State Department War Crimes Chief Stephen Rapp’s cover-up of U.S. War Crimes in Rwanda Genocide

Daya Gamage – Foreign News Desk Asian Tribune Washington, DC. 29April

 

The April 28 report in The New York Times captioned ‘American Lawyer is Barred from Rwanda Tribunal Work’ caught the eye of this Online Daily’s Foreign News Desk which informed the readers that Peter Erlinder, a law professor in an American university, has been barred by the UN from working at the international tribunal for Rwanda based in the Tanzanian city of Arusha. He refused to travel to Arusa for fear of his life.
He said that he is a target of the Rwandan government and has even received threats while on lecture tours in the U.S.
Prof. Erlinder charges the current Paul Kahame regime of Rwanda of targeted assassinations of those who were accusing the Rwandan leader of genocide - 1990 through 1994 - in which one million people were killed. He and others who have given a long list of victims in many worldwide cities attributed those assassinations to the current Rwandan leadership of Paul Kagame.
One of the mysterious deaths known to the Asian Tribune network was a UN professional who worked to unearth the evidence of the Rwandan genocide – a Sri Lankan Shyamlal Rajapaksa who happened to be a first cousin of the present president of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa. His killing in August 2009 in the Tanzanian city of Arusha where the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was headquartered is still a mystery.
Professor Peter Erlinder has come out with an array of evidence and interpretations of the direct culpability of the current Rwandan president Paul Kagame in the Rwandan genocide, how he and his colleagues were given military training in the U.S., how Kagame as the head of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a proxy force of the Pentagon according to Erlinder, invaded Rwanda to unleash a genocide with tacit approval of the United States, and in the following years how the United States took covert and overt steps to cover up its involvement in the Rwandan mass massacre.
It is here that Ambassador-at Large Stephen Rapp’s name emerge. Mr. Rapp is currently the head of the Office of War Crimes Issues of the U.S. Department of State, and in his previous position as the chief prosecutor of the Rwandan genocide, according to Peter Elinder, and many other investigators, Mr. Rapp was one of the main who was involved in the cover up of US involvement in the Rwandan Genocide.
The Asian Tribune readers may recall that Stephen Rapp in his capacity as the State Department’s War Crimes Issues chief who prepared and released a document in October 2009 with ambiguous evidence which accused Sri Lanka of violating international humanitarian laws during the final (Jan-May 2009) stage of the battle with separatist/terrorist Tamil Tigers (LTTE).
In October 1990, the Ugandan army and the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army (RPF) led by Major General Paul Kagame invaded Rwanda. The guerrillas who violated international laws and committed massive war crimes were backed by Britain, Belgium, the United States and Israel, according to many investigators and researchers. By July 1994, the RPF completed its coup d'etat and consolidated its power in Rwanda.
On April 6, 1994, the governments of Rwanda and Burundi were decapitated when the plane carrying the two presidents and top military staff was shot down over Kigali, Rwanda's capital. The well-planned assassinations of Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira sparked a massive escalation of warfare that is falsely portrayed as the result of meaningless tribal savagery. These assassinations were major war crimes, and the RPF and UPDF were responsible, but almost every attempt to honestly investigate the double presidential assassinations has been blocked by the U.S. and its allies.
A frequent contributor to a think tank called Global Research, Prof. Elinder outlined the United States endeavor in the cover up of its own culpability in the Rwandan genocide.
He wrote: “The July 9, 2009 New York Times reported that the Obama administration had selected Stephen Rapp to replace the Bush administration Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes, Pierre Prosper. Rapp began his international career at the UN Security Council Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2001, while Carla Del Ponte was Chief Rwanda Prosecutor. Rapp’s nomination just a few months after Del Ponte’s of her memoir of her years as Chief UN Prosecutor, Madam Prosecutor: Confronting Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity was published in English.
“Del Ponte’s book describes in detail the systematic U.S.-initiated cover-up of crimes by the current Rwandan government, a U.S. ally, committed during the Rwanda Genocide, and how she was removed from her ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) position in 2003 by U.S. Ambassador Prosper, himself, when she refused to cooperate with the U.S.-initiated “cover-up.”
According to Del Ponte, her ICTR Office had the evidence to prosecute Kagame for “touching-off” the Rwanda Genocide by ordering the assassination of Rwanda’s former President Juvenal, Habyarimana, long before 2003. She also details the dozens of massacre sites, involving thousands of victims, for which the current Rwandan President, Paul Kagame and his military, should be prosecuted. The well-publicized canard, that “the identity of the assassins of Habyarimana is unknown” is a bald-faced lie, well -known by ICTR Prosecutors, according to Ms. Del Ponte, writes Prof. Elinder in Global Research.
Two years after Del Ponte was removed from office, Stephen Rapp became “Chief” of ICTR Prosecutions with access to all of the evidence known to Ms. Del Ponte, and more that has been made public in the past few years. During his four years at the ICTR, Rapp like Del Ponte, also was in a position to prosecute Kagame and members of the current government of Rwanda but, not ONE member of Kagame’s military has been prosecuted at the ICTR, to date…and the “cover-up” revealed by Del Ponte, continues today. And, unlike, Ms. Del Ponte, who was fired by the U.S., Mr. Rapp was first rewarded with an appointment as Chief Prosecutor at the U.S.-funded Sierra Leone Tribunal and now, a coveted ambassadorship by the Obama administration as the chief of the Office of War Crimes Issues at the State Department.
Mr. Rapp, for reasons known and unknown to the Asian Tribune, used ambiguous and conflicting information and data to accuse Sri Lanka of violating International Humanitarian Laws (IHL) in a report released to the US Congress in October 2009.
Former Chief ICTR Prosecutor Del Ponte Details War Crimes “Cover-up”
According to Del Ponte, in May 2003 she was called to Washington D.C. by Prosper (ironically, also a former ICTR prosecutor with knowledge of Kagame’s crimes) who informed her that the U.S. would remove her UN post, if she carried through with her publicly announced plans to indict Kagame and members of his government and military. According to Del Ponte, when she refused to knuckle-under because “she worked for the UN, - not for the U.S” Prosper told her ICTR career was over. In October Del Ponte was replaced by a US-approved ICTR prosecutor, Hassan Abubacar Jallow, who elevated Rapp to “Chief of Prosecution” two years later.
ICTR Trials: More Evidence of Rwanda Crimes Cover-Up
Del Ponte’s revelations are not the only evidence that a U.S.-initiated “war crimes cover-up” at the ICTR is creating impunity for crimes committed by the Kagame and his military. On September 10, 1994 memo in evidence in the ICTR Military-1 Trial confirms that U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher was informed that Kagame’s troops were killing “10,000 civilians a month” in military-style, according to an investigation funded by US Agency for International Development (USAID). And, as early as January 1997, a team made up of Chief ICTR Investigative Prosecutor and former Australian Crown Prosecutor Michael Hourigan; former FBI Agent James Lyons; and former UN-Chief of Military Intelligence in Rwanda, Amadou Deme; reported Louise Arbour, Ms. Del Ponte’s predecessor, that Kagame should be prosecuted for assassinating the previous president. Arbour scuttled the investigation, suppressed the report and disbanded the investigative team.
