coupures 28 juin 07 (eng)

Congo-Kinshasa: CIA Had Plan to Assassinate Lumumba


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Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
27 June 2007
Posted to the web 27 June 2007
Kigali
Documents declassified Tuesday by the US Central Intelligence Agency have revealed that it also wanted the first D R Congo President Patrice Lumumba dead and indeed he did, RNA has established.
Late Lumumba, the then democratically elected president of the former Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) was assassinated in 1965 but mystery remains as to who was responsible for the death.


The CIA yesterday released 700 pages of memos and reports detailing plots to also assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro and Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator - among others. It is the first time that the US security agency has openly associated to the death of the charismatic leader.
Lumumba's forthright demands for economic independence, social justice and political self-determination, and his hostility to a political setup based upon tribal divisions, which the colonialists had effectively used to divide and rule Africa, sealed his fate.
In November 2001, an all-party commission of inquiry formed by the Belgian government released a report acknowledging that Belgium played a role in the murder of the Congolese leader.
The commission's report concluded that authorities in Brussels and Belgium's King Baudouin knew of plans to kill Lumumba and did nothing to save him. It insisted, however, that there is no documentary evidence that Belgium ordered the Congolese leader's death.
In fact, earlier investigations have uncovered elements that the assassination of Lumumba was the direct result of orders given by the Belgian government and the then US President Eisenhower administration, acting apparently through the CIA and local clients "financed" and "advised" by Brussels and Washington.
In a book - 'De Moord Op Lumumba' by Flemish historian Ludo de Witte published in 1998, there is reference to a telegram sent three months before Lumumba's death from Count Harold d'Aspremont Lynden, then US minister for African affairs, to Belgian officials in the Congo.
Documentation available also shows that the then CIA's director, Allen Dulles, referred to the Congolese leader as a "mad dog".
Following widespread rioting and strikes in 1959, the colonial power surprised all of the nationalist leaders by scheduling elections for May 1960. In a chaotic rush to take advantage of the fruits of independence, 120 different parties were formed, most of them regionally or ethnically based.
Only one, the Mouvement National Congolais or the MNC, led by Lumumba, favored a centralized government and a Congo united across ethnic and regional lines.
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In the midst of a ceremony in which the Belgians had congratulated themselves on successfully civilizing the Congolese and preparing them for self-rule, Lumumba apparently spelled out the reality of colonial oppression, describing it as 80 years of "humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force".
In 1965, Joseph Mobutu, the Congolese army leader - said to have handed Lumumba over to his executioners, staged a bloodless coup, inaugurating a 32-year dictatorship which was legendary for its corruption and greed.
He renamed the territory Zaire and became Washington's closest ally on the continent, serving as a staging area for its counter revolutionary interventions against liberation movements in southern Africa.


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DRC calls for sustainable peace in Great Lakes Region


Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 's Minister for Foreign Affairs Alain Lubamba said here Wednesday that consolidation of sustainable peace in the Great Lakes Region is the only effective way of checking illegal and clandestine immigration in the DRC.
He urged the countries and institutions which took part in a Euro-African conference on immigration and development held in the Spanish capital of Madrid on June 21, to support efforts deployed by DRC's political authorities geared to implementing the government program.
Lubamba, who had represented DRC in the conference, underscored efforts deployed by his government after the elections, notably the creation of a post of vice-minister for foreign affairs, the creation of a border police unit, and promotion of regional integration by the revival of the Great Lakes Region Community.
Thousand of DRC's nationals who are living illegally in certain European countries will soon be repatriated to DRC.
Source: Xinhua
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DRC's journalists demonstrate against violence


About 100 journalists in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Wednesday converged in front of the army headquarters to protest against killings and other forms of violence directed at journalists in the country.
During the protest, the journalists, who wanted to create awareness about the dangers posed by their profession, submitted a memorandum containing their grievances to DRC's defense minister Chikez Diemu.
According to defense minister, insecurity affected not only the journalists but also the entire country. Diemu said there was need to reform the army in order to deal effectively with the security situation in the country.
Violence is increasingly being directed at journalists in the DRC. On June 13, Maheshe, a 31-year-old journalist working for the UN sponsored radio Okapi, was shot dead by two people in civilian clothing on a street in Bukavu, eastern DRC, as he and two friends prepared to enter a UN-marked car.
Other journalists who have been killed on the line of duty in the country include Franck Ngyke of DRC's daily "La Reference Plus, " who was killed together with his wife in Kinshasa, capital of the DRC, in 2005 and Bapwa Mwamba, who was murdered in 2006, according to the local press.
Source: Xinhua
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DRC's gov't to support scientific research



