339 York St, E3B 3P5 Unit B8
Fredericton, New Brunswick
Canada
January 14th, 2014
Barak Husein Obama of the United States of America The White
House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC20500
Re : Memo to Obama on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Your Excellency;
Please allow
me to join Americans and all other lovers of democracy in the world
in congratulating you on your successful re-election and second
inauguration as the President of the United States of America.
I am Fredrick Wangabo Mwenengabo, a Human Rights Activist, and
Congolese by birth now living in exile in Canada. Since my arrival to
Canada in 2009, I appreciate even more the democratic values
of the Canadian society and other western democracies, with their
respect of human rights. Some of these democratic values have been and
continue to be part of my life and work for which I was
offered humanitarian protection by the government of Canada. Between
March and April 2012, I observed a 48 days hunger strike in Canada to
protest the international conspiracy of silence over the
genocide in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and to urge
Canada and the Francophonie Nations to take a leadership role in
addressing injustices in the DRC. Following the 2012
Francophonie Summit in Kinshasa, a series of resolutions on peace in
Congo were adopted by 75 nations with recommendations to the United
Nations Security Council for implementation. It is
noteworthy that Rwanda was the only country that abstained during
this debate that was crucial for peace in DRC and the great lakes
region. I have since continued to follow up on the progress of
these matters at the United Nations and with your administration, in
course of which in early November 2012, I have spoken two times to your
assistants at the White House and five times to your
representatives at the United Nations while many human rights
workers have also struggled to bring to your attention the numerous
crimes and injustices against humanity being committed in Eastern
DRC.
Mr.
President as you no doubt proceed with the business of governing
America and mindful of securing
your legacy in history, I wish to also bring directly to your
attention the plight of the DRC, a nation of about 70 million men, women
and children. The DRC has been embroiled in a never ending
cycle of wars over the last two decades with killings with impunity,
war crimes on very grand scales by multiple perpetrators, genocide
perpetrated against defenceless civilian populations, mass
rapes as a weapon of war, abduction of children and forced use as
child soldiers, foreign invasions and a continuous campaign to
destabilize and control its resources by belligerent
neighbours. 2
These
atrocities continue and even now are worsened by the recent mutiny and
fighting by M23. They have
contributed to the death of over 6 million people making the DRC’s
war the deadliest conflict in the world since the second world war and
at least equal in scale to the holocaust. A study
published by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in January
2008 said that 5.4 million people had died from 1998 to 2007 in Congo,
with 45,000 more victims being added to the death toll
every month. These atrocities have sadly been allowed to continue
with very little political will on the part of the United States and the
International Community to engage in a concerted effort
to bring peace to the region. This is in spite of the largest
contingent of United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) being stationed in
DRC with an annual budget of $1.4 billion in the year 2012-2013
alone. This force has instead been passive bystanders without the will
to enforce the peace they have been mandated to keep. The
DRC’s situation has been further compounded by the United States of
America's position which has been to blindly support Rwanda and Uganda
who have been behind most of these efforts at
destabilising the DRC in a bid to control its resources.
Events
in DRC bear a strong parallel with the Nazi holocaust which was allowed
to grow unchecked while
most of Europe appeased Hitler and failed to heed the atrocities he
was unleashing on the Jews and the world at large. Hitler was hailed as a
strong leader instead and his economic reforms in
Germany were being focused on. Today the situation in DRC closely
resembles the holocaust in the scale of systematic killings and
extermination of civilian populations while Kagame’s excuse for
involvement is being passed off as a legitimate quest to safeguard
his country’s security. His expansionist plans towards the DRC are not
recognised for what they are instead western leaders line
up as cheer leaders and make excuses for atrocities he is unleashing
in the DRC.
Mr.
