Israeli Forces Shut Down Jerusalem Culture Event
Bethlehem – Ma’an – Israeli forces arrested several and scuffled with Palestinians while shutting down a cultural festival meant to proclaim attachment to Jerusalem on Thursday.
Organizers, including Prisoners’ Club President Nasser Kaws, were hustled out of the Damascus Gate area of the Old City of Jerusalem and detained by Israeli border police, prompting scuffles at the main entrance into the ancient streets. Also among those arrested was the secretary-general of Jerusalem’s Fatah movement Omar Ash-Shabi.
Crowds gathered at the site and groups sang traditional wedding songs, gathering in clusters around television cameras stationed on the stairs leading to the gate.
One participant in the event, meant to mark Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture 2009 which comes to an end at the close of this month, told reporters, “Israel used to say they detain everyone who threatens it with weapons, but look, are these people threatening it? They are just celebrating.”
A performer at the Jerusalem event noted, “Israel is an occupation so it is its job to marginalize Palestinian culture, but we will resist with our willpower. No one can suppress the Palestinian people.”
Intended to be a yearlong event sponsored by the Arab League, Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture was officially banned by Israel. The festival was marred by arrests and police raids.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem along with the West Bank in 1967 in a move not accepted by the international community.
Israeli forces also broke up a march planned by Palestinian scout troops and closed schools where cultural events were taking place.
Soldiers also surrounded the French Cultural Center and the British Council, where two simultaneous events were planned as the finale of Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture. The two events were headed by Rafiq Al-Husseni the head of the Palestinian president’s office and the other by the Ahmad Ar-Ruwedi, the head of the Jerusalem unit in the president’s office.
Israeli officers handed out a written order from the Israeli minister of internal security stating that the cultural activities were prohibited. Ar-Ruwedi listed the schools that were shut down by Israel: St. George’s School, Freres, At-Tefl Al-Arabi, Az-Zuhour Kindergarten, Dar Al-Awlad, and the Refugees Girls School.
In Nablus, thousands also attended a celebration of Jerusalem as the Capital of Arab Culture, apparently organized by the local branch of Fatah. President Mahmoud Abbas gave opening remarks at the celebration in the northern West Bank city. Abbas told the demonstration that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Palestine. “Jerusalem is ours and it will remain ours,” he added. Also attending the event in Nablus was Sheikh Abdallah Bin Zayid Al-Nahyan, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, and a number of Palestinian Authority officials.
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Israeli War Crimes & Chemical Weapons
Former pilot of the Israel’s air force accuses Israel of war-crimes, using chemical weapons against the people of Gaza
Israel bans tourists from key West Bank bus line
December 16, 2009
Bethlehem – Ma’an – Just days before Bethlehem’s busiest tourist season begins, Israeli authorities implemented a ban on foreign-passport holders traveling to Jerusalem on Palestinian buses.
On 11 December, Bethlehem tourists began to report being pulled off line 21, a route used predominantly by holders of East Jerusalem residency cards, as they stopped for inspection at the Jerusalem tunnel entrance into Israel.
For years, foreign-passport holders using public transportation could choose between the tunnel bus, which departs near Beit Jala, or Israel’s military checkpoint 300, known colloquially as Gilo or Rachel’s Tomb.
A high-ranking Israeli security official confirmed the policy change on Monday. “This issue is being resolved presently. Everything will be completed in a day or so, possibly even today,” the official said, confirming that, for now, redirecting foreign-passport holders from the tunnel to checkpoint 300 is a matter of policy.
Palestinian Authority security sources said the phenomenon follows a unilateral decision by Israeli authorities made months ago to ban foreigners from the route.
It was not clear, however, who ordered the changes, or why. Israeli army sources insisted they had nothing to do with the plan, but officials in the country’s Border Police, the paramilitary branch of the Israeli Police, said such orders could only have come from the military.
“The [army] commander makes the policy; we just implement it,” said a border guard official who insisted on anonymity. “If the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] says we can’t allow foreign people – it’s a policy.”
