"The U.N. could be held responsible for human rights violations committed by the Congolese army.
The Congolese army, FARDC, is indeed supported by MONUC.
And they are indeed committing these human rights violations.
We should address these violations otherwise
we could be considered complicit."

CONGO ARMY NEEDS NKUNDA

The Congolese soldiers have not been paid for five months.
The U.N. is feeding 20,000 Congolese soldiers every day because they have no food for themselves.
Congo army officers frequently steal the paychecks they are supposed to disburse,
sending their men to prey on the population instead.

To Orwell Today,

I am pleased to share VIDEO images of General Laurent Nkunda MIHIGO leading a formation of ANC units of the CNDP. The General, who is a pedagogue for formation, has always stressed not only the technical training of the soldier but as well training his soldiers in discipline. If tomorrow the Democratic Republic of Congo will be equipped with an army able to defend it effectively, it will have to take into account the military leadership of General Nkunda Mihigo.

Watch TRAINING SOLDIERS FOR PROTECTING THE NATION (Video No 1) and Video No 2

-Sharangabo Rufagari

Greetings Sharangabo,

Thanks a million for sending that video of CNDP soldiers demonstrating their skills before General Nkunda. No wonder they were unbeatable in protecting Congo's people from enemies domestic and foreign.

Below I've transcribed Nkunda's speech (standing in the pouring rain) where he explains to his soldiers the type of army they are building and what they are striving for:

Training is the base to change a group or a nation.
No country can change without educating and training its people.
Soldiers, are you getting me?
If you don't change, the nation will not change.
It's your life, your actions, your education and your behaviour that will change the nation.
We emphasize on your training to make the change possible.
We know that through these trainings, your behaviour,
your discipline, and how you protect the population,
that you will really change the country.
Don't think about this small group, but how to influence all the country.
Think how to influence Central Africa, how to help all Africa, Europe, and Asia, even America.
Because training helps people to be successful for himself and useful for others.
Soldiers, are you getting me very well?
Since now your life, your behaviour and your work will really show that you have changed.
This change will influence all the Congolese to follow you.
If others don't see in you the educated soldiers, then nobody will follow you.
Soldiers, get it very well!
This training must have an impact on your respective unities.
This training must have an impact on your relationship with civilians and other soldiers.
Tomorrow you will be in Goma and Kinshasa. You have to make a difference.
We are going to give you a mark of Commando.
This will allow us to recognize and punish you.
We don't agree with those who, with our uniform and with our mark, will misbehave.
Since now, I want you to be an example wherever you are going.
What will be my pleasure, if you influence others to attend the coming course of Commando.
This is a great day for us and don't forget it.
Are you getting me soldiers? Thanks alot.

Now compare Nkunda's army (as it was until he was arrested and removed from Congo four months ago) with Kabila's army as described in news reports today. Congo, without Nkunda, is hell on earth. And this is what the UNITED NATIONS is admittedly complicit in creating. It's further proof that Orwell was right when he said BIG BROTHER (his word for United Nations) is "a dedicated sect doing evil."

Amahoro,
Jackie Jura

General Laurent Nkunda MIHIGO leading a formation of ANC units of the the CNDP. CNDP, May 20, 2009

Congo UN-backed army accused of rape and killings
by Anita Powell, AP, May 18, 2009

Goma, Congo - Congolese rebels [Hutu FDLR/Congo MaiMai] who became part of the country's army [Kabila FARDC] under a peace deal are looting, raping and killing the civilians they are meant to protect, U.N. military commanders told top U.N. officials on Monday.

The failure of integration efforts threatens attempts to bring peace to eastern Congo. The mineral-rich region has been torn apart by violence since Hutu militias who carried out Rwanda's genocide fled there almost 15 years ago. Congo's violence has previously sucked in half a dozen of its neighbors, destabilizing central Africa. Since a peace agreement was signed in 2003, about 16,600 rebel fighters have been integrated into the regular Congolese army [FARDC] — itself a notoriously ill-disciplined force of roughly 125,000.

Brig. Gen. Bipin Rawat, the commander of the U.N.'s forces [MONUC] in the north Kivu region, said that had not stopped the former rebels [FDLR/MaiMai] from murdering, torturing and raping civilians. "We have been insisting to them that they refrain from carrying out human rights violations," he told visiting members of the U.N. Security Council who are touring the region.

A U.N. human rights official, Marie Plamadiala, warned the Security Council that the U.N. could be held responsible for human rights violations committed by the Congolese army. The Congolese army [FARDC], "is indeed supported by MONUC. And they are indeed committing these human rights violations. We should address these violations otherwise we could be considered complicit," she said in Kiwanja, where more than 100 people were killed last year. Lyn Lusi, the director of HEAL Africa hospital, said she had seen an increase in the number of rapes since the rebels [Hutu/MaiMai/Pareco] were integrated.