The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and development partners will continue to support the implementation of the program for the revival of agricultural and forestry research in the country in the coming three years.
DRC's scientific research and technology minister Sylvannis Mushi Bonane Tuesday said the government will move to boost several research programs, provide training and rehabilitate research infrastructure for the program expected to last three years.
The program has also received funds totaling about 7 million euros (about 9.4 million U.S. dollars) from the European Commission through UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
According to the European commission, a strong commitment from DRC's researchers is needed in order to revive and upgrade the level of the research institutions. On its part, the FAO said it was satisfied with the new partnership with the government.
In addition, the program will also benefit from the input of the Forestry Research Centre (FRC) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).
Earlier, the European Commission had funded three projects to the tune of around 1.8 million euros, with a view to evaluating the operational capacities of various research stations belonging to DRC's National Institute for Study and Agricultural Research ( INERA). (1 U.S. dollar = 0.744 euros)
Source: Xinhua
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CENTRAL REGION NEWS
DRC calls for efforts to enhance peacekeeping training
KINSHASA, June 27 -- The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mawampanga Mwanananga has urged the governments around the globe to lower their military budgets in favor of peace operations and development projects.
Mwanananga was quoted by The Herald on Monday as saying that it was high time for armies to shift their attention to train peacekeepers.
He made the remarks when speaking at the graduation of 26 officers from 10 SADC countries and Algeria who underwent a 10-daySADC Peace Support course at the SADC Regional Peacekeeping Training Center in Harare.
"I think it's high time our armies concentrate on training peacekeepers and stop regarding peacekeeping as too costly, while on the other hand contingents of hundreds, if not millions, of army men and women to war time and again and nobody points a finger," said Mwanananga.
The objectives of the course included developing a thorough knowledge of peace support operational guidelines, examining the multi-dimensional nature of peace support operations and assessing the international human rights law.
Mwanananga said the course sought to prepare participants for the numerous challenges they were likely to face on peace missions. - xinhuanet
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DRC dealt a $13M military transportation contract
Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology - 10:43 AM EDT Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Dynamics Research Corp. says that it has been awarded a $13 million, 43-month contract from to provide logical and physical data modeling expertise, data engineering and management support services for the transportation arm of the U.S. Departmentof Defense.
Andover-based DRC reports it has already started on the initial 3.5-month task order for $1.15 million, under the overall contract awarded by the U.S. Transportation Command.
Last week DRC reported winning a $4 million contract with the U.S. Air Force to provide design and engineering services to the Air Logistics Center, based in Utah.
Dynamics Research is a government contractor and specializes in business intelligence, acquisition management and IT services. It was founded 51 years ago and employs 1,800 people in Andover, Virginia and Ohio. The company reported 2006 revenue of $259 million, down 14 percent from $300 million in 2005.


