Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999 (African Studies, 50)
This book is the source for the information, I believe you are questioning.
Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999 (African Studies, 50)
by Wayne Madsen (Editor)
Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa: 1993-1999
Background
The Ba-n'daw Report
Covert American Support for the Combatants
American Military Support for the Second Invasion of the Congo
Profiting from the Destabilization of Central Africa
Summary
NOTES
Background
(c) Wayne Madsen
Prepared Testimony and Statement for the Record of
Wayne Madsen
Author,
“Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999”
Investigative Journalist
On:
Suffering and Despair: Humanitarian Crisis in the Congo
Before the
Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights
Committee on International Relations
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC
May 17, 2001
An ominous report on the fate of refugees was made by Nicholas Stockton, the Emergencies Director of Oxfam U.K. & Ireland. He said that on November 20, 1996, he was shown U.S. aerial intelligence photographs which “confirmed, in considerable detail, the existence of 500,000 people distributed in three major and numerous minor agglomerations.” He said that three days later the U.S. military claimed it could only locate one significant mass of people, which they claimed were identified as former members of the Rwandan armed forces and the Interhamwe militia. Since they were the number one targets for the RPF forces, their identification and location by the Americans was undoubtedly passed to the Rwandan forces. They would have surely been executed.<19> Moreover, some U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in central Africa said that any deaths among the Hutu refugees merely constituted “collateral damage.”
Some of the companies involved in this new “scramble for Africa” have close links with PMCs and America’s top political leadership. For example, America Minerals Fields, Inc., a company that was heavily involved in promoting the 1996 accession to power of Kabila, was, at the time of its involvement in the Congo’s civil war, headquartered in Hope, Arkansas. Its major stockholders included long-time associates of former President Clinton going back to his days as Governor of Arkansas. America Mineral Fields also reportedly enjoys a close relationship with Lazare Kaplan International, Inc., a major international diamond brokerage whose president remains a close confidant of past and current administrations on Africa matters.<26>
When the AFDL-CZ and their Rwandan allies reached Kinshasa in 1996, it was largely due to the help of the United States. One reason why Kabila’s men advanced into the city so quickly was the technical assistance provided by the DIA and other intelligence agencies. According to informed sources in Paris, U.S. Special Forces actually accompanied ADFL-CZ forces into Kinshasa. The Americans also reportedly provided Kabila’s rebels and Rwandan troops with high definition spy satellite photographs that permitted them to order their troops to plot courses into Kinshasa that avoided encounters with Mobutu’s forces.<20> During the rebel advance toward Kinshasa, Bechtel provided Kabila, at no cost, high technology intelligence, including National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellite data.<21>
One of the major goals of the Rwandan-backed RCD-Goma faction, a group fighting the Kabila government in Congo, is restoration of mining concessions for Barrick Gold, Inc. of Canada. In fact, the rebel RCD government’s “mining minister” signed a separate mining deal with Barrick in early 1999.<29> Among the members of Barrick’s International Advisory Board are former President Bush and former President Clinton’s close confidant Vernon Jordan.
------------
BLOOD MONEY OUT OF AFRICA
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
Covert Action in Africa: A Smoking Gun in Washington, D.C.
Rayburn House Office Building
Friday, April 6, 2001
10:00am - 12:00 noon
The accounts we are about to hear today assist us in understanding just why Africa is in the state it is in today. You will hear that at the heart of Africa's suffering is the West's, and most notably the United States', desire to access Africa's diamonds, oil, natural gas, and other precious resources.
You will hear that the West, and most notably the United States, has set in motion a policy of oppression, destabilization and tempered, not by moral principle, but by a ruthless desire to enrich itself on Africa's fabulous wealth. While falsely pretending to be the friends and allies of many African countries, so desperate for help and assistance, many western nations have in reality betrayed those countries' trust--and instead, have relentlessly pursued their own selfish military and economic policies. Western countries have incited rebellion against stable African governments by encouraging and even arming opposition parties and rebel groups to begin armed insurrection.
The Western nations have even actively participated in the assassination of duly elected and legitimate African Heads of State and replaced them with corrupted and malleable officials. Western nations have even encouraged and been complicit in the unlawful invasions by African nations into neighboring counties.
Something must be done to right these wrongs.
I invite you to listen and learn first-hand of the West's activities in Africa.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Prepared Statement of Wayne Madsen
WHAT A DIFFERENCE AN ELECTION MAKES: OR DOES IT?
