Edito: Vidéo de quelques minutes montrant avec précision les étapes de la tragédie rwandaise qui a abouti au despotisme que nous vivons aujourd'hui.

==> Watch this video to find out more about the current Rwandan despotism.

http://www.groundzerocoffee.com/videos.html

Par Ndagijimana François, information relayée par Théophile Murengerantwari
29 Janvier 2009

De source sûre, notre association vient d'apprendre que le régime de Kigali continue de tout mettre en œuvre pour arriver à la réalisation de son objectif, poursuivre, terroriser la population Hutu où qu'elle se trouve et la harceler par tous les moyens.

Lorsqu'en 1994 plus d'un million de Hutus avaient traversé la frontière zaïroise en fuyant les atrocités du FPR, personne ne pensait que l'horreur de Kagame irait jusqu'à inonder les camps de réfugiés de bombes et autres katiushas, faisant des centaines de milliers de morts, et poussant les survivants à l'errance dans les forêts zaïroises dans des conditions innommables, traqués et massacrés sans pitié dans une politique d'extermination systématique.

Rappellez-vous le pilonnage de Mugunga, les fosses communes de Rutshuru, les charniers de Kibumba, les massacres de Tingi Tingi,... Dieu aidant, certains d'entre nous en avons rechappé et les plus chanceux sont partis vers l'Occident où, pensaient-ils, le bras armé de Kagame ne les atteindrait pas.Eh bien, détrompez-vous mes frères !! Ce que nous avons appris, et ce sont des informations dignes de foi, a de quoi alarmer.

350 agents du DMI kagamesque, bien entraînés aux méthodes d'intimidation et rôdés aux méthodes d'infiltration ont été fraîchement envoyés en Europe, surtout en Belgique et aux Pays-bas. Ils ont pour mission d'identifier, espionner, traquer ceux qui ont échappé jusqu'à présent à la machine à tuer du FPR. Et, si l'on regarde les bizarreries de ces dernières semaines, agressions, accidents incompréhensibles, disparitions, ... L'on aurait tort de croire qu'il s'agit là de simples coïncidences.Il n'existe pas de coïncidence dans les esprits criminels du FPR. Kigali poursuit méthodiquement son objectif, avec un plan précis, minutieusement préparé, et soigneusement exécuté.

Ces 350 agents ne sont pas ici pour rien. Certains viennent comme demandeurs d'asile, d'autres prétendent être "en affaires ou en mission", d'autres encore viennent comme étudiants et, certains viennent en se disant Burundais,...La menace est donc réelle pour notre communauté. Aussi, vous invitons-nous à prendre quelques mesures pour votre sécurité et celle de votre entourage.

1. Soyez vigilants, redoublez de prudence, et ce, en tout. Contrôlez les alentours de votre domicile, votre lieu de travail. Inspectez votre voiture, les proximités de là où vous l'avez garée et ne vous garez jamais aux mêmes endroits. Surtout, ne prenez jamais deux fois le même chemin. mieux vaut un détour qu'un incident.


2. Où que vous soyez, pensez à rentrer tôt. Il est plus facile etr plus sécurisant de se fondre dans la masse plutôt que de se retrouver tout seul sur la route par une nuit noire.


3. Pour ceux qui "sortent" le samedi,... Faites attention. Ne quittez pas votre verre des yeux, et même si nous tenons il est vrai à certaines de nos traditions évitez les gusongongeza, et autres gusomesha.


4. Méfiez-vous des inconnus, soyez sur vos gardes si quelqu'un, l'air de rien vous demande votre numéro de télephone ou votre adresse e-mail.


5. A l'occasions de réunions rassemblement fêtes et autres manifestations, ne quittez pas vos affaires, vestes, portes documents,.. . Gardez les soigneusement auprès de vous.

Si jamais vous constatez quelque chose d'anormal avertissez-vous les uns les autres. Restons solidaires.Voici mes frères quelques mésures, nous en avons sûrment oublié, aussi, de grâce, parlez-en autour de vous,...Le danger guette et un homme averti et conscient , en vaut ...

Buri gihe FPR n'abambari bayo baca inama zo guhiga no kumaraho Mwene Gahutu ariko Imana ikanga Igakinga Akaboko.Ese Iyo Mana Izabakiza kugeza ryari ?

The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine

Toujours bonne à dire, la vérité est parfois triste. La lecture du dernier livre de Pierre Péan consacré à Bernard Kouchner laisse un sentiment d’immense gâchis, d’amère déception.

