I Did Not Eat DRC Pygmies—Otafiire
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Local Government Minister Kahinda Otafiire has rubbished suggestions that he could be arrested for alleged complicity in war crimes in the DR Congo, saying that after all he never ate any Congolese nationals.
In a telephone interview from Cameroon where he is travelling, Maj. Gen. Otafiire said he is not worried at all that he is one of the Ugandan generals who could be picked up following the surprise arrest a week ago of Mr Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former Congolese rebel chief and onetime vice-president.
“I have nothing to worry about,” Gen. Otafiire said. “Did you hear of me eating pygmies in Congo? I never ate pygmies.”
Belgian police arrested Mr Bemba, who was backed by Uganda during the Congolese civil war of 1998-2002, after the International Criminal Court (ICC) secretly charged him with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In April 2007, Mr Bemba fled his country following a bitterly contested presidential election against President Joseph Kabila late in 2006.
He was arrested on May 24 in a suburb of Brussels, Belgium.
The ICC said “Mr Bemba is chairman of the Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC), an armed group which intervened in the 2002-2003 armed conflict in Central African Republic (CAR) and pursued a plan of terrorising and brutalising innocent civilians, in particular during a campaign of massive rapes and looting.”
It added: “Mr Bemba had already used the same tactics in the past, in CAR, in the DRC, always leaving a trail of death and destruction behind him.”
Following Mr Bemba’s arrest, speculation has been rife that some of Uganda’s army generals could now find themselves in the Congolese politician’s situation because a 2001 UN report named them as having looted the DR Congo’s natural resources and facilitated the commission of war crimes.
The state of armed conflict that still obtains in eastern DR Congo has spawned all manner of militias, some of whom believe that the eating of human flesh, particularly certain body parts sliced off pygmies, would protect them in battle. Mr Bemba, who fled to Portugal last year after he was accused of treason at home, later relocated to Brussels, where he acquired a home.
Before the end of the civil war in 2002, his forces controlled a large swathe of eastern DR Congo, where he was an ally of Uganda during the time of the UPDF occupation of parts of its western neighbour’s territory.
Gen. Otafiire was variously involved in DR Congo affairs from before the 1997 ouster of Mobutu Sese Seko, escaping narrowly when the Rwandan and Ugandan forces exchanged fire in Kinshasa in 1999.
After the release of the 2001 UN report, the government of Uganda set up a parallel investigation—the Justice Porter Commission. Maj. Gen. Otafiire was exonerated by this commission.
“Who is [now] saying I am implicated?” Gen. Otafiire said in the phone interview. “Don’t they know that New Vision paid me Shs30 million for defamation [over the same DR Congo matter?]”
The plain-speaking general said he is a free man and can travel anywhere “unless the world is ruled by jungle law”. The UPDF withdrew from the DR Congo in 2003 and Uganda subsequently lost a suit filed by Kinshasa at the International Court of Justice.
The ICJ ruled in 2005 that Uganda should pay damages as compensation for the UPDF’s plunder of the DR Congo’s natural resources and related atrocities committed there between 1996 and 2001. The DR Congo has claimed $10 billion in reparations, but Uganda is still negotiating a possible way out without paying.
Maj. Gen. Otafiire’s irreverent use of language has left many of his interlocutors flustered in the past. In the lead up to Uganda’s 1996 presidential election, he advised Democratic Party torchbearer Paul Ssemogerere to retire from politics and instead take to “rearing ducks”.
When he was named by the UN as having allegedly looted timber from the DR Congo, Gen. Otafiire asked: “What is this Congo timbering, do they want to Congo timber me?”
Most recently, Kampala Central chief Godfrey Nyakaana accused the general, who then was environment minister, of masterminding a witch-hunt centred around a house Mr Nyakaana had built in a city wetland and had thus been demolished. In response, Maj. Gen. Otafiire characteristically wondered whether Mr Nyakaana was a “frog to live in a wetland”.
(Posted on June 3, 2008)
Comments
“Many Congolese soldiers believe eating pygmies will protect them in battle.”
Yes, but because they’re small they need at least two to get by on.
