04-13-2018, 11:10 PM
*** 14-Apr-18 World View -- DR Congo boycotts its own international humanitarian conference for DR Congo
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** UN says DR Congo humanitarian crisis at highest emergency level
****
![[Image: g180413b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g180413b.jpg)
A refugee Congolese woman and children (dpa)
Jan Egeland, the former head of the UN's emergency humanitarian relief
office, was shocked by the catastrophic and growing
humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
and how the international community is ignoring the DRC crisis:
<QUOTE>"This is up there with Yemen and Syria in terms of
number of people in desperate need. I was not prepared of for the
scale of the suffering, frankly.
Since the Congolese are not coming to the Mediterranean, since the
Congolese are not part of a Russian-US or Saudi-Iran battle, they
are being ignored really."<END QUOTE>
According to the United Nations, 13 million people are in need of
humanitarian assistance, 4.5 million people are displaced from their
homes, more than 7 million face severe food insecurity, and two
million children at risk of starvation.
In the past, I've written about the bloody wars in the southwestern
Kasai region, where the armies and militias reporting to the
government of president Joseph Kabila are committing genocide; about
the bloody tribal wars in northeastern Kivu region, causing massive
refugee flows into Uganda; about the massive corruption of Joseph
Kabila, skimming billions of dollars out of the treasury and providing
it to his family and cronies; and of his repeated stunts of refusing
to hold elections, so that he can't be replaced as president.
As we reported in February,
another a humanitarian disaster of "extraordinary proportions" emerged
in Tanganyika province in southeastern DRC. For several years, there
have been bloody clashes between two ethnic groups, the Luba, a Bantu
ethnic group, and the Twa, a Pygmy ethnic group. The violence surged
in January of this year with the entrance of the president Kabila's
Congolese armed forces.
The increasing violence is destabilizing the entire region. As we reported in December,
the genocide by
Kabila's army has resulted in 3.9 million people forced to flee their
homes to escape the violence. Hundreds of thousands have fled to
Zambia, Angola and other neighboring countries as refugees, creating a
humanitarian disaster in those countries.
Since the beginning of the year, 70,000 Congolese in eastern DRC have
fled across the border into Uganda. 40,000 Congolese refugees have
been settled into a single refugee camp, the Kyangwali refugee camp,
in Uganda on the border in DRC. The Kyangwali camp is overcrowded and
running out of space. Because of a lack of humanitarian aid, not
everyone is being fed. There's also shortage of clean water, with
each person receiving just 8 liters per day, while the average person
requires 20 liters. The result has been the spread of cholera, with
1,000 cases of cholera already identified. BBC and Al-Jazeera
Related Articles
****
**** DR Congo boycotts its own international humanitarian conference for DR Congo
****
The United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM)
sponsored a humanitarian conference for Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC), meeting on Friday in Geneva. The purpose of the conference was
to raise funds for humanitarian aid to DRC.
The conference drew $530 million in pledges, less than 1/3 of the
estimated $1.7 billion needed. Refugee official Jan Egeland said, "We
are disappointed that too few countries sent a real message of hope to
the millions of Congolese children, women and men in desperate need of
assistance."
Even more startling is that one of the countries that boycotted
the humanitarian conference was DR Congo itself.
According to Zenon Mukongo Nga, DRC's ambassador to the United Nations,
DRC officials are furious about the description of DRC as
a failed state. In particular, they dispute the the UN estimate
that 13 million people need humanitarian aid, and they say
that only 200,000 people are internally displaced.
<QUOTE>"The level of humanitarian situation was raised to
'level three', the worst of all the levels in the world, meaning
exactly that DR Congo has been compared to the countries where
there is chaos, where the state has collapsed, where there is
nothing working so far. And this drove people mad . "
We have our own figures which should be confronted with UN figures
because, sometimes people are just sitting in their offices in
Geneva, in New York, and they just get reports from each people
who are on the ground. Sometimes they don't go really on the
ground. We have people everywhere and the figures we have are the
real ones."<END QUOTE>
Although no real explanation for the DRC boycott of their own
humanitarian conference has been provided, it appears to be
another cynical action by president Joseph Kabila, one of the
bloodiest and most corrupt leaders in the world.
Kabila was to have stepped down as president in December 2016.
However, he refused to allow elections to go forward, and without
elections he could not step down. Since then, he's made no
preparations for elections, and he's used violence, torture
and jailings to suppress protests, as he continues to stay
in office illegal.