President, resolving the problems in the DRC requires understanding the
background of its problems
and appreciating the opportunities. Throughout the last two decades,
the war from 1998 to date known as the last Congo war is the worst
humanitarian disaster and genocide since World War
II-claiming the lives of more than 6 million innocent black
children, women and men while unspeakable gross crimes continue to be
committed against civilians. These have included crimes against
humanity, war crimes, torture, sexual violence, recruitment and use
of children in fighting associated with the armed forces and armed
groups, as well as enforced disappearances and
killings.
A
United Nations report named the Eastern DRC the rape capital of the
world concluding that an average
of 48 women and girl child are raped every hour in the Eastern DRC
and those are only statistics for the reported cases. A study, in the
American Journal of Public Health, found that more than
400,000 females aged 15-49 were raped over a 12-month period in 2006
and 2007 alone. In early may 2012, one hospital in Goma known as Heal
Africa, alone reported 5,000 rape cases of women and
children. The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative has confirmed that
even these outrageously high figures still represent a conservative
estimate of the true prevalence of sexual violence because of
chronic underreporting due to stigma, shame, perceived impunity, and
exclusion of younger and older age groups as well as men. Such crimes
continue to take place, most notably in the east and
northeast even under the gaze of the United Nations and countries
like the United States. 3
While
this continues the impunity of perpetrators and a denial of justice for
the victims remains
pervasive, and millions of families are and continue to be broken as
a result of the direct impacts of this unjust traumatic war.
The
United Nations report famously known as the "UN Mapping Report,”
described human rights violations
in the DRC from 1993 through 2003. Finally published by the United
Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2010, after
long delays, the report specifically charges Rwandan
troops with engaging in mass killings termed as crimes against
humanity and genocide. Similarly the most recent report by a UN Group of
Experts belatedly released in 2012 concludes that M23, the
"Congolese rebel" group that captured Goma in November 2012, is in
reality "a Rwandan creation," entrenched with over 4,000 Rwandan
soldiers that take their orders from President Paul Kagame’s
top army commanders with the role of Rwandan Minister of Defence
James Kabarebe and that of General Emmanuel Ruvusha very well
documented. All the above has been carried out in obvious breach of
every principle of International Law, and human decency, and in full
view of the inadequately-led, inadequately-sized, ineffective,
incompetent, overvalued, expensive and overpaid United Nations
Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (MONUSCO) with at least indirect logistical support from the
United States of America and their allies.
Consequent
to these reports, Stephen Rapp, the head of the United States of
America war crimes office
had warned Rwanda's leaders, including Paul Kagame, that they could
face prosecution at the International Criminal Court for arming groups
responsible for crimes against humanity in the DRC. It
is for similar actions that the former Liberian president, Charles
Taylor, was jailed for 50 years by the International Criminal Court in
May 2012 (McGreal 2012) for supporting crimes in his
neighbouring country of Sierra Leone
Paul
Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda have continued to use
the war against Hutu
'genocidists' as a pretext for occupying mining concessions and
systematically exploiting them. This pretext of attacking Hutu
‘genociders’ in DRC have always been known as wrong and fabricated
by Rwanda, Uganda and it is surprising why or how the United States
of America has continued to be convinced by this argument even in the
face of obvious facts to the contrary. An example of this
was demonstrated in 2001 when fighting broke out between the two
invading armies of Rwanda and Uganda in the oriental province of
Kisangani, DRC in a dispute over the sharing of large mines of
the Congolese diamond, gold and coltan minerals. The genocide in
Congo has been very profitable for Uganda and Rwanda, who have plundered
the Eastern Congo's mineral resources for sale to
multinational corporations, most of them based in the United States
and Europe.
Paul
Kagame and his allies have always explained the war in DRC as an ethnic
war and as a result the
International Community has been encouraging insincere talks such as
the current peace talks in Kampala,. Peace talks like these are
strategies that have benefited Kagame and allies and have
helped them maintain and sustain this war for more than two decades
now. These strategies by empowering rebels and assimilating them into
government as part of ensuring peace process are
undermining peace in the region and denigrating the victims in DRC. 4
They
legitimise armed conflict as a way of resolving differences and
maintain the cycle of war in the
region. One of the most serious threats to global peace is terrorism
and for any reason, it is unjustified and its perpetrators must be
brought to justice and not accommodated in bogus peace
agreements.
