Opinion: WikiLeaks serves the global community by keeping governments in check

Opinion: WikiLeaks serves the global community by keeping governments in check

WikiLeaks serves the global community by keeping governments in check

By Nils Molina

STAFF COLUMNIST

December 3, 2010

Nihilist and criminal labels aside, WikiLeaks has done a lot of good. In 2007, WikiLeaks published the Kroll Report, a secret report detailing extensive government corruption by the richest man in Kenya, Daniel arap Moi. The news came out shortly before the Kenyan national election and received intense airtime on Kenyan TV. According to a Kenyan intelligence report, the leak shifted the vote by 10 percent, changing the result of the election.
In 2009, WikiLeaks published documents showing suspicious loans carried out by the Kaupthing Bank just before the Icelandic financial crisis. Public uproar over the banking procedures that WikiLeaks exposed galvanized Iceland into enacting the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative. The proposal, unanimously passed by the Icelandic parliament, strengthened free speech protections, turned Iceland into an “international transparency haven,” and established the Icelandic Prize for Freedom of Expression.
In 2010, WikiLeaks released the “Collateral Murder” Baghdad airstrike video. In the video, an American helicopter crew, mistaking a camera for an RPG, kills two Reuters journalists along with other armed and unarmed men. Soon after, three unarmed men rush out of a van to help a wounded survivor and are promptly killed by the Americans. Finally, a few armed men enter a building. The Americans destroy the building with missiles, killing both armed and unarmed people. In its report, the American military labeled everyone killed, except for the Reuters journalists, as insurgents. The video clarifies what the U.S. military means by “insurgent,” putting the war in a different light from a humanitarian perspective. And from a strategic perspective, is killing Iraqi civilians with overwhelming military force an effective way to establish a peaceful, democratic Iraqi state?
WikiLeaks helped expose the looting of Kenya, the corruption of a banking system and sloppy killings committed by the U.S. military. WikiLeaks should be lauded for using truth to pressure these institutions to re-evaluate themselves. Thinking that the U.S. military does not need outside scrutiny to effectively serve the public is as foolish as thinking that the MIT administration can by itself design a good undergraduate dining plan. The entrenched bureaucracy that generates military decisions can fail spectacularly, with history providing examples ranging from the Vietnam War to the often irrational Soviet military build-up. Leaking information that changes how one evaluates a war is free press doing its job. Transparency matters.
In July, WikiLeaks released its most controversial leak yet, the Afghan War Diary. Unlike children playing with fire, before the release WikiLeaks’s volunteer journalists pored through the documents, trying to minimize the harm they could cause. They withheld 15,000 documents naming informants, with editor Julian Assange saying these will be reviewed “line by line” to remove the names of “innocent parties who are under reasonable threat.” Before public release, WikiLeaks provided The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel with the documents. All three newspapers decided to publish the leaks, with Der Spiegel stating that “the editors in chief of Spiegel, The New York Times and the Guardian were ‘unanimous in their belief that there is a justified public interest in the material.’”
U.S. officials responded to the massive leak by saying it endangers countless lives. But so far there is no evidence that the leak has cost a single American life, and recently a NATO official told the CNN there had not been a single case of an Afghan needing protection because of the leak. The Afghan War Diary enumerates casualties, reveals increased Taliban attacks and examines Pakistani and Iranian involvement. In view of the thousands of lives and trillions of dollars already lost in Afghanistan, the grim picture the Diary paints for the public is far more important than the unsubstantiated risks it poses to the current U.S. military effort.
Only a month ago, WikiLeaks released a huge batch of documents related to the Iraq War. The documents are still being processed. Already, the Iraq Body Count project has identified 15,000 Iraqi civilian deaths from the logs. Important information about torture, rape, murder and private contractors is coming to light. For example, the leak suggests that Danish soldiers knowingly handed over prisoners for mistreatment, spurring Denmark to begin an investigation.
Keith Yost is correct in asserting a few of WikiLeaks’s documents go too far. Publishing a study in 2008 detailing vulnerabilities in certain U.S. countermeasures against IEDs was probably unjustifiably risky, even though by then the U.S. had mostly phased out those countermeasures. But focusing on these isolated, relatively insignificant details ignores the big picture. Institutions, like the U.S. government, classify too much, letting them hide wrongdoing. On the whole, WikiLeaks does the world a great service by revealing the wrongdoing and pressuring these institutions to improve.
The next big leak will reveal material from pharmaceutical companies, finance firms and energy companies. Assange claims the leak will make it easier to run a good business. For example, if businesses that cut milk powder with melanin are exposed, Assange argues, other businesses will not need to sell fake milk powder to remain competitive. Just like a business, the government should respond to the leaks by becoming more open and honest, better hiding the little information that must remain secret and re-evaluating its bureaucratic activities. WikiLeaks is a resilient and powerful organization of journalists. Designating it as a terrorist group, as the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee has suggested, or engaging in an expensive international chase, as Keith Yost recommends, would be a public relations nightmar

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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

FDU Writes to Ban about UN Report on Congo Atrocities

SOURCE: FDU

Letter to the UN Secretary General by the The Support Committee for UDF-Inkingi on the draft of the UN report on serious crimes including genocide, committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), against the Hutu refugees:

Brussels, August 30, 2010
Mr. Ban Ki-Moon
UN Secretary General
Plaza, P. O. Box 20
New York, NY 10017, USA
Subject: DRC Mapping Exercise
Mr. Secretary General,
The Support Committee for UDF-Inkingi just read excerpts from the draft of the UN report on serious crimes including genocide, committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), against the Hutu refugees.
The French newspaper Le Monde (edition of August 26, 2010) and the International News organization based in the USA, The Christian Science Monitor , stated that the Kigali regime might be pressuring the United Nations so that the report can be dismissed or at least be watered down. Specifically, the Kigali regime would like that you simply erase the word “genocide” from the report. The Rwandan government has even threatened to withdraw from the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur, Sudan, if its demands were not met. The official statement released by the Rwandan government, dated August 27, 2010, confirmed this information to the press. Indeed, the deliberately aggressive tone used by the Rwandan government betrays its intention to do anything to intimidate and blackmail the United Nations. This is a usual RPF practice since its accession to power in 1994.
Mr. Secretary General,
In October 1994, the American Robert Gersony, then consultant to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), accused the new RPF regime of having killed at least 30,000 Hutus since coming to power, following investigations conducted during three weeks in eastern Rwanda and one week in refugee camps in Tanzania .
As soon as the first elements of the draft report were published in the press, the Kigali regime threatened to terminate the operations of the UNAMIR, if the report was validated. The UN then succumbed to the combined pressures of Kigali and its lobbies and demanded that the UNHCR seal the report, while promising a counter expertise investigation. A joint committee composed of representatives of UNAMIR and the Rwandan Ministry of the Interior completed the investigation in one day following a visit to Rwamagana. The representative of the secretary of the UN, Shaharyar Khan, refused to validate the report of the UNHCR. Since then, the “Gersony report” has simply disappeared from the archives of the United Nations, according to a communication made to the defense counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
In October 1994, in the wake of the controversy around the “Gersony report”, the Irish Karen Kenny, representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Rwanda, resigned. She believed that “in four months without a car, without a budget and, most importantly, without observers to deploy, she had just served as an alibi” .
On April 22, 1995, in the presence of Australian and Zambian peacekeepers from UNAMIR, the Rwandan Patriotic Army massacred Hutus that were internally displaced in Kibeho. The UN did nothing to make sure that the guilty were punished. Instead, it just asked the Rwandan government, which was the prime suspect, to investigate and prosecute.
In 1997, the Special Reporter of the UN commission in charge of human rights in DRC, the Chilean Roberto Garreton, released a damning report on crimes committed by the RPA against the Hutu refugees in DRC. The Kigali regime immediately began an intensive pressure to suppress the report and block a UN mission that was requested by President Laurent Desire Kabila with the mandate to confirm the results of the Garreton mission. The UN mission had to pack their bags following obstruction by the authorities who were under hostage of Kigali.
Mr. Secretary General,
At the end of your recent meeting with Spanish Prime Minister, you requested the Kigali regime to shade the light on recent assassinations, including the assassination of journalist Jean Leonard Rugambage, deputy editor of the newspaper Umuvugizi, and the first vice-president of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, Andre Kagwa Rwisereka. To our knowledge, nothing has been done so far.
If it were proved that the UN is about to succumb once again to pressure of a regime accused of serious offenses in order to suppress or tone down the report, the Rwandan people would hold you responsible for their plight, because you would have breached your mission as the guarantor of peace and respect for human rights for all.
The fact that the Kigali regime threatens to withdraw its troops from Darfur does not seem to be a reason to succumb. The presence of troops that are under pressure to serious suspicion of genocide is also not good news for a mission that has been deployed following acts of genocide and for which the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been seized. It would be an honor for the UN to have troops with a blank criminal record and free from all suspicions.
Mr. Secretary General,
Rwanda is at a crossroads. Not to take this opportunity to send a strong message to the Rwandan authorities to finally comply with human rights would be a bad omen for the credibility of the UN and a disservice to the people of Rwanda.
We hope that wisdom will prevail; that the report will be released without any external interference. Moreover, in view of the international obligations of repression of genocide, it will be up to the UN to establish a judicial mechanism to ensure that perpetrators do not go unpunished.
Please accept, Mr. Secretary General, the assurances of my highest consideration.
For the Support Committee for UDF-Inkingi
Eugene NDAHAYO
President

