta had consented to the transfer of Kikuyus from the transit farm Bahati
in Rift Valley, to the tsetse fly-infested Mpanda Settlement Scheme in Tanzania.
This was basically because the Kenyatta family and other African elite, had
taken over most of the farms formerly owned by Europeans who had decided to
sell. The ex-Mau Mau fighters who returned to reclaim their land found nothing
and were pushed by Kenyatta to Rift Valley. It was only after many protests by
Kikuyus that the Mpanda transfer was abandoned.
In 2009, a Kenyan-run blog Kumekucha, wrote that Pio Gama Pinto (who was an
appointed politician in the House of Representatives in 1964), discovered that
“Kenyatta had allocated himself a total of 50 farms in Central province and Rift
valley. Some of the farms had poor Kikuyu squatters who were to be evicted.
Others were farms that had been owned by whites and sold back to the Kenyan
government. Pinto was incensed by this and despite making overtures to Kenyatta
not to go ahead with the evil he was doing, Kenyatta adamantly stuck to his
guns. Pinto decided to move a vote of no confidence in Kenyatta. Kenyatta
confronted him within the precincts of parliament and challenged him over the no
confidence vote. When Pinto refused to back down Kenyatta called him a bastard
to which Pinto immediately responded by telling Kenyatta in front of witnesses
and other cabinet ministers that he (Kenyatta) was also a bastard. A stunned
friend pulled Pinto aside and asked him how he could call Kenyatta a bastard to
which Pinto retorted, ‘he called me one first’. It was shortly after this
incident that the decision was made to kill Pinto.”
In June 2000, journalist John Kamau published an article named “Kenyatta in
trouble 22 years after his death”. He cited people who questioned how he had
acquired so much wealth in only 15 years as president, while others called him
murderer, tribalist and land grabber. “Kenyatta’s family must account for its
wealth,” retorts Wanyiri Kihoro, the opposition MP from the Democratic Party of
Kenya. He hails from the same populous Kikuyu tribe as Kenyatta. But he is
unfazed by tribal loyalties. “We all know that Kenyatta was a land-grabber”,
Kihoro adds somewhat irreverently. Luke Obok, the Chairman of the Kenya Pipeline
Company: “Kenyatta’s regime was worse [than Moi's]. Nobody was allowed to
question the ills of his government. It is sad that under him, many Luos [from
the other big tribe in the country] who were in top positions were frustrated
and those in the army and police were summarily dismissed”.
Links to illegal trade in Ivory and forced Kenyatta shares in
companies
“How did Kenyatta amass all that wealth given that he was in detention for eight years”, asks Martin Shikuku, a member of the team that negotiated Kenya’s independence constitution at Lancaster House in London in 1962. An outspoken member of Moi’s cabinet, Francis Lotodo, has even demanded that Kenyatta should be tried posthumously for “crimes committed against Kenyans”. Says Martin Shikuku: “It is common knowledge that Kenyatta’s regime thrived on the plunder of the national economy. He surrounded himself with a gang of tribalists that controlled his government.” Shikuku was detained without trial in 1976 by Kenyatta, for saying in parliament that the ruling Kanu party was dead.
“How did Kenyatta amass all that wealth given that he was in detention for eight years”, asks Martin Shikuku, a member of the team that negotiated Kenya’s independence constitution at Lancaster House in London in 1962. An outspoken member of Moi’s cabinet, Francis Lotodo, has even demanded that Kenyatta should be tried posthumously for “crimes committed against Kenyans”. Says Martin Shikuku: “It is common knowledge that Kenyatta’s regime thrived on the plunder of the national economy. He surrounded himself with a gang of tribalists that controlled his government.” Shikuku was detained without trial in 1976 by Kenyatta, for saying in parliament that the ruling Kanu party was dead.
Shikuku is particularly scathing in his attacks. “[Kenyatta] was not a
nationalist as depicted by historians, he was a manipulator,” Shikuku says. “He
concentrated too much power in the presidency, no wonder the colonial governor
(Sir Patrick Renison) referred to him as `a leader unto darkness’.” But the
respected former Kenyan freedom fighter, Bildad Kaggia, who was detained with
Kenyatta in 1958 by the British, appears to have finally twisted the knife by
saying that Kenyatta tried “many times” to harm him. Kaggia fell out with
Kenyatta in 1969. He now says he refused to amass wealth like other cabinet
ministers and that was why he was sidelined. Today, he lives a pauper’s life,
operating a small posho mill in central Kenya.
In May 2011, a staff reporter at “investmentnewskenya.com” wrote that an
American news magazine noted in 1979 that the Kenyatta family estate was worth
$200 million. In a recent report by Kenya’s Citizen TV, the family’s wealth was
more that $ 1.9 billion. It is questionable that Forbes reported Uhuru owns
500,000 acres of land, which is equated with the size of Nyanza province. This
ownership has always been mentioned under the Kenyatta family. When did Uhuru
become the sole owner of his family’s wealth? How did Forbes sort out what was
owned by whom? Uhuru’s younger brother Muhoho is noted as the person largely
running the family business. Earlier, it was his mother Mama Ngina who was seen
as the force behind the vast Kenyatta business empire, which constitutes diverse
investments ranging from dairy farming, banking to real estate, among
others.
Rumours abound about Uhuru’s elder step sister Margaret Kenyatta, and Mama
Ngina’s links to ivory smuggling in the 1970s. On May 22 1975, Jon Tinker wrote
in the New Scientist magazine about elephant poaching in Kenya, which involved
some prominent persons. Sections of the article are quoted verbatim here: “Kenya
has perhaps 120 000 elephants, and every year between 10 000 and 20 000
elephants are being killed for their ivory. At this rate, the Kenyan elephant
will be virtually extinct within a decade. Kenya’s ivory trade is currently
worth around $10 million a year, but little of this money goes to the poachers.
Not much goes to the government of Kenya either, for officially it has banned
all private dealing in ivory. The profits are made by a few merchants in Nairobi
and Mombasa, who bribe the game department and the wildlife ministry, the
customs and the police to let them ship ivory by the ton to Europe, Hong Kong,
Japan and People’s China.”
Enough money to compensate the PEV
victims
The identity of these ivory queens is a matter of common gossip in Nairobi, and the most prominent of them are said to be Mama Ngina and Margaret Kenyatta, respectively wife and daughter to the President. In Kenya today, you can be sent to prison for what is called rumour-mongering, so in this article I shall confine myself to provable fact. And there is now documentary proof that at least one member of Kenya’s Royal family has recently shipped over six tons of ivory to Red China. Moreover, in spite of repeated denials from the Kenyan wildlife ministry that they have issued any licences to deal in or export raw ivory, this trading is being carried out with the active connivance of the highest officials in the game department.”
The identity of these ivory queens is a matter of common gossip in Nairobi, and the most prominent of them are said to be Mama Ngina and Margaret Kenyatta, respectively wife and daughter to the President. In Kenya today, you can be sent to prison for what is called rumour-mongering, so in this article I shall confine myself to provable fact. And there is now documentary proof that at least one member of Kenya’s Royal family has recently shipped over six tons of ivory to Red China. Moreover, in spite of repeated denials from the Kenyan wildlife ministry that they have issued any licences to deal in or export raw ivory, this trading is being carried out with the active connivance of the highest officials in the game department.”
Tinker wrote that despite the government’s ban on private ivory export in
August 1974, Margaret Kenyatta had since then “illicitly sent over 6 tonnes
worth $200 000 to People’s China”. The United African Corporation (Kenya)
Limited was a key exporter of ivory to China, Hong Kong and Japan. Records at
that time showed she held 16 per cent shares in the company which was registered
in 1964. However, by 1974, she held 49 per cent and had become chairperson of
the company.
John Kamau’s investigative articles about Kenyatta’s estate published in
Kenya’s “Business Daily” in May 2009, did not indicate the amount of money paid
to some parcels of land acquired by Jomo Kenyatta and Mama Ngina. Instead, a lot
was shown to have been bought under the names of his elder sons, Peter Muigai
and Magana Kenyatta. “The only farm registered in Jomo Kenyatta’s name in 1964
was a 5 acre farm he bought from a Mr. J.R. Wood and for KSh 400.” Kenyatta paid
KES 45 000 to buy 400 acres of land in Dandora, as trustee to minor son
Uhuru.
Logically, Kenyatta’s salary as president was not enough to buy 500,000
acres of land in the 15 years he ruled. There have been rumors of Kenyatta
having forced all foreign companies to offer 15 per cent of their shares to his
family before trading in Kenya. This might explain the high stakes they have in
many businesses. It was recently noted by Citizen TV that the Kenyattas have
shares worth $830 million in the privately-owned Commercial Bank of
Africa.
There are no records of Uhuru paying taxes on his salary as Gatundu South
Member of Parliament since 2002 or as Deputy Prime Minister, since 2008. Did
Forbes investigate how much property taxes he pays to the Kenya Revenue
Authority? What about reports about large sums of money “disappearing” at
Treasury since he became the Finance Minister? What of all the Parliamentary and
media reports of the highly-priced and single-sourced procurement of low fuel
consuming official cars for ministers? Since Mama Ngina has other chidren beside
Uhuru, how did Forbes determine how much Uhuru is worth within the Kenyatta
estate? On the other hand, the International Criminal Court chief prosecutor
Luis Moreno-Ocampo must be marvelling because he wants a stop on the transfer of
all movable and immovable assests he owns, in case he will be found guilty in
the ongoing post election violence (PEV) case. Uhuru is rich enough to
compensate the PEV victims if found guilty.
