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forced displacement
The Peace Deal That Wasn’t
Trump’s Congo-Rwanda Peace Accord is an affront to Congolese human rights and sovereignty.
Aug 03, 2025
After the signing of the so-called peace agreement between Rwanda and Congo on June 27, U.S. President Donald Trump took a victory lap. “This is a Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World! I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for this... but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!” he posted. The agreement, heralded as a breakthrough ending more than three decades of violence in Congo, was quickly praised by powerful institutions in the West, including the United Nations and the European Union.
There’s no question that peace in Congo is a desperately needed goal. Since 1996, war in the country has killed nearly 6 million people and displaced over 7 million. More than 21 million require humanitarian assistance, and in 2023 alone, the U.N. recorded over 133,000 cases of sexual violence, almost certainly a significant undercount.
However, while world leaders and celebratory headlines applaud the deal, violence continues to rage in the eastern Congo. The deal will not end this suffering; instead, it prioritizes Western private interests over peace, justice, and dignity for the Congolese people, serving as a blueprint for resource extraction and continued violence in the country rather than a true diplomatic success.
The deal, while ostensibly aimed at ending hostilities, places a heavy emphasis on mineral exploitation, leading Congolese civil society to question its true purpose. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege has denounced it for “legitimizing the plundering of Congolese natural resources,” a concern supported by the agreement’s inclusion of a clause committing signatories to “launch and/or expand cooperation on… formalized end-to-end mineral value chains… with the U.S. government and U.S. investors.” Upon the release of the Declaration of Principles that laid the deal’s foundations, the International Crisis Group noted that the deal reads “partly like a framework for ending a conflict and partly like a commercial memorandum.”
The False Promise of Peace
It is highly unlikely that the deal will bring a just and lasting peace to Congo. Though a potential cease-fire was announced between the Congo government and M23, the conflict’s largest rebel group, experts say that M23 has already broken the agreement while serious implementation challenges remain. M23 has left withdrawal—and, thus, a true and lasting end to the conflict—out of the question, telling reporters they “will not retreat, not even by one meter.” Meanwhile, over 100 other armed groups continue to fight in the east. On July 23, the U.N. condemned three recent deadly attacks by groups not party to the agreement.
More troublingly, the deal grants Rwanda a green light to continue looting Congolese resources, furthering a central driver of the conflict. By backing M23, Rwanda has taken control of Congolese mines, and committed widespread human rights abuses. Up to 90% of its coltan exports are believed to be illicitly smuggled from eastern Congo, funding armed groups. The accord, which invites Rwanda into a “regional economic integration framework,” legitimizes this theft and proxy warfare.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame doesn’t seem ready to scale back this influence. Just days after the agreement was signed, he cast doubt on the peace process, telling reporters, “If the side that we are working with plays tricks... then we deal with the problem like we have been dealing with it.”
Who Does the Deal Really Benefit?
Today, the Congolese people endure violence not only from armed conflict but also from systemic exploitation, through forced labor, environmental destruction, and land seizures. The scramble for Congo’s mineral wealth has forced tens of thousands of children into dangerous mines, polluted and devastated ecosystems, and displaced entire communities from their homes.
A recent policy brief by the Oakland Institute lays bare how, through handing over Congolese mineral wealth to a web of U.S.-aligned corporate actors and billionaire investors, Trump’s peace deal will deepen the ravages of the country’s mining industry, leaving the Congolese people to pay the price.
The list of the deal’s likely beneficiaries is a veritable who’s-who of Trump-linked billionaires: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz, among others. Also on it are mining giants like Ivanhoe Mines, Rio Tinto, and Glencore.
The accord threatens to entrench this cyclical poverty and violence in service of enriching behemoth mining firms and Trump’s billionaire friends.
