Podcasts about Hutu

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Rwandans have been remembering victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in which more than a million people, mainly Tutsi, were massacred by Hutu militias. This year's anniversary comes as Rwanda faces accusations of backing M23 rebels in eastern DRC. DW talks to Freddy Mutanguha CEO of the Aegis Trust, an international organization working to prevent genocide and Alex Ngarambe in Kigali.

A week after the meltdown of markets everywhere and Trump's sudden pause on most new tariffs for 90 days - with the exception of China, economists say the trade war is still on, the damage has already been done and the likelihood of a recession remains. Long time allies now view America with suspicion and trust has been badly damaged. To contextualize what this moment means for America, Christiane spoke to renowned global historian Peter Frankopan. Then to find out how Beijing is viewing the Trump administration's actions, Christiane talked to Li Yuan who covers China and its foreign relations for the New York Times. Also, CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports on one IDF soldier who is blowing the whistle on a policy to purposely destroy everything in a massive buffer zone inside Gaza and even make it a kill zone. Afterwards, award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks to Christiane about her new novel "Dream Count" - a tale of love, loss and female solidarity. Then, as Rwanda commemorates 31 years since the genocide there, Christiane revisits her 1994 report on the biblical retribution that befell the Hutu killers who were struck by a plague-like outbreak of cholera after fleeing Rwanda for neighboring countries. And finally, as "The Great Gatsby" turns 100, why it retains its relevance all these years later.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chaque jour, Laure Dautriche revient sur les grands moments et événements qui ont marqué notre radio. En 2025, Europe 1 célèbre ses 70 ans. 70 ans d'histoire, de rires, de partages et d'émotions.Pour marquer cet anniversaire, découvrez une collection inédite de podcasts : "70 ans d'Europe 1".Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, March 18: The Belgian and Rwandan press react very differently to a diplomatic spat between the two countries which had led to the expulsion of diplomats on both sides. Also: two astronauts struck in space for nine months prepare to head back to Earth. Plus, Ohtani fever hits Japan as the LA Dodgers and their Japanese superstar play two MLB games against the Chicago cubs in Tokyo. We begin with the diplomatic spat between Belgium and Rwanda. The European Union imposed sanctions on three senior Rwandan military commanders and the head of the state mining agency after the offensive by M23 fighters in DR Congo. The M23 is comprised of Congolese Tutsis, as Belgian paper Le Soir notes. UN experts have noted that the M23 has benefited from logistic and military support by Rwanda, including drones. The Rwandan government has denied these allegations thus far. As a result: both Rwanda and Belgium have expelled diplomats from their respective countries in what Le Soir calls a violent but predictable break-up. In its editorial, the paper says the anger stems from the fact Brussels was at the forefront of the accusations against Rwanda. The paper adds: "The Rwandan President is wrong and he knows it. If anyone's territorial sovereignty is being violated, it's that of Eastern Congo, which is rich in minerals and fertile land."It's quite a different story from the Rwandan press which focuses on Rwandan President Paul Kagame. The New Times headlines on what Kagame has outlined as Western hypocrisy. One of Rwanda's gripes is that it is accused of supporting the M23 rebels but the West has not condemned DR Congo, whom Rwanda accused of supporting another rebel group, the Hutu-led Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda. For The New Times, the DFLR is a "genocidal" group. In its editorial, the Rwandan daily says instead of supporting efforts for lasting peace, Brussels has chosen to fuel tensions by backing the Kinshasa regime. It adds: "The people deserve a future shaped by peace, stability and regional cooperation. Not one dictated by the lingering shadows of colonial exploitation."In other newsIt's been nine months since NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams got stuck in space. They are finally heading back to Earth. What was meant to be an eight-day mission but Wilmore and William's stint in space lasted much longer – nine months. Their odyssey was plagued by technical problems and political controversy. NASA has relied on Elon Musk's Space X to ferry crews to the space station since 2020. Musk says he offered to bring the astronauts earlier but was rebuffed by the Biden administration, The Washington Post reports, something the former president denies. The astronauts certainly put their time in space to good use. Williams conducted two space walks and now holds the record for total space walking time by a female astronaut: over 62 hours in her three-decade career! The British daily The Guardian looks at the physical toll of being stuck in space on the body. It's not pretty: struggles with walking due to lack of gravity for extended periods of time, plus fluid buildup causing swollen eyeballs, dizziness and bad eyesight. Luckily these are mostly temporary conditions.Baseball fever hits JapanThe LA Dodgers are playing the Chicago Cubs in a special Tokyo series starting this Tuesday. The New York Times notes that the games are part of the Major League Baseball's ambitions to increase the popularity of baseball worldwide. The Dodgers and Cubs will play two season opening games today and tomorrow in Japan. The LA Dodgers' Japanese star Shohei Ohtani is the highest paid baseballer in the American league. Ohtani, The New York Times says, is Japan's answer to Babe Ruth, a rare player who can pitch and hit at the highest level. The Japan Times reports that as Ohtani's teammates are discovering, he is revered in Japan and his face is everywhere – promoting green tea and sake, on trains and vending machines. With TV programmes tracking the team's flight path, talk shows talking about Ohtani's diet, fashion choices and home decor … and tickets selling for up to $10,000, Ohtani fever has well and truly gripped Tokyo as Japan prepares to welcome a national sporting hero back home!You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.

Your daily news in under three minutes. At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes! Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and YouTube

Krieg in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo – Im Osten des afrikanischen Staats rücken Rebellen mit Hilfe Ruandas immer weiter vor, Tausende Menschen sind bereits gestorben. Die internationale Gemeinschaft hält sich bisher aus dem Konflikt heraus.

Few Westerners are paying attention to the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Intense fighting has raged for days between the Hutu tribe and Tutsi tribe. Today, Rioters attacked several foreign embassies – including those of the US, France, and Belgium, demanding that Western governments aid the DR Congo to fight against the advance of M23 rebels. Over 400,000 people have fled their homes to escape the fighting in the streets.Rick Wiles, Doc Burkhart. Airdate 01/28/2025Join the leading community for Conservative Christians! https://www.FaithandValues.comYou can partner with us by visiting TruNews.com, calling 1-800-576-2116, or by mail at PO Box 399 Vero Beach, FL 32961.Get high-quality emergency preparedness food today from American Reserves!https://www.AmericanReserves.com             It's the Final Day! The day Jesus Christ bursts into our dimension of time, space, and matter. Now available in eBook and audio formats! Order Final Day from Amazon today!https://www.amazon.com/Final-Day-Characteristics-Second-Coming/dp/0578260816/Apple users, you can download the audio version on Apple Books!https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/final-day-10-characteristics-of-the-second-coming/id1687129858Purchase the 4-part DVD set or start streaming Sacrificing Liberty today.https://www.sacrificingliberty.com/watchThe Fauci Elf is a hilarious gift guaranteed to make your friends laugh! Order yours today!https://tru.news/faucielf

The UN Security Council has demanded an immediate halt to the M23 rebel offensive advancing towards Goma in eastern Congo, urging "external forces" to withdraw from the region. The council called for renewed talks between Rwanda and the DRC to address tensions, including the presence of Rwandan-backed M23 forces and Congolese support for Hutu militias. Sakina Kamwendo spoke to SABC News International editor, Sophie Mokoena

If you like learning about the current news and improving your English for your next English conversation, this English lesson is for you. While watching a news clip about how a rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo called M23 is taking the city of Goma, you will learn English phrasal verbs, English idioms,, and other advanced English vocabulary that can really stump English learners.

Né en Allemagne, où ses parents faisaient leurs études, Corneille passe son enfance au Rwanda. Sa mère est Hutu et son père Tutsi. Il a 17 ans lors du génocide rwandais. Un groupe armé entre dans la maison familiale le 15 avril 1994 et tue ses parents ainsi que ses deux frères et sa petite sœur. Corneille assiste au massacre.

Bacbeat is a diverse house DJ who although in the early stages of his journey has already captivated crowds in London, Ibiza and Africa. After recently playing in Studio 338 for Forward Motion and supporting Groove Armada at Ministry of Sound for their 33rd birthday weekender, Bacbeat is commanding dance floors with growing popularity. Celebrating his birthday just a week before this show, Bacbeat has taken the reigns for 2 hours playing only tracks that have been released in 2024. You can expect a variety of House music that Bacbeat has been playing throughout the year in all of his sets as we reminisce on a great year of music. With plenty in the pipeline for both Bacbeat and Preheat, this show will offer the sounds that both will continue to produce, provide and deliver in 2025. ⚡️Like the Show? Click the [Repost] ↻ button so more people can hear it!

This episode explores the Rwandan Civil War (1990-1994), focusing on its historical roots in colonialism, ethnic tensions between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority, and the conflict's escalation into genocide. It examines the impacts of political shifts, key events like the Arusha Accords, and the international community's response, leading to Rwanda's eventual recovery and reconciliation efforts post-conflict. The narrative underscores the complexities of rebuilding a nation scarred by violence and the lessons learned for future peace and unity.

LINKS Vatican bio of Cardinal Kambanda https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_kambanda_a.html     Aontoine Kambanda on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvadore Miranda): https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2020.htm#Kambanda  Cardinal Kambanda on Gcatholic.org: http://www.gcatholic.org/p/52193    Cardinal Kambanda on Catholic-Hierarchy.org: https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bkamb.html     Archdiocese of Kigali on Gcatholic.org: http://www.gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/kiga0.htm?tab=info     Archdiocese of Kigali on Catholic-Hierarchy.org: https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dkiga.html Official Vatican summary of JPII's 1990 visit to Rwanda (and other African nations): https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/travels/1990/travels/documents/trav_est-africa.html  2004 BBC timeline of the Rwandan Genocide: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3580247.stm  Caritas Internationalis official website: https://www.caritas.org/  Athanase Seromba, genocidal priest: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16189347  Seromba upsate: https://alchetron.com/Athanase-Seromba  2001 Washington Post reporting on Rwandan nuns jailed for role in genocide: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/06/09/rwandan-nuns-jailed-in-genocide/fce3308b-3e6e-4784-8490-0887f69c7a39/  VOA News coverage of 2016 Rwandan Bishops' Conference statement acknowledging and apologizing for complicity in the genocide: https://www.voanews.com/a/rwanda-genocide-catholic-bishops/3605319.html  Reaction to 2019 Rwandan Bishops' Conference statement: https://cisanewsafrica.com/rwanda-bishops-apologize-for-calling-for-release-of-convicts-of-genocide/  2022 English-language video interview with Cardinal Kambanda (via The New Times/Pacis TV): https://youtu.be/yadR0vD1EW4?si=J5nJHxHCLjFMd0z7    Thank you for listening, and thank my family and friends for putting up with the time investment and for helping me out as needed. As always, feel free to email the show at Popeularhistory@gmail.com  If you would like to financially support Popeular history, go to www.patreon.com/Popeular. If you don't have any money to spare but still want to give back, pray and tell others– prayers and listeners are worth more than gold! IMAGE CRED: By David Neuvere - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=126027927  TRANSCRIPT Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights.   Check out the show notes for sources, further reading, and a transcript.   Today we're discussing another current Cardinal of the Catholic Church, one of the 120 or so people who will choose the next Pope when the time comes.   Antoine KAMBANDA was born on November 10, 1958 in Nyamata, Rwanda, which is today part of the country's Eastern Province. Rwanda has somewhat famously had ethnic tensions between two out of three of their main tribes, the Hutu and the Tutsi. Antoine and his family were Tutsi, and, well, content warning, because today's episode includes a genocide.   Antoine studied internationally right from the start, doing primary schooling in neighboring Burundi and Uganda, followed by secondary school in somewhat more distant Kenya. His seminary training took place back in Rwanda, and in 1990 he was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Kigali, Kigali being Rwanda's Capital. He was actually personally ordained by Pope Saint John Paul II during his 1990 visit to Rwanda.   Fortunately for him Father Kambanda decided to pursue further studies and so left for the Alphonsian Academy in Rome in 1993, I say fortunately because while he was studying abroad his parents and five of his six siblings were killed during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide during which half a million people were butchered and hundreds of thousands more were raped, predominately Tutsi but also a fair number of Hutu and Twa who were less than enthusiastic about joining the murderous Hutu militias. And those are the more conservative estimates, the 2003 Constitution of Rwanda lists the death toll at over a million.   Let's just take a moment to pray, you can do reverent silence if that's your thing but my wife and I are going to say a quick Hail Mary.   In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.   ***Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.   Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.***   In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.   For what it's worth I didn't plan for this to be a rough stretch, as a reminder I'm doing these cardinals in age order. Tomorrow's episode doesn't have a death toll.   As weird as it feels to get back to a normal narrative after that, get back we should, and Father Kambanda got back to things as well, obtaining a doctorate in moral theology in 1999 and taking on teaching at a minor seminary while also serving as the director of Caritas for the diocese. Caritas, a Latin term most often translated as “charity” but more strongly conveying the sense of selfless love, is an international confederation of organizations that effectively serves as the Catholic Church's in-house clearinghouse for charity initiatives, if I'm allowed to put it that way. Catholic Relief Services, for example, is one of the founding members of Caritas Internationalis, with 0 points going to anyone who can correctly guess what internationalis means.   In 2005, Father Kambanda began the first of two seminary rectorships, and we'll jump ahead to 2013, that's when he was elected bishop of Kibunga.   As a bishop, he joined his brothers in a difficult admission: The Catholic Church had been part of the genocide. Sure, the one Catholic Bishop who was formally charged with war crimes had been cleared, but he had also refused to shelter those who had sought refuge, and indeed many of the massacre sites were the churches themselves, including in the case of Father Athanase Seromba–and I mean seriously, fast forward 15 seconds if you need to–the hutu priest who ordered his church bulldozed when it was housing thousands of refugees, personally showing the driver the weakest points of the church, and by some accounts helping massacre remaining survivors found in the rubble.   In case you're speed listening or tuned out for a minute, just as a reminder I am not currently talking about our cardinal of the day, a Tutsi who was studying in Rome at the time of the genocide and whose family was by and large slaughtered. But I don't want to gloss over the Church's involvement in the genocide–an involvement which our Cardinal acknowledges as we will see. So we're looking at the tough cases, because I hope to God none of them are ever made Cardinals or we'd talk about them then.   Father Seromba was found guilty of genocide and originally sentenced to 15 years. He appealed to the tribunal, which found that oh yes, they had indeed failed to carry out justice in his case, upgrading his sentence to life imprisonment upon further review.   There's more to say about the Seromba case, especially how he was hidden by church authorities after fleeing, and I'll say more about it if Cardinal Kambanda makes it to the next round, but for today I want to get back to Kambanda, because he isn't even a Cardinal yet in our narrative.   In 2016, Bishop Kambanda cosigned a major statement from the Rwandan Bishop's Conference apologizing for the complicity of the Rwandan Catholic Church as an institution in the genocide, stating, quote:   “Forgive us for the crime of hate in the country to the extent of also hating our colleagues because of their ethnicity. We didn't show that we are one family but instead killed each other.” End quote   The statement, which was read in parishes across the country, was generally well received, though of course there are wounds that words cannot heal and there were understandable questions about why it took 22 years for such a statement to be made. A later statement asking for some clemency for elderly and infirm convicted perpetrators was less well received, though honestly pretty on-brand for the Catholic Church in terms of mercy. By that time, Bishop Kambanda was Archbishop Kambanda, having been transferred to Rwanda's principle see of Kigali.   In 2020, Pope Francis made Archbishop Kambanda Rwanda's first Cardinal, also naming him a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples later that year. The next year, Pope Francis also added him to the Congregation for Catholic Education, and the year after that, 2022, he became head of the Rwandan Bishops' Conference for a three-year term. More recently, in February of 2023, he was added to the Dicastery for Culture and Education. So, he's definitely not sitting around.   Antoine Kambanda is eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2038.   Today's episode is part of Cardinal Numbers,  and there will be more Cardinal Numbers next week. Thank you for listening; God bless you all!

