Cynthia Ann McKinney to give lecture on wars

THE next speaker at the Club Ultima Hora lecture club will be Cynthia Ann McKinney, the first Afro-American congresswoman of the State of Georgia. She will be speaking on February 18, at 8pm, in the hall of the Banca March. The subject of her talk, in English, will be the economic and geo-strategic interests in conflicts today, with special reference to the situation in the Great Lakes region of Africa. President Clinton sent Ms McKinney to the Congo in 1999, to report on the situation there after the Rwandan Patriotic Front had invaded. More than seven million people have died in the war. Her report pulled no punches. She described it as the most inhumane and bloodiest war in the world, and compared the crimes committed by the Rwandan and Ugandan armies to the Nazis. She also slammed the role of American and European companies in the area for looting the resources of the Congo, which include cobalt, gold, diamonds, silver, zinc and uranium. Cynthia Ann McKinney was born in Atlanta in 1955 and holds a degree in international relations and a masters in law. She was appointed a member of the Armed Forces Committee, and is a member of the International Relations Committee and its subcommittee of International Operations and Human Rights.