Africa Great Lakes Democracy Watch



Welcome to
Africa Great Lakes Democracy Watch Blog. Our objective is to promote the institutions of democracy,social justice,Human Rights,Peace, Freedom of Expression, and Respect to humanity in Rwanda,Uganda,DR Congo, Burundi,Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya,Ethiopia, and Somalia. We strongly believe that Africa will develop if only our presidents stop being rulers of men and become leaders of citizens. We support Breaking the Silence Campaign for DR Congo since we believe the democracy in Rwanda means peace in DRC. Follow this link to learn more about the origin of the war in both Rwanda and DR Congo:http://www.rwandadocumentsproject.net/gsdl/cgi-bin/library


Thursday, September 30, 2010

RWANDA: “GENOCIDE OF TUTSIS”, THE BIGGEST LIE OF THE CENTURY. ANATOMY OF A UNIVERSALIZED LIE.

The lies we’ve been told for a long time. The truth about the Rwandan genocide. What they’ve never said about the real culprits…
A few days before the release of UN report on genocide in Congo, I’m reposting one of my articles on the Rwandan genocide, an article which prompted to severalthreats...

RWANDA: “GENOCIDE OF TUTSIS”, THE BIGGEST LIE OF THE CENTURY. ANATOMY OF A UNIVERSALIZED LIE.

On April 6th, 1994, the plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi was shot down at Kigali airport while beginning its landing. Following the terrorist attack, a horrible massacre and humanitarian disaster plunged Rwanda into horror and chaos. In three months, some eight hundred thousand Rwandans will die as well. This is what we call the "Rwandan Genocide", that some "enlightened minds" call "genocide of Tutsis", as if to say that the victims of massacres in Rwanda were only the Tutsis, to whom we associate a small Hutu group called "Hutu moderates."

The story conveyed through the media, some "experts" and "historians" is quite simple: the Hutu extremists in Rwanda fomented genocide of Tutsis for several years, rising to acts between April and July 1994. Paul Kagame, leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) drove extremists from power and ended the genocide. This story of Paul Kagame, a kind of hero who pulled his people from the clutches of a gang of killers, has justified the many Hutu extermination operations remotely controlled by Kagame in Rwanda and Congo since 1994, under the pretext of pursuing the alleged genocidaires. Today, it isthis same excuse that allows Kagame to occupy part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The toll is heavy: more than six million Congolese killed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army.
The debate on the Rwandan genocide or genocide of Tutsis, depending on which way you want to put it, has raised passions. But before going further, let us ask the following question: Was there genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda? If there was genocide, who is (are) responsible (s)?

I will answer this question by basing myself on the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
The main exhibit of "planning the genocide" on which the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is based is an alleged fax sent by General Dallaire to UN headquarters in New York, January 11th, 1994. It appears that the fax contained information provided by an informant known as "Jean-Pierre" on the preparation by Hutu militiamen, of a plan "carefully prepared" to exterminate the Tutsis to 1000 in twenty minutes. This fax "speaks" also of weapons caches that these militias have hidden throughout the city of Kigali, to carry out their "diabolical plan." What is known about this?

First, it is proven that the famous fax has never existed. The only fax found in the archives of the United Nations speaks of weapons caches and an informant (Jean-Pierre). "The extermination of Tutsis" is not mentioned. Secondly, Jean-Pierre, who worked with the Interahamwe was actually a double agent, he worked closely with the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) of Paul Kagame. His testimony was in fact to demonize the Habyarimana government, accusing it of planning genocide against the Tutsis. A former UNAMIR provided me with a document in which it is clearly stated that "Jean-Pierre" whose real name Turatsinze Abubakar was in constant contact with the liaison officer of the RPF Karenzi Karake and later at the ICTR, his wife confirmed that her husband worked for the RPF in Mulindi before being killed by Kagame’s men.
A year later, a fax appears in an office at the United Nations where it talks about a plan of genocide against the Tutsis. The problem is that the fax is a forgery. It was sent from Britain while Dallaire claims to have sent it from Kigali on January 11th, 1994.This document also contains other handwritten notes after they received it that day. In addition, a note from a UN worker said that "This copy has been lodged in the archives November 28, 1995’’. In fact, the goal was probably to insert the pseudo fax in the archives of the United Nations one year after the tragic events of Rwanda in order to validate the thesis of a ''planned genocide''.

And to measure the degree of deception of General Dallaire, who claims to have sent a fax about a "possible plan of genocide of Tutsis", just watch what he said on his return from Rwanda. Indeed, participating in the program Le Point of Radio-Canada September 14, 1994, a week after his return from Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire has answered the question asked by a Rwandan: “Do you think there was genocide in Rwanda, that is to say, the execution of a plan to eliminate Tutsis in Rwanda?”
The general's reply could not have been clearer: "I would say that there has been national genocide, but genocide of political philosophy, not purely ethnic. Many Hutus as many Tutsis were killed ... I think the overflow we saw was beyond what can be designed. But there was a political moderate destruction process, yes. That after there was a chain of hysteria and basic reactions, and also people who have been inflamed by extremist elements, also yes. But never, I think no one could have planned the amount of overflow."

The theory of the fax had not survived very well in the test of facts and truth, the ICTR has engaged in the search for potential "planners of the genocide of Tutsi." The Prime Minister of the Interim Government of Rwanda, Jean Kambanda will be the first Rwandan personality to be a guinea pig at the ICTR. Upon arrest, he was immediately escorted to a vehicle with tinted windows which vanished in a direction opposite to the detention center. For about nine months, from 27 August to 1 May 1998, former prime minister will be held in the utmost secrecy. He is detained in a house in Dodoma, five hundred kilometers south of Arusha. The ICTR does not authorize him to see a lawyer of his choice. This worries the bodies of human rights including Amnesty International, which in its April 1998 report notes: "The risks associated with maintaining an inmate in an unrecognized detention center were compounded in this case for Jean Kambanda who had no lawyer to advise him throughout his interrogation.’’

The case "Jean Kambanda" is emblematic: the ICTR delegates a Canadian officer to psychologically torture him in order to make him confess to having planned the genocide against the Tutsis! They make him understand that his family would be in danger if he did not cooperate with the court! One would have thought a court case to be worthy of a banana republic, but no, the ICTR. Worse still, the officer responsible for administering a "good dose of torture" to Mr. Kambanda: Pierre Duclos is well known in his country, Canada, he was accused of perjury, fabricating evidence and obstructing justice in relation with the aborted trial of the Matticks brothers, a family involved in organized crime. Yes, the ICTR hires individuals with sulphurous past. In fact, the Canadian prosecutor Louise Arbour has hired Pierre Duclos and it is also she who has stifled the investigation implicating Kagame and his movement (RPF) in the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana, considered by United Nations as the trigger for the genocide. "Birds of same feathers" a friend of mine likes to say.
On May 22, 1998, Jean Kambanda pleads guilty to all charges in the indictment, including genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide. It's surprise, the media world are flocking to the news. This is the heyday of the ICTR; nobody resists to have a share of the success. The guilty plea is evidence that genocide was indeed planned by the Hutu government against the Tutsi. Any time after the sentence of life imprisonment of Kambanda, the few members of the prosecutor's office who worked directly on this issue easily confide their unease about how he was treated. From these conversations emerged under the coat a mixture of embarrassment, shame, anger and sarcasm. Not only because he was tortured by the "terrorist cell" of the ICTR, but so many other questions arise as to his participation in the planning of the genocide. Many of these "experts" and "historians" have argued that genocide was planned by the Habyarimana government. So how is it that Kambanda who never worked with this government be accused of having planned the genocide when we know that he took power at the time that genocide was committed already? Was the genocide planned before or after? Those are questions that perplex the ICTR.

The case Kambanda also having shown its limitations, the ICTR does not despair, it is yet to prove that there indeed was a planned genocide against the Tutsis. The court has two big fish: Colonel Bagosora presented as the "mastermind of the genocide" and Zigiranyirazo or "Mr. Z", brother-in-law of President Habyarimana, presented as the godfather of "Akazu", a sort of secret cell of the Hutu government which was used to assassinate opponents and coordinate the genocide of Tutsis in 1994.
After a river paced trial by 409 days of hearings, the statements of 242 witnesses for the prosecution and defense filling 30,000 pages of transcripts, exhibits by 1600, with 4500 pages of findings and 300 written decisions (in the case of Bagosora), the court declared December 18, 2008, Colonel Bagosora not guilty of "conspiracy to commit genocide." It is a blow to the prosecutor, Kigali and friends who see the official account of the Rwandan genocide or "Tutsi" as is, shattered. The evidences presented by the prosecutor to try to prove the planning of the genocide were dismissed by judges as inconclusive. In the case of "Mr. Z", the Appeals Chamber of the ICTR, dated November 16, 2009, dismissed all charges against him calling for his immediate release. The conspiracy theory was therefore rejected, another setback for the theorists of planning the genocide of Tutsis.

