Andrée Blouin was a Congolese political activist, anti-colonial leader, and women’s rights advocate. Born in 1921 in what is now the Central African Republic to a French father and an African mother, she was raised in a Catholic orphanage, where she was denied connection to her African heritage.
Blouin became a prominent figure in the fight against colonialism, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she was a close advisor to Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. As the director of the women’s wing of his party, she mobilized grassroots support and was one of the few women involved at high levels in African liberation politics.
Following Lumumba’s assassination in 1961, Blouin was forced into exile, but she continued her advocacy for decolonization and women’s rights internationally. She later wrote her autobiography, My Country, Africa: The Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria, detailing her experiences in the independence struggles. Andree Blouin’s daughter, Eve Blouin, spoke to Block Report’s JR Valrey.
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Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza is a Rwandan opposition leader, democracy activist, and vocal critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s government. Born in 1968, she lived in exile in the Netherlands for years before returning to Rwanda in 2010 to run for president against Kagame. She was never allowed to register her political party and was eventually arrested, then sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of genocide denial and political organizing to oppose the government. The African Court of Human and People’s Rights ruled that the charges were unjust and ordered the government of Rwanda to pay her restitution, but the court has no enforcement mechanism.
Ingabire advocates political pluralism, human rights, and reconciliation in Rwanda, and an end to Rwanda’s war in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo. In response to international pressure, she was released from prison in 2018, but she is banned from running for political office or leaving the country. Nine members of her political party are now on trial for possessing a book about civil disobedience.
In 2019, she addressed the Women’s International Network for Democracy and Peace on the struggle for truth about the Rwandan Genocide and the folly of using Rwanda’s tragedy as an excuse for the West’s so-called humanitarian interventions.
The UN Security Council has maintained a UN Peacekeeping Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1999. However, it has never succeeded in keeping the peace in the country’s eastern provinces bordering Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi and some say that the ineffective Mission’s real purpose is managing the war in the interests of the big powers and corporations with resource interests in the region. The current conflict began when Uganda and Rwanda invaded DRC in 1996, then again in 1998. In January 2008, the International Rescue Committee published a study in which they concluded that it had caused more than 5 million casualties between 1998 and 2007 alone. The majority died from displacement and disease and nearly half were children. There are more than 7 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in DRC.
An International Women’s Day march in solidarity with Congolese Women took place on Saturday, March 8th, at 1 pm, beginning at the Rwandan Embassy in Washington, DC. Their demands? Rwandan soldiers must immediately withdraw from the Congo, don’t let our tax dollars fuel the conflict in Congo, provide humanitarian support, don’t visit Rwanda and no more aid to Rwanda. More information at friends of the congo dot org.
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This International Working Women’s Day program was produced by the Capitalism, Race & Democracy collective, with contributions from JR Valrey and Ann Garrison.
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