A PA police spokesman said he was aware of the issue but refused further comment, referring inquiries to the District Coordination Office (DCO), the local arm of Israel’s non-military, civil administration in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“We’ve been aware of the plan for three, maybe four months; I don’t know why they’d implement it now,” said a Palestinian who works with the DCO. Israel never provided any official or written explanation, he added, nor were local officials given a say in the matter.
Despite numerous inquiries this week to the Israeli military, Border Police, Civil Administration, and national police, no official was ever willing to offer an on-the-record explanation for the ban.
‘Rude’ and ‘threatening’ treatment
Among the first reports Ma’an received about the issue was from an American music teacher accessing Jerusalem to teach students of a local conservatory. She, along with three others, were told they could not re-board the bus after it was checked by soldiers. “They saw the foreigners and herded us to the side,” said 24-year-old Katie Rowold, a US citizen held up on Friday. “Then everyone got back on the bus except for us. … We had to get a service taxi to the walk-through checkpoint [300].”
Sandra Baille, a 64-year-old Canadian citizen, was on a bus with some luggage waiting to have her passport checked by soldiers. As custom generally allows women with children or bags, the sick, or the elderly to remain on the bus during inspections, Baille was surprised when a guard ordered her off the vehicle. “A young Israeli soldier with a mask on his face up to his nose boarded the bus and indicated to me with his arm to get off,” she explained. “I held out my passport so he could see I was an international, but he threw his arm [pointing] to the side. He didn’t say a word, he just pointed.”
Outside the bus, Baille found herself with a group of foreign citizens also waiting at the side of the road. When they asked what was going on, “we were told ‘new rules, new rules,'” Baille said. She was ordered to take her luggage, for a planned trip to northern Israel, Nazareth and the Galilee, off the bus, and watched Palestinian passengers get back on board. She waited again while the driver argued with guards, and heard the bus ordered to leave without the five foreigners. “We were left to walk up the hill” back to Beit Jala, she said.
Others explained how they had to flag down a cab willing to enter a PA area and drive back inside Bethlehem to cross through the Gilo checkpoint there, before ultimately catching another Palestinian bus on the other side of the cement wall. One international who asked not to be named described being left helpless on the side of the busy highway, while Israeli-plated cars zoomed past. “Luckily there was a taxi sitting there. I don’t know what we would have done.”
Baille, the Canadian national, described the guards’ treatment as rude, saying she could not understand what reason Israel would have to target tourists. “Its ironic,” she added. “All over Canada there are signs saying ‘Welcome to Israel,’ but in the end they wouldn’t let us in.” Canada was the test country for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ “Brand Israel” campaign.
Another group of six internationals – four Americans, a Canadian and German national – were warned by the driver of a 21 bus on Saturday that foreigners were no longer being permitted to travel via the tunnel. They said the driver eventually let them on, but that they were indeed refused passage through the checkpoint.
Bad news for Christmas
Reports of internationals being pulled off buses continued throughout the week, and several have noted longer lines at the Gilo checkpoint, making it increasingly difficult to access Jerusalem from Bethlehem.
However, the ban appears to apply only to Palestinian buses in the West Bank. Foreign nationals traveling on Israel’s Egged service, which connects the country’s settlements throughout the occupied territories, including in Bethlehem, into Israel, reported no problems at the tunnel checkpoint. Internationals in private cars were similarly unaffected.
It was not clear if the initiative to limit foreigners’ movement in the region was linked to prior passport restrictions. Mirroring the treatment received by Palestinians already living under the four-decade occupation, similar restrictions on foreigners first came to light in September when Israel began issuing visas that permit travel only in PA-controlled areas.
Israel, meanwhile, has sought to reassure Palestinian Christian leaders that it would facilitate the movement of congregants and tourists as Christmas approaches. Security authorities recently invited the leaders of local churches to a meeting on a military base, where army officials promised to help ease closures, for example, by granting permits for Christians from Gaza to visit Bethlehem for the holiday.
Tens of thousands of foreign-passport holders enter Bethlehem every Christmas to celebrate along with the local Palestinian population, attending mass at the Nativity Church and other annual festivities. Some 60,000 internationals made the pilgrimage in 2008.
