WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2009

Al Jazeera English – The United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo has failed to disarm Rwandan Hutu fighters, UN experts say.

According to a 93-page report for the UN Security Council, leaked on Wednesday, this has exacerbated conflict in the north of the country.

The report said that despite the mission in North and South Kivu provinces the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) was continuing to recruit and arm fighters.

“This report concludes that military operations against the FDLR have failed to dismantle the organisation’s political and military structures on the ground in eastern DRC,” it said.

The 25,000-strong UN force has been supporting a Congolese military offensive, launched in March as part of a deal to improve ties with neighbouring Rwanda, its enemy during a 1998-2003 war.

The five-member panel of experts sent to DRC to compile the report found that the Congolese offensive had had a devastating effect on the local population.

“Scores of villages have been raided and pillaged, thousands of houses have been burnt and several hundred thousand people have been  displaced in order to escape from the violence generated by these military operations,” the report said.

Mineral trading

Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, the spokesman for the UN force, said that the peacekeepers were “quite happy” with the results of the military operation, but acknowledged that “the humanitarian situation does not look as good”.

“We were able to neutralise between 35 and 50 per cent of the FDLR combatants and as well we can say that the they are pushed out of the majority of their economic sites,” he told Al Jazeera from Kinshasa.

However, the report concluded that although more than 1,200 of the FDLR’s estimated 6,000-to-8,000 fighters have surrendered since the offensive began, it had been able replenish its ranks from both Congolese and Rwandan Hutus. The group also continues to benefit from the riches generated by the areas vast mineral resources. Companies continue to purchase minerals from jungle mines controlled and operated by FDLR supporters, while middlemen smuggle millions of dollars in gold to Dubai every year. Official Congolese records show only a few kilos of gold are exported legally every year, but the country’s own senate estimates that in reality 40 tonnes a year, worth about $1.24bn – leaves the country. “The [UN] group calculates that the FDLR could earn at least several hundred thousand dollars and up to a few million dollars a year from this trade,” the report said. The FDLR was formed in refugee camps in eastern DRC housing mainly ethnic Hutus who had fled during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. But support networks in Africa, Europe and North America, now finance and command the fighters. The experts tracked 240 calls between Ignance Murwanashyaka, an FDLR leader based in Germany, and DR Congo fighters, who in turn were in touch with contacts in 25 countries in Europe and America. Unstable region Guy Momat, a Congolese journalist and founder of Stop the Congo War UK, said there had been some improvements in North and South Kivu provinces since last year.”In November 2008 the situation was worse than now: the town of Goma was close to falling to the forces of Laurent Nkunda and you can imagine what could have been the consequences, but now people have regained their place,” he said. “For the last 12 years that part of the Congo was not stable, so as an observer I think it will take time to bring a proper peace.” In return for Congo’s pledges to tackle the Hutu rebels, some of whom helped orchestrate Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, Rwanda arrested Nkunda, whose National Congress for the Defence of the People [CNDP] forces were then integrated into the army. The most aggressive operations against the FDLR have been spearheaded by predominantly Tutsi former CNDP units, some of which are apparently under the command of General Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. “General Bosco Ntaganda was enforced by both Kinshasa and Kigali as the de facto military head of the CNDP, with specific instructions to manage and control former CNDP elements integrated in the [army],” the report said. Under Ntaganda’s leadership, integrated CNDP units are accused by the group of experts of widespread abuses including killings, rape, torture, forced labour, looting and extortion.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 02, 2009

Bemba left DR Congo after losing in presidential elections in 2007

Al Jazeera English – A former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo is to remain in prison until his war crimes trial in April, the International Criminal Court has ruled.

Jean-Pierre Bemba had been freed before his trial, with the court saying he would otherwise spend too much time in custody after his arrest in May 2008.

But an appeals judge, who reversed the decision on Wednesday, said there was a risk Bemba would flee if released.

