Rambo Ronaldo

His story is that of any prodigy, it is perhaps telling that his f chierival to the throne of world soccer today is Lionel Messi.  Christian Ronaldo is so amazing that he is a threat to Lionel Messi to world domination in soccer today.

Yet even when is so brilliantly talented Messi looks like the 20 years he is, he has an innocent frown, a guy just minding his business in the street, on the other hand Ronaldo is so good enough that he has been renamed Rambo.

Rambo is the American movie star Sylvester Stallone whose action films about the Vietnam war and the heroics of American troops, he had extremely built well muscles, was handsome and strong, yet Rambo also loved life. His movies had women, beautiful women and sex, machine guns, kicks and blows. Rambo represented America and Hollywood to the world. 

Rambo was fit and had appeal, guns, women and cars, most young guys at the time secretly imagine themselves as Rambo, he was America at the time in short.

The first movie I watched was a Rambo action film, I walked the whole of 20 miles to watch in 1993, I was thirteen and my 15 year old brother Tony had a word of a visiting cinema from a bigger city called Mityana. We walked from Kyiterede after Kyakatebbe to Kakungubbe near Myanzi.

Okay this is not my story, but I read about the new 'Rambo' as Christiano Ronaldo is currently reffered to by newspapers in Europe. When I saw the Real Madrid star scoring for Real Madrid against Olympique Marseile in the Champions' League i thought about coincidences.

Having grown in the era where David Beckham shifted football from sports pages to fashion, humanitarian and educational pages in newspapers and magazines, Ronaldo horned his skills studying one of the greatest sportsmen in his generation. He improved is talent and appeal, Ronaldo inspired Manchester Untied to one Champions' League victory and another final, he also was the star of the technology inspired games on Playstation.

 Ronaldo's fitness was supreme, then he transfered to Real Madrid in 2009, where his goal celebration has coined Rambo..

Alliance of housegirls and the Citi's homage to butlers

GEORGE KAGAME

Last week's 'alliance of the maid' reminded me of the one time I had a 'house boy' myself. I'll indulge you, it is Sunday after-all.

Two years after my graduation with a degree in journalism I was in the employ of a daily newspaper in the Citi, 2007 to be exact. Having been appointed as a staff writer of a first street daily newspaper in the Citi, I moved 'up' a suburb, a bigger house and even a busier schedule. 'As such' I could not cook my own food nor wash my own clothes leave alone clean after my self. I acquired the services of a 'mU'boyi.'

I met Olivier after a frantic search of two weeks. We agreed I was supposed to pay him the equivalent of 20 USD per month on top of full board living. He would basically clean after and cook for me in exchange. The first night Olivier spent at my house he locked me out and I spent the night on a verandah. When he woke the next day, he said in his defense; "Bosi it has been a longtime since I had a good sleep."

 As a student I had been a senior editor of a campus newspaper and during that time I met so many people that have turned out bosses today. I have met bosses myself, in fact I made a career out of meeting bosses every other day. Olivier apologized and convinced me not to fire him, a few weeks later he simply picked 100 dollars from my drawer and disappeared. I was left laughing at myself and the folly of development.

Yet last week when I introduced the encounter with the maid of a prospective old Italian landlady and her cheating ways, I remembered the moments when I have met with the equivalent of mU'boyis in my life. At the time of writing, many households in the Citi have the services of mUboyis, the same can be said of many cosmopolitans neighbouring the Citi.

As a teenager I had met an old lady in her 50s, she had left her own family 150 miles away in another region, she was the first 'housegirl' I met and many came and went in all places I have lived. I also remembered the times when I have discussed with a house girl, as I did with the one who works for the Italian landlord and thought the next revolution would come from her kind, the alliance of housegirls.

Upon acquiring a job many of the people in the Citi had a predictable scale of preferences top of which was to have a house, a car, a butler, a wife/husband and other items. The people involved in the descriptions of butlers at a time ensured they were youthful boys and girls, every successful person (elite or illiterate) in the Citi employed a butler. Sometimes three generations in one family had a butler, parents, children and their grand children.

