NKUNDA'S INTORE HEROES

To Orwell Today,

Hi Jackie,

I did send you [September 2007] the DVD about LAURENT. Let me know when you get it.

Amahoro,
Sharangabo Rufagari

PS - UPDATE, January 2009, video on You Tube: THE PILGRIMAGE OF RECONCILIATION, Laurent Nkunda, CNDP, YouTube

Greetings Sharangabo,

Thank you so much for sending that fascinating DVD showing Laurent Nkunda at the PILGRIMAGE OF RECONCILIATION in August and September 2006. It's hard to believe that I was very close to that area just a month before when I was in the Congo in July 2006. See GOMA'S LUMUMBA VOLCANO.

All I saw there was volcanic rock and dust everywhere and yet just a few miles away there are villages that do, as you once told me, look like paradise.

The DVD was obviously professionally done the way the camera starts off with long-shot views of the villages and their surrounding hills and of the ribbon roads with Nkunda and the National Congress for People's Defense (CNDP) soldiers arriving, and then down onto ground level for coverage of the speeches and the crowds. And the soundtrack of singing and drum beating is wonderful music.

I loved the parade of honour by the soldiers for Nkunda where they marched, sang and displayed the synchronized handling of their rifles - twirling them like batons.

As I was watching it I kept having to remind myself that we're in the 21st century - not the 1800s when the Mwami and his warriors protected the land. See ROYAL REIGN IN RWANDA.

It also occurred to me that the last king of Rwanda is still alive - Kigeli V - but instead of weighing in on the struggles of his people he's living in self-imposed exile thousands of miles away in the United States. Meanwhile, back home, his people have been genocided and warred against all these years. What use is a king if he's not in his kingdom? See RWANDA KING WANTS RWANDA and RWANDA MWAMI GO HOME.

I'll be watching the DVD again to catch more detail as this first time I concentrated on reading the English subtitles while Nkunda and the others spoke Kinyarwanda - which in itself is fascinating to listen to.

Nothing like what is seen there is possible here in North America where we have no rebels fighting for the rights of we the people, against the forces of evil that are waging war in our country - although through different methods than in the Congo where Nkunda and the CNDP are fighting, and in Rwanda where Kagame and the RPF were fighting for the lives and the existence of their countrymen.

It was great watching Nkunda receive the honour of being handed an ancient shield and bow and arrows - just like those used in the times of the Rwandan kingdom, this being a part of the Congo where Tutsis and Hutus and Twa lived then as now, along with other tribes.

I couldn't believe it when I saw Nkunda and other leaders of the different tribes eating "brochette" off the end of a sword. It flashed me back to my days in Rwanda when we stopped and ate brochettes at every chance (but off a skewer). See RWANDA ROYAL PALACES.

And so too was it wonderful watching Nkunda and the other leaders drinking through straws from the communal drum full of obviously the local brew - probably that one made of bananas I've read about but never tasted.

And I loved watching the Intore dancers in the most natural yet of any of the environments I've seen them dancing.

Amahoro Dancers 2 President Dancers Troupe 1 Troupe 2

Every time else (as in photos above) - during my visits to Rwanda - it's been wonderful but it's been ceremonial. There in the villages where Nkunda was visiting, it seemed natural and contemporary.

And of course, Nkunda himself dancing and singing with the Intore was a highlight (although dressed in his khakis and dress uniforms)!

Anyway, those are my first impressions on watching the PILGRIMAGE OF RECONCILIATION. I'll be watching it again and looking up the locations of the various villages on the map scanned below.

Map Congo Kivu

Thanks again for sending the DVD showing Nkunda and his North Kivu area of Congo. It's heartbreaking to think of war going on there now, with his people - the Tutsis - being once again attacked for their ethnicity and the Intore warriors having to die to protect them.

All the best,
Jackie Jura

PS - UPDATE, January 2009 - I recently learned that the soldier seen sitting beside General Nkunda - in the DVD you sent - is his chief of staff Jean Bosco Ntaganda, the one who turned traitor last week and fronted a tiny break-away group from Nkunda's CNDP ranks. I re-watched the video so I could put a face to the name in all the news coverage, most recently today's. See NKUNDA A TRUE BELIEVER

PPS - UPDATE January 2009 - THE PILGRIMAGE OF RECONCILIATION, Laurent Nkunda, CNDP, Part 1, You Tube

RWANDA KING NO TASTE (...It would be better for the former King who was deposed during the 1959 Genocide to return home as any other Rwandan citizen. If many have returned, Kigeli too should follow suit and stop his negative agitation on international air waves and in western University campuses. The fact that Kigeli hobnobbed with the late President Laurent Kabila (RIP) of DRC at a time when the latter’s cronies like Yerodia Ndombasi had called for the extermination of a section of the Kinyarwanda speaking people in Kinshasha, is a blot on the image of Kigeli. Laurent Kabila had also talked of taking the Congolese war to Kigali in around 1998. This is something that will put into doubt the intentions of the former Rwandan King for a long time. His return as any other Rwandan citizen would for the first time demonstrate his respect for the fallen and living heroes of Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army liberation war of 1990-94....)

Congo troops seize journalists. AFP, Sep 15, 2007
KINSHASA — Journalists working for Western and African media had their equipment and recordings confiscated by DR Congo soldiers in the troubled east of the country on Saturday, the reporters said....The Nord-Kivu army's deputy commander Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, who led the interrogation, "accused the press of making propaganda for Laurent Nkunda and said that no media was allowed to interview him," one of the journalists told AFP. "We told him that we will interview anybody and asked him for a response, which he would not give us," he added. The four were released after the interrogation but the army kept their equipment. The armed forces in Nord-Kivu could not be reached for comment.

CONGO WOLVES ON NKUNDA and UN PEACEKEEPING NOT KEEPINGPEACE and RWANDA'S SILENT FRIENDS and KABILA-CHINA-GORILLAS-NKUNDA and CONGO WRONG ON NKUNDA and LUMUMBA-LIKE LAURENT NKUNDA

GOMA'S LUMUMBA VOLCANO and CONGO IS LUMUMBA LAND and JFK CRIED FOR CONGO

RWANDA'S GOOD MAN KAGAME and HOW KAGAME BECAME LEADER

DESTINY DESTINATION RWANDA and A WANDER IN RWANDA

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

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