Australia: Internet censorship plan gets the green light
ASHER MOSES
Sydney Morning Herald
December 15, 2009 – 11:13PM
The Federal Government has announced it will proceed with controversial plans to censor the internet after Government-commissioned trials found filtering a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the internet.
But critics, including the online users’ lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam, said the trial results were not surprising and the policy was still fundamentally flawed.
The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, said today he would introduce legislation just before next year’s elections to force ISPs to block a blacklist of “refused classification” (RC) websites for all Australian internet users.
The blacklist, featuring material such as child sex abuse, sexual violence and instructions on crime, would be compiled using a public complaints mechanism, Government censors and URLs provided by international agencies.
Senator Conroy also released results from a pilot trial of ISP-level internet filters, conducted by Enex Testlab, which he said found that blocking banned material “can be done with 100 per cent accuracy and negligible impact on internet speed”.
“Most Australians acknowledge that there is some internet material which is not acceptable in any civilised society,” he said.
“It is important that all Australians, particularly young children, are protected from this material.”
He said about 15 western countries had encouraged or enforced internet filtering, and there was no reason why Australians should not have similar protection.
It is not clear how – or if – the filters will distinguish between illegal RC material and that which is perfectly legal to view.
An earlier version of the Government’s top-secret list of banned sites was leaked on to the web in March, revealing the scope of the filtering could extend significantly beyond child porn.
About half of the sites on the list were not related to child porn and included a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.
“Given the pilot’s modest goals, it was designed from the beginning to pass,” said EFA spokesman Colin Jacobs.
“Although it may address some technical issues, what it leaves out is far more important – exactly what will be blocked, who will decide, and why is it being attempted in the first place?”
Similarly, Senator Ludlam said: “Nobody said that filtering from a static list of URLs was going to slow things down too much unless the list gets huge, so I don’t think they’ve already proven anything that we don’t already know.”
The pilot trial report also noted that motivated people could circumvent any internet filters with ease, which Senator Ludlam and Jacobs said called the effectiveness of the proposal into question.
Ludlam said proving a technical case was not the same as proving the wisdom of going down the internet censorship track in the first place, which he said had always been two separate discussions.
“While the Government says that they will be relying on an evidence-based policy, we still haven’t seen evidence that this is going to play any meaningful role in preventing children from accessing harmful material online,” Senator Ludlam said.
Jacobs said: “Successful technology isn’t necessarily successful policy. We’re still yet to hear a sensible explanation of what this policy is for, who it will help and why it is worth spending so much taxpayer money on.”
Peter Coroneos, chief executive of the Internet Industry Association, said he would be meeting with his members tonight to discuss the report before formulating a response.
Senator Conroy said the Government would immediately undertake public consultations, starting today with the release of a discussion paper on additional measures to improve the accountability and transparency of processes that lead to sites being placed on the blacklist.
Some of the options raised include appeal mechanisms, notification to website owners of RC content and the review by an independent expert.
Chavez says Clinton threatens Venezuela over ties with Iran
MOSCOW, December 14 (RIA Novosti) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said a recent statement by the U.S. secretary of state on ties with Iran was “a clear threat” against his country and Bolivia, the EFE news agency said on Monday.
Hillary Clinton said on Monday that “if people want to flirt with Iran, they should take a look at what the consequences might well be for them.” She expressed hope that they would “think twice” before doing so.
“Clinton’s statements are, above all a threat to Bolivia and Venezuela, as well as the whole Bolivarian Alliance,” the agency quoted the Venezuelan leader as saying at a summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America (ALBA).
ALBA, or the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, was founded by former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez in 2005 and now comprises nine members – Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda.
“They are a direct evidence of the Imperialistic threat, which seeks to halt the development of progressive forces… Facing this threat, we agreed… to strengthen Alba and to activate [cooperation] in all directions: economic, political and social,” the Venezuelan leader went on.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose country is suspected of developing a nuclear program aimed at the production of an atomic weapon, has visited a number of Latin American states in late November, including Bolivia and Venezuela.