Souvenez-vous comment il s' est fait photographié en compagnie de la soeur Emmanuella en avion, ses visites ou travaux rocamboresques au Rwanda, au Kosovo, au Soudan (ouverture d' un hôpital), en Egypte, ses cours aux collèges américains pour expliquer son soutien à M. Bush, ses discours suivis de demande d'excuses, ses multiples arrangements par interviews télédiffusés interposés sur plusieurs chaînes en France ( ex. Internationales de TV5) , son rôle dans Charlie Chaplin Charlot pendant ces dernières années au Ministère des Affaires Etrangères a été plus qu'épatant. Personne n'a le droit de le contredire !

N.D.L.R. Pour comprendre: Regardez ce vidéo: http://www.fireangel.biz/v-Fun+with+Fascism-bY8GzJNuz7I

This vidéo will also help you to BETTER understand SurViVors fight against the current Rwandan despotism.

Ses révélations accablantes ne sauraient réjouir tous ceux qu’inquiète l’effet délétère de la perte de confiance dans les élites.

En mettant à bas l’icône Kouchner, Pierre Péan ne dévoile pas seulement une imposture personnelle ; il nous oblige à faire le deuil d’un mythe auquel il ne fut pas méprisable de croire : le souci des victimes, la conscience des urgences, le bénévolat, la compassion, le droit-de-l’hommisme.

De tout cela il ne reste pas grand-chose après avoir refermé Le monde selon K. Nous découvrons aussi que, dans sa fin de parcours, le bon Docteur Kouchner a mis la réputation que lui ont value ses engagements de jeunesse au service du cynisme le plus désinvolte et d’une quête effrénée de valeurs plus financières. La chute de Bernard Kouchner ne peut laisser indifférent parce que son parcours ne le fut pas.

Contrairement à beaucoup d’autres, cette grande gueule de la gauche morale ne s’était pas contentée de belles paroles. Le cofondateur de Médecins sans Frontières a vraiment fait des choses dans sa vie.

Non sans courage, il s’est mouillé personnellement, devenant le symbole de ces French Doctors qui portaient aux quatre coins du monde le meilleur de Mai 68 mis au service d’une générosité française.

La popularité dont il jouit depuis longtemps n’était pas usurpée : à travers lui, les Français retrouvaient une capacité d’indignation toujours renouvelée face aux mauvaises nouvelles du monde. Ils plébiscitaient en lui leur désir d’action immédiate pour soulager les malheurs indistincts.

De l'humanitaire-spectacle au spectacle tout court.

Bien sûr, le héros n’était pas sans travers et l’on distinguait même de gros défauts, mais ils semblaient tellement servir la Cause du Bien que l’on s’était habitué à en sourire affectueusement.

L’ego démesuré de Kouchner passait pour une variante moderne du militantisme. S’il se mettait en permanence en scène, n’était-ce pas au nom de cette « loi du tapage médiatique » indispensable pour donner de l’écho à l’action humanitaire ?

Grâce à lui, celle-ci a fait un Grand bond en avant depuis l’époque des Docteurs Schweitzer qui devaient besogner trente ans au fond de la brousse avant de commencer à émouvoir. Avec le Docteur Kouchner, quelques jours et quelques caméras suffisent. Il a inventé « l’humanitaire-spectacle » pour la bonne cause : dynamiser l’altruisme et faire mieux rentrer les dons. Car, justifiait-il, « l’image émotionnelle en dit plus qu’un discours », et « l’on assassine moins en présence des caméras ».

Voilà pourquoi, se disait-on, il avait fait don de son image à la médiasphère : pour l’aide aux victimes, « qui ne sont ni de droite ni de gauche ». Comme lui. Le Bien contre le Mal, c’est plus simple.Ces dernières années, de nombreux débats autour de l’action humanitaire et de son bilan nuancé ont montré que les choses étaient plus compliquées.

En parcourant les dernières étapes de l’épopée kouchnérienne, Pierre Péan constate que, non seulement l’humanitaire-spectacle peut desservir les objectifs de l’action humanitaire, comme le montre par exemple la consternante opération menée en 1991 au Kurdistan, mais que sa confusion avec un droit d’ingérence mariant l’assistance et le militaire renouait parfois avec la forme la plus brute de la politique internationale : l’ingérence étatique avec les bons sentiments du colonialisme.

Mais contester la nouvelle posture de « va-t-en-guerre » du French Doctor, notamment lors de l’intervention américaine en Irak, relève encore du débat politique.

Pierre Péan a malheureusement fait des découvertes beaucoup plus pénibles. Son enquête montre que la statue-Kouchner est désormais habitée par un personnage dont le cynisme calculateur a remplacé les généreuses naïvetés de jeunesse. Le bénévole de l’humanitaire voulait occuper le pouvoir parce « que c’est là que tout se passe ».

Nicolas Sarkozy aura exaucé ce vœu mieux que la gauche à laquelle il pensait avoir dérobé l’un des plus beaux symboles. Mais l’effet-Kouchner n’a pas fait long feu. A l’épreuve de la réalité, son droit-de-l’hommisme a fait pschitt ! Kouchner n'a pas attendu Rama Yade pour ne plus croire aux droits de l'homme.

