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