Award Winning Flashpoints Radio Show Under Threat by KPFA Management
Daily Censored – December 11, 2009
By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff
The Flashpoints radio program is being directly threatened with closure by station management. Budget cuts implemented by KPFA management; reduce staff time for Flashpoints by some 75 hours per week. Flashpoints, an award winning national radio program, originates at KPFA in Berkeley, California, and reaches some thirty cities in the US and serves an on-line audience worldwide.
Nora Barrows-Friedman wrote on December 9, “KPFA has effectively destroyed Flashpoints this week, beginning with the layoff of our technical producer position. Just hours ago, they called me into a meeting and casually informed me that my hours will be reduced by 50%. I cannot afford to keep this job if I’m on 20 hours a week.”
Ms. Barrows-Friedman is a long time investigative reporter specializing in Israel-Palestine issues and is one of the few reporters in the country who covers this sensitive issue in a straightforward manner. She taught herself Arabic and often reports from the ground in the Middle East. Along with Flashpoints producers Dennis Bernstein and Miguel Molina, Ms. Barrows-Friedman was the recent recipient of a lifetime achievement Media Freedom Award from Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored.
“Nora Barrows Friedman has seniority over at least a dozen more recent and less experienced staff people. She has done an outstanding job at Flashpoints, showing a special dedication and talent. She has top professional qualifications and standards, tested by time and performance,” stated long standing political commentator and author Dr. Michael Parenti.
With the latest cuts Flashpoints has lost some 30% of its annual budget. Flashpoints producer Dennis Bernstein believes that, “This has now been elevated to a political battle. Management has pumped up the budgets of the programs of their internal political supporters, and at the same time tried to kill Flashpoints through intimidation and attrition, and outright disrespect. Over fifteen people were hired after Nora, and yet Nora is one of the first to be hit and hit hard. It appears to the Flashpoints team, and our key advisers and supporters, that KPFA management is about to deal the show a final blow.”
Local KPFA listener Dianne Budd, M.D., a regular contributor to KPFA, threatened on December 11, to withhold her annual contribution to the station. “I have donated regularly to KPFA, sometimes well over $1,000 a year. This year I had planned to donate towards the end of December for tax reasons; however, if this decision to decimate and make impotent the Flashpoints staff is not overturned immediately, I will not make any donation,” Dr. Budd stated.
In a December 11 letter to KPFA station management, Arab community organizer Eyad Kishawi writes, “When the national Pacifica organization attempted to conduct a corporate takeover of KPFA, we the Arab, Muslim, anti-war and Indigenous communities conducted an all out campaign in support of your/our station that carries our voices and the voices for equality and justice. Let me remind you that we lived up to the spirit of ‘Listener Sponsored Radio’ and started organizing fundraising events to keep the station going, and in particular supported Flashpoints . . . Flashpoints had been a thorn in the side of corporate and state-sponsored media. By attacking Flashpoints, you are pitting a large number of your listener sponsors against your station.”
Richard Becker, Western Regional Coordinator, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition and Barbara Lubin, Executive Director Middle East Children’s Alliance jointly stated in a letter on December 11, that “We are shocked and dismayed to hear about the draconian cutbacks that KPFA management has announced against Flashpoints, the most incisive and cutting edge of the station’s programs. Flashpoints reporting and analysis on a wide range of struggles— from Honduras to Iraq, Haiti to Palestine, political prisoners, and many, many other critical international, national and local issues is unparalleled. The activists and organizers of the A.N.S.W.E.R.-Act Now to Stop War and End Racism-Coalition and the Middle East Children’s Alliance, along with thousands of other activists and listeners in the Bay Area, have the highest regard for Flashpoints and its dedicated team.”
Becker and Luben call upon the station to restore Nora Barrows-Friedman and the technical producer position immediately, and threaten that “this is not an issue that will simply go away. On the contrary, if these devastating cuts are not reversed, you can be assured that it will only escalate.”
Factional disputes within Pacifica and specifically KPFA have recently emerged among programs like Flashpoints, Guns and Butter and Hard Knock that take aggressive critical positions towards major social justice issues including: racism, American empire and the military-industrial-media complex, Israel-Palestine, Haiti, and other hot button issues [such as false flag terror], vis-à-vis those programs that favor a more NPR [gatekeeper] like approach that includes news from corporate media sources like Associated Press and softer more entertaining programming.
