The Silent Machete

The world turns a blind eye at the hand of natural resources, greed and money; U.S. motivation to control governments & resources leads to collaboration with leaders that promote inhumanity.

This is what people see in a place where machetes and snares are used to carry out the eliminations of human beings. Photo: zimbabwewilddogs.wildlifedirect.org

(KHARTOUM / PORTLAND) - U.S. & UK stage proxy war against Sudan with key leaders Kagame and Museveni. This band was driven by power and greed, power to control governments, and power to steal the local resources in several African countries – Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Rwanda and Sudan.

Sudan

In the late eighties, Islamic extremism took over Sudan. The South defending their most basic human rights and demanding their share of the new oil wealth fought back thus began the 20 year civil war. The lives lost number over two million with four million citizens fleeing the country living as refugees. Shortly before reaching the peace agreement in 2005 another genocide engulfed Darfur in 2003; almost a half million people murdered and millions being forced into refugee camps.

The US wanted the Islamic regime out of Sudan and to partner in the significant oil reserves. A military push in that region would not gain a satisfactory effect only peace would achieve their needed outcome.  Therefore, the US and UK needed a cohort, and found willing partners with Kagame and Museveni. While Sudan spiraled into chaos the US looked away and chose to engage in a proxy war.

Rwanda and Uganda

The Ugandan Armed Forces were a partner within the Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A), during the civil war, the RPA was supplied from United People's Defense Forces (UPDF) military bases inside Uganda. The US allowed and encouraged Kagame to derail from the Arusha Accord Agreements and supported the militarization of Uganda as a vital part of its foreign policy.

Between the years of 1986 and 1997 Uganda received 2 billion dollars from the World Bank. Part of the money tagged for civilian programs had been diverted into funding the United People's Defense Force (UPDF) which in turn was involved in military operations in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Ugandan external debt was being used to finance these military operations on behalf of Washington with the country and its people ultimately footing the bill. In fact by curbing social expenditures, the austerity measures had facilitated the reallocation of State of revenue in favor of the Ugandan military. http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO305A.html

The civil war and strife in Rwanda led to the 1994 genocide that saw close to one million people dead in 100 days. The internal conflict within Rwanda has been an ongoing prejudicial battle for many decades. The Hutu majority had compiled lists with names and addresses of all Tutsi’s and stockpiled machetes in effort to eliminate all of the Tutsis from Rwanda.  Purportedly Kagame’s RPF shot down the presidents’ plane thus igniting the entire region. As with Sudan the neighboring countries saw an influx of refugees, Uganda played host to many in the early sixties, seventies and eighties and DRC won over two million during and post genocide.

Kagame took over the Government in 1994 and sent the RPF/A into DRC after those he felt perpetrated the genocide; the genocidaires that had escaped the country with the two million refugees. While inside DRC the RPF/A has been responsible for numerous deaths and destruction. Taking advantage of the relationship built with DRC, Kagame’s army plundered and forced their way into the Kivu provinces. Coltan was mined and exported specifically to the US military, a vitally important mineral for use in defense weaponry.

Democratic Republic of Congo

In 1996 troops from Rwanda and Uganda militarily removed Mobutu from his presidency and replaced friend and ally to both Rwanda and US, Laurent Kabila. Kabila agreed to join the movement to overthrow the Sudanese regime. However, two years after being installed he chose a new direction and new partners – Zimbabwe, Angola and Nambia. This brought several problems to the cohesiveness of the team; the rules, expectations and dealings began to change.

By 1998 Rwanda and Uganda occupied large provinces within the DRC specifically in the Kivu and Goma regions. The supposition had been made; Rwanda was to receive the two Kivu provinces as compensation for their part in the US proxy war against Sudan. However, in 2002 Kagame was obliged to remove a majority of the troops under US pressure. Within these four years much of the area controlled by these two regimes saw massive plundering with Rwanda exporting an enormous amount of Coltan.  It is estimated that the Rwandan army made $20 million per month mining Coltan in 2000. http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/congo-coltan.htm

January 2001 found Laurent Kabila murdered and a new president, Joseph Kabila (Laurent’s son) presented as the solution, he lacked legitimacy as well as the basic language skills to oppose the US arrangement. Joseph Kabila’s lack of authority lends itself to a government that is run almost completely by warlords; power and greed continue to wreak havoc on the Congolese people.

At the root of today's crisis are the huge country's valuable resources - including Coltan, a vital ingredient in mobile phones and computers - being used to finance conflicts instead of aiding development. By occupying mineral-rich areas, rebel groups sell these resources at bargain prices to large global firms to fund their wars. This leaves little international motivation to stop the conflict. Thus, though nominally supported by various African leaders as well as most Western governments who often refer to the DRC as "relatively stable," millions of lives continue to be affected as whole towns are deserted and few Congolese are willing return home. http://allafrica.com/stories/201001121080.html

The price of manipulation, oil, and Colton; 10 MILLION AFRICAN LIVES - MURDERED; almost six million Congolese since 1998, almost one million in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, roughly two and half million in Sudan since the late eighties and many more in Uganda. 

Lives are being continuously taken not only by lack of physical life but also that of family, home and spirit.  Women and girls are continuously raped everyday inside DRC, the militias and silent machetes stealing from them their future peace, husbands and families.  Inside Darfur families are being continuously attacked, villages burned and families separated by fear and violence; in the south intimidation, manipulation, lack of water, food, hospitals and education cut their very lives incredibly short before they can even come to fruition. Inside both Uganda and Rwanda people cannot hear, watch or read some of the news or speak to journalists; many fear the what ifs of their future what their government can do to them.

Silence enabled over TEN MILLION African people to be murdered. The US stands in silent agreement as Sudan suffers three decades under the rule of Al-Bashir; millions dead and too many millions living as refugees. The US position was in response to the need for oil and the ability to see Africans as dispensable. Black Hawk down has been used as a reason not to send our troops to protect and defend human rights inside Africa.

The silence has been deafening for the millions of families inside DRC that are without their loved ones, the millions of women that fear leaving there homes or fear the knock they hear on their front door. The report by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative showed that 60% of rape victims in South Kivu were gang raped by armed men, more than half of the assaults took place in the victims' homes and an increasing number of attacks were being carried out by civilians. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8650112.stm

The silence is cutting and sharp like the machete’s used to cut the limbs and lives of so many. Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan all manipulated and pulled together in a theater of violence to further the agenda of US wealth, greed and power. The US and UK government supports in vociferous silence the murder of over TEN MILLION lives because our cell phones, computers and automobiles need Coltan and oil. The message to those that are screaming for help is that they don’t matter, they are dispensable; the silence is cruel, the reasoning senseless and unacceptable.

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Alysha Atma spends many hours working on projects that support and benefit the beleaguered people of African nations who spend way too much time off the western media's radar. This writer explains that she is a culmination of all her experiences, most importantly knowledge she says, and all that she still needs to learn; lessons of love, laughter and the extraordinary giving of both young and old. She says she has the enormous fortune of learning from the best; every person around her, and the amazing strength and fortitude of those she has never met but will always strive to listen to. "I continue to work and write because I believe in the power of community and the power of one, both contradictory to each other and yet can move together in a very powerful way. I feel a responsibility to use my place, freedoms and connections here in the US to stand up and yell for those who need my voice and actions. I have seen such strength in my fellow humans that I cannot even begin to comprehend, they have traveled distances, have gone without food, water, shelter and safety for days and weeks at a time. I have a responsibility as a fellow human to put our common humanity before anything else. Everyone deserves to look towards tomorrow, to dream of a safe future and to have a peaceful present." You can write to Alysha Atma at: alyshann78@comcast.net