The track records of these companies undermine any claim that Trump’s deal is about peace for the Congolese people. Ivanhoe Mines’s cochair Robert Friedland once ran Galactic Resources, responsible for one of the worst mining-related environmental disasters in U.S. history. He has already been exposed for harmfully evicting Congolese families to expand his new operations in the Congo. Rio Tinto, notorious for sparking a civil war in Papua New Guinea and for destroying a 46,000-year-old sacred Aboriginal site in Australia, is now eyeing Congo’s Manono Lithium Deposit. Glencore has been fined over $1 billion for abuses in its African mines and maintains illicit financial ties to sanctioned Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler. Both Ivanhoe and Rio Tinto are reportedly set to join a forthcoming minerals agreement tied directly to the deal’s economy-driven clauses.
Lacking the infrastructure to process its own resources, Congo remains trapped in a cycle where foreign actors siphon off its $24 trillion in mineral wealth while its citizens remain among the poorest in the world. Compounding that systemic inequality, both corporate and artisanal mines enact severe human rights abuses and environmental devastation on the Congolese people, injustices that the agreement appears likely to bolster as it opens the door to firms perpetrating them against communities around the globe. In doing so, the accord threatens to entrench this cyclical poverty and violence in service of enriching behemoth mining firms and Trump’s billionaire friends.
Despite what he may think, or wish, Donald Trump deserves no applause for this “peace agreement” because the agreement itself is misnamed. Its focus has never been peace, but rather profit, and his attempt to launder it into something more benevolent is transparently disingenuous.
Without a radical shift, Trump’s deal will likely achieve exactly what it was intended for, funneling billions to already wealthy oligarchs and multinational corporations while sidelining the communities forced to live with its consequences.
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Stop Israel’s Dystopian ‘Humanitarian City’ Plan—Before It’s Too Late
There is no neutral ground. This is not a policy debate. This is genocide—on camera, with diplomatic cover, and with our tax dollars.
Jul 12, 2025
The Israeli government has just put forward one of the most brazenly genocidal schemes in modern memory—and unless we act immediately, the world will once again let it happen.
As reported in Haaretz, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is proposing to force some 600,000 Palestinians—and eventually the entire population of Gaza—into a fenced-in “humanitarian city” to be built on the ruins of Rafah in southern Gaza. The plan is to “screen” the population, separate out alleged Hamas members, and then pressure the remaining civilians—men, women, and children—to “voluntarily” leave Gaza for another country. Which country? That hasn’t even been determined. The point isn’t relocation—it’s erasure. This reflects a long-standing goal among many Israelis, especially on the right, to take full control of Gaza and clear it of Palestinians.
The United Nations has warned that the deportation or forcible transfer of an occupied territory’s civilian population is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and “tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”
While all eyes are focused on a possible cease-fire, Katz is not interested in peace—he’s interested in a “final solution.” A speeding up of the second Nakba we have been witnessing for the past 20 months. In fact, he has stated that construction would begin during a 60-day cease-fire. So what’s the point of a cease-fire, if it’s used to build a concentration camp?
Don’t fool yourself into thinking this can’t happen. It is happening. The groundwork is being laid. The walls are going up. The deportation flights are being negotiated.
Once Palestinians are herded into this camp, they will not be allowed to leave for other parts of Gaza. They won’t be allowed to return to what’s left of their homes, their neighborhoods, their farms, their schools. They will be trapped inside this militarized zone, under constant surveillance, held at gunpoint until Israel can arrange their deportation.
Just think of the tragic, unbearable irony: the Israeli government—founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust—is now building a massive concentration camp for an entire population.
If that sounds unthinkable, look at what Israel has already gotten away with.
For the past 20 months, the world has watched—and largely enabled—a genocidal campaign in Gaza. Over 55,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered, the majority of them women and children. Israel has bombed hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and mosques. It has flattened entire neighborhoods with AI-generated kill lists. It has assassinated journalists, targeted ambulances, destroyed bakeries and water systems.
It has used hunger as a weapon of war, deliberately blocking aid trucks, attacking convoys, and starving the population into desperation. And in a cruel twist, it has created the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—a scheme to funnel aid through Israeli-controlled routes and sideline the U.N. and experienced NGOs. Its so-called “distribution points” are really death traps, where desperate people have been shot day after day as they risk their lives to get a bit of food.
This engineered starvation is not an accident. It is a strategy—a form of collective punishment on a scale rarely seen in modern times.