Judgment Day for Rwanda

Paul Kagame is proving to be a pliant Western ally. But a shocking new U.N. report shows why the Rwandan president can no longer claim to be a victim -- and it's time to hold him accountable.

BY JAMES TRAUB |SOURCE:Foreign Policy

In the middle of the explosive U.N. report on human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was leaked to the French press last week, the reader finds a map of that vast country with red arrows branching from east to west. The arrows trace the twisting path taken by tens of thousands of starving Hutu refugees across the immense, trackless jungle as they fled before Rwandan troops and their local surrogates, who kept catching up to them and killing as many as possible. The idea of a relentless campaign of murder carried out by Rwanda's Tutsi government, which came to power in the aftermath of the 1994 Hutu-led genocide, is both sickening and shocking. But the report, whose formal publication Rwanda has succeeded in postponing until Oct. 1, is unequivocal: "The massacres in Mbandaka and Wendji, committed on 13 May 1997 in Équateur Province, over 2,000 kilometres west of Rwanda, were the final stage in the hunt for Hutu refugees that had begun in eastern Zaire, in North and South Kivu, in October 1996." "Hunt" is a terrible word when applied to humans.

Whether or not that seven-month killing spree constitutes genocide will, as the authors note, be a matter for competent courts to decide -- though they present a plausible case that it does. Even if some future tribunal concludes that the dreadful acts amount "only" to crimes against humanity, this meticulous document offers a powerful rebuke both to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has adroitly and cynically used his country's suffering as a shield behind which to advance its regional interests, and to his backers in Washington and London, who have unquestioningly accepted the country's unique victim status.
Of course that assumes that the report is accurate. Israel and its supporters denounced the United Nations' Goldstone report, on the 2009 war in Gaza, as a hatchet job. Rwandan officials have responded with, if anything, greater fury, threatening to withdraw all the country's peacekeeping troops from U.N. missions should the document be published. Rwanda, like Israel, also has advocates whose credibility is not to be lightly dismissed. Journalist Philip Gourevitch has derisively noted that the investigative team "consisted of thirty-three people, only half of whom worked, for half a year, in the provinces where the crimes were committed." Gourevitch also threw an elbow at former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had supported the project. Since Annan's failure to sound the alarm on the Rwandan genocide deeply harmed his reputation, Gourevitch infers, "his interest in blaming others is hardly surprising."
The fact that so exacting a student of genocide -- Gourevitch wrote the book  on the Rwandan tragedy -- can offer up such feeble defenses is a sign of the powerful hold Rwanda continues to exercise over the sympathy and moral imagination of its defenders. I spoke to three regional experts who had read the report, and all praise its professionalism, care, and balance. And Annan approved, but in no way initiated, the "mapping exercise," as it is formally called. The study, which covers the period from 1993 to 2003, documents acts of mass murder, torture, gang-rape, plunder, and even cannibalism by the Congolese Army, Angolan and Ugandan forces, local warlords, state officials, and ethnic and tribal groups. In this carnival of killing, the Rwandan Popular Front (RPF) and its local allies constituted the best organized, most mobile, and most persistent force.

The RPF was also hunting a legitimate target -- the genocidaires who had fled across the border, reconstituted themselves as the ex-FAR/Interahamwe, mingled with refugees in the giant, ill-governed camps of eastern Congo, and found fresh recruits among them. But the report finds that each time they routed the genocidaires, the soldiers turned on civilians. In one typical episode, after killing a number of ex-FAR in the vast northeastern province of Orientale, RPF forces kidnapped refugees, many of them women and children, and brought them to a camp, allegedly under the pretext of returning them to Rwanda. The refugees were then brought out in small groups. From the report: "They were bound and their throats were cut or they were killed by hammer blows to the head. Their bodies were then thrown into pits or doused with petrol and burned. The operation was carried out in a methodical manner and lasted at least one month."
What has enraged the Rwandans, of course, is the claim that the victims of genocide became its perpetrators. The report offers no evidence of political control, though the Rwandan army is a famously disciplined, top-down force. But the study does adduce extensive evidence that RPF forces targeted all Hutus, including the Congolese Hutu known as Banyarwanda. The report notes that soldiers erected barriers that allowed them to separate Hutus from other groups, sparing the latter and slaughtering the former. Without in any way diminishing the unique monstrousness of the 1994 genocide, the report essentially puts an end to Rwanda's victim status. The Great Lakes region, comprising Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo, has been engulfed since the 1970s in a politics of genocide, in which groups seek to gain and retain power by destroying their rivals. Kagame's RPF, and perhaps Kagame himself, drank from this poisoned stream.
And this is not, like the Turkish genocide against the Armenians, a matter of strictly historical significance. Since the 1990s, Rwanda has played a dangerous game in Congo, backing brutal warlords and helping raise ragtag armies, siphoning off natural resources, even trying to rearrange borders to seize Congolese farmland. All of Congo's neighbors have nibbled at this vast carcass, but Rwanda gets away with it. In the late 1990s, the United States and Britain blocked efforts, largely by France, to raise the issue of Rwanda's behavior in the Security Council. Carla Del Ponte writes in her memoirs that in 2003, Annan refused to reappoint her as chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda when she outraged Kagame by investigating allegations of Tutsi crimes against Hutu civilians after the genocide (so much for Annan's alleged blame-shifting campaign). Kagame has refused to permit the tribunal to interview Rwandan witnesses.

Anneke Van Woudenberg, an authority on the Great Lakes region with Human Rights Watch, told me that, thanks to allies like the United States and Britain, "any attempt to present the information contained in this report has been blocked, subverted, or really discouraged." And that, in turn, has emboldened the Rwandans. "The report starkly shows the consequences of a culture of impunity," she says. "You see the same crimes being committed again and again. And we're continuing to document those same abuses today. This is the kind of horrific cycle you get when you bury the truth, when you don't hold perpetrators to account." For this reason, Van Woudenberg views the report as a document of "immense historical importance."
It is not simply Rwanda's suffering that has bought it the protection of powerful states. "They have made themselves indispensable," says Fabienne Hara, a vice president of the International Crisis Group with long experience in the region. Washington has come to regard Rwanda as a "little military machine" to provide peacekeepers throughout the region (thus the seriousness of Rwanda's threat to withdraw its troops) and as a friendly "entry point" for intelligence and regional diplomacy -- a Central African Ethiopia. What's more, Kagame has turned Rwanda into an extraordinary success story, with a bustling economy, sound finances, and a highly effective military. And all he has asked in exchange -- like Israel -- is protection from international judgment as he makes his way in his very dangerous neighborhood.
There is disagreement among experts about how policymakers should wield the study. Hara and Van Woudenberg would like to see Washington and London press Kagame to limit his meddling in eastern Congo. Phil Clark, an Oxford University researcher and regional scholar, fears that the report's publication will widen fissures within the ruling elite in Kigali and thus imperil Kagame's hold on power. Whoever succeeds Kagame is likely to be a less-stabilizing figure, he argues.
Perhaps the report should have appeared a year from now, or a year ago. What matters is that the United Nations will place its imprimatur on allegations that have been circulating for years. Rwanda's friends have allowed the country, quite literally, to get away with murder. That tidy transaction must now come to an end. Rwanda is an important U.S. ally -- but allies, too, need to be held to account.

