Remarkable Release of Turkish Vessel in Somali Piracy Case

With the latest captures and releases now still at least 19 seized foreign vessels (22 sea-related hostage cases since yacht SY LYNN RIVAL was abandoned and taken by the British Navy) with a total of not less than293 crew members (incl. the British sailing couple) plus at least 9 crew of the lorries held for an exchange with imprisoned pirates, are accounted for. The cases are monitored on our actual case-list, while several other cases of ships, which were observed off the coast of Somalia and have been reported or had reportedly disappeared without trace or information, are still being followed too. Over 134 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) had been recorded for 2008 with 49 fully documented, factual sea-jacking cases for Somalia and the mistaken sinking of one sea-jacked fishing vessel and killing of her crew by the Indian naval force. For 2009 the account closed with 228 incidences (incl. averted or abandoned attacks) with 68 vessels seized for different reasons on the Somali/Yemeni captor side as well as at least TWELVE wrongful attacks (incl. one friendly fire incident) on the side of the naval forces. 
For 2010 the recorded account stands at 66 attacks resulting in 30 sea-jackings as well as the sinking of one merchant vessel (MV AL ABI) by fire from the Seychelles’s coastguard boat TOPAZ and the wrongful attack by the Indian navy on a Yemeni fishing vessel.
The naval alliances had since August 2008 and until March 2010 apprehended 826 suspected pirates, detained and kept or transferred for prosecution 419,  killed at least 53 and wounded over 22 Somalis. (Actual independent update see: http://bruxelles2.over-blog.com/pages/_Bilan_antipiraterie_Atalanta_CTF_Otan_Russie_Exclusif-1169128.html). 
Not fully documented cases of absconded vessels are not listed in the sea-jack count until clarification. Several other vessels with unclear fate (although not in the actual count), who were reported missing over the last ten years in this area, are still kept on our watch-list, though in some cases it is presumed that they sunk due to bad weather or being unfit to sail – like the S/Y Serenity, MV Indian Ocean Explorer.Present multi-factorial risk assessment code: GoA: RED / IO: RED  (Red = Very much likely, high season; Orange = Reduced risk, but very likely, Yellow = significantly reduced risk, but still likely, Blue = possible, Green = unlikely). Piracy incidents usually degrade during the monsoon season and rise gradually by the end of the monsoon. Starting from mid February until early April every year an increase in piracy cases can be expected. 
If you have any additional information concerning the cases, please send to office[at]ecoterra-international.org – if required we guarantee 100% confidentiality.
For further details and regional information see the Somali Marine and Coastal Monitor at www.australia.to and the map of the PIRACY COASTS OF SOMALIA.


—————- directly piracy, abduction, mariner or naval upsurge related reports ——————–

Owners of United Arab Emirates-based trading dhows, facing a wave of pirate attacks, have boycotted trade with Somalia, using their economic leverage there to help free their ships. [N.B.: That "boycott" comes after a clear directive was issued by the Indian Government, which does not permit any of the Indian-flagged MSVs to sail beyond a line between Salalah in Oman and Malé in Maldives. Indian-flagged dhows have been at the core of the blockade breaking trading with rebel-held Kismaayo, circumventing the UN imposed arms embargo for Somalia and are the main culprits concerning the illegal export of precious stones, charcoal, wildlife and other contraband from Somalia, incl. human trafficking from and to Somalia.] 
The roughly week-long embargo, which began at the end of March, contributed to a rise in goods prices in Somalia and has so far helped to secure the release of six captured dhows, a shipowner and an exporter said. 
Between March 27 and March 28, Somali pirates went on a hijacking spree, capturing eight Emirates-based dhows in an unprecedented sweep of the small wooden trading ships. 
“Before, there were single incidents… (every) two months, three months, they (pirates) take one launch or one ship, then they release” them, said Jagdip Ayachi, speaking in the cabin of the Narsang, one of his three dhows. 
Another of Indian national Ayachi’s ships, the Shivsagar, was also in port on the Dubai Creek. The third, the Sea Queen, was captured on March 27 and released about eight days later. 
Because of the hijackings, “we lose so much money, we waste our time, we waste our voyage,” he said. 
A spokesman for the Bahrain-based Combined Maritime Forces said that approximately 10 dhows were hijacked between March 23 and April 6. 
“We do believe the number of attacks has increased over previous years,” he said. 
Abdi Hassan, the general manager of Mogadishu Shipping and Cargo, which hires UAE dhows to take goods to Somalia, described the scale of recent hijackings as unprecedented. 
“Before… (pirates were) not catching eight to nine at one time,” he said. Pirates previously captured “maybe one or two at a time. So this time, it’s a very big problem for business.” 
“We are losing freight, we are losing… diesel, we are losing expenses and we are losing time,” said Hassan. A ship he chartered was captured in the recent hijackings. 
Both Ayachi and Hassan said currently calm seas make successful hijackings easier, but said trading dhows are usually not captured, as they bring food and other much-needed goods to war-torn Somalia. 
Dhow owners met on March 29 in Dubai to discuss how to respond to the pirate attacks, Ayachi said. 
The owners “all took a decision together” to stop shipping to Somalia, “to pressure… exporters and the Somali government,” he said. 
“If they don’t get the food, if they don’t get the general cargo, they have (to work) to release our launches.” 
After the embargo began, Ayachi said, UAE-based Somali exporters started negotiations to secure the release of the ships. 
Hassan said he and other exporters contacted members of the business community in Somalia, who then contacted the government in Mogadishu to request that it intervene with the pirates to release the captured ships. 
“Still, there are negotiations on how to solve this problem,” he said. 
The talks have already produced results. The pirates began releasing ships around six days after the embargo began, Ayachi said. Six ships are now free. 
Hassan said “nobody paid” ransoms to have the vessels released. Ayachi said he did not think ransoms were demanded. 
The owners decided to resume shipping when the releases began, Ayachi said. 
During the embargo, “the prices shot up there,” he said of the Somali port cities Mogadishu and Kismayo. Hassan echoed that sentiment. 
Both said pressure from the embargo helped to secure the release of the captured ships. 
“We hope that” the problems with the pirates are over, Ayachi said. 
But conditions in Somalia, which has not had a stable government since 1991, make securing guarantees for the dhows’ safety difficult. 
“There are so many tribes in Somalia. [N.B.: Using the term "tribe" for the translation of "kabila" the author of this article for AFP, a Briton with the name Dunlop exposes here his colonial brain, but seems not to know what the boat owner is talking about.]  There is no government, there is no police, nothing,” Ayachi said. “It is very difficult to convince each and every group” not to capture dhows. 
“Definitely. We’ll stop sending any goods,” he replied when asked if there would be future embargos if attacks continue. 
“The only way (to stop the hijackings) is to pressure the Mogadishu government, the Somali government, to protect us, to give the security to our launches,” he said. 
Hassan also noted that the government in Mogadishu is weak, which he said allows pirates to operate freely. 
“The government doesn’t have power. If the government is strong, these people will not do like that,” he said. 
Somalia’s internationally backed Transitional Federal Government has been boxed into a tiny perimeter in Mogadishu by an insurgency launched in May 2009.

Piracy hits Puntland economy, brings vices: leader by Frank Nyakairu (Reuters)
Piracy off the coast of Somalia has damaged livestock exports and the fishing industry in semi-autonomous Puntland, bringing vices like alcohol and prostitution, the region’s president said. 
A cash bonanza from millions of dollars in ransoms has filled pirate coffers and led to an influx of gleaming cars, new villas and luxury goods into Puntland, which declared itself independent in the early 1990s when the Horn of Africa nation was plunged into anarchy and civil war. 
Puntland President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole told Reuters that piracy had emerged as an industry for a wide range of people, including brokers and facilitators, disrupting the region’s traditional economy. 
“They have disrupted our economy, which traditionally is based on livestock export and fisheries. No one is fishing on the waters now,” he said in the interview conducted late on Thursday. “They have spoiled the cultural and religious values, and introduced drugs, alcohol and prostitution.” 
Somalia’s economy is based almost entirely on remittances, livestock exports to Gulf Arab countries and donor inflows. But the threat of hijackings in the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Aden has deterred livestock traders from crossing the waterway, hitting trade volumes. 
Farole rejected accusations by the United Nations that pirates may be collaborating with officials in Puntland and criticised the lack of aid from foreign powers to help the region fight piracy. 
He said said his government’s $20 million plan to train a 600-strong anti-piracy force and put dozens of speedboats on 80 coastguard stations had failed to attract donor attention. 
“We brought this plan to many organisations including governments and the (United Nations). Everybody appreciated it but up to now we have not got any assistance,” Farole said. 
The northern region has been relatively peaceful compared with southern Somalia. But Farole, who was in Kenya to meet with donors, said prisons were stretched to their limits with 264 arrested pirates and Puntland needed assistance to increase its jail capacity. 
Australia’s Range Resources and partner Africa Oil Corp are exploring for crude oil in Puntland and Farole said there was a “good prospect” that their efforts would yield results. 
Somalia has no proven oil reserves but a joint World Bank/U.N. survey of northeast Africa 16 years ago ranked it second only to Sudan as the top prospective producer. Geologically-similar formations in Yemen, across the Gulf of Aden, hold nearly 4 billion barrels.

Swedes prepare to join EU NAVFOR in the Gulf of Aden
The designated Swedish Force Commander of the EU Naval Force (EU NAVFOR) operating off Somalia, Rear Admiral (LH) Jan Thörnqvist, arrived in Djibouti 5 April onboard the Swedish warship Carlskrona to a warm welcome from the French frigate La Fayette commanded by Commander Eric Delepoulle.
On entering harbour, HSwMS Carlskrona lowered one of the ships RHIBs (fast boats) to transport Rear Admiral (LH) Jan Thörnqvist, who next Wednesday will take over as Force Commander of the EU NAVFOR Somalia – Operation ATALANTA (EU NAVFOR), to the EU NAVFOR French frigate La Fayette, where Commander Eric Delepoulle welcomed his Swedish guests.
During the visit, Admiral Thörnqvist and his colleagues received an update on the situation in the Gulf of Aden and also the abilities of the French frigate La Fayette including what the La Fayette has to offer in the fight against piracy. One of La Fayette’s many advantages is that she carries a helicopter and also has a hangar. In addition, she is constructed under the so-called Stealth principle – the same technique that is to be used in the new Swedish corvettes of Visby-class. The stealth-technique involves design, materials, shape and colour – which limit the ship’s signatures – acoustic, magnetic, and radar making it difficult to detect.
On April 14, the present Italian command ship Etna will transfer its authority for Operation Atalanta to a Swedish-led multinational Force Headquarters (FHQ) on board HSwMS Carlskrona.
EU NAVFOR Somalia – Operation ATALANTA’s main tasks are to escort merchant vessels carrying humanitarian aid of the ‘World Food Program’ (WFP) and vessels of AMISOM, and to protect vulnerable ships in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean and to deter and disrupt piracy. EU NAVFOR also monitors fishing activity off the coast of Somalia.

Piracy fear alters cruise itinerary (SafetyAtSea)
REGENT Seven Seas has reportedly ordered its Seven Seas Voyager to skip a stop in Zanzibar because Tanzania is too close to Horn of Africa pirates. 
The company’s cruise director Jamie Logan said the stop had been deleted from the round-the-world itinerary for the 700-passenger ship, now transiting the Indian Ocean, the USA Today newspaper reported today. 
“You may have seen that there has been a surge in pirate activity between the Seychelles and Kenya, which would have been right in the direction we would be heading,” Logan wrote in his internet blog. “Now we do, in fact, have several special security people on board [but] we don’t want to increase our chances of having to use them.” 
Three months ago, Star Clippers cancelled a series of voyages in late 2010 and early 2011 because of piracy fears, USA Today reported. A year ago, MSC Cruises and Britain’s Fred Olsen Cruise Lines stopped cruising in the region. 
Meanwhile, owners of United Arab Emirates dhows have been boycotting trade with Somalia since March, in an attempt to use economic leverage to free their vessels hijacked by pirates and used as mother ships. 
This has contributed to a rise in goods prices in Somalia and helped to secure the release of six captured dhows, a shipowner and an exporter told AFP. A spokesman for the Bahrain-based Combined Maritime Forces said about 10 dhows were hijacked from 23 March to 6 April. 
And the South Korean VLCC Samho Dream, seized by Somali pirates over the weekend, has anchored off Hobyo in northern Somalia, with a Korean destroyer still nearby, pirates and witnesses said.

