Resolve, Enough!, So Called “Peace” Organizations Promote War In Uganda
June 17th, 2009
Poffenberger; has he allowed Museveni apologists to take over his once reputable organization? Peter Quaranto, one of Poffenberger’s original partners works in Senator Russ Feingold’s Office, and Feingold works closely with Resolve, according to his staffers
[Publisher’s Commentary]
Two American organizations that claim to fight human rights abuses in Africa are functioning like public relations agencies on behalf of the Ugandan dictatorship during what’s been billed as “Lobby Days” from June 22-23 in Washington, D.C. The two organizations may stoke the flames of conflict rather than resolve the calamity in Central Africa.
Resolve, which once had a semblance of respectability, is the official host; John Prendergast, the leader of an outfit called Enough! is one of the speakers and his organization advocates for a military solution to Central African conflicts on its website. Please see http://www.enoughproject.org/
So what could have been a serious gathering to address the conflict in Central Africa –Uganda, DR Congo, Rwanda, and the Sudan— has been reduced into a public relations fest on behalf of the Ugandan dictatorship.
By logging on Resolve’s glitzy website, the keen observer can sense the lack of seriousness. The bright colors; the smiling images; the flashy displays; all are more suitable for a website promoting a rock concert rather than a gathering to help explore the roots behind genocide in Central Africa and possible solutions. Please see http://www.resolveuganda.org/
The more serious conference awaits to be organized.
Under the heading “How It Ends,” in reference to Uganda’s 23-years of militarism that has claimed perhaps 10 million civilian lives and that of very few combatants, the organizers boldly proclaim: “Come to our Lobby Days in Washington, D.C. this June 22-23rd and help stop the one man holding an entire region hostage. It’s time for Africa’s longest-running war to be over, and this is how it ends….”
“With your help, the biggest lobby day in American history will be history in the making, leading to long overdue peace and safety for the children caught in the crossfire of Joseph Kony’s war,” the organizers claim.
While cross-fire implies that Kony, who is the Leader of the notoriously vicious Lord’s Resistance Army, responsible for so much atrocities, is shooting at another combatant, the organizers deliberately omit the name of his nemesis; Uganda’s president General Yoweri Museveni.
The difference between the two is that Kony has been indicted by the International Criminal Court; Museveni has not yet been indicted.
So how can “one man” be responsible when there are two combatant armies? The malicious dishonesty and duplicity starts early. There are many reasons for this propaganda ploy; we’ll address two of them.
By omitting reference to Museveni –or claiming that Kony is the “one man” holding the region hostage, Resolve, possibly out of its own accord, more likely due to influence of Enough! wants to divert attention away from Museveni’s own role, which is much larger, in the atrocities and bloodletting that has blanketed Central Africa since the 1980s; not only Uganda.
There’s no question that had Uganda not invaded Rwanda on October 1, 1990, there never would have been genocide in 1994; there’s no question that Uganda’s army committed genocide in eastern Congo, as affirmed by the World Court in 2005, when it occupied the region from 1997-2003; and there’s no question that the Museveni regime, by confining two million civilians in concentration camps in the northern part of the country, where about 520,000 may have died over a 10 year period, using World Health Organization estimates, has committed what a critic Olara Otunnu, former United Nations Under Secretary General responsible for children in conflict areas has called “slow motion genocide.”
Please see http://www.who.int/hac/crises/uga/sitreps/Ugandamortsurvey.pdf
Yet Resolve –and Enough! – reckon, it’s Kony who is “the one man” holding the region hostage. Not the one who has presided over possibly 10 million deaths: one million in Rwanda; seven million in Congo; and two million in Uganda.
The second reason why Museveni is omitted in the “cross fire” is the fact that Museveni does not sell as well as Kony. Even though Museveni is responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans, he does not have the demonic popular media characteristic, such as, for example, the late Idi Amin, whose excesses now pale in comparison to Museveni’s, has; or that Kony has.
More Americans know who Kony, the “evil” leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army is, and many more still recall Amin, compared to the numbers that know Museveni. The Ugandan dictator is educated, well read and pays millions of dollars to public relations agencies in Europe and the United States to brush up his image.
Museveni is what one might call, a brainy, meticulous and scholarly killer; unlike the buffoonish Amin or the unread and messianic Kony, both of whom never attempted to generate an aura of plausible deniability.
