If at first you don't succeed....
The greed above the fold of my Globe this morning literally stinks (why the hold-up then?), but the Globe is checking up on Caitlyn while promoting DNA ancestry tests (no worries about data collections, 'eh?) that in the end don't tell you anything. It's a great trick the supremacist pre$$ has going, promoting diversity and inclusiveness while driving ethnic, racial, gender, sexual, age, generational, and whatever wedge of division they can use. My mistake was viewing each and every individual as a unique life entity and moving past such labels and cla$$ifications. Silly me.
Underneath is the Next Day Update stuff I would have provided in the past.
"Trump to begin work on tax overhaul, reversing Obama climate plan" by Alan Rappeport New York Times March 27, 2017
(groan)
WASHINGTON — After health care: the daunting challenge of tax reform even more difficult.
Administration aides signaled Sunday that the president will now seek to build support among moderate Democrats to help push his legislative proposals through Congress.
Yeah, going to have ‘‘real reforms’’ now and “this president is ready to lead.’’
That means his administration got the message and is reverting to bu$ine$$ as u$ual. Btw, the tax breaks will sail through, you watch. Every Congre$$critter will be lapping at the trough like they always do.
What I then noticed in preparing this post is that the entirety of the article posted on the web has been rewritten and my printed copy dumped altogether. Not the first Time the NYT has censored their own articles, and my Google search revealed a complete scrubbing regarding the "targeted assault" of policies "in the crosshairs."
--more--"
Thanks for saving me the time.
Feel like I missed something, but...
"Trump may court Democrats in bid for health overhaul" by Hope Yen Associated Press March 26, 2017
WASHINGTON — The bill was pulled from the House floor Friday in a humiliating political defeat for the president, having lacked support from either the conservative Republicans or Democrats.
Trump initially focused his blame on Democrats for the failure and predicted a dire future for President Barack Obama’s health law.
But on Sunday, his aides said Trump would be seeking support from moderate Democrats, leaving open the possibility he could still revisit health care legislation.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus scolded conservative Republicans, explaining that Trump had felt ‘‘disappointed’’ that a ‘‘number of people he thought were loyal to him that weren’t.’’
Uh-oh.
‘‘It’s time for the party to start governing,’’ Priebus said on ‘‘Fox News Sunday.’’
You guys have been in charge of Congre$$ for the last six years; WTF you been doing?
As he ponders his next steps, Trump faces decisions on whether to back administrative changes to fix the Obama law or undermine it as prices for insurance plans rise in many markets.
Senate minority leader Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, said Democrats stood ready to work with Trump to fix the Obama program if he is willing to drop attempts to repeal the law and not undermine it. He warned that Trump is destined to ‘‘lose again’’ on other parts of his agenda if he remains beholden to conservative Republicans.
They weren't happy with the health bill, and this from the guy who is leading the opposition to all things Trump (except the war agenda, of course; not a peep there)!
‘‘If he changes, he could have a different presidency,’’ Schumer said on ABC’s “This Week.” ‘‘But he’s going to have to tell the Freedom Caucus and the hard-right special wealthy interests who are dominating his presidency . . . he can’t work with them.’’
OMG!
Their comments came after another day of finger-pointing among Republicans, both subtle and not-so subtle.
On Saturday, Trump urged Americans in a tweet to watch Judge Jeanine Pirro’s program on Fox that night. She led her show by calling for House Speaker Paul Ryan to resign, blaming him for defeat of the bill in the Republican-controlled chamber.
Priebus described the two events as ‘‘coincidental,’’ insisting that Trump was helping out a friend by plugging her show and no planning occurred. ‘‘He doesn’t blame Paul Ryan,’’ Priebus said. ‘‘In fact, he thought Paul Ryan worked really hard. He enjoys his relationship with Paul Ryan, thinks that Paul Ryan is a great speaker of the House.’’
A spokeswoman for Ryan, AshLee Strong, said Ryan and Trump spoke for nearly an hour Saturday and again on Sunday about moving forward on the agenda, saying ‘‘their relationship is stronger than ever right now.’’
In their Sunday conversation, Trump ‘‘was clear his tweet had nothing to do with the speaker,’’ Strong said.
The White House faces a tough task in gaining support for its congressional agenda. Trump, for instance, now lacks the savings anticipated from the health care bill to help pay for tax cuts, while expected legislation to invest $1 trillion in roads and infrastructure and to cut down on illegal immigration will probably need support from Democrats.
So much for being the next Hitler, huh?
Maybe the Russians are putting him up to this, huh, 'eh, huh?
Priebus said Trump was looking ahead for now at debate over the budget and a tax plan, which he said would include a border adjustment tax and middle-class tax cuts.
‘‘It’s more or less a warning shot that we are willing to talk to anyone, we always have been,’’ he said. ‘‘I think more so now than ever, it’s time for both parties to come together and get to real reforms in this country.’’
Like the wiretap tweet that toned down the protests?
Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, acknowledged he was doing a lot of ‘‘self-critiquing’’ after the health care defeat. He insisted the GOP overhaul effort was not over and that he regretted not spending more time with moderate Republicans and Democrats ‘‘to find some consensus.’’
‘‘It’s incumbent upon those two groups, the conservatives and the moderates, to come together, hopefully in the coming days, to find consensus, to present something to the president that certainly not only gets him 216 votes, but hopefully 235 votes,’’ he said.
Meadows also said he was open to a tax plan that is not fully ‘‘offset’’ so it is revenue neutral. That’s a shift for a fiscal conservative.
Wow. Trump threatened him in the meeting and he backed right down.
Trump left the White House on Sunday morning for the Trump National Golf Course in Potomac Falls, Va., returning in early afternoon....
Yup, nothing has changed at all when it comes to the presidency.
--more--"
Oh, meanwhile, the pre$$ is bemoaning the shutdown of the nuclear plants (Vermont Yankee did it and it had no effect, but don't believe me, believe the lying agenda-pu$hers) while reporting weeks after the fact that Puget Sound is being despoiled by sewage (well, not since February 16th anyway; so what's with the deceptive headline and presentation for what I'm sure will be another one day wonder? And if it's been shut down why are they rushing to fix it? Where is that overflow going? Into the ocean somewhere else like in Fukushima?).
Sick of the gasbags yet?
Looks like South Carolinians are more compassionate than greedy, and God smiles on them, doesn't he?
As for Joe Biden, well.... I coulda been a bicycle had I been born with wheels.
Related: Dispute erupts over whether Trump could have beaten Obama
Interesting photo with the headline, 'eh?
Let's face it, none of them were going to win -- as if it really mattered.
Turning towards the World, I see the approved protests (after they were all over the pro-Trump protests yesterday) lead the way. I don't know what happened in Bulgaria, but I'm starting to smell a lot of rigged votes (like the recent results in Holland thanks to the Turks) -- and based on the votes it can't be Russian interference (looks like Le Pen will be losing, too)! They are no longer leaving it up to the ballot box even if they have to commit massive fraud. Only one box left then.
Somalia is suffering as bad as some other African nations, only worse (yeah, the vaccines will save you! Ugh!). Then there is the Western Hemisphere's Somalia. Glad the Globe noticed endless inaction again. UN taking the fall for the outbreak if you believe in cover story crap.
Speaking of crap cover stories.
Anybody for war with Iran? Or China?
Be lucky to survive it.
And about the stacking up of bodies I was noting yesterday?
I'm met with a brief protest and a back page clean-up of an airstrike.
I don't go to the club, and diagonally opposite that article is the same ad again for another kind of club. Not really interested in their opinions anymore, with all due respect. Just going to walk right past them and I'll get there quicker than the school bus (so what's the latest batch of excuses regarding municipal incompetence, 'eh? Hackers are good now and they didn't talk to the drivers? Suppose there will be no need for them soon) or the T. Either way, you are going to be late to school, the protest, or the trial (avoid Lawrence).
You know, "nothing says democracy like a town meeting in Massachusetts." Just don't expect it from the statehouse or governor's office. Either that or I'm from outer space.
And now a quick pause to remember the dead before getting back to Bu$ine$$.
New rules for long-term care insurance would not cap rate hikes
God damn Trum.... oh, wait, he had not one thing to do with it?
Does good food count as health care? New research aims to find out
You are what you eat, and "primitive people" have known this for thousands of years.
Then again, what would you expect from a GMO-promoting organ?
Then there is the old saying "you are what you read" -- which is why I'm full of sh**.
Push for Internet privacy rules moves to state houses
Yeah, whatever. Government that violates your privacy going to protect it.
I'm sure I've missed something but that's easy amongst the bull sh**.
Monday, March 27, 2017
Sunday Globe Special: Policing the Congo
It's the Globe's beat:
"Congolese militia decapitates more than 40 police, officials say" by Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro and Carley Petesch Associated Press March 25, 2017
BENI, Congo — A Congolese militia group has decapitated 42 policemen after ambushing them in an increasingly violent region where the UN is searching for missing American and Swedish investigators, a local official said Saturday.
You wouldn't want to walk that beat, and if I'm not mistaken, the Congo is also the largest U.N. peacekeeping operation.
Members of the Kamwina Nsapu militia staged the attack between the cities of Tshikapa and Kananga in Central Kasai province on Friday, according to Kasai Assembly President Francois Kalamba. The militia members freed six policemen because they spoke the local Tshiluba language, he said.
Kasai Governor Alexis Nkande Myopompa said investigations were underway.
Always makes me feel better do official investigations.
Large-scale violence erupted in the Kasai region in August when security forces killed the militia’s leader. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the UN.
The decapitations were announced as the rights group on Saturday called on Congo’s government to cooperate with UN efforts to locate experts, including an American and a Swede, who have been missing in the Kasai region for nearly two weeks. The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo said its movements have been restricted by security forces in Kananga, the provincial capital of Kasai Central.
That's my printed Sunday copy in its entirety, and is the recent disappearance simply a ruse for intervention?
Web Globe kept patrolling:
The UN in recent days reported the discovery since January of more than two dozen mass graves in three Kasai provinces. And five videos have emerged in recent weeks that appear to show Congolese soldiers firing on militia members.
I know I'm supposed to believe what agenda-pushing war pre$$ tells me, and if true horrible, however.... what if I no longer believe?
Point of order: too many false claims of mass graves while hiding their own.
While the violence is linked to local power struggles, there are also clear ties to Congo’s political crisis, according to Human Rights Watch. Anger has been growing in the country at long-delayed presidential elections, and dozens were killed in December amid protests as President Joseph Kabila stayed on past the end of his mandate. A deal reached between the ruling party and opposition to hold elections by the end of this year, without Kabila, remains fragile as the UN urges its implementation.
Security forces have been known to back local leaders seen as loyal to Kabila, while militia groups support those who are believed to support the opposition, the rights group said.
Militia members have recruited large numbers of children and used crude weapons to attack security forces and some government buildings in Kasai, Kasai Central, Kasai Oriental, Sankuru, and Lomami provinces, Human Rights Watch said.
Michael Sharp of the United States, Zaida Catalan of Sweden, interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi, and two motorbike drivers went missing March 12 near a remote village south of Kananga. They were looking into recent large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups.
Their disappearance is the first time UN experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch said, and it is the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces.
‘‘The missing UN team reflects a bigger picture of violence and abuse in the Kasai region,’’ said Ida Sawyer, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. She called on the UN Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry into abuses there.
Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for more than two decades since the end of the Rwandan genocide led to the presence of local and foreign armed militias, all vying for control of mineral-rich land.
I think you just hit upon something.
But the Kasai Central province where the UN experts were abducted represents a new expansion of tensions.
Who is arming and funding them all?