The 47-year-old former vice president faces five counts of murder, rape and pillage for allegedly commanding forces responsible for atrocities committed in the Central African Republic between October 2002 and March 2003.

He is said to have been helping the country’s president at the time – Ange-Felix Patasse – resist a coup bid.

Decision reversed

“The appeal chamber has decided that the decision of the first court should be reversed,” Judge Akua Kuenyehia said in announcing his decision on Wednesday.

“The potential length of sentence if he is convicted is a further incentive for him to abscond,” he added.

If convicted Bemba is likely to face a lengthy prison sentence, though the court’s statutes do not mention a maximum term.

Bemba, who was also a business tycoon, left DR Congo in 2007 after losing presidential elections held during a political transition in the wake of a 1998-2003 civil war.

He was arrested on an ICC warrant in May 2008, and is currently the most senior political figure in the custody of the court.

Bemba has not entered a plea ahead of his trial, which is scheduled to start April 27 next year.

Learn more about Canada’s role in perpetuating the violence against women in the DR of Congo. Visit: http://www.drc.moonfruit.org/

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2009 Al Jazeera English – South Africa’s economy has come out of recession, with growth of 0.9 per cent in the third quarter of this year. Results, adjusted for seasonal variations, released on Tuesday showed southern Africa’s biggest economy to have ended it’s first period of negative growth in 17 years, the country’s national statistics board said. “The seasonally adjusted real gross domestic product [GDP] at market prices for the third quarter of 2009 increased by an annualised rate of 0.9 per cent compared with the second quarter of 2009,” Statistics South Africa said. The country had suffered economic contractions for nine months, and the 2009 third quarter results were better than expected. “The short-term indicators seem to tell us that the economy is picking up but long-term indicators tell us the economy is still [weak],” Joe De Beer, Statistics South Africa’s head of economic analysis and research, said. The central bank loosened monetary policy in December last year, cutting interest rates by five percentage points, in an attempt to provide economic stimulus. Annabel Bishop, an economist at Investec, said: “South Africa’s better-than-expected GDP outcome closes the door on any further interest rate cuts, and potentially brings the timing of the first rate hike closer.” But Bishop said that South Africa’s dependence on global demand, high job losses and native firms’ failures would prevent a sharp recovery. In the first quarter of this year, GDP fell by 6.4 per cent, followed by a 3 per cent drop in the second quarter.

Talk number four from TEDx Terry talks. One of compelling moments that stuck with us, was when Iris said, “I repeat. Not all Africans are hungry or poor…”

Name: Iris Amuto

Talk Title: “The African Paradox”

Notes: Faculty of Arts, Political Science Department, Major: Political Science, Minor: Women’s and Gender Studies, 4th year

Topic: Iris contends that amidst famines, wars and plagues, you will find people rising above to claim life in spite of these circumstances. It is their resilience and inherent humanity that is neither taught nor bred, but born. The word depression does not exist in most African languages. What does this say about the people?

The ordinary gets ignored in Africa as it does in Asia or South America because normality is nice but it doesn’t sell newspapers. Civil war, starvation and famine on the other hand, do. The media portrays a 2 dimensional view that although bears truth, it blocks out the light that must not be ignored and cannot be denied.

This light is called humanity. It is the way in which people relate, react and respect one another. However, we are constantly bombarded with the same pictures that we become desensitised to the point where we forget the essence of it all. We forget that this not representative of all Africans, that just a few people are fighting and not the whole continent is hungry.

This talk aims to remind, if not enlighten UBC students that Africa is saturated with life, community and full of pleasant surprises. Open your eyes.

Links:
http://www.africa-awareness.ubc.ca/
http://terry.ubc.ca/tedxterrytalks

Filmed by Craig Ross at TEDx Terry talks 2009 (October 3rd, 2009). Video edited by David Ng.

Al Jazeera English – Jacob Zuma, the South African president, has said his government will roll out life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs to “significantly more people” infected with Aids from next year.

