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In this photo taken on Jan. 2, 2014, a medical doctor, left center, shouts out as he loads off a female Congolese soldier after she and others were attacked during a patrol, near Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo. (Photo: AP/Joseph Kay)
Is it true that atrocities in Africa garner little international attention because the victims are black?
The recent kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian girls has generated empathy and outrage worldwide, undermining such a claim. The international shame and guilt over Rwanda's genocide, despite coming too late, also proves that global concern for African lives is not negligible. Indeed the news media often cover stories like the hunt for Joseph Kony and his exploitation of child soldiers in Uganda, the killings in Darfur, Sudan, or the armed attack on a mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
But what happens when millions of Africans die in a conflict in which some of the world's most desired natural resources are at stake? Very little, it turns out. The massacres that have taken place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have surpassed genocidal proportions but rarely spur the outrage they deserve in the media or public.
Since 1996, 6 million Congolese have been killed in a series of invasions and violent conflicts often instigated by armies and militias from neighboring countries such as Rwanda and Uganda, which are both U.S. allies. The battles have centered on access to Congo's vast mineral deposits. According to an advertisement lauding Congo's riches on The Washington Post's website, "In terms of its untapped mineral wealth, the DRC is one of the richest countries in the world. Its soil is reputed to contain every mineral listed on the periodic table and these minerals are found in concentrations high enough to make metal analysts weep."
Maurice Carney, the co-founder and executive director of Friends of the Congo, in an interview on Uprising, told me, "Congo has been at the center of the unfolding of the drama ... as it relates to the geostrategic pursuit to control the riches of the African continent." He thinks the media fail to adequately cover Congo's conflict because "if you look at Darfur, the bogeymen were the Arabs, the Muslims and the Chinese. In Congo, the bogeyman is the West. From the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, to the imposition of Mobutu on the Congolese people, to the backing of the invasion of the Congo by Rwanda and Uganda, the West is complicit." In fact, Carney said, "The United States has been on the wrong side of history [in the Congo] from day one."
Congo has never really been allowed to control its own destiny, save for the brief leadership of the visionary Lumumba in 1960. But Lumumba's tenure and life were cut horribly short with the help of the CIA just months after he was democratically elected, only to be replaced by a Western backed dictator, Mobutu, who remained in power with U.S. backing for three decades. Even then, the stakes centered around Congo's mineral wealth.
Today U.S. policy in Congo is part of its continent-wide AFRICOM project, which the military says works "in concert with interagency and international partners, builds defense capabilities, responds to crisis, and deters and defeats transnational threats in order to advance U.S. national interests and promote regional security, stability, and prosperity." Carney told me that the project's real goal is for the U.S. "to protect its strategic interests [in order to] compete with the Chinese" for Africa's resources.
U.S. policy on Congo also includes propping up Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. With respect to Kagame especially, despite the fact that several multinational bodies like the International Criminal Court have warned the Rwandan president that he could face prosecution for crimes in the Congo, "the U.S. has run diplomatic and political interference to protect its allies," according to Carney, as this report maintains.
Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo on two separate occasions in 1996 and 1998, and fought one another on Congolese soil in 2000. But the vast majority of the millions who have died in Congo were either killed outright in armed clashes instigated by foreign-backed militias, or were driven out of their villages and died of starvation and disease after being displaced into the forests.
Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped as a systematic tool of mass shame to break the will of entire villages. "Militia groups terrorize villages, particularly the women," Carney said. He hesitated, adding, "I can't even say they 'rape' the women. They will inflict a form of sexual terrorism on the women, destroy their reproductive systems, humiliate them by raping them in front of their husbands and their children, or even force the children to rape their mother." Such unspeakable horror has led entire villages to be physically and psychologically destroyed and displaced. The invading militias then have easier access to the mineral resources such as gold, coltan or tin under the land where the villagers once lived.
Meanwhile, Congo's government under the leadership of President Joseph Kabila is too weak to defend itself and to adequately rule the more than 70 million strong population. According to Carney, Kabila's government "lacks legitimacy among its people." Because of that, different groups, even from outside Congo, simply enter the land and claim precious minerals. Congo's borders are porous, even leading to serious questions of who exactly are defined as citizens.
Coltan, one of Congo's most sought-after minerals, is used in the making of tantalum capacitors, which are ubiquitous in today's electronic devices. Gold, tin and tungsten are also traded by armed militias for profit. Carney paraphrased Museveni, who likened Congo to a "banana plantation," meaning that "everybody goes in and grabs what they want."