Shortly, thereafter, Arbour was elevated to Canada’s Supreme Court and has sunsequently been chosen to head the International Crisis Group.
Louise Arbour as the head of the International Crisis Group released a report in May 2010 accusing Sri Lanka of war crimes said: “Evidence gathered by the International Crisis Group suggests that these months saw tens of thousands of Tamil civilian men, women, children and the elderly killed, countless more wounded, and hundreds of thousands deprived of adequate food and medical care, resulting in more deaths. This evidence also provides reasonable grounds to believe the Sri Lankan security forces committed war crimes with top government and military leaders potentially responsible.”
Former ICTR Prosecutor Rapp Complicit in Cover-up
But, even though Arbour suppressed the “Hourigan Report,” Del Ponte, Rapp and other ICTR prosecutors certainly knew about it, because ICTR judges had ordered Del Ponte’s Office to release the “Hourigan report” to a defense team as early as the year 2000, a year before Rapp began his ICTR work, and three years before Del Ponte was fired by Prosper.
Prof. Peter Elinder says “But….to date, not one indictment has been issued against Kagame by the ICTR Prosecutor.”
Consequences of the ICTR Cover-up of Kagame’s Crimes
The tragic consequence of the failure to prosecute Kagame at the ICTR, from 1994 to date, is that Kagame has been free to invade the Congo in 1996 and 1998, and to occupy part of the eastern Congo many-times larger than Rwanda, to this day. No less than four UN Security Council-commissioned Panel of Experts Report(s) on the Illegal Exploitation of the DR Congo (2001, 2002, 2003 and December 2008) have detailed the massive rape of the Congo’s resources that has brought vast riches to Kagame and his inner circle.
While Rapp was ICTR Senior Trial Attorney in 2003, Kagame was effectively elected President-for-Life with 95% of the vote, after banning opposition parties and jailing opponents, in “a climate of intimidation” according to EU observers.
“Chief of Prosecutions” Rapp Withheld Exculpatory Evidence
In February 2009, the ICTR issued its Judgment the Military-1 case, that main case at the ICTR, in which Mr. Rapp personally appeared for the Prosecution. Although massive violence did occur in Rwanda, the court certainly recognized that blaming only one side WAS a falsehood, when it acquitted all of the “architects of the killing machine” (as Mr. Rapp called the defendants in court) of conspiracy or planning to kill civilians. The highest ranking military-officer was acquitted of all charges.
And, although it is now clear from Ms. Del Ponte’s memoirs that Mr. Rapp had the evidence to clear the ICTR defendants of the assassination charges and only the losing side has been blamed for all crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994. Simply put, Mr. Rapp and other ICTR prosecutors have withheld evidence that would be beneficial to the defense, contrary to Tribunal Rules; have prosecuted defendants for crimes they knew were committed by Kagame’s forces; and, have created a system of “judicial impunity” that has permitted Kagame to kill millions in the eastern Congo.
It is in this context that Prof. Peter Elinder writing to Global Security questioned President Obama’s wisdom in appointing Stephen Rapp as the head of the Office of War Crimes Issue at the State Department in this manner: “This “inconvenient-African-truth,” raises an uncomfortable question regarding President Obama’s nomination of Mr. Rapp, in the first place: Are Obama and his advisors ignorant of the public record regarding Rapp’s complicity in the ICTR Cover-up….or do they just not give a damn?”
The U.S. Culpability in Rwanda Genocide
Aimable Mugara in a piece to OpEdNews put it this way: “In 1990, General Kagame who was the Chief of Military Intelligence of Uganda and head of the Rwandan Patriotic Forces (RPF) led a violent invasion of Rwanda from Uganda, with the approval and support (financial, military and political) of the United States government. This violent war changed the landscape of that region forever. By landscape, I also mean the number of mass graves that dot every of inch of that region now. The two final years of President Bush the father, during which his American government supported the murderous gang of General Kagame and Yoweri Museveni resulted in the deaths of many innocent Rwandan and Ugandan civilians. During those two years, there are thousands who lost their lives at the hands of General Kagame's soldiers and Yoweri Museveni's soldiers. But this was nothing compared to the more than 6 millions of civilians that would later die under Bill Clinton's 8 year reign, with American money, American weapons and American political support.”
In a September 30, 2010 New York Times article titled ‘Dispute Over U.N. Report Evokes Rwandan Déjà Vu’, it is mentioned how in the fall of 1994, a United Nations investigation discovered that General Kagame's forces had killed tens of thousand of innocent civilians that year. That under pressure from Bill Clinton's government, the United Nations was forced not to publish that report. In that New York Times article, they talk about how the 1994 UN report describes General Kagame's soldiers "rounding up civilians and methodically killing unarmed men, women and children."
“Kagame received his military education under the Pentagon’s Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) at the Command and General Staff College of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, beginning in 1990,” wrote John E. Peck of the Association of African Scholars (2002). “His sidekick, Lt. Col. Frank Rusagara, got his JCET schooling at the U.S. Naval Academy in Monterey, California. Both were dispatched to Rwanda in time to oversee the RPF’s takeover in 1994. Far from being an innocent bystander, the Washington Post revealed on July 12, 1998 that the United States not only gave Kagame $75 million in military assistance, but also sent Green Berets to train Kagame’s forces (as well as their Ugandan rebel allies) in low intensity conflict (LIC) tactics. Pentagon subcontractor Ronco, masquerading as a de-mining company, also smuggled more weapons to RPF fighters in flagrant violation of UN sanctions. All of this U.S. largesse was put to lethal effect in the ethnic bloodbath that is still going on.”
In 2009 published Edward S. Herman and David Peterson's investigative/research book The Politics of Genocide said: “The United States and its allies worked hard in the early 1990s to weaken the Rwandan government, forcing the abandonment of many of the economic and social gains from the social revolution of 1959, thereby making the Habyarimana government less popular, and helping to reinforce the Tutsi minority’s economic power.9 Eventually, the RPF was able to achieve a legal military presence inside Rwanda, thanks to a series of ceasefires and other agreements. These agreements led to the Arusha Peace Accords of August 1993, pressed upon the Rwandan government by the United States and its allies, called for the “integration” of the armed forces of Rwanda and the RPF, and for a “transitional,” power-sharing government until national elections could be held in 1995.10 These Peace Accords positioned the RPF for its bloody overthrow of a relatively democratic coalition government, and the takeover of the Rwandan state by a minority dictatorship.”
The U.S. State Department’s Office of War Crimes Issues chief Stephen Rapp knew this entire Rwandan episode, the U.S. interests in Paul Kagame, the UN concealment of the 1994 report at the behest of the Clinton administration, the U.S. military assistance to Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front and the entire exercise of the ‘Rwandan cover up’ to conceal the U.S. culpability in the Rwandan genocide when he focused his attention elsewhere; Sri Lanka.
- Asian Tribune -

Uganda & Rwanda have signs of imminent rebellion

By Dr. Vincent Magombe

Museveni, Kagame: Facing rebellion?

