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UK_AFRIKA

ELIKYA PROJECT/RAPAR

ISSUE 4 JUL-SEP2011

DR. CONGO: 1125 RAPES A DAY

Over 400000 women between 15 and 49 years old have been raped over a period between 2006 and 2007 according to the American Journal of Public Health published in June 2011. That means that 1125 women were raped a day or 48 an hour.
For Dr.Mukwege, gynecologist in the East of Congo, award winner of the King Boudouin Awards in Brussels, declared in The European Parliament that all sexual violences are “systematical, methodological and well planned crimes.” He revealed that there are some hidden motives such as the occupation of space, to drive the local population away and allow the illegal exploitation of minerals….
Since the 90’s, the Democratic Republic of Congo has known armed conflicts. The international community seems to be defeated although the UN is still in Congo. Many reports have identified the actors but no actions has been taken yet. To act now, write to elikya_project@hotmail.com or admin@rapar.org.uk
Picture from Doctors without Borders

War in DR. Congo: we are all Accomplices

Modernity has brought innovations and inventions that the world cannot exist without. Portable telephones, IPods, MP3s and computers are all the fruits of the technology which are becoming more and more inevitable and indispensable.Coltan is a precious mineral that is used in the manufacture of these gadgets…….But some people still ignore that the fact the coltan mineral which is mined in open mines is found in the provinces of Kivu which is at the centre of the conflict that has destabilized the East of The DRCongo.
The drama of this country is found in the riches of the soil that is host to key minerals such as diamonds, gold, copper, and plays a significant part P.3

Team
B.Mfukidi
J.Fallah-Williams
Johnny Vuemba
M.Monanga
Contact
6 Mount street
M2 5NS Manchester
Tel: 01618348221
Mob: 07900083342
Elikya_project@hotmail.com
Inside Issue
DR.Congo: we are all accomplices
Elections in DR.Congo: chaos
Critique:”Black Canada”

Radio Netherlands East Congo
CHAOS FOR GETTING A VOTERS CARD
Reports by Anneke Verbraeken inGoma (North Kivu) East DRC

More than a hundred people are waiting to get registered at the centre in Itig, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Goma. They shout and they push. The conditions to get a voters card seem to be chaoti
‘It’s a shame’, a young man says. Some of us are here for more than three days. Each morning we get a number, but if you can’t get registered, you have to beg for another number the next day. If you pay forty dollars though, you can get right in. I don’t have that money, but our neighbours, the Rwandans, do.” The group around him shout its contentment. Fists are heaved.
Clash with Rwandans
Only a few days ago the Congolese standing in line at Itig, started a fight with the Rwandese, also standing in line to get registered. They wanted them to leave. The Rwandans have no right to participate in the elections of a Congolese president.
According to the people at Itig, it’s all about Kivu. President Joseph Kabila promised the carrot to Rwanda, if Rwanda would provide voters in November. So now the Rwandese people are pouring into the DRC to get a voters card.
Chaos and fraude
Who wants to vote, the 27th of November, needs a voter’s card. To get one, you have to be registered. The biometrical registration (9500 machines for the whole country) started the 2nd of April and takes three months. But already this term has been expanded, because of the problems in the first two weeks.
Until now, registration is chaotic. In some areas of the DRC not all the planned registration centres are open yet. Machines are broken down, generators are missing, or there is no fuel for the generators. People have to wait for days to get registered.
There are accusations of fraud with student cards and work permits. With these cards Rwandans, studying or working in the DRC, can get a voters card. The national elections committee Ceni (Commission Electorale Nationale Indépendente) says the problems have to do with the start-up. In a few weeks everything will run smoothly, they say.
Joseph Kabila ( right picture)

False registration
The vice-coordinator of the provincial branch of Ceni in North-Kivu, admits there are problems. He also admits the fraud. He has seen false registration cards with his own eyes. According to him the numbers are significant, although he can’t’ give exact figures.
If there’s a Rwandan fraud on a large scale, is difficult to prove. False identity cards are not confiscated. Also is unknown how many people actually live in Goma for example. The mair himself thinks it’s somewhere between 900.000 and 1.1 million. Approximately. He is pro-Kabila and denies the large-scale fraud: ‘We are talking about incidents, nothing more.’
The people waiting before the registration centre in Itig, totally disagree: ‘We see a lot of foreigners, while we have to wait for days.’ But why are they willing to wait for so long? Do they want to vote in November? ‘Off course not’ a young woman says. ‘It’s an important identity card. I need that card for something else.’
Opposition?
The presidential elections take this time only one round. The constitution was changed to get this done. The change is said to be profitable for Kabila: the opposition has to unify before the elections and to choose one leader.
That proves rather difficult: E
E.Tshisekedi
Etienne Tshisekedi is an old and sickman, the young Vital Kamerhe has problems to get the old- opposition behind his candidature, and Bemba’s party wants to wait until Bemba is acquitted; he awaits in The Hague his ICC-trial.
Reports in June 2011 by Anneke Verbraeken in Goma (North Kivu) Democratic Republic of Congo

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UK_AFRIKA

Chaos for getting a voters card

The UK_AFRIKA is a newsletter in French and in English for the French speaking African displaced people produced by ELIKYA PROJECT and supported by RAPAR and NUJ/MANCHESTER. ELIKYA PROJECT
Is an organization who uses newsletter and others publications to provide advice, information regarding human rights, employment, education health and all social issues affecting French speaking African and their families in Manchester and the rest of UK.
ELIKYA PROJECT aims to provide information from and for French speaking African around the world;
To help African Journalists to find ways of achieving in their profession.