But Congo is not just swimming in minerals crucial to today's technological toys--it is also home to one of the world's largest rain forests, second only to the Amazon in South America. The central African country also has enormous water resources with hundreds of rivers including the great Congo running through it. But the systematic pillaging of minerals without proper enforcement of environmental regulations has resulted in serious environmental devastation. Carney told me, "Congo is where John Perkins' 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man' meets Naomi Klein's 'Shock Doctrine.' For example, the mining laws of the Congo are written by the World Bank and are written in such a way as to benefit private corporations; the forestry laws are also written by the World Bank."
So, Carney concluded, "you have these multinational institutions having undue influence in the Congo."
Global oil company Soco International is planning a major drilling operation in Congo's Virunga National Park, home to endangered gorillas famously studied by Dian Fossey, author of "Gorillas in the Mist." Virunga is Africa's oldest national park and a World Heritage site. Despite legal challenges by environmental groups, Soco is moving forward with its pre-exploration development. Another undertaking, called the Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project, is a massive dam slated for the lower end of the Congo River in the DRC. It would be the largest dam project on the river and is expected to generate twice the power of China's Three Gorges Dam. Advocacy organization International Rivers warns that the project is expected to have "huge ecological impacts ... affecting local agricultural lands and natural environments; and may cause huge methane emissions that will contribute to global warming. The effect of reduced flow in the Congo River may cause loss of biodiversity and a shift in the dominant species."
Carney lamented that "in a sovereign nation, the government through its laws is supposed to protect the environment." But multinational corporations, taking advantage of Congo's weak government, are "exploiting the resources of the Congo to the point where it destroys the environment. It's not just a question of local Congolese engagement, but it's a global collaboration that winds up depleting and affecting the second lung of the world."
But is it really necessary for Congo's people and environment to suffer so tragically to satiate corporate greed and U.S. strategic interests? Despite a dearth of media coverage, there has been tremendous grass-roots activism around the world pressuring Western leaders to play a constructive role in Congo. As a result, Carney is hopeful that President Obama is taking what he called "incremental steps" in the right direction. "For the first time in 15 years," Carney said, "the United States withheld military aid from Rwanda in 2012 and 2013." Additionally, U.S. and U.K. officials personally called Kagame, urging him to stop backing M23, the main Rwandan militia responsible for much of the violence in Congo. Carney credits such actions for resulting in M23's recent defeat.
Even more heartening are Congo's own social movements that are attempting to organize for justice and peace. Carney's eyes lit up when telling me about Congo's dynamic youth activists, who cite the slogan "I do whatever is necessary," an English translation of a popular French slogan. Congo is a very young country, with a median age of 17. "Young people throughout the country are organizing to transform the society," Carney said. "They believe there is a fundamental change that is needed--a new society where leaders represent the interests of the people." Like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the American civil rights era, Congo's youth are "going into communities and rural areas, speaking with pastors, educating their peers, training people about the responsibility and the role of Congolese as citizens, letting people know about the geostrategic game that is being played, letting people know what is at stake in the Congo."
Excitingly, Congo's youth are also reigniting the vision of their own hero, Patrice Lumumba, by reading his works and hearing his speeches to inform their activism. Hip-hop artists are incorporating Lumumba's speeches into their music.
Congolese activists are also harnessing the very technological tools containing the minerals for which their land is being ravaged in order to strengthen their work. American and Canadian students have been sending BlackBerry phones, laptop computers and digital cameras through groups like Friends of the Congo so that Congolese activists can communicate with like-minded people in other parts of the country and beyond. Carney told me this sort of solidarity is crucial for young people to be able "to broaden their vision of the world, tap into different ideas, engage in dialogue and exchange in a way that's going to empower them." Most importantly, Carney said, "By virtue of them being able to connect with young people outside the country, it lets them know they're not alone."
It is past time for the world to give Congo the attention it deserves, and to send a strong message that its people are not alone or forgotten.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Is it true that atrocities in Africa garner little international attention because the victims are black?
