Turmoil in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC

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Translated text:
Recent fighting in eastern DRC leaves more than 100,000 displaced in one week

"Intense clashes between the Congolese army and a non-state armed group in Masisi centre, in North Kivu province, have displaced around 102,000 people," the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday.

According to local information, this assessment covers the period between January 1 and 3, 2025, the authority specifies.

⚔️ The M23 armed group took control of Masisi, a key town of 40,000 people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on Saturday. Relative calm was observed in the town on 5 January, prompting some displaced families to begin returning home, notes OCHA.

But "the influx of displaced populations could worsen the disastrous situation in Masisi, where more than 600,000 were registered as of November 30, 2024," the report adds.

#RDC #M23

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Text:
DRCongo
Now the M23 has taken #Goma, and look at the crowds…
this means the end of the “Internal Displaced Camps”, the Congolese will be able to return to their homes…

Honestly, if it’s good news for the Displaced Populations, it’s bad news for the “Humanitarians”, let’s keep in minds that AlmsDealers are like ArmsDealers … it’s all about the money 💰 the NGO’s in DRC means business.

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https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/28/africa/violence-erupts-dr-congo-m23-goma-intl/index.html



A rebel alliance claimed the capture of the biggest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral-rich eastern region this week, pushing back against resistance from government troops backed by regional and UN intervention forces.

The takeover of Goma is yet another territorial gain for the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC) rebel coalition, which includes the M23 armed group – sanctioned by the United States and the United Nations.

It is also a swift expansion of the alliance’s foothold across swathes of eastern DR Congo – where rare minerals crucial to the production of phones and computers are mined – and is likely to worsen a long-running humanitarian crisis in the region.


https://apnews.com/article/congo-kagame-rwanda-m23-goma-dc811a91d29374a8771333abcb3705a6



Associated Press (AP) — Rwanda-backed rebels captured large parts of eastern Congo’s largest city including its airport, the United Nations said, as Rwanda’s president on Wednesday joined calls for a ceasefire in the decades long conflict.

Much of the beleagured city of Goma was calm early Wednesday morning, after a day during which thousands of fleeing people hunkered down by roadsides as missiles flew and injured people streamed to overwhelmed hospitals.

While government forces still control pockets of Goma, residents who spoke to The Associated Press by phone on Tuesday said that the M23 rebel group was in control of much of the city.

The M23 rebels, who claimed to have captured the city on Monday after a weekslong advance, are one of about 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in mineral-rich eastern Congo. The conflict escalated with the rebels’ advance into Goma, which left dead bodies on the streets and drove hundreds of thousands of already displaced people to flee once again.

After clashing with government forces, the rebels took control of the airport, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a briefing on Tuesday, warning of “risks of a breakdown of law and order in the city given the proliferation of weapons.”

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said on X that he spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on “the need to ensure a ceasefire and address the root causes of the conflict once and for all.”

His government denies supporting M23, despite reports from U.N. experts who estimate there are up to 4,000 Rwandan forces in Congo. Rwanda has accused Congo of enlisting Hutu rebels and former militiamen whom it blames for the 1994 genocide.


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The fire posted above was also used for the capital (https://en.mehrnews.com/news/227558/US-France-embassies-attacked-in-Congo-amid-unrest):



Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) fired tear gas at protesters in the capital, Kinshasa, on Tuesday, after embassies were attacked over the conflict in the country's east.

The demonstrators targeted embassies of countries they accuse of complicity in supporting M23 rebels, who have seized the eastern provincial capital, Goma.

A European diplomat told Reuters that the embassies of France, the United States, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya were targeted by the protesters.

French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in a post on X that the French embassy in Kinshasa was attacked and briefly caught fire, although the blaze had been brought under control.

Protests erupted across the city with demonstrators burning tires and clashing with the police who fired tear gas to disperse them, a Reuters reporter in Kinshasa said.

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https://en.sputniknews.africa/20250129/continuation-of-africas-exploitation-zambian-expert-on-drc-conflict-and-western-interests-in-it-1070409670.html

The current battle for control of rare earth metals in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) represents a continuation of Africa's historical exploitation of its mineral resources, Dr. Lubinda Haabazoka, Director of the Graduate School of Business at the University of Zambia, told Sputnik Africa.

"I think that what is happening in Congo is a continuation of Africa's exploitation in terms of mineral resources," he said.

Recently, the conflict between the DRC and neighboring Rwanda has intensified, with many questioning who stands to gain from this instability. According to Dr. Haabazoka, Congo has never been permitted to officially export its diamonds and mineral resources, as they are classified as minerals from a war zone. He explained that these resources are funneled through third-party countries, effectively altering their origin. As a result, Taiwan, the United States, Microsoft, and IBM benefit, utilizing these vital materials for electronics, chips, and electric vehicles' production.
Western interests in the region have long been a subject of scrutiny.

"It's in the best interest of those that are using these mineral resources to destabilize Congo, so they can mine illegally and, through other third countries, export these mineral resources to the same companies and countries," Dr. Haabazoka pointed out.

