tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23496128027266609412024-02-06T20:06:47.613-08:00Congo ResourcesA site tracking political and military developments in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a focus on resource exploitation.David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.comBlogger686125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-78501369886492467352020-06-19T07:35:00.001-07:002020-06-19T07:35:42.499-07:00Rosewood<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QNR4LE4NYstwJoEc-Me729GDDYAmD6oa/preview" width="640" height="480"></iframe>David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-84798392448134449272020-06-08T10:52:00.001-07:002020-06-19T07:43:31.636-07:00Rosewoodhttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1MnLH4LqY4k-bbqmeoyfk3urFLFwIMCye/view?usp=sharingDavid Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-80716776270390658022019-05-19T07:12:00.001-07:002021-08-12T00:31:21.854-07:00THE DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM OF KONGOI wrote this in 1993, perhaps, in a two-bedroom house where I lived for a year on the outskirts of Lawrence, Kansas, a half-block from Haskell Indian College.
It was the first of a four-part series on the history of the Congo: The others were on the Red Rubber Campaign, the assassination of Lumumba, and Mobutu's kleptocracy. I never succeeded in interesting a publisher in any of them David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-44540379451387197502017-11-09T11:18:00.000-08:002017-12-12T15:40:20.546-08:00The General in his Resort
I went boating with the alleged war criminal General François Olenga a few weekends ago (in August, 2017), at the riverside resort he built on the outskirts of Kinshasa. Olenga is President Kabila’s former top military advisor, and since June, 2017 has been under sanctions from the US Treasury. Troops under his command allegedly tortured and raped detainees and arbitrarily executed oppositionDavid Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-42751855741015712222017-08-03T12:23:00.000-07:002017-09-06T10:58:34.441-07:00African Poverty Numbers Grow, as World's DeclineThis gif, showing African poverty numbers growing as the rest of the world's decline, is sobering.
Here's a link: http://www.thatsmags.com/china/post/19223/china-s-rapidly-shrinking-poverty-levels-in-one-gif
And here's a similar data set, presented in graph form:
From: Shanta Devarajan, Celestin Monga and Jim Cust
Even as the global long-term&David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-51526323840065338202017-06-20T04:57:00.001-07:002021-03-09T12:01:55.723-08:00My Story--or at any rate, one of them
Many years ago, when I was young and harbored the dream of becoming the next George Orwell, I lived for a year in a shanty town in eastern Congo--then Zaire. The idea was that I would gather the life stories and daily experiences of some of the town's residents, throw in a few of my own impressions and feelings, add a sociological note or three, and--voila, the next Road to Wigan Pier. So, for David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-28243457291103226132017-02-08T23:48:00.003-08:002017-02-10T17:30:25.325-08:00An Unpublished note to the InterceptThe Intercept published a long, not especially well-informed piece on Trump's proposed roll-back of the conflict minerals provision. I promptly fired off this note, which seven hours later still hadn't appeared in their comments section, although all sorts of profanity has.
[Update: Lee Fang, the author of the article, has promptly written to me to say he's looking into the matter. Update to theDavid Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-16440061762591878492016-10-28T21:42:00.011-07:002021-03-19T01:00:07.979-07:00The Origins of AIDS
This is a draft of the first part of an abandoned two-part book review I wrote a while back about three books about the origins and spread of the HIV virus. They were Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It, by Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin; The Origins of AIDS, by Jacques Pepin; and The Chimp and the River: How AIDS Emerged from an David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-54381866067846635392014-03-21T17:38:00.000-07:002014-03-21T17:38:01.403-07:00The Price of Bad GovernanceHow much does the legacy of Mobutu and Kabila cost the people of DR Congo? One way is to compare the infant mortality rate to other neighboring countries. Here is a chart, drawn from UN statistics:
Click for full-size
You can see right away that the Congo is an outlier: It started the 1970s with roughly the same mortality rate as sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, but gradually lost ground. David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-69814644775261230262014-02-11T09:02:00.002-08:002014-03-05T11:25:19.909-08:00Quote of the Day From remarks John Kerry gave at the LiveAtState virtual press conference:
Question:
“What is the U.S.’s interest in South Sudan? And what’s the way forward for peace to prevail?”
Answer:
We also feel deeply committed, given past lessons, to try to prevent the chaos and the genocide that too often comes of the violence that can occur if things break down. We all have an interestDavid Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-48773408139702016832013-05-15T05:06:00.004-07:002013-05-27T06:28:21.760-07:00Exclusive: Global Witness Outed as Sleeper Cell for the Chamber of Commerce*In a dramatic turn of events, one of the leading advocacy groups for the conflict minerals campaign has outed itself as a mole for the US Chamber of Commerce. Global Witness, a British NGO, published a report last week detailing the massive failure of Dodd-Frank 1502 to achieve any of its intended goals. The report documents how the conflicts have worsened since passage of the lawDavid Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-68400095773913033112013-05-13T07:24:00.004-07:002013-05-13T14:15:07.366-07:00M23 vs. South African Defense Forces: The Battle Dress
Cool graphic from South Africa's TimesLive.
David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-52109081469515660412013-05-06T06:37:00.000-07:002013-05-11T10:06:42.331-07:00Quotes of the Day, from Mary RobinsonStatement by Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on April 20, 1998:
Today's decision by the Secretary-General to withdraw his Investigative Team (SGIT) from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was the inevitable result of a series of obstacles which have prevented the Team fulfilling its mandate.
