they turned the celebrating village into a killing field

TO BE NOTED: From Enough:

Joseph Kony's Revenge in Faradje

Posted by Enough Team on Jun 14, 2009

A boy sits in the ruins of a home destroyed by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Faradje, Congo. USHMM/Michael Graham

A team from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum recently traveled to eastern Congo, where they collected testimonies from survivors of the ongoing conflict. In a powerful recent post on World Is Witness, Michael Graham profiled Joseph, a Congolese teenager who was abducted and enslaved for six months by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Joseph told Michael his story, which is described in this second post of a two-part series. Click here to read the first post.

The pilot dips the plane’s wing under the horizon as we circle Faradje to get a better look at the destruction below. Dozens of blackened huts line the road cutting its way across the forest from Dungu, empty circles scorched black inside.

It is at the Catholic Parish here in Faradje where I first meet Joseph, a 19 year old Congolese teenager captured by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) near Dungu six months ago. He sits quietly across from me in a wooden chair and continues the story that began with him being captured and taken to Joseph Kony’s base in Garamba National Park. Today Joseph is free; the last time he was in Faradje was as a slave to the LRA, and an unwilling witness to the horrors that were brought to a quiet village on Christmas day.

In the aftermath of the operation against the LRA at their base in Garamba Park on December 14th, Kony ordered his soldiers to send a message to the world and the Congolese people, who he accused of supporting the attacks against him. The message was simple. If you want war, we will do it on our terms. We will bring it straight to the people.

A group of a hundred rebel soldiers and a dozen porters including Joseph marched east from the park until they came to the outskirts of Faradje. The rebels split up and fanned out, moving towards the center of town, burning homes and killing quietly as they went. They used machetes and clubs to save bullets and maintain the element of surprise. It was here on the outskirts they tried to kill Roger, a farmer and carpenter with dull scars on the top of his head, who described to me the moment he saw the LRA enter the village:

At about 4:00PM I was at my house and saw a column of soldiers splitting up into groups, one going on the road and the other arriving right behind my house. A soldier knocked on the door. I came out and said hello, asking them what they wanted.

He hit me in the head with wood from behind my house until they thought I was dead. A neighbor saved me, crying out “stop, you have already killed him!” They left after hitting my father and also leaving him for dead.

When the LRA arrived to the center of the town, while Joseph and the others were tied together under guard, they turned the celebrating village into a killing field.

Click here to continue reading.

To learn more about Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army and find out how you can take part in helping to end the LRA's long and brutal reign, visit Enough's special page."

Following the introduction of the historic LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act last week

TO BE NOTED: From Resolve Uganda:

"Weekly Roundup for May 23-29: UN peacekeepers unable to prevent LRA attack on major Congolese town

May 29th, 2009 by alison in: Conflict Watch, Main Site

Following the introduction of the historic LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act last week, we're beginning to see unprecedented attention from US policymakers. In just the last few days, numerous Members of Congress have spoken out on the conflict and the need for increased leadership from the US to achieve peace. (If you're interested in finding out more, you can download the new brief we released this week that outlines what the bill does).

We've set a goal of raising $10,000 by the end of today to help keep this momentum going and to make sure this legislation gets passed. If you can, will you take just a moment and donate $25 to help us meet our deadline?

Now onto the news....

The Good: The UN announced that the first of 3,000 troop reinforcements will arrive in the DR Congo as early as next month to boost the embattled peacekeeping force there.

The Bad: The LRA launched a bold attack on the Congolese town of Dungu last weekend, just miles away from where a contingent of UN peacekeepers are stationed.

The Ugly: The Ugandan government continues to torture prisoners and undermine press freedom with impunity, according to a human rights report issued this week by Amnesty International.

Regional Security

• The first troops of a 3,000-strong contingent to reinforce of the undermanned UN peacekeeping force in the DR Congo may begin arriving next month. However, the UN Security Council, which authorized the deployment last year, has been unable to acquire attack helicopters and other essential military hardware desperately needed by the UN force.
  

• LRA rebels attacked the outskirts of the Congolese town of Dungu this week, killing and abducting civilians, burning houses and causing thousands of people to flee their homes. UN peacekeepers stationed in Dungu deployed but did not engage the rebel force.

Situation in Northern Uganda

• Decades of war and government neglect have left northern Uganda the most marginalized region of Uganda, according to research done by Uganda's Independent magazine. Northern Ugandans are woefully underrepresented at senior levels of the Ugandan government and have dramatically higher poverty levels and school drop-out rates than other parts of the country.
  

• Ugandan political opposition leader Ogenga Latigo spoke about the effect of military operations against LRA rebels and the need to assist war-affected communities in northern Uganda in an interview with The Observer this week.
  

• Amnesty International released a report highlighting the precarious state of human rights in Uganda, highlighting the Ugandan government's continued interference with press freedom, abuse of prisoners, and failure to prosecute violence against women and girls as a criminal offense.

International Response

• Resolve Uganda Senior Policy Analyst Paul Ronan (yup, that's me) spoke yesterday to Voice of America about the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act and how its passing could spark unprecedented efforts by the US government to stop LRA violence and support sustainable peace in northern Uganda. (Click here to read our new brief about the legislation.)
  

• The New Yorker ran a blog post concerning US involvement in efforts to apprehend LRA leader Joseph Kony and prevent LRA violence, emphasizing how landmark legislation on the conflict introduced last week could improve US engagement of the conflict."

choosing to excuse many of the atrocities committed in eastern Congo

TO BE NOTED: From Enough:

Amnesty and the Culture of Impunity in Congo

Posted by Laura Heaton on May 10, 2009

News out of Kinshasa this week about the Congolese parliament’s decision to grant amnesty to rebels in the eastern region is certainly raising a few eyebrows, even as Congolese officials touted it as step toward peace.

"We want to open new paths to peace in our country. The nation truly hopes to turn the page," said Information Minister Lambert Mende, according to Reuters.

However, impunity is widely seen as a driving force behind the ongoing conflict in the east, where fighting between various rebel groups -- some aligned with and some against the Congolese army -- has displaced an estimated one million people. In this lawless environment, it’s difficult to even guess how many people have had a hand in the violence that has long destabilized eastern Congo.

