The world in 2035

I wish I could say the following article is the Sci-fi plot of a new novel: it is not. The future as envisioned by the Ministry of Defence below is highly probable. Much supporting evidence is listed under 'Related' at the end of the article for those who like research.

The question which begs to be asked is this: What sort of earth could we have created if we hadn't spent most of our money on War technology and Wealth accumulation?

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips.
A grim vision of the future

Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday 9 April 2007
Source
Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.

This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive".

The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed.

New weapons
An electromagnetic pulse will probably become operational by 2035 able to destroy all communications systems in a selected area or be used against a "world city" such as an international business service hub. The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organisms but not buildings "might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world". The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the "application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues". The "explicit use" of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.

Technology
By 2035, an implantable "information chip" could be wired directly to the brain. A growing pervasiveness of information communications technology will enable states, terrorists or criminals, to mobilise "flashmobs", challenging security forces to match this potential agility coupled with an ability to concentrate forces quickly in a small area.

Marxism
"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism".

Pressures leading to social unrest
By 2010 more than 50% of the world's population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and "new instability risks", and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. Globalisation may lead to levels of international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of violence.

Population and Resources
The global population is likely to grow to 8.5bn in 2035, with less developed countries accounting for 98% of that. Some 87% of people under the age of 25 live in the developing world. Demographic trends, which will exacerbate economic and social tensions, have serious implications for the environment - including the provision of clean water and other resources - and for international relations. The population of sub-Saharan Africa will increase over the period by 81%, and that of Middle Eastern countries by 132%.

The Middle East
The massive population growth will mean the Middle East, and to a lesser extent north Africa, will remain highly unstable, says the report. It singles out Saudi Arabia, the most lucrative market for British arms, with unemployment levels of 20% and a "youth bulge" in a state whose population has risen from 7 million to 27 million since 1980. "The expectations of growing numbers of young people [in the whole region] many of whom will be confronted by the prospect of endemic unemployment ... are unlikely to be met," says the report.

Islamic militancy
Resentment among young people in the face of unrepresentative regimes "will find outlets in political militancy, including radical political Islam whose concept of Umma, the global Islamic community, and resistance to capitalism may lie uneasily in an international system based on nation-states and global market forces", the report warns. The effects of such resentment will be expressed through the migration of youth populations and global communications, encouraging contacts between diaspora communities and their countries of origin.

Tension between the Islamic world and the west will remain, and may increasingly be targeted at China "whose new-found materialism, economic vibrancy, and institutionalised atheism, will be an anathema to orthodox Islam".

Iran
Iran will steadily grow in economic and demographic strength and its energy reserves and geographic location will give it substantial strategic leverage. However, its government could be transformed. "From the middle of the period," says the report, "the country, especially its high proportion of younger people, will want to benefit from increased access to globalisation and diversity, and it may be that Iran progressively, but unevenly, transforms...into a vibrant democracy."

Terrorism
Casualties and the amount of damage inflicted by terrorism will stay low compared to other forms of coercion and conflict. But acts of extreme violence, supported by elements within Islamist states, with media exploitation to maximise the impact of the "theatre of violence" will persist. A "terrorist coalition", the report says, including a wide range of reactionary and revolutionary rejectionists such as ultra-nationalists, religious groupings and even extreme environmentalists, might conduct a global campaign of greater intensity".

Climate change
There is "compelling evidence" to indicate that climate change is occurring and that the atmosphere will continue to warm at an unprecedented rate throughout the 21st century. It could lead to a reduction in north Atlantic salinity by increasing the freshwater runoff from the Arctic. This could affect the natural circulation of the north Atlantic by diminishing the warming effect of ocean currents on western Europe. "The drop in temperature might exceed that of the miniature ice age of the 17th and 18th centuries."

Related

Revolution in Military Affairs: From Computer Generated Insurgents to Bioelectric Implants

Big brother

Robotics

Civil liberties

Biometrics

The Rockefeller roots of the United Nations
Video

8 years in 8 minutes
Video. How we got here (ahem).

Robots, Overpopulation, War and Eejits like me

"You don't need a
weather vane to know
which way the wind blows."
-Bob Dylan

Reading and collating information on various subjects is what I do: like pieces of the jigsaw, they fall into place and at a certain point, an essential element of the bigger picture can be seen. The process is deductive in nature - that is, prying without trying to prove a pre-established proposition. All the issues mentioned here are documented and published in this blog.

For some time I have been gathering current information on

• starvation (food resources),
• war crimes (exactly how many people do die globally in one day from the actions of warmongers?),
• the progressive acceleration of technological advance (soon, technology will be able to double its capabilities in under a month as opposed to 900 years),
• the projected population in 21 years vis-a-vis the earth's ability to support so many people,
• advances in robotic technology for industrial and military use (by 2020, 30% of the US military will be robots),
  
• stem cell research (with the ability to repair bodies indefinitely),
• Big Brother (currently racing ahead with plans to monitor human units through DNA databases, implants and constant surveillance),
• strategies to divide the resources of Africa among the Big Dogs
• the nuclear arms race
• the identities of the Masters of the Universe and their plans for the rest of us
  
• and the emergence of the One World economic system.

But what does it all mean? The reading is tedious and depressing to say the least, and if I allow myself to get lost in the tragedy of it all (which sometimes happens), it would seem the best thing that could happen to earth would be a meteor that destroys the planet; or alternately, a shifting of the poles. Perhaps my idea of 'good' would not survive; but, neither would the 'evil' I see.

I wish to comment on the problem of overpopulation as it relates to the above subject matter.

Several questions occur to me:

• If I had enormous power in the form of money, military resources, and international influence, would I allow the population of earth to grow at such a rate as to deplete the resources so none would survive? Wouldn't it be a good idea to reduce the population of the planet?
• If the military (of the US in this case) is to be 30% robotic in eleven years, doesn't this mean that fewer people will be necessary?
• If robotics are to become the future of manufacturing, won't there be fewer jobs for people globally? Won't fewer people be necessary?
  
• If stem cell research can regenerate tissue and extend lifespans indefinitely, who should receive this treatment and how many will be sustainable? And how many will not?
  
• Why are we creating more weapons of mass destruction (including biological warfare) than we are investing in methods of sustainable survival? Who has decided this?
  
• Why is it necessary for the USA federal government to legally demand DNA samples from all newborns?
• Why do the Rothschild's (and other Big Dog families) insist on genetic engineering for the superiority of their offspring over the rest of humanity?

My answer to all these questions would require a detailed paper on each issue and still would not scratch the surface. Not to worry. "You don't need a weather vane to know which way the wind blows." The proposition which occurs to me is both simple and easily explained without volumes of didactic sludge - the population of earth must be culled.

