Thursday 6 December 2012

The American New World system and its Bogus elites: Former United States Under-Secretary for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer questions the credibility of a report by a group of UN experts accusing Rwanda and Uganda of backing a rebellion in DRC:



 Prof. Jendayi Frazer

First Read and watch

JENDAYI FRAZER AND CONGO BLOOD MONEY - PAID LOBBYIST FOR MUSEVENI AND KAGAME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyGA7jgi43Q

Journalists who have been trained and paid to defend US proxies: Seeing through the hypocrisy of American New world order neo-liberal elites: Andrew Mwenda and his simplistic analysis of the DR Congo Crisis: Andrew Mwenda’s hypocritical defence of Dictator Paul Kagame.



Obama, the US and 5 Million Deaths in The Congo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHduddO7ZaU

Congo: Chaos By Design

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiJ0JC3LzEo

 

The Untold Stories: Is Jendayi Frazer Lacking or UN Report Against Rwanda Lacking?

http://www.inyenyerinews.org/amahanga-2/the-untold-stories-is-jendayi-frazer-lacking-or-un-report-against-rwanda-lacking/  

December 5, 2012 By Rwema IT Webmaster

The former United States Under-Secretary for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, while appearing on the Aljazeera TV on Sunday questioned the credibility of a report by a group of UN experts accusing Rwanda and Uganda of backing a rebellion in DRC.

Is she trying to convince the whole World that when the United States did not display the body of Osama Bin Laden to the whole World, he is still alive? What more evidence does she want as substantial to clear what she calls the cloud?

The former Senior American diplomat in the George Bush Administration said “I don’t even know who these experts are…there is this cloud of anonymity about who these experts are and what agenda they are pushing.” Is she aware that her country has already acknowledged the UN Expert Report as credible with overwhelming evidence?

It is unfortunate that the former American Diplomat is behaving in the manner that is likely to cost more human lives in Congo. This vast nation has lost so far 6 Million people in the war since 1996. It is on record that no single day has the Rwandan government accepted responsibility; it has on a number of occasions denied repeatedly that it has invaded her neighbor. Is Madam Frazer denying that Rwanda has not been in Congo because no single person came to point a finger to Kagame and his government?

Is Madam Frazer saying that the British government and of course her own government acted out of blue to freeze the Rwandan aid? The basis for the British government’s decision to freeze 21 million pounds (about Rwf21 billion) in aid to Rwanda, was the UN Expert Report. Frazer now a professor at Carnegie Mellon University argued that the donor community should instead continue pump in the taxpayer’s money to Rwanda and support the efforts by the 12-nation member International Conference for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), to help end endemic conflicts that have dogged DRC for decades.

Madam Frazer is deliberately closing her eyes on the causes of the conflict in Congo. The creation of M23 by the Kagame regime is a long plan that cannot be solved by what she calls the 12 member nation conference for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). Frazer should appreciate that the biggest part of the aid is channeled to M23 and other crimes by Kagame to eliminate those people he perceives to be political enemies.

Is Madam Frazer forgetting the speech of her colleague Susan Rice when she was in Rwanda where she said that, many people in Rwanda are harassed , receive anonymous calls, murdered on daily basis? Is she aware of our country men and women who are languishing in jail simply because they have announced that they have different political views with Kagame?

She further argues that US has not done much in terms of donating money to Rwanda “We (the United States) have not done much for most of that region and the majority of it (support) is in health. You want us to stop providing (even the little) assistance to the population of Rwanda addressing AIDS, women mortality from childbirth; is that the prescription for solving the crisis in Congo?” she questioned the journalist. But Madam Frazer should also acknowledge that many children and women in Congo have the same needs as Rwandans. Any human life is invaluable whether it’s Congolese, any other person on the Continent, black, white or Asian, in a nut shell, regardless of any description.

