Continued……The Catholic Church played no part in his conviction. Instead, it took a former student whom Chaning-Pearce allegedly abused at St George’s School in Zimbabwe recognising the priest while he was in Australia. However, he has never faced accountability.

Will the Anglican and Catholic churches initiate comprehensive investigations into past sexual abuse in their schools across African nations?

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0m1ge1xnm2o?at_campaign_type=owned&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_link_id=072809A4-E30D-11EF-8A43-83B93E175917&at_medium=social&at_format=image&at_link_type=web_link&at_link_origin=BBCAfrica&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_campaign=Social_Flow

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/anglican-church-south-africa-admits-failures-handling-sexual-118443751

https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-11/independent-learning-lessons-review-john-smyth-qc-november-2024.pdf

https://lawandreligionuk.com/2024/11/13/makin-review-summary-of-recommendations/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/obituaries/john-smyth-christian-camp-leader-accused-of-beatings-dies-at-77.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq6lzeel2e8o

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62lr331lkzo

https://news.sky.com/story/who-was-john-smyth-the-barrister-at-the-centre-of-the-church-of-england-abuse-cover-up-13252818

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/justin-welby-church-of-england-abuse-john-smyth-b2646658.htm l

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/12/27/african-victims-of-clergy-abuse-deserve-justice-and-accountability-too

MISSION ABANDONED? RUTO’S GAMBLE IN LIMBO!

Disregarding the widespread opposition in his country to the Kenya-led, UN-authorised and US-backed Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti, Kenyan President William Ruto deployed the first group of 400 Kenyan police officers on 25 June 2024.

Shortly after, news outlets reported the officers had not received salaries and that the mission was under-resourced, leading some to desert their posts and hand in resignations, a claim the Kenyan government denied.

Continued….. Moreover, security experts, such as former Haitian Army colonel Himmler Rébu, have said that the Kenyan officers in Haiti lack the capacity to face Haitian gangs, whose violence has destabilised the country. In fact, Rébu referred to Kenyan officers as no more than ‘tourists.’ Further, a 13 January joint investigation by The New Humanitarian (@newhumanitarian on X) and Kenya’s Nation newspaper (@nationafrica on X) found Haiti is worse off now than it was before the arrival of the mission. Their investigation concluded that the Kenya police were ‘unfit for purpose.’

Despite all this, Kenya deployed an additional 217 police officers to Haiti on 18 January. Now, with the US pulling the plug on the already under-capacity mission by announcing a $13.3-million funding freeze of a promised $15 million, the fate of hundreds of Kenyan officers remains unknown.

Foreign interventions since the 1804 Haitian revolution that overthrew French enslavers have continued to destabilise the Caribbean nation, with gangs unleashed by the country’s bourgeoisie that collaborates with foreign powers.

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-freezes-funding-security-mission-tackling-haitis-gangs-2025-02-04/

https://haitiantimes.com/2025/01/19/217-kenyan-police-officers-arrive-in-haiti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZjPJPIUCKo

https://apnews.com/article/kenya-police-haiti-salaries-peacekeeping-5f2f71318f6025939f1f7c99633d80d1

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigations/2025/01/13/haiti-depth-why-kenya-led-security-mission-floundering

https://marxist.com/the-gangs-of-haiti-and-the-failure-of-bourgeois-rule.htm

SOUTH AFRICA: ‘WE ARE NOT BEGGARS’

South African Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe says Africa does not need the West’s philanthropy as it possesses enough natural resources to meet its people’s needs.

Addressing the 2025 Africa Mining Indaba (summit) in Cape Town, South Africa, Mantashe said that if African countries united to reclaim control of the mining industry, they could reap massive returns from the enormous mineral deposits across the continent. Mantashe said Africa needs to stop allowing the West to cheaply get our minerals, only for them to turn around and call us ‘beggars.’ 

Continued……His comments came after US President Donald Trump threatened to end aid to South Africa in response to a newly signed law allowing it to seize privately owned land (sometimes without compensation) to address land ownership imbalances caused by colonial and apartheid-era laws. Trump accused South Africa of ‘confiscating land’ and treating ‘certain classes of people very badly.’

Many say Trump’s threat is the result of lobbying by South African right-wing organisation AfriForum and individuals, such as Trump’s confidant, major campaign donor and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk. On 3 February, Musk claimed in a reply to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on X that South Africa has racist laws.

In 2018, Fox News’s ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ hosted Afrikaner Foundation Executive Director Ernst Roets to talk about South Africa allegedly persecuting white-settler farmers and about an alleged ‘white gen*cide.’ The term ‘white gen*cide’ refers to a state-backed plot to k*ll white farmers to drive them off their land. However, numerous studies have debunked this theory.

Video credit: @sabcnews

Sources:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886321811937189902

https://apnews.com/article/69edd18af846491fa2c27b5bd3d483d4

https://x.com/kalliekriel/status/994001002591289344

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/3/south-africa-rejects-trumps-accusations-over-expropriation-act

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/03/the-myth-of-white-genocide-in-south-africa

https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/reports/are-sa-whites-really-being-killed-flies-why-steve-hofmeyr-wrong

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2019-04-01-dissecting-white-genocide-what-is-to-be-feared-and-why

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/us/politics/trump-south-africa-land.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dMYhLZb96Q

M23 IS FIGHTING FOR MINERALS NOT TUTSIS

The Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group’s violent actions in eastern DR Congo have nothing to do with ’protecting Tutsis’ - and everything to do with Congolese resources. That’s according to General Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former Rwandan army chief-of-staff.

He argues that the issue of protecting the Banyamulenge - that is, the Congolese Tutsis (singular: Mnyamulenge) - was settled with the Sun City Agreement in 2002, which formally ended the Second Congolese War.

He says the touted idea that Rwandan proxies (such as M23) are fighting to stop the marginalisation of, and violence against, Tutsis is nothing but a cover for a resource grab. He points to the appointment of Banyamulenge figures to senior Congo government positions to back up his claim.

Continued….. In DRC’s Rubaya, which was captured in 2024, the M23 controls mining production, trade and transport, according to UN experts - with profits of more than $800,000 a month, and the minerals routed to Rwanda.

The rebels’ recent offensive on Goma led to more than 900 deaths, with over 2,800 injured (UN).

Sources:

Uganda-DRC cooperation spooked Kigali
https://africacenter.org/spotlight/rwanda-drc-risk-of-war-new-m23-rebellion-emerges-explainer/

M23 Rubaya
https://archive.ph/HA8kK#selection-5111.215-5111.325

Goma death toll
www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/2/2/more-than-700-killed-as-dr-congo-military-fights-m23-rebels

Continued….. Reports say Uganda has dispatched over 1,000 additional troops to eastern Congo, bringing the total number of Ugandan soldiers in the region to as much as 5,000. However, Uganda’s involvement raises serious questions. The UN and others have accused Kampala of supporting and sheltering militias while simultaneously vying for control over Congo’s resources with Rwanda. Despite mounting evidence of its complicity, Uganda has refuted claims of directly financing or harbouring M23 rebels.

Uganda’s ambiguous stance casts a shadow over its intentions in Congo, especially given its history of destabilising the region.

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/uganda-sends-1000-more-soldiers-east-congo-near-conflict-sources-say-2025-02-04/?taid=67a286eb4fe82f0001021a57&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/democratic-republic-of-the-congo

https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/uganda-and-rwanda-deny-plundering-congo

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/uganda-provided-support-m23-rebels-congo-un-report-says-2024-07-08

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/17/uganda-to-withdraw-soldiers-fighting-adf-in-dr-congo-this-month

https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/amp/article/2001375232/congos-gold-being-smuggled-out-by-the-tonne-un-report-finds

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/congos-gold-being-smuggled-out-by-the-tonne-un-report-finds-idUSKBN23M0PX/#:~:text=More%20than%2095%25%20of%20gold,production%20and%202019%20export%20data.

https://enactafrica.org/enact-observer/is-ugandas-thriving-gold-trade-being-compromised-by-criminal-networks#:~:text=A%20second%20report%2C%20submitted%20by%20the%20UN,DRC%20to%20the%20United%20Arab%20Emirates%20(UAE).&text=The%20UN%20report%20says%20Dubai%20is%20the,sourced%20from%20artisanal%20miners%20in%20the%20DRC.

https://www.riotimesonline.com/ugandas-military-strategy-in-drc-the-gold-connection

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/12/uganda-pays-first-installment-of-325m-war-reparations-to-drc

https://www.economist.com/international/2000/06/15/congos-hidden-war

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c134kgdpd6do

https://gfintegrity.org/press-release/new-report-unveils-gaps-in-ugandas-mining-legal-regime-and-proposes-actionable-solutions-to-combat-illicit-financial-flows-along-the-mineral-supply-chain

https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n24/118/80/pdf/n2411880.pdf

DRC: CEASEFIRE OR TACTICAL PAUSE?

The ceasefire declared unilaterally by the M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo has come as a surprise. The Rwandan-backed militia has been making rapid gains in eastern DRC, including the capture of the regional capital Goma. The armed group cited ‘humanitarian reasons.’

773 bodies of people killed in just one week of the offensive were reportedly in local hospital morgues as of 1 February. The morgues are said to have exceeded their capacity - with many bodies left lying in the streets.

The Congolese government says any meaningful humanitarian let-up in the fighting must include the city’s demilitarisation to enable aid access into Goma. That outcome currently looks exceedingly unlikely.

Continued….. Many suspect that the proposed truce is in bad faith - and will merely give the M23 an opportunity to rearm and bring forward more fighters, ahead of a new major offensive. That possibility is apparently confirmed by videos of truckloads of rebel troops amassing.

What do you make of M23’s ceasefire declaration?

Sources:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/4/rwandan-backed-m23-rebels-declare-ceasefire-in-drc

https://news.sky.com/story/bodies-in-streets-as-morgues-exceed-capacity-after-700-killed-in-just-four-days-of-fighting-around-goma-in-congo-13300930

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFrjDDmIbaY/?igsh=QkFLVjJHdmdaOA%3D%3D

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/dr-congo-calls-for-withdrawal-of-m23-rebels-rwandan-forces-from-city-of-goma/3472143#

CONGO’S MINERAL WAR & GEN*CIDAL SUPPLY CHAIN

They say, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ This one speaks volumes on Congo’s foreign-instigated, three-decade-long mineral war’s demand-and-supply chain, the cost of which is the sweat and blood of millions of Congolese!

The DRC annually loses $1 billion in minerals through the Western-backed illicit trade, according to Congolese Finance Minister Nicolas Kazadi, with a human cost that is even higher. More than 6 million Congolese had been k*lled by 2010, about 7 million had been internally displaced as of last year, s*xual assault and child labour runs rampant, and about 500,000 Congolese fled their homes in eastern DRC just in January to avoid the M23 militia’s incursion.

In 2007, Belgian companies—Trademet, Traxys, SDE, STI and Specialty Metals—operating in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) exported cassiterite, coltan and wolframite, all minerals used in many ways including in building smartphones.

Continued……The world’s fifth-largest tin-producing company, Bangkok-based Thailand Smelting and Refining Corporation (ThaISaRCO), owned by the Amalgamated Metal Corporation (AMC) and Afrimex—both British companies—are also among the top buyers of Congolese tin.

These are just a few of the hundreds of companies involved in the illicit trade of minerals in the Congo. Due to a data gap, it is difficult to verify how many companies operate there. Nonetheless, a 2017 Global Witness found that over 200 European and Asian companies, among others, bought minerals from traders known to be in business with armed groups, thus funding the latter and fuelling the conflict in the DRC.

The Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 controls mines in the Rubaya region, generating $300,000 monthly in production tax revenues. Moreover, despite limited mineral reserves of its own, Rwanda is the world’s leading exporter of coltan.

Regardless of the overwhelming evidence against Rwanda for exacerbating the mineral war, Western powers continue to funnel money into Kigali, with more than 40 per cent of the East African state’s fiscal budget coming from foreign aid.

Sources:

https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/democratic-republic-congo/faced-gun-what-can-you-do

https://cd.usembassy.gov/statement-of-concern-related-to-certain-minerals-supply-chains-from-rwanda-and-eastern-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-contributing-to-the-ongoing-co

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/5/2/blood-minerals-what-are-the-hidden-costs-of-the-eu-rwanda-supply-deal

http://cdn-globalwitness-production-2.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/archive/files/import/drc_release_uk_final.pdf

https://africanarguments.org/2024/11/children-and-the-coltan-wars-in-eastern-congo

https://issafrica.org/iss-today/could-fdi-be-rwandas-lifeline-as-donors-pull-the-plug

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/un-says-congo-rebels-generating-300000-monthly-seized-mining-area-2024-09-30

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

https://drcongo.iom.int/en/news/internal-displacement-overview-2024-published

https://www.dw.com/en/dr-congo-people-flee-homes-2025/a-71440536

The CEO of Resolute Mining - who was arrested by Malian authorities in November last year - has quit his post. Terry Holohan was finally released after the Anglo-Australian firm agreed to cough up $160 million in outstanding taxes.

Bamako also has a conflict with Canadian company Barrick Gold - demanding more control over (and more profit from) its mining activities in Mali. In January, the country seized three tonnes of gold worth $180 million from the firm and, in December 2024, the government issued an arrest warrant for its CEO.

According to the Financial Times, Mali - along with fellow Alliance of Sahel States members Burkina Faso and Niger - is conducting a “terrifying crackdown on mining companies.”

Continued……. That’s one way to spin it. But the revolutionary trio is being hailed in the Sahel and across Africa for forging a new path towards greater sovereignty and economic self-determination - putting an end to what many see as the plunder and pillaging of the region by exploitative foreign multinationals.

Burkina Faso has nationalised multiple gold mines in recent years and Niger has nationalised its main uranium mines.

Sources:

https://www.ft.com/content/68d9c6e3-861d-4d03-a00f-4a2d33cb9516

https://www.ecofinagency.com/mining/2911-46196-mali-barrick-gold-confirms-new-arrest-of-four-employees-at-loulo-gounkoto-mine

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/3-executives-of-australian-gold-miner-arrested-in-mali/3390015

https://www.mining.com/web/mali-frees-resolute-executives-after-160-million-deal-afp-reports/

https://www.ft.com/content/9a0901f1-070f-43e8-9cd3-6bd6ab4f6c4a

https://www.rml.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/030225-Management-Changes.pdf

BOB MARLEY: I AM AFRICAN

Pan-Africanist musical icon Bob Marley was born on this day, 6 February, in 1945 on a farm in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. Sources say he was named Nesta Robert Marley at birth, but that he changed his name to Robert Nesta Marley. However, he was best known as Bob Marley and is widely considered the father of reggae music for popularising it worldwide.

However, some may not know that Marley was a revolutionary who always identified as African first despite his Jamaican heritage. Neither did the legendary musician fail to include the African struggle for emancipation in his work with songs like ‘Africa Unite’ (1979), ‘Zimbabwe’ (1979), and ‘Buffalo Soldier’ (1978), among many others.

Continued……. Just a year before his death, during a 1980 US interview, trailblazing Black journalist Gil Noble (1932-2012) asked whether he identified more as a Jamaican or African, to which Marley offered a succinct two-fold answer, as seen in this clip.

Marley always connected the dots between Africans on the continent and Africans abroad. The reductive white supremacist narratives about our motherland never made him shy away from proudly claiming his roots, something we could all learn from.

Video credit: ‘Like It Is,’ @ABC7NY (X)

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

WAR NO WAY TO ‘PROTECT’ TUTSIS IN CONGO!

Suppose for a minute that Rwanda really is only interested in protecting Congolese Tutsis in eastern DRC. How has the killing of millions of people since the First Congo War helped safeguard the community? That’s the question raised by former Rwandan army chief-of-staff Kayumba Nyamwasa in this video.

Protecting Tutsis in the Congo has long been cited as the main defence for Rwanda’s actions - including via proxies (such as the M23 rebels) - in the mineral-rich eastern region of DRC. But those mineral riches are what critics say is, at least now, the real reason for Kigali’s intervention.