Of course, this same logic explains the practical thinking behind the parliament’s decision; in a region where rebels are often loosely affiliated and motivated by opportunistic rather than ideological goals, it would be a massive undertaking to try to locate and bring to justice all those who served in rebel group. (As an aid worker in North Kivu once memorably explained to me, “A farmer can arm himself with his shovel and become a Mayi Mayi one day, and then put it down and return to being a civilian the next.”)

However, the national government has now effectively rubber stamped this culture of impunity by choosing to excuse many of the atrocities committed in eastern Congo. The parliament rightly drew the line at pardoning those accused on war crimes, but a transitional justice process -- challenging, as it would be -- must be put in place to send the message that there are legal consequences for all those who commit abuses."

Last summer, I traveled to the Congo and saw firsthand the rape survivors, the former soldiers, and the devastation

TO BE NOTED: From Enough:

Enough Takes On Congo's Conflict Minerals

Posted by Enough Team on Apr 01, 2009

Today, the Enough Project is launching the Conflict Minerals initiative to hold responsible electronic companies that are funding militias, war, and death by purchasing conflict minerals in Congo. Many of these companies may not even be fully aware of the pain they are causing through these purchases, but the time has come for everybody to be responsible for their actions. The people of the Congo have suffered enough. Join us in support of this campaign, and know that you are contributing to helping people who need your help - right now.

Last summer, I traveled to the Congo and saw firsthand the rape survivors, the former soldiers, and the devastation that war has done. It’s time to do what we can.

Join us. We have had enough.

Learn more by reading Enough's newest strategy paper Can You Hear Congo Now? Cell Phones, Conflict Minerals, and the Worst Sexual Violence in the World, and by visiting Enough's Conflict Minerals special page.

Emile Hirsch is an Enough Envoy.

The Conflict Minerals initiative is part of Enough's Raise Hope for Congo campaign.

• Enough Team's blog
• Add new comment
• 

You can read Richard's account about what life was like inside the LRA here.

TO BE NOTED: From Resolve Uganda:

"First-hand account of what life in the LRA is like for an abducted child

March 25th, 2009 by alison in: Campaign Watch, Main Site, Update from HQ

I've thrown a lot of statistics at you over the past few months.. staggering numbers of displaced people, percentages of populations not receiving any humanitarian aid, frequency of LRA attacks and estimates of how many children have been stolen by the LRA in the Congo and southern Sudan.

In the midst of all these statistics, it's sometimes easy to forget that within each headline, those numbers are made up of individuals - each of them with their own unique story.

The bravery of people like Richard Mitambwoko, 17, who was abducted by the LRA in the Congoand escaped to tell his story, makes it a little harder, hopefully, for us to forget about the individual lives being impacted by this crisis.

You can read Richard's account about what life was like inside the LRA here. Here's some of what he had to say:

"Life with the LRA is not normal. What they do is use you to find other recruits, and when you come across them you have to hit them, you have to draw blood. This goes on all the time. It gets so that when they don’t kill you, you feel good. That's how it works – you just want to feel good.

I have no idea why the LRA are doing this. None at all. They are referred to as a Christian army, but there is no Christianity there. Anyone who says Joseph Kony and his soldiers are Christians is a liar. God doesn’t exist. If he did he wouldn’t let us be kidnapped, he wouldn’t let this happen.

Afterwards, reunited with my family, it was like a wake. Everyone was crying and crying and crying. I discovered that my 10-year-old sister had been taken, she had spent a month with them. My 13-year-old sister is still gone. There are still a lot of children in the bush with the soldiers.

I have nightmares all the time. I jump out of my sleep in fear, imagining the LRA are there and I have to go with them again."

led to the return of more than 180,000 Congolese refugees

TO BE NOTED: From UNHCR:

New brick houses dot Sebele village, where Amina lives. © UNHCR/F.Fontanini

UNHCR News Stories

UNHCR shelter programme in South Kivu needs fresh funding

BARAKA, Democratic Republic of the Congo, March 18 (UNHCR) – Pressure to provide new housing in South Kivu is mounting as more and more people return to the relatively peaceful and stable province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). But the ability of agency's such as UNHCR to keep pace with demand will depend on the continuing generosity of donors.

"The absence of adequate housing is one of the biggest challenges refugees face upon their return to South Kivu. After years of absence, most find their homes destroyed and have nowhere to stay," Sebastien Apatita, head of the UN refugee agency's office in Baraka, explained during a recent visit.

Most of the refugees returning to South Kivu come from camps across Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. Last year, the agency funded the construction of some 500 shelters in the province's Uvira and Fizi districts to accommodate some 2,500 of the more than 14,500 returnees it helped back home, mostly via this lakeside port.

Over the next two years, with thousands more refugees expected back, UNHCR hopes to provide the resources to build 1,500 more houses in Uvira and Fizi for the most vulnerable families. But this ambitious target will depend on receiving sufficient funding during a time of economic recession.

"It's a very critical situation," said UNHCR Regional Representative Mohamed Boukry. "Unless we receive contributions, we will have no choice but to reduce this important assistance to thousands of Congolese refugees coming back home from Tanzania," he added.

UNHCR does not construct the new brick houses and shelters in South Kivu, but provides the materials and tools. This includes corrugated iron sheets for roofing, pre-made doors and windows, nails, axes, hammers and the like. The families then build their own houses.

Those who might find it difficult or impossible to build their own homes, including single women, the elderly and the ill, get help from the community. Amina,* a single mother of four, did not know what to make of the shelter kit she received from UNHCR after being ferried across the lake to Baraka.

"I did not how to use it, but then – thanks to help of my brothers and sisters – we succeed in building a house," she proudly told visitors in the village of Sebele, located a few kilometres from Baraka. UNHCR and its partners follow up to make sure that the shelter kits have been used properly.

"It is a miracle to come home with almost nothing and almost immediately to have a house after spending more than 10 years in a tent in a refugee camp," Amina enthused.

The beneficiaries of the programme are identified by members of the community with advice from UNHCR and the government's National Commission for Refugees.

Years of devastating civil war in the DRC formally ended in 2003, with a peace treaty. While human rights abuses continue to be recorded in South Kivu, the province has largely remained peaceful in recent years, unlike neighbouring North Kivu province, where conflict continues to displace people.

The relative improvements in security in South Kivu, Equateur and Katanga provinces has led to the return of more than 180,000 Congolese refugees, mainly from Tanzania, the Republic of Congo and Zambia, since UNHCR repatriation operations started in 2005. This year, UNHCR plans to help home about 35,000 Congolese from Tanzania and Zambia.