This manipulation not only undermines the sovereignty of the DRC, but also perpetuates a cycle of exploitation reminiscent of colonial times.

Despite the complexity of the situation, there is hope for an African-driven solution. Dr. Haabazoka believes that the Southern African Development Community's strong stance could lead to a resolution that prioritizes African interests over external influences.
"The SADC is chaired by Zimbabwe, and has no tolerance to Western manipulation," he emphasized.

However, the speaker acknowledged that the road to peace is fraught with challenges.

"Congo now is a strong country; it has stable leadership, so we expect it to push back. But I think that the people that are backing the M23 forces are also equally strong, and they've been preparing for this for a long time," he said.

As protests against Western involvement continue to flare up, the message resonates across the continent.
"Other African nations are united and stand with Congo because that is basically every African country might be vulnerable for such," Dr. Haabazoka concluded.

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African Union Calls on M23 Rebels in DRC to Lay Down Arms, Move to Dialogue

On Monday, a rebel alliance, which includes members of the M23 movement, said it had seized North Kivu province's Goma, the largest city in eastern DRC. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Rwanda to withdraw its troops from the DR Congo.
"Bankole Adeoye condemns violence by M23 and all other negative forces, and calls for full respect of DRC's sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity. He urges M23 to lay down arms, honor the August 2024 Ceasefire Agreement, and prioritize dialogue for a peaceful solution," the African Union Commission's Department on Political Affairs said on X on Tuesday.

Adeoye also called for the resumption of work in the format of the Nairobi Peace Initiative to support the official authorities of the DRC and achieve dialogue between the opposing sides.

UNSC to Discuss DRC Again as Rebels Advance in Country's East, Chairman Says
The Southern African Development Community said over the weekend that its SAMIDRC mission in Goma came under a deadly attack by the M23 armed group on January 22, in what it said was a clear violation of the Angola-brokered ceasefire.
In July 2022, a DRC-Rwanda summit took place in Angola after M23 rebels, who claim to be protecting the rights of the Tutsi minority, stepped up the fighting in the eastern DRC. The DRC accused Rwanda of supporting the rebels, while Rwanda denied having any links to the movement.

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South African🇿🇦 President Cyril Ramaphosa held a telephone call with his Rwandan 🇷🇼 counterpart Paul Kagame Tuesday to discuss the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where M23 rebels have reportedly gained more territory after they said they had seized control of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

A statement released on X by South Africa’s presidential office said Ramaphosa and Kagame agreed on the “urgent need for a ceasefire and the resumption of peace talks by all parties who are involved in the conflict.”

The call between the two heads of state was held amid worsening relations between Rwanda and DRC. This was a result of Kinshasa alleging that Kigali is backing the M23 attack in the Central African nation. However, Kagame’s government insists that it is not supporting the rebel group.

Several African leaders, including Angola’s President João Lourenço have attempted to bring peace to DRC and mediate the tension between Kinshasa and Kigali.

Peace talks that were focused on addressing to DRC’s crisis were scheduled to be held in Angola’s capital, Luanda, in December 2024. However, they collapsed after DRC and Rwanda authorities failed to reach an agreement on terms.

Source: VOA Africa
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A day after Congolese patriot set the French Embassy alight, Macron sent his senior diplomat,Jean-Noel Barrot, to Kinshasa without delay, and in a state of deep panic.

The message was firm and clear, "any security deals with Russia will be a red line for France".

Guess what guys , Tshisekedi capitulated, and ended up apologising to France.

France knows that it's relationship with the people of the DRC has irretrievably broken, just like it has with our Sahelian family , but that nation called France, does not give up easily, it would try and use it's puppets to fight it's corner until the very end, and until it gets what it wants.

Congolese people wants their sovereignty like the AES, and they know very well, that they can't have sovereignty with France or Tshisekedi.

I am confident that the masses will win in the end, and Congolese will stand up and demand their government accept the military assistance offered to them by the Russian Federation, so they can be in a position to defend their territorial integrity, like other sovereign nations on this universe.
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https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/hundreds-of-women-raped--burned-alive-in-goma-prison-fire

Hundreds of women raped, burned alive in Goma prison fire

Hundreds of women were raped and burned alive amid the chaos that followed the entry of Rwandan-backed militants into the Congolese city of Goma last week.

According to a senior UN official, the female inmates were assaulted inside the women’s wing of Goma’s Munzenze prison during a mass jailbreak.

Vivian van de Perre, deputy head of the UN peacekeeping force based in Goma, reported that while several thousand male prisoners managed to escape, the section housing women was deliberately set on fire.

Images captured shortly after the arrival of M23 militants in central Goma on 27 January show thick black smoke billowing from the prison. Although details remain scarce, the incident appears to be one of the worst atrocities linked to the ongoing M23-led conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, with UN peacekeepers unable to access the site due to restrictions imposed by the rebels, the identity of those responsible remains uncertain.

By Tuesday, reports emerged that approximately 2,000 bodies were still awaiting burial in Goma following the rebel takeover of North Kivu’s provincial capital on 27 January.