Is this harsh? In nature, how does an imbalance of one species correct itself? Either reproductive cycles are altered to match existing resources (See Jared Diamond, 'Why sex is fun.'), or the species becomes extinct eventually from starvation or disease. This explanation is given regularly by hunters who claim they are doing nature a favor in keeping the predator/food ratio in check; the reader has probably heard this rationale many times. Shooting a deer is much kinder than letting it starve to death.

With less jobs, less income and less food, many people will fall into the category of the righteously hunted (and culled) for the benefit of the balance of 'nature'. I suggest that this is the direction in which the political objectives of the major powers are leading us. One way or the other, the population growth of earth will need not only to be stabilised for the technological advances in our future, but perhaps reduced.

Already in China, there is a 2 child maximum, a comprehensive population control program based on demographic predictions, which rewards those alive with housing, education, employment and medical care by preventing an excessive birth rate which would deprive all through causing unsolvable problems of social infrastructure and resource allocation.

Let us take the issue of my cats: if I were to allow them to breed indiscriminately and produce up to 24 kittens per year, I would soon be overrun with cats and unable to feed them. Most likely, without my protection and help, the kittens would be eaten by foxes, minks and various animals with a taste for small prey. Well, in a sense, this is letting nature take its course. But is not nature cruel? I prefer to have my cats fixed: that eliminates the 24 kittens who may be eaten alive so that nature can balance itself out. This is the option China has implemented and which seems quite reasonable and humane to me.

On the other hand, if my cats were not pets, but a food source as in some countries, I would want to breed as many as I need to satisfy my needs for consumption. This is in fact what we do with pigs, cows, chickens and other animals humans we find tasty and useful. Thinking of sentient pets as a food commodity may be disorienting but a habit we are well inured with through the ages.

The problem is....ratio of humans to required resources: traditionally dealt with through commodity breeding and selective genetic improvements of an animal. I suggest this is the solution that is most logical and the one that has occurred, long ago, to the Masters of the Universe, for humans as well. This is not rocket science - just plain common sense. Try these facts: Three Earth Day Doozies

Considering the topics of reading mentioned here already, and the questions such readings have suggested, a cull of human beings will of necessity occur within the next 15 years, if not through starvation and lack of employment, then perhaps from warfare and disease: scarcity has a way of naturally eliminating those who are not able to outperform others. It is in the best interest of the survivors to carefully control the genetic pool of the remaining population, as well as establishing 'functions' which serve the survival of the genetically superior.

It's not a pretty picture; but, it is inevitable that population control (and perhaps culling) are of major significance in the political and economic strategies of major world powers today. In the West, however, such ideas are heresy of the highest order to those who still think they live in a democracy and have rights. Russia is the exception - with a declining birth rate.

So one last question: If what I say here has any semblance of reason, how do you think you and your family will fare in the cull of the next decade?

Related
Fatal Flaw

Spoils of Africa: the price of the pie

I remember when I was a poor student, young, with stars in my eyes and the mysteries of life devouring all my waking thoughts, I would often walk at night in the neighbourhood I was lucky enough in which to rent a small flat. Often I would stand on the pavement and wonder about the people inside the lighted houses with drawn curtains: would they mind if a stranger just came in to call on them; if I rang their bell and was hungry, would they offer me their leftovers from dinner; if my heart was broken and I needed some simple human comfort, would I be welcomed, or turned away as a threat in the night?

Over these many years, I have found an answer of sorts. What people do not know about, they are frightened of. The milk of human kindness flows from very few souls; fear is our master. What we do not know about, not only do we not care about, but we also fear.

The recent manipulation of the world's population of 'terrorism' seems to play upon just such a basic tendency in people. The machinations of Oiligarchies in the Mideast are beyond understanding now for all but those who are willing to dedicate themselves to its study.

However, there is one battleground which is up and coming which we do have a chance to at least understand without fear: the fight for oil and resources in Africa and the human cost of this to Africans.

It is impossible for Western nations to understand the realities of African people. Safe, and well supplied with our daily needs, the thought of desperation felt by those who have no water, no food, no infrastructure for health care or even productive lifestyles are far, far away for most of us. I can do nothing about most of the problems in the world; but, I can be aware of them.

For those who are willing to learn about this, I have posted the following articles. The information therein can perhaps give us a perspective to at least understand the problems others are facing. If we are to value empathy as human beings, it must begin with awareness; and awareness begins with learning.

I hope these articles will be of help; I have selected them carefully, as well as the urls that follow.

I do not wish to live in a world where self-interest and fear is the dominant characteristic of life. I can only start at the beginning. And that is by learning about and respecting the suffering of others, whatever the causes may be. I am not more deserving because I live in a place of plenty; but I am luckier.

The first article posted can be found here. Others follow immediately, and I shall add to this collection as time goes by.

A World Playground: Congolese People Sacrificed for International Games and Profits

by Roxanne Stasyszyn
Global Research
November 7, 2008
She wore a light blue headscarf, like most of the women at this camp for internally displaced people (IDPs). They were given out to the Congolese people, along with baseball caps for the men, during the presidential elections of 2006. On it is pictures of president Kabila and the slogan: bonne gouvernance—“good governance”— in French.

Yet all Venansia Habimana, a displaced woman in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), had to say was that she wished her government would create peace. She said it was promised to them during that campaign, and she wanted to return to her home.

“To be here is to miss what you do, but we all need to be safe,” Habimana said to a single white journalist in a square wood frame no larger than a port-a-potty, covered with blue and white United Nations tarps. Habimana spoke to the journalist in 2007, before the recent wave of fighting forced additional hundreds of thousands of people to flee.

Homeless and income-less, people at the camps lived uncomfortably. There was little space, diets were unbalanced, and there was no way to work or occupy them each day. IDPs are unwelcome in surrounding communities where they try to rebuild a life. They are ostracized for fear they will take the few jobs available and, most depressing to them, they are forced to pay extortionate fees to bury friends and family that die at the camp.

Given the heightened hostilities—and the permanent state of war that has devastated millions of Congolese lives over the past two years alone—Habimana is probably now listed among the unnamed and soon-to-be-forgotten dead.

Safari Majune was an IDP representative elected by the others. He said that while people longed to return to their own land, the biggest problem was that there is not enough food for everyone at the camp. Famine and malnutrition, coupled with malaria and tuberculosis, means high death rates. More than 1000 people have daily died in Eastern Congo for over a decade now and there have been over 1,000,000 IDPs in the North Kivu region alone, for years.

Majune is one of many who, in 2007, had been at the IDP camp for over a year, and another human being likely to become a meaningless statistic in the long, bloody war in Congo.

This camp was in Rutshuru, just outside the “safety zone” designated by the United Nations Observers Mission in Congo (MONUC). There were over 4,250 children, men and women at the one camp in 2007. They lived in banana leaf domes that look like small, brown, camping tents.

With IDPs crowded and scratching at the UN tarps to see the white “mazungu,” hoping to talk to her or to get some food or money, Habimana told her story. It is an all too familiar story for IDP women all over Eastern Congo. A week earlier she had been walking on foot to her village near the border of Uganda, about 24 kilometers (11 miles) away.

