May 28 2012
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May 27 2012
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Levi Van Veluw,
Origin of the BeginningThe works suggest a narrative world behind the abstract portraits. On the one hand these works present themselves as a continuation of van Veluw’s formal approach to self-portraiture, with their preoccupation for materiality, pattern and texture. Yet they are simultaneously very personal pieces. The repetitive structures seemingly express a ‘horror vacui’ and recall van Veluw the youth and his obsessive attempts to gain control on his life by gaining control of his surroundings.
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DR Congo violence forces tens of thousands to flee
Fighting between Congolese army and mutineers has forced tens of thousands of people from their homes since late April, with thousands taking refuge in Uganda and Rwanda, officials said Wednesday.
The chronically unstable eastern province of Nord-Kivu has been beset by skirmishes between the Democratic Republic of Congo’s army and a group of mutineers known as the March 23 movement, formed by former rebels who were integrated into the army under a 2009 peace deal.
“Across Nord-Kivu, there are around 47,000 people who have been displaced” within the province by the fighting, UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement.
Another 9,000 Congolese refugees have crossed the border to Rwanda to escape the clashes, it added, while Uganda’s commissioner for refugees said some 10,000 Congolese have fled to his country since April.
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Women, children targeted in renewed Congo clashes
Reuters- Jonny Hogg -May 25, 2012
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Rival armed groups in Congo’s eastern provinces are targeting each other’s families, killing children, women and the elderly in some of the country’s worst violence in years, officials said on Friday.
The fighting, which UN agency UNICEF says has cost up to 80 lives since early May, comes amid a security vacuum in parts of the vast forested region after Congo’s army redeployed elsewhere to capture a renegade general, Bosco Ntaganda, and his men.
“All these areas which are without the army, without protection, have been seized again by the (Hutu rebel group) FDLR,” saidJean Luc Mutokambali, a parliamentarian from the region and member of the ruling coalition.
“That’s leading to self-defense groups like Raia Mutomboki,” he said, referring to a local militia involved in the clashes whose name means “Angry Population”.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday that it was treating scores of victims from the fighting.
“Most of the victims are civilians, some of whom are very young children, elderly people or women,” Laetitia Courtois, a spokeswoman for the ICRC said in a press release.
“Some injured people had to be carried for hours on foot … to reach healthcare centers.”
Both sides in the fighting are targeting civilians, often suspected wives, families and friends of their enemies, said Marie Claire Bangwene Mwavita, the administrator of Masisi territory. She said several villages were recently pillaged near the border between North and South Kivu provinces, and at least four people burnt alive in their homes.
The United Nations local peacekeeping mission, known as MONUSCO, has deployed attack helicopters in North Kivu in an attempt to dissuade armed groups from targeting civilians, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mactar Diop said.
Ntaganda, a former rebel wanted by the ICC for war crimes and who was integrated into the army in a 2009 peace deal, mutinied with around 600 soldiers last month after the government said it would arrest him.
The fighting linked to his mutiny has forced some 100,000 people to flee their homes according to the UN, including thousands into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.
A spokesman for Ntaganda’s rebels said they are in control of the Runyoni area of North Kivu, near the border with Rwanda. Colonel Vianney Kazarama said the rebels had killed scores of Congolese soldiers in recent clashes and seized large quantities of arms, although the government has denied this.
Human Rights Watch said last week Ntaganda’s group was recruiting children as soldiers.
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Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo
by Tom Furst
people are dying for this rich soil… a prayer for Congo…
May 21 2012
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Gorgeous photographs from Richard Mosse’s Infra Series.
The photographs were taken in Eastern Congo using Kodak Aerochrome, infrared film originally developed for the U.S military during the Cold War for camouflage detection.
Here is more info about the photographs and Mosse’s thoughts on the series: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-17560579
Some of the photographs are on display at UTAC, the University of Toronto Art Centre, as part of the CONTACT Photography Festival. More info here: http://www.utac.utoronto.ca/current-exhibitions/262-public-contact-2012
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Kuro Enigma: Belgian Congo In 1876, Belgium’s King Leopold II (1835-1909) convened...
Belgian Congo
In 1876, Belgium’s King Leopold II (1835-1909) convened a geographical conference in Brussels. Leopold proposed establishing an international benevolent committee for the propagation of civilization among the peoples of Central Africa (the Congo region). Originally…
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this is awesome!!! if we are like this it’s all because of you!!!!
(Source: soundholic.co.kr)
May 19 2012
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