Before continuing, I’d like to remind that there has indeed been a massacre of people in Rwanda. My approach is not to deny these facts. If the ICTR has so far not been able to prove that there was a "planned genocide" against Tutsis, this does not prevent the fact that acts of genocide have been well and truly committed against them, but we cannot speak of genocide itself, since it requires careful planning, what the ICTR could not prove. Hutus were also exterminated in the same way as Tutsis. Thus, the reason I prefer to speak of a "Rwandan genocide."

A key question however remains: Who is responsible for the Rwandan genocide?
I will address this issue by attempting to answer two sub-questions that seem important: Who is responsible for the attack against President Habyarimana's plane regarded as the trigger for the genocide? And what is the identity of the killers, those who engaged in the killing of people (hence the "genocidaires")?

The author of the attack

The resolution of the enigma of the attack can change the historical understanding of the sequence that leads to genocide and, where appropriate, the establishment of new political responsibilities in the context of extreme violence and extreme tension in Rwanda in early 1994; the author of the attack could not ignore that thousands of Rwandan Tutsis will pay for their lives. Whoever the author, his cynicism is proven criminal. Although the actions of the RPF had reinforced an anti-Tutsi sentiment in Rwanda before the fateful date of April 6, 1994, it is not at all certain that the forces of extermination could have been released without the death of Habyarimana, thus the importance of this attack in understanding the tragic events that unfolded in Rwanda. All the tragic history of Rwanda is therefore based on this event.

To date, the author (or authors) of the attack is (are) not "officially" known. March1, 2000, the Canadian newspaper the National Post revealed the existence in the boxes of the United Nations, of a confidential investigation report involving the current president of Rwanda in the attack against the Falcon 50 of President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994. The same year, a former intelligence officer in the Office of the G2 Rwandan Patriotic Army, Jean-Pierre Mugabe confirmed the responsibility of Paul Kagame in the attack. Later, the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere questioned the role played by the current Rwandan president in what constitutes the trigger for the genocide in Rwanda in April 1994.

In 2002, investigative journalist from Cameroon Charles Onana said in his book (Les secrets du genocide rwandais: Enquête sur le mystère d’un président, Paris, Duboiris 2002) that the current Rwandan president was responsible for the attack against President Habyarimana's Falcon 50. The Rwandan government and its president had filed a complaint for defamation against Onana with the Court of First Instance of Paris. After having read the evidence filed by the lawyers of Cameroonian journalist, the Rwandan government withdrew. For Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. Senator from Georgia, Bill Clinton's special envoy to Central Africa, this reversal of the Rwandan authorities was nothing but a guilty plea: "In 2001, I organized as a member of the International Relations Committee U.S. Senate, a panel discussion on the attack. I invited CIA analysts, investigators of the ICTR, a former collaborator of Paul Kagame and several international experts on terrorism. It became clear during this meeting that Paul Kagame and members of his army, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), were involved in the attack. When Paul Kagame has waived the trial that he had filed against Charles Onana, I interpreted this as an admission of guilt. “There is therefore a shadow of a doubt that the sponsor of this despicable and evil act is Paul Kagame.”

The killers or “genocidaires”

The attack against President Habyarimana's plane was the kickoff of the bloodshed that would unfold in the months following throughout Rwanda. Nobody is spared. Men, women, elderly, infants and babies succumb to death with machetes, clubs and hoes.
Who are these killers? In international public opinion, these criminals have a name: the Interahamwe. But who are they?
Originally, "Interahamwe" which means "those who are put together," was a group of youths standing by policymakers of the MRND, the ruling Hutu party. This kind of groups, each political party in Rwanda had one. The socio-political explosive created by the RPF before the assassination of Habyarimana would radicalize the Interahamwe. At the announcement of the assassination of their leader (Habyarimana) is the explosion of hatred, young (Interahamwe) will engage in unprecedented massacres against the Tutsi and Hutu supporters. What international opinion fails to see in all these massacres committed by the Interahamwe, is the hidden hand of the RPF!
Yes! Indeed, few people know that the RPF had infiltrated the Hutu militias, particularly the Interahamwe in order to launch provocations to exacerbate tensions and lead to the radicalization of the Hutu. The former RPA officer, Abdul Ruzibiza explains how the RPA "has consisted of small groups of highly trained squadrons infiltration, most of whom had their faces misleading because they resembled the ethnic Hutu [...]. Among the demonstrators, there were soldiers of the RPF infiltrators as Lieutenant Kiyago, Lieutenant Jean-Pierre Gatashya, Captain Hubert Kamugisha, Sergeant Mugisha, aka Interahamwe, and others. The goal was to heat the head, sow chaos and destruction throughout the country. "
More importantly, the Interahamwe militia was founded by Anastase Gasana, a Tutsi. Member of the MRND, he joined the MDR and then became advisor to the Prime Minister Nsengiyaremye before being appointed foreign minister of the government Uwilingiyimana. Then he joined the RPF and became a minister in the first government formed in July 1994 after the military victory of General Kagame. Thus, the founder of the claimed Interahamwe, the "killers of Tutsi", made a brilliant ministerial career under the victorious Tutsi regime. Several other leaders of the militia were Tutsi; it is the first and second vice-president and treasurer. It is unusual, to say the least, to see that Tutsis were able to have such important roles in the creation, organization and operation of a militia prepared and presented as having committed the genocide of Tutsis.

A former Interahamwe Tutsi who requested anonymity told me that most Hutus that have evolved within the Interahamwe had been recruited by the former president of the RPF, Alexis Kanyarengwe (Hutu from Ruhengeri), they were trained in camps in Uganda before being injected into the "Interahamwe". What makes the former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda say: “When they saw the Interahamwe committing these massacres, they said:" These are Hutus. "However, among those Hutus, there were those who actually belonged to MRND, and much of which belonged to the RPF.”

One thing that strikes in the course of the massacres during the genocide: The Interahamwe, supposed "enemies" of the RPF, exterminated Rwandans(mostly Tutsis) near areas controlled by Kagame's men! At this point Luc Marshal who commanded the Belgian military mission of the United Nations in Rwanda (UNAMIR) states that "Not once the RPF had tried, despite the numbers they had in place, to secure areas for Tutsis to allow them to find refuge."Ruzibiza then wonders: "why is it that the small bridge near the station Nyabugogo, Gatsyata was barricaded by the Interahamwe who had decimated the people despite the installation of the battalion Bravo by Kagame on Mount Jari? How to understand that people who were killed in Gisozi, Kagugu and Kinyinya were within two kilometers of Inkotanyi (Tutsi fighters)? What distance is there between the CND (Rwandan parliament where were the fighters of the RPF) and Kacyiru, Cymicanga and even between the CND and the Church of the Holy Family so that people perish without anything being done for help? "

Are we facing a case of failure to assist persons in danger? NO. The extermination of the Tutsis was part of the strategy of the RPF in its quest to seize power in Rwanda. Ruzibiza gives many other details which throw an entirely new history of the Rwandan genocide: "On the side of RPF reprisals against Tutsis served its cause well. This was the price to pay. Several examples are there to show how the RPF attacks multiplied in order to encourage the population to attack Tutsis. It could well alert international opinion, which saw in general, only the abuses by those in power. "But the young Tutsi officer does not stop there, he even said that "Kagame has prevented us from saving our families while we had the means and the will."

We therefore have among the Interahamwe, a group of individuals who massacred the Tutsis on behalf of the Hutu regime without realizing they were being manipulated without their knowledge by Kagame, who took great advantage of this situation, and secondly another group of individuals who massacred the Tutsis and Hutus on behalf of the RPF. In both cases, Kagame is the winner. After explaining all this, we come to the conclusion that the Rwandan genocide is the responsibility of Paul Kagame and members of his politico-military movement RPA / RPF. These Tutsi extremists are unquestionably at the heart of the tragedy in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and cannot, simply because they are Tutsis, pretend to play the victim or become their spokesman.
This article is an excerpt from my upcoming book on the destabilization of the Great Lakes.