Today In my home town, entire legends, songs, poems, and plays are dedicated to house girls. As a result the 'butlers' are important enough to be a regular point of reference in the media there. As a young journalist I was just beginning to climb the Citi's hierarchy of needs. Many more before and after me had these butlers who cleaned after them and cooked for them in exchange for meagre salaries. As such whenever there were serious crimes in a family a house-girl was normally an important and prominent witness.

 The best movie in The Citi was made by a man who had worked in the services of a butler! History was very cruel to the butlers. After all, were they also not present during colonial times? It was said that the people who served the colonialists at their dining tables are the ones to whom independence of the Citi was bequeathed in the 60s. Housegirls/boys are very important in the Citi, the most successful Citimen/women were said to be working in western countries, in the services of butlers. They were given a vernacular name which translated to 'sweepers' in English.

Now the Citi had been reported to be in a cosy affair with Dubai, woe to both. The Arabs were said to have a budget of 230 million US dollars to invest in the godsend industry of butlers in the Citi. As it turned out the Arabs were selling feathers of white ants. In a dramatic turn of events Dubai pulled out of the investment which had ensured an entire neighbourhood had been hustled out of their homes in the suburb that was meant to host the butlers' cathedral.

The Arabs in Dubai were a good inspiration to the Citimen. Having formed their country 38 years earlier today, Dubai was promoted as a planning country and their speciality was in the services of butlers., they also had very many 'Sweepers.'

Samuel Eto'o Interview 2010

World Soccer'sDan Brennancaught up with Inter Milan and Cameroon starSamuel Eto'oon the eve of the African Cup of Nations. The prolific striker discussed his exit at Barcelona, his new role with Inter and Cameroon's chances to reclaim African glory.

World Soccer:After having so much success at Barcelona, were you surprised the club let you join Inter Milan?

Eto'o:That's a question that I can't answer myself. The coach [Pep Guardiola] has to do that. I heard and read what he said about there not being a "feeling" with me -- and I keep asking myself what "feeling" means when you've always given everything on the pitch, always delivered and helped win every possible title. But I have to look forward. I'm at a great club and I think this season we will have a very good campaign.

World Soccer:After being used to playing such attacking football at Barça, is it hard adapting to a team where you have onlyDiego MilitoandWesleySneijderhelping you in attack?

Eto'o:I hope this will be corrected as we go along, because otherwise we will not go far.

World Soccer:What do you think ofJosé Mourinho? He wasn't very complimentary about you and your Barça team in his autobiography...

Eto'o:That was at the time when Barcelona faced Chelsea and I had just a general impression. But now I can see him daily in training, I think that he is doing a good job and things are looking good.

World Soccer:You moved to Inter last summer as part payment forZlatanIbrahimovic's transfer to Barça. What do you think about him?

Eto'o:A great player. There is no problem with him and surely he will adapt to the tactical scheme that they have at Barcelona, although we are different in our approach to the game. I hope it works out for him.

World Soccer:Do you still feel positive towards Barça despite the circumstances of your exit?

Eto'o:Of course. I still have the club and the fans in my heart.

World Soccer:Do you miss La Liga?

Eto'o:A little, yes. It was a large chunk of my life. I spent 13 years in Spain and when you spend that amount of time somewhere it has a deep influence on you. But now I'm facing a new challenge. I have to adapt and try to succeed.

World Soccer:Speaking of success, you've enjoyed a bit of that over the years, haven't you?

Eto'o:I've managed a few things, yes, and it's always a pleasure, but to keep winning you have to regard whatever you have already won as history. You must always start from scratch, find the strength to win again.

World Soccer:Is Inter bigger than Barcelona?

Eto'o:They are different. Inter shares the football limelight in Milan while, with respect to Espanyol, Barcelona represents the city, and that's why they say it's "more than a club."

World Soccer:Are you a problem player?

Eto'o:No. People can say that if they want, but I don't accept it. I work hard at my job. Like everyone, I've had controversial moments in the past, but those are already forgotten.

World Soccer:Which specific moment would you consider to have been the most significant for you while in Spain?