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FACTBOX-Mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo
June 27 (Reuters) - This month the Democratic Republic of Congo began its review of contracts for mining concessions.
The mineral-rich African country is looking at 60 mining deals, most of which were negotiated during a six-year war and the three-year transitional period that followed.
These are the main companies with mining projects in the Congo:
(* indicates a new or updated entry)
* ANGLO AMERICAN
The world's third biggest mining group recently opened an office in the city of Lubumbashi in the country's copper belt. In Kinshasa, Anglo works from the office of diamond group De Beers, in which Anglo holds at 45 percent stake.
Anglo will be exploring in the DRC and seven other African countries to look for large base metals deposits. Chief Executive Cynthia Carroll said in June the company would inject $3.5 billion of new investment into Africa in the next five years.
* AFRICO RESOURCES
Shares in Canadian company Africo fell 45.8 percent in April after the company said $90 million in financing had been cancelled owing to a court ruling in the DRC that denied Africo's ownership in the Kalukundi copper-cobalt project.
A court in Lubumbashi ruled that Akam Mining SPRL, not Africo, owned 75 percent of the company that owns Kalukundi.
* ANGLOGOLD ASHANTI
The world's third biggest gold producer, of which Anglo American owns more than 40 percent, increased its exploration budget for the Congo to $15 million for 2007 from $8 million in 2006.
It has been drilling for gold at Mongbwalu in northeastern Ituri since 2005. AngloGold says the results so far support historical tonnage and grade estimates of 1.2 million ounces.
* ANVIL MINING
In April this year, said its board approved the construction of the 60,000 tonnes per year copper-making facility at its 95-percent owned Kinsevere project costing $238 million.
In addition, it owns 90 percent of the Dikulushi copper-silver mine, which produces 20,000 tonnes of copper and 1.8 million ounces of silver per year. Other projects include Mutoshi and Kinsevere. The Kulu mine at Mutoshi was temporarily closed in April last year after an attack on its property that left up to four people dead.
Anvil admitted in 2005 that its vehicles and aircraft were used to help move troops for a military exercise that led to civilian deaths in late 2004.
BANRO CORPORATION
Toronto-listed Banro has four gold properties comprising 13 exploitation permits in the South Kivu and Maniema provinces. Measured and indicated resources across the Twangiza, Kamituga, Lugushwa and Nomaya properties total 2.178 million ounces of gold.
* BHP BILLITON
BHP, the world's largest diversified miner, is exploring for copper and diamonds in the DRC. BHP will spend more than half its exploration budget for the fiscal year ending in June in Africa, it said. Earlier this year, it said it was in the "early stages" of looking at an aluminium smelter project in the country.
* CAPITAL RESOURCE FUNDING CORP
This Chinese company, through its subsidiary Dalian Xinyang High-Tech Development (DLX), this month signed a contract to buy the prospecting and mining rights to a cobalt mine in Lubumbashi. DLX, one of the largest Chinese cobalt producers, will own 80 percent of the mined cobalt and Shengbao Group will own the remainder. DLX intends to build a facility to produce finished cobalt products from raw ore on-site, the firm said.
* CENTRAL AFRICAN MINING AND EXPLORATION CO (CAMEC)
Is targeting production of 40,000 tonnes copper and 6,000 tonnes cobalt from its Luita plant by the end of March 2008, rising to 100,000 tonnes copper and 12,000 tonnes cobalt by the end of the year. Also has the rights to concession areas 467 and 469, which contain copper and cobalt mineralisation.
Camec has recently run into a row with the Congolese government over Zimbabwean businessman Billy Rautenbach, who owns a stake in the company and is a former head of state mining firm Gecamines.
Camec claims the dispute may be related to the stake it is trying to build in Katanga Mining , which also operates in the DRC. Katanga is attempting to get Canadian regulators to block Camec from adding to the 22 percent stake it already owns.
* CHEMAF
Privately-owned Congolese company which owns the licence for the Etoile mine, estimated to hold 682,041 tonnes of copper and 108,951 tonnes of cobalt, and the yet unworked Makala deposit.
It also controls the Kananga concession in joint venture with state miner Gecamines.
Chemaf plans to begin industrial mining operations at the Makala and Kananga mines beginning in late 2007 or early 2008.
It owns a cobalt processing plant in Lubumbashi and is currently constructing a facility to produce copper cathode.
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UN peace force rejects Kabila's criticism

June 28 2007 at 01:12AM

By Joe Bavier

Kinshasa - The United Nations rejected Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila's criticism of its 17 000-strong peace force on Wednesday, saying Kabila's government was primarily responsible for protecting civilians.

Kabila said in an interview published this week that the UN mission in Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) risked losing relevance unless it achieved better results on the ground in the fight to bring peace to the DRC's conflict-torn east.

"When you see what is happening in the east of the country, where 80 percent of their forces are concentrated, you ask yourself a thousand and one questions," Kabila told French-language news magazine Jeune Afrique.
'Sometimes wonders what (MONUC) is doing there'
"Already, the population in the east sometimes wonders what (MONUC) is doing there," he said.

Force spokesperson Kemal Saiki hit back on Wednesday saying its peacekeepers were ready to assist the army but DRC authorities, elected in landmark polls last year, needed to fulfil their obligations to protect the people.

"Defence of the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation and that of its people is firstly, principally, primordially, crucially, and incontrovertibly the responsibility of the state and that brings us to the question of the 'raison d'etre' of the state and of its authority," Saiki told a weekly news briefing.

Despite the official end of a 1998-2003 war and Congo's first democratic polls in over 40 years, armed militias control swathes of eastern Congo and violence is increasing in North and South Kivu provinces, bordering Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi.

In North Kivu, clashes between predominantly Hutu Rwandan rebels and Tutsi-dominated Congolese army brigades have forced more than 130 000 people from their homes since January.

Catholic Church leaders have warned that unless the Congo army and its UN allies take firmer action, the volatile region could slide back into all-out conflict.

Last month the UN Security Council voted to prolong, at least until the end of the year, MONUC's peacekeeping mandate, which allows it to carry out joint military operations with the Congolese army and protect civilians.

