Keith Snow

Conversation with a war correspondent, photographer and independent investigator, and a four time (2003, 2006, 2007, 2010) Project Censored award winner. / For Bolshoj Magazine 2012

Текст: Дарья Царик. Опубликовано в журнале Большой.

Darya Ts.

Mr. Snow is also the 2009 Regent’s Lecturer in Law & Society at the University of California Santa Barbara, recognized for over a decade of work, outside of academia, contesting official narratives on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide while also working as a genocide investigator for the United Nations and other bodies.

The Second Congolese War was said to have ended in 2003, but mass killing of the population in the provinces of eastern Congo has continued this day. Is there any statistics, which reflects the number of deaths among civilians for all over these years?

The war in Congo started in 1996 with the US backed invasion — involving US Special Forces who massacred Hutu refugees and Congolese in Bukavu. Then the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A) and Uganda Peoples Defense Forces (UPDF) chased down and slaughtered millions of refugees from 1995 (first attacks of refugee camps using secret special RPA forces from Rwanda) to 1998. U.S troops were involved in the invasion of 1996, and in the massacres of innocent people.

Most of the stats you seen on death tools are greatly flawed. For example the IRC (The International Rescue Committee) study of 2001that said 3.5 million dead since 1998 — well, it didn’t begin in 1998! — and so that study didn’t take into account all the people killed from 1995 to 1998, and it was a mortality estimate. Let’s assume that number was correct for 1998-2001, so then IRC comes out with an updated study of 5.4 million in 2004 or 6 million in 2006 — again beginning in 1998 (which is wrong). And since then that’s the only number we ever hear about. Sometimes news agencies report the first stats — “over three million dead” and sometimes “over five million dead”…

Meanwhile, all along, you find agencies kept citing over 1000 people dying per day in eastern Congo (alone). And no one did a mortality study of the death toll in Western Congo, which was horrible, because Doctors Without Borders (Medicines Sans Frontieres) actually did a study that showed this. Then they pulled out from Mbandaka area in the west and moved to the east — where many of the resources being plundered are.

At this very moment there are 100,000 internally displaced refugees in Congo — are we so foolish as to imagine people are not dying like flies? They are. They are being beheaded and massacred and dying of starvation and injury and disease — not because Africa is rife with diseases, but because masses of displaced people suffer and die without reasonable care. And where are the dead body counters? Well, we’ll hear from them soon — because the get grants from foundations and the US government to count bodies, not to feed them or save them.

These statistical maneuvers are to downplay the death tolls.

Also, the IRC is not a “humanitarian” organization. They are an intelligence front group and they make money “counting” people (dead bodies) — not trying to stop the war. Worse still, some of the world’s most reprehensible war criminals are on the boards of the IRC — including Henry Kissinger.

Clearly, the numbers of dead in Congo since the US –backed invasion began in 1996 is far more than 6 million and I generally state that its must be at least 10 million or more.

Have the DRC’s government or any international “peacekeeping organizations” made a difference in the protection of the civilians since the War had ended?

No. I believe that the MONUC (MONUSCO) “peacekeeping” mission was a 1,3 billion dollars a year operation. (For example: The budget for MONUC, from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008, was US$1,166.72 million, or US$ 1.17 billion.) Over half of this budget went to the aircraft contracts with companies like US aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin (Pacific Architects and Engineers subsidiary) and managing the air travel for the humanitarian aid sector on what was jokingly called “AIR MONUC”. Big South African, Russian, European and US firms were involved in AIR MONUC. Also, MONUC troops were involved in gun running and sexual violence. This is an institutionalized international mafia.

Worse — MONUC served the US/UK/Belgian/German/Dutch/Israeli interests in Congo: MONUC did not protect Congolese people from Rwandan and Ugandan occupiers — MONUC instead applied demobilization, disarmament reintegration (all these very expensive DDDDR and DDR programs funded by US taxpayers and Belgian tax payers and probably Russian taxpayers) to assist with the INFILTRATION of RPA (the Rwandan Patriotic Army) troops into the Congo — into Congolese forces.

