Continued…….. In this video, you hear from Afro-Venezuelans who attended the Third International Congress on Communication in Caracas, Venezuela, on 12 January. Some were members of Afro-Venezuelan organisations known as ‘cumbes’ or were the heads of Afro-descendant wings of political parties and groups. Others were citizens not affiliated with any political organisations.

So, why did Afro-Venezuelans vote for Maduro? This is what they had to say.

This week’s proverb - from Ethiopia - reflects both the magical transformative power of falling in love and its dangers. It’s an insight that also applies to Africa's fight against imperialism. Some leaders have fallen for false alliances, only to face betrayal. True pan-African connection demands awareness, not rose-tinted illusion. Love, whether between people or nations must empower, not weaken. Is everything as it seems - or are we teetering on the edge? What's your take?

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN CONGO IS A PROXY WAR!

In this clip, Congolese-British presenter, singer and instrumentalist Priscilla Toko uses an illustration by @mkadima01 (on Instagram) to drive home that the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a three-decade-long, foreign-instigated proxy war for minerals, not simply internal strife.

Moreover, Western states continue to support the DRC’s neighbour, Rwanda, despite overwhelming evidence that it has armed and trained the M23 militia that terrorises Congo. The result is that M23’s attacks have 500,000 people displaced just in January, with over 7 million people internally displaced in three decades and approximately 6 million k*lled between 1998 and 2010.

Continued……Over 60 per cent of the world’s cobalt comes from DRC’s copper belt, yet the country remains one of the world’s poorest, with over 73 per cent of Congolese people living on less than $2.15 a day.

Video credit: @priscilladinatoko (Instagram)

Sources:

https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-cobalt-mining-drc-needs-urgent-attention

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/drc/overview

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congo

https://www.caritas.org/2010/02/six-million-dead-in-congos-war

https://republic.com.ng/october-november-2023/congo-cobalt-genocide/

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/29/rwanda-backed-rebels-capture-goma/

https://africanarguments.org/2024/04/europes-indifference-to-rwandas-atrocities-is-costing-congolese-lives/

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/14/why-us-and-uk-fund-rwanda-while-atrocities-mount-up-in-drc-vava-tampa

AIR BURKINA’S NEW AEROPLANE

Burkina Faso is on a quest toward greater national sovereignty and control over its economy, and its state-owned airline, Air Burkina, plays a role. The company, which experienced economic hardship in early 2024, was back on its feet by the end of the year. And, most excitingly, it purchased its first aircraft since 1983!

For the past four decades, Air Burkina has relied on renting aircraft from other companies. Now, with its own Embraer E190 aircraft, it is one step closer to self-reliance. 

Continued…….. Air transportation is increasingly important as Burkina Faso forges greater unity with neighbouring Mali and Niger, fellow members of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). The three countries are seeking to form a Pan-African country and eliminate their colonial borders. Air transport will allow people to quickly and safely travel between large stretches of arid land within the confederation. That is especially the case now, as t*rrorist organisations believed to be backed by France and Ukraine spread violence along border zones.

Congratulations to Air Burkina and the people-powered Alliance of Sahel States!

Video credit: @rtburkina

Sources:

https://lefaso.net/spip.php article133153#:~:text=Air%20Burkina%20vient%20de%20se,%22%2C%20pr%C3%A9cise%20la%20compagnie%20nationale.

http://ismaili.net/timeline/2001/20010226.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1cpxtC-Pao

https://www.africanews.com/2023/12/02/burkina-faso-mali-and-niger-look-to-form-a-federation/

EDUARDO MONDLANE REMEMBERED

Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane - widely hailed as the father of Mozambique's independence movement - was killed on this day in 1969 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, by a bomb that had been concealed in a book sent to him.

The assassination was the work of the Portuguese colonial authorities, who’d been incensed by his anti-colonial activities.

Mondlane was born in 1920 in the Mandlakazi district of Portuguese East Africa. Like many children of his time, he spent his early years helping look after the family's livestock. He only started his primary education when he was 12.

He completed his secondary education in neighbouring South Africa, where he enrolled at Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University in 1948. However, the apartheid system was introduced around that time, and he only lasted a year there.

Continued……. This led him to move to Portugal and enrol at the University of Lisbon in 1950. Later, he transferred to Oberlin College in Ohio, US, to study anthropology and sociology. He graduated in 1953.

In 1957, he started working for the United Nations, which allowed him to travel extensively across Africa and witness the impact of colonialism on the continent.
He left the UN in 1961 because he felt it restricted his participation in politics. The following year, he was elected leader of the newly formed Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO).