The recent kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian girls has generated empathy and outrage worldwide, undermining such a claim. The international shame and guilt over Rwanda's genocide, despite coming too late, also proves that global concern for African lives is not negligible. Indeed the news media often cover stories like the hunt for Joseph Kony and his exploitation of child soldiers in Uganda, the killings in Darfur, Sudan, or the armed attack on a mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
But what happens when millions of Africans die in a conflict in which some of the world's most desired natural resources are at stake? Very little, it turns out. The massacres that have taken place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have surpassed genocidal proportions but rarely spur the outrage they deserve in the media or public.
Since 1996, 6 million Congolese have been killed in a series of invasions and violent conflicts often instigated by armies and militias from neighboring countries such as Rwanda and Uganda, which are both U.S. allies. The battles have centered on access to Congo's vast mineral deposits. According to an advertisement lauding Congo's riches on The Washington Post's website, "In terms of its untapped mineral wealth, the DRC is one of the richest countries in the world. Its soil is reputed to contain every mineral listed on the periodic table and these minerals are found in concentrations high enough to make metal analysts weep."
Maurice Carney, the co-founder and executive director of Friends of the Congo, in an interview on Uprising, told me, "Congo has been at the center of the unfolding of the drama ... as it relates to the geostrategic pursuit to control the riches of the African continent." He thinks the media fail to adequately cover Congo's conflict because "if you look at Darfur, the bogeymen were the Arabs, the Muslims and the Chinese. In Congo, the bogeyman is the West. From the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, to the imposition of Mobutu on the Congolese people, to the backing of the invasion of the Congo by Rwanda and Uganda, the West is complicit." In fact, Carney said, "The United States has been on the wrong side of history [in the Congo] from day one."
Congo has never really been allowed to control its own destiny, save for the brief leadership of the visionary Lumumba in 1960. But Lumumba's tenure and life were cut horribly short with the help of the CIA just months after he was democratically elected, only to be replaced by a Western backed dictator, Mobutu, who remained in power with U.S. backing for three decades. Even then, the stakes centered around Congo's mineral wealth.
Today U.S. policy in Congo is part of its continent-wide AFRICOM project, which the military says works "in concert with interagency and international partners, builds defense capabilities, responds to crisis, and deters and defeats transnational threats in order to advance U.S. national interests and promote regional security, stability, and prosperity." Carney told me that the project's real goal is for the U.S. "to protect its strategic interests [in order to] compete with the Chinese" for Africa's resources.
U.S. policy on Congo also includes propping up Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. With respect to Kagame especially, despite the fact that several multinational bodies like the International Criminal Court have warned the Rwandan president that he could face prosecution for crimes in the Congo, "the U.S. has run diplomatic and political interference to protect its allies," according to Carney, as this report maintains.
Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo on two separate occasions in 1996 and 1998, and fought one another on Congolese soil in 2000. But the vast majority of the millions who have died in Congo were either killed outright in armed clashes instigated by foreign-backed militias, or were driven out of their villages and died of starvation and disease after being displaced into the forests.
Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped as a systematic tool of mass shame to break the will of entire villages. "Militia groups terrorize villages, particularly the women," Carney said. He hesitated, adding, "I can't even say they 'rape' the women. They will inflict a form of sexual terrorism on the women, destroy their reproductive systems, humiliate them by raping them in front of their husbands and their children, or even force the children to rape their mother." Such unspeakable horror has led entire villages to be physically and psychologically destroyed and displaced. The invading militias then have easier access to the mineral resources such as gold, coltan or tin under the land where the villagers once lived.
Meanwhile, Congo's government under the leadership of President Joseph Kabila is too weak to defend itself and to adequately rule the more than 70 million strong population. According to Carney, Kabila's government "lacks legitimacy among its people." Because of that, different groups, even from outside Congo, simply enter the land and claim precious minerals. Congo's borders are porous, even leading to serious questions of who exactly are defined as citizens.
Coltan, one of Congo's most sought-after minerals, is used in the making of tantalum capacitors, which are ubiquitous in today's electronic devices. Gold, tin and tungsten are also traded by armed militias for profit. Carney paraphrased Museveni, who likened Congo to a "banana plantation," meaning that "everybody goes in and grabs what they want."
But Congo is not just swimming in minerals crucial to today's technological toys--it is also home to one of the world's largest rain forests, second only to the Amazon in South America. The central African country also has enormous water resources with hundreds of rivers including the great Congo running through it. But the systematic pillaging of minerals without proper enforcement of environmental regulations has resulted in serious environmental devastation. Carney told me, "Congo is where John Perkins' 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man' meets Naomi Klein's 'Shock Doctrine.' For example, the mining laws of the Congo are written by the World Bank and are written in such a way as to benefit private corporations; the forestry laws are also written by the World Bank."
