Storm clouds over Dan's Republic

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of those African nations that has yet to grow into its potential in the post-colonial era. There's a certain segment of old-school pinkos who lay the blame for this on the legacy of colonialism.

I blame Dan Gertler. Gertler is the international man of mystery who has done a really great job of enriching himself with a wide range of business activities in the DRC. In fact, Gertler's net worth after a couple of decades of wheeling and dealing in the Congo is greater than the country's GDP!

Then I read Alex Engwete's impassioned defense of Gertler, and maybe he has a point or two. The Gertlers of the world do bring something to the table, and I agree that notions of transparency transposed willy-nilly onto emerging economies fail to take into consideration the realities of doing business in that kind of environment. Successful developed economies all had their share of crooks, swindlers, scallywags and carpet-baggers make their contribution in the course of their evolution.

But Dan's fabulous Congolese adventure may be facing a dark future, and it's all got to do with players much bigger than him. As part of the long term Africom strategy to remake Africa as an American fiefdom, the M23 rebel army is rapidly making inroads in the country. That's a rebel army underwritten and directed by our erstwhile ally, Rwanda.

But Dan's a land-on-his-feet kind of guy. He's probably making deals with the M23 commanders already!

Bell tolls for Rwanda's President Kagame

The winds of change are swirling around Rwandan Pres Paul Kagame. He's still the favored house-boy of certain past-their-prime Western leaders like Bill Clinton and Phony Tony, but the jig is pretty much up.

Rwanda has been deep into stirring things up in the worlds longest running conflict next door, pretty much as long as that conflict has been running, and of course with the full connivance of the UK and the US.

But those pesky do-gooders at Amnesty and Human Rights International just refuse to leave well enough alone.

The bad press has been piling up, and a number of rich white donor states are cutting back on their "aid" to one of Black Africa's favorite good news stories.

Kagame, your time is up. Meet Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, that Colonel from Libya...

It's a long list.

You're only useful until you're not useful anymore.

AFRICOM caught with pants down

One of America's favorite allies in Africa, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, was singled out in a UN report last week for arming rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Among other things, our proxies have been accused of recruiting child soldiers and carrying out massacres and mass rapes.

Kagame has enjoyed friendly relations with the White House for many years, and has been a pet African leader of every administration going back to the Bill Clinton era.

So we are just shocked, appalled, stunned, etc. to hear these accusations. Who knew?

Hillary spokesperson Victoria Nuland laid it out straight away. "We are deeply concerned," she announced, and went on to say that if such goings on are ongoing, would Mr. Kagame please cut it out.

All this feigned surprise is a bit much. Here's a quote from the offical web-site of the US Army, circa 2009;

RDF spokesman Major Jill Rutaremara said the U.S. military and RDF share a robust military-to-military relationship.

"We have received training in a number of professional military institutions in the U.S., from our NCOs to cadets in school like West Point," Rutaremara said.

This was on the occassion of a visit to Rwanda by then AFRICOM boss General William Ward.

So the US Army has a "robust" relationship with the Rwandan Army, but nobody had any idea that the Rwandans have been stirring the pot in Congo all these years?

I'm thinking somebody's not telling the truth!