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
Saturday, May 9, 2009
CirqueMinime/ParisL'enquête du juge Bruguière sur l'attentat du 6 avril 1994 -- par Col. Luc Marchal
***
Judge Bruguière’s Investigation into the Civilian Plane Shoot Down of 6 April 1994--by Col. Luc Marchal [translated from the French by cm/p]
http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2009/5/8/4179438.html
[This is our English translation of Col. Luc Marchal’s article about the investigation by French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière into the SAM 16 missile strike against the Rwandan presidential plane on 6 April 1994. Our translation of judge Bruguière’s report can be found on this blog here: http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/30/3262522.html
There has recently been some--though not much--ado about US/NATO terrorist attacks against civilians in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. Cynical and pathetic explanations for this butchery, like ‘The bad guys used these women and kids as human shields!’ or ‘From the looks of the mess, the bad guys did most of the killing with grenades!’ or ‘Wow, looks like we musta screwed the pooch on this one.
http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2009/5/8/4179438.html
[This is our English translation of Col. Luc Marchal’s article about the investigation by French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière into the SAM 16 missile strike against the Rwandan presidential plane on 6 April 1994. Our translation of judge Bruguière’s report can be found on this blog here: http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/30/3262522.html
There has recently been some--though not much--ado about US/NATO terrorist attacks against civilians in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. Cynical and pathetic explanations for this butchery, like ‘The bad guys used these women and kids as human shields!’ or ‘From the looks of the mess, the bad guys did most of the killing with grenades!’ or ‘Wow, looks like we musta screwed the pooch on this one.
But we’re NOT the bad guys. Sorry!’ come straight out of the NATO/Mossad terror handbook. Along with, ‘If anybody asks any questions, they’re just anti-Semit--fuck ‘em!’
This is all too reminiscent of the early days of the last US Democratic administration, when $3 Bill Clinton, as his first foreign policy gesture, ordered the bombing of Baghdad and killed a world-renowned artist--a woman--yet none dared call Clinton a ‘femmocidaire’.
And Bill was no novice at remote controlled murder, having taken time out of his busy 1991 presidential campaign to sign the death warrant on an auto-lobotomized black man, Ricky Lee Rector--a man so removed from reality that, before entering the infamous Arkansas execution protocol, he stuck a piece of pie, the dessert from his last meal, under his bunk for later, and vowed to fully support his killer’s presidency.
Then, of course, Clinton--in fact, Mr & Mrs Clinton--went on to collaborate on the mass murders of innumerable Middle Easterners, Slavs and Africans, in Palestine, Iraq, Russia, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda/Burundi/Congo--just off the top of my addled pate.
Yeah, those Dems were pretty much equal opportunity liquifacrtionists. So now, the Man from Hope (AR, home of American Mineral Fields, one of the principal parasitic infections in Central Africa), has handed off his executioner’s hood to the Man whose Audacity to Hope he can make a difference is being sorely tested by the wasted nation he has been chosen to lead. When Rush Limbaugh is the Speaker of the Opposition, all I can think of is ‘Praise Jack Lord and pass the Oxycontin!’
But!!! We have not given up on President Obama--yet! However, he is going to have to assert what are coyly called ‘America’s core values’ a little further back into history than just the punishment the Bush/Cheney torture memos. Does ‘We’re Americans! We don’t fucking do that!’ refer only to, like, water-boarding someone with Vanilla Fudge cranked up to 12? Or would CNN’s setting up Radio/Television Serbia, on 23 April 1999, with a Larry King live feed, so that the ‘visibly demented’ General Wesley Clark could fire a Cruise missile into the station and kill 16 of CNN’s putative colleagues--would this qualify as something Americans don’t fucking do?
The Obama administration, if it hopes to save the soul of a nation, is going to have to apply its new standard of decency to the whole murderous juggernaut that has supplanted Cold War anti-communism with an even more barbarous assault on the world’s powerless and poor: the War of Terror on The Terrified.
For the US, through its various military contractors and proxies, like NATO, the IDF, the RPF and al Qaeda, to continue the criminal irrationality currently on display in Afghanistan/Pakistan and Eastern Congo is to condemn his presidency, his nation and its people to a Historical death sentence and a cold, ugly execution at its own hands.--mc]
***
Judge Bruguière’s investigation into the civilian plane shoot down of 6 April 1994--by Col. Luc Marchal
The investigation by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière has continued to bringing on an outpouring printer’s ink and rabid froth from opponents. The journalist Colette Braeckman is one of those who thinks the storm created by this inquest is blowing over. Colonel Luc Marchal’s view is quite the contrary.