Besides, it takes a special skill.
So while Michael Poffenberger, the co-founder and executive director of Resolve, knows in his heart that Museveni’s militarism has caused the most destruction in Central Africa, he chooses to indulge in fantasy. He pretends that merely by eliminating Kony, peace will be restored, and, celestial choirs will sing, to borrow a term from Hillary Clinton.
Moreover, Poffenberger knows that Kony sells. Who wants to come to a conference to “Examine The Roles Played By Museveni and Kony In Central Africa’s Genocide” even though that would be a more honest theme?
Kony is a “monster” in the popular Western psyche—comparable to one of those macabre characters in Hollywood horror movies. A character who would steal American children at night; after all he has kidnapped Ugandan children into the ranks of his army.
So, Poffenberger knows that he has to sell his gathering around Kony’s name. People who attend and who send money will be contributing to “fighting Kony” the purported “one man” holding the region hostage.
Even Museveni invokes Kony’s name to gain military hardware and training from the United Kingdom and the U.S.; notwithstanding the fact that the weapons are rarely used to pursue Kony, but in wars of conquest and pillage, in Rwanda and Congo.
Who can blame Poffenberger for invoking Kony’s name in vane?
On Resolve’s website there is a “donate” button. “Will you donate $25 today, and help make peace possible for the victims of this war?” states the appeal, “Your donation is crucial to the success of our work. Your generosity makes a difference.”
Potential donors have the option to donate as much as $50, $100, or $250, if they prefer.
Nowhere is it explained how money to Resolve can “make peace possible for the victims of this war.”
Will Resolve give the money to Kony and plead with him to take it and lay down his arms? Perhaps to Museveni to persuade him to retire having been in power for 25 years and seeking more? Only Poffenberger knows.
One thing for sure; Kony and Museveni have created a global multi-billion dollar industry through the years. Should Kony demise the scene eventually, many blood-stained jobs will disappear.
If Resolve and Enough! were serious would they not say something about the recent report by Human Rights Watch detailing how the Bush Administration worked with the Museveni regime, which engages in torture?
In “Open Secret” issued on April 8, 2009, Human Rights Watch disclosed that the United States provided $5 million in military assistance to President Museveni’s government in 2008 even though it engaged in torture. The Leahy Amendment bars U.S. military assistance to such countries.
Please see http://www.hrw.org/en/node/82072/section/6
“Uganda’s foreign partners have largely failed to address serious human rights violations by security forces in Uganda, including its counterterrorism forces,” says the Human Rights Watch report, which is ironically, a critique also befitting Resolve and Enough!
Make no mistake Resolve will resolve nothing during “Lobby Days” and beyond except build up its own reputation and gain further fame for Poffenberger; a “courageous young man” engaged in the fight against the “evil” Joseph Kony.
Yet, it’s a dangerous approach.
By pretending that it’s only Kony’s LRA which engages in human rights abuses in Uganda, when Poffenberger knows that the atrocities also committed by Museveni’s army have been well documented by Uganda media and by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, it complicates the work of others that are more serious in resolving the war in Uganda.
Activists and champions of peace, democratization, and accountability, know that the atrocities committed by both sides need to be exposed to the maximum, to force both sides to eventually negotiate in earnest.
So, if one were in Museveni’s shoes today, with organizations such as Resolve and Enough! doing the public relations work on his behalf and ingratiating his regime towards American lawmakers, what incentive would one have to engage with Kony’s LRA?
In fact, there had been peace in Uganda and Congo’s Garamba province for as long as Museveni’s government and Kony’s LRA were engaged in talks from mid-2006 to the end of 2008.
A stalemate ensued in mid-2008 and Kony refused to sign a final peace deal, claiming he wanted the arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court quashed. Even though members of parliament from Acholi, the war affected area pressed for more dialogue, Museveni sent his army into Garamba with the involvement of U.S. military personnel.
It was a gift from George W. Bush; from one militarist to another. And as often with Bush’s gifts –remember the Iraqis were supposed to greet American troops with flowers?—the mission blew up.
The so-called “Operation LightningThunder” backfired and Kony eluded capture, embarrassing both President Bush, and the Ugandan military. And as always, the civilians paid the price, when Kony’s LRA reportedly resorted to vengeance massacres against Congolese civilians.
