70 million people died
in the Second World War.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Globally, annual arms trade is $80 billion.
"The very purpose of war is to keep the structure of society intact."
- "1984" by George Orwell
Rwanda, Uganda Troops
Battle In Congolese City
August 15, 1999 by Todd Pitman
KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwandan and Ugandan troops exchanged
heavy machinegun fire in the rebel-held city of Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where street-fighting
raged late into Sunday night, rebel officials and witnesses said.
Witnesses contacted in Kisangani by satellite phone told Reuters that heavy fighting
between the two armies, which each support rival rebel factions in a war against the Congolese government, broke
out around 1300 GMT at the city's main international airport. It spread quickly throughout the town.
Witnesses said hundreds of troops were involved. There were no immediate details of
casualties from the Sunday fighting.
Officials from both countries, who have traditionally been strong allies but differ on how to conduct the year-old
rebellion, were tight-lipped about the fighting but privately accused each other of sparking the clashes.
"There is still heavy fighting going on. We can hear mortar shells landing and heavy gunfire,"
said one source pinned down late Sunday in a house in the river town in the north of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"The situation is confused and we don't have the details, but shooting is going on right now," General
Jeje Odongo, the Ugandan army commander, said from the Ugandan capital Kampala.
"There's been a lot of fighting but we've been working extremely hard to resolve this," said
Patrick Mazimhaka, Rwanda's minister of state in the presidency.
Sunday's fighting follows a series of gunbattles fought in the city last weekend between
Rwandan-backed rebels from the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) and Ugandan
troops who support a splinter faction led by Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, who was ousted from the group's leadership
in May.
Rebel officials said the latest round of hostilities in Kisangani began Saturday night when Ugandan soldiers exchanged
artillery rounds and fought a brief battle with Rwandan troops at the city's main airport. One Rwandan and several
Ugandans were wounded in this clash.
Officials said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was due to hold urgent talks with
Rwanda's powerful Defense Minster Paul Kagame Monday to try to end the fighting.
Bizima Karaha, security chief of one faction of the Rwandan-backed rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy
(RCD), blamed Ugandan troops for starting the skirmish.
"Ugandans attacked Rwandese positions at the main airport and in the city. There's been a lot of fighting
and a lot of casualties," Karaha said from the eastern Congolese town of Goma.
Both Rwanda and Uganda have sent hundreds of reinforcements to Kisangani where tensions have steadily risen over
the last few days, witnesses said.
The latest fighting follows visits to the town by Zambian and South African diplomats trying
to determine which of the rebel factions should sign a peace accord brokered on July 10 in Lusaka and signed by
six African governments.
Karaha said Ugandan troops launched the attacks because they want to show that dia Wamba controlled the town and
not Congolese forces backed by Rwanda.
Global Weapons Sells Decline U.S. report by Tim Loughran
WASHINGTON, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Conventional weapons sales to developing nations fell last
year in dollar terms to the lowest levels since 1991 amid intense price competition in the arms trade and budget
constraints in the developing world, an
official U.S. report said.
"Competition...continues to intensify among major weapons suppliers" while "the limited resources
of most developing nations...continues to place constraints on significant expansion of the arms trade," said
Richard F. Grimmett, author of a report released this week by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of the
Library of Congress.
"The overall level of the arms trade is likely to remain fairly static in the foreseeable future, not approaching
the sales levels of the Cold War or Persian Gulf War periods," said Grimmett.
Agreements from the top arms-producing nations to sell weapons across the developing world totaled $13.2 billion
last year, down from about $16.5 billion in 1997. The value of arms
deliveries fell to $23.2 billion, from $29.7 billion in 1997, the CRS said.
The United States was the biggest seller and Saudi Arabia the largest weapons procurer in the developing world
last year, according to the report. The United States exported weapons to
the developing world valued at $4.6 billion in 1998, up from $2.6 billion in 1997.
The United Arab Emirates and Malaysia were the developing world's second- and third-largest weapons procurers.