Richard Phelps, former KPFA local station board chair, stated in an interview, “that given that the KPFA mission is to bring to people the stories that the corporate media refuses to cover, Flashpoints is one of the most important programs at the station. KPFA management seems to be wanting to tone down programs like Flashpoints and move the station into being just slightly left of center of the Democrat party.”
“The KPFA management doesn’t want critical reporting,” said Attila Nagy former North Bay representative to the KPFA Local Station Board. “They have their priorities backwards,” Nagy added.
The mission statement of Pacifica radio states, “(d) In radio broadcasting operations to engage in any activity that shall contribute to a lasting understanding between nations and between the individuals of all nations, races, creeds and colors; to gather and disseminate information on the causes of conflict between any and all of such groups; and through any and all means compatible with the purposes of this corporation to promote the study of political and economic problems and of the causes of religious, philosophical and racial antagonisms; (e) In radio broadcasting operations to promote the full distribution of public information; to obtain access to sources of news not commonly brought together in the same medium; and to employ such varied sources in the public presentation of accurate, objective, comprehensive news on all matters vitally affecting the community.”
Dr. Ben Frymer, Director of Project Censored issued a statement today, “It is quite troubling to learn of the recent drastic cutbacks to the Flashpoints program. These cuts will almost certainly be crippling to the vital efforts of the Flashpoints team in raising awareness of social injustice on a global scale. We at Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation find these efforts so valuable that we just last week presented life-time achievement awards for Media Freedom to the Flashpoints radio team on KPFA: Dennis Bernstein, Miguel Molina and Nora Borrows-Friedman.”
KPFA management did not return e-mailed questions regarding this article. Persons wishing to comment should send e-mails to the general manger at KPFA: gm@kpfa.org and Dennis Bernstein at Flashpoints: dbernstein@igc.org.
________________________________________________________________________
Peter Phillips is a professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and President of Media Freedom Foundation: peter.phillips@sonoma.edu
Mickey Huff is a associate professor of History at Diablo Valley College, and serves on the executive committee of Media Freedom Foundation: e-mail: mickeyhuff@mac.com
Video: Afghans’ anger at Obama’s Nobel peace prize win
Al-Jazeera English
December 9, 2009
From Kabul, Steve Chao reports
Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo – days after he ordered an escalation of US involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
In making Obama the third sitting US President to win the award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama’s co-operative approach to global issues.
But for many Afghans, Obama’s strategy of even more troops does not fit into their vision of what will bring peace.
President Obama ‘creating torture impunity’
Press TV– December 11, 2009 06:20:21 GMT
A US civil rights group says that President Barack Obama by creating impunity is following his predecessor into allowing torture policies to continue in the country.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said on Thursday that the US president has failed to provide accountability on torture.
Director of ACLU’s National Security Project Jameel Jaffer said “the Bush administration constructed a legal framework for torture and now the Obama administration is constructing a legal framework for impunity.”
“We’re frustrated by the growing gap between (the) Obama administration’s rhetoric on accountability and the reality,” Jaffer added.
In April, Obama said that CIA interrogators who had used waterboarding on suspected militants would not face prosecution. He also released Bush-era memos specifying that the practice did not constitute torture.
Republicans, however, criticized Obama for leaving the door open for the prosecution of former Bush officials who authorized harsh CIA interrogations due to releasing the memos.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were among those accused of masterminding the Bush-era torture policy.
Jaffer noted that “on every front, the administration is actively obstructing accountability by shielding Bush officials from civil liability, criminal investigation and even public scrutiny for their role in authorizing torture.”
“It’s the last month of 2009, and not a single torture victim has had his day in court,” ACLU Attorney Ben Wizner said. “Not a single court in a torture case has ruled on the legality of the Bush administration’s torture policies.”