* Name changed for protection reasons

By Francesca Fontanini in Baraka, Democratic Republic of the Congo"

Surpris, les Congolais découvrent des interlocuteurs très informés.

TO BE NOTED: From le carnet de Colette Braeckman

le blog de notre envoyée spéciale en Afrique

"Congo-Rwanda: le premier succès diplomatique de Barack Obama

posté le 6 mars 2009 | catégorie actualité

Avec effusion, des officiers congolais prennent congé de James Kabarebe, le chef d’état major rwandais, hier encore considéré comme l’ennemi numero un. Des journalistes rwandais invités à Goma fraternisent avec leurs collègues congolais. Les deux pays vont échanger des ambassadeurs, normaliser leurs relations. Et surtout, le Rwanda garde en détention Laurent Nkunda, séquestré dans une résidence de Gisenyi, tandis que les Congolais assurent aux combattants hutus qui campent sur leur territoire depuis quinze ans que « le temps de l’hospitalité est terminé » et qu’ils sont bien résolus à les forcer au retour. Même si les opérations ne sont pas terminées, 1300 combattants et 4000 civils ont déjà été rapatriés au Rwanda et chaque jour le HCR enregistre de nouveaux candidats au retour.
Ce virage à 180 degrés, qui permet enfin d’espérer le retour de la paix dans les Grands Lacs, n’a pas fini de surprendre les Européens et il passera peut –être à l’histoire comme le premier succès diplomatique de Barack Obama.

"Over 850 people killed by LRA since "Christmas Massacres"

TO BE NOTED: From Resolve Uganda:

"Weekly Roundup for Feb. 14-20: Over 850 people killed by LRA since "Christmas Massacres"

February 20th, 2009 by paul in: Main Site, Update from HQ

As you know, it can sometimes be difficult to put a human face on events unfolding half a world away. This is especially true in the remote regions of Sudan and DR Congo affected by LRA attacks, where lack of security and accessibility in the areas where the rebels have been operating has meant that we've had few details, beyond size and scope, about what's actually happening there. This grisly picture became a little clearer this week, with the release of a new report from Human Rights Watch that documents the attacks and exposes the unacceptable ways that civilians were left unprotected from LRA violence sparked by the ongoing military offensive against the rebels.

The Good: The US aid agency disbursed $800,000 to UNICEF to help protect children in the DR Congo affected by LRA violence.

The Bad: The US has given little indication that ending the LRA violence is a priority, even as it continues to defend its support for the Uganda-led operation that sparked the latest rebel attacks.

The Ugly: Signs of discord between the Ugandan and Congolese governments began to emerge over how long Ugandan troops will remain on Congolese soil to pursue the LRA.

Regional Security

• Human Right Watch released a powerful report investigating LRA attacks on Congolese communities over past several months, calling for more UN peacekeepers to be deployed in areas affected by the violence. The report documents over 850 civilians killed and over 150 children abducted by the LRA since December 2008.

• A New York Times feature chronicles efforts by "teenage boys and their farmer fathers" in northeastern DR Congo to protect themselves and their families from continued LRA attacks.

• Conflicting reports emerged from Ugandan and Congolese officials concerning the length of the Ugandan army's mandate to pursue LRA rebels in the DR Congo. Ugandan officials claimed permission to stay until the LRA was defeated, while Congolese officials said a February 28 withdrawal deadline was still in place.
  
  

Situation in Northern Uganda

• The UN announced that over one million displaced persons have returned home since 2006, while nearly 450,000 live in the original "mother" camps and 330,000 live in transit camps closer to their homes.

• Northern Ugandan traditional leaders are venturing into rural areas to spiritually cleanse sites affected by violence during the past two decades. Many northern Ugandans view such efforts as crucial to rebuilding communities and lives shattered by the conflict.

• Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni took a swipe at Ugandans who vote for opposition parties this week, saying such a move was a "vote for civil war." Northern Ugandans have overwhelmingly supported opposition politicians in past elections.

• The Guardian published a feature on the state of democracy and corruption in Uganda, including the prospects for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's re-election in 2011.
  
  

International Response

• A US military official told the press that a US-supported, Ugandan-led offensive against LRA rebels is not responsible for the subsequent LRA reprisal attacks against civilians that have killed over 850 people.

• Following an assessment mission to northeastern DR Congo, US officials announced the release of $800,000 to UNICEF to support child protection efforts in areas affected by the LRA, including reunification of separated families and services for victims of sexual violence.

The UN's top humanitarian official briefed US ambassador Susan Rice and other members of the Security Council on the humanitarian crisis in LRA-affected areas of the DR Congo. The Council has not taken any action on the matter since January. "

Rwandan troops will start withdrawing from eastern Congo on Saturday and the entire force will have left by the middle of next week

TO BE NOTED: From Reuters:

GOMA, Congo (Reuters) - Rwandan troops will start withdrawing from eastern Congo on Saturday and the entire force will have left by the middle of next week, a Rwandan military spokesman said on Friday.

Rwandan soldiers have "achieved their objectives" in a joint operation with Congo's army to hunt Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern Congo, even though the rebels have not been completely destroyed, Major Jill Rutaremara told Reuters.

Congo invited the Rwandan army to help it attack the rebels last month, in a sign of improved relations between the two countries after a 15-year period in which they fought two wars.

The rebels, known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), have been central to these conflicts, which still simmer despite the world's largest United Nations peacekeeping mission and 2006 elections in Congo.

"Tomorrow they are going to issue (the orders). They will begin pulling back slowly," Rutaremara said on Friday.

"There will be a parade and then the troops will go back to Rwanda. All Rwandan troops will pull out," he added, saying the withdrawal would be completed by Wednesday.

Some FDLR rebels took part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide and then fled to Congo, sparking years of violence as Rwanda's powerful Tutsi-led army then invaded its mineral-rich neighbor.

Rwanda said it invaded Congo during the 1990s to hunt the Hutu force but it did not defeat them and, in the process, Rwanda was accused of plundering Congo's resources and backing other Congolese rebels.

Congolese President Joseph Kabila has also invited Uganda's army to hunt Ugandan rebels in northeast Congo.

Kabila said last month that the Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers had until the end of this month to complete their operations in Congo. Uganda is seeking an extension to its operation.

