#drc news

[workersolidarity]

🇺🇬🇨🇩 🚨 UGANDA BEGINS WITHDRAWEL OF 1'000 TROOPS FROM PEACEKEEPING MISSION IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

The Ugandan Military began the withdrawal of 1'000 troops deployed in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the regional peacekeeping force stationed in the country.

The move comes after Kinasha's Military issued a statement late Friday announcing a decision not to extend the mandate of the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) beyond Dec. 8th.

According to the statement, the pull-out of Military assets in a phased manner, gradual and orderly, and sequentially deployed in March, 2023 will end on Jan. 7th, 2024.

"UPDF will ensure to expedite the pull-out of its forces and equipment within the approved timelines as enshrined in the extraordinary meeting of EAC CDFS (Chief of Defense Forces) held on Dec. 6," said Capt. Ahmad Hassan Kato, UPDF's contingent spokesperson.

CDF's meetings in Arusha, Tanzania, upheld DRC's decision and recommended to EAC defense ministers that EACRF officially ceases operations in the east African country, with immediate effect from Dec 8th.

Following the decision, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, and South Sudan deployed troops to the region, which was endorsed and adopted by the regional leaders at the 3rd East African Community Heads of State Conclave on Peace and Security in eastern DRC, held in Nairobi last June.

"Uganda contingent urges all armed groups (in eastern DRC) to facilitate the withdrawal of the UPDF troops by observing total ceasefire so as to allow the forces to exit from the mission area safely," said Kato.

According to the Ugandan Military, other troops deployed to the eastern DRC as part of a joint military operation with their Congolese counterparts will continue the hunt against the Allied Democratic Forces in the region.

Via@XinhuaNews

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[newsfrom-theworld]

happy mothers day to the mothers of palestine who have lost their children and to the mothers who were forced to give birth and be separated from their children in congo.

[intersectionalpraxis]

"the cost of convenience does not have to be human lives. we are literally conditioned to think that in order for us to have certain things someone has to suffer and that is the farthest thing from the truth."

[decolonize-the-everything]

Why are they mining so much right now?

Cobalt has become the center of a major upsurge in mining in Congo, and the rapid acceleration of cobalt extraction in the region since 2013 has brought hundreds of thousands of people into intimate contact with a powerful melange of toxic metals. The frantic pace of cobalt extraction in Katanga bears close resemblance to another period of rapid exploitation of Congolese mineral resources: During the last few years of World War II, the U.S. government sourced the majority of the uranium necessary to develop the first atomic weapons from a single Congolese mine, named Shinkolobwe. The largely forgotten story of those miners, and the devastating health and ecological impacts uranium production had on Congo, looms over the country now as cobalt mining accelerates to feed the renewable energy boom—with little to no protections for workers involved in the trade.

The city of Kolwezi, which is 300 km (186 miles) northwest of Lubumbashi and 180 km from the now-abandoned Shinkolobwe mine, sits on top of nearly half of the available cobalt in the world. The scope of the contemporary scramble for that metal in Katanga has totally transformed the region. Enormous open-pit mines worked by tens of thousands of miners form vast craters in the landscape and are slowly erasing the city itself.

[...]Much of the cobalt in Congo is mined by hand: Workers scour the surface level seams with picks, shovels, and lengths of rebar, sometimes tunneling by hand 60 feet or more into the earth in pursuit of a vein of ore. This is referred to as artisanal mining, as opposed to the industrial mining carried out by large firms. The thousands of artisanal miners who work at the edges of the formal mines run by big industrial concerns make up 90 percent of the nation’s mining workforce and produce 30 percent of its metals. Artisanal mining is not as efficient as larger-scale industrial mining, but since the miners produce good-quality ore with zero investment in tools, infrastructure, or safety, the ore they sell to buyers is as cheap as it gets. Forced and child labor in the supply chain is not uncommon here, thanks in part to a significant lack of controls and regulations on artisanal mining from the government.

[...]When later atomic research found that uranium’s unstable nucleus could be used to make a powerful bomb, the U.S. Army’s Manhattan Project began searching for a reliable source of uranium. They found it through Union Minière, which sold the United States the first 1,000 tons it needed to get the bomb effort off the ground.

The Manhattan Project sent agents of the OSS, precursor to the CIA, to Congo from 1943 to 1945 to supervise the reopening of the mine and the extraction of Shinkolobwe’s ore—and to make sure none of it fell into the hands of the Axis powers. Every piece of rock that emerged from the mine for almost two decades was purchased by the Manhattan Project and its successors in the Atomic Energy Commission, until the mine was closed by the Belgian authorities on the eve of Congolese independence in 1960. After that, the colonial mining enterprise Union Minière became the national minerals conglomerate Gécamines, which retained much of the original structure and staff.