By Patrick Mbeko (enfantsducongo@gmail.com)

Translated from French by Fifi Manesa
Enhanced by Zemanta

UN report to accuse Rwanda army of DRC massacres

UN report to accuse Rwanda army of DRC massacres
Rwandan Hutu refugees on the road to Kisangani in March 1997
AFP
By RFI
Hutu Refugees on their way to Kisangani
A UN report to be issued on 1 October will accuse the Rwandan army of massacring Hutus who had fled to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the 1990s. It will also point an accusing finger at the DRC’s own army, as well as troops from Burundi and Uganda.
And it has infuriated Rwandan leaders by declaring that a court could find that the killings were genocidal.
The 516-page report details the findings of an inquiry into “the most serious human rights violations” in the DRC, formerly Zaire, from 1993 to 2003.

It says that tens of thousands of Hutu civilians were murdered in the DRC, after they had fled Rwanda following Paul Kagame’s Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front's seizure power.

In a chapter on killings in 1997-1998, it describes an attack on about 120,000 Hutu refugees by armed Congolese rebels backed up by soldiers from the Rwandan army at a camp in Tingi-Tingi in Maniema province.

On the morning of 1 March, soldiers from both armies raided the camp, which had been deserted by most of the refugees, “indiscriminately killing its remaining occupants”, the report says.

Witnesses told the investigators that most of the victims were stabbed to death. Hundreds more are reported to have been killed in the afternoon when soldiers opened fire on columns of fleeing refugees.

In April of the same year, the investigators report that 200 refugees were massacred in the Kasese camp in Kisangani region in the presence of senior officers from the Rwandan Patriotic Army, the report states. A bulldozer was requisitioned from a local logger to dig mass graves, it adds.

The victims seem to have been chosen on the basis of their ethnic group, and not to have been limited to those held responsible for atrocities against Tutsis before Kagame took power, the report says.

On the basis of some of the incidents described, a court could conclude that there was an intention to destroy part of the Hutu ethnic group in the DRC, leaving the way open to charges of genocide, it concludes.

The report also documents massacres perpertrated with the involment of the Ugandan and Burundian armies.

Congo-Rwanda : l'autre génocide impuni

Source:Le Monde
par Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse, avocat au Barreau de Paris
L'horreur du génocide des Tutsis du Rwanda par les Hutus en 1994 continue de neutraliser tout inventaire supplémentaire de l'apocalypse qui a frappé l'Afrique des Grands Lacs à l'orée du XXIe siècle. A tel point que l'élimination en 1996-1997, cette fois-ci, de centaines de milliers d'Hutus par l'armée tutsie du général Kagamé reste un crime politiquement incorrect qu'il demeure délicat d'évoquer, sous peine de se voir taxer 
Si accablant que puisse être le pré-rapport de l'ONU sur les crimes commis en République démocratique du Congo (RDC) de 1993 à 2003, divulgué par Le Monde, il pourrait faire naître de faux espoirs à ceux qui désespèrent que la tragédie absolue qui a causé la mort de centaines de milliers de personnes dans l'Est du Congo reste à jamais sans sépulture judiciaire. Car le chemin qui reste à parcourir pour conduire les responsables devant un tribunal sera long. Et il est bien possible qu'ils bénéficient encore une fois d'un classement sans suite.
Juillet 1995, Srebrenica, Bosnie : 6 000 à 8 000 morts. Certains des auteurs ont été condamnés. Milosevic a fini ses jours en prison. Karadzic se fait juger. Comment est-il possible, par comparaison, qu'il ait fallu autant d'années avant que ne commence seulement à être esquissée la nécessité de punir des crimes qui sont au minimum contre l'humanité – des milliers de morts – pour ne pas parler de génocide, puisque cela froisse Paul Kagamé ? Le génocide des Tutsis au Rwanda en 1994 a rendu depuis lors le vainqueur, encore au pouvoir à Kigali seize ans après, totalement intouchable.
Regardons le Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda (TPIR). Alors que sa mission était également de juger les crimes de masse perpétrés par l'Armée patriotique rwandaise (APR) du général Kagamé, pas un seul accusé n'a été présenté devant une chambre. Le Rwanda a pratiqué le chantage, bloqué le fonctionnement du tribunal pour que finalement après le départ de Carla Del Ponte, le nouveau procureur du TPIR abandonne définitivement toutes velléités de faire juger quiconque du pouvoir rwandais actuel. Aurait-on osé devant l'histoire, s'agissant de l'ex-Yougoslavie, ne poursuivre que des criminels Serbes sans s'intéresser à ce qu'avaient fait les Croates ou les Bosniaques ? Il semble, en effet, que les critères soient différents lorsqu'on touche à l'Afrique et en particulier au Rwanda.
L'élimination organisée et volontaire d'au moins 200 000 Rwandais en 1996-1997 par l'APR est connue et documentée depuis des années. La communauté internationale avait assisté presque en direct à la disparition dans les forêts congolaises des refugiés rwandais. Emma Bonino, Commissaire européen aux droits de l'homme, avait interpellé le Conseil de sécurité sur le danger mortel que courraient des centaines de milliers de personnes. Un projet d'une force internationale était alors évoqué et bientôt sabordé par les soutiens de Kigali qui, de son côté, fermait la zone aux ONG et aux journalistes.
Et une fois de plus, malgré le caractère immense et notoire des massacres, on a tourné la tête, voir nié. Mieux, en ne poursuivant ni les crimes de l'APR en 1994 au Rwanda, ni ceux de 1996-1997, c'est un véritable permis de tuer que l'on a octroyé au pouvoir rwandais. Et depuis lors, son dossier criminel s'est nourri du pillage, avec d'autres, des ressources minières du Kivu et de l'Ituri, de l'entretien de la guerre et de ses chefs comme Laurent Nkunda. Avec pour constante, le martyr des populations vulnérables, dans ces forêts congolaises que certains rescapés surnomment la zone du diable.
DEUX POIDS, DEUX MESURES ?
Voilà seize ans que cela dure. Paul Kagamé vient de faire renouveler à 94 % son mandat de dictateur. Le pouvoir rwandais a réglé à l'intérieur le problème du questionnement de sa responsabilité dans les événements de 1994 qu'il appelle du négationnisme. Le procureur du Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda, lui, s'est satisfait d'un déni international de justice. Et le secrétaire général des Nations unies court à Kigali parce qu'on craint que le Rwanda ne retire ses troupes du Darfour : pensez donc, un projet de rapport onusien utilise une qualification – génocide – inapproprié… Et ce n'est pas le moindre des paradoxes non plus que le ministre de la défense rwandais, James Kabarebe, fasse l'objet d'un mandat d'arrêt de la justice espagnole, précisément pour les événements du Congo.
Il faut terriblement ignorer le Rwanda pour penser que l'impunité laissée au vainqueur de 1994 sur les crimes commis contre sa propre population pourra contribuer à solder les comptes de l'horreur. Les braises de la haine ne s'éteindront jamais tant que les crimes de l'APR ne seront pas jugés. L'injustice faite aux victimes Hutus du Congo vient nourrir les excuses que se donnent déjà les anciens tueurs de Tutsis au Rwanda. Loin des trottoirs de Kigali, refaits à neuf avec l'argent des bailleurs de fonds, la rancœur fermente dans les collines.
Alors, maintenant qu'un peu de lumière est à nouveau jetée sur le charnier congolais, la diplomatie de couloir va-t-elle encore une fois réussir à escamoter les responsables ? C'est bien probable. C'est une fosse commune judiciaire que l'on prépare pour enterrer définitivement de véritables excommuniés du droit international. Les faits n'entrent dans la compétence d'aucune des juridictions internationales existantes et l'on ne peut compter sur les dirigeants impliqués pour se mettre en accusation. Si un tribunal spécial pour le Congo n'est pas créé, les assassins ne seront ni poursuivis, ni jugés.
Après l'attentat ayant coûté la vie au Liban à Rafic Hariri, l'émotion de la communauté internationale et l'action des diplomates avaient poussé les Nations unies à instituer un tribunal spécial pour juger de l'assassinat d'un seul homme. L'élimination de certains groupes entiers d'êtres humains a-t-il moins d'importance ? L'ONU fait-elle deux poids, deux mesures ? Il est encore temps pour le Conseil de sécurité et le Secrétaire général des Nations unies de nous prouver le contraire.
Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse, avocat au Barreau de Paris

Sympathy for Rwanda begins to fade

SOURCE: The Globe & Mail by Geoffrey York

For years, Rwanda’s government was assured of loyal sympathy from around the world. Everyone remembered the horrors of the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed by Hutu extremists while the world idly watched.
For 16 years, that sympathy has muted any misgivings about Rwanda’s authoritarian government. World leaders from Tony Blair to George Bush have heaped praise on Rwanda, touting it as an emerging African leader, a business-friendly nation with an impressive record on environmental protection and women’s rights.