Now Resolve –and Enough!—clearly not bothered by the possible loss of lives of African civilians are actually calling for the President Obama Administration to team up with Uganda’s dictator to launch further military operations in pursuit of Kony.
If the collateral damage –civilians—that will occur from more warfare were Europeans, Resolve and Enough! would not be advocating such preposterous insanity.
Senators Russ Feingold and Sam Brownback have introduced a Bill dealing with Uganda, with the name, “Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009.”
Who is naive enough to believe that it’s by mere coincidence that the Bill also sees only one party as the source of conflict? Was this drafted by Resolve? By Enough? With input from Kampala?
The Ugandan regime’s agents are notorious for passing around “brown bags” filled with dollars; have some of these bags found their way to Washington?
The Bill contains some carrots, as when it calls for a multi-million dollar financing of recovery in Uganda’s devastated Acholi region. But the most insidious measure would have the United States align its government and military with Museveni’s army in combat against Kony.
Section (3) of the Bill states that it’s U.S. policy, in furthering the goal to end the conflict in northern and eastern Uganda and other affected areas by “eliminating the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army to civilians and regional stability through political, economic, military, and intelligence support for a comprehensive multilateral effort to protect civilians in affected areas, to apprehend or otherwise remove Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield, and to disarm and demobilize Lord’s Resistance Army fighters…”
Why would the United States want any association with Uganda’s military establishment when the International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating Uganda’s army for alleged war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to a Wall Street Journal front page story from June 8, 2006?
How serious are the allegations against Museveni and his army? In its article The Wall Street Journal reported: “President Museveni of Uganda asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to block the Congo investigation, according to one person familiar with the matter. Mr. Annan replied that he had no power to interfere with the court, this person said.”
Museveni tried to sabotage the investigation into the alleged mass murder because he knew that Uganda’s guilt had already been affirmed. In 2005, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which investigated the civil aspect of the war crimes allegations –massacres, mass rapes, and mass plunder of Congo’s natural wealth– found Uganda liable and awarded $10 billion to DR Congo in compensation.
Please see http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/116/10455.pdf
Are Senators Feingold and Brownback not aware of the ICC’s probe into Uganda’s alleged war crimes in the Congo?
After all, Jean Pierre Bemba, the warlord and former Congo vice president whose militia was trained, armed, and financed by Uganda is already on trial at the Hague on war crimes charges; he is said to have been spilling the beans on Museveni.
Resolve and Enough!’s claim that Kony is the “one man” holding the region hostage is preposterous. Not even the Uganda government newspaper, The New Vision, has ever made such an assertion. The Ugandan authorities know that lies have to be credible in order to be effective.
The Resolve and Enough! ploy also insults President Barack Obama; it teats him as if he were on the same intellectual level as President Bush, a war monger easily manipulated by Museveni.
Fortunately, not every Senator has been duped –or perhaps bought. Just before Museveni met with Bush for the last time at The White House on October 30, 2007, Senator John Kerry sent Bush a letter dated October 29, 2007 in which he observed that Uganda’s February 2006 election was “marred by intimidation, various voting irregularities, and a show of force by the government.”
“The main opposition candidate was harassed and put on trial,” Kerry wrote. “Regrettably, these events came on the heels of President Museveni pressuring the Ugandan parliament to lift the Constitution’s two-term limit on the presidency. Breaking his express promise to abide by the terms of the Constitution allowed President Museveni to seek reelection for a third time in 2006.”
“Given our strong interest in promoting democracy in Uganda and elsewhere around the world, I hope you take this opportunity both to ask President Museveni to reaffirm his commitment to the rule of law and to understand the steps he has taken since 2006 towards this end,” Kerry urged of Bush, who obviously ignored the advice.
President Obama, in his outreach towards North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, has already made it clear that his Administration will always exhaust dialogue and diplomacy first. His government deserves to give it a try with respect to Uganda.
The best thing that President Obama could do for Uganda and for all of Central Africa is to appoint Senator Kerry a Special Envoy to see if he can help restore the Peace Talks to end 25 years of war in Uganda.
That way any charlatans who sugarcoat their nefarious designs by pretending to advocate for peace can be brushed aside.
Readers contact Senator Kerry’s office at (202) 224-2742 and ask the Senator to oppose the section in the Bill dealing with U.S.-Uganda military co-operations.