Initially mandated in 1999, MONUC became the UN's biggest peacekeeping force and played a major role in pacifying Congo's troubled Ituri district, which erupted into inter-ethnic fighting after the broader five-year war had officially ended.

Saiki said he knew of no Congolese government request for MONUC's help against armed groups in the Kivus this year.

Security Council members have called for Rwandan involvement in a diplomatic solution to the growing crisis in the Kivus, which grew out of a failed attempt to integrate soldiers loyal to dissident Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda into the army.

In one of its most decisive operations, UN troops in helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles killed hundreds of Nkunda soldiers who seized Sake town, North Kivu, in December.

"I don't think the dissident Nkunda troops who tried to take Sake, at least those who survived, are asking themselves what the MONUC forces are doing," Saiki said.
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The bitter value of silence
Michela Wrong
Published 28 June 2007
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Two men in overcoats walked up to Serge Maheshe as he stood chatting to friends and shot him
Bad news came from eastern Congo on 13 June. A journalist for Radio Okapi, a radio station working for national reconciliation, was shot dead in the lakeside town of Bukavu. I met Serge Maheshe on a trip there last year with David Cornwell, better known as the writer John Le Carré, who was researching his latest book. Sitting on a verandah overlooking the wind-ruffled waters of Lake Kivu, we'd all talked politics before going dancing in one of Bukavu's burrow-like nightclubs, where Serge was the only one of us to look the part. A smart cookie, Serge was also something of a sapeur - a Congolese dandy - and his style of dress was about as bland as the local Pili-Pili sauce.
Serge's murder looks very much like a targeted assassination, the climax to what started as a row over parking with a unit of President Joseph Kabila's presidential guard stationed near his home. That a quarrel over where Serge's cousin parked his car - the guards thought it too close to their roadblock - should culminate in Serge being gunned down on the street says more about the state of the Democratic Republic of Congo than any UN report could. A nominal end to the civil war and the first elections in almost 50 years has done nothing to tackle the issue that poisons daily life in towns such as Bukavu today, just as it did under Mobutu: the sheer number of young men with weapons and a total contempt for the public. They prey like vampires on their put-upon fellow citizens, who can only silently pine for something Congo hasn't experienced for decades: the rule of law.
I kept thinking of Serge and what years of being abused by swaggering youths do to one's morale as I watched a video of Blood Diamond, which I missed on its cinema release. I'd heard contradictory things about this film, made to alert a western public to the issue of conflict diamonds. Some friends dismissed it as schlock, others assured me it was a cut above the normal fare, with the producers going out of their way to write a strong and resourceful African character into the script. Who was right?
It's true that Blood Diamond's creators, alert to the accusations of neocolonialism routinely levelled at westerners setting films in Africa, put a lot of thought into the role of Solomon Vandy, a fisherman who finds a giant diamond in a Sierra Leonean river. Presented in noble counterpoint to the racist white mercenary played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Solomon is a man of dignity and pride and his quest to reunite a family dispersed by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels serves as a key plot driver.
The problem was that every time Solomon opened his mouth, verisimilitude flew out of the window. Djimon Hounsou, the over six-foot tall Beninois playing him, must have groaned inwardly as he was obliged to speak lines no African villager would ever articulate. Take the scene where Solomon is scouring lists at a displaced people's camp in Freetown, searching for his family. Ignoring the long queue, he storms to the aid official at its head, loudly demanding answers. He gets none, of course, but Solomon, we are supposed to think, is a real man, doing what real men do when crazed by anxiety: they demand a lot of attention.
Then there's a scene where he discovers his wife and children in a vast refugee camp in Conakry. When his wife tells him his eldest boy has been recruited by the RUF, Solomon sinks to his knees. Shaking the wire fence convulsively, he bellows his despair to the heavens, shouting so loudly he brings the Guinean soldiers guarding the camp running.
I've visited plenty of African refugee camps in my time and I've never seen anyone behave like this. People whose villages have been raided, neighbours mutilated and relatives raped will do anything to avoid drawing the attention of the young men with guns. They stand quietly in line, they don't make eye contact, they do exactly as they are told. They keep it quiet, because experience has shown that bellowing only makes things worse. Survival, in countries such as Sierra Leone and DRC, is all about avoiding confrontation.
