Congolese Civil Society organisations last Thursday condemned Uganda over what they say were sightings of six Ugandan military trucks that allegedly crossed into the DR Congo with troop. This prompted Mr Kabila to send a “special message” to Mr Museveni over the matter.
Fooling us about Uganda’s neutrality in the Congo Conflict!!! Militarizing the Congo to help USA and allies to rape Congo resources: DRC troops, civilians fleeing to Uganda after rebel clashes
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2012/07/fooling-us-about-ugandas-neutrality-in.html
Secular Ugandans know that Museveni and Kagame are American mercenaries
http://freeuganda.com/?p=4665
http://freeuganda.com/?p=4677
Uganda denies aiding Congo rebel fighters : If you look just a little bit more carefully, it is very easy to see the lies that drive the American New World Order System and her slave states
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2012/07/uganda-denies-aiding-congo-rebel.html
US blocking UN report on Ntaganda rebels, Human Rights Watch says
http://www.congoplanet.com/news/1979/united-states-blocking-un-report-on-bosco-ntaganda-rebels-in-eastern-congo.jsp
UN Report Accuses Rwanda of Supporting Bosco Ntaganda Rebels
Hillary Clinton’s messianic entry into Uganda amidst the politics of Ebola scare: US’ Hillary starts Africa tour, here in Uganda tomorrow: Washington says Ms Clinton’s meeting with Museveni on Friday will focus on regional security, human rights and democracy: Oh! Really
Destructing us from Hillary Clinton’s Meeting with Museveni to discuss the next strategy to enhance US control of DR Congo Mineral Resources: Uganda bans physical contact as Ebola reaches Kampala business district
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2012/07/destructing-us-from-hillary-clintons_7815.html
Uganda, Angola leaders hold talks over DR Congo conflict
By Arnaldo Vieira & John Njoroge
Posted Thursday, August 2 2012 at 01:00
Posted Thursday, August 2 2012 at 01:00
In Summary
Secrecy. The President Museveni is
tight-lipped about the details until the Kampala
summit starts later this month.President Museveni yesterday held talks with his Angolan counterpart Jose Edourdo dos Santos over what insiders say are talks focused on the growing instability in DR Congo.
According to sources, Mr Museveni and Mr Santos discussed among other issues, Angola’s desire to help the DR Congo militarily. Mr Museveni also met with the Speaker of Angola’s Parliament, Mr Antonio Paulo Kassoma. “I cannot tell you what we have discussed…but the results will be known during the Kampala’s summit,” Mr Museveni told journalists yesterday in Luanda.
Relatedly, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in the Uganda today. Top on her agenda with Mr Museveni will be a discussion on the security situation in DR Congo.
Also to be discussed in the hunt for elusive Lord Resistance Army rebel leader Joseph Kony and his commanders. The Luanda talks come at a time when Angolan troops are reportedly advancing on the M23 rebel mutineers from the Atlantic Ocean near Kitona, just a week after Congo’s President Joseph Kabila appealed to Angola for “help” in dealing with the rebel mutineers who are now said to be only 15 kilometres to the provision town of Goma.
Acting Foreign Affairs Minister Henry Oryem Okello said the President was in Luanda to consult with his counterpart ahead of a summit to be held in Kampala mid-August on security in the region.
“For avoidance of accusation that the chair (Uganda) has taken decisions without consulting other nations, he (Mr Museveni) must meet all stakeholders before the upcoming summit,” Mr Oryem said. Uganda will chair the ICGLR summit mid this month.
Congolese Civil Society organisations last Thursday condemned Uganda over what they say were sightings of six Ugandan military trucks that allegedly crossed into the DR Congo with troop. This prompted Mr Kabila to send a “special message” to Mr Museveni over the matter. Uganda, however, denied any involvement with the mutineers.
For the first time last Saturday, Congo’s president Joseph Kabila told Congolese state television that he had “questioned” Uganda over its alleged support for the rebel M23. He also said Rwanda’s involvement with the M23 rebels was an “open secret.”
editorial@ug.nationmedia.com
Congolese hit streets, protest over eastern violence
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/01/congo-democratic-protests-idUSL6E8J1LO920120801
* U.N. and Congo accuse Rwanda of backing insurgents
* Crowds protest against pillaging of resources
* Congo's
army struggling to hold back rebel advance
KINSHASA, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters took to the streets across Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday to call for an end to violence in the east of the country, where government troops and United Nations peacekeepers are struggling to halt advancing rebels.