Given that Rwanda and Uganda are Congo’s biggest nightmares — Rwanda is at present completely in control of the Kivu Provinces and parts of Maniema Province and Uganda is in control of much of Ituri (Orientale province). It was very helpful to the invading and occupying RPA/UPDF forces — and the terrorist governments of Uganda and Rwanda — to have the United Nations very conveniently running these programs costing hundreds of millions of dollars to DEMOBILIZE armed forces, DISARM these armed forces, and REINTEGRATE these terrorist troops into the Congolese national army. You see? These were NOT Congolese troops — they are not being RE-INTEGRATED they are being INFILTRATED. If the Congolese national army is infiltrated with spies and murderers with a secret agenda to occupy eastern Congo, kill off the inhabitants, and seize the land, how can we blame the atrocities on the CONGOLESE army? That’s exactly what has happened. But the problem is not the Congolese army, the problems are the terrorist troops from Rwanda and Uganda operating inside the Congolese army. So, the United Nations and USA and Canada and Britain and European countries, who want the land and the oil and the minerals and the water, they did this. Then the news media says Congolese troops and Congolese men are raping Congolese women — because that’s their culture. What a pack of lies! What a coup d’etat for Rwanda and Uganda and companies like BANRO from Canada.

The MONUC (which became MONUSCO when the MONUC mandate expired a few years ago) and the AFRICOM are believed to be created for peacekeeping operations. It’s a kind of worldwide stereotype. Am I right, Mr. Snow? How is it possible to break the stereotype? Is it possible at all?

MONUSCO is in Congo only to protect western interests — to protect the vast humanitarian profits industries (the misery industry, CARE, UNIFEM, UNDP, UNHCR, MSF, Refugees International, CARITAS, Norwegian Peoples AID, Ben Affleck’s little project, etc. etc. etc. — all under the umbrella of OCHA). MONUSCO is in Congo to protect BANRO and MOTO GOLD, Anglo American, Metallurg, GTZ, Mwana Africa, TULLOW OIL, Bechtel, Heritage Oil & Gas, and the other minerals and petroleum extraction companies and to protect western timber interests.

People need to wake up and see the truth for what it is. The League of Nations was just another powerful entity, which was transformed into the United Nations. Sounds great, but these were not about Peace or Truth or Freedom, they were and are about power and private profit.

I don’t think anyone except the stupidest American or Canadian would say that AFRICOM is a “peacekeeping” organization. Sadly, there are many stupid Americans and Canadians. Sadly, we keep eating the propaganda, and if you swallow poison it makes you sick. And so, our societies are very, very sick. Mix in the alcoholism and domestic violence and permanent warfare economy with the propaganda and the system has exactly what it wants: a docile, ignorant, arrogant, supremacist population, mixed with al kinds of people who want to do the right thing, and who believe that we are doing the right thing, in fact we always do the right thing. This is what Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman called the Manufacture of Consent — which of course is a term they borrowed from propagandist Walter Lippman.

Even the acronym USAID — United States Agency for International Development — is not about AID but about control and hegemony and USAID works very closely with, and only with the authorization of, the Pentagon. That is true in Haiti and as much as it is in Uganda or Congo or Somalia. Same with the World Food Program — people are starving because of the WFP, not in spite of it, and you can look directly to US senators and Congressmen who have financial ties with the big Agribusiness like Louis Dreyfus and Continental Grain (another Kissinger connection) and Archers Daniels Midland — “supermarket to the world, as they advertise on our National Public Radio (and that explains why NPR is pure propaganda). Its all about money and power and depopulating parts of the planet of people of color.

War is Peace. The propaganda system is very sophisticated. People are easily fooled because they want to believe that we are good and we are just — this is all about the power of whiteness and the whiteness of power (where Israeli’s are counted as whites too). 

As I can understand that there is no question about cease MONUSCO’s peace-keeping operations in DRC. Am I right?