For some time now, the international community has described Uganda and Rwanda as Africa’s Superstars. Their leaders, General Yoweri Museveni and General Paul Kagame, have been variously praised as the new ‘kids on the block’ and a ‘new generation African leaders’.

It is now becoming clear that these praises were nothing but misrepresentations of reality by a self-seeking international community; a community whose main interest was to nature and impose two pro-western warrior-rulers capable of protecting the West’s economic and geo-political strategic interests.

Critical Ugandan and Rwandan journalists, academics, and opposition politicians have argued that in spite of the so-called “liberation” wars in both Uganda [1981-86] and Rwanda [1990-94], the political landscape in both these countries has been bedevilled by iron-fisted dictatorial rule, lack of democracy, and the rise of a minority war-mongering ruling class.

This group has badly failed to pacify and bring political stability to a region torn apart by war and civil strife. What the international community was seeing and praising were fake and unreal castles of change that are built on wet sand.

We are hearing loud and clear voices of decent in both Uganda and Rwanda.  These voices are becoming more and more defined by utter desperation and extreme anger at the status quo.  We are witnessing the emergence of a thoroughly radicalised citizenry who are prepared to stand up against injustice and brute repression.  And as history has shown, these are also people who are prepared to shed their blood for the causes they believe to be noble and righteous.

Signs of an impending revolt in Uganda

In Uganda, the September 2009 Buganda uprising which saw many demonstrating civilians shot dead by the security forces showed that thousands of simple Baganda people were ready to die in the name of securing their Kingdom from the threats of a hostile NRM government.

Even though these riots were eventually suppressed, they paralysed the capital city Kampala for days.  But Buganda riots also proved something very important.  It created doubt in our minds about the capacity of the regime to manage large-scale public uprisings; especially if they are organised across the country.

In Uganda today, there are real indications that senior military and police officers are being purged by the regime because it fears that these officers might be aligning themselves to the political opposition.  A recent call by an exiled former army commander to current serving officers to switch allegiances could be a signal of impending revolt in some sections of Ugandan army.

Uganda’s main opposition leaders have also publically warned of the coming political hurricane.  Col. [Rtd] Dr. Kizza Besigye and General [Rtd] Mugisha Muntu, both Museveni’s former military allies and now leaders of the Forum for Democratic Change, have threatened to force President Museveni out of power if the February elections are rigged.

Meanwhile, Dr. Olara Otunnu, a former UN Under-Secretary General who is now President of the Uganda People’s Congress and a presidential candidate in the February 2011 elections has also warned that the 2011 elections are Uganda’s last chance for peaceful change.

Signs of an impending revolt in Rwanda

Rwanda is also tittering on the brink.  And the one man to blame for that impending crisis is General Paul Kagame.  His opponents accuse him of orchestrating extreme brutality and political repression; acts which have left the people of Rwanda with no choice but to mobilise a new freedom struggle.

We are, accordingly, witnessing widespread volatility and disgruntlement among the military and security services. High profile army officers like Lt. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former army chief ofstaff, and Colonel Patrick Karegeya, former chief of Rwandan Intelligence, have fled into exile and are now organizing the growing anti-Kagame opposition.

Amidst widespread arrests and repressive clampdowns, the political opposition in Rwanda has grown into a solid anti-Kagame movement.  It has embraced both Hutu and Tutsi opponents of the regime. The radicalisation of the political opposition has been exacerbated by President Kagame’s own dictatorial tendencies.

The last Rwandan elections in August 2010 were utterly shambolic and disgraceful. Opposition parties were denied the opportunity to campaign freely and simple Rwandese citizens were cowed into silence by threats and intimidation.

Before and after the elections, Kagame’s regime unleashed severe violence and repression against the political opposition. Mr. Andre’ Kagwa Rwisereka, the Vice President of the Democratic Green Party, was beheaded. Jean-Leonard Rugambage, a journalist who wrote about the attempted assassination of exiled General Kayumba Nyamwasa, was himself murdered in cold blood.

Several opposition leaders have disappeared, believed to be languishing in state jails.  Ms Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the head of the FDU-Inkingi Party, remains a prisoner of conscience in her own country.

What is the way forward?

There is an urgent need to save Uganda and Rwanda from impending catastrophe. Both Africa and the international community must act before it is too late. Violence and civil strife are not a new phenomenon in the Eastern and Central African regions.

But, failure to halt the rapid deterioration of the already dire political situations in Rwanda and Uganda could lead to a regional implosion that will surpass all past tragedies.  Please log into www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.

magombevincent@yahoo.co.uk

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Press Release: The presence of President Paul Kagame tarnishes the European Union’s image

by Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza for President on Sunday, December 5, 2010 at 11:49pm

Just a few weeks after the publication of a UN report accusing the regime of President Paul Kagame of war crimes, crimes against humanity and possible crimes of genocide against Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese citizens, the European Union (EU) is preparing to roll out the red carpet and give Kagame an image polishing platform so that he can continue to mock the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights which produced that report and the United Nations which cleared its publication despite the enormous pressures from the Rwandan government and its lobbyists.

During his recent tour in West Africa, President Paul Kagame has been openly soliciting support from his peers, to water down that report whose results are greatly awaited by not only Rwandans but also the Congolese people who paid a heavy price during the occupation of their country by troops from Rwandan Army led by President Paul Kagame.

The presence of General Paul Kagame for a conference devoted to issues of development with a topic relating to the emancipation of women, on which this dictator president is expected to intervene, seems ill-timed and shocking because the first woman who dared to claim the right to free political expression, Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, is languishing in jail under trumped-up charges of terrorism. The visit also comes at a time when the regime’s delegations are touring the EU to sow discord among the Rwandan Diaspora but also when the regime is intensifying its campaign of terror against Rwandan citizens and people of Rwandan origin who refuse to cooperate in falsifying the truth or people who simply dare to claim their rights to participate in the political life of their country.

