Outrage in the Banana Republic of Malawi: Police torture jailed gay couple, Judge Nyakwawa Usiwa Usiwa an abject extremist, and rights groups mum

 

Steven Monjeza, 26, and his self-proclaimed wife Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20

"Doppelganger anticitizens" tortured by Malawi Police

(Credits) 

A part of Africa is going to hell these days. I’m not talking of the brutal regime of Rwanda where presidential candidate Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza was brutally mugged this past week for "jumping a queue" (give me a break!) by security operatives posing as civilians and her personal assistant, Joseph Ntawangundi, who was also brutally beaten in the incident, charged with the maximum crime of “Genocide” while authorities are well aware the man was in Europe prior, during, and after the Genocide.

I’m talking of the nastiest place on earth for people whose crime is to be “outed” gays.

Some of us were wondering how Uganda would go about in enforcing the barbaric anti-gay legislation being mulled over in that dictatorship. Well, now in order to get a preview of Uganda gone Mugabe, we only have to look at Malawi and the way it treats Steven Monjeza and his wife—yes, I’m from now on going to call him just that—Tiwonge Chimbalanga. The piece below by reporter Nkhondo Nkunika shows how two young men have been utterly “othered” by a society with those who could steer that society in the right direction leading the charge.

These two young men, says Nkhondo Nkunika, have been treated by the police as if they were “doppelganger anticitizens” worse than members of the murderous gang of Malawian serial killer Jack Bandawe aka the Nachipanti. They have TORTURED Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga and even “actually considered forcing the two to undergo an anal examination just to establish whether they had intercourse or not.”

It is fitting that Nkhondo Nkunika should raise the issue of the funding of the bunch of goons and hoodlums called the Malawian police by the UKAID or DFID [Department For International Development]. For this is the only way that the West and the UN would make these irresponsible banana republics gone Mugabe to be pinched out of this madness of their own making: cut off all aid money to these fascist countries till they behave like civilized human societies!

Judge Nyakwawa Usiwa Usiwa, who’s presiding over the case of these two innocent men, is so biased that “he is not only cruel but demonstrates a complete lack of respect for human rights.” Well targeted sanctions, like turning down visa requests, could be brought to bear upon this homophobic bandit!

There’s also another troublesome issue Nkhondo Nkunika tackles: the deafening silence of so-called “rights groups” in Malawi. Some African countries bribe and set up bogus civil-society groups to masquerade as human rights groups in order to give them cover for their egregious abuses; other African authoritarian governments have even ministries or agencies of human rights! It’s about time that stringent litmus tests be imposed to curb this travesty. Again, the prescription is the same: cut off funds to rights groups that keep mum when abuses occur right under their noses!

***Alex Engwete

****

Malawi: Mistreatment of accused homosexuals

BY Nkhondo Nkunika

Nyasa Times

Published February 4, 2010

The reality in Malawi is that an overwhelming majority of Malawians oppose homosexuality. That position is supported by our own laws that do criminalize homosexual practices. It's pretty much straight forward then that if you engage in homosexuality as Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza allegedly did, then the law will act accordingly.

So there isn’t much to disagree on with those who say Tiwonge and his partner should have known better.

However, there is another important facet of the gay-couple’s case that has been brought to light, that folks can agree on—the respect for rights of the accused.

To begin with, the way the couple has been treated, even the most anti- gay person out there would acknowledge that our police and the court have not handled this case the right way.

Passions and prejudices have gotten in the way of professionalism and fairness.

Respect for human rights and the notion of innocent until proven otherwise have completely been forsaken.

Every one probably agrees this case has, as it probably should, elicited intense passions from both sides of the gay rights subject.

But, regardless of one’s position on the subject, we all want or expect the authorities involved especially the court and the police to travel a higher road. They must stand above these passions and prejudices. This certainly has not been the case.

The court, in particular Judge Nyakwawa Usiwa Usiwa has been an abject let-down not only to the legal fraternity but the nation as whole.

From the onset, the judge has given every indication that he is hell bent on tormenting the two accused individuals. Among others, his decision to deny them bail , on a bailable offense like this and citing their safety or lack thereof as the reason, is not only cruel but demonstrates a complete lack of respect for human rights. This judge has taken extremism to new heights.

On the confirmation hearing of Justice John Roberts, the then junior Senator from Illinois Barack Obama alluded to the difficult tasks Judges face when deciding on difficult cases.

He concluded: “[...] In those difficult cases the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart”.

Judge Nyakwawa has not rendered his verdict yet and this may not rank as a difficult case to come before him but we now know the make-up of his heart. It is devoid of any bit of compassion and conscience.

It is also very troubling that our police, who in recent times have undergone several DFID funded training programs to improve on their performance and human rights record, have treated these two citizens as if they were worse offenders than the ‘Nachipanti’ criminals.

While some people may be quick to point out that it's actually mundane for our police to beat up people under custody, one wonders the motivation for torturing two men who have not harmed anybody and who by any stretch of imagination are not hard core offenders?

Is it not frightening that they actually considered forcing the two to undergo an anal examination just to establish whether they had intercourse or not? I won’t be surprised if DFID would soon be asking for a refund.

But here is the thing: while this inhumane treatment of the gay couple has drawn widespread international condemnation, most local human rights folks or watchdogs have surprisingly been tight- lipped.

Now some people are beginning to ask questions? Why have they been mum on an issue that strikes to the core of their existence? Could this be a genuine case of moral conflict? Or is it a case of trying to maintain their relevance to an overwhelmingly anti- gay constituency without running the risk of upsetting their Western donors?

Whatever the reasons, as human rights advocates, they have been a big disappointment and their credibility has definitely been dented. They are the ones who should have been in the forefront agitating for respect of the couple rights as the legal process plays out.

Right now, it’s not surprising that the biggest scandal of this case is not the actual arrest of the two–it is actually what has transpired afterwards. Lack of respect for human rights by judges has clearly overshadowed the legal aspect of the case.

When you have police officers failing to exercise restraint or curb their prejudices and go on to torture two harmless citizens, then that is troublesome.

More importantly when you have folks whose work calls them to stand up for the two but for some reason don’t have the nerve to do that, then that is definitely worrisome.

Some of us vehemently oppose gay marriage but would like gay issues to be tackled in a more sober, civil and tolerant manner with due respect to human rights and the law of the land.

California should prosecute Welfare-Queen Inge Lynn Collins Bongo for Welfare Fraud

Welfare-Queen INGE LYNN COLLINS BONGO
Estranged wife of Gabon's President ALI BONGO ONDIMBA

With welfare and food stamp forms at Office 68615-A

Riverside County Department of Public Social Services

Riverside, California, in 2009
"Bold-faced Liar"

(Credits)

When ABC reported the news last year in the throes of the contested election of Ali Bongo Ondimba in Gabon, people where shaking their heads in disbelief. The news reverberated across Africa and was picked up by the opposition both inside Gabon and among the Gabonese diaspora in Europe. Not only is Bongo a cheater of elections hell-bent on perpetuating the kleptocratic oligarchic rule his deceased father had created in the oil-rich Central African country, but the man was also a wife-beater, a bigamist and a dead-beat husband.

The title of the ABC report said it all: "Gabon's First Lady Lives on Food Stamps in California: Inge Bongo went from Luxury to Poverty, Now wants to be First Lady."

Just consider the awfully unjust predicament of this desperate woman: Inge Lynn Collins Bongo, Ali Bongo’s estranged American first wife (still legally married to him in the U.S., it was alleged, and by right oil-rich Gabon’s new First Lady), is featured holding welfare and food stamps forms at Office 68615-A of the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services, in Riverside, California.

I don’t recall quite exactly this argument of Ernest Gellner in one of his books. But, I have a fuzzy recollection that Ernest Gellner described Americans as naïve and good-hearted people who felt superior to (and sorry for) the rest of humanity that wasn’t granted this “self-evident” truth, marked in indelible ink in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In the ABC interview, Inge Lynn Collins Bongo, just as in Gellner’s description, comes across as this naïve American with boundless love and charity and feeling sorry for the Gabonese people, even putting herself at loggerheads with her husband’s kleptocratic ruling clan in the name of that tenet of “the pursuit of Happiness” (with capital “H”) for all the peoples of this world.