--more--"
"Congolese militia decapitates more than 40 police, officials say" by Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro and Carley Petesch Associated Press March 25, 2017
BENI, Congo — A Congolese militia group has decapitated 42 policemen after ambushing them in an increasingly violent region where the UN is searching for missing American and Swedish investigators, a local official said Saturday.
You wouldn't want to walk that beat, and if I'm not mistaken, the Congo is also the largest U.N. peacekeeping operation.
Members of the Kamwina Nsapu militia staged the attack between the cities of Tshikapa and Kananga in Central Kasai province on Friday, according to Kasai Assembly President Francois Kalamba. The militia members freed six policemen because they spoke the local Tshiluba language, he said.
Kasai Governor Alexis Nkande Myopompa said investigations were underway.
Always makes me feel better do official investigations.
Large-scale violence erupted in the Kasai region in August when security forces killed the militia’s leader. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the UN.
The decapitations were announced as the rights group on Saturday called on Congo’s government to cooperate with UN efforts to locate experts, including an American and a Swede, who have been missing in the Kasai region for nearly two weeks. The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo said its movements have been restricted by security forces in Kananga, the provincial capital of Kasai Central.
That's my printed Sunday copy in its entirety, and is the recent disappearance simply a ruse for intervention?
Web Globe kept patrolling:
The UN in recent days reported the discovery since January of more than two dozen mass graves in three Kasai provinces. And five videos have emerged in recent weeks that appear to show Congolese soldiers firing on militia members.
I know I'm supposed to believe what agenda-pushing war pre$$ tells me, and if true horrible, however.... what if I no longer believe?
Point of order: too many false claims of mass graves while hiding their own.
While the violence is linked to local power struggles, there are also clear ties to Congo’s political crisis, according to Human Rights Watch. Anger has been growing in the country at long-delayed presidential elections, and dozens were killed in December amid protests as President Joseph Kabila stayed on past the end of his mandate. A deal reached between the ruling party and opposition to hold elections by the end of this year, without Kabila, remains fragile as the UN urges its implementation.
Security forces have been known to back local leaders seen as loyal to Kabila, while militia groups support those who are believed to support the opposition, the rights group said.
Militia members have recruited large numbers of children and used crude weapons to attack security forces and some government buildings in Kasai, Kasai Central, Kasai Oriental, Sankuru, and Lomami provinces, Human Rights Watch said.
Michael Sharp of the United States, Zaida Catalan of Sweden, interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi, and two motorbike drivers went missing March 12 near a remote village south of Kananga. They were looking into recent large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups.
Their disappearance is the first time UN experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch said, and it is the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces.
‘‘The missing UN team reflects a bigger picture of violence and abuse in the Kasai region,’’ said Ida Sawyer, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. She called on the UN Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry into abuses there.
Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for more than two decades since the end of the Rwandan genocide led to the presence of local and foreign armed militias, all vying for control of mineral-rich land.
I think you just hit upon something.
But the Kasai Central province where the UN experts were abducted represents a new expansion of tensions.
Who is arming and funding them all?
--more--"
Can't remember the last time I was in the Congo:
"Rebels accused of 36 Congo killings" Associated Press August 14, 2016
KINSHASA, Congo — Suspected rebels have killed at least 36 people in northeastern Congo, spurring residents to stage street protests against the ongoing violence, officials said Sunday.
Allied Democratic Forces, with origins in neighboring Uganda, probably carried out the attack late Saturday after the army pushed them from their bases, Congo army spokesman General Richard Kasonga said.
‘‘Two days ago, we won back their positions in Mwalika about 19 miles from Beni and we destroyed their underground dwellings,’’ he said.
‘‘In their flight, they killed at least 30 civilians in Rwangoma.’’
Congo’s government said the country will observe three days of mourning starting Monday.
The bodies of 22 men and 14 women are in the morgue and the toll is likely to rise, North Kivu provincial governor Julien Paluku said.
The area around Beni has been the site of repeated attacks. The ADF rebel group has killed at least 500 civilians in the region since October 2014, according to a local rights group that tracks attacks in the region.
Residents in Beni marched to the mayor’s office in protest, and one resident said others brought the body of a dead woman.
‘‘The city woke up with strong emotions following the killings, and we see people in small groups in several neighborhoods,’’ said Nicole Katavali, a Beni resident.
The attack comes just days after Congo President Joseph Kabila visited Beni. Kabila, in nearby Goma on Sunday, denounced the brutality of the attacks and the threat posed to civilians.
Scores of militia groups and rebels continue to destabilize Congo’s east more than two decades after the end of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when many of those who carried out the killings fled across the border into eastern Congo.
That's how elites rule.
--more--"
"Rebels accused of 36 Congo killings" Associated Press August 14, 2016
KINSHASA, Congo — Suspected rebels have killed at least 36 people in northeastern Congo, spurring residents to stage street protests against the ongoing violence, officials said Sunday.
Allied Democratic Forces, with origins in neighboring Uganda, probably carried out the attack late Saturday after the army pushed them from their bases, Congo army spokesman General Richard Kasonga said.
‘‘Two days ago, we won back their positions in Mwalika about 19 miles from Beni and we destroyed their underground dwellings,’’ he said.
‘‘In their flight, they killed at least 30 civilians in Rwangoma.’’
Congo’s government said the country will observe three days of mourning starting Monday.
The bodies of 22 men and 14 women are in the morgue and the toll is likely to rise, North Kivu provincial governor Julien Paluku said.
The area around Beni has been the site of repeated attacks. The ADF rebel group has killed at least 500 civilians in the region since October 2014, according to a local rights group that tracks attacks in the region.
Residents in Beni marched to the mayor’s office in protest, and one resident said others brought the body of a dead woman.
‘‘The city woke up with strong emotions following the killings, and we see people in small groups in several neighborhoods,’’ said Nicole Katavali, a Beni resident.
The attack comes just days after Congo President Joseph Kabila visited Beni. Kabila, in nearby Goma on Sunday, denounced the brutality of the attacks and the threat posed to civilians.
Scores of militia groups and rebels continue to destabilize Congo’s east more than two decades after the end of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when many of those who carried out the killings fled across the border into eastern Congo.
That's how elites rule.
--more--"
"At least 17 dead amid opposition protests in Congo’s capital" Associated Press September 19, 2016
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Street clashes between security forces and demonstrators opposed to President Joseph Kabila left at least 17 dead in Congo’s capital Monday in a dramatic sign of mounting tensions after officials sought to delay the upcoming election until next year.
Some view a delay as a way for Kabila to prolong his rule beyond the end of his mandate in late December.
‘‘Today is a warning. He must leave by December,’’ protester Salomon Kaba said.
Protesters threw stones and set tires and vehicles ablaze, according to witnesses. Interior Minister Evariste Boshab confirmed that three police officers were among the dead, including one who was burned alive. ‘‘This wasn’t a demonstration at all but an attempt to unleash civil war in the city of Kinshasa,’’ said government spokesman Lambert Mende.
For months, observers have questioned whether Congo could hold the presidential vote as scheduled on Nov. 27. Over the weekend, the commission made an official request to the country’s constitutional court for a delay of the vote.
Kabila, who came to power after his father’s assassination in 2001, has yet to announce whether he will pursue another term in office, though the constitution prohibits it.
I'm smelling CIA involvement. I mean, it's happened before.
I'm smelling CIA involvement. I mean, it's happened before.
The violence comes amid growing fears that the delay could lead to prolonged unrest in Congo, a nation as vast in size as Western Europe. The mineral-rich but largely impoverished country suffered back-to-back civil wars until 2003, and previous instability has drawn in armies from neighboring countries.
While the ruling party has held talks as part of a national dialogue, many of the top opposition figures have not taken part. In recent days, the ruling party has floated the idea of a unity government with opposition members until the next elections, though the proposal would keep Kabila in charge during that period.
Demonstrations also have erupted outside the capital. Human Rights Watch said police fired live bullets Friday in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi. Their report released Sunday also described a series of arrests targeting members of the opposition in recent days.
--more--"
"Congo president calls for calm after bloody street clashes" by Saleh Mwanamilongo Associated Press September 22, 2016
KINSHASA, Congo — The office of President Joseph Kabila appealed for calm Wednesday after two days of street clashes that left dozens dead, while accusing organizers of antigovernment protests of trying to incite ‘‘bloody riots.’’
In a statement, Kabila’s office said he was ‘‘profoundly touched by these sad events’’ and expressed condolences to the families of those killed.
Thousands took to the streets of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, on Monday to oppose an election delay that some call a plot by Kabila to stay in power after his mandate expires in December. Earlier Wednesday, police spokesman Colonel Pierrot Mwanamputu said the death toll was 32, including four police officers, though opposition leaders have said the figure is higher.
While officials have tried to minimize government responsibility for this week’s casualties, rights activists and government critics have placed blame on security forces.
--more--"
Related: Up to 20 dead in clashes in Congo over president’s decision to stay in power
"Congo government: Elections are too expensive, so we may not have one this year" Washington Post February 17, 2017
WASHINGTON — The ruling government in Congo has indicated it may not hold long-awaited elections this year because it’s simply too expensive.
‘‘It will be difficult to think that we can mobilize $1.8 billion this year,’’ Pierre Kangudia Mbayi, minister of state in charge of budget, said at a news conference Wednesday, Africa News reported.
That $1.8 billion cost was the one estimated by Congo’s Independent National Electoral Commission last year.
Election officials say the funds — almost two-thirds the estimated cost of America’s 2016 presidential vote — are needed to register more than 30 million voters in a vast country with poor transport links that has not held regular elections. The commission had announced last year that it doubted it would be able to register all voters before 2018.
--more--"
I think that made someone mad:
"UN officials among 6 missing in Democratic Republic of Congo" New York Times March 15, 2017
KINSHASA, the Democratic Republic of Congo — Two United Nations officials and four Congolese citizens have disappeared in a conflict-ridden region of the Democratic Republic of Congo where army soldiers have been accused of killing civilians, the UN mission there has said.
The officials — Michael Sharp, an American, and Zahida Katalan, a Swede — were traveling in the Kasai region Sunday with three Congolese drivers and a translator when they disappeared, the UN mission said Monday. It added that it was doing everything possible to locate them.
I was told it was a Zaida Catalan.
The officials, who are in Congo as part of a peacekeeping mission, had traveled to Kasai to investigate possible human rights violations after reports that government soldiers there had killed at least a dozen unarmed civilians, including children.
Videos recently emerged on social networks showing what appeared to be Congolese government soldiers walking down a country road and shooting people.
I'm not saying it didn't happen; however, the sudden war pre$$ focus stinks.
The European Union, the United Nations, and the United States have called on the Congolese government to investigate the footage, which rights activists say is evidence of war crimes committed during a counterinsurgency operation. After initially ridiculing the video as fake, the government abruptly changed course and said in February that it had opened an investigation.
So they have turned on Kabila. What did he do wrong? Or was it something he didn't do?
The Congolese government said in a statement Monday that the UN officials had traveled to the province of Kasai-Central by motorcycle and were thought to have been abducted by unidentified forces near the village of Ngombe, in the Bukonde area.
Lambert Mende, a spokesman for the government, said the judicial authorities in the area were investigating the disappearance and trying to identity the perpetrators. He suggested the UN officials had acted recklessly in traveling without informing the government.
“It’s not normal for people to come here and start moving around like this,” Mende said Tuesday. “If the government had been informed of the activities of these officials, perhaps they would have had an escort for their safety.”
He said he would raise the issue with the United Nations.
Provinces in the Kasai region, in south-central Congo, have been the site of several days of fighting between the police and a local tribal militia called Kamwena Nsapu. Violence in the area has claimed more than 400 lives since November.
Congo has been struck by civil war and local conflicts since 1997, when its longtime dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, was overthrown.