"We have to put much more emphasis on the protection of civilians," she said. Her hospital in the eastern town of Goma sometimes treats over 400 rape victims a month. Sex attacks in Congo are infamous for their brutality and frequency. "The civilian population is under general suspicion from both sides as collaborators," said Marcel Stoessel, a Congo-based director for Oxfam.

The 16,475-strong U.N. mission, known by its French acronym MONUC, says it does not have enough soldiers to protect all civilians in Congo, a country larger than Western Europe but with only 300 miles (480 kilometers) of paved roads. That forces them to depend on the Congolese soldiers [Kabila's FARDC] to help defend the population. But Lt. Gen. Babacar Gaye, military commander of the U.N. mission, said the Congolese soldiers had not been paid for five months. He said the U.N. was feeding 20,000 Congolese soldiers every day because they had no food for themselves. Congo is notoriously corrupt and army officers frequently steal the paychecks they are supposed to disburse, sending their men to prey on the population instead. Gaye said the violence against civilians was unlikely to stop soon. "We are on the way of progress," he said. "Unfortunately this way is paved with atrocities."

Earlier this year there was major fighting in eastern Congo, continuing a cycle of conflict that has engulfed Africa's Great Lakes region for years. There has been a lull in the violence since relations with neighboring Rwanda improved, following Rwanda's arrest of a Congolese rebel [Nkunda CNDP]. The Congolese government has frequently accused Rwanda of supporting some of the fighters [CNDP] in an effort to flush out the remains of the genocidal forces hiding in the forests. Congo is the U.N. envoys' third stop on a four-nation tour focusing on some of Africa's hotspots.

NGOs urge UN to protect civilians in DR Congo
AFP, May 18, 2009

Goma, Congo - A group of 66 NGOs on Monday urged the UN Security Council to press both the Democratic Republic of Congo's army [Kabila FARDC] and UN peacekeepers to protect civilians while fighting Rwandan rebels [Hutu FDLR]. "The Council should tell both the UN peacekeeping mission (MONUC) and the Congolese army [Kabila's FARDC] that firmer measures to protect civilians are an urgent need during military operations against" the rebels [HutuFDLR/MaiMai], the local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said in a joint statement.

Diplomats representing the 15 member nations of the UN Security Council on Monday arrived in Goma, the capital of the troubled Nord-Kivu province, where they will meet military chiefs of MONUC, which is the world's largest UN force of its kind, and of the DR Congo army, the FARDC.

In January and February, the Congolese army [Kabila FARDC] was joined by Rwandan troops [Kagame RDF] for a joint operation against rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (Hutu FDLR) entrenched on the eastern DR Congo side of the border for some 15 years. That offensive drove the rebels back from population centres, but the FDLR [Rwandan Hutu] remained active in Nord-Kivu and the Congolese army [Kabila FARDC], backed by UN forces [MONUC], has pursued the assault. They are also due in coming weeks to hunt down the Rwandan rebels [Hutu FDLR] in neighbouring Sud-Kivu province to the south.

The FDLR [Rwandan Hutu] is frequently accused by humanitarian NGOs and rights groups of atrocities against civilians, held to have worsened since the rebels [Hutu FLDR] lost some of their strongholds when the Rwandan army moved in. The rebels [Hutu FLDR] were accused of massacring 60 civilians in a raid on the village of Busurungi in Nord-Kivu on the night of May 9.

However, the Congolese army has equally been accused of many atrocities in the two Kivu provinces and in Monday's statement, Anneke Van Woudenburg warned that "with the extension of operations to Sud-Kivu, it is likely that the results will be just as terrible."

Conflict in the two Kivu provinces since a 1998-2003 war that embroiled the whole vast central African country has been ceaseless, involving tribal militia groups [MaiMai/PARECO] as well as rebels [Hutu FLDR] and the armed forces [Kabila FARDC], and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes. The NGOs on Monday asked UN Security Council delegates to take "effective action to guarantee the development of a detailed plan to protect civilians," with the establishment and monitoring by MONUC of "clear criteria as conditions for continuing to cooperate with the FARDC." They also sought the rapid deployment in DR Congo of a further 3,000 troops due to boost a mission that currently has more than 17,000 combat forces and military observers in the country.

UN endorses controversial peacekeeping plan for Congo. VOA, May 19, 2009 (MONUC officials described the FARDC as a ragtag group of soldiers with doubtful loyalties, poor discipline and a tendency to engage in plunder and looting. Many are former members of rebel groups recently integrated into the army in an attempt to win them over. But the force commander, Senegalese General Abubacar Gaye said with training, the 100,000 strong FARDC could become a disciplined force. "This is yet to be an army, it will need more training, equipment, etc, if all this preconditions are realized there are a lot of chances we'll have a good army, but the situation is wishful thinking but it will be a long time before that," he said.... MONUC employs a human rights staff of 120 people.... Security Council ambassadors say MONUC's success will continue to be a priority, if only for practical reasons. The Congo operation costs $1 billion a year, a quarter of the entire UN peacekeeping budget. One UN diplomat said the $10 billion spent on MONUC over the past 10 years is more money than the DRC has received in development aid since independence.)

