A Candle For Remembering
May this memorial candle lights up the historical past of our beloved Country: Rwanda, We love U so much. If Tears could build a stairway. And memories were a lane. I would walk right up to heaven. To bring you home again. No farewell words were spoken. No time to say goodbye. You were gone before I knew it And. Only Paul Kagame knows why. My heart still aches with sadness. And secret tears still flow. What It meant to lose you. No one will ever know.
Why did Kagame this to me?
Can't forget. He murdered my mother. What should be my reaction? FYI: the number of orphans in Rwanda has skyrocketed since the 1990's Kagame's invasion. Much higher numbers of orphans had and have no other option but joining FDLR fighters who are identified as children that have Lost their Parents in Kagame's Wars inside and outside of Rwanda.If someone killed your child/spouse/parent(s) would you seek justice or revenge? Deep insight: What would you do to the person who snuffed the life of someone I love beyond reason? Forgiving would bring me no solace. If you take what really matters to me, I will show you what really matters. NITUTIRWANAHO TUZASHIRA. IGIHE KIRAGEZE.If democracy is to sell one's motherland(Africa), for some zionits support, then I prefer the person who is ready to give all his live for his motherland. Viva President Putin!!!
RPF committed the unspeakable
The perverted RPF committed the UNSPEAKABLE.Two orphans, both against the Nazi world. Point is the fact that their parents' murder Kagame & his RPF held no shock in the Western world. Up to now, the Rwandan Hitler Kagame and his death squads still enjoy impunity inside and outside of Rwanda. What goes through someone's mind as they know RPF murdered their parents? A delayed punishment is actually an encouragement to crime, In Praise of the ongoing Bloodshed in Rwanda. “I always think I am a pro-peace person but if someone harmed someone near and dear to me, I don't think I could be so peaceful. I would like to believe that to seek justice could save millions of people living the African Great Lakes Region - I would devote myself to bringing the 'perp' along to a non-happy ending but would that be enough? You'd have to be in the situation I suppose before you could actually know how you would feel or what you would do”. Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana, Libre Penseur
Hutu Children & their Mums
Look at them ! How they are scared to death. Many Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi, Foreign human rights advocates, jounalists and and lawyers are now on Death Row Waiting to be murdered by Kagame and his RPF death squads. Be the last to know.
Almighty God :Justice for US
Hutu children's daily bread: Intimidation, Slavery, Sex abuses led by RPF criminals and Kagame, DMI: Every single day, there are more assassinations, imprisonment, brainwashing & disappearances. Do they have any chance to end this awful life?
Killing Hutus on daily basis
RPF targeted killings, very often in public areas. Killing Hutus on daily basis by Kagame's murderers and the RPF infamous death squads known as the "UNKNOWN WRONGDOERS"
RPF Trade Mark: Akandoya
Rape, torture and assassination and unslaving of hutu women. Genderside: Rape has always been used by kagame's RPF as a Weapon of War, the killings of Hutu women with the help of Local Defense Forces, DMI and the RPF military
The Torture in Rwanda flourishes
How torture flourishes across Rwanda despite extensive global monitoring
Fighting For Our Freedom?
We need Freedom, Liberation of our fatherland, Human rights respect, Mutual respect between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority
Friday, January 23, 2009
A genocide protected by the silence of the world
'No good deed goes unpunished' => Oscar Wilde
Stop Genocide in the Congo. Why the Silence? Break the silence and speak out for North Kivu inhabitants and Rwandan Hutu refugees' peace. Wy would you accept to lieve in shame and fear? There is power in speaking out, so use your voice and start talking!
Troops have been trained by US green berets and US military personnel have worked to coordinate SPLA and RPF/UPDF/RCD military campaigns. Actually, they've been trained to intervene in the so called "Save Darfur"! And arms given to them are used to kill Rwandans and Congolese people!
Shame on You who claim " Save Darfur". A VERY BIG LIE.
Rose Kabuye herself said that if she is given opportunity to make her tribe (tutsi)majority she would do that in one month => Rose Kabuye
Rwanda surViVors are calling for support of a multinational intervention to stop the ongoing genocide in Democratic Republic of the Congo where RPF and his RDF/FPR/CNDP are mass-murdering the remaining Hutu refugees in the Congo. Nothing short of an international intervention will stop the genocide until Paul Kagame remains in large.
What is happening in the Eastern Region of the Congo is truly horrible, we would not be able to ignore it.
Join Rwanda SurViVors in writing and calling the world leaders and Tell them not to let Paul Kagame the genocidaire slaughtering Hutus. They have to act decisively to end the genocide in the Congo and in Rwanda as well.
Kagame continues: "To be honest, I don't care.
Mortars are raining down on the Hutu refugees assimulated to the Interahamwe.Urgent action is required to stop genocidal practices currently being carried out in the DRC.
The message that this sends is right up the alley of the self-same internationalists, International organizations for Human Rights advocacy who will not lift one finger to stop an on-going genocide If anyone has to be held responsible for the genocide in Rwanda, it is the Western Human Rights Organizations, it is the United Nations, It is the European Union.
Put yourself in Hutu mans and women shoes and tell me if you wouldnt be full of anger after a white man left your country and had used the Tutsi to treat you as a dog in your own country even though you represent 85% of the majority in your country.
I belive its normal that Hutus got angry as they still had the anger of being mistreated and unfortunately, the west are the ones who created that rubbish, as they usually do. When I say the west(I mean their colonists).
Put yourself in both Hutu and Tutsi shoes before answering any Rwandan question.
If therei is no justice for all who committed crimes they will still war between Rwandans.My recomandation is that those Spanish, Canadian Rwandans and Rwandans who were massacred by RPF in refugge camps in DR Congo should 'nt be taken to court there is no good fruits which will be shown in Rwanda.
I always say that no good deed goes unpunished. 19 years old silence since 1990!
The world International community's silence is AIDING genocide in the Congo.
The world must stop the ongoing genocide. The International community must protect Rwandans who are not Tutsis in that country of Rwanda. Earlier in the 90's up the world community failed to the end miserably the genocide or stop it. The world must act now to stop the war of terror, impoverishment and humiliation waged by RPF and Paul Kagame.
Are you ready to join the worldwide peacemakers interacting, informing and inspiring Rwanda peace?
Another thing if you want to understand our problems you should first know that Tutsis oppressed Hutus for over 500 years until when hutus got independence thru a referandum sponsored by UN in 1960s. Tutsis were not happy with it becoz they are the minority and decided to attack Rwanda in 1990s with aim to topple the hutu rule. They killed two Hutu president in a plane downed on 6th april 1994. The first one was killed in october 1993, the president of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye, elected democratically after 30 years of oppression by the minority Tutsis.
This attack on the plane was sponsored by USA coz the missile used was donated by US army. the orgine of hatred between hutus and tutsis is becoz tutsis believe that they were born to rule and hutus are born to serve tutsis. Hutus didnt plan to kill tutsis as alleged but they reacted after being pushed to the wall. Here in Kigali one day we shall revolt and reclaim our right as the majority. We are only waiting until when USA will become weak and china takes over the supremacy then we shall reclaim our basic right.
We are always forced to go and exhume our fathers bones to show to the internation community that those bones belong to Tutsis but in true sense those bones belong to (Hutus. I remember one day a young man was exhuming bones to wash and display as it is our custom here in Rwanda, then the guy discovered that the arm bone was still wearing the watch that his father had when he went missing and this guy is a Hutu.
Kagame has a chance to reconcile the nation now but if he does not do that. we shall chase him away one night and he wont be remembered any more. Kagame claims that hutus killed 500,000 Tutsis but he forgets that he has killed more than 4 million Hutus so far and he is still doing so.
Kamugisha, Lagos, Nigeria.
Ladies and Gents:
- Your support can help Rwanda surViVors to obtain justice, peace and security in their country.
- Work to ensure that Paul Kagame and RPF perpetrators are held to account their genocide perpetrated against Hutu ethnic members.
- Campaign for ending the world community’s silence about RPF and Paul Kagame’s genocide against Hutus only because they happen to be the majority in their country and to be born Hutus.
- Take action and join our campaigns to ensure that the UN, the European Union, US and international bodies uphold international human rights standards and protect victims' rights in Rwanda.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny,And in this judgement there is no partiality.So arm in arms, with arms, well fight this little struggle,cause thats the only way we can overcome our little trouble.
Brother, youre right, youre right,Youre right, youre right, youre so right!We gon fight (we gon fight), well have to fight (we gon fight),We gonna fight (we gon fight), fight for our rights!
The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda condemn the ongoing war that enemies of peace have just imposed to the peaceful peoples of the Great Lakes region of Africa .
The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) strongly condemn the ongoing war that the enemies of peace, prosperity and democracy are once again about to impose to peaceful peoples of the African Great Lakes region.
The FDLR inform the public and the International Community that the first contingent of the Rwanda Patriotic Army comprising more than 4,000 heavily armed soldiers have crossed the Congolese border since January 19 2009 and will soon begin their dirty work of exterminating the Rwandan Hutu refugees, the few survivors of the genocide committed by the RPF-Inkotanyi and its allies against them in the years 1996- 1998 in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo..