The Support Committee for the United Democratic Forces, FDU-Inkingi, believes that Europe, the cradle of democracy and human rights, is sending a very wrong signal to the Rwandan regime, using this forum as an endorsement to its policy of political repression. The Support Committee for FDU-Inkingi reminds the public opinion that the High Commissioner for Foreign Policies, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs of the European Union, Ms. Catherine Ashton has recently called for an independent investigation following the double assassination of the journalist Jean Leonard Rugambage and Mr. André Kagwa Rwisereka, the Vice-President of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda. Such an investigation never took place and the EU never got worried.

The impunity granted by the international community to President Paul Kagame and his collaborators has led to successive crimes committed in the African Great Lakes region  against innocent civilians. President Paul Kagame is responsible for the assassination of the Heads of State of Rwanda and Burundi during the terrorist attack against the plane of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, on April 6, 1994, this attack sparked the Rwandan genocide. Two Judges, the French Jean-Louis Bruguière and the Spanish Fernando Andreu Merelles, have respectively issued arrest warrants against 9 and 40 high ranking Rwandan officials close to President Paul Kagame who himself was only spared because of his international immunity as an acting Head of State. Enormous pressure was exerted to prevent or slow down proceedings aimed at prosecuting the suspects.The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania which is competent to prosecute all crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994 has complacently refused to prosecute RPA suspects. As a result, such a cover-up allowed its leadership to export large scale criminal activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is high time that a strong signal be handed to Kagame’s regime that there is no place for impunity with regard to such crimes. Unrolling EU red carpet to a gangster gives green light to all criminals who may think that once in power, they will enjoy impunity forever.

The Support Committee for FDU-Inkingi is also surprised that the regime of President Paul Kagame continues to benefit from the EU bilateral aid, when all economic indicators show a growing gap between the needs of the majority of the Rwandan population and the militarist ambitions of Kagame’s regime. It is challenging to notice that more than 70% of Rwandans still live below the poverty line despite several years of massive aid from the international community, including the EU. It is in everyone's interest that the EU instead of directing its aid to General Paul Kagame’s budget, the aid be directed straight to the people of Rwanda.  They need more political space and a chance to have a say in the governance of their country.

Done in Brussels, on December 3rd, 2010

Eugene NdahayoChairman of the Support Committee for FDU-Inkingi

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DETAINED DEMOCRACY LEADER Ms. Victoire INGABIRE TELLS VISITORS ON HER 51ST DAY IN MAXIMUM PRISON: “I BELIEVE IN YOU”.

by Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza for President

Today, on her 51st day in maximum prison, the Democracy leader Ms. Victoire INGABIRE, Chair of FDU-INKINGI, was allowed to be seen by a group of 30 party members and other Rwandans for a maximum of 5 minutes. Observing the humiliations they went through to reach the jail and the uneasiness of nervous jailers, she told the crowd: “I BELIEVE IN YOU, YOU ARE THE REAL LIVING DEMOCRACY HEROES”.
Earlier this week, the democracy leader was submitted to fresh interrogations related to her political life and was informed that she will answer a new criminal charge of threatening the state sovereignty as well.  On 02 December 2010, her lawyer was summoned by the National Public Prosecution Authority to bring a list of 11 documents related to public statements and publications of the opposition leader. New charges are in the making, and new witnesses are being prepared. A reliable source from the Directorate of Military Intelligence confirmed that in Gisenyi 9 detained witnesses pleading guilty have already registered their statements, and a certain Mr. SABIYEZE Aboubacar (claiming to be ex-FDLR Sergeant) is the next key witness for arms smuggling, grenades attacks. The same sources mention other names in other parts of Rwanda such as Engineer Robert Segatwa, Mr. Théodore Ntakabulimvano, and the returned kitchen cook Absalomon Mvuyekure whose testimony  is being used to turn the rain water drain into a military bunker inside the property.

New charges are mushrooming everyday. Nobody knows whether the evidential hearing will happen only after the Prosecution has gathered enough allegations to match the “10 things evidence” mentioned on 22nd May 2010 by President Paul KAGAME in the Ugandan Monitor exclusive interview:  “We have evidence, which has been brought to her attention and about 10 things she has been denying. Now she’s saying that seven of them are actually true and this has come as a result of the overwhelming evidence that was put in front of her.”
In the current Rwanda, according to many human rights reports, justice is done out of the Courts of law and the hearings are just a show.

Sylvain SIBOMANA
Secretary General FDU-INKINGI.

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Brussels, 6th December 2010 – Paul Kagame very last visit to Europe

Image via Wikipedia

by therisingcontinent| 

Africans, and particularly people from the Great Lakes and specifically Rwandans and Congolese living in Europe, have a moral duty towards their respective compatriots in ensuring protection of their rights whenever and wherever they can. With the background of continuing tragedies in Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo, the visit of Paul Kagame this early December to Brussels should be such an opportunity.
The call for a general mobilisation of Rwandans and Congolese living in Europe and particularly in Belgium, to come out in big number to show to the Rwandan president how they feel about his crimes, must give him a sign of times to remember for as long he rules over Rwanda. We reproduce here an invitation to participate to that act of solidarity as prepared and published on different online networks by The Association Jambo.
Paul Kagame in Brussels – Congolese and Rwandans: Rise up against tyranny and impunity this Monday, December 6th, 2010.