RPP-Imvura slams Rwanda govt over UN report on Rwanda-led genocide in DR Congo

by John V KARURANGA.

Our Ref: RPP-LM/5/UN07/ME-03/09/10/JVK
London, 03/09/2010
Ms Louise MUSHIKIWABO
Minister of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation
P.O.Box 179, Kigali
RWANDA
Dear Ms Louise MUSHIKIWABO,
RE: Mapping Exercise
I write to you as the President of RPP – IMVURA. I have had sight of your letter to Mr Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. ref-No.0482/01.01/Cab.Min/2010. I would like to raise seven specific questions to which I expect specific answers.
1. Why have you gone public with your comments on the leaked UN report? Could you not have waited for the official document to be released by the UN before making an official response?
In my understanding you were well aware of these accusations against the RPF about the DR Congo and the fact is that, the Human Rights Reporter in Rwanda was expelled from Rwanda by the RPF government. It is irresponsible for any responsible government to respond to a leaked report publicly without verifying its final and official contents. You were presented with this Draft Report by the UN in confidence and you were only asked to give your own government’s explanations and accounts of the allegations but instead you decided to go public with it. I think this is very irresponsible to come from a government and it shows systemic failure in your governmental procedures and ethics.
Your knee jerk reaction has given fire to this report and as I write to you now, the major media channels in the UK like the Guardian newspaper and the TV STATIONS LIKE Al Jazeera and many others have had packed full days of carrying the story. So, what have you achieved?
2. Why did you not investigate these alleged reports of atrocities and human rights abuse by RPF against Hutu refugees and Congolese civilians?
You instead launched attacks against the Humans Rights organisations that were making credible and verifiable accusations against your government. These are reputable organisations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International; remember these Human Rights and UN agencies have no special reasons or hidden agendas, nor do they want to gloss over or damage their reputations.
3. Why has your government refused to cooperate with the international organisations which are respected world-wide? Why did you expel the Researcher from Human Rights Watch from Rwanda just before the elections?
Human Rights Watch does not work on behalf of any government, so why were you so frightened by actions of an independent organisation? Is it because you were preparing to rig the recently concluded elections in which your candidate, Paul Kagame won an incredible, but predictable 93% of the vote in a contest against himself?
4. Would it not be reasonable to assume that your reaction to a draft document, which was circulated for consultations, is a demonstration of your fear and trepidation about crimes and gross inhumanity committed against a foreign people, and neighbour who posed no threat to our country?
These are people with whom we should be having cordial, trade and bilateral relationships with. Do you realise that the action of your government has caused long term damage to the relations between Rwanda and the DR Congo which only a new government in Rwanda can repair?
5. Why did you not take action to investigate the allegations that Rwandan soldiers committed crimes of genocide in the DR Congo between 1993 – 2003?
The draft report makes allegations of genocide committed in the DR Congo over various phases since 1993. Your lamentable excuse is that the UN presented you a 535-pages report which was a fait accompli but WHAT STEPS DID YOU TAKE TO INVESTIGATE these allegations?
Above all, these are allegations of egregious and the most reprehensible crimes which are said to have been committed by humans against fellow human beings, and that is genocide. You are well aware of the genocide that took over 1 million lives of Rwandan people. If such a crime is alleged to have been committed by Rwandan soldiers against other people, why not at least investigate, instead of blame the UN as your letter to the UN Secretary-General clearly indicates?
6. Using legalistic arguments is not going to save your government from the opprobrium of the international community. Your best option is to stop all acts of aggression against the Congolese people who have never invaded or caused harm to the Rwandan people. It is ridiculous and irresponsible of you and your fragile regime to blame the UN peace-keeping force in the DR Congo for the crimes of rape and other mistreatment of the Congolese people just because you are being investigated by the UN body. This is just a diversionary tactic. The UN, I believe has dealt with these allegations and some of the soldiers involved have been recalled and dismissed or severely punished. Your raising of this is therefore a diversion which is clearly opportunistic and nonsense. The UN draft accusation against the RPF is that RPA committed crimes against the Congolese people. Do not divert the argument madam and stick to the issues. On behalf of the RPP-IMVURA, I beg you not to divert the argument but to confront the UN Draft Report of allegations of crimes of genocide that your party and army may have committed against Congolese people and Hutu refugees.
7. Our party is seriously very concerned about your threat to withdraw Rwanda from the international community because of a credible Draft Report by the UN Human Rights Commission.
This threat damages the reputation of Rwanda as a nation and is very irresponsible of your government to even think of isolating Rwandan people from the international community. The accusations labelled against your government should not be attached to the Rwandan people. The soldiers acted on the orders of president Kagame, the RPF/RPA leadership and yourself as Foreign Minister and it behoves on you and your party to collectively accept and take full responsibility for these alleged crimes. Rwandan people have nothing to do with them. Therefore you have no right to withdraw the Rwandan nation or people from associating with the international community, especially humanitarian workers. In fact we as a party will totally ignore this nonsensical threat because it is simply intended to blackmail well meaning people in the international community who have supported the Rwandan people since the genocide of 1994.
It is a tragedy that genocide happened in our country and to our people in 1994. This is a wound that will heal but the scars will never disappear. A blanket of darkness clouds over us now and generations for many years to come. However painful, it is the undeniable the sorrow we endured cannot be justified by the RPF action to export Rwandan man made human tragedies or use it as a pretext to commit atrocities to our neighbours or elsewhere in the world. It is therefore reprehensible, shameful and irresponsible to always blame others for our failures. We Rwandans should not shrink away from our responsibilities even if we are faced with despair. It was immoral, reckless, insane and unspeakable what happened in Rwanda in 1994. It should not have happened in the first place and should not be allowed to be repeated anywhere in the world.
Why should we ignore the fundamental issues which have afflicted our people and our nation since 1959 and created conflicts that our people did not contribute to and can not be held accountable for? There was a chance to dissect and address the fault lines and the reasons for the tragedy that befell our nation and people. Instead we suppressed the truth and the pain of Rwandans inside Rwanda and in the Diaspora. This was the foundation of the indescribable tragedies of 1994. This was the harvest of seeds of hatred sown by the previous regimes since 1960. We must therefore have the courage to move forward to solve our conflicts in a more civilised way and not emulate actions of the previous regimes.
We have chilling reports of how Rwandan refugees in many parts of the world are being deliberately subjected to horrendous daily attacks by RPF external operatives. There are substantiated evidences of assassinations, kidnappings, mysterious disappearance and harassments by the Rwandan government officials both inside and outside Rwanda. The detailed accounts cannot be exhausted; but they include:
• 1995: Journalist Manasseh Bugaboo disappears in Kigali has not been seen again;
• 1996: First post-genocide Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga and businessman Augustine Bugirimfura; shot dead in Nairobi;
• 1998: Journalist Emmanuel Munyemanzi disappeared from Kigali; body spotted in city but not returned to family;
• 1998: RPF MP and government intelligence chief before the genocide Theoneste Lizinde assassinated in Nairobi;
• 2000: First post-genocide President Pasteur Bizimungu’s adviser, Asiel Kabera, shot dead in Kigali,
• 2003: EX-RPF officer and top judge Augustin Cyiza and magistrate Eliezar Runyaruka and opposition MP Leonard Hitimana disappeared from Kigali and have not been seen again;
• 2010: Ex-RPF officer Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa shot and wounded in Johannesburg;
• 2010: Journalist Jean-Leonard Rugambage gunned down in Kigali
• 2010: Denis Semadwinga gunned down in Gisenyi;
• 2010: Andrew Kagwa Rwisereka – beheaded in Butare
• 2010: Mme Emeritha Munyeshuri, a 60 years old woman, shot down at Rwanda – DR Congo border
• 2010: Deo Mushahidi kidnapped from Burundi currently in torture house in Rwanda;
• 2010: Reporter Dominique Makeli survived abduction in Kampala-Uganda;
• Dozens of Journalists including Jean Bosco Gasasira – lives in fear of abduction in Kampala, and John Karuranga of RPP – IMVURA is living under constant threat in the UK.
Hon. Minister, are you also suggesting that the above listed horrendous and indescribable atrocities, committed on fellow Rwandans should also be blamed on the UN and its agencies? These are just a few examples of your victims who are well known or prominent. But what about those voices that cannot be heard because they are poor and powerless? I give to you the example of the Rwandan destitute children currently confined on the Island of IWAWA (notoriusly know as the “Island of Rwandan Unwanted Children”) against their will and against international law.
Our position at RPP-IMVURA is that you should resign because of the irresponsible manner in which you handled the UN Draft Report and so should your boss Mr. Paul Kagame and your RPF government. You have clearly given a new meaning to the word PATRIOTIC. Our party regards you as TRAITORS to the Rwandan people and we ask you to stop using the word “PATRIOTIC” as part of your party name. You should allow a transitional government to take over so that positive efforts can be made to repair relations with our neighbours in the Great Lakes region, the UN and international human rights organisations.
Hon. Minister, allow me to remind you and your government that the crimes committed in the DR Congo hangs a dangerous rope around the necks of our children and grand children for many decades to come. This rope can only be untied from the necks of our children if the alleged crimes committed are thoroughly investigated and those individuals responsible are punished. It would be a very grave mistake to yet again leave these complex issues to be resolved by our children who bear no responsibility for the conflicts that have occurred inside and outside of Rwanda since colonial times.
Can I also remind you and your fragile regime that the Habyarimana’s regime was not overthrown by the RPF but it was overthrown by his selfishness and failures to relate with his fellow Rwandans and work in their interests? It is this selfishness and repression that led to the 1990 civil war which ended with the 1994 genocide. These are the same mistakes President Kagame is engaged in which has destroyed the RPF regime and the possible collapse of the RPF as a party and political force. We have advised the RPF continuously but have not got any positive response. The RPF has made its bed and is determined to sleep in it. Its demise and total defeat will come as no surprise. It is a party and army that are imploding from within and without and nothing can save it now.
We strongly oppose your ill thought idea to even consider pulling Rwandan troops out of any credible International obligations because that will not wash away the alleged crimes. It is totally wrong to link Rwanda’s international commitment to actions of atrocities committed in the DR Congo by the Rwandan army as a condition to extricate yourselves from these crimes. We at RPP – IMVURA party strongly condemn the atrocities committed by both the RPF, MONUC and/or by any organisation/institution against the civilians in the DR Congo. We are very much aware of the failures of the international community to prevent the Rwandan genocide in 1994. However, the UN should not condone atrocities anywhere else because we know it failed to stop the Rwandan genocide. The International community should send a clear warning to any individuals or country that the 1994 Rwandan tragedies should NEVER be allowed to happen again.
As a party, we support a full and thorough investigation into allegations of genocide and atrocities committed by President Kagame and the RPF/RPA against innocent Hutu refugees and Congolese civilians. But we also argue that Kagame and his dictatorial regime can not carry out such an investigation, which must be fair and seen to be fair.
In the meantime, we reiterate our demand for Mr Kagame to resign to allow a transitional government to take over to carry out these investigations, repair Rwanda’s relations with the international community and organise free and fair elections in two years time.
I am copying this letter to President Kagame, the UN Secretary General, The Leaders of the Five Plus One group, Diplomatic Missions acredited to the UK, The Commonwealth Secretary General, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other worldwide organisations for their information.
Please, take this matter seriously, and my party looks forward to your immediate response to my seven questions outlined above.
Yours faithfully,
John V KARURANGA, President
RWANDA PEOPLES PARTY – IMVURA
C.c:
H.E. President Paul KAGAME,
Urugwiro
Kigali
H.E. Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
Executive office of the Secretary-General (EOSG))
New York
Office of the United Nationals High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Geneva
Commonwealth Secretary-General
London
President, Human Rights International
New York
President , Human Rights Watch
New York
President, Amnesty International
New York
The World Media
The author John V KARURANGA is President of RWANDA PEOPLE’S PARTY – IMVURA
Contact:
RWANDA PEOPLE’S PARTY – IMVURA (RPP-I)
email1: rppimvura@rwandapeopleparty.org
email2: rppimvura@yahoo.com
www.rwandapeopleparty.org
Tel: 00447985663922 1