The FDLR urge the International Community to strongly condemn this new war and immediately take severe sanctions against the Rwandan government which is the primarily responsible for this new war.
The FDLR inform the public and the International Community that this new war is not only senseless but also unnecessary and risks to engulf the entire Great Lakes region of Africa . Moreover, those who conceived and implemented the plan to exterminate the peoples of the African Great Lakes Region, whoever they may be, must understand that their acts will not go unpunished and that they will sooner or later have to answer before the law for all the serious consequences that will result from that war.
The FDLR recall that they have repeatedly extended a hand to the regime of Kigali in order to peacefully resolve the political problem of Rwanda and that Rwanda has always refused this offer and preferred the logic of armed confrontation.
The FDLR call upon all women and all men of good will and peace-loving nations around the world to condemn in the strongest terms this logic of war in a region already scarred by years of fratricidal and endless wars.
The FDLR reaffirm their commitments made in Rome as stated in their Declaration of 31 March 2005, and urge once again the Kigali regime to sit on the same table, under the Rome process, to find a peaceful solution to the political problem of Rwanda .
The FDLR call upon the Rwandan and Congolese people, and the members of the FDLR to remain calm and united in order to foil the macabre plan of the dictatorial regime in Kigali and its sponsors aimed at exterminating the peoples of the Great Lakes region of Africa .
Done in Paris on 21 January 2009.
Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
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
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Professor and Constitutional Criminal Lawyer Peter Erlinder is interviewed by host Karen Redleaf.Watch this video to understand:
Rwanda: obscuring the truth about the genocide
Far from being radical, the attacks on France for its role in the 1994 war are designed to whitewash Western intervention more broadly.Last week, the Rwandan government published the findings of its commission of inquiry into the role France played in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. It found French diplomats, military leaders and politicians – including former president François Mitterand – complicit in the genocide.
A moral analysis like this is compelling because it provides a clear pathway through a maze of complicating factors. For journalists, this moral signposting of the Rwandan genocide leads the way to great copy about the bravery of the heroes and the moral turpitude of the villains. For governments, it provides the crucial element of legitimacy that is the essential underpinning of their right to rule. The Rwandan regime under Paul Kagame depends on this version of events for its support and survival. And so do its principal sponsors, the United States and Great Britain.
As the force that relieved Rwanda from genocide, the RPF - whose leadership currently runs Rwanda - has exploited this version of events to remind Western governments that they failed to live up to the ‘Never Again’ principle that was the driving force behind the passing of the Genocide Convention at the United Nations in 1948. While they battled the genocidaires in 1994, the Western world simply looked on. Except France, that is. But as a supporter of the former, pre-RPF regime, France’s motives for intervening were highly questionable.
It may be the most widely told story of Rwanda, but this version of events is deeply flawed. While the US may have been embarrassed by this account, appearing less than heroic during the months of Rwanda’s greatest torment, it is far easier for it to live with this embarrassment than to be confronted with the facts of how it did intervene in this region of Africa in the early 1990s and since Kagame came to power.
The ‘plane crash’ debate
The Kagame government’s latest salvo against France, in the shape of its commission report fingering the French for their support for the genocide, is in fact part of an increasingly desperate search for political legitimacy. The weakest point of the Rwandan moral parable is the question of what caused the re-eruption of the war in 1994 and the subsequent descent into mass slaughter. The start of the bloodiest stage of the war is far more complicated than the moral storytellers – who blame it on the then evil government’s determination to secure Hutu domination – would have us believe.
It was an act of international terrorism that triggered the return to war. In early April 1994, an aeroplane carrying Hutu President Juvénal Habyarimana was blown out of the sky by a missile attack that had been planned for several months. Apologists for the RPF have tried hard to blame the attack upon hardline Hutu conspirators, but they have produced nothing of substance to back up this claim. Rather, there is an accumulating amount of evidence that the RPF was responsible for the missile attack – and it is this evidence that has put the current RPF government, led by Kagame, on the back foot. It is the government’s defensiveness on this issue that lies at the heart of the current France-bashing.
These inconvenient truths threatened to muddy the clear waters of moral certainty that the Rwandan parable provides. The Rwandan regime has lived behind the shield of international powers which have worked hard to keep the matter of the plane shooting off the agenda. For all of its 13 years of operation, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), whose brief is to establish the truth of what happened in 1994, has ruled that the matter of the President Habyarimana’s assassination (which it chooses to refer to simply as a plane ‘crash’) is not within its remit. When one of the ICTR’s chief prosecutors, Carla Del Ponte, expressed her desire to dust off the investigation into the allegations against the RPF, stating that ‘if it is the RPF that shot down the plane, the history of genocide must be rewritten’ (2), she was abruptly relieved of her position and moved to The Hague.
Del Ponte’s successor at the ICTR, the Gambian Hassan Bubacar Jallow, subsequently confirmed that the shooting down of the aircraft is ‘not a case that falls within our jurisdiction’ (3). It is ironic that the ICTR’s first chief prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, has expressed his view that the plane attack does fall within the remit of the court and ought to be investigated. ‘It is clearly related to the genocide, by all accounts [it was] the trigger that started the genocide and it would have been very, very important from a justice point of view, from victims’ point of view, to find out.’ (4)
However, the ICTR’s deputy prosecutor, Bernard Muna, felt cavalier enough about the issue to tell the ICTR’s legal adviser, Kingsley Moghalu, that ‘after all, there was a state of war, and Habyarimana could be considered a legitimate target’ (5). This is an extraordinary statement from such a senior figure. The missile attack was, among other things, a deliberate violation of Article 1 of the Arusha Accords of 4 August 1993, which stated: ‘The war between the Government of Rwanda and the Rwandan Patriotic Front is over.’
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the secretary-general of the UN at the time of the Rwanda tragedy, is also emphatic about the cover-up of the investigation into the plane shooting: ‘It is a very mysterious scandal. Four reports have been made on Rwanda: the French Parliament Report, the Belgian Senate Report, Kofi Annan’s UN report, and the Organization of African Unity report. All four say absolutely nothing about the shooting down of the Rwandan president’s plane. That just goes to show the power of the intelligence services that can force people to be quiet.’ (6)
Building upon the evidence received by the UN investigator Michael Hourigan, the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière conducted his own enquiry on behalf of the family of the French pilot who died in the missile attack, along with the presidents of both Rwandan and Burundi and senior government and military figures. Bruguière’s report is thoroughgoing and detailed. I have interviewed one of the several RPF dissidents who briefed the judge: Aloys Ruyenzi.
Yet there is more than the legitimacy of the Rwandan government at stake in this latest retelling of the moral parable on Rwanda. The RPF would not have sustained its war without diplomatic support from Washington. The US intervened to legitimise the RPF’s war, even though the justifications for it had by that time proven to be baseless. The first invasion in 1990 was timed, not to force a reluctant Rwandan government to allow refugees to return, but to disrupt arrangements already in place to accommodate returning refugees.
Rather than being a desertion from the Ugandan military (the RPF leadership were in top positions in the Ugandan state), the invasion of Rwanda in 1990 was a joint Ugandan-RPF venture. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda was keen to have an ally in power south of the border. More importantly, he wanted to be rid of his Rwandan refugee ‘problem’. The issues of land occupation by Rwandans, and suspicions about the leverage that Rwandans in top official positions enjoyed in the Ugandan government, had generated Museveni’s first political crisis since he took power in 1986.
Of course, it takes more than a constitution to bring about democracy, but it was a promising start and presented another opportunity for the US to tell its Ugandan ally Museveni to pull the plug on the RPF or face the end of the privileged ‘New African Leader’ status that it had bestowed upon him.
How human rights lobbyists boosted the RPF
But France, too, played a vital role in prodding the Rwandan government to reach a political settlement with the RPF. According to the French writer Agnes Callamard, it was not just pressure from the US that was applied to get Habyarimana to sign the Arusha Accords in 1993 – ‘it is doubtful if Habyarimana would have signed the peace accords, which gave heavy concessions to the RPF, without pressure and guarantees from the Elysée through François Mitterand’s personal emissaries, and possibly from representatives of the Military Mission of Cooperation, specifically Général Huchon, Colonel Cussac – the French military attaché and head of the French military Assistance Mission in Rwanda, and his assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Maurin.’ (8)
Having secured a virtual coup in the 1993 negotiations – the RPF had won 50 per cent command of the envisaged unified army and enough seats in the proposed transitional government to block anything that was against its interests – the RPF had emerged as the strongest party. The problem it now faced was the scheduled elections where its unpopularity would have been exposed. Local elections in the demilitarised zone that was created in the wake of the February 1993 offensive pointed the way – the RPF was massively defeated at the hands of the former ruling party.