She told ABC:

“Gabon is a country of the haves and the have nots, and the haves were all Bongos… When I would complain, they literally laughed at me. They thought Americans were kind of foolish, that they didn't have time to worry about human rights.”

Kudos to Inge Lynn Collins Bongo for feeling so strongly about the have-nots of Gabon…

Wait, not so fast with the kudos!

On February 4, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland and Security Affairs released a report titled “KEEPING FOREIGN CORRUPTION OUT OF THE UNITED STATES: FOUR CASE HISTORIES” (Senator Carl Levin’s press release of February 4 announcing the release of the report has a link to the full report in PDF).

The 4 case studies are listed as: 1) Obiang Case Study; 2) Bongo Case Study; 3) Abubakar Case Study; and 4) the Angolan Case Study.

These case studies detail the financial malfeasance of some African “Politically Exposed Persons” (PEPs) who, behaving as scofflaws, have been (and are still) subverting provisions of the Patriot Act and the American anti-money laundering laws by using “the services of U.S. professionals and financial institutions to bring large amounts of suspect funds into the United States to advance their interests.”

“Suspect funds” in plain English are monies stolen by African keptocrats and their associates from, among other African “have-nots,” the good people of Gabon Inge Lynn Collins Bongo was “complaining” about.

It now turns out that Inge Lynn Collins Bongo is a bold-faced liar.

She not only aided and abetted the theft of money from Gabon’s “have-nots,” but she personally stole from the Gabonese more than $2m for a period of 10 years, as could be documented by the Senate investigation. I say “could be documented” for who knows what other monies are hidden in offshore bank accounts or in safe deposits in America. Yamilee Bongo-Astier, the half-sister of the Gabonese president Ali Bongo and sister-in-law of Inge Lynn Collins Bongo, “had $1 million in $100 shrink-wrapped bills in her safe deposit box” of a New York bank, though she was an “unemployed student.”

For her part, Inge Lynn Collins Bongo “accepted multiple large offshore wire transfers into the Trust accounts [she set up] and used the funds to support a lavish lifestyle and move money among a network of bank and securities accounts benefiting her and her husband.”

The analysis of the Senate report on Inge Lynn Collins Bongo’s financial activities is damning:

“For ten years, from 1999 to 2009, Ms. Collins Bongo maintained a Collins Trust account at Fidelity Investments. In addition, for three years, from 2000 to 2003, she had Collins Trust accounts at HSBC. Both financial institutions were unaware for years of her PEP status, her marriage to the Gabon Minister of Defense, and her association with the Bongo family of Gabon.

Their lack of awareness was due in part to her use of Collins, rather than Bongo, to open the accounts and carry out the transactions.

Early on, from 2000 to 2002, Ms. Collins Bongo used her Fidelity mutual fund account like a checking account to move nearly $2 million among a network of accounts at other U.S. financial institutions. During the same period, she used her HSBC account to receive large wire transfers totaling nearly $650,000 from offshore locations, with no questions asked. When each financial institution finally took notice of an unusual transaction and examined the account activity, each quickly discovered Ms. Collins Bongo’s PEP status. One bank, HSBC, reacted by closing her account; the other allowed the account to remain open in light of the minimal funds remaining and lack of recent activity.”

If anything, a case could be made that President Ali Bongo Ondimba is a thief, a kleptocrat, a bigamist, a rigger of elections, but the man is most definitely NOT a dead-beat husband--estranged or not.

In fact, Inge Lynn Collins Bongo fits the description President Ron Reagan gave of “welfare queens” living large and driving Cadillacs.

What’s more, the Senate report plainly states that “from 1999 to 2009” Inge Lynn Collins Bongo was carrying out extensive financial activities in her multiple accounts and moving millions of dollars (the detailed tables of her transactions given in the report are staggering and show the hand of a financial bandit with the sophistication in money laundering of a Latin-American drug lord). But as the ABC report shows Inge Lynn Collins Bongo soliciting and getting welfare support (as well as food stamps) in 2009, California authorities need to bring her to account for welfare fraud.

Azarias Ruberwa at Search for Common Ground: The trampling on Congo’s narrative continues unabated...

"What's all this fuss about?"

Washington D.C., Thursday, February 4

A Metropolican Police officer approaches a group of Congolese protesters

(Photo: Alex Engwete)

Former transitional Vice president of the DRC, Azarias Ruberwa Mwanya, was slated to speak Thursday February 5 from 9 to 11am at the Rome Auditorium in The Benjamin T. Rome Building, on 1619 Massachusetts Avenue NW in Washington D.C., of the School of Advanced International of the Johns Hopkins University.

The talk, billed “Inside the Congo: A Perspective from Azarias Ruberwa,” was an event organized by Search for Common Ground, within the framework of its regular Great Lakes Policy Forum held every first Thursday of each month. Ruberwa’s talk would have been the 151st of the open-ended series.

I must admit I never heard of this NGO before I was tipped about Ruberwa’s talk, nor about its Great Lakes Policy Forum.
But a reliable source who’s familiar with the work of Search for Common Ground told me:

“Search for Common Ground is an independent NGO that does some pretty well-regarded work on conflict resolution internationally, and I was impressed by some of the Congolese members of their team who I met in Bukavu last September.”

The audience of Congolese and Americans in the auditorium was told on three separate occasions that Ruberwa, who was attending the National Breakfast Prayer, couldn’t exit the event in a timely fashion due to the presence of President Obama.

In short order, however, the organizers finally came to realize that the man was most definitely a no-show.

A Congolese speculated that two Congolese Banyamulenge in the auditorium (namely, Yves and his friend whose name I didn’t get) might have tipped Ruberwa about the presence of angry Congolese who’d come to protest his appearance. The same Congolese also tells me that it’s the C-Street Group that invited Ruberwa at the National Prayer Breakfast.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be true. I saw Ruberwa on his TV channel in Kinshasa in 2006 at the launch of his so-called “charismatic” prayer group for politicians! These days, the man only swears by the good name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—just like Laurent Nkunda had started preaching the Gospel before his downfall! Well, there’s a murderous outfit in Africa called the Lord’s Resistance Army, now dubbed by Gérard Prunier as “Killers Without Borders,” that also started out as a small army of the Lord of Hosts!

We’re used to our grapevine, the Radio-Trottoir [Sidewalk Radio], and we take rumors at face value. I believe everything the fellow Congolese had told me.

The news of the cancellation of Ruberwa’s talk came as a downer to Congolese who’d broken up into two groups—one group on the sidewalk outside the building; and one group in the auditorium.

Jacques Bahati and Osé [last name unavailable], two Congolese activists who’d coordinated the event at a teleconference held on Wednesday evening, had given specific suggestions to those who’d be attending the Ruberwa’s talk: no emotional outbursts, just pointed questions to the man who was purporting to speak for the Congo as in a Q-and-A session in parliament.

And in the auditorium, I noticed the presence of a veteran UDPS heavy artillery who wasn’t part of the small network Jacques Bahati had so competently created on such short notice: the soft-spoken Jean Kamba Kabangu, president and representative of UDPS in the United States.

(Among the Americans in the audience, I was particularly impressed by a gentleman, sitting two rows behind me, who has just returned from a stint in Masimanimba and Kikwit, and who was sharing his invaluable travelogue with a lady sitting next to him. “There’s even a university in Masimanimba now, can you believe it?” I heard him exclaim. A mine of historical information, this gentleman, he needs to write a book if he hasn’t already done so. And I’m mad at myself for not getting to know him. He spoke of conversations he’d had with Pierre Mulele, with Cléophas Kamitatu… Then: “When Kamitatu died…” I almost jumped out of my seat upon hearing this. He kindly reassured me: “Not the son, the father… about a year ago.” Regardless! I was flabbergasted: this was news to me, I thought the man was still alive!)

At any event, we all spilled outside after the moderator had broken the news of the cancellation of the event.

The small group of Congolese on the sidewalk had swollen. Most of them, who were spoiling for a verbal assault on Ruberwa, were fulminating.

“Yuma akimi!” [The nitwit fled]. “Rwandais akimi!”

Two other Banyamulenge, Alexis [last name unavailable] being one of them, came up belatedly, thinking the event was taking place. With Yves and his friend, the Banyamulenge made up a tight-knit group who’d come to support Ruberwa.

Some Congolese didn’t take this lightly. And their simmering anger at Ruberwa found a much-needed outlet. A small verbal ethnic donnybrook flared up.