While Rwanda praises the UN and other world powers when they label the FDLR, as a terrorist organisation, but when the same UN Report appears to implicate Rwanda in any conflict they start to question the credibility of the report, what a paradox of events? FDLR on Sunday launched an attack in Musanze District, killing a game ranger, following another attack early on two villages in Rubavu District last week in which one civilian died and three others injured, according to the Rwandan officials, why then Frazer doesn’t advise the Rwandan government to talk to these groups so that they stop fighting?

Frazer and Tony Blair both have personal friendship with president Kagame, the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said “the proper thing is to sort out that issue (Congo crisis) through the ICGLR and the international community, and to continue to support the progress of Rwanda in the lives of the people,” the statement released by the Blair Office reads in part. For those who don’t know Blair, he is one of the advisors of president Kagame who can close his eyes even when the Congolese children are recruited in the ranks of M23 rebels and women are raped on the daily basis by the proxies of Kagame since 1996.
The so called friends of Rwanda are in fact friends of Kagame who just help the Rwandan dictator to consolidate power by killing and intimidating all his opponents, extend his brutality to his neighbors, therefore, the friends of Rwanda should advise Kagame to open the political space in Rwanda, stop the war against his neighbors, otherwise the so called development that some people mistakenly confuse with political stability is not sustainable.

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels.



All-out war, the deadliest war on the planet, in Congo



November 28, 2008

by Ann Garrison

I just received a status update from my Congolese friend, civil engineering student Kambale Musavuli, expressing stress, exasperation and disappointment at the U.S. State Department’s Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer’s response to the escalation of the imperial resource war in Eastern Congo.


Prof. Jendayi Frazer



He said that the State Department had invited him, the student coordinator for Friends of the Congo, and members of other NGOs to the State Department for an off record briefing on Friday, Nov. 19, where Frazer said, in so many words, that there’d be no change in U.S. policy in Congo or Rwanda.
 

This means, though our Assistant Secretary Frazer would never acknowledge this, that the U.S. will:

1) Keep arming puppet Rwandan “President” a.k.a. dictator Paul Kagame’s Rwandan army to wage unacknowledged war by shelling and firing across the Rwandan-Congolese border and, by stealth, in Eastern Congo.

2) Keep arming U.S. and Rwandan tool, terrorist Gen. Laurent Nkunda, in support of U.S. imperial interests and those of its Anglo allies, Britain, Canada and Australia, and its French-speaking ally, Belgium.

3) Maintain a large U.S. military base in Kigali, Rwanda, often staffed by African-American military personnel, for the sake of appearances, just as the U.S. State Department and its Department of African Affairs is staffed by African-American women Condoleezza Rice and Jendayi Frazer, for appearances.

(Imagine how much worse it would look if a white male had summoned Kambale and other Congo advocates to this press conference, just to tell them all to get used to the ongoing African holocaust.)

4) Keep writing sweetheart trade agreements between the U.S. and Rwanda, which are essentially sweetheart trade agreements between U.S. military industrial and corporate interests and Rwanda’s puppet elites.

5) Make the people of both Rwanda and Congo continue to suffer for the sake of Congolese minerals smuggled out of Congo to supply U.S. corporations, including the U.S. military-industrial machine, with “geostrategic” minerals.

I know how maddening and infuriating this press conference must have been for Kambale but, considering how much is at stake in Congo – the security of the U.S. military industrial machine itself and that of other U.S. corporations dependent on Congo’s mineral wealth, especially the electronics industries – it’s hardly surprising.

The U.S. military and the U.S. military-industrial machine are the largest and most lethal state-corporate force in the history of the world. Will they give up their hold on Congo’s geostrategic mineral wealth, more important even than petroleum, without a huge battle, a battle I really can’t even quite imagine? This seems to me like a far larger battle than ending apartheid in South Africa.

Consider cobalt


Consider cobalt, a mineral richly abundant in Congo and very few other parts of the world. Consider Congo’s cobalt riches alone.

Cobalt is used to make steel; it is absolutely essential to the manufacture of most U.S. weaponry I can think of, short of biological and chemical weaponry, and including jet engines, missiles and tanks.

Cobalt is also essential to the construction of natural gas power plants and automobile engines.

