On December 4th, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and the DRC’s Felix Tshisekedi signed the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity (pictured above). Trump boasted that he was settling a war that had gone on for decades, and remarked, idiosyncratically, “[…] and now they’re going to spend a lot of time hugging, holding hands […]”
A few days later, the M23 militia (backed by Rwanda) advanced into Uvira, a city near the DRC’s eastern border with Burundi and a major commercial and strategic location in the region. Burundi, although a small country, is a significant ally to the DRC and has sent thousands of soldiers to aid them during conflicts; this offensive by M23 aims to cut off a direct route between the two, though they do still share quite a long border over Lake Tanganyika. Tens of thousands of civilians (possibly up to 200,000) fled as M23 approached.
Signed almost simultaneously with the Accords was a Strategic Partnership Agreement between the DRC and the United States, which effectively threw open its critical minerals in the east to American exploitation. These minerals include tin, tungsten, and tantalum, which is vital for many industries. The irony is that M23 has been taking territory in the eastern DRC in order to transport these very minerals to Rwanda and onwards to global supply chains. Signing the Accord was, therefore, a remarkably pointless endeavour for everybody involved. Burundi and the DRC have complained, calling for sanctions on Rwanda, and appeasing to Trump’s pride, calling this a “slap in the face to the United States”, though I doubt the US is ultimately all that bothered about it one way or another.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Trump on Truth Social:
I guess the assets refers to the expropriation/seizure of ExxonMobil’s, Chevron’s, Helmerich and ConocoPhillips’ oil projects and assets under Chavez, as well as other assets seized without compensation. So give back all the offshore oil rigs? I don’t see how that’s possible.
Straight up admitting that the “Cartel de los Soles” is the Venezuelan government. No longer playing any more silly word games.
Also welcome back
This is going to split the opposition so hard, lmao.
Even more unhinged than the previously unhinged stuff from him. At least he is starting to openly say what we all knew, that this is about stealing Venezuela’s resources. This is a completely mainstream and bipartisan belief among the US ruling class. Trump’s brain is so far gone that it is harder and harder for him to maintain the lie.
https://x.com/iwasnevrhere_/status/1962186598453530906
https://xcancel.com/iwasnevrhere_/status/1962186598453530906
Its starting to feel like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am having a hard time guessing where this will go, but its getting real depressing… Is there even a hope that another nation will stand up even in solidarity against what the US is doing to venezuela? where are columbia and brazil in all this? what about iran? If one of these tankers registers under a legit flag, like under the flag of iran, china, russia, the dprk- or even another neighbor, will they still get seized? I feel like I haven’t even heard the normal feckless statements at the UN over this… I guess 1/3 of the world still recognizes Juan Guiado as president or whatever
Ya know things are fucked when the best you got are U.S anti-imperialist solidarity.
We don’t even have that
The international order and Western liberals simply never considered what would happen if the US took the mask off.
His writers are not trying very hard to keep a lid on the “we’re very obviously doing this for oil lmao” ramblings of this nazi freak.
There is only one terrorist regime involved in this affair and it isn’t Maduro’s
Zohran Mamdani liked this post
holy hell
“you stole the oil under your feet from us”
not only has the mask come off long ago, america is steadily carving it’s own face off, too
Is the “sanctioned” part of the sanctioned oil tankers relevant? Are there tankers that are unsanctioned, and can they deliver oil?
Very relevant because it makes seizing the tankers “legal” under international law and not piracy. I’ll explain more.
A lot of these sanctioned tankers are running under false flags and registrations set up by sanctioned individuals and shell companies, to avoid sanctions. This is not the regular “Panamanian flagged vessel is actually owned by a company in another nation”. This is the “Panamanian flagged vessel is now operating under the Guyanese flag, set up by a sanctioned company in the Marshall Islands run by a sanctioned Ukrainian in Switzerland, without explicit Guyanese permission”. So the US will call up the nation it’s falsely registered to, said nation will avoid claiming the vessel. Thus the vessel becomes stateless. (The original flag it flew under before getting a falsified registration never going to claim it back, or deny a US seizure). Because it’s stateless, it’s not technically piracy to seize it.
“Sanctioned” here AFAIK is literally just by America. It’s shit they make up, lol.
Trump is bluffing in terms of a land invasion, and aerial and costal bombardments can only be effective depending on the extent of how dispersed and siloed off Venezuela’s military resources are, if the Venezuelan military is concentrated and wide open to intelligence leaks then a US air attack will hurt
If Maduro’s generals are competent and the paramilitary network is as robust as is claimed, then Trump will find a fortress country impenetrable and capable of draining the US of vast resources
Horrible, but also I hope this will even further accelerate global isolation of the US.
Nah they’ll just worship it harder as the US pumps out more treats. It’s all they ever did after every blatant atrocity. US cultural hegemony is stronger than ever thanks to the internet. Everyone learns US English and speaks US slang while consuming US media and dreaming of living there even after everything.
Ah yes, Venezuela forgot that all oil belongs to the Empire by virtue of its existence, no matter the location. /s