Jean Kamba Kabangu tried to rally people around the concept of “national unity” but his calls to temperance were drowned in the tumult.


“We’ll kick you back to Rwanda where you belong!” a Congolese told the Banyamulenge. But the Banyamulenge were adamantly proclaiming their belonging to the Congo. Narrative vs. Counter-narrative, no master narrative, as it were...

Alexis wasted his time telling the angry Congolese that he was born in the Mulenge village, in the Bafulero district and was thus a patented Congolese! Alexis, who was speaking in French, then made the mistake at one point of speaking in stammering Lingala, which brought more jeers from the Congolese. The more the Banyamulenge screamed their belonging to the Congo, the more they were treated as “doppelganger anticitizens” (Comaroff and Comaroff).

I made this startling discovery: the younger the Congolese, the more virulent nationalist s/he is bound to be! Or the closest to his or her skin is ID-politics! Then again, political ideologies have all but disappeared nowadays from the postcolony, only to be replaced by intensified “ID-logy” (Comaroff and Comaroff)… Especially in the Great Lakes region, where the culprits are Ruberwa and Kagame.

The Congolese had a permit for the protest, for sure. But with the vituperations being traded at full blast on the sidewalk, the Metro Police station, just two or three blocks up Massachusetts Avenue, dispatched a police motorcyclist on the scene to see what was going on (someone might have called the police).

Jean Kamba Kabangu had a palaver with the cop and reassured him there won’t be any fistfight. But before leaving the scene, the cop told Jean Kamba Kabangu to tell the Congolese to keep on one side of the sidewalk so as not to impede pedestrian traffic.

At that point, I took Alex and Yves aside and told them in Swahili they better just leave as there was little hope of them convincing anyone at that moment of their Congolese identity. Fortunately they heeded my advice, left, and things returned to normal on the sidewalk.

Azarias Ruberwa and President Paul Kagame

(Credits)

This is what Ruberwa and his political malfeasance have brought upon the Congo. Banyamulenge and other Rwandan-speaking communities used to leave peacefully with their other neighbors in the eastern provinces of the DRC until Ruberwa, his cohorts (including the AFDL of Laurent-Désiré Kabila), and their Rwandan backers broke into the Congolese political scene.

August 2, 1998, the date of the creation of Ruberwa’s party, the RCD, is the very same date of the invasion of Congo by Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda—which goes a long way to prove that he was a stooge of Rwanda, giving it so much needed cover in its “military entrepreneurship” of plunder and massacres in the DRC. Plunder and massacres duly documented by UN Security Council and Human Rights Watch reports.

In the RSVP announcement Great Lakes Policy Forum emailed out for the talk, the description of Ruberwa’s political trajectory reads as follows:

“Azarias Ruberwa was one of four Vice presidents in the transitional government of 2003-2006, representing the Congolese Rally for Democracy organization of which he was the President. He was a practicing lawyer in eastern DRC before joining Kabila's rebellion against Mobutu in 1996. He then joined the Congolese Rally for Democracy organization's rebellion against Kabila in 1998 and became head of the organization in 2003, bringing it peacefully into the transitional government. He ran for President unsuccessfully in 2006 and continues to head the Congolese Rally for Democracy.”

Well, as the expression goes, I’ll call a spade a spade: there are 3 blatant lies in the statement above, the first two of which incensed so much the Congolese that they came up to protest. I won’t dwell on the third lie—which claims that Ruberwa “continues to head the Congolese Rally for Democracy” whereas Trésor Kapuku, Governor of Kasai Occidental, and other influential members of the party had fired Ruberwa from the helm of the RCD on June 6 of last year—I’ll just focus on the first two lies, which go to the core problem of narratives. For disowning people of their narratives is tantamount to killing them! And Congolese people continue to be killed everyday by this kind of treatment of their narrative.

If Search for Common Ground is working for conflict resolution in the African Great Lakes region, it better stop rehearsing the  Rwanda's worn-out narrative of the catastrophe wreaked upon the Congolese people by repeated Rwandan invasions and get its facts straight. And I’m talking about scientific facts readily available in the wealth of literature in history and historiography spawned by what is now known as Africa’s World War. (I don’t remember whether I read or was told this rumor recently: It is alleged that Dr Susan Rice, then U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs under President Bill Clinton, coined the phrase Africa’s World War.)

For Search for Common Ground, with all the academics with impressive resumes on its staff, to continue to use expressions such as “Kabila’s rebellion against Mobutu in 1996” or the “Congolese Rally for Democracy Organization’s rebellion against Kabila in 1998”, is either to willfully ignore the mountain of scientific evidence that clearly proves that both of these enterprises were crafted and strategized by Rwandan President Paul Kagame (he’d even admitted this fact, calling the choice of Laurent-Désiré Kabila, suggested to him by Yoweri Museveni, "a mistake") or to deliberately continue trampling on Congo’s and Congolese people’s narrative.

In fact, not content with trampling on Congo’s narrative, some academics have even gone as far as to claim with a straight face that Congo simply doesn’t exist! As the title of the article on this supposed inexistence of Congo attests, the Congolese have been properly evacuated from the narrative of their own country and this narrative of their land and of their being-in-the-world being told by some Western academics is for the consumption of American Foreign policymakers: “There is No Congo: Why the only way to help Congo is to stop pretending it exists.” No one, to my knowledge, has ever uttered such absurdity over any other country or nation in the world and been taken seriously and getting even promoted in the process in academia! But Congo being the Congo, the heart-of-darkness, Congolese people don't exist and don't have a narrative. Well, Chinua Achebe also noticed that the Congolese in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness were systematically deprived of speech, uttering only disarticulated "grunts," like animals!
 
In my comment on that most idiotic article, whose authors I called “racist scholars” (and I stand by that characterization today), I invoked the concept of “denial of coevalness,” the maximum dehumanizing “othering” evinced by this cavalier treatment of a nation of 60 million people: “Congolese are primitives. They can’t be agents of their own history. They don't count.”

It’s interesting to note that the world-acclaimed anthropologist who’d made this breakthrough with this one and other concepts in the critical methods of anthropology in his book Time and the Other did his fieldwork in the Congo. And his name will forever be brought up when exposing those who’d attempt to trample on the narrative of the Congolese nation: Johannes Fabian.

On her trip to the DRC and other African nations last summer, Secretary of State told a startled audience of Kinshasa students something to the effect that it was about time for the Congolese to move on, to forget about their past and to set their eyes on the future!

According to the Belgian journalist and author Colette Braeckman, this statement startled and deeply outraged the Congolese audience of Secretary Hillary Clinton:

“The visitor [Hillary Clinton] wasn’t attempting to make excuses for the past, but she didn’t convince the audience when she invited them to no longer look towards the past, for, she said, this wouldn’t lead us anywhere and it’s better to turn towards the future.

Many Congolese wondered whether the Secretary of State would ever dare ask Israel to stop evoking the Shoah or if the spouse of a President who’d asked forgiveness to the Tutsi for abandoning them would dare enjoin Rwanda to stop recalling the genocide constantly.”

According to Johannes Fabian, the denial of coavelness, which is unconscious, is also active denial of agency. And Congolese who went to protest the travesty of Ruberwa speaking in the name of Congo wanted to tell Search for Common Ground that they’ve had enough of being denied agency, of being treated as animals or, worse, as inanimate objects!

Jean Kamba Kabangu

President and Representative of UDPS in the United States

Directly behind him are two Congolese Banyamulenge, with Yves, donning a white cap on the right

Kuluna and Kuluneurs in Kinshasa: A low-intensity urban insurgency?

Kinshasa, Tuesday, January 26

Outside Camp Kokolo army barracks

Belongings of evicted soldiers whose family members are "kuluneurs"

(Credits) 

Experts agree that the security reform in the DRC would be meaningless if this effort doesn’t “also run concurrently with the rehabilitation of army barracks.” But the eviction of these soldiers and their families from Camp Kokolo shouldn’t be interpreted as a step in the right direction.

First, this eviction is a drop in the ocean in so far as the overcrowding problem of Camp Kokolo is concerned. Built by the Belgians to house at the most 2 battalions, the barracks is now home to thousands of active-duty and retiree army personnel as well as disabled war veterans—some of whom have been living there with their families for generations.