Van de Perre, stationed in Goma alongside thousands of UN peacekeeping troops deployed to protect civilians, stated, “There was a major prison breakout of 4,000 escaped prisoners. A few hundred women were also in that prison.

“They were all raped and then they set fire to the women’s wing. They all died afterwards.”

Driving the news

This week, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warned that rival armed groups in Goma were using sexual violence as a weapon of war.

The city, home to more than a million people, remains under the full control of M23 militants. However, in an unexpected development late on Monday, the militia declared a unilateral “ceasefire".

Until then, concerns had been rising over Rwanda’s potential plans to seize further territory from its vast neighbor, with M23 forces steadily advancing south toward Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, located 190km (120 miles) from Goma.

A political-military coalition that includes M23, the Alliance Fleuve Congo (Congo River Alliance), issued a statement asserting that it had “no intention of taking control of Bukavu or other localities.”

Commenting on the ceasefire, Van de Perre remarked, “I hope it stays that way because they [M23] were already moving in the direction of Bukavu with reinforcements and heavy weaponry, which can be seen passing [along] the streets in Goma."

“If they retreat, that’s good news. Otherwise, we’ll have a new clash with potentially thousands of additional deaths.”

She suggested that M23’s decision may have been influenced by the recent deployment of Burundian reinforcements in Bukavu and the use of a nearby airport by the Congolese Air Force.

“The Burundians have sent 2,000 extra troops to Bukavu, and they are very good fighters. I think M23 is currently rethinking their next steps,” she said.

The big picture

Despite mounting evidence, Rwanda continues to deny any involvement with M23 or any incursion into eastern Congo.

However, Van de Perre, who is part of the UN peacekeeping force Monusco, stated that her team had observed Rwandan soldiers during patrols, describing their presence as so overt that it suggests a lack of concern over international consequences.

She called on the UN Security Council to apply greater diplomatic pressure on Rwanda. “We really need to get back to the negotiating table. And that is only possible if the members of the security council and other important countries exert enough pressure on Rwanda and Congo,” she said.

Previously, another senior UN official speculated that Rwanda had long-term ambitions to absorb a portion of DRC larger than Rwanda itself. “This is a long-term policy to get the broader Kivu area into the sphere of Rwandan influence and, later, under complete administrative control,” they said.

Before the ceasefire announcement, Van de Perre expressed concern over reports of groups preparing a counteroffensive. “We already have reports that in certain places people are gathering and organizing,” she warned.

She also noted the dire humanitarian conditions in Goma, where movement remains severely restricted. “They [the M23] allow us to bring food and water to our bases, but apart from that we can barely move around,” she said.

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Patrice Lamumba, First prime minister of the Republic of the Congo

Text:

Patrice Lumumba Last Letter.

He was the first legally elected prime minister of D.R Congo and was assassinated in 1961 following a military coup supported by U.S.A & Belgian imperialism which was admitted by the State Dept in 2013.

My dear wife,

I am writing these words to you, not knowing whether they will ever reach you, or whether I shall be alive when you read them.
Throughout my struggle for the independence of our country I have never doubted the victory of our sacred cause, to which I and my comrades have dedicated all our lives.
But the only thing which we wanted for our country is the right to a worthy life, to dignity without pretence, to independence without restrictions.
This was never the desire of the Belgian colonialists and their Western allies, who received, direct or indirect, open or concealed, support from some highly placed officials of the United Nations, the body upon which we placed all our hope when we appealed to it for help.
They seduced some of our compatriots, bought others and did everything to distort the truth and smear our independence.
What I can say is this—alive or dead, free or in jail—it is not a question of me personally.
The main thing is the Congo, our unhappy people, whose independence is being trampled upon.
That is why they have shut us away in prison and why they keep us far away from the people. But my faith remains indestructible.
I know and feel deep in my heart that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of their internal and external enemies, that they will rise up as one in order to say 'No' to colonialism, to brazen, dying colonialism, in order to win their dignity in a clean land.
We are not alone. Africa, Asia, the free peoples and the peoples fighting for their freedom in all corners of the world will always be side by side with the millions of Congolese who will not give up the struggle while there is even one colonialist or colonialist mercenary in our country.
To my sons, whom I am leaving and whom, perhaps, I shall not see again, I want to say that the future of the Congo is splendid and that I expect from them, as from every Congolese, the fulfilment of the sacred task of restoring our independence and our sovereignty.
Without dignity there is no freedom, without justice there is no dignity and without independence there are no free men.
Cruelty, insults and torture can never force me to ask for mercy, because I prefer to die with head high, with indestructible faith and profound belief in the destiny of our country than to live in humility and renounce the principles which are sacred to me.
The day will come when history will speak. But it will not be the history which will be taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations.
It will be the history which will be taught in the countries which have won freedom from colonialism and its puppets.
Africa will write its own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity.
Do not weep for me. I know that my tormented country will be able to defend its freedom and its independence.
Long live the Congo!
Long live Africa!
Thysville prison
Patrice LUMUMBA

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https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/02/1160136

DR Congo displacement, health crisis worsens amid dwindling aid access

“The crisis is worsening as people flee to areas where humanitarian aid cannot reach due to insecurity,” UN refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesperson Eujin Byun told reporters in Geneva.

