FRANCE-RWANDA:Des députés UMP interpellent Nicolas Sarkozy avant la visite du président du Rwanda Paul Kagame

Des députés UMP interpellent Nicolas Sarkozy avant la visite du président du Rwanda Paul Kagame
Avec cet article

Mr Kagame and Mr Sarkozy

L'ancien chef de l'armée rwandaise condamné à 30 ans de prison
La vulnérabilité des vivants
Les arrestations de leaders des FDLR n'ont pas eu l'impact attendu
Victoire Ingabire: une opposante arrêtée au Rwanda


Dix-huit députés, en grande majorité de l’UMP, viennent d’interpeller par courrier Nicolas Sarkozy sur ses relations avec Paul Kagame, le président du Rwanda, qui sera en France du dimanche 11 au mardi 13 septembre pour une « visite de réconciliation ». Dans cette missive dont La Croix a eu connaissance et rédigée à l’initiative de Michel Voisin, député UMP de l’Ain et vice-président de la Commission défense de l’Assemblée nationale, les signataires dénoncent les « accusations » régulièrement portées « à tort » par Paul Kagame « concernant la participation active de l’armée française au génocide rwandais ».

En cause, l’opération Turquoise, menée par 2 500 soldats français et 500 soldats envoyés par sept pays d’Afrique, du 22 juin au 21 août 1994. Alors qu’un génocide se poursuivait au Rwanda, tuant des centaines de milliers de Tutsis et de Hutus modérés, et alors que les forces du Front patriotique rwandais (FPR) dirigées par Paul Kagame menaient une offensive qui allait les conduire à la victoire, l’opération Turquoise eut pour but de protéger les populations civiles, selon le mandat de la résolution 929 du conseil de sécurité de l’ONU.

Soulignant « le professionnalisme et l’investissement sur le plan humain de notre armée » dans ces circonstances tragiques, les 18 députés souhaitent que, durant sa visite, Paul Kagame « non seulement cesse » ces attaques, mais aussi « reconnaisse le rôle positif que ces militaires ont joué ». Mercredi 7 septembre, en marge d’un déjeuner à l’Élysée avec les parlementaires de droite, Nicolas Sarkozy avait laissé entendre que tous les sujets pourront être abordés lors des discussions entre les deux chefs de l’État.

Ont signé la lettre pour l’UMP : Patrick Beaudouin (Val-de-Marne), Jean-Louis Bernard (Loiret), Claude Bodin (Val-d’Oise), Jean-Claude Bouchet (Vaucluse), Patrice Calméjane (Seine-Saint-Denis), Bernard Carayon (Tarn), Jean-Pierre Decool (Nord), Nicolas Dhuicq (Aube), Christophe Guilloteau (Rhône), Françoise Hostalier (Nord), Lionel Luca (Alpes-Maritimes), Georges Mothron (Val-d’Oise), Alain Moyne-Bressand (Isère), Christian Vanneste (Nord), Michel Voisin (Ain) ; pour le Nouveau centre : Pascal Brindeau (Loir-et-Cher), Francis Hillmeyer (Haut-Rhin) ; pour la gauche : Gérard Charasse (Allier, apparenté socialiste-républicain-citoyen).

ANTOINE FOUCHET

Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa survives shooting

Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa survives shooting
Who’s Gen. Nyamwasa?

* Born in 1960s.
* Obtained a Bachelor’s degree from Makerere University (in 1980s) after taking A-level examinations at Mbarara High School in western Uganda. He was a resident of Lumumba Hall while at the university.
* In 1984, he joined the National Resistance Army rebel group, then headed by President Museveni, and later the Rwanda Patriotic Army/Front that took over government after the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
* Gen. Nyamwasa headed RPF’s military intelligence during its bush days and was later named the army Chief of Staff.
* In 2001, he was sacked as the military chief and replaced with Gen. James Kabarebe . The general was, in November 2002, re-deployed as Head of Security Services.
* A couple of years later, the Gen. Nyamwasa was appointed Rwanda’s High Commissioner to India. Early this year, he fled from Kigali during a government retreat in Rubavu.
The Rwandan government immediately stripped him of diplomatic immunity after the defection that stirred suspicion with neighbours.

Daniel Kalinaki & Tabu Butagira

Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa has been shot and seriously injured in Johannesburg, South Africa where he is living in exile. The General, a former chief of staff in the Rwandan army, was shot at around 1 p.m. (12 p.m. South African time) on Saturday at his home in a Johannesburg suburb.

An unidentified man armed with a pistol fired two bullets one of which reportedly hit the general in the stomach. Witnesses told Sunday Monitor that Gen. Nyamwasa tried to disarm the gunman after the pistol jammed to fire bullets. The assailant, however, managed to flee into a waiting take-away car driven by an unidentified accomplice.
Gen. Nyamwasa was taken to Morningside Clinic where he received emergency medical care and was set to undergo surgery by press time yesterday.

Related Stories

* Gen. Nyamwasa responds to Kagame
* Why I fell out with Generals, says Kagame
* Clinton questions Rwanda’s democracy

The South African Police did not issue any immediate statement on the bloody incident and the assailants never took any items, according to witnesses.
In late February this year, Gen. Nyamwasa during a summit in Kigali for Rwandan envoys from around the world, fled through Uganda and Kenya after falling out with President Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front leadership.

He eventually sought asylum in South Africa, which has declined to extradite him as requested by Rwandan authorities, after President Jacob Zuma said his country was obliged to respect international law on asylum seekers.

President Kagame, in an interview with Monitor in May, accused Gen. Nyamwasa - Rwanda’s Ambassador to India by the time he fled - and Col. Patrick Karegeya, the former head of Rwandan Intelligence, of promoting divisions in the army and running away from accountability.