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You will shortly see the light a UN report detailing a decade of continued violence in Central Africa

SOURCE:Veritas Rwanda Forum
You will shortly see the light a UN report detailing a decade of continued violence in Central Africa

De los genocidios de Rwanda y Congo a un tribunal español Of the genocide in Rwanda and Congo to a Spanish court

¿Tiene relación los genocidios de Rwanda y Congo con España y sus tribunales; con la ONU, EEUU y Gran Bretaña? Do you have regarding the genocide in Rwanda and Congo with Spain and its courts, with the UN, the U.S. and Britain? Más de la que parece. More than meets the eye. ¿Y qué nos importa? What do we care? Nos toca más de cerca de lo que podemos pensar. We get closer than we think. Hace pocos días la prensa internacional se hacía eco de la filtración de un informe del Alto Comisionado para los Derechos Humanos de la ONU (UNHCHR) sobre 10 años de violencia continuada en la República Democrática del Congo (1993-2003). A few days ago the international press echoed a leaked report of the High Commissioner for UN Human Rights (UNHCHR) on 10 years of continued violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (1993-2003). Este informe de casi 600 páginas debe ver la luz en los próximos días y veremos en qué términos después del revuelo internacional y las enormes amenazas –veladas ya plena luz- que se están produciendo por numerosos actores internacionales- incluidos gobiernos- en múltiples direcciones. The report of nearly 600 pages to see the light in the coming days and see what terms after the huge international outcry and veiled threats and full-light-being brought about by many international actors, including governments, in multiple directions.

La ONU dice que Rwanda podría ser culpable de genocidio en la RD Congo The UN said that Rwanda could be guilty of genocide in the DR Congo
Dicho informe filtrado de la ONU pone de manifiesto con contundencia, después del estudio de miles de documentos y de más de mil testimonios recogidos por los expertos, la crudeza de las matanzas producidas de forma sistemática contra población de la etnia hutu, tanto refugiados rwandeses como población civil congoleña, principalmente durante las dos guerras (de septiembre de 1996 a julio de 1998 y agosto de 1998 en adelante). This leaked report from the UN shows forcefully, after studying thousands of documents and over a thousand testimonies gathered by the experts, the rawness of a systematic massacres against Hutu population, both Rwandan refugees as Congolese civilians, mostly during the two wars (September 1996 to July 1998 and August 1998 onwards).

Según dicho informe, se procedió a la masacre deliberada de personas, incluyendo en especial ancianos, niños y mujeres, hutus rwandeses y congoleños sin excepción y sin poder ser en ningún caso consideradas muertes accidentales o colaterales de la guerra. According to the report, proceeded to deliberate slaughter of people, including especially the elderly, children and women, Rwandan and Congolese Hutus without exception and without in any case to be considered accidental deaths or side of the war. Según las pruebas recogidas, dichas masacres estuvieron “bien planeadas y altamente organizadas”, haciéndose referencia a más de 600 actos criminales sistemáticos con cientos de miles de víctimas como resultado. According to evidence gathered, such killings were "well planned and highly organized" and referred to more than 600 criminal acts systematically with hundreds of thousands of casualties as a result.