Also contact Senators Feingold at (202) 224-5323 or via fax (202) 224-2725 and Brownback at (202) 224-6521 and Fax: (202) 228-1265 and demand that they remove the clause authorizing U.S. military operation with the Ugandan army which is being investigated by the ICC on war crimes charges.
Please post your comments directly online or submit them to milton@blackstarnews.com for publication
“Speaking Truth To Empower.”
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Neo-Coloniasts Running Out of Excuses
To Keep the Stranglehold on Lado, Central Africa…
By Britt Bartenbach
Press Officer
The U.S. Senate is vigorously debating the situation in the ancient Kingdom Lado located in the Upper Nile Valley in the heart of Central Africa.
Fierce fighting have recently been taking place to defend Lado against Ugandan and U.S. And British Commonwealth led troops creating havoc in the most natural resources rich provinces in Lado.
The debate in the U.S. Senate comes as a reaction to news articles, especially in the New York Times, disclosing that the U.S. is actively involved in rendering both Financial Aid and Military Expertise to Military Operations in the Uele and Ituri Regions, of which the latter is erroneously referred to as “Eastern Congo”.
These two provinces are Lado Land (Uele is West Central Lado bordering the C.A.R., Central African Republic, and Ituri is just south of Uele with its regional capital Bunia).
Coloniasts Erased Lado from the Map
The main Obstacle to open the Eyes of the World to the Plight of Lado is that the Lado name (“The Lado Enclave” or “Equatoria Province of Egypt”) was erased from the Map by the British in 1947 to cover up for their Occupation of Lado – a Joint and Unlawful Occupation which they share with Belgium.
“The Objective was also to erase the Memory of Lado from the Minds of the Lado People and to deny Lado the chance of regaining her Status in the U.N. General Assembly as a Sovereign Nation State”, says the Agofe of Lado Onzima II, King John Bart Agami who leads the Lado Provisional Government from his Refuge in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Lado ‘Blessed’ with Enormous Natural Resources
Another major obstacle to Restore the Independence of Lado is the fact that Lado is ‘blessed’ with enormous Natural Resources, but this is a Blessing which has disguised itself in the most abominable Cloak of Oppression and bloody insurgencies form Lado’s neighbours to the East, i.e. British Controlled Uganda and Kenya who are joined by forces from Rwanda and South Africa.
“The Insurgents are all Governed by the British Commonwealth who has never succeeded in Colonising Lado and has never Forgiven the Lado People their ‘ingratitude’ in Refusing the British ‘Offer’ to Surrender their Ancestral Land, their Natural Resources and their Freedom to the British Crown”, explains King Agami.
European Coalition Troops Led by U.S. Invaded Lado 1871
Britain has so far been Supported by the U.S. who in 1871 led an Invasion Force consisting of European Coalition Troops from Britain, Italy, France and Belgium to Occupy Lado. In 1875 all these countries, joined by Germany and Austria, sat around the Conference Table at the Paris Conference where they Agreed to Divide the African Nations between them and Enslave the African Populations in their own Homelands and Ship out their Natural Resources to Europe.and the U.S.
This method is still working successfully today since most of the African Countries in what the Paris Conference dubbed “Terre Nulles” (“The Zero Continent”) are under the Dominion of one of the old European Colonial Powers, or they are the Pawns of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) which Controls the Money Flow of the socalled ‘Developing Countries’.
The British Cannot Swallow Their Pride
“It is extremely difficult for the British and her Friends to swallow their Pride and step down from their High Horse and realise that their time as ‘Rulers of the Waves’ and ‘Masters of the World’ are over”, says the King, who points out that the real reason for not recognising Lado’s Right to Sovereignty is that they want to Own and Control all the Natural Resources of Lado.
“They do not seem to understand or respect that in our Day and Age the accepted thing to do is to enter into Negotiations to land Lucrative Contracts for Concessions to usurp or purchase Minerals or Commodities from the Rightful Owners, who in our case are the Lado People who have an Ancestral Right to their Land and to the Riches in their Underground”.
Britain Invents Excuses To Keep Their Hold on Lado
King Agami goes on to reveal the Excuses that the British Neo-Colonists have Invented to Justify their Hold on Lado: “Britain’s Excuse for keeping her Stranglehold on Lado is manifold and is defined into five points”, the King stresses and reveals:
“1) To ‘Secure’ the Water Supply of the Nile and the Tributaries for the ‘Protection of Egypt’.
2) To ‘Protect’ the Nile-Congo Watershed for ‘World Peace’.