Faced with the prospect of being downsized to a small party by the Rwandan electorate, and with clear support from the US and Belgium, it would appear that the RPF’s interests could only be further advanced with a return to the battlefield. With the promised departure of French forces from Kigali in December 1993, the military path to the capital was clear. What was needed by the RPF was a justification for resuming the war.
Peter Erlinder, the lead defence council for the ICTR, stated categorically in a letter to the Canadian prime minister in 2006 that the final offensive of the RPF was ordered by Kagame within minutes of learning of the successful missile attack, ‘long before any retaliatory, civilian killings had occurred anywhere in Rwanda’ (9).
Three years of mounting fear, insecurity and material deprivation (much of Rwanda was by this time in the grip of famine) came to a head. Rwanda’s hastily (but constitutionally) appointed government of surviving ministers fled the capital. The army was pinned down in one losing encounter with the RPF after another.
Even greater numbers were still to die. The new Rwandan regime’s invasion of various refugee camps and its forced repatriation of refugees, the massacre of internally displaced people in Kibeho in April 1995, and two invasions of what became the Democratic Republic of Congo by the ruling RPF – all of this has brought the death toll of civilians to a level that is the highest of any conflict since the Second World War.
The truth behind the moral parable
In The Times last week, Linda Melvern wrote about ‘a large room in the French Embassy in Kigali filled floor to ceiling with shredded documents. This was probably the paper trail that might have revealed the depth of involvement between the Elysée Palace and the Hutu faction responsible for massacring hundreds of thousands of Tutsi and opposition Hutu’ (10).
Barrie Collins reported from the waiting room of the Rwandan genocide tribunal. Tara McCormack criticised the indictment of Sudanase President Omar al-Bashir for genocide. Julie Hearn looke at Kenya and the myth of Afrian barbarism Brendan O’Neill said Somalia is a case study of the dangers of moralism in international affairs, and that Darfur has been damned by pity. Or read more at spiked issue Africa.
(1) ‘French Policy in Rwanda’, A Callamard included in The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaïre, H Adelman and A Suhurke, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999, p. 178, note 19
Rwanda SurViVors Heart Hero : Peter Erlinder
Rwanda: obscuring the truth about the genocideby Barrie Collins
Far from being radical, the attacks on France for its role in the 1994 war are designed to whitewash Western intervention more broadly.Last week, the Rwandan government published the findings of its commission of inquiry into the role France played in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. It found French diplomats, military leaders and politicians – including former president François Mitterand – complicit in the genocide.
Considering that the current Rwandan leadership has vilified France ever since it launched its bid to seize power in Rwanda in October 1990, eventually winning power in July 1994, it is not surprising that it should now up the stakes against its long-time enemy. The new strongman of Rwanda, President Paul Kagame, is fortunate that he has unswerving support from the United States, Britain and Belgium, and a cheerleading media in these countries which can be counted upon to give his report into France’s role in the genocide maximum impact.
But the truth is that France’s major mistake was to find itself on the wrong side of the moral parable that has been imposed by Western observers on Rwanda’s recent tragic history. A war that was complicated by considerable international intervention has become over-simplified into a morality tale of good versus evil, in which France has been branded as part of the ‘evil side’. Such a simplification further obscures the truth about what happened in Rwanda in 1994, and whitewashes the role of Western intervention more broadly.
According to the moral parable of Rwanda, the good guys were the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which invaded Rwanda in 1990 because it had no other means of protecting the persecuted minority of ethnic Tutsis inside Rwanda and of making the then Hutu-led government accept the right of return of Rwandan Tutsis living abroad as refugees. The bad guys were in the Rwandan government and armed forces. When the international community had helped Rwandans achieve a negotiated settlement, the worst elements among the bad guys drew up a plan to secure Hutu domination once and for all by planning and then implementing genocide against Rwandan Tutsis.
By the time the good guys – the RPF – had fought them off, their evil mission had been largely completed. Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Tutsis were dead. Genocide had occurred, and the Western world had simply looked on passively. The United States refused to label the war that took place as a genocide in order to resist the clamour for international intervention to save lives. France was the only force on the United Nations Security Council to respond by sending in French forces under Operation Turquoise. But France’s real motivation was not to save lives, but to shore up its erstwhile allies: the bad guys. The French helped them escape Rwanda so that they would not have to answer for their crimes.
A moral analysis like this is compelling because it provides a clear pathway through a maze of complicating factors. For journalists, this moral signposting of the Rwandan genocide leads the way to great copy about the bravery of the heroes and the moral turpitude of the villains. For governments, it provides the crucial element of legitimacy that is the essential underpinning of their right to rule. The Rwandan regime under Paul Kagame depends on this version of events for its support and survival. And so do its principal sponsors, the United States and Great Britain.
As the force that relieved Rwanda from genocide, the RPF - whose leadership currently runs Rwanda - has exploited this version of events to remind Western governments that they failed to live up to the ‘Never Again’ principle that was the driving force behind the passing of the Genocide Convention at the United Nations in 1948. While they battled the genocidaires in 1994, the Western world simply looked on. Except France, that is. But as a supporter of the former, pre-RPF regime, France’s motives for intervening were highly questionable.
It may be the most widely told story of Rwanda, but this version of events is deeply flawed. While the US may have been embarrassed by this account, appearing less than heroic during the months of Rwanda’s greatest torment, it is far easier for it to live with this embarrassment than to be confronted with the facts of how it did intervene in this region of Africa in the early 1990s and since Kagame came to power.
The ‘plane crash’ debate
In fact, the three most influential Western players in Rwanda at this time – the US, France and Belgium – all intervened in ways that created the conditions that made mass slaughter inevitable. Contrary to the prevailing version of events, after its initial deployment of troops defending Rwandan leaders against the RPF’s October War in 1990, by means of Operation Noroît, France recognised that the US and Uganda were behind the RPF and had no desire to become isolated as the sole defender of the Rwandan government. So it increasingly made its military support conditional upon the government’s commitment to serious negotiations with the RPF. According to an informant from the French Ministry of Cooperation, France’s decision to disengage was already evident in 1990: ‘We did not want to remain alone…there were great powers behind the RPF. Uganda could send 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers.’ (1)
The Kagame government’s latest salvo against France, in the shape of its commission report fingering the French for their support for the genocide, is in fact part of an increasingly desperate search for political legitimacy. The weakest point of the Rwandan moral parable is the question of what caused the re-eruption of the war in 1994 and the subsequent descent into mass slaughter. The start of the bloodiest stage of the war is far more complicated than the moral storytellers – who blame it on the then evil government’s determination to secure Hutu domination – would have us believe.
It was an act of international terrorism that triggered the return to war. In early April 1994, an aeroplane carrying Hutu President Juvénal Habyarimana was blown out of the sky by a missile attack that had been planned for several months. Apologists for the RPF have tried hard to blame the attack upon hardline Hutu conspirators, but they have produced nothing of substance to back up this claim. Rather, there is an accumulating amount of evidence that the RPF was responsible for the missile attack – and it is this evidence that has put the current RPF government, led by Kagame, on the back foot. It is the government’s defensiveness on this issue that lies at the heart of the current France-bashing.
The UN’s own investigator, Michael Hourigan, first came across compelling evidence of the RPF’s responsibility for assassinating President Habyarimana and the other unfortunate occupants of his plane. However, it appears that under pressure from Washington, the UN agreed to shut down its investigation into the missile attack. Another UN investigator, Robert Gersony, came across evidence of RPF atrocities and was also silenced; the UN even stated that his report ‘did not exist’.
These inconvenient truths threatened to muddy the clear waters of moral certainty that the Rwandan parable provides. The Rwandan regime has lived behind the shield of international powers which have worked hard to keep the matter of the plane shooting off the agenda. For all of its 13 years of operation, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), whose brief is to establish the truth of what happened in 1994, has ruled that the matter of the President Habyarimana’s assassination (which it chooses to refer to simply as a plane ‘crash’) is not within its remit. When one of the ICTR’s chief prosecutors, Carla Del Ponte, expressed her desire to dust off the investigation into the allegations against the RPF, stating that ‘if it is the RPF that shot down the plane, the history of genocide must be rewritten’ (2), she was abruptly relieved of her position and moved to The Hague.
Del Ponte’s successor at the ICTR, the Gambian Hassan Bubacar Jallow, subsequently confirmed that the shooting down of the aircraft is ‘not a case that falls within our jurisdiction’ (3). It is ironic that the ICTR’s first chief prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, has expressed his view that the plane attack does fall within the remit of the court and ought to be investigated. ‘It is clearly related to the genocide, by all accounts [it was] the trigger that started the genocide and it would have been very, very important from a justice point of view, from victims’ point of view, to find out.’ (4)
However, the ICTR’s deputy prosecutor, Bernard Muna, felt cavalier enough about the issue to tell the ICTR’s legal adviser, Kingsley Moghalu, that ‘after all, there was a state of war, and Habyarimana could be considered a legitimate target’ (5). This is an extraordinary statement from such a senior figure. The missile attack was, among other things, a deliberate violation of Article 1 of the Arusha Accords of 4 August 1993, which stated: ‘The war between the Government of Rwanda and the Rwandan Patriotic Front is over.’