The association JAMBO calls Rwandans and Congolese of Europe to rise up against tyranny and impunity this Monday, December 6th, 2010 at 12:30 Rue Mont des Arts 1000 Brussels, Belgium. (Http://www.jamboasbl.com/)
Between 6 and 8 million Congolese and Rwandan civilians mostly women and children were massacred during the past 20 years in the Great Lakes. It is more or less the greatest conflict’s death toll the world has experienced since the Second World War.
It is with this particularly gruesome background that the main responsible for this tragedy that continues today, General Paul Kagame, was invited to the European Development Days. Responsibility for its army, RPA, has been clearly demonstrated by various reports and by the numerous testimonies of survivors of these atrocities. The latest being a report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published on October 1st, 2010, accusing its troops of committing in Congo war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts if produced in front of a court could probably be considered as genocide. Already in 2002 an expert report (GRIP) addressed to the UN highlighted and estimated at millions of dead in Congo explaining that ‘These deaths are a direct consequence of the occupation by Rwanda and Uganda.’
Against this backdrop, several associations of Rwandan and Congolese diaspora in Belgium of which ASBL Jambo is part invite members of both communities and all other citizens of the world guided by fairness, justice and freedom to come and express their outrage and denounce described  situation.
Rwandan associations insist more particularly on the fact that June 24, 2010, hundreds of Rwandans in Kigali had come out against their fear and denounced violations of human rights they are still victims of today. That demonstration was violently repressed and leaders of political parties who called for it, Me Bernard Ntaganda and Victoire Ingabire are currently imprisoned in Rwanda. The latter was subject to torture during her first days of detention.
The Rwandan diaspora has a unique opportunity to relay the warning cries of their compatriots in a country where freedom of expression is permitted, at the risk if it fails to do so, create a definitive break between citizens still present in Rwanda who suffer oppression in their everyday life and the Rwandans in exile who, even though they still suffer intimidations and harassment from Kagame’s regime, were lucky to escape.
Rwandan and Congolese people have suffered enough over the course of their recent history. They deserve better from Rwanda to head a regime that continues to oppose deliberately citizens to each other and who, despite human losses already recorded in the region, continues to detain, torture or kill any critical voice. The prevailing situation continues and above all to be the source of instability in the region and poses to the region risks of a resurgence of extreme violence.
How many rebel movements present in neighboring Congo currently which are not funded by Rwanda and Uganda?
The EU must assume its responsibilities, like Jose Louis Zapatero in July 2010 who refused to accept General Kagame and then said no to holding a double discourse which is to publicly advocate a message of peace and condemn the most serious violations of human rights while at the same time receiving backstage with honors perpetrators of atrocities.
The association Jambo and its partners have requested from Belgian authorities to arrest any immediate members of the delegation of the Rwandan president who would be within the scope of arrest warrants against officials of the Kigali regime, issued in 2008 by the Spanish courts for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Come express your feelings against Kagame’s regime loudly, it is time to turn the darkest pages of our past. There is an urgent need to rebuild our promising country, economically, politically and especially socially.
The association Jambo
Coordinator
Placide Kayumba

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by therisingcontinent|

The interview of Victoire Ingabire’s daughter – Raissa that we reproduce here was first recorded in French by Ruhumuza Mbonyumutwa from Jambonews on October 21^st, 2010. The following day it was published in English by online BayView National Black Newspaper.

Translation is by Mesha Monge-Irizarry, Idriss Stelley Foundation
This Oct. 21, Jambonews met with Raïssa, the eldest daughter of Victoire Ingabire. [Ingabire, who is widely considered the leader of the political opposition in Rwanda, has been jailed in Kigali, where evidence indicates she is being tortured – editor]. Tall and slender, the 21-year-old smiled and projected a positive attitude, which surprised us considering her situation.
She told us: ‘I try to put my feelings aside in order to help my mother as much as I can. I try to remain strong, to care for my little brothers, because I know that this is the best way I can help my mother.’
The last time she spoke with her mother was the day before her arrest. ‘We spoke normally. We were cool; we laughed. With my mother, we have always been comrades. We talk about everything, and for me it is difficult to imagine her as a politician. So far, it is the last time that I was able to speak with her.’
Last Friday, the Rwandan Embassy in Holland, however, promised Raïssa that she would be able to speak with her mother within 48 hours. “I told the ambassador that as far as I am concerned, I should not be considered as a politician. If I talk to my mother, I would not ask her about the situation in Rwanda or ask her, what any witnesses have stated, but simply, Mama, how are you? All I wish for at this time is just to hear my mother tell me that she is OK.
‘The ambassador listened to me attentively. She understood my situation. She seemed to want to help me, to the point that I believed it. But when one closes the door in someone’s face, it means one does not want to help. She started by elaborating on different ways to help us, but as soon as she decided it was time for us to leave, it was all over. Her attitude radically changed, and she left me in the dark regarding my mother’s situation. The ambassador talked to me and listened to me as a mother would, but she reacted as an ambassador.’
Last Monday, we came back, but we were refused entry and the embassy called the police, which escorted us out.
Ever since, Raïssa’s days have been full. Speaking to everyone who will listen, from left to right, she informs, she sensitizes, because she believes in the value of word of mouth. ‘A lot of people are not aware. They are surprised, shocked to hear about the situation. The Dutch do not understand why their government is not doing anything, but I think that it is critically important that they ask themselves questions.
‘To take action like this is the only way that I can keep myself from feeling powerless.’
When she is asked what she expects from the Rwandan community, she tells us that she wishes, first and foremost, that they become aware of the situation, that they know that her mother had a family, a job, a comfortable life in Holland before she left it all behind to take on the struggle in Rwanda.

She fought for the people of Rwanda, and now that she is in prison, more than ever she needs the people of Rwanda.

Raïssa adds with emotion: ‘What I wish is for people to grasp that an innocent woman is in prison, and that this woman could be their sister, their mother, their daughter.’

What holds true for her mother, according to Raïssa, also stands true for other political prisoners. She wishes that more people would understand their struggle and fight against the injustice that strikes them.

What I wish is for people to grasp that an innocent woman is in prison, and that this woman could be their sister, their mother, their daughter.

‘Today I speak for my mother, but I know that there are other political prisoners who deserve the support that my mother needs.

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Paul Kagame à Bruxelles - Congolais et Rwandais: Soulevez-vous contre la Tyrannie et lIimpunité ce Lundi 6 décembre

Image via Wikipedia

by Kivu Proxy Lake on Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 12:41pm

L’ASBL JAMBO appelle les Rwandais et Congolais d’Europe à se soulever contre la tyrannie et l’impunité ce Lundi 6 décembre 2010 à 12h30 à Rue Mont des Arts à 1000 Bruxelles, Belgique. (http://www.jamboasbl.com/)


Entre 6 et 8 millions de civils congolais et rwandais en majorité des femmes et des enfants ont été massacrés durant ces 20 dernières années dans la région des Grands Lacs. Il s’agit ni plus ni moins que du plus grand conflit au monde depuis la seconde guerre mondiale.

C’est fort de ce bilan particulièrement macabre que le principal responsable de cette tragédie qui continue encore aujourd’hui, le général Paul Kagame, a été invité à se rendre aux journées européennes de développement.

La responsabilité de son armée, APR, a été clairement démontrée par différents rapports ainsi que par les très nombreux témoignages des survivants de ces atrocités. Le dernier en date étant un rapport du Haut commissariat aux Droits de l’Homme de l’ONU publié le 01 octobre 2010, accusant ses troupes d’avoir commis des crimes contre l’humanité voire un génocide au Congo. Déjà en 2002 un rapport d’experts (GRIP) adressé à l’ONU évoquant les millions de morts au Congo avait estimé que « Ces morts sont la conséquence directe de l’occupation du pays par le Rwanda et l’Ouganda. »

Face à ce constat, plusieurs associations de diasporas rwandaise et congolaise de Belgique dont l’ASBL Jambo invitent les membres de ces deux communautés et tous les autres citoyens du monde épris d'équité, de justice et de liberté à venir exprimer leur indignation et dénoncer cette situation.