The development comes a day after the top UN aid official in the country Bruno Lemarquis warned that a shortage of humanitarian routes was threatening the aid operation in the region.

Advance on Bukavu

The rebels, who seized North Kivu province’s capital Goma late last month, are advancing towards Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, following a short-lived lull in fighting.

Ms. Byun said that in South Kivu, more than half of the aid groups providing critical support to survivors of sexual violence “report being unable to reach those in need due to insecurity and continuous displacement”.

Meanwhile, in North Kivu, “the destruction of health facilities, including mortuaries, and overcrowded hospitals increase the risk of spreading infectious diseases, including cholera, malaria, and measles,” she said.

The UNHCR spokesperson also highlighted the fact that “heavy artillery shelling and looting” have destroyed 70,000 emergency shelters around Goma and Minova in North and South Kivu provinces, leaving some 350,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) “once again without a roof over their heads”.

While some 100,000 displaced people have attempted to return to their home areas – where they are met with damage to their homes and a lack of essential services – many remain stranded, Ms. Byun said.

Deadly remnants

Unexploded ordnance left over from the fighting is another obstacle to their safe return.

Ms. Byun warned of the possibility that those people “will be displaced once again”.

The UNHCR spokesperson stressed that most of the 28 IDP sites around Goma are now destroyed. The agency’s concern in terms of aid access is that the road from Goma to Bukavu has been cut off, she said.

Ms. Byun also recalled that the airport in Goma is “still not functioning for humanitarian aid”.

“Since violence has spread to South Kivu, this supply line is our biggest concern,” she added.

With the rebels pushing towards Bukavu, the UN’s Mr. Lemarquis expressed worry on Thursday about the fate of South Kivu’s main airport some 20 miles from the province’s capital, which until recently was the “main lifeline” for bringing in humanitarian personnel.

Mpox spread

Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the UN World Health Organization (WHO), Christian Lindmeier, highlighted the “heavy” impact of the hostilities on the mpox response, “particularly in Goma and the adjacent area” as the fighting spread southwards.

He stressed that the DRC is “the worst-affected country for mpox”, with Kivu being the epicentre of the highly infectious clade 1b outbreak.

Due to the rapid spread of the clade 1b strain, in August last year WHO moved to declare mpox once again a “public health emergency of international concern”, for the second time after a global outbreak of the virus made headlines in 2022.

Earlier this month, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that before the latest violence in eastern DRC, mpox cases had been stabilizing. But the recent fighting has forced patients to flee treatment centres, increasing transmission risks.

“Out of 143 confirmed mpox patients in isolation units in Goma and around, 128 fled in fear for their lives,” Mr. Lindmeier said, stressing that only 15 patients remain in isolation.

“That’s of course dangerous for everybody around,” he insisted.

Mr. Lindmeier added that some health facilities in the area had been looted, health workers had fled, and people were unable to access healthcare because of the security situation.

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Text:
In the church of the village of Mayba, the province of Northern Kiva in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) found the bodies of more than 70 people. This was announced by the Congolese radio station Okapi.

Among the dead are women, children and elderly people. All of them were abducted by militants three days ago in Lubero district, connected and beheaded.

The authorities believe that militants from the extremist group "Alliance of Democratic Forces" (ADS) are behind the massacre. This group, created in Uganda in 1995, has been based since 2003 in the eastern regions of the DRC, where he regularly commits attacks on military and civilian facilities.

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https://westafricaweekly.com/7000-lives-lost-in-dr-congo-fighting-since-january-prime-minister-laments/

7,000 Lives Lost in DR Congo Fighting Since January – Prime Minister Laments


At least 7,000 people have died since January in ongoing fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka made this known to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday. She described the situation as a humanitarian disaster.

Tuluka noted that around 450,000 people are now homeless after 90 displacement camps were destroyed. Reuters reported that the M23 rebel group’s advance was the most serious escalation over a decade. The group now controls more territory than any armed faction since the wars that devastated Congo between 1996 and 2003. The group’s rapid gains in North and South Kivu have placed valuable mineral deposits under its control, raising fears of a wider conflict.

Rwanda denies accusations from Congo, the United Nations, and Western powers that it supplies M23 with weapons and troops. Meanwhile, the prime minister urged the international community to act. She called for “dissuasive sanctions” to address the mass killings and displacements.

It is impossible to describe the screams and cries of millions of victims of this conflict, she said.

The conflict has also intensified political pressure on President Félix Tshisekedi. On Saturday, his spokesperson announced plans to form a unity government and restructure the ruling Sacred Union coalition. While addressing party members the same day, Tshisekedi urged unity and said it would help ward off enemies of the country.