Who did that?
Time to rid of a stale dictator, was it?
--more--"
And after smattered reports for nine months, a three-day follow-up:
"Congo disappearances raise alarm as political tensions grow" by Carley Petesch Associated Press March 18, 2017
DAKAR, Senegal — Nearly a week after Congo’s government announced the kidnapping of two United Nations workers along with their translator and drivers, no trace of them has been found. Their abduction in a region of the country where kidnappings are rare, and where the workers were investigating abuses by state and militia forces, has raised alarm as political tensions spread over an election crisis.
I'm sensing a manufactured crisis.
A new report by the UN secretary-general has warned that violence and threats to civilians have spread to new parts of the vast country because of Congo’s prolonged political crisis.
Parts of Congo have experienced insecurity for more than two decades since the end of the Rwandan genocide led to the presence of local and foreign armed militias, all vying for control of mineral-rich land.
But the Central Kasai province where the UN staffers were abducted represents the new expansion of tensions.
While the violence is linked to local power struggles, there are also clear ties to the national political crisis, according to analysts who say Congo’s security forces have been known to back local leaders seen to be loyal to President Joseph Kabila. Meanwhile, militia groups support those who are believed to support the opposition.
Just days after the UN expressed grave concern about reports of more than 100 people killed in Central Kasai region during clashes between soldiers and Kamwina Nsapu militia fighters, a video posted online appeared to show men in Congolese uniforms fatally shooting more than a dozen alleged militia members armed with little more than sticks.
International governments and rights groups have called for investigations into the shootings, which followed months of alleged violence by the militia after its leader was killed in a police operation in August.
Seven soldiers have been arrested in connection with the killings in the video, Congo’s armed forces auditor general, Major General Joseph Ponde, said Saturday. They are charged with various war crimes including murder, mutilation, and inhumane treatment, he said. Ponde also promised investigations into allegations of mass graves in the area.
Also Saturday, the UN mission in Congo reported renewed violence in the past week, with credible reports of a ‘‘high number of deaths’’ as Congolese security forces clashed with local Kamwina Nsapu militia members in the capital of Central Kasai province, Kananga. In a statement, the mission said it was concerned about the targeting of civilians, including women and children.
The UN mission also said security forces had restricted its movement in the area in recent days.
The UN secretary-general’s special envoy for Congo, Maman Sambo Sidikou, called for an investigation by authorities into the violence....
--more--"
Opposition is now dead.
NDU: US extradites Rwandan academic to face genocide charges
Also see:
Congo finds 2 Caucasian bodies in area where UN experts lost
US ambassador to UN calls Congo government ‘corrupt’
That's where I thought this was all going. It's always about regime change in my war pre$$.
A whole new world for refugee family resettling in N.E.
Congolese refugees take halting steps in new land
"Congo government: Elections are too expensive, so we may not have one this year" Washington Post February 17, 2017
WASHINGTON — The ruling government in Congo has indicated it may not hold long-awaited elections this year because it’s simply too expensive.
‘‘It will be difficult to think that we can mobilize $1.8 billion this year,’’ Pierre Kangudia Mbayi, minister of state in charge of budget, said at a news conference Wednesday, Africa News reported.
That $1.8 billion cost was the one estimated by Congo’s Independent National Electoral Commission last year.
Election officials say the funds — almost two-thirds the estimated cost of America’s 2016 presidential vote — are needed to register more than 30 million voters in a vast country with poor transport links that has not held regular elections. The commission had announced last year that it doubted it would be able to register all voters before 2018.
--more--"
I think that made someone mad:
"UN officials among 6 missing in Democratic Republic of Congo" New York Times March 15, 2017
KINSHASA, the Democratic Republic of Congo — Two United Nations officials and four Congolese citizens have disappeared in a conflict-ridden region of the Democratic Republic of Congo where army soldiers have been accused of killing civilians, the UN mission there has said.
The officials — Michael Sharp, an American, and Zahida Katalan, a Swede — were traveling in the Kasai region Sunday with three Congolese drivers and a translator when they disappeared, the UN mission said Monday. It added that it was doing everything possible to locate them.
I was told it was a Zaida Catalan.
The officials, who are in Congo as part of a peacekeeping mission, had traveled to Kasai to investigate possible human rights violations after reports that government soldiers there had killed at least a dozen unarmed civilians, including children.
Videos recently emerged on social networks showing what appeared to be Congolese government soldiers walking down a country road and shooting people.
I'm not saying it didn't happen; however, the sudden war pre$$ focus stinks.
The European Union, the United Nations, and the United States have called on the Congolese government to investigate the footage, which rights activists say is evidence of war crimes committed during a counterinsurgency operation. After initially ridiculing the video as fake, the government abruptly changed course and said in February that it had opened an investigation.
So they have turned on Kabila. What did he do wrong? Or was it something he didn't do?
The Congolese government said in a statement Monday that the UN officials had traveled to the province of Kasai-Central by motorcycle and were thought to have been abducted by unidentified forces near the village of Ngombe, in the Bukonde area.
Lambert Mende, a spokesman for the government, said the judicial authorities in the area were investigating the disappearance and trying to identity the perpetrators. He suggested the UN officials had acted recklessly in traveling without informing the government.
“It’s not normal for people to come here and start moving around like this,” Mende said Tuesday. “If the government had been informed of the activities of these officials, perhaps they would have had an escort for their safety.”
He said he would raise the issue with the United Nations.
Provinces in the Kasai region, in south-central Congo, have been the site of several days of fighting between the police and a local tribal militia called Kamwena Nsapu. Violence in the area has claimed more than 400 lives since November.
Congo has been struck by civil war and local conflicts since 1997, when its longtime dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, was overthrown.
Who did that?
Time to rid of a stale dictator, was it?
--more--"
And after smattered reports for nine months, a three-day follow-up:
"Congo disappearances raise alarm as political tensions grow" by Carley Petesch Associated Press March 18, 2017
DAKAR, Senegal — Nearly a week after Congo’s government announced the kidnapping of two United Nations workers along with their translator and drivers, no trace of them has been found. Their abduction in a region of the country where kidnappings are rare, and where the workers were investigating abuses by state and militia forces, has raised alarm as political tensions spread over an election crisis.
I'm sensing a manufactured crisis.
A new report by the UN secretary-general has warned that violence and threats to civilians have spread to new parts of the vast country because of Congo’s prolonged political crisis.
Parts of Congo have experienced insecurity for more than two decades since the end of the Rwandan genocide led to the presence of local and foreign armed militias, all vying for control of mineral-rich land.
But the Central Kasai province where the UN staffers were abducted represents the new expansion of tensions.
While the violence is linked to local power struggles, there are also clear ties to the national political crisis, according to analysts who say Congo’s security forces have been known to back local leaders seen to be loyal to President Joseph Kabila. Meanwhile, militia groups support those who are believed to support the opposition.
Just days after the UN expressed grave concern about reports of more than 100 people killed in Central Kasai region during clashes between soldiers and Kamwina Nsapu militia fighters, a video posted online appeared to show men in Congolese uniforms fatally shooting more than a dozen alleged militia members armed with little more than sticks.
International governments and rights groups have called for investigations into the shootings, which followed months of alleged violence by the militia after its leader was killed in a police operation in August.
Seven soldiers have been arrested in connection with the killings in the video, Congo’s armed forces auditor general, Major General Joseph Ponde, said Saturday. They are charged with various war crimes including murder, mutilation, and inhumane treatment, he said. Ponde also promised investigations into allegations of mass graves in the area.
Also Saturday, the UN mission in Congo reported renewed violence in the past week, with credible reports of a ‘‘high number of deaths’’ as Congolese security forces clashed with local Kamwina Nsapu militia members in the capital of Central Kasai province, Kananga. In a statement, the mission said it was concerned about the targeting of civilians, including women and children.
The UN mission also said security forces had restricted its movement in the area in recent days.
The UN secretary-general’s special envoy for Congo, Maman Sambo Sidikou, called for an investigation by authorities into the violence....
--more--"
Opposition is now dead.
NDU: US extradites Rwandan academic to face genocide charges
Also see:
Congo finds 2 Caucasian bodies in area where UN experts lost
US ambassador to UN calls Congo government ‘corrupt’
That's where I thought this was all going. It's always about regime change in my war pre$$.
A whole new world for refugee family resettling in N.E.
Congolese refugees take halting steps in new land
Sunday Globe Special: Sudan's Rape Crisis
Waving women at you is usually a sign of a failing push for war.
"Sexual violence reaches ‘epic proportions’ in South Sudan’s civil war" by Sam Mednick Associated Press March 25, 2017
MUNDRI, South Sudan — After months of being raped by her rebel captors in the middle of South Sudan’s civil war, the young woman became pregnant. Held in a muddy pit, sometimes chained to other prisoners, she later watched her hair fall out and her weight plummet. But the child was a spark of life.
And so she named him Barack Obama, she explains, now free. ‘‘I still have hope,’’ she says, caressing the baby’s cheek with a finger. ‘‘I just don’t even know where to start.’’
Nor do I. The propaganda knows no bounds I guess.
The slender 23-year-old is one of thousands of rape victims in South Sudan’s three-year-old conflict, which has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. Sexual violence has reached ‘‘epic proportions,’’ says the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.
Reported incidents of sexual or gender-based violence rose 60 percent last year. Seventy percent of women sheltering in UN camps in the capital, Juba, had been raped since the conflict began, according to a UN humanitarian survey conducted in December.
Mundri, a city of 47,000 people in Amadi state, has been called the epicenter of the problem. Aid organizations blame it on the recent increase in fighting here between rebels and government troops, the latest shift of the war in an already devastated nation.
The young woman didn’t expect to become embroiled in South Sudan’s conflict.
‘‘I just came back to visit my home and I lost my dreams,’’ she said in an interview earlier this month. ‘‘If I talk about it, I just cry.’’
Then I wouldn't ask her to; AP did.
*************
Mundri has many such stories. According to a recent Inter-Agency assessment by international and local organizations focused on gender-based violence, 29 rape cases were reported in Mundri between August and October.
Local organizations say the number is likely double that, but most incidents go unreported because of stigma surrounding rape.
‘‘Realistically, it’s more like over 50 cases,’’ said James Labadia, founder of MAYA, a local aid organization that focuses on women’s empowerment. He has been working with rape survivors for years but said things have never been so dire.
The group received funds from the US Agency for International Development last year and Labadia plans to seek more, a possibility which may be clouded by President Trump’s proposed budget cuts.
It's a CIA pre$$ through and through, constantly promoting the agenda and serving itself!
Since returning to the community, the 23-year-old rape victim has received psychosocial support from MAYA’s staff and joined a women’s empowerment group. They’re launching business initiatives such as selling soap and baked goods in hopes of helping women become self-sufficient.
Ultimately, her dream is to return to school to be a nurse.
‘‘I can’t give up,’’ she said. ‘‘I need to continue going to school and fighting for my rights. When you get the woman, you get the nation.’’
Outrageous criminality and tragedy and turned into women's empowerment, nice trick!
--more--"
I decided to look back regarding the crisis, and it has been reported earlier. Part of the problem may be the hanging around of UN "peacekeepers (the four peacekeeping operations where the highest numbers of cases of sexual exploitation and abuse are reported — Central African Republic, Congo, Haiti, and South Sudan").
But they are there to help.
"Rampaging South Sudan troops assault foreigners, kill journalist" by Jason Patinkin Associated Press August 15, 2016
NAIROBI — On July 11, South Sudanese troops, fresh from winning a battle over opposition forces, went on a nearly four-hour rampage through a residential compound popular with foreigners in one of the worst targeted attacks on aid workers in South Sudan’s three-year civil war.