Consider the U.S. Congressional Budget document about cobalt, produced way back when the Democratic Republic of Congo was still Zaire. This document, “Cobalt: Policy Options for a Strategic Material,”  stated that:

1) The richest, most plentiful cobalt deposits in the world are in Zaire – now called Congo-Kinshasa or the DRC – in the Katanga Copper Belt running through Congo-Kinshasa’s Katanga Province and across one of its southeast borders into Zambia.

2) Some of the only other known deposits are in Russia, then the Soviet Union.

3) Cobalt deposits in the U.S. are so sparce that mining and refining them would be very difficult and unprofitable, but that the U.S. government has considered subsidizing domestic cobalt mining and refining of our very scant and poor cobalt ore because cobalt is so essential to U.S. manufacture in time of war.

4) The U.S. must be prepared to go to war to secure geostrategic minerals, including cobalt, which are essential to war production and to the U.S. economy.

This Congressional Budget Office, document produced in 1982, cites “the possible need to wage a war in the absence of foreign supplies of cobalt.”

This is what the U.S. has done, gone to war in Congo. This is a U.S. proxy war; the U.S. uses Kagame, the Rwandan army and terrorist Gen. Laurent Nkunda as their African proxy force in Congo, but this is war. It has been the deadliest, though barely reported, war on the planet for years.

Again, I totally understand Kambale’s fury at having wasted last Friday afternoon being blown off in a briefing with the likes of Jendayi Frazer.

Kambale is a civil engineering student at North Carolina State Agriculture and Technical College. He hopes to be able to return to Congo one day to build infrastructure, desperately needed roads, hospitals, schools, clean water and electricity delivery infrastructure to enable the Congolese people to live.

This makes me want to scream too. How dare Jendayi Frazer waste Kambale’s time spouting imperial propaganda?

However, any of us calling for an end to savage imperial exploitation in Congo have to keep in mind that we’re advocating for the end of the deadliest war on the planet now. The death toll is between 5 and 6 million since 1997 alone; the International Rescue Commission estimated 5.4 million last year, excluding the first year of what many call the African World War.

And the death toll continues to rise at a rate of 45,000 a month. The numbers of internally displaced people are now estimated at 1 million in North Kivu Province alone, including another 250,000 displaced since August, when Gen. Nkunda, the U.S. and Rwanda’s psychopathic tool in Congo, began his latest rampage, took control of North Kivu Province and began threatening to overthrow all Congo-Kinshasa, the DRC.

This is the deadliest war on the planet, waged by the largest, most lethal military force in the history of the world, the United States of America, even though with an African proxy army.

                                                   Rice meets Joseph Kabila in 2007


I think we have to keep trying to tell more Americans and more of the world outside the U.S. State Department that the war in Congo is not only all-out war but also the deadliest war on the planet, that, though barely reported, it has been the deadliest war on the planet for many year now.

Barack Obama is about to be handed responsibility for an ongoing African holocaust in Congo that is not of his making. The Congressional Budget Office document I cited, stating that the U.S. must be prepared to go to war for Congo’s geostrategic minerals, essential to U.S. military industrial production, was drawn up in 1982.

The state-corporate military industrial apparatus launched the U.S. imperial war on Congo many years ago when it conspired with that of Belgium, Congo’s former colonial oppressor, to assassinate Patrice Lumumba in 1961.

There are so many layers of state, corporate and military institutional bureaucracy and literal force behind the U.S. imperial war for Congo’s resources, the task of making it known is so enormous and overwhelming that all I can do myself, without gasping helplessly, is to think about how we might act locally here, in my community, the San Francisco Bay Area, and through wider networks like Kambale’s, like Friends of the Congo, Stop Africom and even the fledgling international Facebook group which Kambale and I started here several weeks ago, “Break the Silence on the U.S.-backed Rwandan Invasion of Congo.”

I have a few thoughts about how we might act locally or in wider solidarity, even in the face of so much. But first, I think we have to keep pointing out that Congo’s war is an imperial resource war, in which the U.S., using Rwanda to control Congo, is by far the most lethal, highly armed and savage aggressor.