Wayne Madsen is an investigative journalist who has written for The Village Voice, The Progressive, CAQ, and the Intelligence Newsletter. He is the author of Genocide and Covert Activities in Africa 1993-1999 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1999), an expose of U.S. and French intelligence activities in Africa's recent civil wars and ethnic rebellions. He served as an on-air East Africa analyst for ABC News in the aftermath of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Mr. Madsen has appeared on 60 Minutes, World News Tonight, Nightline, 20/20, MS-NBC, and NBC Nightly News, among others. He has been frequently quoted by the Associated Press, foreign wire services, and many national and international newspapers.
Mr. Madsen is also the author of a motion picture screen play treatment about the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion. He is a former U.S. Naval Officer and worked for the National Security Agency and U.S. Naval Telecommunications Command.
---
I wish to discuss the record of American policy in Africa over most of the past decade, particularly that involving the central African Great Lakes region. It is a policy that has rested, in my opinion, on the twin pillars of unrestrained military aid and questionable trade. The military aid programs of the United States, largely planned and administered by the U.S. Special Operations Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), have been both overt and covert.
Some of the companies involved in this new "scramble for Africa" have close links with PMCs and America's top political leadership. For example, America Minerals Fields, Inc., a company that was heavily involved in promoting the 1996 accession to power of the late Congolese President Laurent-Desire Kabila, was, at the time of its involvement in the Congo's civil war, headquartered in Hope, Arkansas. Its major stockholders included long-time associates of former President Clinton going back to his days as Governor of Arkansas. America Mineral Fields also reportedly enjoys a close relationship with Lazare Kaplan International, Inc., a major international diamond brokerage whose president remains a close confidant of past and current administrations on Africa matters.
One of the major goals of the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie (RCD), a group fighting the Kabila government in Congo, is restoration of mining concessions for Barrick Gold, Inc. of Canada. In fact, the rebel RCD government's "mining minister" signed a separate mining deal with Barrick in early 1999. Among the members of Barrick's International Advisory Board are former President Bush and former President Clinton's close confidant Vernon Jordan.
Currently, Barrick and tens of other mining companies are stoking the flames of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Each benefits by the de facto partition of the country into some four separate zones of political control. First the mineral exploiters from Rwanda and Uganda concentrated on pillaging gold and diamonds from the eastern Congo. Now, they have increasingly turned their attention to a valuable black sand called columbite-tantalite or "col-tan." Col-tan is a key material in computer chips and, therefore, is as considered a strategic mineral. It is my hope that the Bush administration will take pro-active measures to stem this conflict by applying increased pressure on Uganda and Rwanda to withdraw their troops from the country. However, the fact that President Bush has selected Walter Kansteiner to be Assistant Secretary of State for African, portends, in my opinion, more trouble for the Great Lakes region. A brief look at Mr. Kansteiner's curriculum vitae and statements calls into question his commitment to seeking a durable peace in the region. For example, he has envisaged the splitting up of the Great Lakes region into separate Tutsi and Hutu states through "relocation" efforts and has called the break-up of the DRC inevitable. I believe Kansteiner's previous work at the Department of Defense where he served on a Task Force on Strategic Minerals and one must certainly consider col-tan as falling into that category -- may influence his past and current thinking on the territorial integrity of the DRC. After all, 80 per cent of the world's known reserves of col-tan are found in the eastern
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/politics/blood_sparkle.html Africa: U.S. Covert Action Exposed
By Eric Ture Muhammad
Final Call
April 25, 2001
WASHINGTON -- Corporate greed, combined with a desire to never allow the "throne of civilization" to unite and become self-sufficient, continues to join at the hip the U.S. Government, the United Nations and corporate cartels in a persistent war on Africa, a recent congressional hearing concluded.
Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) chaired the hearing, "Covert Action in Africa: A Smoking Gun in Washington, D.C.," and led the voices of castigation that claimed the U.S. Government, the UN, private militias and western economic interests possessed complete knowledge of pending civil unrest in Africa and fed the fray between African nations. Their aim was to use war, disease, hunger and poverty as covers while continuing the centuries-old practice of rape and exploitation of the continent's human and mineral resources, testimonies charged.