In a speech marking World Aids Day on Tuesday, Zuma compared the fight against Aids to the decades-long struggle against the apartheid government.

Zuma said: “At another moment in our history, in another context, the liberation movement observed that the time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight.

“That time has now come in our struggle to overcome Aids. Let us declare now, as we declared then, that we shall not submit.”

South Africa has the largest population of HIV-infected people in the world, and the previous government was heavily criticised for its passive efforts to fight the virus.

‘No more shame’

“Let there be no more shame, no more blame, no more discrimination and no more stigma. Let the politicisation and endless debates about HIV and Aids stop,” Zuma told a cheering crowd in Pretoria.

The new strategy include anti-retroviral drugs to all children under one year if they test positive and expanded treatment for pregnant women with Aids.

Before his speech, Zuma won praise from the United Nations for his approach to fighting Aids.

Michel Sidibe, the head of the UN Aids programme, who was in South Africa to mark World Aids Day, said on Monday that Zuma was “committed to making change happen”.

Zuma’s plans received a further boost from the United States, which promised $120m to support South Africa’s efforts to fight the virus in response to a request from Zuma’s government.

Zuma’s administration has set a target of providing 80 per cent of Aids patients with drugs by 2011.

But reports of shortages of Aids treatment drugs, known as ARVs, at some South African clinics have raised questions about whether the government has the money and the capacity for a massive rollout.

Zuma did not give details of how the government would fund the increased rollout of drugs but said all health institutions in the country would be ready to receive and assist patients with treatment and testing facilities.

Policy change

Zuma’s policies mark a shift from those of Thabo Mbeki, his predecessor, and Mbeki’s health minister, who promoted betroot and garlic treatments rather than distributing Aids drugs.

In some ways, Zuma is an unlikely champion for Aids activists.

In 2006, while being tried on charges of raping an HIV-positive woman, he was ridiculed for testifying that he took a shower after sex to lower the risk of Aids.

He was acquitted of rape.

Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa, reporting from Johannesburg, said Zuma’s policies are revolutionary for the country.

“Zuma will unveil a plan that will help his people live longer and target more HIV positive people on anti-retroviral drugs.

“Under the new conditions more people can get treatment earlier before they are too sick - this is a revolutionary turnaround from when Mbeki was president.

“Zuma says the era of denying a link between HIV and aids is now in the past. The country wants to move forward and the aim now is to stop as many young people as possible from dying of the disease,” she said.

An estimated 5.7 million of South Africa’s 50-million population are infected with HIV, the virus that causes Aids. Nearly 1,000 South Africans die every day of Aids-related diseases.

A study from the US university of Harvard has concluded that more than 300,000 premature deaths in South Africa could have been prevented had officials here acted sooner to provide drug treatments to Aids patients and to prevent pregnant women with HIV from passing the virus to their children.

About 33 million people worldwide are living with HIV/Aids and there are 2.7 million new cases each year.

A short response to the text ‘How to Write About Africa’ by its author Binyavanga Wainaina

Part 1 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

Part 3 of 3:

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

 

A Nigerois child suffering from malnutrition is treated at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders, MSF) centre in Tahoua, northern Niger, in this July 5, 2005 file photo.

 

ROME – A UN summit on food security vowed in a final declaration Monday to take “urgent action” to eliminate hunger, the plight of more than one billion people around the world.

Hunger is “an unacceptable blight on the lives, livelihoods and dignity of one-sixth of the world’s population,” the declaration states, vowing “to take urgent action to eradicate hunger from the world.”

The summit of the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization attended by some 60 heads of state and government also outlines five “principles” for combatting the scourge.

One principle enshrines a “twin-track approach” to food security consisting of direct action for the “most vulnerable” and sustainable “medium and long-term programs to eliminate the root causes of hunger and poverty.”

The declaration also calls on wealthy nations that pledged 20 billion dollars (13.3 billion euros) in aid over the next three years at the 2009 summit of the Group of Eight in L’Aquila, Italy, to honour their commitments.