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the secretary-general of the UN at the time of the Rwanda tragedy, is also emphatic about the cover-up of the investigation into the plane shooting: ‘It is a very mysterious scandal. Four reports have been made on Rwanda: the French Parliament Report, the Belgian Senate Report, Kofi Annan’s UN report, and the Organization of African Unity report. All four say absolutely nothing about the shooting down of the Rwandan president’s plane. That just goes to show the power of the intelligence services that can force people to be quiet.’ (6)
Building upon the evidence received by the UN investigator Michael Hourigan, the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière conducted his own enquiry on behalf of the family of the French pilot who died in the missile attack, along with the presidents of both Rwandan and Burundi and senior government and military figures. Bruguière’s report is thoroughgoing and detailed. I have interviewed one of the several RPF dissidents who briefed the judge: Aloys Ruyenzi.
A former member of Kagame’s guard, Ruyenzi states categorically that he was in the room when Kagame gave the order to shoot down the president’s plane, and names all those who were present.
The meeting was between 2pm and 3pm on 31 March 1994 (7). The Kagame government reacted in its customary fashion to these revelations about the shooting down of the plane: it launched a character assassination of all the Rwandan contributors to Bruguière’s report, and condemned Bruguière for being, well, French.
Western complicity: what about the US?
Western complicity: what about the US?
Yet there is more than the legitimacy of the Rwandan government at stake in this latest retelling of the moral parable on Rwanda. The RPF would not have sustained its war without diplomatic support from Washington. The US intervened to legitimise the RPF’s war, even though the justifications for it had by that time proven to be baseless. The first invasion in 1990 was timed, not to force a reluctant Rwandan government to allow refugees to return, but to disrupt arrangements already in place to accommodate returning refugees.
Rather than being a desertion from the Ugandan military (the RPF leadership were in top positions in the Ugandan state), the invasion of Rwanda in 1990 was a joint Ugandan-RPF venture. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda was keen to have an ally in power south of the border. More importantly, he wanted to be rid of his Rwandan refugee ‘problem’. The issues of land occupation by Rwandans, and suspicions about the leverage that Rwandans in top official positions enjoyed in the Ugandan government, had generated Museveni’s first political crisis since he took power in 1986.
Behind Uganda was its closest international ally and sponsor, Washington. It was US intervention, in the person of secretary of state for African affairs Herman Cohen, which chose not to condemn the RPF’s invasion and Uganda’s support for it, but rather to support the military recovery of the RPF upon its initial defeat. Cohen coerced President Habyarimana not only to negotiate a ceasefire with the RPF, but to enter negotiations with it in order that a stake for the RPF in a new government be agreed.
By July 1992, Rwanda no longer had a single-party regime but a coalition government and a new democratic constitution. The constitution guaranteed freedom of political organisation and prohibited discrimination on any grounds, ethnic or otherwise.
Of course, it takes more than a constitution to bring about democracy, but it was a promising start and presented another opportunity for the US to tell its Ugandan ally Museveni to pull the plug on the RPF or face the end of the privileged ‘New African Leader’ status that it had bestowed upon him.
There was nothing to prevent the RPF from campaigning for support inside Rwanda alongside the other opposition parties. Nothing except the fact that the RPF was feared and loathed by the majority of Rwanda’s population. And yet, Washington was happy for the RPF to intensify its war. In February 1993, the RPF violated the Arusha ‘peace process’ with its heaviest offensive to date.
It is arguably the case that if there had not been French forces around the capital Kigali, the RPF may have succeeded in seizing power at that time. The offensive resulted in thousands of deaths and the displacement of nearly a million people, living in miserable conditions in makeshift camps. This offensive did more than anything else to generate hatred for the RPF and, tragically, for the local Tutsi population who were assumed to be in league with the overwhelmingly Tutsi RPF.
How human rights lobbyists boosted the RPF
The RPF had violated the negotiations process with another round of death and destruction. But thanks to coordinated human rights lobbying, the RPF returned to the negotiating table unapologetic about its own conduct and full of moral indignation at the evils of the Rwandan government. A suspiciously well-timed human rights report was published in 1993, accusing the Rwandan government of gross violations of human rights. Some of its authors even accused it of genocide.
The government had been responsible for atrocities against civilians in response to the RPF’s initial invasion, and had admitted to them. It objected to the report’s bias: the investigators had made only a token effort to investigate allegations of atrocities committed by the RPF, spending only a few hours interviewing people in the presence of RPF soldiers.
Thanks in large measure to the impact of this report, the RPF was able to take the moral high ground and use the negotiations as a vehicle for translating its military gains into political gains. RPF intransigence and military strategy was facilitated in no small measure by the human rights crusade that was launched against the Habyarimana-led coalition government.
But France, too, played a vital role in prodding the Rwandan government to reach a political settlement with the RPF. According to the French writer Agnes Callamard, it was not just pressure from the US that was applied to get Habyarimana to sign the Arusha Accords in 1993 – ‘it is doubtful if Habyarimana would have signed the peace accords, which gave heavy concessions to the RPF, without pressure and guarantees from the Elysée through François Mitterand’s personal emissaries, and possibly from representatives of the Military Mission of Cooperation, specifically Général Huchon, Colonel Cussac – the French military attaché and head of the French military Assistance Mission in Rwanda, and his assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Maurin.’ (8)
Having secured a virtual coup in the 1993 negotiations – the RPF had won 50 per cent command of the envisaged unified army and enough seats in the proposed transitional government to block anything that was against its interests – the RPF had emerged as the strongest party. The problem it now faced was the scheduled elections where its unpopularity would have been exposed. Local elections in the demilitarised zone that was created in the wake of the February 1993 offensive pointed the way – the RPF was massively defeated at the hands of the former ruling party.
Faced with the prospect of being downsized to a small party by the Rwandan electorate, and with clear support from the US and Belgium, it would appear that the RPF’s interests could only be further advanced with a return to the battlefield. With the promised departure of French forces from Kigali in December 1993, the military path to the capital was clear. What was needed by the RPF was a justification for resuming the war.
The Rwandan war re-erupts
The assassination of President Habyarimana by means of the missile attack upon his plane set off a round of killings of opposition political figures by elements of Habyarimana’s Presidential Guard on one hand, and killings of members of the former ruling party by the RPF on the other. Massacres of Tutsi civilians by Hutu militia soon followed in Kigali, and then spread across the country. But, contrary to the conventional story, RPF forces were on the march long before any massacres occurred.
Peter Erlinder, the lead defence council for the ICTR, stated categorically in a letter to the Canadian prime minister in 2006 that the final offensive of the RPF was ordered by Kagame within minutes of learning of the successful missile attack, ‘long before any retaliatory, civilian killings had occurred anywhere in Rwanda’ (9).
Three years of mounting fear, insecurity and material deprivation (much of Rwanda was by this time in the grip of famine) came to a head. Rwanda’s hastily (but constitutionally) appointed government of surviving ministers fled the capital. The army was pinned down in one losing encounter with the RPF after another.
In these anarchic conditions, Rwanda’s defenceless Tutsi population bore the brunt of murderous hatred generated by an ethnically polarising war.
The RPF won the war and took power in July 1994. Africa then witnessed the largest mass exodus in its history. Over two million Rwandans voted with their feet and moved to former Zaïre and Tanzania. The United States, Britain and Belgium in particular rushed to recognise the new regime in Kigali.
The RPF won the war and took power in July 1994. Africa then witnessed the largest mass exodus in its history. Over two million Rwandans voted with their feet and moved to former Zaïre and Tanzania. The United States, Britain and Belgium in particular rushed to recognise the new regime in Kigali.
Even greater numbers were still to die. The new Rwandan regime’s invasion of various refugee camps and its forced repatriation of refugees, the massacre of internally displaced people in Kibeho in April 1995, and two invasions of what became the Democratic Republic of Congo by the ruling RPF – all of this has brought the death toll of civilians to a level that is the highest of any conflict since the Second World War.
The number of ministers leaving the new government and later dying in mysterious circumstances continues to rise. Accountability on the part of the Rwandan regime for these violations is waived by its sponsors in Washington, London and Brussels. Whenever challenged on these matters, officials from these capitals will reply that this was the force that liberated Rwanda from genocide, and continued Western backing for it is necessary to ensure that the genocidaires never return to power.
The truth behind the moral parable
But facts are stubborn things. Bruguière’s charges will not go away. The matter of the assassination of two heads of state is the Achilles heel of the Rwandan government. If the RPF’s responsibility for the plane shooting as a planned move towards reigniting the war in Rwanda is proven, what can be said about the diplomatic protection given to the RPF by the US and other Western powers? How can the leader of the ‘war against terror’ – America – explain its suppression of the facts about the assassination of two heads of state? What do we make of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s brief to foster reconciliation by establishing the truth and ending a culture of impunity?