Outdoing the Kafkaesque: Egypt’s new US designed underground Gaza wall
December 11, 2009 — People’s Geography
Just when you thought things could not become more Kafkaesque comes apparent confirmation that the US-backed Egyptian government is building an underground steel barrier designed to cut off one of the few lifelines sustaining the Gaza Ghetto, the tunnel economy. The BBC reports that the huge underground wall will be 10-11km (6-7 miles) long, will extend 18 metres below the surface and will take 18 months to complete. The project has been shrouded in secrecy with no official confirmation from the Egyptian government, but it is understood that the design is commissioned by US army engineers, at the behest of Israel, Ann Wright surmises.
The ‘impenetrable’ barrier is made of super-strength steel manufactured in the US, according to the BBC. It will likely not succeed in halting all smuggling but will force Palestinians to dig deeper.
Conditions are worsening in this nightmare siege. The Israeli regime has prevented EU officials from entering the besieged strip, Gaza’s water is contaminated and creating a public health disaster and the israeli blockade that prevents vital reconstruction continues unabated.
This is a new low in the levels of inhumanity, absurdity and wretchedness to which the Israeli regime, with active Egyptian and US ZOG complicity, are subjecting the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza. Only a just political resolution will put an end to the tunnels.
On a note of black humour, Gilad Atzmon wrote a great satirical piece a few years ago, Operation Security Roof which is relevant here.
Retired US Army Reserve Colonel and former diplomat Ann Wright rightly castigates this development and calls it a laughing stock:
Just as the steel walls of the US Army Corps of Engineers at the base of the levees of New Orleans were unable to contain Hurricane Katrina, the US Army Corps of Engineers’ underground steel walls that will attempt to build an underground cage of Gaza will not be able to contain the survival spirit of the people of Gaza.
America’s super technology will again be laughed at by the world, as young men dedicated to the survival of their people, will again outwit technology by digging deeper, and most likely penetrating the “impenetrable” in some novel, simple, low-tech way.
See also:
Belgian professor and Africa expert speaks on situation in DRC and Rwanda
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal
Dec 9, 2009, 00:18
(WMR) — Noted Belgian expert on the history and politics of central Africa’s Great Lakes region and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Dr. Filip Reyntjens of the Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB) in Antwerp, spoke at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University in Washington on December 3 and leveled a broadside on the policies of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame in his nation’s looting of the DRC’s natural resources.
Reyntjens said that in 1997 and 1998, Kagame, a Rwandan Tutsi who grew up in Uganda, decided that the only way to deal with Hutus exiled to Zaire from Rwanda was to “exterminate them.”
Kagame is now lauded around the world by uninformed “human rights” groups and governments for the “suffering” he and his comrades endured after the mass killings of Rwandan Tutsis in the aftermath of the aerial assassinations of the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi by Kagame’s forces on April 6, 1994.
Eventually, Kagame became such a regional military threat by 2001 that his old ally, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, asked British overseas development minister Clare Short for permission to spend development aid from Britain on defense in order to protect against what Museveni believed was a Rwandan military threat. Rwandan troops began to appear in force in DRC’s Ituri province, which has a border with Uganda but not Rwanda. Rwanda also began supporting a rebel militia in Ituri, composed largely of Hema tribal members, that was originally allied with Uganda but turned against it with aid from Rwanda. Reyntjens believes that such “shifting alliances” are rampant in the DRC and are making it difficult for the central government to reassert its authority over the vast nation.
Essentially, Rwandan and Ugandan forces were competing against one another over the lion’s share of DRC’s rich natural resources, which were and continue to be looted by both countries from the DRC. In fact, Reyntjens pointed out that the expensive villas and office blocks now being constructed in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, are being paid with the profits from the looted natural resources from the DRC.
Reyntjens, like any journalist or academic who criticized Kagame and his dictatorship, stands accused by Kagame’s supporters of having a relationship with the former Rwandan government of assassinated President Juvenal Habyarimana. Reyntjens points out that such was not always the case with Kagame and his government, “I was a hero until I started criticizing Kagame.” Reyntjens says the Rwandan government engages in character assassination when dealing with its critics.
