RDC: Declaration de Moise Katumbi suite au nouveau massacre a Beni le 13 Aut 2016 (14.08.2016)

Moise Katumbi 14.08.2016

RDC: Message de Condolenance a la Population du Nord Kivu (14.08.2016)

Kabila Kivu 14.08.2016

Opinion: Indifference from the public is a gift to the Political Sphere!

news-media-standards

We live in a day and age where the content of information is accessible at any time of the day on all kind of formats. It isn’t only pamphlets, posters, newspapers and books. But there are blogs like this; it is digital videos, cable-TV, social-media and all the other ways of gaining information with or without membership pay-walls for the content. In that world of constant ability to gain this, it can either feed the hunger for knowledge or become tiring for the people as the constant newsflashes and breaking news can make your mind boggle and wonder what is really important.  Therefore before I continue let see a main definitions of Indifference!

Definitions of the Word:

“lack of interest in or concern about something: an indifferent attitude or feeling” (…)” 1:  the quality, state, or fact of being indifferent

2a archaic :  lack of difference or distinction between two or more things b :  absence of compulsion to or toward one thing or another” (Meriam Webster Dictionary).

As I tried to explain brief in this time and day, we’re all access to information and ability to download reports, getting brief headlines and watching reports on TV or tablets the clarity of what is important can sometimes not sink in. As we check the normal suspects for the commentary or the capability to get news and become reasonable updated on the matters at hand. Though there are stories lost and we can’t know what happens at every corner of the world, than we are stuck between all screens and behind every tweet dropped every hour of the day. We’ll live in a forever groundhog day and wish that we had comic talent of Bill Murray instead of trying to get up to date with current news.

tabloid-6

The fear is with the level of information, the different formats and the ability of entertainment and tabloid news. The simplistic and breaking is taking over for the hardcore policy discussions as the direct terror threats and artists dismissals seems more important than the issues of trading and health care policies. The indifference towards the reasons behind the migrations and the reasons for the crisis in Syria for instance are lost in the battle against terror. The devastating idea for why Tunisia, Libya and other states who was has been under fire since the Arab spring have been lost in tales of Clinton and British death, instead of the iconic and important support to build state institutions for the citizens. In countries that before this we’re built around grand dictators like Ben Ali and Gaddafi. Therefore the indifference to the solutions and the real deal behind the fragile state is worrying.

The worrying indifference to the abysmal understanding of the financial structure of Greece and Italy, as the banks of Italy are in limbo; while the state sales and economic liberation while drowning a debt-burden Greece in more greasy debt as they trying to cope with the level of migrations. We should ask ourselves if the European Union forgot counting people or building swimming-pools for the new rich investor elites that got ability to buy state-resources and key installations like Piraeus port harbor for few cents on the dollar. Therefore the indifference for the swallowing the pride and the reactions this might have for the Greek state.

Kagame Kabila Nkurunziza

The indifference for rigging elections and supporting peacekeeping armies on the African continent, while the UN Peacekeepers in C.A.R. are using their power to rape and destroy, not only generate peace, as the UN Mission in Western Sahara is more a luxurious club for diplomates than generating mediation and justice for the people under siege from Morocco. But the world is silent. That the DRC are planning to exile more opposition or even detain them before the General Election for a third term for President Kabila and nobody flick their eyes. While the opposition is under siege in Rwanda, but President Kagame is hailed for the economic recovery as the totalitarian leader are oppressive and using forces in the Kivu’s to still steal resources from the Congo. The world doesn’t care or tries to forget. While the Burundi are still in crisis as the third term of President Nkurunziza is bloody, friends and foes of the President vanish and assassinated, while the Inclusive Dialogue by EAC and AU under former Tanzanian President Mpaka are at a standstill. So the state of affairs is far from beautiful. The indifference to matters is staggering as the knowledge of these actions shouldn’t be forgotten.

I wonder if I feel alone on it, like so many didn’t notice the skirmishes and the recent battles from the militias in Beni, in Democratic Republic of Congo. If it was just the Congolese diaspora who wore the yellow color clothes on Sunday’s to remember the dead and spread awareness of the continuing warfare in the region. As the world have forgotten the violence and want to be rest assure that the cobalt and other resources need in the smartphones are exported to factories far away.

The ignorance and indifference are so big as the cable-news and grand media-houses focus on the click-bait and easy journalism instead of digging deep and having questions to the matters. Only following the money, the money always says how the ethical principles a man or woman has; as a person will only spend money on the things and people that they care about. That is a forgotten one, at one point of time with the PanamaPapers, the big media-houses followed it, but when the leaks when silent the interest dwindled as quickly as the importance of Blackburn in British football, which division are they now in?

niger-militants_BH

We can question if the world really want to care, as the violence, the single handily gun-men going on shooting spree and the endless bloodshed is sad to read about and would make your hard. The continuation of news on the freedom fighters or guerrilla of Niger Delta Avengers would be less interesting as long as they’re a giant force in Boko Haram that are steadily doing abductions, kidnaps and killings in Cameroon and Nigeria.

