TranslateM23's creators and commanders are in Rwanda and Uganda
by Ann Garrison
KPFA Evening News, broadcast Nov. 10, 2013
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Transcript
For more than a decade, the UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo have documented Rwandan and Ugandan backing for M23's previous incarnations, and the 2012 report documented that M23 was actually commanded by Rwanda's top General and Defense Minister, and in close contact with top Ugandan officials as well. KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: U.S. officials and the corporate press have agreed to identify the M23 militia as "Congo rebels," despite the 2012 UN report that says M23's chain of command ends in the office of Rwandan Defense Minister James Kabarebe. This week the U.S. said that it is prepared to lift sanctions on Rwanda if it simply "cuts ties" with M23. Earlier this year, Congolese historian and activist BK Kumbi interrupted UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon at a conference in Geneva to demand that Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi be named as the real aggressors.
BK Kumbi: But what about people of the Congo, PLEASE? What about people of the CONGO? You don't say anything about that. There's been killed 8 million people and you're making fictitious peace, and you're telling us that this is peace, when aggressors are not named.
Rwanda has been known … has … is responsible of what is going wrong in the peace, in Congo, and nobody says something about that! Burundi! Uganda! You just say that! We are sick and tired of hearing every time people here just being so peaceful with AFRICA! You should let AFRICA in PEACE."
What about people of the CONGO?
Convention Security: Multiple voices calling in French for order, then for security officers to throw BK Kumbi out. [As they did.]
KPFA/Ann Garrison: BK Kumbi also wrote that the Western powers, including the U.S., UK, Canada, and Belgium have collaborated with Uganda and Rwanda, to control Congo's vast resource wealth. She urged her Rwandan, Ugandan, and Congolese brothers and sisters to keep resisting.
On the Monday after next, BK Kumbi will be a guest on the Morning Mix with Sabrina Jacobs and myself.
For Pacifica, KPFA, and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.
BK Kumbi's letter can be read here on the website of the San Francisco Bay View: "Letter to my Rwandan, Ugandan and Congolese brothers and sisters celebrating M23's defeat."
Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View,Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel,AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached atann@afrobeatradio.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison's independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website atanngarrison.com.
Your this blog is very informative and interesting. Keep doing this type of great work.
ReplyDelete