They shot a local journalist to death while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, beat and robbed people, and carried out mock executions, several witnesses said. Americans were among those singled out for abuse, they said.
For hours throughout the assault in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the United Nations peacekeeping force stationed less than a mile away refused to respond to desperate calls for help. Neither did embassies, including the US Embassy.
Asked why UN peacekeepers didn’t respond to repeated pleas for help, the deputy spokesman for the UN secretary general, Farhan Haq, said the UN is investigating.
The US Embassy, which also received requests for help during the attack, ‘‘was not in a position to intervene,’’ State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters Monday. She said the US ambassador instead contacted local government officials.
In other words, they let it happen.
The Associated Press interviewed by phone eight survivors, both male and female, including three who said they were raped. The other five said they were beaten; one was shot. Most insisted on anonymity for their safety or to protect their organizations still operating in South Sudan.
The accounts highlight, in raw detail, the failure of the UN peacekeeping force to uphold its core mandate of protecting civilians, notably those just a few minutes’ drive away.
Those were web additions to my print.
The attack on the Terrain hotel complex shows the hostility toward foreigners and aid workers by troops under the command of South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, who has been fighting supporters of rebel leader Riek Machar since civil war erupted in December 2013.
Army spokesman Lul Ruai did not deny the attack at the Terrain but said it was premature to conclude the army was responsible.
‘‘Everyone is armed, and everyone has access to uniforms,’’ he said.
Who knows what it is. The last place I'm finding truth is in my paper. This could be a complete fiction for all I know. Could be a false flag.
A report on the incident compiled by the Terrain’s owner at Ruai’s request, alleges the rapes of at least five women, torture, mock executions, beatings, and looting.
The attack came just as people in Juba were thinking the worst was over.
It's a mind-manipulating psyche job like we have here in the West with the "terror attacks."
Three days earlier, gunfire erupted outside the presidential compound between armed supporters of the two sides, at the time pushed together under an uneasy peace deal. The violence quickly spread. By Monday, as both sides prepared to call for a cease-fire, some at the Terrain started to relax.
And then the soldiers arrived. A Terrain staffer from Uganda said he saw between 80 and 100 men invade the compound after breaking open the gate.
‘‘They were very excited, very drunk, under the influence of something, almost a mad state, walking around shooting off rounds inside the rooms,’’ one American said.
For about an hour, soldiers beat the American and fired bullets at his feet and close to his head. Eventually, he was told to leave. He made his way to the nearby UN compound and appealed for help.
Meanwhile, soldiers were breaking into a two-story apartment block in the Terrain which had been deemed a safe house because of a heavy metal door guarding the apartments upstairs.
The soldiers then sexually assaulted women and shot through the door of a bathroom where several people were hiding, said Jesse Bunch, an American contractor who was hit in the leg.
Who does he work for?
‘‘We kill you! We kill you!’’ the soldiers shouted, according to a Western woman in the bathroom. ‘‘They would shoot up at the ceiling and say, ‘Do you want to die?’ and we had to answer ‘No!’ ’’
The soldiers found John Gatluak, a South Sudanese journalist. The tribal scars on his forehead made it obvious he was Nuer, the same as opposition leader, Machar.
From the start of the attack, those inside the Terrain compound sent e-mail, text, and Facebook messages pleading for help.
‘‘All of us were contacting whoever we could contact. The UN, the US embassy, contacting the specific battalions in the UN, contacting specific departments,’’ said a woman raped by 15 men.
A member of the UN’s Joint Operations Center in Juba first received notice of the attack at 3:37 p.m., minutes after the breach of the compound, according to an internal timetable compiled by a member of the operations center. The timetable shows other appeals for help.
The American who was released requested help from three UN battalions.
‘‘Everyone refused to go. Ethiopia, China, and Nepal. All refused to go,’’ he said.
Eventually, South Sudanese security forces entered the Terrain and rescued all but three Western women and around 16 Terrain staff. A private security firm rescued the rest the next morning.
--more--"
Until proven otherwise, I regard all these events as staged and scripted crisis drills at worst and false flags at best.
"UN launches independent probe into South Sudan rampage" Associated Press August 18, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — The United Nations secretary-general is launching an independent investigation into allegations that UN peacekeepers did not respond to prevent multiple cases of abuse and sexual violence against civilians and foreigners in South Sudan’s capital.
PFFFFT!
Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman said late Tuesday that the UN chief is alarmed by reports of the July 11 attack on a compound popular with foreigners in Juba. The Associated Press this week reported that South Sudanese troops went on a nearly four-hour rampage through the compound in one of the worst targeted attacks on aid workers in the country’s three-year civil war.
Several witnesses told the AP that soldiers shot dead a local journalist while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, singled out Americans, and carried out mock executions.
Separately, several witnesses also told the AP that UN peacekeepers in Juba did not stop the rapes of local women by soldiers outside the UN’s main camp last month. The violence came days after fighting between rival army factions.
The UN chief ‘‘urges, once more, the government of South Sudan to investigate these human right violations and to prosecute those involved in these unspeakable acts of violence,’’ his spokesman said in a statement.
Yeah, turns out all governments pretty much suck.
Nineteen soldiers have been arrested ‘‘because of crimes committed in July’’ and currently face military trial, the army said Wednesday.
--more--"
"South Sudan rebel leader has fled country, spokesman says" Associated Press August 19, 2016
KAMPALA, Uganda — South Sudan’s rebel leader and former vice president has fled the country and was expected to emerge after weeks in hiding to speak to journalists, a spokesman said Thursday, as the United Nations announced it had assisted him on part of his journey.
Well, you see which side they have taken.
The UN involvement was likely to further anger a South Sudanese government that has accused the world body of interfering in its affairs after renewed fighting last month veered the country back toward civil war.
Riek Machar crossed the border into neighboring Congo and was airlifted to the capital, Kinshasa, spokesman Mabior Garang said, adding that he was planning to travel to Ethiopia soon. In a Facebook post, the spokesman said Machar left South Sudan after a ‘‘botched attempt to assassinate’’ him.
The UN indicated that Machar had been in danger.
It learned Wednesday that Machar was in Congo, near the South Sudan border, and arranged on humanitarian grounds for the UN peacekeeping force there to airlift him, his wife, and 10 others, deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said. He wouldn’t say where they were Thursday, only that they had been handed over to Congolese authorities.
To that call they respond, and why was he handed over to authorities?!
‘‘We have been providing him with whatever medical assistance he needs,’’ Haq said, without giving details. ‘‘He needed to be moved safely from one spot to another,’’ he added.
A South Sudan presidential spokesman, Ateny Wek Ateny, said President Salva Kiir had no reaction to the UN helping Machar.
Machar had returned to South Sudan in April in a major step toward realizing a peace deal reached in August 2015 under intense international pressure. He immediately took up the vice president post under Kiir that he’d had before the civil war. The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, called his return ‘‘the best hope that South Sudan has had in a very long time.’’
Oh, I see. US and UN want Kiir gone.
So what did he do wrong for them to turn on him?
But tensions remained as the recently warring camps were pushed to work together under the peace deal. In July, dozens of Machar’s bodyguards were shot dead.
--more--"
"Kerry calls for speedy deployment of South Sudan protection force" by Jeffrey Gettleman New York Times August 22, 2016
NAIROBI — A new protection force intended for South Sudan that was authorized by the United Nations this month should be deployed there as soon as possible to safeguard civilians, especially women and girls, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday.
Oh, that's the point of all this.
“We need to move forward,” Kerry said, calling South Sudan’s ethnically based conflict, which has killed tens of thousands in the past 2½ years, tragic and reprehensible.
Kerry made the remarks while visiting Nairobi for the beginning of a six-day trip to Africa and the Middle East.
So much for global warming concerns.
Kenyan newspapers have described Kerry’s visit as a “peace mission” because the region’s conflicts are at the top of the agenda. Kerry is familiar with East Africa’s troubles, having flown in several times over the years to advocate peace proposals.
As a senator, he visited Sudan, venturing to the war-plagued region of Darfur. He has also visited Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the world’s youngest country.
So far, the government of South Sudan has resisted the planned deployment in Juba of a 4,000-soldier protection force, which the Security Council approved on Aug. 12 to bolster the UN peacekeeping mission there. That mission, which has about 12,000 soldiers, has been struggling to protect civilians from armed groups.
International pressure for the additional force, which would be supplied by neighboring nations, escalated after a burst of fighting in July claimed hundreds of lives and resulted in rapes, including of Western aid workers.
"As Mr. Kerry emphasized several times on Monday: “This is not an intervention force, this is a protection force.”
Whatever you say!
His words appeared aimed at the leaders of South Sudan’s warring factions who have often seemed to want to fight it out among themselves without a neutral force in between.
President Salva Kiir of South Sudan, a Dinka, has resisted such a deployment, describing it as a United Nations takeover of the country. His main rival, the former vice president Riek Machar, a member of the Nuer ethnic group, fled the country last week, just a few months after he had returned under a peace deal that appears to have collapsed.
Mr. Kerry met with the foreign ministers of five African countries — Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda — in an effort to coax them to play a bigger role in stabilizing trouble spots, such as South Sudan and Somalia.
But he also said there was “a lot more going on in East Africa,” praising the region’s economic progress and “entrepreneurial energy.”
He shared some light comments about Kenya’s success at the Olympics in Brazil, where Kenyan runners won gold in the men and women’s marathons and other track and field events. He said he had congratulated President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and had asked him “to teach us how to run.”
Wasn't he up on war crimes charges at the Hague before they were dropped? And Kerry met with them?
On Tuesday, Mr. Kerry was scheduled to fly to Nigeria, where the topic of hundreds of missing schoolgirls, kidnapped in 2014 by the militant group Boko Haram, was bound to come up.
Someday I'll get back there.
Then he heads to Saudi Arabia to discuss the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been bombing areas of the country, trying to shore up a weak central government against Houthi insurgents. That action has provoked an outcry by international human rights groups who say the Saudi bombings have indiscriminately killed civilians."
Still are nine months later.
--more--"
I'm so glad he is gone.
Related: Under pressure, South Sudan agrees to 4,000 new peacekeepers
Had them shoved down their throat.
Now let the demonization campaign begin!
"Sexual violence reaches ‘epic proportions’ in South Sudan’s civil war" by Sam Mednick Associated Press March 25, 2017
MUNDRI, South Sudan — After months of being raped by her rebel captors in the middle of South Sudan’s civil war, the young woman became pregnant. Held in a muddy pit, sometimes chained to other prisoners, she later watched her hair fall out and her weight plummet. But the child was a spark of life.
And so she named him Barack Obama, she explains, now free. ‘‘I still have hope,’’ she says, caressing the baby’s cheek with a finger. ‘‘I just don’t even know where to start.’’
Nor do I. The propaganda knows no bounds I guess.
The slender 23-year-old is one of thousands of rape victims in South Sudan’s three-year-old conflict, which has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. Sexual violence has reached ‘‘epic proportions,’’ says the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.
Reported incidents of sexual or gender-based violence rose 60 percent last year. Seventy percent of women sheltering in UN camps in the capital, Juba, had been raped since the conflict began, according to a UN humanitarian survey conducted in December.
Mundri, a city of 47,000 people in Amadi state, has been called the epicenter of the problem. Aid organizations blame it on the recent increase in fighting here between rebels and government troops, the latest shift of the war in an already devastated nation.
The young woman didn’t expect to become embroiled in South Sudan’s conflict.
‘‘I just came back to visit my home and I lost my dreams,’’ she said in an interview earlier this month. ‘‘If I talk about it, I just cry.’’
Then I wouldn't ask her to; AP did.
*************
Mundri has many such stories. According to a recent Inter-Agency assessment by international and local organizations focused on gender-based violence, 29 rape cases were reported in Mundri between August and October.