Since the start of the year, Congo’s military has suffered repeated losses in North and South Kivu. Frustration is growing over the government’s strategy. The M23’s capture of vast areas in eastern Congo has stirred widespread unrest and criticism of Tshisekedi’s presidency.

Read More:

Mali, Senegal Launch Joint Patrols To Combat Jihadist Threat

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John Legend’s concert in Rwanda signaled continued Davos elite support for Paul Kagame amid his bloody invasion of the DRC

The show was organized by
@GlblCtzn
, a Bill Gates-funded NGO backed by US corporations hungry for Africa’s resource wealth

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https://thegrayzone.com/2025/03/05/global-citizen-kagames-invasion-drc/

Billionaire-backed Global Citizen whitewashes Kagame’s invasion of DRC

John Legend’s concert in Rwanda signaled global elite support for Paul Kagame amid his bloody invasion of the DRC. The event was organized by Global Citizen, a pseudo-activist NGO backed by corporations hungry for Africa’s resource wealth.

On February 21st, as the Rwandan army deepened its invasion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), John Legend took the stage in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. There, the superstar singer-songwriter headlined a Move Afrika concert produced by Global Citizen, the international NGO front for global elites, NATO, and a corporate world order which bills itself as “the movement changing the world.”

The future that Global Citizen heralds is a borderless network of public-private partnerships in which oligarchs, global corporations, and the World Trade Organization profitably manage the world in the name of equity, sustainability, and climate defense. It’s the future promised in the Davos Agenda and the UN Pact for the Future passed by the UN General Assembly in 2024. (Russia, Belarus, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria opposed the pact as a threat to national sovereignty.)

Global Citizen doesn’t raise and disburse funds; it conducts global “awareness” campaigns to manufacture global consent – in this case, for the West’s decades-long proxy war for DRC’s unparalleled resource wealth, which has left millions of Congolese dead, and the rest of the country’s population with one of the world’s lowest per capita annual incomes.

The NGO’s corporate “partners” include tech giants PayPal, Cisco, WorldWide Technology, Verizon, and YouTube (Alphabet/Google), all of which depend to a large extent on minerals extracted from the DRC. Others, including Citibank, are hardly known for commitment to human rights; Citibank is, in fact, implicated in the 2001 UN investigators’ report on illegal resource traffic in DRC.

Global Citizen’s Global Board of Directors includes executives from Citibank, Cisco, Delta, and a long list of global asset managers, along with the former prime ministers of Norway and Sweden, top UN agency officials, and officers of closely allied billionaire-backed NGOs like the Open Society Foundations of George Soros, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Its Country and Regional Boards evince a special interest in Africa, the world’s most resource rich continent. Elites from Europe, Canada, Australia, and Africa are well represented there, but figures from Latin America and Asia are not, despite Global Citizen’s growing presence on those continents. In November 2025, the NGO will head to Brazil with “Global Citizen: Amazonia, the World’s First Impact Concert in the Amazon” at the UN’s 2025 COP.

An impact concert? What kind of impact? So far, participants have been promised a collection of “global and local artists” who will “celebrate major COP commitments, spotlight Indigenous leaders, and amplify campaigns for climate action.” Beyond that, the details are vague. “More info coming soon,” Global Citizen declares.

The consummately bland and meaningless language that fills the NGO’s website is clearly intended to gloss over any conflict or contradiction. But the blood-spattered backdrop to Global Citizen’s Kigali concert was impossible to ignore.

The “Global Citizen” as elite frontman

It should come as no surprise that John Legend performed in Kigali as Rwandan troops advanced in DRC, continuing the 30-year genocide against Congolese people. Like Kagame, the singer has been cultivated for over a decade as a top-tier frontman for the neoliberal global elite. Back in 2012, the Davos-based World Economic Forum appointed Legend to its Forum of Young Global Leaders. This February, Global Citizen announced on its Instagram page that it was “joined on the ground at Davos by three incredible artists” including John Legend.

Though he has at times spoken out in support of Palestinian human rights, Legend elected to perform at the August 2024 Democratic National Convention in support of then-Vice President Kamala Harris as she took ownership of the Biden administration’s genocidal policy toward the besieged Gaza Strip.

During his February 22 visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, Legend decried man’s inhumanity to man, likening the Rwandan Genocide to the Holocaust and the genocide of Native Americans, but omitted any mention of Gaza or Congo, genocides not granted the official status established by criminal indictments and Western-controlled international courts.

Legend has lent his status to numerous milquetoast productions by Global Citizen. In 2020 he hosted and performed for the second year in a row at the Global Citizen Prize for Activism, which honored Black Lives Matter, billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett, and Sesame Street’s Sesame Workshop. What more could any organization do to support the status quo?

Confronted with criticism of his performance in Kigali, Legend insisted that he did not want to limit any country’s economic opportunity because he disagreed with its government. However, back in 2019, he supported a proposed Hollywood boycott of US states which had enacted limits on abortion rights. As a loyal Democrat, he has actively campaigned for Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and many of the party’s down-ballot candidates, while severing his personal ties with his former artistic collaborator, Kanye West, over his support for Donald Trump. “Money talks,” Legend said of his boycott of states with anti-abortion GOP leaders.