Posted by Robert Kelly at 6:22 PM on June 3
I hear that eating the little buggers are just like eating peanuts; you can’t stop with just one…
Posted by at 6:23 PM on June 3
Mmmmmm … . . pygmies.
Posted by at 6:43 PM on June 3
The thing that really stands out to me is the overall attitude that says “Eating pygmies, though shunned, is a common occurence.” That says alot about the psyche of the “society” in question.
Posted by NorthAmericanWhiteMan at 7:09 PM on June 3
The only question I have is: When are we gonna see this on Oprah, or Jerry Springer? Much much better entertainment. Can you imagine white people eating “little people” to protect themselves from whatever?
Posted by at 7:49 PM on June 3
The thing that really stands out to me is the overall attitude that says “Eating pygmies, though shunned, is a common occurence.” That says alot about the psyche of the “society” in question.
What really stands out to ME is the the extent to which knowledge of this behavior has been sanitized from our culture. I remember, as a child, how references to their cannibalism were commonplace in popular culture…..cartoons, movies, books etc. All that has completely disappeared to the point that, for much of my young adulthood, I assumed such things were racial stereotypes.
It is only now, that I am mature, that I realize those
“stereotypes” are TRUE. Not only true, but the behavior is widespread and common among african blacks.
So…..who is covering up this knowledge and why. More to the point….what can be done to stop them.
Posted by at 8:09 PM on June 3
” The plain-speaking general said he is a free man and can travel anywhere “unless the world is ruled by jungle law”. “
I think we all know what part of the world is ruled by jungle law.
Hint: it’s the part where people are actually eating other people because they’re so incredibly primitive that they think it’s going to help them in battle.
Posted by Magdelina at 8:17 PM on June 3
Political scandals in America revolve around affairs, insider trading, and things of that nature. In Africa, they are about whether or not a public figure ate pygmies! Hillarious.
Posted by at 8:47 PM on June 3
What - still no ‘snake and pygmy pie’ jokes!
Sorry, I couldn’t resist! I don’t mean to be unkind. Actually, I met some of the pygmies when I was child living in East Africa in the early sixties, and I’m sorry if they’ve been murdered. I doubt if there are many left.
My family still have some bows and arrows they sold us. (Possibly it was an offer my dad felt he couldn’t refuse!)
Posted by Janet at 10:25 PM on June 3
It’s outrageous to pry into what should be a private matter between a man and his chef.
Posted by at 10:59 PM on June 3
Anything can happen in africa….what’s the big surprise here???
Posted by lydia at 11:30 PM on June 3
Pygmies: yet another (delicious) invention of racist CIA scientists…
Posted by at 12:27 AM on June 4
Does anyone know if they are served here in the States? I’m
a foodie; I’d sacrafice my brother to for a chinese dinner and
the whole White Race to get some Thai restraunts in here. I don’t
feel alive unless I’m having new gustatory experiences. Pygmy?
Sure, bring it on! Just tell me where.
Posted by Eric the Red at 12:34 AM on June 4
So! he’s hiding in Belgium! I would have thought that the Saudis would put him up like a king as they did Idi Amin until his death. And where are we talking about? someplace in Africa or New Orleans?? or is there a difference?
Posted by Skip at 12:52 AM on June 4
once again the CIA is spreading these racist lies.
Posted by flyingtiger at 2:05 AM on June 4
Wow and AA like to call whites imbred and serial killers. Me thinks they need to revisit their roots and then talk.
Posted by at 4:32 AM on June 4
There’s only one food in the universe that contains every nutrient needed by the human body, but you have to cook it really thoroughly.
“Hi, I’m Michael, and I’m a pygmyholic. I’m trying to quit eating pygmies because my neighbors shun me.”
I was disapointed by the article; no recepies.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 5:41 AM on June 4
From the article; “The state of armed conflict that still obtains in eastern DR Congo has spawned all manner of militias, some of whom believe that the eating of human flesh, particularly certain body parts sliced off pygmies, would protect them in battle.”
I can’t help but snicker wondering which “certain body parts” are their favorite.