But this year, as evidence piles up of Rwandan abuses in Congo and other African locations, the sympathy is fading.
On Friday, the United Nations will release a report that documents how the Rwandan military rounded up and massacred tens of thousands of Hutu refugees in Congo in the late 1990s. The murders were so widespread and systematic that they could be classified as “crimes of genocide,” according to a leaked copy of the report.
This is evidence of a new willingness to criticize Rwanda’s human rights violations, its crackdowns on dissent, and even its suspected involvement in an attempted assassination in South Africa.
Criticism has come from many other quarters, too. After a landslide victory by Rwandan President Paul Kagame in an election last month, the U.S. administration said it was “concerned about a series of disturbing events” during the Rwandan election campaign.
Mr. Kagame has ruled Rwanda since taking power by military force in 1994 after the genocide, and he has allowed few opposition leaders to challenge him. He was declared the victor of last month’s election with an overwhelming 93 per cent of the vote.
But the Obama administration in Washington said it was alarmed by the events in Rwanda before the election, including the suspension of two independent newspapers, the expulsion of a human rights researcher, the decision to prohibit two opposition parties from participating in the election, and the arrest of a number of journalists. Rwanda’s stability will be difficult to sustain “in the absence of broad political debate and open political participation,” the White House said in its statement.
Human rights groups have echoed those concerns. Human Rights Watch, the independent U.S.-based group, said the election last month was marked by “increasing political repression and a crackdown on free speech.”
In the six months leading up to the Rwandan election, there was “a worrying pattern of intimidation, harassment and other abuses – ranging from killings and arrests to restrictive administrative measures – against opposition parties, journalists, members of civil society and other critics,” Human Rights Watch said.
Meanwhile, there is mounting evidence that the Rwandan government may have been involved in the attempted assassination of a former Rwandan army leader who fled to South Africa this year. The incident has prompted South Africa to recall its ambassador from Rwanda, a clear indication of South Africa’s anger over Rwandan involvement in the case.
The target of the assassination attempt was Lieutenant-General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, former chief of staff of the Rwandan army and a former close ally of Mr. Kagame. He fled to South Africa in February after a falling out with Mr. Kagame and has become a vocal critic of the Rwandan government.
Gen. Nyamwasa was shot and seriously injured in front of his Johannesburg home on June 19. While recovering in hospital, five suspects tried again to kill him, according to South African authorities. They allegedly planned to pose as hospital visitors and then strangle him with a piece of string.
A wealthy Rwandan businessman, Pascal Kanyandekwe, has been charged with involvement in both attempts to kill the former army chief. The South African government has publicly stated that foreign “security operatives” – presumably from Rwanda – were involved in the attempted assassination.
A South African magistrate, who denied bail to Mr. Kanyandekwe last week, said the suspect had “the backing of the government of a country” – another clear reference to the Rwandan government. Evidence placed before the court suggests that the suspects “were acting on the instructions of the Rwandan government,” the Johannesburg Star reported.
A Rwandan journalist, Jean Leonard Rugambage, was shot dead in June after his newspaper reported that the Rwandan government was involved in the assassination attempt in South Africa. He was one of the few remaining independent journalists in Rwanda.
The Rwandan government has fiercely denied every allegation against it. It denies any involvement in the attempted assassination in South Africa. “We find these insinuations very alarming,” Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said in July. “Naturally, there is no truth to this.”
She also rejected the UN report and its allegations of Rwandan involvement in the massacre of tens of thousands of Hutu refugees in Congo. She said the report was “fatally flawed” and “incredibly irresponsible.”

Rwanda's other genocide

 By Ann Garrison.
SOURCE The digital journal
Friday, October 1st, is the date of the official release of the U.N. Report on Human Rights Abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including documentation of the Rwandan Patriotic click here to see the video Army's massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus.
The draft of the report, generated by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was leaked to Le Monde on August 26, 2010, and its release was then postponed until October 1st, so that Rwanda and other governments accused of atrocities could prepare responses to be published at the same time.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame was sworn in for another 7-year term  after the explosive  August 26th...
Wikimedia Commons
Rwandan President Paul Kagame was sworn in for another 7-year term, after the explosive, August 26th leak of a UN report documenting genocidal massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus, by his army, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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Last week Rwandan President Paul Kagame was in New York City to co-chair the UN General Assembly's Summit on the Millenium Development Goals to eradicate poverty, but Rwandan, Congolese, U.S. and Spanish activists converged on the UN as well, to protest Kagame and what they say is his army's longstanding impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal Hutu massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as documented in the report. The group also protested what they say is a longstanding cover-up and impunity for the Kagame regime's massacres of Rwandan Hutus in Rwanda, as documented by the long suppressed Gersony Report. Activists including law professor and international criminal defense lawyer Peter Erlinder, Spanish human rights activist Juan Carrero, and Spanish Senator Pere Sampol, demanded that the official version of the report
Kenyan Lawyer Kennedy Ogetto with his client American Law Professor Peter Erlinder on June 14th  out...
Rwanda News Agency
Kenyan Lawyer Kennedy Ogetto with his client American Law Professor Peter Erlinder on June 14th, outside a Rwandan courtroom, where Erlinder appealed a Rwandan judge's decision denying him bail on June 7th. He has since been released and returned to the U.S. Last week, speaking in New York City, he said that previous UN reports documenting Rwanda's atrocities in Congo had been ignored.
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match the version leaked to Le Monde, despite pressure from the Rwandan and Ugandan governments, and the African Union, which typically supports the U.S. and its allies' strategic engagements in Africa. Speaking in New York, on a panel titled "End Impunity in Rwanda," Law Professor Peter Erlinder said that the Rwandan army's crimes had been documented in past UN reports, but ignored. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, leader of Rwanda's opposition FDU-Inkingi Coalition of political parties, speaking from Kigali, Rwanda, where she remains under arrest and forbidden to leave the city of Kigali, also said that the report confirms what has long been a "Pucinella secret" that many knew but pretended not to know, a secret that could not be concealed forever, about Kagame and his Rwandan army's crimes in both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza says that the UN Report confirms what has long been a “Pucinella” secr...
FDU-Inkingi Party
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza says that the UN Report confirms what has long been a “Pucinella” secret that many knew but pretended not to know.
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"The RPF took the power in July 1994," she said, "and after they took power, the killing was going ahead until 1997, when they killed the people in the Congo." Eric Kamba, Executive Director of the Boston-based Congolese Development Center, protested with Boston's Congolese community, then traveled to the New York City protests. Kamba, who hails from Congo's central Kasai Province, said he wants the world to understand that Congo is under occupation, by the Rwandan and Ugandan elites, who are plundering its enormous natural resource wealth, and that Congolese President Joseph Kabila is collaborating in the occupation. "The Congolese government of Joseph Kabila wrote a 51-page response to the UNHCHR report rejecting the proposal for an independent international tribunal," he said. "Kabila is calling instead for 'specialized chambers' within the Congolese justice system, even though he knows the Congolese justice system is barely functioning. The world should understand that Congo is occupied by Rwanda and Uganda, whose elites are plundering its enormous resources." "We will all be standing by to read the official version of the UN report on October 1st," he added. "We will protest if it has been altered under pressure, and we will call for international justice either way." Professor Peter Erlinder, and many other critics of covert U.S. military interventions in the region, including Erlinder's fellow ICTR defense lawyer Christopher Black, say that, ultimately, the US, the UK, and allied Western powers are responsible, that they armed, trained, and provided logistical and intelligence support to both the Rwandan and Ugandan armies so as to advance their agenda, most of all to secure Congo's vast geostrategic mineral wealth. ICTR Lawyer Christopher Black's documentation of U.S. and allied involvement was published this month on the websites of Monthly Review Zine, Global Research, and the San Francisco Bay View.


Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/298289#ixzz1125t0dJj
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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Now You know: Paul Kagame could be charged with genocide

SOURCE:AFJN
The evidence of a criminal case against President Paul Kagame and associates is overwhelming.  A UN report that leaked to the French newspaper Le Monde on August 26 and scheduled to be officially released on October 1st confirms evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly a genocide committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during its invasion by Rwandan and Ugandan troops in 1996.  All things considered, this report does not tell the whole story about what happened in Congo as a result of this invasion.