At first he promised to hold elections in December 2017, but
it was clear that those elections would never be held, as he
refused to make any preparations for them. Now he's promising
elections in December 2018, and the international community has
threatened to cut off aid if the elections are not held.
At the same time, Kabila and his family own, either partially or
wholly, more than 80 companies and businesses in the country and
abroad. He and his children own more than 71,000 hectares (175,444
acres) of farmland. His family owns diamond mines, a part of the
country's largest mobile phone network, companies that mine mineral
deposits, gold and limestone, a luxury hotel, stakes in an airline, a
share of the country's banks, and a fast-food franchise.
So there is literally no possibility that Kabila will ever agree to
step down, since if he does then his family's entire corrupt
empire will be put into danger, and many members of his family
could be jailed on charges of corruption.
Humanitarian aid does not go to the government. It's given to NGOs
that provide food, water, medicine and humanitarian services to actual
people. And Kabila couldn't care less for the needs of ordinary
Congolese people.
DRC officials have indicated that what particularly infuriates them
about the characterization of a "humanitarian disaster" in DRC is that
such a characterization discourages investors. And money from
investors goes to government officials, where it will pass into the
bank accounts of Kabila and his family. Bloomberg and UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) and Deutsche Welle and Relief Web
Related Articles
****
**** U.S., France, Britain launch Syria attack in retaliation for al-Assad's use of chemical weapons
****
![[Image: g180413c.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g180413c.jpg)
Early Saturday morning in Damascus, Syria, surface to air missiles light up the sky (AP)
As I am writing this article on Friday evening (ET), the United
States, France and Britain launched coordinated missile strikes on
three targets in Syria, two in Damascus, one near Homs, all related to
manufacture and storage of chemical weapons.
The following are some preliminary notes on the announcements.
President Trump announced that the attacks will continue "until the
Syrian regime stops using chemical weapons."
However, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that the operation was
completed, once the three targets were hit.
If both of these statements are true, it would have to mean there will
be additional operations if the regime continues using chemical
weapons.
There will be debates in Congress whether Trump had the authority to
order these strikes without Congressional approval.
Some people are arguing that UN Security Council approval would also
be needed, but as we've been writing lately, the Russians have been
using the UNSC to control US foreign policy by requiring all
operations to be approved by the UNSC, where Russia has veto power,
while Russia goes ahead with any operations it wants, such as invading
and annexing Crimea, without seeking UNSC approval. Earlier this
week, US ambassador Nikki Haley announced that, in effect, the US
would conduct an operation with or without UNSC and Russian approval.
Russia did not attempt to strike down the incoming missiles,
suggesting that Russia might be tacitly approving of the missile
strikes. Mattis said that Russia was not notified in advance,
but that a standard phone call was made over the joint
US-Russia deconfliction phone line.
However, Syrian media claims that its air defenses shot down some
missiles.
After Trump has set a firm "red line" about chemical weapons, Trump
had no choice but to go through with a strike on Syrian targets.
Friday's strike was an essential message to the North Koreans as the
planned summit meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un approach. If
Trump had backed down from a missile strike, then America would have
had no credibility whatsoever in the summit meeting.
Last year's missile strike did not deter al-Assad from continuing to
use chemical weapons, and the latest strike may be equally
ineffective. Even if al-Assad stops using chemical weapons, the
message to al-Assad is that the only things the west cares about are
chemical weapons and ISIS. Al-Assad is free to use barrel bombs and
any conventional weapons that he wants on women and children. In
fact, al-Assad is expected to move on to his next massive, genocidal
target, Idlib province, with one million displaced people. NBC News and Washington Post
Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC,
Jan Egeland, Joseph Kabila, Uganda, Kyangwali refugee camp,
International Organization for Migration, IOM, Zenon Mukongo Nga,
France, Britain, Syria, Damascus, Homs,
James Mattis, Nikki Haley
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- UN says DR Congo humanitarian crisis at highest emergency level
- DR Congo boycotts its own international humanitarian conference for DR Congo
- U.S., France, Britain launch Syria attack in retaliation for al-Assad's use of chemical weapons
****
**** UN says DR Congo humanitarian crisis at highest emergency level
****
A refugee Congolese woman and children (dpa)
Jan Egeland, the former head of the UN's emergency humanitarian relief
office, was shocked by the catastrophic and growing
humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
and how the international community is ignoring the DRC crisis:
<QUOTE>"This is up there with Yemen and Syria in terms of
number of people in desperate need. I was not prepared of for the
scale of the suffering, frankly.