Une année aux affaires lui aurait donc suffi pour renier trois décennies de beaux discours et découvrir, comme il vient de le dire, qu’il « y a contradiction permanente entre les droits de l’homme et la politique étrangère d’un Etat » ?

Les révélations de Péan indiquent une autre explication : les droits de l’homme, cela faisait un bout de temps que Bernard Kouchner n’y croyait plus lui-même, au point de se mettre en affaires avec ceux qu’il pourfendait hier. Depuis quelques années, en effet, une autre passion l’animait : tirer, via une activité de consultant privé camouflée derrières quelques sociétés-écrans créées par ses proches, les dividendes de sa réputation et de son influence. L’ex-militant ne pourchassait plus le malheur, mais le fric.

La petite histoire retiendra qu’il a trébuché là où il avait péché, au cours d’un épisode où ses contradictions ont fini par le trahir. Un épisode, début 2008, dont nous n’avions eu qu’un signe – l’éviction brutale du Secrétaire d’Etat à la Coopération Jean-Marie Bockel – sans connaître l’intégralité du scénario, qui ne manque pas de piquant. En se mettant à dénoncer tout haut « la Françafrique » despotique et corrompue à l’occasion de ses vœux à la presse, début janvier 2008, Bockel ne s’imagine pas être en décalage avec le discours de son ministre des Affaires étrangères.

Il ignore ce que personne, alors, ne sait : avant de redevenir ministre, Bernard Kouchner fut simultanément responsable, versant vie publique, d’une organisation internationale (Esther) distribuant des aides internationales aux pays pauvres et, versant vie privée, consultant allant discrètement démarcher certains de ces mêmes pays pour des expertises grassement payées. Notamment pour quelques-uns des chefs d’Etat africains brocardés par Jean-Marie Bockel, Omar Bongo et Sassou Nguesso, qui règnent sur le Gabon et le Congo.

Les deux autocrates sont fous de rage : ils viennent de payer les services du consultant Kouchner à des tarifs qui leurs laissaient imaginer un service-après vente sans faille. Ils ne comprennent donc pas la sortie « scandaleuse » de Bockel, petit subordonné de celui dont ils pensent avoir acheté l’influence. Ce dernier faisant mine de ne plus les connaître, les deux chefs africains décident de faire savoir leur courroux – accompagné des factures qui le justifient - à Nicolas Sarkozy.

Ils apprennent en même temps au Président de la République que l’homme de confiance de Bernard Kouchner, qui les pressait de payer le solde de ces factures après son arrivée au ministère des Affaires étrangères, n’est autre qu’Eric Danon, le nouvel ambassadeur de France qu’il avait nommé à Monaco sur proposition de Kouchner !

Atterré par ce qu’il découvrait, le Président de la République fit tout pour éviter le scandale. Il apaisa les représentants offensés de la Françafrique en mutant Jean-Marie Bockel au Ministère des Anciens combattants.

Il s’étonna vertement que son Secrétaire général, Claude Guéant, ait ignoré la très gênante double vie du French Doctor. Il mit fin aux fonctions de l’ambassadeur Danon à Monaco. Et il humilia son Ministre des Affaires Etrangères en lui faisant savoir qu’il venait de découvrir ses petits secrets par la bouche de… Rama Yade qui annonça elle-même à son Ministre de tutelle la destitution de Danon.

Avec la publication du Monde selon K., ce dispositif ne suffira peut-être pas…Lisez les meilleurs extraits du livre de Pierre Péan dans le numéro 615 de Marianne, disponible en version numérique sur le site de Relay (PC et Mac) ou sur celui du Kiosque.fr (PC, Mac et Linux) dès vendredi 30 janvier à 15 heures, et dans tous les kiosques dès samedi 31 janvier.

The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine

1. 
   by J.Peter Pham, PhD
   January 29, 2009
   
   Various sensitive questions are raised:

1. Is it right for the former US President to order the assassination of any one person in the world, whatever the pretext may be? Should RPF terrorism against Rwandans be tolerated and be used to bring peace to the Fascist regim?
2. Are crackdowns fair on political parties and Hutu individuals in Rwanda?
3. Is it honorable and sound for ALL OF YOU to keep silence about crimes committed by Paul Kagame and his RPF criminal organization?
4. AS HUMAN BEINGS and Rwandans, why are negociable the Hutu people rights in Rwanda?