Is Judge Bruguière’s investigation of the 6 April 1994 attack nothing but a burst bladder?
Let’s recall the facts.
The French judge’s investigation was begun in 1998 after a complaint against an unnamed party was filed by the daughter of one the members of the flight crew of the Rwandan presidential Falcon 50 jet, and was, subsequently, joined by other members of the victims’ families. At the end of November 2006, judge Bruguière, First Vice President of the Superior Court of Paris charged with anti-terrorism, issued an order for nine international arrest warrants against close associates of Paul Kagame. Since Kagame, as the sitting president of Rwanda, is protected by executive immunity, judge Bruguière has turned to the Secretary General of the UN and demanded that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which has authority over such matters, take up the adjudication of these charges.
Evidence was presented and testimony heard over an eight year period. The least one can say is that these hearings were not rushed. The Rwandan authorities were well aware of the scope of the proceedings and reacted long before the warrants were issued. In 2005 they threatened several times to take France to court over its complicity in the genocide. Charges along these lines were actually filed in Paris against the French military by Rwandan survivors. Then, in April 2006, a commission (called the ‘Muyco Commission’ after its president, Jean de Dieu Muyco) was set up to investigate ‘the role of France before, during and after the genocide.’
Seventy pages long, the order signed by judge Bruguière is somewhat unusual in that it was not composed solely to justify the issuing of international arrest warrants. But this essential moment in the process allowed the synthesis of investigations conducted by the National Anti-terrorist Division (DNAT). Its conclusion is unequivocal: Paul Kagame is directly implicated in the attack of 6 April 1994.
There were various reactions from Kigali, describing the court order as totally unfounded, based on gossip and rumor, and the French judiciary was accused of being motivated more by politics than justice in this case. Other reactions bordered on the surreal, with certain officials contending that President Habyarimana and General Nsabimana, the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Armed Forces, were legitimate targets in the context of an armed conflict. They were no doubt overlooking that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) had recently signed a peace accord, and that the president of Burundi and other dignitaries from both countries were on the Falcon 50. More concretely, Rwanda also broke off diplomatic relations with France, and in March 2007, two Rwandan generals, accused by judge Bruguière, filed a complaint against him in a Belgian court, tantamount to filing charges against the Belgian State.
One should remember two major elements of this situation: First, at the end of 2006, Judge Erik Møse, at that time, Chief Justice of the ICTR and presiding judge in the ‘Military I’ trial, entered the entire Bruguière report into the record of that trial of the four Rwandan officers charged with masterminding the genocide. The second element is the completion, in February 2008, of the investigation of Spanish judge Fernando Andreu Merelles. This inquiry into the killing of nine Spanish nationals carried out in Rwanda between 1994 and 2000, concludes with the ordering of 40 arrest warrants against officers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA).
In a detailed finding of 181 pages, the judge determined that those charged had committed acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and terrorism on the orders of president Kagame. Since Kagame has executive immunity as president of Rwanda, again, a warrant was not issued in his name.
In his conclusions, the judge accuses the RPF of having set up a veritable criminal organization. He estimated that since taking power in Kigali in July 1994, the RPF has created an actual reign of terror, not only in the functioning of its dictatorial regime, but especially by the establishment of parallel structures responsible for committing heinous crimes against the civilian populations, both domestic and foreign. He goes on to state that the overarching aim of this policy was an invasion of Congo, which, after being carried out under the pretext of national security, allowed the invaders to make off with precious natural resources and, at the same time, enabled the government to maintain itself in power and exercise geopolitical domination over the region. The judge furthermore points out that the crimes committed in 1994 are within the purview of the ICTR and, more specifically, within the authority of its prosecutor, the Gambian Hassan Bubacar Jallow. A dubious investigation that is gradually slipping away?
In an article in the daily ’Le Soir’ of 6 April 2008, which was not the first of its kind, the Belgian journalist Colette Braeckman (CB) tried to show that the ‘Bruguière file’ has deflated like a cheap balloon. How does she actually fault the French judge and his investigation? First off, let’s remember that the only document (in the ‘Bruguière file’) that has been made public is the 17 November 2006 order for international arrest warrants.
The full report itself is available only to those who have the specific legal right to see it. That is, at the current stage of the proceedings, only to Mme Rose Kabuye (who has been brought before the French judiciary) and her lawyers. So, one has to wonder just how Mme Braeckman gained access to this file and is able knowingly to comment on it? Let’s be clear. We are not pretending to know ‘The Truth.’