Mr.
President, the long term role of the United States of America in the
wars in Congo, its guilt over
the Rwandan genocide in 1994, mineral extraction and use of conflict
minerals, on-going genocide in the DRC and the choice of silence over
justice by the United States and the International
Community are pertinent issues all very well documented and
researched. I am aware the former democratic United States president
Bill Clinton is regarded as a personal adviser to Paul Kagame and
I believe the United States guilt over their inaction in the 1994
genocide fuelled United States sympathy toward Rwanda. I feel this
sympathy and guilt is one of the reasons why the United States
has decided to look the other way while a genocide of an equal if
not higher magnitude to the Holocaust unfolds in DRC. I strongly believe
this position is morally reprehensible and unjustifiable
and must be challenged and stopped by all right thinking people who
love truth and justice. I cannot understand how perpetuating violence
and genocide in DRC will assuage the pain or guilt of
genocide committed in Rwanda from 20 years earlier.
I
believe it was in part response to your concerns about events in DRC
that led you as a Senator and
member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to sponsor the
most comprehensive piece of United States of America legislation on the
DRC. The DRC Relief, Security and Democracy Promotion Act
of 2006 which highlights United States policy objectives towards the
DRC with a particular emphasis on promoting improved governance,
neutralizing armed groups, and ensuring responsible and
transparent management of natural resources while assisting the DRC
government as it seeks to meet the basic needs of its citizens. These
laudable objectives have however been undermined by your
administration as president which has adopted contradictory
positions.
According
to a report by United Nations investigators in 2011, Mr. Kase Lawal
your appointed trade
adviser was implicated in an illegal transaction in Congolese gold
with Bosco Ntaganda, a war criminal indicted by the International
Criminal Court over crimes against humanity committed in DRC
and the commanding officer of M23. This demonstrates the extent to
which some of your officials actively collude with perpetrators behind
the atrocities in the DRC and raises serious questions of
the neutrality of your appointed officials towards the peace process
in Congo.
Mr.
President, the United States have also played a key role in suppressing
information on Rwanda and
Uganda’s role in the ongoing genocide in DRC. The United States
ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has sought to protect Rwanda
and Uganda by several means at her disposal including,
delaying publication of a United Nations Group of Experts report,
and at the same time suppressing efforts within the State Department to
sanction Uganda and Rwanda for their crimes against
humanity being committed in Eastern DRC. In November 2012, Rice
blocked the UN Security Council from explicitly demanding that Rwanda
immediately cease providing support to M23 criminal movement
who vowed to march all the way to Kinshasa, the Congolese capital. 5
It
is very clear to all Congolese people that atrocities in DRC are
encouraged by western powers, and in
particular the United States and the United Kingdom, who are arming,
training and equipping the Rwandan and Ugandan militaries while both
countries continue to receive more than half their
budgets in Western aid. Your ambassador at the UN Susan Rice has
argued against directly naming Rwanda and Uganda stating that it would
be an obstruction to peace. Instead she has chosen to
remain silent and complicit in the atrocities and in Rwanda’s plans
to annex and balkanise the Eastern DRC as her appeasement to the
regional strongmen and United States allies Paul Kagame and
Yuweri Museveni. Furthermore while other western democracies have
substantially cut aid to Rwanda in response to their involvement in the
ongoing genocide your administration only to cut a mere
$200,000 as a gesture.
Mr.
President, the United States position on the DRC has reached an
unbearable and untenable extent,
dangerous to global peace and security. If the United States
maintains this position it will incite a terrible genocide in the great
lakes region of Africa, and likely encourage jihadist
reactions by the Congolese people who continue to feel
powerlessness. I fear that ultimately these injustices will prove a
fertile ground for terrorists who will thrive in the absence of
government and use the region as a safe haven. Eastern DRC may also
become attractive to terrorist groups wishing to control mining and
distribution of minerals as a source of financing to
maintain terrorist activities around the globe. The ultimate worst
case scenario will be where terrorists may gain access to uranium from
illegal mines in DRC as an ingredient for a dirty bomb
which is not entirely farfetched in the current climate of
instability and lack of security in the country.