Local organizations say the number is likely double that, but most incidents go unreported because of stigma surrounding rape.
‘‘Realistically, it’s more like over 50 cases,’’ said James Labadia, founder of MAYA, a local aid organization that focuses on women’s empowerment. He has been working with rape survivors for years but said things have never been so dire.
The group received funds from the US Agency for International Development last year and Labadia plans to seek more, a possibility which may be clouded by President Trump’s proposed budget cuts.
It's a CIA pre$$ through and through, constantly promoting the agenda and serving itself!
Since returning to the community, the 23-year-old rape victim has received psychosocial support from MAYA’s staff and joined a women’s empowerment group. They’re launching business initiatives such as selling soap and baked goods in hopes of helping women become self-sufficient.
Ultimately, her dream is to return to school to be a nurse.
‘‘I can’t give up,’’ she said. ‘‘I need to continue going to school and fighting for my rights. When you get the woman, you get the nation.’’
Outrageous criminality and tragedy and turned into women's empowerment, nice trick!
--more--"
I decided to look back regarding the crisis, and it has been reported earlier. Part of the problem may be the hanging around of UN "peacekeepers (the four peacekeeping operations where the highest numbers of cases of sexual exploitation and abuse are reported — Central African Republic, Congo, Haiti, and South Sudan").
But they are there to help.
"Rampaging South Sudan troops assault foreigners, kill journalist" by Jason Patinkin Associated Press August 15, 2016
NAIROBI — On July 11, South Sudanese troops, fresh from winning a battle over opposition forces, went on a nearly four-hour rampage through a residential compound popular with foreigners in one of the worst targeted attacks on aid workers in South Sudan’s three-year civil war.
They shot a local journalist to death while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, beat and robbed people, and carried out mock executions, several witnesses said. Americans were among those singled out for abuse, they said.
For hours throughout the assault in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the United Nations peacekeeping force stationed less than a mile away refused to respond to desperate calls for help. Neither did embassies, including the US Embassy.
Asked why UN peacekeepers didn’t respond to repeated pleas for help, the deputy spokesman for the UN secretary general, Farhan Haq, said the UN is investigating.
The US Embassy, which also received requests for help during the attack, ‘‘was not in a position to intervene,’’ State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters Monday. She said the US ambassador instead contacted local government officials.
In other words, they let it happen.
The Associated Press interviewed by phone eight survivors, both male and female, including three who said they were raped. The other five said they were beaten; one was shot. Most insisted on anonymity for their safety or to protect their organizations still operating in South Sudan.
The accounts highlight, in raw detail, the failure of the UN peacekeeping force to uphold its core mandate of protecting civilians, notably those just a few minutes’ drive away.
Those were web additions to my print.
The attack on the Terrain hotel complex shows the hostility toward foreigners and aid workers by troops under the command of South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, who has been fighting supporters of rebel leader Riek Machar since civil war erupted in December 2013.
Army spokesman Lul Ruai did not deny the attack at the Terrain but said it was premature to conclude the army was responsible.
‘‘Everyone is armed, and everyone has access to uniforms,’’ he said.
Who knows what it is. The last place I'm finding truth is in my paper. This could be a complete fiction for all I know. Could be a false flag.
A report on the incident compiled by the Terrain’s owner at Ruai’s request, alleges the rapes of at least five women, torture, mock executions, beatings, and looting.
The attack came just as people in Juba were thinking the worst was over.
It's a mind-manipulating psyche job like we have here in the West with the "terror attacks."
Three days earlier, gunfire erupted outside the presidential compound between armed supporters of the two sides, at the time pushed together under an uneasy peace deal. The violence quickly spread. By Monday, as both sides prepared to call for a cease-fire, some at the Terrain started to relax.
And then the soldiers arrived. A Terrain staffer from Uganda said he saw between 80 and 100 men invade the compound after breaking open the gate.
‘‘They were very excited, very drunk, under the influence of something, almost a mad state, walking around shooting off rounds inside the rooms,’’ one American said.
For about an hour, soldiers beat the American and fired bullets at his feet and close to his head. Eventually, he was told to leave. He made his way to the nearby UN compound and appealed for help.
Meanwhile, soldiers were breaking into a two-story apartment block in the Terrain which had been deemed a safe house because of a heavy metal door guarding the apartments upstairs.
The soldiers then sexually assaulted women and shot through the door of a bathroom where several people were hiding, said Jesse Bunch, an American contractor who was hit in the leg.
Who does he work for?
‘‘We kill you! We kill you!’’ the soldiers shouted, according to a Western woman in the bathroom. ‘‘They would shoot up at the ceiling and say, ‘Do you want to die?’ and we had to answer ‘No!’ ’’
The soldiers found John Gatluak, a South Sudanese journalist. The tribal scars on his forehead made it obvious he was Nuer, the same as opposition leader, Machar.
From the start of the attack, those inside the Terrain compound sent e-mail, text, and Facebook messages pleading for help.
‘‘All of us were contacting whoever we could contact. The UN, the US embassy, contacting the specific battalions in the UN, contacting specific departments,’’ said a woman raped by 15 men.
A member of the UN’s Joint Operations Center in Juba first received notice of the attack at 3:37 p.m., minutes after the breach of the compound, according to an internal timetable compiled by a member of the operations center. The timetable shows other appeals for help.
The American who was released requested help from three UN battalions.
‘‘Everyone refused to go. Ethiopia, China, and Nepal. All refused to go,’’ he said.
Eventually, South Sudanese security forces entered the Terrain and rescued all but three Western women and around 16 Terrain staff. A private security firm rescued the rest the next morning.
--more--"
Until proven otherwise, I regard all these events as staged and scripted crisis drills at worst and false flags at best.
"UN launches independent probe into South Sudan rampage" Associated Press August 18, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — The United Nations secretary-general is launching an independent investigation into allegations that UN peacekeepers did not respond to prevent multiple cases of abuse and sexual violence against civilians and foreigners in South Sudan’s capital.
PFFFFT!
Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman said late Tuesday that the UN chief is alarmed by reports of the July 11 attack on a compound popular with foreigners in Juba. The Associated Press this week reported that South Sudanese troops went on a nearly four-hour rampage through the compound in one of the worst targeted attacks on aid workers in the country’s three-year civil war.
Several witnesses told the AP that soldiers shot dead a local journalist while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, singled out Americans, and carried out mock executions.
Separately, several witnesses also told the AP that UN peacekeepers in Juba did not stop the rapes of local women by soldiers outside the UN’s main camp last month. The violence came days after fighting between rival army factions.
The UN chief ‘‘urges, once more, the government of South Sudan to investigate these human right violations and to prosecute those involved in these unspeakable acts of violence,’’ his spokesman said in a statement.
Yeah, turns out all governments pretty much suck.
Nineteen soldiers have been arrested ‘‘because of crimes committed in July’’ and currently face military trial, the army said Wednesday.
--more--"
"South Sudan rebel leader has fled country, spokesman says" Associated Press August 19, 2016
KAMPALA, Uganda — South Sudan’s rebel leader and former vice president has fled the country and was expected to emerge after weeks in hiding to speak to journalists, a spokesman said Thursday, as the United Nations announced it had assisted him on part of his journey.
Well, you see which side they have taken.
The UN involvement was likely to further anger a South Sudanese government that has accused the world body of interfering in its affairs after renewed fighting last month veered the country back toward civil war.
Riek Machar crossed the border into neighboring Congo and was airlifted to the capital, Kinshasa, spokesman Mabior Garang said, adding that he was planning to travel to Ethiopia soon. In a Facebook post, the spokesman said Machar left South Sudan after a ‘‘botched attempt to assassinate’’ him.
The UN indicated that Machar had been in danger.
It learned Wednesday that Machar was in Congo, near the South Sudan border, and arranged on humanitarian grounds for the UN peacekeeping force there to airlift him, his wife, and 10 others, deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said. He wouldn’t say where they were Thursday, only that they had been handed over to Congolese authorities.
To that call they respond, and why was he handed over to authorities?!
‘‘We have been providing him with whatever medical assistance he needs,’’ Haq said, without giving details. ‘‘He needed to be moved safely from one spot to another,’’ he added.
A South Sudan presidential spokesman, Ateny Wek Ateny, said President Salva Kiir had no reaction to the UN helping Machar.
Machar had returned to South Sudan in April in a major step toward realizing a peace deal reached in August 2015 under intense international pressure. He immediately took up the vice president post under Kiir that he’d had before the civil war. The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, called his return ‘‘the best hope that South Sudan has had in a very long time.’’
Oh, I see. US and UN want Kiir gone.
So what did he do wrong for them to turn on him?
But tensions remained as the recently warring camps were pushed to work together under the peace deal. In July, dozens of Machar’s bodyguards were shot dead.
--more--"
"Kerry calls for speedy deployment of South Sudan protection force" by Jeffrey Gettleman New York Times August 22, 2016
NAIROBI — A new protection force intended for South Sudan that was authorized by the United Nations this month should be deployed there as soon as possible to safeguard civilians, especially women and girls, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday.
Oh, that's the point of all this.
“We need to move forward,” Kerry said, calling South Sudan’s ethnically based conflict, which has killed tens of thousands in the past 2½ years, tragic and reprehensible.
Kerry made the remarks while visiting Nairobi for the beginning of a six-day trip to Africa and the Middle East.
So much for global warming concerns.
Kenyan newspapers have described Kerry’s visit as a “peace mission” because the region’s conflicts are at the top of the agenda. Kerry is familiar with East Africa’s troubles, having flown in several times over the years to advocate peace proposals.
As a senator, he visited Sudan, venturing to the war-plagued region of Darfur. He has also visited Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the world’s youngest country.
So far, the government of South Sudan has resisted the planned deployment in Juba of a 4,000-soldier protection force, which the Security Council approved on Aug. 12 to bolster the UN peacekeeping mission there. That mission, which has about 12,000 soldiers, has been struggling to protect civilians from armed groups.
International pressure for the additional force, which would be supplied by neighboring nations, escalated after a burst of fighting in July claimed hundreds of lives and resulted in rapes, including of Western aid workers.
"As Mr. Kerry emphasized several times on Monday: “This is not an intervention force, this is a protection force.”
Whatever you say!
His words appeared aimed at the leaders of South Sudan’s warring factions who have often seemed to want to fight it out among themselves without a neutral force in between.
President Salva Kiir of South Sudan, a Dinka, has resisted such a deployment, describing it as a United Nations takeover of the country. His main rival, the former vice president Riek Machar, a member of the Nuer ethnic group, fled the country last week, just a few months after he had returned under a peace deal that appears to have collapsed.
Mr. Kerry met with the foreign ministers of five African countries — Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda — in an effort to coax them to play a bigger role in stabilizing trouble spots, such as South Sudan and Somalia.
But he also said there was “a lot more going on in East Africa,” praising the region’s economic progress and “entrepreneurial energy.”
He shared some light comments about Kenya’s success at the Olympics in Brazil, where Kenyan runners won gold in the men and women’s marathons and other track and field events. He said he had congratulated President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and had asked him “to teach us how to run.”
Wasn't he up on war crimes charges at the Hague before they were dropped? And Kerry met with them?
On Tuesday, Mr. Kerry was scheduled to fly to Nigeria, where the topic of hundreds of missing schoolgirls, kidnapped in 2014 by the militant group Boko Haram, was bound to come up.
Someday I'll get back there.
Then he heads to Saudi Arabia to discuss the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been bombing areas of the country, trying to shore up a weak central government against Houthi insurgents. That action has provoked an outcry by international human rights groups who say the Saudi bombings have indiscriminately killed civilians."
Still are nine months later.
--more--"
I'm so glad he is gone.