For instance, I personally know one disabled war veteran, wounded in the 1967 mercenary mutiny in eastern Congo, who still lives at Camp Kokolo, with his children and his children’s children!...

What’s more, this eviction showcases a pressing problem that Kinshasa urban and security authorities have been grappling with for the past five years.

The problem—or as it is dubbed in Kinshasa, the “phénomène”— is “kuluna” and the “kuluneurs.” It is deemed a “phenomenon” because of its city-wide extent, the level of violence deployed, the weapons involved, and the rising toll of casualties over these past years. The family members of the army personnel evicted from Camp Kokolo for example were “kuluneurs” who used the army barracks as their rear base…

Kuluneurs on patrol in the streets of Kinshasa

(Credits)

Kuluna is a word imported from Angola that has been incorporated into Lingala. Before the DRC fell out with Angola over the expulsion of its migrants (Congo retaliated by kicking out illegal Angolan migrants too), it’s in the diamond-rich northern regions of Angola that thousands of Congolese traffickers—many of whom from Kinshasa—used to earn their livelihood, even at the height of the Angolan civil war. Many of those traffickers lost their legs for walking over land mines in Angola.

If the word comes from Angola, it’s unclear whether the behavior is also imported from that country. “Kuluna” comes from the Portuguese “coluna”: column (as in an infantry column on foot patrol)—hence: escort, pack, or posse. The French transformation into “kuluneurs” designates those who take part in the posse or pack to carry out kuluna raids.

The modus operandi of “kuluneurs” is the following: either in broad daylight or at night, a pack of martial arts practitioners (called “pombas”) armed with clubs, machetes and other blunt objects raid and occupy a city square wherein they seize from passers-by and street vendors any valuable they can lay their hands on: money, watches, cell phones, merchandise, shirts, shoes, jewelry, etc. Victims who resist are hacked with machetes, clubbed or stabbed. Some victims have died from injuries sustained in those kuluna raids and many a warlord kuluneur have has been gunned down by the Police d’Intervention Rapide (PIR).

The hotbed of kuluna is the commune of Kalamu where it originated, and Radio Okapi thinks it actually started in the Yolo neighborhood of Kalamu. From this district, the phenomenon has spread throughout to the point of engulfing Kinshasa—with the exception of the downtown areas.

The kuluneurs are structured like the military and have divided Kinshasa into grids where different units, called “écuries” (stables), operate.

By December 2008, these were the zones of operation of kuluneurs in the Congolese capital: Kalamu, Matete, Kisenso, Ngaba, Lemba, Limete, Masina, Kimbanseke, Kingabwa, Barumbu, and Kinshasa (this is a commune in Kinshasa, not to be confused with the city).

Since then, kuluneurs are now operating in Ngiri-Ngiri, Bandalungwa, Makala, Ngaliema and N’Djili. That’s 16 out of the 24 communes or municipalities that the city-province of Kinshasa comprises. In fact, as some of the apparently free-kuluna zones are close to the communes where these kuluneurs operate, there are virtually no safe communes in Kinshasa—except the downtown Gombe commune, for obvious reasons.

Police authorities in Kinshasa used to pigeon-hole “kuluna” as ordinary gang activity or to blame the homeless youths called “shégués.”

The “shégués” were also blamed for Kinshasa insecurity under Mobutu when they used to be called “Ballados.”

In 1980, Mobutu had ballados rounded up in the streets of Kinshasa, packed them into C-130 Hercules transport planes, and for several days of an aerial bridge, deported them to the city of Kindu, in the Maniema Province. From Kindu, the "ballados" were then sent by road and outboards to the remote military barracks of Lokandu, where a vocational training center was opened for them.

DRC authorities didn’t take the full measure of the kuluna threat. They thought these were the “shégués” high on “bangi,” the potent Kinshasa cannabis from Bumba in the Equateur, and cheap alcohol imported from India sold in plastic sachets. They even banned the sale of these sachets of alcohol, called “supu na tolo” (soup of lungs), under the false assumption that the kuluna problem would somehow disappear.

But the kuluneurs are different from the shegués for the simple reason that they aren’t homeless. When authorities realized this, they started seizing the homes of the parents of kuluneurs. To no avail. The phenomenon seemed to intensify.

By the time, at the end of March of last year, the government authorities realized the magnitude of the degree of nuisance of these groups and the fear of seeing their modus operandi spread to the rest of the country, kuluna had exploded the urban gang category into a “phénomène,” that is, in the realm of the unexplainable.

The reaction of the authorities so far has been to reactivate Mobutu’s infamous maximum prisons of Ekafela on an island of the Congo River, Angenga (Equateur province), Bulambemba where the former Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga had been jailed in the 1960s, Buluwo in the Katanga province (Buluwo is infamous for it was there that Simon Kimbangu was jailed by Belgians), and Osio prison in Oriental province—where captured kuluneurs, after expeditious trials, are now being sent to prison.

These repressive measures have done nothing to curtail the kuluna phenomenon, as the recent eviction of kuluneurs families from Camp Kokolo shows. And also last week, the Uhuru newspaper reported that these kuluneurs attacked two Chinese workers who were having a drink with two Congolese prostitutes at a “terrasse,” an open-air bar, in the commune of Matete. Fortunately, according to Uhuru, these “descendants of Mao Zedong,” “just like in a scene taken from a Hollywood movie,” “in the vintage kung fu style,” “with a remarkable suppleness, twirled around, swung into thin air, rolled around their feet magnificently and did serious damages around them.”

Well, kudos to the two Chinese and their kung fu prowess. But for the average Kinois without any kung fu training, it’s a dangerous proposition to walk around Kinshasa wearing jewelry, watches, expensive clothes, carrying cell phones or money.

Last December, some former kuluneurs from the commune of Kalamu went to see François Joseph Mobutu Nzanga, Vice Prime Minister in charge of basic social needs, to protest these deportations of fellow kuluneurs to those remote prisons.

They blamed “idleness and lack of financial means” as the root cause of kuluna and offered solutions to the scourge: vocational training and jobs.

To this plea, Mobutu Nzanga offered the same worn-out response politicos come up with everywhere:

“This phenomenon isn’t a Congolese phenomenon. It’s above all the failure of the family… There’s no miracle solution… We must search for solutions together… As a parent, I must take good care of my children’s education.”

Strangely, with this rising urban threat, some Kinshasa journalists, are now nostalgic of the strong-arm methods of Mobutu Nzanga’s father, Marshall Mobutu Sese Seko. They are even calling for summary executions. Diosso Olivier, of the otherwise serious Le Potentiel, is one of those journalists calling for summary executions of kuluneurs :

“As a reminder, Kinshasa, under the Mobutu regime, had experienced a certain reprieve as regards to insecurity linked to banditry both diurnal and nocturnal. Outlaws were subdued. Some ended up at the central prison of Makala, others at the morgue of Mama Yemo hospital.

The likes of Bouda, Wallace, Django and others like Duga Kugbetoro and Grand Massiste Shiwara had faced the full rigor of the law.”

Diosso Olivier’s analysis is as flawed as that of Kinshasa police and political authorities. Kuluna isn’t organized crime. It’s city-wide phenomenon and has all the hallmarks of a low-intensity urban insurgency. The outlaws Diosso Olivier name radicalized into bandits from the benign “bills” and “yankees” movements of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1970s 1980s that were influenced by the opening in the cité, the African section of Kinshasa, of Congolese-owned movie theaters in the late 1950s that mostly showed Western movies.



According to Emmanuel Kandolo, a history chronicler and a cultural analyst for the blog “mbokamosika” [far-away homeland], "bills" and "yankees" were influenced by the following movies: Le Triomphe de Buffalo Bill [Pony Express, released in the US in 1953 and in 1955 in French-speaking countries], Buffalo Bill (1944), Buffalo Bill et les Indiens [Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson, 1976], Le Gaucher [The Left Handed Gun, 1958], La Prisonnière du désert [The Searchers, 1958], Bravados [The Bravados, 1958], […], Une Bible et un fusil [Rooster Cogburn, 1975], Pecos Bill [1948], Le Massacre de Fort Apache [Fort Apache, 1948], La Charge héroïque [She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, 1949], L’Homme tranquille [The Quiet Man, 1952], [The] Wild West Show [1928], Pas de pitié pour les salopards [Beyond The Law, released in Italy in 1967 and distributed in the U.S. in 1971], Django [1966], Pour une poignée de dollars [A Fistful of Dollars, 1964], Et pour quelques dollars de plus [For a Few Dollars More, 1965] and Le Seigneur de la guerre [War Lord, 1965]—an uncanny title, as “warlordship” is one of the features of today’s “kuluneurs.”

