Rwanda accuses the DRC of funding a Congo-based, mainly Hutu rebel group that includes fighters who were involved in the 1994 genocide. And this recent post from what looks like a Rwandan government-run Instagram page gives the impression that Rwanda has adopted a defensive posture amid renewed genocidal threats to Tutsis.

But there is another narrative. Kinshasa has long accused Kigali of plundering its resources by supporting the M23 rebel group in the east of the DRC.

Evidence presented by the UN suggests that Ugandan and Rwandan-backed rebel factions, including M23, control strategic smuggling networks running from mines in eastern Congo into Rwanda and Uganda - from where they are exported into the world’s supply chains. This would explain how Rwanda has become one of the world’s biggest coltan exporters, despite having few producing mines of its own.

Continued….Congo's potential, like most of Africa's, is immense. It is extraordinarily rich in natural resources, which has led to exploitation rather than wealth for Congolese people. The country has everything that the rest of the planet needs for the future - one of the highest reserves of mineral ore, thousands of square kilometers of fertile land and the second-largest rainforest in the world. However, competition for resources and influence in DRC has also heightened long-standing national rivalries in the Great Lakes Region.

So is Rwanda's alleged involvement in the Congo really about self-defence, like the pro-Rwanda Instagram account wants us to believe? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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VIJAY PRASHAD ON CONGO

A city of two million is under threat of seizure by armed rebels, with thousands abandoning their homes for fear of the genocidal violence that may be unleashed, yet the world’s media - barely bats an eyelid.

As Indian scholar and Marxist intellectual Vijay Prashad points out in this video plea, it’s shocking how the people of Goma - and of eastern DRC generally - are simply being left to their fate. Other conflicts like Ukraine and Gaza grab headlines and mobilise political will, but the Congolese conflict - into its third decade - fails to move Western audiences, never mind the 7 million internally displaced, the 6 million killed, the fact that half the population has no access to clean water and more still none to electricity.

Continued….The ongoing conflict has been dubbed ‘Africa’s World War.’ It’s seen the pillage of Congo’s precious resources, such as coltan, gold, copper, timber, diamonds and cobalt (which is used in batteries for global tech giants like Apple and Tesla). Could that be why the conflict is so under-reported?

The plight of Congo should not be forgotten. Please share Prashad’s video plea. Africa and the world rise up!

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BLACK HAIR? NO EDUCATION FOR YOU!

A court in Texas has ruled that a local high school was within the law by excluding a Black student for not cutting his hair, as per school rules. Barbers Hill high school actually sued Darryl George, a junior there, to make their point. He claims that by law his hairstyle should not be discriminated against - citing the recently-passed Crown Act, which protects certain styles and textures, such as Afros, locs, Bantu knots and twists. George has locs which he wears up and twisted. But the school argued in court that hair length is not covered by the law and won.

What do you think of a Black youth’s education being denied in this way?

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PT. 2: ASSANGE IN DANGER & PUTIN ON WSJ REPORTER

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is facing 175 years in a US maximum security prison. His crime? Doing precisely what Western establishments were demanding former FOX News host Tucker Carlson do in his recent interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin: Ask the tough questions and speak truth to power.

African Stream journalists delved into Carlson’s sit-down with Putin, discussing how it exposes Western double standards when it comes to press freedom. While accusing Putin of wrongfully jailing a US journalist, they conveniently ignore calls to free Assange, who exposed US and UK war crimes through leaks.

Continued…..Assange, 52 and in poor health, made a last-ditch attempt to appeal an extradition to the United States through a two-day hearing held 20-21 February 2024 at the UK High Court in London. If the appeal fails, the Australian citizen would be the first publisher to be tried under the US Espionage Act.

Watch the entire reaction video on our YouTube channel. If you support Assange, let us know why in the comments.

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IS ISRAEL A DEMOCRACY OR THEOCRACY ?

During an interview on BBC HARDtalk, renowned Egyptian-American comedian, Bassem Youssef, questions Zionism and the notion that Jews are God’s chosen people. While calling out these religious-political ideas being deployed as justification for Israelis to steal Palestinian land and build their own settlements, he also discusses the paradox of Israel’s very identity, on one hand describing itself as a secular state and on the other a religious Jewish one.