So, Carney concluded, "you have these multinational institutions having undue influence in the Congo."
Global oil company Soco International is planning a major drilling operation in Congo's Virunga National Park, home to endangered gorillas famously studied by Dian Fossey, author of "Gorillas in the Mist." Virunga is Africa's oldest national park and a World Heritage site. Despite legal challenges by environmental groups, Soco is moving forward with its pre-exploration development. Another undertaking, called the Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project, is a massive dam slated for the lower end of the Congo River in the DRC. It would be the largest dam project on the river and is expected to generate twice the power of China's Three Gorges Dam. Advocacy organization International Rivers warns that the project is expected to have "huge ecological impacts ... affecting local agricultural lands and natural environments; and may cause huge methane emissions that will contribute to global warming. The effect of reduced flow in the Congo River may cause loss of biodiversity and a shift in the dominant species."
Carney lamented that "in a sovereign nation, the government through its laws is supposed to protect the environment." But multinational corporations, taking advantage of Congo's weak government, are "exploiting the resources of the Congo to the point where it destroys the environment. It's not just a question of local Congolese engagement, but it's a global collaboration that winds up depleting and affecting the second lung of the world."
But is it really necessary for Congo's people and environment to suffer so tragically to satiate corporate greed and U.S. strategic interests? Despite a dearth of media coverage, there has been tremendous grass-roots activism around the world pressuring Western leaders to play a constructive role in Congo. As a result, Carney is hopeful that President Obama is taking what he called "incremental steps" in the right direction. "For the first time in 15 years," Carney said, "the United States withheld military aid from Rwanda in 2012 and 2013." Additionally, U.S. and U.K. officials personally called Kagame, urging him to stop backing M23, the main Rwandan militia responsible for much of the violence in Congo. Carney credits such actions for resulting in M23's recent defeat.
Even more heartening are Congo's own social movements that are attempting to organize for justice and peace. Carney's eyes lit up when telling me about Congo's dynamic youth activists, who cite the slogan "I do whatever is necessary," an English translation of a popular French slogan. Congo is a very young country, with a median age of 17. "Young people throughout the country are organizing to transform the society," Carney said. "They believe there is a fundamental change that is needed--a new society where leaders represent the interests of the people." Like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the American civil rights era, Congo's youth are "going into communities and rural areas, speaking with pastors, educating their peers, training people about the responsibility and the role of Congolese as citizens, letting people know about the geostrategic game that is being played, letting people know what is at stake in the Congo."
Excitingly, Congo's youth are also reigniting the vision of their own hero, Patrice Lumumba, by reading his works and hearing his speeches to inform their activism. Hip-hop artists are incorporating Lumumba's speeches into their music.
Congolese activists are also harnessing the very technological tools containing the minerals for which their land is being ravaged in order to strengthen their work. American and Canadian students have been sending BlackBerry phones, laptop computers and digital cameras through groups like Friends of the Congo so that Congolese activists can communicate with like-minded people in other parts of the country and beyond. Carney told me this sort of solidarity is crucial for young people to be able "to broaden their vision of the world, tap into different ideas, engage in dialogue and exchange in a way that's going to empower them." Most importantly, Carney said, "By virtue of them being able to connect with young people outside the country, it lets them know they're not alone."
It is past time for the world to give Congo the attention it deserves, and to send a strong message that its people are not alone or forgotten.
Is it true that atrocities in Africa garner little international attention because the victims are black?
The recent kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian girls has generated empathy and outrage worldwide, undermining such a claim. The international shame and guilt over Rwanda's genocide, despite coming too late, also proves that global concern for African lives is not negligible. Indeed the news media often cover stories like the hunt for Joseph Kony and his exploitation of child soldiers in Uganda, the killings in Darfur, Sudan, or the armed attack on a mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
But what happens when millions of Africans die in a conflict in which some of the world's most desired natural resources are at stake? Very little, it turns out. The massacres that have taken place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have surpassed genocidal proportions but rarely spur the outrage they deserve in the media or public.
Since 1996, 6 million Congolese have been killed in a series of invasions and violent conflicts often instigated by armies and militias from neighboring countries such as Rwanda and Uganda, which are both U.S. allies. The battles have centered on access to Congo's vast mineral deposits. According to an advertisement lauding Congo's riches on The Washington Post's website, "In terms of its untapped mineral wealth, the DRC is one of the richest countries in the world. Its soil is reputed to contain every mineral listed on the periodic table and these minerals are found in concentrations high enough to make metal analysts weep."