Deploying his talents in support of NATO at the 2022 Grammy Awards, Legend debuted his slave liberation anthem, “Free”, in a choreographed spectacle that featured Ukrainian musicians and President Volodymyr Zelensky pleading for military support on a larger-than-life background screen.

On the Grammy’s official website, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Science trumpeted Global Citizen’s concurrent Stand Up for Ukraine extravaganza, which urged its million followers to join “one of the largest digital campaigns on social media by sharing why you support Ukraine and refugees everywhere.”

Several days after the awards ceremony, Global Citizen hosted an online propaganda rally for the Ukraine proxy war, presenting a series of online video messages from a long list of celebrities, including Julian Lennon performing his fathers pacifist anthem, “Imagine,” in a room full of candles in service of the NATO military machine.

One day after the social media rally, Global Citizen capped off its festival of propaganda with a real-life rally in Poland, one the most ardent supporters of the US war for Western capital and global corporations.

Convened by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, it concluded in a grand “global pledging summit” that saw governments and corporations promise $4.6 billion in grants and $5.5 billion in loans to aid Ukrainian refugees and IDPs. Contributors included the European Commission, Canada, and a list of European nations. Lenders included the European Investment Bank and the Council of Europe Development Bank. It wasn’t clear who the loans would go to, who would pay them back, or how.

Coca Cola, Nestle, Cisco, Google, and Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, were among the global corporations which contributed to demonstrate that they could be good global citizens too.

For all this, Global Citizen won an Anthem Award, a self-styled global do-gooder NGO whose mission is “amplifying the voices that spark global change” in support of “a purpose-driven society.”

Of course, there could be no better way to advance such a lofty mission than standing up for a NATO proxy war in Ukraine that has left a country in ruin, while music-washing a resource war in the heart of Africa – one that has left millions dead and a nation in chaos while its prime instigator danced to the crooning of John Legend, bathed in red and blue light, with “Global Citizen” emblazoned on his chest.

“Global Citizen” Paul Kagame manages lab for Western elite

Rwandan President Paul Kagame is a darling of the global elite. He hobnobs with them annually at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, though he kept clear of the neoliberal confab this year, presumably to manage the latest phase of his war in the DRC. Under Kagame’s management, Rwanda has become a veritable laboratory for technocratic, Davos-driven experiments in global governance, from digital IDs and “sustainable cities” to mandatory or even forced vaccination. In 2022, one Rwandan told Deutsche Welle that he was handcuffed in order to receive the jab. Others fled the country to escape being injected against their will.

In 2022, Kagame began negotiating with UK Prime Ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and then Rishi Sunak, to outsource migrants from war-ravaged areas of the Middle East to Rwanda for processing, asylum, and resettlement, demonstrating his readiness to volunteer his country as a dumping ground for the West’s human surplus. In 2023, after two years of outcry and legal struggle, a UK court ruled that Rwanda was not a safe place to remove asylum seekers to, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer then declared the plan “dead and buried” on his first day in office.

Kagame has also offered the Rwandan Defense Force in the service of Western military objectives on the African continent, most visibly now as an armed enforcer of the interests of France’s TOTAL Energies in Mozambique.

In 2017, Zionist influencer and sex toy salesman “Rabbi” Shmuley Boteach’s World Values Network presented Kagame with a prize for Outstanding Friendship with the Jewish People in the name of casino baron and pro-Netanyahu financier Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam. A year later Israel opened an embassy in Rwanda, with the Times of Israel heralding it as “a bid to strengthen its diplomatic foothold in Africa.” Israel and Rwanda have intertwined and reinforced their victims’ narratives since 1995.

Like Israel’s cutouts, the Davos set ignores decades worth of documentation of Kagame’s crimes in the DRC as long as he advances their agenda. Their infatuation also survives countless reports of his repressive extremes within Rwanda, including use of Israel’s Pegasus surveillance software, his transnational repression, his assassinations of critics at home and abroad, and his wholly implausible electoral victories, such as his 99%+ win in 2024.

In contrast, Vladimir Putin was banned from the annual Davos gathering in 2022, and Russia’s de facto Davos embassy was shut down after the World Economic Forum banned Russian officials and businessmen from participation.

The International Criminal Court slapped Putin with a dubious indictment, targeting him for evacuating thousands of almost exclusively Russian-speaking children from the eastern Ukrainian war zone to territory inside the Russian Federation, but has never gone near Kagame.

Rwanda’s War in DRC

John Legend said he’s “aware of what’s happening” in DRC, but what does he know about the conflict? Why aren’t he and Global Citizen as concerned by Rwandan troops in DRC as they are by Russian troops in Ukraine?

Have they bothered to consider UN investigators’ abundant documentation of Rwanda’s invasion, occupation, massacres, and atrocities in DRC, much of which has been summarized by the legacy press?