Lacking any inkling of how those who are put-upon view the world about them, or any grasp of the quiet undercurrent of fear that stifles dissent, Blood Diamond's scriptwriters made Solomon behave as a noisy American would in similar circumstances: think the outraged voices of those marooned by Hurricane Katrina, keenly aware of what was their due. This failure of insight exposes the vast gulf of expectation that separates the world's entitled from its oppressed, who know the bitter value of silence.
For Bukavu's residents, the fate of Serge Maheshe will serve as a reminder of what still regularly befalls those who dare to raise their voice in modern-day Congo.
Eyewitnesses report that two men in overcoats walked up to him as he stood chatting to friends and shot him without provocation. As Serge's friends scrambled away, the gunmen calmly continued shooting the journalist in the stomach, then casually strolled away.
With a bit of imagination, it's really not that hard to guess what years of that kind of brazen violence do to the soul.
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Thursday June 28, 6:59 PM
Congo court clears former Anvil staff of war crimes
KINSHASA, June 28 (Reuters) - A military court in Democratic Republic of Congo acquitted three former employees of Australian mining company Anvil Mining Ltd on Thursday of complicity in war crimes by government soldiers in 2004.
"All of those accused of war crimes, including the former Anvil mining agents have been acquitted," the president of the military tribunal, Colonel Joseph Mokako, told Reuters from Lubumbashi, the capital of mineral-rich Katanga province.
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Thursday June 28, 1:32 AM
Foreign diggers deported in Congo mining clampdown
KINSHASA, June 27 (Reuters) - Congo has deported around 350 foreigners and closed scores of buying depots after a campaign to stamp out illegal mineral sales in its southeastern Katanga province, the local governor said on Wednesday.
Several hundred diggers from Democratic Republic of Congo's enormous informal mining sector blocked streets in the town of Kolwezi to protest against the shutting down of the depots by local authorities this week.
The closures are part of reforms by governor Moise Katumbi meant to bring order to the province's chaotic but potentially lucrative mining industry. He had already banned the export of raw minerals to neighbouring Zambia in an effort to drive out illegal operators and ensure ore was processed in Congo.
Katumbi told Reuters illegal buying depots, often run out of houses, had been closed down in Likasi, another mining centre in Katanga, as well as in the provincial capital Lubumbashi.
"They were stocking cassiterite (copper and cobalt ore) next door to people's homes. Is that normal?" Katumbi said.
"We've already deported around 350 Chinese, Lebanese and Indians, who were here working with no papers whatsoever."
Congo's informal mining sector grew out of the slow decay of once-huge state miner Gecamines under the late Mobutu Sese Seko and flourished during the chaos of Congo's 1998-2003 war.
More recently it has been fuelled by rising copper and cobalt prices on the world market and booming demand from emerging economies.
The demand has led to an invasion of foreign buyers, who purchase ore mined almost entirely from Gecamines holdings and private concessions.
An estimated 150,000 people work in the informal sector in Katanga alone, and many fear the shutting down of illegal depots will take away their sole source of income.
"They've closed them without setting up an alternative," said Pierre Nestor Ngoy, provincial head of the National Union of Congolese Workers (UNTC), one of the country's largest unions.
"We do believe the governor wants to save the population ... Replacement structures must be established," he said.
Once a world leader in mineral production, Congo exported more than 440,000 tonnes of copper in 1989 before a steady decline due to years of mismanagement and conflict.
The sector is now rebounding amid optimism due largely to the country's first democratic elections in more than four decades last year.
Companies operating or prospecting in Congo include the world's largest diversified miner BHP Billiton and the world's third-biggest gold producer AngloGold Ashanti .
U.S. major Phelps Dodge, recently purchased by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc , is investing $650 million in its Tenke Fungureme project in Katanga.
London-listed Nikanor Plc plans to bring $1.3 billion in outside investment
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Iran-Congo industrial cooperation discussed
Pretoria, June 27, IRNA
Iran-Congo-Industry
Iran Ambassador in Congo Hamid-Reza Qomi discussed bilateral cooperation in the fields of mines and industries in meetings with two Congolese ministers in Kinshasa on Tuesday.
Discussing Tehran-Kinshasa cooperation in the field of mining with Congolese Minister of Mines Martin Kabwelulu, the Iranian diplomat voiced Tehran's readiness to help Kinshasa further exploit its mineral resources.
Kabwelulu welcomed the idea, calling for a visit to Congo of an Iranian expert delegation to examine the mechanism of Tehran-Kinshasa cooperation in the field of mining.
Meanwhile, in a separate meeting with Congo's Minister of Industries Simon Mboso Kiamputu, the ambassador said Iran is ready to cooperate with Congo in various industrial and technological fields.
Kiamputu hailed the offer stressing promotion of Tehran-Kinshasa joint investment in the fields of food and pharmaceutical industries, agriculture and construction materials.