Mr.
President, your failure to hold to account those responsible for the
violations in the DRC has a
harmful impact of additionally entrenching a culture of impunity; it
fosters cycles of violence and violations; it undermines any efforts to
create a culture of peace and respect for a democratic
rule of law.
These
crises are symptoms of unresolved regional and local conflicts, a
failure to achieve structural
reform within the security sector, poor governance and non-existent
rule of law. They arise from the inability to address the sources of
financing for armed groups, end impunity and extend state
authority.
In
spite of Joseph Kabila being in power for the last 12 years, DRC still
has a very weak government run
by a weakened and corrupt leadership with no legitimacy or
credibility. Kabila’s continued stay in power further sets the stage for
even more corruption, more atrocities from various divisive
forces creating more instability in the country and in the region at
large at even more human and material cost to the United States and to
the United Nations. Therefore there is an argument to
be made for DRC to have a strong central government and leadership
which will have attendant positive ripple effects since it will provide a
capable leadership, security for the people of DRC
within its borders, economic prosperity for the country and the
region and with ultimately less resources being dedicated by the United
States through the United Nations towards propping up the
Government of DRC.
Mr. President, I do applaud your phone call made to Paul Kagame in mid-December 2012 warning him about
his crimes against humanity and his inconsistent deceitful messages of peace for the great lakes region; 6
I also wish to acknowledge with gratitude your support for the United Nations sanctions against the M23
and FDLR movements adopted December 31st 2012.
However in the face of the daunting
challenges of continued genocide in Eastern DRC and covert attempts
at balkanising a sovereign state, these steps are rather belated and are
only limited attempts towards true peace in Eastern
DRC and the region at large.
The
United States as a major player with all the resources, influence and
good will at its disposal is
in a vantage position to drive a renewed sincere process
establishing hope, peace and justice with rule of law for the people of
DRC.
As a strategy towards your administration pursuing and meeting these objectives, I humbly recommend the
following:
- End impunity by calling on the MONUSCO to support the arrest of Bosco Ntaganda already indicted by ICC
for war crimes against humanity;
- Call for Rwanda to hand over and transfer Laurent
Nkundabatware to the International Criminal Court for trial;
- Demand an ICC indictment against Paul Kagame for
his crimes against humanity committed in Congo;
- Support
imposition of comprehensive sanctions on
top-level Rwandan and Ugandan officials named in the United Nations
Expert and Mapping Reports while withholding all military aid to both
countries;
- Demand a cessation of all unlawful cross-border
support to armed groups operating in the DRC;
- Cessation of the militarization and support of strongmen in the region that date to the Clinton
administration;
- Support the establishment of a new responsible
and credible Congolese government that will secure its people and its boundaries and rebuild its institutions;
- Demand
the UN Security Council to develop and
implement a comprehensive strategy, with a strong political
component, to address pervasive insecurity and the threat of illegal
armed groups in eastern Congo;
- Demand the United Nations Security Council to
revisit and allow the MONUSCO mandate to be able to reinforce peace.
-
I and millions of other Congolese citizens look up to you and other
comity of nations to help uphold
our God given rights to a just equal and free country within which
we can live and prosper. We have been let down and abandoned to a sordid
fate to date and I feel it is a moral obligation that
will serve as your lasting legacy to the DRC and its people, the
region at large and global peace.
It
will ultimately be in United States’ own best medium and long term
strategic interests both
geopolitically and economically to lead rather than obstruct the
rest of the world in redressing an injustice and setting a country with
such vast potential on the path to a free democratic and
just society. 7
I
genuinely look forward to a favourable response from your government
and a renewed commitment by your
administration towards a true and lasting peace in the DRC. I
equally commit to working with your administration in any positive
capacity to achieve these goals.