The four-month-old uprising by the M23 rebel group has displaced some 470,000 civilians in the mineral-rich North Kivu province on the border with Uganda and Rwanda.
A U.N. experts' report found that senior officials in Rwanda were providing support to the Tutsi-dominated insurgency, and on Saturday Congolese President Joseph Kabila called Kigali's backing of the movement "an open secret".
Rwanda has repeatedly rejected the allegations and accused the report's authors of failing to verify their information or consult Rwandan authorities.
Early on Wednesday worshippers poured out of churches and into the streets brandishing banners calling for peace in the east and for unity in the vast country, which is home to nearly 70 million people and around 400 different ethnic groups.
"We're marching to say no to violence, to balkanisation and to the pillage of our resources," said Augustin, a young resident of the capital, Kinshasa, where the largest march was organised by Catholic Church leaders.
Smaller protest marches took place in cities across the country, including Lubumbashi in the southern mining heartland, and in Bukavu in South Kivu, which is also plagued by armed militias.
A planned march in Goma, the capital of North Kivu which has come within the rebels' striking distance in recent days, was called off for security reasons.
"Our country is being threatened by Rwanda and for the first time our government has understood this, that's why they've allowed us to march," Benoit Marcel Tshissambo, another Kinshasa protester, told Reuters.
Congo's government is regularly accused by human rights groups of using authoritarian methods to clamp down on dissent.
Congolese authorities repeatedly stopped the Catholic Church from organising pro-democracy marches in protest against Kabila's controversial re-election last November in polls widely denounced as fraudulent.
Congolese soldiers have been routed and pushed back in recent weeks in a replay of a 2008 rebel advance which saw the insurgents, then known as the CNDP, encircle Goma and clash with the army and U.N. soldiers on the outskirts of the city.
The front lines are now 30 km from the provincial capital.
On Monday the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country told the U.N. Security Council that Congolese troops had abandoned towns and villages to rebels and were suffering from a lack of ammunition, diplomatic sources told Reuters in New York. (Additional reporting and writing by Jonny Hogg in Goma, editing by Joe Bavier and Tim Pearce)
US blocking UN report on Ntaganda rebels, Human Rights Watch says
http://www.congoplanet.com/news/1979/united-states-blocking-un-report-on-bosco-ntaganda-rebels-in-eastern-congo.jsp
BBC News - June 21, 2012
The US
is covering up information about rebels led by a man wanted for war crimes by
the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch has said.
The global watchdog says Washington is blocking publication of a UN inquiry into
rebels led by Bosco Ntaganda in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Rwanda has denied the allegations.
The US has denied blocking the report. But it has now been several days since the report by the UN's "Group of Experts" was expected to be published.
The row concerns a rebel group led by Gen Ntaganda, known as "Terminator" and other former officers in the Congolese army. They rebelled from the army and, with their men, now hold territory in parts of DR Congo close to the Rwandan border.
Tens of thousands of people have been made homeless by their recent actions and related military moves by other armed groups.
Most armed groups in eastern DR Congo operate rackets under which they extract precious minerals or "tax" the local population.
The Group of Experts has compiled a report on their activities. This is a long-term investigation into how UN arms sanctions against rebels in DR Congo are respected - or not.
According to sources familiar with the Group of Experts latest report, it contains details of the transfer of weapons from Rwanda to the rebels. There are also reported to be details on how Gen Ntaganda and his allies travel to and from Rwanda in violation of the sanctions.
But Human Rights Watch said the US had used its influence to resist publishing the report's findings.
"The US and other Security Council members should do everything they can," Human Rights Watch said, "to expose violations of UN sanctions, including by Rwanda, and not attempt to cover them up."
Strategic relationships
Rwanda has strongly rejected allegations that it backs the rebels led by Gen Ntaganda.
The government in Kigali says the main problem in DR Congo is the existence of another armed group which includes people who took part in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and then fled to DR Congo. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda repeated this concern at a press conference this week.
The 1994 genocide and its military fallout changed a whole range of strategic relationships in central Africa and is a key to understanding the current row.
Some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by radical Hutu groups. The mass killings of that year were only stopped when Mr Kagame's Tutsi-led army conquered the country.
Some of the policies of the United States and other Western nations towards Rwanda are driven by the guilt they feel for not having stopped the genocide.