Captains on the P&O cruise ships Aurora and Arcadia asked the passengers to take the action while the vessels sailed through the Gulf of Aden. 
They were told not to use the promenade deck and to keep the curtains closed between 6.30pm and 7am.

The Aurora takes 1,870 passengers and the Arcadia has room for 2,000. 
Passengers pay around £1,100 for a three- or four-week “sector” of the trip although the price for a full round-the-world cruise is over £7,000. 
As part of the world cruise, the Aurora and Arcadia sail from Southampton through the Mediterranean, onto the Suez Canal and through the pirate-infested waters of Somalia. 
The area has seen so much piracy in recent years – by gangs armed with automatic rifles and even rocket-propelled grenades – that an international patrol of warships from EU countries was set up. 
The International Maritime Organization, which regulates shipping, drew up a set of advice on how to deter pirates. 
The code says attacks are most common at dawn and dusk and recommends ships keep their speed up, use dummies as fake lookouts and spool razor wire around the lowest parts of the vessel. 
It also recommends that people should stay off the decks during the hours of darkness. 
However, drawing the curtains against pirates does not seem to be an internationally recognised solution to the problem. 
A spokesman for the IMO said: “I’ve never heard of it before.” 
This is the first time such measures have been taken by P&O. 
Both the Aurora and the Arcadia set off on world cruises which last around 100 days from Southampton. Both head through the Suez Canal before one travels eastwards and one westwards. 
The Arcadia is currently off the Italian coast and due back in Southampton in the next few days, while the Aurora is off west Africa heading home via Madeira. They passed through the Gulf of Aden in January. 
A spokeswoman for P&O said: “Passengers were asked to draw the curtains in their cabins and not go onto the promenade deck. Apart from that they had the freedom of the ship, as usual. 
“Cruise ship security is the industry’s highest priority, and cruising is a safe holiday. 
“Security standards are strictly guided by a network of internationally approved standards, and individual cruise lines also have well established security assessment procedures and protocols. 
“Our fleets are equipped with a comprehensive series of protective measures and devices which are activated in accordance with the ship’s security plan.” 
British couple Paul Chandler, 60, and his wife Rachel, 56, were kidnapped by Somali pirates after their yacht was seized last October. The gunmen have demanded a ransom of £1.3m. The Foreign Office says it is doing all it can. 
In November 2005, a cruise ship sailing off Somalia repelled armed pirates without returning fire by using bangs to simulate weapons.

——— ecology , ecosystems, marine environment, IUU fishing and dumping, UNCLOS, humanities ———— 

Africa wants help, practical measures against maritime security threats (PANA)

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – Faced with radically growing organized piracy, illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste, Africa has called for practical measures to address what its officials call ‘real and current’ maritime security threats.
The call was made at a three-day continental meeting of African ministers in charge of maritime security at the AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, where the ministers also emphasized the need for Africa to better protect its waters.
“African countries should cooperate and coordinate their efforts on maritime security. We need to act now,” Bright Mando, AU jurist, told the meeting, which opened Tuesday.
According to AU officials, so far, there have only been promises in addressing maritime security threats, particularly highly organized piracy, illegal fishing and dumping of toxic waste into the continent’s vast waters and the challenges are underestimated.
For example, a representative of landlocked Malawi told the meeting, also attended by representatives from developed and emerging economies, including China and Russia, the UN and International Maritime Organization (IMO), that of the over 100 piracy incidents in a year, only 40 had been reported.
Over 200 million people in Africa regularly feed on maritime sources (fishes), according to a detailed presentation by the Malawian representative.
Fish is the most affordable nutrient in the continent, from which 22 per cent of the population get protein.
According to Mando, Africa is surrounded by water; 38 countries in the continent are Islands or on the coast.
‘Seas or oceans that are not secure are potential havens for criminal activities,” he said, adding that most of these countries did not have the means to protect their coasts making them havens for pirates and destinations for illegal fishing, toxic waste dumping and even routes for trafficking of drugs and people.
Chaotic Somalia has been frequently mentioned as an example because there have been escalating large-scale piracy off the coast of the Horn of African state without a central government since 1991.
The coasts of some West African states have also been discussed.
El-Ghassim Wane, AU Peace and Security Director, said for piracy to be addressed in a comprehensive manner, countries of the world should help countries like Somalia.
As a gesture of its extreme concern, Somalia sent its Deputy Prime Minister, Abdulrahman Adan Ibrahim, to the meeting.
Ibrahim pleaded for external support to his country to clear toxic wastes dumped illegally, saying the fight against dumping went hand in hand with the fight against piracy.
Hazardous substances dumped in various coasts of Africa have caused numerous deaths.

‘Aid industry is part of problem,’ says author by Ida Karlsson (IPS/GIN)
Aid organizations perpetuate humanitarian disasters. That is one of the conclusions made by war correspondent Linda Polman in her latest book as she describes the world of humanitarian aid. 
When there is a major disaster, large and wealthy aid organizations come pouring into the area, according to Ms. Polman who has seen the results in a range of crisis areas. 
“Should international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) carry on providing relief if warring factions use aid for their own benefit, thus prolonging the war?” she asks. 
“With Friends Like These (De crisiskaravaan)—The untold story of humanitarian aid operations in war zones” investigates the effects of emergency aid on the course of wars and on the crises themselves. She criticizes the aid industry’s multi-billion dollar operations, which she describes as a business in a market of supply and demand, dressed up as Mother Teresa. 
“Aid has always been a subject of abuse. Money is disappearing into the wrong pockets,” she says. 
Ms. Polman talks about “contract fever” and how aid organizations focus on winning and extending contracts and follow the flow of funds. As donors look for other disasters and other countries, the crisis caravan—international humanitarian organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the International Committee of the Red Cross—set off again. 
The salaries and the danger-and-discomfort bonuses in the aid sector are said to be fostering an international jet set. “In humanitarian territories, restaurants, squash courts and golf and tennis facilities are often reconstructed sooner than bombed-out schools and clinics,” she writes in her book and notes “wherever aid workers go, prostitution soars.” 
She also describes how aid is used and abused by governments and rebels. 
Ms. Polman recalled the situation in a refugee camp in Goma in 1995, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, when Hutu extremists were sustained and nursed by humanitarian aid and therefore could continue the war in Rwanda. 
“While the West thought it was helping victims of the genocide, it turned out it was the perpetrators who the aid organizations were looking after so well.” 
According to her many humanitarian organizations simply ignore the complicated context they are working in—even when wrongful use is made of their assistance. 
However, director general of the Dutch section of MSF, Hans van de Weerd, says his organization disagrees with the general tone of Ms. Polman’s book. 
“The book lumps all humanitarian aid into one big group. We do not recognize our work at all in the series of incidents mentioned. With our own teams we closely monitor the situation in the field to ensure that aid gets to the most vulnerable people,” he told IPS. 
He says that MSF is aware that humanitarian assistance can be manipulated. The organization has carried out several studies to get a better understanding of the diversion of aid in Chad and Darfur, among other places. 
The World Food Program, the food aid branch of the United Nations, recently released a report showing that it is very likely that half of the $250 million spent in Somalia has disappeared into the pockets of war lords, which means a serious injection into the war economy. The report is now in the hands of the United Nations Security Council. 
According to a 2005 study by the Center for Civil Society Studies at John Hopkins University in the U.S., the non-profit sector is an enormous economic force and the fifth largest economy in terms of GDP after the U.S., Japan, Germany and Britain. 
“About 37,000 aid organizations in the world spending $130 billion makes it an industry,” Ms. Polman says. 
She welcomes the possibility of humanitarian organizations being tried by the International Criminal Court.

India plays the water card by Sajjad Shaukat (PakObserver)
While Pakistan is already facing multiple crises of grave nature,India has been playing the water card in order to intensify political unrest, economic instability and social strife in our country. In this regard, three-day parleys between India and Pakistan ended on March 30 this year without producing any result. Islamabad raised technical objections against the Nimo Bazgo Dam and Chutak hydroelectric plant, terming the same as a sheer violation of Indus Water Basin Treaty of 1960. Pakistan’s Indus Water Commissioner Syed Jamaat Ali Shah said that New Delhi had assured that no other project is under construction except these two ones. Pakistan sought changes to the design of Nimo Bazgo Dam. But India rejected the demand.
While speaking in diplomatic language, Indus Water Commissioner of India G. Auranganathan said: “India never stole or blocked Pakistan’s share of waters and has assured Pakistan that New Delhi would implement Indus Water Treaty in letter and spirit.” In international politics of today, these are deeds, not words which matter, so ground realties are quite different as to what G. Ranganathan indicated in his statement. Meanwhile, Chairman Indus Water Treaty Council Hafiz Zahoor-ul-Hassan Dahr has stated that previous 131 rounds of talks between Pakistan and India under Indus Water Treaty bore no fruits and the latest series of dialogue would meet the same result. However, water of rivers has become a matter of life and death for every Pakistani as New Delhi has continuously been employing it as a card of blackmailing diplomacy. In the recent past, Indian decision to construct two hydro-electric projects on River Neelam which is called Krishanganga in Indian dialect is another violation of the Indus Basin Water Treaty. As regards the background of the treaty, notably, after partition, India went to war against Pakistan for the illegitimate occupation of Kashmir which continued in one form or the other from October 1947 until January 1949. Owing to war-like situation, New Delhi deliberately stopped the flow of Pakistan’s rivers which originate from the Indian-held Kashmir. Even at that time, Indian rulers had played the water card as a tool of political blackmailing against Pakistan. Nevertheless, due to Indian illogical stand, Islamabad sought the help of international arbitration. The Indus Water Treaty allocates waters of three western rivers of Indus, Jhelum and Chenab to Pakistan, while India has rights over eastern rivers of Ravi, Sutlej and Beas. Since the settlement of the dispute, India has always violated the treaty intermittently to create economic crisis in Pakistan. In 1984 a controversy arose between the two neighbouring states after India began construction of the Wullar Barrage on river Jhelum in the occupied Kashmir. New Delhi halted construction work in 1987 after Pakistan lodged a strong protest over the project, stating it violated the Indus Water Treaty. The issue of Wullar Barrage has also been discussed in various rounds of talks, being held under composite dialogue process between the two rivals, but Indian intransigence continues. In the mid 1990s India started another violation by constructing the Baglihar dam on the Chenab river. In 2008, India suddenly reduced water flow of the Chenab river to give a greater setback to our autumnal crops. Islamabad on September 17, 2008 threatened to seek the World Bank’s intervention on the plea that New Delhi had not responded to its repeated complaints on the issue appropriately. Nevertheless, by intermittent violations of the Indus Water Treaty, New Delhi, in fact, has been using water as a tool to pressurise Islamabad with a view to getting leverage in the composite dialogue especially regarding Indian-held Kashmir where a new phase of protests and state terrorism has started, and where people have intensified their struggle for liberation. Indian diplomacy of employing water as a card of diplomacy could also be judged from a latest development. India has secretly supplied technical assistance to the Afghan government in order to construct a dam over Kabul River which is a main water contributor to Indus River. Notably, by applying such a shrewd diplomacy of water, New Delhi intends to fulfil a number of nefarious designs against Pakistan. India wants to keep her control on Kashmir which is located in the Indus River basin area which contributes to the flow of all the major rivers, entering Pakistan. It is determined to bring about political, economic and social problems of grave nature in Pakistan. As regards the Indian clandestine aims, in this respect, a report, published in the “New Scientist” in 2005 pointed out a number of issues in relation to Pakistan by writing: “Violation of the Indus Basin Treaty could lead to widespread famine, and further inflame the ongoing conflict over Kashmir. Pakistan relies on the Indus river and its tributaries for almost half of its irrigation supplies, and to generate up to half of its electricity. 
Pakistan also fears that India would use various dams as a coercive tool by causing floods in Pakistan through sudden release of dam waters.” According to an estimate, unlike India, Pakistan is highly dependent on agriculture, which in turn is dependent on water. Of the 79.6 million hectares of land that makeup Pakistan, 20 million are available for agriculture. Of those 20 million hectares, 16 million are dependent on irrigation. So, almost 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture is dependent on irrigation. It is notable that many of Pakistan’s industries are agro-based such as the textiles industry. Besides, 80% of Pakistan’s food needs are fulfilled domestically. Thus an interruption of water supply would have broad-ranging effects. For example, when the country suffered a drought from 1998 to 2001, there were violent riots in Karachi.
As half of Pakistan’s energy comes from hydroelectricity, at present, our country has been facing a severe crisis of loadshedding which is the result of power-shortage in the country. Recently, people in a number of cities like Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad etc. lodged violent protests against the loadshedding, culminating into loss of property and life. At present, Pakistan has already been facing multifaceted challenges coupled with a continued phenomenon of terrorism like suicide attacks, bomblasts etc., committed by the militants who enter our country from Afghanistan where Indian secret intelligence agency, RAW has established training centres for anti-Pakistan activities—New Delhi also uses water as a tool by increasing its scarcity, making life too often miserable for Pakistanis with the unlitmate aim of creating poverty which could produce more terrorism in turn. 
Latest reports suggest that India has been constructing 52 illegal dams including five large ones, of which as many as 32 small dams had already been completed while 12 others would be finalised in 2014. Besides, New Delhi is also constructing Kargil Dam, the second largest in the world on Indus. India had seized 70 per cent water of Chenab and Jhelum rivers as a result of which over 0.9 million acres of land, being irrigated through Marala Headworks, is now presenting the view of Thar and Cholistan deserts. While the Baglihar Dam is already causing an annual loss of Rs140 billion to Pakistan, and it is feared that India would soon stop entire water flow of Chenab and Jhelum rivers, turning 18 districts of Punjab and six districts of Sindh into a desert. Unlike the past shrewd diplomacy, being contested through the traditional methods, India has changed it, encompassing all the spheres. Now, war diplomacy with non-lethal weapons can be more harmful in damaging the interest of a rival country or enemy. It will be conducted in non-war spheres, entailing non-military means and tactics as part of the new warfare. In this connection, India plays the water card to damage all interests of Pakistan so as to convert the latter into Somalia or Ethiopia.