Similarly, nothing in this report is new ( read Mr. Roberto Garretón report, and Gersony report)   More crimes committed by troops under Paul Kagame’s leadership, whether in Rwanda before and after 1994 and in Congo from 1996 to as recent as 2008, have yet to be acknowledged.  This report covers “only the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law” in the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003.   “Although the primary objective of the Mapping Exercise is not to identify the alleged perpetrators or people who should be held accountable for their actions, it was nevertheless necessary to gather basic information relating to the identity of alleged individual or group perpetrators”, says the report.   Thus, the National Rwandan Army under President Paul Kagame, the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo (AFDL), then a rebel group under late President Laurent Kabila, and the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (Ugandan national Army) under President Yoweri Museveni  are on the long list of people and organizations that could face charges for various crimes committed in war in Congo.
There has never been any doubt that the Rwandan army was in Congo in part to hunt down the Hutu people.   This UN report repeatedly describes the killing of Hutus across the Congo such as this one.  “The killings around the former camps of Katale, Kahindo and Kibumba and in the Virunga National Park continued for several months.”  They killed with bombs, guns, machetes, knives, hummers and locking people in huts and burning them live.

On the question of a possible genocide, the report underscores that there was a targeted killing of Hutu.  “There is no denying that ethnic massacres were committed and that the victims were mostly Hutus from Burundi, Rwanda and Zaire. The joint mission’s preliminary opinion is that some of these alleged massacres could constitute acts of genocide…”  For charges of genocide, the report suggests that “(A)n in-depth investigation in the territory of the DRC would clarify this situation.” The Congolese Hutu are also referred to in this report as Hutu Banyarwanda.  Like those from Burundi, they were targeted even if they had nothing to do with 1994 Rwandan genocide.  They were targeted only because they share the same ethnic background as those who committed the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It is worthwhile noting that Hutu and Tusti are residents and citizens of Rwanda Burundi, Congo and Uganda in the Great Lakes region.

Although the DRC has obligations under international law, there is little hope that the findings in this report will lead to prosecution any time soon.  The weak government in Congo is a hindrance to any effort to bring the perpetrators to justice.   Also, the Congolese President Joseph Kabila was a soldier in the rebel group AFDL led by his late father, President Laurent Kabila and fought alongside the Rwandan army as they carried out some of these killings.   Consequently, it is unlikely that President Joseph Kabila would encourage any judicial process that could link him as well as his father to the crimes.   Given the current Rwandan military influence in the region and in Congo in particular, such a move could have political implication for President Kabila vis as vis Rwanda on whom he depends now to keep his head above water in a country where he is unpopular.

Also, the Rwandan government has been trying to stop the United Nations from releasing the report by saying that “it is absurd for the UN, which deliberately turned its back on the Rwandan people during the 1994 genocide, to accuse the army that stopped the genocide of committing atrocities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” In fact, taken over by guilt for the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the world looked away as the Rwandan army committed these crimes detailed in this mapping exercise.

Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN) believes that the time for those who committed the crimes in the Congo to face justice is overdue.  Today more than ever before there is hope because President Paul Kagame, the first on the list of the accused, has lost credibility on the international scene as far as promoting democracy, freedom and human rights in Rwanda.  AFJN’s advocacy to the United State government for justice and accountability for the victims of the wars in Rwanda and the Congo continues.   It is AFJN’s hope that the Obama administration will chose the side of the victim and let justice be served.  More resources on Rwanda
http://www.friendsofthecongo.org/resource-center/united-nations-report.html
The Rwanda Documents Project
Who was Behind the Rwandan Genocide? The Rwandan Patriotic Front's Bloody Record and the History of UN Cover-Ups
Faces of War: Congo — The hidden horrors of a war the world ignored

How things fell apart at Miss Uganda

SOURCE: Daily Monitor By Jacobs Seaman Odongo
When crowning the new queen, during the Miss Uganda 2010 pageant finals at Imperial Royale Hotel last Saturday, all eyes were on Hezyme Nansubuga, the eventual winner. However, what many in the audience did not know was that the announcement did not only leave a wedge between the organisers and the judges—but has also left the organising group trading accusations—ranging from claims of bribery to extortion.
Mr Allan Kasujja, one of the judges, opened the lid on Saturday evening, when he told the media that Ms Nansubuga was far from the person the assessors had found fit for the crown.
JUDGES: Mr Kananathan, Ms Piloya and Mr Kasujja.
Not judges’ choice
“We didn’t pick her (Nansubuga). We picked Number 12 (Aisha Nagudi),” he said at the end of the contest. Ms Monica Kasyate, another judge, said, “It is true,”—affirming Mr Kasujja’s claim.
Ms Nagudi did not even make it to the top three.
Addressing the media later, Ms Joyce Church, the organiser of the beauty pageant, pointed an accusing finger at a different corner—Ms Dorothy Mwima—the event’s spokesperson. According to Ms Church, Ms Mwima had received a Shs2.6m bribe to fix the crown. It’s Ms Mwima, the 2008 Miss Uganda, who handed over the crown to Ms Nansubuga, because last year’s winner, Maria Namiiro, who left the country after her crowning, has never returned from the UK.
But speaking to Daily Monitor on Tuesday, Ms Mwima said there was more to the drama than meets the eye. In a distraught tone, she told Daily Monitor she had received Shs500,000 from Carol Serwada, a friend who was also contesting.
“I was just a spokesperson. How can a contestant bribe me to fix the crown when I don’t have influence?” Ms Mwima asked. “Can Shs500,000 fix such a coveted crown? The money I got from Carol had nothing to do with the pageant. In fact I have paid back the money.”
Ms Mwima says Ms Serwada, who lives in Norway and holds a Norwegian passport, upon learning of the pageant contacted her for details. “I then approached Church, who told me Carol had to go through the auditions like everybody else. And that’s what happened.”
She adds, “Along the way I got a problem and asked for money from Carol, not as a contestant but as a friend. When I did this, Church was aware.”
Daily Monitor saw a text message on Ms Mwima’s phone from Ms Church sent at 12.17pm on September 21, confirming that she had got Shs500,000 from Ms Serwada and would pass it on to her (Mwima).
When contacted yesterday evening, Ms Serwada, who was flying out of the country, confirmed giving Ms Mwima the money. “It was a loan, she said. “It had nothing to do with the crown.”
The smokescreen
Ms Mwima argues that Ms Church used the Serwada issue as a smokescreen. “She was bent on handpicking a winner. In fact, what people don’t know is that two judges pulled out after Ms Church kept badgering them to ensure a certain contestant wins.”
According to Ms Mwima, it was after these two (a Kenyan beautician and a Ugandan resort beach owner) had pulled out that Mr Vilupilai Kananathan, the CEO Imperial Group of Hotels, and Fyonar Piloya were co-opted to join other judges Mr Kasujja and Ms Kasyate.
According to Ms Mwima, minutes to announcing the winner, she pleaded with Ms Church to respect the judges’ decision.
“Her mind was made up. She sent Diana Alinafe, another member of the organising team, to announce Nansubuga as the winner.” But speaking to journalists after the disputed results were announced, Ms Church said, “What you [the press] don’t know is that we awarded points at the boot camp to the contestants and these points were tallied to what the judges have tonight, to come up with the eventual winner.”
Concerned about beauty
She added, “The problem is that the audience is more concerned about beauty yet we look at more than just that, and so when their favourite doesn’t win, they cite fixing.”
Since then, Ms Church has failed to pick our calls or return them. One thing is clear though. A pageant meant to capture the best of beauty and brains has turned into a mine of controversy.