Les associations rwandaises insistent plus particulièrement sur le fait que le 24 juin 2010, une centaine de citoyens rwandais s’étaient affranchis à Kigali de la barrière de la peur dans le but de dénoncer les violations graves des Droits de l’Homme dont ils sont encore victimes aujourd’hui.

Cette manifestation avait été réprimée dans la violence et les leaders des partis politiques ayant appelé à manifester, Bernard Ntaganda et Victoire Ingabire, sont actuellement incarcérés au Rwanda. La dernière ayant subi des actes de torture durant ses premiers jours de détention.

La diaspora rwandaise a une opportunité unique de relayer les cris d’alarme de ses compatriotes dans un pays où la liberté d’expression est permise, au risque si elle échoue à le faire, de créer une rupture définitive entre les citoyens encore présents au Rwanda qui subissent l’oppression au quotidien et les rwandais en exil qui, même s’ils en subissent encore de fortes conséquences, ont eu la chance d’y échapper.

Les peuples rwandais et congolais ont déjà suffisamment soufferts tout au cours de leur Histoire. Ils méritent mieux à la tête du Rwanda qu’un régime qui continue à opposer les citoyens les uns aux autres et qui, malgré les pertes humaines déjà comptabilisées dans la région, continue à emprisonner, torturer ou assassiner toute voix critique.
Ce régime continue encore et surtout à être la source d’instabilités dans la région, et fait planer sur cette région des risques d’une recrudescence extrême de violences.

Combien de mouvements rebelles présents au Congo voisin à l’heure actuelle ne sont pas financés par le Rwanda ou l’Ouganda ?
L’Union européenne doit prendre ses responsabilités, à l’instar de José Louis Zapatero lequel en juillet 2010 a refusé de recevoir le général Kagame et par là, a dit non à la tenue du double discours qui consiste à prôner publiquement un message de paix et à condamner les violations les plus graves des Droits de l’Homme tout en recevant en coulisses et avec les honneurs les auteurs des atrocités.

L’ASBL Jambo et ses partenaires demandent par ailleurs aux autorités belges de procéder à l’arrestation immédiate des éventuels membres de la délégation du président qui sont sous le coup de mandats d’arrêts lancés en 2008 par la justice espagnole pour crimes de guerre, crimes contre l’humanité et crimes de génocide à l’encontre de hauts responsables du régime de Kigali.

Venez nombreux, exprimer haut et fort, qu’il est temps de tourner les pages les plus sombres de notre passé et qu’il est urgent de reconstruire nos pays de manière viable, d’un point de vue économique, politique et surtout social.

Au nom de l’ASBL Jambo
Placide Kayumba, Coordinateur
+32 485 198 030
info@jamboasbl.com
www.jamboasbl.com

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UK aid to benefit Rwanda which is accused of acts of genocide in Democratic Republic of Congo

