Kagame’s defining moments

Source: Newsline

The government in Kigali has put its peacekeeping troops in the war battered region of
Darfur, Sudan, on standby.

The radical Minister of Foreign Affairs Louise Mushikiwabo made the threat recently after a leaked report authored by the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights. The report partly brings to light the role of President Paul Kagame’s role in the atrocities committed in the Democratic Republic of
Congo between 1994 and 2003.

If Rwanda goes ahead to withdraw her troops then the positions guarded by the RDF peacekeepers under the United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur [UNAMID] will have no one watching the belligerent foes - and those under the United Nations Mission in Sudan [UNMIS] will have to leave.

The army has announced that the ‘Rwanda Pentagon’ has finalized a contingency withdrawal plan for its peacekeepers in case the UN publishes its “outrageous and damaging report”. Firstly, this brings to mind that Rwanda already knew the outcomes and threats to open gates to insurgents to
massacre innocent civilians - men, women and children in Darfur would be the solution.Like Kigali, everyone should be asking how the United Nations could entrust an army that raped and killed innocent civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the mandate of protecting people around the world.
Kagame is now looking for someone to put in the firing line and definitely Mr Kofi Anan, the former UN Secretary General has been identified as thesoft spot.

There is no doubt that Rwanda still needs current UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon but as to whether opening hell gates in Darfur would still retain the UN as an ally is another puzzle.
It is unfortunate that the report still keeps confidential Kagame’s individual criminal responsibility. Now, that’s unfair to millions of Rwandan refugees and Congolese killed and displaced during the era of successive civil wars in the DRC.
It is also a disservice to the innocent souls that lost their lives at the hands of military gangs to which Kagame was party. Keeping the seal on the confidential project database submitted to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is not in any close measures the solution.  

We can now see the identities of perpetrators under warrant of arrest and those already sentenced for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed in the DRC but we need more.
Congolese, Rwandans and Ugandans among others across the globe who lost their loved ones in those brutal killings need accountability.

‘The lingering ghosts’And the ghosts that linger South Kivu, North Kivu, Kinshasa, Orientale Province, Maniema and Équateur need to have justice, which they can’t rest without.

Instead of baby-sitting gross human rights predators like Kagame,the UN should embark on a troop deployment plan to replace Rwandan peacekeepers.Other countries that have deployed in Darfur should be given much more support in terms of weaponry and equipment among other critical resources to boost their armories, and increase mobility as well to cover the vast Darfur area as RDF pulls out while more countries are persuaded to deploy.

But the UN should go ahead to open it’s sealed indictment against Kagame forwar crimes and crimes against humanity now that RPF’s involvement in killing innocent civilians, raping and pillaging the DR Congo is no longer a secret.

Particularly, he should be brought to book to answer for his connivance with Laurent Kabila’s government in massive forceful repatriation of thousands of Rwandan refugees from the Mugunga camp, some kilometers away from the town of Goma in August 1995. Where are these people?
The report of the July 1997 investigations in Zaire since September 1996 as reported to the United Nations Secretary General doesn’t rule out that ethnic massacres committed partly by Kagame’s regime constitute acts of genocide.

This is the time for the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) to standup and be counted or risk an international reputation of an entity steering the wheel of selective justice.                   
Robert Mukombozi is an exiled Rwandan journalist. He is a Masters of Journalism and Mass communication student at Griffith University, Australia.
RMukombozi@gmail.com

NB: When I read the Mukombozi articles it reminds me and other exiled Rwandans that we all Rwandans should put our forces together to shun Rwandan criminals who killed our beloved countrymen since 1990s without puting our tribal affiliation before national interests. We are the ones to liberate Rwanda and we are the ones to help end the culture of impunity in Rwanda and in the region.