In 1998, President Laurent Kabila fell out with Paul Kagame (largely due to Kagame's arrogant, over-bearing and irrational behavior) and President Laurent Kabila expelled Rwandan forces from the DRC.
President Kagame retaliated by forming another rebel group, the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie (the RCD) that he used to try and overthrow President Kabila's government. President Kagame again at first denied the presence of Rwanda's troops in the DRC. When the RCD negotiated a political settlement with the DRC overnment, President Kagame retained part of the RCD and formed the CNDP to continue destabilizing and controlling Eastern DRC. After President Paul Kagame fell out with General Laurent Nkunda (the leader of the CNDP) in 2009, Kagame replaced General Nkunda with General Bosco Ntaganda. We have no doubt that even today, the Government of Rwanda is talking to splinter groups of CNDP namely, the FPLC and the FRF, as indicated in the Experts' report on the DRC.
President Kagame's claim to being a stabilizing influence in the Great Lakes region is ridiculous. The President is in fact the single greatest source of instability, violence and bloodshed in both Rwanda and the DRC. For the last fourteen years, President Kagame has visited mayhem on communities across the DRC. Given this historical perspective,and the chronology of President Kagame’s reckless and ruthless strategy to keep DRC’s Kivu region as a de facto extension of Rwanda through proxy forces it should be obvious to Rwanda's neighbors and he wider international community that it is President Kagame, not his opponents like ourselves, who have the motives (weakening the DRC state and getting access to its resources), opportunity (proximity to the DRC) and the means (the final resources of both the Government of Rwanda and the RPF) to form and sustain groups that are detrimental to peace, stability and development in the DRC. In public, President Kagame adopts the language of friendliness towards the DRC and other neighboring countries. In private and through his actions, President is an unrepentant belligerent who seeks to weaken and destabilize other fragile neighboring states struggling to emerge out of conflict.
Symbol of Kagame's wars in DRC: Kadogo
President Kagames military commanders and security operatives (and not ourselves) are responsible for the formation and sustenance of the rebel groups that the Rwanda Government accuses us of fraternizing with. I was in prison in 2005 when the CNDP was established . I spent almost three years in illegal detention in solitary confinement and under house arrest before escaping from Rwanda. Gen. Nyamwasa was serving as Rwanda' s Ambassador to India until March 2010. Neither of us have had any motive or opportunity to have any relations with the rebel groups in question.
The allegation that Kayumba may have sent an emissary to meet with FDLR, FPLC and Mai Mai leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo in February' is totally unfounded. Gen. Nyamwasa did not, prior to the publication of the Experts Report on the DRC, have any knowledge of the existence of the FPLC and FPLC rebel groups. Consequently it could not have been possible for him to facilitate the contacts between the two groups. I escaped from Rwanda in 2007. The groups that the report discusses were formed when I was no longer in government service and I cannot possibly know any of the individuals who are part of these groups.
You must be extremely courageous and corrupt to stand with such a criminal, if it's true and not a manipulated image.
Gen. Nyamwasa did not send an emissary to FDLR and Mai Mai as alleged in the report as he does not agree with the two groups ideologically. Since 1998, Gen. Nyamwasa was always concerned about the political, social and strategic implications of the formation of anti-government Congolese rebel groups.He unsuccessfully opposed the formation of such groups during the time that we both worked for the Government of Rwanda. Disagreements over Rwanda's nurturing and patronage of such groups partly accounts for the political differences that eventually arose between General Nyamwasa and President Kagame. General Nyamwasa was still serving as Rwanda's Ambassador to India in February 2010.
He did not have any prior plans to visit Rwanda in February 2010. Gen Nyamwasa's unplanned visit to Rwanda in February 2010 was only compelled by the death of one of his parents. It is very distressing that this sad episode is being cynically used by the Government of Rwanda to frame and victimize him . We are inclined to believe that the authors of the report met Rwandan intelligence operatives in Uganda, where many of these operatives are deployed to hunt down and kill President Kagame's opponents throughout the region.
Beyond the praise for Paul Kagame : Corruption
Corruption helps Kagame’s greatest admirers Bill Clinton, Warren, Tony Blair, and Starbucks magnate Howard Schultz (1) to illegally occupy Rwanda and organize lootings in Congo with the help of their protégé.
American evangelist Rick Warren (2) considers him something of an inspiration and even Bill Gates has invested in what has been called Africa’s success story. Yes, Western liberals, reactionary evangelicals, and capitalist carpetbaggers alike tout Paul Kagame as the herald of a new, self-reliant African prosperity.