Né en Allemagne, où ses parents faisaient leurs études, Corneille passe son enfance au Rwanda. Sa mère est Hutu et son père Tutsi. Il a 17 ans lors du génocide rwandais. Un groupe armé entre dans la maison familiale le 15 avril 1994 et tue ses parents ainsi que ses deux frères et sa petite sœur. Corneille assiste au massacre…

Né en Allemagne, où ses parents faisaient leurs études, Corneille passe son enfance au Rwanda. Sa mère est Hutu et son père Tutsi. Il a 17 ans lors du génocide rwandais. Un groupe armé entre dans la maison familiale le 15 avril 1994 et tue ses parents ainsi que ses deux frères et sa petite sœur. Corneille assiste au massacre…

The Rwandan Genocide, occurring between April-July 1994, was a devastating episode of mass violence in which nearly 1 million people were killed over a period of 100 days. Fueled by longstanding ethnic tensions, political power struggles, and a deep seated history of discrimination, the genocide saw members of the Tutsi ethnic group slaughtered indiscriminately by extremists of the Hutu ethnic group. Growing up amid this chaos, Christian Ntizimira, MD witnessed some of humanity's most horrific atrocities. Instead of turning away, however, he chose to enter medicine, a profession that would allow him to address the immense suffering he saw. Today, Dr. Ntizimira is a palliative care physician and the founder and executive director of the African Center for Research on End of Life Care. In this episode, Dr. Ntizimira joins us to share his personal experiences with the Rwandan Genocide, his journey to palliative medicine after initially exploring a career in surgery, what palliative care means to him, what it looks like to honor the dignity of a patient, how he advocates better access to palliative care and chronic illness care, and his unique approach to medicine rooted in “ubuntu,” a philosophy emphasizing the universal bond that connects all humanity that is best summarized by the phrase “I am because you are.”In this episode, you'll hear about: 2:45 - How Dr. Ntizimira's experience as a young person during the Rwandan Genocide inspired him to become a physician, and how he eventually found himself drawn to palliative care  14:25 - Dr. Ntizimira's distinction between “treating the disease” and “treating the person”20:22 - How Dr. Ntizimira teaches doctors to fully conceptualize patients as people instead of focusing only on their medical ailments 25:50 - The heart of palliative care that transcends cultures30:54 - The importance of presence in palliative care38:27 - What “reconciliation” means in Dr. Ntizimira's approach to palliative care 47:17 - “Ubuntu,” an African philosophy emphasizing a shared connection among humans, and how it can revolutionize how we care for patients    Dr. Christian Ntizimira is the author of The Safari Concept: An African Framework for End of Life Care.Dr. Christian Ntizimira can be found on Twitter/X at @ntizimira.Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to info@thedoctorsart.com.Copyright The Doctor's Art Podcast 2024

In conversation with Dr Richard Quinlan This podcast episode aimed to bring attention to the often neglected genocide that took place in Burundi, which is similar to the genocides in Rwanda and the Tigray region of Ethiopia. The genocide in Burundi, which mainly occurred in 1972 and 1993, was based on ethnic tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi communities, leading to widespread violence and large-scale killings. This historical background emphasises the significance of global awareness and systems of accountability, such as those observed in Rwanda but less emphasised in the case of Burundi.   Comparing with Rwanda, Dr Quinlan noted that Burundi's approach to transitional justice differs notably, influenced by varying political dynamics and international support. He acknowledged that justice shouldn't be a political debate but one that incite empathy at a global level. He iterated that addressing impunity in Burundi requires robust legal and institutional frameworks, ensuring justice through prosecutions and human rights protections.  Also, the discussion highlighted the role of international justice systems in ensuring accountability and supporting victims, although challenges such as jurisdictional complexities and political resistance persist. At the end,  he highlighted the importance of education, and that educators and researchers play a crucial role in advocacy and raising awareness to prevent future atrocities, addressing human rights abuses across the continent.   Dr. Richard Quinlan is a Professor and Director at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education at St Elizabeth University, New Jersey. Dr. Quinlan is an academic and researcher in the field of international relations and conflict studies. His area of expertise lies in transitional justice, genocide, and human rights, with a specific focus on Africa. His contributions have greatly advanced the understanding of post-conflict societies and the significance of international law in promoting accountability and reconciliation. Additionally, he is a human rights advocate and has been actively involved in various educational and advocacy initiatives, although his involvement in Rwanda is more pronounced than in Burundi. His doctoral thesis is titled: Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: International Law Perspectives.   This conversation was recorded on 23 June 2024.   Youtube: https://youtu.be/MpQFogU6lns Music and news extracts: Inner Peace by Mike Chino https://soundcloud.com/mike-chinoCreative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/0nI6qJeqFcc imitless https://stock.adobe.com/za/search/audio?k=452592386

In the space of a hundred days, a million Tutsi in Rwanda were slaughtered by their Hutu neighbors. Denise Uwimana author of "From Red Earth" was fortunate enough to escape by the grace of God and her journey to forgiveness for what was done to her family is astonishing. Denise joins the show to explain how she replaced the thoughts of revenge with a forgiveness mindset, and details how the events all those years ago have opened doors never imaginable. Faith Radio podcasts are made possible by your support. Give now: Click here

In 1994, Drocella Mugorewera was a young mother when Ethnic tensions between Hutu's and Tutsi's rooted in colonial divisions boiled over and led to a horrific genocide in Rwanda that cost up to one million lives. Drocella fled to the comparative safety of the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo before returning home determined to mold a better society in Rwanda.  She quickly became a government minister focused on forging an inclusive and peaceful society from the ashes of horrific events. But, her hopes for the future were largely unfulfilled as the increasingly authoritarian regime of Paul Kagame meant political dissent could no longer be tolerated. Fearing for her life, Drocella fled her homeland once again before finding refuge in the USA. There, she established herself as a campaigner for the rights of women, refugees, and an advocate for diversity. Ironically, as a young woman she earned a scholarship to study in the Ukraine -- another country now devastated by war.  Having seen the horrors of divisive politics. She is an inspirational figure full of hope and the desire for peace. In this episode I discuss her work as a diversity consultant. Her feelings about Rwanda, Ukraine, and war and conflict in general. A truly faith filled woman who somehow remains positive about he future despite seeing the worst of humanity. Official Website: Drocella Music: Pixabay This episode is sponsored by World History Encyclopedia, one of the top history websites on the internet. I love the fact that they're not a Wiki: Every article they publish is reviewed by their editorial team, not only for being accurate but also for being interesting to read. The website is run as a non-profit organization, so you won't be bombarded by annoying ads and it's completely free. It's a great site, and don't just take my word for it they've been recommended by many academic institutions including Oxford University. Go check them out at WorldHistory.org or follow this link: World History Encyclopedia.