On the day before Legend’s Kigali concert, the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding that Rwanda’s M23 militia immediately cease hostilities, withdraw from all areas that it controls, “and fully reverse the establishment of illegitimate parallel administrations in the DRC territory.” It also called on Rwanda to withdraw all Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) from DRC and stop “supporting” M23.

President Kagame continues to deny that Rwandan troops are in DRC, but Rwanda’s invading and occupying army is in direct command of M23. Further, the May 2024 UN Group of Experts Report on the DRC documented the presence of 4,000 Rwandan troops inside Congo, more than M23. That report also stated:

“RDF military interventions and operations in Rutshuru, Masisi and Nyiragongo territories extended beyond mere support for M23 operations to direct and decisive involvement, allowing RDF and M23 to achieve military dominance in Petit Nord and rapid territorial expansion to the shores of Lake Edward. The deployment of advanced military technology and equipment bolstered joint M23-RDF operations, altering conflict dynamics, including by grounding all FARDC military air assets.”

The Group of Experts December 2024 report stated:

“M23 remained under the overall military command of ‘General’ Sultani Makenga, who continued to receive instructions and support from RDF and Rwandan intelligence. . .

“Every M23 unit was supervised and supported by RDF special forces… The commanding of targeted operations and handling of high-tech weaponry by RDF were critical in conquering new territories. Systematic support by RDF to M23 and its de facto control over M23 operations continued.”

A constant stream of RDF and M23 atrocity reports

Reports of M23 atrocities have emerged continuously since the militia first began rampaging across Congo in 2012-’13. The 2012 UN experts report stated that Rwandan Defense Chief James Kabarebe sat at the top of M23’s chain of command.

In 2014, a UN Security Council report stated that M23 had been responsible for mass killing civilians, raping, killing, and maiming women and children, forced displacement, and the forced recruitment of children..

On January 26th, Vivian van de Perre, Deputy Special Representative for Protection and Operations of the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, reported that M23 and the Rwanda Defence Forces had launched an attack on the strategically important city of Goma and that “these attacks continue to ravage the city, killing, injuring, traumatizing, and displacing civilians and exacerbating the crisis.”

During the first week of February 2025, the deputy head of the UN mission in DRC reported that nearly 3,000 people had been killed after M23 seized Goma, the capital of DRC’s North Kivu Province.

In mid-February 2025, after M23 seized Bukavu, the capital of DRC’s South Kivu Province, the UN human rights office accused it of summarily executing children, attacking hospitals and warehouses storing humanitarian aid, sexual violence, child and forced recruitment, and threatening journalists, human rights defenders, and members of civil society organizations.

This is just a short list of M23 atrocities, and they’re nothing new. UN investigators have documented atrocities and resource theft committed by Rwandan and Ugandan troops and their successive “Congolese” militias since Rwanda and Uganda invaded DRC, which was then Zaire, in 1996, then again in 1998.

Their reports include the UN Mapping Report on Human Rights Abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1993 to 2003, the 1998 Garreton Report, the United Nations Reports on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the DRC, 2001, 2002, 2003, and other bi-annual reports produced between 2004 and 2024.

The 2010 UN Mapping Report stated that its documentation might be used by a competent court to try Rwanda for committing genocide against Hutu refugees in DRC.

In 2007, the International Rescue Commission estimated that there had been 5.4 million excess deaths since Rwanda and Uganda invaded in 1998, with most dying of displacement and disease.

In November 2024, the UN’s International Organization for Migration estimated a total of 6.9 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in DRC, with the vast majority languishing in the eastern provinces bordering Rwanda and Uganda. In mid-January, the UN refugee agency estimated that 230,000 more people had been displaced since the beginning of the year, and during the first week of February, the World Food Program reported 700,000 displaced in the City of Goma alone.

Tweet! Text! Post! Sign!

According to Global Citizen’s clicktivist vision, we are one big human family which can change the world by tweeting, texting, posting, and signing petitions. Those who download the NGO’s app or sign up for its emails receive action alerts when it’s time to tweet, text, post, and sign. And whether they know it or not, they have volunteered themselves as soldiers in the digital army of billionaire Bill Gates.

However, no alerts will arrive from Global Citizen calling on Rwanda to withdraw its troops from DRC or on global corporations to stop buying minerals stolen from DRC.

In one particularly galling crusade, Global Citizen asked followers to “tweet at world leaders and tell them: A fully funded Gavi means a healthier future for millions of children!” In other words, it pushed you to lobby your governments to hand your taxes over to the Gavi Vaccine Alliance of Bill Gates, who happens to be a top funder of Global Citizen.

Manufacturing consent for the public subsidization of private foundations, corporations, and undemocratic global institutions like the IMF and World Bank is one of Global Citizen’s main reasons to exist. In October 2024, it rounded up a list of its usual collaborators like Intel, Cisco, and Bridgewater Associates, along with Lawrence H. Summers, former Treasury Secretary, neoliberal financial hit man, and overseer of the 2009 bank bailout, to lobby G20 countries to sink $120 billion into the World Bank’s International Development Association.