We can’t be able to be refreshed and know about all issues worldwide, but at least not care more about Pokemon Go, Donald Trump’s latest racist tweet or a Stephen Colbert skit. They might a moment of joy and laugh, but with the possible knowledge of destruction, lose forces and able information, we as people shouldn’t let this just go on without questioning the powers to be.

Because as long as the public is kept in the shadow and not knowing, the people will not be able to see what the government or civil society is doing. That gives leeway to do whatever. So with this in mind the people should be interested and question, wonder and check the resources and ability to gain information on the matters. Either if it by Youtube, library or on the newsstand; the government have it easier with ignorant public sphere and indifference to matters both domestic and international, as they don’t have to take a stand and change policy as long as the people doesn’t act upon the issue. Therefore the knowledge and questioning the businesses, government and NGO’s happens when the citizen’s acts upon what we know. Indifference is only earning the government and the ones that already are in power, the danger for them is if we already knows and can anticipate their moves. Because if so, then they can’t away with thieving, lying and deceit of public will. Indifference of this gives way and is a gift to political sphere. Peace.

Reference:

Meriam Webster – ‘Indifference’ link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indifference

First Q: What is in Theresa May’s drink? Second Q: What reason does she have to appoint Boris Johnson for Foreign Secretary? Why do I ask? Because of what he has written and said about Foreigners in the past…

Boris Johnson Foreign Affairs

I don’t know what kind of Sherry or Wine the new British Prime Minister Theresa May is drinking, but something fishy in it; and it is not the fish and chips from the port of Southampton that is the issue, the issue is the decision to pick Boris Johnson, the former London Mayor. To become the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom!

I don’t know what kind of trade-off that we’re behind the scenes as his supporters of backbenchers and the ones not leaving him behind Michael Gove skimmed glasses. Certainly there is something that is bugging me. There is an issue of uncertainty that this man should be the man for the Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs from the United Kingdom. The brash and unsettled man, who loves the spotlight and brute language, which’s now supposed to sweet-talk diplomates and generates negotiations with the European Union and other foreign dignitaries as the new trade-policy and other agreements need to the fit the Post-Brexit agenda. Oh, dear Lord would you give UK a better political climate, for Europe’s sake.

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The man running the foreign affairs wrote back in the day this in the Telegraph:

“They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird. Like Zeus, back there in the Iliad, he has turned his shining eyes away, far over the lands of the Hippemolgoi, the drinkers of mares’ milk. He has forgotten domestic affairs, and here, as it happens, in this modest little country that elected him, hell has broken loose” (Johnson, 2002).

He also had some ideas about Uganda:

“Consider Uganda, pearl of Africa, as an example of the British record. Are we guilty of slavery? Pshaw. It was one of the first duties of Frederick Lugard, who colonised Buganda in the 1890s, to take on and defeat the Arab slavers. And don’t swallow any of that nonsense about how we planted the ‘wrong crops’. Uganda teems, sprouts, bursts with vegetation. You will find fruits rare and strange, like the jackfruit, hanging bigger than your head and covered with green tetrahedral nodules. Though delicately perfumed, it is, alas, more or less disgusting, and not even Waitrose is pretentious enough to stock it” (…) “So the British planted coffee and cotton and tobacco, and they were broadly right. It is true that coffee prices are currently low; but that is the fault of the Vietnamese, who are shamelessly undercutting the market, and not of the planters of 100 years ago. If left to their own devices, the natives would rely on nothing but the instant carbohydrate gratification of the plantain. You never saw a place so abounding in bananas: great green barrel-sized bunches, off to be turned into matooke. Though this dish (basically fried banana) was greatly relished by Idi Amin, the colonists correctly saw that the export market was limited” (Johnson, 2002).

Boris Johnson Biking London

If you thought this was his worst and most arrogant belief of other fellow human being and states, just wait there is more in land. This man has displayed a real level of character as the stereotyping of people is enormous. Over a decade later he writes this:

The Labour government enlisted this country in all sorts of wars around the world, some more disastrous than others. British soldiers went to fight and die in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the Balkans. Here we had people with close relatives in our own country – yes, our own kith and kin – and we did absolutely nothing. We turned our backs on the very people who were actually indispensable to the economic well-being of Zimbabwe, and Labour essentially allowed Mugabe to launch a racist tyranny. It was Labour’s betrayal of the Lancaster House Agreement – driven by political correctness and cowardice – that gave Mugabe the pretext for the despotic confiscations by which he has rewarded his supporters. And that is why Blair should be there: to mark Labour’s special contribution to the tyrant’s longevity in office” (Johnson, 2015).