In the UK and US, a lot has been made of the protest chant “from the river to the sea.” Critics describe it as being “anti-semitic” and pro-Hamas. However, Youssef explains why it is not Islamic-inspired at all. In fact, the mantra was coined by the right-wing Israeli Likud Party who claimed the land between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan river as part of the Jewish state of Israel. Give it a thought and let us know your thoughts

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FRANCE BACKS MOROCCO CLAIM ON WESTERN SAHARA

Three years after the US government recognised Moroccan claims over Western Sahara in exchange for Morocco normalising—or accepting—relations with Israel, France is following suit.

French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné was in Rabat, where he announced his country’s support for Morocco’s autonomy proposal for Western Sahara. This undermines a United Nations resolution that calls for a referendum to decide the territory’s fate. That could be independence, autonomy or integration with Morocco. So far, a referendum has yet to be held.

Continued….Morocco occupies more than 80 per cent of Western Sahara, with the Polisario Front-led Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic controlling the rest. After colonial power Spain exited in 1975, 350,000 Moroccan civilians marched across the border to later illegally settle in the disputed territory. After this ‘Green March,’ Rabat invaded Western Sahara.

Under Occupied Western Sahara’s sands lie phosphate, crucial for fertiliser production. Thus, Morocco controls 75 per cent of the global phosphate reserve. Meanwhile, Western Sahara’s 1,110-kilometre coast contains plentiful fish and offshore oil and gas resources. Western renewable energy companies, such as Siemens and Enel, and the Moroccan king’s energy company, Nareva, already operate wind farms there.

Given the African Union remains silent, how do you think the Sahrawi people—and all Africans—should address this issue? Let us know in the comments.

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PRO-PALESTINE ACTIVISTS MEMORIALISE AARON BUSHNELL

Pro-Palestine activists burned an Israeli flag on 26 February outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, USA, while playing the final audio recording of US airman Aaron Bushnell, who set himself on fire at the same spot to protest the US-backed Israeli military assault on the Gaza Strip.

One activist said, ‘This is in solidarity with Aaron, who burned his body. At the very least, we can burn the Z*onist flag.’

Bushnell, 25, said he would be ‘no longer complicit in genocide’ before proceeding to set himself alight, describing it as an ‘extreme act of protest.’ This is not the first instance in which self-immolation has been used as a form of protest. In 1963, Buddhist monks set themselves on fire to protest the US-backed South Vietnamese government.

Continued….In 1965, three US anti-war activists did the same in Detroit, New York and Washington to protest the US war on Vietnam. Decades later, Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation sparked the Arab Spring, a wave of uprisings in Arab states in the early 2010s.

On 26 January, the International Court of Justice said Tel Aviv’s acts were plausibly genocidal. But, it stopped short of ordering an immediate ceasefire, which South Africa had sought in bringing the case. Meanwhile, Israel has continued its operation to allegedly root out H*m*s militants from the Gaza Strip. Since the 7 October escalation in the 75-year conflict, the United States has supplied Israel with munitions, including large ‘bunker buster’ bombs designed to penetrate hardened structures and underground targets. The attacks have killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians and displaced 1.9 million, accounting for 80 per cent of the enclave’s population.

What do you think of Bushnell’s self-immolation? Let us know in the comments.

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On 27 February 1978, South African freedom fighter and pan-African intellectual, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe passed away. By the time of his death he had made a profound and lasting impression on the struggle against apartheid.

Sobukwe was born on 5 December 1924, in a Black township on the outskirts of the town of Graaff-Reinet in today’s Eastern Cape province. After a childhood marked by academic excellence, he enrolled at Fort Hare University in 1947, an institution whose alumni included many anti-colonial icons such Robert Mugabe, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela.

Like many before him, it was at Fort Hare that Sobukwe's revolutionary flame was lit. Becoming a key figure on the university political scene, he’d serve as the president of the Students Representative Council and Secretary in the newly-formed African National Congress Youth League.

Continued….After University, Sobukwe briefly taught as a high school teacher before landing a job in the African Studies department at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg.

In 1958, Sobukwe led members of the ANC who, disgruntled by the party’s “liberal-left-multiracialist’ policies, ceded from the organization and formed the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC).