Rwanda is also involved in the illegal exploitation of resources in the DRC, according to Reyntjens. While admitting that Zimbabwe was also exploiting the DRC for its resources, the major difference, according to Reyntjens, is that Zimbabwe was dealing directly with the DRC central government — a sovereign power — while Rwanda was not.
Reyntjens cited a recent UN report that stated that in the DRC illegal aircraft movements are the rule rather than the exception. He also said Rwanda used prisoners from Rwandan jails to mine diamonds in the DRC, a clear violation of international law. Reyntjens called what is happening in the DRC the “Luxembourg Effect,” comparing the situation to what the German people would think if tiny Luxembourg wielded control over a large portion of German land and resources.
One of the biggest problems for the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) is the presence of Rwandan-backed Congolese Tutsis in the FARDC command structure in eastern Congo. Reyntjens says the situation on the ground in eastern Congo is that Congolese Tutsis integrated into the FARDC are fighting Rwandan Hutu rebels within the DRC’s borders. Reyntjens does not believe the Rwandan armed forces should be allowed to operate in the DRC in any respect. He believes what the DRC needs is a real army and a real state.
However, since Kagame and his government constantly and astutely use the “Genocide Credit” with international donors, the aggression and interference of Rwanda in the internal affairs of DRC is never discussed. Moreover, Reyntjens said there are now “dozens of American” researchers now operating inside Rwanda and that this is a new development.
Summing up the problems for all of Africa, Reyntjens said that while the DRC must re-establish central control over its territory, including preventing Rwanda from unrestricted border crossings between it and the DRC, many Congolese, like most Africans, are suspicious of central state governments. Most Africans associate “the state” with police, rackets, and prisons, said Reyntjens. Ironically, the United States, through its military incursion into Africa with the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), is trying to extend the control of state military structures over the nations of Africa, except, of course, where U.S. and certain foreign economic interests do not find such state control advantageous, as in DRC and Sudan.
Reyntjens is hopeful that a federal DRC will be able to reassert Congolese authority over its territory and cited the 25 new provinces of the DRC where revenues from each province will be distributed as follows: 50 percent to the central government in Kinshasa, 40 percent to the provincial governments, and 10 percent to an equalization fund that will be used to balance the financial disparities between rich and poor provinces.
Reyntjens has written a new book, “The Great African War: Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996-2006,” from Cambridge University Press. This editor’s book, “Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999,” is referenced therein.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report. Copyright © 2009 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
See also:
State Dept. Briefing: Preparing for Action in Africa
July 3, 2009
African Contingency Operations Training Assistance
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, said President Barack Obama’s administration will provide more military observers, police, and staff to enhance global ‘peacekeeping’ operations, especially in African nations in response to appeals for support in assembling better equipped and rapidly deployable forces… continue
Will the Last “Progressive for Obama” Please Turn Out the Lights?
12/09/2009
by BAR executive editor Glen FordThe U.S. peace “movement,” much of which “comes and goes” as often as Boy George’s “Karma Chameleon,” has finally discovered that its presumed perch in Barack Obama’s tree was untenable, if not wholly imaginary. To be sure, “Progressives for Obama” and other assorted delusional groupings were always squatters in the Obama camp – but they were the only ones who didn’t know it. How embarrassing it would have been, back during the campaign, had the lost little lefties realized that Obama’s imperial soul mates were laughing at them from a disdainful distance, knowing full well the path their bought-and-paid-for president would soon be traveling. How would the Obama peacenik groupies have preserved their sense of self-worth – much less their arrogant smugness – had they realized the absolute contempt in which they were held by their hero’s funders and packagers – and no doubt by the Object of Adulation, himself?With the president’s hearty embrace on December 1 of not only current U.S. aggressions in South Asia but the entirety of the glorious rise of U.S. global hegemony since the end of World War Two, it should now be clear to even the most dense among self-styled “progressives” that Obama was never worth a damn. To Obama, the world-terrorizing nuclear arms race against the Soviets, the savage assaults on countries emerging from colonialism, the death of millions in the quest to make the world safe for corporations, the spread of the global drug trade under management of U.S. intelligence services – all this can be summed up as: “The United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades, a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, markets open, billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress, and advancing frontiers of human liberty.”
