by Ann Garrison
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
Many marchers held banner
images of Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire. Others wore
windbreakers of pink and orange, the colors worn by Rwandan prisoners, over
heavy winter clothes. After watching the video of the demonstration, I spoke to
Jean Flammé, a Belgian attorney for a Rwandan facing extradition for supporting
Victoire Ingabire.
San
Francisco Bay View/Ann Garrison: Jean Flammé, I know that the Rwandan government accuses those Rwandans
facing extradition from the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe of genocide crime
after they’ve spoken out against the Rwandan government, so the threat of being
charged with genocide crime by the Rwandan government basically serves as a gag
order.
Could you say something about
how your work as a defense attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal on
Rwanda informs your work in defense of Rwandans facing extradition?
Jean Flammé: I defended a Rwandan facing
extradition before a Dutch court in The Hague, and one thing I said was that
there had not been a genocide. According to international law on genocide, as
defined by the U.N. Convention on
Genocide, there had
not been a genocide, because the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
(ICTR) ruled again and again that there was no evidence of a plan or conspiracy
to eliminate Rwandan Tutsis. Not a single defendant was convicted of
“conspiracy to commit genocide” because there was no evidence of conspiracy.
I also explained that another
reason why the Rwandan tragedy was more accurately described as mass killing,
not genocide, was because the killing was not aimed at one single group, being
the Tutsi, as is commonly accepted. Indeed, at least as many Hutu as Tutsi were
massacred.
Bay View: But the U.N. Tribunal, the
ICTR, just ignored the U.N.’s own definition of the crime of genocide, didn’t
it? Didn’t it hand down convictions for “genocide,” even though a defining
element of the crime – planning and “intent” – was never proven?
The Rwandan
government accuses those Rwandans facing extradition from the Netherlands and
elsewhere in Europe of genocide crime after they’ve spoken out against the
Rwandan government, so the threat of being charged with genocide crime by the
Rwandan government basically serves as a gag order.
Jean Flammé: The ICTR ruled that there
had been a genocide without previous planning, which is theoretically possible
if one establishes the intent to destroy a group, as defined by the U.N.
Convention. But how could such a common intent exist on such a scale without
planning, and the court ruled that planning had not occurred?
Bay View: So what happened when you
told the judge that in the extradition case there had been no genocide, despite
the ICTR rulings?
Jean Flammé: The judge just looked at me
as if I were from another planet or something. “No genocide? What is he saying?
It is a known fact that there has been a genocide.” And then it started to
become very difficult, as it always does, because of course it has been indeed
generally accepted not only by the press but also by the ICTR.
Although there are so many
arguments to say no, there had not been a genocide; there had been a civil war,
which would be totally different of course. The violence exploded because of
the invasion of the country by the Rwandan Patriotic Front in October 1990, and
the war it waged for the next three and a half years. Bernard Lugan explains
this exactly in his book, and so does Professor Peter Erlinder.
Bay View: Well, it would be a qualified
civil war because it began when troops invaded from Uganda with Ugandan
weapons.
Flammé: And American weapons.
Bay View: Yes, and American weapons.
Do you have an outcome for that extradition trial yet?
Flammé: Well, the judges have denied
what we told them and approved the extradition, so now it’s before the high
court, the Dutch Supreme Court.
Bay View: So you are defending this
case in The Netherlands?
Flammé: Yes, the Dutch lawyers asked
me to support them.
The case is Mugimba, Jean
Baptiste Mugimba. He was supporting Victoire Ingabire. He had organized a group
in Holland to support Ingabire’s attempt to be allowed to run for president in
Rwanda in 2010 and then to free her from prison, where she has been since
October 2010.
So I told the court, “Look,
this man is in front of you because of what he did for Victoire Ingabire. And
Holland should know what’s happening to that very brave woman. And this is the
reason why they want him.”
And I even told them, “Look,
the death penalty doesn’t exist in Holland anymore, but if you send this man to
Rwanda, you send him to his death and it will be the death penalty.”
“Look, this man is in front of you because of what he did for Victoire Ingabire. And Holland should know what’s happening to that very brave woman. And this is the reason why they want him.”
Bay View: In Rwanda, they don’t have
the death penalty legally, but bodies keep floating down
the river into Burundi.
Flammé: That’s what I mean, yes.
People disappear, and even get killed. Also in Belgium, there was a gentleman
who died, who was found in the river with his arms cut off. His mutilated body
was found in the river.
Bay View: Was this a Rwandan?
Flammé: Yes.
Bay View: And when did that happen?
Flammé: It happened in Brussels,
about two, three years ago.
Bay View: Jean Flammé, thanks for
speaking to the SF Bay View.
Flammé: My pleasure.
Oakland
writer Ann Garrison contributes to the San Francisco Bay View, Counterpunch, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Agenda Report and Black Star News and produces radio news and
features for Pacifica’s WBAI-NYC, KPFA-Berkeley and her own YouTube Channel. She can be reached at anniegarrison@gmail.com. If you want to see Ann
Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website, anngarrison.com.
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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