Content warning for discussion of genocide, torture, mutilation, rape, and slavery Hey, Hi, Hello, this is the History Wizard and welcome back for Day 11 of Have a Day w/ The History Wizard. Thank you to everyone who tuned in for Day 10 last week, and especially thank you to everyone who rated and/or reviewed the podcast. I hope you all learned something last week and I hope the same for this week. This week we're going to be talking about the currently ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the long history of capitalist exploitation, western imperialism, and systemic racism that led to it. But first, as is tradition, let's take a trip over to the Alchemists Table to see what potion we've got for today. Today's libation has a lot going on in it, it's called Underworld Vacation. It starts by adding some strawberries and blueberries to the bottom of your shaker with .75 of an ounce of rose simple syrup before muddling the fruit. Then add one ounce each of pomegranate and elderflower liquor followed by 2 oz of Hendricks Lunar gin, add ice to your shaker and then stir for about 30 seconds before straining into a highball glass and topping with about 4 oz of prosecco. With that out of the way it's time to talk, once again, about the most important part of history. The proverbial devil in the literal details, context. Because to understand what is happening in the DRC today you need to understand the Kivu Conflict, and to understand that you need to understand the Second Congo War, and to understand that you need to understand the First Congo War, and to understand that you need to understand the end of the Rwandan Genocide and the Congo Crisis of the 1960s, and to understand that you need to understand the Scramble for Africa, The Berlin Conference and King Leopold !! of Belgium. So, we've got a lot to cover, and we're going to be doing it in fairly broad strokes, but it might still take us a while, so let's get started with the Berlin Conference. Near the end of the 19th century there was very little European colonial and mercantile presence in Africa. There were some port towns, to be sure, and there was trade, but very little of the African continent was under the control of European powers at this time. But, European greed for gold and, especially, ivory wouldn't allow them to ignore African riches for much longer. The Berlin Conference was organized in 1885 at the request of King Leopold II of Belgium and was organized by Otto von Bismarck of Germany.   Leopold had been using the explorations of Henry Morgan Stanley, and his own organization, the International African Association to quietly try and create his own private colony in central Africa that would be called the Congo Free State, but France found out and started making moves, and then Britain and Portugal found out and began trying to grab land which led Germany to do the same. War was brewing quickly as these various European powerhouses all sought as much land, wealth, and power as they could grab. This, ultimately, would be why the Berlin Conference was called and why it was so successful. These European powers decided, instead of going to war and killing each other over Africa they'd just all meet and carve it up like a pecan pie and settle it all peaceful like. There were 14 nations/empires in attendance at the Berlin Conference, Germany, Austria Hungary, the International Congo Society (this really means King Leopold II of Belgium), Spain, Denmark, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden-Norway, and the Ottoman Empire. And while all 14 of those countries were in attendance at the Berlin Conference and had a say in the final decisions that were made, only 7 countries were actually going to colonize Africa once it was over. Those countries were Belgium (really just King Leopold II, this would be his own private colony), Germany, Spain, France, Great Britain, Portugal, and Italy. At the time of the Berlin Conference less than 10% of the African continent was under European control, but by the time World War 1 broke out only Liberia and Ethiopia were still independent. Although, Liberia certainly only existed because of US colonial power, and so doesn't REALLY count as independent.  This period of New Imperialism is what we tend to call The Scramble for Africa. Sof ar we've been talking about this all in fairly clinical terms, as if these European countries simply sat around a table and calmly decided who would get what land in the second largest continent on the planet and then it just happened, with no additional muss or fuss. Anyone who has studied even the barest amount of human history knows that nothing happens without muss or fuss. There were wars, and battles, and massacres that led to Europe gaining control of African territory, but that's not the topic of today's podcast. We now need to talk a bit about the Congo Free State, and how King Leopold of Belgium, a frail weakling (compared to the other European powers) managed to worm his way into the conference and into one of the most lucrative colonies in Africa. The Congo Free State was a truly massive colony that was owned personally by Leopold. It was NOT, at least between the years 1885 and 1908, part of the Belgian Empire, it was not owned by the Belgian government and was ruled entirely separately, it just happened to be ruled by the King of Belgium. Leopold was able to gain this massive colony by convincing the monarchs of Europe that he was engaged in humanitarian and philanthropic work, and that the Congo Free State would be an area of free trade in Africa.  Leopold maintained a guise that he was not trying to use the Congo Basin to increase his own wealth and economic and political power. He maintained that his presence in the region was, as was a huge part of the ethos of New Imperialism, to civilize the savages of the Congo Basin and to bring them closer to God and good European cultural supremacy.  Of course, all of that was a lie, and that lie would reveal itself over the intervening years. The Congo was home to something that would become one of the most important natural resources in the entire world, rubber. There are only two sources of natural rubber in the world. The sap of the Hevea brasiliensis, or rubber tree that grows in the Amazon River Basin, and the sap of Landolphia owariensis, a species of woody vines that grow in the Congo. I mean, technically there are 2500 species of plants that produce natural latex and rubber, but those two are the big ones. Today 99% of natural latex and rubber comes from the Amazon, but Leopold was able to make massive profit off of his colony. The economic system in the Congo Free State was known as the red rubber system. It was a slave economy that Leopold enforced through the use of his armed forces known as the Force Publique. Each slave in the Congo Free State was required to harvest a regular quota of rubber sap. What that quota was was often arbitrarily decided based purely on profit based concerns. Workers who refused to supply their labour were coerced with "constraint and repression". Dissenters were beaten or whipped with the chicotte, hostages were taken to ensure prompt collection and punitive expeditions were sent to destroy villages which refused. The policy led to a collapse of Congolese economic and cultural life, as well as farming in some areas. Failure to meet the rubber collection quotas was punishable by death. Meanwhile, the Force Publique were required to provide the hand of their victims as proof when they had shot and killed someone, as it was believed that they would otherwise use the munitions (imported from Europe at considerable cost) for hunting or to stockpile them for mutiny. As a consequence, the rubber quotas were in part paid off in cut-off hands. A Catholic priest quotes a man, Tswambe, speaking of the hated state official Léon Fiévez, who ran a district along the river 300 mi north of Stanley Pool: “All blacks saw this man as the devil of the Equator ... From all the bodies killed in the field, you had to cut off the hands. He wanted to see the number of hands cut off by each soldier, who had to bring them in baskets ... A village which refused to provide rubber would be completely swept clean. As a young man, I saw [Fiévez's] soldier Molili, then guarding the village of Boyeka, take a net, put ten arrested natives in it, attach big stones to the net, and make it tumble into the river ... Rubber causes these torments; that's why we no longer want to hear its name spoken. Soldiers made young men kill or rape their own mothers and sisters.” One junior officer in the Force Publique had this to say about the quota system: The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. ... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber ... They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace ... the people who were demanded for the forced labour gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected. Within the Congo Free State there was also rampant famine and disease that killed hundreds of thousands of people, a type of residential school where children were sent to learn to be either workers or soldiers. About 50% of the children who entered these schools died. There were also several reputable reports of Congolese people turning to cannibalism in the face of their lack of food resources. With everyone being forced to harvest rubber there was no one to farm or gather or hunt for food. It is generally accepted that over the course of Leopold's rule in the Congo Free State, between 1885 and 1908 that at least 10 million Congolese people were killed. Eventually word got out of what was happening in the Congo Free State and a conclave of the European powers of the Berlin Conference was called as, even they, decided that Leopold was going too far. Leopold offered to reform his government and economic system in the Congo, but no one would give him the chance, but also, no one wanted to take on the responsibility of rebuilding the Congo. Eventually, after two years of debate, the Belgian Parliament took over control of the Congo. Leopold would die about a year later in 1909. The Congo would remain under under Belgian control for another 50+ years, and while the abuses and overwhelming violence of King Leopold's rule were curbed. They even added a clause to the new Colonial Charter to outlaw slavery. Article 3 of the new Colonial Charter of 18 October 1908 stated that: "Nobody can be forced to work on behalf of and for the profit of companies or privates", but this was not enforced, and the Belgian government continued to impose forced labour on the indigenous people of the area, albeit by less obvious methods. So, even without King Leopold, the Belgian Congo was still a European colony, which means it was still exploited for profit. African independence movements existed throughout the entirety of European colonialism and imperialism in Africa, excepting Liberia the first country in Africa to gain independence from direct European control would be South Africa which would nominally gain its independence in 1910 after the creation of the Union of South Africa and would formally gain official independence when the last vestiges of British parliamentary control would leave the country in 1931 with the Statute of Westminster, and while there would be other successful independence movements after World War 1, such as Egypt, most African decolonization would come after World War 2, including the Congo's.  Nationalist movements popping up in various African nations and agitating for Independence is, generally speaking, what would eventually cause all of African independence, and this would be no different for the Congo. Though, something that is often also common in the case of independence movements that emerged between the end of World War 2 and the early 1990s is that they would become proxy wars for the US and the USSR during the Cold War. To make a long, complex story very short, the US came out on top in this war. The nationalist movements within the Congo largely emerged amongst a class of people called the évolués, which is a term that was used in French and Belgian colonies for “evolved ones”, people of African descent who had become somewhat Europanized through education.  One of the deciding moments in Congolese independence came in the form of the Leopoldville Riots of 1959. Joseph Kasa-Vubu, who would become the first President of an independent Democratic Republic of the Congo, was the leader of the ABAKO political party, the Alliance of Bakongo. The riots began because many young folks and members or sympathizers of the ABAKO party felt that the government was forbidding them from organizing and protesting. The riots broke out on the 4th of January, 1959. The crowd began throwing rocks at police and attacking white motorists. The initial group of protesters were soon joined by 20,000 Congolese leaving a nearby soccer stadium. At the time press accounts estimated that 35,000 Africans were involved in the violence, which quickly spread as the rioters attempted to enter the European section of the capital. Rioters allegedly smashed and looted storefronts, burned Catholic missions and beat Catholic priests. Many demonstrators chanted "indépendance immédiate" The Belgian Parliament established a commission of inquiry to investigate the cause of the riots. The commission found the disturbances to be the culmination of discontent with racial discrimination, overcrowding, and unemployment. It also concluded that external political events, such as France's decision to grant self-governance to the neighboring French Congo, to be a contributing factor, and criticized the colonial administration's response to the riot. On 13 January the administration went forward with its scheduled announcement of reforms, including new local elections in December, the institution of a new civil service statue that made no racial distinctions, and the appointment of more Africans to advisory bodies. The Belgian King, Baudouin, also declared for the first time that independence would be granted to the Congo in the future. January 4th is still celebrated as an auspicious day in the DRC, it's the Day of the Martyrs and denotes a turning point in the independence movement. Congolese independence was officially declared, as planned, on the 30th of June, 1960, with Kasa-Vubu of the ABAKO elected as president and Patrice Lumumba of the Congolese National Movement appointed as the Prime Minister. Now, despite the DRC formally being declared as independent at this day, they still relied heavily on Belgian colonial institutions that had been in place previously, like the Force Publique and various white technical experts who couldn't be replaced in the face of a lack of ready replacements available amongst the Congolese people. The fact that this lack of available peoples being a result of European colonialism forbidding Congolese people from higher education wound up being somewhat irrelevant, but absolutely caused greater levels of resentment among the newly independent Congolese. In the face of this lack of change and in the face of an address given by Lieutenant General of the Force Publique Émile Janssens, many of the Congolese troops mutinied. The address went as follows: "Independence brings changes to politicians and to civilians. But for you, nothing will be changed ... none of your new masters can change the structure of an army which, throughout its history, has been the most organized, the most victorious in Africa. The politicians have lied to you." Instead of sending in Belgian troops to put down the mutiny, as Janssens wanted, Lumumba fired him and began to institute some reforms, including immediately remaining the Force Publique to the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) and promoting all black soldier by at least one rank. While this had success in Leopoldville and Thysville, it failed in the rest of the country and the mutiny intensified. The government attempted to stop the revolt—Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu intervened personally at Léopoldville and Thysville and persuaded the mutineers to lay down their arms—but in most of the country the mutiny intensified. White officers and civilians were attacked, white-owned properties were looted and white women were raped. The Belgian government became deeply concerned by the situation, particularly when white civilians began entering neighbouring countries as refugees. The international press expressed shock at the apparent sudden collapse of order in the Congo, as the world view of the Congolese situation prior to independence—due largely to Belgian propaganda—was one of peace, stability, and strong control by the authorities. The Congo Crisis would run for 5 years and would end with the torture and assassination of Patrice Lumumba, with Joesph Kasa-Vubu dying while under house arrest, and with the military dictator Mobuto Sese Seko “elected” as the president of the Republic of Congo-Leopoldville. This would note just one in the long string of times that the US helped to install a military dictator in order to overthrow a democratically elected left wing government, just because they had support from the USSR and the US feared (and fears) any threat to their capitalist hegemony. Between 1965 and 1971 Mobutu consolidated his hold on power as much as he could, removing all provincial control over anything and bringing every scrap of infrastructure he could under the control of himself and his central government. In 1971, with his hold on power relatively secure and as part of his policy of Africanization of the Congo's culture and government Mobutu renamed the Republic of Congo Leopoldville to Zaire, a name that was derived from the Kikongo wore nzere, meaning “river that swallows all rivers”. Mobutu would remain as “president” of Zaire all the way until 1997, but his hold on power would begin to crumble with the First Congo War that began in 1993. Now comes the time for more context. What started the First Congo War? Honestly, to a certain extent we can view the First Congo War as an extension of the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide began in 1994 as a final culmination of ethnic tensions that were exacerbated by, first, German and the Belgian colonialism. See, Rwanda used to be a German colony, Rwanda was one of the nations that Germany got as part of the Scramble for Africa, but after World War 1, with the signing of the treaty of Versailles Germany was forced to give up all of its overseas colonies. Belgium gained control of Rwanda. Belgium maintained many of the systems of power and oppression that Germany had put into place, most notably the fact that they put the Tutsi ethnic group in positions of authority and disenfranchised the Hutu and Twa ethnic group. The Twa are the indigenous ethnic group of Rwanda, but by the time the Rwandan genocide occurred they were only about 1% of the population, about 85% were Hutu and the remaining 14% were Tutsi. Still, based on the indicators of European scientific racism and phrenology the Tutsi had more “European features” and so were considered superior to the Hutu ethnic group and placed, exclusively, in positions of authority. The sudden shift in power dynamics after Rwandan independence is what would lead to the Rwandan Genocide as Hutu supremacists decided to vent their fury on the Tutsi people. We won't go into any more detail than that for the Rwandan genocide. Suffice it to say that when it ended hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsi people had fled the nation of Rwanda to neighboring African countries, such as Zaire. Roughly 1.5 million ethnic Tutsi people wound up settling in Zaire. There were also about 1 million Hutu extremists in eastern Zaire who had fled the retaliation of the Rwandan Patriotic Front at the end of the Rwandan Civil War and the Rwandan Genocide. As mentioned previously, the First Congo War, also known as Africa's First World War can most simply be seen as an extension of the Rwandan Genocide. Zaire had been in decline since Mobutu gained power in 1965. He was a terrible leader and the average GDP of Zaire dropped by about 65% during his reign. Eastern Zaire was a region of massive instability that was only made worse by the number of Hutu extremists who fled to the region following the Rwandan Genocide. Rwanda, just fully, invaded Zaire in 1996 in order to put down various Hutu rebel groups that were extant in the region. These rebel groups were actively funded and supported by Mobutu's government leading to this war that lasted for some 6 months. It involved several African nations including Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Burundi, Zambia, ZImbabwe, South Sudan, Tanzania, South Africa, Ethiopia, Chad, China, Israel, and Kuwait. Following the war Mobutu went into exile in the nation of Togo where he eventually died of prostate cancer in 1997. Zaire came under the rule of the communist aligned Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Kabila had heavy support from Rwandan, Burundian, and Ugandan forces during his rise to power in the form of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire. Kabila also came to be seen as an instrument of the foreign regimes that put him in power. To counter this image and increase domestic support, he began to turn against his allies abroad. This culminated in the expulsion of all foreign forces from the DRC on 26 July 1998. The states with armed forces still in the DRC begrudgingly complied although some of them saw this as undermining their interests, particularly Rwanda, which had hoped to install a proxy-regime in Kinshasa. Several factors that led to the First Congo War remained in place after Kabila's accession to power. Prominent among these were ethnic tensions in eastern DRC, where the government still had little control. There the historical animosities remained and the opinion that Banyamulenge, as well as all Tutsi, were foreigners was reinforced by the foreign occupation in their defence. Furthermore, Rwanda had not been able to satisfactorily address its security concerns. By forcibly repatriating refugees, Rwanda had imported the conflict. This manifested itself in the form of a predominantly Hutu insurgency in Rwanda's western provinces that was supported by extremist elements in eastern DRC. Without troops in the DRC, Rwanda was unable to successfully combat the insurgents. In the first days of August 1998, two brigades of the new Congolese army rebelled against the government and formed rebel groups that worked closely with Kigali and Kampala. This marked the beginning of the Second Congo War. The Second Congo War is generally considered to be the deadliest war since World War 2. Over the course of this war some 5.4 million excess deaths took place.  Now comes the time where I need to define what an excess death is. In epidemiology, the excess deaths or excess mortality is a measure of the increase in the number deaths during a time period and/or in a certain group, as compared to the expected value or statistical trend during a reference period (typically of five years) or in a reference population. It may typically be measured in percentage points, or in number of deaths per time unit. To put it more simply, disease, depravation, and starvation were so rampant during the Second Congo War that the overwhelming majority of deaths weren't caused directly by the fighting, but were caused by the residual damage of the fighting. The Second Congo War involved many of the same issues of the First Congo War. It would end with Laurent-Désiré Kabila assassinated in 2001 in his office by an 18 year old former child soldier. Laurent would be replaced as president by his son Joseph Kabila, who was elected unanimously by the Congolese parliament. To further highlight the complexity of the Congolese Wars, In April 2001, a UN panel of experts investigated the illegal exploitation of diamonds, cobalt, coltan, gold and other lucrative resources in the Congo. The report accused Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe of systematically exploiting Congolese resources and recommended the Security Council impose sanctions. All conflicts within Congolese territory will ultimately go back to economic exploitation and capitalist overreach. The Congo Basin is full of some of the most valuable natural resources that exist on the planet, and people will always be fighting over them. This leads us into the Kivu conflict. The Kivu conflict is an umbrella term for a series of protracted armed conflicts in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo which have occurred since the end of the Second Congo War. This includes, but is not limited to Effacer le tableau, which was a genocidal extermination campaign against the Mbuti Pygmy ethnic group. The Bambuti were targeted specifically as the rebels considered them "subhuman", and it was believed by the rebels that the flesh of the Bambuti held "magical powers". There were also reports of cannibalism being widespread. It is estimated 60,000 to 70,000 Pygmy were killed in the campaign, and over 100,000 more were displaced. There are more than 120 distinct rebel groups involved in the Kivu Conflict, including the March 23 Movement, which a UN report indicates was created by the Rwandan government in order to potentially take over the Congolese government. Conflict began in 2004 in the eastern Congo as an armed conflict between the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and the Hutu Power group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) has played a large role in the conflict. With 21,000 soldiers in the force, the Kivu conflict constitutes the largest peacekeeping mission currently in operation. In total, 93 peacekeepers have died in the region, with 15 dying in a large-scale attack by the Allied Democratic Forces, in North Kivu in December 2017. The peacekeeping force seeks to prevent escalation of force in the conflict, and minimise human rights abuses like sexual assault and the use of child soldiers in the conflict. In 2007 and 2008, in several news and TV reports, the BBC published own evidence about Pakistani MONUC peacekeepers in Mongbwalu had entered in a gold-for-guns trading relationship with Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) militia leaders, eventually drawing Congolese army officers and Indian traders from Kenya into the deal. Following its own investigations, the UN concluded that there was no involvement of Pakistani peacekeeper in any such trade relationship. Namely Human Rights Watch harshly criticized the UN for the way it handled the investigation, providing detailed information from several UN documents, arguing that serious allegations of wrongdoing by Pakistani peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo were ignored, minimized or shelved by the UN's Organization of Internal Oversight Services. MONUC officials say nothing of substance about mining in Congo, which proceeds in parallel with the bloodletting, arms trading and extortion. For example, Anvil Mining has been involved in massacres in DRC. Anvil directors include former U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Brown, who served at U.S. embassies in Brussels, Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville and South Africa. Brown was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa (1987–1989) under George Shultz and George H.W. Bush and Director of Central African Affairs (1980–1981). Interestingly, Brown succeeded William Lacy Swing—head of MONUC in DRC—as Ambassador to the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville). Meanwhile, the former top internal intelligence and security chief of the United Nations Observer's Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has been worked for Anvil mining in Katanga since 2006. There have been numerous cases of sexual misconduct by UN peacekeeping forces in the Congo. This has been acknowledged by the UN itself (such as the letter of 24 March 2005 from the Secretary-General to the President of the General Assembly). So, basically foreign powers both within Africa and outside of it are actively fighting within the Congo Basin in order to secure control of the vast amount of natural resources that exist within the nation. The DRC currently produces about 70% of the world's cobalt, and 80% of the cobalt mines in the DRC are owned by China. The leading use of cobalt in modern technology is in rechargeable batteries. So your cell phone battery, your laptop batteries, any kind of rechargeable battery you have is likely created using Congolese cobalt, which is a direct cause of the millions of deaths and displacements that are occuring in the DRC.  The DRC is, effectively, the site of a capitalist proxy war as the region is fought over by foreign governments and local rebel groups for control over Congolese natural resources. No one in Europe or the US would even begin to care about an African country if it wasn't for the battery technology resources that are so abundant in the region. Between 1885 and today it is, very easy, to say that roughly 20 million people have been killed by capitalist excess and exploitation.  We can, absolutely call what is happening in the DRC a genocide, though it can be difficult to always pinpoint who, exactly are the victims. Broadly speaking the victims are the Congolese people, all of them, who are being killed over a desire to control the cobalt mines. This has gone far beyond simple ethnic conflict between Hutu and Tutsi, though that conflict, which is still ongoing, definitely added to the fire. This is a genocide of the people of the DRC by capitalism itself. Capitalism has always been, and will always be an inherently genocidal institution. It craves the acquisition of individual wealth at the expense of the working class. You cannot have a system predicated on infinite growth within a closed system. Capitalism will always require that resources and wealth be stolen from people who need them. And when so much of our wealth is tied up in food, water, and housing, the theft of those resources from the working class will lead to our deaths. For the past century and a half the Congo Basin has been subjected to genocide after genocide in the name of capitalism. What is happening right now is only an extension of that, though made far more complicated by the literal hundreds of competing groups and the lack of any international will to see peace achieved. That's it for this week folks. No new reviews, so let's get right into the outro. Have a Day! w/ The History Wizard is brought to you by me, The History Wizard. If you want to see/hear more of me you can find me on Tiktok @thehistorywizard or on Instagram @the_history_wizard. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to Have a Day! On your pod catcher of choice. The more you do, the more people will be able to listen and learn along with you. Thank you  for sticking around until the end and, as always, Have a Day, and Free Congo.    