It is also a strange one coming from a man who boasts that he has put the past behind him. Not far enough, as it would turn out, to trust the democratic process with criticisms or challenges. Nor far enough to shut down the parasitic black-market trafficking of minerals and resources
We are completely mystified by the significance that the Experts Report on the DRC attaches to a conversation that is alleged to have taken place between me and former officers of the CNDP who have been integrated into the DRC National Army (the FARDC) that the Group of Experts is reported to have witnessed. The report does not indicate how the committee verified that the person that the alleged CNDP officers claimed to speak to was actually me. Neither does the report indicate how the content of the conversation constituted a crime or conspiracy against either of the two states. I do not recall ever having the conversation referred to in the Experts' Report on the DRC. I definitely did not initiate any calls to any known member of the CNDP either have I had any discussions with real or presumed members of the CNDP (or indeed any other person) regarding a conspiracy to destabilize Rwanda or the DRC. It is unfair for the committee to assume, without verification, that the person that the alleged CNPD officers claimed to talk to was indeed me. Our suspicion is that the UN Security Council experts on the DRC must have been duped by Rwandan intelligence operative s who remain embedded in FARDC, of whom there is to our knowledge a very large number. The truth about the alleged conversation could not be established without giving me an opportunityto explain its circumstances . Unfortunately, the team of experts did not provide me with an opportunity to rebut the erroneous impression that the agents who must have duped them created.
The Government of Rwanda keeps a tight grip on the population of Eastern Congo through the former CNDP fighters, at the behest of the Government of Rwanda, during the peace agreement between the CNDP and the government of the Democratic of Congo, it was agreed that unlike all other government forces, CNDP fighters would never be transferred from Eastern Congo. It is most probable that the United Nations Security Council experts interviewed stage-managed witnesses or proxies of the Government of Rwanda. We believe that the so-called 'independent sources' that are alleged to have linked us to the rebel groups in the DRC are likely to be compromised elements of the CNDP, which was created, and is maintained and still remains under the influence of the Government of Rwanda.
The claim that we were the masterminds behind the grenade attacks that exploded in Kigali early this year is absurd. The Government of Rwanda has time and again conveniently changed the narrative about the grenade attacks, depending on whom the Government seeks to victimize at a particular time. Initially, Rwanda's Minister of Security reported that the grenade attacks were the work of the FDLR. Responsibility for the attacks was later shifted to opposition leader Mme. Victoire lngabire, who has now been incarcerated on trumped-up charges. When Gen. Nyamwasa escaped from Rwanda on account of a planned attempt on his life at end of February, the grenade attacks wereblamed on him. The same grenade attacks were said to have been perpetuated by another imprisoned opposition leader, Deo Mushayidi. The government's continuing allegations that we are responsible for the grenade attacks are driven by the vindictive nature of President Paul Kagame, who, having failed in the course of several attempts to assassinate Gen. Nyamwasa and me in South Africa, ordered the arrest and incarceration of Gen.Nyarnwasa's brother. Lt Co l. Rugigana, forced many of his family members to exile, and ordered the murder of John Rutayisire, a relative of mine.
In the aftermath of the publication of the DRC Mapping Report by the United Nations Commission for
Human Rights, President Kagame is desperately searching for anything on the horizon to deflect attention from his crimes by creating `scapegoats for the`suffering and mayhem that he has visited on millions of Rwandans and citizens of the DRC. The allegations that the government of Rwanda is leveling against us (as well as other Rwandans who are demanding an end to dictatorship) are also intended to deflect the attention of the people of Rwanda and the international community from Rwanda's internal crisis, to disguise President Kagame's continuing role in destabilizing neighboring states and to salvage his tarnished image in the aftermath of the publication of the DRC Mapping Report. These types of allegations are characteristic of a regime engulfed by crisis. Trumped-up charges of corruption, terrorism, connections with the FDLR, divisionism, genocide ideology, and even moral impurity are some of the tools that President Kagame always uses against real or perceived opponents.
We challenge the Government of Rwanda to release the dossiers in respect of the criminal cases that have been filed against us (and our colleagues, Dr. Rudasingwa and Dr. Gahima) to the public so that the people of Rwanda and the international community can see for themselves how the sham criminal cases that are being prosecuted against us are nothing but a blatant abuse of the judicial system for purposes of persecution of political opponents.
One of the Kagame's jet
As we have indicated in our paper (Rwanda Briefing) and other declarations, Rwanda is in serious crisis. Peace and stability in several of the neighboring states remains tenuous. By virtue of his unapologetic attempt to destabilize sister states through the use of proxy rebel groups, President Kagame is one of the major (if not the principal) stumbling block to peace and stability in this fragile region . The conflicts waged by the various armed groups that the Government of Rwanda has formed, supported and used to destabilize states in the region have caused immense horrendous suffering. President Kagame bears personal responsibility for the gross human rights violations that are a result of the wars that he has waged and continues to foment in the DRC. We firmly believe that time is long overdue for the international community to hold President Kagame accountable for the crimes that he has committed, and continues to commit, directly or through proxy rebel groups to the peoples of the region. We, on our part, reiterate our commitment to seeking a peaceful transition to democracy in Rwanda and our support for peace and stability in the Great Lakes region, especially in the DRC. We affirm our desire to meet the team of experts on the DRC both to clear the aspersions that have been made againstus.
Accept, your Excellency, the assurances of our highest consideration.
Col. Patrick Karegeya
Cc:
Members of the Security Council
The Secretary General, United Nations
Members of the UN Security Council Committee of Experts on the Democratic
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
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