[...]Dr. Lubaba showed me the small battery-operated Geiger counters that he uses in the field to measure radioactivity. He had begun the process of trying to find and interview the descendants of the Shinkolobwe miners, but he explained that tracing the health consequences of working in that specific mine would be difficult: Many long-established villages in the area have been demolished and cast apart as cobalt extraction has torn through the landscape. His initial inquiries suggested that at least some of the descendants of the Shinkolobwe miners had been drawn into the maelstrom of digging in the region around Kolwezi.

In her book Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade, historian Gabrielle Hecht recounts the U.S. Public Health Service’s efforts to investigate the effects of uranium exposure on people who worked closely with the metal and the ore that bore it. In 1956, a team of medical researchers from the PHS paid a visit to Shinkolobwe while the mine was still producing more than half of the uranium used in America’s Cold War missile programs. Most of their questions went unanswered, however, as Shinkolobwe’s operators had few official records to share and stopped responding to communications as soon as the researchers left.

[...]“Don’t ever use that word in anybody’s presence. Not ever!” Williams quotes OSS agent Wilbur Hogue snapping at a subordinate who had said the mine’s name in a café in Congo’s capital. “There’s something in that mine that both the United States and Germany want more than anything else in the world. I don’t know what it’s for. We’re not supposed to know.”

[sayruq]

A rebel group with alleged links to Rwanda this week seized Rubaya, a mining town in eastern Congo known for producing a key mineral used in smartphones, the group said Thursday in a statement. In a statement shared with The Associated Press, a spokesperson for the M23 rebel group said the town was “liberated.” The Congolese army declined to comment on the situation. The decades long conflict in eastern Congo has produced one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with over 100 armed groups fighting for control of the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Many groups are accused of carrying out mass killings, rapes and other human rights violations. The violence has displaced about 7 million people, many beyond the reach of aid. The town of Rubaya holds deposits of tantalum, which is extracted from coltan, a key component in the production of smartphones. It is among the minerals that was named earlier this month in a letter from Congo’s government questioning Apple about the tech company’s knowledge of “blood minerals” being smuggled in its supply chain. “The fall of Rubaya is in a way the embodiment of this systemic plundering,” Ernest Singoma, a civil society activist in Goma, told the AP on Thursday. There’s been an upsurge in fighting in recent months between M23 rebels and Congo army forces, and it comes as the United Nations plans to withdraw peacekeepers from the region by the end of the year.

[allthegeopolitics]

The African Union’s health watchdog has declared a public health emergency over the growing mpox outbreak on the continent, saying the move is a “clarion call for action”. The outbreak has swept through several African countries, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the virus formerly called monkeypox was first discovered in humans in 1970. “With a heavy heart but with an unyielding commitment to our people, to our African citizens, we declare mpox as public health emergency of continental security,” Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said during an online media briefing. “Mpox has now crossed borders, affecting thousands across our continent, families have been torn apart and the pain and suffering have touched every corner of our continent,” he said. [...]

Continue Reading.

[aicmie]

Donations below and a little story

Tell me why i just got a flashback from when i said i am going to show solidarity for palestine (haiti, sudan and congo included) because i am a black african woman who knows what it is like to see my people go through colonialism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, racism and genocide so i would never wqnt to see go through that and the guy said i was using the race card and then people that i was close to (by the way white majority school who refuse to boycott anything and make fun of children in shein factories saying, if they dont give the kids money who will) sais it was wrong to involve race in an issue about a LITERAL GENOCIDE , instead of soing anything to help people who are suffering through it.

Anyway more importantly donate to the millions of people who still need your help

Congo https://www.concern.org.uk/donate/drc-hunger-crisis?gclid=CjwKCAjwreW2BhBhEiwAavLwfOdJOyuxHdEQjHSxEP96owHyCdiNZn_IMdufy3PBPSslUdcIS4FlLRoCdkkQAvD_BwE

Sudan

https://www.islamic-relief.org.uk/giving/appeals/sudan-emergency/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwreW2BhBhEiwAavLwfESgRc9fWClc7ihDoVkh9DRT6qFLf3_1jm7150k1MZCFbjab3hX-8BoCF-oQAvD_BwE

Haiti

https://hopeforhaiti.com/

Palestine

https://matwproject.org.uk/crisis-and-emergencies/palestine?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwreW2BhBhEiwAavLwfDjswremyOT2HnlFR5CZP5VQC1OKm5QrcPVSFJ8AaWBOHrBpwbyQFhoCaPEQAvD_BwE

[sscarletvenus]

some book recommendations to understand and know more about congo :

Lumumba : Africa's Lost Leader by Leo Zeilig

Spies in the Congo : The race for the ore that built the atomic bomb by Susan Williams

White Malice : The CIA and the neocolonisation of Africa by Susan Williams

The Congo from Leopold to Kabila by George Nzongola- Ntalaja

please add more!