“I have been looking for food and I met some soldiers and they took me,” she said. “They were four but only two raped me.”

Habimana claimed her attackers were government troops, the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, called FARDC. After some time, she said, she regained enough strength and walked to the road where people found her and helped her back to the camp. Once she arrived, others helped her find enough money to pay for a motorcycle taxi to the hospital. There they gave her medication and instructions to return once the medication was done to test for infections, like HIV/AIDS. She was still taking the medication when she spoke and said she worried that the soldiers who raped her were infected.

The camp in Rutshuru was one of three in a 15 km radius according to Bruno Matsundo, director of the non-profit Centre of Intervention, Social Promotion and Partner Participation (CIPSOPA), a non-government organization (NGO) that was coordinating the three camps.

Everyone in the Rutshuru area and in the main border town with Rwanda, called Goma, speaks about the rights to home, land and—more than anything—a stable country to live in.

Latest reports say the insecurity has reached unproportional heights. Most of the villagers and IDPs from this Rutshuru region have recently flooded into Goma—walking on foot, carrying what they can. Meanwhile the former “safety zone” demarcated by MONUC has disintegrated.

The Indian UN forces within Goma are doing little to prevent murders and pillages now happening in the city. Rwandan rebel rockets destroyed two MONUC armored vehicles on October 26, wounding several peacekeepers. There have been talks of MONUC abandoning the region completely and a recently appointed MONUC commander— Lieutenant General Vicente Diaz de Villegas y Herreria of Spain—resigned after only three weeks of duty.

Hell on Earth
For people not already living there, Eastern Congo is a place almost unreachable and, according to many, even less desirable to arrive in. Most international news reporters describe Goma as “Hell on earth.”

The people who do reach Goma tend to fit into four main categories.

First, there are rich businesspersons and the aid organization types who circulate to and from Europe and America, back and forth between the big business offices in capital cities like Kinshasa (DRC), Nairobi (Kenya), Kampala (Uganda) and Kigali (Rwanda). The businesspersons are involved in minerals, aviation, timber, petroleum, weaponry and other international commerce.

Then there are the poor, displaced people who walk the dangerous and dense forests from Uganda, Burundi or Rwanda, fleeing one unsafe and impoverished situation for another.

Third come the passport-stamp seeking Western tourists that brag at cafes and Traveler’s Lodges in Kigali and Kampala about how they crossed the border and spent an afternoon in the “Heart of Darkness.”

Last are the journalists and human rights activists who chat with local people and try to find the most bloated belly for a photo opportunity.

Goma is the eastern “capital” of the DRC and is a drastic change from Rwanda’s border resort town, Gisenyi. After the volcanic eruption in 2002 the city is black and dirty, and everywhere is covered in volcanic rock—except for the big hotels, restaurants and expatriate houses on the shore of Lake Kivu. Most buildings in town were incinerated. Some were salvaged but the original second floor is now the first, sitting on the black charred-rock ground where hot lava flowed through the house.

Goma is in the province of North Kivu and is highly patrolled by MONUC forces in Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) and jeeps mounted with machine-guns. An old colonial building stands in the centre of town as MONUC’s hospital. Walking past the hospital is a part of daily life for most people in the town. They see the high walls, laced with barbed wire and sand bag lookouts on top of each corner. A gun barrel pokes out from the stacks of sandbags and a camouflage hat pokes out from above; only MONUC personnel are allowed in.

United Nations tanks patrol Goma today due to the recent military thrust where Rwandan-backed rebels threatened to take the city. The locals are unhappy with the United Nations forces—and aware of the minimal protection offered by the MONUC peacekeepers—and have repeatedly protested by hurling rocks at APCs and secure UN compounds.

Because of geography and economics, the eastern border provinces of North Kivu, Orientale and South Kivu have direct influence over all the DRC. They are full of militia, minerals, AID workers and wildlife conservation professionals, and starving refugees.

Whomever you ask, the main problem for the DRC is the same: too many influences from too many exterior countries. They all have big guns and little care for the people trying to live there. While all agree on the problem, everyone blames someone else and no one takes responsibility. The highly paid foreign professionals won’t say anything on the record, but they all admit to the obvious contradictions.

The main players are Rwanda, Uganda, MONUC and the United Nations (with countless international partners), and North American and European humanitarian organizations. But it isn’t as simple as pointing to one of these. They are all intertwined with the ethnically fueled militia groups and big business from the USA, Europe and China.

Vital Katembo is a Congolese socialite and conservation professional who lived for years in Goma and has worked for the United Nations Development Program and, until recently, for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN). Katembo knows whom you need to know if you want to push through the constant conspiracy mill, and, most importantly, if you want to keep yourself alive. He points to Rwanda and humanitarian aid organizations for the continuing strife of the DRC, especially in the mineral-rich east.

“I have seen massive humanitarian interventions. I will not say that they have done much or are doing much. It is difficult to define who is deciding their agenda,” Katembo argues. Katembo has seen many of the biggest humanitarian, human rights and relief groups come and go from the DRC, and the former Zaire, through many political transitions, always working with each new man in power.

He points out that many organizations have been here over 15 years now, and he questions their efficiency, if nothing else, asking how they can still be dealing with an emergency. For him, the reasoning seems pure logic, “having the chaos also allows them to have the jobs, and they [humanitarian aid organizations] will do whatever they can to keep it going. They are the masters of the chaos. I have never seen an assessment of what is achieved,” he summarizes.

Vital Katembo offered this insight in Goma in 2007 but soon afterwards he was fired from ICCN, threatened, forced to run for his life and go into hiding after openly denouncing international humanitarian organizations operating in Eastern Congo.

Humanitarian aid in the eastern Congo provinces is an octopus whose tentacles reach far and wide. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) serves to “mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors.” This is according to their mission statement, which hangs opposite a wall of cubbyhole mailboxes in the front office in Goma.

Nestor Yombo-Djema, Senior Liaison Officer with OCHA, explained that OCHA coordinates 126 organizations, including 10 United Nations agencies and 50 international NGOs, and scores of donor, state and national NGOs. OCHA also works with Congolese governmental officials and donors.

Even with all of this AID infrastructure, poverty, malnutrition and human rights abuses run rampant—not to mention the permanent state of war and millions of internally displaced people, half of which are in North Kivu, according to OCHA’s 2007 Humanitarian Action Plan. And that was produced before the waves of fighting that displaced an additional 143,000 people in October 2007, and the additional hundreds of thousands displaced in 2008.

By mid-October 2007, some 500,000 to 1.2 million people were internally displaced in Eastern Congo; with 33,000 newly displaced Congolese people fleeing North Kivu on October 25. Ugandan military had forcibly occupied parts of Orientale Province, while a militia highly suspected of being supported by Rwanda was fighting FARDC troops in North Kivu. On October 25 last year, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon issued a statement of “deep concern” citing “surging sexual violence and a hike in the number of civilians uprooted due to fighting.”