Related: Under pressure, South Sudan agrees to 4,000 new peacekeepers
Had them shoved down their throat.
Now let the demonization campaign begin!
"South Sudan activists say intimidated for meeting diplomats" Associated Press September 08, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — South Sudanese activists say they face government intimidation in retaliation for meeting with the visiting UN Security Council last weekend, and some have fled the turbulent country.
The reports are the latest sign of hostility by the government toward the international community as this East African country, the world’s youngest, tries to recover from a civil war that threatens to grind on.
George W. Bush's greatest African success gone to sh**!!
At least three local organizations have been told by South Sudan’s government they can no longer operate. On Wednesday, the US envoy to South Sudan, Donald Booth, told Congress that the number of blacklisted groups could be as high as 40.
When Israel does it, it is no big deal.
George W. Bush's greatest African success gone to sh**!!
At least three local organizations have been told by South Sudan’s government they can no longer operate. On Wednesday, the US envoy to South Sudan, Donald Booth, told Congress that the number of blacklisted groups could be as high as 40.
When Israel does it, it is no big deal.
The UN mission in South Sudan said in a statement Thursday that it is ‘‘deeply concerned’’ by reports of harassment and intimidation against some civil society members who met with the diplomats in the capital, Juba. The statement does not mention the source of intimidation.
The government harassment is in response to position papers that supported an arms embargo on South Sudan or a new regional force to protect civilians after a recent eruption of fighting in the capital, said an activist who was at the meeting with the UN diplomats.
The government dislikes both ideas, but the Security Council diplomats, led by US Ambassador Samantha Power, brought a threat with them: Accept the force or face the arms embargo.
I'd say I'm glad she is gone, too, but her replacement is -- hard to believe it -- even worse.
This comes at the same time we are being told how wonderful it is that the U.S. is now friends with Japan and Germany. I suppose we will have to wait another 50 years to be friends with Russia and Iran -- if the planet survives.
I'd say I'm glad she is gone, too, but her replacement is -- hard to believe it -- even worse.
This comes at the same time we are being told how wonderful it is that the U.S. is now friends with Japan and Germany. I suppose we will have to wait another 50 years to be friends with Russia and Iran -- if the planet survives.
Heads of organizations that met with the diplomats have been ordered to report to the government ‘‘but fear to report because they don’t know what will happen,’’ the activist said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
South Sudan is struggling to recover from civil war that began in December 2013 and killed tens of thousands.
That would have been on Obama's watch, huh?
That would have been on Obama's watch, huh?
--more--"
"South Sudan’s fighting directed at highest levels, UN report says" Associated Press September 09, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — A confidential UN report says South Sudan’s deadly fighting in July was directed by the highest levels of government, and that leaders are intent on a military solution that has escalated the conflict from a ‘‘primarily political to tribal war.’’
I'm waiting for Bush, Bliar, and all the rest to be hauled in.
The UN panel of experts report obtained by the Associated Press says President Salva Kiir and army chief of staff Paul Malong directed the fighting in the capital, Juba, that killed hundreds, using MI-24 helicopters that only they had the authority to deploy. It cites ‘‘numerous reports’’ from South Sudanese senior military personnel and politicians.
The report also says Kiir and Malong have focused on procuring new weapons and ammunition, including the apparent acquisition of two fighter jets.
South Sudan’s civilians are ‘‘bearing the brunt of the resulting harm’’ as weapons continue to be procured, the report says.
The UN Security Council has threatened to impose an arms embargo if South Sudan’s government doesn’t comply with a plan to deploy an extra 4,000 peacekeepers to protect civilians.
I thought it already had.
--more--"
"South Sudan’s fighting directed at highest levels, UN report says" Associated Press September 09, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — A confidential UN report says South Sudan’s deadly fighting in July was directed by the highest levels of government, and that leaders are intent on a military solution that has escalated the conflict from a ‘‘primarily political to tribal war.’’
I'm waiting for Bush, Bliar, and all the rest to be hauled in.
The UN panel of experts report obtained by the Associated Press says President Salva Kiir and army chief of staff Paul Malong directed the fighting in the capital, Juba, that killed hundreds, using MI-24 helicopters that only they had the authority to deploy. It cites ‘‘numerous reports’’ from South Sudanese senior military personnel and politicians.
The report also says Kiir and Malong have focused on procuring new weapons and ammunition, including the apparent acquisition of two fighter jets.
South Sudan’s civilians are ‘‘bearing the brunt of the resulting harm’’ as weapons continue to be procured, the report says.
The UN Security Council has threatened to impose an arms embargo if South Sudan’s government doesn’t comply with a plan to deploy an extra 4,000 peacekeepers to protect civilians.
I thought it already had.
--more--"
"South Sudan leaders found to amass wealth as country burns" Associated Press September 13, 2016
We are always told this when a regime change is needed!
Never mind your own leaders, stupid Westerner!
KAMPALA, Uganda — South Sudan’s leaders have amassed wealth abroad amid a conflict in which tens of thousands have been killed, a US-based watchdog group said Monday, charging that the civil war is being fueled by competition among rivals over national resources such as oil.
So what controlled juman rights group put out that timely report?
We are always told this when a regime change is needed!
Never mind your own leaders, stupid Westerner!
KAMPALA, Uganda — South Sudan’s leaders have amassed wealth abroad amid a conflict in which tens of thousands have been killed, a US-based watchdog group said Monday, charging that the civil war is being fueled by competition among rivals over national resources such as oil.
So what controlled juman rights group put out that timely report?
President Salva Kiir, former deputy Riek Machar, and those close to both men have looted the country in accumulating wealth that includes mansions, luxury cars, and stakes in a number of businesses abroad, according to the report by The Sentry.
The report says it has obtained images of officials’ family members jet-setting and partying in five-star hotels, as well as documentation of their properties abroad.
Officials in South Sudan who earn modest salaries have been able to amass fortunes with help from arms dealers, bankers, lawyers, and others abroad, it said."
Should be pretty easy for the NSA and its Five Eyes spies to find, 'eh?
I'll bet they don't have to live like a refugee!
"More than a million refugees have fled South Sudan, UN says" Associated Press September 16, 2016
Should be pretty easy for the NSA and its Five Eyes spies to find, 'eh?
I'll bet they don't have to live like a refugee!
"More than a million refugees have fled South Sudan, UN says" Associated Press September 16, 2016
AWEIL, South Sudan — More than 1 million refugees have fled South Sudan’s ongoing civil war, overwhelming aid agencies and creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
The United Nations said Friday that South Sudan joins Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia as countries that have produced over 1 million refugees.
‘‘This is a very sad milestone,’’ said Leo Dobbs, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency. South Sudan’s estimated population was over 12 million last year, according to the World Bank.
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, but civil war erupted two years later and tens of thousands have been killed. New fighting in July in the capital, Juba, created a surge of more than 185,000 refugees. Most people fleeing are women and children.
Neighboring Uganda hosts the highest number of refugees, and 20,000 have arrived in the past week due to clashes in southern South Sudan. Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Congo, and Central African Republic also have received tens of thousands of people fleeing.
The UN praised the countries, some of the world’s poorest, for allowing refugees to enter.
‘‘Many refugees arrive exhausted after days walking in the bush and going without food or water,’’ Dobbs said. ‘‘Many women and girls said they were sexually assaulted during their flight.’’
Another 1.6 million people are displaced inside South Sudan.
The fighting that erupted in July between supporters of President Salva Kiir and then-Vice President Riek Machar ‘‘has shattered hopes for a real breakthrough and triggered new waves of displacement and suffering,’’ Dobbs said.
A peace deal reached a year ago continues to be violated. Machar fled the country during July’s chaos.
South Sudan has been threatened by the UN Security Council with an arms embargo if it does not accept 4,000 additional peacekeepers to help protect civilians. The government calls the plan a violation of its sovereignty.
"Sudan may have used chemical weapons in Darfur, Amnesty says" Bloomberg News September 30, 2016
And you wonder why I no longer believe the war pre$$?
It's the same script every damn time!
And you wonder why I no longer believe the war pre$$?
It's the same script every damn time!
Sudanese government forces may have used chemical weapons against civilians in the western region of Darfur in the past eight months, killing as many as 250 people, Amnesty International said.
The London-based advocacy group said Thursday that it has gathered ‘‘credible evidence’’ of at least 30 likely chemical attacks in Darfur’s Jebel Marra region between January and September. Many of the people that may have died due to exposure to the weapons were children, it said in a statement, citing testimonies from caregivers and survivors.
Two independent chemical-weapons experts consulted by Amnesty said the findings ‘‘strongly suggested exposure to vesicants, or blister agents, such as the chemical warfare agents sulfur mustard, lewisite, or nitrogen mustard,’’ the group said.
The suspected chemical assaults came during a large-scale military offensive that began in January against the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid faction, rebels who Sudan’s government say have ambushed army convoys and attacked civilians. Conflict that began in Darfur in 2003, when insurgents took up arms accusing President Umar al-Bashir of neglecting the region, has led to the deaths of 300,000 people.
The chemical-weapons agents were said to be in bombs dropped from planes and rockets, according to Amnesty.
--more--"
And the action taken in response?
"UN chief fires general in South Sudan after harsh report" Associated Press November 02, 2016
And the action taken in response?
"UN chief fires general in South Sudan after harsh report" Associated Press November 02, 2016
UNITED NATIONS — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon fired the commander of the peacekeeping force in South Sudan on Tuesday after an independent investigation sharply criticized the military response to deadly attacks in July on a UN compound housing 27,000 displaced people.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced the dismissal of Kenyan Lieutenant General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki shortly after the investigators’ report was released, saying the UN chief was ‘‘deeply distressed’’ by the findings.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, has been riven by ethnic violence since shortly after gaining its independence from Sudan in 2011. Civil war broke out in 2013 when government forces loyal to President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled rebels led by his former vice president Riek Machar, who is a Nuer. A peace agreement was signed in August 2015, but fighting, which has left tens of thousands dead and more than 2 million displaced, continues.
A confidential UN report obtained by The Associated Press in September said the deadly fighting in July was directed by the highest levels of Kiir’s government."
Looks like the UN ticked of Kenya:
Looks like the UN ticked of Kenya:
"Kenya pulling UN peacekeepers from South Sudan in protest" Associated Press November 03, 2016
NAIROBI — Kenya is pulling out its 1,000 troops deployed to South Sudan as part of the UN peacekeeping mission and stopping future deployments after the UN secretary-general fired the force’s Kenyan commander, the foreign affairs ministry said Wednesday.
In a further blow to regional efforts to calm the civil war, Kenya said it is also disengaging from the South Sudan peace process, in which it has been instrumental as a broker, guarantor, and monitor.
The firing of Kenyan Lieutenant General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki came after an independent investigation sharply criticized peacekeepers’ response to deadly attacks in July on a UN compound housing 27,000 displaced people in Juba. The probe also found that peacekeepers didn’t respond to calls for help as South Sudanese soldiers rampaged through a nearby compound.
The firing was announced shortly after the investigators’ report was released Tuesday.
Principal Secretary Monica Juma said Ondieki’s firing was carried out without formal consultation with Kenya’s government. It said the move ‘‘revealed a high degree of disrespect for our country.’’
You could take it that way.
You could take it that way.
"UN warns that South Sudan risks spiraling into a genocide" by Justin Lynch Associated Press November 12, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — South Sudan’s festering civil war risks spiraling into genocide, according to the UN’s special adviser on the prevention of genocide, who cited recent examples of ethnically targeted rape, civilians being killed with machetes, and villages being burned to the ground.
More tales of horror.
