By Thomas C. Mountain
… create a crisis and then manage the chaos to better loot and plunder,…
UN General Assembly
It took me a moment to get to the bottom of what the writer of the article Thomas C. Mountain is saying. Initially, I thought he was confusing between UN and US in places where he for example explains that the international organisation gave arms to Rwanda, I couldn’t clearly picture that. But I remembered how back in 93/94, in the case of Rwanda, the UN [MINUAR peacekeeping mission] had facilitated the supply of weapons to the Rwandan Patriotic Front of Paul Kagame, when its contingent were supposed to be neutral in the then civil war which was ongoing in the country. This reflected what a Congolese friend Patrick Mbeko has themed “the strategy of the blue angel.” The following content will certainly be an eye-opener for the reader or give them a new perspective to understand what is going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo for almost two decades.
The UN has condemned Rwanda’s role in the carnage in the Congo for supplying arms and aid to the M23 rebels fighting the Congolese army in northern Congo yet provides the Rwandan military ten$ of million$ in arms and aid for the thousands of Rwandan “peacekeepers” operating under UN control in Darfur.
The UN gives arms to the Rwandan military, which in turn gives arms to Tutsi rebels of the M23 warlords and then the UN condemns Rwanda but orders its peacekeepers in the Congo, who in the past bombarded the M23 rebels, to stand aside as the M23 captures the strategically critical town of Goma in eastern Congo. Doesn’t make much sense does it?
Murder, mayhem and the UN in the Congo, it goes back almost two decades and is probably one of the least understood conflicts in the world, so lets start with the two major players in the conflict, Uganda and Rwanda.
Rwanda has a president named Paul Kagame who twenty years ago was the head of the Ugandan CIA under President Musuveni and Rwanda and Uganda remain pretty much joined at the hip.
Both Musuveni and Kagame are dependent on the hundred$ of million$ of under the table royaltie$ they are making off the illegal mining they “protect” in north and eastern Congo and both countries have “peacekeepers” funded by the UN in Somalia.
So the UN is giving both countries lots of weapons and cash and then doesn’t like it when such ends up supporting local warlords on behalf of the Musuveni/Kagame mafia?
And in the mean time millions of Congolese die, millions more live in desperate conditions fleeing the fighting and millions more dollars each day are looted from the Congo, a country that meets the definition of a failed state if there is one.
Think about it, what is the UN going to do when it depends on Rwanda and Uganda to enforce its diktats in Dafur and Somalia when Rwanda and Uganda openly defy all UN proclamations when it comes to the Congo?
One can see just who is really behind the scenes when both the “President” of the Congo, Joseph Kabila (jr) and his sworn enemy Paul Kagame of Rwanda sit down together in…Kampala, the capital of Uganda, under the watchful eye of the USA’s second string Godfather in east Africa, Pres. Museveni.
Deals have to be made, business is business, divide up the loot and lets get back to making money is the story of the day, only Kabila is not to thrilled with the short end of the deal. But then M23 might just decide to march on Kinshasa, capital of the Congo, kick Kabila out and install their own man of the hour, sort of like Musuveni did when he sent the Rwandan rebel army he funded and armed and headed by his CIA director Kagame into Rwanda in 1994.
The plot thickens as the Obama White House and its hit woman UN Ambassador Susan Rice is stirred in, for Musuveni is their boy and Kabila, a Francophone and closer to the French than the USA, has been heard muttering words of working with China, or whomever would take a chance investing in his parts.
Susan Rice has a lot invested in Museveni and Kagame, covering up crimes going back to her days in the cabinet under Clinton and the Rwandan massacre in 1994 and has protected them at the UN so far.
With the USA’s other enforcer in the east Africa, Meles Zenawi, dead and Ethiopia heading for disintegration Museveni and Kagame is the best the Obama regime still has and is certain to continue to allow the carnage to continue in the Congo.
As for the UN it remains little more than a front for US foreign policy and crisis management is the USA’s policy in Africa, as in create a crisis and then manage the chaos to better loot and plunder, so one should expect business as usual as in the UN, murder and mayhem in the Congo.
Thomas C. Mountain is the most widely distributed independent journalist in Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain_at_yahoo_dot_com.
Source: Counterpunch