Image via Wikipedia Kagame and Brown

Posted  by therisingcontinent

The Writer:Nzeimana Ambroise

A persistent unanswered question has been on the lips of everyone who has been observing conflicts and politics in different parts of the world. What are the criteria the Department for International Development (DfID) follows to distribute British taxpayers’ money as aid to different countries? Unless you assume there are hidden pointers that ordinary Westerners aren’t allow to know, no one would understand for example how Rwanda led by Paul Kagame could be one of the favourite beneficiaries, knowing that its record of human rights abuse is unprecedented.
Let’s forget the UN/ Gersony report of October 1994 or the Garreton report of 1997 which, though covered up and therefore not followed up, documented killing of thousands of Hutu population the first in Rwanda and the second in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). But the UN report published on October 1^st, thanks to its leaking by the newspaper Le Monde a month earlier, accuses openly the Rwandan Patriotic Army and its AFDL partner in war of having committed acts of genocide in DRC. Since October 14^th, 2010, the President of Rwanda has imprisoned Ms Victoire Ingabire, leader of FDU-Inkingi, an important opposition personality on Rwandan ring-fenced political space, and this occurring without any clear condemnation from the international community.
On the Mo Ibrahim Index Rwanda scores 47.2% and stands at no. 31 out 53 African countries. For a reminder, this index measures annually four parameters across the continent. These are safety and rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity, human development. Overall the country has moved backwards by 2.2% from previous period of 2007/8. There has as well been a significant decrease in safety and rule of law by 8.4%, while in terms of sustainable economic opportunity, a 2.2% increase had been registered.
In its press freedom index, Reporters without Borders indicates that Rwanda was ranked 157th out of 175 countries in the 2009 listing. The country was featured among the four lowest African scorers of the record. Eritrea, Somalia and Equatorial Guinea were the only countries below Rwanda in the ranking. Transparency International has on the other hand referred to Rwanda as the least corrupt country in East Africa. But it is arguable because, according to the country’s critic, there may not be official corruption following the fact that Rwanda is a police state. As Transparency itself points it out, ‘it was unable to produce a comparison of how Rwanda’s institutions fared because reports of bribery were so low – and no Rwandan organization was included in the regional comparison.’ For example, the South African newspaper Sunday Times uncovered in February 2010 the case of two luxury jets worth around one hundred millions of US $ belonging to the Rwandan president, and this may only be the tip of the iceberg.
At a time of drastic measures that the British government is currently taking to deal with its massive deficit, very few departments have seen their budgets increased. International development is among the handful winners. Apparently the department budget is ring-fenced, but even there fundamental changes may be planned in its spending.  Anne McElvoy, writing in The Evening Standard, seems to be sceptical about supposed changes. ‘Ring-fencing of spending of international development, (which) means that less rigour will be applied there than in other areas – and in a department whose inefficiencies are legendary in Whitehall,’ she argues.
It has been announced that aid budget will mainly focus on ‘fragile states’ such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen and other countries deemed important for Britain’s national security, with less for prosperous nations such as India and China. The aim is seemingly to tackle underlying problems, such as poor education, governance and healthcare, which are exploited by militants seeking recruits for terrorism acts. However, such prioritisation supposes that hopefully, there won’t be any recruit from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi or Democratic Republic of Congo who will come to London to blow himself with other members of the public, since some of these countries could be as well called fragile states, when considered the total absence of political space for dissent voices.
Tim Whewell’s film, ‘What is the true price of Rwanda’s recovery’, which was shown on Newsnight in March 2010 on BBC Two, explained that whoever between Labour and Tories British political parties would’ve won the general elections, support to Paul Kagame’s regime would’ve remained. As for Britain’s role in supporting Rwanda, Mr. Cannon, British ambassador in Kigali, says that: ‘Although there are aspects of the country’s human rights that are not perfect – certainly we wouldn’t be here or doing what we’re doing if we didn’t think there was a commitment on the part of the government to the values we share.’ He points in particular to a shared commitment to pro-poor policies – thanks in part to British aid, the proportion of poor Rwandans fell from 70% of the population to 57% between 1994 and 2006. He however forgets to mention that in 1990, before the guerrilla war led by Paul Kagame, that proportion of poor Rwandans was according PNUD only 47%.
The particular treatment of Rwanda responds to a number of specific interests the country represents or defends for Britain in the Great Lakes region. French was replaced by English as national language, without any public consultation, despite the consequences of such decision on thousands of Rwandan public servants who had been educated in French for several generations. The Rwandan president was rewarded admission of his country to the Commonwealth though Rwanda and countries of the ex-British empire didn’t share any common heritage. Such admission maybe could’ve been tolerable at least if Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and other human rights organisations hadn’t vigorously denounced the level of human rights abuse by the Rwandan president.
But this was without considering current cuts that the coalition government Lib. Dem/ Conservatives would impose to the British nation or the exposure to compelling evidence of Paul Kagame’s crimes to the public which had turned a blind eye on his excesses because of his country’s recent history. Despite an increasing and unprecedented record of abuses of human rights particularly against Rwandan politicians from the opposition, Kigali doesn’t look worried to loose the support of Britain, this even after the publication of the UN report on crimes committed in DRC. The fact of pointing an accusatory finger to Paul Kagame seems to have rather radicalised his attitude towards his opponent politicians: Victoire Ingabire from the FDU-Inkingi and Me Bernard Ntaganda from Socialist Party Imberakuri are paying with tortures and imprisonment for the frustration of the Rwandan president. But this may not apply for Andre Rwisereka, vice-president of the Green Democratic Party of Rwanda who was apparently assassinated by the regime’s handlers in July 2010 for political reasons. On this particular case, Kigali has refused an independent inquiry into the death of this politician, but instead imprisoned probably innocent people to calm pressing calls for justice.
At the Conservative conference held a few months ago, the issue of human rights in Rwanda was apparently raised but couldn’t find any ear ready to listen to the point of concern. Those who tried to highlight the question found it played down because Rwanda is seen as a flagship for Britain in the matters of aid to development. But what the whole picture of support to Paul Kagame doesn’t tell is how that provided financial support enables Rwandan authorities to get a hand on Eastern Congo mineral resources with the complicity of private companies based in Western countries, or to oppress and legally discriminate among its citizens, and spread internationally its propaganda of being a success story in the midst of an African continent marred with conflicts and all sorts of negative clichés. Another hidden reality was uncovered by UN experts on the consequence of aid in the Great Lakes region. They found that, for example in the case of Uganda, ‘(it) gave the Government room to spend more on security matters while other sectors, such as education, health and governance, are being taken care of by the bilateral and multilateral aid,’ asserts the UN report of 2001 on ‘Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.’
In the light of current cuts, would British taxpayers continue to see their money which would have helped them or else to deal with ongoing tough times be spent as aid to development of dictatorial and oppressive governments such Rwanda, without asking pertinent questions to their leaders? I don’t think they would knowingly. As international aid budget is scheduled to increase during the current parliament, British public should be more attuned to asking from their ministers a minimum of criteria of human rights and press freedom, and democratic credentials, beneficiaries of British aid should comply with rigorously.

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Africa's Female Mandela? Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza on Trial

Opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza stood before a judge in Kigali, Rwanda, on April 22, after the Kagame government arrested and charged her with "associating with terrorists" and "genocide ideology," a crime unique to Rwanda which includes "divisionism" and "revisionism," meaning politics, and/or attempting to revise the received history of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.    

Two weeks earlier, on April 7th, speaking at a commemorative ceremony, on the 16th anniversary of the civilian massacres known as the Rwanda Genocide, Rwandan President Paul Kagame referred to Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza as "some lady," an example of "some people" who "just come from nowhere, useless people."  He refused to speak her proper name, though she is widely acknowledged as the leading opposition candidate in Rwanda's 2010 presidential election, and many of her supporters now call her Africa's female Mandela:

"Some people want to encourage political hooliganism.  Some people just come from nowhere, useless people.  I see everytime in the pictures, some lady who had her deputy, a genocide criminal, her deputy, talking about "y'know, there's Rwanda Genocide, but there is another. . . so that is politics.  And the world says, 'The opposition leader!'  But I know those who say it and who support that.  They know it is wrong, but it is an expression of contempt these people have for Rwandans and for Africans, that they think Africans deserve to be led by these hooligans, and to that we say NO, a big NO.  And if anybody wants a fight there, we'll give them a fight." --Paul Kagame, http://www.youtube.com/watchv=vO9Zad51kJc&feature=related

Two weeks later, on April 21st, Kagame's security police arrested Ingabire, then brought her before a Rwandan court for a bail hearing within six hours, creating a flurry of international news.   Not only the African press, but also the BBC, Radio Netherlands, CNN, Yahoo News via Agence France Presse, and other outlets around the world, including the San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, Black Star News, and Global Research reported the story, and it appeared on blogs across Africa, Europe, and North America, often with notes urging readers to contact Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. 

Two days later, on April 23rd, Rwandan authorities gave Human Rights Watch researcher Carina Tertsakian, 24 hours to get out of the country. 

Even the New York Times, which had until then ignored this year's Rwandan presidential election, finally published three accounts of Ingabire's arrest on April 21st, and the next day the Washington Post, which had also been ignoring the story, finally published a Reuters wire reporting that Ingabire had been released on bail that morning.

Shortly after the news of her release, the International Humanitarian Law Institute of St. Paul Minnesota announced that its director, William and Mitchell Law School Professor Peter Erlinder, and Wichita Lawyer Kurt P. Kerns, will join Ingabire's Rwandan lawyer Protais Mutembe in her legal defense.   Ingabire is charged with "genocide related crime," meaning crime related to the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, the central narrative justifying Rwanda's political life and relationship to the outside world, and, most of all, to its most ardent defenders and donors, the US and the UK.

Erlinder is Professor of Constitutional Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law at William Mitchell College of Law, President of  ICTR-ADAD (Association des Avocats de la Defense), and past President of the National Lawyers Guild, NY, NY.  Most significantly, in Ingabire's case, he is the Lead Defense Counsel in the Military-1 trial at the UN's International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR), where he won a victory of enormous significance to Rwandan history---the acquittal of four former top military leaders accused of conspiring and planning to commit genocide or any other crimes in 1994.