Among those named as collaborators during the daylong hearing were U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Madeline K. Albright and international diamond merchant Maurice Tempelsman.
http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=116 A former U.S. ambassador to Uganda ? acting on behalf of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) -- gathered intelligence on the movement of Hutu refugees through eastern Zaire. The DIA¡¯s second ranking Africa hand, who also served as the U.S. military attache in Kigali, reconnoitered the Rwandan border towns of Cyangugu and Gisenyi, gathering intelligence on the cross border movements of anti-Mobutu Rwandan Tutsis from Rwanda.<3>
The Defense Intelligence Agency¡¯s African bureau chief established a close personal relationship with Bizima (alias Bizimana) Karaha, an ethnic Rwandan who would later become the Foreign Minister in the Laurent Kabila government. Moreover, the DIA¡¯s Africa division had close ties with Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI), an Alexandria, Virginia private military company (PMC), whose Vice President for Operations is a former Director of DIA.
The political officer of the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa, accompanied by a CIA operative, traveled with AFDL-CZ rebels through the eastern Zaire jungles for weeks after the 1996 Rwandan invasion of Zaire. In addition, it was reported that the Kinshasa embassy official and three U.S. intelligence agents regularly briefed Bill Richardson, Clinton¡¯s special African envoy, during the rebels¡¯ steady advance towards Kinshasa.<4> The U.S. embassy official conceded that he was in Goma to do more than meet rebel leaders for lunch. Explaining his presence, he said ¡°What I am here to do is to acknowledge them as a very significant military and political power on the scene, and, of course, to represent American interests.¡±<5> In addition, MPRI was reportedly providing covert training assistance to Kagame¡¯s troops in preparation for combat in Zaire.<6> Some believe that MPRI had actually been involved in training the RPF from the time it took power in Rwanda.<7>
Some of the companies involved in this new ¡°scramble for Africa¡± have close links with PMCs and America¡¯s top political leadership. For example, America Minerals Fields, Inc., a company that was heavily involved in promoting the 1996 accession to power of Kabila, was, at the time of its involvement in the Congo¡¯s civil war, headquartered in Hope, Arkansas. Its major stockholders included long-time associates of former President Clinton going back to his days as Governor of Arkansas. America Mineral Fields also reportedly enjoys a close relationship with Lazare Kaplan International, Inc., a major international diamond brokerage whose president remains a close confidant of past and current administrations on Africa matters.<26>
http://www.geocities.com/minjokhan/SocAnthro/MadsenCongo.html Bush, Clinton in the Web: Behind the Assassination of Kabila
By Deirdre Griswold and Johnnie Stevens
The failure of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to express even the most perfunctory regret over the assassination of Congo President Laurent Désiré Kabila last year, betrays how implicated Washington is in this latest outrage against the most important country in central Africa.
Washington's silence is even more glaring considering that its foreign policy experts are well aware that the African people view the secret intelligence agencies of the U.S. government, which work closely with corporations seeking vast fortunes in the region, as the probable authors of this crime.
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Company/kabila1.htm Congo (Kinshasa): Arms Past and Present, 01/2699
Congo (Kinshasa): Arms Past and Present
Date distributed (ymd): 000126
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Central Africa
Issue Areas: +economy/development+ +security/peace+
+US policy focus+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains the executive summary of a new report from the Arms Trade Resource Center of the World Policy Institute, citing past and present U.S. military connections to countries involved in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report calls for greater restrictions and transparency in U.S. programs of arms sales and military training, and for refocusing resources on civilian development.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Deadly Legacy:
U.S. Arms to Africa and the Congo War
A Report of the Arms Trade Resource Center
January 2000
William D. Hartung
World Policy Institute
65 Fifth Ave. Suite 413
New York, NY 10003
Tel: (212)-229-5808, ext. 106
Fax: (212)-229-5579
E-mail: hartung@newschool.edu
Executive Summary
As the Clinton administration moves into the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, it is declaring January 2000, "the month of Africa." Hoping to counter criticisms that it has been engaged in a rhetorical promotion of U.S.-Africa relations over the past two years without substantive follow-up, the administration has announced its intent to prioritize finding solutions to the ongoing conflicts in the region, including a 30-year civil war that trudges on in Angola and the ongoing crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It has not, however, accepted its own responsibility in helping to create the conditions that have led to these seemingly intractable conflicts.