In 1963, he moved to Dar es Salaam, where FRELIMO had set up its base. There, he turned FRELIMO into a formidable guerrilla organisation and played a key role in ensuring that it became a democratic-socialist organisation.

By the late '60s, FRELIMO had liberated most parts of northern Mozambique from the colonial authorities. In the eyes of the Portuguese, by fighting against colonialism, Mondlane had signed his death warrant.

It's said you can kill a man but not an idea. Six years after his assassination, Mondlane's dream of a free Mozambique became a reality when it attained independence on 25th June 1975.

JEFFERY SACHS: WE ARE WHAT’S WRONG WITH AFRICA

What is wrong with the DRC? In this clip (from the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit in 2021), US economist Jeffery Sachs breaks it down, challenging Western nations to look in the mirror. In a powerful rebuttal of the popular framing of narratives around the economic and political struggles of Africa, Sachs calls for accountability from the West. He notes that the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo today is directly tied to centuries of Western imperialism, exploitation and political interference.

The public policy analyst gives a historical account of the DRC’s decades-long exploitation to illustrate Western dishonesty. He points to Belgium’s brutal occupation of the Congo, which killed more than 10-million people, and the Belgian/British/US-led assassination of the Central African nation’s first democratically elected leader, Patrice Lumumba (1925-61).

Continued……Sachs further notes how neo-colonialism operates today in the DRC, where Western companies unethically extract resources while the population remains impoverished and is denied its fundamental rights, recognised under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948.

Imperialist powers may have stopped enslaving and colonising Africans, but they still plunder the continent’s resources, assassinate its incorruptible leaders and fuel wars that stiffle growth.  Today’s renewed cycle of war in the Congo is yet another chapter in the long history of neo-colonialism and imperialism.

Questions of internal governance miss the point. The real question should be: what is wrong with the West?

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

WHITE COUPLE WHO ENSLAVED BLACK KIDS FOUND GUILTY

In a shocking case, a white couple will head to prison for abusing and enslaving their five adopted Black children. A jury in a West Virginia court found Jeanne Whitefeather guilty on all 19 charges, which included violations of civil rights, while convicting her husband, Donald Lantz, on 12 out of 16 counts.

A June 2024 indictment charged the couple with child neglect, trafficking of a minor, and forcing the children into labour, among other counts. Surveillance footage obtained following their October 2023 arrest revealed that Whitefeather and Lantz had confined the children in a shed for extended periods, compelled them to sleep on the floor without furniture, and deprived them of sufficient food and hygiene. Text messages submitted to the court as evidence indicated that Whitefeather employed racial slurs to refer to the children and refused to share plates because they were ‘dirty.’

The judge has scheduled the couple’s sentencing for 19 March.

Continued………Sources:

https://apnews.com/article/west-virginia-couple-adopted-children-neglect-trial-6a889bf21cb138bdad4b65839a2dc194

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/west-virginia-human-trafficking-children-b2688814.html

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/parents-locked-adopted-children-barn-211618298.html

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE CONGO?

The war in Congo can be confusing, but in this video, @dylan.page gives a nice, clear summary of some of the key factors: vast mineral resources, the West’s dependency on them, ethnic tensions and Rwanda’s role.

In the latest escalation of violence, Kigali-backed M23 rebels have seized Goma, the largest city in eastern DRC - with their sights reportedly set on Bukavu further south. Some 800 people have been killed in the recent fighting, with hundreds of thousands forced to flee to safer regions. There are severe shortages of food and water, and the suspension of US humanitarian aid has left many communities without essential support.

Video credit: @dylan.page

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

Continued……In her letter, Wagner implored the clubs to reflect on the ethical implications of their partnerships, suggesting that funds from Rwanda could be tainted by the exploitation of conflict minerals sourced from Congo. She said that it was time to cut ties with this “oppressive regime.”

Arsenal entered into a sponsorship agreement with Rwanda in 2019, followed by PSG in the same year, while Bayern Munich established a partnership for football development and tourism promotion in 2023.

The ongoing resource conflict in the DRC has persisted for three decades, involving over 120 armed groups, some supported by foreign powers. The toll has been devastating, with approximately 6-million Congolese lives lost, more than 7-million people displaced and countless women and girls enduring the horrors of sexual violence.

HOW THE WEST ENABLES RWANDA TO LOOT CONGO

Kayumba Nyamwasa, former Rwanda Army chief of staff and head of Rwandan intelligence from 1998 to 2002, dropped a bombshell on 2 February when he told @newzroomafrika’s @AldrinSampear that Western countries like France, the United Kingdom and the United States do not comment on Rwanda’s military operations in neighbouring countries like Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Mozambique because Rwandan companies process smuggled minerals that benefit said Western powers. 

The recent escalation in violence as the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 militia seized mineral-rich lands in eastern DRC on its way to entering Goma city has renewed the conversation about Rwanda’s and Uganda’s roles in the foreign-instigated three-decade-long conflict over resources. 

How the West has ignored Rwanda’s activities contrasts sharply with sanctions imposed against Rwanda and aid cuts in 2012 that forced M23 to go underground. 

Continued……. As early as 1998, Burundian, Rwandan, Ugandan and/or Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) soldiers emptied DRC warehouses. The looting remains a prominent feature across successive proxy campaigns, casting doubt on claims that Rwanda or M23 intervenes in the DRC only in the interests of marginalised Tutsis in the DRC.

Since M23’s resurgence in 2021, reportedly due to Rwanda fearing isolation following increased DRC-Uganda cooperation, the militia has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in eastern DRC. Reports indicate M23 is closing in around the city of Bukavu after entering Goma on 27 January. In Rubaya, which M23 captured in 2024, the group has generated around $300,000 monthly in taxes from tantalum mining. 
 
Video credit: @newzroomafrika (X)

Sources:

West vs Rwanda 2012
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/uk-freezes-21m-aid-to-rwanda-1.751902

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/suspended-aid-could-return-to-rwanda-but-on-different-terms--1314648

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/world/africa/us-cutting-military-aid-to-rwanda-for-the-year.html

Goma seized
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2025/02/02/rwandan-backed-m23-rebels-seize-goma-and-advance-further-into-eastern-drc

M23 $300,000 a month
https://apnews.com/article/congo-mining-m23-un-security-council-b11207ba887b352d702c3e4603d0c891

Western interests in Rwanda
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/world/africa/rwanda-france-kagame.html

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/14/europe/uk-rwanda-migrant-deal-gbr-intl/index.html https://www.mod.gov.rw/news-detail/rwanda-deploys-force-protection-troops-to-central-african-republic

Rwanda plunder ongoing for a while
https://docs.un.org/en/S/2001/357

After taking control of Goma, the largest eastern city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, M23 rebels - who are backed by Rwanda - are reportedly moving towards Bukavu in southern Kivu.

M23 is part of the political-military group Congo River Alliance (Alliance Fleuve Congo), whose commander, Corneille Nangaa, says his forces intend to advance all the way to Kinshasa to overthrow President Félix Tshisekedi. Nangaa previously led the DRC’s Electoral Commission, which oversaw the controversial and delayed 2018 elections that brought Tshisekedi into power.

His plan faces the challenge of the Congo’s vast size - roughly the same as that of Western Europe. The Alliance would need to advance 2,600 km (1,600 miles) to reach Kinshasa.

Continued……. Meanwhile, Rwanda is facing increasing international pressure to stop supporting the M23 and pull its troops out of Congo.

In a televised address after Goma’s capture, President Tshisekedi announced that a “robust and coordinated response” is underway to reclaim territory from the rebels. “Rest assured, the Democratic Republic of Congo will not allow itself to be humiliated or defeated. We will resist and we will prevail,” he stated on 29 January.

According to the UN, half a million Congolese have been displaced in January alone, worsening an already dire humanitarian crisis. The ongoing resource conflict in the country has displaced over 7-million people, resulted in more than 6-million deaths and been marked by horrific sexual and human-rights violations.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgn1k9nleno

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/congos-ex-election-chief-turned-rebel-boss-builds-insurgency-2025-01-27/

https://www.koaci.com/article/2025/01/31/afrique/politique/rdc-corneille-nangaa-au-nom-du-m23-annonce-leur-avancee-vers-kinshasa_184158.html

https://globaldashboard.org/2011/12/06/how-big-is-the-congo-very-big/

https://www.voanews.com/a/five-things-to-know-about-dr-congo/6941146.html

https://www.caritas.org/2010/02/six-million-dead-in-congos-war/

THE U.S. THINKS REVOLUTIONARIES ARE TERRORISTS

On 14 January 2025, outgoing US president Joe Biden announced that he would remove Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. On 21 January, just one week later, newly inaugurated president Donald Trump reversed the decision, adding Cuba back to the list. But why was Cuba ever considered a sponsor of terrorism in the first place?

According to the US State Department’s website, “Cuba was designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1982 because of its long history of providing advice, safe haven, communications, training and financial support to guerrilla groups and individual terrorists.” But who were these terrorists that Cuba was helping? Well, it turns out they were revolutionary anti-colonial freedom fighters from Latin America and Africa.