En la misma línea que las resoluciones judiciales españolas, la ONU pone de manifiesto ahora que, además de la muerte directa por armas ligeras o pesadas, las muertes se tuvieron lugar también por otras formas de producir genocidio como privación de alimentación y desplazamientos forzosos de población (refugiados hutus y población civil congoleña, cuyas víctimas fueron también mayoritariamente hutus), agresiones sexuales o sometiéndoles a condiciones de inanición y enfermedades que provocarían con toda probabilidad su muerte. In the same line as the Spanish judicial decisions, the UN now shows that in addition to direct killing by light and heavy weapons, deaths also occurred for other ways to produce genocide as deprivation of food and forced population displacement (Hutu refugees and Congolese civilians, the victims were also mainly Hutus), sexual assault or subjecting them to conditions of starvation and disease that most likely would cause his death. Sólo hay que detenerse un instante para ir más allá de las cifras (millones, en plural, más allá de las 800.000 víctimas del genocidio oficial en Rwanda) y tomar consciencia del sufrimiento –individual, familiar y colectivo- que hay tras cada víctima para acercarse a la magnitud de la tragedia (que desgraciadamente continúa). Just pause a moment to go beyond the numbers (millions, plural, beyond the 800,000 victims of genocide in Rwanda official) and become aware of suffering-individual, family and community, which is behind every victim to come the magnitude of the tragedy (which unfortunately continues).

Aunque en dicho informe no se establecen responsabilidades individuales por dichos crímenes, sí se atribuye la responsabilidad principal al ejército de Rwanda -y sus aliados locales- y también se concretan los crímenes que podrían haberse producido en esa década estudiada, pudiendo los hechos constituir crímenes contra la humanidad, crímenes de guerra e incluso susceptibles de ser calificados como genocidio. Although the report does not establish individual responsibility for these crimes, it is attributed primary responsibility for the army of Rwanda, and its local allies, and make concrete the crimes that may have occurred in the decade studied, the facts may constitute crimes against humanity, war crimes and even that could be classified as genocide.

Curiosamente lo que ha levantado revuelo en el Gobierno de Rwanda es este último crimen, el de genocidio, no los dos primeros, no discutidos por Rwanda y ya de por sí crímenes internacionales gravísimos. Interestingly it has raised a stir in the Government of Rwanda is the latter crime, genocide, not the first two, not challenged by Rwanda and already very serious international crimes. Y no es por casualidad: la prensa internacional, sin dejar de recordar la enorme tragedia producida en el genocidio de Rwanda de 1994 con mayoría de víctimas tutsis, no ha dejado de replantearse el papel de Paul Kagame y sus acólitos en dicho genocidio, cuestionando severamente la versión de éste y su cúpula que reclama que él fue quien detuvo dicho genocidio. It is no coincidence: the international press, still remember the great tragedy produced in the 1994 Rwandan genocide with a majority of Tutsi victims, has continued to redefine the role of Paul Kagame and his acolytes in the genocide, severely questioning version of this and its dome claims he was the one who stopped the genocide. Esta versión se va desmontando como un castillo de naipes y este informe de la ONU no hace más que acelerar la caída. This version of the whole structure like a house of cards and the UN report does nothing but accelerate the decline.

Muchos afirman que habrá que reinvestigar lo que sucedió realmente durante en genocidio del año 1994 en Rwanda, incluido el informe secreto de 1994 del representante norteamericano del ACNUR en Rwanda Robert Gersony, embargado por la propia ONU, recogido en la investigación de los tribunales españoles a través del testimonio del ex ministro de exteriores ruandés –entre otros- y que documentó más de 30.000 asesinatos en sólo tres meses después que Kagame tomara el poder por la fuerza después de cuatro años de guerra tras su invasión de Rwanda desde Uganda y “parara oficialmente el genocidio”. Many say they will have to reinvestigate what really happened during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, including the secret report in 1994 the U.S. representative of UNHCR in Rwanda Robert Gersony, embargoed by the UN, included in the investigation of the Spanish courts Through the testimony of former Rwandan Foreign Minister, among others, and documented more than 30,000 murders in just three months after Kagame took power by force after four years of war after its invasion of Rwanda from Uganda and "officially stop genocide. " Sólo de esta manera los responsables de crímenes internacionales – sin distinción étnica ni política de ningún tipo, como prevé el Estatuto del Tribunal Penal Internacional para Rwanda- podrían rendir cuentas ante la justicia sin distinción partidista. Only in this way those responsible for international crimes - no ethnic or political distinction of any kind, as envisaged in the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, could be accountable to the law without distinction partisan.

Hay que decir que la planificación precisa y el alto grado de organización del ejército de Rwanda en la ejecución de crímenes ya fueron puestas de manifiesto en otros dos Informes de la ONU de los años 2001 y 2002 ( http://www.veritasrwandaforum.org/informes.htm ), en ese caso en relación al pillaje sistemático de recursos naturales como oro, diamantes, coltan, estaño, y casiterita, entre otros, junto a multinacionales norteamericanas, europeas, africanas y orientales (minerales preciosos incorporados en nuestros móviles, ordenadores, consolas además de armamento inteligente y estratégico). It must be said that the precise planning and the high degree of organization of the Rwandan army in the execution of crimes and were highlighted in two UN reports in 2001 and 2002 ( http://www.veritasrwandaforum.org / informes.htm ), in this case in relation to the systematic plundering of natural resources like gold, diamonds, coltan, tin, and cassiterite, among others, with U.S. multinationals, European, African and Eastern (precious minerals embedded in our mobile computers, consoles in addition to smart weapons and strategic).

¿Qué tribunal puede investigar estos crímenes internacionales en la RD Congo? What court can investigate these international crimes in DR Congo?
El informe acaba preguntándose qué tribunal podrá hacerse cargo de la investigación y enjuiciamiento de estos crímenes. The report just wondering what the court may take over the investigation and prosecution of these crimes. Es una pregunta esencial para que la impunidad de los mismos, ya de hace años, no continúe retroalimentando el conflicto violento como lo hace hasta nuestros días. Is an essential question for the impunity of those, and years ago, do not continue feeding back the violent conflict as it does today. Aunque la idea de investigar estos crímenes en la RD Congo es anterior, los expertos de la ONU empezaron a trabajar en ello en julio de 2008, pocos meses después de que el 6 de febrero de 2008 los tribunales españoles hicieran público un Auto de Procesamiento de 40 altos mandos político-militares de Rwanda por crímenes de genocidio, crímenes contra la humanidad y crímenes de guerra, entre otros, presuntamente ejecutados en Rwanda y el Zaire/RD Congo en el período que media entre el año 1990 y el 2002. Although the idea of investigating these crimes in DR Congo is earlier, the UN experts began to work on it in July 2008, just months after the February 6, 2008 the Spanish courts made public an indictment of 40 senior political and military control of Rwanda for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, among others, allegedly carried out in Rwanda and Zaire / DR Congo in the period between 1990 and 2002.

Dicho Auto ( http://www.veritasrwandaforum.org/dosier/resol_auto_esp_06022008.pdf ) concretaba tres años de investigación iniciada mediante una querella presentada en 2005 por las familias de 9 españoles asesinados en 1994, 1996, 1997 y 2000 en estos dos países y por sobrevivientes rwandeses y congoleños, por el premio Nobel de la Paz Adolfo Perez Esquivel, la ex congresista norteamericana Cynthia McKinney, los ayuntamientos de Sevilla, Manresa, Figueres, Navata y Tremp, y ONG nacionales e internacionales englobadas bajo el Forum Internacional señalado más abajo. This Auto ( http://www.veritasrwandaforum.org/dosier/resol_auto_esp_06022008.pdf ) identifies three years of research initiated by a complaint filed in 2005 by families of 9 Spanish killed in 1994, 1996, 1997 and 2000 in these two countries and Rwandan and Congolese survivors, for the Nobel Peace Prize Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, the municipalities of Sevilla, Manresa, Figueres, Navata and Tremp, and national and international NGOs included under the International Forum noted more below. Numerosos sobrevivientes de dichas masacres en la RD Congo, que huyeron casi dos mil kilómetros a pie, e imágenes obtenidas sobre el terreno como las de Hubert Sauper han relatado lo que ahora expone públicamente la ONU: ataques sistemáticos de campos de refugiados, bombardeos con armamento pesado y persecuciones sistemáticas en caminos, selvas, pueblos y ciudades –muy especialmente Kisangani, en diversas ocasiones- e incluso repatriaciones forzadas por parte del ACNUR de refugiados que posteriormente serían asesinados o encarcelados, según expuso el propio Auto judicial español. Many survivors of these massacres in the DR Congo, who fled nearly two thousand miles on foot, and images from the field as those of Hubert Sauper have reported what is now publicly exposed the UN's systematic attacks on refugee camps, weapons bombing systematic persecution heavy roads, forests, villages and cities-especially Kisangani, on several occasions, and even forced repatriation by the UNHCR refugee who would later be killed or imprisoned, according exposed himself Writ Spanish.