In the meantime I plan to continue advocating for a true and just Congolese agenda which will help bring
more attention to the plight of my country and its people.
In
the absence of a genuine United States policy change towards peace in
DRC, I will continue to pursue
all peaceful avenues of protest at American institutions including
the American Embassy in Canada until America chooses to support a more
humane and morally appropriate policy towards true
lasting peace in Congo.
Yours sincerely
Fredrick Wangabo Mwenengabo
CC.
Ø His Excellency David Jacobson, Ambassador of the United States of
America to Canada
Ø The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of
Canada
Ø His Excellency François Hollande, President of
France
Ø His Excellency Elio Di Rupo, Prime Minister for the Federal
Government of the Kingdom of Belgium
Ø His Excellency David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom
Ø His Excellency Dr. Thomas Yayi Boni, President of Benin, Chair of
the African Union
Ø His Excellency Joachim Gauck, President of Germany
Ø Her Excellency Angela Dorothea Merkel, Chancellor of
Germany
Ø His Excellency Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the
Netherlands
Ø His Excellency John Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister of
Sweden
Ø Her Excellency Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Prime Minister of
Denmark
Ø His Excellency Jens Stoltenberg, Prime Minister of
Norway
Ø Hon. Joe Biden, Vice President-United States of
America
Ø Mrs. Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, United States Secretary of
State
Ø His Excellence Bill Clinton, former U.S. President
Ø His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, United Nations General
Secretary
Ø Mr. Vuk Jeremić, President of the United Nations General
Assembly
Ø His Excellency Abdou Diouf, General Secretary- Organisation of La
Francophonie
Ø His Excellency Kamalesh Sharma, Secretary
General-Commonwealth
Ø The Honorable Bernard Valcourt, Associate Minister of National
Defence and Minister of State (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency) (La Francophonie), Canada
Ø The Honorable John Baird, Minister of Foreign
Affairs
Ø The Honorable Keith Ashfield, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and
Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, Canada
Ø The Honourable Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
France
8
Ø The Honorouble Bernard Cazeneuve, Minister Delegate for European
Affairs, attached to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, France
Ø The Honourable William Hague, British Foreign
Secretary
Ø His Excellency José Manuel Durao Barroso, President of the
European Commission
Ø His Excellency Martin Schulz , President of the European
Parliament
Ø Senator John Kerry, United States for Massachusetts
Ø The honorable John McCain, Senator of Arizona
Ø The Hon. Chris Smith, U.S. Representative and Chairman
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations
Ø Ambassador Susan E. Rice, US Permanent Representative to the
United Nations
Ø Ambassador Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs U.S. Department of State
Ø The Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman-United States Foreign Affairs
Committee
Ø His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor
General of Canada
Ø Mrs. Karen Ruth Bass, U.S. Congresswoman and Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations
Ø The Hon. Tom Marino U.S. Congressman and Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations
Ø The United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Ø The Speaker of the Canadian House of Parliament, Senator Noël A.
Kinsella, Canada
Ø The Speaker of the House of Commons The Hon. Andrew Scheer ,
Canada
Ø The Honorable Tom Mulcair, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of
Canada's New Democrats
Ø The leader of the Green Party of Canada, Hon. Elizabeth
May
Ø His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Ø Mr Nils Muižnieks, Commissioner-Council of Europe for Human
Rights
Ø Mrs. Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor at the International Criminal
Court
Ø Ms. Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights
Ø Mr. Salil Shetty, Amnesty International Secretary
General
Ø Mr. Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch Executive
Director
Ø His Excellency Gérard Araud, Permanent Representative of France to
the United Nations in New York
Ø His Excellency Philippe ZELLER, Ambassador of France to
Canada
Ø His Excellency Bruno VAN DER PLUIJM, Ambassador of Belgium to
Canada
Ø Local and International Press
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