It's thirty years since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, perpetrated by the Hutu-led government. British journalist Michela Wrong's book Do Not Disturb, The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad explores the legacy of the genocide, exposing a murderous in-coming regime that operates on a "grand scale deceit", exercising a destabilising influence on the wider region. Michela has reported from and written about Africa for almost three decades, working for Reuters and the Financial Times. Michela is visiting NZ this week, giving a series of talks at the invitation of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs.

The Daily Quiz - Entertainment, Society and Culture Today's Questions: Question 1: Name the movie that matches the following plot summary: 'A man houses over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia.' Question 2: Which of the following describes John Dalton? Question 3: Which film contains the character 'Carl Spackler'? Question 4: Which animal would you associate with the Ralph Lauren logo? Question 5: In the 1997 movie 'Independence Day,' which actor won the MTV Movie Award for 'Best Kiss' with Vivica Fox? Question 6: What is the most popular family name in Vietnam? Question 7: Which film contains the character 'Melanie Daniels'? Question 8: What is the plot of the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Question 9: Which animal would you associate with the ING Group logo? This podcast is produced by Klassic Studios Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Né en Allemagne, où ses parents faisaient leurs études, Corneille passe son enfance au Rwanda. Sa mère est Hutu et son père Tutsi. Il a 17 ans lors du génocide rwandais. Un groupe armé entre dans la maison familiale le 15 avril 1994 et tue ses parents ainsi que ses deux frères et sa petite sœur. Corneille assiste au massacre…

Né en Allemagne, où ses parents faisaient leurs études, Corneille passe son enfance au Rwanda. Sa mère est Hutu et son père Tutsi. Il a 17 ans lors du génocide rwandais. Un groupe armé entre dans la maison familiale le 15 avril 1994 et tue ses parents ainsi que ses deux frères et sa petite sœur. Corneille assiste au massacre…

Né en Allemagne, où ses parents faisaient leurs études, Corneille passe son enfance au Rwanda. Sa mère est Hutu et son père Tutsi. Il a 17 ans lors du génocide rwandais. Un groupe armé entre dans la maison familiale le 15 avril 1994 et tue ses parents ainsi que ses deux frères et sa petite sœur. Corneille assiste au massacre…

Né en Allemagne, où ses parents faisaient leurs études, Corneille passe son enfance au Rwanda. Sa mère est Hutu et son père Tutsi. Il a 17 ans lors du génocide rwandais. Un groupe armé entre dans la maison familiale le 15 avril 1994 et tue ses parents ainsi que ses deux frères et sa petite sœur. Corneille assiste au massacre…

Né en Allemagne, où ses parents faisaient leurs études, Corneille passe son enfance au Rwanda. Sa mère est Hutu et son père Tutsi. Il a 17 ans lors du génocide rwandais. Un groupe armé entre dans la maison familiale le 15 avril 1994 et tue ses parents ainsi que ses deux frères et sa petite sœur. Corneille assiste au massacre…

Né en Allemagne, où ses parents faisaient leurs études, Corneille passe son enfance au Rwanda. Sa mère est Hutu et son père Tutsi. Il a 17 ans lors du génocide rwandais. Un groupe armé entre dans la maison familiale le 15 avril 1994 et tue ses parents ainsi que ses deux frères et sa petite sœur. Corneille assiste au massacre…

Warning: This episode contains some upsetting descriptions of human suffering.The Rwandan Genocide is a dark and pivotal moment in modern history; the catastrophic consequence of ethnic division and global inaction. Over 100 days in 1994, it's estimated around 800,000 predominantly Tutsi people were killed by the Hutu government and civilian militiamen. The groundwork for the atrocities had been laid decades earlier by the colonial Belgian powers that controlled Rwanda and sowed the seeds of division into the fabric of the country.Dan is joined by Dr Scott Straus, a professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley who unpacks the events and years that led up to the genocide as well as the inaction from the international community during it. Dan also hears from survivor Beatha Uwazaninka who was just a teenager when her entire family were killed and describes how neighbours turned on neighbours as she struggled to evade capture herself. Together they explain how and why the genocide happened and what lessons we should learn from it.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/We'd love to hear from you- what do you want to hear an episode on? You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.You can take part in our listener survey here.

April is Genocide Awareness month. Two of the worst genocides in history, the Hutu killing of Tutsis in Rwanda and the Ottoman genocide against Armenians, began in April. We explore genocide with two specific questions: Who internationally makes a determination that violence and atrocities are in fact genocide? And what if anything changes when there … Continue reading Scholars' Circle – Determining genocide and other human rights violations of the law ; Dark side of democracy – April 21, 2024 →

Rwanda: 30 ans après le génocide, panser les blessures invisiblesAu Rwanda, ce dimanche 7 avril 2024 marque le début de cent jours de commémorations du génocide contre les Tutsis. Aujourd'hui, la population rwandaise est majoritairement née après 1994. Mais toutes les générations sont marquées. Rescapés, anciens bourreaux, enfants des uns et des autres… Chacun porte en lui une part du traumatisme. Un Grand reportage de de Lucie Mouillaud et Amélie Tulet. Entretient avec Patrick Adam.Rwanda : 30 ans après le génocide, un besoin de justice et de réponsesAu Rwanda, ce lundi 8 avril 2024 marque le début de cent jours de commémorations officielles du génocide de 1994 perpétré contre les Tutsi. Il y a trente ans, selon les Nations unies, plus d'un million de personnes - en majorité des Tutsi, mais également des Hutu, et d'autres opposants au génocide - ont été systématiquement tuées en moins de trois mois. 61 personnes ont été condamnées par le TPIR (Tribunal Pénal International pour le Rwanda). Plus d'un million de jugements ont été rendus par les Gacaca, ces tribunaux inspirés de la pratique coutumière. Mais il reste encore des fugitifs recherchés, des personnalités en exil qui ne sont pas inquiétées et des silences qui torturent toujours les rescapés. Un Grand reportage de de Lucie Mouillaud et Amélie Tulet. Entretient avec Patrick Adam.

Au Rwanda, ce lundi 8 avril 2024 marque le début de cent jours de commémorations officielles du génocide de 1994 perpétré contre les Tutsi. Il y a trente ans, selon les Nations unies, plus d'un million de personnes - en majorité des Tutsi, mais également des Hutu, et d'autres opposants au génocide - ont été systématiquement tuées en moins de trois mois. 61 personnes ont été condamnées par le TPIR (Tribunal Pénal International pour le Rwanda). Plus d'un million de jugements ont été rendus par les Gacaca, ces tribunaux inspirés de la pratique coutumière. Mais il reste encore des fugitifs recherchés, des personnalités en exil qui ne sont pas inquiétées et des silences qui torturent toujours les rescapés.  « Rwanda : 30 ans après le génocide, un besoin de justice et de réponses », un Grand reportage de Lucie Mouillaud et Amélie Tulet.

durée : 00:14:14 - Journal de 7 h - Retour dans cette édition sur les trente ans du génocide des Tutsi par les Hutu au Rwanda, avec cette question en particulier : qui reste-t-il à juger ? Plusieurs suspects ont trouvé refuge en France, les détails dans ce journal.

President Cyril Ramaphosa sê 'n politieke oplossing is nodig in die konflik tussen Rwanda en die Demokratiese Republiek die Kongo. Hy het Rwanda besoek om die 30ste herdenking by te woon van die 1994-volksmoord, toe ekstremiste in die Hutu-etniese groep tydens 'n 100-dae-moordtog ongeveer 800 000 mense, hoofsaaklik etniese Tutsi's, vermoor het. Ramaphosa sê vrede in die streek is van die grootste belang:

(00:41) Rwandese president regeert met ijzeren vuist Het is deze week dertig jaar geleden dat de Rwandese genocide plaatsvond. De gruwelijke massamoord door Hutu-milities op Tutsi's en gematigde Hutu's wordt in Rwanda groot herdacht. Onder anderen de Nederlandse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Hanke Bruins Slot zal daarbij aanwezig zijn. President Paul Kagame onderhoudt namelijk nauwe banden met veel Westerse landen. Dat terwijl hij met ijzeren vuist regeert, oppositie uit de weg ruimt en het met democratie en persvrijheid niet erg nauw neemt. Daarover spreken we met correspondent Joost Bastmeijer en journalist en Centraal-Afrika-kenner Peter Verlinden. (12:20) EUropa Express #2: Timmeren aan een groeiende Unie De EU is een Unie van timmeraars en knutselaars, zegt politicoloog Hendrik Vos. Tijdens zijn onderzoek naar de ontstaansgeschiedenis van het samenwerkingsverband kwam hij kleurrijke hoofdpersonen tegen die elkaar de hand reikten op cruciale momenten. Wie zijn nú de Europese hoofdpersonen op wie we moeten letten – en wanneer is de EU ‘klaar'? Daarover gaat deze tweede aflevering van de EUropa Express. (21:42) Buitenland Uitgelicht: Europa Draait Door Presentatie: Sophie Derkzen

Trente ans après le génocide des Tutsis au Rwanda, comment relever le défi de la mémoire ? Entre le 7 avril et le 17 juillet 1994, 800 000 hommes, femmes et enfants Tutsi et Hutu modérés ont été massacrés. Dimanche 7 avril, des commémorations auront lieu à Kigali au Rwanda, en présence du président Paul Kagame, ainsi que de dirigeants et officiels étrangers. Stéphane Séjourné, le chef de la diplomatie, représentera la France, dont les responsabilités accablantes ont été mises en lumière par le rapport Duclert, issu d'une commission créée par Emmanuel Macron. Pour le chef de l'État, la France "aurait pu arrêter le génocide" avec ses alliés, mais n'en a "pas eu la volonté" selon l'Élysée.

Im April 1994 ermordeten in Ruanda extremistische Hutu mehr als 800.000 Menschen, meist Tutsi. Die deutsche Rolle vor dem Genozid wurde bisher nicht aufgearbeitet. Erstmals freigegebene Akten und Zeitzeugen belegen jetzt: es gab Warnungen und Krisenpläne. Doch offizielle deutsche und französische Stellen schwiegen. War es bewusstes Wegschauen oder eine völlig falsche Einschätzung der Lage? Und warum leben viele der Täter bis heute unbehelligt in Frankreich?/ Von Sabine Wachs Von Sabine Wachs.

