转帖：美国帝国主义是新刚果战争灾难的幕后刽子手

山姆斯•库克 闵夕译 　

    上一次刚果（金）内战结束于2003，造成了540万人丧生，这是自二战以来最为惨痛的人道主义灾难。导致这场杀戮的直接原因在于国际社会对此事的沉默，而其背后的真正原因则在于各国政府事实上在支持战争。如今，一场新的刚果（金）内战已经开始，而它迎来的却是国际社会的再一次沉默。奥巴马总统似乎毫未注意到一场新的战争已经在备受战争煎熬的刚果（金）爆发；对于难民危机，对于刚果（金）反政府武装“M23运动”所犯下的战争罪行，奥巴马熟视无睹。
    但是外表是会骗人的。美国政府血腥的双手已全面伸向这场冲突，正如时任总统比尔•克林顿在上一次刚果（金）内战中所做的一样。奥巴马总统的不作为是对入侵者的一种有意鼓动，此举与克林顿总统的所为如出一辙。奥巴马非但没有谴责“M23运动”入侵刚果（金）进而颠覆刚果（金）民主选举政府的行径，反倒选择了沉默，有意站在了入侵者这方，成为有力共犯。
    奥巴马为什么会这样做？原因很简单，入侵者是在卢旺达的武装和资金支持下挑起的内战，而卢旺达既是美国的“盟国”，同时也是美国的傀儡。联合国公布了一项报告，最终证实了卢旺达政府在支持叛军，但美国政府及其媒体却佯装此事尚存争议。
    上一次刚果（金）内战同样是美国所支持的卢旺达和乌干达入侵军队造成的恶果，最后导致了540万死亡。法国记者杰勒德•普诺尼（Gerard Prunier）在其《非洲世界大战》（“Africa’s World War”）中已对此作了很好地解释。
    事实上，许多曾参与上一次刚果（金）内战的卢旺达战犯，如博斯科•恩塔甘达（Bosco Ntaganda）等人，现在不仅掌控着“M23运动”，还是联合国国际刑事法庭逮捕的对象。卢旺达现任总统保尔•卡加梅是美国政府的“好友”，因其曾是卢旺达种族大屠杀及后来的刚果（金）内战的首领，卡加梅也是世界上臭名昭著的战犯之一。
    一直以来，刚果（金）和卢旺达活动分子都在要求，对卢旺达种族大屠杀的首领卡加梅进行审判。
    普诺尼在书中这样解释道，卢旺达种族大屠杀是卡加梅从美国盟国乌干达入侵卢旺达挑起的。大屠杀后，卡加梅夺取了卢旺达政权，紧接着，在一次访美期间，告知美国其将入侵刚果。以下是普诺尼在《非洲世界战争》中援引的卡加梅的讲话：
    “我含蓄地向美国传达了一个警戒：国际社会对刚果的不作为将意味着卢旺达将行动起来……但是他们（克林顿政府）实际上对此没有任何回应。”（第68页）
    在国际外交对话中，这种对军事入侵威胁保持沉默等于是在外交上大开绿灯。现在当同一批战犯再一次入侵刚果（金）时，奥巴马正在为他们提供同样的绿灯。
    可是美国政府为何一再这样？刚果（金）的现任总统约瑟夫•卡比拉在上一次刚果（金）内战中帮助领导了军事入侵。作为一名优秀的傀儡，卡比拉将刚果（金）的巨大矿产及石油财富拱手送给了跨国公司。只是，这个傀儡政权随后开始动摇。
    卡比拉开始疏远美国傀儡卢旺达和乌干达，由美国主导的国际货币基金组织（IMF）和世界银行就更不用说了。例如，IMF警告卡比拉不要同中国签订战略性基础设施和发展援助项目，但卡比拉对此毫不理会。《经济学人》这样解释道：