Ya en 2008 la amenaza de Paul Kagame y Rwanda ante la investigación judicial y la efectividad de la orden de arresto internacional (que los propios ayuntamientos personados pidieron directamente al Secretario General de la ONU) era la misma que ahora ante este informe: si uno de los 40 buscados, el general rwandés Karake Karenzi no era confirmado en su puesto como segundo comandante en la fuerza híbrida de paz de la ONU en Sudán a pesar de la orden de arresto internacional española, Rwanda retiraría todas las fuerzas de paz de Sudán. Already in 2008 the threat of Paul Kagame and Rwanda to the judicial investigation and the effectiveness of the international arrest warrant (which people asked for the councils themselves directly to the Secretary General of the UN) was the same as now to this report: if one of the 40 searches, the Rwandan general Karenzi Karake was not confirmed in his post as deputy commander in the hybrid force of UN peacekeepers in Sudan despite the Spanish international arrest warrant, Rwanda withdraw all forces of peace in Sudan. Karake Karenzi, después de que las Rwandan Defense Forces recibieran el 3 de septiembre de 2008 del Departamento de Estado de EEUU la cantidad de 20 millones de dólares, fue confirmado en su puesto por la ONU. Karenzi Karake, after the Rwandan Defense Forces received the September 3, 2008 the U.S. State Department the amount of $ 20 million, was confirmed in office by the UN. Hace escasos días se ha repetido la amenaza de Rwanda: si el ejército comandado por Paul Kagame es acusado de genocidio, Rwanda retirará sus fuerzas de las operaciones de mantenimiento de la paz. A few days ago has repeated the threat to Rwanda, if the army commanded by Paul Kagame is accused of genocide, Rwanda will withdraw its forces from the maintenance of peace.

Para responder a la pregunta hay a quien le interesa complicar las cosas más de la cuenta para que al final no se haga nada. To answer the question is who cares more complicated than the account so that the end nothing is done. Para los crímenes de 1993 a 2003 hay dos tribunales a nivel internacional que ya están investigando y tienen procesos abiertos: para los crímenes de 1993 al 1 de julio de 2002 el único tribunal del mundo que está ya investigando estos crímenes es el tribunal español, de acuerdo con el principio de justicia universal (baste señalar, a título de ejemplo, que de las 40 órdenes de arresto internacional emitidas por el tribunal español en 2008 una de ellas se ha traducido en solicitud de extradición por crímenes producidos tanto en Rwanda como la RD Congo en el mismo período que el informe respecto al general Kayumba Nyamwasa, ex brazo derecho del Presidente Paul Kagame y actualmente huido en Sudáfrica); For crimes from 1993 to 2003 there are two courts at the international level and are investigating and have open processes: for crimes of 1993 to July 1, 2002 the only court in the world which is already investigating these crimes is the Spanish court of According to the principle of universal justice (suffice it to say, by way of example, that of the 40 international arrest warrants issued by the Spanish court in 2008, one of them has resulted in the extradition request produced crimes in both Rwanda and the DR Congo during the same period that the report regarding the general Kayumba Nyamwasa, former right hand man of President Paul Kagame and currently fled South Africa);

Para los crímenes a partir del 1 de julio de 2002 hasta 2003 la Corte Penal Internacional (CPI) tiene dos procesos abiertos y en curso. For crimes from July 1, 2002 until 2003 the International Criminal Court (ICC) has two open and ongoing processes. Ambos tribunales son competentes aunque gozan de escasísimos recursos para realizar su cometido. Both courts have jurisdiction even though they enjoy very little resources to perform their duties. La Audiencia Nacional recibe el silencio como respuesta cuando pide a la ONU con todas las formalidades las pruebas de estos crímenes contra las personas de los años 1996 y 1997 o las pruebas del pillaje de recursos minerales valiosos de esos mismos años y posteriores. The High Court receives the silence for an answer when asked the UN with all the formalities the evidence of these crimes against the people of the years 1996 and 1997 or evidence of looting of valuable mineral resources of those years and thereafter. Los medios internacionales que han tenido acceso al informe han puesto de manifiesto que la Alta Comisionada de la ONU responsable del texto guarda una base de datos confidencial –separada del Informe- con pruebas que implican de forma individual a cargos militares rwandeses y ugandeses de los crímenes antes relatados. The international media have had access to the report have highlighted the UN High Commissioner responsible for the text maintains a confidential database, separate from the report, with evidence implicating individually to Rwandan and Ugandan military officers for crimes reported before. La Alta Comisionada –casualmente sudafricana- Navanethem Pillay, buena conocedora de las implicaciones y de la dimensión de la tragedia en el África Central al haber sido jueza del Tribunal para Rwanda (TPIR) y de la Corte Penal Internacional, debería poner a disposición de la CPI y de la Audiencia Nacional las pruebas que implican a personas determinadas de dichos crímenes internacionales en aplicación del derecho internacional. The South African High Commissioner-chance-Navanethem Pillay, well aware of the implications and the extent of the tragedy in Central Africa, having been a judge of the Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Court, should make available to the ICC and National Hearing tests involving such persons certain international crimes under international law.

Importantes implicaciones internacionales en los crímenes ejecutados en África Important international executed for crimes in Africa
Esto no es sólo una cuestión entre hutus y tutsis rwandeses y congoleños o una cuestión de África Central, siendo que es el conflicto violento que se ha llevado más vidas humanas desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial, según palabras del Fiscal de la CPI, Moreno Ocampo. This is not just a matter between Hutu and Tutsi Rwandans and Congolese or a matter of Central Africa, where it is the violent conflict that has claimed more lives since World War II, in the words of the ICC Prosecutor, Moreno Ocampo. Aparece una historia de violencia, guerra y neoesclavitud por el control geoeconómico, geopolítico y geoestratégico de África Central después de la caída del muro de Berlín, cuyos capítulos van saliendo a la luz poco a poco. Shows a history of violence, war and geo-economic control by the neo-slavery, geopolitical and geostrategic Central Africa after the fall of the Berlin Wall, whose chapters are coming to light gradually. Antaño los europeos y norteamericanos utilizaron a una minoría africana para que se beneficiara y explotara a sus hermanos de sangre. Europeans and Americans once used a minority to benefit African and exploit their siblings. Las dinámicas de explotación y esclavitud de los siglos XV a XIX (de las entonces potencias europeas como España, Francia, Portugal, Gran Bretaña, Bélgica, Holanda y más tarde Estados Unidos) se reproducen con nuevos modelos a finales del siglo XX y principios del XXI, sólo que ahora –sin necesidad de desplazar a los esclavos del territorio- son gobiernos, multinacionales y grupos de poder que utilizan y manipulan a “elites” africanas para que masacren y exploten a sus hermanos africanos a cambio de un pequeño porcentaje de poder y dinero del pillaje sistemático de guerra, que deja unas migas en África pero que sus grandes beneficios se esfuman a Norteamérica, Europa y aliados bajo complejas formas de transacciones de grupos empresariales, como ha señalado en dichos informes de 2001 y 2002 la propia ONU. The dynamics of exploitation and enslavement of the XV to XIX (of the then European powers like Spain, France, Portugal, Britain, Belgium, Holland and later the U.S.) will play with new models in the late twentieth and early XXI, only now, no need to move to the slaves of the territory, are governments, multinationals and power groups who use and manipulate the "elites" to massacre and Africa to exploit their fellow Africans in exchange for a small percentage of power and systematic looting money from the war, leaving a few crumbs in Africa but its major benefits are disappearing in North America, Europe and allies in complex forms of transactions of business groups, as noted in these reports for 2001 and 2002 the UN itself.