The subject of MONUC and MONUSCO’s agenda is big subject, and so the politics of their occupation — like in the 1960’s the United Nations OCCUPIED the Congo — and the politics of their withdrawal require some deep analyses. There are financial issues involved. Example: The Pakistanis and Indians and Guatemalans in MONUC/MONUSCO were paid very well — so they are mercenaries — compared to their salaries back in their own countries. Its also an adventure for them. But they do have to be paid and someone is providing these funds. If the Canadian mining companies like BANRO or South African/British/Canadian companies like Anglo-Gold Ashanti tell MONUC to go home, we are all set now, MONUC goes home. If they say, no, these “militias” keep popping up, we don’t want you to leave, then MONUC does not leave. Also, they said there were just “pockets” of rebels — well, read what I wrote about the DONGO CRISES of a few years ago. Here was a home grown rebellion that was completely unreported in the western press, where MONUC rushed in — this was in the far west of Congo near Congo Brazzaville not the far east near Rwanda — and suppressed the rebellion with the support of Rwandan and Angolan mercenaries. So, it’s a complicated issue. The whole idea — the statement made that DRC’s Kanambe (Kabila) government has “normalize” relations with neighboring countries is a huge farce. The Kanambe government is basically doing what the US wants, and what Israel wants, and that is an alliance with Uganda (Museveni) and Rwanda (Kagame) to occupy, rape and massacre, and make it “safe” for western capitalist mafias to steal Congo’s resources and repopulate the land with foreigners. MONUSCO is necessary only to the extent that MONUSCO is necessary.

Is it true, that using the Operation Blessing’s humanitarian cover to plunder diamonds during the DRC has still continued?

Operation Blessing is connected to the US Evangelist Pat Robertson — who was involved in diamonds under cover of “humanitarian” relief in Zaire. Yeah, it’s all the same story. The players sometimes change, and the names almost always change, but things stay the same for the Congolese. The same techniques used under King Leopold to obscure the plunder are used today in perfected forms. And people in the west just don’t care to see the truth. It’s still happening. Norwegian People’s Aid is supposed to be Humanitarian but they have been caught shipping weapons into Sudan… these are common — they are not aberrations. Operation Blessing is still in business. It’s a big operation today and it’s one gigantic scam. Of course, we have not discussed religion very much, and this si a very big factor behind the ideological and political movements that are destroying the world. You know, this is fanaticism, religious fundamentalism, coming from the United States’ religious right, and the US religious left, and Israel and the entire Judeo-Christian religious establishment. That’s what Save Darfur! is all about. Well, Operation Blessing International (http://community.ob.org/site/PageServer ) and Bread for the World are part of this western religious fundamentalism that equates and manifests as terrorism all over the world — and even at home in the US.

Of course, Israel was built on the blood of the Congolese (and Angolans, and Bushmen from Botswana, and Namibians, and Ghanaians, and people from the other blood diamond countries). By independence in 1960 there was a huge population of Sephardic Jews established in Lumumbashi, especially, and also in Kinshasa. The country of Israel was built on blood diamonds coming out of Katanga and the Kasai provinces of Congo. These Sephardim were very powerful, and when the Katanga succession occurred most — but not all! — took their money and ran back to Belgium or Israel or Russia or South Africa (where they originally came from). So, from 1960 we had US-Belgian-Israeli diamond kingpin Maurice Templesman running the diamond and cobalt connection through their Big Man in Kinshasa, CIA-trained Colonel Joseph Mobutu. Like Israeli-Russian-Belgian-American tycoon mercenary Lev Leviev, the Tempelsman family set up these networks premised on terror. The “new kid on the block” — Dan Gertler — the young Israeli now such a huge problem for Cong, well, his family ran very deep in the blood diamond trade. Moshe Schnitzer and Schmuel Schnitzer founded the Israel diamond cartels. And this involved the Israeli terrorist organization Irgun. The propaganda — the psychological operation — that makes this all possible is the propaganda and mythology created by the Holocaust Industry: Jews are victims of the Holocaust and we cannot even think of criticizing a Jew, no matter how deeply they are responsible for terrorism and suffering. So the Judeo-Christian ideology deeply pervades the terrorism in Africa (and elsewhere). They are inseparable.

