Rwanda

“ Introduction Congo, Democratic Republic of the Background: Since 1997, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DROC; formerly called Zaire) has been rent by ethnic strife and civil war, touched off by a massive inflow in 1994 of refugees from the fighting in Rwanda and Burundi. The government of former president MOBUTU Sese Seko was toppled by a rebellion led by Laurent KABILA in May 1997; his regime was subsequently challenged by a Rwanda- and Uganda-backed rebellion in August 1998. Troops from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Chad, and Sudan intervened to support the Kinshasa regime. ”

“ Soup kitchens flourished. Desperate families entered Workhouses where they were segregated by age and gender. Homeless and hungry, the people starved - this famine likened to that in Rwanda within recent decades. ”

“ Rarely are these conflicts efficiently resolved and the most obvious manifestation of this lack of resolution is social discontent and even a breakdown of civil order. The recent problems in Burundi and Rwanda arise from resource conflicts in an area which has one of the highest human population densities in Africa. ”

“ Assist the Government of Rwanda in facilitating the voluntary and safe return of refugees and their reintegration in their home communities, and, to that end, to support the Government of Rwanda in its ongoing efforts to promote a climate of confidence and trust through the performance of monitoring tasks throughout the country with military and police observers ”

“ The industrial sector in Rwanda is small, contributing less than 20% to GDP. Manufacturing focuses mainly on the processing of agricultural products. The Rwandan economy remains dependent on coffee exports and foreign aid, with no relief in sight. ”

“ Two years ago, following genocide in Rwanda, more than 1 million Rwandan refugees fled for Zaire. Recently, their plight has worsened as fighting among militant forces has driven them from their camps. Relief agencies have been unable to provide food and water. Disease is breaking out. ”

“ The growing number of conflicts elsewhere in Africa is in stark contrast to that success. In the end, the disputing parties must solve their own differences, but the U.N. continues to promote reconciliation and peace in Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Angola, Liberia, Sudan, and Mozambique. ”

“ Encourages the Secretary-General and his Special Representative to continue to coordinate the activities of the United Nations in Rwanda including those of the organizations and agencies active in the humanitarian and developmental field, and of the human rights officers ”

“ The establishment by the governments of the countries concerned, in particular Rwanda, and noting steps taken so far, of conditions conducive to voluntary DDRRR of the members of the armed groups concerned, in particular, by assuring the protection of the personal safety of the members of these armed groups, their civil rights and their economic reintegration including with the assistance of the donor community ”

“ The moment Congo independently chooses its own way of life, I wish that the Congolese people may preserve and develop all of their spiritual, moral and religious values, values that are common and that transcend political changes, racial differences or borders. Remain one, and you will prove worthy to play the great role you have been called to play in the history of Africa. People of Congo, My country and I, we recognize with joy and emotion that Congo is granted access on this day, June 30, 1960, in complete harmony and friendship with Belgium, to independence and international sovereignty. ”

“ Suppose your eye falls on Tanganyika—that sapphire coloured cleft which runs eight hundred miles long by fifty wide through the endless forests of Central Africa, with the old German Colony to the right, Belgian Congo to the left, North Eastern Rhodesia at the near end.
Not much humanity for you to patronise: every thirty miles or so along the edge of the water a cluster of thatched huts providing a measure of shelter for a handful of savages who live on fish and mangoes, careless of the future, indifferent to the past. ”

“ Uganda and British East Africa are far behind the Congo Free State. Not more than a third of Uganda is opened up to administrative control. I once spent ten months in Uganda, and visited every station in it, walking 2300 miles and returning down the Nile. The Belgians have got stations everywhere in the Congo practically, and most of the natives, except in one or two areas, are entirely under control. The Uganda native is a fat, lazy chap, who will do no work. There is no industry in Uganda. The Belgians pay the Congo natives for their labour. ”

“ But we, who were elected by the votes of your representatives, representatives of the people, to guide our native land, we, who have suffered in body and soul from the colonial oppression, we tell you that henceforth all that is finished with. The Republic of the Congo has been proclaimed and our beloved country's future is now in the hands of its own people. ”

“ To me, the fact of greatest interest about the Congo is that it is owned, and the twenty millions of people who inhabit it are owned by one man. The land and its people are his private property. I am not trying to say that he governs the Congo. He does govern it, but that in itself would not be of interest. His claim is that he owns it. Though backed by all the mailed fists in the German Empire, and all the Dreadnoughts of the seas, no other modern monarch would make such a claim. ”

“ Failure to satisfy the basic needs of the citizens as a result of economic underdevelopment and lack of a sound economic policy that led to disillusionment and an erosion of support for the political system; (f) The distortion of Burundi’s history; (g) The ideology and practice of genocide and exclusion. 6. The aftermath of the colonial system, the inadequacy of the basic reforms of the institutional arrangements inherited from colonization for governance, administration and the maintenance of order and security for all. ”

“ Other African Colonies.The vast territory of Rhodesia, in the centre of the dark continent of Africa, and the British ‘Protectorates’ of Uganda, British East Africa and British Central Africa farther to the North, are still, as yet, more or less undeveloped; but great things may be expected of all of them, both as agricultural, commercial and mining colonies. The natives everywhere welcome the mercy and justice of our rule, and they are no longer liable, as they were before we came, to be carried off as slaves by Arab slave-dealers. ”

“ Congo Free State embraces most of the basin of the Congo, touching British territory in Uganda and Rhodesia, with a very narrow outlet to the Atlantic at the river mouth. It is under the sovereignty of Leopold II. of Belgium, who, in 1890, made over his rights to Belgium with power to annex the State in 1900. It is nine times the size of Great Britain, and continual native unrest gives great trouble to its administrators. Its waters are open to all nations, and traders exchange manufactured goods for ivory, palm-oil, coffee and caoutchouc, bees-wax and fruits. ”