La ONU, que debería ser la esperanza y apoyo a los pueblos ya la humanidad, se ha convertido en el juguete de los gobiernos y de las multinacionales y grandes poderes que les guían según sus propios intereses. The UN, which should be the hope and support to people and humanity, has become the plaything of governments and multinational corporations and large powers that guide them in their own interests. En este caso los capítulos ocultos que vamos conociendo gracias a investigadores tenaces e independientes nos permiten conocer cómo agencias gubernamentales norteamericanas, canadienses y británicas, junto con multinacionales y grupos empresariales se unen para conseguir el control de los territorios, los riquísimos recursos naturales de los mismos y los gobiernos locales: sólo como ejemplo, la ex congresista norteamericana McKinney -descendiente de esclavos, como la actual Primera Dama norteamericana y enviada especial en 1996 por el presidente Clinton a África Central- reveló más tarde que descubrió que el avión en el que viajó -fletado por directivos de la multinacional American Mineral Fields- transportaba también traficantes de armas y que había un plan previsto para financiar la guerra para deponer a Mobutu en el entonces Zaire y controlar las zonas mineras con el fin de pillar primero y explotar después las minas, hechos que fueron corroborados posteriormente por los propios informes de la ONU de 2001 y 2002. In this case the hidden chapters we meet, thanks to tenacious and independent researchers allow us to know how U.S. government agencies, Canadian and British, along with multinational companies and business groups join forces to gain control of territories, the very rich natural resources of the same and local governments, just as an example, former U.S. Congresswoman McKinney, a descendant of slaves, as the current First Lady and U.S. Special Envoy in 1996 by President Clinton to Central Africa, revealed later that he discovered that the plane that flew -chartered by executives of multinational American Mineral Fields, also carrying arms dealers and had a plan in place to fund the war to oust Mobutu in the then Zaire and control mining areas in order to catch first and then exploit mines facts which were corroborated later by the UN's own reports of 2001 and 2002.

A ello se puede unir el hecho, también corroborado, que Paul Kagame fue llamado en octubre de 1990 desde Estados Unidos (donde se estaba formando militarmente en la Comandancia del Ejército de Estados Unidos de América –conectado con la tristemente conocida Escuela de las Américas-, concretamente en la base de Fort Leavenworth, Kansas) a Uganda para liderar la rebelión que debía deponer al entonces presidente de Rwanda Habyarimana. To this can be added the fact, also confirmed that Paul Kagame was called in October 1990 from the U.S. (where it was forming militarily in the Army Command United States-connected with the notorious School of the Americas specifically in the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas) to Uganda to lead the rebellion that had deposed the then Rwandan President Habyarimana.

ONU, Kagame, Zapatero y política internacional UN Kagame, Zapatero and international politics
Este informe de la ONU, contundente con Rwanda, se ha filtrado con delicadeza diplomática, casualmente justo tres semanas después –no antes- de haberse celebrado elecciones presidenciales en Rwanda, donde Paul Kagame (acusado de crímenes internacionales por el Tribunal español en relación a dichos crímenes en la RD Congo y que goza del asesoramiento personal gratuito del ex premier británico Tony Blair, entre otros) ha sido reelegido presidente por un 93% de los votos, donde los candidatos de la oposición o han sido encarcelados o asesinados. The UN report, blunt with Rwanda, has leaked diplomatic gently, coincidentally just three weeks later, not before the presidential elections have been held in Rwanda, Paul Kagame (accused of international crimes by the Spanish court in relation to such crimes in the DR Congo and enjoying the free personal advice of former British premier Tony Blair, among others) has been reelected president by 93% of the vote, where opposition candidates or have been imprisoned or killed. Elecciones validadas a pesar de las grandes reservas internacionales de diplomacias y ONG's internacionales. Elections validated despite the large reserves of diplomacy and international NGOs. Sin duda el secretario general de la ONU debía conocer el contenido de dicho informe cuando en julio se desplazó a Madrid para asistir a la cumbre de la ONU convocada por él mismo preparatoria de los Objetivos del Milenio, junto a los dos co-presidentes que él mismo –aparentemente- escogió: el presidente Zapatero, presidente de un país donde sus tribunales investigan justamente esos crímenes, y Paul Kagame – presidente investigado y acusado por un tribunal español de ser el máximo responsable de esos crímenes, incluidos de los 9 españoles asesinados en Rwanda y RD Congo. No doubt the UN secretary general should know the contents of that report in July when he moved to Madrid to attend the UN summit convened by him in preparation for the Millennium Development Goals, with the two co-presidents that he same, apparently chosen: President Zapatero, president of a country where the courts are investigating just such crimes, and Paul Kagame - President investigated and charged by a Spanish court of being most responsible for these crimes, including the 9 killed in Spanish Rwanda and DR Congo.

Afortunadamente el Presidente Zapatero, después de la petición por parte de las nueve familias españolas, de una plataforma de ong's nacional (bastayadeimpunidadenruanda.org) e internacional, de peticiones en embajadas de todo el mundo y de la petición expresa de senadores y de siete grupos políticos del Congreso (entre los que no estaban ni el PSOE ni el PP), decidió en último momento no reunirse con Kagame y desplazar la reunión a un hotel privado. Fortunately, the President Zapatero, following the request from the nine Spanish families, a platform of national NGOs (bastayadeimpunidadenruanda.org) and international requests in embassies around the world and the request of Senators and seven groups Congressional politicians (which were neither the PSOE nor the PP), decided at the last minute not to meet with Kagame and move the meeting to a private hotel. Sin embargo, la reunión oficial que se celebrará en la sede de la ONU en Nueva York el próximo 20 de septiembre contará, si no hay cambio de última hora, con la co-presidencia de Zapatero y Kagame, junto al secretario general de la ONU que está por publicar este informe demoledor. However, the official meeting to be held at the UN headquarters in New York on September 20 will, if no last minute change, co-chaired by Zapatero and Kagame, along with UN Secretary General that is about to publish the damning report.

Para cumplir con los objetivos del milenio de erradicar el hambre y las enfermedades en el mundo y demás loables e imprescindibles objetivos convienen quizás otras medidas más eficaces que esta reunión, con un encuentro indecente e indigno entre bambalinas: como señala Carlos Castresana (Fiscal de las causas de justicia universal de Argentina y Chile), quizás será necesario al final aprobar un gran acuerdo estilo “Plan Marshal” para África, con la contribución determinante de EEUU, China, Gran Bretaña, Francia, Alemania, India, Cánada y Brasil u otros países, que permita a la par que abrir nuevos mercados y nuevos consumidores para estas ávidas potencias y sus multinacionales, beneficiar de forma definitiva a los actuales africanos –y de retoque a todos nosotros- y al menos a las siete generaciones que les seguirán. To meet the Millennium Development Goals of eradicating hunger and disease in the world and other laudable and necessary goals may agree to other measures more effective than this meeting, a meeting backstage indecent and unworthy, as pointed out by Carlos Castresana (Attorney of the cause of universal justice in Argentina and Chile), it may be necessary to pass a great deal final style "Marshal Plan" for Africa, with the decisive contribution of the United States, China, Britain, France, Germany, India, Canada and Brazil or other countries, allowing the couple to open new markets and new customers for these greedy powers and their multinational definitely benefit from the current African-retouching and all of us-and at least seven generations that will follow. Sí, la ley del boomerang es implacable y todo esto nos toca más de cerca de lo que podemos pensar. Yes, the law of the boomerang is relentless and all that touches us more closely than we think.

Jordi Palou-Loverdos es abogado acreditado ante la Corte Penal Internacional y mediador en conflictos internacionales. Jordi Palou-Loverdos a lawyer accredited to the International Criminal Court and mediator in international conflicts. Es representante legal de víctimas españolas, rwandeses y congoleñas y del Forum Internacional por la Verdad y la Justicia en el África de los Grandes Lagos ante los Tribunales españoles. Legal representative of Spanish victims, Rwandan and Congolese and the International Forum for Truth and Justice in the African Great Lakes before the Spanish Courts.

Rwandan President Tries To Maintain Moral Authority In Light of UN Report Implicating His Regime In Congo Genocide

SOURCE: The Alternet

The Nation / By Tristan McConnell

In an account in the report, women and men were separated one evening in an eastern Congo mountain town. All were executed, every man beaten to death with hammers.

September 24, 2010  |  

My friend nervously scanned the paved open-air courtyard. His eyes rested for a few seconds on a nearby table, where three affluent-looking men in suits sipped beers. He glanced into a shadowed corner at a young couple out on a date, then at a group of foreign missionaries gathering for an early dinner.

