Vol 51 No 20 | CONGO-KINSHASA Massaging the message 8th October 2010 UN officials believe their edited investigation has persuaded Uganda and Rwanda not to withdraw their peacekeepers At the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 23 September, Rwandan President Paul Kagame did not look like a man leading a government condemned for human ri...
Vol 51 No 20 | CONGO-KINSHASACANADA Kinshasa in court 8th October 2010 President Joseph Kabila's government now has the distinction of facing three international court cases in which foreign companies accuse it of arbitrarily seizing their assets. Th...
Vol 51 No 19 | CHADSUDAN A new strategy for Darfur 24th September 2010 With all eyes on the South and preparations for January’s referendum, Khartoum has stepped up its attacks in Darfur As attention from Juba to New York focuses on January’s referenda in Abyei and the South, Khartoum is trying to build a new reality in Darfur, away from the spotlight. The National...
Vol 51 No 19 | CONGO-KINSHASA A poll that perplexes 24th September 2010 The coming elections are immense, will cost US$715 million and are quite possibly illegal The grumbles are growing fast, although there is still a year to go before the votes are cast. Several Congolese non-government organisations are casting doubt on the legality of t...
Vol 51 No 19 | CONGO-KINSHASA Runners and frontrunners 24th September 2010 Only three candidates have so far declared that they will stand for president at the election whose first round is due on 27 November 2011. Oscar Kashala Lukumuenda, 56, Chairman o...
Vol 51 No 19 | CONGO-KINSHASA Mixed minerals 24th September 2010 The job of Congo’s Centre d’Evaluation, d’Expertise et de Certification (CEEC) and its director, Léonide Mupepele, is to certify the value of metals produced, and so to ensure that...
Vol 3 (AAC) No 11 | CONGO-KINSHASAMININGASIA Aiming high 22nd September 2010 China will soon surge ahead to become Congo's leading partner but not before sorting out employment and artisanal mining issues Congo-Kinshasa will outstrip its rivals over the next two years to become the world's second largest copper producer (behind Chile), with a total annual production of 1.94 million ...
Vol 51 No 18 | RWANDACONGO-KINSHASA Kigali wins another round of the blame game 10th September 2010 United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon held an emergency meeting with President Paul Kagame in Kigali on 8 September after the Rwandan government threatened to withdraw from UN peacekeeping missions. Kigali’s logic was unassailable. A draft UN report had suggested that Rwandan troops might have committed ‘crimes of genocide’ in eastern Congo-Kinshasa in 1997; if the UN endorsed those claims, Kigali said it would have no choice but to withdraw its 3,500 troops from the UN force in Darfur, Sudan. The credibility of the United Nations is on trial again after the leaking of its draft 545-page report mapping human rights violations in Congo-Kinshasa in 1993-2003. It seems almo...
Vol 51 No 18 | RWANDACONGO-KINSHASA The UN’s credibility on the line 10th September 2010 Relations with the United Nations in general have taken a heavy hit. Kigali accuses the UN of leaking the report to distract attention from the inadequacies of its force in Congo-K...