One year and hundreds of thousands of dead people later—things have only gotten worse.

The 2007 OCHA budget, alone, was $US 686,591,107, “roughly the same level as in 2006,” with an additional $40,000,000 infusion announced by MONUC in October 2007. The final 2008 budget for the World Food Program in DRC was $426,878,043, with 56% of all food resources designated for North Kivu.

Developing Inefficiency
Kisangani is a town just north west of Goma in the province of Orientale. It is where Jean Dupont (name changed to protect his career as an international consultant) worked from 2003 to 2005. For 11 months of that time, he worked for Chemonics International Inc, an American company that helps donors define and implement programs; the biggest Chemonics client, when he was with them, was USAID.

Dupont talks about his experience with Chemonics as a reality check to what humanitarian work really is. “Before going, you think: people give $100 and that one hundred dollars goes to someone, somewhere, to make them happy. And that’s not the way it happens.”

Dupont sheds some light on why so many humanitarian organizations in DRC—and it is the same in most of Africa—develop nothing much more than inefficiency, waste and a small profit.

He sympathizes with the fact that Africa may be poor, but it is not cheap. Workers and companies expect to be paid well if they are to perform well. The constant reality of people—local and expatriate—putting money in their own pockets is also an element.

But in many situations, where money isn’t a heavy constraint, like with the wealthy USAID, the biggest difficulty is ineffective and inappropriate programming.

Humanitarian work has put itself in a trap, Dupont explains. “We were forced to do crappy projects to show we were spending money,” he says. Spending money to get more money, funding allocations in general, and underlying politics are the problems Dupont experienced and witnessed with the humanitarian sector in the DRC.

He mentions one large project with USAID in October of 2004. The idea was to rehabilitate some student housing in Kisangani and it was assigned by USAID after student uprisings and politically motivated protests. It was one political party using students to pressure another, as Dupont puts it. He says, building decent housing for the students was USAID’s way of intervening in political actions.

“My colleagues and I were trying to point out…it wasn’t the best way…to buy students,” Dupont recounts. “What USAID proposed was not good but we had to say yes, because it is their money in the end.”

The plans for construction ran as proposed. Dupont still thinks about why the students would agree to be instruments of the party, but the answer to questions like these are never that uplifting. “If I only knew, it would have been possible to do something about it,” he exhales. That would be true humanitarian work.

“Still, there is some good stuff,” Dupont attempts to reassure. “It’s not all bad.”

He mentions a railway project he worked on with USAID and many other organizations, including the UN, in 2004. Dupont explains it was a fabulous local project to rehabilitate 137 kms of railway and infrastructure through the jungle between two major cities.

Dupont says that when the international organizations got involved, people who had been working without pay for many years were happy to be rebuilding transportation and taking home a salary.

“People were really working to develop something,” but Dupont’s enthusiasm stays curt when admitting the project was still very political. He recounts how the governor of the area and the Belgian Ambassador made a ceremonious launch of the new railway; days later the real participants cut the ribbon without a camera crew.

The railway rehabilitation was one of 26 projects Dupont did with Chemonics and was part of very few that he felt okay about doing. For the most part he says, “the projects were not what I want to do as a humanitarian professional.”

The President of the North Kivu Civil Society, Thomas d’Aquin Muiti, laughed when recounting a list of international initiatives that were inefficient, to say the least.

“There are NGOs that come here with preconceived projects that don’t meet the problems here. One NGO came and built houses for pygmies and the pygmies would not enter the houses. They slept against the walls outside,” chuckles Muiti. “They [NGOs] bring bicycles and they [Congolese] sell them straight away because it does not meet their needs.”

Muiti also stresses that international NGOs do not build things to last: they come, implement a project, and leave. Accountable to no one, “capacity building” is the latest catch phrase most organizations use to sell proposals and win grants.

Local NGOs have problems too, he assures. Either they lack the finances or are unable to manage them. Many projects and organizations are developed after the cheque arrives and little happens except the opening, and draining, of a bank account.

HEAL Africa is an example of humanitarian aide actually working. HEAL Africa was developed by Jo and Lynn Lucy, a Congolese orthopedic surgeon and a British project manager who have been living in the DRC for 36 years.

Beginning as “DOCS,” a medical and surgical training initiative in 1995, HEAL Africa soon expanded and engaged in social and community health as well as physical.

One of its biggest projects is fistula surgery, a restoration procedure for women that repairs tears and holes in the vaginal wall, bladder or uterus. Symptoms are mainly the inability to prevent leaking of urine or bile—conditions that led to ostracization from the community.

The cause of such damage is usually only one of two things: childbirth in poor conditions, or a traumatic and violent sexual encounter, mainly rape. When the surgery first became a specialty of the expanding HEAL Africa mission, 80% of the cases were a result of rape, and most of these are due to the many militaries operating in Eastern Congo.

Either way, the women have been ousted from their communities and, fortunately, they have made it to a HEAL Africa facility. Over 1000 of these surgeries were completed by 2003 and in 2007, there were over 120 women still waiting for their turn. The main hospital compound in Goma is overflowing. Emergency, makeshift UNHCR tents are bursting with women. Across the street is a whole other compound with two, single floor buildings packed with women who have had the surgery and are recovering or waiting for a second attempt on the damage that is just too severe.

As well, there is an apartment compound outside of town full with women, post-surgery, who are unable to return to their communities for fear of social stigma or insecurity.

The fistula surgeries performed at HEAL Africa are such a success, not because of pure numbers alone, but also because of the well-rounded approach taken. Women are given counselling, job training and a small amount of economic support before leaving.

HEAL Africa is one of few triumphs in an overflowing pool of unsuccessful and inefficient humanitarian aid.

You Are A Rwandan Now
More people complain about the huge, international non-government organizations (NGOs) perpetuating the naivety of rushed, unstudied and ill-developed programs than they do about the smaller NGOs who generally have fewer resources to work with. Because the scale is larger, the consequences are much more severe.

Along the lakeside in Goma is the compound for the UN initiative for Disarmament, Demobilisation, Repatriation, Reinstallation and Reinsertion (DDRRR). It is set up exactly like an army base with toweled soldiers walking around, shaving their chins. Directly on the right, through the security gates, is a group of tents where everything happens. The DDRRR has been a massive project to disarm and reintegrate soldiers.

“This is a transit hotel,” explains Ramone, the official in charge who requested his full name not be used. “We’re basically just a taxi here, in a difficult area; in a politically sensitive atmosphere.”

He says the calls usually come at night or on a market day when it is easiest for soldiers to escape. A small team jumps in an armored vehicle and picks up whoever has run away from their militia group. The project responds to the high rate of kidnapping of men and boys for forced labour and combat with rebel groups; they deal mostly with child soldiers.
“All the raping, killing, stealing, burning houses, that’s what we deal with. You know that movie Blood Diamond, the part where they get the boy near the end?” Ramone asks. “That’s what I do.”