————————— anti-piracy measures ——————————–

Germany to try Somali pirates on Dutch warship (RNW)

Portugal sends troops, plane to combat Somali pirates (Xinhua)
Portugal’s Supreme National Defense Council on Friday decided to send a plane and some troops to the Indian Ocean to participate in the EU’s piracy-combat mission there.
In a communique released after a special meeting, the Council said it is sending a sea-patrol aircraft and 42 troops to fight the Somali pirates.
The Portuguese mission will last four months at most, the Council said.
Last year a frigate from the Portuguese navy joined the EU to fight pirates off the Somali Sea.
With the monsoon season over, the pirates are back prowling the Indian Ocean and the strategically vital Gulf of Aden shipping route.
In March alone pirates hijacked nine vessels and made 17 unsuccessful attacks on other vessels.

UN General Assembly to hold informal meeting on int’l maritime piracy: spokesman (Xinhua)
The UN General Assembly is scheduled to convene an informal meeting on the international maritime piracy in mid-May, the spokesman for the General Assembly president, Jean-Victor Nkolo, said on Friday.
The president of the 64th session of the UN General Assembly ( GA), Ali Abdussalam Treki, has discussed the upcoming General Assembly meeting on the international maritime piracy with Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Baker al-Qirby when the president paid an official visit to Yemen on April 7-9.
“Both parties discussed international maritime piracy in light of the upcoming informal meeting of the General Assembly on the issue on May 14, 2010,” the spokesman said. “President Treki invited the foreign minister of Yemen to participate in this meeting, citing the need to address this issue through the collective will of the international community as a whole.”
Naval ships from various countries are escorting ships against pirates in waters off Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden, a narrow, 885 km-long stretch of water that lies between Yemen and Somalia, where piracy activities were frequently reported.
Meanwhile, the spokesman said, “They discussed a wide range of issues including the outcome of the recent Arab League Summit in Sirte, the situation in the Middle East, the reform efforts in the United Nations and the high level meetings organized by the president of the General Assembly concerning disarmament, peacekeeping, dialogue among civilizations and the Middle East.”

————– no real peace in sight yet ————–

Somalia’s Last Chance by Dr. Oduesp Eman (*) (NewsBlaze)
While the current Somali transitional government is by no means perfect, there are at least a couple of things it has been doing right- putting in place various apparatuses to pave the way for good governance, and laying the foundation to reestablish law and order. Granted, these two developments are only moving at a snail’s-pace. 
Furthermore, these kinds of developments are not as appealing as the reports of God help this country to return to its roots thus they seldom get reported. When it comes to reporting news, especially as it pertains to other non ally countries, there seems to be a prevalent norm that predictably gravitates toward the negative. Positive is boring! 
So, if one’s impression about Somalia is based on reports by that same media who, by and large, rely on scoops gathered by amateur local reporters that they then cosmetically polish in the comforts of their offices thousands of miles away from the scene , one is likely to hold a blurred picture about the reality on the ground. And, it is no surprise that some policy advocates are so credulously misinformed, they declare Somalia a hopeless case; and that the United States and the international community should totally disengage from that country and to leave to its own diabolical vices. 
One of the main factors that caused the failure of the so-called global war on terrorism was that fact that it ignored how the feeling of hopelessness inspires desperate and destructive acts. As the individual grows more dangerous when consumed by a sense of hopelessness so do groups and nations. There is enough psychological research available to confirm that the feeling of desperation triggers survival instincts that know only one rule: by any means necessary. 
This is not to downplay the enormity of the task required to help the transitional government restore law and order… but to point out that abandoning Somalia at this critical juncture could simply worsen the situation. While it is true that the U.S. foreign policy of the previous administration and the role of AMISOM have further radicalized more Somalis, the abovementioned alternative could be a recipe for disaster- not only for Somalia , but for the region and perhaps beyond. AMISOM earned a bad reputation during the two year Ethiopian occupation of Somalia . To improve its image and regain credibility, certain Muslim countries must be persuaded to send their troops. 
Given the right political and economic support, the transitional government would step up to the challenge and assert its mandate to govern and set the stage for broad-based reconciliation that includes those al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam members who denounce violence, “Somaliland” and “Puntland”. 
The current transitional government has the potential to surprise the cynics who are writing it off. Contrary to the common practice of the previous transitional governments, the current government is a coalition of Islamistsand secularists. The inner circle of influence counseling President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke on various critical issues are diverse in terms of clan affiliation, educational background as well as age and experience. Not to mention that a good number of them come from the Somali Diaspora. So it is fair to say that for the first time something that resembles the genuine principle of inclusivity in political participation is shaping itself in Somalia . 
Ironically though, the biggest hurdle hindering the sustainability of any immediate solution still remains to be the so-called’ 4.5 system’ in which the zero-sum clan-based competition for resources is institutionalized. Power, according to this system, is divided on an unbalanced scale that guarantees equal distribution to four major clans and a one half share for minority communities considered to be the riffraff of a clan-based society where might is rewarded. 
However, the good news is: elements that could potentially dismantle this unjust system are on the move. Already, within the Somali Diaspora communities, various groups have started holding early political town hall meetings to develop their platform and form political parties that would run in the upcoming general elections a little over a year from now. And it is this latter development that is further boosting the hope of many active members of the Somali diaspora who have been yearning for stability and peace. 
In its attempt to develop a comprehensive policy toward Somalia; were the United States to adopt the so-called “constructive disengagement” approach being pushed by the Council on Foreign Relations, it would only mean to completely abandon two elements critical to its national interest and security: repairing U.S.’ deeply damaged image in the Islamic world, and protecting America’s geopolitical interests. Prudently engaging Somalia provides an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. 
Meanwhile, the alarm bells are ringing: pirates continue seizing commercial ships and vessels- over 200 attempts and 47 successes in 2009. Religious extremism, a phenomenon that Abukar Arman-a Somali writer who was recently appointed Special Envoy to the US-calls “radio-active ideology” masquerading as religion continues to spread. And, 3.5 million Somalis remain on the verge starvation. 
(*) Dr. Oduesp Eman teaches political Islam in Turkey.

Insurgents ban BBC, VOA broadcasts in Mogadishu (Xinhua)
Islamist insurgents in Somalia on Friday banned rebroadcasts of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Voice of America (VOA) on local the FM stations and confiscated the equipment of an FM station that solely relays BBC programs 24 hours a day. “From today onwards all FM (radio stations) that rebroadcast the BBC inside the Islamic Wilayats (regions) shall stop broadcasting and all their equipment will be confiscated,” said a statement issued by Al Shabaab, an Islamist group that controls much of south and central Somali regions.

————  reports, news and views from the global village with an impact on Somalia ——————- 

Somali hip hop artists hit back at Islamists with rap by Sahra Abdi and Abdiaziz Hassan (Reuters)
For centuries, Somalis used poetry and songs to pass protest messages to powerful rulers they were too afraid to confront directly. 
Now, some young Somalis are using rap to speak out against Islamists who they say are using religion to wage war in their country. 
The 11-member Waayaha Cusub band, currently in exile in neighbouring Kenya, wants its rap lyrics to encourage fellow Somalis to stand up to Islamist rebels known as al Shabaab. 
They have handed out at least 7,000 free copies of their newly-released album titled “No To Al Shabaab” to residents in Nairobi’s Eastleigh neighbourhood, home to many Somali migrants. 
“We will wipe out the fear of our people that no one can speak out against al Shabaab. We will show our people that we can challenge them,” said Shine Abdullahi, the group’s founder. 
Al Shabaab have besieged Mogadishu’s Western-backed administration and control much of the countryside. The United States says it is al Qaeda’s proxy in eastern Africa. 
The rebels have been joined by foreign militants who Western security agencies say are using the country as a haven to plot attacks in the region and beyond. 
“They are talking about Holy war, they are training and misleading youth, and we want to stop the spread of those ideas and warn our people there is no Jihad,” Abdullahi, 27, said. 
The new album attracted more than 100,000 viewers onto the group’s website, www.waayahacusub.com, in the first three weeks. Abdullahi says it has since been corrupted, possibly by al Shabaab. 
“They are unkind, teach terrorism, and worthless lessons, they blindfold, and cause pain, inject drugs, that lead to actions, force them to kill their fathers and relatives,” one of the group’s raps goes. 
REPRISAL 
The group’s only female member, Falis Abdi Mohamud, is a rebel in her own right. In one video, the 23-year-old is not covering her head as most Somali women do, and is wearing tight jeans. 
“They criticise me and say ‘she is not Muslim because of wearing a trouser’. I am Muslim,” she said. “I want to reach my people. I will not stop my mission because of fear or other people’s desires. History will tell who is right and wrong.” 
Mohamud was born in the southern town of Kismayu that is now an al Shabaab stronghold. The insurgents have banned music in areas that they control and allow only Arabic Koranic chanting. 
Waayaha Cusub toured the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland in July but Mohamud hopes to perform in her hometown one day. 
“The trip to Somalia was great. That is when I realised people like our music, and it really gave us confidence not to stop our campaign because a few people who dislike us.” 
The group’s youngest member is 15-year-old Suleqa Mohamed, who is a student at an Eastleigh school. 
Most of them want to return to Somalia and live off their music when peace returns but currently survive on sponsorships by businessmen and Somalis in the diaspora. 
Their songs have angered some people. Even in the relative stability and security of Kenya they have been attacked. Gunmen shot and wounded Abdullahi in 2007. 
He believes the attack was because the group released a series of songs criticising Ethiopia’s incursion into Somalia and suicide bombings by the insurgents. 
Even mobile phone text message threats from al Shabaab sympathisers in Kenya and Somalia have failed to intimidate Abdullahi. 
He says he will never be cowered by what he calls “religious warlords” who present an awful image of Islam to the world. 
“The attack was aimed at silencing the group, but that did not work,” he said, showing scars on his stomach from a bullet and the surgery that followed. 
“We will not allow anyone to silence us. They misread our religion and kill people. They are cursed,” he said. 
It is a difficult time to win the hearts of teenagers who easily confuse their religion with the ideology dispensed by groups like al Shabaab and al Qaeda, Abdullahi says. 
However, he is more optimistic that he can win his part of the war, ridding Somalia of al Shabaab. 
“This is real war. Those who refuse to honour their prophet cannot win,” he said. “We will have the upper hand at the end of the day.”