N.D.L.R.: Around 9 million victims of Congolese and Rwandans have been butchered. Paul Kagame, the bloody dictator goes ahead enjoying impunity and support from Evil. We are not about 9,000,000 dollars, we are about HUMAN BEINGS MASS SLAUGHTERED.
In the list I published three weeks ago of the conflicts or other flashpoints in Africa which were likely to demand the attention of the Obama administration in Washington as well as of its international partners in the course of this year, third place was occupied by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the continent’s third largest state by area and its fourth largest by population (the new Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, apparently agreed with me at least partially: in testimony at her Senate confirmation hearing, she listed “stopping the war in Congo” as the third objective for African policy, after countering terrorism in the Horn of Africa and helping Africans conserve and benefit from their natural resources).

As it turns out, events on the ground moved quickly, leading both to an escalation of what had hitherto been a low-intensity proxy conflict and, ironically, to the possibility that a comprehensive resolution to the longstanding regional instability might actually be in sight.
Is that the way in which the United States expresses its
respect for freedom, democracy and human rights?







In order to understand recent developments, it is necessary to place them in a larger context. As I argue in an essay in the current issue of the journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies,at the root of the DRC’s problems is the artificial and contrived nature of the Congolese state:

Goal: Swimming against the stream of hopes raised by President B. Obama.
It is a not insignificant irony that the lamentable misery in which most of the citizens of the DRC find themselves – the country ranks 168th out of 177 countries surveyed in terms of human development according to the most recent survey by the [United Nations Development Programme] – is directly attributable to the immense natural wealth of the Congo itself. More than a century ago, it was these riches to be won which led Leopold II of the Belgians to hire Henry Morton Stanley to carve out for him a territory seventy-six times larger than his kingdom in Europe, an audacious private venture that was eventually sanctioned by the 1885 General Act of Berlin Conference.

Only because he happened to be born Hutu
His "Why" questions go unanswered.
Although the inhuman depredations in the Belgian monarch’s demesne were widely condemned as brutal, even in comparison with the cruelties of colonial scramble of the time, no move was ever made to right the original historical wrong of throwing together in a single unit the size of Western Europe what has proven to be an explosive mixture of peoples with little historical basis for national cohesion…

Sadly, but not surprisingly, this state of affairs, whereby the challenges of geographic breadth are exacerbated by the temptations of fabulous wealth and the near total lack of responsive governance, has largely determined the course of events in the DRC. As what had passed for central government essentially withered, various armed groups imbued with a “fend-for-yourself” ethos simply used force to seize control of patches of territory, thus acquiring effective dominion over strategic assets which they then leveraged to acquire the wherewithal to combat opposing factions – all to the detriment of the overall peace of the country and the stability of its neighbors.

The 2002 “Sun City Agreement” brokered by then-South African President Thabo Mbeki was supposed to bring all the strife to close by ending the Second Congo War (1998-2003), a conflict aptly described as in the title of my friend Gérard Prunier’s eponymous new book as “Africa’s World War” given that the armies of nearly a dozen other African states, including those of Angola, Burundi, Chad, Namibia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, had been drawn into the fighting. However, the terms of peace accord were never fully implemented, despite the presence of what is the largest United Nations peacekeeping operation in the world today, the Mission de l’Organisation des Nations-Unies au Congo (MONUC, “Mission of the United Nations Organization in the Democratic Republic of Congo”).

As I reported here two years ago, the 2006 national elections did little more than bestow a thin veneer of electoral respectability on an unsavory cast of characters, including President Joseph Kabila who, before he was even 30 years old, had inherited the presidential mantle from his assassinated warlord father Laurent-Désiré Kabila; Jean-Pierre Bemba, a vice president during the transitional administration who finished second in the presidential poll and was subsequently elected a senator before being arrested last year in Brussels on a warrant from the International Criminal Court which has charged him with five counts of war crimes and three counts of crimes against humanity; and the third place finisher in the race for president and subsequent prime minister (until last October), Antoine Gizenga, an octogenarian who in the 1960s had tried to set up his own government in Stanleyville (now Kisangani) with backing from the Soviet bloc.

Not surprisingly, despite the formal “peace,” conflicts continued in various parts of the DRC both before and after the national elections (despite the country’s legal name, democratic local elections have never been held since the Congolese achieved independence from Belgium in 1960). In the eastern Congo, particularly the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, militiamen loyal to the Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP, “National Congress for the Defense of the People”), a largely Tutsi group led by a General Laurent Nkunda and surreptitiously backed by Rwanda, continued its fight against the Forces Démocratiques de la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR, “Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda”), a group of armed Hutu insurgents, including some of the génocidaires responsible for the 1994 genocide, which enjoyed the backing of the commanders of the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC, “Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo”) and, presumably, of the Kabila regime.

By 2007, Nkunda was in open rebellion against the far-off government in Kinshasa, which tried and failed to dislodge him militarily. After the collapse of several attempts at mediation, fighting broke out anew in the fall of 2008, which resulted in the CNDP gaining control of most of North Kivu after the FARDC failed spectacularly in an attempt to take down General Nkunda in open battle.