Uganda, Rwanda in fresh spying row

By Sheila Naturinda & Robert Muhereza


Two Ugandans from Kabale District have been held incommunicado in Rwanda for 10 days, and are yet to be produced in any courts, Parliament heard yesterday. Mr Simpson Mpirirwe, a businessman, and Didas Ndamiye, an accountant at Radio Kigezi, are said to have travelled to Kisoro on private business trips, but were arrested at the Cyanika border post inside Rwanda by the Rwandan military.
Ndorwa West MP David Bahati tabled the matter before Parliament yesterday and asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to follow up and explain the whereabouts of the two who are both from his constituency.
Uganda’s Ambassador to Rwanda Richard Kabonero said his office had got information indicating that the duo was being held on suspicion of subversion. Subversion refers to an attempt to overthrow the established order of a society or state, its structures of power and authority.
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Rwandan government spokesperson Louise Mushikiwabo was unavailable for comment but sources within Kabale and at Cyanika border say the two could have been arrested on suspicion of spying on Rwanda. Maj Jill Rutaremara, the RDF spokesman, could not also be reached as calls by this paper went unanswered.
Mr Bahati asked the government “through the foreign affairs ministry to compel Rwanda to produce the two in courts of law or explain the circumstances surrounding their arrest.”
Mr Kabonero said he had not visited the two and couldn’t confirm their health status but said he was hopeful that he would visit them today. “The Embassy of Uganda wrote a note verbal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Rwanda, asking for immediate consular access to the detained Ugandans and the charges against them,” he said. “The Embassy followed up by a visit by the Ambassador who met the Permanent Secretary, Mr Eugene Munyakayanza, who promised that the government will respond to the Embassy’s request. We are following up this matter with urgency,” Mr Kabonero said.
Government Chief Whip Daudi Migereko also promised Parliament that the matter would be addressed by the Foreign Affairs Ministry and a status report would be presented to Parliament. The detention is likely to test relations between Rwanda and Uganda which hit rock bottom when the armies of the two countries clashed thrice in DR Congo but have been growing warmer over the last couple of years. There have been several allegations of spying by officials on either side of the border but this is the first such incident in many years.
Back in Kabale, the families of the two men are losing hope of seeing their relatives again. “I am scared for my brother (Ndamiye). My prayer is to see him alive once again,” John Bosco Turyasingura said. Upon arrest, the duo left their car at Cyanika border from where it was picked up. Kabale RDC Cox Nyakairu also said he would follow up the matter with Mr Kabonero and keep the families informed.
Relations between the two countries and between President Museveni and Paul Kagame of Rwanda have improved since Rwanda joined the Commonwealth and the East African Community with support from Uganda

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Former Rwandan Prosecutor General Gerard Gahima Testifies Against Kagame in Spanish Courts

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (ri...Image via Wikipedia


SOURCE:AfroAmerica Network
Sources in Spain have informed AfroAmerica Network  that Gerard Gahima, a former Rwandan Prosecutor General and Vice-President of the Supreme Court has been testifying against  the Rwandan Dictator Paul Kagame.
The testimony in front of the Audiencia National in Madrid is likely to be very critical and damaging for Paul Kagame. In fact, General Gahima was one of the closest allies,  comrades,  and friends of  Kagame’s sometimes regarded, along with Tito Rutaremara, one of the ideologues of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front.

The lengthy testimony was recorded on Wednesday September 22, 2010.
In the testimony, Gerard Gahima confirmed that General Paul Kagame has personally or through proxies, and private businesses committed, executed, supervised, and/or ordered war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and in Rwanda. According to Gerard Gahima, among the companies belonging to Paul Kagame and his associates, including the wife of the Minister of Finances,  and exploiting resources in the DRC, especially coltan and other commodities, and shipping them across the border to Rwanda are  Air Navette, Jambo Safari, and New Gomair. He also reaffirmed that companies belonging to the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), General Paul Kagame and a clique of personal friends, relatives, and leading personalities  continue to benefit from illegal logging and poaching. They include the holding Tri-Star Investments that belongs to Paul  Kagame.

Gerard Gahima testified also on the assassination of spanish aid workers and missionaries, the catalan missionary Joaquim Vallmajó  in 1994 and Medecins du Monde workers  Flors Sirera and Luis Manuel Madrazo Valtueña, killed three years later.

One of Gerard Gahima’s associates, Kayumba Nyamwasa is accused of ordering these murders. The Spanish Government, at the insistence of Judge Andreu, formally requested his extradition from South Africa, where he has sought asylum, to Spain, to face prosecution for the crimes. 
General Kayumba Nyamwasa  was  a victim of the first  assassination attempt on June 19, 2010 in Johannesburg, South Africa where he has sought exile (see our article here ). After the first assassination attempt, the  South African Government pointed a finger to intelligence operatives from Rwanda as responsible for the failed assassination. The accusation led to a strain in the two governments relations. The South African Government eventually recalled its Ambassador to Rwanda (see our article here  and here).

©AfroAmerica Network, 2010. All rights reserved.
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Goretti Nyiramahinja’s memory in the midst of the UN report on crimes committed in DRCongo

She was already in her 70s when she fled from her native region of Kinigi in the north of Rwanda. The war which in 1994 uprooted her from a neighbourhood she and her numerous relatives had occupied for several generations was led by Paul Kagame. The latter has been hailed by the like of Blair and Clinton to be among the so called “new breeds of visionary leaders” of Africa.
70 Years Old NYIRAMAHINJA G. with her relatives/Goma1995
Goretti Nyiramahinja managed to walk seventy kilometres all the way from Ruhengeri through Gisenyi and on to Goma UN camp just running away from the advancing killing might of the Tutsi National Resistance Army/Rwandan Patriotic Front in June 1994. Until 1996 she had survived the harsh life of refugee camps. When her camp was bombarded by Rwandan Patriotic Army forces, she flew among the hundreds of similar old women who could not run any further into the jungles of RDCongo and were brutally murdered using old used hoes to knock their brains out of their skulls by Kagame’s men, sometime in the watchful docile face of the UN and other NGOs whose mission is normally to protect the vulnerable.
Kagame’s men killed many people whose real number will never be known. Today Nyiramahinja’s body may be one of those buried in huge mass graves in the Goma area of the DRCongo, found by the UN investigators. It has taken now sixteen years to acknowledge odious crimes committed against this old woman and others like her in hundreds of thousands, this hoping that the initial draft of the UN report does not disappear or simply be watered down. It wouldn’t be the first UN report to know a similar fate.
Western governments have individually or collectively been blamed for letting these savage carnages happen. But what people forget is that when the politicians in Europe or USA take oath to serve their people, they swear to uphold the interests of their countries. Their foreign policies and subsequent actions taken on the ground in Africa for example must suite the needs of their people and their interests. So if their interests are to loot or pillage Africa you cannot blame them because they are serving their peoples’ interests thus fulfilling their foreign policy. Nyiramahinja’s death could be understood under such perspective.
A serious problem arises when, in pursuing their interests and fulfilling their foreign policies in Africa, western powers are assisted by African intermediaries, the so called progressive leaders of the continent. The like of Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame make easy the work of external predators by fighting their wars, sharing the result of their hunt, and killing as many fellow Africans as they so wish to fight off any internal dissent and opposition.
How many people have died since 1981, in the Luwero and Rwanda wars or until today in the Congo wars carried out and supported by ‘enlightened revolutionaries’ Museveni and Kagame in the Great Lakes region of east and central Africa? Should we continue to blame the foreign politicians who are serving the interests of their people, or should Africans blame these stunt minded politicians who are instead slaughtering their own people?
I am certain that if Nyiramahinja had still been around, the question wouldn’t have been difficult to answer. Part of her extended family in Uganda died because of Museveni’s wars. Other members and people connected to her in the Ruhengeri and Byumba regions were killed during Kagame’s invasion of Rwanda. Probably none of her surviving relatives will ever know where to trace her remains. Will the yet-to-be published UN report on crimes committed in DRCongo at any time in the future restore some dignity to that old woman? This is an important question still pending about addressing ongoing and western backed impunity of political leaders of the Great Lakes region.

"Donors Wasting Their Money On Rwanda'

SOURCE: 256 NEWS"Donors Wasting Their Money On Rwanda' .The leader of the opposition FDU-INKINGI party in Rwanda, Victoire Ingabire, has broken her silence and spoken from a besieged location in Kigali.

In a statement to 256news.com, among other pinnings, Ms. Ingabire addresses herself to Rwanda's political furnace after President Kagame's recent landslide victory and says donors are pumping their money into a "bottomless pit."

Below is her full statement verbatim:


“Pour un Etat de Droit, la Democratie et l’Egalité de chances”; "For the rule of law, democracy and equal opportunity"

Kigali, September 2010

RWANDA: DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS NEED TO SUPPORT LASTING SOLUTION

The problem of aid and political conditionality and especially good governance and
democratisation process has been a recurrent topic in the discussions between donor countries
and beneficiaries. This has obliged some dictatorships to open up the political space and level
the playing field or like in the case of Rwanda to police up a controlled democratisation
process with no opposition or elections with no competitors.

The current political and
military crisis is dragging the country to the brink of chaos. Will the donors prioritize the
stability of the country or just back up the regime with no questions asked? This is the right
time to judge the sincerity of bilateral and international development partners. Will they once
again turn a blind eye to the unfolding crossroads or will they put pressure for a transitional
negotiated process between the incumbent and his opposition?