Im April 1994 ermordeten in Ruanda extremistische Hutu mehr als 800.000 Menschen, meist Tutsi. Die deutsche Rolle vor dem Genozid wurde bisher nicht aufgearbeitet. Erstmals freigegebene Akten und Zeitzeugen belegen jetzt: es gab Warnungen und Krisenpläne. Doch offizielle deutsche und französische Stellen schwiegen. War es bewusstes Wegschauen oder eine völlig falsche Einschätzung der Lage? Und warum leben viele der Täter bis heute unbehelligt in Frankreich?/ Von Sabine Wachs Von Sabine Wachs.

School of International Service professor Claudine Kuradusenge-McLeod joins Big World in this episode marking the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. In 1994, a roughly 100-day massacre by Hutu militias targeting the Tutsi minority ethnic group resulted in the death of about 800,000 people, including Tutsis, moderate Hutus, and Twa. Kuradusenge-McLeod, who is a scholar-activist specializing in genocide studies, begins our discussion by describing, in broad strokes, the events that led up to the genocide in 1994 and what occurred during the 100 days (1:23). She also discusses the international response to the events of the genocide (5:26) and explains where relations between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda stand today (8:49). What is life like for survivors of the genocide today, both within Rwanda and in the diaspora? (10:57) What has been President Paul Kagame's impact on Rwanda since the genocide, and do people consider him a dictator? (15:59) Kuradusenge-McLeod answers these questions and analyzes whether or not justice has been served in the punishment of genocide perpetrators (26:43). To close out the discussion, Kuradusenge-McLeod discusses the state of human rights in Rwanda today (31:29) and explains the lasting impact of the genocide on the nation (33:37). In the “Take 5” segment (22:59) of this episode, Kuradusenge-McLeod answers this question: What are five things Rwanda needs to do to become fully democratic?

This week we talk about the Rwandan genocide, the First and Second Congo Wars, and M23.We also discuss civil wars, proxy conflicts, and resource curses.Recommended Book: Everyday Utopia by Kristen R. GhodseeTranscriptThe Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC, was previously known as Zaïre, a name derived from a Portuguese mistranscription of the regional word for "river."It wore that monicker from 1971 until 1997, and this region had a rich history of redesignations before that, having been owned by various local kingdoms, then having been colonized by Europeans, sold to the King of Belgium in 1885, who owned it personally, not as a part of Belgium, which was unusual, until 1908, renaming it for that period the Congo Free State, which was kind of a branding exercise to convince all the Europeans who held territory thereabouts that he was doing philanthropic work, though while he did go to war with local and Arab slavers in the region, he also caused an estimated millions of deaths due to all that conflict, due to starvation and disease and punishments levied against people who failed to produce sufficient volumes of rubber from plantations he built in the region.So all that effort and rebranding also almost bankrupted him, the King of Belgium, because of the difficulties operating in this area, even when you step into it with vast wealth, overwhelming technological and military advantages, and the full backing of a powerful, if distant, nation.After the King's deadly little adventure, the region he held was ceded to the nation of Belgium as a colony, which renamed it the Belgium Congo, and it eventually gained independence from Belgium, alongside many other European colonies around the world, post-WWII, in mid-1960.Almost immediately there was conflict, a bunch of secessionist movements turning into civil wars, and those civil wars were amplified by the meddling of the United States and the Soviet Union, which supported different sides, funding and arming them as they tended to do in proxy conflicts around the world during this portion of the Cold War.This period, which lasted for about 5 years after independence, became known as the Congo Crisis, because government leaders kept being assassinated, different groups kept rising up, being armed, killing off other groups, and then settling in to keep the government from unifying or operating with any sense of security or normalcy.Eventually a man named Mobutu Sese Seko, usually just called Mobutu, launched a real deal coup that succeeded, and he imposed a hardcore military dictatorship on the country—his second coup, actually, but the previous one didn't grant him power, so he tried again a few years later, in 1965, and that one worked—and though he claimed, as many coup-launching military dictators do, that he would stabilize things over the next five years, restoring democracy to the country in the process, that never happened, though claiming he would did earn him the support of the US and other Western governments for the duration, even as he wiped out any government structure that could oppose him, including the position of Prime Minister in 1966, and the institution of Parliament in 1967.In 1971, as I mentioned, he renamed the country Zaïre, nationalized all remaining foreign owned assets in the country, and it took another war, which is now called the First Congo War, to finally unseat him. And this conflict, which began in late-1996, spilled over into neighboring countries, including Sudan and Uganda, and a slew of other nations were involved, including but not limited to Chad, the Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Eritrea, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, alongside foreign assistance granted to various sides by France, China, Israel, and covertly, the United States.The conflict kicked off when Rwanda invaded Zaïre, more neighboring states joined in, all of them intending to take out a bunch of rebel groups that the Mobutu government was no longer keeping in line: Mobutu himself having long since fallen ill, and thus lacking the control he once had, but still profiting mightily from outside influences that kept him as a friendly toehold in the region.So these other nations sent military forces into Zaïre to handle these groups, which were causing untold troubles throughout the region, and the long and short of this conflict is that it only lasted a few months, from October 1996 to May 1997, but the destruction and carnage was vast, everyone on both sides partnering up to take out rebels, or in the case of those rebels, to join up against these government militaries, and all of them using the opportunity to also engage in violence against ethnic enemies with whom they had long-simmering beefs.This led to the collapse of Mobutu's government, the country was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo when a new government was installed, but very little changed in terms of the reality of how that government functioned, so all the same variables were still in place a year later, in 1998, when what's now called the Second Congo War kicked off, informed by basically the same problems but bringing even more African governments into the fighting, many of them pulled into things by alliances they had with involved neighbors.And just as before, a variety of groups who felt aggrieved by other groups throughout the region used this conflict as an excuse to slaughter and destroy people and towns they didn't like, including what's been called a genocide of a group of Pygmy people who lived in the area, around 70,000 of them killed in the waning days of the war.In mid-2003, a peace agreement was signed, most of the warring factions that had fought in Congolese territory were convinced to leave, and it was estimated that up to 5.4 million people had died during the conflict.What I'd like to talk about today is what's happening in the DRC, now, at a moment of heightening tensions throughout the region, and in the DRC in particular, amidst warnings from experts that another regional conflict might be brewing.—A transition government was set up in the DRC in 2003, following the official end of that Second Congo war, and this government, though somewhat weak and absolutely imperfect in many ways, did manage to get the country to the point, three years later, in 2006, that it could hold an actual multi-party election; the country's first ever, which is no small thing.Unfortunately, a dispute related to the election results led to violence between supporters of the two primary candidates, so a second election was held—and that one ended relatively peacefully and a new president, Joseph Kabila, was sworn in.Kabila was reelected in 2011, then in 2018 he said he wouldn't be running again, which helped bring about the country's first peaceful transition of power when the next president, from the opposing party, stepped into office.During his tenure in office, though, Kabila's DRC was at near-constant war with rebel groups that semi-regularly managed to capture territory, and which were often supported by neighboring countries, alongside smaller groups, so-called Mai-Mai militias, that were established in mostly rural areas to protect residents from roaming gangs and other militias, and which sometimes decided to take other people's stuff or territory, even facing off with government forces from time to time.Violence between ethnic groups has also continued to be a problem, including the use of sexual violence and wholesale attempted genocide, which has been difficult to stop because of the depth of some of the issues these groups have with each other, and in some cases the difficulty the government has just getting to the places where these conflicts are occurring, infrastructure in some parts of the country being not great, where it exists at all.That 2018 election, where power was given away by one president to another, peacefully, for the first time, was notable in that regard, but it was also a milestone in it marked the beginning of widespread anti-election conspiracy theories, in that case the Catholic Church saying that the official results were bunk, and other irregularities, like a delay of the vote in areas experiencing Ebola outbreaks, those areas in many cases filled with opposition voters, added to suspicions.The most recent election, at the tail-end of 2023, was even more awash with such concerns, the 2018 winner, President Tshisekedi, winning reelection with 73% of the vote, and a cadre of nine opposition candidates signing a declaration saying that the election was rigged and that they want another vote to be held.All of which establishes the context for what's happening in the DRC, today, which is in some ways a continuation of what's been happening in this country pretty much since it became a country, but in other ways is an escalation and evolution of the same.One of the big focal points here, though, is the role that neighboring Rwanda has played in a lot of what's gone down in the DRC, including the issues we're seeing in 2024.Back in 1994, during what became known as the Rwandan genocide, militias from the ruling majority Hutu ethnic group decided to basically wipe out anyone from the minority Tutsi ethnic group.Somewhere between a 500,000 and a million people are estimated to have been killed between April and July of that year, alone, and that conflict pushed a lot of Hutu refugees across the border into the eastern DRC, which at the time was still Zaïre.About 2 million of these refugees settled in camps in the North and South Kivu provinces of the DRC, and some of them were the same extremists who committed that genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and they started doing what they do in the DRC, as well, setting up militias, in this case mostly in order to defend themselves against the new Tutsi-run government that had taken over in Rwanda, following the genocide.This is what sparked that First Congo War, as the Tutsi-run Rwandan government, seeking justice and revenge against those who committed all those atrocities went on the hunt for any Hutu extremists they could find, and that meant invading a neighboring country in order to hit those refugee groups, and the militias within them, that had set up shop there.The Second Congo War was sparked when relations between the Congolese and Rwandan governments deteriorated, the DRC government pushing Rwandan troops out of the eastern part of their country, and Kabila, the leader of the DRC at the time, asking everyone else to leave, all foreign troops that were helping with those Hutu militias.Kabila then allowed the Hutus to reinforce their positions on the border with Rwanda, seemingly as a consequence of a burgeoning international consensus that the Rwandan government's actions following the genocide against the Tutsis had resulted in an overcompensatory counter-move against Hutus, many of whom were not involved in that genocide, and the Tutsis actions in this regard amounted to war crimes.One of the outcomes of this conflict, that second war, was the emergence of a mostly Tutsi rebel group called the March 23 Movement, or M23, which eventually became a huge force in the region in the early 20-teens, amidst accusations that the Congolese government was backing them.M23 became such an issue for the region that the UN Security Council actually sent troops into the area to work with the Congolese army to fend them off, after they made moves to start taking over chunks of the country, and evidence subsequently emerged that Rwanda was supporting the group and their effort to screw over the Congolese government, which certainly didn't help the two countries' relationship.Alongside M23, ADF, and CODECO, a slew of more than 100 other armed, rebel groups still plague portions of the DRC, and part of the issue here is that Rwanda and other neighboring countries that don't like the DRC want to hurt them to whatever degree they're able, but another aspect of this seemingly perpetual tumult is the DRC's staggering natural resource wealth.Based on some estimates, the DRC has something like $24 trillion worth of natural resource deposits, including the world's largest cobalt and coltan reserves, two metals that are fundamental to the creation of things like batteries and other aspects of the modern economy, and perhaps especially the modern electrified economy.So in some ways this is similar to having the world's largest oil deposits back in the early 20th century: it's great in a way, but it's also a resource curse in the sense that everyone wants to steal your land, and in the sense that setting up a functioning government that isn't a total kleptocracy, corrupt top to bottom, is difficult, because there's so much wealth just sitting there, and there's no real need to invest in a fully fleshed out, functioning economy—you can just take the money other countries offer you to exploit your people and resources, and pocket that.And while that's not 100% what's happened in the DRC, it's not far off.During the early 2000s and into the 20-teens, the DRC government sold essentially all its mining rights to China, which has put China in control of the lion's share of some of the world's most vital elements for modern technology.The scramble to strike these deals, and subsequent efforts to defend and stabilize on one hand, or to attack and destabilize these mining operations, on the other, have also contributed to instability in the region, because local groups have been paid and armed to defend or attack, soldiers and mercenaries from all over the world have been moved into the area to do the same, and the logic of Cold War-era proxy conflicts has enveloped this part of Africa to such a degree that rival nations like Uganda are buying drones and artillery from China to strike targets within the DRC, even as China arms DRC-based rebel groups to back up official military forces that are protecting their mining operations.It's a mess. And it's a mess because of all those historical conditions and beefs, because of conflicts in other, nearby countries and the machinations of internal and external leaders, and because of the amplification of all these things resulting from international players with interests in the DRC—including China, but also China's rivals, all of whom want what they have, and in some cases, don't want China to have what they have.In 2022, M23 resurfaced after laying low for years, and they took a huge chunk of North Kivu in 2023.For moment that same year, it looked like Rwanda and the DRC might go to war with each other over mining interests they control in the DRC, but a pact negotiated by the US led to a reduction in the military buildup in the area, and a reduction in their messing with each other's political systems.In December of 2023, though, the President of the DRC compared the President of Rwanda to Hitler and threatened to declare war against him, and UN troops, who have become incredibly unpopular in the region, in part because of various scandals and corruption within their ranks, began to withdraw—something that the US and UN have said could lead to a power vacuum in the area, sparking new conflicts in an already conflict-prone part of the country.As of March 2024, soldiers from South Africa, Burundi, and Tanzania are fighting soldiers from Rwanda who are supporting M23 militants in the eastern portion of the DRC, these militants already having taken several towns.Seven million Congolese citizens are internally displaced as a result of these conflicts, having had to flee their homes due to all the violence, most of them now living in camps or wandering from place to place, unable to settle down anywhere due to other violence, and a lack of sufficient resources to support them.Rwanda, for its part, denies supporting M23, and it says the Congolese government is trying to expel Tutsis who live in the DRC.Burundi, located just south of Rwanda, has closed its border with its neighbor, and has also accused Rwanda of supporting rebels within their borders with the intent of overthrowing the government.Most western governments have voiced criticisms of Rwanda for deploying troops within its neighbors' borders, and for reportedly supporting these militant groups, but they continue to send the Rwandan government money—Rwanda gets about a third of its total budget from other governments, and the US is at the top of that list of donors, but the EU also sends millions to Rwanda each year, mostly to fund military actions aimed at taking out militants that make it hard to do business in the region.So changes in political stances are contributing to this cycle of violence and instability, as are regular injections of outside resources like money and weapons and soldiers.And as this swirl of forces continues to make the DRC borderline ungovernable, everyday people continue to be butchered and displaced, experiencing all sorts of violence, food shortages, and a lack of basic necessities like water, and this ongoing and burgeoning humanitarian nightmare could go on to inform and spark future conflicts in the region.Show Noteshttps://archive.ph/lk0mNhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kabilahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocidehttps://gsphub.eu/country-info/Democratic%20Republic%20of%20Congohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congohttps://www.reuters.com/world/africa/why-fighting-is-flaring-eastern-congo-threatening-regional-stability-2024-02-19/https://archive.ph/lk0mNhttps://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/21/a-guide-to-the-decades-long-conflict-in-dr-congohttps://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_23_Movementhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kivu_conflicthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_Statehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Sekohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo_coup_d%27%C3%A9tathttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Congo_Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Als vor 30 Jahren in Ruanda ein Genozid tobte, war Anna Dushime ein Kind. Weite Teile ihrer Familie wurden ermordet, darunter ihr Vater. Heute ist sie erfolgreiche Moderatorin in Berlin. Anna Dushime ist in Ruanda geboren und in Großbritannien zur Schule gegangen. Mit zehn zog sie ins Ruhrgebiet und machte dort ihr Abitur. Sie hat für die deutsche Ausgabe von »BuzzFeed« gearbeitet und war taz-Kolumnistin. Mittlerweile ist sie erfolgreiche Podcasterin und Moderatorin. Im rbb-Fernsehen moderiert sie die Talkshow »Der letzte Drink«. Im Podcast »Moreno+1« spricht Anna Dushime mit Host Juan Moreno unter anderem über ihre frühesten Erinnerungen als Kind. »Ich erinnere mich, wie ich auf dem Fahrrad meines Vaters saß. Wir sind früh am Morgen zum Bäcker gefahren«, so Dushime. Kurz darauf verlor Dushime ihren Vater, der dem schrecklichen Genozid in Ruanda zum Opfer fiel. In nur hundert Tagen töteten radikale Hutu 1994 in Ruanda rund 800.000 Tutsi und gemäßigte Hutu, die sich weigerten mitzumachen. Drei von vier Angehörigen der Tutsi-Minderheit fielen dem Genozid zum Opfer. »Und wenn man mich fragt, ob ich einen Knacks davongetragen habe – vermutlich schon«, sagt Dushime.+++ Alle Infos zu unseren Werbepartnern finden Sie hier. Die SPIEGEL-Gruppe ist nicht für den Inhalt dieser Seite verantwortlich. +++ Alle SPIEGEL Podcasts finden Sie hier. Mehr Hintergründe zum Thema erhalten Sie bei SPIEGEL+. Jetzt für nur € 1,- für die ersten vier Wochen testen unter spiegel.de/abonnieren Informationen zu unserer Datenschutzerklärung.