Since the Congolese are not coming to the Mediterranean, since the
Congolese are not part of a Russian-US or Saudi-Iran battle, they
are being ignored really."<END QUOTE>
According to the United Nations, 13 million people are in need of
humanitarian assistance, 4.5 million people are displaced from their
homes, more than 7 million face severe food insecurity, and two
million children at risk of starvation.
In the past, I've written about the bloody wars in the southwestern
Kasai region, where the armies and militias reporting to the
government of president Joseph Kabila are committing genocide; about
the bloody tribal wars in northeastern Kivu region, causing massive
refugee flows into Uganda; about the massive corruption of Joseph
Kabila, skimming billions of dollars out of the treasury and providing
it to his family and cronies; and of his repeated stunts of refusing
to hold elections, so that he can't be replaced as president.
As we reported in February,
another a humanitarian disaster of "extraordinary proportions" emerged
in Tanganyika province in southeastern DRC. For several years, there
have been bloody clashes between two ethnic groups, the Luba, a Bantu
ethnic group, and the Twa, a Pygmy ethnic group. The violence surged
in January of this year with the entrance of the president Kabila's
Congolese armed forces.
The increasing violence is destabilizing the entire region. As we reported in December,
the genocide by
Kabila's army has resulted in 3.9 million people forced to flee their
homes to escape the violence. Hundreds of thousands have fled to
Zambia, Angola and other neighboring countries as refugees, creating a
humanitarian disaster in those countries.
Since the beginning of the year, 70,000 Congolese in eastern DRC have
fled across the border into Uganda. 40,000 Congolese refugees have
been settled into a single refugee camp, the Kyangwali refugee camp,
in Uganda on the border in DRC. The Kyangwali camp is overcrowded and
running out of space. Because of a lack of humanitarian aid, not
everyone is being fed. There's also shortage of clean water, with
each person receiving just 8 liters per day, while the average person
requires 20 liters. The result has been the spread of cholera, with
1,000 cases of cholera already identified. BBC and Al-Jazeera
Related Articles
- 22-Feb-18 Tanganyika province in DR Congo faces a humanitarian disaster of 'extraordinary proportions' (22-Feb-2018)
- United Nations stunned as peacekeepers are massacred in DR Congo (09-Dec-2017)
****
**** DR Congo boycotts its own international humanitarian conference for DR Congo
****
The United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM)
sponsored a humanitarian conference for Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC), meeting on Friday in Geneva. The purpose of the conference was
to raise funds for humanitarian aid to DRC.
The conference drew $530 million in pledges, less than 1/3 of the
estimated $1.7 billion needed. Refugee official Jan Egeland said, "We
are disappointed that too few countries sent a real message of hope to
the millions of Congolese children, women and men in desperate need of
assistance."
Even more startling is that one of the countries that boycotted
the humanitarian conference was DR Congo itself.
According to Zenon Mukongo Nga, DRC's ambassador to the United Nations,
DRC officials are furious about the description of DRC as
a failed state. In particular, they dispute the the UN estimate
that 13 million people need humanitarian aid, and they say
that only 200,000 people are internally displaced.
<QUOTE>"The level of humanitarian situation was raised to
'level three', the worst of all the levels in the world, meaning
exactly that DR Congo has been compared to the countries where
there is chaos, where the state has collapsed, where there is
nothing working so far. And this drove people mad . "
We have our own figures which should be confronted with UN figures
because, sometimes people are just sitting in their offices in
Geneva, in New York, and they just get reports from each people
who are on the ground. Sometimes they don't go really on the
ground. We have people everywhere and the figures we have are the
real ones."<END QUOTE>
Although no real explanation for the DRC boycott of their own
humanitarian conference has been provided, it appears to be
another cynical action by president Joseph Kabila, one of the
bloodiest and most corrupt leaders in the world.
Kabila was to have stepped down as president in December 2016.
However, he refused to allow elections to go forward, and without
elections he could not step down. Since then, he's made no
preparations for elections, and he's used violence, torture
and jailings to suppress protests, as he continues to stay
in office illegal.
At first he promised to hold elections in December 2017, but
it was clear that those elections would never be held, as he
refused to make any preparations for them. Now he's promising
elections in December 2018, and the international community has
threatened to cut off aid if the elections are not held.