On 21 March 1960, Sobukwe led thousands of citizens in a march to Orlando police station in Soweto in protest against the so-called “pass law”, which restricted the movement of Black people. In the aftermath of the demonstrations, Sobukwe was arrested and later sentenced to a three year prison term.

After completing the prison sentence, Sobukwe was again detained under the so-called General Law Amendment Act which allowed apartheid authorities to prolong the imprisonment of any political prisoner indefinitely. The law became infamously known as the ‘Sobukwe clause.’

In 1969, Sobukwe was released from prison and subsequently banished to Kimberly in the Northern Cape province where he was placed under 12-hour house arrest and restricted from engaging in political activities.

While in Kimberly he fell ill with lung cancer. Restrictions imposed on his movement complicated his attempts to receive timely medical care. He succumbed to the disease on 27 February 1978.

PT. 2: GRENADA’S REVOLUTIONARY SCHOOLS

In part two of African Stream’s series on Grenada’s revolution, we continue looking at how transforming education helped shape the socio-political landscape from 1979 to 1983.

In 1980, all teachers met to analyse education, leading to a new curriculum and sparking the revolution’s other programmes: The National In-Service Teacher Education Programme (STEP) and the Community School-Day Programme (CSDP).

If you want to hear more about Grenada’s revolutionary process, drop us a comment.

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'TOO MANY MUSLIMS HERE' - UKRAINIAN REFUGEE IN U.K.

Check out this Brit's shock at learning one of the Ukrainian refugees who lived with her was bothered that Britain is home to many Muslims, Africans and Asians.

This would be surprising if the world weren't already given a dose of some of the racism evidently present in the eastern European country back in February 2022 at the start of the war with Russia. African migrants were blocked from boarding trains to safety, while Ukrainian Deputy Chief Prosecutor David Sakvarelidze expressed horror at the violence exacted on people with 'blond hair and blue eyes.' Others quoted in the media said they were shocked, as they were used to only seeing non-white people fleeing a war zone.

Continued….As Britain works to deport asylum seekers from countries that European powers have exploited, underdeveloped and invaded, it has offered British citizens anywhere between £350 and £500 a month to host Ukrainian refugees. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also recently agreed to journalist Piers Morgan's bet during an hour-long television interview that he would have refugees out of the country by the next general election.

Have a watch, and let us know what you make of this.

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A teacher at West Charlotte High School in the US state of North Carolina has stirred up controversy over her usual choice of Black history month classroom decoration.

She separately labelled her classroom entrance doors 'white' and 'coloured' to depict how public stores, not to mention fountains, bathrooms, transportation, entertainment venues and other entities were segregated during the Jim Crow era.

Some have hailed the controversial decoration as a creative way of highlighting the painful journey of Black people in the US ever since the first ships carrying abducted Africans landed on the shores of the country. However, some insist that the door labels had crossed the line of decency.

Continued….At the demand of the local educational board, school authorities have since removed the separate “white” and “coloured” door labels. They claim that the decoration was in violation of the “district’s curriculum and approved lesson plans.”

The educational board also stated, “the school district is required to provide social studies and history lessons to all our students in an age-appropriate manner.” However, such “age-appropriate” discretions were never afforded to newborns, adolescents or youths growing up in the Jim Crow era.

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NORWAY EXPLOITING AFRICA

The Norwegian salmon farming industry devastates West African wildlife, food production and the economy. That’s according to European environmental group Feedback’s recent investigation.

Among the world’s top 20 farmed fish producers, 11 are in Norway. One of those is Mowi, which has established processing plants in Mauritania to turn wild fish into fishmeal and fish oil to feed farmed salmon in the world’s largest farmed fish operation.

It doesn’t help that Mauritania established a so-called ‘free zone,’ which offers incentives to foreign investors. That includes tax breaks, customs exemptions, and access to Mauritania’s infrastructure and services.

Continued…..The free zone’s activities have devastated livelihoods and the environment in neighbouring Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. This is why Ghana’s first leader, Kwame Nkrumah, warned African countries against doing business with foreigners before uniting on a continent-wide vision.

How do you think African countries should create economic arrangements with foreign powers? Let us know in the comments.

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