As I understand it Kabila’s government is these US-backed government, which is lobbing western interests for a certain benefits. Thereby, in your, Mr. Snow, opinion, what these benefits are (for Kabila)? And what are the US’s and Europe’s interests Kabila cover up in the DRC for today?

First of all Jaynet and Joseph Kabila’s real names are Jaynet and Joseph Kanambe. Joseph Hyppolite Kanambe is NOT the biological son of Laurent Desire Kabila. Kanambe’s father was actually murdered by Laurent Kabila in the 1980’s. Think about it: how does a supposed “son” of an assassinated man become the president?

Now, corporations and interests are jockeying for money and power. Clearly the US, Israel, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Britain — they all support “Kabila” — Kanambe — to make sure that President Joseph Hyppolite Kanambe Kabila supports the western covert agenda of having Rwanda and Uganda control the Congo. So, Kanambe (Kabila) works secretly with dictator Paul Kagame. Remember, Jospeh Kabila KAnambe’s paternal uncle is RPA Gneral James Kabarebe. Kanambe is a Tutsi! He marched across Congo-Zaire in 1996-1997 slaughtering Hutus and Congolese. This is not a Congolese president and the people of Congo know that and they don’t want him! So Joseph Kabila Kanambe’s role is to make sure that the western mining and exploitation proceeds as the capitalist “big fish” want things to proceed : with the involvement and control of Rwanda and Paul Kagame.

So, I call the real people behind the power in Congo the “untouchables”. Who are some of the untouchables — we never ever hear about them in the media and only once, in the very first UN Panel of Experts Report on the Plunder and Exploitation of Congo, in 2001, were some of these untouchables mentioned: George Forrest, Louis Michel, Philippe De Moerloose, Etienne Davignon, British John Bredenkamp, Tony Buckingham, Billy Rautenbach, Walter Kansteiner, Henry Kissinger, David Blattner, Elwyn Blattner, Bush family (connections to Barrick Gold and Anglo-American), Clintons (connections to diamonds and cobalt), Michael McMurrough , Max Bouelle & Jean Raymond Boulle, Maurice Templesman, Dan Gertler (very close to Bush family and now Obama), Arnold Kondrat (Banro), Robert Freidland.

This is a very short list…

So, what do Kanambe and Kagame and Museveni protect for the US and Britain and Israel and Belgian?

The humanitarian and development AID sector is the most profitable business in Congo today: suffering and refugees and the misery industry. Add up all the minerals and timber and you still don’t exceed the AID & “development” profits.

Next: Cobalt — the most lucrative mineral in Congo. Copper, columbium tantalite (cell phones, computers and Pentagon secretive defense technologies), molybdenum, uranium, gold, diamonds (industrial diamonds are the big money), oil, methane, gold, tin (cassiterite), iron, timber, coffee, cocoa, palm oil, rubber, tea …They are protecting the interests of multinational capitalism. These are the US interests. Like the coltan — columbium tantalite — there are perhaps hundreds of lesser known rare earth metals that the Pentagon and Israeli defense industries need for very state-of-the-art futuristic technologies of war — like nanotechnology and missile guidance systems and Unmanned Aerospace vehicles (UAVs) and micro-UAVs and MIUGs. All kinds of things we have never heard of. What is a MIUG? BAE Systems in the 2001 timeframe demonstrated their “Micro-Internetted Unattended Ground Sensors” (MIUGS). BAE Systems is one of teh most corrupt British defense corporations. Guess who BAE is connected to? John Bredenkamp, one of the untouchables involved in Congo (and all over the place).