In The Times last week, Linda Melvern wrote about ‘a large room in the French Embassy in Kigali filled floor to ceiling with shredded documents. This was probably the paper trail that might have revealed the depth of involvement between the Elysée Palace and the Hutu faction responsible for massacring hundreds of thousands of Tutsi and opposition Hutu’ (10).
Holding on to the moral parable of Rwanda and endorsing Kigali’s invective against France may work for now. But facts – about the start of the war, the actions of the RPF, and the role of Western intervention more broadly in pushing Rwanda to the brink – are stubborn things…
Barrie Collins is a writer on African affairs and author of Obedience in Rwanda: A Critical Question published by Sheffield Hallam University Press in 1998.
Barrie Collins is a writer on African affairs and author of Obedience in Rwanda: A Critical Question published by Sheffield Hallam University Press in 1998.
Previously on spiked
Barrie Collins reported from the waiting room of the Rwandan genocide tribunal. Tara McCormack criticised the indictment of Sudanase President Omar al-Bashir for genocide. Julie Hearn looke at Kenya and the myth of Afrian barbarism Brendan O’Neill said Somalia is a case study of the dangers of moralism in international affairs, and that Darfur has been damned by pity. Or read more at spiked issue Africa.
(1) ‘French Policy in Rwanda’, A Callamard included in The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaïre, H Adelman and A Suhurke, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999, p. 178, note 19
(2) Interview with Carla Del Ponte, Aktuelt, 17 April 2000. Cited in Le drama rwandais : Les aveaux accablants des chefs de la Mission des Nations Unies pour l’Assistance au Rwanda, E Karemera, Editions Sources du Nil, 2006
(3) Bush and Other War Criminals Meet in Rwanda: The Great “Rwanda Genocide” Coverup, P Erlinder, Global Research, 20 February 2008
(4) April 6th 1994 Attack Fits ICTR Mandate – Goldstone, Hirondelle News Agency, accessed 12 December 2006
(5) Rwanda’s Genocide: The Politics of International Justice, K Moghalu, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 p.52
(7) ‘Major General Paul Kagame behind the shooting down of late Habyarimana’s plane: an eye witness testimony, 2nd Lt. Aloys Ruyenzi Press release, 18 January 2005 (Ruyenzi re-affirmed his statement to the author in an interview in Paris)
(8) ‘French Policy in Rwanda’, A Callamard included in The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaïre, H Adelman and A Suhurke, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999, p.163
(9) Open letter to Prime Minister Harper: Regarding state visit of current President of Rwanda, P Erlinder, 6 April 2006 (Copy passed on to author by Erlinder. Emphasis in the original) (10) The murky truth about France and genocide, L Melvern, The Times, 8 August 2008
Global Research Articles by Barrie Collins
Global Research Articles by Barrie Collins
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
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Congolese refugees and Rwanda refugees
Preventive war, where force is used to prevent a potential threat from emerging, is the kind of highly risky and militaristic diplomacy found at the core of the recently revealed Bush doctrine.
The basic problem confronting any leader contemplating a military campaign is that forecasting the future of international politics is rather like forecasting the weather.
People are going to be slaughtered like animals in Eastern of the Congo
The world is now tired of his ballyhoos. It has decided to act decisively towards 
unraveling the mystery on who actually engineered and perpetrated the Rwanda genocide. The fire is pointing to Kagame and his regime.
There is a general rule in Africa, if not across the world: Behind any rebellion with legs is usually a meddling neighbor. And whether the rebellion in eastern Congo explodes into another full-fledged war, and drags a large chunk of central Africa with it, seems likely to depend on the involvement of Rwanda, Congo’s tiny but disproportionately mighty neighbor.
Genocide from Kagame's Office
Preventive war, where force is used to prevent a potential threat from emerging, is the kind of highly risky and militaristic diplomacy found at the core of the recently revealed Bush doctrine.
The basic problem confronting any leader contemplating a military campaign is that forecasting the future of international politics is rather like forecasting the weather.
Trying to predict what will happen in Congo one the RPF Nazi one month from now is rather like trying to predict what the weather will be like in Amsteram, on March 1st, 2009. Chances are that it will be cool but not cold, but then again it could be quite windy and rainy. There might be too much rain, there might not be. We simply can't say with any certainty.
13th January 2009
People are going to be slaughtered like animals in Eastern of the Congo War is a failure. U.N. of today is powerless. The UN has no power to stop the Rwanda Top Nazi Paul Kagame, Nkunda, Museveni, and many others. The key moment is when the UN fails to take united action against the bloody Rwandan dictator and monster Paul Kagame and instead they are putting in place a series of meaningless diplomatic negociations led by corrupt diplomats such the Nigerian former president.
The lesson is clear to all would-be aggressors thereafter that the UN are toothless, which is the first step of the road to war and genocide in Congo against Hutu ethnic members inside Rwanda and Democratic Republic of the Congo. Whatever the aim of negociations, Paul Kagame views it as a weakness.
Though Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame has always denied involvement in engineering and committing genocide, the world seems to have awakened from lethargy.
The world is now tired of his ballyhoos. It has decided to act decisively towards 
unraveling the mystery on who actually engineered and perpetrated the Rwanda genocide. The fire is pointing to Kagame and his regime.The often-quoted apocryphal statement by Franklin D. Roosevelt concerning Somoza of Nicaragua, "he may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he is our son-of-a-bitch," captures the American attitudes and policy toward right-wing dictatorships.
While Mugabe and other dictators are opposed, Paul Kagame finds support in Washington. This "lesser-of-evil" approach to foreign policy, influenced by racism and at times irrational fears of economic crisis and from there wars, creates blindness to the shortcomings of dictators, and led the United to support and align itself with the Rwandan RPF regime, one of the most brutal and bloody regimes in the world.
What actually happens on the congolese soil?
According to several demobilized soldiers, Rwandan government officials are involved, providing bus fare for the men to travel to Congo and updating the rebel leadership each month on how many fighters from Rwanda are about to come over. Once they get to the rebel camps, the Rwandan veterans said they flashed their Rwandan army identification cards and then were assigned to Nkunda's CNDP.
There is a general rule in Africa, if not across the world: Behind any rebellion with legs is usually a meddling neighbor. And whether the rebellion in eastern Congo explodes into another full-fledged war, and drags a large chunk of central Africa with it, seems likely to depend on the involvement of Rwanda, Congo’s tiny but disproportionately mighty neighbor.
There is a long and bloody history here, and this time around the evidence seems to be growing that Rwanda, or at a minimum, many Rwandans, are meddling again in Congo’s troubles. As before, Rwanda’s stake in Congo is a complex mix of strategic interest, business opportunity and the real fears of a nation that has heroically built itself after near obliteration by ethnic hatred.
The signs are ever-more obvious, if not yet entirely open.
The signs are ever-more obvious, if not yet entirely open.
Several demobilized Rwandan soldiers, speaking in hushed tones in Kigali, Rwanda’s tightly controlled capital, described a systematic effort by Rwanda’s government-run demobilization commission to send hundreds if not thousands of fighters to the Congo.
Rwandan officers plucking off the Rwandan flags from the shoulders of their fatigues after they had arrived and that Rwandan officers served as the backbone of the rebel army. Congolese wildlife rangers in the gorilla park on the thickly forested Rwanda-Congo border said countless heavily armed men routinely crossed over from Rwanda into Congo.
For example, several demobilized Rwandan soldiers in Kigali said the vast majority of volunteers who recently crossed the border to fight with Nkunda were Tutsi. Some of the soldiers said that they had relatives living in eastern Congo and that it was like a second home to them.
According to four soldiers and one employee at the Rwandan demobilization commission, at the end of their monthly meetings, officials at the commission ask for anyone fit and ready to fight to stand up. Sometimes the commission provides bus fare to the border, the soldiers said, and other travel costs. The soldiers usually travel unarmed, picking up weapons on the other side, they said.
Rwanda is dependent on foreign aid, with western donors paying for over 75 per cent of government spending. However, there are signs that donor patience is cracking. Rwanda's ruthless prosecution of the Congo war - in which at least 3.3 million people have died - led to pressure for a military withdrawal last year.
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
Monday, January 12, 2009
Get to know the African Auschwitz : Kibeho - Gikongoro (RPF criminals have striped Gikongoro prefecture from the Rwanda map!!). They Said they didn't know. Are we going to excuse them again?
Australian Peacekeeper & Peacemaker Veterans' Association
Review by: Review by Gordon Traill, Iraq Veteran.
“Combat Medic by Terry Pickard is an eyewitness account by an Australian Army Medic who was at the “Kibeho Massacre” in Rwanda.
Australian Peacekeeper & Peacemaker Veterans' Association
Review by: Review by Gordon Traill, Iraq Veteran.
“Combat Medic by Terry Pickard is an eyewitness account by an Australian Army Medic who was at the “Kibeho Massacre” in Rwanda.
“Combat Medic” is a fascinating story and a journey of one man’s life, pre and post Rwanda. Pickard is vivid in his descriptions of what it was like to serve on a UN mission.