The failure of the democratization process

Last month, officially General Paul KAGAME, in a very much touted landslide Presidential
election victory, scored more than 93%. It took him a whole month to align in full his already
existing cabinet and to announce tougher measures against non armed dissents.

Prior to August 2010 presidential election, human rights organisations and international media
widely reported increased massive political repression and crackdown on independent media.
A political key figure and a journalist were slaughtered. No independent investigation has
been allowed and instead the “confessing” arrested-suspects have been released.

Human Rights Watch on 2nd August 2010 documented a worrying pattern of intimidation, harassment
and other abuses - ranging from killings and arrests to restrictive administrative measures
against opposition parties, journalists, members of civil society and other critics. Opposition
parties were either prevented to register, either their leaders were and still are incarcerated or
indefinitely kept under extended house arrest.

On 11th August 2010 in Brussels the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security
Policy, Catherine Ashton, and EU Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs on the
Presidential Elections in Rwanda commended the calm atmosphere but reminded:

“The EU is still concerned about the serious incidents which marred the pre-electoral period and urges the
Rwandese authorities to ensure that the investigations and judicial proceedings regarding
these events are carried out in full transparency and as rapidly as possible.

Further opening of the political space and strengthening the public debate throughout the
country would significantly contribute to safeguarding Rwanda's achievements and will
benefit all Rwandese”.

The report of the Commonwealth election observer group noted the peaceful aspect of the
election but mentioned that “however, while the campaign was fairly active, albeit dominated
by the largest party, the fact that the four candidates were all drawn from the governing
coalition meant there was a lack of critical opposition voices. A number of opposition parties
had earlier stated their intention to stand but faced either legal or administrative problems,
which resulted in their non-participation”.

Many other organisations and nations have expressed their concerns over the level of exclusion of the opposition.

It's our right now to question clearly and publicly the legitimacy of the election results until dialogue, negotiation and compromise are reached.

Arm-wrestling contest with the UN over large scale mass killings in the DRC

Early September 2010, a leaked report, by the office of the UN high commissioner for human
rights (OHCHR), detailing undoubtedly war crimes and what "could be classified as crimes
of genocide" committed by the RPF government and the army during the invasions and
subsequent "relentless pursuit and mass killing" of Hutus in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo sparkled an arm-wrestling between the UN and the regime.

The government of General Paul KAGAME angrily threatened to pull 3,500 troops out of a Darfur peace keeping
mission and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights announced that the report of the
Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 1993 and 2003 will be made public on 1 October 2010.

This report brings to surface other thousands of war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed in Rwanda by the RPF during and after the genocide in 1994.

Whatever will be the outcome of the pressure and hidden negotiations to alter the draft report the credibility of the government of General Paul KAGAME and his ruling RPF remains an
open question.

Poverty reduction scam

Most development partners of Rwanda rely on the ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT &
POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY 2008 – 2012 discussed previously with the
government. It is a paper painting a glowing picture of a "stable nation, on the path to
achieving better lives for each and every one of (the country's) citizens".



The FDU Inkingi does not share this optimistic diagnosis. Indeed, the so called achievements
are not self sustainable in the medium and long term as they are based on heavy external aid.

For example, for the fiscal year 2010-2011, out of a total budget of billions 984 RWF, 345
billions are expected to be foreign funded.

This is a result of the government economic priorities which do not address the most urgent
problems of national cohesion, economic equal opportunity and self sustainability.

Ascertaining that poverty has fallen under the leadership of the current regime is far from the
truth. Indeed the bottom line should not be 1994, but well before the war. According to
UNDP, the total number of people living under severe poverty is 60% (see also table 2.2.).
This figure was 47% under the previous regime.

Exit strategy that is put forward by the government paper suggests among other to increase
paid employment (page 24). Yet, even some of the paid workers live now under the poverty
line. A recent survey by our economic desk shows that a medical worker (infirmier) earns

90.000 RWF. Assuming that he is married and has two children, which is well conservative.
He will spend, according to our survey, a minimum of 141.000 RWF per month on basic items like foods, transport fees, and house rent. This leaves a deficit of over 50.000RWF to this medical worker. The situation is worse for primary school teacher. Some of them are simply deserting their profession as they can no longer sustain their families with their salaries.

As acknowledged by government paper (item 2.20) income inequality is increasing, both between rural and urban areas, and between Eastern province and the rest of the country, the
Southern province lagging well behind. The GINI coefficient (page 142, figure 7.3) rose from
47% in 2001/2002 to 51% in 2005/2006. Rwanda was well above the average of the other
African countries’ Gini coefficients.

In other word, around 40% of the national wealth is in
the hands of 10% of the rich. The so much lauded economic growth has therefore not
contributed to the reduction of poverty, as it mainly benefited to the already rich class.

Reducing poverty is not just a window-dressing, it is more than cleaning the streets of Kigali
or planting flowers along the streets. Reducing poverty is fighting it where it is the most
severe, i.e. in rural and suburb areas. It is unacceptable that "68% of the total poverty
reduction in the country be accounted for by a single province (page 25), which is by any
standard the most populated.

Serious step towards a long lasting solution are needed.

In the background of the shrinking credibility and legitimacy of the Rwandan regime unfolds
a deeper military crisis as well. A political and military decomposition of dictatorships have
incalculable consequences in developing nations. The only way to avoid total disintegration,
chaos and a possible other Somalia is to tighten a strong international pressure to work on a
solution to the political impasse. The government should release all political prisoners i.e. Mr. Deogratias MUSHAYIDI (life sentence); Mr. Charles NTAKIRUTINKA (15 years); Dr. Théoneste NIYITEGEKA (15 years); Mr. Bernard NTAGANDA, Mr. Martin NTAVUKA and drop all politically motivated charges against the PS Imberakuri and the FDU INKINGI leaders including myself.

Independent inquiry on the murder of the Vice President of the Green Democratic Party of Rwanda Mr. André KAGWA RWISEREKA, and the assassination of the journalist Jean Léonard RUGAMBAGE should start now.

We need an immediate mediation process for a negotiated solution which allows face to be
saved and an agreement for an all inclusive transitional system that will prepare a total
democratisation of Rwanda.

Our plea to the donors is to "seek ways to ensure that it builds institutional capacity for the
country’s continued progress, not political capacity for KAGAME’s continued power" . This is well described by Charles Landow (associate director of the Civil Society, Markets and Democracy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations. The KAGAME Dilemma, September 8, 2010): “a constrained political climate punctuated by violence is hardly the way
to preserve economic stability and poverty reduction in a country still recovering from wars
and in a region full of conflict and the potential for more”.

Continuing to dish in financial aid without taking into account this reality is like pouring water in a bottomless pit.

Ms. Victoire INGABIRE UMUHOZA
Chair, FDU INKINGI





Monday, September 27, 2010

South Africa's Sasol innovates with fully synthetic jet fuel

SasolSyntheticFuel
The Sasol flight touches down in Cape Town
South African petrochemicals company Sasol has flown the world's first passenger aircraft using internationally approved 100% synthetic jet fuel, a milestone in the development of cleaner-burning alternate fuels for the aviation industry.
The airliner flew from Lanseria Airport outside Johannesburg to Cape Town on Wednesday, staging a fly-past at the opening of the Africa Aerospace and Defence 2010 exhibition at Ysterplaat Air Force Base before landing at Cape Town International Airport.
The fuel, produced using Sasol's proprietary coal-to-liquids process, is the only fully synthetic jet fuel to have received approval from the global aviation fuel specification authorities for use in commercial airliners.
The South African company is the world's leading producer of synthetic fuels from coal and natural gas
"This marks a significant development in the adoption of clean-burning alternate fuels for the aviation industry," Sasol said in a statement on Wednesday. "The engine-out emissions of Sasol'' synthetic jet fuel are lower than those from jet fuel derived from crude oil, due to its limited sulphur content."
Sasol CEO Pat Davies said the international authorities' approval of the jet fuel "recognises the need to develop aviation fuel from feedstocks other than crude-oil, in order to meet the world's growing needs.
"Sasol's advances in synthetic fuel technology have brought us even closer to integrating viable alternate transportation fuel into the energy mix."
In 1998, Sasol became the first company in the world to gain approval for the commercial use of a 50% synthetic jet fuel component, which was blended with petroleum kerosene. Since then, most of the aircraft leaving Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport have flown using Sasol's semi-synthetic jet fuel.
In 2008, international aviation fuel authorities, including the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, governing the Defence Standard DEFSTAN 91-91, approved Sasol's 100% synthetic jet fuel as Jet A-1 fuel, for commercial use in all types of turbine aircraft.
Managing director of Sasol Technology, Willem Louw, said the approval process was stringent.
"A number of aviation stakeholders, including airframe, engine and ancillary equipment manufacturers; airlines and aviation authorities such as the International Air Transport Association; and relevant oil companies, were involved in the approval of this fuel", he said.
The fuel is fully fungible and aligned with the current aviation infrastructure through its compatibility with the existing engine requirements, and can be used with conventional crude oil-derived jet fuelling systems.
"Through Sasol's advanced technology and our innovative spirit, we have delivered a world first and ... we look forward to the many innovations that lie ahead," Davies said.
SouthAfrica.info

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !

Alain Léauthier - Source Marianne2 |

Les révélations de Marianne2 sur le témoignage d'Abdul Ruzibiza ont été qualifiées de manipulations par l'avocat d'un proche de Kagame, et ignorées par bien des médias. Marianne2 persiste et signe et publie la totalité de l'interrogatoire dont il est question.



Donc Marianne2 manipule. L’information, les documents et ses chers Marionnautes. Celui qui nous  insulte ainsi est un avocat répondant au nom de Maingain, prénom Bernard, conseil  d’une dignitaire du dictateur rwandais Paul Kagamé.

Me Bernard Maingain n’a pas aimé l’article en ligne du 23 septembre dernier  dans lequel nous relations le décès de Joshua Ruzibiza, le témoin clef dans l’attentat contre l’avion du président hutu Juvénal Habyarimana. Ancien militaire tutsi, Ruzibiza, rappelons-le, a plusieurs fois accusé ses ex compagnons du Front patriotique rwandais(FPR) le mouvement de Kagamé, d’être les instigateurs de cet événement dramatique ayant déclenché le génocide de 1994. Il s’était un temps rétracté, ruinant ainsi pour beaucoup la crédibilité de la procédure de l’ex-juge anti-terroriste Jean-Louis Bruguière. Saisi après la plainte déposée par les familles de l’équipage français du Falcon 50 d’Habyarimana, le magistrat avait délivré dix mandats d’arrêts internationaux contre des proches de Kagamé, provoquant la rupture des relations diplomatiques entre la France et Kigali.

Le 15 juin dernier,  Ruzibiza avait finalement expliqué les raisons de son parjure temporaire aux juges Marc Trevidic et Nathalie Poux, les successeurs de Bruguière, venus l’entendre à Oslo où il était réfugié. « La réponse générale est liée à ma sécurité personnelle et à celle de témoins. » Et bien pour l’avocat Maingain cette réponse n’a visiblement aucune importance. « Nous perdons quelqu'un qui pouvait donner des explications très intéressantes sur les manipulations de l'enquête à l'époque Bruguière »  a-t-il tempêté à l’AFP. Le méchant Bruguière encore et toujours…
Le procès-verbal d’audition de Joshua Ruzibiza fait onze pages - nous reproduisons in extenso ci-dessous les dix premières pages en sus de la onzième déjà publiée) dans lesquelles le défunt confirmait point par point ses précédentes déclarations sur l’implication de plusieurs haut responsables du FPR. Qu’en a retenu Me Maingain ? Rien. Deux solutions alors. Ou l’homme de robe ne sait pas lire. Ou il ignorait l’existence de ce document quand il s’est exprimé. Si c’est encore le cas, nous sommes heureux de lui apporter deux informations qui, sans affecter sur le fond la gravité des accusations de Ruzibiza, illustrent la complexité de cet épisode du feuilleton rwandais.

La principale concerne la cliente de l’avocat, Rose Kabuye, la directrice de protocole de Kagamé, une ancienne militaire de haut rang du FPR que Bruguière souhait entendre comme neuf autres cadres du Front soupçonnés d’avoir pu participer à l’attentat : Ruzibiza la met clairement hors de cause. La seconde a trait au comportement de l’ancien magistrat anti-terroriste. A Oslo, lors de la même audition,  Ruzibiza indique que dans le passé Bruguière ne l’avait pas vraiment interrogé mais s’était contenté de savoir s’il confirmait ou pas ses précédentes déclarations à la police, en l’occurrence à l’officier judiciaire Pierre Payebien. Peut-on en l’espèce accuser de manipulation et Me Maingain n’aurait-il pas parlé un peu trop vite ?

On ne pourra pas faire ce reproche à la journaliste belge Colette Braeckman, grand reporter du Soir où elle « couvre » depuis longtemps la région des Grands Lacs. Colette Braeckman a toujours tenu l’instruction de Bruguière pour une fumisterie et le témoignage de Ruzibiza pour peu sinon pas du tout crédible. Mais au moins connaît-elle l’histoire et ses acteurs. A l’évidence, Colette Braeckman a eu aussi accès au procès-verbal de Ruzibiza, ce qu’elle traduit d’une étrange formule « d’après certains échos de son audition… » La journaliste en retire un élément  à ses yeux capital et censé décrédibiliser tout le reste : contrairement à ses affirmations initiales, à Oslo Ruzibiza avoue qu’il n’était pas à proximité des  lieux de l’attentat le 6 avril 1994 mais à 90 kilomètres de Kigali, au nord du Rwanda où il faisait partie « du peloton ( du FPR, ndlr) qui surveillait un dépôt d’armes. » 

En fait  Ruzibiza justifie longuement, et en détail, cette « invention » : en se mettant en scène personnellement, et faussement, il entendait  protéger l’homme qui lui a fourni une grande partie des informations relatives à la préparation et l’exécution de l’attentat. Ce « Monsieur A », ainsi que les juges Trevidic et Poux décident de le nommer par commodité, est uns des cinq membres du FPR qui auraient tiré les missiles sur le Falcon 50. Comme précédemment, Ruzibiza communique à nouveau les noms des  participants à l’ensemble du « process » devant aboutir à l’exécution d’Habyarimana (voir l’intégralité du PV que nous publions ci-dessous). Certains émanent directement des confidences de Monsieur A ou proviennent d’autres  sources dont il préfère préserver l’anonymat, ce qui au vu du contexte de terreur régnant aujourd’hui à Kigali peut se comprendre. Pures élucubrations pour la journaliste belge dont la religion est faite : Ses « précisions confirment ce que les supérieurs hiérarchiques de Ruzibiza, dont James Kabarebe aujourd’hui ministre de la Défense,  ont toujours affirmé : il ne se trouvait pas sur les lieux au moment de l’attentat et sa place dans la hiérarchie, les fonctions auxquelles il était affecté ne lui permettaient pas d’avoir accès à des informations ultra sensibles. » Traduction : Ruzibiza a forcément menti puisque ceux-là mêmes dont il dénonce le rôle l’affirment… Prudente, notre consoeur reconnaît que « Ruzibiza n’est pas le seul à avoir entendu des membres du FPR revendiquer d’avoir abattu l’avion. » Pour elle il s’agirait, en quelque sorte, d’une forme de légende urbaine alimentée par des combattants de base, dans l’euphorie de la victoire…
Pour Colette Braeckman et quelques autres, tout ce qui semble impliquer la responsabilité, même partielle, du FPR dans le drame de 1994, n'est que légende : la longue enquête de Bruguière, ses centaines de pages de conclusions, et peut être demain celles des juges Trevidic et Poux si elles ne vont pas dans le « bon sens ». Il est difficile de changer de vérité. D'autres journalistes, qui partagent la sienne, n'ont même pas pris la peine de consacrer la place qu'elle méritait à la mort de Rusibiza et à son ultime audition.

A Marianne, nous avons toujours pensé que  s’interroger sur le rôle du FPR dans la montée des tensions avant 1994 ne signifiait pas absoudre les extrémistes hutus, au nom d’une imaginaire théorie du double génocide, inventée pour être mieux dénoncée par ceux qui veulent tout simplement empêcher le débat. Nous estimons que ne pas participer au procès univoque d’une armée française, bras armé des massacreurs, n’empêche pas de questionner la politique de la France dans la région. Hier et aujourd’hui quand le VRP Nicolas Sarkozy se rabiboche avec le régime de Kagamé au moment où l’ONU dénonce les « crimes contre l’humanité » auxquels l’armée de ce dernier s’est livrée dans l’ Est du Congo.
Marianne2 tente d’avancer sous l’égide de cette belle phrase d’Albert Camus : « Le goût de la vérité n’empêche pas de prendre parti ». Encore faut-il s’y risquer à bon escient et, quand la réalité donne beaucoup à voir,  plutôt avec les deux yeux grands ouverts.

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !

Rwanda : arrêtons l'hémiplégie !
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