War in DR CONGO: We are Accomplices

as being the world’s reserve of coltan, creating an industrial power struggle that produces devastation and exploitation in these zones. The initial factors that provoked the war were covered by various financial motivations. Several United Nations’ reports have mentioned this.
The exploitations of these key minerals are created by multinational societies who, to hide their activities, give the understanding of a civil war, armed conflict, internal divisions. While these conflicts ravage the Democratic Republic of Congo, these multinationals devote themselves to the extractions and marketing of these strategic and precious minerals : they make profit from it without paying tax or being accountable to the Congolese State, a nation that still lives and struggles under the threshold of poverty. Needless to say that Congo lived thirty-two years of dictatorship under Mobutu, and eight years of wars and armed conflicts under L.D Kabila, and today even under the reign of "Joseph Kabila", whose identity continue to raise questions.
We are a party to this whether in an active or passive way, as long as we buy mobile phones and benefit from these services.
- The blood of millions of people flows
- Women are abused, young and old , all without exception
-Children are deceased and dying of hunger,
- Millions of displaced people flee their homes to seek sanctuary in the forests
This edition is especially dedicated to the situation in the East of Congo: victims of rape as a weapon of war, elections in Congo, and the forgotten of this war.
The Team

RAPAR (Refugee and Asylum Seeker Participatory Action Research) is a Manchester-based human rights organisation working with people, both locally and further afield, who are at risk of having their rights denied.

RAPAR (Refugee and Asylum Seeker Participatory Action Research) is a Manchester-based human rights organisation working with people, both locally and further afield, who are at risk of having their rights denied.
Founded in 2001 by a group of volunteers, RAPAR is still run on an entirely voluntary basis by local and displaced people from all over Greater Manchester, who come together from many different backgrounds, cultures, histories, experiences and challenges.
www.rapar.org.uk

ISSUE 4 JUL-SEP2011

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Critique: BLACK CANADA

Alain Deneault , Delphine Abadie and William Sacher, NOIR CANADA, Ecosociete,2008,348pages (French version)
In a work published in September, 2008, Black Canada appeared as an economic thriller which runs a chill down your spine after reading it. The author described systematically how Africa is cut up by predators. From Tanzania to Congo-
Children miners BBC
Kinshasa and Southern Africa, the book points finger at multinationals as to how they have helped certain countries notably Canada to benefit from the treasures of these African countries at the expense of human rights and of international and humanitarian law.
Following the two Canadian companies implicated in the book and which are now demanding some 11 million Canadian dollars of damages, Alain Deneault attacks the image portrayed of Canada on the international stage intrinsically pacifist, good and generous ". With diversified sources, this work was produced notably on the back of the reports of the United Nations and international non-governmental organizations, having looked at numerous cases already brought made available by NGOs, journalists, analysts as well as experts of the UNO - in which the Canadian companies made themselves culprits of corruption, institutional hauding of mineral resources or oil of these African countries, and stir-up tension or support instability or conflicts in these countries just to acquire juicy contracts. The author names the case of DR Congo where Canadian companies sell weapons and mercenaries to War Lords in the Great Lake region to fuel instability in this party of the African continent. The author persists and signs that these abuses were made possible with the support of the Canadian authorities which, today, claim of being " friends of Africa ".
Deneault described the architecture of a political and financial mafia system in which Canada plays the role of a true « judicial paradise » for numerous companies. The Stock Market of Toronto, extremely permissive, and tailor-made for global mining and oil companies, is opened by a government which gives them juridical coverage for abuses they carry out abroad. For some, this book is neither more nor less an answer to a true - wrong "campaign of denigration" towards Quebec, led, according to politicians of Quebec, by the English-speaking press of Canada.
Even if it appears that Canadian companies are implicated in the exploitation of resources in these unstable countries in Africa, it is with the full blessing of the local authorities. For others, the detailed reading of " Black Canada " shows a merciless war between English-speaking Canadians and those of independent-minded Quebec. As usual, the press is making a contribution to weaken the adversary. It is also true that the book of Alain, sold for 34 Canadian dollars in Canadian bookshops, seeks to swing the pendulums of time that English-speaking Canada neither have the moral authority nor the gesture to give a lecture to their French-speaking brothers. Known to be independently minded, Alain Deneault, who did his doctorate in philosophy in Paris, is a proprietor of a publishing company which published " Black Canada".
Johnny Mavuemba.
Translated by James Fallah-Williams

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