White savior John Prendergast tells the world what’s best for Congo and Rwanda now
by Ann Garrison
KPFA Evening News, broadcast Nov. 2, 2013
KPFA Evening News Anchor Sharon Sobotta: This week the Congolese army, backed by the U.N. Force Intervention Brigade, was widely reported to be driving the last of Rwanda’s M23 militia from their positions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s most war ravaged province, North Kivu, on eastern Congo’s border with Rwanda.
At the same time, Western elites stepped forward to tell the world what’s best for Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo now. John Prendergast, former national security advisor under Bill Clinton and co-founder of the ENOUGH Project, who is commonly delegated to put forth the global elite plan, wrote a CNN opinion piece titled, “Rwanda the key to Congo’s peace,” which has topped Google Search headlines for the past several days. KPFA’s Ann Garrison has more.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: John Prendergast wrote, in “Rwanda the key to Congo’s peace,” that once M23 is no longer waging war in the Kivus, Rwanda can become the Singapore of Africa, meaning the corporate gateway to the resource wealth of the Congo, as Singapore is the corporate gateway to the resource wealth of Malaysia and Indonesia. Rwanda’s exemplary infrastructure, meaning the infrastructure of its capital city, Kigali, he argued, qualifies it to become the corporate gateway to the Congo.Critics of this longstanding plan have pointed out that Singapore is an authoritarian spy state, as is Rwanda, and that last year it crushed its first labor strike in 26 years – in two days time.
In 2010, when imprisoned Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire was able to speak to KPFA, she said that she was attempting to stand for the presidency against sitting President Paul Kagame and in opposition to the Singapore development model, which deprived Rwanda’s majority rural population for the sake of its modern capital, Kigali:
Victoire Ingabire: The rural population in Rwanda has been neglected for the last 16 years and, instead of the Singapore model of development, which gives the lion’s share to a tiny, urban privileged elite, I would invest in agriculture, I would invest in rural roads and health network, I would review the land management and I would give priority to the subsistence food crop, rather than cash crops which benefit mostly to traders from urban areas. For example, ask people to cultivate only maize – if you ask them to cultivate only maize for export – but what they will eat? This is why I will give priority to enough food to my people.
“The rural population in Rwanda has been neglected for the last 16 years and, instead of the Singapore model of development, which gives the lion’s share to a tiny, urban privileged elite, I would invest in agriculture, I would invest in rural roads and health network, I would review the land management and I would give priority to the subsistence food crop, rather than cash crops which benefit mostly to traders from urban areas. For example, ask people to cultivate only maize – if you ask them to cultivate only maize for export – but what they will eat? This is why I will give priority to enough food to my people.” – Victoire Ingabire, speaking on KPFA in 2010
KPFA: Elite spokesperson John Prendergast also praises post-conflict Angola, where some of the greatest oil wealth on the African continent is extracted by multinational oil giants and what remains is concentrated in a very few hands, mostly those of President José Eduardo dos Santos, while most Angolans, like most Rwandans, remain very poor.
In response to Prendergast’s proposal that Rwanda now become the corporate gateway to the Congo, Ugandan Black Star News Editor Milton Allimadi asked, “And what about 6 to 10 million dead Rwandans and Congolese, after Rwanda and Uganda’s 17-year war in Congo?” Mining researcher David Van Wyk said that Prendergast talked like a rapist who wanted to use Rwanda as a gateway to penetrate and ravage Congo.
For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.
Update Nov. 3, 2013: Since this KPFA Radio News report was broadcast on Nov. 2, 2013, it has been widely reported that DR Congo refused M23’s offer of a ceasefire and return to Kampala talks and said they would keep fighting until M23 agreed to disarm, disband and re-enter civilian life. The global elite plan to make Rwanda a Singapore-like gateway to Congo, as articulated by John Prendergast, remains the same.
Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website atanngarrison.com.
Source: http://sfbayview.com