How much has IMF and World Bank lending helped the Global South? Jason Hickel reported that the per capita income gap between the North and South quadrupled in size between 1960 and 2020. “These institutions [the IMF and World Bank] were designed with colonial principles in mind,” he wrote, “and they remain largely colonial in character to this day.”

As Hickel explained, the leaders of the World Bank and IMF are not elected, but nominated by the US and Europe, and that voting power is skewed heavily in favour of the rich countries. For each vote that the average person in the global North enjoys in the Western-controlled financial system, the average person in the global South is granted just one-eighth of a vote.

These are precisely the kind of unelected global bodies that rely on Global Citizen for promotion and the channeling of capital.

Where will Global Citizen go next?

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Global Citizen to produce concerts in the revolutionary Alliance of Sahel States, where Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger are fighting to free themselves from the yoke of neocolonialism. These aren’t countries that consider themselves part of a “purpose-driven” global society changing the world one tweet, text, post, and petition signature at a time.

Their leaders don’t go to Davos. Since coming to power over the past three years, they have expelled French and US military installations, mining companies, and media outlets and have formed a federation committed to resisting neocolonialism and neoliberalism. They no longer belong to the Francophonie, France’s equivalent of the British Commonwealth of previously colonized, French-speaking nations.

The other stop on John Legend’s Global Citizen tour was in Lagos, Nigeria, on February 25th. Since 2023, Nigeria has been headed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a US-compliant billionaire committed to collaborating with the US Africa Command, and who threatened an invasion of neighboring Burkina Faso on behalf of the Western-backed ECOWAS military alliance.

As Kit Klarenberg and Alex Rubinstein reported for The Grayzone, Tinubu laundered millions for heroin dealers in Chicago, and has been mired in corruption scandals ever since.

According to a May 2024 Lloyd’s Bank report, nearly all Nigeria’s economic sectors are open to foreign investment, allowing for 100 percent foreign ownership, and its recent pro-market reforms led to a rise in “capital importation” to USD 1.1 billion.

Global Citizen’s reports on Nigeria are entirely aglow about citizen initiatives, with nothing about leadership’s corruption.

In September 2023, President Tinubu rang the closing bell at the NASDAQ exchange and announced that “Nigeria is open for business.”

[Ravenlocke]

https://x.com/telesurenglish/status/1917632541269303514

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https://www.telesurenglish.net/sadc-peacekeeping-force-begins-withdrawal-from-eastern-drc/?noamp=available

SADC Peacekeeping Force Begins Withdrawal from Eastern DRC

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) peacekeeping force deployed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to combat the rebel group March 23 Movement (M23) began its withdrawal on Tuesday, following an order issued by the regional bloc in late March.

“Rwanda is providing safe passage and escort to SAMIDRC troops and equipment convoys withdrawing from eastern DRC through Rwanda to Tanzania,” confirmed Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe.

“The presence of SAMIDRC troops has always been a complicating factor in the conflict, and today’s start of the withdrawal marks a positive step in support of the ongoing peace process,” Nduhungirehe added via social media platform X.

Images shared by Congolese and Rwandan media showed a long convoy of soldiers and trucks from the mission—comprising troops from Malawi, South Africa, and Tanzania—crossing the border into Rwanda, a country that, according to the UN, United States, Germany, and France, has supported the M23.

The soldiers are heading to Tanzania, from where they will return to their respective countries. “We will leave nothing behind,” a South African soldier anonymously told South Africa’s Business Day newspaper.

After the M23 captured Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, in January, the SAMIDRC mission became trapped until it reached an agreement with the rebels in late March to enable its exit.

The agreement included SADC’s commitment to help repair Goma International Airport to facilitate the withdrawal. SAMIDRC had been supporting the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) in their fight against the insurgents.

The deal came two weeks after the SADC heads of state and government ordered the withdrawal of their troops during an extraordinary virtual summit held on March 13.

The decision followed the deaths of 18 SAMIDRC soldiers, mostly South Africans, in late January during M23’s offensive toward Goma, which the rebels captured on January 27 after intense fighting.

Three months later, amid renewed mediation efforts, signs of a potential resolution are emerging. On Friday, in Washington, under U.S. mediation, DRC and Rwanda signed an agreement to draft a preliminary peace pact for mutual review by May 2.

The conflict escalated in January when M23 seized Goma, and then in February, took Bukavu, the capital of neighboring South Kivu province—both mineral-rich areas bordering Rwanda.

Since the escalation, about 1.2 million people have been displaced in the two provinces, according to the UN.

M23, a rebel group mainly composed of Tutsis who survived the 1994 Rwandan genocide, resumed its armed activities in North Kivu in November 2021, launching swift attacks on the Congolese military.

Eastern DRC has been engulfed in conflict since 1998, fueled by rebel militias and army factions, despite the presence of the UN peacekeeping mission (MONUSCO).

[Ravenlocke]

From RT,

TERROR strikes Catholic church in DR Congo

Islamist militants kill at least 38 in BRUTAL attack

DOZENS lie dead in pools of BLOOD

https://x.com/RT_com/status/1949545727144702183

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