Adama Dieng said South Sudan is awash with weapons, has an undisciplined military, and is in a humanitarian and economic crisis in which civilians are desperate for employment. ‘‘Genocide is a process,’’ said Dieng, adding that all the elements are present for a disaster.
We seem to be seeing slow-moving culling all across the planet.
We seem to be seeing slow-moving culling all across the planet.
South Sudan is the world’s newest country and there were high hopes that it would have peace and stability after its split from neighboring Sudan in 2011. But the country plunged into ethnic violence in 2013 when forces loyal to President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, started battling those loyal to his former vice president Riek Machar, a Nuer.
How come they got a vote but Palestine and Kashmir do not?
How come they got a vote but Palestine and Kashmir do not?
A peace deal signed in August has not stopped the fighting. To stop South Sudan’s slide into ethnically based violence, Dieng proposed a strategy of reconciliation and dialogue to build trust in the East African nation. But even as Dieng, the UN expert on genocide, spoke, a radio station was shut down by South Sudan’s National Security Service.
Eye Radio is one of South Sudan’s largest national radio stations and known for its reggae music and messages of unity and peace. It is funded in part by the US Agency for International Development.
AID = CIA
No wonder the South Sudanese government shut it down.
No wonder the South Sudanese government shut it down.
On Friday three officials from the country’s security service seized the keys to Eye Radio’s studios, told journalists to leave, and ordered the head of the station to report to security officials, said Nichola Mandil, a senior journalist for the station.
A spokesman for the security service declined to give an explanation for the shutdown.
When informed that Eye Radio had been shut by the government, Dieng’s voice rose with ire and he recalled how radio had been a tool for spreading hatred during the Rwandan genocide.
He said the South Sudan government ‘‘should have encouraged, congratulated and used [Eye Radio] as a model and said from now onwards that is the message we want.’’ Instead, some of South Sudan’s media and social media have spread hate speech, Dieng said.
It's a CIA pre$$ through and through!
It's a CIA pre$$ through and through!
Across the country, charities and other nongovernmental organizations have received gruesome threats of violence against civilians from the southern Equatorian region of the country. There has also been a rise in Facebook posts that extoll ethnic violence.
‘‘We are going to take a quick revenge attack against Equatorians anywhere, any place from now on. We will find you and kill you. We will despicably and barbarically kill you,’’ said one letter by a group calling itself the ‘‘Angry Youth of former Northern Bhar El Ghazal,’’ a self-proclaimed watch group whose members are unknown.
In September, the Nation Mirror Newspaper was shut after it reported on government corruption.
South Sudan ranks 140th in the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, and seven journalists were killed in 2015.
‘‘Press freedom has not been OK for a long time. This closure now indicates the situation has not changed and the government is still hostile to the national media,’’ said Alfred Taban, Chairman of the Association for Media Development in South Sudan....
So let's see, looting leaders, chemical weapons use, shutting down the "free" pre$$, and massive rapes.
Ready to intervene, 'er, protect yet?
So let's see, looting leaders, chemical weapons use, shutting down the "free" pre$$, and massive rapes.
Ready to intervene, 'er, protect yet?
--more--"
How will bringing more death to the place help?
"In South Sudan, mass killings, rapes, the limits of US diplomacy" by Somini Sengupta New York Times January 19, 2017
Apologizing for Obama on his way out the door.
UNITED NATIONS — Samantha Power had just boarded a US Air Force plane on her way home from a three-country tour in Africa when the calls began to come in from Washington. South Sudan, the world’s newest country, had just erupted in civil war along ethnic lines.
Was that the trip where her car drove over some kid and kept on motoring?
That was in December 2013. Power had taken over as the US ambassador to the United Nations three months earlier, she wanted to fly immediately to Juba, the capital of South Sudan. What she would do there wasn’t clear, though, after a series of intense exchanges with Washington, it was decided she would come home.
The back-and-forth was a harbinger of the difficulties Power would face in trying to avert what the UN has said could become a genocide.
Today, the Obama administration’s South Sudan strategy is in tatters. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, the UN says, and rape has been rampant.
The starkest diplomatic defeat for the United States came late last month. Power was unable to persuade the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan and sanctions on key leaders.
“Council members who didn’t support this resolution are taking a big gamble that South Sudan’s leaders will not instigate a catastrophe,” Power said, citing the world’s failure to respond to genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
But poor timing, bad judgment, and a lack of a unified strategy have hampered the administration’s own efforts to avert a catastrophe, many advocates, aid workers, and former US officials say. In turn, it has drawn attention to the limits of American influence — that too in a country whose very creation the United States supported enthusiastically, backing its independence from Sudan.
It is also a reminder of how challenging it has been for Power in particular to put into effect the idea that she is best known for: using diplomacy to prevent mass atrocities.
If that is what she is known for she is a complete and utterly abysmal failure.
During her three-year tenure, Power has used her pulpit at the UN to denounce human rights abusers, particularly US rivals. She has used her last days on the job to promote the Obama administration’s diplomatic successes, including dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons and imposing new sanctions on North Korea.
While ignoring her own nation.
And on Tuesday, she used her last speech as ambassador to inveigh against what she called Russia’s “aggressive and destabilizing actions,” from its annexation of Crimea to its meddling in the US presidential election. It served as a warning to President-elect Donald Trump without ever naming him.
It neither annexed Crimea nor interfered in the election, liar!
“Russia’s actions are not standing up a new world order,” she said at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “They are tearing down the one that exists.”
GOOD!
As for South Sudan, she has expressed confidence that its conflict will stay on the Trump administration’s radar. That could well be wishful thinking. South Sudan did not come up once during the confirmation hearing of Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.
When the South Sudan conflict began, in December 2013, it seemed to catch the Obama administration by surprise. At the time Power had rushed to the theater of another grisly ethnic conflict in the Central African Republic.
Several times on that trip, Power was asked what lessons she drew from her book “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” and what she believed the United States needed to do in the face of mass slaughter.
Not commit it?
It seemed to loom over everything she said. At one point, jokingly, she said, “See, I knew I shouldn’t have written that book.”
Do you see me laughing?
The outbreak of fighting in South Sudan quickly cleaved along ethnic lines, between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir versus those supporting his former vice president, Riek Machar. Kiir is a member of the Dinka community, and Machar is Nuer.
We are always told that, and I'm starting to believe its nothing but cover story crap.
At the time, many advocates familiar with the region pressed the United States to get tougher with South Sudan’s leaders. John Prendergast, a former Africa expert in the Clinton administration who now runs an advocacy group called the Enough Project, said he had recommended targeted sanctions as early as January 2014. By that summer, after UN investigators chronicled human rights abuses “on a massive scale,” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International backed an arms embargo.
Several former US officials said the administration had misjudged the rivalry between Kiir and Machar. They also said Susan Rice, the national security adviser, had been reluctant to put too much pressure on them — and in particular to impose an arms embargo.
“There are some differences in Washington,” is how Princeton Lyman, a former US envoy to South Sudan, put it in March 2015. Some of it, he said later, stemmed from a “lingering sympathy” for the leaders they had empowered.
Asked recently about the differences within the White House, a senior administration official said only that “the US position on this was based on a consensus decision within the interagency process.”
By May 2015, with no peace deal in sight, the African Union asked the Security Council to impose an arms embargo.
A peace deal was signed, only to be broken, repaired, and broken again.
In November 2015, the African Union issued a harrowing report that documented massacres, rapes, and a sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation.
On the ground, things got worse. By the summer of 2016, after full-scale fighting broke out in Juba, UN investigators documented a spate of ethnic killings and said that government troops had been responsible for mass rapes, including of children.
Still no arms embargo. No targeted sanctions against the top leadership.
Like they are Israeli!
Instead, Power turned her attention to rallying the Security Council to authorize a surge of 4,000 peacekeepers from neighboring countries to secure Juba.
That effort, said Kate Almquist Knopf, the director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, only underscored a lack of political strategy. By then, she said, it should have been plain to everyone that Kiir and Machar were unlikely to honor any peace deal.
In September, on a trip to Juba, Power won a promise from South Sudan’s government to allow additional peacekeepers to enter the country.
Their deployment has been delayed by bureaucratic impediments, a lack of visas, and conflicting statements by ministers, according to the UN chief.
In November, the UN’s special adviser for genocide, Adama Dieng, issued the starkest warning: He urged the council to take action to stop what he regarded as steps to genocide.
By then, Power had won the rest of the Obama administration’s backing to pursue sanctions and an arms embargo. Rice expressed her support on Twitter, writing, “time is past for an arms embargo & sanctions against those stoking ethnic violence in #SouthSudan.”
But by that time, the African members of the council were not keen to impose sanctions. Russia called the resolution “senseless.” Even some US allies were reluctant to support it.
What?
Power issued grave warnings about “the human cost of imposing no cost for attacking civilians.”
Her remarks echoed the dilemma at the heart of her book.
“We have all been bystanders to genocide,” she wrote. “The crucial question is why.”
We all know why!
--more--"
And now she is out of power.
"Watchdog report accuses South Sudan military of corruption" Associated Press January 27, 2017
KAMPALA, Uganda — A new watchdog report says South Sudan’s military is engaged in systemic corruption that has plundered the country’s resources and fueled conflict in the East African nation.
They have their own military-industrial complex, 'eh?
The Washington-based Enough Project blames ‘‘willful, systematic obstruction of financial oversight’’ in the world’s youngest nation, where civil war has raged since late 2013.
The report says competition among various militia groups for money and power ‘‘can erupt into deadly violence’’ and is exacerbated by a lack of accountability and transparency.
The report also says that more than 100,000 ‘‘ghost’’ soldiers could be on the military’s payroll, allowing for commanders and military leaders to boost their incomes or reputations.
A spokesman for South Sudan’s military, Santo Domic Chol, declined to comment Thursday because he had not seen the report.
--more--"
Okay, we got military corruption, looting leaders, chemical weapons use, shutting down the "free" pre$$, and massive rapes. What else can they throw at the wall?
"Famine declared in part of South Sudan" Associated Press February 21, 2017
KAMPALA, Uganda — Famine has been declared in two counties of South Sudan, according to the South Sudan government and UN agencies, the result of prolonged civil war and an economic crisis that has severely strained the East African nation.
Now military action must be taken.
The official classification of famine highlights the human suffering caused by South Sudan’s three-year civil war and even as it is declared President Salva Kiir’s government is blocking food aid to some areas, according to UN officials.
I'm sick of being jerked around by the agenda-pushing, war-promoting pre$$.
More than 100,000 people in two counties of Unity state are experiencing famine and there are fears that the famine will spread as an additional 1 million South Sudanese are on the brink of starvation, the UN announcement said.
And if all true, it highlights the complete failure of government at all levels.
So why should we believe they are capable of fixing the problems they most likely created?
Roughly 5.5 million people, or about 50 percent of South Sudan’s population, are expected to be severely food insecure and at risk of death in the coming months, the report said.
If food aid does not reach children urgently ‘‘many of them will die,’’ said Jeremy Hopkins, head of the UN children’s agency in South Sudan. Over 250,000 children are severely malnourished, he said, meaning they are at risk of death.
Monday’s declaration of starvation is solely South Sudan’s creation, and a UN official blamed the country’s politicians for the humanitarian crisis.
‘‘This famine is man-made,” said Joyce Luma, head of the World Food Program in South Sudan. ‘‘There is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security.’’
Maybe its global warming that is the cause.
--more--"
I don't doubt the suffering of Sudanese and find it appallingly criminal and tragic; I doubt the good intentions of my war-promoting paper is all.
3/7: South Sudan blocks desperately needed aid, say UN officials The report and statement show the daunting conditions faced by the international community as it tries to combat a catastrophe in the troubled East African nation."
