African Great Lakes Observer

http://therisingcontinent.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/the-liberation-of-african-minds-a-giant-step-to-make/ The liberation of African minds: a giant step to make A friend asked me once if I liked movies and what I liked watching on TV. I replied and said that I had not watched television for the last four years. I didn't elaborate on the reasons that had pushed me to that radical resolution. But what he added summarized most of it. 'A rabbi once said that watching television [ or a censored news source – my emphasis ] is like opening sewage in your house.' Many are not aware of which ground they stand on.  Harriet Tubman , a black American abolitionist born in 1822, helped to free many among her compatriots from slavery. With a lot of courage, she took enormous life risks to liberate black people during the time when a handful of Negroes would dare to oppose openly the slavery system. To those who praised her for her efforts and achievements, she responded, 'I would've...

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Prevent_the_invocation_of_the_Cessation_Cause_for_Rwandan_refugees/?fLPWldb&pv=17 Please help us encourage UNHCR to reconsider its recommendation that states invoke the Cessation Clause for Rwandan refugees who fled between 1959 and 1998. Such action would put many at risk at a time when the fundamental, durable and positive changes required to invoke the Cessation Clause have not yet been achieved.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/27/democratic-republic-congo-sultani-makenga   Democratic Republic of Congo braced for more conflict Sultani Makenga strengthens his grip on the M23 rebel group and reinforces his position around Goma Share 88 in Share 2 Email Julian Borger in Goma guardian.co.uk , Wednesday 27 March 2013 14.10 EDT A UN official said: 'Makenga has been digging in, consolidating and going after new recruits. Everything feels very jittery right now.' Photograph: Isaac Kasamani/AFP The Democratic Republic of Congo is braced for more conflict in its eastern provinces as the warlord, Sultani Makenga, strengthens his grip on the M23 rebel group and reinforces his position around Goma. Local aid groups and UN officials said that while they welcomed the decision of a M23 faction leader, Bosco Ntaganda , to hand himself in to the US embassy in Rwanda last week and then to the International Criminal Court in The Ha...

http://therisingcontinent.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/congolese-women-against-genocide-in-drc/#more-3777   Congolese women against genocide in DRC Posted on March 28, 2013 | Leave a comment Congolese women protesting against Rwandan support to M23 in Goma – Eastern Congo. "No brutality, no agony, no torture has ever driven me to beg for mercy, for I would rather die with my head high, my faith unshaken, and a profound trust in the destiny of my country, than live in subjection, seeing principles that are sacred to me laughed to scorn. History will have its say one day."  Patrice Emery Lumumba Congolese women denounce consumed and ongoing genocide of their compatriots since 1996. The following is a memorandum which condemns international crimes committed in the DRCongo and neo-colonial policies imposed on local populations. Congolese women activists at a protest organised in Paris on March 23rd, 2013. They stand against the inhuman cowardly comp...

http://www.inyenyerinews.org/amahanga-2/the-untold-stories-will-the-termination-of-the-terminator-terminate-the-conflict-and-misery-in-the-dr-congo-without-terminating-their-sponsors-and-financiers/   Will the Termination of the Terminator, Terminate the conflict and misery in the DR Congo without terminating their sponsors and financiers? March 23, 2013 by Rwema IT Webmaster Leave a Comment Confused, biting each other, the M23 rebel group is heading to self destruction. There is a saying in Africa that while grasshoppers are kept in a pot waiting to be fried, they start biting each rather than designing away out way out of the pot and save their lives.  The current infighting between the faction of Gen. Bosco Ntaganda and Sultan Makenga   is a clear manifestation of the failure of the above grasshoppers to get out of the pot while a pot is being cleaned and oil bought to fry them. Unfortunately the former allies and comrades have been fighting each othe...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/28/us-congo-democratic-un-combat-idUSBRE92R0V220130328   U.N. approves creation of special combat force for Congo UNITED NATIONS | Thu Mar 28, 2013 3:28pm EDT   (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Thursday approved the creation of a special combat force that is to carry out "targeted offensive operations" to neutralize armed groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo . The 15-member Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution establishing the so-called intervention brigade within the existing 20,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo , known as MONUSCO. (Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Vicki Allen)

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/14/the-most-brutal-genocide-money-can-buy/ In the Heart of the DR Congo The Most Brutal Genocide Money Can Buy by ANDRE VLTCHEK The camp for Congolese refugees in Kisoro is overcrowded, and people keep flowing in. The border between Uganda and DR Congo is just a few kilometers away, and right behind the border the vicious fighting goes on; there is true bloodshed and carnage. The border is called Bunagana. I drive there, I film, and I talk to a few people. There is tension, everybody is edgy – locals and refugees. One cannot tell who is who. Both Ugandans and Congolese know, but, the outsider cannot tell the difference; it is one region, one area. People were coming back and forth for years and decades, people were mixing, staying at both sides of the border legally and illegally. But now, there is almost nothing left to go back to at the other side of the border. Murderous militia M23 recently went on the rampage – killing, raping and looting with n...