(Reporting by Hereward Holland; writing by David Lewis; editing by Tim Pearce)

"and it is a crime to recruit children for the purpose of war - and it is just unacceptable."

TO BE NOTED:

"Hub Exclusive: Ban-Ki Moon calls for action to "stamp out" recruitment of child soldiers

Download

Ban-Ki_Moon_FLVforHub.flv (7.2mb)

By: Priscila Néri

Posted: Feb 13 09

UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon speaks exclusively to WITNESS' Priscila Neri on the occasion of Red Hand Day - the international day calling for action to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers.
"As the Secretary-General of the United Nations I have seen many human rights abuses - very appalling... And this issue of child soldiers is certainly one of the most serious human rights violations - and it is a crime to recruit children for the purpose of war - and it is just unacceptable."
Priscila interviewed Secretary-General Moon at an event at Unicef in New York City to commemorate Red Hand Day, 12th February 2009.

if the local population collaborated with the Rwandan army they would be considered the FDLR’s “mortal enemy” and treated as a “belligerent party.”

From Stop The War In North Kivu:

"HRW: Rwandan Rebels Slaughter Over 100 Civilians In News on February 13, 2009 at 3:21 pm

HRW informs today that the FDLR slaughtered at least 100 Congolese civilians in the Kivus between January 20 and February 8, 2009.

In Remeka village in Ufamandu, the FDLR rebels called a meeting at which they accused the population, local leaders and the Mai Mai armed group with whom they had been allied, of having betrayed them. A local resident present at the meeting said the FDLR told residents they would not be allowed to leave and that they were “sharpening their spears and machetes.” Another said, “The FDLR told us that if they were shot at by anyone that they would hold us responsible and kill us.”

Following the meeting, the FDLR erected barriers to prevent people from fleeing. When some tried to flee, the FDLR attacked them, killing dozens with guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and machetes. “As I ran, I saw bodies everywhere - men, women and children,” said one witness. “They had all been killed by the FDLR.”

FDLR combatants also raped more than a dozen women whom they accused of having joined the government side against them. For instance, in southern Masisi territory (North Kivu), on January 27, FDLR combatants raped and killed a woman and then raped her 9-year-old daughter.

The message given at the Remeka meeting was repeated in a letter sent from the FDLR to the governor of South Kivu in early February. In the letter, the group warned that if the local population collaborated with the Rwandan army they would be considered the FDLR’s “mortal enemy” and treated as a “belligerent party.”

Read the full text here.

---

Me:

1. So, let me see: The UN won’t work, joint Rwandan/DRC actions won’t work, all sides commit war crimes. Can we at least find out what’s really going on?

   Your comment is awaiting moderation.

   

   Don the libertarian Democrat 13 February 2009 at 9pm

in Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide and has been a principal cause of the deadliest documented conflict since World War II

From the Washington Post:

"Rwanda's Move Into Congo Fuels Suspicion
Some in Mineral-Rich Region See Broader Motives Than Disarming Hutu Militiamen

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 13, 2009; A01

KIGALI, Rwanda -- With thousands of Rwandan troops fanned out across eastern Congo's green hills, many residents and international observers are questioning what is really behind the operation in the mineral-rich region and how long it is likely to last.

The official explanation, offered by both Rwandan and Congolese diplomats, is straightforward. After two wars and a decade of mistrust, the two nations finally agreed to deal militarily with a common menace -- the Rwandan Hutu militia known as the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or FDLR, which reorganized in Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide and has been a principal cause of the deadliest documented conflict since World War II.

By some estimates, at least 5 million people died in multi-sided wars over more than a decade, mostly from disease, hunger and the collapse of human services associated with the fighting. The humanitarian catastrophe was largely ignored by the United States and other Western nations, while United Nations peacekeepers failed to halt the violence.

In acting now, Congo and Rwanda have in theory ended a proxy war that had played out for years in eastern Congo. Rwanda pulled the plug on rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, whom it arrested last month. And Congo abruptly turned on its longtime ally the FDLR, joining the Rwandans in an operation to hunt down the militia.

"Rwanda and Congo have decided to come together as neighbors," said Joseph Mutaboba, who was Rwanda's envoy during several rounds of talks. "And we have been able to tackle the problems that are ours."

But some observers see much broader economic and political motives behind Rwanda's military foray -- its third in Congo in the past decade -- that have more to do with Rwanda's regional ambitions than with the 6,000 or so FDLR militiamen. As recently as October, Rwandan officials had cast the militia as "a Congolese problem," saying it did not pose an immediate military threat to Rwanda.

"Is the FDLR now suddenly on the verge of becoming more militarily powerful? I don't think we've seen that," said Alison Des Forges, a Human Rights Watch researcher and leading expert on Rwanda. "And if they haven't, then what you have is Rwanda trotting out an old warhorse of an excuse to go in again. The question is, what is the intent?"

The stakes are high for the joint Rwandan-Congolese military offensive against the FDLR, given its potential to trigger more regional instability than it resolves. Rwanda's two earlier invasions succeeded in disrupting the militia's operations but also helped spawn more than a decade of conflict that at one point drew in as many as eight African nations in a scramble for regional supremacy and a piece of Congo's vast mineral wealth.

Although the two Rwandan invasions were devastating for the Congolese, they were hugely beneficial for Rwanda, which is still struggling to rebuild after the 100 days of well-planned violence in 1994 when Hutu extremists killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Many Rwandans became involved in the lucrative mineral trade out of eastern Congo after the genocide, and some observers speculate that the current military operation aims to solidify Rwanda's economic stake in the region.

"It was a period of great economic boom for Rwanda -- a lot of people got rich, including military officers," Des Forges said, adding that the current military operation could help Rwandan President Paul Kagame relieve internal pressures on his government, which allows little room for dissent. "Presumably, if the troops were back in Congo for a substantial period of time, they could expect to reap certain benefits. It could also be beneficial for Rwanda to have greater control over economic resources than they've had before."

On that score, unverifiable rumors abound about secret deals and gentlemen's agreements struck between Congo and Rwanda over mineral rights and mineral processing. At a local level, Congolese villagers who have long suspected Rwanda of wanting to annex a swath of eastern Congo say they are certain that their tiny but militarily powerful neighbor is interested in more than disarming the FDLR.

