African Great Lakes Observer

Sep 30, 2010, 16:33 GMT Kampala - Uganda on Thursday joined Rwanda in rubbishing a United Nations report accusing the countries of committing atrocities against civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report by the office of the UN's human rights chief, due to be released officially on Friday, was leaked in August, prompting Rwanda to threaten to withdraw its troops from UN peacekeeping missions. 'It (the report) is rubbish and we do not take it kindly,' a spokesman for the army, Lieutenant Felix Kulayigye, told the German Press Agency dpa. 'First, the methodology of gathering the data to accuse us was poor. Second, the rules of justice follow that you hear from the other side before accusing it, but they have not heard from us,' he added. Uganda's foreign minister, in a letter released to local media, condemned the report - which covers conflicts in DR Congo between 1993 and 2003 - and warned that Uganda's commitment to peacekeeping mis...

By RFI A UN report to be issued on 1 October will accuse the Rwandan army of massacring Hutus who had fled to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the 1990s. It will also point an accusing finger at the DRC’s own army, as well as troops from Burundi and Uganda. And it has infuriated Rwandan leaders by declaring that a court could find that the killings were genocidal. The 516-page report details the findings of an inquiry into “the most serious human rights violations” in the DRC, formerly Zaire, from 1993 to 2003. It says that tens of thousands of Hutu civilians were murdered in the DRC, after they had fled Rwanda following Paul Kagame’s Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front's seizure power. In a chapter on killings in 1997-1998, it describes an attack on about 120,000 Hutu refugees by armed Congolese rebels backed up by soldiers from the Rwandan army at a camp in Tingi-Tingi in Maniema province. On the morning of 1 March, soldiers from both armies raided the cam...

Opinion: Can Obama reform the aid business? US leader proposes far-reaching changes in providing aid to poor countries. Pakistani women displaced by floods gather at a relief camp to wait for U.S. food aid. (Farooq Naeem/AFP/Getty Images) BOSTON — The most important part of U.S. President Barack Obama’s bold enunciation of a new global development policy at the U.N. last week was his promise to measure the effectiveness of aid by outputs, not inputs. Aid experts have long emphasized results, not the amount of aid dollars spent — in other words the mileage of roads built, or the quantity of vaccines delivered — as the true determinants of foreign assistance effectiveness. Obama did not say exactly how outputs — reductions in maternal mortality rates, improved education, reductions in corruption — were going to be calibrated. But he said firmly, in a first for world leadership, that aid alone is not development. Only moving a nation from poverty to prosperity, through a combination ...

A first step to ending impunity as Congo massacres report date set ( http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/sympathy-for-rwanda-begins-to-fade/article1733819/?cmpid=rss1 ) Sympathy for Rwanda begins to fade Geoffrey York Johannesburg— From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published Wednesday, Sep. 29, 2010 9:44PM EDT Last updated Wednesday, Sep. 29, 2010 10:23PM EDT 2 comments For years, Rwanda's government was assured of loyal sympathy from around the world. Everyone remembered the horrors of the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed by Hutu extremists while the world idly watched. More related to this story Africa must learn to feed itself Canada chided for 'lack of interest' in world's poor The unfulfilled promise of UN protection For 16 years, that sympathy has muted any misgivings about Rwanda's authoritarian government. World leaders from Tony Blair to George Bush have heaped praise on Rwanda, touting it as an e...

Kagame wants better treatment from U.N. ( http://www.theproxylake.com/2010/09/kagame-wants-better-treatment-from-un/ )

"Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, both strong admirers of the US, for years have given American evangelists direct access to their presidencies and fellow politicians. Both are believed to be privately influenced by US evangelical ideology." Human rights advocate Kapya Kaoma © Govt of Sweden/afrol News afrol News, 22 September - Fundamentalist "evangelical" Christian congregations in the US have plaid a strong role in radicalising Anglican and Protestant communities in Africa, in particular Uganda and Rwanda. New reports document their real motives as imperialistic. A three-day seminar held in Kampala in March 2009 by the US extremist Scott Lively called "Exposing the Truth behind Homosexuality and the Homosexual Agenda" was to have a great impact on politics in Uganda. Attended by leading Ugandan politicians and religious leaders, the seminar laid the foundations for Uganda's controversial - now stalled - anti-ga...

“Rwanda is a very poor country with very few valuable exports, mainly tea and coffee, and imports outweigh exports by a factor of nearly four. The country is extremely dependent on donor loans and grants, which finance roughly half of the government’s budget. Despite the fact that the ‘Government of Rwanda’ has violated several important economic agreements with the Bretton Woods institutions, inter alia by financing its military by precious commodities obtained under cover of the war in the Congo, donors have nevertheless been unwilling to limit the aid to Rwanda. Aid helps – regardless of the situation, donors say.” “With reference to the Genocide, donors have been extremely lenient toward the ‘Government of Rwanda’, claiming that the latter needs more aid, fewer conditions, and more patience from donors. A discourse largely invented by the ‘Government of Rwanda’, but accepted at face value by most donors. The discourse of ’recovery from Genocide’ has been successfully introduced...

Report on Rwanda s Application for Membership of the Commonwealth: An assessment against Core Criteria CHRI 2009 CHRI Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative working for the practical realisation of human rights in the countries of the Commonwealth Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) is an independent, non-partisan, international non-governmental organisation, mandated to ensure the practical realisation of human rights in the countries of the Commonwealth. In 1987, several Commonwealth professional associations founded CHRI. They believed that while the Commonwealth provided member countries a shared set of values and legal principles from which to work and provided a forum within which to promote human rights, there was little focus on the issues of human rights within the Commonwealth. The objectives of CHRI are to promote awareness of and adherence to the Commonwealth Harare Principles, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a...