In conclusion, the background of Uhuru Kenyatta’s wealth is awash with
alleged illegal acquisitions by other members of his wider family, so it was
unethical for Forbes to list him as the richest man in Kenya and the 26th
richest man in Africa.
Dr. Jared Odero
Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo rebel leader with drone
Good People,
All these information are clear indication that Kagame is fully involved
in distabilization of DRC through M23. Kagame must be taken to task
at the ICC Hague as He has a case to answer.
Why would Kagame ask America to kill Congo rebel leader ?
Is it for cover up??? Does Kagame know something he does
not want the world to know.....???
Push for the truth people.......There is more here and it is
unacceptable......
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
1) ALTHOUGH......... !!!
JEB HENSARLING, TX , CHAIRMAN
United States House of Representatives
Committee on Financial Services 2129 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515
MAXINE WATERS, CA, RANKING MEMBER
M E M O R A N D U M
To:
Members of the Committee on Financial Services
From:
FSC Majority Committee Staff
Date:
May 16, 2013
Subject:
May 21, 2013, Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee Hearing on "The Unintended Consequences of Dodd-Frank’s Conflict Minerals Provision".
The Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade will hold a hearing on "The Unintended Consequences of Dodd-Frank’s Conflict Minerals Provision" at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 21, 2013, in Room 2128 of the Rayburn House Office Building. This will be a one-panel hearing with the following witnesses:
• David Aronson, Freelance Writer, Editor of www.congoresources.org
• Mvemba Dizolele, Peter Duignan Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
• Rick Goss, Senior Vice President of Environment and Sustainability, Information Technology Industry Council
• Sophia Pickles, Policy Advisor, Global Witness
Background
Ever since it gained its independence in 1960, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been in a state of civil war. In 2000, the United Nations Group of Experts linked the Congolese civil war to the mineral trade. Tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold—which are used to manufacture everyday goods such as pens, USB drives, buttons, and food containers—are mined in areas of the eastern DRC that the Congolese army and armed militias are fighting to control. The factions use proceeds from mineral sales to buy weapons. Some have argued that banning the use of minerals mined in or near the DRC or discouraging companies from using such minerals by "naming and shaming" them might deny rebel militias a source of funding and end the conflict.
Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (P.L. 111-203) is one such effort to discourage companies from using minerals mined in the DRC. Section 1502 requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to promulgate rules for public companies requiring them to disclose their use of minerals that originated in the DRC, which Section 1502 defines to be "conflict minerals." Public companies must comply with Section 1502’s disclosure requirements when these minerals are necessary to the functionality or production of a product. If companies cannot verify that the minerals they use did not originate in the DRC, Section 1502 requires them to (1) exercise due diligence on the source and chain of custody of these minerals; (2) hire an independent third party to audit the due diligence measures; and (3) report to the SEC on the due diligence measures they undertook and their auditor’s assessment of those measures.
Hearing:
Hearing entitled "The Unintended Consequences of Dodd-Frank's Conflict Minerals Provision"
Tuesday, May 21, 2013 2:00 PM in 2128 Rayburn HOB
Monetary Policy and Trade
Tuesday, May 21, 2013 2:00 PM in 2128 Rayburn HOB
Monetary Policy and Trade
Click here for the Archived Webcast of this hearing.
Click here for the Committee Memorandum.
Witness List
Mr. David Aronson, Freelance Writer, Editor of www.congoresources.org
- Mr. Mvemba Dizolele, Peter Duignan Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
- Mr. Rick Goss, Senior Vice President of Environment and Sustainability, Information Technology Industry Council
- Ms. Sophia Pickles, Policy Advisor, Global Witness
2) This becomes a concern........!!!
$625,000 Worth Gold Shipment Got Lost At Miami Airport
Published on May 17, 2013
A shipment of gold valued at $625,000 vanished in a suspected heist after arriving in Miami on an American Airlines flight, authorities announced Thursday.
A police report says the gold, which arrived in a box, was brought on the flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to the Miami International Airport early Tuesday, WSVN reports.
The plane's cargo was unloaded by five crew members, but the box containing the gold disappeared after apparently being loaded onto a motorized luggage cart or tug, the report said.
The cart was found in front of a gate of the same terminal were the flight from Ecuador was unloaded, about an hour after workers emptied the cargo hold, but without the box containing the gold.
The police incident report did not say who owned the gold or what its final destination was and an American Airlines security official at the airport declined to comment to Reuters on the case, saying only that it was being investigated by the FBI.
"The FBI is aware of the situation," FBI spokesman Michael Leverock told Reuters in an email.
Miami International serves as a major trans-shipment point for large quantities of gold produced in South America and exported primarily to Switzerland for refining.
The city has seen the trans-shipment of gold rise sharply in recent years as investors have turned to gold and its price has risen.
Gold is Miami's No. 1 import valued at almost $8 billion last year, mostly from Mexico and Colombia, and almost all destined for Switzerland, according to World City, a Miami-based publication that tracks trade data.
A police report says the gold, which arrived in a box, was brought on the flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to the Miami International Airport early Tuesday, WSVN reports.
The plane's cargo was unloaded by five crew members, but the box containing the gold disappeared after apparently being loaded onto a motorized luggage cart or tug, the report said.
The cart was found in front of a gate of the same terminal were the flight from Ecuador was unloaded, about an hour after workers emptied the cargo hold, but without the box containing the gold.
The police incident report did not say who owned the gold or what its final destination was and an American Airlines security official at the airport declined to comment to Reuters on the case, saying only that it was being investigated by the FBI.
"The FBI is aware of the situation," FBI spokesman Michael Leverock told Reuters in an email.
Miami International serves as a major trans-shipment point for large quantities of gold produced in South America and exported primarily to Switzerland for refining.
The city has seen the trans-shipment of gold rise sharply in recent years as investors have turned to gold and its price has risen.
Gold is Miami's No. 1 import valued at almost $8 billion last year, mostly from Mexico and Colombia, and almost all destined for Switzerland, according to World City, a Miami-based publication that tracks trade data.
3) And Now This .........!!!!
Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo rebel leader with drone
In an exclusive interview with Chris McGreal in Kigali, Rwanda's president denies backing an accused Congolese war criminal and says challenge to senior US official proves his innocence
--- On Thu, 5/23/13, Augustine Rukoma
Msimtetea Kabila hata kidogo, Kagame kasema kweli, M23 ni nzi hawashambulii
wala kupanga vita. Wanajeshi wa Kabila wakisikia hata baruti wanakimbia.
Jeshi gani hili la woga. Ile nchi inatakiwa reformation kubwa ndio
inayowavutia mainzi kama M23 kufanya wanachotaka.
From: A S Kivamwo <kivamwo@yahoo.com>
To: mabadilikotanzania@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 5:22 AM
Subject: Re: [Mabadiliko] Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo
- The Observer, Saturday 18 May 2013
- Jump to comments (46)
A new M23 recruit demonstrates his martial arts skills in the Democratic Republic of the Congo last week. Rwanda denies aiding them. Photograph: James Akena/Reuters
Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, has rejected accusations from Washington that he was supporting a rebel leader and accused war criminal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by challenging a senior US official to send a drone to kill the wanted man.
In an interview with the Observer Magazine, Kagame said that on a visit to Washington in March he came under pressure from the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, Johnnie Carson, to arrest Bosco Ntaganda, leader of the M23 rebels, who was wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). The US administration was increasing pressure on Kagame following a UN report claiming to have uncovered evidence showing that the Rwandan military provided weapons and other support to Ntaganda, whose forces briefly seized control of the region's main city, Goma.
"I told him: 'Assistant secretary of state, you support [the UN peacekeeping force] in the Congo. Such a big force, so much money. Have you failed to use that force to arrest whoever you want to arrest in Congo? Now you are turning to me, you are turning to Rwanda?'" he said. "I said that, since you are used to sending drones and gunning people down, why don't you send a drone and get rid of him and stop this nonsense? And he just laughed. I told him: 'I'm serious'."
Kagame said that, after he returned to Rwanda, Carson kept up the pressure with a letter demanding that he act against Ntaganda. Days later, the M23 leader appeared at the US embassy in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, saying that he wanted to surrender to the ICC. He was transferred to The Hague. The Rwandan leadership denies any prior knowledge of Ntaganda's decision to hand himself over. It suggests he was facing a rebellion within M23 and feared for his safety.
But Kagame's confrontation with Carson reflects how much relationships with even close allies have deteriorated over allegations that Rwanda continues to play a part in the bloodletting in Congo. The US and Britain, Rwanda's largest bilateral aid donors, withheld financial assistance, as did the EU, prompting accusations of betrayal by Rwandan officials. The political impact added impetus to a government campaign to condition the population to become more self-reliant.
Kagame is angered by the moves and criticisms of his human rights record in Rwanda, including allegations that he blocks opponents by misusing laws banning hate speech to accuse them of promoting genocide and suppresses press criticism. The Rwandan president is also embittered that countries, led by the US and UK, that blocked intervention to stop the 1994 genocide, and France which sided with the Hutu extremist regime that led the killings, are now judging him on human rights.
"We don't live our lives or we don't deal with our affairs more from the dictates from outside than from the dictates of our own situation and conditions," Kagame said. "The outside viewpoint, sometimes you don't know what it is. It keeps changing. They tell you they want you to respect this or fight this and you are doing it and they say you're not doing it the right way. They keep shifting goalposts and interpreting things about us or what we are doing to suit the moment."
He is agitated about what he sees as Rwanda being held responsible for all the ills of Congo, when Kigali's military intervention began in 1996 to clear out Hutu extremists using UN-funded refugee camps for raids to murder Tutsis. Kagame said that Rwanda was not responsible for the situation after decades of western colonisation and backing for the Mobutu dictatorship.
The Rwandan leader denies supporting M23 and said he has been falsely accused because Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, needs someone to blame because his army cannot fight. "To defeat these fellows doesn't take bravery because they don't go to fight. They just hear bullets and are on the loose running anywhere, looting, raping and doing anything. That's what happened," he said.
"President Kabila and the government had made statements about how this issue is going to be contained. They had to look for an explanation for how they were being defeated. They said we are not fighting [Ntaganda], we're actually fighting Rwanda."
--- On Thu, 5/23/13, Augustine Rukoma
From: Augustine Rukoma
Subject: Re: [Mabadiliko] Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo rebel leader with drone
To: mabadilikotanzania@googlegroups.com
Date: Thursday, May 23, 2013, 3:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Mabadiliko] Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo rebel leader with drone
To: mabadilikotanzania@googlegroups.com
Date: Thursday, May 23, 2013, 3:07 AM
M23 ni wanyarwanda,wala si banyamulenge. Kongo hii angepewa jk sasa
hivi rais angekuwa bizima karaa, afrika maliasili badala ya kutusaidia
inatuponza
On 5/22/13, Lemburis Kivuyo <lembu.kivuyo@gmail.com> wrote:
hivi rais angekuwa bizima karaa, afrika maliasili badala ya kutusaidia
inatuponza
On 5/22/13, Lemburis Kivuyo <lembu.kivuyo@gmail.com> wrote:
Msimtetea Kabila hata kidogo, Kagame kasema kweli, M23 ni nzi hawashambulii
wala kupanga vita. Wanajeshi wa Kabila wakisikia hata baruti wanakimbia.
Jeshi gani hili la woga. Ile nchi inatakiwa reformation kubwa ndio
inayowavutia mainzi kama M23 kufanya wanachotaka.
Niliwahi kusema huyu kijana ni ubishoo tu kuongoza nchi hata kijiji hawezi
Real Change for Real Development,
Lemburis Kivuyo
+255654650100 - Website: www. <http://www.infocomcenter.com/>kivuyo.com,
+255654650100 - Website: www. <http://www.infocomcenter.com/>kivuyo.com,
On 22 May 2013 17:16, A S Kivamwo <kivamwo@yahoo.com> wrote:
Haa ha ha! Heche umenifanya nicheke! Lakini kweli Kabila naye
anatuaibisha...yeye kila siku kupigwa na kila uasi! Lakini Kagame
kaifafanua vizuri. Kasema kuwa huhitaji kutumia nguvu nyingi kuyashinda
majeshi ya DRC. Wewe ni kupiga mzinga mmoja tu juu hapohapo yanatawanyika
kuelekea nyuma na kupora na kubaka. So Kabila hana jeshi ana makanjanja
tu
anatuaibisha...yeye kila siku kupigwa na kila uasi! Lakini Kagame
kaifafanua vizuri. Kasema kuwa huhitaji kutumia nguvu nyingi kuyashinda
majeshi ya DRC. Wewe ni kupiga mzinga mmoja tu juu hapohapo yanatawanyika
kuelekea nyuma na kupora na kubaka. So Kabila hana jeshi ana makanjanja
tu
On Wed, May 22, 2013 8:36 AM EDT heche suguta wrote:
Kabila aekaa madarakani tangu 2001 mpaka leo hawezi kuua hata nzi tu,
jamaa lile kumbe bure kabisaa
jamaa lile kumbe bure kabisaa
From: A S Kivamwo <kivamwo@yahoo.com>
To: mabadilikotanzania@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 5:22 AM
Subject: Re: [Mabadiliko] Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo
rebel leader with drone muganda bwana?! kwani hao waasi ni wa wapi kama
hawajatoka kwenye jeshi
la kabila? pili tangu kabila mdogo aingie madarakani lini amepata amani
na
akatulia? miaka yote ni vita tu huko east ambazo penda usipende vina
mikono
ya watu wa nje. usimlaumu saana ki hivo. mbona wewe unavaa suti?
la kabila? pili tangu kabila mdogo aingie madarakani lini amepata amani
na
akatulia? miaka yote ni vita tu huko east ambazo penda usipende vina
mikono
ya watu wa nje. usimlaumu saana ki hivo. mbona wewe unavaa suti?
On Wed, May 22, 2013 7:29 AM EDT Emmanuel Muganda wrote:
Hivi Kabila miaka yote hii amekuwa mamlakani amefanya nini kujenga
jeshi?
Yeye ni kuvaa suti tu?
em
Hivi Kabila miaka yote hii amekuwa mamlakani amefanya nini kujenga
jeshi?
Yeye ni kuvaa suti tu?
em
On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 1:49 AM, Augustine Rukoma <arukoma66@gmail.com
wrote:
wrote:
Aka nako ni ka m7 kengine uihuni mtupu
On 5/22/13, shedrack maximilian <shedrack_maximilian@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:
Very interssting -Thinks its logical ...Congolease never stands as
gentlemen to defend themselves, read this..... 'The Rwandan leader
denies
supporting M23 and said he has been falsely accused because Congo's
president, Joseph Kabila, needs someone to blame because his army
cannot
fight. "To defeat these fellows doesn't take bravery because they
don't
go
to fight. They just hear bullets and are on the loose running
anywhere,
looting, raping and doing anything. That's what happened," he said'
wrote:
Very interssting -Thinks its logical ...Congolease never stands as
gentlemen to defend themselves, read this..... 'The Rwandan leader
denies
supporting M23 and said he has been falsely accused because Congo's
president, Joseph Kabila, needs someone to blame because his army
cannot
fight. "To defeat these fellows doesn't take bravery because they
don't
go
to fight. They just hear bullets and are on the loose running
anywhere,
looting, raping and doing anything. That's what happened," he said'
--- On Wed, 5/22/13, Lutgard Kokulinda Kagaruki
From: Lutgard Kokulinda Kagaruki
Subject: Re: [Mabadiliko] Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo rebel leader with drone
To: "mabadilikotanzania@googlegroups.com"
Date: Wednesday, May 22, 2013, 1:27 AM
Subject: Re: [Mabadiliko] Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo rebel leader with drone
To: "mabadilikotanzania@googlegroups.com"
Date: Wednesday, May 22, 2013, 1:27 AM
I Liked this one most; "We don't live our lives or we don't deal with our affairs more from the dictates from outside than from the dictates of our own situation and conditions," Kagame said. "The outside viewpoint, sometimes you don't know what it is. It keeps changing. They tell you they want you to respect this or fight this and you are doing it and they say you're not doing it the right way. They keep shifting goalposts and interpreting things about us or what we are doing to suit the moment." LKK
On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 1:37 AM, Nyoni Magoha <john.magoha@gmail.com> wrote:
Saturday 18 May 2013 Chris MacGreal in Kigal
In an exclusive interview with Chris McGreal in Kigali, Rwanda's president denies backing an accused Congolese war criminal and says challenge to senior US official proves his innocence
In an exclusive interview with Chris McGreal in Kigali, Rwanda's president denies backing an accused Congolese war criminal and says challenge to senior US official proves his innocence
In an exclusive interview with Chris McGreal in Kigali, Rwanda's president denies backing an accused Congolese war criminal and says challenge to senior US official proves his innocence
Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, has rejected accusations from Washington that he was supporting a rebel leader and accused war criminal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by challenging a senior US official to send a drone to kill the wanted man.
In an interview with the Observer Magazine, Kagame said that on a visit to Washington in March he came under pressure from the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, Johnnie Carson, to arrest Bosco Ntaganda, leader of the M23 rebels, who was wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). The US administration was increasing pressure on Kagame following a UN report claiming to have uncovered evidence showing that the Rwandan military provided weapons and other support to Ntaganda, whose forces briefly seized control of the region's main city, Goma.
"I told him: 'Assistant secretary of state, you support [the UN peacekeeping force] in the Congo. Such a big force, so much money. Have you failed to use that force to arrest whoever you want to arrest in Congo? Now you are turning to me, you are turning to Rwanda?'" he said. "I said that, since you are used to sending drones and gunning people down, why don't you send a drone and get rid of him and stop this nonsense? And he just laughed. I told him: 'I'm serious'."
Kagame said that, after he returned to Rwanda, Carson kept up the pressure with a letter demanding that he act against Ntaganda. Days later, the M23 leader appeared at the US embassy in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, saying that he wanted to surrender to the ICC. He was transferred to The Hague. The Rwandan leadership denies any prior knowledge of Ntaganda's decision to hand himself over. It suggests he was facing a rebellion within M23 and feared for his safety.
But Kagame's confrontation with Carson reflects how much relationships with even close allies have deteriorated over allegations that Rwanda continues to play a part in the bloodletting in Congo. The US and Britain, Rwanda's largest bilateral aid donors, withheld financial assistance, as did the EU, prompting accusations of betrayal by Rwandan officials. The political impact added impetus to a government campaign to condition the population to become more self-reliant.
Kagame is angered by the moves and criticisms of his human rights record in Rwanda, including allegations that he blocks opponents by misusing laws banning hate speech to accuse them of promoting genocide and suppresses press criticism. The Rwandan president is also embittered that countries, led by the US and UK, that blocked intervention to stop the 1994 genocide, and France which sided with the Hutu extremist regime that led the killings, are now judging him on human rights.
"We don't live our lives or we don't deal with our affairs more from the dictates from outside than from the dictates of our own situation and conditions," Kagame said. "The outside viewpoint, sometimes you don't know what it is. It keeps changing. They tell you they want you to respect this or fight this and you are doing it and they say you're not doing it the right way. They keep shifting goalposts and interpreting things about us or what we are doing to suit the moment."
He is agitated about what he sees as Rwanda being held responsible for all the ills of Congo, when Kigali's military intervention began in 1996 to clear out Hutu extremists using UN-funded refugee camps for raids to murder Tutsis. Kagame said that Rwanda was not responsible for the situation after decades of western colonisation and backing for the Mobutu dictatorship.
The Rwandan leader denies supporting M23 and said he has been falsely accused because Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, needs someone to blame because his army cannot fight. "To defeat these fellows doesn't take bravery because they don't go to fight. They just hear bullets and are on the loose running anywhere, looting, raping and doing anything. That's what happened," he said.
"President Kabila and the government had made statements about how this issue is going to be contained. They had to look for an explanation for how they were being defeated. They said we are not fighting [Ntaganda], we're actually fighting Rwanda."
More on This
Photo: Hugo Rami/IRIN
Source: The Guardian (UK)
United States Department of State
(Washington, DC)
Congo-Brazzaville: Human Rights Reports: Republic of the Congo
19 April 2013
document
Photo: Hugo Rami/IRIN
A traditional wooden boat floats on the Congo River of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Republic of the Congo is a parliamentary republic in which the constitution vests most of the decision-making authority and political power in the president and his administration. Denis Sassou-N'Guesso was reelected president in 2009 with 78 percent of the vote, but opposition candidates and domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) questioned the validity of this figure. The 2009 election was peaceful, and the African Union declared the elections free and fair; however, opposition candidates and NGOs cited irregularities. Legislative elections were held in July and August 2011 for 137 of the National Assembly's 139 seats; elections could not be held in two electoral districts in Brazzaville because of the March 4 munitions depot explosions in the capital's Mpila neighborhood. The African Union declared the elections free, fair, and credible, while still citing numerous irregularities.
Civil society election observers estimated the participation rate for the legislative elections at 10 to15 percent nationwide. While the country has a multiparty political system, members of the president's Congolese Labor Party (PCT) and its allies won 95 percent of the legislative seats and occupied most senior government positions.
Security forces reported to civilian authorities. The government generally maintained effective control over the security forces; however, there some members of the security forces acted independently of government authority, committed abuses, and engaged in malfeasance.
Major human rights problems included beatings and torture of detainees by security forces, poor prison conditions, and lengthy pretrial detention.
Other human rights abuses included arbitrary arrest; an ineffective and underresourced judiciary; political prisoners; infringement of citizens' privacy rights; some restrictions on freedom of speech, press, and assembly; official corruption and lack of transparency; lack of adequate shelter for victims of the March 4 explosions; domestic violence, including rape; trafficking in persons; discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, particularly against indigenous persons; female genital mutilation/cutting; and child labor.
The government seldom took steps to prosecute or punish officials who committed abuses, whether in the security services or elsewhere in the government, and official impunity was a problem.
Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
Is Kagame Africa's Lincoln or a tyrant exploiting Rwanda's tragic history?
In the second part of his special report, Chris McGreal meets President Paul Kagame in Kigali – and finds him angry
The warrior: Paul Kagame with RPF troops in 1993, during the civil war that preceded the genocide. Photograph: Joel Stettenheim/Corbis
On the run: in 1996, Kagame’s troops drove Hutu refugees out of UN camps in Congo, and back to Rwanda. Photograph: Yunghi Kim/Contact Press Images
Facing the future: the changing skyline of the capital city, Kigali, now experiencing a period of economic growth. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer
- The Observer, Saturday 18 May 2013
- Jump to comments (30)
Pressing the flesh: with Bill Clinton, who described Kagame as ‘one of the greatest leaders of our time’. Photograph: Ed Ou/Getty Images
Paul Kagame is angrier than I've ever seen him. Rwanda's president is famously direct with his critics. His contempt for governments he's crossed swords with, led by the French, is only marginally less vitriolic than his view of human-rights groups daring to lecture him, the rebel leader whose army put a stop to the 1994 genocide of 800,0000 Tutsis. But now even friends are regarded with suspicion to the point of hostility. Take London and Washington accusing Rwanda of perpetuating the interminable and bloody conflict across the border in Congo and flagging up concerns that Kagame is constructing a de-facto one-party state.
They are hypocrites, blind to their own histories, says Rwanda's president. "Who are these gods who police others for their rights?" he says in an interview with the Observer at the presidential office in Kigali. "One of the things I live for is to challenge that. I grew up in a refugee camp. Thirty years. This so-called human-rights world didn't ask me what was happening for me to be there 30 years."
Nearly two decades after the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) emerged from the hills to overthrow the extremist Hutu regime trying to exterminate the Tutsi population, Kagame is still a combative and divisive figure. To some he is the Lincoln of Africa for rising above his country's old divisions – and his own suffering after narrowly escaping as a child across the border to Uganda during an earlier bout of Tutsi killing – to preach forgiveness, reconciliation and hard work as he forges a new Rwanda out of the ashes of genocide.
The warrior: Paul Kagame with RPF troops in 1993, during the civil war that preceded the genocide. Photograph: Joel Stettenheim/Corbis
To others, Kagame has exploited his country's tragic history, and the west's guilt over its inaction during the slaughter, to construct a new Tutsi-dominated authoritarian regime using the legacy of genocide to suppress opposition and cover up for the crimes of his own side. In doing so, critics warn, he is laying the groundwork for another bout of bloodletting down the road.
For years, the heroic view of Kagame prevailed, not least in Britain and the US which, between them, provided about half the money to fund the Rwandan government's budget. But, in recent months, there's been a very public shift. Once-unquestioning support from Washington, where Bill Clinton called Kagame "one of the greatest leaders of our time", has given way to cuts in military aid and warnings from the US war crimes chief that Rwanda's leadership could find itself under investigation from the international criminal court over its backing for rebels in eastern Congo.
Britain, too, has stepped back from support so unequivocal that Clare Short, then Labour's international development secretary, called Kagame "a sweetie" and Tony Blair established a foundation to help the man he calls a "visionary leader" to govern. Britain's Conservative party has been no less enthusiastic. It set up a social-action project in Rwanda to bring hundreds of volunteers over recent years, including Tory MPs, to assist with construction of schools and community centres. Now the relationship is cooler as Congo's own tragedy, and Rwanda's part in it, can no longer be ignored.
A trail of imprisoned opponents, exiled former allies and assassinations pinned on Kagame by critics has also eaten away at his claims to be an enlightened, modernising leader who embraces new technology and is an enthusiastic blogger and tweeter. Among those locked up was Kagame's predecessor as president, Pasteur Bizimungu, while former allies from the RPF's days as a rebel army have fled abroad. They include Kagame's former chief aide, Theogene Rudasingwa, who formed a new political party with other exiles including former army chief of staff, General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who was wounded in an apparent assassination attempt in South Africa.
Another former ally, ex-interior minister Seth Sendashonga, who posed a serious political challenge after breaking with Kagame, was assassinated in Kenya 15 years ago. Rwanda's president has repeatedly denied any hand in the murder and several other apparently politically motivated killings since. But as a pattern of jailings, disappearances and deaths has developed there's no shortage of people ready to believe the worst.
Kagame increasingly takes a "with us or against us" view of even sympathetic criticism. The sharpness of his reaction suggests he was caught unawares by those he regarded as loyal friends deciding to keep a distance. He denies this. "Nothing would catch me off guard because I understand the world I live in. I understand it very well. And the world I live in is not necessarily a fair or just world. I have dealt with these injustices for the bigger part of my life," he says.
On the run: in 1996, Kagame’s troops drove Hutu refugees out of UN camps in Congo, and back to Rwanda. Photograph: Yunghi Kim/Contact Press Images
Part of what infuriates Kagame is what he sees as the age-old duplicity of neo-colonial powers. On the one hand politicians in western capitals are critical over democratic shortcomings in Rwanda. On the other, their diplomatic missions in Kigali praise Kagame for his single-minded, some say authoritarian, leadership in reconstructing his country and are wary of the day he leaves power.
Certainly, Rwanda is a better place than could have been imagined in the aftermath of the genocide. When Kagame's RPF rebels overthrew the Hutu extremist regime and seized power in 1994 they inherited a country dotted with mass graves and stripped of people. A sizeable proportion of the Hutu population fled across the borders to Zaire and Tanzania driven by fear, and a defeated Hutu leadership determined that Kagame should take over a "country without a people".
The Hutu army and its allied extremist militia, the interahamwe, were watered and fed in United Nations refugee camps even as they kept up the ethnic killings through cross-border raids. Kagame had few resources to draw on internally with many traditional institutions, such as the Catholic church, compromised by their part in the killings, including the involvement of priests and nuns in murder. Kagame's challenge was to reconstruct a country in which Tutsis could live without fear and the Hutu majority would accept him as its legitimate president.
A decade ago, one RPF regional military governor, Deo Nkusi, put it to me this way: "Changing people here is like bending steel. The people were bent into one shape over 40 years and they have to be bent back. If we do it too fast we will just break them. We have to exert pressure gradually."
Kagame was austere and demanding. He lambasted Rwandans as lazy and urged discipline. That appeared to reflect a view that the moral degeneracy underpinning the genocide was in part a product of a population insufficiently dedicated to hard work. The president urged Rwandans to confront the past and then put it behind them. Faced with 150,000 alleged killers packed into jails, his government spurned colonial-era courts in favour of a traditional form of justice that provided a forum for confessions and pleas for forgiveness by the killers, and laid the ground for a degree of reconciliation.
But Kagame takes nothing for granted. He says the path to a new Rwanda is through economic and social development that produces politics without hate. "The political, the economic, the social are tied together like the strands of a rope. The social and economic, if they are firm, tend to strengthen the other. In a state of poverty, illiteracy, people just remain exposed to all kinds of manipulation. That's what we have lived. It's easier to tell a poor person: you know what, you are poor, you're hungry because the other one has taken away your rights."
More than a million Rwandans have been lifted out of poverty since 2006. Access to healthcare and education is expanding. A construction boom has transformed the Kigali skyline. Kagame is also counting on time to solidify the gains. Two-thirds of Rwandans are under the age of 25 and open to a new way of thinking shaped by schools and learning the lessons of the past. But Kagame says he recognises that ridding Rwanda of the virus of hate and anger is not so simple.
"The reality of it is that things don't just disappear," he says. He points to the children that grew up without families. "It means they think about what created this situation where they have no families. So it's not just that they're growing up in a new situation and they have no bearing to the tragic past. Depending on how the situation continues to be managed, then the healing process – or the process of overcoming our past – becomes easier or more difficult." It is this achievement that has won Kagame previously unflinching support in many western capitals, even if it may be another generation before Rwandans can feel confident that, like Germany, they really have purged their past from their social fabric.
So it is all the more baffling and frustrating to Paul Kagame that he finds himself being called to account for a situation he says is not of Rwanda's making and is really the responsibility of the very people pointing the finger at him.
Rwanda's involvement in Congo has been undeniable since its 1996 invasion to clear the UN refugee camps used by Hutu extremists. The invasion evolved into a perpetual de-facto occupation in alliance with Congolese groups and the plunder of the region's considerable mineral resources by Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. Security was an issue, but there was also money to be made.
Understanding for Rwanda's position eroded as eastern Congo fell under the control of warlords, and the people endured mass rape, massacres and starvation. Then, last year, a report by UN-appointed experts gave what it said was detailed evidence of the Rwandan military arming a mostly Tutsi rebel group in eastern Congo, M23, then led by a wanted war criminal, Bosco Ntaganda (who has since surrendered to the ICC).
Rwanda worked hard to discredit the report, but it triggered surprising reaction from those who had previously covered for Kagame. Washington said it found the UN research credible. The British also felt they could no longer turn a blind eye.
Facing the future: the changing skyline of the capital city, Kigali, now experiencing a period of economic growth. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer
Kagame outright denies continuing Rwandan involvement in Congo and spends close to half an hour in a detailed explanation of why sending Rwandan troops there was a good thing, how the UN report was the stitching together of rumour, speculation and lies, and why it is decades of Belgian, French and American involvement in that blighted country that is the real cause of its problems. "I'm telling people look at themselves in the mirror. They are the ones responsible for problems in Congo, not me," he says.
"All the responsibilities that lie with the rest of the world, historically and in the present, have come to this: it is Rwanda responsible for all the problems. The Congolese themselves? No, not responsible for anything. Even the wasting of resources between Congo and the international community is something that has to be masked and packaged until Rwanda is made the problem.
"You have a [UN peacekeeping] mission in Congo spending $1.5bn every year for the past 12 years. Nobody ever asks: what do we get out of this? From the best arithmetic, I would say: why don't you give half of this to the Congolese to build schools, to build roads, to give them water and pay these soldiers who rape people every day? I'd even pay them not to rape."
Kagame goes on the attack over claims by the US and UK at diplomatic meetings to have additional evidence of Rwandan assistance to M23. "Up to this moment they've never given anybody a bit of what they're talking about – evidence," he says. The US froze military aid. Britain suspended some financial support and then put in place new controls. Kagame regards Rwanda as the victim of a diplomatic lynch mob and accuses the British government of laying the groundwork by sending the BBC and Channel 4 News to file reports critical of Rwanda. "It's just a circus. You start wondering about the people you're dealing with," he says.
The situation came to a head at a meeting between Kagame and ambassadors from the major foreign donors, including the UK and the US. I tell him I heard that diplomats had rarely seen him so furious. "Yes. Probably I was not angry enough. You can't have these people…" He trails off. "When you tell them the truth they think you are angry."
Part of what he says disturbs him is foreign governments cutting aid to the projects they have declared a success. What, he wonders, does that have to do with Congo? "How does affecting aid help deal with those things they are complaining about? It's simple logic. It doesn't make sense," he says.
But then he decides it does make sense because the aid freeze was not about Congo at all. "One thing that will never be said openly, but is a fact, aid is also a tool of control. It's not completely altruistic," he says. "If a country's giving us aid it doesn't give them the right to control us. I mean it. I can say thank you, you are really helpful. But you don't own me."
Kagame's anger rises again at what he says is western donors' insistence on talking about an issue he regards as having nothing to do with aid. "They say: these Rwandans think they are free, but actually they are not free. Sometimes it becomes a laughable matter, honestly." As with almost everything else in Rwanda, issues of freedom are bound up with the legacy of genocide. Kagame's critics say he is using laws intended to prevent the propagation of the kind of hate speech that contributed to the killings to suppress criticism of, and opposition to, the government. For some, the cause célèbre concerns Victoire Ingabire, leader of the Unified Democratic Forces, a coalition mostly of exiles, who attempted to challenge Kagame in the 2010 presidential election. She was arrested before the vote and subsequently sentenced to eight years in prison for inciting revolt, genocide ideology and forming an armed group.
Her supporters dismiss the charges as trumped up and hail her as a Rwandan version of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader. Foreign human rights groups have raised concerns about freedom of speech and the conduct of the trial after the principal witnesses against Ingabire were held incommunicado and possibly tortured into providing testimony.
But Ingabire's case also reflects the complexities of talking about the past in a country living with the legacy of genocide. On returning from 15 years' living in the Netherlands, Ingabire gave a speech at Kigali's genocide memorial, where thousands of victims are buried, equating the deaths of Hutus in the civil war with the murder of 800,000 Tutsis during the extermination campaign: "If we look at this memorial, it only refers to the people who died during the genocide against the Tutsis. There is another untold story with regard to the crimes against humanity committed against the Hutus. The Hutus who lost their loved ones are also suffering; they think about the loved ones who perished and are wondering, 'When will our dead ones also be remembered?'"
Tutsi survivors were outraged not only by the implication in her statements of a "double genocide", which they saw as intended to diminish the organised killings, but the choice of location at which to make the comments.
Ingabire's history casts doubt on her claim to have merely raised a legitimate issue for discussion. She is president of the Republican Rally for Democracy in Rwanda, a group born in the Hutu refugee camps in the mid-1990s with the backing of the politicians and army officers who carried out the genocide and who have spent the years since attempting to rewrite history.
Kagame points to the bans on Holocaust denial in France and Germany as evidence that foreign criticism over Ingabire's case is western hypocrisy. "The same people who have those laws (banning Holocaust denial) are saying we shouldn't have them. We're not blind to this," he says.
However, Ingabire's case does point up the limits on discussing what many Rwandans think are legitimate issues. Gonzaga Muganwa, a journalist and presenter of a radio phone-in, watched Ingabire's speech at the memorial. "We were so shocked. Nobody has heard such words spoken on Rwandan soil since the genocide," he says. "I myself wrote a piece saying Ingabire should be prosecuted. It's like saying Churchill bombing Dresden was the same as the Holocaust. The Tutsi genocide was an attempt to exterminate them." But Muganwa does have problems with restrictions on freedom of speech. He shakes his head over the case of two journalists jailed for genocide denial, divisionism and insulting Kagame. Rwanda's supreme court overturned the genocide-related convictions, but upheld those for defaming the president and public disorder. "Defaming the president should not be a criminal offence," says Muganwa.
He also confirms what other Rwandan journalists say: that they self-censor. Muganwa decided to look at the facts behind an issue widely if quietly discussed – a belief that a younger generation of Rwandans appointed to senior administrative positions in the government are mostly Tutsis who grew up in exile in neighbouring English-speaking Uganda, the same as many in the RPF leadership. It's a sensitive issue not only because it feeds into old Hutu extremist accusations of "Tutsi domination" but because of unhappiness at Tutsi exiles prospering while the genocide survivors still struggle in poverty.
"When I did my research I found that most of those people tended to speak English and some had family connections," says Muganwa. "I stopped because I know I would have been accused of creating divisions. I would have been open to prosecution. It's a no-go area. People discuss it in bars all the time, but you can't print it."
Muganwa goes on to raise the case of Frank Habineza and his Democratic Green Party of Rwanda. "I ask myself why the government refuses to register the Green party," he says.
As a former member of the RPF who broke with Kagame, no one could accuse Habineza of promoting genocide ideology. In 2010 he attempted to register the Greens for the presidential election, but fled the country after his party's vice president was found with his head cut off. Now he's back fighting what he believes is a deliberate government strategy to prevent him organising.
"It has not been easy. This government is lacking in recognition of political rights," he says. "You will not find anything divisive in what we've done, what we've said. The only thing we want is democracy, that people are consulted. We have a tendency here where the authorities just make a decision and hand it down to the people. Kagame is more interested in maintaining power and he will do anything to stay in power no matter what type of problems he leaves us with."
Kagame's response is to suggest that the concerns are all foreign inspired. "We really need to decide for ourselves, not what people on the outside decide for us," he says. "In terms of our internal political context, we manage it as our affairs. And the outsiders keep bringing in all kinds of poisons; we deal with that as well. But we have to deal with our lives as we deal with them, and keep managing those that come from outside as best we can to deal with it. And even tell them what they don't like to hear – that they bring prejudice and double standards in our own situation."
this raises the question of 2017. Rwanda's constitution requires Kagame to step down in four years, but already there are rumblings about changing it to allow him to stay on as president. Some of this is generated by the sycophancy expected of underlings wishing to remain in their leader's good graces, but there are other, unusual, forces at work as well.
A fair number of genocide survivors fear the day Kagame relinquishes power, believing his strong hand is all that keeps another bout of ethnic bloodletting at bay. There are also Hutus wary of political change because they see Rwanda's president as keeping a lid on violent Tutsi retaliation for the genocide. Others, including Kagame's own justice minister, believe it is essential for Kagame to step down in 2017 in order to maintain the primacy of the rule of law.
Kagame has been equivocal in the past, but greets the news of his justice minister's views with belligerence. "Why don't you tell him to step down himself? All those years he's been there, he's not the only one who can be the justice minister," he says. "In the end we should come to a view that serves us all. But in the first place I wonder why it becomes the subject of heated debate."
One of the reasons is that Rwandans are not alone in wondering if the final decision will really be the product of political consensus or, like so much else, ultimately decided by Kagame himself. Foreign governments have one eye on what they now regard as the salutary experience of dealing with Yoweri Museveni, president of neighbouring Uganda.
Two decades ago Museveni was hailed as one of a "new breed" of African leaders who broke with the plundering "presidents for life" and promised an era of good governance and freedoms. Museveni delivered to some extent, but there's no more talk of the new breed as Uganda's president heads toward his 30th year in power with little sign of political opponents being allowed to challenge him. When I tell Kagame there is a suspicion in some foreign capitals that he is treading in the footsteps of Museveni – a man regarded by some in the west as having betrayed his commitment to democracy – Rwanda's president returns to his favoured theme.
"Who are they, first of all, to feel betrayed? They are not gods. They don't create people. They don't own people. This whole thing of saying betrayed – betrayed by what?" he says.
Kagame wonders whether anybody ever accuses the Liberal Democratic party of Japan, which has ruled almost continuously since 1955, of clinging on to power. "I'm sure if the RPF went on for 40 years it would be a crime, but for the Liberal party in Japan it's not a crime. This is what disturbs me. Sometimes you feel like doing things just to challenge that – that somebody is entitled to do something, but says when you do it you are wrong. I find it bizarre," he says. "If it happens elsewhere and people think it's OK, why do people say it's not OK when it happens in Rwanda? I just don't accept this sort of thing. We have many struggles to keep fighting. Some of the things are like racism: 'These are Africans, we must herd them like cows.' No! Just refuse it."
This is misleading. "the rebel leader whose army put a stop to the 1994 genocide of 800,0000 Tutsis". How can Mc Greal forget/omit to mention that Kagame is the one who SPARKED the genocide by shooting down the plane that carried President Habyarimana, a Hutu? Kagame is even more responsible for that genocide because any sensible person could see that if an event like that was to happen, Tutsi were going to pay a big price because the 4 years war was between Hutu led by Habyarimana and Tutsi led by Kagame.
This tragedy has been a working capital for Kagame who has used it to justify his killing of 6 million congolese and committing a genocide on Hutu refugees in Congo as the UN MAPPING REPORT has documented it. It is a shame for McGreal to sound like already condemning Victoire Ingabire, while he at the same time puts her speech which is nothing than expressing a view on the Rwandan history that is different from Kagame's. Yes Kagame's thugs killed Hutus, they must be punished. Yes Hutus who killed Tutsis must also be punished. Let's not portray all Hutus as killers or all Tutsis as victims. We Rwandans know our history, stop re-writing it as you wish.Kagame is one of the criminals who should be at the ICC answering judges' questions. He never attempted promoting reconciliation because he is a bloody murderer who kills any body who tries to challenge him.
This tragedy has been a working capital for Kagame who has used it to justify his killing of 6 million congolese and committing a genocide on Hutu refugees in Congo as the UN MAPPING REPORT has documented it. It is a shame for McGreal to sound like already condemning Victoire Ingabire, while he at the same time puts her speech which is nothing than expressing a view on the Rwandan history that is different from Kagame's. Yes Kagame's thugs killed Hutus, they must be punished. Yes Hutus who killed Tutsis must also be punished. Let's not portray all Hutus as killers or all Tutsis as victims. We Rwandans know our history, stop re-writing it as you wish.Kagame is one of the criminals who should be at the ICC answering judges' questions. He never attempted promoting reconciliation because he is a bloody murderer who kills any body who tries to challenge him.
In an exclusive interview with Chris McGreal in Kigali, Rwanda's president denies backing an accused Congolese war criminal and says challenge to senior US official proves his innocence
Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, has rejected accusations from Washington that he was supporting a rebel leader and accused war criminal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by challenging a senior US official to send a drone to kill the wanted man.
In an interview with the Observer Magazine, Kagame said that on a visit to Washington in March he came under pressure from the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, Johnnie Carson, to arrest Bosco Ntaganda, leader of the M23 rebels, who was wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). The US administration was increasing pressure on Kagame following a UN report claiming to have uncovered evidence showing that the Rwandan military provided weapons and other support to Ntaganda, whose forces briefly seized control of the region's main city, Goma.
"I told him: 'Assistant secretary of state, you support [the UN peacekeeping force] in the Congo. Such a big force, so much money. Have you failed to use that force to arrest whoever you want to arrest in Congo? Now you are turning to me, you are turning to Rwanda?'" he said. "I said that, since you are used to sending drones and gunning people down, why don't you send a drone and get rid of him and stop this nonsense? And he just laughed. I told him: 'I'm serious'."
Kagame said that, after he returned to Rwanda, Carson kept up the pressure with a letter demanding that he act against Ntaganda. Days later, the M23 leader appeared at the US embassy in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, saying that he wanted to surrender to the ICC. He was transferred to The Hague. The Rwandan leadership denies any prior knowledge of Ntaganda's decision to hand himself over. It suggests he was facing a rebellion within M23 and feared for his safety.
But Kagame's confrontation with Carson reflects how much relationships with even close allies have deteriorated over allegations that Rwanda continues to play a part in the bloodletting in Congo. The US and Britain, Rwanda's largest bilateral aid donors, withheld financial assistance, as did the EU, prompting accusations of betrayal by Rwandan officials. The political impact added impetus to a government campaign to condition the population to become more self-reliant.
Kagame is angered by the moves and criticisms of his human rights record in Rwanda, including allegations that he blocks opponents by misusing laws banning hate speech to accuse them of promoting genocide and suppresses press criticism. The Rwandan president is also embittered that countries, led by the US and UK, that blocked intervention to stop the 1994 genocide, and France which sided with the Hutu extremist regime that led the killings, are now judging him on human rights.
"We don't live our lives or we don't deal with our affairs more from the dictates from outside than from the dictates of our own situation and conditions," Kagame said. "The outside viewpoint, sometimes you don't know what it is. It keeps changing. They tell you they want you to respect this or fight this and you are doing it and they say you're not doing it the right way. They keep shifting goalposts and interpreting things about us or what we are doing to suit the moment."
He is agitated about what he sees as Rwanda being held responsible for all the ills of Congo, when Kigali's military intervention began in 1996 to clear out Hutu extremists using UN-funded refugee camps for raids to murder Tutsis. Kagame said that Rwanda was not responsible for the situation after decades of western colonisation and backing for the Mobutu dictatorship.
The Rwandan leader denies supporting M23 and said he has been falsely accused because Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, needs someone to blame because his army cannot fight. "To defeat these fellows doesn't take bravery because they don't go to fight. They just hear bullets and are on the loose running anywhere, looting, raping and doing anything. That's what happened," he said.
"President Kabila and the government had made statements about how this issue is going to be contained. They had to look for an explanation for how they were being defeated. They said we are not fighting [Ntaganda], we're actually fighting Rwanda."
Source: The Guardian (UK)
Réf : 027/Prés-M23/2013
RE: Actual situation in the Eastern part of DRC
To the UN Secretary General
New York
Your Excellency,
We are once again honored to write to you about the situation that is taking place in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The military operations which are taking over in the surrounding of Goma are a result of Congolese army working together with his allies FDLR and MAI-MAI armed groups attacking the M23 positions from Monday 20th may, 2013 at 4:30 am.
We would like to see this military hostilities being stopped on both sides as it appears in our letter of 1st May, 2013 addressed to his Excellency MUSEVENI KAGUTA, President of the Republic of Uganda, Mediator of the Kampala peace talks and President of ICGLR, requesting for bilateral cease fire as shows our attached letter. Unfortunately the DRC government consider the Kampala negotiations as an opportunity for a delay, in order to obtain the UN resolution for a militarist option.
We again express our political will to have a bilateral cease fire agreement to bring peace to our people and allow the political dialogue to take over. We want this framework to deal with root causes of this conflict rather than a simple treatment of symptoms as it was recommended by H.E OLOUSSEGUN OBASANJO your Special Envoy in this very matter in the year 2008 – 2009.
We stay convinced that war will never bring sustainable peace in the DRC and want to assure you, that we believe that, the presence of the UN Mission in DRC remains an opportunity in our quest for peace .
Hoping that our correspondence will take your attention, we thank you anticipatively.
To the attention of Her Excellency Mary ROBINSON,
UN Secretary General Special Envoy in the Great Lakes Region
Re: Actual situation in the Eastern of DRC
Your Excellency,
We are once again honored to write to you about the situation that is taking place in the
eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The military operations which are taking over in the surrounding of Goma are a result of
Congolese army working together with his allies FDLR and MAI-MAI armed groups attacking the M23 positions from Monday 20th may, 2013 at 4:30 am.
This situation is disturbing the political peace process which was proned by the framework
agreement of Addis Ababa of February 24th 2013, the true way for solution in the DRC crisis
and even complicates the Kampala negotiations in which we did and do still build our hope.
We remain believing that war will never bring sustainable peace in the DRC.
We highly thank you, Excellency, as you endeavour to bring peace in our region through the
political solution rather than war.
Hoping that our correspondence will take your attention, we thank you anticipatively.
Re: Ceasefire Agreement
Your Excellency, Mr President,
We, at M23, are honored to inform you that we still have hope in peace through the negotiations taking place in Kampala.
Since December, 2012 on the request of the international community represented by the International Conference of Great Lakes Region, we submitted ourselves to all requests from the ICGLR, for instance we withdrew from Goma while we were militarily stronger than the DRC Army and we signed the unilateral ceasefire while the DRC government refused to do so. We maintained our military positions as it was requested and we humbly accepted all the demands which allowed the progress in the negotiations today, it’s during the Kampala negotiations period that the DRC government went to the UN seeking for the resolution 2098.
At this moment while we are still in negotiations, the DRC Army in coalition with the FDLR have left their positions, crossed over and took our positions in Mabenga. Others came from Tongo through the Virunga national Park where they are preparing to attack ours positions in Rutshuru territory.
In Kanyarutshina, the DRC Army in coalition with MONUSCO peace keepers took our positions, which consequently shows that the DRC government is preparing war against us. This is why we at M23, are requesting to the DRC government to sign the ceasefire agreement and to release all our members kept in prison in Kinshasa as a proof of willingness to pursue with negotiations.
We believe that the efforts made by the mediator and the ICGLR would not be taken in vain by the DRC government and we thank you for all.
| U.S. SEC requires company disclosures on use of DR Congo minerals |
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday approved a rule that would require public companies to disclose information on the use of minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Under the rule, public companies would have to disclose annually their tracing of the minerals back to the sources if they use in their products the designated minerals from the DRC and neighboring countries, where armed groups have profited much from mining minerals used in electronics, jewelry and other goods... (view news)
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M23 Political Leader Bertrand Bisimwa’s letter to Ban Ki Moon
Bunagana, May 22nd 2013
Réf : 027/Prés-M23/2013
RE: Actual situation in the Eastern part of DRC
To the UN Secretary General
New York
Your Excellency,
We are once again honored to write to you about the situation that is taking place in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The military operations which are taking over in the surrounding of Goma are a result of Congolese army working together with his allies FDLR and MAI-MAI armed groups attacking the M23 positions from Monday 20th may, 2013 at 4:30 am.
We would like to see this military hostilities being stopped on both sides as it appears in our letter of 1st May, 2013 addressed to his Excellency MUSEVENI KAGUTA, President of the Republic of Uganda, Mediator of the Kampala peace talks and President of ICGLR, requesting for bilateral cease fire as shows our attached letter. Unfortunately the DRC government consider the Kampala negotiations as an opportunity for a delay, in order to obtain the UN resolution for a militarist option.
We again express our political will to have a bilateral cease fire agreement to bring peace to our people and allow the political dialogue to take over. We want this framework to deal with root causes of this conflict rather than a simple treatment of symptoms as it was recommended by H.E OLOUSSEGUN OBASANJO your Special Envoy in this very matter in the year 2008 – 2009.
We stay convinced that war will never bring sustainable peace in the DRC and want to assure you, that we believe that, the presence of the UN Mission in DRC remains an opportunity in our quest for peace .
Hoping that our correspondence will take your attention, we thank you anticipatively.
Respectfully
Bertrand BISIMWA
CC:
- Permanent Members of the Security Council
- President of the African Union
- Heads of State of the CIRGL
- Embassies
- Permanent Members of the Security Council
- President of the African Union
- Heads of State of the CIRGL
- Embassies
M23 Leader Bertrand Bisimwa’s letter to Mary ROBINSON
Bunagana, May 22nd, 2013
Réf : 026/PRES-M23/2013
Réf : 026/PRES-M23/2013
To the attention of Her Excellency Mary ROBINSON,
UN Secretary General Special Envoy in the Great Lakes Region
Re: Actual situation in the Eastern of DRC
Your Excellency,
We are once again honored to write to you about the situation that is taking place in the
eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The military operations which are taking over in the surrounding of Goma are a result of
Congolese army working together with his allies FDLR and MAI-MAI armed groups attacking the M23 positions from Monday 20th may, 2013 at 4:30 am.
This situation is disturbing the political peace process which was proned by the framework
agreement of Addis Ababa of February 24th 2013, the true way for solution in the DRC crisis
and even complicates the Kampala negotiations in which we did and do still build our hope.
We would like to see this military hostilities being stopped on both sides as it appears in our
letter of 1st May, 2013 addressed to his Excellency MUSEVENI KAGUTA, President of the
Republic of Uganda, Mediator of the Kampala peace talks and President of ICGLR,
requesting for bilateral cease fire between us and the Government of the DRC.
letter of 1st May, 2013 addressed to his Excellency MUSEVENI KAGUTA, President of the
Republic of Uganda, Mediator of the Kampala peace talks and President of ICGLR,
requesting for bilateral cease fire between us and the Government of the DRC.
Unfortunately the DRC government consider the Kampala negotiations as an opportunity for a delay, in order to obtain the UN resolution for a militarist option.
We remain believing that war will never bring sustainable peace in the DRC.
We highly thank you, Excellency, as you endeavour to bring peace in our region through the
political solution rather than war.
Hoping that our correspondence will take your attention, we thank you anticipatively.
Respectfully
Bertrand BISIMWA
CC:
- UN Secretary General
- Permanent Members of the Security Council
- President of the African Union
- Heads of State of the CIRGL
- Embassies
- UN Secretary General
- Permanent Members of the Security Council
- President of the African Union
- Heads of State of the CIRGL
- Embassies
M23 letter To Yoweri Museveni Kaguta President of Uganda
Bunagana, May 1st, 2013
Réf : 021/Prés-M23/2013
Réf : 021/Prés-M23/2013
To His Excellency YOWERI MUSEVENI KAGUTA, President of Republic of Uganda,
Chairman of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region “ICGLR” and Mediator of the negotiations between the DRC government and M23
Re: Ceasefire Agreement
Your Excellency, Mr President,
We, at M23, are honored to inform you that we still have hope in peace through the negotiations taking place in Kampala.
Since December, 2012 on the request of the international community represented by the International Conference of Great Lakes Region, we submitted ourselves to all requests from the ICGLR, for instance we withdrew from Goma while we were militarily stronger than the DRC Army and we signed the unilateral ceasefire while the DRC government refused to do so. We maintained our military positions as it was requested and we humbly accepted all the demands which allowed the progress in the negotiations today, it’s during the Kampala negotiations period that the DRC government went to the UN seeking for the resolution 2098.
At this moment while we are still in negotiations, the DRC Army in coalition with the FDLR have left their positions, crossed over and took our positions in Mabenga. Others came from Tongo through the Virunga national Park where they are preparing to attack ours positions in Rutshuru territory.
In Kanyarutshina, the DRC Army in coalition with MONUSCO peace keepers took our positions, which consequently shows that the DRC government is preparing war against us. This is why we at M23, are requesting to the DRC government to sign the ceasefire agreement and to release all our members kept in prison in Kinshasa as a proof of willingness to pursue with negotiations.
We are convinced that the ceasefire agreement will bring in the end of the war and allow peaceful negotiations to take place.
We believe that the efforts made by the mediator and the ICGLR would not be taken in vain by the DRC government and we thank you for all.
Respectfully
Bertrand BISIMWA
CC:
- Heads of States of ICGLR;
- His Excellence The Facilitator of Talks between M23 and The DRC’s Government;
- Heads of States of ICGLR;
- His Excellence The Facilitator of Talks between M23 and The DRC’s Government;
GOMA – RDC : Une tragédie à l’horizon
Des soldats de parade, aussi remarquables les jours de défilé qu’inaptes sous le feu.
They look like soldiers on parade, but useless under fire
They look like soldiers on parade, but useless under fire
Qu’il s’agisse d’une escarmouche due à des raisons plus ou moins futiles -la gestion d’une source-, ou d’un accrochage plus sérieux qui pourrait mettre fin à cinq mois d’une trêve de facto, les combats qui ont opposée hier les soldats du M23 aux troupes gouvernementales et aux rebelles hutu rwandais des FDLR, leurs alliés, autour de l’abreuvoir de Mutaho -à une dizaine de kilomètres de Goma, dans l’Est de la RDC- préfigurent certainement une partie du scénario pour les semaines à venir.
Lorsque la Brigade d’intervention de la MONUSCO, mise en place par la résolution 2098 du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU pour « neutraliser » les forces de l’Armée Révolutionnaire Congolaise, branche militaire du M23, sera prête à agir, il suffira un épisode déclencheur comme celui de Mutaho -une offensive conjointe FARDC-FDLR contre les positions de l’ARC et la riposte, quoique contenue, de cette dernière- pour susciter l’intervention sur le terrain de la nouvelle unité spéciale onusienne sous commandement d’un général tanzanien. Celle-ci ne se limitera pas, par conséquent, à exercer une fonction de dissuasion mais se déploiera en ordre de combat face aux troupes du général Sultani Makenga, chef militaire du M23.
Dans cette perspective d’« affrontement final » contre la « révolution congolaise » du M23, se consomme tristement la dérive des Nations Unies qui abdiquent leur rôle fondateur de partenariat mondial pour la paix pour se muer en force d’agression contre toute forme de résistance au nouvel ordre planétaire établi par les grandes puissances. Un ordre qui exige un pouvoir faible et prédateur en RDC avec Joseph Kabila à la tête de l’Etat et qui sera à tout prix défendu, même au risque d’embraser à nouveau la sous région. Ainsi, l’alliance qui se profile dans les collines et les jungles du Kivu entre Casques Blues, FARDC et FDLR signe -dans la collusion théoriquement contre nature entre une mission de paix devenue mission de guerre et des forces génocidaires- l’arrêt de mort de l’ONU en tant que régulateur impartial des conflits et la perte définitive de sa légitimation en tant qu’agent de paix.
Mais les événements de Mutaho nous apprennent une deuxième leçon. La provocation orchestrée par Kabila à la veille de la visite du Secrétaire général des NU à Kinshasa montre jusqu’à quel point le locataire du Palais de la Nation se sent conforté par ses parrains internationaux. Ceux-ci feront probablement mine de critiquer son inaction face aux engagements pris dans l’accord-cadre d’Addis-Abeba. Mais ils sont en réalité les derniers à être intéressés à un véritable processus de réformes en RDC, qui dote par exemple ce géant d’Afrique centrale d’une armée en mesure de faire respecter sa souveraineté nationale et d’un pouvoir capable d’en assurer le développement et de garantir le bien être de ses populations.
Pourtant, et avant qu’il ne soit pas trop tard, il faut au moins que les Etats de la sous région prennent la mesure des conséquences de l’intervention de la Brigade onusienne. Car tous ne resteront pas les bras croisés devant le nettoyage ethnique et l’extermination des communautés banyarwanda dans le Nord Kivu.
Luigi Elongui
Translated in English:
Whether it's a skirmish due to reasons more or less trivial-managing a source-or a more serious clash that could end in five months a de facto truce, fighting who opposed yesterday soldiers M23 government troops and Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels, allies around the trough Mutaho to ten kilometers from Goma, in eastern DRC, certainly foreshadow some scenario for the coming weeks.When the Intervention Brigade of MONUSCO, established by resolution 2098 of the Security Council of the UN to "neutralize" the forces of the Congolese Revolutionary Army, the military wing of the M23 will be ready to act, simply a trigger episode like Mutaho-joint FARDC-FDLR offensive against the positions of the CRA and the response, although contained, this latest addition to spark action on the ground of the new UN special unit under the command of a Tanzanian general. This will not be limited, therefore, to exert a deterrent but will deploy in battle order against the troops of General Sultani Makenga military leader M23.In this perspective of "final battle" against the "Congolese revolution" of the M23, is sadly consumes drift UN abdicate their role founder of Global Partnership for Peace to turn into an aggressive force against any form of resistance the new world order established by the great powers. An order requiring low power and predator in the DRC with Joseph Kabila as head of state and will be defended at any cost, even at the risk of flare again the subregion. Thus, the alliance looming in the hills and jungles of Kivu between Helmets Blues, FARDC and FDLR sign-in collusion against theoretically kind between a peacekeeping mission to become war-forces genocidal death sentence UN as an impartial regulator of conflict and the final loss of its legitimacy as an agent of peace.But the events of Mutaho we learn a second lesson. Provocation orchestrated by Kabila on the eve of the visit of the UN Secretary General in Kinshasa shows how much the tenant of the Palace of the Nation feels buoyed by its international sponsors. They probably do mine to criticize his inaction on commitments made in the framework agreement in Addis Ababa. But in reality they are the last to be interested in a genuine process of reform in the DRC, which endows eg the giant Central African army in a position to enforce its national sovereignty and a power capable of ensure the development and ensure the welfare of its people.Yet, before it is too late, we need at least the countries of the sub region are measuring the impact of the intervention of the UN Brigade. Because all will not stand idly by ethnic cleansing and extermination of Banyarwanda in North Kivu communities.
RDC: Le viol est utilisé comme une arme de guerre
El Memey Murangwa
Par El Memey Murangwa
On aura tout vu dans ce pays qui par ses richesses fabuleuses devait devenir un paradis. Hélas ! Les guerres se succèdent emportant avec elles la joie des pauvres habitants qui ne savent à quels dieux confier leur désespoir. Impayés depuis belles lurettes, ceux qui sont commis à la protection des personnes et de leurs biens dévalisent, rançonnent, et sèment la mort. La femme paie le prix fort de cette escalade de violence.
Première nourricière de la famille depuis que l’emploi est devenu une denrée rare dans ce pays aux immenses terres arables, elle se réveille au grand matin, traverse la forêt dense pour aller au champ pour qu’au retour elle puisse bien nourrir sa maisonnée. Le plus souvent elle rentre en pleurs après avoir subi un traitement humiliant de la part des hommes en armes qui s’accaparent d’une grande partie de sa récolte et la viole à tour de rôle. Ces véreux n’hésitent même pas à faire de même sur la mineure d’âge qui accompagne sa maman.
De retour au village déserté par les hommes, elle est souvent accueillie par des lamentations provenant des vieilles mères qui maudissent les porteurs d’armes qui n’ont pas eu froid aux yeux en découvrant la nudité de ces personnes qui dans un passé récent avaient le respect de toutes les générations. Au Congo dit démocratique, l’état a cessé d’exister depuis une vingtaine d’années, dans les provinces des hommes en armes s’imposent et commettent l’arbitraire sur une population paupérisée par des dictatures successives.
Les intellectuels et les jeunes valides se réfugient dans les pays voisins en attendant de sauter sur la première possibilité de se rendre en occident pour une vie meilleure. Dans cette tragédie, le gouvernement reste silencieux. Au lieu de s’attaquer à ceux qui violent, les tenants du pouvoir autocratique ne s’intéressent qu’à ceux qui menacent le régime pendant que le viol continu de faire son chemin. Déshumanisé, les hommes abandonnent les femmes violés condamnant leurs progénitures à un avenir incertain. Les enfants nés de ces ignobles actes deviennent des enfants de la rue et constituent une pépinière qui très vite produit des violeurs impénitents. Au Congo le viol est devenue une arme de guerre, les victimes sont tenues en haleine par une armée d’inciviques qui étendent leurs autorités sur des espaces pouvant contribuer au développement de la nation congolaise.
La presse en parle timidement, les confessions religieuses fustigent ce comportement inhumain dans les églises mais n’osent pas interpeller les tenants du pouvoir sur cette question. La presse internationale en parle peu et justifie-le manque d’information par l’inaccessibilité des zones en guerre. Une guerre étrange qui détruit les valeurs humaines et qui contribue à l’émergence d’une génération sans cœur. Une guerre qui véhicule les maladies honteuses et les germes de la mort. Une guerre qui déstabilise la famille, matrice et cellule de toute nation. Qui donc délivrera le Congo de ce fardeau ? La solution ne viendra sans doute pas de la Banque mondiale, ni de l’ONU, mais celle-ci doit venir du Congolais qui doit d’abord prendre conscience de sa condition actuelle et apprendre le plus vite possible à se prendre en charge.
© VirungaNews
Translated in English:
DRC: Rape is used as a weapon of warMay23El Memey MurangwaEl Memey MurangwaWe've seen everything in this country by his fabulous wealth had become a paradise. Alas! Successive wars with them, the joy of the poor people who know what gods entrust their despair. Unpaid for beautiful Lurettes, those who are committed to the protection of persons and property rob, extort and cause death. The woman pays a high price for the escalating violence.First foster family since employment has become a rare commodity in this country with huge arable land, she wakes up in the morning, through the dense forest to the field for the return it could well feed his household. Most often it comes in tears after suffering a humiliating treatment by armed men who seized a large part of his harvest and raped in turn. These crooked not even hesitate to do the same on the age minor who accompanies his mother.Back in the village deserted by men, it is often greeted by wailing from old mothers who curse weapon bearers who have not had cold eyes discovering the nakedness of those who had in the recent past the respect for all generations. Said Democratic Congo, the state has ceased to exist for twenty years in the provinces of armed men impose arbitrary and commit a pauperized population by successive dictatorships.Intellectuals and young disabled seek refuge in neighboring countries waiting to jump on the first opportunity to go to the West for a better life. In this tragedy, the government remains silent. Instead of going after those who violate the supporters of autocratic power are only interested in those who threaten the regime while continuing to rape his way. Dehumanized men leaving women violated condemning their offspring to an uncertain future. Children born to these despicable acts become street children and provide a nursery that quickly produces unrepentant rapists. Congo rape has become a weapon of war, victims are held spellbound by an uncivil army authorities to extend their spaces may contribute to the development of the Congolese nation.The press speaks timidly faiths criticize this inhuman behavior in churches but dare not challenge those in power on this issue. The international press spoke little and justify the information by the inaccessibility of war zones lacking. A strange war that destroys human values and contributes to the emergence of a generation without heart. A war that vehicle shameful disease and germs of death. A war which destabilizes the family matrix and cell nation. Who will deliver the Congo this burden? The solution will probably not be the World Bank or the UN, but it must come from the Congolese must first become aware of his present condition and learn as fast as possible to take care of.
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