Then, perhaps, we can ask ourselves how we might act locally and even how we might pressure the Obama administration, daunting as all this is, about as daunting as it could possibly be.

I don’t believe that Barack Obama or those who backed him – in many cases, idealistically – want to see the ongoing African holocaust in Congo become the first African-American U.S. president’s legacy.




 

Like father like son: Rwanda government as hypocritical as its god father the US  

 

DRC Crisis: Rwanda’s rebuttal was ignored

 Minister Rwangombwa.





The Government of Rwanda is concerned that the United Nations and development partners have paid little or no attention to its exhaustive rebuttal to the allegations that it is backing a rebellion in the neighbouring DRC, a senior official has said.


John Rwangombwa, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, faulted development partners who have either suspended or frozen aid to the country based on the conclusions of a highly contentious UN experts report, saying such punitive measures were based on politically motivated allegations.


He was speaking yesterday during a panel discussion on the first day of the East Africa Economists summit in Kigali.


The two-day forum, organised by Economist Conferences – part of The Economist


Group –, attracted international business leaders and policymakers to engage in frank and open debates on East Africa’s economic prospects.


“We have submitted our rebuttal but our concern is that we haven’t got any response on our rebuttal,” Rwangombwa said, adding that donors’ unilateral decision to withhold development aid to Rwanda based on a contested report does not only contradict the principle of fairness but also goes against the spirit of donor-recipient relations.


“This is completely in violation of the principles of aid effectiveness and partnership between the donors and the recipient countries,” said Rwangombwa.


Responding to questions from the moderator Daniel Howden, Correspondent of the Economist Magazine, the minister expressed frustration about the way several development partners have taken decisions against Rwanda, without examining the country’s response to the allegations.


The UN Group of Experts on DRC first accused Rwanda of backing the M23 rebels in an addendum to an interim report to the UN Sanctions Committee on June 21, 2012, after which Rwanda presented its rebuttal to the UN Sanctions Committee.


“Within our principles of Development Cooperation and rules of engagement with our development partners, if the donors are concerned with our behaviour, we engage each other through dialogue but whatever happens shouldn’t affect our ongoing fiscal year plans,” Rwangombwa explained.


However, in light of recent developments, he noted.


“It’s now only the donor taking decisions over the recipient. And that’s against the principle of aid effectiveness.”


Rwangombwa conceded that the aid cuts will slowdown the country’s ambition of achieving Vision 2020, even as he said the country was considering cutting its reliance on aid.


He said aid dependence was “very risky” considering the unpredictability of donors.


The Finance minister pointed out that out of US$362 million in aid that was expected in form of budget support, only US$122 million had been received.



He added that of the remaining $240 million, there is $125 million expected from the World Bank and $40 million from the African Development Bank, which the government is still convinced will be released by the two multinational bodies.


Nearly half of the country’s budget is funded by donors.


With donor support, the government has lifted more than a million citizens out of poverty over the last five years.


The aid freeze has forced the Finance ministry to downgrade growth forecasts by 1 per cent. A recent study, commissioned by the British government – one of the donors who have frozen aid – named Rwanda among top effective users of aid, with the country maintaining its enviable status among the small club of least corrupt countries.


The summit, held under the theme, “Infrastructure and Growth: Government and Business in Dialogue”, will also tackle trade barriers; youth and employment; and opportunities in ICT, technology, mining, transport and agriculture.


Participants will also discuss future trading prospects for East Africa in a globalised economy, including examining markets which will perform strongest in the coming years; the most compelling opportunities for investors; and the practical steps governments should take to ensure the region maximises its economic potential.


Tanzania’s Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda called on East African countries to create an enabling environment for the private sector to grow to help wean themselves off aid.


“Developing infrastructure, promoting ICT development, regional integration and combating of corruption should be put at the forefront of the EAC (East African Community) economies,” he said.