"Congo is rich," said Eric Sorumweh, who said he watched hundreds of Rwandan troops pass by his village last month. "So they just come to loot the wealth of Congo."

Those suspicions, along with Rwanda's messy history in Congo, have fueled criticism of Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who has been lambasted by political opponents for inviting an old enemy back into the country. Late last month, Kabila pledged that the estimated 7,000 Rwandan troops in Congo would leave by the end of February. This time, his supporters say, the situation with Rwanda is different.

While conspiracy theories swirl, Kabila's backers -- as well as a number of Western diplomats who support the joint operation against the FDLR -- say Congo's deal with Rwanda represents a mature realization by Kabila and Kagame that their interests are better served by working together officially, rather than through rebel proxies.

"I think the two presidents have understood that official contact can be to their advantage," said Julien Paluku Kahongya, governor of North Kivu province in eastern Congo. "Now we can start thinking together of how we can lift the economy. For agriculture and trading and other economic reasons, Rwanda will be coming here, and we will be going to Rwanda."

According to Kahongya and others, the downsides of the proxy war between Rwanda and Congo were becoming increasingly clear. Kabila was politically threatened by the stunning advance of Nkunda's rebels across eastern Congo last year. And Rwanda was embarrassed by a U.N. report in December that found it to be directly or tacitly supporting Nkunda. As a result, Rwanda's prized reputation as a darling of the aid world suffered, the Netherlands and Sweden cut off aid, and international pressure mounted for the government to solve its differences with Congo. The report also found that Congo was collaborating with the FDLR.

At the same time, hundreds of millions of dollars from the European Union, the World Bank and other donors -- for major road, railroad and power projects that would benefit both countries -- were largely predicated upon a detente between the two sides. That is supposed to become official when Rwanda and Congo restore full diplomatic relations, probably next month.

"Rwanda's interest is in a stable region, and you can't have that with multiple armed groups running around in eastern Congo," said a Western diplomat in the region who was not authorized to speak publicly. "Plus there's a whole system of militia taxes and corruption there, and none of that benefits Rwanda. They see their economic welfare as tied to greater integration in East Africa."

And so Congo and Rwanda devised a way to cut out the middlemen -- launching the joint military operation to disarm the FDLR, neutralize Nkunda's rebels and, in theory, fold an array of other, smaller militias into the Congolese army.

The entry of Rwandan troops into Congo also represents the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to tame the militias and rebels of eastern Congo. A deal signed in Nairobi in December 2007 called upon the peacekeepers to assist the Congolese army in disarming the FDLR, but that effort never got off the ground. A recent U.N. request for an additional 3,000 peacekeepers also fell flat, with only Bangladesh offering troops so far.

"Now things have turned in such a way that it's possible for the Rwandans to do it," said Philip Lancaster, a professor at the University of Victoria in Canada who has been involved in U.N. efforts to demobilize Congo's militias. "I think this is a clear case of two African states agreeing to solve their own problems, seeing that the international community can't."

According to a U.S. official who is in close contact with the Rwandan military, the goal is not to completely dismantle the FDLR, but merely to scatter it. Several of its key leaders are not even in eastern Congo, but are living in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, or in Europe.

So far, very little information is trickling out about the operation. According to U.N. officials, Rwandan forces were able in recent days to capture two villages that had served as FDLR bases. More than 40 FDLR fighters have been killed and 11 taken prisoner, and more than 500 fighters and their families have simply surrendered.

Several large groups of militiamen were fleeing west last week, deeper into Congo, the U.N. officials said, and Rwandan soldiers were pursuing them."

Me:

DonthelibertarianDemocrat wrote:

"The entry of Rwandan troops into Congo also represents the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to tame the militias and rebels of eastern Congo. A deal signed in Nairobi in December 2007 called upon the peacekeepers to assist the Congolese army in disarming the FDLR, but that effort never got off the ground. A recent U.N. request for an additional 3,000 peacekeepers also fell flat, with only Bangladesh offering troops so far. "

This is the sad fact. The UN troops were unable to stop the violence. Outside pressure forced Rwanda and the DRC to cooperate, as is happening with Uganda in respect to the Lord's Resistance Army.

I'm sorry, but it was indifference, not meddling, that allowed 5 million people to needlessly die.

MSF’s criticism rightly emphasizes MONUC’s current inability to protect civilians.

From Enough:

"Doctors Without Borders Spotlights MONUC’s Failures in LRA-Affected Areas

Posted by Rebecca Brocato on Feb 08, 2009

A recent statement from Doctors Without Borders, known by their French acronym MSF, deplores the failure of MONUC, the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Congo, to protect civilians from the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA.

Commented Marc Poncin, MSF’s operational manager for Congo:

“The conclusion we’ve reached day in and day out on the ground, is that the LRA is continuing its unspeakable violence against civilians…U.N. Security Council Resolution 1856, from this past December 22, makes protection of civilians the priority for the United Nations peacekeepers in (Congo). The MONUC must therefore take up its responsibilities and can no longer continue to be so absent for the inhabitants of Haut-Uele (northeastern Congo) when they are being systematically attacked.”

Alan Doss, the U.N. envoy in Congo, responded to MSF’s critique, saying that it is difficult “to protect civilians against a group like the LRA and that (MSF’s) report did not reflect the reality on the ground.”

MSF’s criticism rightly emphasizes MONUC’s current inability to protect civilians. However, Doss is also correct that without the resources it needs, MONUC – which has been waiting in vain for the additional 3,000 peacekeepers promised by the Security Council in November – is unable to fulfill its mandate. This again highlights the need for activists, as well as groups like Enough and MSF, to put pressure on troop contributing countries to do the right thing and contribute competent forces, and not just beat up on the head of a UN Mission for having inadequate resources."

Me:

Political Pressure

Submitted by Anonymous on February 8, 2009 - 11:18pm.

Is there any reason to believe that these forces ever would intervene militarily in a major way?

Don the libertarian Democrat

What makes Uganda think it can do the job now?

From Peter Eichstaedt:

"Dominic makes two

The French Press Agency is reporting that Dominic Ongwen, another deputy commander of the Lord's Resistance Army, also wants to surrender to Ugandan forces fighting in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The possible surrender of Ongwen follows last week's request by LRA deputy commander Okot Odhiambo, who is currently negotiating the terms of a surrender.