Somali Under-17 football squad defeats Kenya (APA) 
The Somali national Under-17 football squad has defeated its Kenyan counterpart by 3-1 in the first leg of the CAF Under-17 qualifying match at the Guled Stadium in Djibouti on Friday afternoon. 
In the 16th minute of the hotly-contested game, Somali striker Jibril Hassan Mohamed scored the first goal, which lifted the moral of the Somali squad, as all the spectators at the stadium stood up and sang the Somali national anthem. 
The first half of the game ended with Somalia having the lead. 
In the start of the second half of the match, both teams presented high tactics by attacking each other’s goal, but in the 56th minute of the second half, Jibriil scored his second goal for Somalia. 
A little while after, Somalia got the third goal, taking charge of the match, but in the Kenyan squad got its first goal from a free kick, as the game ended 3-1 with the Somali team taking victory over its Kenyan rivals. 
Somalia hosted Kenya in Djibouti as the Somali Football Federation cannot host international matches in the lawless country because of the insecurity and long-running civil war the country has been experiencing since 1991. 
The two teams will play the return match in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on April 24,, as scheduled. 
The 2011 CAF Under-17 competition will take place in Rwanda next year.

Yemen: License To Kill (strategypage)
The government has declared an end to the peace effort with the northern Shia rebels. This comes about after yesterday’s kidnapping of eleven soldiers by the rebels. This was but the latest example of the tribal rebels ignoring the peace terms they agreed to. This was not unexpected, as, in the past, the tribes frequently made ceasefire deals they had no intention of keeping. 
Local officials are reporting that dozens of al Qaeda members from Yemen have arrived in Somalia, bringing weapons and other equipment with them. Somalia is pretty wide open, with a long coast and no air-traffic-control to even monitor who flies in. There are many air charter companies in the region that will, for a price, fly you and your cargo into Somalia. Yemeni and Somali fishermen often moonlight as smugglers. It is believed that some, or all, of the al Qaeda leadership in Yemen has been moving to Somalia in the last month. While several of the Yemeni tribes have promised to protect al Qaeda leaders, the tribes have more bluster than military power. Government security forces have been rounding up more and more al Qaeda members, despite tribal threats. The Americans and all their surveillance equipment are increasingly active in Yemen, making it harder for al Qaeda people to hide. While the al Qaeda leadership has fled Yemen, the rank-and-file members have been ordered to lie low and stay hidden for two months or so. Al Qaeda believes that the government will not sustain the current counter-terror operations, and that by the Summer, the al Qaeda leadership will be able to return and resume planning world conquest. 
The Awliki tribe announced that it would continue to hide and protect radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki (who was involved in the last two terror attacks in the United States; the Christmas bombing attempt and the Fort Hood shootings). Al Awlaki was born in the United States, but raised a Moslem, and returned to Yemen in 2004 to complete his religious education, and become more involved with Islamic radicalism, including al Qaeda. He was arrested in 2006 for his Islamic radical activities, but was released a year later when he promised to abandon his terrorist proclivities. He went into hiding and reverted to his support for Islamic terrorism. Awliki tribal leaders deny that Anwar al Awlaki is involved with al Qaeda, but a large body of his speeches and writings say otherwise. The Awliki tribe is centered in Shabwah province, which is southeast of the capital, on the Gulf of Aden coast. It’s 39,000 square kilometers consists mostly of mountains and desert, with a population of half a million (most of them not Awlikis). 
The number of illegal migrants entering Yemen from Somalia has declined by nearly half (to 3,000 a month) this year. Most of the decline is from Somalia, where growing violence, and poverty, make it more difficult for Somalis to get to the Somali coast opposite Yemen. Somalis used to be over half the illegal migrants, but are now less than a third. While most of these migrants seek to move on once they land in Yemen, about 170,000 of them live in Yemen refugee camps.

British National Killed in Restive Ethiopian Region by Jason McLure (Bloomberg)
A British national working for IMC Geophysics International Ltd. was killed in Ethiopia’s restive Ogaden region earlier this week, the British Embassy said. 
“We can confirm a British national was killed on April 5 near Danot town in the Warder area of the Somali region,” Gavin Cook, a spokesman for the embassy, said in a phone interview today from Addis Ababa, the capital. He declined to identify the person, who he said was killed on April 5. 
In April 2007, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, an ethnic Somali separatist group known as the ONLF, attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration site in the Ogaden, killing 65 Ethiopian and nine Chinese workers. 
Ethiopia claimed the Ogaden region in the late 19th century through a series of agreements with Italy and the U.K., which colonized much of modern-day Somalia. Ethnic Somalis from the Ogaden clan have opposed Ethiopian rule. 
The ONLF denied it was involved in the attack on the Briton. 
“We are not responsible,” Abdi Rahman Abdi, a spokesman for the group, said in a phone interview today from London. “Our liberation army has got clear instructions they should not target expatriates in the Ogaden.”
[N.B.: Since 2 years Briton Murray Watson is missing in Somalia after he drove into an ambush, was wounded and kidnapped. Confidential information should be sent to office(at)ecoterra-international.org ]

Gunmen in Ethiopia kill British Oil Contractor (AP)
Gunmen shot dead a Briton subcontracted to Malaysian oil company Petroliam Nasional Bhd., or Petronas, in Ethiopia’s conflict-wracked Ogaden region, officials said Friday. 
The shooting happened Monday near Danod town and Ethiopian officials are carrying out a full investigation, the British Foreign Office said. The 39-year-old geologist worked for IMC Geophysics International Ltd, which is contracted to do seismic work for Petronas. 
“We have reports that the incident has occurred and is an act of banditry,” said Ethiopia’s communications minister, Bereket Simon. “The deceased did not take security measures and was driving alone. Following the act the local militia had confronted the perpetrators and had taken measures on them. We understand that the act was not politically motivated.” 
A London-based spokesman for the Ogadeni rebels fighting the Ethiopian government said they weren’t responsible. The Ogaden National Liberation Front attacked a Chinese-owned oil exploration field in April 2007, killing 74 people. 
“As far as we know, our fighters are not involved in such barbaric attack,” said Abdirahman Mahdi. “Our troops do not have permission to target foreign civilians. But we will investigate the circumstances that led to the man’s death.” 
The rebels are ethnic Somalis who have been fighting for independence since 1984. They have warned against any investment in eastern Ethiopia that could benefit the U.S.-allied government. 
Ethiopia doesn’t produce oil but Chinese companies and Petronas have signed exploration deals. 
Also on Friday, Mr. Bereket said that a small Ogadeni rebel group called the United Western Somali Liberation Front had agreed to lay down their arms and had been given amnesty by the government. The group last made the headlines four years ago when they mistakenly kidnapped two aid workers believing them to be oil workers. The two were freed shortly afterward.

Leaders of the United Western Somali Liberation Front (UWSLF) had, after talks with the government, “accepted totally to abide by the constitution of Ethiopia and operate legally and abandon the armed struggle,” Bereket told a press conference.
“We expect these leaders to appear here soon to explain how they will operate in the Ethiopian legal atmosphere,” Bereket said, hailing a step that “will help the stability and peace” in the region also known as Ogaden.
Bereket said that the UWSLF was not as powerful as it had been and operated mainly from Somalia while having links to Eritrea, with which Ethiopia has had tense relations since a 1998-2000 border war.
Created in the 1970s, the UWSLF was active during the 1977-78 war for control of the Ogaden, in which Ethiopia defeated Somalia. But the rebel movement has seen many divisions and became increasingly inactive.
Asked by AFP about the conditions of the rebels’ decision, Bereket said the “government has decided to respect their right to operate in the Ethiopian legal system, to enter into more civilised and pacific politics.”
“We’ll not do accounting from the past. We’ll do a fresh start,” he added.
The UWSLF had agreed to play “the constitutional game”, which “means you recognise there will be no army apart from the EDF (Ethiopian Defence Force,” Bereket said.
He said the group was responding to change since “the overall trend in Ethiopia is positive, also in the Somali region, and the people are starting to understand the implications of this development work.”
Like the Ogaden National Liberation Front, set up in 1984 in a split with the UWSLF, the rebel group has been fighting for the independence of the Ogaden, a region rich in natural resources and peopled mainly by Somali speakers.
 

With Menilek’s conquest and colonial rule, Ethiopia shrunk to mean a core of Menze-Amhara. Moving out of this core other Abyssinians including the Tigrayans shared the name and its identity. The Oromo and the various victims of Menilek’s empire had each derogatory names such as Galla, Wollamo etc and were collectively referred to as “minaminte.” While the lands and the resources of these formerly despised peoples provided the economic foundation of the empire, the people were rendered sub-human material out of which “Ethiopians” will eventually be carved out over a long time in the future.  Collectively referred to as nations, nationalities or ethnic groups by various researchers, these peoples lived in the background. The Ethiopian regime failed to produce neither modern “Ethiopians” under Haile Sellassie nor socialist “Ethiopians” under the Derg.
Before a coordinated struggle of the Empire’s subject peoples could overthrow the regime, EPRDF took power, and its rule produced the “Other Ethiopians’’. EPRDF extended political discussions from a limited core to the territorial boundaries of Menilek’s Empire.  But political decision making remained centralized with the core of EPRDF, the TPLF. Despite claims of federalism and democracy, the system is tightly run from the center just like the previous regimes.  In the process the concept of the “Other Ethiopians” appeared as an EPRDF lexicon to refer to non-TPLF or non-EPRDF members as a category. Sometimes the word distinguishes Tigrayan from non-Tigrayans.  In each context the word is uttered dismissively and signifies powerlessness,   disenfranchisement, and sharing a misery index. Sometimes it meant those peoples born within Ethiopia’s international boundary. The word does not carry a meaning of entitlement, power, and status. At best it is a convenient inaccuracy. Thus when Ob. Bulcha or Dr. Merara , refer to themselves as Ethiopians, it is to this category of people. I call these “Other Ethiopians,” nations of intent. 
Currently only select few can claim the definition of Ethiopianity or Ethiopianess in the political sense. Yet there are many others who are struggling to reestablish the old meaning attached to the word. Thus Bulcha and Merara are appealing to the new category of peoples under EPRDF.  These people are struggling to decide their fate through democratic elections.  Referring to the Oromo political activists or independent party leaders as “Ethiopians” is a misnomer and confusion. The old definition and category is no more applicable and the new applies exclusively to the few.
While the struggle of the Oromo people under the former OLF leaders had contributed to the Derg regime’s demise, the Oromo have yet to attain “what they want.” Currently there is a disagreement among the elites on what the Oromo want. Some say the Oromo want a democratized Ethiopia. But they are not full heartedly supporting those at home on the front line of the democratization effort. Others say the Oromo should opt for an independent and sovereign Oromiya.  I argue that the Oromia’s geography and Oromo settlement pattern is the missing link between these two seemingly different options.  I presume that the supporters of the “independent Oromiya” option struggle to secure their objective militarily. While I cannot estimate the time it will take, let me assume hypothetically there is such a possibility. Once the process is underway to secure a separate Oromiya militarily, one has to cross into the lands belonging to the “Other Ethiopians” due to the nature of military strategy and the regional geography. 
The sprawling nature of Oromo settlement pattern does not allow a clean geographic break from the other nations of intent.  For practical reasons the Oromiya’s geography compels an Oromo commander to march through the lands inhabited by the “Other Ethiopians.”  To safeguard some Oromiya territories, one needs to control strategic landmarks. By virtue of their geographical locations such lands become essential for an independent sovereign Oromiya. Then there are recently-built or already existing air-ports or bridges on the lands of the nations of intent from south to north and west. Military moves to control such areas are not innately expansionistic. They are existential necessities of states. Controlling such strategic spaces overrides any other considerations.
The prevailing idea among some Oromo elites that a military operation stops at the edges of the territory where the Oromo have settled is not a realistic option, historically or geo-politically.  No statesman has marched out from a conquered piece of land without establishing law and order. What makes one a conqueror or an occupier is the type of government established to provide law and order, not a military necessity to remove a regime during periods of conflicts. This is a harsh reality one has to consider. 
Once a military leader enters a territory, he/she cannot leave the area without establishing a dependable political order because doing so would create a power vacuum from which a dictator emerge. Thus if one wants an independent and democratic Oromiya to survive, then one has to help build stable democratic neighboring states before one pulls out. This is the iron law of geo-politics. Since the dawn of recorded history, despotic regimes always fought over land. In the context of a militarily liberated Oromiya one will be compelled with an only realistic option of building democratic neighboring states.  Simply put there can be no viable democratic and sovereign Oromiya sharing boundaries with authoritarian regimes to the north, south, west, and east.  Just as Menilek’s process of regional conquest was piece-meal and geographically inter-related, the ending of that legacy is going to be interdependent.
That is why the Oromo should consider their comparative advantage in demographic size. Currently in Ethiopia the Other Ethiopians and the EPRDF are facing off periodically over elections that are watched by many interest groups. Observers of the Horn agree that the EPRDF is organizing a show election for its procedural democracy. The nations of intent in Ethiopia, and international groups want an outcome that is based on fair and transparent multi-party election.  We should consider these elections seriously because our comparative advantage lies in our vote counts. 
All of the organized political parties back home are showing an interest in our comparative advantage in delivering the decisive votes. The Oromo participated in these and future elections anyways. The vote of the Oromo and the Other Ethiopians will pave the way for a peaceful and democratic reorganization or dissolution, out of which nations of intent can merge or emerge.  That is why the process of creating independent Oromiya or a future democratized Ethiopia is interrelated.  Unless we take the elections seriously, the pent-up frustration among the Oromo and the “Other Ethiopians” could lead to a protest vote, to be picked up by any organized group in the game. Such organized groups could even be the ones who would like to reverse to the pre-EPRDF status quo ante. 
My suggestion is that we assist independent Oromo parties such as OPC and OFP at home through walfaanummaa. They are the ones in the frontline to expand political space. They are the ones who can lead the peaceful struggle along with a willing coalition from the Other Ethiopians. Walfaanummaa calls for the Diaspora Oromo communities and individuals to provide a collective, full-throttled support for activists back home. Walfaanummaa suggests that the Diaspora Oromo link-up with groups interested in our region to contribute what can be done from abroad. Walfaanummaa calls for those in the “sovereignty” and “democratization” camps to nurse their differences and unequivocally support those back home in the frontline of non-violent struggle.  You will not lose in this path of the struggle but eventually gain a deserved respect. Such a process will reveal the complexities involved, and show how the Oromo imaginatively solve the problems at the grass roots level. 
Some  of the Questions Presented from the Audience : 
Why don’t we put pressure on OLF because it can be a game-changer? 
Dr Daniel: I know that most of you believe in Jaarsummaa to bring change to former OLF leaders. Jaarsummaa works mostly on issues related to social and physical space. Jaarsummaa is rarely effective on matters of politic among former comrades. No amount of Jaarsummaa or pressure can make political leaders work together. Political leaders are too self-confident about the correctness of their paths to change their views through Jaarsummaa. They also have self-generated opinions for each other, which the elders do not entertain. However, when they realize that the Oromo are tackling problems at home with local leadership and grass roots participation, they will get time to reflect accordingly. 
Q: Do you encourage the status quo to remain as it is? 
Dr Daniel: No I do not support the status quo back home. There are gains on Oromummaa that had to be consolidated, which needs local democratic participation. But there are many issues that have yet to be addressed. Those issues have to be framed as election platforms by home-based activists. 
You said that the West depends on EPRDF security apparatus. How can this apparatus become dependable for a democratic process? The West wants a professional security apparatus in countries of the Horn including Ethiopia. The West does not want security officials to interfere in political process. If you remember recently in a West African Francophone country interference in the political process created chaos. Those individuals who overthrew the government and shot peaceful demonstrators are now neutralized. The West has a clear and vested interest in stability in our region. The West does not want Somalia-scenario or Sudan-type fragility to appear in the region. 