Maurice Carney, the co-founder and executive director of Friends of the Congo, in an interview on Uprising, told me, "Congo has been at the center of the unfolding of the drama ... as it relates to the geostrategic pursuit to control the riches of the African continent." He thinks the media fail to adequately cover Congo's conflict because "if you look at Darfur, the bogeymen were the Arabs, the Muslims and the Chinese. In Congo, the bogeyman is the West. From the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, to the imposition of Mobutu on the Congolese people, to the backing of the invasion of the Congo by Rwanda and Uganda, the West is complicit." In fact, Carney said, "The United States has been on the wrong side of history [in the Congo] from day one."
Congo has never really been allowed to control its own destiny, save for the brief leadership of the visionary Lumumba in 1960. But Lumumba's tenure and life were cut horribly short with the help of the CIA just months after he was democratically elected, only to be replaced by a Western backed dictator, Mobutu, who remained in power with U.S. backing for three decades. Even then, the stakes centered around Congo's mineral wealth.
Today U.S. policy in Congo is part of its continent-wide AFRICOM project, which the military says works "in concert with interagency and international partners, builds defense capabilities, responds to crisis, and deters and defeats transnational threats in order to advance U.S. national interests and promote regional security, stability, and prosperity." Carney told me that the project's real goal is for the U.S. "to protect its strategic interests [in order to] compete with the Chinese" for Africa's resources.
U.S. policy on Congo also includes propping up Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. With respect to Kagame especially, despite the fact that several multinational bodies like the International Criminal Court have warned the Rwandan president that he could face prosecution for crimes in the Congo, "the U.S. has run diplomatic and political interference to protect its allies," according to Carney, as this report maintains.
Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo on two separate occasions in 1996 and 1998, and fought one another on Congolese soil in 2000. But the vast majority of the millions who have died in Congo were either killed outright in armed clashes instigated by foreign-backed militias, or were driven out of their villages and died of starvation and disease after being displaced into the forests.
Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped as a systematic tool of mass shame to break the will of entire villages. "Militia groups terrorize villages, particularly the women," Carney said. He hesitated, adding, "I can't even say they 'rape' the women. They will inflict a form of sexual terrorism on the women, destroy their reproductive systems, humiliate them by raping them in front of their husbands and their children, or even force the children to rape their mother." Such unspeakable horror has led entire villages to be physically and psychologically destroyed and displaced. The invading militias then have easier access to the mineral resources such as gold, coltan or tin under the land where the villagers once lived.
Meanwhile, Congo's government under the leadership of President Joseph Kabila is too weak to defend itself and to adequately rule the more than 70 million strong population. According to Carney, Kabila's government "lacks legitimacy among its people." Because of that, different groups, even from outside Congo, simply enter the land and claim precious minerals. Congo's borders are porous, even leading to serious questions of who exactly are defined as citizens.
Coltan, one of Congo's most sought-after minerals, is used in the making of tantalum capacitors, which are ubiquitous in today's electronic devices. Gold, tin and tungsten are also traded by armed militias for profit. Carney paraphrased Museveni, who likened Congo to a "banana plantation," meaning that "everybody goes in and grabs what they want."
But Congo is not just swimming in minerals crucial to today's technological toys--it is also home to one of the world's largest rain forests, second only to the Amazon in South America. The central African country also has enormous water resources with hundreds of rivers including the great Congo running through it. But the systematic pillaging of minerals without proper enforcement of environmental regulations has resulted in serious environmental devastation. Carney told me, "Congo is where John Perkins' 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man' meets Naomi Klein's 'Shock Doctrine.' For example, the mining laws of the Congo are written by the World Bank and are written in such a way as to benefit private corporations; the forestry laws are also written by the World Bank."
So, Carney concluded, "you have these multinational institutions having undue influence in the Congo."
Global oil company Soco International is planning a major drilling operation in Congo's Virunga National Park, home to endangered gorillas famously studied by Dian Fossey, author of "Gorillas in the Mist." Virunga is Africa's oldest national park and a World Heritage site. Despite legal challenges by environmental groups, Soco is moving forward with its pre-exploration development. Another undertaking, called the Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project, is a massive dam slated for the lower end of the Congo River in the DRC. It would be the largest dam project on the river and is expected to generate twice the power of China's Three Gorges Dam. Advocacy organization International Rivers warns that the project is expected to have "huge ecological impacts ... affecting local agricultural lands and natural environments; and may cause huge methane emissions that will contribute to global warming. The effect of reduced flow in the Congo River may cause loss of biodiversity and a shift in the dominant species."
Carney lamented that "in a sovereign nation, the government through its laws is supposed to protect the environment." But multinational corporations, taking advantage of Congo's weak government, are "exploiting the resources of the Congo to the point where it destroys the environment. It's not just a question of local Congolese engagement, but it's a global collaboration that winds up depleting and affecting the second lung of the world."
But is it really necessary for Congo's people and environment to suffer so tragically to satiate corporate greed and U.S. strategic interests? Despite a dearth of media coverage, there has been tremendous grass-roots activism around the world pressuring Western leaders to play a constructive role in Congo. As a result, Carney is hopeful that President Obama is taking what he called "incremental steps" in the right direction. "For the first time in 15 years," Carney said, "the United States withheld military aid from Rwanda in 2012 and 2013." Additionally, U.S. and U.K. officials personally called Kagame, urging him to stop backing M23, the main Rwandan militia responsible for much of the violence in Congo. Carney credits such actions for resulting in M23's recent defeat.
Even more heartening are Congo's own social movements that are attempting to organize for justice and peace. Carney's eyes lit up when telling me about Congo's dynamic youth activists, who cite the slogan "I do whatever is necessary," an English translation of a popular French slogan. Congo is a very young country, with a median age of 17. "Young people throughout the country are organizing to transform the society," Carney said. "They believe there is a fundamental change that is needed--a new society where leaders represent the interests of the people." Like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the American civil rights era, Congo's youth are "going into communities and rural areas, speaking with pastors, educating their peers, training people about the responsibility and the role of Congolese as citizens, letting people know about the geostrategic game that is being played, letting people know what is at stake in the Congo."
Excitingly, Congo's youth are also reigniting the vision of their own hero, Patrice Lumumba, by reading his works and hearing his speeches to inform their activism. Hip-hop artists are incorporating Lumumba's speeches into their music.
Congolese activists are also harnessing the very technological tools containing the minerals for which their land is being ravaged in order to strengthen their work. American and Canadian students have been sending BlackBerry phones, laptop computers and digital cameras through groups like Friends of the Congo so that Congolese activists can communicate with like-minded people in other parts of the country and beyond. Carney told me this sort of solidarity is crucial for young people to be able "to broaden their vision of the world, tap into different ideas, engage in dialogue and exchange in a way that's going to empower them." Most importantly, Carney said, "By virtue of them being able to connect with young people outside the country, it lets them know they're not alone."
It is past time for the world to give Congo the attention it deserves, and to send a strong message that its people are not alone or forgotten.
Khalil's wife said that "officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me."
The family of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States now at risk of deportation because he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last spring, on Friday released a video of his recent arrest by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents in New York City, which has sparked legal battles and protests.
"You're watching the most terrifying moment of my life," Khalil's wife, Noor, said in a statement about the two-minute video. "This felt like a kidnapping because it was: Officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me."
"Everyone should be alarmed and urgently calling for the freedom of Mahmoud and all other students under attack for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights."
"They threatened to take me too, even though we were calm and fully cooperating. For the next 38 hours after this video, neither I or our lawyers knew where Mahmoud was being held. Now, he's over 1,000 miles from home, still being wrongfully detained by U.S. immigration," said Noor, whose husband is detained at a facility in Jena, Louisiana.
Noor, who is eight months pregnant, noted that "Mahmoud has repeatedly warned of growing threats from Columbia University and the U.S. government unjustly targeting students who want to see an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza. Now, the Trump administration and DHS are targeting him, and other students too."
"Mahmoud is clearly the first of many to be illegally repressed for their speech in support of Palestinian rights," she added. "Everyone should be alarmed and urgently calling for the freedom of Mahmoud and all other students under attack for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights."
Khalil, who finished his graduate studies at Columbia in December, is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent. He was living in the United States with a green card until his arrest on Saturday. In response to a filing by his legal team—which includes Amy Greer from Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project—a judge has temporarily blocked his deportation.
