Keywords

Rwanda

1.3

"Why is it surprising that state structures are disintegrating when corruption has become a national institution?"

Colette Braeckman (member of the jury, Bukavu / Berlin) is a correspondent for the Belgian newspaper Le Soir in Africa. She is an expert on the Congolese war, its history and the involvement of the European governments. Her books about the Mobutu-Era and the Congolese war are considered as standard works.

3.4

"I agree that the population rebels against the law."

Fidel Bafilemba (witness and expert, Bukavu) is the regional manager of the „Enough Project“ which controls the application of the „Dodd-Frank Act“ in Eastern Congo. He is a driving force in the banishment of the militias from the mineral trade in this region. Critical voices consider him and his organization as a lobby of the US economic leaders.

3.5

"From which right does the majority benefit and not just national or international elites?"

Wolfgang Kaleck (member of the jury, Berlin) is the General Secretary of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin. The ECCHR is specialized in cases of human rights violation by multinational companies on foreign territories.

4.5

"The UN is only as strong as its member states allow it to be."

Linda Polman (witness, Berlin) is one of the most dedicated critics of aid agencies and the peacekeeping missions of the UN (MONUSCO). She criticizes the negative impacts of the NGOs superficial help that prevent any political change in these countries.

5.2

"The origin of evil is not in the Congolese state, but in the people themselves."

Marcellin Cishambo Ruhoya (witness and expert, Bukavu) was a political advisor to President Joseph Kabila. In 2006 he became governor of the province of South Kivu.

5.3

"In face of the atrocities that this state has suffered, its population is threatened by the same fate as the Indians of North America."

Colette Braeckman (member of the jury, Bukavu / Berlin) is a correspondent for the Belgian newspaper Le Soir in Africa. She is an expert on the Congolese war, its history and the involvement of the European governments. Her books about the Mobutu-Era and the Congolese war are considered as standard works.

6.1

"The corporations that dominate this world have no interest in making human rights truly universal."

Jean Ziegler (expert) is a Swiss sociologist and one of the best-known globalization critics worldwide. He is a member of the advisory committee of the United Nations Human Rights Council and is a specialist in the role of the World Bank and the strategies of a consciously used "poverty policy".

6.3

"The idea to protect themselves and the community by militias arises in the minds of the people."

Sylvestre Bisimwa (investigator-in-charge, Bukavu / Berlin) is a lawyer in a mass rape trial committed by the Congolese army in the city of Minova. It is, at present, the only process of this kind. He regularly acts as lawyer at the International Court of Justice in Den Haag.

6.4

"International companies want a weak government and a powerless local population."

Vénatie Bismiwa Nabitu (member of the jury, Bukavu) is a human rights activist from Bukavu (Province of South Kivu) and one of the most committed critics of the NGOs, the UN and the big multinational corporations in Africa. She specialized in the field of mass rapes as a war strategy and the continued existence of colonial structures in the current Congolese society.

6.5

"The measures to improve mining have ultimately led to fraud."

Zacharie Bulakali (expert) is an expert in artisanal and industrial mining in the DR Congo. He acts as a liaison officer between the local civil society organizations and the Congolese mining authorities. He heads various research projects in the Great Lakes region.