Dr Daniel: I know how some Diaspora individuals perceive Dr. Merara due to past political issues that belong to a different historical time. Now we are in different stark reality. Dr. Merara is struggling to win freedom for the Oromo. He cannot build an empire when his parliamentary seat is not secure due to the narrowing political space. If he and the others in the opposition can win their seats in the May 2010 election, that is an achievement worth noting and building on.  There also lies our irony. That is why we have to support the broadening of political space through an out-come based democracy. 
* This paper is  a summary of a presentation at the 2010 mid-year OSA Conference in Minneapolis on April 3rd, 2010. The writer thanks Ob. Fayyis  Oromia  for the concept of walfaanummaa which I used in a different context in this writing and (In the interest of disclosure this writer does not belong to any political party or has no affiliation to any faction.) 

AFRICOM Backs Bloodshed in Central Africa by Keith Harmon Snow (*) 
The eastern Congo remains awash in bloodshed due to western mining companies and their proxy armies, the military regimes of Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), and Joseph Kabila (DRC), all hidden behind reams of western newsprint blaming Congolese victims for their own suffering. Across the continent a new rebellion in western Congo has reportedly engaged Belgian paratroopers and UN “peacekeepers” in alliance with the DRC government. With massive casualties and more than 200,000 civilians forced to flee western Congo the United Nations and western media have covered up the new rebellion. Meanwhile, AFRICOM under the Obama administration has major base constructions and secret deployments across Central Africa, with NATO, Dyncorp and Special Operations Command shipping Ugandan grunts to the U.S. wars in Somalia, Afghanistan, Darfur and Iraq. 
With the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) engulfed in bloodshed and terrorism due to the secretive occupation and expansion by the Rwandan regime of Paul Kagame, Congo’s President Joseph Kabila has received support from Belgium and the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) to crush a growing rebellion sparked by resistance forces in far Western Congo. But the United Nations Observers Mission in Congo (MONUC) has downplayed the new rebellion and hidden massive military and civilian casualties. 
Are Belgian Paratroopers Fighting in Western Congo? 
A rising alliance calling themselves “The Resistance Patriots of Dongo” (Patriotes-Résistants de Dongo) spread in western Congo over the past six months after Congolese people learned that Congolese resistance forces tired of the corrupt regime of Joseph Kabila were fighting against Rwandan troops in the little frontier town of Dongo. 
Sources in Congo’s capital Kinshasa reported that an emergency “crisis” meeting was convened in Brussels on Nov. 28, 2009, after a distress call was sent by Congo-Kinshasa President Hypolitté Kanambe, known to the Western world by his alias, Joseph Kabila Kabange, and the Belgian military attaché in Kinshasa was instructed to deploy a detachment of elite Belgian Armed Forces (BAF) paratroopers to Congo.¹ 
Sources in DRC claimed that Belgian troops joined the Kabila COALITION forces, backed by AFRICOM and allied with Rwanda, and engaged the RESISTANCE forces in Equateur province in January. 
Interests competing with President Joseph Kabila’s Congo (including U.S. and Israeli minerals cartels, weapons dealers and money-laundering operations) support the new western Congo RESISTANCE forces. These interests operate through regional power brokers, e.g., in Gabon, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Uganda, and South Africa. 
In mid-November President Joseph Kabila secretly airlifted a battalion of Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) across Congo to crush the rebellion. Comprised of former Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebels who overthrew the government of Juvenal Habyarimana in Rwanda (1990-1994), the RDF joined Kabila’s COALITION, which includes MONUC troops from the international “peacekeeping” mission and Tutsi Rwandan soldiers infiltrated by Rwanda, with the Kabila government’s support, into Congo’s national army, the FARDC. RDF forces, moved to Congo from Rwanda exclusively for the operation, were uniformed as Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC).² 
Thus western Congo is awash in bloodshed involving COALITION forces backed by AFRICOM, Belgium and Israel Amongst the biggest Kabila supporters are the U.S.-Israeli Dan Gertler, Moshe Schnitzer and Benny Steinmetz families, also holders to Congo’s most lucrative (copper/cobalt) mines. 
MONUC Hides Equateur Conflict 
The Tutsi forces in the FARDC include infiltrated Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF, formerly Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army) and “ex-”CNDP forces from the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), the extremist terrorist militia that sprouted out of the Kivu Provinces but is heavily backed by Rwanda and infiltrated with thousands of extremist Tutsis. 
The secret infiltration and official integration of Rwandan forces into Congo was a strategic maneuver championed by Rwandan general James Kabarebe and Paul Kagame, both wanted for war crimes by the Spanish and French courts. Rwanda’s Kagame is the primary cause of the massive destabilization of Eastern Congo. 
The leaders of the rebellion in western Equateur Province have reportedly forged an alliance with General Dunia, a Mai Mai leader operating against the joint operations of the Kabila COALITION in South Kivu, eastern Congo, and site of Canadian BANRO Gold Corporation’s massive illegal gold concessions. Mai-Mai forces in Congo are highly nationalist Congolese. In late 2009, Mai-Mai leaders issued a communiqué and declaration of war against Joseph Kabila and his foreign and corporate allies. 
South Kivu human rights groups have documented BANRO’s links to local terrorism, yet not one mainstream western media source has reported or even named the pivotal western mining interests—including BANRO, Moto Gold (Walter Kansteiner), Mwana Africa, Heritage Oil & Gas—behind the war and plunder in blood-drenched eastern Congo. 
Many Congolese people have long since known that the president of their country has supported a secret extremist “Tutsi” alliance that seeks to dominate Central Africa. His real name is Hypolitté Kanambe, formerly a junior Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A) officer plucked from the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL) forces. 
It is widely supported that Joseph Kabila reported directly to RPF/A commanders James Kabarebe and Paul Kagame in the Pentagon-backed AFDL “rebellion” that overthrew President Joseph Mobutu in Zaire (Congo); there are also claims that Kabila was a soldier in the RPF/A during the multiple genocides orchestrated by Kagame’s extremist Tutsi RPF/A in Rwanda (1990-1994). 
The term “extremist Tutsi” applies only to the elite secretive organization, formerly the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A), which exists in parallel with the parliamentary government of Rwanda.³,⁴,⁵,⁶ RDF are not exclusively Tutsi, but are controlled by the extremist Tutsi network maintained by Paul Kagame, General James Kabarebe and others of the 40 top war criminals indicted by the Spanish court on Feb. 6, 2008. 
After seizing power in July of 1994, the extremist Tutsi network continued to perpetrate atrocities, including massacres, assassinations, tortures and disappearances, and the network moved into Congo-Zaire in 1996. The modus operandi of the Kagame terrorist network is to perpetrate crimes and blame them on victim populations (Hutus, FDLR, Mai Mai, Congolese civilians, even Tutsi dissidents). The western media plays along. 
A major source of ongoing conflict in the DRC’s Kivu provinces, Rwandan Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, was rewarded in January 2009 for playing along with the Kabila COALITION charade of “arresting” Rwandan war criminal Gen. Laurent Nkunda, another perpetrator of war crimes who received Washington’s blessings for several years. One of few points to their credit, the U.N. Panel of Experts, in their report of November 2009, exposed the appointment of Gen. Bosco Ntaganda as CNDP-FARDC commander, which Kagame and Kabila officially denied. 
The International Criminal Court indicted General Bosco Ntaganda for war crimes committed in DRC in May 2008. The ICC is a political instrument used to selectively target certain individuals and militias, while ignoring more substantial state sanctioned actors like Paul Kagame, James Kabarebe, Yoweri Museveni, Maurice Templesman, or former U.S. National Security Council member Walter Kansteiner, all deeply behind the war and plunder in DRC. 
Gen. Ntaganda commanded CNDP-FARDC units responsible for massive war crimes under the joint “Kimia” operations launched with MONUC backing in eastern Congo in January 2009. Ntaganda’s role is to work from the inside to destabilize eastern Congo in exchange for Kabila and Kagame protecting him from the ICC. 
The current death toll in the eastern provinces of Congo alone stands at some 1,000 people per day, with at least ten million dead in Congo since the U.S. invasion of 1996, with millions of refugees in the Great Lakes member states. Rwandan allied forces in DRC are perpetrating genocide at present in North Kivu, and the western media and “humanitarian” agencies have remained silent. More than 15,000 IDPs were registered between December 2009 and January 2010, with thousands more IDPs reported hiding in North Kivu forests. 
Violence in eastern Congo is universally and falsely blamed on the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), but in fact violence is primarily due to Rwandan allied forces. Additionally, more than 168,000 people have been uprooted due to recent fighting in Western Congo.⁷ 
Congo-Brazzaville has harbored the ex-Forces Armées Zaïroises (ex-FAZ) since the overthrow of President Mobutu in 1997, and it harbors Rwandans that fled the AFDL genocide against Hutu refugees in Congo-Zaire (1996-1997).⁸ There may be some 300 ex-MLC (Movement for the Liberation of Congo) rebels and more than 10,000 ex-FAZ involved in the western rebellion. 
Equateur Province is the site of major untapped petroleum reserves. Belgian, French, Portuguese, German and U.S. families and corporations control vast tracts under attack by industrial logging. There are also Western-owned plantations with modern day slavery involving tens of thousands of Congolese people subject to terrorism by state paramilitary services.⁹ 
Resistance Patriots of Dongo 
In March 2009 the Western press reported a “tribal dispute” and “ethnic clash over fishing rights” in the little Western Congo outback town of Dongo. The dispute reportedly began between two different ethnic groups. However, the “Resistance Patriots of Dongo” claim that government agents manipulated the parties of the dispute and escalated armed hostilities. 
In October 2009 President Kabila and top military adviser John Numbi dispatched FARDC troops under the command of Gen. Benjamin Alongaboni to Dongo to negotiate peace with resistance forces. Gen. Alongaboni, a Congolese son hailing from Equateur Province and the first FARDC officer on the scene, secured a negotiated peace with Dongo area combatants. 
Soon after, however, President Kabila sent RDF forces—in FARDC uniforms—who enraged Congolese in the region and provoked hostilities by killing some local people and undermining peace negotiations. The Resistance Patriots of Dongo retaliated and Congolese FARDC troops under the command of Gen. Alongaboni defected. 
Meanwhile, the “Dongo Crisis” blossomed into a full-blown Congolese rebellion against international occupation forces and the powerful Kabila-Kagame clique. Hundreds of Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC)—of ethnic Congolese origin—reportedly deserted and joined rebellion ranks with Congolese civilians and various military elements of past rebellions. 
Bound for the Dongo rebellion in mid-November, Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) crossed Lake Kivu from Gisenyi to Goma, DRC, and were then flown from Goma to Kamina Air Base in Katanga, a military transport hub used for the Belgo-American-U.N. mercenary occupations during the Katanga secession (1960-63) and “Congo Crises” (1964–67). The RDF battalion was next flown to Bandundu Province. 
The RDF troops were reportedly next moved onto the 42-acre campus of the U.S. Embassy-affiliated American School in Kinshasa (TASOK), near the notorious Camp Tshatshi military base, and then flown to Gemena airport in Equateur. The Colonel Tshatshi Military Camp in Kinshasa is the FARDC military command headquarters. The TASOK campus was used for RDF troops because Rwandans would not be welcome amongst Congolese-FARDC at Camp Tshatshi. 
There were at least three round trips in some legs of the RDF flight plan reportedly using both MONUC and Hewa Bora Airlines, an airline 70 percent owned by Belgian arms trafficker Philippe de Moerloose. In the “leaked” November 2009 U.N. Panel of Experts Report on Illegal Exploitation in the Congo, Philippe De Moerloose and Hewa Bora Airlines were named for weapons shipments from Sudan to Congo in violation of the International Arms Embargo on the DRC.¹⁰ De Moerloose supplies Kabila with presidential jets and other war toys. 
Attempting to discredit the High Court in Spain for its issuing of international war crimes indictments against 40 top Rwandan military officials, the U.N. Panel of Experts Report also falsely accused Spanish non-government organizations affiliated with the judicial war crimes investigations of backing “terrorist” groups in eastern Congo. 
The Resistance Patriots of Dongo have inflicted high casualties on the Kabila Coalition forces dispatched to Equateur. MONUC issued one tiny press report on Nov. 26, after resistance forces shot up a MONUC helicopter that flew to Dongo to resupply the Coalition ground troops. Some 2000 of the coalition troops were reported killed in February and March. 