Kinshasa “bills” and “yankees” took on the names of Hollywood and Spaghetti Western characters and actors: Buffalo Bill, Bill Lancaster, Pecos Bill, Lee Van Cleef, Clint Eastwood, Charlton Heston, etc.

They kept to traditional gangland turf wars and profoundly transformed Lingala with their “Indoubill” slang, giving the language much-needed grammatical and lexical freedom that gave a new twist to the lyrics of Congolese soukouss and allows today the coining of words like “kuluneurs.”

And more importantly, Emmanuel Kandolo insists, "bills" and "yankees" strived to emulate the moral high ground of Western actors: heroism, bravery, defense of the weak, etc.

Well, there are no movie theaters today in Kinshasa communes and the kuluneurs. And the kuluneurs seem to be instead emulating the warlords of the Kivu provinces. Kinshasa "bills" and "yankees" were all-male gangs, whereas some kuluna groups count women in their ranks and at the old cemetery of Kasa-Vubu municipality and in Selembao commune, there are all-female kuluna groups that rape men after seizing their belongings.

A law-and-order response to kuluna has so far failed. Until the deeper issues of rampant unemployment, jobs and equitable wealth redistribution are addressed, Kinshasa pedestrians and city vendors will continue to be victimized by kuluneurs.

 

Poster of "Le Triomphe de Buffalo Bill" (Poney Express)

One of the movies that influenced the rise of "bills" and "yankees" gangs in Kinshasa in the 1960s

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CAN2010 (Angola): CAN by way of iraqgoals.net live stream: the TV favela of Africans in America

 

PC to TV, CAN2010 final, free live stream on iraqgoals.net

Photo: Alex Engwete

I'm not about to comment on how the superb Black Stars of Ghana lost by the end of a game they dominated throughout, or on the historic third consecutive CAN win of the Pharaohs of Egypt (2006, 2008, 2010). There are professional football writers who'd give you a better appraisal of the game than me. I just want to express my outrage at the fact that American cable providers have no respect for their large audience of Africans in the U.S. And in an ideal world, African immigrants in the U.S. would boycott them.

I was already warned by worldcupblog.org in a January 12 post by Daryl titled "How to Watch African Cup of Nations 2010 in the USA, UK and Australia," which goes a long way to show the media favela into which Africa is dumped in the West--not only in sports but in other critical areas as well (except when it comes to show starving people in the Darfur or acts madness in Jos (Nigeria) or Northern Kivu (Congo) :

The news isn’t great I’m afraid. If you want to watch the Africa Cup of Nations 2010 on American television, it seems the only channel (that I know of) showing the tournament is the Malian channel ORTM, which is only available via certain satellite providers.

Again, this is an outrage!

Comcast carries even a joke called "Africa Channel" that only shows South African "soapies" and some crazy programs of that sort. If what Daryl says about some satellite providers is true, then it's about time Africans boycott Comcast and other cable companies, and consider alternative satellite providers! Comcast also carries the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), but it didn't carry CAN2010. Let's just hope SABC will carry the World Cup.
      
 As the title of his post suggests, Daryl gave nevertheless ways of watching CAN free of charge in live streaming, beside the paid live streaming sites whose outrageous charges made them look like muggers in the dark alleys of the net:

It costs $7.20 per game, $21.60 for the Group Stage package, and $21.60 for the Final Stages Package (ie, the knockout rounds).It’s legal, it’s reliable and it’s good quality.

Well, Daryl, I don't care if "it's legal,...reliable, and... good quality," and what not! This is simply highway robbery! I wouldn't be surprised if this outfit was in cahoot with some cable providers to rob Africans blind!... As for me, I watched the whole CAN on iraqgoals.net free live stream you so kindly suggested and without so much as one single glitch, besides the momentary freezes that would also happen on TV when there's a live satellite feed of a game. This "triangulation" is just fascinating to me: watching the African Cup in America via an Iraqi live stream site! I guess I've to give kudos to Bush and Blair whose war against Saddam Hussein allowed me to watch CAN2010...

To duplicate the full experience of watching a football game on TV, I had to enhance the ambiance by connecting the PC to the TV monitor with a VGA connecting cable... with the volume at full blast... and with 2 cold Samuel Adams six-packs!  $21.60... is that a joke???
    

 

Sunday, January 31

Luanda, Angola

Victory lap of Mohamed Zidan aka Gedo who scored for Egypt at the 85th minute

Photo: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images

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CAN2010 (Angola): Dura lex sed lex: TOGO banned till CAN2016

 

ISSA HAYATOU

President of CAF

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[UPDATE: I MISTAKENLY STATED EARLIER IN THE TITLE OF THIS POST THAT TOGO WAS BANNED TILL CAN2014, COUNTING CAN2010 FROM WHICH IT WITHDREW. IN FACT, TOGO IS BANNED FOR THE NEXT TWO EDITIONS OF CAN, THAT IS, TILL CAN2016!]

The decision of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in response to Togo's withdrawal from CAN2010 came out this Friday January 30. The Togolese team was withdrawn from the competition by Togo's authorities following the January 8 terrorist attack that killed three members of the delegation. 

The decision, in the form of a press release tersely titled Togo's Withdrawal, is harsh, draconian and warrants to be given in extenso so as to allow a responsible comment, especially in light of its emotional reverberation the world over:

The Executive Committee of the Confederation of African Football met on 30 January 2010 and examined the withdrawal of Togo national team from the Orange Africa Cup of Nations 2010.

The Executive Committee and its president renewed their sincere condolences to the families of victims involved in this tragic terrorist attack which happened January 8, 2010. The attack was condemned by CAF and also a total support was given to the Togolese team.

At that time, CAF said they have understood perfectly the decision of players not to participate in the competition.

Meanwhile, following a decision taken by players to participate in the competition, the Togolese government decided to call back their national team.

The decision taken by the political authorities is infringing CAF and CAN regulations. Therefore, a decision has been taken to suspend the Togo national team for the next two editions of Africa Cup of Nations, with a fine of $50,000.00 handed to the Togolese national football association, in conformity with article 78 of Africa Cup of Nations Angola 2010.

The Africa Cup of Nations playing every two years, this means that Togo can only expect to play in 2014! The Togolese national football association will appeal the sanction when officially notified.

There's a detailed contract binding all African national federations written in legalese called "Orange Cup of Nations: Regulations." Chapter 36 of the contract is entitled "Forfeits, Sanctions for Refusal to Play and Replacements" under which Article 78, referenced hitherto by CAF's decision, is listed.

Article 78 states:

A forfeit notified less than twenty days before the start or during the final competition, shall entail in addition of the forfeit of the entry fee, a maximum fine stipulated by the regulations as well as the suspension of the concerned national association for the following two editions of the African Cup of Nations. Moreover, the withdrawal shall entail the forfeit of its share in the profits realised from the receipts. In addition, the Organising Committee may order the concerned national association to make compensation for any eventual damages.

The Togolese players wanted to stay in Angola and "avenge" the members of their delegation who were gunned down by the terrorists of FLEC/Military Position. The French-Togolese midfielder Jacques-Alaixys Romao even said: "We can't quit like cowards!" But the Togolese Prime Minister Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo, besides blaming Angola which was also a victim, threatened the Togolese players who wanted to stay. He said: "If at the opening of CAN [...], a team or someone shows up under the flag of Togo, it would be a fake representation."

Besides the fact that allowing loopholes in continental or world events of such magnitude could open tsunami-like floodgates, football governing bodies frown upon and take exception with any form of political interference. For instance, after banning the Iraqi national football team last May, the world's football governing body FIFA banned in November the Iraqi Football Association (IFA) for the same sin: political interference.

Football events being a space of friendship between nations, so the rationale goes, there's no place for government interference in the various national federations. Because of these unbending rules, FIFA even had the 1978 World Cup take place in Argentina, though a barbaric junta had seized power power two years earlier, and some of the games were played within striking distance of the torture chambers of the new regime, as documented in Michael Winterbottom's documentary The Shock Doctrine (2009), based on Naomi Klein's book of the same title. In 1970, FIFA had awarded the hosting of the World Cup to Argentina and it wouldn't budge from its decision despite the controversy. In Africa, even in the midst of Africa's World War, the warring countries had to let their national teams compete.