Every Tuesday and Friday, all the deserters and escapees are driven to the Rwandan side of the border for 6-8 weeks of training, “where all these ‘rebels’ become officially Rwandese again,” mocks Ramone.

He speaks bluntly and honestly about the promotional propaganda for Rwanda and the UN that the DDRRR is committed to through leaflets, filmed interviews and the United Nation’s radio network, Radio Okapi.

But Ramone jokes about the main concern. Many times these ‘rebels’ that are put through DDRRR training and receive Rwandan citizenship certificates were recruited or kidnapped at young ages and from places outside Rwanda. Many by forces like the Democratic Forces of the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the group reportedly containing original members of the Interahamwe militia who are continually accused of perpetrating genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It is widely confirmed that FDLR cooperate with both Rwandan rebels and FARDC forces in the plunder of Congo’s resources.

When put back into Rwanda, Ramone says, these escapees are assured safety by the Rwandese government, but are not welcomed back into the country socially.

Forced repatriation contradicts international law and invites gross human rights abuses. Further violating international law, in this case, forced returnees were sometimes never Rwandan patriots to begin with.

Eighteen year-old Emmanuel Sebuhinja was taken by force after living for five years as an orphan in the North Kivu town of Walikale. He spent a year hauling baggage, cooking and fetching water for the Mai Mai militia, a long-standing Congolese militia that fights against foreign influences and soldiers in Congo. The Mai Mai consider Rwanda to be their main problem.

Each time Sebuhinja tried to escape he was beaten. After one such attempt, he and four others were beat so badly three died; he and the other survivor were sentenced. When the soldiers left to fight, shortly after, he escaped into the forest and eventually made it back to Walikale.

Picking up money from a friend, he moved on, walking alone and only at night to Karuba, in the next province. It was here he thought he could finally carry on with his life. Instead, he encountered soldiers of another militia, General Laurent Nkunda’s men.

“They took my money and clothes and everything I had,” Sebuhinja says. “After that, UNHCR took me here.”

Sebuhinja says he is Rwandan but fled to the Congo, in 1994, when he was 13 years old. He considers that he grew up in Congo and while he says he does want to go to Rwanda, he doesn’t know anyone there, and all of his family has died or was killed.

“I am afraid of going there because I don’t know what will happen there. I have no family. I don’t know how I shall be living in Rwanda,” Sebuhinja says rationally. His voice quickens and raises when he adds that he was never a soldier, he never fought or shot a gun, but the UNHCR wrote that he did on their list when they picked him up, despite his objections.

“UNHCR told me even if I just touched a gun for a second, I am a soldier,” he cried. “If in Rwanda they think I was a soldier before, it will be dangerous for me.”

Another escapee was from General Laurent Nkunda’s group. He was the only boy who refused to say anything and even denied his affiliation to General Nkunda.

Nkunda is one of the key men in the DRC right now. He is affiliated with everything that is causing any disturbance: he is the leader of a militia that rebelled against the Congo government’s FARDC, later agreeing to create a half mixed brigade with them, causing only more confusion and conflict. As if by design, it wasn’t long before the mixed brigades dissolved completely.

Most people believe Rwanda backs him and, behind them, many international actors including powerful groups from the United States. It is said that Nkunda even boasts the born-again Christian patch he wears on his fatigues as a badge of solidarity with President Bush and many other American Christians.

Even Human Rights Watch—historically biased in favor of the current Rwanda government—has reported that General Nkunda is backed by Rwanda. Nkunda also recruits soldiers, both children and adults, from Rwanda. These recruits also turn up later amongst the many Nkunda deserters.

Though Nkunda’s Rwandan affiliation has yet to be officially admitted it is drawn on tribal lines. He is a Congolese Tutsi, known widely as Banyamulenge (in South Kivu) or Rwandaphones (people who speak KinyaRwanda). His sympathizers, mainly Congolese or Rwandan Tutsi, recite the narrative of his only wish to bring his parents from a hard life in refugee camps to a secure plot of land in Congo; a supposed promise from President Kabila.

Nkunda is seen as the main threat by MONUC and the main cause of insecurity in eastern DRC, but MONUC has made no effort to drive out the Nkunda insurgency. He is also situated in and around the most potent mines and mineral deposits in the country.

Rebel troops led by Nkunda took the town of Rutshuru on October 28, 2008, and by October 29, 2008, Nkunda’s forces had stopped their military advance just short of Goma, where Nkunda announced a unilateral ceasefire. The rebels announced they would take Goma in the next few days. Goma is home to more than 500,000 people, including scores of thousands of people displaced by earlier fighting.

With the massive atrocities committed during the advances of Nkunda’s army, hundreds of thousands of people are newly displaced, inside Congo and out, to Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.

The Thinner the Nose, the Smarter the Man
In Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, Ignatius Rwiyemaho Kabagambe was the Managing Director of The New Times in 2007, the only English speaking and daily newspaper in the country, owned and run by the state. He is also a first cousin with President Paul Kagame.

The oppression that Rwandaphones face in Congo from Congolese citizens and organized groups like the Mai Mai is very real and well known; Kabagambe admits that they would be treated differently in Rwanda than other nationals.

“They are brothers and we feel for them. We would accept them as Congolese with Rwandese origin,” he explains, pointing out their physical and cultural likeness. He talked around the details of his cousin; President Paul Kagame’s support for Nkunda, admitting only that moral support is extended from his country, Rwanda.

The region of Eastern Congo is a perfect example of colonial lines being drawn arbitrarily through ancient ethnographic zones. Tribes were divided by colonial powers into what are now Eastern Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. All the while assigning foreign law and deciding rights, colonizers continued to move these lines according to papers signed in Europe.

Dieudonne Amani is a 24 year-old Rwandaphone who has felt the lasting consequences of arbitrary colonial rule. The problem, he explains, is that Rwandaphones are not accepted as true Congolese and are ostracized within the DRC because they are the same tribe and culture as those congregated mainly in Rwanda. Yet Rwanda, he claims, also rejects them. They are people without a homeland, claims Amani, who are systemically persecuted by the Congolese government, by militia groups and by Rwanda.

“There are people sent by the authorities to investigate people’s origin,” he says. “Rwandaphones are a minority, non-Rwandaphones are majority. They wish to please the majority.”

The reason why other tribes do not like Rwandaphones, Amani claims, is a mixture of sculpted modern political mind and envy.

“I think Hutus are not as educated as Tutsi. If Hutus are not educated it is not the fault of Tutsi or anyone else, it is because they are stupid,” Amani says boldly. “For 34 years they had control of their country (Rwanda), what were they doing? Tutsi refugee’s sent their children to be educated. People say Tutsi are just as intelligent as the white man,” Amani pontificated with his index finger jutting into the air.