"South Sudan ambush on humanitarian aid convoy kills 2" Associated Press March 16, 2017
JOHANNESBURG — An ambush on a humanitarian aid convoy in South Sudan has killed two people and wounded three, the International Organization for Migration said Thursday, in the latest hostility to outsiders trying to address the triple crisis of famine, cholera, and civil war.
Now cholera, too?
‘‘Unknown armed gunmen’’ targeted the convoy as it was returning from a field mission in Yirol East county, the agency said in a statement that condemned the attack. IOM staff, health workers, and civilians were the victims. Two died of gunshot wounds, and an IOM health officer was in stable condition.
The ambush took place in a region suffering from a cholera outbreak, the statement said. Famine was declared last month in two other counties of South Sudan, which has been devastated by three years of civil war.
The United Nations and aid groups have pleaded for more access to deliver humanitarian aid amid numerous government restrictions. Those include a sharp increase this month in the fees required for foreigners to work in the country, from about $100 to up to $10,000.
Both government troops and rebels have been accused of attacking, detaining, or harassing aid workers, including members of the UN peacekeeping mission.
Earlier this week, South Sudanese staffers with the US-based aid group Samaritan’s Purse were detained for a day by ‘‘armed personnel’’ before being released.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, fell into civil war just two years after it won its independence from Sudan in 2011.
Tens of thousands have been killed, and more than 1.5 million have fled the country, creating Africa’s largest refugee crisis.
That about says it all, doesn't it?
--more--"
They didn't mention the rapes, did they?
Related: Cutting Through the African Bush
Who is really chopping things down and why.
How will bringing more death to the place help?
"In South Sudan, mass killings, rapes, the limits of US diplomacy" by Somini Sengupta New York Times January 19, 2017
Apologizing for Obama on his way out the door.
UNITED NATIONS — Samantha Power had just boarded a US Air Force plane on her way home from a three-country tour in Africa when the calls began to come in from Washington. South Sudan, the world’s newest country, had just erupted in civil war along ethnic lines.
Was that the trip where her car drove over some kid and kept on motoring?
That was in December 2013. Power had taken over as the US ambassador to the United Nations three months earlier, she wanted to fly immediately to Juba, the capital of South Sudan. What she would do there wasn’t clear, though, after a series of intense exchanges with Washington, it was decided she would come home.
The back-and-forth was a harbinger of the difficulties Power would face in trying to avert what the UN has said could become a genocide.
Today, the Obama administration’s South Sudan strategy is in tatters. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, the UN says, and rape has been rampant.
The starkest diplomatic defeat for the United States came late last month. Power was unable to persuade the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan and sanctions on key leaders.
“Council members who didn’t support this resolution are taking a big gamble that South Sudan’s leaders will not instigate a catastrophe,” Power said, citing the world’s failure to respond to genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
But poor timing, bad judgment, and a lack of a unified strategy have hampered the administration’s own efforts to avert a catastrophe, many advocates, aid workers, and former US officials say. In turn, it has drawn attention to the limits of American influence — that too in a country whose very creation the United States supported enthusiastically, backing its independence from Sudan.
It is also a reminder of how challenging it has been for Power in particular to put into effect the idea that she is best known for: using diplomacy to prevent mass atrocities.
If that is what she is known for she is a complete and utterly abysmal failure.
During her three-year tenure, Power has used her pulpit at the UN to denounce human rights abusers, particularly US rivals. She has used her last days on the job to promote the Obama administration’s diplomatic successes, including dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons and imposing new sanctions on North Korea.
While ignoring her own nation.
And on Tuesday, she used her last speech as ambassador to inveigh against what she called Russia’s “aggressive and destabilizing actions,” from its annexation of Crimea to its meddling in the US presidential election. It served as a warning to President-elect Donald Trump without ever naming him.
It neither annexed Crimea nor interfered in the election, liar!
“Russia’s actions are not standing up a new world order,” she said at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “They are tearing down the one that exists.”
GOOD!
As for South Sudan, she has expressed confidence that its conflict will stay on the Trump administration’s radar. That could well be wishful thinking. South Sudan did not come up once during the confirmation hearing of Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.
When the South Sudan conflict began, in December 2013, it seemed to catch the Obama administration by surprise. At the time Power had rushed to the theater of another grisly ethnic conflict in the Central African Republic.
Several times on that trip, Power was asked what lessons she drew from her book “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” and what she believed the United States needed to do in the face of mass slaughter.
Not commit it?
It seemed to loom over everything she said. At one point, jokingly, she said, “See, I knew I shouldn’t have written that book.”
Do you see me laughing?
The outbreak of fighting in South Sudan quickly cleaved along ethnic lines, between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir versus those supporting his former vice president, Riek Machar. Kiir is a member of the Dinka community, and Machar is Nuer.
We are always told that, and I'm starting to believe its nothing but cover story crap.
At the time, many advocates familiar with the region pressed the United States to get tougher with South Sudan’s leaders. John Prendergast, a former Africa expert in the Clinton administration who now runs an advocacy group called the Enough Project, said he had recommended targeted sanctions as early as January 2014. By that summer, after UN investigators chronicled human rights abuses “on a massive scale,” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International backed an arms embargo.
Several former US officials said the administration had misjudged the rivalry between Kiir and Machar. They also said Susan Rice, the national security adviser, had been reluctant to put too much pressure on them — and in particular to impose an arms embargo.
“There are some differences in Washington,” is how Princeton Lyman, a former US envoy to South Sudan, put it in March 2015. Some of it, he said later, stemmed from a “lingering sympathy” for the leaders they had empowered.
Asked recently about the differences within the White House, a senior administration official said only that “the US position on this was based on a consensus decision within the interagency process.”
By May 2015, with no peace deal in sight, the African Union asked the Security Council to impose an arms embargo.
A peace deal was signed, only to be broken, repaired, and broken again.
In November 2015, the African Union issued a harrowing report that documented massacres, rapes, and a sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation.
On the ground, things got worse. By the summer of 2016, after full-scale fighting broke out in Juba, UN investigators documented a spate of ethnic killings and said that government troops had been responsible for mass rapes, including of children.
Still no arms embargo. No targeted sanctions against the top leadership.
Like they are Israeli!
Instead, Power turned her attention to rallying the Security Council to authorize a surge of 4,000 peacekeepers from neighboring countries to secure Juba.
That effort, said Kate Almquist Knopf, the director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, only underscored a lack of political strategy. By then, she said, it should have been plain to everyone that Kiir and Machar were unlikely to honor any peace deal.
In September, on a trip to Juba, Power won a promise from South Sudan’s government to allow additional peacekeepers to enter the country.
Their deployment has been delayed by bureaucratic impediments, a lack of visas, and conflicting statements by ministers, according to the UN chief.
In November, the UN’s special adviser for genocide, Adama Dieng, issued the starkest warning: He urged the council to take action to stop what he regarded as steps to genocide.
By then, Power had won the rest of the Obama administration’s backing to pursue sanctions and an arms embargo. Rice expressed her support on Twitter, writing, “time is past for an arms embargo & sanctions against those stoking ethnic violence in #SouthSudan.”
But by that time, the African members of the council were not keen to impose sanctions. Russia called the resolution “senseless.” Even some US allies were reluctant to support it.
What?
Power issued grave warnings about “the human cost of imposing no cost for attacking civilians.”
Her remarks echoed the dilemma at the heart of her book.
“We have all been bystanders to genocide,” she wrote. “The crucial question is why.”
We all know why!
--more--"
And now she is out of power.
"Watchdog report accuses South Sudan military of corruption" Associated Press January 27, 2017
KAMPALA, Uganda — A new watchdog report says South Sudan’s military is engaged in systemic corruption that has plundered the country’s resources and fueled conflict in the East African nation.
They have their own military-industrial complex, 'eh?
The Washington-based Enough Project blames ‘‘willful, systematic obstruction of financial oversight’’ in the world’s youngest nation, where civil war has raged since late 2013.
The report says competition among various militia groups for money and power ‘‘can erupt into deadly violence’’ and is exacerbated by a lack of accountability and transparency.
The report also says that more than 100,000 ‘‘ghost’’ soldiers could be on the military’s payroll, allowing for commanders and military leaders to boost their incomes or reputations.
A spokesman for South Sudan’s military, Santo Domic Chol, declined to comment Thursday because he had not seen the report.
--more--"
Okay, we got military corruption, looting leaders, chemical weapons use, shutting down the "free" pre$$, and massive rapes. What else can they throw at the wall?
"Famine declared in part of South Sudan" Associated Press February 21, 2017
KAMPALA, Uganda — Famine has been declared in two counties of South Sudan, according to the South Sudan government and UN agencies, the result of prolonged civil war and an economic crisis that has severely strained the East African nation.
Now military action must be taken.
The official classification of famine highlights the human suffering caused by South Sudan’s three-year civil war and even as it is declared President Salva Kiir’s government is blocking food aid to some areas, according to UN officials.
I'm sick of being jerked around by the agenda-pushing, war-promoting pre$$.
More than 100,000 people in two counties of Unity state are experiencing famine and there are fears that the famine will spread as an additional 1 million South Sudanese are on the brink of starvation, the UN announcement said.
And if all true, it highlights the complete failure of government at all levels.
So why should we believe they are capable of fixing the problems they most likely created?
Roughly 5.5 million people, or about 50 percent of South Sudan’s population, are expected to be severely food insecure and at risk of death in the coming months, the report said.
If food aid does not reach children urgently ‘‘many of them will die,’’ said Jeremy Hopkins, head of the UN children’s agency in South Sudan. Over 250,000 children are severely malnourished, he said, meaning they are at risk of death.
Monday’s declaration of starvation is solely South Sudan’s creation, and a UN official blamed the country’s politicians for the humanitarian crisis.
‘‘This famine is man-made,” said Joyce Luma, head of the World Food Program in South Sudan. ‘‘There is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security.’’
Maybe its global warming that is the cause.
--more--"
I don't doubt the suffering of Sudanese and find it appallingly criminal and tragic; I doubt the good intentions of my war-promoting paper is all.
3/7: South Sudan blocks desperately needed aid, say UN officials The report and statement show the daunting conditions faced by the international community as it tries to combat a catastrophe in the troubled East African nation."
"South Sudan ambush on humanitarian aid convoy kills 2" Associated Press March 16, 2017
JOHANNESBURG — An ambush on a humanitarian aid convoy in South Sudan has killed two people and wounded three, the International Organization for Migration said Thursday, in the latest hostility to outsiders trying to address the triple crisis of famine, cholera, and civil war.
Now cholera, too?
‘‘Unknown armed gunmen’’ targeted the convoy as it was returning from a field mission in Yirol East county, the agency said in a statement that condemned the attack. IOM staff, health workers, and civilians were the victims. Two died of gunshot wounds, and an IOM health officer was in stable condition.
The ambush took place in a region suffering from a cholera outbreak, the statement said. Famine was declared last month in two other counties of South Sudan, which has been devastated by three years of civil war.
The United Nations and aid groups have pleaded for more access to deliver humanitarian aid amid numerous government restrictions. Those include a sharp increase this month in the fees required for foreigners to work in the country, from about $100 to up to $10,000.
Both government troops and rebels have been accused of attacking, detaining, or harassing aid workers, including members of the UN peacekeeping mission.
Earlier this week, South Sudanese staffers with the US-based aid group Samaritan’s Purse were detained for a day by ‘‘armed personnel’’ before being released.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, fell into civil war just two years after it won its independence from Sudan in 2011.
Tens of thousands have been killed, and more than 1.5 million have fled the country, creating Africa’s largest refugee crisis.
That about says it all, doesn't it?
--more--"
They didn't mention the rapes, did they?
Related: Cutting Through the African Bush
Who is really chopping things down and why.
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