What he was saying here, is that if they; the labour had left the White in power and control the country might not been in the situation and that the Zimbabwean Government couldn’t done it without them. Which is a bit disrespectful as they we’re colonial and took the land without question; not that I am defending Mugabe and his dictatorial rule, but there have to make some sense to power-grabbing man who have use all kind of tactics to keep control and run the nation. That he has used the White-men when need and abandon them when they we’re not needed. So that Johnson, the future words of his will be that the British and Neo-Colonial ideas is the salvation as the Commonwealth riches comes from his homestead and nowhere else. He will not say it so briefly, but through the bullshit-veins it comes out.

Ian Smith

When you thought he could be more fierce, as he has addressed Africans in blatant light of colonial view, twice over two decades, with disrespectful words, as if he is supposed to greet and African President. He should study a bit more and be a bit humble, even ask for forgiveness as he wouldn’t like to be called something disgusting himself. Even if he brash and little rational accusations are sometimes eaten out of his hands by his fellow supporters. That does not make it a reality, even if the Congolese, Ugandan and Zimbabwean state are failed in some perspectives, the ways he describe it and gives only credit to the ‘white’ and ‘British’, and he had his colourful perspective on the EU:

“Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods” (…) “But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void” (…) “The Italians, who used to be a great motor-manufacturing power, have been absolutely destroyed by the euro – as was intended by the Germans” (…) “The euro has become a means by which superior German productivity is able to gain an absolutely unbeatable advantage over the whole Eurozone” (…) “This is a chance for the British people to be the heroes of Europe and to act as a voice of moderation and common sense, and to stop something getting in my view out of control” (Roth, 2015).

Here he claims the EU has the Napoleon and Hitler complex for the power-sharing regime that comes from Brussels. This is the man, that already have called African for shambolic things and now his fellow brothers are using the Eurozone as Hitler, did is what he is saying the German are doing with the Euro. That is scary that a mans that believes that the German and Germany are doing what they can to destroy the Italian Auto Industry and take away the British their control of their state, proves the fear the new Foreign Secretary believes in.

Theresa May Quote

Theresa May, this appointment shows little character you have or how little judgement you did with this. I hope you got your will on most of the appointment in your new cabinet post David Cameron. The Post-Brexit Cabinet that have to work and negotiate with European Union and have as a Foreign Secretary would be the London MP Boris Johnson; there is so much disgrace in his attitude and this man supposed to represent the British abroad.

I hope he changes his way, but his tone over the long time proves his distinguished belief that the British are better than other people and for some reasons have the faith for believing so. That is dangerous, not for the protectionist or fear, but the belief that the automatic British ways are better for the world than any other. That is the man they are appointing to be representing them. Any other block from Swindon or Manchester without any track-record could be more representative at this point, as he has burned bridges and is not a brother a man respect, as he has address fellow human beings very badly! Peace.

Mining Company Funds Armed Men in Eastern Congo Gold Rush While State Loses Tax Windfall (05.07.2016)

Illegal Mining DRC

Chinese-owned mining company exporting to Dubai gave armed groups AK-47s for access to gold. 

LONDON, United Kingdom, July 5, 2016 –  Armed groups in Shabunda territory, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, received gifts of arms and cash from a Chinese mining company and made up to $25,000 per month extorted from local miners during a recent two-year gold boom. In just one year, up to $17 million of gold produced by Kun Hou Mining, the Chinese-owned company, went missing and was likely smuggled out of Congo into international supply chains, Global Witness reveals today(globalwitness.org/river-of-gold-drc).

At the same time, the Congolese state lost out on tax revenues on up to $38 million of artisanal gold produced per year during the gold rush, due to smuggling and misconduct by provincial authorities. The gold rush focused on the Ulindi River reached its peak in 2014 and 2015 and continues to this day. Evidence gathered by Global Witness also shows a provincial authority colluded with armed groups in illegal taxation of miners while another altered official export documents so gold looked as though it was coming from legally-operating mines.

Global Witness’ investigation reveals the extent of the problems in eastern Congo’s artisanal gold sector. Eastern Congo has seen an uptick in gold production in recent years, the revenues from which could have been used to address the region’s desperate poverty but have instead often funded armed groups and corrupt officials. Most of eastern Congo’s artisanal miners – around 80% – work in the gold sector. Recent international reforms have aimed to stop Congo’s mineral wealth funding armed groups. Global Witness warns today that the Congolese government needs to hold companies and government officials involved in such abuses to account in order for these reforms to work.