Also, the Pentagon is building a base for AFRICOM in Kisangani (Orientale province) and this is completely secret but will be a staging ground for US wars and covert operations in Africa. The (no-bid!) contract for the base construction was awarded to a former mercenary who has been working in Kisangani (Zaire) for decades.

Is there strong factbase (which can prove Kanambe is an US-backed president) exists? Who had financed the 2011 year elections?

Election manipulations were financed by Kanambe himself and his close allies — plunder has brought him a lot of money — with lots of additional support to rig and manipulate the elections through the European Union and US government and Canadian government — generally through so-called “AID” structures — USAID, DFID, US State Department, UN — and so-called Non-Government Organizations like the National Republican Institute, and National Endowment for Democracy — which are intelligence groups. Angola has supported Kanambe by providing troops. South Africa and Uganda and Rwanda have sent troops for the elections that were dressed up as (disguised as) Congolese troops. These mercenaries were paid for by the outside countries due to their wanting to protect their interests.

Generally speaking how has Kanambe’s board on the DRC affected? Could the leader of the opposition E. Tshisekedi change the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo if international community decide to renew the short of opposing Kanambe’s return to power?

Any leader for Africa who has the ability or makes the attempt to do what the west doesn’t want is assassinated. Long list of names we know and many names we don’t know of which I mention only 5: Lumumba, Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara, Laurent Desire Kabila, John Garang (supported by the Pentagon for years, but became too powerful). Maurice Tempelsman, who I mentioned above, was directly involved in the assassinations of both Patrice Lumumba (d. 1961) and Kwame Nkrumah (d. 1972) in Ghana — both of these were directly about Tempelsman’s diamond concerns.

Could Tsisekedi bring about change? Well, Kanambe is Rwandan, as I said above, and his uncle is Kagame’s general James Kabarebe.

Tshisekedi is at least Congolese and HE IS THE PEOPLE”S CHOICE. So, in a JUST world we should uphold the people’s choice. Instead the US says, “well elections weren’t perfect and both men claim they won so lets’ leave Kanambe (Kabila) in power. Nothing we can do about those Congolese problems.”

What is the “international community”? It’s a corporate controlled mafia maintained by with the support of western governments.

And what about the situation of human rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after elections?

Since the elections the Kabila regime has been going house to house in targeted assassinations in Kinshasa attacking all opposition and anyone who dares speak out.

During December’s remarks, Johnnie Carson noted “the US was the DRC’s largest donor with a commitment of over USD. 900 million peacekeeping, humanitarian and development initiatives in the past fiscal year”. How does the money supply are controlled?

Wall Street, US Federal Reserve, USAID, private lending institutions like the OPIC(Overseas Private Investment Corp) — the money cycles from the US to Congo and back to US controlled organizations — it does not benefit the Congolese. “Peacekeeping” and “humanitarian relief” and “counter-terrorism” are all code words for industries based in profits and terrorism and exploitation. The Pentagon’s counter terrorism is really terrorism.

Thereby, is there any actual statistics, which reflect how much money multinationals in the DRC made (past year)?

Look at the web site for “Banro” for example and you see these shiny new mining camps in the blood drenched Kivus. How is this possible? It is hidden from the public and the terrorism by Rwanda, and Canada, and USA, to make this possible, is blamed on the victims themselves — the Congolese or the Rwandans who fled Kagame’s death machine in 1994. And then look at their gold mining profits and projects and “known reserves” in the billions of dollars.

In your article you said “some Congolese earn as little as $2 a month working like slaves for the Western companies”. Thereat, are these working conditions typical for Congolese in the Western Corporations in the DRC? Does the status of the enterprises (I mean, legal/illegal) has any impact on these conditions?

Congolese people are living and dying like flies and treated like slaves. Look at the “Banro” camp and you see how neat and clean it is for westerners who work for “Banro” and a very few Congolese and Rwandans who work as their technical managers. Almost all western enterprises in Congo are illegal. They all treat the people like slaves. Universally, from some one who works for care who is from the USA and how they treat their servants to the plantations “owned” by Elwyn Blattner or George Forest or the mining operations controlled by Moto Gold.