    “……看来刚果（金）在一连获得价值90亿美元外国捐助的矿产和基础设施援助项目后，已经占据上风。该项目是一年前同中国达成的。IMF对此表示反对，其理由是援助项目将使刚果（金）重新背上巨额债务。为此，IMF还推迟了对刚果（金）已欠下的100多亿美元绝大部分债务的豁免。”
    此举立即使卡比拉从不可靠的朋友变成了美国的敌人。美国和中国一直在疯狂地争夺非洲极为丰富的原材料，卡比拉现在与中国结盟，这对于美国来说，实在难以承受。
    不仅如此，卡比拉还要求同开采刚果（金）贵重金属的跨国公司重新协商他们的超高利率合同，以使刚果（金）可以从中获得一定利益。这一举动进一步激怒了卡比拉的前盟友美国。
    刚果（金）拥有世界上80％的钴，这种矿物质极其珍贵，是许多现代技术包括武器、手机以及电脑在内的必需品。刚果金或许是世界上矿产（资源）最丰富的国家，拥有极为丰富的钻石和石油。尽管如此，世世代代的跨国公司侵吞了刚果（金）的财富，使得刚果（金）人民成为世界上最贫穷的人。
    如今，一场新的战争正在进行，而联合国却毫无作为。刚果（金）驻有17500名联合国维和人员，更不用提还有美国的特种部队。入侵的“M23运动”才不过3000人。那么联合国是怎么回应入侵的？《纽约时报》是这样报道的：
    “联合国官员称他们没有足够兵力来击退叛军，所以他们担心出兵会造成两败俱伤，但许多刚果人心中已经有了判断。就在本周三，戈马北部布尼亚的示威者，洗劫了联合国人员的住所。”
    如果奥巴马和（或）联合国做出公开声明，表示武力支持刚果（金）当选政府反抗侵略，那么“M23运动”就绝不会入侵了。
    人权观察及其他组织恰当地将M23的首领列为“造成种族残杀、征募童兵、大规模强奸、屠杀、绑架和酷刑的罪魁祸首”。
    但是在联合国，奥巴马政府却一直在积极保护该组织。《纽约时报》继续写到：
    “有些人权组织表示，美国驻联合国大使兼奥巴马总统的下一任国务卿的主要争夺者苏珊•赖斯对卢旺达的态度太过温和，卢旺达是美国的亲密盟友，其总统保尔•卡加梅与赖斯女士认识多年。人权活动人士曾控诉苏珊•赖斯在安理会的一项决议中轻描淡写地描述了卢旺达与叛军的联系，他们说，赖斯还试图阻止公开联合国报告中详细说明卢旺达公然支持M23（联合国）的部分。”
    一旦奥巴马的M23盟友完成了颠覆政权的军事目标，并将刚果（金）的军事财富大门重新向美国公司打开，到那时，奥巴马政府将很可能迅速采取行动。目前M23与刚果（金）政府正在美国傀儡乌干达进行协商。除非卡比拉屈服，允许M23及其卢旺达支持者接管刚果（金），否则这些协商将很可能毫无结果。考虑到联合国和美国政府都保持沉默，M23很清楚自己在谈判中处于非常有利的地位。
    如果战争继续，可以料想的是国际社会的再度沉默，更多的大屠杀和种族清洗，仍处于恢复中的刚果人民将被重新丢入大型难民营，在那里，他们将再一次遭受民兵赞助的屠杀、强奸、饥饿，还有这场格外残暴的战争所带来的各种野蛮行径，暴行正在沉默中邪恶地滋长。
   