The ICTR acquitted its highest ranking defendant, Colonel Bagosora, on December 18, 2008, after which Erlinder wrote:

". . . ALL of the top Rwandan military officers, including the supposedly infamous Colonel Bagosora, were found not guilty of conspiracy or planning to commit genocide. And Gen. Gratien Kabiligi, a senior member of the general staff was acquitted of all charges! The others were found guilty of specific acts committed by subordinates, in specific places, at specific times - not an overall conspiracy to kill civilians, much less Rwandan-Tutsi civilians."

"This raises the more profound question: If there was no conspiracy and no planning to kill ethnic (i.e., Tutsi) civilians, can the tragedy that engulfed Rwanda properly be called “a genocide” at all? Or, was it closer to a case of civilians being caught up in war-time violence, like the Eastern Front in WWII, rather than the planned behind-the-lines killings in Nazi death camps? The ICTR judgment found the former."

"The Court specifically found that the actions of Rwandan military leaders, both before and after the April 6, 1994, assassination of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, Rwanda's head of state at the time of his murder, were consistent with war-time conditions and the massive chaos brought about by the four-year war of invasion from Uganda by General Paul Kagame's RPF Army, which seized power in July 1994.  ----Professor Peter Erlinder, "Rwanda: No Conspiracy, No Genocide Planning. . . No Genocide?," Jurist, 12.23.2008, Global Research, 01.24.2009

Erlinder says that the Court's ruling in December 2008 should have radically revised the world's understanding of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, but because there were no international press covering the ICTR by December 2008, 14 years after the slaughter that left 1 million or more Rwandans dead, and because of international political investment in the received history, it continues to be told in the Wikipedia and repeated by most news outlets whenever they revisit Rwanda or the Rwandan violence of 1994. 

At the ICTR, Erlinder was able to assemble the evidence and argue the case that led to the court's conclusion that there was no conspiracy, and no planning to commit genocide, and therefore no genocide crime like that covered by the international law created by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide after the Nazi death camps of World War II.

Though the international press had indeed turned away from Rwanda and the ICTR by December 2008, its attention is now on Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza and her trial, less than four months before Rwanda's August 9th polls.  Though her party, the United Democratic Forces, (UDF)-Inkingi, remains unable to register, and she herself has now been indicted, she continues to attempt to contest the election.

"Ingabire was arrested on trumped-up, political thought crimes, including association with a terrorist group, propagating the genocide ideology, genocide denial, revisionism, and divisionism, all arising from the "crime" of publicly objecting to the Kagame military dictatorship, and Kagame's version of the Rwandan Civil War," Erlinder said.

If he and Rwandan lawyer Protais Mutembe can make the same case that he was able to make at the ICTR, then the international press may have to decide whether or not to report that, in Rwanda, in 1994, there was "no conspiracy, no planning . . . no genocide?"  This, of course, depends on how the world defines "genocide," but, the genocide ideology statutes that Victoire is charged with violating---for having said that Hutus, as well as Tutsis, were victims of crimes against humanity---would become impossible to defend.  

And, it might finally emerge that there has been a massive cover-up of the real story of what we know as the Rwanda Genocide, as Global Research writers have pointed out for years in, e.g., Rwanda: Installing a U.S. Protectorate in Central Africa and The Geopolitics behind the Rwanda Genocide; Paul Kagame Accused of War Crimes, by Michel Chossudovsky, The US Sponsored "Rwanda Genocide'" and its Aftermath
Psychological Warfare, Embedded Reporters and the Hunting of Refugees, by Keith Harmon Snow, andU.S./U.K./Allies Grab Congo Riches and Millions Die, by Peter Erlinder.

If international reporters finally do begin to cover the real story of the Rwanda Genocide and the Congo War, then Paul Kagame's regime, which Hillary Clinton has called "the beacon of hope" for Africa, will cease to seem so to the outside world.  
  

No one, least of all Professor Erlinder, denies that the bloodshed in Rwanda, in 1994 was horrific, but he says, as he did when I spoke to him for KPFA Radio, that the received history of Rwanda in 1994, and the ensuing war in neighboring D.R. Congo are history written by the victors, and by their backers, the U.S. and the UK:

Indeed, on April 30, in an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Court, Professor Erlinder, Kurt B. Kerns, and Oklahoma lawyer John P. Zelbst filed a lawsuit, alleging that Kagame and nine of his current and former military officers and government officials are guilty of the assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana andBurundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, and subsequent acts which caused the civilian massacres that came to be known as the Rwanda Genocide, costing a million lives. 

And, that they are guilty of racketeering to acquire and maintain an interest in the resources of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, at a cost of 6 million more lives. 

D.R. Congo is one of the most resource rich nations on earth and its mineral wealth, most of all its cobalt reserves, are essential to modern military industries' ability to manufacture for war.   The U.S. is the world's largest consumer of cobalt.

The eight counts alleged in Habyarimana vs. Kagame are:

Wrongful Death - Murder,

Crimes against Humanity, 

Violation of the Rights of Life, Liberty, and Security of Person, 

Assault and Battery, 

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Stress, 

Violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act,

Torture, and, 

Conspiracy to Torture

Media outlets around the world reported that Kagame had escaped process service in the U.S. on April 30th, but Peter Erlinder told KPFA Radio News, that Kagame had violated the law by doing so, and, that, assuming the law is upheld, he will be served and required to answer.

Click to listen to KPFA Radio News, May 2, 2010:

As Erlinder, and lawyers Kurt P. Kerns and John P. Zelbst, prepare to advance the case against Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Erlinder and Kerns also prepare to defend Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, against Kagame's Rwandan government. 

"I consider it my job to say things that my clients are not free to say," says Erlinder, "and I'm sure that Mrs. Ingabire realized that when she asked me to defend her."

Also, click to play:

KPFA Radio News, April 4, 2010: Peter Erlinder and Paul Rusesabagina on the 16th anniversary of political assassinations that triggered the Rwanda Genocide.

KMEC Radio News, April 28, 2010:  Parti Social-Imberakuri Candidate Bernard Ntaganda and banned Rwandan Umuseso Newspaper Editor Didas Gasana on political and press repression in Rwanda.    

Rwanda/Congo News videos on AnnieGetYourGang, a Youtube Channel.

Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in San Francisco, a regular contributor to the San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, Global Research, and Digital Journal, and a news producer for KPFARadio-Berkeley. 

Ann Garrison is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Ann Garrison