Eto'o:Perhaps it was havingLuis Aragonésas my coach. He is like a father to me. I worked with him at Mallorca. I arrived [at Mallorca] on a low, because Real Madrid always sent me out on loan, and whenever the season ended, I'd return to Madrid without a clear idea about my future. So I stayed at Mallorca and Aragonés really shook me up. He talked to me a lot, he advised me and I stayed there for four seasons until I ended up at Barcelona. That's why I was so happy when he won the European Championship with the Spain national side, because I respect him so much as a coach and as a man.

World Soccer:Many say that you have a complex with Real Madrid because, though you played for its second-division reserve team, Castilla, in 1995-96, you never established yourself.

Eto'o:It's not like that. Over time, I became closer to Barcelona than Real Madrid, but I had very good friends amonglosBlancos, people who I have fond memories of. Perhaps it's just that my character is very expressive and when I win, there is an outpouring of emotion.

World Soccer:What was your lowest point in Spain?

Eto'o:Without doubt, it was when I was on loan from Real Madrid at Espanyol in 1999. The coach,Miguel Brindisi, never played me and I felt depressed there and couldn't wait to return to Madrid.

World Soccer:Do you have an idol in football?

Eto'o:Sure,Roger Milla, who was everything for Cameroon. I was lucky enough to have seen him play a great match when I was only 6. At the end of the match, Milla threw his shirt to the fans and I was very lucky to catch it. Ever since then, I was fascinated by football. At the age of 12, I was already playing with people aged 20 without many problems.

World Soccer:How did you first move to Europe?

Eto'o:I was 15 when I made my debut for the national team. Then I found out that the game was being watched byPirri[a Real Madrid legend in the 1960s and early 1970s] and he was the one who took me toFabio Capello, who was the coach at Real Madrid. They loaned me straight to Leganés. I actually arrived in Madrid in February 1997 when I was 16. That early experience helped me to grow and become strong inside.

World Soccer:Do you still regard yourself as "running as a black man but living as a white man?"

Eto'o:That phrase has been discussed a lot, but I think it is not always understood what I meant by it. What I meant is that you have to sacrifice to live well. I like some luxuries, such as cars, but because I pay for them with what I earn, there's no debate. And while I do like to enjoy the good things in life, I also have a charity to help children in Cameroon and I feel good doing this. I feel like I am giving back everything that football gave me. I feel privileged to be able to do what I enjoy doing and that I also get paid to do it. That gives me great pleasure.

World Soccer:Do you think that this World Cup, the first to be played in Africa, may finally be won by an African team?

Eto'o:That's my dream, but we know how difficult it is. Cameroon, fortunately, has enjoyed some success over the years and I am already lucky enough to have an Olympic gold medal, from Sydney 2000, when we beat Spain in the final. Who is to say that we can't do the same again in South Africa?

Read more:http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/world_soccer/01/06/samuel.etoo/index.html#ixzz0btwLa4Mr
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Urban living; The tenant, The landlord and the rent