UN says troop reinforcements due in Congo soon, Reuters, May 18, 2009 (...Though touted as a necessary step towards finally ending over a decade of violence, the offensive by Congo's poorly trained and equipped army has made little headway. "The army today is composed largely of people who have joined the army from the rebel groups, and there is no discipline, there is no solidarity among them....)

Congo UN-backed army accused of rape and killings. AP, May 18, 2009

NGOs urge UN to protect civilians in DR Congo. AFP, May 18, 2009

UN presses Rwanda stand by rapprochement with Congo. Reuters, May 17, 2009
Kigali - The U.N. Security Council won assurances from President Paul Kagame he would pursue a course seen as key to ending violence in eastern Congo. Envoys from the 15 council member states flew into the small east African nation to bolster a drive by the United Nations to help resolve years of conflict in the region and enable its peackeeping force in Congo, the world's largest, ultimately to leave. They will continue on Monday to Goma, in eastern Democratic Rebublic of the Congo, and the capital, Kinshasa. "We strongly encouraged the president to continue on that path (of better relations) as we will with (Congolese) President (Joseph) Kabila when we meet him," Britain's U.N. ambassador John Sawers, leading the delegation, told reporters. "We've certainly come away reassured about the seriousness of it...but there's more work to be done." Both Kagame and his foreign minister, Rosemary Museminoli, told reporters they were making a priority of ties with Kinshasa. "We keep working with the DRC to examine what tomorrow we can work on together and how we can do things differently," Kagame said. Rivalries between the two neighbours, which back different militias in the mineral-rich eastern Congo, long frustrated efforts to bring peace following a 1998-2003 war thought to have led to the death of more than five million people. But policy changes led Rwanda and Congo to collaborate earlier this year against the leading militias, although reprisals by the militias against civilians have brought further carnage. Kagame played down the problem of rebel generall Laurent Nkunda, ex-leader of the Tutsi-dominated National Congress for the Defence of the People, who was arrested in January in Rwanda and is wanted in Congo. "I do not understand Nkunda to be the cause of the problem" the Rwandan president said. "The problem is much bigger than one individual.". Rwanda says it has hesitated to extradite Nkunda to Congo because he could face the death penalty there, and that legal experts from the two countries are examining the problem....

When will reorganization of FARDC happen? CNDP, May 16, 2009 (...What to do to save the FARDC? The situation is not lost. As advanced and catastrophic as it is, it can be corrected. The steps making it possible to create the army of tomorrow exist - an army which is capable of complying with the rules of engagement and civil rights. For that, one needs a man who wants to really provide discipline within the FARDC and provide the army with noble letters.... This man is the General Laurent Nkunda MIHIGO. He always dreamed to equip the DRC with the strongest army in the area...)

NKUNDA CONGO'S ONLY PROTECTOR (...Nkunda’s CNDP movement was viewed by many residents of the Kivus as their protector against the predations of Kabila's FARDC troops and irregular Hutu FDLR forces allied to them. While CNDP militiamen are generally not paid for their service, they are fed and receive medical care. Their families likewise benefit from a basic social welfare system. The group has earned legitimacy by providing its adherents – whose ranks have expanded beyond the core Tutsi base to embrace other ethnic groups, including Hutu – with the social goods that the Kabila regime has thus far failed to provide...)

COMPATRIOTS DEMAND NKUNDA RELEASE

FREE NKUNDA TO FIGHT FOR CONGO

NKUNDA SAY UN CRIMINALS IN CONGO (...One day I told the responsible manager - the one in charge of Humanitarian Affairs - I told him: If we do a statistic in the camps around Goma, each week there is around 100 people dying of different disease.... But ask here, or go in Bunagana or Rutshuru and ask. They are going to tell you that the most secured area in Congo is the area under our control. Now you can go in Rutshuru. And you are going to see they are in their houses, they are cultivating. Go and compare their life and the life of those in Displaced Camp. They are different, they are different. Who is now criminal? The one maintaining someone out of his house? Or the one securing someone in his homeland? Who is criminal?...)

KABILA KILLS, RAPES & BLAMES NKUNDA (...But ask here, or go in Bunagana or Rutshuru and ask. They are going to tell you that the most secured area in Congo is the area under our control. Even when they are telling about Rutshuru massacres, no it's not true, it's not true. They say that we massacred Hutu tribe. The Executive Secretary of CNDP, the second in charge, is a Hutu. So you tell me about killing Hutu? In my army 60% are Hutu, 60% or 70% are Hutu tribe. Then you tell me that I used these soldiers to kill Hutu?....)

NKUNDA'S INTORE HEROES

KNOW NKUNDA CONGO

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

email: orwelltoday@gmail.com
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