3) To ‘Preserve’ and ‘Protect’ the Strategic Minerals, I.e. Gold, Diamonds, Oil, Uranium, Copper, Cobolt and Colton which are not to be left ‘in the hands of Irresponsible Africans’.
4) The location of the Upper Nile Valley (Lado) is of ‘Strategic Importance’ to ‘Protect’ African Interests.
5) To maintain Culture and Civilisation by using English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic which are rejected by the Authorities of Lado, in particular by the Agofes as these Languages/Cultures have been forced upon us by Foreign Occupiers whose only Interest it is to Annihilate us all or Enslave us so they can Devour everything for themselves”.
Bush Controlled Businesses Behind Fighting in Lado
Behind the recent fighting in Lado’s Uele Region’s Garam ba Forest – a dense jungle the size of Denmark – is Big Business, among others the Canadian based Barrick Gold Corporation which is under the Control of the Bush Family and Board Chairman and former U.S. President George Herbert Bush, Senior.
“It is no longer a Secret”, says King Agami, “that the only reason for the British and the U.S. Engagements in Lado, Central Africa, is their insatiable Greed and their increasing Need for Oil and other Minerals. Without these Resources they cannot maintain their Lead in the World, and so they believe they are Justified in either Bullying or Bribing Lado’s Neighbours and the Rebel Group SPLA (Sudanese People’s Liberation Army) to Harass Lado and Terrorise our Citizens”.
Chasing the Ghost of LRA in Lado
“The newfound Excuse of the Neo-Colonists is to Pretend to be fighting the Ugandan Rebel Organisation based in Northern Uganda, the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army), but there’s not even a Shadow of the LRA in Lado”, says the King who compares the chase to the hunt for the ‘Abominable Snowman’ in the Himalayas.
“Never the less they keep chasing the Ghost of LRA in the Mineral Rich Uele and Ituri Regions of Lado where they have been Defeated and forced to Withdraw. So while they are playing the great Pretending Game fighting the Imaginary Shadow of LRA on Lado Territory and are Pretending to be Protecting the Lado Civilian Population, they are Burning our Villages, Bombing our Towns and Killing and Maiming our Men, Women and Children without Mercy”.
LRA Falsely Accused of Atrocities in Lado
“These British Commonwealth and U.S. Controlled Troops aided by the SPLA are Responsible for the Atrocities which they are falsely accusing the LRA of having Committed, and they are Responsible for the Abduction of our Children who are used as Sex Slaves or Child Soldiers”, says the King.
The latest Military Operation in Uele, which was referred to in the New York Times, was launched from Uganda under U.S. And British Command on 5 December 2008, and for the first time it was publicly revealed that the Operation was carried out with U.S. Financial Support and Military Expertise.
U.N. Secretary General In Lado to Investigate Situation
The Insurgency prompted the Agofe to send a Letter of Complaint 5 January 2009 to the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. Secretary General, Mr. Ban Kee Moon, who personally travelled to Lado’s Uele Region and the Uele Capital Dungu to get a first-hand view of the situation and Inspect the Damages for himself.
The Lado Question is already a ‘Hot Potato’ in the U.S. State Department and the British Foreign Office who are well aware that the Question is being Prepared by the U.N. Committee for Voting in the U.N. General Assembly.
Several U.N. Member Countries Pressing for Lado Independence
“A growing number of countries, who are members of the U.N., are now Pressing for the Lado Issue to come to the U.N. General Assembly, and they will act in Favour of the Restoration of the State of Lado without any further Delay”, says King Agami who adds that they Key Element blocking for the Lado Question to reach the U.N. General Assembly is they Western European Union WEU which was formed 17 March 1948. The WEU members are: Britain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and their Objective is to Protect their Interests which are mainly in Africa.
WEU Interests in Africa at the Core of the Obstacle To Lado Independence
“The WEU interests in Africa is the Core of the Obstacle to Independence for Lado because these countries, their Allies and their Business Partners are Blocking for the Independence of Lado, and that is why they are able to keep up their Stranglehold on Lado, Central Africa”, says King John Bart Agami.
“So it will be interesting to see what will be the next Lousy Excuse to Invade Lado and Attempt to Occupy Lado in order to Grab the large Gold Reserves in the Uele Region which these interests are so Desperate to lay their Hands on”, concludes the King. END.