A short Western media propaganda blurb titled “Armed group claims firing at UN chopper in DRC,” Agence France-Presse attempted to discredit the rebellion and cover for MONUC’s involvement in open military aggression against Congolese people. 
The AFP described the conflict as purely tribal and framed it as ruthless savage Africans killing with machetes. The MONUC chopper apparently was attacked on Nov. 26.¹¹ 
Dongo War Not Connected to Eastern Congo? 
“The fighting is not related to the simmering conflict in the mineral-rich eastern borderlands,” Reuters wrote, “where the army – backed by thousands of peacekeepers – are attempting to stamp out local, Rwandan, and Ugandan rebels.”¹² 
On Dec. 3, 2009, Belgian newspapers La Libre Belgique and RTLM reported that Belgium’s Foreign Minister Steven Vanackere and Defense Minister Pieter De Crem had responded to the communiqué of the Resistance Patriots of Dongo, circulated on the Internet on Dec. 1, which warned Belgium and Kinshasa that the resistance knew of the secret plan to dispatch paratroopers to Kisangani. The two Belgian ministries issued a joint communiqué denying the.¹³ 
According to Kinshasa sources, the MONUC-uniformed Belgians would be flown from Kisangani, Orientale Province, to Equateur Province’s northwestern frontier city of Gbadolite — the stronghold of former President Mobutu and rebel warlord Jean Pierre Bemba — and then to Gemena airport near Dongo.¹⁴ 
Soon after the Resistance Patriots of Dongo forces occupied the frontier city of Libenge, President Kabila dispatched 600 elite FARDC commandos trained by 60 Belgian Armed Forces instructors at Kamina Air base. 
Sources in Kinshasa on Dec. 5 reported: “massive violent fighting in Libenge and Gemena areas,” involving 1,000 Congolese National Police (PNC) and 100 Ghanaian MONUC troops and two MONUC helicopter gunships.¹⁵ 
The MONUC “peacekeeping” enterprise in Congo is a $1 billion a year operation involving contracts with Lockheed Martin subsidiary Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE). 
On December 14, 2009, the Spanish Press Agency SAPA and Agence France-Presse reported that DRC government troops fighting against ‘tribal forces’ had taken back the town of Dongo, with the tribal forces being “led by the animist priest Udjani.”¹⁶ The article maintained the ongoing silence about high casualties. 
The international news media was completely silent after government forces that had reentered Dongo by December 14 suffered a crushing defeat when resistance forces sprang a trap: scores of Kabila Coalition troops (allegedly including ‘white’ mercenaries) were massacred. 
On December 16, 2009, the MONUC spokesman in Kinshasa DRC announced that MONUC troops were deployed in Dongo in Equateur province “to sustain the joint PNC/FARDC operations aimed at re-establishing order [sic] and state authority…”¹⁷ 
MONUC transferred some 500 regular MONUC Ghanaian, Tunisian and Egyptian “peacekeepers” to Equateur province from the eastern Congo’s conflict areas in Orientale and the Kivus, along with Armored Personnel Carriers, weapons, and transport and combat helicopters. MONUC also deployed Guatemalan Special Forces to the Equateur region. 
On December 22, New York’s Bloomberg News reported with a news brief deepening the racist mythology portraying this as African savagery and superstition. 
“The Enyele leader is a mystic named Udjani,” wrote Michael J. Kavanagh, reporting for Bloomberg from Kinshasa (DRC) and Impfondo (Republic of Congo), referring to the Enyele tribe, “who claims to have a magical sword that can poison people and pass its powers to the curved machetes wielded by many of his followers, witnesses said.”¹⁸ 
Sources working for MONUC in Kisangani confirm that there are Belgian troops in Kisangani, with “one or two” Hercules C-130 Belgian military aircraft. 
Resistance forces and Kabila’s Coalition forces engaged in major battles since January with many top military officers of the Kabila Coalition killed. Sources claim that Kabila Coalition forces have used incendiary bombs causing huge civilian casualties. A key intelligence source in Kinshasa insists that Belgian paratroopers were on the ground in Equateur and, unprepared for the organized resistance they encountered, were forced to retreat after some (unknown) number were wounded and killed. MONUC troops have also been engaged in the fighting, in continued violation of the U.N. “peacekeeping” mandate. 
Election Slogans and Empty Promises (Sound Familiar?) 
In the beginning, many Congolese supported President Kanambe, alias Kabila, ignoring his origins, hoping that he would share power, that he would develop the Congo, build roads and schools and, especially, that he would forestall and evict Ugandan and Rwandan agents, provocateurs, mining cartels and war criminals from the 1996-2001 war years. They were the usual empty promises made by the usual empty politicians. 
The plan has all along been to colonize Congo through Rwanda. This involves eliminating as many Congolese people as possible to control their land, balkanizing the Congo and creating a “Republic of the Volcanoes” (Republique des Volcans) as Clinton-Bush official Herman Cohen has repeatedly called for since the U.S.-backed invasion of 1996. 
For years now several high visibility Western intelligence organizations, in particular the groups ENOUGH, STAND, Genocide Intervention Network, and the RAISE HOPE FOR CONGO—created and funded by the International Crisis Group and Center for American Progress—have lobbied college students and Western governments to action. Legislation backed by these intelligence fronts includes the “LRA Disarmament Act” (Lord’s Resistance Army), the so-called ‘Blood Minerals’ legislation, and the “Violence Against Women Act” (Resolution 1888). The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is blamed for all terrorism in the northern Uganda region, which is awash in oil, thus shielding the organized war crimes of Ugandan President Museveni and his western allies, just as the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) are blamed to shield the Kagame terror networks. 
William Jefferson Clinton’s former national security insider John Prendergast is the leading cheerleader for these groups, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s help, and with John Podesta, Tom Daschle and Madeleine Albright, behind the scenes. John Prendergast was the expert of choice for CBS 60 Minutes’ “Blood Minerals” broadcast, nationally televised in the United States on Nov. 29, 2009, which was an advertisement for ENOUGH, the International Rescue Committee and so-called “humanitarian” organizations. These lobby and flak entities are working to displace and neutralize all true international grassroots efforts to help the Congolese people take control of their own resources and future, and they cover for hidden Western interests; they also advance military solutions over diplomatic or other peaceful solutions. 
The Western media perpetually broadcasts the suffering in Congo, but the propaganda is simplistic disinformation, and the Western “news”-consuming public eats it up and dismisses the Congo, abandoning the people whose lives are determined in part by the raw materials stolen from them in a state of war and organized crime. These include diamonds, gold, columbium-tantalite, cobalt, copper, petroleum, germanium, tin, tungsten, palm oil, coffee and chocolate (sold in Whole Foods groceries stores). But the value of Congo’s greatest natural “resource” exceeds the value of all the above resources combined: the biggest western moneymaker in Congo is humanitarian aid, charity and international relief—Save the Children, CARE, UNICEF, UNHCR—a.k.a., and the misery industry. 
In mid-March actorvist Ben Affleck launched yet the latest western “humanitarian” enterprise in eastern Congo. Affleck’s ‘humanitarianism’ operates behind the western disinformation campaign that charges Congolese men with using ‘rape as a weapon of war’—an agenda also pushed by Eve Ensler (of Vagina Monologues fame)—but fails to address the true perpetrators of crimes, including the many mining, private military, intelligence and other military interests involved in bloodshed and plunder. The ‘rape as a weapon of war’ framework facilitates western ignorance of the true perpetrators of war, including western agents, weapons brokers, mercenary companies, proxy forces, NATO and AFRICOM, and U.S. brokered military hardware (AK-47s, rockets, armored personnel carriers, tanks, grenades, surface-to-air missiles). Hillary Clinton’s denunciation of “rape as a weapon of war” in July 2009 covered up her negotiations with Joseph Kabila regarding the Clinton aligned diamond interests in DRC. 
Affleck’s new Congo initiative is funded by Howard Buffet, whose powerful holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, has diverse business interests involved in the Great Lakes. Berkshire Hathaway has an 18.2% stake in theWashington Post and the Buffet’s agribusinesses in Africa are entrenching Monsanto’s genetically modified (GMO) crops. The Buffets are tight with Bill and Melinda Gates, all close business partners with the Clinton’s in Rwanda and Uganda. In September 2008, Bill Gates, Howard Buffet, Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni met at the United Nations headquarters to launch their GMO partnership “Purchase for Progress” with the UN’s World Food Program. Affleck also has his own private business interests facilitated by the Kagame regime in Kigali, and like Gates and Buffet he comes and goes from Kigali on a private jet. Washington Post reportage on Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Sudan is a complete whitewash of western interests. 
Rwanda has become the Pentagon’s main base and center of military operations in Africa, and this partnership involves Israel. 
On January 28, 2009, sources in Congo reported that Joseph Kabila narrowly survived another assassination attempt, the third this year, with his bodyguard taking the bullet. Meanwhile, violent fighting continued in Equateur province into March, with Kabila coalition troops allegedly arresting and torturing civilians and accusing them of being rebels, including boys as young as 10, and widely committing summary executions. This is a massive violation of international law; AFRICOM and MONUC officials know it is happening; United Nations officials in New York know it is happening;¹⁹ and the western press is silent. 
In Mid-March, at an exclusive United States Institute for Peace meeting in Washington, DC, AFRICOM spokesman Mark Swayne dismissed any AFRICOM involvement in these covert operations by responding that such reports are “irrelevant.” The USIP has funded pro-Kagame disinformation campaigns since the early 1990’s, shielding U.S. involvement in Central African war crimes and genocide. AFRICOM information campaigns exclusively project an image of U.S. troops being only involved in humanitarian and peacekeeping operations. 
Curiously, at the same USIP meeting, Mark Swayne reportedly “apologized” for AFRICOM’s use of Ugandans in building the new AFRICOM base under construction in Kisangani, Congo. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni—through his wife and brother Salim Saleh’s organized crime networks and the Ugandan military—are hated for more than a decade of plunder and terror in Congo. The Pentagon’s own web site identifies the elite U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as ‘training’ Congolese troops in Kisangani, DRC, and Swayne did not reveal that the Ugandans are mercenaries likely affiliated to the western mercenary-linked oil companies (Heritage Oil & Gas, Hardman Resources, H Oil) operating in the Lake Albert basin on the DRC-Uganda border. 
AFRICOM, NATO and private military companies Dyncorp and PAE (Pacific Architect & Engineers, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin) have also been training and flying Ugandan and Rwandan troops to the U.S.-European-Israeli wars in Somalia and Sudan (Darfur). There are some 300 Ugandans backing the US in Afghanistan and more than 10,000 Ugandans in Iraq, with more than 3000 Rwandans in Darfur. 
In December 2009, a group of Congolese chiefs sent an open letter to U.S. President Barrack Obama proclaiming a “categorical refusal of your AFRICOM Project in the Congo.” 
AFRICOM, NATO and private military companies Dyncorp and PAE (Pacific Architect & Engineers, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin) have been ‘training’ and flying Ugandan and Rwandan troops to the US-European-Israeli wars in Somalia and Sudan (Darfur). There are some 300 Ugandans backing the US in Afghanistan and more than 10,000 Ugandans in Iraq, with more than 3000 Rwandans reported to be in Darfur. An unknown number of Rwandan soldiers are also in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there are allegations that “peacekeeping” sorties sent to Darfur, Sudan, may actually serve as cover for military personnel and hardware actually bound from Rwanda to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, Sudan is exploding as you read this, and the huge Rwandan deployments might be behind new violence. These are Rwandan and Ugandan troops responsible for the most egregious war crimes in all the Great Lakes countries. 
On April 4, 2010, rebellion insurgents crossed the Congo river and attacked the provincial capital of Mbandaka. Two MONUC troops were killed, and many more wounded after insurgents attacked the governor’s residence and took the Mbandaka airport. By April 9 the government FARDC forces and MONUC had regained the airport leaving three MONUC troops dead. The story finally broke onto the pages of the BBC, New York Times,Washington Post and other mainstream press, but all continue to hide deeper interests and distort the realities. The heavily populated city of Mbandaka was described as a “ghost town” and reporting ignored civilian casualties.²⁰,²¹,²²