Over the past few years, the administration has made considerable effort to put a new and improved face on its relations with African countries. High-level visits to the region -- first by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, then President Clinton himself in the spring of 1998, and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke this past December -- have reinforced the idea of a new partnership with the continent based on promoting "African solutions to African problems." The reality, however, is that the problems facing Africa and her people -- violent conflict, political instability, and the lowest regional rate of economic growth worldwide -- have been fueled in part by a legacy of U.S. involvement in the region. Moreover, the solutions being proposed by the Clinton administration remain grounded in the counter-productive Cold-War policies that have defined U.S.-Africa relations for far too long.
Unfortunately, the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo presents a vivid example of how U.S. policies -- past and present -- have failed the people of Africa. After more than two years of devastating war, African leaders are struggling, with little success, to implement the Lusaka peace accord. Signatories to the treaty continue to call for UN peacekeeping support even as they prepare for continued fighting. Despite its demonstrable role in planting the seeds of this conflict, the U.S. has done little to either acknowledge its complicity or help create a viable resolution. Official tours of the region and impressive rhetoric will not be enough to contribute to lasting peace, democratic stability, and economic development in Africa.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Urgent_Action/apic-012600.html The U.S. played a major role in converting the newly independent Congo into a cold war battleground. In 1961, the Eisenhower administration authorized the murder of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who had been voted into office just months earlier in the territory’s first-ever democratic election. Washington, which then installed Mobutu in power and kept him there for more than 30 years, bears heavy responsibility for the disastrous economic conditions, massive corruption, and suppression of human rights in Zaire. The U.S. prolonged Mobutu’s rule by providing more than $300 million in weapons and $100 million in military training.
With the end of the cold war, the U.S., France, and Belgium formed a “troika” designed to pressure Mobutu to move toward democracy. This effort might have produced more positive results had not France defected to support Mobutu and the Hutu military dictator in Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, in defense of French language and culture, supposedly threatened by “Anglophone” Uganda and its Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) protégés.
All of the Western powers contributed to the Rwandan genocide of 1994 by ignoring warning signs and reducing the United Nations presence at a time when it should have been reinforced. France compounded the problem by intervening, ostensibly to protect Hutus from the vengeance of the Tutsi-dominated RPF, but also to permit the authors of the genocide to escape. The creation of refugee camps in the Congo near Rwanda was a virtual invitation to the 1997 attacks on the camps. The Clinton administration stalled international intervention, which might have saved refugee lives but which also would have thwarted the effort by Rwanda and Uganda to replace Mobutu with Kabila.
Despite the end of the cold war, Washington decisionmakers have continued to impose simplistic dichotomies on a complex, ambiguous reality. In Africa, Clinton posited a single solution to the problems of “rogue states”—notably Islamist Sudan and “dinosaurs” such as Mobutu—namely the “new leaders” of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, and Rwanda. Presumably these pragmatists would cooperate with Washington in establishing the new order in Africa.
http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol5/v5n10congo_body.html Holbrooke's defenders argue that the State Department's violently pro-Rwanda policy -- one in which the U.S. has done virtually nothing to try to compel the regime in Kigali to curtail its abuses -- is not just ineffective, as it was when the crisis was restricted to Rwanda and its border areas, but has become dangerous now that a general war has broken out across so much of Central Africa. Holbrooke, they insist, may not have half of Susan Rice's background, but he at least has the wit and the vision to see that something radical needs to be done.
The problem is that despite President Clinton's well-publicized trip to Africa, and his admirable decision to apologize to the Rwandan people for the U.S. refusal to intervene to stop the genocide, Washington is not really serious about getting involved in Africa in any way that could make a difference.
Holbrooke's motives may well be of the best -- certainly, it is hard to see how focusing on Congo will impress the hard-headed pols around Al Gore -- but the initiative he is supporting for a U.N. deployment is the worst kind of symbolic politics. It may be attractive in Washington, since it will permit policymakers to say they don't just care about suffering Kosovars, but about suffering Africans as well. But it has little or no chance of working, and it also risks confirming the cynical impression -- already too common in America and Western Europe -- that no matter how hard people try, there is nothing that can be done for Africa.
If the risks are small for the United States and its allies (they can all do their Bill Clinton imitations and say they feel Africa's pain), the risk for sub-Saharan Africa is great. The last thing the continent needs is more symbolic politics, either in the U.S. or the U.N. version.
http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2000/05/08/congo/index.html 
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