Georgianne Nienaber: How is it ethically possible to negotiate with a group and then promote war against it?
Is Rwanda the Victim in a Modern Day Salem Witch Trial?
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Georgianne Nienaber: Let’s offer the thesis that public opinion has been railroaded with respect to Rwanda amid accusations that it is supplying aid to a newly minted and highly successful rebel army in eastern Congo.
Walmart Dodges African “Blood Minerals” Rule
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t must have seemed like a good idea at the time, when Senators Chris Dodd and Barney Frank drew up the landmark regulatory bill that bears their names. One of its lesser-known provisions required U.S. companies to list the inclusion of any “conflict minerals,” mined in or near the violence-plagued Democratic Republic of the Congo, [...]
Defining Good Rebels vs. Bad Rebels in Congo
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Georgianne Nienaber: Don’t allow the media and foreign governments to define you. Chief Sitting Bull, a Lakota Medicine Man, was considered the last Sioux to surrender to the U.S. Government. They paid him back by killing him after they broke treaty after treaty.
Why the Democratic Republic of Congo Is a Failed State
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Georgianne Nienaber: Throughout DRC’s history, the ruling elites have antagonized ethnic groups by supporting regional strong men who plunder resources — sowing confusion, fear and insecurity in the process. No sense of statehood could possibly arise out of an exploitive system that continues to this day.
“What Kind of Peace Are the Congo UN Peacemakers Keeping?”
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Georgianne Nieaber: We need to ask the question why is the UN supporting a corrupt Congolese army and a corrupt government in Kinshasa? Who pays the bills for the UN? You do.
Why Are the UN and Human Rights Watch Undercutting Rwanda?
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Georgianne Nienaber: What are the possible motivations for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Congo (MONUSCO) to participate in an orchestrated pattern of leaking material detrimental to Rwanda to the international press, and what axe does HRW, if any, have to grind?
UN: “No Evidence Rwanda Helped M23 Rebels in Congo”
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Georgianne Nienaber: A more likely scenario has the Congolese government trying to rev up international outrage against Rwanda as control of the east deteriorating.
UN Implicates Obama Appointee in Congo Gold-Smuggling Plot
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Georgianne Nienaber: The United Nations accusations against Lawal and CAMAC deserve a complete investigation and Congressional hearings might be a good place to begin.
Would Congo Be Better Off with Nkunda?
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Georgianne Nienaber: Was Nkunda a renegade rebel, freedom fighter, dissident, murderer, saint, or savior? Truth, quote unquote, was whatever the international media and factional interests decreed.
Facebook Community Helps Save a Few of Congo’s Many Cholera Victims
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Georgianne Nienaber: Some rudimentary help is now on the way to Walikale due to a tight-knit Facebook community that rallied to find a simple solution that will not solve the problem, but might save a life or two.
New Massacre Looms in the Democratic Republic of Congo
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Georgianne Nienaber: God may be sleeping, but the international community is now conscious of the impdending massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Disaster Capitalism in Haiti, New Orleans, Congo and Pakistan
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Ezili Dantò: Since the 2004 Bush regime change in Haiti, US large footprint in “poor?” Haiti keeps increasing. US Embassy in Haiti is the fifth largest US Embassy compound in the world, after Iraq, Afghanistan, China
and Germany.
A Question of Power, Not Sex
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Thomas A. Foster: The conversations about homophobia in the black church or about Bishop Long’s hypocrisy confuse the issue at hand. This is not the story of a closeted gay man who simply needed sexual release. Sexual abuse – in all its forms – is about power, not sex.
“Ruined,” But Not Forever?
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Dick Price: “Ruined,” tells the improbably uplifting story of a tawdry haven from an unimaginably cruel world where soldiers and the rebels they fight routinely rape, mutilate, and murder women for sport.
Congo: More Intimidation as Blood Flows Faster than Oil Spilled into the Gulf of Mexico
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Georgianne Nienaber: The United States has strategic and mining interests in DRC and until the American people wake up and demand that our government do something to actually promote human rights in the Great Lakes Region, we can expect more of the same and press release after press release from Human Rights organizations will swarm foreign news desks like so many hyenas after the kill.