1. See Keith Harmon Snow, “Congo’s President Kabila: Dynasty or Travesty?” Toward Freedom, Nov. 13, 2007. [↩]
2. For this report these RDF-disguised troops will be designated “RDF” (Rwandan Defense Forces) to separate them from other FARDC troops with Rwandan allegiances. [↩]
3. See, e.g., Spain’s Feb. 6, 2008, indictments issued by High Court Judge Andreu Merelles charging 40 current or former high-ranking Rwandan military officials with serious crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and terrorism, perpetrated over a period of 12 years, from 1990 to 2002, against the civilian population and primarily against members of the Hutu ethnic group. [↩]
4. See, e.g., Davenport and Stam, “What Really Happened in Rwanda?” Miller-McCune, Oct. 6, 2009. [↩]
5. See, e.g., Keith Harmon Snow, “The Rwanda Genocide Fabrications,” Dissident Voice, April 13, 2009. [↩]
6. See, e.g., Christopher Black, “The Truth About Rwanda,” SaveRwanda.org, December 29, 2010. [↩]
7. United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and OCHA. [↩]
8. Private investigations, Democratic Republic of Congo, July-August 2006 and February-March 2007. [↩]
9. The Elwyn Blattner Groupe plantation holdings are revealed in the 2008 documentary film Episode III: Enjoy Poverty by Dutch filmmaker Renzo Martens. [↩]
10. United Nations: Letter dated Nov. 9, 2009, from the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo addressed to the chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to Resolution 1533 (2004), “leaked” November 2009. [↩]
11. Unsigned, “Armed group claims firing at U.N. chopper in DR Congo,” AFP, Nov. 26, 2009. [↩]
12. Joe Bavier, “Congo gunmen fire at U.N. helicopter, five wounded,” Reuters, Nov. 26, 2009. [↩]
13. Belga, “La Belgique dément tout projet d’envoi de troupes en RDC,” RTBF, Dec. 3, 2009. ["Belgium denies all project of sending of troops to DRC."] [↩]
14. Bemba Saolona’s company, Scibe CMMJ, was implicated by the U.N. in smuggling weapons to UNITA during the Angolan Civil War: Johan Peleman, “The logistics of sanctions busting: the airborne component,” (PDF file), p. 303. [↩]
15. In 2006-07, Police Nationale Congolaise were outfitted with high-tech radio communications, funded by the United Nations Development Program, purchased from New Zealand. [↩]
16. “DR Congo troops take back town from tribal forces: Govt.” SAPA-AFP, December 14, 2009. [↩]
17. “Equateur [DRC]: An extra 500 MONUC troops being deployed to Dongo,” MONUC Press Briefing, December 16,2009. [↩]
18. Michael J. Kavanagh, “Thousands Flee Northern Congo Insurgency Inspired by Mystic,” Blomberg.com. [↩]
19. Direct communications with high-level United Nations officials in New York confirmed in late January 2010 that UN officials in New York were discussing the Equateur conflict, but that there were (paraphrased) “conflicting interpretations of the facts.” [↩]
20. Unsigned, “Troops Retake Mbandaka Airport,” BBC, April 5, 2010. [↩]
21. Reuters, “Fighters Kill Peacekeeper in North Congo Attack,” Washington Post, April 4, 2010. [↩]
22. Katrina Mansen & David Lewis, “UN Failed Civilians During Rebel Attack,” Washington Post, April 9, 2010. [↩]

(*) Keith Harmon Snow is an independent human rights investigator and war correspondent who worked with Survivors Rights International (2005-2006), Genocide Watch (2005-2006) and the United Nations (2006) to document and expose genocide and crimes against humanity in Sudan and Ethiopia. He has worked in 17 countries in Africa, and he recently worked in Afghanistan. See: www.dissidentvoice.org, Read other articles by Keith, or visit Keith’s website.

The Anti-Empire Report No.80 by William Blum (www.killinghope.org)
The United States takes the matter of three-headed babies very seriously. 
When did it begin, all this “We take your [call/problem/question] very seriously”? With answering-machine hell? As you wait endlessly, the company or government agency assures you that they take seriously whatever reason you’re calling. What a kind and thoughtful world we live in. 
The BBC reported last month that doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the United States during its fierce onslaughts of 2004 and subsequently, which left much of the city in ruins. “It was like an earthquake,” a local engineer who was running for a national assembly seat told the Washington Post in 2005. “After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was Fallujah.” Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe. 
The BBC correspondent also saw children in the city who were suffering from paralysis or brain damage, and a photograph of one baby who was born with three heads. He added that he heard many times that officials in Fallujah had warned women that they should not have children. One doctor in the city had compared data about birth defects from before 2003 — when she saw about one case every two months — with the situation now, when she saw cases every day. “I’ve seen footage of babies born with an eye in the middle of the forehead, the nose on the forehead,” she said. 
A spokesman for the US military, Michael Kilpatrick, said it always took public health concerns “very seriously”, but that “No studies to date have indicated environmental issues resulting in specific health issues.” 1 
One could fill many large volumes with the details of the environmental and human horrors the United States has brought to Fallujah and other parts of Iraq during seven years of using white phosphorous shells, depleted uranium, napalm, cluster bombs, neutron bombs, laser weapons, weapons using directed energy, weapons using high-powered microwave technology, and other marvelous inventions in the Pentagon’s science-fiction arsenal … the list of abominations and grotesque ways of dying is long, the wanton cruelty of American policy shocking. In November 2004, the US military targeted a Fallujah hospital “because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties.” 2 That’s on a par with the classic line from the equally glorious American war in Vietnam: “We had to destroy the city to save it.” 
How can the world deal with such inhumane behavior? (And the above of course scarcely scratches the surface of the US international record.) For this the International Criminal Court (ICC) was founded in Rome in 1998 (entering into force July 1, 2002) under the aegis of the United Nations. The Court was established in The Hague, Netherlands to investigate and indict individuals, not states, for “The crime of genocide; Crimes against humanity; War crimes; or The crime of aggression.” (Article 5 of the Rome Statute) From the very beginning, the United States was opposed to joining the ICC, and has never ratified it, because of the alleged danger of the Court using its powers to “frivolously” indict Americans. 
So concerned about indictments were the American powers-that-be that the US went around the world using threats and bribes against countries to induce them to sign agreements pledging not to transfer to the Court US nationals accused of committing war crimes abroad. Just over 100 governments so far have succumbed to the pressure and signed an agreement. In 2002, Congress, under the Bush administration, passed the “American Service Members Protection Act”, which called for “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by … the International Criminal Court.” In the Netherlands it’s widely and derisively known as the “Invasion of The Hague Act”. 3 The law is still on the books. 
Though American officials have often spoken of “frivolous” indictments — politically motivated prosecutions against US soldiers, civilian military contractors, and former officials — it’s safe to say that what really worries them are “serious” indictments based on actual events. But they needn’t worry. The mystique of “America the Virtuous” is apparently alive and well at the International Criminal Court, as it is, still, in most international organizations; indeed, amongst most people of the world. The ICC, in its first few years, under Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine, dismissed many hundreds of petitions accusing the United States of war crimes, including 240 concerning the war in Iraq. The cases were turned down for lack of evidence, lack of jurisdiction, or because of the United States’ ability to conduct its own investigations and trials. The fact that the US never actually used this ability was apparently not particularly significant to the Court. “Lack of jurisdiction” refers to the fact that the United States has not ratified the accord. On the face of it, this does seem rather odd. Can nations commit war crimes with impunity as long as they don’t become part of a treaty banning war crimes? Hmmm. The possibilities are endless. A congressional study released in August, 2006 concluded that the ICC’s chief prosecutor demonstrated “a reluctance to launch an investigation against the United States” based on allegations regarding its conduct in Iraq. 4 Sic transit gloria International Criminal Court. 
As to the crime of aggression, the Court’s statute specifies that the Court “shall exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression once a provision is adopted … defining the crime and setting out the conditions under which the Court shall exercise jurisdiction with respect to this crime.” In short, the crime of aggression is exempted from the Court’s jurisdiction until “aggression” is defined. Writer Diana Johnstone has observed: “This is a specious argument since aggression has been quite clearly defined by U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3314 in 1974, which declared that: ‘Aggression is the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State’, and listed seven specific examples,” including:

The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack, or any annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof; and 
Bombardment by the armed forces of a State against the territory of another State or the use of any weapons by a State against the territory of another State.

The UN resolution also stated that: “No consideration of whatever nature, whether political, economic, military or otherwise, may serve as a justification for aggression.” 
The real reason that aggression remains outside the jurisdiction of the ICC is that the United States, which played a strong role in elaborating the Statute before refusing to ratify it, was adamantly opposed to its inclusion. It is not hard to see why. It may be noted that instances of “aggression”, which are clearly factual, are much easier to identify than instances of “genocide”, whose definition relies on assumptions of intention. 5 
There will be a conference of the ICC in May, in Kampala, Uganda, in which the question of specifically defining “aggression” will be discussed. The United States is concerned about this discussion. Here is Stephen J. Rapp, US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, speaking to the ICC member nations (111 have ratified thus far) in The Hague last November 19:

I would be remiss not to share with you my country’s concerns about an issue pending before this body to which we attach particular importance: the definition of the crime of aggression, which is to be addressed at the Review Conference in Kampala next year. The United States has well-known views on the crime of aggression, which reflect the specific role and responsibilities entrusted to the Security Council by the UN Charter in responding to aggression or its threat, as well as concerns about the way the draft definition itself has been framed. Our view has been and remains that, should the Rome Statute be amended to include a defined crime of aggression, jurisdiction should follow a Security Council determination that aggression has occurred.