[quartzwhortz]

Textile History: Silk

YouTube: crafty.caravan

Keep an eye out for my partners YouTube series coming out next week (June 7th) !! I’m basically their social media manager and I’ll be posting some fun things for them!!

Their channel will have vlogs (such as the one being edited right now of their first Testosterone shot) and videos like their Textile History series, a look into the history and impact of textiles around the world.

You can also find them on TikTok!

Expect to see lighthearted videos, but they also discuss active genocides happening such as Palestine and the DRC.

More coming out soon!!

[portrait-of-dorian-gay]

I'm tired of y'all "what side are we on again ?☹️🥺"

"I just don't know anything about politics🥺☹️🫣😖"

Stfu. Learn?

We are in a time where information has never been more easily accessible.

Please get a grip on the realities of the world right now.

[newsfrom-theworld]

GFM Campaings for Congo

These are some gfm campaings for Congo, please donate, reblog and share!

ORGANIZATIONS:

I) Care for Congo

II) Sillage Association Malaïka ( orphans)

III) Voices from Congo

IV) Help for Goma

V) Donations for displaced women in eastern DRC

VI) Support Emmanuel's Peace African Hope Orgaization

VII)Help Children To Orphanages & Provide Aide to Goma

VIII) SOS Congo (displaced from Kivu)

IX) Doctors without borders

X) Friends of the Congo

XI) Free the Slaves

XII) Eastern Congo Initiative (Water system for internally displaced people)

EVACUATIONS FOUNDS:

Help a family of six leave the Democratic Republic of Congo

Help a refugee come to Colombia

REBUILD LIFE

I) Support The Busimba Family To Rebuild Their Lives

[intersectionalpraxis]

"When Rachel was 2 years old, armed men came to her village, which is 50km from Bunia, DRC. She, her sister, and her mother were attacked. Her mother was killed, and her sister had her arm cut off. Rachel now has a scar from the man who slashed her face with a machete. These pictures were taken when she was 5 and living in the Kigonze Refugee Camp in 2021. The article says she does her best not to cry when other children in the camp make fun of her scars. 💔"

"At the time of the article, UNICEF stated there were 3 MILLION children displaced across the DRC. They have no access to education and face an increased risk of rape and exploitation. They are also at risk of falling prey to drug use and being recruited into armed groups."

#FreeDRC #CongoIsBleeding #SaveCongo

The article OP references:

Horrific... absolutely horrific what keeps happening to these children -at TWO only two years old. Keep talking about Congo.

[decolonize-the-everything]

Article from July 29, 2024:

The forcible eviction of the indigenous Batwa community from their ancestral lands within the Kahuzi-Biega National Park (PNKB) was a violation of their rights by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) government, finds the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights in a historic decision. The ruling recognizes Batwa as the best guardians of biodiversity and calls for their return to their land. ‘This is a huge win for the climate justice movement,’ says Samuel Ade Ndasi, African Union Litigation and Advocacy Officer at Minority Rights Group (MRG). ‘The decision negates the idea that solving the climate crisis requires displacing indigenous communities and seizing their lands. Instead, it sets a strong precedent that recognizes the value of indigenous traditional knowledge and environmental and biodiversity conservation practices. From this point forward, no indigenous community should be evicted in the name of conservation anywhere in Africa.’

In the 1970s Batwa were violently expelled from their homes and dispossessed of their ancestral lands to pave way for the creation of the PNKB. They were forced into decades of grinding impoverishment, severe discrimination, landlessness and skyrocketing mortality in informal settlements on the outskirts of the park. In the two devastating decades after expulsion, the number of Batwa expelled from the park fell from an estimated 6,000 to just 3,000. In 2022, an MRG investigation documented a three-year campaign of organized violence by park authorities and Congolese soldiers to expel Batwa who had returned to their lands in 2018, resulting in the death of at least 20, group rape of at least 15 and forced displacement of hundreds. The case, brought by MRG and Environnement, Ressources Naturelles et Developpement (ERND) on behalf of the Batwa community, highlighted the continual violent evictions and human rights abuses suffered by the Batwa community was filed at the African Commission in 2015, after five years of fighting for redress in the DRC’s domestic legal system to no avail. Joséphine M’Cibalida, a Batwa community member, shares her experience: ‘While we were hunting, state agents invaded our community and burned down our homes, leaving us homeless and destitute. We lost everything, including our dignity as human beings. This ruling brings us hope that we will receive justice for the harm done to us.’ For the first time ever, the Commission’s ruling specifically recognizes an indigenous people’s crucial role in safeguarding the environment and biodiversity. It found that conservation models excluding indigenous peoples from their lands are not effective for fighting climate change in Africa.