BY GEORGE kagame

It is said by people who know more about knowledge than me that to travel is to see and to have seen is to have learnt. In my first language it is even more eloquent, it goes; “One that has not eaten elsewhere other than their home thinks his/her mum is the best cook in the world.” As a budding young man I read several books about Italy, I don’t know why but I have always been fascinated by Italy and I have no personal attachment to that country, other than enthusiasm for  AC Milan football club and  Italy in the World Cup. But early in my adolescent life all the books about Italy that I managed to read seemed to tell a story similar to my own African experiences. These stories would be about employment, city living, family and community relations and so on. I always thought that if ever there was a comparison between Europe and Africa, (or anything like surrogate brothers), Italians were the closest to Africans as chimps are to human beings. Yet I am aware of the geography of the world I live in and I know as well that if an Italian reads this article he/she will think of  me as a crazy loser in life. The way Italians marry, conduct business with each other, compete and relate as genders is not very different from our African ways. In old Italy, a family chose the design of their communities by controlling friendships and commerce and even marriage was a calculated step, the way we do it in my culture. Recently I met an Italian landlord. She owns an old town house in my neighborhood and I was interested in renting part of it. She stated her price and we agreed. We had a deal. I paid my rent for two months and like in the old Italian books, when I gave her the money and looked into her eyes, I did not think for a moment that a lady with children as old as I am would later be in a position to play dirty tricks with money. I held her in so much high regard that I did not feel it was necessary to immediately get a receipt for my payment. But alas!!! After moving into the house I found that many of the things she promised were not available, all the amenities mentioned in our verbal and electronic exchange were not there. I decided to inform her that I was leaving her house and considering alternatives elsewhere. As a result, I asked her to return my money. She refused. Switched off her phone and left me with no alternative but to go to her house and demand my money back. At her house, the lady left a small open window at a vantage point from which she could see who was coming into her yard and when she did not like what she saw she would simply just ‘chill’ and no amount of knocking, phone calling or even noise would bring her out. As an African man that has grown up in the urban section of renters I have inbred skills of dealing with landlords in urban centers. So the next day I devised a new mechanism to get my money. I pitched camp in a nearby library and after thirty minute intervals would go to check on my hustling indebtor. It took a whole of 6 weeks to speak with her again and even then I had to connive with the maid to waylay the landlord. Like me, the maid had her own issues with her boss. She had not been paid for services in three months and whenever the topic came up between the two her boss would immediately point out the failings of the maid. This state of affairs ensured that whoever had a bone to pick with the Italian lady would find a willing ally in the home of the Italian. The connection between the Italian and the African is that both have a marginally high propensity to be unfair once they are positioned in places of advantage. There are many maids in my neighborhoods that would identify with the young maid who works for an untrustworthy landlord and the actions of this landlord are very much in sync with what many people renting/living in African urban centres only know about so well. Next week I’ll write you more about the maid and her endeavors to get her three month payment. Till then.

When I turned 26: first birthday Calgary

Today I woke up early in morning took a shower, dodged all the ceremony of a regular sunday and went downtown.
Mission?

I wanted to watch soccer. It was the huge European derby weekend. Everton was hosting Liverpool, Barcelona playing Madrid in a historical El Classico. Arsenal was hosting Chelsea. In Italy, Fiorentina was playing Inter Milan and these days that is a big game too.

But first I have to introduce you to the importance of a day like this one to a person like me. Where I grew up from-there's no one particular place but I like to refer to Kansanga because it is one of the coolest places on earth I have lived. Soccer provided for the most normal entertainment, I lived close to a place called Half London which hosted local concerts regulary. Most of Uganda's musicains made their bones in the industry when I was watching.

Later, I worked for Sabrina's pub on Bombo road in 2001, I was in high school vacation.
Sabrina's pub not only served the best traditional lunch buffet in Kampala, it was also a joint where most of Uganda's biggest music stars started their careers from. The pub/restaurant advertised itself as 'more than just a pub' and its famed Friday night karaoke was a huge hit in the country's low income earning and mildly educated residents of the city from the 1990s to mod 200s.

Current music giants like Bebe Cool, Jose Chameleon and Juliana Kanyomozi started singing in Sabrina's. With Chameleon I was even closer because I happened to have gone to the same seconday school as him in Katikamu. I grew up surrounded by music. The first and biggest show I loved really was Maddox Ssemetimba, the Ugandan-Swedish reggea maestro.


Therefre, from a start having worked in a music pub and lived near Kampala's party district of Kabalagala and Kansanga I got bored with the whole shebang of night clubs early in my life.

 Yet as I joined university in 2002 I got a parrt time gig as a theme night promoter at Club Silk. All I did really was go to Silk Royale, meet Andrew Rwakojo or Rwakakoko something like that, he would give me compliment tickets which I would then take to anyone I chose in Kampala and offer them a night of dance and booze on the house.

  In my first year, I used to sell these tickets to my classmates and later friends and later I got bored and giulty that I was leading fellow students to lifestyles where they would get into dangers, there were lots of free/cheap beers that was esecially common on Tuesday Campus nights.