Notes
注：
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/17/opposition-groups-want-rwandan-president-paul-kagame-investigated-for-war-crimes/http://www.economist.com/node/13496903?zid=309ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/africa/congo-rebels-in-goma-vow-to-take-kinshasha.html

原文链接：
http://www.globalresearch.ca/humanitarian-coverup-why-is-obama-silent-over-the-new-congo-war/5313031

原文：
    Humanitarian Coverup: Why is Obama Silent Over the New Congo War?
By Shamus Cooke
Global Research, November 26, 2012
                                                Region: sub-Saharan Africa
                                                Theme: US NATO War Agenda

The last Congo war that ended in 2003 killed 5.4 million people, the worst humanitarian disaster since World War II. The killing was directly enabled by international silence over the issue; the war was ignored and the causes obscured because governments were backing groups involved in the fighting.  Now a new Congo war has begun and the silence is, again, deafening.  President Obama seems not to have noticed a new war has broken out in the war-scarred Congo; he appears blind to the refugee crisis and the war crimes committed by the invading M23 militia against the democratically elected government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
But appearances can be deceiving. The U.S. government has their bloody hands all over this conflict, just as they did during the last Congo war when Bill Clinton was President. President Obama’s inaction is a conscious act of encouragement for the invaders, just as Clinton’s was. Instead of Obama denouncing the invasion and the approaching overthrow of a democratically elected government, silence becomes a very powerful action of intentional complicity on the side of the invaders.
Why would Obama do this? The invaders are armed and financed by Rwanda, a “strong ally” and puppet of the United States. The United Nations released a report conclusively proving that the Rwandan government is backing the rebels, but the U.S. government and U.S. media cartoonishly pretend that the issue is debatable.
The last Congo War that killed 5.4 million people was also the result of the U.S.-backed invading armies of Rwanda and Uganda, as explained in the excellently researched book “Africa’s World War,” by French journalist Gerard Prunier.
In fact, many of the same Rwandan war criminals involved in the last Congo War, such as Bosco Ntaganda, are in charge of the M23 militia and wanted for war crimes by the U.N. international criminal court. The current Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, is a “good friend” of the U.S. government and one of the most notorious war criminals on the planet, due to his leading roles in the Rwandan genocide and consequent Congo War.
A group of Congolese and Rwandan activists have been demanding that Kagame be tried for his key role in the Rwandan genocide.
As Prunier’s book explains, the Rwandan genocide was sparked by Kagame’s invasion of Rwanda — from U.S. ally Uganda. After Kagame took power in post-genocide Rwanda, he then informed the U.S. — during a trip to Washington D.C. — that he would be invading the Congo. Prunier quotes Kagame in Africa’s World War:
“I delivered a veiled warning [to the U.S.]: the failure of the international community to take action [against the Congo] would mean that Rwanda would take action… But their [the Clinton Administration’s] response was really no response at all” (pg 68).
In international diplomacy speak, such a lack of response — to a threat of military invasion — acts as a glaring diplomatic green light. The same blinding green light is now being offered by Obama to the exact same war criminals as they again invade the Congo.
But why again? The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s current President, Joseph Kabila, helped lead the military invasion during the last Congo war. As a good stooge, he delivered Congo’s immense mining and oil wealth to multi-national corporations. But then his puppet strings started to fray.
Kabila later distanced himself from U.S. puppets Rwanda and Uganda, not to mention the U.S. dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. The IMF, for example, warned Kabila against a strategic infrastructural and development aid package with China, but Kabila shrugged them off. The Economist explains:
“…[The Congo] appears to have gained the upper hand in a row with foreign donors over a mining and infrastructure package worth $9 billion that was agreed a year ago with China. The IMF objected to it, on the ground that it would saddle Congo with a massive new debt, so [the IMF] is delaying forgiveness of most of the $10 billion-plus that Congo already owes.”
This act instantly transformed Kabila from an unreliable friend to an enemy. The U.S. and China have been madly scrambling for Africa’s immense wealth of raw materials, and Kabila’s new alliance with China was too much for the U.S. to bear.
Kabila further inflamed his former allies by demanding that the international corporations exploiting the Congo’s precious metals have their super-profit contracts re-negotiated, so that the country might actually receive some benefit from its riches.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to 80 percent of the world’s cobalt, an extremely precious mineral needed to construct many modern technologies, including weaponry, cell phones, and computers. The DRC is possibly the most mineral/resource rich country in the world — overflowing with everything from diamonds to oil — though its people are among the world’s poorest, due to generations of corporate plunder of its wealth.
Now, a new war is underway and the U.N. is literally sitting on their hands. There are 17,500 U.N. peacekeepers in the DRC, not to mention U.S. Special Forces. The invading M23 militia has 3,000 fighters. What was the U.N.’s response to the invasion? The New York Times reports:
“United Nations officials have said that they did not have the numbers to beat back the rebels and that they were worried about collateral damage, but many Congolese have rendered their own verdict. On Wednesday, rioters in Bunia, north of Goma, ransacked the houses of United Nations’ personnel.”
If Obama and/or the U.N. made one public statement about militarily defending the elected Congolese government against invasion, the M23 militia would have never acted.
Human Rights Watch and other groups have correctly labeled the M23’s commanders as responsible for “ethnic massacres, recruitment of children, mass rape, killings, abductions and torture.”
But at the U.N. the Obama administration has been actively protecting this group. The New York Times continues:
“Some human rights groups say that Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations and a leading contender to be President Obama’s next secretary of state, has been far too soft on Rwanda, which is a close American ally and whose president, Paul Kagame, has known Ms. Rice for years. The activists have accused her of watering down language in a Security Council resolution that would have mentioned Rwanda’s links to the [M23] rebels and say she also tried to block the publication of part of a [U.N.] report that detailed Rwanda’s covert support for the M23.”
It’s likely that the Obama administration will jump into action as soon as his M23 allies complete their military objective of regime change, and re-open the Congo’s military wealth to U.S. corporations to profit from. There are currently talks occurring in U.S.-puppet Uganda between the M23 and the Congo government. It is unlikely that these talks will produce much of a result unless Kabila stands down and allows the M23 and its Rwandan backers to take over the country. The M23 knows it’s in an excellent bargaining position, given the silence of the U.N. and the United States government.
If the war drags on, expect more international silence. Expect more massacres and ethnic cleansing too, and expect the still-recovering people of the Congo to be re-tossed into massive refugee camps where they can again expect militia-sponsored killings, rape, starvation, and the various barbarisms that have accompanied this especially brutal war, a brutality that grows most viciously in environments of silence.
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org) He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com
Notes
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/17/opposition-groups-want-rwandan-president-paul-kagame-investigated-for-war-crimes/http://www.economist.com/node/13496903?zid=309ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/africa/congo-rebels-in-goma-vow-to-take-kinshasha.html
（《环球视野globalview.cn》第510期)