Key recommendations from the Commission to the DRC government include:

A full public apology to the Batwa, acknowledging the deadly abuse by ecoguards, eviction-related deaths and the inhumane living conditions to which Batwa have been subjected;

Legally recognize Batwa as full citizens of the DRC;

Pay compensation to the Batwa;

Demarcate and grant collective titles to Batwa over ancestral territories within the PNKB;

Establish a community development fund and share park revenues with Batwa;

Withdraw non-Batwa persons from Batwa ancestral lands.

Jean-Marie Bantu Baluge, ERND spokesperson says: ‘Reclaiming the rights of indigenous peoples to their ancestral lands and resources is paramount to their survival and in protecting biodiversity. The Commission’s Decision offers a lifeline to the Batwa people and other indigenous communities in the Congo Basin who have been battered for over half a century in the name of conservation.’ MRG’s 2022 investigation also found that international supporters of the PNKB, such as the German and US governments and the global conservation organization, Wildlife Conservation Society, may be complicit in these crimes – including in violating a UN Security Council arms embargo. The African Union has fully endorsed the Commission’s Decision. Both the Executive Council and the Assembly approved it during their Ordinary Sessions held in February 2023 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. However, its publication was delayed by months. MRG received a copy of a corrigendum to the Decision, containing important clarifications in late June 2024. The corrigendum will be made available on the African Commission’s website in due course.

Aug 5, 2024:

But above all and since 2019, this People has been the subject of serious violations and repeated attacks, in particular allegations that militarized ecoguards of the park raped, killed and terrorized communities returning to their ancestral lands. This has been all very well documented by MRG in an investigative report from 2022.

In its decision, the African Commission found that the DRC government violated at least 10 articles of the African Charter, to which DRC is a signatory and party. These included the rights to life, to property, to natural resources, to development, to religion and to culture.

‘Crucially the African Commission has recognised that the Batwa, and consequently many other Indigenous Peoples all around the continent, have a critical role to play in conserving and protecting their land and natural resources,' said Jennifer Castello of FPP.

“The Commission has recognised that the so-called ‘fortress conservation’ is ineffective for preserving and protecting the biodiversity of PNKB. To succeed, conservation has to be based on securing Indigenous Peoples’ land rights, not on evicting them from the lands they have conserved for generations”.

Given that the DRC has recently adopted a specific legislation to protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples in the country, it is about time that the Batwa of the PNKB finally obtain justice and receive support to go back to their land.

FPP, RFUK, AI and IPLP urge the DRC to fully respect the Commission’s calls to the government and to take immediate steps to remedy the violations experienced by the Batwa over decades. We also urge all donors and conservation organisations engaged in the DRC to work with the government to fully implement the decision, ensure that conservation at PNKB recognises and respects the rights of the Batwa to their ancestral lands, and supports the People to take the leading role in conserving and protecting them.

More broadly, we urge the government and its international partners to provide redress to other victims of ‘fortress conservation’ in DRC’s other protected areas and to ensure that all conservation initiatives are implemented through rights-based, community-centred approaches.

[tscnews]

Fred Richani interviews activist, filmmaker, and Focus Congo founder Pappy Orion, shedding light on his remarkable charity work in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The interview also covers the pressing issues of genocide, war, M23, western imperialism, and the exploitation of labor for cobalt, coltan, and other resources. Pappy Orion shares insights on how we can support the DRC and delves into his incredible childhood journey on foot, spanning from Congo all the way down to South Africa in search of safety and a better life. This is a touching and heart wrenching conversation on activism, resilience, faith, tragedy, and perseverance.

[workersolidarity]

The truth about Congolese Cobalt Mines and the mothers and children working them so you can have a fancy iPhone.

"The most fortunate tunnel diggers in Kasulo (DRC) earn around $3'000 per year, the most fortunate. By way of comparison, the CEO's of the technology and car companies that buy the Cobalt mined from Kosulo earn $3'000 in an hour and they do so without having to put their lives at risk each day that they go to work."