Bush & the Congo

PRESS RELEASE from "Friends of the Congo"*

What Should President Bush Say About the Congo During His Trip to Africa?

Washington, DC - February 15, 2008 - As president George Bush travels to Africa, the world's attention will be focused on the countries that he visits; Rwanda is one of those countries. Rwanda and its leader Paul Kagame are deeply implicated in what the United Nations say is the deadliest conflict since World War Two. Rwanda's and Uganda's 1996 and 1998 invasions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which were backed and supported by the United States and other western powers unleashed untold human misery and suffering.

According to the International Rescue Committee, 5.4 million Congolese have died, 50 percent of which are children five years old or younger. Amnesty International has reported that tens of thousands of women have been raped, some victims as young as 2 years old and as old as 70 years. Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says the Congo conflict is one of the ten most underreported stories of 2007. In those fleeting moments when the conflict is reported, it is done without context and often presented as wanton killing by Africans perpetually doomed to committing insane acts of violence and atrocities without any mention of what fuels the conflict.

American, Canadian, and European corporations' pilfering of Congo's natural resources is inextricably linked to the heinous rapes and appalling deaths. Antonio Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reminded the world in his January 2008 interview with the Financial Times of London that "The international community has systematically looted the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and we should not forget that."

A myriad of reports since 2001 has documented the pillaging of the Congo by neighboring countries and western corporations and its role in fueling the conflict in the Congo. To the chagrin of many human rights groups and people of conscience throughout the globe, western nations have refused to hold their corporations accountable and put the necessary pressure on their client states of Rwanda and Uganda to keep their hands off the Congo.

Congo's gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt, coltan, tin, chromium, germanium, nickel, and uranium are central to the functioning of many modern amenities such as cell phones, computers, electronic devices, our children's video game consoles, kitchen appliances, automobiles, airplanes, and numerous other devices. Its rainforest, often called the World's second lung, is central to the world's battle against climate change. Undoubtedly we in the West are indirectly benefiting from the pilfering and the widespread killing in the Congo.

President Bush has an opportunity to say and do a number of things that can make a positive difference in the Congo and the Great Lakes region of Africa.

1. Demand that Paul Kagame, a former Fort Leavenworth, Kansas military student, immediately cease his interference in the Congo.

2. Pressure Paul Kagame to open up democratic space in Rwanda and provide a path for the Hutu's in the Congo to return to Rwanda.

3. Call for a process of national reconciliation and justice throughout the entire Congo, not just in the east. Such reconciliation should institute a process where the victims of human rights abuses and atrocities are able to secure justice.

4. Call for U.S. and other western corporations who are poised to make spectacular profits in the midst of the rapes and killings to cease their pilfering of the Congo.

5. Declare that the natural wealth of the Congo belongs to and should benefit first and foremost the people of the Congo and not solely foreign multi-nationals.

The Friends of the Congo (FOTC) is a 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. The FOTC was established at the behest of Congolese human rights and grassroots institutions in 2004, to work together to bring about peaceful and lasting change in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire. Read more about us ...

*Article posted, but not written by Omekongo Dibinga

Why I'm voting for Senator Barack Obama

There are several reasons why I am voting for Senator Barack Obama. I could go into the whole thing of being “inspired,” how he “represents change,” and how he “speaks to me.” I will get to those things later. Somehow, according to my wife, the media focuses on all of these attributes without mentioning the fact that he actually has positions on relevant issues so I will start there. It is necessary to begin with the issues because Senator Obama is more than just a suit with a Harvard degree.

I am not going to go into the issue of his anti-war stance because that has been hammered into the ground. The first issue I will look at is prison reform. Senator Obama helped implement legislation in Illinois that calls for videotaped interrogations. As someone who has been active in reforming the prison industrial complex, this is of extreme importance. Too many lives have been lost to extreme incarceration sentences, life imprisonment, or even death row for crimes not committed. It is also important to note that under Bill Clinton’s “3 Strikes and You’re Out” legislation, which I gathered research for as an intern with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office in high school, over a million Black youth went into the criminal justice system with little to no reform attempts made.

The second issue of importance is the economy and health insurance. As Senator Obama clearly put it: “If you work in this country, you should not be poor.” His idea to put forth tax cuts for the middle class is indeed necessary. I also agree with his need to extend the Family and Medical Leave Act. So many of us in the country are one paycheck or one medical injury away from financial ruin and expanding this act and others could help fix that. I also believe in his affordable and portable healthcare plan.

The biggest issue for me, however, is education. Today I heard an excerpt from a speech that was the impetus for me writing this article. He stated that children should not just be measured by test scores. He asserted that children must not only excel academically, but also in music, arts, and poetry. As a teacher and performer, I visit schools all across this country and see the exact opposite happening. States like California are building more prisons than universities. I visit middle schools on the east coast that have no foreign language, music, or art programs, yet they are competing with $30,000 a year schools where students are learning foreign languages in preschool. My doctoral dissertation deals with the arts as a tool for social change so you can see why this excites me. I have yet to hear a candidate address this issue so specifically.

Now that all that official stuff is out of the way, I will end this article endorsing Sen. Obama on a very personal note. As a Black man in America, I was very fortunate to not only grow up with a strong father; I also had 3 older brothers who protected me from inner-city streets. The problem that myself and many of my black male peers had is that growing up, we had no black national male figures who were 15-20 years older than us that we could look up to that were not athletes, actors, or musicians. Either we looked up to people like Reverend Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Bill Cosby, and President Mandela (role models on many issues for us), or we aspired to be like slain greats such as Malcolm X, Dr. King, and Steve Biko. Outside of that, it was be “like Mike”—Tyson, Jordan, Jackson, etc. There was a generation of visible national Black male leadership that my generation was not privileged to witness.

In 2007 and 2008, this has changed significantly. I now see Black males under 50 on the national political scale from Michael Baisden and Roland Martin to Tavis Smiley and of course Sen. Obama and it feels great! Young Black males in their teens have guys like Cousin Jeff and Kevin Powell to aspire to emulate. When I see young Black males say that they want to grow up and be like Sen. Obama and not 50 Cent, for example, that means something to many of us, particularly those of us who do/did not have strong Black males in the home to look up to.

So there you have it. Those are my personal and professional reasons as to why I support Sen. Obama. I encourage all of you reading this to dig deep into the personal and political reasons for the candidates and choose whoever speaks to you on the level Sen. Obama speaks to me and vote for that person. Do not get caught up in legacies, fear tactics, and experience. I mean truthfully, Sen. Obama has more legislative experience than Sen. Clinton but nobody mentions that. Go for your candidate on the issues and then who moves you. I am moved by Senator Barack Obama.