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