These claims are extreme and, in parts, ignorant of colonial leaderships’ structuring of education and employment systems along tribal lines, favouring Tutsis. Unfortunately, this argument of Tutsi being better managerially with money, government and development is heard often, repeated even by international expatriates. It is an explanation used commonly to justify and explain Rwanda’s post-1994 transformation to an international business port of Africa, and it ignores important facts, like Rwanda’s militarism and exploitation of Congo.

Modeste Makabuza Ngoga is a very powerful man in Goma. Officially, he is the director general of Jambo Safari, a company that claims to take white foreigners gorilla trekking. Complete with airport access, Jambo Safari looks like a cover-up for Makabuza’s minerals dealings in Eastern DRC—perhaps the most volatile and rich mineral trade arena in the world.

Makabuza is also a Rwandaphone who shares Mr. Amani’s arguments about persecution. Both stand in strong support of Laurent Nkunda, claiming him as good representation for their kind and cause. Also like Amani, Makabuza preaches ancient and historical tribal and colonial history to explain divine-like rights and tribal division. As well, his argument gets politically dense the closer it comes to the present situation. Claims like President Kabila having agreements with the French government to arm and support the Interahamwe and the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), to sustain them and keep them killing Tutsis. He claims that Kabila was elected by the white man and is the bad guy in the situation for not withholding his promise to Nkunda of bringing Nkunda’s family to Congo.

The General and His Labyrinthe
“Kabila asked Nkunda to help him with war. Nkunda made the deal so his parents in refugee camps in Rwanda could come live in the hills. Kabila broke his promise,” Makabuza retells. “All Nkunda wants is his family to stop starving in refugee camps and come here. I am happy Nkunda is there with the same face [as me] but I am not alright with everything he is doing.”

The reason Makabuza withholds support for everything Nkunda does is because it is bad for business.

Nkunda has control over vast mining territories in North Kivu, including the Lueshe mine, just outside of Rutshuru, which he uses as a rear base for his soldiers. Powerful officials in the surrounding area reinforce Nkunda’s control. For example, Nkunda occupies the main area in Masisi province, just south of the mine, and his cronies run the town of Rutshuru. Soloman Nkujima, chief of the town Kiwanja—just outside the mine—was with Nkunda before settling there and is still a senior manager of Nkunda’s party, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP).

In 2007 Makabuza assured the Lueshe mine was not working. It’s pyrochlore and ferro-niobium cannot be refined in Africa due to lack of adequate technology, he insists. But even if it was possible, he argues that he cannot sell it, thanks to the western nickname of blood mineral.

“It’s called blood minerals because governments say when rebel soldiers are on the hill [Lueshe mine], it means you are financing them,” Makabuza details his business woes while drawing his fingers across the wooden top of his office desk. “When they produce pyrochlore they want to sell it in the international market but no one will buy it because it is called blood minerals.”

“Minerals are all over the world and all over the world people put guns to other peoples’ heads for those minerals, but only in Africa do they nickname them blood minerals,” claims Makabuza.

His final shot goes to the ‘white man’ and the inequality he claims he, as an African, will always face in the international market no matter what mineral he has in his hand. He says calling something a ‘blood mineral’ only worsens the problem because it prevents Africans from making money equally. Instead, it is taken under the table by the white man who then reaps the profits.

Makabuza is right when he says mineral sales are dependant on the international market. Nowhere in Africa are the products of such minerals enjoyed: MRI machines, home and leisure electronics like cell phones, DVD players, stereos, video games, mP3 players, eye glasses, heat resistant materials, jet engines, stainless steel, some medicines, aerospace and defense products, nanotechnology, communications, and biotechnological applications. It is an understatement to say that the minerals of North and South Kivu—niobium, tantalum, ferro-niobium, cassiterite and coltan—are in high demand internationally. Whoever controls the Kivu provinces controls the potential of more money and influence than some of the wealthiest countries, combined.

The company that controls the Lueshe niobium mines is the Mineral Society of Kivu (SOMIKIVU), a company formed in 1982 between the German company GfE Nuremberg (Gesellschaft fuer Elektrometallurgie GmbH) and the former Republic of Zaire (former name of the DRC). Since then, names have been changed and the agreement redrafted. GfE Nuremberg owns 70% of SOMIKIVU, but ownership is disputed because the company was not drafted with the current DRC government.

Lueshe mine is one of only three niobium mines in the world—in Brazil, Canada and DRC (Lueshe)—and it is intentionally kept closed to artificially induce “scarcity.” All three niobium deposits are controlled by a company named Arraxa, owned by the U.S. company Metallurg Inc. of New York: GfE Nuremberg is a 100% subsidiary. Metallurg Inc. is itself a subsidiary of Mettalurg Holdings of Pennsylvania—one of many companies in the investment portfolio of Safeguard International Investment Fund of Philadelphia (PA), Frankfurt and Paris.

“It is a very big mine, the potential of it is huge,” said David Bensusan, a European and Rwandan based minerals trader and past C.E.O. of Eurotrade International, in a 2007 interview. Bensusan refuted the idea that the Germans are keeping Lueshe closed to control the prices. “It is closed because there is an argument of who owns it and it’s in an area where the fighting is taking place. The issue is security.”

Professor Kisangani, the vice governor of North Kivu, explains eastern Congo’s mineral trafficking situation through the analogy of an unhappy child. He expresses that Congolese nationals were historically upset and began illegitimate international trade (mostly with weaponry and minerals). A ‘window’ or ‘open door’ into the country and it’s minerals was completely broken off with these unhappy children of the DRC and the Congolese wars, from 1996 to present, involving Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Libya, Tanzania, Burundi, South Africa and Angola, at least, with Western powers allied with or behind these.

“It’s mostly hearsay, nobody can give a truthful account of what happened,” David Bensusan looks back to what is considered the actual time of war, despite the fact it has continued on. The Congo was obviously raped of its raw materials, he adds. That element took Bensusan to a much lower note as he warned of the volatile state Eastern DRC was in. “It’s sliding back into a major war. It needs to be developed. I think the way is through minerals, but it needs to be done properly.”

The suggestion that no one can give a truthful account of what happened mirrors the western media’s perpetual obfuscation of the realities in Congo: while the people involved are easily named, and while many remain active in plundering Congo today, the decades of exploitation (1960-1996) prior to the current era of perpetual warfare are always dismissed with the invocation of a single word: Mobutu. The suggestion of full sovereignty and control of the mineral wealth of the DRC is one that many share, however. Mainly Congolese people, including Vital Katembo.

Professor Kisangani’s analogy of unhappy children soon turns into “mafia” and rebel militias who are still climbing in the open doors and windows. “And those people are supported by other people in the world, who can give them guns to trouble our country,” Kisangani says.

Diplomatic relations is the answer, he urges, mentioning that the DRC is trying to control the traffic of its minerals and make money off them. The problem he says, is that slipping through the window and door is easier.