We have already failed the people of Gaza—again and again. We failed when we looked the other way as children were buried in rubble. We failed when we allowed our tax dollars to fund the very bombs that wiped out refugee camps. We failed when we kept pretending there was still a line Israel wouldn’t cross.
Now Katz is telling us—explicitly—what comes next: mass internment and forced expulsion. And unless we rise up with every ounce of outrage we have, we will fail again.
Let’s be absolutely clear: The infrastructure for this plan is already being built. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump are lobbying corrupt governments in the Global South to accept the deported. This is not a negotiating tactic to strengthen Israel’s position in cease-fire talks—it is the next phase of a genocide we’ve been watching in real time for nearly two years.
And what is the U.S. government doing? Still issuing meaningless statements about “Israel’s right to defend itself.” Still shipping weapons. Still blocking accountability at the United Nations—and even sanctioning officials like U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for daring to speak out.
President Trump could stop this today—by cutting off military aid, backing the International Criminal Court’s investigations, and declaring that forced displacement of Palestinians will not be tolerated. But instead, he’s still dreaming of turning Gaza into a Middle Eastern resort for the ultra-rich.
Meanwhile, more Arab governments stand ready to normalize ties with Israel, making deals with war criminals while their fellow Arabs are starved, bombed, and now threatened with mass exile. Where is the outcry from Cairo, Riyadh, Amman? Is there absolutely no red line?
One bright spot on the international scene is the Hague Group, which will convene an emergency meeting in Colombia on July 15-16. This growing bloc of nations has joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. These countries are taking a courageous stand to uphold international law and defend Palestinian life. Every nation that claims to value justice must join them—immediately.
And here in the United States, every member of Congress must be pushed—loudly, relentlessly—to take a public stand. No more vague language. No more hiding behind mealymouthed scripts. We demand immediate, public opposition to this “humanitarian city” plan—and a full cutoff of military support to Israel. This is a moment of moral reckoning. Choose a side.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking this can’t happen. It is happening. The groundwork is being laid. The walls are going up. The deportation flights are being negotiated.
There is no neutral ground. This is not a policy debate. This is genocide—on camera, with diplomatic cover, and with our tax dollars.
The time to stop Israel’s dystopian plan is not tomorrow. It is now.
Rise up. Speak out. Flood the streets. Bombard Congress. Demand accountability.
Stop the plan. Save Gaza. Before it’s too late.
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One Siege, Two Fronts: How U.S. Power Shapes Gaza and the American Security State
The systems operating in Gaza and across the U.S. do not exist to keep people safe. They exist to manage, displace, and contain populations deemed problematic.
Jul 10, 2025
The crisis in Gaza is no longer limited to military operations backed by U.S. weapons and diplomatic support. American involvement now extends into the structure of the siege itself, including the use of private contractors, control over humanitarian aid, and the deployment of surveillance systems.
Meanwhile, a separate security campaign is unfolding inside the United States. The Department of Homeland Security, through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is deploying biometric devices to monitor and track individuals. At the same time, it is targeting safe spaces such as residential neighborhoods and carrying out mass deportations that resemble a coordinated population removal effort.
Aid and Enforcement on the Ground
Since May, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.-based organization backed by the State Department, has overseen food distribution in military-controlled areas of Gaza. United Nations agencies have described the operation as part of a broader effort to weaponize food, using aid as a tool of control rather than relief. American contractors guard their sites under firms like UG Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions. Contractors have reported frequent, systematic use of live ammunition, stun grenades, and pepper spray against people trying to collect food. The firms currently deny these allegations.
Cable news networks have mainly avoided framing the destruction in Gaza as part of a broader strategy to depopulate the area and reshape it under the pretext of security.
These operations are not improvised. They follow a model of crowd management that treats aid like a security mission. Cameras and facial recognition systems operated by U.S. contractors are used to track “persons of interest,” with the data shared directly with Israeli forces. The result is hunger being managed by armed control, not alleviated by relief.
Media Framing
U.S. media is full of stories about American aid dropping into Gaza, emphasizing coordination and relief. Coverage declares that millions of meals have been delivered. What is seldom discussed are allegations that these operations employ the same tactics as military occupations, including armed checkpoints, surveillance, and restricted access to necessities.
