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Sim1776's avatar

My understanding is it's largely a resource grab by Rwanda. The President of the DRC recently offered up natural resources if Trump would send US troops (a far better deal than the Ukraine bullshit imo). This will probably be treated like the Hutus and Tutsi; ignored because it's just Africans.

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Leon Brown, Jr.'s avatar

Highly informative. The bottom line is that, as has historically been the case, the bloody and deadly intra-African conflicts are ultimately facilitated and exploited in the interest of the never-ending diabolical policies of massive resource extraction by western countries, resulting in wars, disease, displacement, starvation and death for the African people. It's a despicable reality.

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Alan Hodge's avatar

Thank you. Well worth the watch time. Saddened by the depth of my ignorance on the subject.

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MrMickeysMom's avatar

Then, I join you in that only temporary sadness, as we are both saved of further ignorance by our friend, OB.

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Raveen's avatar

To hell with all these exploitative paramilitary groups in this region....and by extension, to hell with their foreign backers as well whose main aim is to steal those nations' natural resources! Colonialism just takes on another form.

I really feel for the average civilians who simply want peace and a fair government.

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MrMickeysMom's avatar

Apparently, we're not that evolved yet. We don't understand that the living planet we infest has more than enough for all, but all keeps getting in the way of "we".

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Raveen's avatar

We sure don't learn from our mistakes and are frustratingly slow to evolve!

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The Anti-Gnostic's avatar

Is this supposed to make me not like Rwanda? The DRC is a colonial-era construct and it's too big for the DRC's central government to administered. Paul Kagame's Tutsis seem like much more capable administrators, and they actually planned how to be a serious country.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

That was not my intention. I don't know enough to sit here in my armchair and pass judgement on Rwanda or the DRC. I do know that in the Berlin Conference when the European powers drew the borders in Africa they didn't give a shit about where which tribe or language group lived, and that imperial bullshit has been causing problems ever since.

Very profitable problems for some. The greater the instability, the easier it is for some of them to go in and extract all that mineral wealth. The Rwandan government is definitely guilty of that(36% of American imports of tantalum come from Rwanda, but Rwanda doesn't have that much of it--eastern Congo does), but no more so than many others.

The Tutsis could have done unto the Hutus what the Hutus had done to them, but they didn't. I honor them for that, and I can't argue with you about which country is better administered FOR SURE. Kagame did agree to a ceasefire. I do not know how much control he really has over the M23 rebels, but in an area that big, it can't be absolute.

I am not suggesting Rwanda immediately broke their own ceasefire. I have no evidence to make such a claim.

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The Anti-Gnostic's avatar

Hopefully Rwanda isn't like Syria, with all the eggs in the basket of a single nuclear family.

I think Africa has to be stable first, and then we can write the rulebook.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

I know Kagame’s popularity comes from putting an end to the genocide there. I have no knowledge about internal Rwandan politics now.

I also don’t know how to stabilize Africa without dismantling the US Empire first.

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The Anti-Gnostic's avatar

Stable Africa probably also means five hundred million less Africans. I have no answers.

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