In December, when I was in the Rwandan resort town of Gisenyi, just next door to the North Kivu capital of Goma on the shores of Lake Kivu, the smallest of Africa’s Great Lakes, it looked like the conflict was set to be a protracted one. My conversations with international observers as well as senior Rwandan officials reaffirmed the diagnosis I made in this column three months ago that nothing would change unless the Kabila regime: (1) acknowledged the reality of the CNDP, with which it was refusing to talk, and (2) addressed the security concerns of Rwanda over the continuing presence on Congolese territory of the Hutu killers.

Both, as I have repeatedly argued, are legitimate factors which have largely been sidelined in the otherwise fruitless talks being conducted in Nairobi, Kenya, under the chairmanship of the United Nations Secretary-General’s special envoy for the Great Lakes region, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, and the African Union’s special envoy, former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa.

Whatever anyone else might think of General Nkunda’s CNDP, the movement was viewed by many residents of the Kivus as their protector against the predations of both FARDC troops and irregulars allied with it. While CNDP militiamen are generally not paid for their service, they are fed and receive medical care. Their families likewise benefit from a primitive social welfare system. In short, the group provides its adherents – whose ranks have expanded beyond the core base of ethnic Tutsi to embrace ethnic Nandé, Nyanga, and Shi as well as more than a few ethnic Hutu – with precisely the social goods that the Kabila regime has thus far failed to make provision for and, hence, has an effective political legitimacy whose influence needs to be recognized.

After all, the FDLR makes no secret of its ambitions: its website, emblazoned with the flag of the “Hutu power” regime that ruled from 1962 until 1994, brands the current government in Kigali a “tyrannic [sic] and barbaric regime” andproclaims its goal to “liberate Rwanda.” The FDLR supports itself by mining gold, nickel, tungsten, and other minerals in the areas under its control, operating primitive mines in collaboration with Congolese businessmen, many of whom are politically connected. What sovereign state, much less one that undergone the trauma that Rwanda has, could be expected to put up with such a provocation?

While the Nairobi talks convened by the UN and AU envoys continued, shifts were taking place closer to the ground. Three weeks ago, the chief of the general staff of the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF), General James Kabarebe flew to Kinshasa to meet with President Kabila of the DRC, causing a flurry of rumors about a secret deal. A week later, a group of CNDP leaders led by the CNDP’s chief of staff, Bosco Ntaganda, announced that it had removed Nkunda.



Ntaganda, known as “The Terminator,” is sought on an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for the war crimes of enlistment and conscription of children and using them in combat, although the charges date from his earlier association with another militia, Thomas Lubanga’s Forces Patriotiques pour la Libération du Congo (FPLC, “Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo”), active in northeastern Ituri province during the latter phase of the Second Congo War. While Nkunda’s supporters discounted the maneuver, it gained traction when General Kabarebe appeared alongside DRC Interior Minister Célestin Mbuyu at a meeting of the dissident CNDP leaders, who declared a ceasefire and said that they were prepared to now integrate into the FARDC to fight the FDLR.

These developments were but a prelude for the entente between Kigali and Kinshasa which was unveiled over the course of the week. First, Rwandan troops entered the eastern part of the DRC with the Kinshasa’s assent to pursue the FDLR. Reports are that up to 7,000 Rwandan troops have been sent in the effort to flush out the Hutu militia. While the deployment was officially a joint operation involving both RDF and FARDC units, it was clear that the highly-trained Rwandans were spearheading the thrust. Second, in perhaps the biggest surprise of all, Rwandan forces arrested General Nkunda, who had entered Rwanda as the joint operation began.

Over the weekend, the arrest sparked demonstrations – which were quickly dispersed – by Congolese Tutsis, including some in refugee camps in Rwanda, among whom the general is still popular. The arrest also belied parts of a December 2008 report by the UN Group of Experts on the DRC which alleged a close relationship between the Rwandan government and Nkunda beyond the common interest in preventing a resurgence of the FDLR.

While international nongovernmental organizations have expressed concern about the turn of events – the International Committee of the Red Cross solemnly reminded the parties to the conflict of their obligation “to preserve the lives and dignity of the civilian population and of people wounded or captured during the fighting,” while the International Crisis Group put out a press release warning of “an even greater humanitarian crisis” and Amnesty International called upon the governments “to develop clear plans to prevent reprisal attacks against civilians by the FDLR…and to ensure that civilians do not pay the price of these military offensives” – may present a significant opportunity to break the logjam that has kept the heart of African continent locked in conflict for too long.