In all this it is only soccer that gave me genuine entertainment, I was not alone, there were other people in my neighbourhood that were addicted to soccer as much I was. Most were young professionals that I liked to call yuppies, there were middle income earning people, the illetrate lot, the Kikubo business people etc.

Soccer for me was not just watching matches on TV, occassionally I actually played in some village teams just for dropping a sweat, but the kind I watched on live TV was mainly for ESCAPE purposes from my daily tribulations of life.

In fact I was not your avarage mad fan, I never shouted in arguments about soccer, I never had one particular team with which to identify-and this is a sin in soccer fellowships like in religions, I LOVED soccer sometimes for giving me an opportunity to drink beer as well.

As I grew and stopped doing pub jobs, my lifestyle changed too.
First my best friend Giusseppe Kizito joined ProLine Soccer Academy as a physiotherapist. I and Giusseppe shared a passionate love for sports, so much that Giussepe, upon admission to Makerere University on a Bachelor of Arts degree course decided to break off after a year and resumed the following year to pursue a Bachelor of Sport Science degree. Upon completing his course and getting his first job with the highly anticipated Proline Soccer Academy by MUjib Kasule, Giusseppe was stabbed by his brother to death on 12 July 2007.

Bu at some point I lost the enthuthiasm for soccer, this is because the English premiership was taking over every avaliable space of commercial radio, magazines and any other social environment. All the time radio presenters outdid themsleves in showing their listners as their competence in premiership analysis.

I feared I was becoming a hooked consumer.

By English premiership however the thing that Ugandans actually watched was only Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. It was the madness between Manchester United and Arsenal fans that made the whole soccer craze become irritating for me. It was even more annoying whenever Arsenal was playing on a particular day, there would be nothing else for alternatives. In case one was not a fan of Arsenal. (Arsenal has a very large following in East Africa,) whenever the club is playing you'd be excused for thinking that some East Africans are actual shareholders to the thing or they are all English from London.

Earleir I had also moved to Rwanda and I had also acquired a regular fixture of my life. I'd work the whole week and spend Saturday and Sunday in a pub watching soccer.
When I moved to Rwanda in 2006 it became quite a puzzle as there were not many sports bars, but James (the tall man from Masisi) had introduced me to a couple of pubs in Remera where I'd watch soccer. After I moved from the Remera part of town to Nyamirambo I lived next to the biggest and only movie theatre in Kigali so I solved my soccer search forays in the city centre, stopped going to PanAfrique in Kigali city centre as well as visiting with Rastaman Seif Bizimana. Oh I remember the torturous days at the Kimironko market pubs and the rude people at Medi's Motel.

In 2008 I moved again from Rwanda to Tanzania and even there I had issues having a decent sports bar in which to catch soccer. The only two exceptional memories I have of Tanzania were watching the 2008 UEFA Champions' League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea at a pub near Diamond guesthouse/Inn in Arusha.
Watching the UERO 2008 Finals at Via Via pub near the ICTR where I worked.
I also cherish the memory of Charlotte Kingsman, but that is a story for another day!!!'

Eerly this year I moved to North America, I arrived here in February when it was time for the 2009 Superbowl. This most important of sports events in North America was pittying the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Arizona Cardinals.
I watched the game at Robin Honderich's apartment in downtown Toronto. Robin is the son of John Honderich, chairman of Torstar Publishing group, the same man that is responsible for my coming to America.

The match-to people familiar with the game of American football was a beautiful one, I for one did not know any of the rules, but there was great beer at Robin' house. He had his freinds over as well and so I met some young Canadains in Toronto for the first time and shared the experience of a big match-North American style.
Honderich senior had also prepared very good chilli sauce and though the food was still a challenge for me at the start, I liked his dish. The Steelers won the match. After the match I was informed that what I had witnessed was a big cultural expereince in North America. The Superbowl is a very important fixture in North American life. I have listened to passionate conversations about the thing.
Today I was reminded of a big match, (superbowl) as well as cultural experiences-the way I understand it anyway.