At a press conference in Luanda, in explaining the decision of CAF executive committee, CAF President, the Cameroonian Issa Hayatou said:

"We asked [the Togolese players] to remain, but that if they decided to leave we would take action. And the players told us they would remain. Up to that point we were in agreement.

But when there was political interference we couldn't accept that."

Issa Hayatou also alluded to the 1996 ban of Nigeria from two consecutive CAN: "That was political interference and we banned the Nigeria team for the next two editions under article 78 of our rules."


In 1995, Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha had author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 other activists hanged. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth and the next year General Abacha withdrew the Nigerian team from CAN1996 over a row he had with Mandela. Well, CAF retaliated by banning Nigeria from CAN1998 too.

Emotions are raw at the moment over the suspension of the Togolese team. And people need to just calm down, take things in slowly, look at the rules and the past decisions and behavior of these football governing bodies, and maybe--just maybe--they'd come to understand that it's this kind of seemingly unjust decision that will make the tradition endure--for the enjoyment of football fans of today and of future generations.

Piers Edwards who is covering African football for BBC from Johannesburg bitterly opens his blog post with this uncalled-for vitriol: "Not since Buckingham Palace took so long to respond Princess Diane's death in 1997 has an organisation so badly misjudged the mood of the public."  

Well, I'll tell Piers Edwards right now that, unlike Buckingham Palace, CAF is not going to buckle under any kind of pressure. Not yesterday, not today, and never tomorrow! It won't happen, period!

Piers Edwards further writes :

In an interview given to the BBC, Caf claims to be protecting the future of African football by adhering to tournament rules.

But how are they helping the next generation of Togolese players by giving them no continental championship to play for - and at least two years without competition until the 2014 World Cup qualifying comes around?

Is this guy for real? What about the Nigerians in 1996 and 1998? In fact, he only makes a passing reference to the Nigeria episode without dwelling on it. A sportswriter ought to have some capacity at distancing herself from raw emotions, though when it comes to sports, it's all about raw emotions.

In glossing over the "cases of force majeure" (acts of God, as it were) for withdrawal of teams that CAF regulations allow, Piers Edwards quips:

When considering that two team officials lost their life, the African ruling body really does seem to believe Bill Shankly's well-worn opinions on football being more important than life and, more pertinently here, death.

Well, if Piers Edwards wants to go to extremes, I'll give him a few such extremes of force majeure. The first one being the terrorists of FLEC/Military Position gunning down players when the match is being played. Or when lightning strikes players.

(Talking of lightning strikes, there have been some spectacular freak ones at football games. On Monday July 20 of last year, Danish midfielder Jonathan Richter was struck by lightning in the middle of a match in Copenhagen. The game went on... 1998 was more prolific in those freak lightnings at football matches. On Sunday October 25, in Johannesburg, in a Premier League football game, "Just as the ball reached the outside of the penalty areas, in front of 2,000 fans, a bolt of lightning struck the ground. [...] Several players writhed on the ground holding their ears and their eyes."   The game was postponed. The most tragic lightning bolt in the middle of a football game happened in November 1998 in the village of Bena Tashadi, in the Kasai Oriental province, in the Congo. All 11 team members of the village Bena Tashadi died and scores of spectators were injured. As all of the visiting players of the neighboring village of Basangana were unscathed, you can correctly guess what happened: they were accused of sorcery!...)

While I totally back the CAF decision on Togo, there are other moves by FIFA that I don't quite understand, like the stringent accreditation conditions for journalists that will certainly end up in South African courts, as they smack of unconstitutionality. And this is exactly what South African constitutional lawyer Pierre De Vos seems to be implying:

Fifa’s terms and conditions for the accreditation of journalists state that news organisations may not “harm the reputation of the Fifa World Cup” or “engage in conduct which expresses … charity or ideological concern (sic) related views, which could impair the enjoyment of the Fifa World Cup by other spectators, or detract from the sporting focus of the Fifa World Cup”.

Well, I have news for Fifa: these conditions are most probably unconstitutional. Unlike in many other constitutional democracies, our Bill of Rights does not only apply to the state. Because the drafters of the South African Constitution understood very well how individuals and powerful organisations like Fifa could infringe on the rights of ordinary citizens, it ensured that the Bill of Rights applied not only vertically (protecting us from abuse of power by the state) but also – in certain circumstances – horizontally (protecting us from the abuse of power by private individuals and institutions).

Well, Zapiro dispenses with all that legalese and goes for the jugular: FIFA is a vicious global empire--and all the empires that preceded it were just a bunch of amateurs!

FIFA Imperialism

ZAPIRO

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African News Roundup: 1) Reporter: Victoire Ingabire's mother a fugitive Genocide Convict (Rwanda); 2) Cyberjihad (South Africa); 3) Davos: Fareed Zakaria assaults Zuma on polygamy; 4) Mungiki funerals (Kenya); 5) Ambassador Ranneberger: Obama's rottweiler (Kenya); 6) Incoming First Lady (Malawi); 7) Homosexuality demonic (Malawi); 8) Don't mess with Kyungu (DRC); and 9) $2.5m Check for Haiti (DRC)...

1. Reporter: Victoire Ingabire's mother a fugitive Genocide convict (Rwanda):

Victoire Ingabire

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In the post of January 19, I speculated as to why the candidacy of Rwandan presidential hopeful Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who'd just returned to Rwanda after 16 years of self-imposed exile, was a non-starter in "New Rwanda."

But those reasons were in the realm of mere speculation that pale in comparison to the serious possible criminal charges that now hang over Victoire Ingabire's head. It's alleged that Ingabire not only helped a Genocide convict escape but is also now harboring her in Europe: her own mother!

Reporter Edwin Musoni of New Times of Kigali, in an article titled "Ingabire's mother a fugitive-Gacaca boss" published this Thursday January 28, asserts that "Theresa Dusabe, Ingabire’s biological mother, was sentenced in absentia twice in different cases for her role in the Genocide."

Excerpts from Edwin Musoni's report:

The mother to Presidential hopeful Victoire Ingabire was sentenced to life imprisonment for her role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi by a Gacaca Court in Butamwa in the Western Province.
[...]

“Dusabe was sentenced to 30 years in jail by a Gacaca court for disemboweling pregnant Tutsi women and removing the foetuses which she would smash to death in a horrendous manner,” Domitilla Mukantaganzwa, Executive Secretary of Gacaca jurisdictions told The New Times.

She added that in a separate trial, Dusabe was jointly sentenced to life alongside one Sebastian Muhizina, for their role in masterminding the Genocide by calling for meetings and sensitizing the Interahamwe militias to kill Tutsis.

Muhizina is currently serving his sentence in Kigali Central Prison and has been one of the many key witnesses against Dusabe.

Victoire Ingabire’s mother is said to have fled the country immediate after the Genocide and went to Zaire (now DRC) from where she managed to find her way to Europe, allegedly with the assistance of her daughter.

Ingabire’s mother was a medical practitioner during the Genocide working with Butamwa Health Centre.

Pundits have closely linked Ingabire’s criticism of the Gacaca courts to the fact that her own mother is a convict wanted by the very courts.

I highlight that block of Edwin Musoni's report as it contains the serious allegation of harboring a Genocide convict.

I need to preface the following comment by stating clearly that if these allegations prove to be true, Victoire Ingabire has no business running for president of Rwanda and has to face the full wrath of the law.

This being said, I'd like to know whether the Gacaca Courts have any archival capabilities to back up the claims being made by Domitilla Mukantaganzwa.

What's more, I'd also like to know whether at the time of the accusations leveled at Ingabire's mother (if there were any such accusations and trial) corrective measures were already in place like now to stymie the serious flaws independent experts have found at the inception of the Gacaca Court proceedings.

For instance, in his book Africa's World War, Gérard Prunier describes the quandary of both Hutu and Tutsi survivors in the "immediate aftermath" of Genocide as follows:

Other people quickly found out that having survived the genocide could be a profitable business. They created "accusations cooperatives," which would sell their denunciations of real or supposed Interahamwe activities to those who could use such testimonies for economic or political benefit. In January 1995 two hapless Angolan businessmen who were so denounced ended up in jail under the accusation of being "mercenary militiamen" because somebody wanted their dollars. [...] Tutsi survivors, called bapfuye buhagazi ("walking dead") by the diaspora Tutsi who had come home, were often looked on with suspicion. They were caught in a nightmarish world between their Hutu neighbors, some of whom had been their saviors and some who had tried to murder them, and strange returnees from abroad who often accused them of compromising with the killers in order to save their lives. As for Hutu survivors, they were looked on as génocidaires by the returnee Tutsi and as traitors by the sympathizers of the old regime (3).

If you factor in all these variables, then the plot thickens...

Edwin Musoni further alleges that:

A United Nations Group of Experts report issued last year, gathered substantial evidence on existing collaboration between FDLR rebels and FDU-Inkingi.
Though the controversial presidential hopeful denies the claims, the UN report singles her out in November 23, 2009 as one the key collaborators of the rebel outfit.

The authors of the report called for international action on individuals and organisations behind FDLR, a rebel movement categorised as a terrorist group by the US government.

In an open letter to UN Secretary General Ban Kin-Moon released on December 13 of last year, Victoire Ingabire vehemently rejected the allegations of the UN report as "baseless" and claimed a frame-up by Rwandan authorities:

Those malicious fabrications and lies reveal nothing else but the interference of the Rwandan regime in fuelling rumours to the above experts’ panel. We absolutely reject and vehemently condemn all the vicious accusations targeting our political organisation and its members without any slightest evidence. In order to prove our good faith, we are even eager to meet those experts and clear our name.

Indeed, since our organisation publicly unveiled its readiness to participate in the forthcoming 2010 presidential elections in Rwanda, the government of Rwanda and its lobbies engaged in an unprecedented hateful and devilish campaign in order to undermine the determination of our leadership to go back home and challenge the incumbent regime in a democratic election. . It’s sad indeed to realise that UN experts are used to sow seeds of confusion by echoing baseless hearsays.

(The FDLR is a terrorist organization and yet its leadership operate freely in Europe. This is exactly the same kind of gracious impunity extended by the French authorities to the leadership of the terrorists of FLEC/Military Position who gunned down members of the Togolese delegation at the African Cup of Nation in Cabinda, Angola, and who are still free in Paris. Which shows that anti-terrorism cooperation is a one-way street!)

What's even more puzzling is that if the authorities have all this laundry list of incriminating evidence, why don't they just press charges against Victoire Ingabire instead of lynching her through state-owned media?

2. Cyberjihad (South Africa):

Wednesday, January 27

Gauteng local government website

Hacked by Chechen Islamists

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This is what the Gauteng's department of local government's website looked like on Wednesday morning (Johannesburg is Gauteng's provincial capital) when, alerted by a Mail and Guardian article, I went to check it out for myself. When I accessed the site, the banner on top was flashing. As of this posting, if you click on the link of the website, you get a "Bad Request  (Invalid Hostage)" message. Which means that the Chechen Islamists have really screwed the South African government. And this should be a wake-up call to African governments who don't seem to take cybersecurity seriously. To my knowledge, this is the first cybeterrorist attack on the African Continent.

According to the Mail and Guardian:

Gauteng's department of local government's website was hacked on Wednesday morning by what appeared to be a radical Islamic group.

The department was unaware of the problem when the Mail & Guardian sought comment on Wednesday and said they would be calling in IT crime investigations team.

Alongside a photograph of local government minister Kgaogelo Lekgoro was the headline: "Hacked by CeCen Hack Team".

This is followed by images of a child without legs and an unidentified man sporting military attire emblazoned with Arabic writing.

There is also the slogan of "ALLAHU EKBER !" followed by:

"denmark israel asshole Americas

45 thousand people will give account

Hooray Chechnya"

Well, that's called cyberjihad...

3. Davos: Fareed Zakaria assaults Jacob Zuma on polygamy:

Zuma at Davos

Reuters Photo

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Besides giving his views on South Africa's economic outlook, Zuma also vigorously defended polygamy when confronted by Newsweek and CNN Fareed Zakaria who told him:

"There are many people who say that symbolically this is a great step backward for the leader of South Africa to be embracing a practice that they say is inherently unfair to women."

How insensitive! I mean, Fareed Zakaria is Indian-born, isn't he? And South Africa, which is a multiethnic country, has also a large Indian community--some of whom unfortunately seem to be "harbouring a secret belief of [their] cultural superiority" as Indian-South African journalist Verashni Pillay noted in a recent column entitled "The Indian cringe-list."

"Symbolically!" What does Fareed Zakaria mean by this adverb? Symbols are what gives meaning to a culture. Rituals are such symbols. And marriage is such ritual! Void the serial marriages of Zuma, and you "void" him of his culture! Now I have this one for Fareed Zakaria. One could argue that "elections" are what constitute "symbolically" democratic societies. Void the results of these "elections" and you obtain a political system that is dictatorial or fascist. That's why everyone hates Robert Mugabe. And yet, I've seen Fareed Zakaria on his CNN program GPS justify the coup against Manuel Zelaya with the baseless argument that he is a friend of Hugo Chavez and was about to take his country to the left! This man is definitely an enemy of constitutive symbols and has no basis on calling on Zuma "symbolically."

Well, there are some traditions I find goofy--like tribal kinglets and queens in South Africa. Not polygyny and polyandry! It's allowed in the South African Constitution which is arguably superior in many ways even to the American Constitution: gay marriage or specific ban on the death penalty are for instance written therein--how could Fareed Zakaria beat that? And while he's at his anti-polygamy symbolic crusade, Fareed Zakaria would be well-advised to carry his torch of enlightenment to the mountains of Utah--not in South Africa!

Fareed Zakaria was clearly trying to turn an African president into a buffoon. But when it comes to his matrimonial arrangements, Zuma is no buffoon. He told Fareed Zakaria:

"That's my culture. It does not take anything from me, from my political beliefs, including the belief in the equality of women.
[...]

Some think that their culture is superior to others, that's a problem we have in the world."

You think Fareed Zakaria would shut his big mouth after this dignified response? No, the stupid man had this to tell Zuma: "There are many people in this audience who find it a challenge to be married to one person." 
Well, my friend, these people aren't Zulu and they aren't married to Zulu women!

4. Mungiki Funerals (Kenya):

Saturday, January 23

Nairobi

Mungiki sect leader Maina Njenga and Bishop Margaret Wanjiru

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A strange tale is coming out of Kenya these days. The vicious Kikuyu Mungiki sect--a Kenyan version of the Taliban--has supposedly gone mainstream. The funeral of the assassinated wife of Maina Njenga, the leader of the sect, was held Saturday at his mansion in Nairobi, with thousands of respectable people in attendance and under heavy police protection.

The sect leader Maina Njenga, who was in jail awaiting trial for the crimes committed by the Mungiki, was inexplicably released last year for lack of evidence, which fulled rumors that  "the Government was terrified by Njenga's threat to disclose names of his highly placed Mungiki collaborators."


Njenga claims he's a now a born-again Christian and urges his erstwhile followers to follow his lead and to also convert. While this conversion may be true for Maina Njenga, for the rank and file Mungiki in the countryside as well as in urban centers like Nairobi, however, the "movement" is pretty much vibrant. And the networks of profitable rackets are still there, a power vacuum to be readily filled by any other Mungiki splinter group.

In Nairobi and in the rural areas, for instance, the reach of the Mungiki is tentacular (including infiltration of the police force):

Using the matatus as a springboard, the group has infiltrated other sectors, especially, in Central, Nairobi and parts of Rift Valley.

In Nairobi, Mungiki operates mostly in slums and especially Mathare, where poverty and crime are pronounced.

It is in the slums that extortion rings emanated. Every resident pays the organisation in exchange for protection against theft and property damage.

The gang also mans public toilets, and charges a fee for use of the facilities. Such extortion have been rampant due to lack of effective local law enforcement.

In Central Province Mungiki has grown in leaps and bounds in the last 10 years, taking over communities and subjecting them to human rights violation.

To just show that the conversion of Njenga is meaningless and could even be a health hazard to himself, his wife and three of his in-laws were murdered last year when word came out about his conversion in prison and a possible deal with the AG. Moreover, even after Njenga's release there was "No Christmas in Mungiki-controlled areas" and those villagers who wanted to celebrate Christmas and New Year Eve "filled all openings in their houses with cartons [so as] not to raise suspicion of the partying going on inside. Others waited until darkness fell before feasting. And even with doors closed, one family member was always on the lookout, peeping out once in a while to monitor the situation."

This is eerily reminiscent of the Mau-Mau uprising, except that now, instead of freedom fighters, Kenya has a Mafia organization on its hands.

On the role of the Mungiki in the political violence following the December 2007 presidential election, read the  Human Rights Watch report entitled Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance (March 2008).

5. Ambassador Ranneberger: Obama's rottweiler (Kenya):

Tuesday, January 26

Nairobi, Kenya

US Ambassador Michael Ranneberger

(Credits)

CIA head Leon Panetta is reported to have been in Kenya last week, probably last Saturday, for talks with Kenyan intelligence and other officials over the serious threat posed by the Somali Al-Shabaab terrorists.

But that wasn't the main concerns for Kenyan government officials. US Ambassador Michael Ranneberger is turning out to be Obama's rottweiler in the ancestral home of the U.S. President's father. He's not quite like the "Rogue Ambassador," the swashbuckling Hemingway-type Smith Hempstone who gave hell to President Arap Moi.

But Ranneberger can be as direct and blunt as his famed predecessor.

As Ranneberger is acting on the behest of his president, Kenyans have come to realize at long last that they shouldn't be expecting any preferential treatment from Obama.

First, on Tuesday January 26, in a speech delivered at the  luncheon organized by the American Chambers of Commerce at Nairobi Hilton, Ambassador Ranneberger broke the first awful news coming from Washington, namely, that the $7mil earmarked for the Education Ministry is simply not going to happen this year "until there is a credible, independent audit and full accountability."
 
Second, in the same speach, Ranneberger broke another awful news: travel advisories to Americans traveling to Kenya "will be around for a long time to come... I am afraid that's not going to change" as along as the "crisis in Somalia goes on."

Watch Ambassador Ranneberg and a brief presentation of America's substantial aid package to Kenya in this Kenyan NTV report titled "Hand of America":

6. Deal struck on Kenyan new Constitution (Kenya)

On Thursday, Abdikadir Mohammed, chairman of the PSC, the Parliamentary Select Committee in charge of drafting the new Constitution, announced that his committee has reached a deal on some of the contentious issues that remained. Why the Kenyan MP's chose a "presidential system," which seems to be at the very roots of the country's woes, is a mystery to me. Another mystery, which dissipates when you measure the extent of the rise of fundamentalism in eastern Africa: "Conception was also resolved after it was agreed life begins at conception, and not at birth, as earlier mooted by the PSC, thereby closing the window anti-abortionists feared would be abused." 

There are, however, some good points in the new Constitution, like the limit of two 5-year terms for the president.

Watch Abdikadir Mohamed discuss the deal:  

6. Incoming First Lady: President to wed former Tourism Minister (MALAWI):

"Incoming" First Lady Callista Chimombo
Former Tourism Minister

(Credits)

Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika, 79, is to wed former Tourism Minister Callista Chimombo [age not available] on May 1. They both were widowed.

7. Apostle Stanley Ndovi on Homosexuality: "Biblically it is demonic" (Malawi):

Blantyre, Malawi

Freaks jeered by mob after a court appearance

Self-outed gays Steven Monjeza, 26 and "wife" Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20

(Credits)

In an earlier post, I reported that bail was denied to Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga. They appealed the bail denial and were remanded to custody. They are still in jail as of this posting.  This Monday the couple lost the bail appeal and were sent back to jail. High Court Judge Rowland Mbvundula referred to the earlier ruling of bail denial that claimed the pair could engage in evidence tampering and that their safety was at issue. The last point isn't that far-fetched as evidenced by the jeers the couple has to withstand at each of its court appearances. 

Meanwhile, Apostle Stanley Ndovi, of the Living Waters Church, has come out swinging against the scourge of homosexuality that is spreading across Africa from the West: "Biblically it is demonic. It is wrong and these people should be counseled. In the West you have allowed homosexuality and it has spread." 

8. Don't mess with Antoine Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza (DRC):

Thursday, January 28

Lubumbashi, Katanga (DRC)

Monga Tutu

Provincial MP of the RCD party

Mugged by the Speaker's mob for disrespect

(Credits) 

The caption of this photograph could read: "Don't mess with Antoine Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza." When I read on the website of Radio Okapi about the circumstances leading up to the mugging of the unfortunate assemblyman, my reaction was: "Is this Monga Tutu from Katanga, with a name that sounds like a native from the western province of Equateur? Does he really know what Antoine Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza could do to stupid people who disrespect him? And what is he doing representing in Katanga a universally-hated party like the RCD, a creation of Rwandans to prop up their allies during Africa's World War?" 

Well, it was written that Monga Tutu had to be acquainted with the "Katangais" Antoine Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza the hard way, so to speak. While the provincial parliament in session was presided by the Speaker, who happens to be Antoine Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza, Tutu introduced a procedural motion to compel the Speaker to put up for debate another substantive motion against the treasurer of the parliament, who happens to be Gabriel Kyungu's ally!

The Speaker having refused to allow that motion to go through, Tutu, followed by his allies, then leaves the the auditorium. Outside, Gabriel Kyungu's supporters who were in attendance during the heated exchange, catch up with Tutu and the other MP's of his group and proceed to beat them severely. The Congolese Interior Minister has ordered the Katanga's parliament closed pending police investigation. But Gabriel Kyungu remains defiant.

In 1993, under Mobutu, Antoine Gabriel Kyungu, while governor of Shaba (as Katanga was then called):

"with the backing of anti-Kasaian speeches made by [...] Nguza Karl-I-Bond, [he] proclaimed Shaba's autonomy, launching a wave of ethnic pogroms against the Kasai Luba (Baluba) people. This resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of expulsions. As a result, some 10,000 Kasai imigrants to Shaba, most of whom had been brought in to work the UMHK mines were forced back into the Kasai regions. [Prominent] members [among his supporters] also made public speeches demanding that 70% of overall mining receipts remain in the Shaba region. Kyungu was eventually suspended as governor in 1995, following accusations that he was importing arms in a new bid for secession."

He is thus well known for his brutal methods. More recently, in 2008, he had a minister sequestered in a Lubumbashi hotel for several hours before releasing him.

Be that as it may, Antoine Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza is a very popular politician in Katanga. And I'd advise Monga Tutu not to sue Kyngu's supporters who beat him up as he's threatening to do. At best, he'd lose that battle; at worst, he'd be driven out of town... Actually, it might be too late: Monga Tutu is already positively screwed. Kyngu is the wrong dude to mess with in Katanga...

Antoine Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwenza

(Credits)

9. DRC Prime Minister hands $2.5m Haiti check to Alan Doss, UN Special Representative:

 

Kinshasa, Thursday, January 28

Alan Doss (left) and Adolphe Muzito, DRC Prime Minister

Excerpt from MONUC news release:

Kinshasa, 28 January 2010 - The Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Adolphe Muzito officially handed to the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for the DRC, Alan Doss, a cheque in the amount of US$ 2,500,000 dollars, as a token of solidarity from the Congolese people to Haitians, victims of an earthquake that hit their country on 12 January. Haiti Consul's to DRC attended the ceremony.

According to the Congolese Prime Minister, this humanitarian gesture of solidarity and sympathy from the Congolese people towards “brothers and friends” Haitians is also an expression of gratitude towards the International Community that assisted the Congolese people in the same circumstances, notably during the humanitarian crises as a result of the armed conflicts.

Alan Doss, in turn, handed the cheque to the country representative of the United Nations Development Programme who will transmit it to UN headquarters. On behalf of the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, the head of MONUC thanked the Democratic Republic of Congo for the gesture. “We consider this to be an outstanding act of generosity and solidarity between two developing countries both affected by disasters. At this difficult time requiring emergency actions, you have flown to their rescue. This gesture will be highly appreciated especially coming from a country that was hit by so many difficulties,” he added.

While this ceremony was taking place inside the "Primature" (the Prime Minister's office), several dozens of demonstrators had gathered outside to protest the "irresponsible attitude of the government." The demonstrators were property owners whose houses in the commune of Kasa-Vubu were razed without compensation last year to allow the construction of a hospital currently being built by the Chinese--the Congolese version of eminent domain indeed...

 

Congo's check to Haiti