He said: “People like Kayumba or Karegeya or others who flee the country will always say whatever they want to say in an attempt to absolve themselves from any responsibility.”
“I think for them to escape - already there is a responsibility they are escaping or fleeing from.”

In a rejoinder emailed to this newspaper a week later, Gen. Kayumba denied the accusations levelled against him and instead made several allegations of his own against President Kagame and the RPF government.

Not honest
“President Kagame is not honest when he alleges that we ran away from accountability. [Our] disagreements [are] centred on governance, tolerance, insensitivity, intrigue and betrayal of our colleagues,” he wrote.

And he added: “Accountability should begin from the top; beginning with the President before he demands accountability from his subordinates.”

“In Rwanda, the Head of State is the most unaccountable person and has no moral authority to demand accountability from anybody. In Rwanda, President Kagame is the institutions.”

The Rwandan government denies these allegations.

Rwandan Military Leaders Found Not-Guilty of Conspiracy and Genocide Planning

From The Taylor Report

ICTR-ADAD NEWS ADVISORY: Rwandan Military Leaders Found Not-Guilty of Conspiracy and Genocide Planning

Association des Avocats de la Defence - Association of Defense Lawyers
December 21, 2008

ARUSHA TZ – 18/12: Today’s ICTR judgments in the Military-I trial completely rejected the Prosecution theory of long-term planning and conspiracy to commit genocide by members of the former Rwandan military leadership. All four defendants were found “not guilty” of all counts charging conspiracy to commit genocide, based on the Chambers ruling that their actions prior to April 6, 1994 were based on war-time conditions, not planning to kill civilians or to carry out a genocide against Tutsi Rwandans.

Gen. Gratien Kabiligi was found not guilty of all remaining charges because of the Prosecution’s failure to prove his command authority over Rwandan troops, and was ordered released immediately.

The three other defendants were convicted of responsibility for particular acts that the Chambers found were committed by members of the Rwandan military. Col. Theoneste Bagsosora and Col. Anatole Nsengiumva were found guilty of war crimes, acts of genocide and crimes against humanity committed by Rwandan troops under their command. Major Aloys Ntabakuze, whose command was limited to the Para-Commando Battalion was held responsible for three incidents out of more than 40 that the Chamber found were not proved. Many of the crimes of which all three were convicted do not appear in the indictments under which they were prosecuted. All three were sentenced to life in prison and have announced plans to appeal.

The ICTR Military-I Oral Judgment specifically referred to evidence presented to the Chamber that civilian killings in Rwanda were triggered by the assassination of the Rwandan President, which was part of the final military assault to seize power by the RPF army of Paul Kagame in 1994. The Judgements follow by less than a week the UN Security Council’s public exposure of the massive continuing crimes of Kagame and the RPF in the Congo and the Great Lakes Region since 1996 and the Open Letter from the President of Human Rights Watch calling for the ICTR to fulfill its mandate by holding Kagame’s RPF accountable for crimes committed in 1994 in Rwanda, as well.

After the evidence closed in the Military-1 trial closed in June 2007, INTERPOL warrants have been issued for the RPF leadership and Paul Kagame has been named in two European indictments for the assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana and Burundi President Ntaryamira of Burundi on the night of April 6, 1994. The indictments confirm evidence in the Military-1 record that Kagame and the RPF are responsible for the war crime, and military assault, that touched off the tragic 100 days of war. The indictments also charge Kagame’s RPF with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity involving more than 300,000 civilian deaths.

Also after the evidence closed in the Military-1 trial, former ICTR Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and former ICTR Chief Investigator Prosecutor Michael Hourigan have publicly described the on-going “cover-up” of Kagame’s responsibility for the assassination and the planned RPF assault to take power. Now Ms. Del Ponte’s press aide is being prosecuted for contempt of court at the ICTY FOR her courage in making public the US/UK role in removing Del Ponte from her ICTR post because she insisted on fulfilling her mandate to hold both sides responsible for their crimes in 1994.

To date, the failure of the ICTR Prosecutor to put the full record of crimes committed by the RPF has done a great disservice to the Judicial Chambers of the ICTR and to International Justice. But, most tragically, the juridical impunity created by the ICTR “cover-up” of RPF crimes has been the root cause of the millions of deaths in Rwanda, the Congo and the Great Lakes since the RPF invaded Rwanda with the help of Uganda in 1990.

In light of these disclosures of former ICTR Prosecutors and the December 12, 2008 Security Council Report fixing RPF responsibility for more than 12 years of economic plunder and massive killings in the Congo, which are also confirmed in Security Council Reports in 2001, 2002 and 2003, the ADAD Bureau will present an OPEN LETTER to the ICTR President, the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly detailing the recent revelations that have called the integrity of the Tribunal into question and the systematic withholding of relevant evidence from the Chambers and requesting that all matters at the ICTR be suspended, pending an independent investigation of the Office of the Prosecutor's failure to abide by Security Council Resolution 955, and manipulation of the ICTR by UN member-states, that is now in the public record.


CONTACT:
ADAD Bureau

Pres. Peter Erlinder [US] (e) peter.erlinder@wmitchell.edu /078-629-5177
VP. Gershom Otachi Ken](e/f) gershomotachi@yahoo.com / 075-437-8415
Sec. Gen. M. Sahinkuye [Den] (e/f) sahinkuye2002@yahoo.fr /
Tr. Nathalie Leblanc [Can] (e/f) nathalieleblanc@hotmail.com /
Chris Black [Can] (e/f) bar@idirect.com / 075 466-6972
John Philpot [Can] (e/f) jhilpot@videotron.ca / 075-535-2931
Beth Lyons [US] (ex-officio IADL rep.)(e/f) bethlyons@aol.com / 075-294-6201

PDF version of this Advisory