NEXT KENDRICK LAMAR OUT OF CONGO?

The world might be on the brink of discovering the next Kendrick Lamar.

Dogo Browny, a groundbreaking 13-year-old rap talent from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has captivated audiences with his powerful lyrics and dreams of becoming the next A-list rapper.

Browny has struck a chord with a growing fan base, which says he embodies authenticity in an increasingly commercialised rap scene, channelling genuine emotion and lived experiences into his music.

In this recent rap, he channels the daily struggles of children in war-torn DRC, saying they are grateful for life, even if danger, hunger and death surround them.

Continued……A recent UNICEF report revealed that the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 militia’s latest campaign to seize territory in the eastern DRC since January has spiked reports of s*xual violence against children. Many have fled from fighting multiple times, dwelling in unsafe camps without adequate nutrition and medical supplies. They are unable to continue with schooling, potentially handicapping them for a lifetime.

Browny is nurturing his extraordinary gift at the Invisible Kids Academy, a non-profit institution located in Goma city, in the DRC’s war-torn North Kivu province. The academy provides orphaned children with opportunities to express themselves through art, dance and music, offering them a glimmer of hope. His rap tackles harrowing themes, such as child soldiers, gender-based violence, displacement, massacres, the exploitation of natural resources and political assassinations.

For three decades, foreign interests have battled via proxies armed and trained by Rwanda and Uganda for control over DRC’s estimated $24 trillion in mineral resources, k*lling around 6-million people by 2010 and potentially many more since. The conflict has internally displaced over 7 million, leaving more than 25 million ‘food insecure,’ per the UN. Recent fighting has displaced over 700,000 people since January alone.

Video credit: @invisible_kids_academy243 (IG)

Sources

https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/drc-faces-persistent-food-insecurity-crisis-affecting-over-25-million-people

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/children-eastern-democratic-republic-congo-increasingly-exposed-sexual-violence

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgy0d3pgv0o

https://www.icrc.org/en/document/sexual-violence-survivors-democratic-republic-congo

https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/children-young-nine-face-mass-sexual-violence-and-mutilation-drc-save-children

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

SUDAN ARMY ENDS SIEGE OF EL-OBEID

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have broken a two-year siege of the city of El-Obeid in North Kordofan by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It comes just days after the paramilitary - sponsored by the United Arab Emirates - unveiled plans to launch a rival government in those parts of Sudan under its control.

El-Obeid serves as a strategic hub connecting the capital Khartoum to Darfur, and has been a contested location since the proxy war began. Analysts say that the RSF planned to use El-Obeid as a launch point for operations in western Darfur. The breaking of the siege was celebrated by locals, with trucks reportedly entering the city to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid.

Continued……. The SAF and the RSF have been engaged in a proxy war since April 2023, with the army predominantly holding the northern and eastern regions while the paramilitary controls most of the western Darfur region and parts of the south. On-the-ground reports indicate that the SAF has made significant advances against the RSF in the west. With El-Obeid back under military control, there are suggestions that plans may be underway to break the RSF’s siege on El-Fasher by moving through Babanusa and El-Obeid. Recent fighting near El-Fasher has forced the medical charity Doctors Without Borders to suspend operations at the nearby ZamZam camp, which is experiencing famine and is reportedly home to about 500,000 displaced individuals. However, Western powers have done little to curb their backers in the Gulf.

While the US has sanctioned the leaders of both the RSF and the SAF, it continues to turn a blind eye to the UAE, a close Western ally, bankrolling a militia responsible for genocide. How has Abu Dhabi escaped sanctions? Well, its gold-smuggling and financial ties are woven into the same Western system that profits from conflict while claiming to uphold human rights.

The ongoing conflict in Sudan has displaced over 11-million people (internally and abroad) and around half the population is food insecure, according to the UN. The death toll is widely feared to have exceeded 150,000.

sources:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8ve60r53yo?at_medium=social&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_format=image&at_campaign_type=owned&at_link_origin=BBCAfrica&at_link_type=web_link&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_link_id=E618B56C-F2A5-11EF-87A5-FDEF98B95BB0

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/sudan-s-rsf-allies-sign-charter-to-form-parallel-government-4939040

HOW U.S. BLOCKED GADDAFI’S $1 BN FOR BLACK PEOPLE

In 1996, the US State Department rejected an application from Louis Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam, to accept a $1-billion donation from sanctioned revolutionary Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The Clinton administration claimed that Gaddafi was a dangerous figure - alleging that he supported terrorism. Libya, a once-thriving African nation, posed such a threat to the West that US and Western media launched a smear campaign against Gaddafi. This campaign culminated in the NATO-led bombardment of 2011, which resulted in the overthrow and death of Gaddafi, and turned Libya into a war zone. African Stream’s Wambura Mwai breaks it down.

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

On 21 February, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi sent an emissary to Bamako, Mali, to deliver a message to President Assimi Goïta.

Goïta (@GoitaAssimi on X) and Malian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdoulaye Diop (@AbdoulayeDiop8 on X) received Congo’s Minister of Justice Constant Mutamba Tungunga (@ConstantMutamba on X) and the Congolese ambassador to Mali, Christophe Muzunga (@RDC_Minafet on X).