Do you all understand what Mr. Rapp is saying? That the United Nations Security Council should be the body that determines whether aggression has occurred. The same body in which the United States has the power of veto. To prevent the adoption of a definition of aggression that might stigmatize American foreign policy is likely the key reason the US will be attending the upcoming conference. 
Nonetheless, the fact that the United States will be attending the conference may well be pointed out by some as another example of how the Obama administration foreign policy is an improvement over that of the Bush administration. But as with almost all such examples, it’s a propaganda illusion. Like the cover of Newsweek magazine of March 8, written in very large type: “Victory at last: The emergence of a democratic Iraq”. Even before the current Iraqi electoral farce — with winning candidates arrested or fleeing 6— this headline should have made one think of the interminable jokes Americans made during the Cold War about Pravda and Izvestia. 
The forbidden “P” word

“Back now at 8:11 with one of our favorite families, the Duggars. Parents Jim Bob and Michelle became the proud parents of their 19th child back in December. This morning we have an exclusive first look at their daughter, Josie Brooklyn. She was born three and a half months premature, but we are happy to report both mom and baby are doing well.” — Meredith Vieira, “The Today Show,”, NBC, January 28, 2010

Wow, ain’t that just real neat! Their 19th child! Wow, and mom and baby are doing so well! 
Wow, the Duggars and their children were featured on a TV reality show called “19 Kids & Counting.” Wow, just a newborn and already on a reality show! Pass me some more pizza. 
Wow, if it was up to me, I would have had mom and/or Jim Bob sterilized after their third child. Wow. Or maybe after their second. Just tie their damn tubes or something! 
“D.C. area’s population is still blooming: Data shows brisk growth 163,000 gain in 2 years” — This is the Washington Post (March 24) exulting over the fact that the District of Columbia has undergone a sharp increase in population in recent years. Wow, the more the better for the city, right? We all love big crowds and jammed trains and waiting a long time for everything, don’t we? In their online version of the same story, the Post headline was: “Washington area population rises faster than other regions”. Wow, even better than I thought. We’re winning the population contest! Is there a Super Bowl we can be invited to? Is everyone crazy? 
Wow, people, we’re suffocating in people, we’re drowning in people. So much of importance, so much that we value and take pleasure in, is being choked to death by too many people. But no politician dares touch upon this. Rarely does the mainstream media do so. In fact, rarely does the alternative media do so. Population growth is a driving force behind carbon dioxide-emission increases, but it wasn’t on the agenda at the international environment conference in Copenhagen last December or at any of the climate talks since then. It appears to be an idea that can not be entertained in polite society. 
Imagine there were 25 million fewer cars on American roads. Imagine the effect on travel time, on air pollution, on accidents, on road rage, on finding a parking space. Imagine what we could build on the huge amount of space now devoted to parking lots. 
There is overwhelming evidence that the UN’s Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved if population growth is not curbed. These goals include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, combating HIV/AIDS, and ensuring environmental sustainability. A lot of the work of NGOs and other activists all over the world is nullified by population increases. 
Many Marxists insist that there’s no pressing need to control population if we just change the economic system — eliminate private ownership of the means of production, get rid of the profit motive, curtail all the unnecessary economic “growth”, revise our economic priorities so as to run society on a rational, humane basis. Enough food is already produced in the world, they say, to cover the needs of everyone; it’s the distribution of the food that’s the problem. There’s a lot to what they say, but I think the many serious problems caused by overpopulation — from food and water and transportation to housing, soil erosion, sanitation and much more will continue to plague the world as long as we continue inexorably toward a world of billions more vulnerable beings. ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, imagine the quality of life in the United States with 100 million fewer people. Imagine Chinese society with an additional 400 million people. This is what the Chinese government estimates is what the result would be today if its one-child policy had not been adopted in the 1970s. 7 
So I’m advocating a one- or a two-child per family maximum. This law would not be retroactive. 
But I’m not advocating support of US foreign policy, even though it does its share of population control by killing people on a regular basis, currently at war against five countries. 
All of you who are activists in any way, I urge you to not be afraid to mention the “P” word. Be inspired by Britain’s Prince Philip who once said: “If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” 8 
One final point. Everyone knows of the unspeakable sadness of losing a child. Do parents ever get over it? But when did you see this kind of grief over the loss of an embryo or fetus? Who mourns a fetus in the same personal way and to the same degree? That’s why I have no hesitation in fully supporting abortion on demand. Abortion on demand will be an important part of population control in my brave new world.
Notes

1. BBC, March 4, 2010; Washington Post, December 3, 2005 ↩
2. New York Times, November 8, 2004 ↩
3. Christian Science Monitor, February 13, 2009 ↩
4. Washington Post, November 7, 2006 ↩
5. Diana Johnstone, Counterpunch, January 27/28, 2007 ↩
6. Washington Post, April 2, 2010 ↩
7. Associated Press, March 2, 2008 ↩
8. The Sunday Telegraph (Sydney, Australia), August 10, 2003 ↩

William Blum is the author of:

• Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
• Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
• West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
• Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website. 

German Chancellor Honors War Dead For First Time In 65 Years 
Merkel at Afghan deaths memorial for first time by Marie Camiere (AFP)
Chancellor Angela Merkel defended on Friday Germany’s Afghanistan mission at a memorial service for the latest three German soldiers killed there, the first post-WWII leader to attend such an event.
“Our troops perform their service and fight in Afghanistan because we want to prevent terrorists attacking us here in Germany as well,” Merkel said at the ceremony in a small church near the soldiers’ barracks in northwest Germany.
“Our mission in Afghanistan is tough,” she said. “But we cannot just absolve ourselves of our political responsibility for a stable Afghanistan from one day to the next, and just leave.”
With the unpopular mission turning increasingly violent, Merkel flew back from a holiday early to pay her respects at the ceremony. After speaking, she bowed her head at the three coffins in turn, each draped in a German flag.
The deaths in a Taliban ambush of Nils Bruns, 35, Robert Hartert, 25, and Martin Augustyniak, 28, in northern Afghanistan on April 2 brought to 39 the number of German military personnel to have died there since 2002.
Eight other troops were wounded, four seriously, in a battle that raged for 10 hours, the German military said….
The same day, German troops mistakenly shot dead six Afghan soldiers who were in a civilian vehicle whose driver ignored warnings to halt, the military said.
And in another sign of the growing intensity of the conflict, an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded next to a German patrol on Friday though there were no German casualties.
Bruno Kasdorf, a German general in Kabul, said last month that the NATO-run International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was planning a major offensive this year against the Taliban in the north where Germany’s troops are based.
With some 4,500 troops, Germany has the third largest contingent in Afghanistan after the United States and Britain. Parliament approved another 850 soldiers in February.
Opinion polls show a majority of voters oppose the mission despite Merkel’s insistence that it serves to make Germany a safer place. Berlin wants the troops to start coming home in 2011, an aim shared by Washington.
The government refuses to even classify the events in Afghanistan as “war”, although Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg inched closer this week, saying the mission could “colloquially at least” be called war.
“The government made itself look ridiculous the way in which it avoided using the word,” Herfried Muenkler, political science professor at Berlin’s Humboldt University, told AFP.
“In Germany there reigns a profound conviction that this is war.”
Merkel said on Friday: “In legal terms what is happening in large parts of Afghanistan is a non-international armed conflict.
“Most soldiers call it civil war, or just war. And I can well understand that.”
She was due on Saturday at the German military’s operations command in Potsdam for the first time since 2006 to hear first-hand from commanders about the mission.
The decision to do so was made at short notice in what her spokesman Christoph Steegmans said on Friday was a “direct consequence” of the latest deaths, and because of the “new quality” of the mission.

Israeli police announced on Wednesday that a network of organ trafficking has been uncovered in Israel.
An undercover investigation was launched a few months ago after a 50-year-old woman from Nazaret in Israel’s north, filed a complaint with police.
The woman, who was in dire financial need, responded to an advertisement in a local newspaper that offered $100,000 for a kidney. The woman was tested then sent to an undisclosed country in Eastern Europe, where her kidney was extracted. After she returned to Israel, she did not receive her fee as promised. Several similar complaints have been filed since then, police said.
The investigation uncovered a well-organized ring of organ trafficking, which includes organ dealers, agents, middlemen, and lawyers.
The scam requires “donors” to sign a contract and a fake declaration of familial relations between themselves and the patient. Then they are flown to another country such as the Philippines, Ecuador, or destinations in Eastern Europe. After the operation, the patients return to Israel without any medical documentation, sometimes with medical complications, and without payment.
According to police, several such rings exist in Israel. The rings target people facing hard financial times and exploit them. Some victims were already on their way to the operation when police stopped them and notified them of the scam.
Six suspects were arrested by police. One of them is a retired brigadier general from the Israel Defense Forces who was decorated in the 1973 war.
Two years ago, Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, passed a law regulating organ donations, making it illegal to pay or be paid for an organ or to deal in organs. Organ donations are also now regulated by a government committee that ensure donations are made out of free will.
In the past, medical insurance companies in Israel would finance trips abroad for transplantation operations. This was stopped, though, after evidence started to surface of forced organ harvesting in China from death row prisoners and Falun Gong practitioners.
The communist regime in China came under international scrutiny when this evidence came to light in 2006. The pressure forced the regime to pass regulations concerning organ tourism to China. There is no evidence that regulations are being enforced, however, since organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners continues, according to a new report by acclaimed human rights lawyers from Canada, David Kilgour and David Matas.
  
Bloody Harvest – The Killing of Falun Gong for Their Organs By David Matas and David Kilgour (*)
THE Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong has been described as a phys ed circle with slogans added. 
Basically they are collection of fitness buffs who have chosen to seek greater intellectual and spiritual nourishment from their activities. 
They certainly pose no threat to the Chinese government, however often they are denounced as an evil cult by those in power. 
They have no real leader, no platform, and no fundraising structure, and certainly constitute no inner-party faction. 
However, the two Canadian authors of this detailed and rather dry piece of reportage contend that Falun Gong members are persecuted more severely even than Tibetans. 
Winnipeg civil rights lawyer David Matas and former Alberta member of Parliament David Kilgour convincingly demonstrate that the Chinese administration is engaged in the grisly practice of arresting and killing members of Falun in order to harvest their body parts (corneas, hearts, kidneys, livers and so forth). 
Matas has taken on many unfashionable causes. But perhaps this one is becoming less unfashionable. His work on the Falun Gong file resulted in his name being put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize. (Coincidentally, a travelling group of Falun Gong supporters performed at the Centennial Concert Hall this past week.) 
Kilgour, who was born in Winnipeg but lives in Edmonton, is former prime minister John Turner’s brother-in-law. Both have written several books. 
The major task of the volume is to demonstrate that the assertions made by the two Davids are true. This they do with aplomb, while leaving an utterly ghastly picture of Chinese politics. 
The harvesting of body parts is viewed with distaste both in China and the West. Likewise, family members in both areas are usually willing, in the right circumstances, to make their sacrifice. 
One group the Chinese do have in large numbers are condemned criminals. The authors claim, and there’s no good reason to doubt them, that the Chinese execute, in a year, more poor souls than the rest of the world put together. 
But there are delicate issues of sensitivity involved. 
Meanwhile, Falun Gong members are available in large numbers, and all of them healthy. The logistics and culture of organ harvesting are presented very well in the book, though people who are sensitive should eat but lightly before reading. 
This group’s members suffer as they do for a range of reasons. They have healthy organs. They are in a naive way co-operative. The Chinese populace display a pronounced dislike of them. 
And there is a lot of money to be made, from foreigners as well as Chinese. This point should be stressed. When Deng Xiaoping reoriented Chinese politics, health-care budgets were slashed. 
A new form of health-care entrepreneurs emerged, willing to make the agreements to raise the money, enrich themselves, and keep hospitals open. 
The Chinese have carried their anti-Falun Gong story across the world. 
But they have been countered by the likes of Kilgour and Matas. 
The appalling focus of the book makes this a difficult book to read, but it is not anything Matas and Kilgour have done to prove their case. 
No, it is the sickening odour of death which creates problems. 
(*) Geoff Lambert, the author of this review, is a political scientist at St. Paul’s College at the University of Manitoba with an expertise in Chinese economics.

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We do not send pictures with these reports, because of the volume, but picture this emetic scene with your inner eye:
A dying Somali child in the macerated arms of her mother besides their bombed shelter with Islamic graffiti looks at a fat trader, who discusses with a local militia chief and a UN representative at a harbour while USAID provided GM food from subsidised production is off-loaded by WFP into the hands of local “distributors” and dealers – and in the background a western warship and a foreign fishing trawler ply the waters of a once sovereign, prosper and proud nation, which was a role model for honesty and development in the Horn of Africa. (If you feel that this is overdrawn – talk to people who lived in Somalia in the 70s and 80s and come with us into Somalia and see the even more cruel reality today for yourself!) 
- and if you need lively stills or video material on Somalia, please do contact us.   

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