Stephane Paquier, President of Dow Chemical Africa, while observing that East Africa was the fastest growing region on the continent, underscored the great potential that exists in the EAC bloc which can be exploited to the benefit of the East Africans.


“We want to have a huge presence in the EAC countries because we see a lot of potential in the region’s growth”.


Dow Chemical Company connects chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, renewable energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity.


Economist Conferences is the leading provider of international forums for senior executives seeking new insights into strategic issues. These meetings include industry conferences, management events and government roundtables held around the world. The Economist Group is the publisher of

The Economist magazine.





Rwanda’s aid cuts – A blessing in disguise?


 Diana Mpyisi

One of my favourite modules during my post-grad studies was scenario planning. The concept of envisioning the most radical and unforeseen changes in the future, and planning for such situations seemed like a fun game rather than an academic exercise.


In a nutshell, scenario planning builds on identifying, and reacting to, key forces both known and unknown, that are outside the control of one’s organisation or community. Originally a military concept, scenario planning has gone on to be adopted by corporate organisations, and various think tanks on a national level. 


Some of the scenarios we’d plan for as students included a world where air became a valuable commodity. Or a future where books were made obsolete by new advents in technology. We would form multiple futures, and imagination and creativity were key in this process, challenging various assumptions and values. A key feature in scenario planning is asking “what if?” and then identifying what it takes to be successful in each of the futures identified. What it is really, is thinking the unthinkable in a methodical way so as not to be taken aback and left paralyzed by an unforeseen event.


That is why, for certain scenario planners in Rwanda, having observed the politicization of aid by Western powers to aid-recipient states, the recent £21 million aid-cut to Rwanda last week Friday hasn’t come as a surprise. The UK’s on-and-off switching of its aid tap to Rwanda, simply illustrates aid’s arbitrary nature.  It brings to the fore the widely-held view that aid is often a means of reward and punishment, a sort of carrot-and-stick for aid recipient states that comply (or don’t) to various donor interests.


As Rwandans, we shouldn’t regard this so much as a slap in the face, but rather – a case of the wool being lifted over our eyes. That our exhaustive rebuttals to a super dubious, highly contested report by an anonymous Group of Experts alleging Rwanda’s involvement in the DRC influenced this particular aid cut; speaks volumes. It speaks volumes on the concept of “development partners” and how perhaps there was never real mutual interest between various donors and Rwanda, with regard to the development of this country, or for that matter the DRC. It speaks volumes on the significance of Rwanda’s voice in this saga, which is constantly ignored in favour of lazy Western journalism, or propagated untruths by various self-serving individuals. It doesn’t even make logical sense that cutting aid to Rwanda will solve the issues in the DRC. Those issues are multiple in nature, and the abrupt un-negotiable aid-cut from the UK to Rwanda in light of all this clearly shows the supremely volatile nature of aid in an increa
singly uncertain world.


Really, we shouldn’t be shell-shocked by all this.


Rather, what should come as a real surprise would be the concerted effort by Rwandans to expedite the process of self-sustenance, in light of this aid-cut. We already begun with the Agaciro Development Fund, but we should be embarking on making real a future scenario of a self-sustained Rwanda, and the different implications this will have not only in the country but the region.


One can only imagine the strides, if Rwandan leaders applied the same level of energy and commitment they have for the Kigali Master Plan towards a long-term Aid-Free Rwanda Plan. Or something to that effect.


This aid cut at this particular time could very well be a blessing in disguise for all we know, one that expedites commonly held views of a country that should no longer rely on other people’s taxes. There’s no harm in seeking solutions in unconventional ways, in unusual places. After all, we’re known quite well for that. We could also learn from others, who faced with similar challenges on a national level, “scenario-thought” their way out of them and successfully achieved a particular vision. The Mont Fleur Scenarios are one such example, which tells the story of how scenario planning was used to build shared vision and action in post-apartheid South Africa.


A lot of research is needed, a lot of planning is needed, new financial behaviours need to be adopted in this process, but when it’s all said and done –  it seems we may have just been given an incentive to start.

The author is a social critic based in Kigali.