>
>Africans Told To Keep Close Watch On Their Leaders
>June 30, 2000
>
>Ruth Nabakwe
>PANA Correspondent
>
>PARIS, France (PANA) - US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has challenged
>African peoples to monitor their leaders and hold them responsible for their
>actions as one way of bringing positive change on the continent.
>
>In a telephone interview with PANA, McKinney, who represents the 5th
>District of Georgia, said the leaders are partly responsible for the too
>many troubles on the continent adding, "Africans should not be fighting
>Africans".
>
>The fight against apartheid, slavery and colonialism were necessary wars but
>current conflicts where Africans are fighting each other are not justified
>at all, she said.
>
>She said the recent Fowler Report named several African countries among them
>Burkina Faso, for bursting sanctions against diamond trafficking by Angolan
>Unita rebel group.
>
>"African leaders who do not like what is happening in southern Africa due to
>the rampage that Unita has been able to launch throughout Angola, the
>Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, should do something to hold
>leaders of Burkina Faso, Rwanda and others implicated in those 'death
>diamond deals' responsible."
>
>McKinney also condemned "some very wealthy people in the United States who
>had very close friendship with people who make US policy such that when you
>start to talk about diamonds, you would be hitting a nerve centre," she
>said.
>
>She noted that the main challenge was for African peoples themselves to have
>a way in which they could hold their leaders responsible for their conduct.
>
>The lawmaker was also concerned about the US-Africa policy, which she
>described as an abysmal failure.
>
>However, she said a lot of effort was being made by among others US
>ambassador Richard Holbrooke, to bring about a "turn-around".
>
>"Such efforts include working to disengage the United States from being so
>closely allied to what was obviously, crimes against humanity which one UN
>representative described as, "a genocide in the city of Kisangani", the
>Congresswoman said.
>
>"It is true that US President Bill Clinton is the most friendly president
>towards the African peoples in the Diaspora than the United States has seen
>in several generations.
>
>"But now how can someone so friendly end up with such an outrageous,
>atrocious, horrible policy that assists perpetrators of crimes against
>humanity who inflict damages on innocent African peoples?" she wondered.
>
>McKinney said it was an issue she continued to raise in Congress, and at the
>White House as well.
>
>She described as a travesty, the latest killings in the Kisangani area when
>Rwandan and Ugandan forces fought each other leaving a trail of hundreds of
>innocent civilian deaths.
>
>"The reaction of the international community and the United States to those
>killings has also been a travesty because the whole world knows that Uganda
>and Rwanda are allies of the United States and they have been given the
>carte blanche for whatever reason to wreck havoc upon the DRC peoples," she
>said.
>
>According to the US Congresswoman, notions of "territorial sovereignty" and
>"national sovereignty" pale in comparison with the scale of the estimated
>1.7 million people killed due to the presence of Rwandan and Ugandan forces
>in the DRC's eastern part.
>
>She has been involved in efforts to promote a favourable US-Africa policy
>where some modest successes, as it relates to the situation in the DR Congo,
>have been achieved.
>
>"I characterise the successes as modest because not enough has been done.
>Until Uganda and Rwanda evacuate their troops from the DRC, as far as I am
>concerned, we will continue to have problems," she stated.
>
>McKinney described the rebel RCD group as proxies of Rwanda who should also
>withdraw from Kisangani.
>
>On whether she felt the Lusaka accord would bring about peace in the DRC,
>the US Congresswoman stated that the most important objective for the Great
>Lakes Region was the promotion of peace.
>
>"I do not think there is any way to achieve peace in the DRC until Uganda
>and Rwanda withdraw their troops to their borders. They claim to have
>problems of insecurity but if they amass their troops on the border then
>those posing security threats would not cross the border and enhance
>insecurity within Uganda and Rwanda," she said.
>
>
>
>
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