In 1994 Rwanda was scarred by an organized campaign of mass carnage perpetrated by the Hutu majority against the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus. It was the final genocide of the twentieth century, with the killers murdering about one million people in about 100 days. The United Nations and U.S. looked on but failed to act, a tragic misstep that has influenced decision-makers since to look differently at the task of intervening in foreign conflicts to protect the innocent. In this episode, Omar McDoom of the London School of Economics and Political Science, a scholar of genocide and expert on central Africa, reflects on the enduring lessons of Rwanda's darkest hour.

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X (Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd TRANSCRIPT: Announcer (00:06): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (00:13): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. So here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode of this show, my guest and I will have probing, provocative and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between current events and the broader historical context in which these events occur. This will enable you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issue before us is anti imperialism in the US today. What is it and what is it not? And for insight into this, my guest for the discussion is the chair of the coordinating committee for the Black Alliance for Peace, an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and the Green Party candidate for vice president of the United States in 2016. Ajamu Baraka, as always my brother. Welcome. Ajamu Baraka (01:21): Good to be here, Dr. Leon. Thank you. Wilmer Leon (01:24): So today's topic is based on a piece in Oroco Tribune entitled Anti Imperialism in the US Today, what it Is and Is not. It's written by Stanfield Smith and he opens his piece by quoting the late Cuban president, Fidel Castro, saying there is an enemy that can be called universal, an enemy whose attitude and whose actions threaten the whole world, bully the whole world. That universal enemy is Yankee imperialism. Ajamu your thoughts on Castro's assessment, especially in the context of the recent president Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of lawmakers urging the Republican controlled House of Representatives to take up this $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, for Israel and Taiwan and other allies, especially understanding if the United States wasn't using Ukraine as a proxy, you wouldn't need that money. The United States is funding the genocide in Gaza and is also trying to use Taiwan as the tip of the spear against China. Ajamu Baraka. Ajamu Baraka (02:45): Well thank you so much for that question because it's a very important question and a very important conversation that we have to have. Fidel's position is in alignment with my position, the position I've been advocating or arguing for the last few years that one of the issues among left forces in the US primarily and also in Western Europe is that they seem not to understand the difference between a primary and the secondary contradiction. That is that they don't seem to recognize that for many of us in the colonized world, in the global south, in the northern states, but in those parts of the northern states where we are exploited and nationally oppressed, that for us the primary enemy, if you'll emanates primarily from the US and is Western European allies, we see the US and Western European allies as Fidel sees them as in fact representing an existential threat to the rest of collective humanity. (04:02) Therefore, that enemy becomes the primary objective of our political activity. Now, some western left leftists, they confused by that and so they will look at some of the issues or contradictions and some of the emergent socialists countries or countries with socialist aspirations, countries that are just trying to build some kind of progressive movement in their nations to have some breathing room for development but who find themselves as a consequence in the crosshairs of the US and US policies attempting to undermine their projects and these leftists will focus in on those internal issues, giving left coverage and rationalization for the targeting of those nations. We see that as fundamentally contradictory. We see that as in fact reactionary confusing what should be the primary objective, which is the defeat of Western imperialism with the internal issues in these various states as equal and they are primary and secondary contradictions are in fact that they are different. Wilmer Leon (05:28): You mentioned the United States and its Western European allies and what is even ironic now is many of those Western European allies are finding themselves being victimized by US imperialism. We're looking at over the last seven months to a year a dramatic decline in productivity in Germany as a result of the United States blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline. Now Europe is having to pay exorbitant amounts of money for natural gas. We find that impacting Britain, we find that impacting France. We find that all over Europe and and now for example, for those who may have listened to the interview with Russian president Putin and he's supposed to be the villain and Donald Trump mentions moving away from NATO and folks in the United States were screaming, how can Donald Trump talk about NATO like that in the United States attacked a NATO ally in act of war in blowing up Nord stream. So again, you mentioned the US and its allies and now American imperialism is even attacking its Western European allies. Ajamu Baraka (06:57): Exactly. I mean it's really amazing. I mean look, one of the objectives of the proxy war in Ukraine was in fact to ensure that there would be policies that would disarticulate the Russian economy from western Europe, specifically from the German economy. And the objective there was to weaken the German economy and also by extension various Western economies in order to make the further exploitation and in fact the intensification of the exploitation of the European market more favorable to US capital and the Europeans and the European ruling class fell right into that trap and to make sure that that plan was successful. As you indicated in your question, the US ensured that there would be no backsliding by blowing up Nord Stream two. They knew that once the German workers, once many European workers and even parts of the middle class woke up to the fact that they had got suckered into supporting this aggressive war in Ukraine and that they were being negatively impacted, that there'd be political pressure on these various states to reverse course and to reengage with the Russians. Whether us said, oh no, you're not going backwards. In fact we're going to make sure that by blowing up this pipeline and making sure that you remain now dependent on the importation of liquified natural gas coming from where from the us as Anthony said, the secretary of state of this is a marvelous opportunity. And so that was part of the objective of this war. It was a war to enhance the positionality of US capital in Europe. Wilmer Leon (09:08): In fact, going back to, I made reference to Vladimir Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson and Putin raised the question, he says, well, you blew up part of Nord stream because folks don't know there's Nord stream one and Nord stream two. He said, you blew up part of Nord stream, one of the pipes still works. Why don't you turn it up? He said, Europe can get natural gas from Russia through Ukraine. There are pipelines running through Ukraine that could carry natural gas to Europe. He says, turn it up. He says, there are pipelines that run from Russia through Poland. You can get natural gas through Poland. He says, why don't you turn those up? It all goes back to Western hegemony and imperialism. Ajamu Baraka (09:58): It goes back to the issue of the European ruling class that understanding that they have interest that are really counter those of the US and that irrational policy of allowing themselves to be suckered into this proxy war and not looking out for their own national interests is resulting in real political issues within their countries. Not only the issue of natural gas. You and I talked about on another one of your programs, this issue with using the Ukrainian war, the US capitol that's gone in and basically bought up some of the best land in Ukraine and are now exporting from Ukraine various agricultural products. They are using the war as a battery realm to avoid or to circumvent the requirements of the importation of agricultural products across Europe and imposing the products from Ukraine into various European markets as an act of solidarity. Well, the problem with that of course is it's undermining the positions of European farmers across Western Europe. (11:24) And so you find that farmers and places like France and other countries, I say, Hey, wait a minute, we are now losing money because of our markets now being flooded with wheat and other products coming in from Ukraine. What is this? We have to engage in production by very clear meticulous requirements, regulations, and now using this solidarity issue with the Ukrainian war, you are undermining our position. You're undermining our ability to make a living. And so that's causing real political issues in these various nations. So these policies being pursued by these European nations are really such that they are putting themselves in a position where they are creating issues for themselves politically that they're going to find it very difficult to reverse very soon, as a matter of fact in the next few months. Wilmer Leon (12:34): And in fact to that point talking about agriculture, there are farmers in Germany that have been protesting for weeks. They're dumping manure in the roads, they're doing a lot of activism, real on the ground, practical activism to show their resistance to the policies that you're mentioning. And also they're incredibly angry because a lot of the subsidies that the government was providing to them in order to offset the price differentials that they were experiencing as a result of flooding the market with Ukrainian products, those subsidies have been cut if not totally eliminated as the German government, as the French government, as other EU countries are sending more money to Ukraine, so many of them, many of these Western Europeans are experiencing a lot of the same issues there that many in the United States are suffering here. As our infrastructure is in decline as our schools are underfunded, as healthcare costs are going up and people are, as homelessness is on the rise, we can find 95 billion to send to Ukraine and to send to Israel and to send to Taiwan. All three of those fights are fights that would not be ongoing if the United States hadn't started them. But we can't seem to find the way to take care of Americans here in the United States. Ajamu Baraka (14:05): We can't find the way Dr. Leon because we can't have an honors and open and free national conversation because the same interests that are advancing themselves in Western Europe of the same interests that control the means of communication in the us. And so therefore a conversation with the people of the US around what really makes sense in terms of policy. Does it make sense to have 886 billion devoted toward defense? So-called defense or should we use some of those resources to in fact address issues of homelessness, invest in education, create the conditions where everybody can have access to healthcare pay for free education up to through the university level. US population is paying a price for supporting the policies that only are benefiting a small minority of the population, in fact about 1% of the population. So that kind of understanding that kind of discussion, it's not taking place, it's only taking place in spaces like this in alternative media spaces and as a consequence it makes it very difficult for us to turn the corner with advancing policies that make more sense, that address the real interest of the American people Wilmer Leon (15:49): And in this piece, anti imperialism in the US today, what it is and is not Stansfield Smith, he draws the distinction between progressives and anti-imperialist. He says that imperialism uses human rights and democracy issues in countries that it is targeting for regime change as a rationale for foreign interference and that many progressives swallow and even join in these disinformation campaigns to support these moves where in contrast, anti-imperialist, they focus on uncovering and bringing to light US disinformation and interference in national sovereignty. So can you elaborate a little bit on this issue? He talks about progressives versus anti-imperialist you use in many instances, use the term the left if you could because we hear these references, we hear these terms baned about all the time and many people mistakenly think that they're all the same, but in fact they're not. Ajamu Baraka (17:01): Well, they really aren't and I'm glad you raised that question. I think the way Stanfield is using that term and many others, when you talk about progressives, you're really talking about liberals and maybe social Democrats. That is those individuals who have politics and very similar to say for example Bernie Sanders who's a social democrat, who have a soft socialistic orientations Bernie Sanders, Cornell West, as opposed to elements of the left that are not only anti imperialists but of course politics that suggest that this global system of colonial capitalism has to be transcended and be replaced with a new kind of political economy, one that's organized around socialistic lines. And so that to me constitutes the left, the real left if you will. But even within that camp, if you'll, there's still some issues in terms of how one gets to socialism and that's where you have some of the confusion because even among the left, they will sometimes find themselves inadvertently often providing political cover to the US because they are in opposition to a particular nation's experiment, be it Nicaragua, Cuba or Venezuela, Peru or Bolivia, that if the politics aren't developing in ways in which these western leftists believe they should be developing, if they don't correspond to some kind of imagined model, then they will, they begin to criticize those experiments at the same time, did those experiments find themselves in the crossheads of US subversion? (19:08) That's backward. It's backward and it's contradictory. So that is the issue that Smith is alluding to in that very important article. Dr. Leon? Yes, there's another element to this, okay, (19:25) Even the way in which the bourgeoisie, meaning the bourgeoisie, meaning the ruling class has used and weaponized democracy and human rights in order to obscure real interest in undermining these various nations as a consequence of gods. They're not going to be able to use those weapons like they did in the past because they have now been exposed. It's quite clear to so many people around the world and even people within the US the hypocrisy of those positions. What happened to the responsibility to protect a component of humanitarian intervention in order to protect the human rights of certain collectives? It doesn't exist when it comes to the Palestinians. So they have undermined in their own short-term greed and their own short-term pursuits to undermine a very important and powerful weapon that used to use to be able to obscure their reactionary politics Wilmer Leon (20:39): To that. It is really amazing when you look at how long the been exposed to the genocide, how long that struggle has been ongoing and how quickly things turn post October 6th. One of the ways that I have described it is I tell people that Israel has bombed the world into reality that now that this horror, now that this genocide is playing itself out on your telephone screens, not to mention your computers and your home screens, the atrocities, the reality of these atrocities have just decimated the myths Ajamu Baraka (21:39): Exactly, and they're never going to be able to return back to the ideological status quo. They have exposed themselves, we are seen behind the curtain and we understand now the reality of the naked power that they are exercising to try to maintain their global control. We now see the nature of the settler colonial project in Israel, and by extension we are getting a better understanding of the settler colonial project in the territory called the United States of America. At the core of these projects is the reality of naked violence to establish those regimes and to maintain them. So that understanding of the nature of colonialism coupled with a deeper understanding of the nature of capitalism disconnected is radicalizing millions of people across the globe and millions of people within the US So the politics going forward are going to be fundamentally different, but it's going to be different but even more dangerous. (22:53) Dr. Leon, why without the ideological weapon that they were able to use to impose conformity and support for their policies, now they're going to be more and more dependent on the use of naked force. That's why you find the naked use of force in various local environments. That's why you see in Atlanta, for example, the use of RICO laws to criminalize the opposition to cop city. These are examples of the hysterical reaction from the rulers to this change in consciousness. That's why the O rule three is facing federal prosecution because of their to the policies in Ukraine. So the repressive apparatus and the repressive network of the state is being strengthened and being utilized against this growing consciousness that's being manifested within the United States of America. Wilmer Leon (24:06): And another place where I believe that we're going to see this manifest itself is in the Middle East itself. Hassan Nala, the head of Hezbollah in Lebanon recently gave a speech where he said, and I'll paraphrase, he said, basically for as horrific as all of this is, he said, this is really going beyond the Palestinians and that this is an issue for the entire region. And there have been a number of interpretations of that statement. What that says to me is he is not only speaking to the Palestinians that he and speaking to Anah in Yemen and others, he's letting the United States know he's letting the west know that you all are about to start a global conflict that he's saying everybody in the pool and because they see themselves as facing a common oppressor, they see themselves facing a common enemy and he's saying, you all are about to ignite a fuse, the likes of which you will not be able to exterminate or put out, and it's going to be all adults in the pool, and the result isn't going to be very positive, Ajamu Baraka (25:34): Dr. Leon, and what's going to really like that is if there is in fact a ground assault in Rafa, the Egyptians have already said that that can very easily result in the cancellation of Camp David, the Saudis have said that there's going to be dire circumstances. This is going to see what has happened is that these policies have forced these monarchs and all of these Arab and Muslim right-wing elements to have to respond to the pressure that they're feeling from their own populations. So horrific what is happening in Gaza, they can no longer collaborate under the table with the us. They are being now forced to take more forthright positions in opposition to what is happening in Palestine that you couple, what is happening on the Israeli Lebanon border was Hezbollah. You look at what is happening with the Hutu that have basically shut down shipping as it relates to ships going into and supporting Israel, and you see that these unwise policies are creating a situation that can very easily span out of control and even elements within the US believe that this has gone too far. (27:16) And that's why you find some fleeting commentary from genocide, Joe talking about that the Israelis have gone over the top because now they understand the real possibility of this igniting a regional conflict that they're not going to be able to control. If it does in fact lead to that, and they know that you have leadership in Israel, you have a lunatic that's in power. You have a right wing racist settler regime that is engaged in murder, not only supporting the murder in Gaza, but they are actively murdering Palestinians on the West Bank. Over 400 Palestinians have been murdered by settlers since October the seventh. So this is creating a situation that's untenable, and so there has to be a pullback. Yesterday the Moody credit agency downgraded Israeli stocks and downgraded the economy. So there is a real economic consequence now developing. So it's a very dangerous situation that the wiser elements of the international ruling class is saying, we've got to get a hold of this Wilmer Leon (28:47): And talk about how this hypocrisy of the United States has been exposed, is being exposed and the international reaction, what I mean by that is as we sit and look at the genocide that is taking place in Gaza and the United States is paying for it, the United States is arming it. And on one hand you hear Tony Blinken saying, I'm traversing the region, I'm talking to the leaders. I'm asking them to be very careful. Basically what he's saying is he's asking for a kinder, gentler genocide and Joe Biden is saying that we are concerned about the Palestinians and while in fact he's not telling Netanyahu, I'll just pull the plug on your money and we'll put a stop to this thing in about two or three days, days. What's your take your sense as you travel the world and speak to those around the world, how is that hypocrisy resonating around the world? Ajamu Baraka (29:54): The result of this is that the US has lost prestige, will never regained, that the world understands that the US and Europe is basically finished and that nations are deciding that they're going to put their eggs is a different basket, and that basket is called bricks. This emerging group of nations that now control something like 36% of global GDP as opposed to the G seven that's controlling about 30%, the shift has already taken place materially. Now the shift is taking place ideologically and politically. So it is a shift in momentum is a recognition that for all intents and purposes, the decline of the west is irreversible, but it's also a recognition of the danger that all of this poses for all of us because it becomes quite clear when you see the support that all of the western nations have given to the Israeli fascists that the west is prepared to blow up the world before they voluntarily surrender power. Wilmer Leon (31:19): Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. Elaborate on that because a lot of people will hear you say, blow up the world. Oh, that's hyperbole. Oh, he's just being over the top. Oh, that Aja mu Baraka. He's so dramatic. But no, that's real talk. Ajamu Baraka (31:36): Yeah, it really is because they're still flirty with the possibility of nuclear confrontation in Ukraine. There's still the possibility of some kind of wild and reckless attack by the Israelis on Iran and even the use of a nuclear weapon. There is the situation we haven't touched on yet, that is the unwise policies of the part of the US in providing support to and propping up and encouragement