While the public does not yet know the details of what they discussed, many speculate that the meeting concerned the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 rapidly taking over parts of eastern DRC in January and February 2025. So far, M23’s campaign has forced more than 700,000 Congolese off their lands.

Congo, one of the most resource-rich countries worldwide, has long been plundered by imperialist industrialised powers for its riches.

Continued……. Mali, on the other hand, is currently part of the AES, a confederation established on 6 July 2024 between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. The AES is at the forefront of defending Africa’s sovereignty and fighting to exercise greater control over its resources.

Some describe the ongoing three-decade-long, Western-backed war over resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as a crisis of imperialism, with the potential to impact all of Africa. After all, Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah (1909-72) once declared, ‘The Congo is the heart of Africa. Any wound inflicted upon the Congo is a wound to the whole of Africa.’ 

Yet, today, Congo is under attack, and some of the world’s greatest imperialist powers fund the two states behind M23: Rwanda and Uganda. Only recently has the US sanctioned a few Rwandan and M23 officials, the European Parliament recommended suspending a Rwanda minerals agreement and freezing aid, and the UK sought to end aid to Rwanda. 

Could the DRC-Mali meeting be the Pan-African link-up necessary to chart a sovereign path for Congo?

Sources:

https://burkina24.com/2025/02/22/mali-rdc-assimi-goita-recoit-un-emissaire-du-president-tshisekedi/

https://yop.l-frii.com/tensions-avec-le-m23-assimi-goita-recoit-un-emissaire-du-president-tshisekedi-mystere-sur-le-contenu-de-leur-discussion

https://www.state.gov/sanctioning-drivers-of-violence-in-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/european-parliament-seeks-freeze-eu-aid-rwanda-over-congo-conflict-2025-02-13

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/25/uk-suspends-aid-to-rwanda-over-alleged-support-for-drc-rebels

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/02/1160486

Continued……https://archive.ph/Y9LSo

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/02/24/eu-to-review-raw-materials-deal-with-rwanda-over-drc-conflict-top-diplomat

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://tradingeconomics.com/rwanda/net-official-development-assistance-and-official-aid-received-us-dollar-wb-data.html

https://borgenproject.org/foreign-aid-to-rwanda/

https://www.dw.com/en/drc-conflict-pressure-mounts-on-rwanda-as-m23-seize-bukavu/a-71638481

https://archive.ph/4LLBT

https://archive.ph/FwxZl

BLACK RHYTHM NOT PRODUCT OF SLAVERY DNA -MILES DAVIS

February is designated in the United States as Black History Month, a time to honour our brothers’ and sisters’ achievements and rich heritage. One part of the celebrations involves music, where Black people have dazzled with our talent and racked up awards over the decades, helping weave the fabric of globalised US music, even if our musicians weren’t appropriately credited or rewarded.

However, some within the US empire seem to think that our people’s musical prowess is merely a byproduct of our painful history with slavery, suggesting that music was an outlet for channelling suffering.

Continued….. This notion was put to the test in this clip from a 1989 interview. CBS reporter Harry Reasoner (1923-91) posed a rather misguided question to the legendary jazz trumpeter, bandleader and composer Miles Davis (1926-91). However, the famously cool and collected musician had none of it. Davis pointed out that he hailed from a well-off background and that Reasoner’s question was just another tired stereotype suggesting that Black musicians have rhythm in their DNA, a supposed gift from our enslaved ancestors. As Davis calmly explained to Reasoner, Africans play the blues not out of sorrow, but out of sheer love for the art.

So, let’s crank up the volume and celebrate Black musical achievements without letting played-out tropes crash the party!

Video credit: 60 Minutes / @CBS

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_gZqZfq9xA

https://www.milesdavis.com/

https://music.si.edu/story/musical-crossroads

https://plus.pointblankmusicschool.com/black-history-month-us-10-black-artists-that-redefined-music/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/foster-musical-movements/

THE MAN BEHIND AFRICA’S PARTITION

This week marks 140 years since the end of the infamous Berlin Conference - where, over three-and-a-half months, European powers carved up our continent, having completely sidelined Africans. The so-called Scramble for Africa had already begun, and had led to conflict among the imperialists over who had the right to what - for example, Belgium’s King Leopold II wanted to secure his claims on Congolese territories before the French could get their hands on it. At the Belgian monarch’s urging, Germany’s chancellor Otto von Bismarck - who himself was keen to secure German colonial interests in Africa - convened the fateful meeting.

Continued……. As the European powers negotiated and formalised their respective claims, they drew arbitrary borders, staking their flags to our riches while disregarding cultural and tribal groupings - with tragic consequences for Africa and its people that are felt to this day. In this video, we take a closer look at Bismarck’s shameful role in European colonialism.

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

On 27 February 1978, South African freedom fighter and pan-African intellectual Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe succumbed to lung cancer. Despite dying at the relatively young age of 54, by the time of his passing, Sobukwe had made a profound and lasting impression on the struggle against apartheid.