Rwandan President Kagame visits West Point in March 2010.

Photo Credit: US Army Africa

Dusk had just passed the way it does in equatorial Africa, suddenly, leaving us in darkness as waiters scurried about with matches to light candles. Satisfied that no one was listening in, my friend leaned close to whisper, “Of course, everyone knows who is Hutu, who is Tutsi. We just don’t talk about it. We can’t talk about it.”
There are many things you cannot talk about in Rwanda. You cannot talk about ethnicity because this little central African country was nearly destroyed by tribal enmities just sixteen years ago, when extremist Hutus killed around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate members of their own tribe in just three months. The killers used machetes, hoes, axes and guns to perpetrate one of the most efficient mass slaughters in human history.
Paul Kagame, the country’s de facto leader since marching into Rwanda at the head of a Tutsi rebel army in the summer of 1994, calls himself a Rwandan. The words “Tutsi” and “Hutu” have been erased from identity cards and excised from open conversation. But still, everyone knows.
There are laws against “divisionism” and “genocide ideology” that prescribe jail terms for tribal talk. One Western diplomat in Kigali told me these were “thought crimes.” The laws are intended to prevent the resurrection of deadly ethnic politics, but it is also a very pragmatic concern for Kagame, whose Tutsi ethnic group accounts for only around 15 percent of Rwanda’s 10 million citizens. Critics complain that the laws are used to block opposition politicians and stifle dissent.
There are two things you can—indeed must—talk about in Rwanda. The first is the genocide. Seemingly every town has its own genocide memorial, mausoleums with neatly arranged rows of skulls and bones on wooden shelves. They are eerie places, and impossibly moving. The second is that Kagame and his troops halted the genocide and have shown a single-minded determination to rebuild the country ever since.
Last month a draft United Nations report was leaked that questions this dominant discourse, forcing Rwandans to confront something else that cannot be talked about in Rwanda: what happened in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo after the genocide?
For seven months a team of researchers from the UN’s Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights consulted documents (more than 1,500 of them) and interviewed witnesses (over 1,200) across Congo’s vast territory. They concluded that Kagame’s own troops were responsible for a litany of atrocities and massacres after the Rwanda genocide was over. Some journalists, human rights activists and others have long argued that Rwanda’s invasion was a “counter-genocide,” but never have the allegations been leveled in such detail, and by an international body like the UN.
As Kagame’s army advanced southward through Rwanda in 1994, the Hutu killers fled to neighboring Congo, hiding among more than a million refugees in squalid camps along the border. From there the genocidaires reorganized, rearmed and restarted cross-border attacks on Tutsis. In 1996 Kagame ordered an invasion to hunt down the killers.
The UN researchers were tasked with documenting the most serious violations of human rights committed in Congo during a series of wars between 1993 and 2003, which, at their height, involved eight countries and led to the deaths of around 4 million people, mostly from disease and ill health.
The draft report talks of “the relentless pursuit and mass killing of Hutu refugees, members of the former Armed Forces of Rwanda and militias implicated in the genocide of 1994.” Revenge attacks might be understandable, given the horrific context of the genocide; but the authors of the report believe a baser motivation may have been in play.
“The systematic and widespread attacks…reveal a number of damning elements that, if proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide,” the draft says. “Probably tens of thousands were killed” as Rwandan soldiers made “no effort” to distinguish between combatants and civilians. So many deaths “cannot be attributed to the hazards of war or seen as equating to collateral damage,” says the report. “The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who were often undernourished and posed no threat to the attacking forces.”
One example, from 1996: It was a Wednesday afternoon in October, the day before Halloween, when a meeting was ordered in Rutshuru, a town set among the cultivated hills and forested mountains of eastern Congo. The Rwandan soldiers who had fought their way to Rutshuru four days earlier began registering people according to tribe. Nandes were told to go home, Hutus to stay.
“They then separated the men and women on the grounds that the women had to prepare the meal. The women were taken to the Maison de Poste, where they were executed. The men were bound and led in pairs to a sand quarry.... All of them were then executed with blows of hammers [sic].”
The death toll that day alone was “at least 350 civilians,” according to the draft report. This incident was just one of 617 listed by the researchers. Of these, one in six were carried out by Rwandan soldiers and their allies (the other killings were by various warring parties from eight countries that were embroiled in the Congo fighting).
It is damning, and Rwanda’s government has reacted angrily, dismissing the report as “immoral and unacceptable.” Even before the draft was leaked, Rwanda’s foreign minister wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon threatening to withdraw the country’s soldiers from UN peacekeeping missions if the report was published, or leaked, in its current form. Rwanda’s 3,300 troops are the backbone of a hard-pressed UN and African Union mission in the Sudanese region of Darfur, so on September 8, Ban paid a surprise visit to Rwanda to plead with Kagame not to follow through on the threat.

The leaked report is hugely damaging to Kagame’s moral authority and international standing, all of which stem from his ending of the Rwanda genocide, not attempting a second one in Congo.
Already Kagame has had a torrid year, during which he has faced unprecedented scrutiny. He won a presidential election in August with 93 percent of the vote, but two opposition candidates were prevented from registering their parties for the poll, critical newspapers were shut down and the mysterious murders of a journalist and politician as well as the attempted assassination of a dissident general did immense damage to Kagame’s well-cultivated image as Rwanda’s savior and visionary leader.
A decade and a half since that massacre in Rutshuru, eastern Congo is still at war, albeit a low-intensity conflict that harms more civilians than soldiers. The provincial capital of Goma is no longer engulfed by refugees, but there is an almost constant trickle of what aid workers call the displaced, those forced from their homes by violence.
Dreadful things are done every day despite the presence of one of the world’s largest UN peacekeeping missions. A senior UN official recently conceded the mission had “failed” to protect civilians when he admitted that more than 500 women and girls had been raped in just over a month of attacks.
The picture in neighboring Rwanda could scarcely be more different. It is a short walk from Goma in Congo to Gisenyi in Rwanda, but it takes you from chaos to discipline, from conflict to peace. Since taking charge, Kagame has effectively leveraged the guilt felt by Western powers who turned their backs on Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. He has attracted vast amounts of aid and has used the money well.
The corruption, bribes and backhanders that blight Rwanda’s neighbors are hard to find. Schools have been built and teachers trained; children get nine years of free education; a national health insurance scheme has been set up; a network of fiber optic cables is being laid; and the economy has grown impressively, albeit from a very low base.
Post-genocide reconciliation is a slow but ongoing process, and Rwanda is both peaceful and safe. Crime is rare, violent crime almost unheard of.
But the leaked UN report points to a darker side of Kagame’s Rwanda, a place where people are afraid to criticize the government, where central control is grasped tightly, where everything is creepily disciplined.
“Rwandans are characterized by obeying the government,” says Irenee Bugingo, a researcher at Kigali’s Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace, which works to foster reconciliation. He says this can be used for good—for example, during the last Saturday in each month, when everyone gets involved in a morning’s worth of community work, called umuganda—or it can be used for ill, as in 1994, when extremist leaders ordered Hutus to turn on their Tutsi neighbors.
Kagame has brought a military discipline to the governing of Rwanda, but with it comes a soldier’s ruthlessness and intolerance of dissent. It is not just ordinary Rwandans like my friend who are afraid to talk openly. Foreign diplomats and aid workers in Kigali are guarded when they speak on the telephone for fear of tapping; in their embassies and offices, they speak more quietly as local staff pass by.
“The country is obsessively controlled, the regime profoundly paranoid,” one Western diplomat told me. “Fear is the dominant expression among ordinary people,” said another.
Kagame’s control of the country has maintained stability in the years since the genocide and fostered a measure of economic growth and prosperity, but there are doubts over how sustainable it will be in the longer term, argues Carina Tertsakian, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch.
“People may shut up and do as they’re told, but inside they are increasingly bitter and frustrated, and that cuts right across ethnic lines,” she says. “You can’t build stability, peace, reconciliation, in a society where people can’t speak.”

Tristan McConnell, a journalist based in Nairobi, covers east and Horn of Africa as a correspondent for the Times of London and GlobalPost.