Combat Medic, an Australian's eyewitness account of the Kibeho Massacre is a personal account of one of the Australian soldier who found himself at the centre of Events that shocked the world, and the personal toll that he paid.
Author Terry Pickard, a seasoned soldier and medic, was one of a 32 strong froce of Australian UN peacekeepers in Kibeho on the 22nd of April 1995 when more than 4,000 Rwandan Hutus were massacred and thousands more injured. No one who walked away from that day ever the same again.
The horror and unimaginable tragedy of the Kibeho Massacre still loons large in the lives of Rwandans and the people sent to help them. Terry Pickard's army career spanned nearly 20 years and more than 15 years after Rwanda he continues to struggle with post traumatic stress (PTSD) triggered by his experiences.
Combat Medic details the lead up to the Kibeho, the massacre and Thierr's ongoing struggle with PTSD in a honest, open and emotional account of this dark day in History.
IBingira, Bihozagara Jacques and other Tutsis genocidaires remind usthe scale of genocide. That scale of genocide that took place at Kibeho remains mind numbing.
He is critical of how people have judged Peacekeeping service and the l
ack of bravery awards handed out to members of UNAMIR at Kibeho. The powerful and confronting account of Pickard’s time at Kibeho will shock you. It will go some way for the reader to understand, why Pickard has struggled with severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for so many years since his return to Australia. Pickard definitely wears his heart on his sleeve as he deals with his illness. 
The story of Kibeho needs to be told and be passed on to future generations of men and women who join the Australian Defence Force. “At last the old myth of Peacekeeping service with the UN being just a bit of a holiday and a good way of earning extra money was put away for good”. The war criminal, Jean de Dieu Mucyo
“We could only sit and watch in horror”. The scale of genocide that took place at Kibeho is mind numbing. The immense pressure and strictness of the Rules of Engagement (ROE) placed upon
the Australians by the UN would have tested any man’s limits. The Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA) tried everything to intimidate the Australians to open fire. Strict adherence of the ROE and personal discipline saved the Australians from being killed. SAS patrol medic Paul Jordan said years later "we are good, but not that good". “There were around 2,000 RPA soldiers, all focused on killing, and only 32 of us”.
“We could only sit and watch in horror”. The scale of genocide that took place at Kibeho is mind numbing. The immense pressure and strictness of the Rules of Engagement (ROE) placed uponthe Australians by the UN would have tested any man’s limits. The Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA) tried everything to intimidate the Australians to open fire. Strict adherence of the ROE and personal discipline saved the Australians from being killed. SAS patrol medic Paul Jordan said years later "we are good, but not that good". “There were around 2,000 RPA soldiers, all focused on killing, and only 32 of us”.
Pickard details what would have happened if they were caught taking photos. “The RPA would not allow anyone to take photos, let alone footage”. “George Gittoes, the war artist attached to us, had been threatened with death if he took pictures”. He was “determined to let the world know what was happening in Kibeho”. George’s photos have been seen all over the world in magazines and television stories about Rwanda. Infantry provided security to the Australian Medical team who worked tirelessly with the “sea of humanity” that was estimated to be around 150,000 people. Pickard talks about his trust in fellow Australian soldiers. "We were treating about six casualties who were placed along a wall for protection when shooting started.
I wasn't sure whether I should continue treating them or take up a defensive position. I had a quick look around and saw our infantry blokes on the wire. As soon as I saw our blokes there I instantly knew I had nothing to worry about and was able to continue treating the casualties."
Pickard sums up his time at Kibeho, “April 18-22 1995, was the most testing time of my life both physically and mentally. I believe I did ok. We saved who we could and did our best in the most atrocious conditions”. The members who served as part of United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) were awarded the Australian Service Medal (ASM) for ‘non warlike service’. In February 2006, the Government of the day changed the reclassification of service to the Australian Active Service Medal (AASM) for Warlike service.
Terry Pickard, the ADF members who served as part of UNAMIR and George Gittoes are the real heroes of Kibeho. The Anzac legend lives on.
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
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Genocide prevention.When they say that they didn't know. Never again will we excuse them? In i990, they said nothing. In 1994, they said nothing. In 1995 at Kibeho mass-slaughters, they said Nothing. From 1996 up to 1998, RPF mass-slaughtered Hutu Refugees in the Congo forests and Kisangani, etc, they kept IT shut.
When they say that they didn't know. Never again will we excuse them?
Are Your Investments Funding the Rwanda? You're funding the Rwanda Genocide! Didn't you know that? Are Your Investments Funding one of the RPF weapons : Gacaca (Gatchacha)?
Stop doing IT and Make Paul Kagame's arrest your priority.
On the contrary, campain to arrest paul Kagame and then you will contribute to the Rwandan Peace.
Else
where the RPF Tutsi genocidaires are conceivably trying to accelerate the genocide before Obama enters the White House. RPF death squads are murdering women and children ONLY because the y happen to be born Hutus and now, Kigali is willing if it has already waged the 3rd war against the Remaining Hutu survivors in the Congo.
Else
where the RPF Tutsi genocidaires are conceivably trying to accelerate the genocide before Obama enters the White House. RPF death squads are murdering women and children ONLY because the y happen to be born Hutus and now, Kigali is willing if it has already waged the 3rd war against the Remaining Hutu survivors in the Congo. Sustain Spain and Rwandans for bringing peace back in Rwanda.
Campaign for the arrest of the Top organizers of the Rwanda genocide starting with Paul Kagame, the true Evil.
NEVER AGAIN? Have a Hand in Stopping Genocide in Rwanda.
Take up the Rwanda SurViVors cause and fight together with all peace-makers.
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
Le criminel ruandais J.Kabarebe à Kinshasa est une preuve en plus de haute trahison de Joseph K. ! L'Union de Congolais pour la Défense de la Patrie et du PeupleUCDP, force de rappel à l'ordre et de proposition, partage l'émoi et la colère du peuple congolais consécutifs à l'incursion officielle du criminel ruando- ougandais James Kabarebe sur le sol de Simon Kimbangu, Patrice Emery Lumumba, Pierre Mulele, Laurent Désiré Kabila, tous morts par la volonté d'un impérialisme décadent!
L'entrée par la grande porte de cet ennemi du peuple congolais qui est un des pions essentiels de la déstabilisation de notre pays, reçu avec honneur à Kinshasa pour avoir dirigé les massacres des congolais, est une humiliation en plus, dont le responsable est Joseph Kabila qui ne se cache plus dans la trahison contre notre peuple!
Pour rappel, avant le 2 Août 1998, James Kabarebe, après avoir été démis de ses fonctions comme chef d'état major ad interim des FAC par Mzee Laurent Désiré Kabila pour complot et tentative d'assassinat de M'zee, était renvoyé au Ruanda! Quelques temps après, il était revenu en RDCongo et il y avait dirigé les opérations d'agression du Ruanda qui avait fait plus de 5 millions de morts congolais! Il était à Kitona lorsqu'il avait donné l'ordre criminel de couper la fourniture générale du courant électrique à partie du barrage d'Inga! Un acte criminel qui avait privé aux 8 millions des Kinois l'eau potable et l'énergie électrique qui avait provoqué des dégâts mortels dans les hôpitaux entre autres où les prématurés et les malades avaient péri faute de soins appropriés! C'est ce sinistre individu qui ose venir, aujourd'hui, narguer le peuple congolais et qui est reçu, 10 ans après, pompeusement sur le lieu de ses crimes par un pouvoir vicié par la trahison !
Voici au travers ce questionnement ci-après, la démonstration de preuve de haute trahison:
1. Comment ce bras armé sanguinaire du dictateur ruandais s'est-il permis de fouler ses pieds sur le sol de nos ancêtres après avoir fait massacrer impunément des millions de nos frères et soeurs?
Voici au travers ce questionnement ci-après, la démonstration de preuve de haute trahison:
1. Comment ce bras armé sanguinaire du dictateur ruandais s'est-il permis de fouler ses pieds sur le sol de nos ancêtres après avoir fait massacrer impunément des millions de nos frères et soeurs?
- L'UCDP pointe du doigt sur Joseph Kabila qui, sans aucun doute, a toujours été en contact avec ce criminel ruandais et lui a rassuré en lui disant probablement (ce qui suit est une simulation proche de ce que les deux complices se sont dits):
Swahili'' Usiogope, bwana Kabarebe! Kuja tuu Kinshasa! Unasaabu ya kama bicongolais ni ngurube tu? Bilisha saabu mambo zote mubaya tulibifanya, nibipumbafu! Mimi niko apa kimia na nina tsheza nabo sawa zoba ! Mutu aki pime sema, ni tamupiga masasi ! »//
Lingala :" Kobanga te, ndeko Kabarebe! Esengeli okoma kaka na Kinshasa! Obosani ke bacongolais bazali ba ngulu penza? Basi babosani mabe nyonso tosala bango, baza babolole! Tala ngai, na za na kimia, mpe naza kosakana na bango lokola ba zoba! Mutu akomeka koloba nakobeta ye masasi!!"