As I mentioned earlier, I had been planning since the begining of November as to where I will be watching the 2009 EL Classico, Merseyside as well as the London derbies from. These are the most important of matches, save for Manchester United-Liverpool for a soccer enthusiast.

Since everything in North America starts with the internet I had earlier researched about soccer pubs in the city and came to the conclusion that Ship and Anchor, a pub in the city's downtown core was it. It would be my place of abode on many weekends.

Today I wake up at 7pm, an anormally on a sunday, and head to the bus stand. I get to the pub when the Chelsea and Arsenal match is left with only 15 minutes to end.
I sit and wait for the start of the big one. The all important El Classico.
Unfortunately, today was a day of the Canadian equivalent of the superbowl, after the London derby the TV was switched off and the pub staff feigned genuine interest in searching the channels that were screening the Nou Camp match. I moved from the pub, but after savouring the very well prepared Ship Burger that cost me a whooping 10 dollars!!!!

I visited four different sports pubs and they were all screening the previews of the Grey Cup where a team from Montreal was playing one from Saskachewan, the Montreal team won the game in a very close final minutes of the match. 27-28.
Hopefully the next derby weekend will be better for me.
Today I turned 29.

Eastern DR Congo: EX Nkunda lieutenant forms new rebel mov't

BY JOSH KRON
Nation Media Correspondent
Great Lakes Region

CONGO - As the rape and death tolls mount in military offensives against Hutu rebels in eastern Congo, a key leader of the military campaign is forming his own paramilitary group, the United Nations has said.

Nearly a year after being installed in a senior position in the Congolese armed forces, former rebel-general Bosco Ntaganda has formed with other the Front for the Liberation and Emancipation of the Congo (FLEC). The group has not started war, but is institutionalizing control over regions of eastern Congo, particularly Masisi territory in North Kivu province.

Unlike some other rebel groups in the Congo – including Mr. Ntaganda’s Tutsi-led National Congress for the People Defense (CNDP) who wrecked havoc on the country last year – FLEC does not appear to be built along ethnic lines.

Violence both against and between Hutu and Tutsi in eastern Congo have broiled the region in an on-again-off-again struggle that, over the last fifteen years, has directly and indirectly led to millions dead.

While it remains unclear whether FLEC will be an armed insurgency or just a way to make more money, the emergence of the group is the latest sign that the CNDP is breaking up, and the Congo’s army is unraveling in its yearlong war against Rwandan Hutu rebels.

“It appears to incorporate other dissatisfied elements associated with some Mai-Mai armed groups,” said spokesperson Jean-Paul Dietrich.

“According to local sources, FLEC was established because of the reported refusal of pro-Nkunda elements and the former political leadership of the party to associate CNDP with the reported Coalition pour la protection et la promotion du Congo (CPPC).”

Mr. Ntaganda, who became military commander of the CNDP at the beginning of the year when its charismatic Laurent Nkunda was arrested by Rwanda, was supposed to lead the group into integration with the Congolese national army, along with a menagerie of other rebel groups and splinter factions.

In the United Nations-backed offensive against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda – Hutu rebels accused of orchestrating the 1994 Rwandan genocide – Mr. Ntaganda is accused of playing a senior role. In South Kivu, where the bulk of the fighting is focused, Ntaganda’s CNDP lieutenants are the ones doing the finding and the killing.

But now, he and other CNDP officers are spending their time organizing FLEC and already control some of North Kivu’s most fertile grounds, including large swaths of Masisi territory that the United Nations says Mr. Ntaganda and FLEC look to control entirely.

“The people are forced to pay exorbitant taxes,” said the United Nations this week. “Officials justify the provision of first by the need to assist the war-wounded ex-CNDP.”

And there’s no much that can be done, saying that the police in the region were “neither equipped nor paid” by the Kinshasa government.

For years, Rwanda and Congo have battled over the presence of Rwandan genocide suspects hiding out on Congolese soil, killers that fled after the Rwandan genocide. Rwanda’s own military has repeatedly invaded the Congo in pursuit and have left behind residual militias to do the fighting for them.