China saw its sales of conventional weapons to developing
nations drop to about $500 million, from $1.6 billion in 1997, reflecting the widespread view that Chinese weaponry
"is less advanced and sophisticated than weaponry available from Western suppliers and Russia," said
the CRS.
Still, China may be increasing sales of missile technology to developing nations, including Pakistan, Iran and
North Korea, to boost its hard currency reserves, the CRS reported.
France and Germany were the second- and third-largest providers of weapons to developing nations in 1998, displacing
Russia, which fell to fourth place from second place in 1997.
In the three years ended 1998, Russia sold $15 billion in weapons, including aircraft, missiles, artillery, tanks
and small weapons, to developing nations, roughly equivalent to
those sold by the United States in that period.
France's sale of 30 Mirage 2000-9 fighter jets to the UAE and Germany's sale of offshore patrol boats to Malaysia
helped push them to the front ranks of weapons exporters last year,
the report said.
Russian weapons sales to developing nations fell in part of lost subsidies for military exports after the collapse
of the former Soviet Union, the report said.
Weapons sales to developing nations from Britain fell to $200 million in 1998, down from more than $1 billion in
1997. Italy saw its military sales to developing nations fall to $100
million last year from $300 million in 1997.
REUTERS 08-07-99
Child death rate doubles
in southern, central Iraq
NEW YORK, Aug 13 (Reuters Health) --Children under the age of 5
living in central and southern Iraq are dying at twice the rate found 10 years ago, according to a report from
the United Nations' Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The findings "reveal an ongoing humanitarian emergency," according to UNICEF Executive Director Carol
Bellamy.
The UNICEF survey, the first study of child and maternal mortality in Iraq since 1991, was conducted between February
and May of this year with cooperation from the Government of Iraq, local authorities and the World Health Organization.
As a result of the findings, UNICEF recommends that the international community provide additional funding for
humanitarian efforts.
The UN agency also recommends that the Government of Iraq expedite implementation of targeted nutrition programs,
and that the Government of Iraq and the UN Sanctions Committee give priority to contracts for supplies that would
directly impact the well-being of children.
Central and southern Iraq holds 85% of the country's population. In those regions, the mortality rate for children
under 5 more than doubled, from 56 deaths per 1000 live births in 1984-1989 to 131 deaths per 1000 live births
in 1994-1999. The rate of deaths among children in their first year increased from 47 per 1000 live births to 108
per 1000 live births during the same time frames.
In contrast, in the autonomous northern region of Iraq, where the UN conducts a humanitarian relief operation,
the death rate for children under 5 declined from 80 deaths per 1000 live births in 1984-1989 to 72 deaths per
1000 live births in 1994-1999. The report also reveals that children in rural areas of Iraq have higher mortality
rates than children in urban areas, and boys under the age of 5 have a slightly higher mortality rate than girls
of the same age.
In a statement, UNICEF says that it recognizes that economic sanctions are used to promote peace and security.
"But our concern is that whenever sanctions are imposed they should be designed and implemented in such a
way as to avoid a negative impact on children," Bellamy said.
Bellamy noted that if the reduction in child mortality in Iraq throughout the 1980s had continued through the 1990s,
half a million fewer children under the age of 5 in Iraq would have died between 1991 and 1998.
Greed & War
Copyright 1997 by Andrew Homer
World War One and the Viet Nam War were based on greed.
A lot of American gold was parked in British banks, so when The Great War broke
out between Germany against France and Britain, the U.S. sent it's Expeditionary Force to Europe to protect that
American gold. By the way... America first offered the gold to the German Central Bank before the war, but the
Germans said they didn't need it.
You know that speck of an almost island that China and Viet Nam are currently
squabbling over, because of all the offshore oil fields within a 200-mile radius? Well, that was the main reason
the U.S. got involved in Viet Nam when the French troops pulled out. So many American, Vietnamese and Cambodian
lives were lost, because the American Government was doing the bidding of the American petroleum companies.