Français : '' Ne crains rien, frère Kabarebe ! Il faut que tu viennes à Kinshasa ! As-tu oublié que les congolais sont des vrais porcs ? Ils ont déjà oublié tout le mal qu'on leur a infligé, ces idiots ! Regardes-moi, je suis tranquille! Je me joue d'eux comme des imbéciles! Toute personne qui osera rouspéter, je l'abats par balle!''
En effet, James Kabarebe ne pouvait pas mettre ses pieds à Kinshasa sans cette assurance de Joseph Kabila, en tant que Chef d'Etat, mais qui pose, insolemment, des actes à l'encontre des aspirations souveraines et légitimes du peuple congolais!
Cette situation constitue une preuve en plus qui confirme que Joseph Kabila est en contact permanent avec les ennemis du peuple congolais et collabore avec eux contre notre Patrie! Par conséquent, il est traître à la Nation congolaise!
2. Dans son message de vœux de nouvel an à la `'Nation trahie'', au travers de quel les congolais ont décelé le fossé énorme qui sépare la dure réalité qu'il subit au quotidien et la panoplie de petites phrases livresques pour faire `'intello'' mais qui ne veulent rien dire sur le fond , Joseph Kabila n'a pas livré au peuple congolais qui attendait, la vraie nature du conflit armé à l'Est qui est pour une agression du Ruanda contre la RDCongo! Il a juste effleuré la tragédie de nos compatriotes au Nord Kivu livrés à eux-mêmes!
2. Dans son message de vœux de nouvel an à la `'Nation trahie'', au travers de quel les congolais ont décelé le fossé énorme qui sépare la dure réalité qu'il subit au quotidien et la panoplie de petites phrases livresques pour faire `'intello'' mais qui ne veulent rien dire sur le fond , Joseph Kabila n'a pas livré au peuple congolais qui attendait, la vraie nature du conflit armé à l'Est qui est pour une agression du Ruanda contre la RDCongo! Il a juste effleuré la tragédie de nos compatriotes au Nord Kivu livrés à eux-mêmes!
Pour quelle raison donc Joseph Kabila est-il entrain de s'engager résolument vers un suicide politique en narguant le peuple congolais par la venue du criminel ruandais Kabarebe à Kinshasa au vu et au su des congolais humiliés? Est-ce encore la faute de ses conseillers ou est-ce lui, Joseph Kabila, le problème?
Pour une fin de règne prévisible, Joseph Kabila commence à paniquer et, de ce fait, il devient un homme dangereux pour les congolais et pour lui-même ! Visiblement, il ne dispose plus de degré de liberté pour satisfaire les aspirations du peuple congolais ni de ressources suffisantes pour répondre à la complexité des vraies questions qui se posent en RDCongo! Tous les signes d'un système décadent qui se débat pour survivre, sont là! Il en arrive aujourd'hui à faire n'importe quoi, notamment en faisant venir dans notre capitale Kinshasa, cet ennemi du peuple congolais, son complice James Kabarebe comme si notre pays est sa propriété privée où il peut se permettre d'inviter n'importe qui il veut !
Pour une fin de règne prévisible, Joseph Kabila commence à paniquer et, de ce fait, il devient un homme dangereux pour les congolais et pour lui-même ! Visiblement, il ne dispose plus de degré de liberté pour satisfaire les aspirations du peuple congolais ni de ressources suffisantes pour répondre à la complexité des vraies questions qui se posent en RDCongo! Tous les signes d'un système décadent qui se débat pour survivre, sont là! Il en arrive aujourd'hui à faire n'importe quoi, notamment en faisant venir dans notre capitale Kinshasa, cet ennemi du peuple congolais, son complice James Kabarebe comme si notre pays est sa propriété privée où il peut se permettre d'inviter n'importe qui il veut !
Longtemps, nous les congolais qui montraient et exprimaient de la sympathie à son égard, nous croyions fermement que c'était la faute de ses conseillers! Bien que ces derniers étaient, pour la plupart, médiocres, aujourd'hui, l'évidence nous impose de nous plier face à la réalité : Non seulement Joseph Kabila ne supporte pas la contradiction voire ne supporte pas qu'on lui fasse de l'ombre, mais, il terrorise ses conseillers qui sont obligés d'aller dans le sens de ses poils et de fausser la vérité! S'il trahit et il les oblige de trahir même s'ils ne sont pas d'accord!
James Kabarebe à Kinshasa ?
C'est du mépris, une insulte à nos vaillants soldats de la Fardc qui sont, non seulement trahis, mais en plus, ils subissent l'humiliation lorsque les militaires ruandais sont autorisés par ce pouvoir des traîtres à opérer dans notre pays sous le motif fallacieux de traquer les FDLR, alors qu'ils viennent en agresseurs dans le Rutshuru pour massacrer et renforcer les positions du criminel ruandais Kundabatware avant l'investiture de Barack Obama pour ainsi placer la communauté internationale devant un fait accompli!
La `'négociation' ' de Naïrobi n'est qu'un leurre vulgaire! Le ministre de la coopération britannique est venu pleurer et sortir les larmes de crocodile, tel un sorcier qui, après avoir `'mangé`' sa proie, vient se rouler par terre et s'arracher les vêtements, pour occulter la responsabilité directe de son gouvernement depuis la direction de Tony Blair sur la tragédie humaine en RDCongo en tant que commanditaire!
La `'négociation' ' de Naïrobi n'est qu'un leurre vulgaire! Le ministre de la coopération britannique est venu pleurer et sortir les larmes de crocodile, tel un sorcier qui, après avoir `'mangé`' sa proie, vient se rouler par terre et s'arracher les vêtements, pour occulter la responsabilité directe de son gouvernement depuis la direction de Tony Blair sur la tragédie humaine en RDCongo en tant que commanditaire!
Pour ces raisons, l'Union de Congolais pour la Défense de la Patrie et du Peuple UCDP, force politique de rappel à l'ordre et de proposition, appelle les congolais de ne pas omettre de dénoncer et de manifester ce 17 janvier 2009 à travers le monde devant les ambassades de la Grande Bretagne qui est le commanditaire du génocide et de la tragédie humaine en RDCongo pour que cette manifestation gagne son sens! La lutte doit continuer pour la victoire du peuple congolais !
© Info UCDP
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
L’homme inhumain tend aujourd’hui à accorder plus de crédit à l’agresseur qu’à l’agressé. Le constant est d’autant plus amer et frappant que d’aucuns se demandent si ce monde ne risque pas de se replonger dans un siècle contemporain où seule la dictature du plus fort disposait de facto du soutien solidaire de la collectivité qu’on appelle aujourd’hui communauté internationale. Tout semble indiquer en effet que nous nous acheminons vers un jugement subterfuge selon lequel l’offenseur s’accorde à justifier sa barbarie par une sorte d’auto-défense ou de répression du terrorisme international. Pour lui, l’offensé n’a pas droit de se défendre et de protéger son peuple. Par conséquent il doit se laisser abattre jusqu’au dernier survivant pour faire disparaître en entier l’existence d’un peuple.
Le peuple palestinien est bombardé nuit et jour. Des enfants sont frappés par ces bombes aveugles qui ne font pas distinction entre l’innocent et le condamné. La communauté internationale regarde impuissamment ce qui se passe au Proche-Orient sans pouvoir prendre des mesures répressives à l’encontre de ceux qui sèment l’horreur et le désarroi au peuple sans défense. Cette communauté risque de réagir tardivement quand le mal sera cautionné et sans possibilité de réconciliation entre ces frères ennemis. Ces frappes aériennes et ces roquettes qu’on lance à tâtons ne font que renforcer la haine qui existait déjà depuis plusieurs années entre les peuples israélien et palestinien. La région risque de se trouver dans un chaos qui affectera d’autres régions avoisinantes voire pourrait s’étendre à travers le monde.
L’on se souviendra que quand le peuple rwandais a fui son agresseur, le FPR au su et au vu de la communauté internationale a lancé des bombes dans les camps des réfugiés au Zaïre (Actuel RDC) tuant enfants, femmes et vieillards. Si le FPR aujourd’hui se considère comme un peuple d’Israël en dépit du génocide qu’ils imputent aux Hutus alors que les chefs militaires du pouvoir de Kigali sont pointés du doigt dans ces massacres qui continuent d’endeuiller le peuple des grands lacs dont en majorité sont victimes les rwandais et congolais, on comprend pourquoi ces tueries massives n’ont jamais inquiété ce pouvoir dictatorial de Kigali. Le fait est qu’ils sont soutenus par certaines puissances de ce monde en particulier les anglo-saxons.
La question est de se demander si ce mal pourra durer. Répondre à une telle éventualité, ne demande pas un raisonnement abstractif car il suffit de constater des changements qui se passent dans le monde. Je me base sur un fait que dans un monde de liberté chacun a droit d’exprimer et de professer à titre personnel son opinion, ainsi, mon constat est que la domination israélienne par la volonté de Dieu dans un proche avenir prendra fin. Il y aura d’autres puissances régionales qui pourront contrecaler cette suprématie. La souffrance actuelle du peuple palestinien amènera d’autres pays à soutenir les palestiniens dans leur lutte pour la liberté.
