Humanitarian Coverup: Why is Obama Silent Over the New Congo War?
By <
http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/shamus-cooke> Shamus Cooke
Global Research, November 26, 2012
congo
The last Congo war that ended in 2003 killed 5.4 million people, the worst
humanitarian disaster since World War II. The killing was directly enabled
by international silence over the issue; the war was ignored and the causes
obscured because governments were backing groups involved in the fighting.
Now a new Congo war has begun and the silence is, again, deafening.
President Obama seems not to have noticed a new war has broken out in the
war-scarred Congo; he appears blind to the refugee crisis and the war
crimes committed by the invading M23 militia against the democratically
elected government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
But appearances can be deceiving. The U.S. government has their bloody hands
all over this conflict, just as they did during the last Congo war when Bill
Clinton was President. President Obama's inaction is a conscious act of
encouragement for the invaders, just as Clinton's was. Instead of Obama
denouncing the invasion and the approaching overthrow of a democratically
elected government, silence becomes a very powerful action of intentional
complicity on the side of the invaders.
Why would Obama do this? The invaders are armed and financed by Rwanda, a
"strong ally" and puppet of the United States. The United Nations released a
report conclusively proving that the Rwandan government is backing the
rebels, but the U.S. government and U.S. media cartoonishly pretend that the
issue is debatable.
The last Congo War that killed 5.4 million people was also the result of the
U.S.-backed invading armies of Rwanda and Uganda, as explained in the
excellently researched book "Africa's World War," by French journalist
Gerard Prunier.
In fact, many of the same Rwandan war criminals involved in the last Congo
War, such as Bosco Ntaganda, are in charge of the M23 militia and wanted for
war crimes by the U.N. international criminal court. The current Rwandan
president, Paul Kagame, is a "good friend" of the U.S. government and one of
the most notorious war criminals on the planet, due to his leading roles in
the Rwandan genocide and consequent Congo War.
A group of Congolese and Rwandan activists have been demanding that Kagame
be tried for his key role in the Rwandan genocide.
As Prunier's book explains, the Rwandan genocide was sparked by Kagame's
invasion of Rwanda - from U.S. ally Uganda. After Kagame took power in
post-genocide Rwanda, he then informed the U.S. - during a trip to
Washington D.C. - that he would be invading the Congo. Prunier quotes Kagame
in Africa's World War:
"I delivered a veiled warning [to the U.S.]: the failure of the
international community to take action [against the Congo] would mean that
Rwanda would take action. But their [the Clinton Administration's] response
was really no response at all" (pg 68).
In international diplomacy speak, such a lack of response - to a threat of
military invasion - acts as a glaring diplomatic green light.The same
blinding green light is now being offered by Obama to the exact same war
criminals as they again invade the Congo.
But why again? The Democratic Republic of the Congo's current President,
Joseph Kabila, helped lead the military invasion during the last Congo war.
As a good stooge, he delivered Congo's immense mining and oil wealth to
multi-national corporations. But then his puppet strings started to fray.
Kabila later distanced himself from U.S. puppets Rwanda and Uganda, not to
mention the U.S. dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
The IMF, for example, warned Kabila against a strategic infrastructural and
development aid package with China, but Kabila shrugged them off. The
Economist explains:
".[The Congo] appears to have gained the upper hand in a row with foreign
donors over a mining and infrastructure package worth $9 billion that was
agreed a year ago with China. The IMF objected to it, on the ground that it
would saddle Congo with a massive new debt, so [the IMF] is delaying
forgiveness of most of the $10 billion-plus that Congo already owes."
This act instantly transformed Kabila from an unreliable friend to an enemy.
The U.S. and China have been madly scrambling for Africa's immense wealth of
raw materials, and Kabila's new alliance with China was too much for the
U.S. to bear.
Kabila further inflamed his former allies by demanding that the
international corporations exploiting the Congo's precious metals have their
super-profit contracts re-negotiated, so that the country might actually
receive some benefit from its riches.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to 80 percent of the world's
cobalt, an extremely precious mineral needed to construct many modern
technologies, including weaponry, cell phones, and computers. The DRC is
possibly the most mineral/resource rich country in the world - overflowing
with everything from diamonds to oil - though its people are among the
world's poorest, due to generations of corporate plunder of its wealth.
Now, a new war is underway and the U.N. is literally sitting on their hands.
There are 17,500 U.N. peacekeepers in the DRC, not to mention U.S. Special
Forces. The invading M23 militia has 3,000 fighters. What was the U.N.'s
response to the invasion? The New York Times reports:
"United Nations officials have said that they did not have the numbers to
beat back the rebels and that they were worried about collateral damage, but
many Congolese have rendered their own verdict. On Wednesday, rioters in
Bunia, north of Goma, ransacked the houses of United Nations' personnel."
If Obama and/or the U.N. made one public statement about militarily
defending the elected Congolese government against invasion, the M23 militia
would have never acted.
Human Rights Watch and other groups have correctly labeled the M23's
commanders as responsible for "ethnic massacres, recruitment of children,
mass rape, killings, abductions and torture."
But at the U.N. the Obama administration has been actively protecting this
group. The New York Times continues:
"Some human rights groups say that Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to
the United Nations and a leading contender to be President Obama's next
secretary of state, has been far too soft on Rwanda, which is a close
American ally and whose president, Paul Kagame, has known Ms. Rice for
years. The activists have accused her of watering down language in a
Security Council resolution that would have mentioned Rwanda's links to the
[M23] rebels and say she also tried to block the publication of part of a
[U.N.] report that detailed Rwanda's covert support for the M23."
It's likely that the Obama administration will jump into action as soon as
his M23 allies complete their military objective of regime change, and
re-open the Congo's military wealth to U.S. corporations to profit from.
There are currently talks occurring in U.S.-puppet Uganda between the M23
and the Congo government. It is unlikely that these talks will produce much
of a result unless Kabila stands down and allows the M23 and its Rwandan
backers to take over the country. The M23 knows it's in an excellent
bargaining position, given the silence of the U.N. and the United States
government.
If the war drags on, expect more international silence. Expect more
massacres and ethnic cleansing too, and expect the still-recovering people
of the Congo to be re-tossed into massive refugee camps where they can again
expect militia-sponsored killings, rape, starvation, and the various
barbarisms that have accompanied this especially brutal war, a brutality
that grows most viciously in environments of silence.
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for
Workers Action ( <
http://www.workerscompass.org> www.workerscompass.org) He
can be reached at
<
http://us.mc1620.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=shamuscooke_at_gmail.com>
shamuscooke_at_gmail.com
Notes
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/17/opposition-groups-want-rwandan-presi
dent-paul-kagame-investigated-for-war-crimes/
http://www.economist.com/node/1
3496903?zid=309ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/africa/congo-rebels-in-goma-vow-to-t
ake-kinshasha.html
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Received on Mon Nov 26 2012 - 19:03:24 EST