At the same time, Kabila and his family own, either partially or
wholly, more than 80 companies and businesses in the country and
abroad. He and his children own more than 71,000 hectares (175,444
acres) of farmland. His family owns diamond mines, a part of the
country's largest mobile phone network, companies that mine mineral
deposits, gold and limestone, a luxury hotel, stakes in an airline, a
share of the country's banks, and a fast-food franchise.
So there is literally no possibility that Kabila will ever agree to
step down, since if he does then his family's entire corrupt
empire will be put into danger, and many members of his family
could be jailed on charges of corruption.
Humanitarian aid does not go to the government. It's given to NGOs
that provide food, water, medicine and humanitarian services to actual
people. And Kabila couldn't care less for the needs of ordinary
Congolese people.
DRC officials have indicated that what particularly infuriates them
about the characterization of a "humanitarian disaster" in DRC is that
such a characterization discourages investors. And money from
investors goes to government officials, where it will pass into the
bank accounts of Kabila and his family. Bloomberg and UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) and Deutsche Welle and Relief Web
Related Articles
- United Nations stunned as peacekeepers are massacred in DR Congo (09-Dec-2017)
- Democratic Republic of Congo issues farcical call for elections in December 2018 (07-Nov-2017)
- DR Congo's Joseph Kabila brings the art of power and corruption to new heights (24-Jul-2017)
- Massive government atrocities in DR Congo's Kasai threaten regional stability (21-Jun-2017)
****
**** U.S., France, Britain launch Syria attack in retaliation for al-Assad's use of chemical weapons
****
Early Saturday morning in Damascus, Syria, surface to air missiles light up the sky (AP)
As I am writing this article on Friday evening (ET), the United
States, France and Britain launched coordinated missile strikes on
three targets in Syria, two in Damascus, one near Homs, all related to
manufacture and storage of chemical weapons.
The following are some preliminary notes on the announcements.
President Trump announced that the attacks will continue "until the
Syrian regime stops using chemical weapons."
However, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that the operation was
completed, once the three targets were hit.
If both of these statements are true, it would have to mean there will
be additional operations if the regime continues using chemical
weapons.
There will be debates in Congress whether Trump had the authority to
order these strikes without Congressional approval.
Some people are arguing that UN Security Council approval would also
be needed, but as we've been writing lately, the Russians have been
using the UNSC to control US foreign policy by requiring all
operations to be approved by the UNSC, where Russia has veto power,
while Russia goes ahead with any operations it wants, such as invading
and annexing Crimea, without seeking UNSC approval. Earlier this
week, US ambassador Nikki Haley announced that, in effect, the US
would conduct an operation with or without UNSC and Russian approval.
Russia did not attempt to strike down the incoming missiles,
suggesting that Russia might be tacitly approving of the missile
strikes. Mattis said that Russia was not notified in advance,
but that a standard phone call was made over the joint
US-Russia deconfliction phone line.
However, Syrian media claims that its air defenses shot down some
missiles.
After Trump has set a firm "red line" about chemical weapons, Trump
had no choice but to go through with a strike on Syrian targets.
Friday's strike was an essential message to the North Koreans as the
planned summit meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un approach. If
Trump had backed down from a missile strike, then America would have
had no credibility whatsoever in the summit meeting.
Last year's missile strike did not deter al-Assad from continuing to
use chemical weapons, and the latest strike may be equally
ineffective. Even if al-Assad stops using chemical weapons, the
message to al-Assad is that the only things the west cares about are
chemical weapons and ISIS. Al-Assad is free to use barrel bombs and
any conventional weapons that he wants on women and children. In
fact, al-Assad is expected to move on to his next massive, genocidal
target, Idlib province, with one million displaced people. NBC News and Washington Post
Related Articles:
- The world awaits Trump's promised retaliation for al-Assad's chemical weapons attack (12-Apr-2018)
- Major multi-national military operation planned for Syria after Sarin gas use (11-Apr-2018)
- Trump threatens 'big price to pay' after Assad's chemical weapons attack in Syria (09-Apr-2018)
- President Trump plans military action on Syria after horrific nerve gas attack on civilians (06-Apr-2017)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC,
Jan Egeland, Joseph Kabila, Uganda, Kyangwali refugee camp,
International Organization for Migration, IOM, Zenon Mukongo Nga,
France, Britain, Syria, Damascus, Homs,
James Mattis, Nikki Haley
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