If military coordination can lead to security cooperation between Kigali and Kinshasa, then perhaps it might be hoped that the current operations could prove to be a “confidence building measure” through which the two neighbors, so long at odds, might be led to discern that it might be in both their interests to strive for a comprehensive political settlement and then, with effort and a bit of luck, joint economic development, leveraging the comparative advantages of each country: Congo’s wealth in terms of raw materials and Rwanda’s growing economy – it grew 10% in 2008, beating mid-year predictions of a 7% increase, despite the global downturn – with its efficient government and private-sector-friendly policies (on how the Rwandan economy is different from that of most African countries, see the article last year on “The Rwandan Paradox” by Mauro De Lorenzo of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research).

Of course, for now, this is all aspiration. More immediately, the direct Rwandan intervention raises a number of questions, beginning with how long the RDF will remain in the two Kivus. Among the Hutu militants currently being pursued across the inhospitable terrain of North Kivu are some 7,000 individuals wanted in Rwanda for having taken part in the genocide. Certainly the Rwandan forces cannot be expected to withdraw until the FDLR is totally disarmed, a task which the 18,422 personnel of MONUC with their $1.2 billion annual budget has been unable to accomplish in eight years.


N.DL.R. THE SAME PRETEXT HAS BEEN RAISED IN 1995 in Kibeho, then in 1996, 1997 and 1998 to cover up the genocide policy against Hutu ethic members. You know the tragic result.

Moreover, even if the Hutus no longer pose a military threat to Rwandan state, any government in Kigali would still have a tutelary interest in the fate of the vulnerable Tutsi minority in eastern Congo. Add to these calculations the temptations of the region’s abundant resources and one could see a scenario whereby Rwanda maintains a presence in the Kivus for some time, either openly through a status of forces agreement with the Kabila regime in Kinshasa or via proxy in the form of a reconstituted CNDP, presumably under a more malleable leader than the irascible General Nkunda.

The international community has been slow to react to the changing dynamics, much less seize upon the opportunity presented by current rapprochement between Kigali and Kinshasa to move beyond conventional remedies which have proven ineffective towards creative solutions based on on-the-ground realities and local legitimacies. President Barack Obama, whose foreign policy agenda on the White House website specifically cites “countering instability in Congo” as one of three examples of his Senate record of “bringing people together…to advance important policy initiatives,” has yet to even nominate an assistant secretary to head the U.S. State Department’s Africa Bureau, much less a special envoy to deal with the various conflicts across the Great Lakes region, most of which are beyond the scope of any one ambassador’s mission.

The United Nations has done little more in recent days than to send the Secretary-General’s special representative in the DRC, Briton Alan Doss, a lifelong UN employee, on another fact-finding tour of North Kivu (to his credit, MONUC’s military commander, Senegalese General Babacar Gaye, did announce on Wednesday that his force would provide transport and medical assistance to the new campaign against the Hutu rebels). As for the African Union, the chairperson of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, managed to make it through his monthly press conference on Tuesday without even mentioning the word “Congo.” Despite these disappointments, the mere fact that – at least for the moment – Rwanda and the Congo are not pulling in entirely opposite directions is in itself reason enough to give rise to hope.

In addition to serving on the boards of several international and national think tanks and journals, FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Dr. J. Peter Pham has testified before the U.S.Congress. Feedback:editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.



The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine

From Demonizing to Fighting through Betrayal

© By Kanyarwanda Veritas
on 22 January 2009

Demonizing the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) and attacking them instead of politically addressing the DRC-Rwanda crisis is a cowardly strategy.

The FDLR are a political organization. Their global political objectives since their creation are:

1. Establishment of the Truth on the Rwandan Nightmare;
2. Real Democracy;
3. Independent and fair Justice;
4. Lasting Peace;
5. Real Reconciliation of the Rwandan people, and Harmonious Development.
   
   The FDLR created a self-defense Force in order to protect the Rwandan refugees remaining in the DRC against the programmed extermination carried out by the Rwandan RPF regime since October 1996. Indeed, the extermination of those refugees was one of the aims of the 2nd war the Rwandan regime launched against the DRC since the 2nd August 1998.
   
   The FDLR also intended to be the voice of the voiceless, among them the survivors of the Rwandan genocide despised and neglected by the RPF regime, and the victims of oppression, injustice, discrimination, assassination, disappearance and abduction within Rwanda, their country.
   
   The FDLR also established the cooperation with the DRC government of Laurent Desire Kabila in order to thwart the hegemonic and expansionist campaign of Paul Kagame.
   
   When they fought side by side with the FARDC until the 2nd war that was ended in 2002, nobody did accuse them of harming the Congolese population while the RPF army of Paul Kagame was massacred the Congolese civilians at Makobola, Katogota, Mwenga, etc.
   
   However, Laurent Desire Kabila betrayed them when he accepted to play Paul Kagame game and signed the Agreement of Lusaka calling them “negative forces”. So, to defend his regime was a negative action?