Posted by Eichmann at 10:52 AM on June 4
This article reads like a list of everything that is wrong with Africa today: endemic tribal warfare, cannibalism, the black politician fleeing his country to Europe (not mentioned is the money he appropriated for his international relocation), the devastation of the environment, the lawsuit with the massive damages figure, and Uganda euphemistically negotiating alternatives to payment.
Posted by ODDL at 11:11 AM on June 4
…after the International Criminal Court (ICC) secretly charged him with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Why was he secretly charged by the ICC? Why wasn’t this charge headline news around the world? Could it be that the ICC didn’t want to ‘feed’ stereotypes about Africans?
Posted by sbuffalonative at 1:14 PM on June 4
Pygmy: The Other Dark Meat (tm)
Posted by Paul at 2:42 PM on June 4
Reminds me of a an old science fiction movie I saw as a kid (or it could have been Twilight Zone or Outer Limits). Space aliens came to take humans to their home world and take care of them. They even had a manual entitled, “To Serve Man.”
Everyone thought they were the greatest beings in the universe, until somebody translated the book and found out it was a cookbook.
Posted by Wild Eyed Charlie at 4:18 PM on June 4
Who cares if they eat each other. We should encourage it. Then less foreign aid will be stolen from our pockets to feed them.
Posted by at 4:31 PM on June 4
These “modern” Africans are the end-product of over 50,000 years of evolution and mental development. Go figure!
In all likelihood, 50,000 years in the future… if there still are Africans around, they’ll still be killing and terrorizing each other. Cannibalizing dead Africans for whatever bizarre benefit they expect to gain.
You can only laugh at Africans. The poster commenting on stereotypes turning out to be true… I’ve seen more than a few stories like this one about ‘enlightened’ African in the news over the past few years. Stereotypes? Call it what it is: Black Africans are and forever will be a sociopathic race of criminals and abject failures.
Posted by Fed Up at 4:32 PM on June 4
Fear not, friends. Any day now, we’ll undoubtedly be reading a news story about Kenyans… sacrificing children and harvesting their body parts to make voodoo magic to help their American idol, Barak Obama, get elected president.
Don’t laugh at this. Wackier stories than this have come out of Darkest Africa. No, friends… they ARE NOT racial stereotypes. Unfortunately they happen to be the bitter truth!
Posted by Fed Up at 4:38 PM on June 4
hmmmmm pygmies….taste just like chicken!
Posted by at 6:21 PM on June 4
Reply to Skip at 12:52 AM:
Idi Amin was a Muslim. The Saudis set him up as a show of “Islamic solidarity”. My guess is that this particular joker is not a muslim. Just a guess.
Posted by at 9:18 PM on June 4
Its funny. The Congo region is a veritable treasure house of minerals and natural resources. It should be one of the wealthiest, most advanced places on earth. Just goes to prove how it is the people that make the difference.
Posted by at 9:21 PM on June 4
I’m sure muslims wouldn’t eat them, I mean “P-i-y-gmys you know what I mean. I’m sure some good old affirmative action would solve this problem. Oh by the by there was no mention of cooking up some white captives, and shrinking their heads. Just think our probable illustrious new leader may be interested in that recipe.
Posted by Great White Hunter at 10:49 PM on June 4
That’s it! I will never eat soul food again!
Posted by Lars at 10:53 PM on June 4
Unbelievable. Here’s one for you. Ever hear of General Joshua Blahyi? Look it up. What’s wrong with these people?
Posted by Unemployed at 1:50 AM on June 5
I don’t think this is a joking matter.
The pygmies are human beings and they don’t deserve to be hunted down like wild boars and chopped up in pieces for food.
This could very well become a reality in parts of the West in the not-too-distant future when its prosperity dries up and its civilisation finally collapses.
Posted by A Swain at 6:09 PM on June 11
Marxist humanity deconstructors have gone from outlawing human instinct in the forms of free speech, individual freedom of thought, freedom of choice, and are about to embark on outlawing facial expression and body language too.
This out-of-control Cultural Marxism inspired insanity has got to be torpedeod out of the water once and for all, literally if necessary.
Posted by at 6:47 PM on June 11