I see this development in the overall David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-34174882625875899552013-05-05T16:10:00.001-07:002013-05-05T16:18:07.116-07:00Conflict Minerals: A Devastating Analysis from the Pole Institute
On conflict minerals, a devastating new analysis from the Pole Institute:
Thus, a pattern is emerging in which Kivu's mining sector is being asphyxiated in the name of reform. Before 2010, Kivu's mineral traders had willingly participated in moves to strengthen formal and legal channels and to safeguard Kivu livelihoods by creating “conflict-free” production and trading chains within Eastern David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-65036452184711494202013-04-30T11:05:00.000-07:002013-04-30T17:57:34.109-07:00The Coming Anarchy?The Congolese state seems to me be teetering on the edge of collapse, about to forfeit even the appearance of control over the country. Consider: Outbreaks of localized violence in the east are increasing; an inadequately manned UN intervention brigade is on a collision course against a determined, Rwandan-supported rebel movement; Katanga is openly defying orders from David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-4185672000245431642013-04-30T10:17:00.001-07:002013-04-30T10:23:35.349-07:00Quote of the DayI have written before about Congo being policy shorthand for "hopeless situation the cognoscenti know we're not going to do anything serious about," but with the clamor growing for us to intervene in Syria, I think it's worth pointing out that we could save far more lives and put far fewer US troops in danger--and at much lower geopolitical risk--if we were to make a David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-29753362357595479292013-04-30T09:33:00.000-07:002013-05-06T08:36:26.689-07:00Had Enough of Enough?Alex de Waal at the World Peace Foundation takes one hell of a whack at the Enough Project:
Reclaiming Activism
For most of my adult life I introduced myself as an “activist” first and a writer, researcher, or practitioner of humanitarian action or peacemaking second. Then, about seven or eight years ago, I became rather uncomfortable with the word. Not because I had diluted my David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-82537722407450858292013-04-18T07:21:00.003-07:002013-05-05T15:03:43.770-07:00The Lake that Probably Won't Kill You (anytime soon)
Looks safe from up here
[UPDATED 5/6 w/ embedded video--see below] One of the most poignant memories I have of the Asian Tsunami is of a Sri Lankan official, in near-tears, trying to explain why his government hadn't anticipated the catastrophe. "We have three thousand years of court chronicles," he said. "There's no history of anything like this ever happening."
I remembered that David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-73484980415789539902013-04-15T11:39:00.002-07:002013-04-15T16:40:37.644-07:00Is Congo Spiraling out of Control?Four reads today provide the most dire evidence yet that Congo is spiraling dangerously out of control. None suggests that an implosion is imminent; combined, however, they paint a picture of a government that is failing in every respect: unable to control its territory and in danger of collapsing or being overthrown in Kinshasa.
First, the ICG has an excellent backgrounder on last month's David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-27187887077640038992013-04-15T06:02:00.003-07:002013-04-28T11:09:43.035-07:00WSJ: "Opportunities for illicit gain only increased after passage of DF-1502"[UPDATED BELOW 4/19]
Some readers might remember that I set out a list of predictions regarding the impact of Dodd-Frank 1502 back in February 2012. I wrote then that while a single correct or incorrect prediction wouldn't prove or disprove my overall assessment of DF-1502, they would constitute a marker for future reference and a baseline of credibility. My third prediction was this:
3) David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-26442306273502638822013-04-13T09:23:00.006-07:002013-04-13T13:10:08.677-07:00The Other Casualties of WarPete Jones has a piece in The Guardian about an attack last June on a village named Epulu in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve. The perpetrators were Mai Mai Morgan; they reportedly killed three people and ate the heart of one of them. They also killed all 14 of reserve's captive Okapi. The reason for their ire? Epulu is a base camp for the wildlife rangers assigned to stop the David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-2586760767116062792013-04-10T13:32:00.000-07:002013-04-10T13:33:39.889-07:00What You Need to Know TodayThe M23 rebels have penned an open letter to Obama, asking him to scotch the proposed intervention brigade for eastern Congo.
The inquiry into human rights activist Floribert Chebeya's assassination has again been delayed, and the organization he headed, Voix des sans-voix, continues to boycott the proceedings, saying they are a whitewash for the man almost certainly responsible for his David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-80236803945083740082013-04-10T08:22:00.002-07:002013-04-10T08:22:54.517-07:00Quote of the Day
I think it's safe to say that the M23 is not thrilled about the proposed intervention brigade:
Kigali, 2013 04 06Open Letter to H.E. Barack Obama, President of the United States of AmericaYour Excellency:On behalf of Rufari Foundation, I have the honor and privilege to beckon you, and through you, your other UN Security Council peers, to attract your joint attention and diligence on the David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-66244312418483936522013-04-09T18:41:00.001-07:002013-04-09T19:25:25.654-07:00Quote of the Day II
"We are not scared to go to war," SANDF spokesman Xolani Mabanga told SAfm."If they [M23] declare war against the SA National Defence Force personnel, we are ready to tackle them. We, as the SANDF, will never be deterred by any circumstances to pursue or do what we are asked to do by the government of South Africa."
Take it down a notch, guys. Remember, the point is to not have to resort to David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349612802726660941.post-86531673257872093052013-04-09T17:23:00.000-07:002013-04-09T17:23:03.592-07:00Quote of the DayHmmm. Much as I decry the evasive and muffled language of officialdom, I'm not sure that this is the kind of message the DRC wants to be sending out:
"If nothing is done, Katanga is a powder keg and anything can happen," Claudel Andre Lubaya, a legislator who is the rapporteur for the parliamentary commission for defence and security, said on Tuesday following a visit to Lubumbashi."Persistent David Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530153464205125811noreply@blogger.com0