The ACLU and its New York arm have joined Khalil's legal team, and his attorneys filed an amended petition and complaint on Thursday. NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said that with the new "filing, we are making it crystal clear that no president can arrest, detain, or deport anyone for disagreeing with the government. The Trump administration has selectively targeted Mr. Khalil, a student, husband, and father-to-be who has not been accused of a single crime, to send a message of just how far they will go to crack down on dissent."
"But we at the NYCLU and ACLU won't stand for it—under the Constitution, the Trump administration has no basis to continue this cruel weaponization of Mr. Khalil's life," Lieberman added. "The court must release Mr. Khalil immediately and let him go home to his family in New York, where he belongs. Ideas are not illegal, and dissent is not grounds for deportation."
Samah Sisay of CCR reiterated those messages as the arrest video circulated on Friday, saying that "Mr. Khalil was taken by plainclothes DHS agents in front of his pregnant wife without any legal justification. Mr. Khalil must be freed because the government cannot use these coercive tactics to unlawfully suppress his First Amendment protected speech in support of Palestinian rights."
"Between his massive conflicts of interest across the healthcare sector and his endorsement of further privatizing Medicare, Oz would be a threat to the health of tens of millions of Americans," said one opponent.
Progressive watchdog organizations responded to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's Friday hearing for Dr. Mehmet Oz by again sounding the alarm about the heart surgeon and former television host nominated to lead a key federal healthcare agency.
Since President Donald Trump announced Oz as his nominee for administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last November, opponents have spotlighted the doctor's promotion of unproven products, investments in companies with interests in the federal agency, and support for expanding Medicare Advantage during an unsuccessful U.S. Senate run in 2022.
"Dr. Oz's career promoting dubious medical treatments and pseudoscience often for personal financial gain should immediately disqualify him from serving in any public health capacity, let alone in a top administration health post," Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk said in a Friday statement.
"Dr. Oz's nomination is part of President Trump's grand plan to enrich his corporate donors and wealthy friends while the rest of us get higher costs, less coverage, and weakened protections."
In December, Carrk's group found that based on disclosures from Oz's 2022 run against U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), the Republican doctor reported "up to $56 million in investments in three companies" with direct CMS interests—including Sharecare, which became the "exclusive in-home care supplemental benefit program" for 1.5 million Medicare Advantage enrollees.
A spokesperson said at the time that Oz has since divested from Sharecare. However, critics have still expressed concern about how the nominee's confirmation could boost Republican efforts to expand Medicare Advantage—health insurance plans for seniors administered by private companies rather than the government.
"As a self-interested advocate of privatizing Medicare at a higher cost and more denials of care for seniors, Dr. Oz is surely eager to enact the Trump-Republican budget plan to gut Medicare and Medicaid and jeopardize health coverage for millions of Americans—all to pay for more tax breaks for billionaires and price gouging corporations," said Carrk. "Dr. Oz's nomination is part of President Trump's grand plan to enrich his corporate donors and wealthy friends while the rest of us get higher costs, less coverage, and weakened protections—especially those with preexisting conditions."
As he faces Senate confirmation, remember that Dr. Oz: -Pushed Medicare privatization plans on his show -Owns ~$600k in stock in private insurers -Has ties to pyramid scheme companies that promote fake medical cures His main qualification to oversee CMS is loyalty to Trump.
— Robert Reich ( @rbreich.bsky.social) March 14, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, has been similarly critical of Oz, and remained so after senators questioned him on Friday, saying in a statement that "Mehmet Oz showed he is profoundly unqualified to lead any part of our healthcare system, let alone an agency as important as CMS."
"Between his massive conflicts of interest across the healthcare sector and his endorsement of further privatizing Medicare, Oz would be a threat to the health of tens of millions of Americans," Weissman warned. "Privatized Medicare Advantage plans deliver inferior care and cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion annually in excess costs."
"It is time for President Trump to put down the remote, stop finding nominees on television, and instead nominate people with actual experience and a belief in the importance of protecting crucial health programs like Medicare and Medicaid," he argued, taking aim at not only the president but also his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the conspiracy theorist now running the Department of Health and Human Services.
Weissman declared that "Trump, Musk, and RFK Jr. fail to put the American people first as they seek to gut agencies and make dangerous cuts to health programs to fund tax cuts for billionaires. Oz indicated he would not oppose such cuts, bringing more destruction to lifesaving programs. Oz has no place in government and should be roundly rejected by every senator."
During a Friday exchange with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the committee's ranking member, Oz refused to decisively commit to opposing cuts to Medicaid. As the Alliance for Retired Americans highlighted, Oz kept that up when given opportunities to revise his answer by Sens. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).
Other moments from the hearing that garnered attention included Oz's exchange with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) about Affordable Care Act tax credits and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) calling out the doctor for his unwillingness "to take accountability for" his "promotion of unproven snake oil remedies" to millions of TV viewers.
Betar—which the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League has blacklisted after comments like "not enough" babies were killed in Gaza—says it provided "thousands of names" for possible arrest and expulsion.
Betar, the international far-right pro-Israel group that took credit for the Department of Homeland Security's arrest of former Columbia University graduate student and permanent U.S. resident Mahmoud Khalil for protesting the annihilation of Gaza, claimed this week that it has sent "thousands of names" of Palestine defenders to Trump administration officials for possible deportation.
"Jihadis have no place in civilized nations," Betar said on social media Friday following the publication of a Guardian article on the extremist group's activities.
Earlier this week, Betar said: "We told you we have been working on deportations and will continue to do so. Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month. You heard it here first. Those who support jihad and intifada and originate in terrorist states will be sent back to those lands."
Betar has been gloating about last week's arrest of Khalil, the lead negotiator for the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest during the April 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
On Thursday, immigration officers arrested another Columbia Gaza protester, Leqaa Kordia—a Palestinian from the illegally occupied West Bank—for allegedly overstaying her expired student visa. Kordia was also arrested last April during one of the Columbia campus protests against the Gaza onslaught.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian doctoral student at Columbia whose visa was revoked on March 5 for alleged involvement "in activities supporting" Hamas—the Palestinian resistance group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government—used the Customs and Border Protection's self-deportation app and, according to media reports, has left the country.
Khalil and Kordia's arrests come as the Trump administration targets Columbia and other schools over pro-Palestinian protests under the guise of combating antisemitism, despite the Ivy League university's violent crackdown on demonstrations and revocation of degrees from some pro-Palestine activists.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who in January signed an executive order authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's war on Gaza, called Khalil's detention "the first arrest of many to come."
The Department of Justice announced Friday that it is investigating whether pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the school violated federal anti-terrorism laws. This followed Thursday's search of two Columbia dorm rooms by DHS agents and the cancellation earlier this month of $400 million worth of funding and contracts for Columbia because the Trump administration says university officials haven't done enough to tackle alleged antisemitism on campus.
On Friday, Betar named Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian studying philosophy at Columbia, as its next target.
Critics have voiced alarm about Betar's activities, pointing to the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League's recent designation of the organization as a hate group. Founded in 1923 by the early Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Betar has a long history of extremism. Its members—who included former Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin—took part in the Zionist terror campaign against Palestinian Arabs and British forces occupying Palestine in the 1940s.
Today, Betar supports Kahanism—a Jewish supremacist and apartheid movement named after Meir Kahane, an Orthodox rabbi convicted of terrorism before being assassinated in 1990—and is linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party. The group has called for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza. During Israel's assault on the coastal enclave, which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case, its account on the social media site X responded to the publication of a list of thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces by saying: "Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!"
Ross Glick, who led the U.S. chapter of Betar until last month, told The Guardian that he has met with bipartisan members of Congress who support the group's efforts, naming lawmakers including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.). Glick also claimed to have the support of "collaborators" who use artificial intelligence and facial recognition to help identify pro-Palestine activists. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department said it was launching an AI-powered "catch and revoke" program to cancel the visas of international students deemed supportive of Hamas.
Betar isn't alone in aggressively targeting Palestine defenders. The group Canary Mission—which said it is "delighted" about Khalil's "deserved consequences"—publishes an online database containing personal information about people it deems antisemitic, and this week released a video naming five other international students it says are "linked to campus extremism at Columbia."
Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia who was temporarily banned from campus last year after harassing university employees, and Columbia student David Lederer, have waged what Khalil called "a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign" against him and other activists.
Meanwhile, opponents of the Trump administration's crackdown on constitutionally protected protest rights have rallied in defense of Khalil and the First Amendment. Nearly 100 Jewish-led demonstrators were arrested Thursday during a protest in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City demanding Khalil's release.
"We know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent," said Sonya Meyerson-Knox, the communications director for Jewish Voice for Peace. "Come for one—face us all."