Does the today’s Western exploitation constitute a menace to someone other than only the DRC’s (African in general) population?

The plunder of Congo’s forests means huge repercussions for global climate mayhem. Catastrophic weather. This is a danger to all people, all ecology, all species — not just a detrimental effect on the Congo.

Yes, if we are so concerned about “yellowcake” being sold to and by terrorists then why hasn’t Margaret Thatcher’s neighbor — John Bredenkamp — been arrested?

We don’t need to single out any one corporation — they are all rotten and they are undemocratic and they are murderous and that is a danger to all people on earth. Look at Coca Cola in Congo — they contribute to misery and malnutrition and death and exploitation.

There is no such thing as a reputable mining company!

There is not one mining company anywhere that has not had massive environmental problems for the environment and the land, in any case, had to be stolen or purchased extremely cheaply to begin with.

Agribusiness is destroying the earth (in Congo, Sudan, USA, Europe) with pesticides and herbicides and they (such as Archers Daniels Midland) fund the mass media (such as National Public Radio) to make sure everything is painted rosy and pretty and free (as in Democracy) when its black, and ugly and terrorist.

This is a shared defeat for all humanity.

And then there is the problem of impunity. When the ICC or ICTR (or ICTY) arrests only the black so-called warlords and never arrests the Kansteiners or the Mendells or the Pat Robertsons, we have impunity. This means that violence will only increase.

Disease does not need a passport and it does not stop at international borders. When we destroy the ecology and poison the water we are threatening all life on this planet and no one is immune, no matter how rich.

On November 29th you had testified before Spain’s Highest Court to support the indictments against 40 Rwandan officials for war crimes. Let’s imagine you have the opportunity to widen this “list”, whom would you include in the “list” then and why?

I would include Yoweri Museveni and his wife Janet and half-brother Salim Saleh and their top military people. I would include the “untouchables” listed above. Elwyn Blattner. Henry Kissinger. Anthony Lake (who made the decision, in Washington, to kill the HUTU refugees in Congo). Brian Atwood (former head of USAID). US military behind the Zaire invasion like Thomas Odom. General Romeo Dallaire. John Prendergast and the propagandists who have helped perpetuate genocide just like Goebbels — he was a war criminal right? Why not Philip Gourevitch and Dr. Eric Reeves?

If I ask you to explain for our readership what are the reasons 45 000 Congolese die each month, what could you say?

Structural violence, Western predation, and humanitarian charity.

The Rwandan occupation, with all its disguises, is responsible for absoluter terrorism against the people of eastern Congo. Plantations owned by Blattner and Forrest — with maybe 200,000 workers all across the country — are absolute slavery. The misery industry needs a market, it needs commodities to trade, and these commodities are people: suffering, displaced, homeless, people whose lands and lives and futures have been stolen.

They die because white power based systems want their land. They die because we are greedy and unconscious.

What are the main obstacles you have to overcome during your work as an investigative journalist?

Censorship and propaganda by the mass media. Exclusion by (white) people afraid of what I have to say. Often by African Americans because no white guy can be trusted to say what I am saying. No income for what I do unless I beg for donations.

What makes you, Mr. Snow, fight for justice?

My heart. Compassion. The Truth. I suffered a lot of injustice and violence in my own life. I’ve seen the suffering all over the world and I fight against any and all injustices according to my abilities. It hurts me to see people (and other beings) suffer. It hurts me more if I behave with indifference. The worst injustice is the one I commit, and when I know there are massive injustices happening I cannot remain silent or disengaged.

What is the point of life? Why are we here? Dr. Enoch Page, one of my teachers — one of my spiritual advisers — once asked a question, which has become a foundational guiding principal in my life. “Are you going to sacrifice your children to save your body?” For me the answer is clear. And so I try to have fun doing what I do, but not at the expense of others. I truly believe in love.