NOVEMBER NEWS & URGENT REQUEST
Posted on November 22, 2011 3:23 PM
Written by: keith harmon snow
Photography Credits: keith harmon snow
Article URL: http://www.consciousbeingalliance.com/2011/11/november-news-request/
UPDATE ON THE POLITICS OF GENOCIDE PROJECT
22 November 2011
Are you aware of my Politics of Genocide project? This is serious work which has the potential to affect the lives of millions of people and turn the tide of consciousness about war crimes and responsibility. The film and book project are demanding, and the work we have done since we began (fall of 2009) has already created a remarkable collection of interviews preserving the historical record through video (oral) testimonies.
I need your help. You don't have to change your life. You just have to care. For me, the photograph below says it all. Seven hungry refugee children crammed into a tiny dugout canoe floating on the Congo River -- and smiling all the while. However, their future, in the world's richest poorest country, where ten million people have died since 1996, is very bleak.
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5 October 2011
Dear Friends:
In the years since John Seed first introduced me to Keith, I have received one update after another from the front lines of humanity's crisis zones. Winner of three Project Censored awards, I am proud that we were able to support his work via the Rex Foundation. His work continues, however, completely underfunded. He is not your average campaigner - he is outspoken and direct. You may not always agree with him. But I trust that you will find few people on the planet willing to go so directly into the fray to document the human condition.
Please consider making a contribution, small or large, every year that you can.
Thanks,Nick Morgan
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In the next three weeks I have arranged interviews with pivotal individuals, people I never would have imagined I might one day meet -- including former high government officials of Central African countries, journalists, soldiers, and Interpol investigators -- and we have only raised half the funds we need to complete these scheduled interviews.
At the same time, I will also be testifying before an international court about my investigations of the atrocities committed in the Congo by Ugandan and Rwandan forces.
Can you please make a donation here: Witchdoctors of Watutsiland? Please support us according to your means, but only if you believe in truth and can do so out of a deep love for what is right.
How did this work begin?
It began with an uneducated and arrogant white guy riding a mountain bike into rural Zaire (Congo) and barely surviving the ordeal of black mamba snake and poisonous spiders and savvy local soldiers from President Mobutu Sese Seko's private armies. That was 1991, and the people I met changed my life, and the direction of my life (only I had no idea at the time).
When the U.S. media exploded with stories about "genocide in Rwanda" in those so-called "100 Days of Killing" in 1994, I responded like most everyone I knew: "I don't know what to do about all that savagery and killing". When the stories of armed "rebels" from the "Alliance for the Democratic Liberation of Congo-Zaire" flooded the media in 1996, I began to see that all was not as it appeared.
About the same time that the United States was advancing its proxy armies across Zaire (Congo) in 1996, I met John Seed at an environmental education center (stewarded by founder Dr. Larry Buell, a modern day Thoreau) that quite literally saved my life. John Seed is a remarkable human being, championing global forest protection through the Rainforest Information Centre (RIC) in Australia, and when he learned about my proposal to investigate logging amidst the war and plunder in Central Africa he provided several Small Grants.
Above: Blattner family logging operations in the remote forests near Isangi, Orientale. Some of the corrupt practices used by foreign (U.S./European) timber barons to cheat Congo are false labeling, misdeclaration of species, misdeclaration of log volumes, and of course the logging companies pay off the Governors and police to protect their extortion and slavery rackets.
Thus for some years I worked in Congo, searching out logging (and mining) concessions, walking (or biking) into the interior, floating down rivers, joining military operations -- always gathering testimony and documenting war, plunder, taxation, land theft, the dispossession of local villages, and genocide. Everything came back to the problem of the war and impunity -- holding people responsible for their actions. There was total impunity -- there is total impunity -- no one being held responsible.
Above: Innocent boys arrested and threatened with execution during "Operation Iron Fist" in the Kahuzi Beiga National Park, South Kivu, 2006.
Without attending to the war, the war crimes, the sexual violence and genocide being perpetrated against the people who live there, there is no hope to save the forests, the elephants, the gorillas or the myriad other species. Now I am asking you to consider a donation to support the next thrust for our documentary film and book project on the Politics of Genocide in Central Africa.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------22 November 2011
Dear Mr. Snow,
It's my pleasure [to support you] your work is indispensable, especially in this age of intentional ignorance despite really unprecedented access to information. I was fortunate enough to take a course on African politics and colonial history in college, and the topic deserves far more attention than it gets, Africa is the homeland of humanity after all. I think you've chosen your subject matter very wisely and it's inspiring to see. I can't wait to see the final product. I found out about your documentary via Facebook and I'll spread the word.
Good luck guys!
John Grbic
In the past two months we have interviewed critical people whose voices on the Politics of War Crimes and Genocide will expand the dimensions of our film -- including:
> Dr. Yaa Lengi Ngemi, Congolese scholar and author of Genocide in the Congo;
> Marianne Baziruwiha, genocide survivor and former Rwanda government official under both the Habyarimana and Kagame governments;
> Dr. Edward S. Herman, author of The Politics of Genocide and The Political Economy of Human Rights (vols I&II, with Noam Chomsky);
> Remigius Kintu, Ugandan exile and organizer of the Ugandan Democratic Coalition;
>Dr. Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry;
> Wayne Madsen, investigative journalist and author of Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999.
Please make a donation -- according to your means -- through our evolving web site Witchdoctors of Watutsiland. (We will be changing the title of the film and the web site but have not yet selected the new name.)
I appreciate those who have supported me and those who have supported this project. Thank you so much. If you have recently donated, please consider this as information only, unless of course your passion moves you to redouble your karma.
PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND SPREAD THE WORD.
Above: A flotilla of logs from the Blattner family -- out of Bayone, New Jersey -- logging operations is readied to be floated down the Congo River from Isangi to Kinshasa.