All in all, Joseph Kabila betrayed them when he signed the then agreement of Pretoria on July 30, 2002 and chased away their leadership out of Kinshasa.

He betrayed them for the 2nd time, when he signed the Declaration of Nairobi calling them “forces génocidaires”.

Are the FDLR who killed the 5 millions of Congolese people? Doesn't Joseph Kabila know who massacred them?

So, he is betraying the FDLR for the 3rd time, allowing the Rwandan army to finish the job with the genocide against Hutu Rwandan refugees that has been initiated by him since October 1996.
The FDLR and other Rwandan armed groups have Statutes and they diffuse them. They have no plan to harm anybody from the Rwandan people. On the contrary, they took the commitment of defending the interests of the survivors without discrimination, those survivors that are despised and neglected by the RPF regime as above-mentioned.

The FDLR and other Rwandan armed groups are not the cause of the Congolese crisis, but the consequence of the Rwandan nightmare which was created by the RPF since October 1st, 1990 a tragedy that was extended to the DRC by the same Paul Kagame. So, the cause of both nightmares is the policy and the bloodthirsty strategy planed, coordinated by Paul Kagame.

The Rwandan armed groups are from refugees who are the consequence of the 1990-1994 Rwandan war, a tragedy created to profit Paul Kagame. To make it clear, The FDLR and other Rwandan armed groups were created in order to defend Rwandan refugee survivors after it was clear their extermination and other ethnic cleansings were and remain on the Paul Kagame's agenda and one of the prior motivations of the invasion and incursions of the DRC by Paul Kagame as it has been explained.

The Rwandan refugees are globally presented by the RPF and its lobby as criminals or fugitives who fled the country from justice after their participation in the Rwandan genocide. However, there is no denying they are the result of the Rwandan Tragedy, which was planed, provoked and executed by General Paul Kagame.

When the RPF resumed the war on 7th April 1994, it also attacked again the camps of the 1.000.000 displaced people who were at the door of Kigali since May 1993, these internal camps were attacked and destroyed by RPF in February 1993 in Byumba Prefecture. All that mass of people took direction of the centre fleeing massacres, and later, they were found in the western region of Rwanda. They were joined by new Internal displaced people (IDPs) who fled at each advance, killings and massacres carried out by RPF. Almost 2.000.000 persons crossed the border to seek asylum in the DRC. Rwandans from the Eastern region of Rwanda about 600.000 people fled to Tanzania and those from the southern region circa 100.000 fled to Burundi.

So, even if one or another can be individually culprit, THERE IS NO WAY we can generalize and say that all refugees who by chance survived from RPF massacres and approximately 1.000.000 of displaced people throughout the country starting with those who earlier left Byumba to be at the door of Kigali in April 1994 were criminals. To these refugees and IDPs you can add those who did not leave their homes to flee justice as RPF propaganda and lobby reaffirm they were criminals fleeing justice and not killings and mass-murders of LDF/RPF/RPA/army.

The other party of 100.000 people who were fleeing to Burundi were attacked over there, hundreds of thousands from them were killed and others were forcibly repatriated by RPF in 1995. Those who were in the DRC were also attacked by RPF since October 1996; some of them were massacred within the refugees camps; others were forcibly repatriated to Rwanda and tens of thousands of them got killed while many others were pursued and massacred in the Congolese forests in 1997.

The UN Commission of investigation reported that at least 200.000 refugees were killed. Other sources reported that more than 380.000 refugees were massacred. The survivors resisted their extermination by the troops of Paul Kagame and James Kabarebe in the eastern DRC, and now Joseph Kabila betrays them to exterminate them and survivors to be repatriated them by force.

There is no denying at all that the Rwandan refugees do not return to Rwanda because of injustice. The RPF members who killed their parents and relatives within Rwanda and throughout the DRC are STILL unpunished for all crimes they committed against Hutu refugees, parents and rleatives of those now became FDLR soldiers. So, looking at conditions in which returnees are in Rwanda, they CANNOT accuse the killers (THOSE WHO ACTUALLY RUN THE COUNTRY) of their parents and relatives, a situation that is bloody OBVIOUS.

Paul Kagame himself declared that the RPF did not kill any body, and no one can judge its members. That means the Hutu who were killed by the RPF are not human beings but insects. Still now, Hutu ethnic members are forbidden to commemorate the death of their relatives and friends killed by the RPF. People and especially the returnees continue to be arbitrarily arrested and heavily sentenced by the courts Gacaca.

At least 4 senior officers who went back with the former chief of staff of the FDLR, Major General Paul Rwarakabije in 2003 were arrested and presently are detained in prisons. Recently Brigadier Seraphin Bizimungu known as Amani who voluntarily got repatriated and his father in law were sentenced to life in prison. The abductions and disappearances continue. Even if the death penalty was officially abolished, the extrajudicial executions did not stop.