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

Like many before him, Sobukwe’s revolutionary flame was lit at Fort Hare. Becoming a prominent figure on the university’s political scene, he served as the president of the students body and Secretary of the newly formed African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL).

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

On 21 March 1960, Sobukwe led hundreds of people in a march to Orlando police station in Soweto in protest against the so-called Pass Law, which restricted the movement of Black South Africans. A similar protest also took place on the same day in the township of Sharpeville, where 69 people were gunned down in cold blood when apartheid forces opened fire on them. Sobukwe and other PAC leaders were arrested in the aftermath of the demonstrations. He was 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.

In 1969, Sobukwe was released from Robben Island and subsequently banished to Kimberly, where he was placed under 12-hour house arrest and restricted from engaging in political activities. It was in Kimberly, where he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Restrictions imposed on his movements complicated his attempts to receive timely medical care.

Sources:

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/11/30/robert-sobukwe-the-south-african-leader-once-as-revered-as-mandela

https://www.ufh.ac.za/news/News/UFHcommemorateRobertMangalisoSobukwe%E2%80%99scentenaryspecialMemorialLecture
https://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/corporate/default/Unisa-History-and-Memory-Project/Personalities/All-personalities/Robert-Sobukwe

https://southafrica-info.com/history/robert-sobukwe-one-race-human-race/

For years, white supremacists have pushed the myth of a so-called ‘white g*nocide’ in South Africa to justify their racist paranoia and deflect from the real victims of systemic oppression. But now, a South African court has shattered this lie, ruling that the claim is ‘clearly imagined’ and ‘not real.’

The court blocked a $2.1-million donation from white settler Grantland Michael Bray that was intended for the white-supremacist group Boerelegioen, which calls itself a ‘civil defence movement that enable[s] the citizens to resist the promised slaughter of whites in [South Africa] as well as the theft of their property.’

Bray had allocated funds in his will to support Boerelegioen’s training programmes before he died in 2022. Bray’s siblings, who, as beneficiaries of his estate, filed the lawsuit, argued their brother was ‘obsessed with the idea of an impending gen*cide of white people in South Africa.’

Continued……. The Boerelegioen denied discriminating against people based on gender, race or religion, claiming instead to only offer security and training to communities. However, Bray allegedly told an employee the money would go to an organisation that would ‘exterminate every Black person.’ Ultimately, the judge ruled in favour of Bray’s siblings and ordered Boerelegioen to cover legal costs.

This verdict comes at a poignant time, amidst renewed hysteria from figures like US President Donald Trump, who recently denounced ‘large-scale k*lling of farmers’ in South Africa. Plus, Trump advisor and South Africa-born Tesla CEO Elon Musk falsely claimed the South African government enacted ‘racist ownership laws’ and is trying to k*ll white settler farmers in a bid to push them off the land through a new land expropriation law designed to rectify long-standing inequity.

White settlers enjoy a higher standard of living than Black South Africans more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system, owning around 70 per cent of South Africa’s private farmland while making up less than 8 per cent of the population.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyj1198wy3o

https://apnews.com/article/trump-south-africa-afrikaners-0120efec17122b47e3371e0e39fe1db8

https://time.com/7225641/white-south-africans-gather-us-embassy-support-donald-trump

https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAWCHC/2025/51.html

KENYAN COP K*LLED IN HAITI GANG AMBUSH

A 28-year-old Kenyan police officer was k*lled in Haiti on 23 February during a patrol with the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), marking its first fatality. Kenyan police had been deployed to the Caribbean nation in June 2024 to allegedly help restore stability amidst violence that comes after centuries of foreign interference.

Despite a High Court ruling declaring the deployment unconstitutional, Kenya has deployed over 600 police officers to Haiti. However, the mission’s future remains uncertain, given the Trump administration has launched a campaign to freeze foreign aid.

Continued….. Mainstream media says organisations they refer to as ‘gangs’ now reportedly control much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and large parts of rural areas. In 2024 alone, the violence claimed the lives of over 5,500 individuals, forcing more than 1 million people to flee their homes.

Reports have argued the Haitian bourgeoisie, which collaborates with foreign powers, backs such gangs.

Haiti became the world’s first independent Black republic when it overthrew French colonialists in 1804. Since then, imperialist forces have strived to roll back the Haitian Revolution, beginning with the French demanding $21 billion in reparations for losing the colony. Since then, US, Canadian and French imperialists have interfered with and destabilised Haiti.

Sources:

https://apnews.com/article/haiti-kenya-gangs-police-killed-3599ea174c1d19b781a4b9a0fa346b0a

https://www.kenyanews.go.ke/kajiado-family-mourns-officer-killed-in-haiti/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62x3nyd6e4o

https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/un-chief-should-propose-transforming-kenyan-led-haiti-mission-un-operation

https://www.voanews.com/a/kenyan-police-officers-arrive-at-un-mission-in-haiti/7966157.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/05/1042518732/-the-greatest-heist-in-history-how-haiti-was-forced-to-pay-reparations-for-freed

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

https://www.blackagendareport.com/gilbert-bigio-israels-man-haiti-and-architect-behind-us-migrant-crisis