African Great Lakes Observer

Reconstructing Rwanda: 15 Years After Genocide. A Tribute to Alison Des Forges. Speakers include: Tom Porteous, Anneke Van Woudenberg, Carla Ferstman, Paul Gready, Kersty McCourt, Jens Meierhenrich, Karen Murphy and Don Webster. 20 March 2009 http://www.sas.ac.uk/643.html Panel 1: Human Rights & Civil Society Speakers: Tom Gibson, Amnesty International; Anneke Van Woudenberg, Human Rights Watch; Professor Paul Gready, University of York; Kerstin McCourt, Danish Institute of Human Rights Panel 2: State Authority & Local Agency Panel 3: Foreign Relations Panel 4: Reconciliation Panel 5: Post-Genocide Justice Panel 2: State Authority & Local Agency Panel 3: Foreign Relations Panel 4: Reconciliation Panel 5: Post-Genocide Justice

Andrew Mitchell: Achieving value for money in aid http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/10/Andrew_Mitchell_Achieving_value_for_money_in_aid.aspx “ giving aid to Russia is simply ridiculous ”. “ signing off a 240,000 pounds grant to set up a Brazilian dance troupe in Hackney ” is a waste of British taxpayer’s money. “ giving 38 million pounds of aid to China, a country which spent 20 billion pounds on hosting the Olympics” is arrogance toward Chinese people. But, giving aid to Kagame and Museveni to massacres Rwandans and Congolese people and to destabilize the whole Africa Great Lakes Region is criminal . Kagame is crying for being imposed by the British to accept their foreign aid. Kagame has consistently played down the role of aid in economic development while more than 60 % of his country annual budget is from foreign aid, mainly from the British ‘s taxpayer’s money. So, what is the rationale for the British to impose their aid to countries that do not need ...

Volume 56, Number 14 · September 24, 2009 Kagame's Hidden War in the Congo By Howard W. French Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe by Gérard Prunier Oxford University Press, 529 pp., $27.95 The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa by René Lemarchand University of Pennsylvania Press, 327 pp., $59.95 The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality by Thomas Turner Zed Books, 243 pp., $32.95 (paper) Although it has been strangely ignored in the Western press, one of the most destructive wars in modern history has been going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa's third-largest country. During the past eleven years millions of people have died, while armies from as many as nine different African countries fought with Congolese government forces and various rebel groups for control of land and natural resources. Much of the fighting has taken place in regions of northeastern and eastern Congo that are rich in mineral...