Vice Governor Kisangani is confidant that if the government had the means, the situation could be controlled. “They are hungry and not strong enough,” he says of the DRC military forces and government. “Rich countries are supporting guys in the forest [militias], but they could intervene and tell armies and MONUC to leave.”

There are over 100,000 FARDC soldiers that need paychecks and too many managers and generals who loot. He says there is no way to pay them all, and therefore command them all.

And yet the Democratic Republic of Congo has the world’s purest and largest deposits of strategic minerals, including gold, coltan, niobium, cobalt, heterogenite, columbite (columbium-tantalite or coltan), copper and iron. Heterogenite exports coming out of Congo are alone valued at between $260 million (at $20/lb.) and $408 million (at $30/lb.) every month. That’s between 3.1 and 4.9 billion dollars a year. Diamonds account for another billion dollars annually. Oil has been pumping off the Atlantic Coast for decades, but now oil and gas deposits are being exploited from the great lakes border region—Lake Kivu (methane gas) and Lake Albert (oil)—and deep in the province of Equateur. And then there are the dark rainforest woods that sell by the thousands monthly for around $6000 to $12000 per log.

Without getting paid—unless looting and raping can be considered a paycheck, which they are—FARDC soldiers are still extremely patriotic. The Congolese soldiers—quick to be blamed by international experts, NGOs and western media—are also the victims of a rapacious international commerce that has descended on Congo.

“I love my country. I must protect my country, from all forces that can aggress my country,” said Major Chicko Tshitambue of FARDC’s “Charlie Brigade.”

“The fighting here in the East is just to protect the leadership in Rwanda,” said Chicko. “I think Nkunda is told by Rwanda. But Nkunda is a small man, he can’t do anything. He’s afraid of Major Chicko.”

Chicko ended his monologue of national pride, hubris and international intimidation by resting his pumping fists and writing his email address and, beneath this, the words: “Mercenary/Private Military => contact.” Chicko wants to be a mercenary and he imagined the white journalist he was talking to could make it all happen. (Nothing of the whereabouts or status of Major Chicko has been heard since the journalist departed Congo.)

The sad part is that Major Chicko would be better off fighting for a private militia company, meaning he would make more money at the very least. Mercenaries in Africa and especially the DRC are the most successful and efficient international organizations running. According to Vital Katembo, MONUC is one of the least efficient.

“They are a part of the whole game: no chaos equals no jobs. They have all the military skills but some have been advising those in the bush; they are helping Nkunda,” Katembo says.

While these allegations have not been proven, MONUC’s track record does not sit well with the Congolese people.

M’Hande Ladjouzi was once the chief of office for MONUC in North Kivu. Two members of the Civil Society, including president Thomas d’Aquin Muiti and a current employee of MONUC (who wishes to remain unnamed) who was already working there while Ladjouzi was, confirmed the rumours.

“It was at the level of conflict with Rwanda and the FDLR,” began Muiti. It is said Ladjouzi had a Rwandan girlfriend. Whether he actually had a girlfriend of Rwandese origin is unimportant. The term is slang: Rwandan interests were reportedly bribing Ladjouzi.

When the Civil Society approached MONUC with reports and testimony of Rwandese soldiers committing atrocities on Congolese people, Ladjouzi turned them away and sent reports to headquarters in Kinshasa that the allegations were untrue. After much lobbying by the North Kivu Civil Society, the UN eventually moved Ladjouzi to Kinshasa.

MONUC’s record continues to be stained. “We have met one soldier of MONUC that violated a young girl,” says Muiti. The Civil Society asked to take him to court in France and, according to Muiti, they did. But there are numerous other allegations that MONUC officials, both civilians and soldiers, have raped Congolese women.

MONUC’s media relations office also released press clippings reporting scandal from the Pakistani battalion of MONUC in the Orientale province. It reports soldiers trading guns for gold with militia leaders.

In May 2007 angry villagers in Kanyola, South Kivu, attacked UN officials and MONUC troops who arrived after at least 18 villagers were massacred. “There were barricades on the roads. There were angry crowds. Kids were throwing stones. They had to make a U-turn,” said one U.N. official, who asked not to be identified.

On October 2008, civilians in Goma and other places attacked MONUC troops and UN compounds; there are credible reports that MONUC troops shot and killed some civilians. Many civilian protests against the MONUC mission, and the MONUC retaliations, occur out of sight and without any media reporting.

Most every Congolese citizen will agree that the reason for the instability in Congo is the international influence within their borders. Some point their finger at mineral trafficking. Some point to tribal and historical ‘facts’. Others, like Vital Katembo, claim it is obvious that people are doing harm when they are not achieving what they claim to work for—speaking of the humanitarian aid and conservation sectors—especially when they have the needed resources to accomplish their missions.

No matter where you point your finger or for what reason, the DRC is an international playground filled with extremely dangerous toys and irresponsible playmates. Many times, knowing where to point is simply based on how dangerous it is to point that way.

Roxy Stasyszyn is a Canadian journalist who has worked in Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She also writes a blog for “Make Poverty History Canada,” where commentary and insights about her work in Congo can also be found .

Related:

Photos of the Congo you will never forget

Spectacular photos of Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa

Zimbabwe video, Dec 6 2008


A Framework for Action on Water and Sanitation

Harare diary: 'Too much to take'

The Spoils of Africa

The Cholera time bomb

Water riots - South Africa

We are on our own; but we are together

Inkani is a short film which follows the riots in Durban South Africa over water and sanitation facilities. A piece of the puzzle in understanding Africa is beautifully given here, one that makes sense of the many other difficult aspects to understand about South Africa, for myself anyway. Umlazi info

Durban: The Third Force

by S'bu Zikode Friday, Nov. 18, 2005 at 10:08 AM The shack dwellers' movement that has given hope to thousands of people in Durban is always being accused of being part of the Third Force. In newspapers and in all kinds of meetings this is said over and over again. They even waste money investigating the Third Force. We need to address this question of the Third Force so that people don't become confused.

I must warn those comrades, government officials, politicians and intellectuals who speak about the Third Force that they have no idea what they are talking about. They are too high to really feel what we feel. They always want to talk for us and about us but they must allow us to talk about our lives and our struggles.

We need to get things clear. There definitely is a Third Force. The question is what is it and who is part of the Third Force? Well, I am Third Force myself. The Third Force is all the pain and the suffering that the poor are subjected to every second in our lives. The shack dwellers have many things to say about the Third Force. It is time for us to speak out and to say this is who we are, this is where we are and this how we live. The life that we are living makes our communities the Third Force. Most of us are not working and have to spend all day struggling for small money. AIDS is worse in the shack settlements than anywhere else. Without proper houses, water, electricity, refuse removal and toilets all kinds of diseases breed. The causes are clearly visible and every Dick, Tom and Harry can understand. Our bodies itch every day because of the insects. If it is raining everything is wet - blankets and floors. If it is hot the mosquitoes and flies are always there. There is no holiday in the shacks. When the evening comes - it is always a challenge. The night is supposed to be for relaxing and getting rest. But it doesn't happen like that in the jondolos. People stay awake worrying about their lives. You must see how big the rats are that will run across the small babies in the night. You must see how people have to sleep under the bridges when it rains because their floors are so wet. The rain comes right inside people's houses. Some people just stand up all night.

But poverty is not just suffering. It threatens us with death every day. We have seen how dangerous being poor is. In the Kennedy Road settlement we have seen how Mhlengi Khumalo, a one year old child, died in a shack fire last month. Seven others have died in fires since the eThekwini Metro decided to stop providing electricity to informal settlements. There are many Mhlengis all over our country. Poverty even threatens people in flats. In Bayview, in Chatsworth, a woman died of hunger earlier this year - she was fearing to tell the neighbours that she had no food and she died, alone.

Those in power are blind to our suffering. This is because they have not seen what we see, they have not felt what we are feeling every second, every day. My appeal is that leaders who are concerned about peoples' lives must come and stay at least one week in the jondolos. They must feel the mud. They must share 6 toilets with 6 000 people. They must dispose of their own refuse while living next to the dump. They must come with us while we look for work. They must chase away the rats and keep the children from knocking the candles. They must care for the sick when there are long queues for the tap. They must have a turn to explain to the children why they can't attend the Technical College down the hill. They must be there when we bury our children who have passed on in the fires, from diarrhoea or AIDS.

For us the most important struggle is to be recognised as human beings. During the struggle prior to 1994 there were only two levels, two classes - the rich and the poor. Now after the election there are three classes - the poor, the middle class and the rich. The poor have been isolated from the middle class. We are becoming more poor and the rest are becoming more rich. We are on our own. We are completely on our own.

Our President Mbeki speaks politics - our Premier Ndebele, and Shilowa in Gauteng and Rasool in the Western Cape, our Mayor Mlaba and mayors all over the country speak politics. But who will speak about the genuine issues that affect the people every day - water, electricity, education, land, housing? We thought local government would minimise politics and focus on what people need but it all becomes politics.

We discovered that our municipality does not listen to us when we speak to them in Zulu. We tried English. Now we realise that they won't understood Xhosa or Sotho either. The only language that they understand is when we put thousands of people on the street. We have seen the results of this and we have been encouraged. It works very well. It is the only tool that we have to emancipate our people. Why should we stop it?

We have matured in our suffering. We had a programme to find a way forward. Our programme was to continue with the peaceful negotiations with the authorities that first started ten years ago. But our first plan was undermined. We were lied to. We had to come up with an alternative plan.

The 16th of February 2005 was the dawn of our struggle. On that day the Kennedy Road committee had a very successful meeting with the chair of the housing portfolio of the executive committee of the municipality, the director of housing and the ward councillor. They all promised us the vacant land on the Clare Estate for housing. The land on Elf Road was one of the identified areas. But then we were betrayed by the most trusted people in our city. Just one month later, without any warning or explanation, bulldozers began digging the land. People were excited. They went to see what was happening and were shocked to be told that a brick factory was being built there. More people went down to see. There were so many of us that we were blocking the road. The man building the factory called the police and our local councillor, a man put into power by our votes and holding our trust and hopes. The councillor told the police "Arrest these people they are criminals." The police beat us, their dogs bit us and they arrested 14 of us. We asked what happened to the promised land. We were told "Who the hell are you people to demand this land?" This betrayal mobilised the people. The people who betrayed us are responsible for this movement. Those people are the second force.

Our movement started with 14 arrests - we called them the 14 heroes. Now we have 14 settlements united together as abahlali base mjondolo [shack dwellers]. Each settlement meets once a week and the leaders of all the settlements meet once a week. We are prepared to talk but if that doesn't work we are prepared to use our strength. We will do what ever it costs us to get what we need to live safely.

We have learnt from our experience that when you want to achieve what you want, when you want to achieve what is legitimate by peaceful negotiations, by humbleness, by respecting those in authority your plea becomes criminal. You will be deceived for more than ten years, you will be fooled and undermined. This is why we have resorted to the streets. When we stand there in our thousands we are taken seriously.

The struggle that started in Kennedy Road was the beginning of a new era. We are aware of the strategies that the police are coming with to demoralise and threaten the poor. We don't mind them building the jails for us and hiring more security if they are not prepared to listen to what we are saying. It is important for every shack dwellers to know that we are aware of what is happening in Alexander in Johannesburg, in P.E., in Cape Town. We know that our struggle is not by itself. We have sent our solidarity. We will not rest in peace until there is justice for the poor - not only in Kennedy Road there are many Kennedy Roads, many Mhlengis, many poor voices that are not heard and not understood. But we have discovered the language that works. We will stick with it. The victims have spoken. We have said enough is enough.

It must be clear that this is not a political game. This movement is a kind of social tool by which the community hopes to get quicker results. This has nothing to do with politics or parties. Our members are part of every political organisation that you may think of. This is a non political movement. It will finish its job when land and housing, electricity and basic services have been won and poverty eliminated. It is enough for us to be united until our people have achieved what is wanted - which is basic. But until that is materialised we will never stop.

The community has realised that voting for parties has not brought any change to us - especially at the level of local government elections. We can see some important changes at national level but at local level who ever wins the elections will be challenged by us. We have been betrayed by our own elected councillor. We have decided not to vote. The campaign that has begun - 'No Land, No House, No Vote', is a campaign that has been agreed upon in all 14 settlements.

We are driven by the Third Force, the suffering of the poor. Our betrayers are the Second Force. The First Force was our struggle against apartheid. The Third Force will stop when the Fourth Force comes. The Fourth Force is land, housing, water, electricity, health care, education and work. We are only asking what is basic - not what is luxurious. This is the struggle of the poor. The time has come for the poor to show themselves that we can be poor in life but not in mind.

For us time has been a very good teacher. People have realised so many things. We have learnt from the past - we have suffered alone. That pain and suffering has taught us a lot. We have begun to realise that we are not supposed to be living under these conditions. There has been a dawn of democracy for the poor. No one else would have told us - neither our elected leaders nor any officials would have told us what we are entitled to. Even the Freedom Charter is only good in theory. It has nothing to do with the ordinary lives of poor. It doesn't help us. It is the thinking of the masses of the people that matters. We have noted that our country is rich. More airports are being built, there are more developments at the Point water front, more stadiums are being renovated, more money is floating around, even being lent to Mugabe. But when you ask for what is basic you are told that there is no money. It is clear that there is no money for the poor. The money is for the rich. We have come to the decision of saying 'enough is enough.' We all agree that something must be done.

S'bu Zikode is the elected Chairman of the abahlali base mjondolo [Shack dwellers] movement which currently includes 14 settlements in Durban and will march on Mayor Obed Mlaba on 14 November. [This march was later banned and violence unleashed on abahlali base mjondolo members when they tried to march from Foreman Road]

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