Mr Kagame understandably rarely misses a chance to point out that the United Nations and some of its powerful member states failed to help stop the mass killings of his countrymen.
They therefore have no right, he says forcefully at any forum, to preach to him about DR Congo or anything else.
This highly charged background means that whatever happens next to the Experts' report will probably be controversial to one or other of the parties involved.
UN Report Accuses Rwanda of Supporting Bosco Ntaganda Rebels
http://www.congoplanet.com/news/1974/un-report-accuses-rwanda-of-supporting-bosco-ntaganda-rebels-in-eastern-congo.jsp
Congo News Agency - May 28, 2012
An internal UN report obtained
by the BBC says that Rwanda
is once again supporting rebels in eastern Congo linked to renegade general
Bosco Ntaganda.
The mutinous soldiers are former CNDP rebels integrated into the Congolese army in 2009 under a peace deal. The CNDP had wreaked havoc for years in eastern Congo before Congolese and Rwandan authorities struck a deal that led to subsequent joint military operations and improved relations.
Bosco Ntaganda replaced warlord Laurent Nkunda as the commander-in-chief of the CNDP after Nkunda was arrested by the Rwandan army in January 2009 during a joint military operation.
The United Nations and Congolese authorities had both accused Rwanda of supporting the CNDP by providing the rebel group with men and arms during their years-long reign of terror in eastern Congo.
A UN report in 2008 provided evidence of the links between the office of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and the CNDP. The evidence of Rwanda’s support to the CNDP led some foreign donors to suspend their aid.
Rwandan authorities have long been accused of using the CNDP as a proxy army to fight against the Rwandan rebels of the FDLR, and of trying to maintain military influence in eastern Congo to benefit from the mineral resources in the area. As usual, Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo denied the latest charges to the BBC as “categorical lies”.
Both Bosco Ntaganda and Laurent Nkunda are former members of the Rwandan army.
Bosco Ntaganda was indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2006 for using child soldiers as a commander in the FPLC militia led by Thomas Lubanga.
As international pressure mounted on the Congolese government to arrest Bosco Ntaganda after the ICC convicted Thomas Lubanga in March, the former CNDP rebels started defecting from their units to rejoin Bosco Ntaganda. They have renamed their rebel group as the M23 in an attempt to distance themselves from the wanted war criminal and the CNDP.
The Congolese government had previously resisted arresting Ntaganda, claiming his arrest would cause more harm than good. Congolese authorities have now said the renegade general will be arrested for his role in the mutiny. The new unrest has caused thousands of Congolese to flee the fighting.
The Congolese army has deployed reinforcements from other regions, including newly-trained Special Forces, to deal with the mutiny.
Unlike in 2008, when the CNDP rebels came close to taking Goma (the capital of North Kivu province), the Congolese army has routed the mutineers and forced them to retreat into the hills near the Virunga National Park.
Clinton heads to Ebola-stricken Uganda, S. Sudan
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
flew out of Senegal Thursday
and headed to Uganda before a visit the
world's newest nation South Sudan,
locked in a crippling border and oil dispute with Sudan.
In Senegal, Clinton hailed the west African nation as an example that "democracy can prosper on the continent".
She said she had a "productive, comprehensive" discussion with President Macky Sall.
"I want to thank him for taking time to discuss a number of issues - economic issues, regional, security issues, issues that the United States is very committed to assisting Senegal on addressing."
Clinton will spend one night in Kampala, the Ugandan capital which has been hit for the first time by an Ebola outbreak -- one of the world's most virulent diseases -- that has already killed 15 people nationwide.
She then visits South Sudan, which celebrated its first anniversary on July 9 and where she will meet with President Salva Kiir.
The world's newest nation, in whose birth the United States played a major part, has yet to agree on its border with the rump state of Sudan and settle a crippling dispute on oil revenues.
The UN Security Council has given the two states, who this year came close to all-out war, until Thursday to reach a peace deal or face sanctions.
"We are encouraging both sides, South Sudan and Sudan, to effectively negotiate the differences between them," said a high-ranking official from the state department.
"Both countries are in a non-work spiral as a result of their political differences and as the result of the cut-off in oil... Our desire is to see all of these issues negotiated out."
Clinton will also visit Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and finish her trip by attending the state funeral of Ghana's late president John Atta Mills on August 10.