to the government on the island of Taiwan, the provocative moves being made in the South China Sea, the whole pivot toward Asia. There is always the possibility of these situations escalating to a nuclear confrontation. And it seems like that there are elements within the foreign policy community that believe that they in fact can not only escalate, but they can engage in a first strike and win. There are people openly talking like Dr. Strange love and talking about the possibility of winning a nuclear confrontation. (32:55) That's what makes it so incredibly dangerous because when you have missiles in western Europe, for example, in and Poland and Romania and other places that are theoretically defensive according to the us, but the Russians know that they can be recalculated if you'll or refitted in a matter of minutes and to become offensive, which means that you have the ability to strike from say, Poland to Moscow in six minutes. Now you have the Russians who are on a head trigger alert, they have to launch on warning because you can't allow your nuclear arsenal to be caught in the silos. So when you had situations in the past where there were computer glitches where one side thought that the other side had launched, launched, we had 30 minutes to correct it, we have documented situations where that in fact happened at least on two or three occasions. How do you do that when you are on a trigger hair launch or warning in six minutes? So it's very, very dangerous. So that's what we are referring to. This is not hyperbole. People talk about in five years I'm going to be doing so and so and so I'm like, are you sure you're going to be here in five years? Yeah, I'm being dramatic because I'm being for real. We can see the possibilities of these maniacs escalating a situation to the point of a nuclear confrontation because the amateurs, Dr. Leon, (34:36) The gap between the leadership in places like Russia and China and the US and in western Europe, it's never been bigger before. They don't know what they are doing and that's what makes us so incredibly dangerous for all of us. Wilmer Leon (34:54): You just mentioned the mistake being made, and that is not theoretical. I want to say it was 1983, a Russian, I don't even know what his title is, but he's in a silo in a Russian silo. His name is Stanislav Petrov, and he is a missile technician, I'll call him, sitting in a Russian silo looking at his screen and he sees a blip on his screen. And the protocol is when you see this blip, you push a button and when you push that button, silos open, missiles come up, we're ready to launch. But he thinks that there's something wrong with the blip on his screen. And thank God he did because by his taking just a couple of minutes to be rational and to think, what he found out was it wasn't an incoming missile. It was a mistake in a software program that miscalculated or misinterpreted something that was transpiring. (36:05) So that was 1983. Folks can look this up. Stanislav Petrov is his name, and if it hadn't been for him, we would've been in a nuclear conflict. What you just talked about in terms of missiles in Poland and Yugoslavia and other places, that's one of the big reasons why Russian president Putin is so hell bent on Ukraine not becoming a part of nato because he says, and he's right, if Ukraine becomes a part of nato, NATO will put missiles in Ukraine. You've now cut my response time from seven or eight minutes to three minutes, which means Stanislav petrov, God bless his soul, that doesn't work anymore. Launch on notice. And the other point is Putin has made this point a number of times saying, look, you guys got to understand something. I got missiles too. I got missiles like you got missiles. And in the west that gets spun as Vladimir Putin is threatening to use nuclear weapons. No, what he's telling you is if you think you can come in here and punch me in the face, understand I can punch back. I have what you have. And now what we're seeing from a technological perspective is what they got is a little better then what we're used to seeing. So this is not hyperbole, this is not fantasy. This is real talk. Ajamu Baraka (37:59): Yeah, no, they have demonstrated with supersonic weapons that they have Wilmer Leon (38:04): Hypersonic Ajamu Baraka (38:05): Hypersonic weapons. They have a technological advantage of us and not been able to catch up with yet. It's very dangerous Wilmer Leon (38:14): Minute. Wait a minute. To that point, when President Biden, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want people to understand this isn't theoretical high hyperbole. When Joe Biden sent the USS Gerald Ford into the Mediterranean Sea as a show of force to Hezbollah and to the Houthis, Vladimir Putin said, Joe, why are you doing this? You're not scaring anybody, you're not scar. He said, these people don't scare, and oh, by the way, we can sink your aircraft carrier from the Black Sea with our armed missiles, the Ken Jaw missiles, he said, and they're hypersonic. You won't even know they're coming until your aircraft carrier is sinking. That's real talk. Ajamu Baraka (39:19): And what's also kind of funny but tragic at the same time is that while they are engaged in provocative activity in the Endo Pacific region outside of Taiwan and in the Taiwan straits, the Pentagon has war games, a confrontation between the US and China, and I think we talked about it before, and they were lost every time, Wilmer Leon (39:48): 25 out of 25. Ajamu Baraka (39:50): So it's like, what are these people doing? What are you doing? The whole concept that was coming out of the project for a new American century in which they argued that the US had the capacity to fight two theater wars simultaneously that should have been put to rest when they lost both in Afghanistan and in Iraq, basically global solve nations. But now they are actually a few months ago you thought they were really going insane because they are fighting in Ukraine and they are fighting in Ukraine. Make a mistake about that is the Ukrainians are dying, but this is a Western and US ward, while at the same time they were needling the Chinese. So it's like what? You all are going to fight the Russians and the Chinese at the same time? It wasn't making and they Wilmer Leon (40:48): Are allies. Ajamu Baraka (40:51): Yeah, well, part of the conflict, Wilmer Leon (40:54): You got to throw North Korea in there too. Ajamu Baraka (40:56): Well, part of the conflict water of the element that we didn't talk about, when you talk about what's happening in Ukraine in terms of the secondary objectives of this proxy war, it was to weaken the Russians to the point where they would not be a very effective ally to the Chinese. The target was not just Russia, it was Germany as we talked about, and the Chinese. So they were creating a situation where they were going to win regardless of what happened in their own imagination. Wilmer Leon (41:27): There are some neocons that thought you could go at China directly. There were some neocons that believed that you could go at Russia directly, and then there were others who believed the way you get to China, you've got to go through Russia. Ajamu Baraka (41:42): Yes, exactly. All Wilmer Leon (41:44): Are wrong. All are wrong. Ajamu Baraka (41:47): They were proven wrong. I mean the Russian economy was supposed to be destroyed, be destroyed as a consequence of this conflict. And as Putin indicated in that interview that the Russian economy is stronger than there's ever been. Every time they have imposed series of sanctions against the Russians. Even Putin said this a couple of years ago, it allowed him to impose economic reforms that he couldn't have done without the sanctions. He made the oligarchy disengage from the European economy and reinvest and the Russian economy. So they have become more economically independent as a consequence of these sanctions. So it's always been counterproductive and you have some realists in the US foreign policy community that predicted that. But the realists have had to take a second, have had to stand back and allow these neocons who have been driving policy in both parties for the last 20 years basically or more. And the result is the US is weaker than it's ever been since the end of the second imperialist war that we call World War ii. Wilmer Leon (43:14): Another example, and I think a more practical example, and what I mean by practical is it doesn't involve the oligarchs. It involves the everyday Russian person. One of the things when President Biden told us that as a result of this Ukraine conflict that he was going to turn the ruble into rubble, and by imposing sanctions on the Russian economy, one of the things that they were projecting was or predicting was that the Russian citizens would run to the Russian banks and take their money out of the banks and put their money other places. And what Putin did was he raised the interest rates. One of the things that he did was he raised the interest rates that the banks would pay on deposits. So the Russian citizens found, oh, I'll make more money if I leave my money in the bank. And what a lot of people don't know about him, dude has a PhD in economics. Not only is he an attorney, he has a PhD in economics. So he has a little bit of understanding. He has a better understanding of econ than Joe Biden. Ajamu Baraka (44:41): I mean Joe Biden's a moron. I mean most of the US leadership are morons. One thing we can say about Barack Obama, though he was not in that same category. He was just a slickster. And same thing with Bill Clinton. But the quality of the leadership in the US state has been a mean, been dangerously. Frighteningly are incompetent. And that's the thing that scares me the most, that we are going to trip up into a situation that the US is not going to be able to reverse and all of us will suffer as a consequence. Look, when you hear no matter what your opinion may be a Putin or a President Xi when they speak and even the way they comport themselves, these are adults, these are statesmen. If you'll, and you compare that to these idiots in the US started with genocide jokes and these idiots who are making policy both in the Democrat and Republican parties, there's no gravitas, there's no worldly sophistication. They're just like country bumpkins. They are so incredibly unsophisticated and adolescent. That's the term that I use to describe US culture. It's an adolescent dangerous culture. And because it has so much power, that's what makes it so incredibly dangerous to all of us that people need. If you haven't seen this check out that interview, you can have your views about Putin and the cartoon characters that's been drawn up for you by your bosses, but you cannot conclude that this is not a states person with a sophisticated understanding of the world. Wilmer Leon (46:46): If you look at a couple of examples of what you're talking about, particularly as it relates to the Chinese, I'm not even going to get into Secretary Lavrov because that dude is oh, just brilliant. But Wang Ye, the foreign secretary of China early in the Biden administration, Tony Blinken was supposed to meet with the Chinese delegation in Anchorage, Alaska. And so they all convene in Anchorage and Blinken starts lecturing the Chinese and they look at him and they say, whatcha doing? You have no idea who you are talking to. We didn't come here to be lectured by you. We're China, we hold your debt. You don't hold out out. Ajamu Baraka (47:52): What was so incredible about that was this was the clumsy attempt on the part of the Biden administration to assert their white maleness. They're going show it was whiteness. We going to show we running the show with these Chinese. I mean it was incredible. And like you said, the Chinese Wilmer Leon (48:17): Said the sick men of criticize, Ajamu Baraka (48:19): You're not competent enough to criticize us, Wilmer Leon (48:21): Right? Our culture is thousands of years old. And then you've got the whole spy balloon. What a lot of people don't understand is Tony Blinken said, I'm going to China to meet with President Xi. He was not invited. He said, I'm going to China. And G said, no, but he said, I'm coming to China. So usually diplomats are welcomed in Beijing. President Xi said, okay, well if you're coming, I can't remember the name of the city, but there's another city where they send lesser caliber diplomats and folks that they really don't want to deal with. He said, I'm going to send you here. I'm not going to meet you in Beijing and I'm not even come see you there. And Blinken got embarrassed and that's when the balloon comes in the jet stream, the weather balloon comes in the jet stream as weather balloons will do. (49:30) And they used that calling it a spy balloon as the basis of, oh, you're sending a spy balloon, therefore I can't come see you. No, it was, Xi didn't want to totally embarrass Blinken by saying, I'm not going to let you in my country. What he said was, I'm going to send you off to the hinterlands and you can go on a tour if you want to. And Tony Blinken said, well, no, I ain't doing that. I mean, those are just examples and they don't get explained as such by Western media, but that's what really happened. Ajamu Baraka (50:10): Look, Dr. Leon, I was in China a couple of months ago. Wilmer Leon (50:14): There we Ajamu Baraka (50:14): Go. Wilmer Leon (50:16): Am I right? Ajamu Baraka (50:18): You are absolutely right. I'm going to tell you they can't can't be defeated. This what they are building there is absolutely incredible. I'm sitting on this bullet train going from Beijing to Shanghai, and I had a cup of water and I was doing something and I put it down and I realized, oh, the water's on the floor cause fly when you do Amtrak. You know how that on Amtrak, (50:52) They have this tick or take thing on the end of the car that tells you how fast the train's going. We sitting there going 325 miles an hour. It's like you're not even moving. You're going across the countryside is flat plains. And then you look up and then there's a city with skyscrapers, and I don't want to go into it too much, but what I saw in just those few days I was there was incredible. And so they're not keeping allowing people to understand what's happening in China. They have an urban development policy that when they create these cities and these communities, every social service in that community has to be within a 15 minute walk. The hospitals, the schools, the elder care, 15 minute walk is fully integrated everything that you need. So you compare this and what I saw in terms of infrastructure, it made the US look like, unfortunately, like a developing country and see the bourgeois there, they know this, but they're not telling the US population how far behind the US has fallen. Wilmer Leon (52:18): Well, and a perfect example of that is 5G technology. The Chinese approach, the United States, I'll say now, 15 years ago about working with the Chinese on developing 5G, and the United States said, no, we don't need to work with you on that. And so China went ahead and developed 5G. And with that we're talking about the internet of things and the ability of your refrigerator to talk to your cell phone to talk to your car, all of that kind of stuff. And so now when you turn on your phone, it says 5G, but the United States does not. All we really have is faster 4G. It's not truly the 5G technology that Huawei and other Chinese companies have developed. And they're now, they're on their way to six and seven G. We just don't get it. Ajamu Baraka (53:26): And the funny thing about it too, the US thought that they were going to undermine the Chinese by undermining the ability to have access to advanced Chips, chips. But they are rapidly developing their own capacity for that. And see, people don't understand as part of the struggle with Taiwan, also the home of one of the largest semiconductor chip factory in the world. Wilmer Leon (53:55): Psc, is that what? It's Ajamu Baraka (53:56): Something like that, yeah. Right. And that reincorporation of Taiwan into China would be a nonviolent and relatively seamless if it wasn't for the agitation on the part of the us. This notion that Chinese want to invade Taiwan militarily is all complete and utter nonsense. There is a political process there. There was developing in favor of the Chinese until the last few years when the US really began to ramp up is meddling within the Taiwanese political system. So that's part of the issue that basically the technological advances that the US has, and they still have some, that gap is being progressively narrowed down. Wilmer Leon (54:50): And as we move on to our final segment, there have been studies and reports put out by various elements within the government that if China were to invade Taiwan, and that's not on anybody's drawing board, I always challenge folks that want to have this conversation with me, show me one time where President Xi Jinping has said that they're planning to invade China. You can't find it because they're not going to do it. But the United States says if that were to happen, the United States would blow up the TSC, I think it's TSC chip manufacturing facilities so that they would not fall into the hands of China. And now China has designed its own chips, it's on its way. Necessity is the mother of invention, and China is on its way. I want to tie something else into coming back to the northern hemisphere, and that is this immigrant conversation. (56:01) All of this conversation about the Republicans in the house are trying to hold up this defense bill because they say there's not enough money for the immigration bill. But in all of this bipartisan discussion about immigration, nobody talks about the American foreign policy in the region as in Central America and South America that is basically forcing these people to leave their homes and come here. The analogy I use is if you're sitting in your basement watching a game and water starts coming down your stairway, you want to close the basement door instead of going upstairs and figuring out, oh, either your tub is overflowing or your sink, your kitchen sink is overflowing. They just want to close the, they don't want to turn off the spigot. And the way you turn off the spigot is by changing your policy. That is decimating the economies of Nicaragua decimating the economies of all of these other countries in central and South America. They never talk about the US foreign policy policy that creates the motivation or motivates these folks to want to come here. They just talk about building a wall to keep 'em in Mexico. Ajamu Baraka (57:31): No, they don't talk about that. And what's interesting too is that you remember at one point the Democrats pretended to be the party of progressive immigration policy, but who talks about that now? Now they are the party that has embraced the same kind of policies of Donald Trump border security expanding a wall. So there is consensus now among both wings of the ruling class represented by the Republicans and the Democrats on this issue of so-called border control. And they're never going to talk about the kinds of imperialist policies that are decimating the economies of Central America and parts of South America driving immigration. That's not part of their analytical framework. And so an understanding of these forces, again, has to come from sources like your show and other alternative sources that help people to understand the complexities of the world and sometimes how simple some things are. Like you destroy an economy and people have to find a way to survive, and they are a few hundred miles away from the most powerful and richest country on the planet. We need to go there. It's quite simple. So this is what has to be dealt with a better understanding on the part of people in the US to these issues and understand that you have more in common with understand. Understand that basically if we're able to put a break on these imperialist policies, these exploitative policies in Latin America, in South America and in the us, then we have the material basis for all of us to live a little better. So that's really where we need to be going. That's the level of understanding we have to arrive at. Wilmer Leon (59:47): And you talked about, I'll use these words, the misinformation and the disinformation in western media. I want to hit on one more thing, but before you go, if you can just give me two or three more minutes, and that's Haiti, and that could be three hours on its own, but this is from the Washington Post this week, rebel leader who ousted risid set sights on Haiti's current leader. The crisis here keep compounding armed. Gangs have forced more than 300,000 from their homes. The police are outgunned and overmatched. Half the people don't have enough to eat. This Caribbean nation of 11 million has no dramatic democratically elected officials. The National Assembly is empty, the presidency is vacant. That's left Arial Ri, the unelected and deeply reviled prime minister in charge appointed by president jovial Moise days before. Moise is still unsolved assassination in 2021 on re was due to leave office on Wednesday, but is so far successfully stymied a political transition. They're talking about GI Philippe coming back into Haiti. And this is written as though the United States has had absolutely no involvement in the decimation of Haiti. And so people read this from the Washington Post and they go, oh, these poor, ignorant, silly Haitians, they just can't seem to do anything for themselves. We must intervene and save them from theirselves. Doesn't talk about GI Philippe. And he was an American operative and how much time he spent in American prisons and how, by the way, does he get back into Haiti after none of that ajamu Baraka? Ajamu Baraka (01:01:37): You're absolutely right. And the situation in Haiti has become almost untenable. And that's how they wanted, he was reinserted into Haiti to intensify the chaos, to make the situation even more ripe for outside intervention. They don't trust him. He doesn't trust them. But there is a convergence of interest, short-term interest that is Wilmer Leon (01:02:05): Financial interest, Ajamu Baraka (01:02:07): Financial interest, political interest, right? Is it terrible situation in that country and one that we have to continue to monitor because the result of this situation is the possibility of more violence inside the country as the consequence of those issues. Wilmer Leon (01:02:23): And this is another example of the United States through what it created called the Global Fragilities Act. It is creating the fragility and then claiming we now have to use the US military to go in and resolve the chaos that we created in the first place. Ajamu Baraka (01:02:41): Exactly. That is the objective. That could be the end result if we don't stop it. Wilmer Leon (01:02:50): Brother Ajamu Baraka, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. Ajamu Baraka (01:02:54): My pleasure. Thank you so much Dr. Leon. Wilmer Leon (01:02:57): I want to thank you all for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wilmer Leon. Please stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow me on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. I'm going to see you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. And remember that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history, converge talk without analysis is just chatter and we don't chatter on connecting the dots. Peace and blessings. I'm out