Les états unis devront changer sa politique que ce soit au Proche-Orient ou dans la région des grands lacs car il est tout à fait illogique qu’un pays le plus puissant du monde et le plus démocratisé soutiennent des régimes qui utilisent la force pour écraser la masse populaire, le cas du Rwanda est très frappant. Elle devra s’investir dans la recherche d’une paix durable au Proche-Orient, le contraire n’entrainera qu’une absence de crédibilité des autres pays à l’égard des Etats-Unis. Sa politique interne pourra en pâtir avec toutes les conséquences qui en résulteront et cela aura des répercussions qui aggraveront des crises politiques et économiques à travers le monde. Seuls les pays qui n’ont pas longtemps subi l’influence des Etats-Unis pourront se réorganiser et redevenir puissants. La situation n’est pas encore perdue mais il faut agir vite pour sauver le pire. Arrêter ces bombes qui tuent aveuglement, ramener la démocratie dans les pays en conflit et surtout cette machine qui tue le peuple des grands lacs où actuellement on dénombre presque dix millions de morts dès l’attaque du FPR en octobre 1990 et voilà déjà 18 ans que les tueries massives, emprisonnement arbitraire, tortures atroces n’ont jamais cessé. Cela malheureusement n’a jamais inquiété la communauté internationale.
Loin des compromis, des marchandages, des arrangements que nous imposent trop souvent les rapports de forces, seule la justice impartiale doit triompher et régner. L’esprit inhumain doit céder place à l’humanisme, telle est même la volonté du tout puissant créateur du monde.
Bonne et heureuse année 2009
© Habigenza Y
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
Hirondelle newsagency Arusha 02-4-08 writes about this book of Carla del Ponte on the obstruction of the ICTR by Rwanda's RPF regime.
This book will be out in english early this year 2009. "We knew that to open an investigation into the Rwandan Patriotic Front will irritated Kigali, because President Paul Kagame and other Tutsi leaders based a great part of their claim to legitimacy on the victory of the RPF against the genocidaires in 1994," writes Carla del Ponte."They presented their conquest of the country as a just fight, to put an end to genocide", she adds."We knew that the government was against us", she says. In spite of that as of 2000, the prosecution opened a "secret" investigation."Rwandan authorities already controlled each stage of our investigations", she writes. "We knew that the intelligence service of Rwanda had received monitoring equipment from the United States which was used for phone calls, faxes and the internet. We suspected that the authorities had also infiltrated our computer network and placed agents among the Rwandan interpreters and other members of the team in Kigali.
Walpen [Laurent Walpen, former chief of investigations for the prosecution] also knew that the United States, for obvious reasons, did not want that the investigators to be equipped with the latest encryption Swiss telephones. In other words, the Rwandans knew, in real time, what the investigators of the tribunal were doing."In Kigali, 9 December 2000 I personally informed President Kagame that the office of the prosecutor had opened a case against him for allegations concerning the Rwandan Patriotic Front, for war crimes committed as Hutus committed the genocide. 
The meeting took place in his modest office of the presidential complex (...) the investigators say that evidence was collected on 13 episodes during which in 1994 members of the RPF would have massacred civilians as troops advanced through Rwanda. Kagame neither approved nor denied that these incidents had taken place", Del Ponte discloses.Carla del Ponte then proposed to start with the case of the murdered priests in Gakurazo and ended up convincing, at least she believed so, the Rwandan president will cooperate. With the chief of investigations, the Swiss woman went to the office of the military prosecutor.
"Rwigamba was in uniform, very courteous. Rather than to agree to give us documentation, Rwigamba informed us that he was leading the investigations and was not under the jurisdiction of the tribunal, the co-operation was not always forthcoming.
" I imagine that before calling President Kagame, she writes, if he did it, Rwigamba spoke with his military superiors, including the former commanders of the Rwandan Patriotic Front who had reasons to fear seeing their name on an arrest warrant.In 2001, Rwanda blocked once again the transfer of witnesses to Arusha, Tanzania (the seat of the tribunal).
New procedures had been set up by Kigali: A "ridiculous" case of bureaucracy says Carla del Ponte, who only understood later the real subject of the pressure. At a new meeting with President Kagame, she complains: "Your military prosecutor is not cooperating (...) Kagame seemed surprised. He turned to the officer and said to him in a hard tone: "Cooperate with prosecutor del Ponte." Rwanda never cooperated again.
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
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
n.d.l.r. Warlord Laurent Nkunda is actually believed to be Paul Kagame's envoy in the Congo. He's and was Paul Kagame's high ranking military officer (1990-1998). For this reason, he should be indicted twice for war crimes committed in the Congo, war crimes and Rwanda genocide from 1990 up to 1998. He should be added to the RPF criminals' list and stand before the International Justice.
3,500 million Rwandans got massmurderd in Rwanda while more than 4 millions of Congolese people were slaughtered in the Congo during the 1996-1998 attack on Hutu refugiees.
by Paul Rusesabagina and Brian Endless
Posted by w. hayes on Thu, 12/11/2008 - 01:34
What do you do when indicted war criminals lead a country?
The arrest of Rose Kabuye in Germany last week shines an international light on this question. Kabuye, indicted on war crimes charges by the French government, serves as the chief of protocol to Rwandan President Paul Kagame. The current problem is complicated by those who blindly support the Rwandan government as successful reformers who are justified in any action they take, as Stephen Kinzer did in his op-ed on November 14th (“Rwanda versus France.”)
(...) Rwanda remains a deeply complex place, with often violent and repressive elite politics that allow very little room for public discourse or dissent. In 1994, the elite Hutu government, which did not really represent Hutus beyond themselves, was in a civil war with Paul Kagame’s Tutsi rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) based in Uganda. It is important to realize here that neither the Tutsi RPF group nor the Hutu government genuinely represented the people of Rwanda.
Rwanda is replete with small groups of elite leaders, or “Akazu” (meaning “small hut”) in the local language, who act in their own interests. When Kagame and his RPF rebels marched on Kigali, they were originally hailed as heros. Kagame even promised a new regime, in which Hutus and Tutsis could work together. Problematically, these promises only lasted as long as it took the President and his Ugandan Tutsi associates – the new elite Akazu, replacing the old Hutu group – to establish control.One of the inconvenient truths of the genocide aftermath involves the actions of Kagame and other elites in his government and military. There were numerous allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity when estimates of over 100,000 people were killed in retribution during the Tutsi conquest of the country. While stopping genocide is admirable, this in no way justifies committing war crimes against civilians.
Last week, Rose Kabuye was arrested on a French indictment for war crimes in the downing of the plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian Presidents in 1994, the triggering event for the Rwandan genocide. There have long been allegations that Kagame and his direct reports carried out this assassination, and enough proof has surfaced recently to justify the indictment. This is just the tip of the iceberg though, as 40 Rwandan army officers close to Kagame have been indicted by Spain on a variety of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Those on the list include current Rwandan Ambassadors, the Army Chief-of-Staff, and the Rwandan general serving as deputy head of the African Union force in the Sudan. The crimes in question include the killing of three Spanish priests as the genocide was ending, and of Spanish doctors and priests working in refugee camps after the genocide. Kagame ally Laurent Nkunda has also been indicted on war crimes for activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nkunda has close ties to Kagame and served as a captain in the RPF from 1994-96. Kagame himself has still not been formally indicted in France or Spain due to his status as a sitting head of state.The Rwandan government has responded to these charges with blanket denials, claiming that they are merely political charges. They also counter, as did Kinzer in his article, by blaming France for that country’s long-standing support of the previous Hutu government in Rwanda.
If France has blame to face, the Rwandan government should present its evidence and this should be investigated by competent sources. But playing the blame game with France in no way negates the enormous charges facing Rwanda’s current leaders.There is one final unique factor in Rwanda. War crimes and the like happen in most wars. Usually, the victor writes the history in such a way that the winning side looks good, and the losers are villified.
In the case of Rwanda though, the facts are out there, and the international community is not lightly accepting a rewriting of history. The Hutu genocidaires from 1994 must be brought to justice. But allegations of war crimes against current members of the Rwandan government must be thoroughly investigated too, and punished as appropriate.
Blame should not be displaced, and the attempt to cover up guilt on all sides must not be allowed to continue. The Rwandan people deserve better, and the world deserves the truth about Rwanda.[Paul Rusesabagina is the author of “An Ordinary Man,” his autobiography covering the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that became the movie “Hotel Rwanda.” Brian Endless is a Political Science professor at Loyola University Chicago.]
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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SurViVors SPEAK OUT - Rights of Victims Seeking Justice and Compensation for the RPF Genocide. This is an Exciting Collaborative Project launched by The AS International Founder Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana, Economist and Human Rights Activist. Join US and Be the First to know about the Mastermind of the Rwandan Genocide Still At large and enjoing Impunity.