“Dr. Livingstone, I Presume”—MY “RETURN” TO CONGO, ONCE “THE HEART OF DARKNESS”

November 26th, 2009 - by: danny

In 1961, I was a freshman at Cornell, editing a magazine I started with a fellow New York High School newspaper editor Ken Rubin. It was called Dialogue and we set out to explore the issues that would later rock the 60′s – civil rights, Africa’s emergence on the world stage, Vietnam etc. We wanted to encourage an end to what was then called – and maybe called again – “Apathy” on campus. JFK had come president and the “winds of change: were blowing.

In that year, far away, in the Congo, a young charismatic leader, Patrice Lumumba, was assassinated. We later learned the CIA’s hands were all over his killing.

After it happened, African students reached out to Kenny and myself to front a memorial march on Campus to protest the murder. The African students were afraid they would get deported if they did it in their name. So it was left to two Jewish kids, one from The Bronx, the other from Queens to call for a solemn parade attended by hundreds of Africans in national dress, the two of us and some other activists.

The march was confronted with a counter —protest by Young Conservatives with racist signs suggesting they would cook the Africans in a pot. There was a confrontation but it was non-violent.

Later, I studied about Africa and would eventually go to South Africa and become involved as an activist, writer, researcher and filmmaker with the campaign to end apartheid that took more than 30 years of sharp struggle.

My interest in the Congo flagged as that country was taken over by a CIA stooge and dictator, Mobuto Seso Seko who renamed the country Zaire.

Years later, I was stirred by Mohamad Ali’s “rumble in the jungle” and began to follow events there as that country became a human rights nightmare. Our company Globalvision produced the human rights series Rights & Wrongs that did coverage on the aftermath of the genocide in neighboring Rwanda.

Then, as fate would have it, what went around, came around and I was asked to direct a film about efforts to make peace there, especially about an initiative by the leaders of Congo and Rwanda to work together to try to stop the killing and sexual violence in a country known for its rich mineral resources, especially Coltran used in making cell phones we all rely on.

We desperately need the work and at the same time, this is very challenging opportunity. I have decided to go and leave Saturday and hope to blog from there but I am not sure if I can. I am hoping to avoid my own rumbles there, and stay out of a war that has been compared in terms of casualties to World War 2.

Unfortunately, peace is not threatening to break out as Africa Confidential reports:

The United Nations Security Council’s tenuous authority in Africa has been further threatened by an explosive new report from a UN Group of Experts* showing wide-ranging violations of the arms embargo on Congo-Kinshasa by both Western and African states.

The expert panel reports that killer militias in Eastern Congo have been receiving military orders from leaders based in Germany and France and getting finance from two Spanish-based charities linked to the Roman Catholic church in clear breach of the UN sanctions regime. The report also accuses the governments of Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and Congo-Kinshasa of allowing serious breaches of sanctions and the illegal export of mineral wealth.

After heated discussions at UN headquarters in New York on 20 November, several Council members want to dilute the report’s recommendations — if not bury them, Africa Confidential has learned. The Council is due to meet again on 25 November to discuss the report, but China has been pushing for a substantive delay on any actions while the report is translated into another five languages.

This latest crisis for the UN’s operations in Congo-Kinshasa follows growing concerns about relations between the Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies en RÃƒÂ©publique DÃƒÂ©mocratique du Congo (Monuc) and the Forces ArmÃƒÂ©es de la RÃƒÂ©publique DÃƒÂ©mocratique du Congo (FARDC) after the latter was found to have been involved in mass killings and rapes of civilians in Eastern Congo. The new report reinforces concerns voiced by some UN officials about the management of Monuc, the UN’s most expensive peacekeeping operations costing over US$1 billion a year, under Alan Doss, the British diplomat who is currently UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative in Congo. Continuing criticism of the ineffectiveness of Monuc and its high cost are undermining diplomatic support for the mission.

GUARDIAN: THE WEST HAS LOST ITS WAY IN THE CONGO

The News Dissector