Obama lives and breathes American Manifest Destiny – which means, as a non-white person, he is profoundly mentally unbalanced. But any lefty worth her/his salt should have known that. Obama’s yearly talks to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the regional equivalent of the Council on Foreign Affairs, were models of imperial-speak, totally consistent with his West Point performance. Beginning years ago, he repeatedly declared that, as president, he would draw a line in the sands (or mountains) of Afghanistan – which is something only militarist, imperialist pigs draw in other people’s countries. He warned everyone that, under the Bin-Ladin-Might-Be-There Doctrine, he would refuse to respect the sovereignty of Pakistan. And he has ceaselessly lied about his actions and intentions in Iraq – a key qualification for the job of imperial U.S. president.
Still, there seems to be a soggy cloud hanging over some self-styled anti-war circles, as if Obama’s most recent display of rabid war mongering, American Manifest Destiny-ism was a tragedy for and betrayal of the “movement.” And I suppose that those confused souls who believed that they were doing “movement” work while engaged in Obama groupy-ism for the last several years, might feel that some kind of tragedy had occurred. And they might be right, in that the absence of an anti-war movement during the campaign years undoubtedly encouraged Obama in his warlike proclivities. As a result, hundreds of thousands will undoubtedly die, because American “progressives” forsook their duty to humanity for reasons no more defensible than those a teenage girl would give for following a shallow but “hot” celebrity around from city to city.
Let’s make it plain: Obama didn’t do anything to the “movement.” Most especially, he did not fool anyone in the “movement.” Rather, people who claimed to be in the “movement” fooled themselves and then proceeded to fool lots of other people into thinking that Obama-work was “movement”-work – when events have shown it was the opposite.
A huge number of “movement” notables should be deeply humbled and, to varying degrees, ashamed at their lemming-like susceptibility to Obama’s…what? The two-year near-silence in the anti-war “movement” is proof, not of Obama’s Svengali-like powers (his imperialism is actually quite transparent), but of profound weaknesses in the “movement,” itself (which is why I’ve been putting the term in quotes).
I have a hunch that the worst of the paralyzing Obama-effect on “movement” politics is finally over – due mainly to Obama’s insistence on remaining true to the logic of imperialism and refusal to toss his groupies on the Left a straw to cling to, any further. [I hope you’re right Gary but what I’ve been seeing suggests we have a ways to go]
There is no need to name-the-names of the politically prodigal ones, many of whom are returning to some kind of oppositional activism [promoting Western supremacy and mass starvation of those that can’t afford the “costs” of the contrived AGW agenda in Copenhagen perhaps] now that their erstwhile idol is in full-spectrum war mode. Far better to quote Cynthia McKinney, the former Georgia congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate, whose engagement with struggle is a constant:
“We have now reached the point where those who make and interpret current events think they can make us believe that war is for peace, ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom, and lies are the truth. Well, we know the truth, and we will not rest until every drone is stopped and no more bombs are dropped. We will not rest until peace is won. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said there comes a time when we do what we must because our ultimate measure is not where we stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where we stand at times of challenge and controversy. At this time of challenge, we are clear: we will not give up and we will not stop.”
There are many “movement” notables who, in fact, did try in the recent past to peddle a banker’s best friend as a man of the people, a proponent of “race-neutrality” as an ally of oppressed minorities, and an imperial invader and occupier as something resembling a man of peace. Hopefully, they will make up for past misconduct and bad judgment through prodigious feats of activist productivity, including plenty of shouting at the White House on Saturday.
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Biden’s Closed Circle on Russia
An excerpt from ‘The Great Betrayal’
By James W. Carden | The Realist Review | June 14, 2026
Joe Biden’s presidency may ultimately come to be seen as a cautionary tale. Here was a president who showed little interest in entertaining arguments that might have contradicted his most deeply held assumptions.[1] And there were precious few within the upper ranks of the administration who might have attempted to do so, after all, only policy hands and political operatives who had come up through the ranks of the Clinton and Obama administrations or had longstanding ties to the citadels of the foreign policy community were invited into the fold. … continue
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