Last year, things began to get out of hand, when one of these generals, Mr. Nkunda went on a strong offensive in North Kivu, taking important parts of the province and coming within a few kilometers of the capital Goma. The Congolese military didn’t stand a chance, instead fleeing with civilians from the oncoming rebel group, looting, killing and raping in the process.

It all changed, investigators have argued when Rwanda and Congo struck a deal that placed Ntaganda in the drivers seat and Mr. Nkunda supposedly behind bars. Now, the Congolese army was no longer fighting the CNDP, but the Hutu rebels, and in the process Ntaganda and his troops took command of the war.

It’s been a sweet role of reversal for Mr. Ntaganda. According to the United Nations Panel of Experts report leaked Tuesday, he is making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in illegal tax revenues from the lands he patrols. His elite CNDP that follow him; 60,000.

But as the atrocities mount, Ntaganda has been losing friends. The people who put him in power – including Rwanda – have not gone out of their way to keep all the soldiers below him in line and, as the The New York Times has reported, much of the region has descended into ‘warlordism.’

From Mai-Mai generals to FDLR splinters, new groups have sprung and popped, since the beginning of the year, feeding off each other like water wheels. 

A spokesperson for the United Nation in Congo said that the latest developments reflected a “possible division within the CNDP itself,” those working with Ntaganda, and those loyal to the arrested Laurent Nkunda, who remains in Rwanda, somewhere. 

“He is our man, he always will be,” says Claude Mutebutsi, a Congolese Tutsi originally from South Kivu. He insists Nkunda wasn’t simply sponsored by Rwanda. According to him, “95%” are still faithful to Mr. Nkunda, who has acquired a Che Guevara-like mystique with his constituents.

The political arm of the CNDP – Nkunda had said he was fighting for the protection of Congolese Tutsi – has accomplished little on paper since peace agreement that culminated integration into the army. Two party members are in parliament.

Mr. Ntaganda’s new group is the latest manifestation in a breakup of the CNDP that has been ongoing for months. The first incarnation was the Coalition for the Promotion and Protection of the Congo. Initially built around Ntaganda and other CNDP soldiers, it fell apart due to deteriorating support for Mt. Ntaganda.

Now, it seems, he is making shrewd utilitarian choices with his supposed enemies as his traditional friends dwindle.

Rwanda joins the Commonwealth

BY JOSH KRON
Nation Media
Rwanda

Rwanda has been formally accepted into the British Commonwealth, becoming the 54^th nation to join the post-colonial group after a two-year bid, Rwandan government officials were told this weekend.

The Commonwealth members summit, held in the Caribbean island-state of Trinidad & Tobago, reportedly admitted the Central African country after it applied for membership in 2008.

News of the admission was first made public by a spokesperson for the Rwandan government late Saturday night, ahead of announcement from the Commonwealth itself, who had given the Rwandan government formal news of the admission.

“The government sees this accession as recognition of the tremendous progress this country has made in the last 15 years,” Rwanda’s government spokesperson Louise Mushikiwabo said in the capital Kigali.

Rwanda’s foreign minister, Rosemary Museminali, said a longer statement to the press would be made available later Sunday.

Announcement from the Commonwealth itself is due this evening, but Rwanda’s envoy to the conference had been given formal notice of the admission. 

Along with Mozambique, who joined the group in 1995, Rwanda became the second nation without any formal historical ties to Great Britain to join the group, came under scrutiny due to criticisms of its human-rights policy.

The country’s ascension to the club marks an acme for its post-genocide development and President Paul Kagame’s drive to sharply redefine Rwanda’s orientation towards the English-speaking world. In 2007 the country, along with Burundi, joined the East African Community. :Last year, all sectors of government and education adopted English as the official, operating language.

Rwanda was first colonized by Germany in the late 19^th century and then by the Belgians. The country later held close ties to France, which were severed after the 1994 Rwandan genocide by President Paul Kagame’s current government. France is accuse of playing a key role in the build up and arming of the genocidal government that killed 1 million Tutsi.

Much of the current government was raised as refugees in Uganda and since then, Uganda has been one of Rwanda’s biggest backers to join the Commonwealth group.