Skip to main content

Kuwait Compensated $50 Billion For Iraq Crimes: When Will Congo Be Paid For Rwanda's And Uganda's Wars of Aggression?


  
 
NRA Cares More About Gun Industry Profits Than Children's Lives
These merchants of murderous munitions care more about their profit-margin than the deaths of innocent people—even children; just collateral damage as far as they're concerned. The NRA's worry here for the gun merchants' bottom line is evidenced by the specious statements NRA... Full Story

ADVERTISEMENT

 

Recent Comments

BSN does not necessarily support or endorse view points expressed throughout this site.

 
 ADVERTISEMENT

Kuwait Compensated $50 Billion For Iraq Crimes: When Will Congo Be Paid For Rwanda's And Uganda's Wars of Aggression?

Black Star News Editorial

01-30-13

 
 
 
Rwanda's Gen. Paul Kagame. If UN does the right thing his country and neighbor Uganda may have to dig deep to compensate Congolese
   
 
email it!
print it!
pdf it!
XML VERSION
 
 
3.5 / 5 (3 Votes)
 
 

 [Black Star News Editorial] 
 
Part One in a special series on the war of aggression against Congo 


A recent news Associated Press update didn't make the front-pages of The New York Timesbut every Congolese citizen and victims of wars of aggression everywhere need to pay attention to it. 

Saddam Hussein is long dead and buried but the United Nations makes sure that Iraq still pays for the crimes committed by his armed forces when he invaded Kuwait in 1990. 

As The Associated Press reported on January 24: "The U.N. panel that settles claims for damages from victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait has paid out another $1.3 billion — bringing the total so far to $40.1 billion." 

The report adds, "The U.N. Compensation Commission did not disclose the identities of the claimants on Thursday but said the money goes toward settling two claims for damages to Kuwait's oil fields, as well as production and sales losses. The Geneva-based commission was established by the U.N. Security Council in 1991 and is funded by a 5 percent tax on the export of Iraqi oil."
  
The report concludes: "It has approved $52.4 billion in total compensation to more than 100 governments and international organizations, and makes payments every three months." 

The Democratic Republic of Congo has been the victim of several invasions and genocidal wars of aggression from Uganda and Rwanda dating back to 1997. The most recent war of aggression just ended recently when President Barack Obama telephoned Rwanda's President Gen. Paul Kagame and told him to stop supporting M23.  

In reality, M23 is a cover for Rwanda's and Uganda's invasion of Congo. The United Nations' Group of Experts report found that Rwanda's regular army soldiers marched alongside M23 fighters when it seized the Congo city of Goma, where war crimes were committed and reported my major media including The New York Times. The BBC reported that the invasion force carried off $1 million in cash from the Central bank in Goma. 

Separately, Human Rights Watch reported that M23, whose chain of command as the United Nations reported lead to Rwanda's Defense Minister James Kabarebe  , carried out "widespread war crimes." 

Already in 2005, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Uganda liable for what amounted to war crimes, including massacres and plunder of Congo's resources and agreed with Kinshasa's claim of $10 billion.  Later, as reported in The Wall Street Journal   on June 8, 2006, Uganda's President Gen. YoweriMuseveni urged then United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to block a separate ICC investigation for criminal liability against Uganda's political and military leadership which would include Museveni himself. The general didn't want to end up being indicted like the Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir eventually was in 2008.

So, in addition to $10 billion dating from 2005, Congo is owed potentially billions more as a result of the crimes committed since then by its unfriendly neighbors Uganda and Rwanda. And as far back as 2000, the United Nations had already recommended that Congolese businesses were entitled to compensation from Uganda and Rwanda. 

Both Uganda and Rwanda have been supported by the U.S. for many years.

Where are Congo's best lawyers and other international lawyers with conscience who can extend helping hands to Congo's victims of aggression similar to Kuwait's 1990 victims? 


"Speaking Truth To Empower."



 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Le Rwanda au Mozambique : qui les a placés là, pourquoi ils ne peuvent pas rester et pourquoi la SADC doit les remplacer avant que les dégâts ne deviennent permanents

  Qui a placé le Rwanda là-bas, pourquoi la France refuse de le remplacer, comment le déploiement est devenu un bouclier contre les sanctions, et pourquoi la SADC doit agir avant que les dégâts ne deviennent permanents Mars 2026   Résumé exécutif Les sanctions occidentales contre les Forces de Défense du Rwanda (RDF), imposées par les États-Unis le 2 mars 2026 en vertu du Global Magnitsky Act et relayées par une pression croissante de l'Union européenne, ont mis à nu une contradiction stratégique de premier ordre. La même force militaire sanctionnée pour son soutien opérationnel direct au groupe rebelle M23 en République démocratique du Congo est simultanément le principal garant sécuritaire d'un projet de gaz naturel liquéfié (GNL) de 20 milliards de dollars exploité par le géant français TotalEnergies à Cabo Delgado, dans le nord du Mozambique. Cette analyse répond à trois questions interconnectées dont les réponses définissent ...

Pourquoi les sanctions américaines ne fonctionnent pas contre le Rwanda

Pourquoi Paul Kagame a ignoré les sanctions américaines et la Résolution 2773 du Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU Entre février 2025 et mars 2026, le Trésor américain a imposé deux séries de sanctions ciblant directement la machine de guerre du Rwanda dans l'est du Congo : d'abord James Kabarebe, ministre d'État rwandais et principal intermédiaire du régime auprès du M23, puis les Forces de défense rwandaises en tant qu'entité, ainsi que quatre de leurs hauts responsables. Chacun des individus sanctionnés est demeuré en poste. Les FDR ne se sont pas retirées. Cette analyse examine pourquoi les mesures de Washington n'ont pas modifié la conduite du Rwanda — et pourquoi, selon les propres mots de Kagame, elles sont rejetées comme l'Å“uvre des « simplement stupides ».     Introduction : des sanctions sans conséquence La campagne de sanctions de Washington contre les opérations militaires du Rwanda dans l'est du Congo s'...

The Killing of Karine Buisset. RDF/M23 Responsible in Any Scenario.

The Killing of Karine Buisset in Goma: Rwanda's Occupation, a Drone Strike, and the Long Pattern of Targeted Violence In the early hours of Wednesday, 11 March 2026, a drone struck a two-storey residential building in the Himbi neighbourhood of Goma, a city held by Rwanda-backed RDF/M23 rebels since January 2025. Karine Buisset, a 54-year-old French national from Belz in Morbihan and a UNICEF child protection officer, was sleeping in the apartment of Christine Guinot, UNICEF's head of security in the DRC, who was not present that night. Buisset died at the scene. Two other people were also killed. By 4:12 a.m., a second wave of strikes had hit the city. RDF/M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka attributed the drone attack to the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC), describing it as a "combat drone" strike and a "terrorist attack" on civilian areas. France's President Emmanuel Macron confirmed Buisset's death on...

BBC News

Africanews

UNDP - Africa Job Vacancies

How We Made It In Africa – Insight into business in Africa

Migration Policy Institute