Grant Assenheimer, "Speechless," AlertNet blog, April 8, 2009.

Last week, I spent one afternoon visiting patients with one of the councilors from our Mental Health program. Wow. You don’t answer “that was fun” when teammates ask how it went. The sessions were all in Kiluba, the main dialect here in Shamwana. While the ideas were translated into French for me by the councilor, you don’t need to understand the words to get their meaning. Pretty heavy stuff…

On the surface, Shamwana is all cheerful “Mazungo!” greetings as people busily go about their business. Life is hard but improving and it is easy to forget that real war was here a short 3 years ago. This was one of the first times I had stopped to really look. And when you look, you see the wrinkled hands and dirt under the toenails. You see that the toy is made from an old plastic jug on a string. You notice that her blouse used to be white…but is now gray and so thin its doesn’t conceal much. You realize she doesn’t even have flip-flops…and that life is not as easy as it appears.

…in 2005 she saw her mother killed by a soldier. It was purposefully done in front of her as a tactic of intimidation.

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Grant Assenheimer is a logistician working with the Canadian branch of aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Shamwana, a tiny village in DR Congo's Katanga province. This is his second mission with MSF. Grant is a Canadian from Barrhead, Alberta.Recommend this Post

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Kambale Musavuli, "The conflict in the Congo is a resource war waged by U.S. and British allies," Global Research, February 22, 2009.

[The current issue of the bi-monthly Foreign Policy magazine features an article by Niall Ferguson urging us to "forget about Iran, Iraq, and North Korea" and to worry instead about Somalia, Russia, and Mexico. These are supposed to be where "economic calamity meets political and social turmoil," but what about Eastern Congo or Sudan or Zimbabwe? What about Myanmar? What about the covert nuclear weapons states? -jlt]

Since Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo in 1996, they have pursued a plan to appropriate the wealth of Eastern Congo either directly or through proxy forces. The December 2008 United Nations report is the latest in a series of U.N. reports dating from 2001 that clearly documents the systematic looting and appropriation of Congolese resources by Rwanda and Uganda, two of Washington and London's staunchest allies in Africa.

However, in the wake of the December 2008 report, which clearly documents Rwanda's support of destabilizing proxy forces inside the Congo, a series of stunning proposals and actions have been presented which all appear to be an attempt to cover up or bury the damning U.N. report on the latest expression of Rwanda's aggression against the Congolese people.

It is only recently that two European nations, Sweden and the Netherlands, have decided to withhold aid from Rwanda as a result of its aggression against the Congolese people.

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"DR Congo: wandan rebels slaughter over 100 civilians," Human Rights Watch, February 13, 2009.

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
(New York) - The rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) brutally slaughtered at least 100 Congolese civilians in the Kivu provinces of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between January 20 and February 8, 2009, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed dozens of victims and witnesses who recently arrived from neighboring areas of Ufamandu and Walowaluanda (North Kivu province) and from Ziralo (South Kivu province) at displaced persons camps near Goma, the capital of North Kivu. Their accounts are the first reports of killings of civilians by the FDLR since joint operations between Rwandan Defense Forces and the Congolese army against the group began on January 20. Some of the civilians died during the fighting between these forces.

"The FDLR have a very ugly past, but we haven't seen this level of violence in years." Anneke Van Woudenberg senior researcher Africa division Human Rights Watch.

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"Lack of Protection for Civilians Under Attack in North-East Congo," Médecins Sans Frontières, February 4, 2009.

The village of Faradje, where one of the worst massacres took place during 2008 Christmas period. Democratic Republic of Congo 2009 © Avril Benoit/MSF

Dungu/Kinshasa, DRC/Geneva/Nairobi, February 4, 2009 – As the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continues to unleash violence against the people of Haut-Uélé in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the intensity of the targeted violence has prompted the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to denounce MONUC—the United Nations peacekeeping force in eastern DRC—for its inaction in protecting the population. Tens of villages have been burned, hundreds of civilians have been stabbed or clubbed to death, and men, women, and children have been abducted.

More than 50 villages and towns across north-eastern region of the DRC have been subjected to the LRA’s murderous attacks since December 25, 2008, including Tora on January 21, Taduru on January 24, Awo on January 28, Mangba on January 30, and Ngilima on February 1. Many inhabitants have had no choice but to flee to the bush to escape further massacres. There is no one to protect them; they wait in vain for humanitarian assistance that fails to arrive because of insecurity.

"That day should have been a holiday. It became a day of horror." Read full testimony recorded at Doruma

Read the rest, including recommendations for the MONUC peacekeepers, here =>

MSF’s Haut-Uélé provides emergency care and evacuations of severely wounded people to the Dungu hospital. It also supports health centers in Doruma, Bangadi, Faradje, Ngilima, and Li-May. Mobile clinics offer care to displaced populations in the regions around Dungu. The MSF team is made up of six international and 25 Congolese staff. MSF also runs projects throughout North and South Kivu Provinces, providing emergency medical assistance, HIV/AIDS care, primary and secondary health care, and water and sanitation assistance. MSF also provides HIV/AIDS care in Kinshasa, primary and secondary healthcare in Katanga and Maniema Provinces and treatment for sexually transmitted infections in Kisangani.Recommend this Post

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"D R Congo: Risky steps towards peace," edited by William Minter, AfricaFocus, January 28, 2009.

[Rich source of information for anyone who finds that the peace process for the World War II-scale carnage in DRC has slipped off their reading list. Once Canadians were peacekeepers. Those fronts have not been going well either. -jlt]

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from several commentaries and reports related to recent developments in the eastern Congo, including a summary from the UN’s IRIN news service, a statement from UN Rights, a commentary from Colin Thomas-Jensen of the Enough Project, remarks by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, and a report of a UN Security Council meeting on the need to strengthen peacekeeping capacity. WM

The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) has announced that it is providing logistical support for the joint Congolese-Rwandan military operation in eastern Congo, to maximize protection of civilians and reintegration of rebel forces into the Congolese national army. MONUC was not informed of the operation in advance, and there are real fears for the consequences for civilians. Nevertheless, most observers see the move, reflecting new agreement between Rwandan and Congolese governments, as a prerequisite for more fundamental peace-making measures.

The multi-faceted conflict in eastern Congo, which adjoins other conflict zones to the north and east, has involved systematic abuse of civilians both by government military forces and a wide variety of militias and exile groups. Despite the presence of the largest UN peacekeeping force anywhere in the world, conflict in the region continues to feature the systematic use of child soldiers and of rape against women.

In a parallel development, Ugandan, Congolese, and Southern Sudanese troops have been operating together in Congo against the Ugandan rebel group Lord's Resistance Army, which has slaughtered at least 600 Congolese civilians in recent weeks. The joint government military operations may have some success in weakening the rebel groups, as will the arrest of formerly Rwandan-backed rebel, Laurent Nkunda, and parallel commitments by the Democratic Republic of the Congo to cooperate with Rwanda against Congo-ased Rwandan rebels. But no one expects that these operations can by themselves establish stability, even if cooperation among the regional states continues.

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"UN troops in DRC accused of sexual abuse," Mail-Guardian, May 18, 2008.

The United Nations is investigating allegations that its peacekeepers sexually abused children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), its mission in the war-scarred country said on Wednesday.

The mission (Monuc) "is deeply concerned by allegations that surfaced recently of sexual exploitation and abuse against some of its Blue Helmets, in the province of North Kivu", spokesperson Kemal Saiki told reporters.

"These allegations are being thoroughly investigated by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services [OIOS]," he added. He gave no further details but UN and local sources said the investigation focussed on an alleged child prostitution ring in Masisi, north-west of the eastern province's capital, Goma.

The sources said that India Monuc peacekeepers in Masisi were accused of paying for sex with young girls near their camp between mid-2007 and early 2008.

The OIOS opened its inquiry in March. The vast Central African country is recovering from a devastating 1998 to 2003 civil war. Millions of people are believed to have died from the combined effects of the conflict. Since its first deployment in 2001, Monuc's civilian and military personnel have been involved in several sexual abuse and smuggling scandals.

A separate probe has been opened into charges by the wife of a former combatant that a Monuc peacekeeper tried to rape her last month in a camp for demobilised fighters. -- Sapa-AFPRecommend this Post

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UN slaughter continues in Haiti and elsewhere

Canadians tend to be a little sentimental about the UN, especially peacekeeping, Lester Pearson and all. However, back in early 2007 when we were belatedly debating whether the Canadian mission in Afghanistan should stress peacekeeping over combat, World Report cited abundant documentation of violence against unarmed and nonviolent civilians by UN peacekeepers in Haiti. I called it "the new peacekeeping." The symbol for me was a white-coloured light armoured vehicle with a gun mounted on the top and the UN symbol on the side.

A second piece the next week, on the occasion of International Women's Day, elaborated on the role that MINUSTAH was playing in the hunger that led some Haitians to eat mud cakes to stay alive and the impact that was having on women in Cite Soleil. That was March 2007.

It's still going on, as this report by Seth Donnelly makes clear. Donnelly is a Bay Area High School social studies teacher and a member of the Haiti Action Committee.

"On Saturday, April 11th, a little past 3 p.m., a MINUSTAH (UN) soldier, Nigerian Cpl. Nagya Aminu, was shot and killed in downtown Port-au-Prince. While this killing was widely reported in the international media, what followed the killing was not.

"In the immediate aftermath of the killing, at approximately 3:30 p.m. that same afternoon, MINUSTAH troops launched a massive assault on Haitian vendors at the open-air sidewalk market near the main Cathedral in downtown Port-au-Prince - the area where the soldier had been killed."

It's too early for a complete accounting of the mayhem and death that resulted from this assault. Donelly's article does spot the tip of the iceberg.

As he says, "This kind of massive assault by MINUSTAH troops on the civilian population has happened many times before, such as the notorious attack on the people of Cite Soleil on July 6th, 2005."

Nor is Haiti the only place where the UN has been responsible for assaults on the civilian population.

Stephen Lewis's remarks at the 10th Annual V-Day Celebrations, New Orleans, 12 April 2008 bring us up-to-date on the UN's failure to act against sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa).

He refers to Eve Ensler's ground-breaking piece for Glamour magazine and urges the UN Secretary-General to "pull out all the stops":

"If the secretary-general were to exercise real leadership against sexual violence instead of falling back – as his advisers have suggested – on statements and rhetoric and fatuous public relations campaigns, he could turn things around. What in God’s name is wrong with these people whose lives consist of moving from inertia to paralysis?"

A piece of the puzzle missing from both Lewis and Ensler's accounts are allegations dating back to 2005 that the troops in UN peacekeeping force in the DRC (MONUC) "have been involved in widespread sexual misconduct, including rape and child prostitution." That part of the story has simply disappeared, possibly the result of a successful, if fatuous, PR campaign.

Meanwhile, Donnelly concludes,

"It is time for the international human rights community to face squarely what has happened in Haiti: a US-backed coup in 2004 that ousted a popular, democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and a subsequent UN occupation (MINUSTAH) authorized by the rich nations on the Security Council. Under this occupation, some 9,000 military and police officers from different countries - ranging from Jordan and Sri Lanka to China and Brazil - are charged with keeping the "peace". These forces have been accused by many in Haiti of targeting Aristide supporters. Indeed, the occupation serves to consolidate the anti-democratic qualities of the coup. Until the international human rights community starts to pay attention to what is happening in Haiti and join in solidarity with the Haitian people, more egregious human rights violations will be perpetrated in the name of "peacekeeping" operations."

The real problem almost certainly extends well beyond Haiti, but Donnelly provides contact information for MINUSTAH, President Rene Preval , and the Haitian Ministry of Justice. It's a good place to start, though considering Canada's role, action closer to home would also be appropriate.

Contact:
UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
Tel: 011-509-244- 0650/0660
FAX: 011-509-244- 9366/67
Or, Fax Office of Secretary General (New York): 212-963-4879

President Rene Preval
Send a fax to 206-350-7986 (a US number) or email to avokahaiti@aol.com
Your letter will be hand-delivered to the Presidential Palace in Haiti.

Haitian Ministry of Justice
Tel: 011-509-245- 0474Recommend this Post

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