The ICTR Arusha refused the transfer of its prisoners to Kigali by the Prosecutor because the Rwandan judicial system is not clean and fair.

The FDLR were put on the list of terrorist organizations in order to demonize and to discredit them before the International Community, and to counter them on the Rwandan political scene, but not because they are really terrorists.

They cannot be accused of the assassination of the Tourists among them Americans in the Park of Bwindi in March 1999, because at that time they did not yet integrate members from ALIR which was accused of that crime. However, the former commander of ALIR at that time, Major General Paul Rwarakabije was received and integrated in the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF).

Still, he is free! However, if the tourists were really killed by the elements from ALIR, who is responsible rather than General Paul Rwarakabije who could have ordered that assassination? And if the FDLR had a hidden agenda to “resume the genocide”, that might be General Paul Rwarakabije who conceived it as the former chief of staff. It's also bloody obvious!

Then, if the FDLR had really that evil intention, how Kigali could have received him and integrated him, whereas Kigali made that propaganda since he was the chief of staff in the Congo? That is for sure and purely an act of demonizing the FDLR, no more no less!

The FDLR are demonized because they contributed so much to thwart the settlement of a satellite regime in the DRC by the RPF and its allies.

The FDLR collaborated with the President Laurent Desire Kabila as above-mentioned, because one of the objectives of the 2nd Rwandan invasion of the DRC since the 2nd August 1998 was the extermination of the refugees remaining within the DRC.

Indeed, since November 1998 the FDLR have been the main obstacle to Kigali as the biggest allied Force engaged on the ground in the DRC. Their resistance gave to Laurent Desire Kabila and Joseph Kabila the time and the possibility of negotiating the peace.

The Self-defense Forces of the Rwandan refugees deployed in the Eastern DRC (North-Kivu and South-Kivu) with the local combatants Mayi Mayi resistedthe occupation of the RPF and his backed rebellion RCD/Goma. The Forces deployed on the internal frontline were engaged on the first line, while the Congolese Forces and the official allied Forces kept the second line. They countered the advance of the tandem RPF-RCD/Goma and the MLC of Jean Pierre Bemba, on the following axes:

• Axis Gbadolite-Kotakoli-Kakuma ( Province of Equator North);
• Axis Gbadolite-Businga- Karawa-Gemena (Province of Equator-North);
• Axis Mbandaka- Bokungu-Boende-Ikela (Province of Equator-South);
• Axis Mbandaka-Basankusu and Basankusu-Befale (Province of Equator-North);
• Axis Mbujimayi-Kabinda (Province of Oriental Kassai);
• Axis Manono-Kiambi (Province of Katanga);
• Axis Kamina-Kabalo-Nyunzu (Province of Katanga);
• Axis Poweto, Cantonnier-Pepa-Kapona (Province of Katanga).

Joseph Kabila was saved at Poweto by the FDLR, when all his colleagues generals, among them his closest John Numbi, abandoned him. Laurent Desire Kabila wanted to chase all of them from the Army. Joseph Kabila interceded, and his father sent them to study in Zimbabwe as punishment. What is that ingratitude of Joseph Kabila to betray the FDLR which saved him and to continue to work with the dandy John Numbi!

Since 2002, the official end of the Rwando-congolese 2nd war, the Rwandan armed groups protect the refugees against the attacks of the disguised troops of Paul Kagame put under the command of General Laurent Nkunda and General Bosco Ntaganda both wanted for the crimes they committed respectively in Kisangani and in Ituri.

The Rwandan armed groups within the DRC never harm the Congolese Tutsi-Banyamulenge as an ethnic group that General Nkunda pretended to defend. General Nkunda did not give any report where the FDLR were targeting Banyamulenge. Instead, Nkunda declared in 2006 that he will fight as long as the FDLR threaten the Rwandan Interests.

Thus, General Nkunda defended the Rwandan interests in the DRC and not the Tutsi-Banyamulenge. But he fought against the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) instead of targeting the FDLR, and made the political claims. Because Nkunda was not serving the Rwandan interests and targeted the DRC instead of the FDLR, Paul Kagame made a bargain with Joseph Kabila to remove Nkunda, and Joseph Kabila allowed the Rwandan Army to enter into the DRC in order to fight the FDLR.

Instead of harming and exterminating the Hutu Rwandan refuges whose big majority were minors in 1994 and who are the consequence of the hegemonic and bloodthirsty strategy of Paul Kagame, the right diagnostic of the regional crisis consists in treating the cause which is Paul Kagame. When the cause is deleted, the disease is hailed! The very right medicine is a political and peaceful solution through the Inter-Rwandans dialogue.

The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine