Galway : Congolese Community Demonstrate.

by & Fri Jul 01, 2005 13:45

and those on the street exchange missiles, petrol bombs and in some places the army/police fired tear gas as in the picture.
They are protesting the slow movement of the ruling regime to achieve change and build a future after the civil war, the transitional goverment seems to want to be a permenant one.
They have pretty much said exactly the same as the Congolese in Galway above.- The difference being the level of conflict.

Kinshasa capital of the DRC thursday.

by & Fri Jul 01, 2005 16:38

C&P from Reuters-

Congo's opposition pledged on Friday to pile pressure on the government to quit, a day after at least one person was killed when security forces clashed with protesters angry at delays to post-war elections.

A U.N. spokesman said police used excessive force to break up the protests, which were triggered by the government's failure to organize elections by the end of June, as laid out by a 2003 peace deal to end a devastating five-year war.

"This is just the beginning," said Jean-Joseph Mukendi, a political adviser to the leader of the main Union for Democracy and Social Progess (UDPS) opposition party.

"If we keep it up the security services will tire," he said. "You could see yesterday that those in power were afraid."

Police in riot gear and soldiers patrolled Kinshasa's streets on Friday. U.N. troops drove around the city in white armored personnel carriers and a U.N. helicopter hovered overhead.

On Thursday, security forces used live bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters in sprawling, dilapidated Kinshasa, where two years of peace have done little to improve people's lives.

The resource-rich nation the size of western Europe has seen little economic progress and the government has failed to impose its authority over vast areas of the east, where armed gangs pillage and kill with impunity.

Kemal Saiki, spokesman for the United Nations mission in Congo, said casualties were lower than feared, with one person confirmed dead and 21 injured. Around 455 people were arrested.

"There were instances where (police) appear to have panicked and used their firearms," he said.

A UDPS spokesman said on Thursday that 10 people were killed in the capital Kinshasa, and several more killed in other protests in the south and west of the former Belgian colony.

Government wrangling, logistical delays and fighting in the east were behind the election delay. Some Congolese also suspect politicians are procrastinating to keep the perks of power.

On Friday, rocks and tear gas canisters had been cleared up from the capital's streets but the black marks left by burning tyres could still be seen.

"Things are getting back to normal after yesterday," said Pasteur Mena, a money changer at the busy Victoire roundabout where violent clashes took place on Thursday.

On Thursday night after hours of protests, the streets of Kinshasa, where the infectious rhythms of local music usually ring out until late, were deserted.

Congo's war killed around four million people, mainly from conflict-related hunger and disease. Killings continue in the east despite the presence in Congo of some 16,000 peacekeepers, the biggest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world.

by & - the eleven o clock folk mass Sat Jul 02, 2005 21:55

was one of the protesters there, that also saw the police, on thursday last-. When and only When, the movement of rock music philanthropy can extend true equality to its african performers, (and they except the invitations to play the gigs) will we see "progress".
Meanwhile, its Sting isn't it? talking about the brothers and sisters.

"burn your bracelets" (you don't need to wear a mask and scare the local mammies in the park. be careful of them, they're local mammies, scottish mammies. made of the same stuff and fibre that won the battle of trafalgar)

Congolese protest belgium photo:-
http://www.libe.com/page.php?Article=300175&Template=GALERIE&Objet=40516

by RobbieS Wed Jul 06, 2005 06:57

The vast majority of the people of the region called the Democratic Republic of Congo have grave and long-standing cause for grievance – their plight being a result of nearly 150 years of Western policy which sees them as being something less than worthless.

Although the gun-law chaos must be stopped urgently, ‘free and democratic elections’ may just be another, more efficient way of deceiving the masses. Not just looking at Ireland, but looking at the DRC, there is a long history of rebels becoming the establishment and all promises being broken. As well as that, clientalist culture and local patronage – such as in Ireland, doesn’t bode well for liberal democracy.

Better to call for the election of local assemblies, and let them choose to confederate if they wish. Right now, he who gets Kinshasa’s seat of power gets lock stock and barrel, and will attract the IMF and friends like flies.

On a broader question, the European model of nation-states has not served Africa as a whole, and certainly not the artificial entity that is the DRC.

Marking the DRC’s independence day is to celebrate the artificial entity imposed by European colonial map-makers. The nation-state concept is problematic at the best of times, but in the case of the DRC (formerly known as Zaire (1971-1997)), the suggestion that there is a common Congolese interest (as opposed to a common ethno-linguistic, common African, or common global vision), is ludicrous.

This vacuous, official entity which is nearly thirty times the size of Ireland, and a population ten or 15 times ours, is divided along many lines of identity.

ethnically: Luba 18%, Kongo 16.1%, Mongo 13.5%, Rwanda (Banyamulenge)10.3%, Azande 6.1%, Bangi/Ngale 5.8%, Rundi 3.8%, Teke 2.7%, Boa 2.3%, Chokwe 1.8%, Lugbara 1.6%, Banda 1.4%, Others 16.6%.

Religious affiliations: Roman Catholic 50%, Protestant 20%, Kimbanguist 10%, Muslim 10%, Others 10%.

(Taken from Pocket Factfile of the World (Andromeda, Oxford, 1996)).

Language: French (official) and four national languages (Kiswahili, Tshiluba, Kikongo and Lingala), with over 200 local languages. The four national languages, like most written languages in Africa, are amalgamated constructs of European missionaries who wanted locals to read the Bible in their ‘own language’.

The peoples of the DRC geographical area do share with Burundi and Rwanda, a history of bloody repression by paymasters of Belgian King Leopold II, and a less wanton, but more exploitative Belgian regime till ‘independence’.

Only the National Congolese Movement of Patrice Lumumba supported a forward-looking unitarian state when independence was gained in 1960, and these progressives were quickly snuffed out by Western powers.

The ‘country’ was nominally united by the Western-backed Mobutu, and he enjoyed Western support so long as his despotism allowed for their continued exploitation of the region.




Edmond Lukusa: “We also seek an end to the exploitation of the DRC's economic resources by foreign agencies and call for immediate and appropriate tough action against those who are directly or indirectly responsible”

It was the Rwandan RPF (in pursuit of the genocidal interahamwe across its western border and in defense of its sizeable Rwandese population in the DRC (see above)), that sponsored the overthrow of Mobutu by Laurent Kabila, who had been fighting a low-level civil war for decades. His accession to power was no more legal than his son’s. Indeed, in 1998, Medsins San Frontiérs compiled a dossier of slaughters committed by his and RPF troops – he disagreed with their methodology.

At any rate, the Banyamulenge themselves rebel against Kabila in July 1998, and it goes on in Ituri (mostly by proxy on Kabila Jr’s. part), to this day. The UN are there in their thousands but I think their role is mineralian rather than humanitarian. In February 2005, UNSG prohibited sexual relations between UN forces and locals, when it emerged that UN personnel have been raping women and children and engaging in other appalling activities.

It is impossible to say how many have died in the east and north-east of the DRC since 1998. If the figure were 1,000 a day and this was extended to the entire seven years constantly, the figure would be closer to 2 million than ten million. This would still make it worse than Rwanda or Darfur if the morbidity of ranking terrors by numbers were engaged in; but thee is just no way of knowing. I suspect that AIDS and infant mortality are the biggest threat to people in the region, but the causes of conflict should not be ignored. Even the IRC say that malaria, sanitation and malnutrition are the primary killers, albeit as conditions created by war. I say ‘even’, because the objectivity of aid agencies can be questioned when donations/funds are at stake.

Bitter ethnic strife between the Hena and the Lendu has been compounded by elites in Kinshasa and Kigali trying to use them as pawns. Although Rwanda has some claim to ethnic contiguity with the eastern provinces of Ituri and Kivu (more than Kinshasa 2,000 kilometers to the west), it should be up to the people of these provinces to decide for themselves.

It is in France’s interests that Kinshasa remain the power-point, since the Tutsi are seen as ‘English-speakers’. For this reason France tried to support the genocidal interahamwe in Rwanda in 1994, and there were even clashes between the foreign legion and RPF in July of that year when France couldn’t get its way on the UNSC. When it was clear that the RPF were there to stay, France gave support back to Mobutu.

(BTW the RPF is still the governing party in Rwanda. With support from Hutus and Tutsi, the 2003 elections were deemed fair by all international observers. Human Rights Watch report gave the RPF government a complete clean bill of health in November 2003. ) July 1st was Rwanda's national day.

The ‘Congolese’ (Bakongo) community in Ireland speak Lingala and come from in or around Kinshasa – 2,000 kms away from the brutal atrocities. I hope they find themselves most at home and welcome in Ireland, but the analysis of the situation in the DRC, from their quarter, can be a bit coloured. There are, to my knowledge, no refugees from the eastern conflict in Ireland. Their poverty means that they can only move a matter of miles to escape horror.