Episode 261: The Best of 2023Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast!As 2023 comes to a close it's time for the annual “Best Of” episode - This is where we look back at which episodes of the Love Your Story podcast were the favorites of the listeners. Which ones did you guys like best?Tune in for the Top 5 Episodes, a clip from each, and if you've missed one of these favs - go back and listen to get all the goods. Coming right up…. the years top 5 favorites…Welcome to the top 5 Love Your Story Podcast episodes of 2023. Let's start with #5.#5 falls to one of our latest episodes. It's called “Voices of Healing” it's episode #252. It's a compilation episode where I pulled in clips from lots of past interviews so we heard from Todd Sylvester, Amanda Grow, Dianne Butterfield, Trevor Lay….and others about their healing journeys. I think this episode was so powerful because we learn from one another, and when we pull in real life healing stories from so many different people, with different experiences, as well as professionals, well…there's a lot to learn and something for everyone. We all have things to heal from, so we all want to understand this path better. Here's a clip….Tune in to hear the clip...If you want to hear all the stories from this favorite, go back to episode 252, this one launched on Aug. 23 of this year, and take a listen to the whole show.Ok. Here we are at #4 - the number 4 favorite episode of 2023 was episode 239: my interview with Chris Hawker. This episode was titled: Tools to Magnify our Worthiness. I loved my chat with Chris because he is a man that has been in the leadership of Next Level Trainings - which was where I did a great deal of my work in moving my life forward - learning to reframe my stories. Chris came on the podcast and was honest and vulnerable about his own struggle with feelings of unworthiness. We talked about how these stories of unworthiness happen, how he navigated his, and then we get to hear some of his wonderful suggestion for reframing those erroneous and destructive feelings. I think this one is a favorite because working through any feelings of unworthiness is an important part of really becoming YOU. Here's a clip:Tune in to hear the clip...to hear the rest of his story about his road to truly embracing his real self worth… - again, it's episode 239 and it aired on February 22 of this year.Now on to #3 top fav for 2023. It's none other than What Kindness Can Do with Peter Mutabazi in episode 242.Peter Mutabazi grew up in Uganda. In this episode we hear his whole story - the brave escape from an abusive father at 10 years old, his subsequent life as a child living on the streets struggling daily to stay alive, and the fortuitous meeting of a man who would change Peter's life, and in so doing change the lives his siblings, their children, and all the children Peter now helps as a foster parent. This was part 1 of a two part series that was just incredible. One of my favorite interviews because he story is shocking, incredible, and how often do you get to speak with someone who was there to see the Tutsi and Hutu massacre in Rwanda - he talks about that in the second episode in this series, What Hate Can Do. The whole thing was incredible. Here is the beginning of his story.Tune in to hear the clip...Again, to listen to the whole episode and the next episode -it's a 2 part series, for his whole incredible story. He's amazing.Now for the #2 favorite of the year….. Episode 244 - Tips on Connecting with Your Man. My interview with Laura Doyle. I found it super...

This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Over the course of 100 days in 1994, it's estimated that between 500,000 and one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were killed by Hutu extremists in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Sparked by longstanding ethnic tensions and political unrest in the country, and with actions exacerbated by the Assassination of Rwanda's Hutu president - violence swept across the country as neighbours turned on each other, families perished, and refugees fled. But how did the international community's delayed response further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis, and how has Rwanda recovered in the years since?In this episode James is joined by Dr Erin Jessee from the University of Glasgow, to share how her research and gathering of first hand testimony, has helped individuals understand one of the most devastating conflicts of modern history. Looking at how Rwanda's history influenced the events of 1994, examining first hand testimony of victims and perpetrators, and looking at issues faced by researches today - what happened in Rwanda in 1994, and how was the country rebuilt itself?Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code WARFARE. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.For more Warfare content, subscribe to our Warfare Wednesday newsletter here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.