If true, the defection and surrender of these commanders would leave Kony largely isolated, yet still with the bulk of his army in the DRC, said to be some 600 or 700 men.

The surrender of both these men would be a huge success for the Ugandan army and theoretically for the international community since both are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

"Dominic Ongwen is here with me, we are together," Odhiambo told AFP by phone from his jungle hide-out, adding they had 120 LRA fighters with them.

Meanwhile, word continues to trickle out about the possible surrender of the deputy commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, Okot Odhiambo.

According to the Daily Monitor newspaper in Kampala, the Ugandan army commander in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brig. Gen. Patrick Kankiriho, has given Odhiambo a map sketching out where Odhiambo and his men can surrender.

The options are several locations, or any church or the United Nations Mission in Congo (MONUC) outpost.

“I sent him a sketch map of areas where he can report. I told him if he cannot report in those areas where the UPDF is, he can go to any church or the UN,” Kankiriho told the Monitor.

The church suggestion is ironic since Odhiambo and his men are thought to have been behind a slaughter in a church of about 50 people in the Doruma area in December.

This communique to Odhiambo is the first hard information that the negotiations, which began last week, are still on-going with the rebel unit, said to nubmer about 85 people, including about 45 soldiers, 20 abductees and non-combatants.

"If Odhiambo responds and says he is at point A, then we will know he is serious. We will not hurt him. We can even leave our guns behind and we get UN to escort us and we meet him,” Kankiriho said.

If Odhiambo surrenders, it will be a major success for the Ugandan military strike that began Dec. 14 and sent the LRA, lead by Joseph Kony, on a killing rampage that has taken the lives of nearly 1,000 civilians in the region.

But how long the Ugandan army can or will stay in northeastern DRC? Congolese officials have set today, Friday, Feb. 6, as the deadline for Uganda's withdrawal from the region.

The deadline makes no sense, of course, given the current negotiations, but the Congo is under pressure to rid itself of foreign forces. Neighboring Rwanda currently has about 2,000 troops in the Kivu provinces of eastern DRC, who are ridding the region of the Hutu militias.

The two situation are virtually unrelated, but problematic, none-the-less.

Certainly, simple logic dictates that Uganda should continue this operation against Kony and the LRA, since in both this situation and the Kivus, the DRC is incapable of controlling or solving the problem.

But this also raises the question whether Uganda can solve the Kony problem as well. Given the botched operation that began the current mess, there are serious doubts for any permanent solution.

The question also arises as to why Kony and his army are in the DRC in the first place. Why didn't Uganda solve the Kony problem sometime during the 20 years he fought in Uganda?

What makes Uganda think it can do the job now? "

Me:

Don said...

I'm wondering who supports Kony. Can he really survive without any base in a population? If he has no base, how come Uganda, the Congo, and Rwanda can't stop him?

Don the libertarian Democrat

February 6, 2009 9:49 PM

Being a head of state is not like being in a restaurant. I have to have time to think about it.

From Tyler Cowen:

"Africa's World War

The subtitle is Congo, The Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe and yes the book truly explains all of these things or at least gives it a noble try. The author is Gérard Prunier. I've been stunned by how much I've learned from this book, which is clear without denying the underlying complexities. I rate it as one of the two excellent books of the year so far, the other being Ted Gioia's book on the history of the blues.

You'll find a very critical review of the book here but I was more impressed by the book than by the review. I liked this excerpt:

Interviewer: What model of democracy do you see as suitable?

Kabila: I cannot say now, you are asking too much. Being a head of state is not like being in a restaurant. I have to have time to think about it.

Me:

I'd like to recommend a few blogs:

http://stopthewarinnorthkivu.wordpress.com/

http://blogs.lesoir.be/colette-braeckman/

http://blogs.reuters.com/africa/

Posted by: Don the libertarian Democrat at Jan 31, 2009 5:01:03 PM

"A friend of mine told me today that in this country the highest criminals are not prosecuted… but rewarded. "

From Stop The War In North Kivu:

"Mistrust In From the field on January 19, 2009 at 5:29 pm

Today I´ve been asking several people what they think about the new prospects of peace announced in the media. The word that describes better what everyone has answered is mistrust, scepticism at best. People don´t trust there will be a real change, at least in the short term.

The record of broken peace deals in the region is quite big, and they all remember several situations like this in the past, where politicians and military where saying this is over… and two days later things started again.

Then why it should be different this time, people wonders.

The issue is not only that former peace deals were broken, but that the reasons for it -the deal- is neither public not clear. That pushes scepticism as much as former broken peace deals.

A friend of mine told me today that in this country the highest criminals are not prosecuted… but rewarded. Many congolese would agree with this. And this is extremely harmful for the health of any society."

Not a positive assessment of the prospects.

"hundreds of civilians were burned to death on Saturday by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels. "

From Peter Eichstaedt:

"Death toll climbs

According to a story in the New Vision newspaper in Kampala, Uganda, hundreds of civilians were burned to death( PLEASE DON'T TELL ME THAT ) on Saturday by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels.

The rebels set ablaze a church called Bima in the Democratic Republic of Congo at midnight as the faithful prayed, according to the New Vision. ( TOO CRUEL )

It is not yet known how many were in the church at the time, according to Radio Okapi, the UN's radio network in Congo. The rebels reportedly attacked others with axes and knives, slitting throats and crushing skulls.

The massacre occurred in the towns of Tora and Libombi, and two nearby mining communities located 130km from Dungu, the base of operations for the Ugandan military which is chasing the LRA.

According to the president of the civil society of Dungu, Felicien Balani: “The LRA entered around midnight. They surprised the faithful of the church who were in a prayer vigil. They burned them in the church,” said Balani.

The rebels also burnt several houses at the gold mine town of Tora. So far recorded are five deaths and six injured.

Civil society organisations working in Dungu said over 100 people had fled the area by yesterday.

“In Doruma, it was really awful. They had killed at least 300( 300 ) people. We were in a village where there are only six survivors, all the others were killed,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, of Human Rights Watch.

“One of the few survivors, a 72-year-old man who arrived late for Christmas lunch, hid in the bushes and watched in horror as his wife, children and grandchildren were killed,” Woudenberg told New Vision.

After the massacre, the rebels “ate the Christmas feast the villagers had prepared, and then slept among the dead bodies before continuing on their trail of destruction and death” through another 12 villages.

Another 86 people were massacred in the most recent incidents.