Help Provide Missing Haiti Coverage
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Dick Price: Next week, Georgianne Nienaber departs on a 12-day investigative research trip to Haiti where she will look to fill in gaps in the mainstream media’s news coverage while also providing emergency medical assistance to rural Haitians. As she works with Haitian human rights organizations to develop story ideas, she also invites LA Progressive readers to contribute their thoughts on where else she might look.
Congolese Groups Demand Ouster of Abusive Army Commander
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Georgiianne Nienaber: The four-page formal complaint describes a compendium of horrific abuses – including massacres of civilians, summary executions, rape, mutilations of women, the dumping of bodies into latrines, and the recruitment of children – all committed by troops under Zimurinda’s command from 2007 to the present.
Congo Descending into Third Circle of Hell
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Georgianne Nienaber: What’s the rape and torture and burning alive of many thousands of women and children got to do with anything? What has JUSTICE got to do with anything, for God’s sake? Kabila wants “peace,” after all. A stray bullet might mar the finish on one of his bikes.
Data Bombshell Crushes Congolese Death Reports
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Georgianne Nienaber: A bunker-busting academic data bomb has just been dropped on the long-suffering Congolese people after the release of a report by the Human Security Report Project at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. The mainstream press fanned the resulting firestorm of academic debate on methodology by misquoting and misinterpreting death toll numbers in headlines that have now virally spread throughout cyberspace. The resulting confusion has dealt another body blow to humanitarian efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Congolese Women and Girls Suffering the Insufferable
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Emily Spence and Brian McAfee: Heavily armed militias are trying to increase the very same kinds of turmoil that charitable groups are striving to remedy. They are doing so in order to gain control of four main minerals: tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold that garner an estimated $180 million in revenues each year.
Congo: New Year, New Ops, Same Questions, Same Fears
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Georgianne Nienaber: The notoriously failed Kimia II operation in eastern Congo has ended today, December 31. Soundly and forcefully criticized by Human Rights groups for the devastation it wrought on civilian populations, it will be replaced sometime in January with a new mission, dubbed OperationAmani Leo, sources say.
Could a Hillary Clinton Avatar Save Congo?
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Georgianne Nienaber: Surprisingly, to some, the bad guys list also includes scientists, conservationists, non-governmental organizations, doctors, lawyers, public relations professionals and just about anyone who stands to make a buck off of the suffering. As one local Congolese activist told me, “rape is big business in Congo these days.”
HRW Report on Congo: Fetuses Ripped From Wombs and Children Burned
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“Continued killing and rape by all sides in eastern Congo shows that the UN Security Council needs a new approach to protect civilians,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Security Council should send a group of experts to Congo to kick-start a serious civilian protection plan.”
Satellite Imagery Proves Catastropic Failure of Joint Rwanda/Congo Military Exercizes
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Seeing is believing. For the past ten months, human rights organizations, political sources, eyewitness reports, and secret communiqués from remnants of Laurent Nkunda loyalists have reported that joint military operations between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have been a catastrophic failure.
Where Is SOS Clinton as Uncertainty Looms for Refugees and Displaced Populations in Central Africa?
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Something is afoot in central Africa and we are dropping the ball. On a visit to the region in 2007, a deep source at the UN told me that his/her expectation was that violence and genocide could erupt again and that the epicenter would be Burundi.
Congo: Time to Send in the Clowns?
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Congolese president Joseph Kabila paved the way for a troupe of Spanish Clowns, while thugs and militia rule the Kivus and truth-seeking journalist are threatened.
Grassroots News from Congo: Midwives Transform Trash Into Hope
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The midwives need the means to accomplish their noble goal of saving women through direct intervention, HIV/AIDS counseling, and nutrition. This is truly a grassroots effort with a humble beginning that literally transforms grass and roots into life-supporting energy.
Dear Secretary Clinton: Could You Please Find Out if This Congolese Child Is Still Alive?
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Don’t be snowed by Kabila and what he will tell you while you are in Kinshasa. It is more important what you will see in eastern Congo.
Lalibre Reports: Is It Too Late for Eastern Congo?
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Since the spectacular failure of Operation Umoja Wetu in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congolese forces (FARDC) have formed a new military campaign with MONUC forces. Dubbed Kimia II, the new operation appears headed for the same fate. After the detention of rebel Congolese Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda by Rwandan forces (RDF) in [...]
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