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Rwanda

Rwanda Tipped For UN Security Council Seat, Despite Claims It Is Helping Congo Rebels

THE NEW TIMES (Rwanda), LE MONDE (France), BBC (UK),REUTERS

Worldcrunch

Rwanda is tipped to take one of five UN Security Council seats today, despite mounting pressure on the country over the allegations that it is backing an armed rebellion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A confidential UN report, leaked to Reuters on Tuesday, accused Rwanda and Uganda of supporting the M23 rebels, guilty of numerous human rights abuses and resulting in thousands of displaced persons in the Great Lakes region of Africa.

DR Congo demanded Wednesday that sanctions should be instated against the two countries backing the rebels, reports Le Monde.

Both the Ugandan government and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame have denied the claims. Rwandan daily the New Times reports that Uganda's military spokesperson, Felix Kulayigye, said, “Where’s their authentic facts to back those claims? Those accusations are absolute rubbish, hogwash.”

The accusations have dampened Rwanda's efforts to occupy the non-permanent African seat on the UN Security Council, which is currently held by South Africa and would have been uncontested. If elected, Rwanda would represent eastern and southern Africa for a two-year term, beginning January 1, 2013.

The United Kingdom is also facing pressure to withdraw development aid to Rwanda and Uganda.

Prior to his departure as international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell restored aid to Rwanda in September, paying the country £16 million ($26 million). Rwanda's Paul Kagame has often been praised for the success of the country's economy, following the devastating genocide of 1994.

During Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons Wednesday, David Cameron was forced to defend the government's development aid following the accusations: "I'm clear Rwanda has been, and continues to be, a success story of a country that has moved from genocide and disaster to become a role model for development and lifting people out of poverty in Africa," reports the BBC.

"I will raise this issue presently with the president, but I continue to believe that investing in Rwanda's success as one of those countries in Africa that's showing you can break the cycle of poverty, you can improve conditions for people, is something that we are right to do," Cameron said.

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eyes on the U.S.

The Unique Role Of African Americans In Building A New U.S.-Africa Alliance

Recent allegations by the U.S. ambassador to South Africa that the African nation gave ammunition and weapons to Russia in December 2022, amid Russia’s war on Ukraine, illustrate the complexity of U.S.-Africa relations.

Teenagers and American tourists in Cape Town.

A group of teenagers lead American tourists through a government-funded housing development in Capetown, South Africa.

© Dahleen Glanton via Zuma
Asafa Jalata

Even as South Africa investigates those claims, the Biden administration is trying to strengthen ties with the African Union, a continental member organization, and 49 of Africa’s 54 countries, including South Africa, on geopolitical and commercial issues.

The only African countries the U.S. is not courting are four that were suspended from the African Union, and Eritrea, a country with which the United States doesn’t have a formal relationship.

The U.S. is making this grand African play as it competes with China to influence the continent’s future. And while this particular U.S.-China contest is relatively new, U.S. involvement in Africa is not.

The way the U.S. has been involved on the continent, though, has changed over time, depending on the era, U.S. interests and a particular African nation’s needs. In 1822, for example, the U.S. began to send freeborn African Americans and emancipated former enslaved African Americans to Africa, where they settled the colony that would eventually become Liberia. That settlement was originally governed by white Americans.

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