Posted by Peter Eichstaedt at 9:27 AM

"People live in fear in the forest. Many of them are unable to move, as they fear that the LRA is going to attack them."

Although we see signs of peace in the Congo, the LRA is still on the loose. From the UNHCR:

A young girl injured in an attack on Duru village in Orientale province. © UNHCR/D.Nthengwe

Survivors of Lord's Resistance Army attacks urgently need assistance

DURU, Democratic Republic of the Congo, January 16 (UNHCR) – UNHCR members of a joint United Nations team expressed shock Friday at the physical condition of civilians who have survived repeated attacks in recent months by Ugandan rebels on their village in the northern Congolese province of Orientale.

The UN team flew by helicopter to Duru on Wednesday and reported that this once vibrant village was deserted and overgrown with vegetation after attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

First attacked by the LRA in September, Duru was again targeted by the rebel group earlier this week, leaving four people dead and the village a virtual ghost town. Back in September, the village had some 6,000 inhabitants. Now, less than 1,000 people remain.

Some of the survivors remaining in the vicinity came out of hiding to meet the visitors. They were traumatized and in urgent need of assistance. Many were clad in rags and looked famished and weak after spending nights in the bush without blankets or shelter. "We are hungry and we are poor," said one man. ( GOOD LORD )

The UN refugee agency field officers heard accounts of atrocities carried out by the LRA fighters when they raided Duru on Monday and Tuesday, killing four people, injuring an infant girl and abducting a nine-year-old boy. "I feel sad for my daughter," said the mother of the four-year-old shot in the leg. "She has lost her father," added the woman, who has two other children.

More than 560 ( 560 )civilians have been killed since the LRA began its campaign of violence last September in an area of Orientale province near the Democratic Republic of the Congo's borders with Uganda and South Sudan. This UNHCR estimate includes the victims of reported attacks this week on Duru and Diagbe, further to the north. More than 115,000 people are believed to have been forcibly displaced by the violence and the figure is likely to grow.

The villagers in Duru told UNHCR that the rebels looted and torched their houses, forcing residents to flee into the forest. Some of them made their way towards Dungu, a regional centre some 90 kilometres to the south where UNHCR has a team. Another 2,000 have crossed into Sudan.

The survivors seen in Duru told UNHCR that they did not feel safe, fearing new assaults, rape and abductions. There are no medical personnel in the village and no medicine. The villagers also said it was not safe to drink water from the wells. ( AWFUL )

Aid agencies face enormous logistical challenges reaching communities affected by the LRA attacks. Duru, for example, can only be reached by helicopter with a security escort of UN peace-keepers. Limited physical access, insecurity and impassable roads are hampering both the delivery and the distribution of relief supplies.

Aid is, however, coming to other parts of Dungu district. On Tuesday, a UN convoy carrying 70 tonnes of food and aid items provided by UN humanitarian agencies, including UNHCR, reached Dungu. The trucks spent 10 days on the road after picking up the World Food Programme and UNHCR aid in Goma, the capital of neighbouring North Kivu province.

In the coming days and weeks, the UN refugee agency and its partners hope to reach some 100,000 displaced people in locations such as Duru, Faradje, Doruma, Watsa and Isiro, which have not received any assistance since September. More joint missions are planned to threatened areas this weekend to assess the scale of the displacement and needs of the population.

By David Nthengwe
in Duru, Democratic Republic of the Congo

By Margarida Fawke
In Dungu, Democratic Republic of the Congo"

From Peter Eichstaedt:

"Condemnation, but no action( GREAT )

The United Nations Security Council has once again condemned the atrocities that are currently being committed by the Lord's Resistance Army.

On Friday, the UNSC issued a press statement, read aloud by the Council President Jean-Maurice Ripert of France, which chairs the council this month.

Here it is:

"The members of the Security Council strongly condemned the recent attacks carried out by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which have resulted in over 500 dead and over 400 abducted, as well as the displacement of over 104,000 people. The members of the Council expressed their grave concern at the scale of these atrocities and emphasized that those responsible must be brought to justice.

"The members of the Security Council reiterated the statement of the President of the Security Council 22 December 2008. The members of the Council expressed their deep concern that the Council’s previous calls for the LRA to cease its attacks, and recruitment and use of children, and to release all women, children and non-combatants, have not been heeded.

"The members of the Security Council demanded that the members of the LRA cease all attacks on civilians immediately, and urged them to surrender, assemble, and disarm, as required by the Final Peace Agreement."

Does the world need yet another strongly worded statement? It seems that the LRA, and its leader Joseph Kony, the self-proclaimed prophet and spirit medium, has committed enough atrocities in the past twenty-two years( 22 YEARS ) to warrant more than grumbling from the UN's guiding council.( TOO TRUE )

The French like to present themselves as the bastion of "liberty, fraternity, and equality," but they're disinclined to do much to enforce those values. ( THEY DID A GREAT JOB IN RWANDA )

It's not as though France couldn't.

As I stated last week during a interview on BBC radio's The World Today show, putting an end to Kony and the LRA's endless rampages will take more than letting the Ugandan army wander around the jungles of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It will take a well-trained and well-equipped force authorized by the UN and composed of international troops with the specific goal of capturing or killing Kony.

This is not without precedent. It's been done before in other African countries, including eastern DRC when the inept horde of UN peacekeepers there, which number an astounding 17,000 soldiers, were unable to keep the peace. The UN authorized a limited European Union force to enter the country, settle the situation, then pull out. It worked.

Such a force is sitting very close by. It's called European Force, or Eufor, and is about 5,000 EU troops, mostly French, who are in eastern Chad on the border with Sudan.( THEY'VE DONE A GREAT JOB HELPING OUT IN SUDAN )

They're positioned as a deterrent to any further invasions by the Sudan-backed rebels who attacked the Chad capital of Ndjamena last February. And, some speculate that the force may be there to help protect Chad's oil fields( YES. THEY'RE NOT THERE TO STOP GENOCIDE. BETWEEN RWANDA AND SUDAN, FRANCE DOESN'T HAVE A RECORD OF CARING ABOUT GENOCIDE. ), which are pumping out crude that is piped to the west coast of Africa via Cameroon.

But, there's not much for them do these days. Why can't the UN send them in for one-month mission? It's clear the Ugandan army needs help, as does South Sudan and the Central African Republic, where most say the LRA is headed.

The Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA), which is South Sudan's army, has found dozens of body of people believed to be killed by the Ugandan Lord Resistance Army (LRA) after being abducted.

And, the BBC reports that rebels attacked a village in the DRC this week, killing four people, including a girl of four and abducting a boy of nine. A bishop in South Sudan says two men had their hands and legs chopped off and were beaten to death, as boys watched.

The BBC noted that the LRA now operates in at least four countries in the region, and that the CAR has sent troops to its border with DR Congo in an effort to push back the rebels.

The survivors of the LRA attacks told a UN agency that the rebels looted and torched their houses, forcing them to flee into the forest.

"What we saw was shocking," David Nthengwe, UNHCR spokesman for eastern DR Congo, told the BBC. "People live in fear in the forest. Many of them are unable to move, as they fear that the LRA is going to attack them."

Clearly the Ugandan army is not making much progress. Yet, the Eufor sits there in Chadian desert, just an hour away by air.( GOOD LUCK WAITING FOR THESE HUMANITARIANS )

Posted by Peter Eichstaedt at 9:45 AM

In general I'm skeptical about the ability of the social sciences to offer predictions about future social developments.

From Understanding Society, another damned fine post:

"Predictions

Image: Artillery, 1911. Roger de La Fresnaye. Metropolitan Museum, New York

In general I'm skeptical about the ability of the social sciences to offer predictions about future social developments( I AGREE ). (In this respect I follow some of the instincts of Oskar Morgenstern in On the Accuracy of Economic Observations( MY GOD, A GOOD BOOK I READ A MILLION YEARS AGO.) We have a hard time answering questions like these( VERY TRUE ):

• How much will the first installment of TARP improve the availability of credit within three months?
  
• Will the introduction of UN peacekeeping units reduce ethnic killings in the Congo?
• Will the introduction of small high schools improve student performance in Chicago?
• Will China develop towards more democratic political institutions in the next twenty years?
• Will American cities witness another round of race riots in the next twenty years?
  

However, the situation isn't entirely negative, and there certainly are some social situations for which we can offer predictions in at least a probabilistic form( A FAIR POINT ). Here are some examples:( GOOD ONES )

• The unemployment rate in Michigan will exceed 10% sometime in the next six months.
• Coalition casualties in the Afghanistan war will be greater in 2009 than in 2008.
• Illinois Governor Blogojevich will leave office within six months.
• Germany will be the world leader in solar energy research by 2020 (link).
• The Chinese government will act strategically to prevent emergence of regional independent labor organizations.
  

It is worth exploring the logic and function of prediction for a few lines. Fundamentally, it seems that prediction is related to the effort to forecast the effects of interventions, the trajectory of existing trends, and the likely strategies of powerful social actors. We often want to know what will be the net effect of introducing X into the social environment. (For example, what effect on economic development would result from a region's succeeding in increasing the high school graduation rate from 50% to 75%?) We may find it useful to project into the future some social trends that can be observed in the present. (Demographers' prediction that the United States will be a "majority-minority" population by 2042 falls in this category (link).) And we can often do quite a bit of rigorous reasoning about the likely actions of leaders, policy makers, and other powerful actors( YES ) given what we know about their objectives and their beliefs( EXACTLY ). (We can try to forecast the outcome of the current impasse between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas by analyzing the strategic interests of both sets of decision-makers( YES ) and the constraints to which they must respond.)

So the question is, what kinds of predictions can we make in the social realm? And what circumstances limit our ability to predict?

Predictions about social phenomena are based on a couple of basic modes of reasoning:

• extrapolation of current trends ( OK. BUT DICEY. )
  
• modeling of causal hypotheses about social mechanisms and structures ( EVEN DICIER )
  
• reasoning about strategic actions likely to be taken by actors ( BETTER )
  
• derivation of future states of a system from a set of laws ( VERY DICEY AND OFTEN MISUNDERSTOOD BY USING A PREPOSTEROUS NOTION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEORY AND REALITY. )
  

And predictions can be presented in a range of levels of precision, specificity, and confidence:

• prediction of a single event or outcome: the selected social system will be in state X at time T.
• prediction of the range within which a variable will fall: the selected social variable will fall within a range Q ±20%.
  
• prediction of the range of outcome scenarios that are most likely: "Given current level of unrest, rebellion 60%, everyday resistance 30%, resolution 10%"
  
• prediction of the direction of change: the variable of interest will increase/decrease over the specified time period
  
• prediction of the distribution of properties over a group of events/outcomes. X percent of interventions will show improvement of variable Y. ( A GOOD LIST )
  

Here are some particular obstacles to reliable predictions in the social realm:

• unquantifiable causal hypotheses -- "small schools improve student performance". How large is the effect? How does it weigh in relation to other possible causal factors?
  
• indeterminate interaction effects -- how will school policy changes interact with rising unemployment to jointly influence school attendance and performance?
  
• open causal fields. What other currently unrecognized causal factors are in play?
  
• the occurrence of unpredictable exogenous events or processes (outbreak of disease)
• ceteris paribus conditions. These are frequently unsatisfied. ( ANOTHER GOOD LIST )
  

So where does all this leave us with respect to social predictions? A few points seem relatively clear.

Specific prediction of singular events and outcomes seems particularly difficult: the collapse of the Soviet Union, China's decision to cross the Yalu River in the Korean War, or the onset of the Great Depression were all surprises to the experts.( TRUE )

Projection of stable trends into the near future seems most defensible( TRUE. BUT DICEY. ) -- though of course we can give many examples of discontinuities in previously stable trends. Projection of trends over medium- and long-term is more uncertain -- given the likelihood of intervening changes of structure, behavior, and environment that will alter the trends over the extended time.( TRUE )

Predictions of limited social outcomes, couched in terms of a range of possibilities attached to estimates of probabilities and based on analysis of known causal and strategic processes, also appear defensible. The degree of confidence we can have in such predictions is limited by the possibility of unrecognized intervening causes and processes.( TRUE. OF SOME USE. )

The idea of forecasting the total state of a social system given information about the current state of the system and a set of laws of change is entirely indefensible. This is unattainable; societies are not systems of variables linked by precise laws of transition.( TRUE )

Posted by Daniel Little at 1:09 PM

As I say, a damned fine post. I agree with all of it, and it is very well written and reasoned.