Armed groups, known as Raia Mutomboki, received at least two AK-47 assault rifles and $4,000 in cash from Kun Hou Mining, which operates mechanised gold dredging machines along the Ulindi River in Shabunda territory, South Kivu province of eastern Congo. In addition, the armed men taxed artisanal miners operating locally-made dredgers extracting gold along the river. Local authorities also collaborated with the Raia Mutomboki, through a tax sharing deal. The taxes collected by authorities appear to have disappeared, depriving Congo of much needed revenue which could be used for health and education.

“There were over 500 cases of malnutrition reported in Shabunda town in 2014 and yet the significant revenues generated by this gold boom benefitted armed men and predatory companies instead of the Congolese people” said Sophia Pickles, Senior Campaigner at Global Witness. “The Congolese government must enforce its own laws to ensure that companies in its gold sector do not produce or trade gold that has funded armed groups. Any company breaking these laws must be held accountable for their actions. Provincial mining authorities that fail to properly govern the minerals sector must also be held liable.”

Global Witness’ research shows that almost half a million dollars’ worth of Kun Hou’s gold was exported to a Dubai company through official channels. The rest of the company’s estimated $17 million of gold production is likely to have been smuggled out of the country.

There were over 500 cases of malnutrition reported in Shabunda town in 2014

Global Witness has also found evidence that mining officials in the provincial capital, Bukavu, deliberately falsified documentation to obscure links to Shabunda. Officials changed the gold’s origin on official export documents to show instead it came from the handful of legally-operating artisanal mines in South Kivu. This pattern has been repeated with other mines in the province. As a result, it is much more difficult for international buyers to be sure that gold has not funded armed groups.

“Provincial authorities overseeing Shabunda’s boom have, by their actions over the past two years, directly undermined international and the national government’s efforts to reform eastern Congo’s artisanal gold trade,” said Pickles. “States have a responsibility to ensure that companies do no harm, including checking supply chains for links to conflict and human rights abuses – Congo and the United Arab Emirates have dramatically failed in this respect.”

Global Witness’s report River of Gold also shows that:

·         South Kivu’s provincial government and mining authorities continued to support Kun Hou Mining despite repeated legal violations by the firm and repeated requests from Congo’s national government in Kinshasa to shut down its operations.

·         Mining officials in Shabunda town working for SAESSCAM, a governmental body mandated to support artisanal miners, ran an illegal taxation racket in areas where the local dredgers operated, including in collaboration with Raia Mutumboki armed groups.

·         Gold from Shabunda’s boom was sold on to a gold trading house in Bukavu that then sold it to their sister company, Alfa Gold Corp DMCC, in Dubai. Neither firm carried out supply chain due diligence to international standards, which would have revealed that the gold had been obtained in direct contravention of Congolese law and UAE Guidelines. Alfa Gold Corp DMCC has a wholly owned UK subsidiary registered in London’s Hatton Garden jewellery area. Alfa Gold in Dubai and London did not respond to request for comment.

·         Documents show that a French citizen Frank Menard, who worked for Kun Hou Mining, is deeply implicated in the company’s wrongdoing. Raia Mutomboki armed groups wrote to Menard in February 2015 to thank him for the two AK-47 assault rifles and $4,000. Menard also signed an official document confirming the sale of Kun Hou’s gold to Alfa Gold’s Congolese office. Global Witness’ attempts to contact Franck Menard were unsuccessful.

In recent years there have been significant international efforts to tackle the link between violent conflict, human rights abuses and the minerals trade in Congo and elsewhere including international supply chain guidance set out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) five years ago, which has been a legal requirement in Congo since 2012. The US also passed a law and most recently industry supply chain guidelines based on the OECD standard were agreed in China. The Chinese guidelines set a precedent for Chinese companies to recognise and reduce supply chain risks and if adhered to should allow companies sourcing minerals from high-risk areas to do so responsibly.

Kun Hu Mining refused to comment in response to three requests from Global Witness. SAESSCAM have strongly denied that its agents collaborated with armed groups.

Press Release: EU aid for African Great Lakes region getting through, but may be to expensive say auditor (04.07.2016)

EU Audits 04.07.2016 P1EU Audits 04.07.2016 P2

RDC: Communique en Rapport avec la Conference de Genval “L’Unite de L’Opposition dans la Coherence” (25.06.2016)

RDC Oppositon 25.06.2016 P1RDC Oppositon 25.06.2016 P2

Letter dated 15 June 2016 from the Permanent Representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the United Nation addressed to the President of the Security Council (16.06.2016)

DRC Security Council Letter 16.06.2016

RDC: Communique de Presse du ARPTC (19.06.2016)

Communique 19.07.2016 Internet DRC

The M23 Movement’s Statement in regards to the Massacre of 15th June in Kamina

M23 15.06.2016