Date: Sunday, December 14
Time: 2:00 PM EST, 8 PM GMT/UTC

For 35 years, conflict has ravaged the Great Lakes Region of Africa, beginning with the Rwandan Civil War and Genocide, then followed by the Congo Wars and ongoing conflict. Millions have died and millions more have been displaced. There are now eight million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a figure surpassed only recently in Sudan. The US’s responsibility in Palestine and other aerial bombing wars is obvious, but its role in Rwanda and Congo remain obscured. Many know that it dates back to the 1961 US-Belgian assassination of Patrice Lumumba, but not that it has continued through US support of Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the Rwandan Civil War and the invasion, occupation, and plunder of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Trump’s so-called peace plan rewards him and US corporations with no end to the violence in sight.

Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza risked her life to expose the brutal Kagame regime and its abuse of Rwanda’s tragic history to justify war in Congo. Having already endured eight years in prison, from 2010 to 2018, she remains forbidden to leave Rwanda and now faces re-imprisonment. This webinar will deconstruct the lies used to justify the ongoing war and highlight Victoire’s case.

Guest speakers include:

Ann Garrison (Contributing Editor, Black Agenda Report) on how Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire exposed the lies underpinning the Rwandan and Congolese tragedies

Judi Rever, on her groundbreaking investigative work In Praise of Blood: Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front

Maurice Carney, Executive Director of Friends of the Congo, on Trump’s so-called Rwanda/Congo peace deal, which is really a minerals deal for US corporations

Marceline Nduwamungu, co-founder of the Women’s International Network for Democracy and Peace, which presents the annual Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize

Join us to look beyond the headlines and get a deeper understanding of one of the world's most protracted resource wars and humanitarian disasters.