Coverage of other civilian tragedies in Gaza, such as the bombing of a seaside café or the killing of Dr. Marwan al-Sultan while he was directing a hospital, is often sparse, brief, and presented without political context. Meanwhile, televised segments about aid distribution are framed as humanitarian triumphs. The result is a distorted picture that hides the U.S.’ role in transforming humanitarian aid into controlled violence.
Institutionalized Civilian Targeting
Gaza’s healthcare system is collapsing. Dozens of medical workers have been killed in airstrikes, and hospitals have been reduced to rubble. The bombing of places like the coastal café, where families and children gathered, shows how civilian spaces are being deliberately erased. These are not military sites or areas of active combat. Their destruction appears intended to break down ordinary life and push people toward displacement. Dr. Marwan al-Sultan, a respected cardiologist and director of the Indonesian Hospital, was the 70th healthcare worker killed by Israeli strikes in just 50 days, according to Palestinian medical organizations.
In much of the U.S. media, these events are framed as accidents or isolated tragedies, often presented alongside official statements from the Israeli government and vague promises of investigation. Rarely are they balanced with independent or opposing perspectives, such as the claim that hospitals and civilian infrastructure are being deliberately targeted. While outlets like Reuters have published some reporting on these issues, such coverage remains rare among major U.S. media platforms. Cable news networks have mainly avoided framing the destruction in Gaza as part of a broader strategy to depopulate the area and reshape it under the pretext of security.
Domestic Mirroring
Inside the U.S. public sphere, a new wave of repression has emerged. What has been called the “Palestine exception” has taken hold, where pro-Palestinian speech on campuses, in academic work, and advocacy is regularly treated as suspicious or subject to punishment. At the same time, similar expressions on other issues are largely ignored.
Reports from Council on American-Islamic Relations show a record-high spike in anti-Muslim incidents in 2024, directly linked to backlash over the war in Gaza. This surge has also been reflected in the wave of Islamophobic rhetoric that followed Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor.
Just as Palestinians in Gaza are placed at risk simply by going to food distribution sites, an act they are expected to perform, migrants in the United States face detention when attending immigration hearings or routine check-ins they are required to complete.
Against this backdrop, ICE has expanded its use of biometric surveillance tools, including facial recognition, mobile fingerprint scanners, and iris scans. These technologies closely resemble those used by U.S. contractors in Gaza to monitor aid recipients and flag individuals for Israeli forces. In both cases, the tools serve a similar purpose. They identify, track, and remove targeted populations under the justification of security.
Just as Palestinians in Gaza are placed at risk simply by going to food distribution sites, an act they are expected to perform, migrants in the United States face detention when attending immigration hearings or routine check-ins they are required to complete. Like reports of U.S. contractors deploying flash-bang grenades during aid distribution in Gaza, ICE has used the same tactics in residential areas during militarized domestic operations.
Displacement Without Being Named
In both Gaza and the United States, forced displacement is rarely acknowledged for what it is. Media coverage presents it through isolated incidents—airstrikes, deportations, legal actions—detached from the larger pattern of population removal.
In Gaza, proposals to move Palestinians to Egypt or other countries are described as humanitarian efforts or part of rebuilding plans. These descriptions overlook the systematic destruction of homes, hospitals, and neighborhoods. The coverage treats these as consequences of war, not as part of a coordinated effort to make civilian life impossible.
In the United States, deportations are reported through legal categories. Media narratives focus on status or procedure, rather than the coercive structure behind them. The focus is on expulsion, not immigration reform or options for legal integration.
The systems operating in Gaza and across the U.S. do not exist to keep people safe. They exist to manage, displace, and contain populations deemed problematic. The primary beneficiaries are those who build and maintain these systems, such as defense contractors, private surveillance firms, border security consultants, and the officials who award them contracts.
The more threats these systems claim to identify, the more funding they receive. The more disorder it produces, the more authority it demands. From Gaza to cities across the U.S., the goal is not resolution. It is control. And control is profitable.
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