“ They have placed the Negro in the midst of the uncovered wealth of a vast and fertile country; of waterways teeming with traffic; of a magnificent forest stored with rubber; timber of great variety, ivory, oil, and fruit; of promising fields of coffee, cotton, cocoa, tea, and sugar; deposits of gold, copper, coal, and iron. This short era of civilisation has created in the Congo over four hundred commercial houses doing a thriving business with Europe; built railways over mountain routes where only Belgian engineers and Belgian capital had the courage and the skill to venture. ”

“ Spontaneously, generously, she called on the Congo to have independence in the near future. She faithfully carries out her promise according to methods advised by experience and in the interests of all.
Far from imposing preconceived solutions, she would like the Congo to recommend institutions adapted to local customs and preferences and meeting the needs of the country. Such profound changes pose serious problems. Success requires order, good faith, the desire to make strong and lasting covers. ”

“ The Congo's independence is a decisive step towards the liberation of the whole African continent.
Our government, a government of national and popular unity, will serve its country. I call on all Congolese citizens, men, women and children, to set themselves resolutely to the task of creating a national economy and ensuring our economic independence. ”

“ Of these Uganda on the north-west shores of Victoria Nyanza, Cazembe and Muata Hianvo (or Yanvo) may be mentioned. The two last-named kingdoms occupied respectively the south-eastern and south-western parts of the Congo basin. In all this vast region the Negro and Negro-Bantu races predominated, for the most part untouched by Mahommedanism or Christian influences. They lacked political cohesion, and possessed neither the means nor the inclination to extend their influence beyond their own borders. The exploitation of Africa continued to be entirely the work of alien races. ”

“ Since then, some 200,000 Burundians have perished in widespread, often intense ethnic violence between Hutu and Tutsi factions. Hundreds of thousands have been internally displaced or have become refugees in neighboring countries. Burundi troops, seeking to secure their borders, briefly intervened in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1998. A new transitional government, inaugurated on 1 November 2001, signed a power-sharing agreement with the largest rebel faction in December 2003 and set in place a provisional constitution in October 2004. ”

“ Brothers, let us commence together a new struggle, a sublime struggle that will lead our country to peace, prosperity and greatness. Together we shall establish social justice and ensure for every man a fair remuneration for his labour. We shall show the world what the black man can do when working in liberty, and we shall make the Congo the pride of Africa. ”

“ There is a European power which arrogates to itself, in virtue of a discovery of the mouth of the river Congo in the year 1484, the sovereignty of all territory watered by this river and its affluents. I do not speak of the pretensions of this power over all the territory of the west coast of Africa, between 5°, 12 ́, and 8° south latitude—pretensions which have been contested by France, by Holland, and even by England since the slave trade was abolished by conventions between the British and Portuguese Governments. ”

“ It is not needful, for the purposes of this story, to go over in detail the possessions, and their boundaries, of the various white nations in Africa. The French have a huge area in the north-west, reaching right down from Algeria to a junction with the Congo River. The Belgian Congo lies between that French area and British Rhodesia, which joins the other British colonies farther south. Great Britain has Nigeria on the west coast and British East Africa on the east. ”

“ Thirty years ago what is now the Congo Free State was a wild tangle of luxuriant tropical growth through which hordes of black savages roamed, fought, and practised their unspeakable barbarities, living almost entirely upon the spontaneous products of Nature. The white magician has waved his wand and the scene is transformed. In, and far around, each of the numerous governmental stations or posts, life and property are as secure now as in any part of Europe or America. ”

“ Inasmuch as the Congo Free State starts with the sanction of all the leading powers of civilization, it assumes a dignity, at its very inception, which attaches to no other African dynasty. It is, or ought to be, beyond those jealousies which have torn, and are tearing, other possessions in Africa to pieces, and retarding their colonization and development. ”

“ In short, the million square miles of immensely rich territory lying within the borders of the Congo Free State can, when rudely wrested from the heroic pioneers of little Belgium, be used by the three European Powers dominant in Africa to enlarge the gouty, the bilious, and the apoplectic tints of the African continent. That such views are abundant throughout Europe, and that the humanitarian pretext on the part of Congo enemies is regarded with derision, is all too evident from the columns of the leading continental journals. ”

“ Although this independence of the Congo is being proclaimed today by agreement with Belgium, an amicable country, with which we are on equal terms, no Congolese will ever forget that independence was won in struggle, a persevering and inspired struggle carried on from day to day, a struggle, in which we were undaunted by privation or suffering and stinted neither strength nor blood. ”

“ On the shores of the Victoria N'yanza and on the shore of the Tanganyika communities of white men are engaged in disseminating what they think beneficial to the dark outcasts of this continent. Why should I not hope that the Congo basin throughout its vast extent, and the bank of the superb river, will be ultimately studded with civilized communities as well? We have begun well. Even now Belgians, Germans, English, Americans, Danes, Swedes, enlisted in our service, are devoting their best energies to accomplish this. So [Pg 446] far we have been welcomed by the natives. ”

“ And all this is directly attributable to the revolted Askaris of the Congo: they led the attack with thirty guns, took all the cattle, and then departed, leaving this horde of hyænas in their wake; and a similar fate has, I suppose, befallen all those tribes between Tanganyika and Albert Edward through whose country they passed.
The partition or occupation of Africa with a view to sound colonization--that is, to fit the country as a future home for surplus population--is the obvious duty of the nations which form the vanguard of civilization. ”