We do understand, however, that if we are wrong, our errors will be demonstrated to us with objective evidence and not by unwarranted assertions, half-truths, generalizations and other subterfuge aimed at avoiding the essential debate. In a file as fraught with emotion as that of Rwanda and Congo (in the past nearly twenty years, the Great Lakes region of Africa has been transformed into an immense killing field with several million victims), the citizen is within his rights to expect to be informed in the most rigorous fashion. If judge Bruguière’s file, because of whatever human errors, contains certain imperfections or informational lapses, it is quite understandable.
But to use such flaws to reduce an eight-year investigation to a mere non-entity, even to question the integrity of the judge and his colleagues, is to cross a line that should never be crossed. And, by crossing it, which seems to be what has happened in this case, one loses all objectivity and credibility.
Three important elements, among others, are brought up in the CB article to justify her lame analysis of the inconsistencies of the file: The main witnesses have gone back on their testimonies. A Rwandan interpreter and translator, Fabien Singaye, who aided judge Bruguière and his investigators in the interrogation of witnesses, was anything but neutral.
The authorization given Mme Kabuye to return to Rwanda and to continue her official duties, even though the arrest warrant had not been formally revoked [sic--the international arrest warrant was executed on Mme Kabuye at the Frankfurt airport on 10 November 2008, and she was subsequently transferred to Paris, where her appearance in court satisfied that order and the warrant was no longer in force--cm/p], is indicative of the weakness of the charges against her.
What about these different allegations?
As to the retraction of testimony by key witnesses:
Two important witness have gone back on their statements: Abdul Ruzibiza and Emmanuel Ruzigana. They are, in fact, two key witnesses but hardly the only witnesses to have testified in these matters. Take the better known case of Abdul Ruzibiza. His book, ‘Rwanda, l’histoire secrète’ (‘Rwanda, the Secret Story,’ though, as far as I know, not only has the book not been translated into English --the new second language of Rwanda--but it has been banned in that country--cm/p), issued by Éditions du Panama in 2005, greatly troubled the debate on Central Africa.
Basically, this book made the case that Paul Kagame was responsible for the 6 April 1994 attack as well as the far-ranging massacres carried out in Rwanda and Congo-Zaire. Such accusations were not big news at that time. They had already been made against the Kigali strong man well before Ruzibiza or Ruzigana surfaced--notably by Jean-Pierre Mugabe, Aloys Ruyenzi and Déogratias Mushayidi, to name just a few. It is true that, in the Soir article of last April 6th, CB indicates that she had met Ruzibiza back in the day and that she found him to be less than credible.
Shocking when one considers that Ruzibiza’s book was prefaced by two renowned experts on the African Great Lakes region: Claudine Vidal, emeritus director of research at the CNRS and André Guichaoua, professor of sociology at the University of Paris (1--Panthéon-Sorbonne). These folks are not lightweights!
It is not because Ruzibiza flipped on his testimony before Bruguière that the 495 pages of his book become a crock of inventions, or lies and wild fantasies. It is even less reasonable to assume that having lived through some of the situations described in the book, we can attest that the details concerning them are, in fact, correct. But whatever the case, it seems to us a little impetuous to declare Ruzibiza to be just a minor bullshit artist and that the whole Bruguière report goes flat when its principal witness caves in.
It might be useful to remind Mme Braeckman that Ruzibiza also testified before the ICTR and that his testimony, which covered the principal themes of his book, was given under oath. Under such conditions, it is surprising that the prosecutor at the ICTR did not think it necessary to recall this witness and charge him with perjury, since he had the authority to do so and had, in fact, done so in the past. On the journalistic side, this move would have been something else again if, instead of taking Ruzibiza’s retractions at face value, a serious investigation had been opened into the real reasons for his flipping on his statements. Isn’t that, after all, the journalist’s job?
To finish up this first point, we could say that if Ruzibiza had been the only person to accuse Paul Kagame of being directly implicated in the Rwandan tragedy, it would be right to call into question the relevance of all his allegations.
Given that this is not the case and that many other direct witnesses have said substantially the same thing, it would be reasonable to look for the real reasons for Ruzibiza and Ruzigana to have gone back on their statements. Such an action would doubtlessly permit us to learn what exactly was the real motivation for these reversals.
As to the controversial role of Fabien Singaye:
According to CB, “The unpublished documents discovered in Switzerland--and to which we were able to gain exclusive access--establish that the Rwandan translator who assisted Bruguière in the questioning of witnesses was anything but impartial (. . .) so it is not surprising that witnesses like Emmanuel Ruzindana (who speaks no French) subsequently declared that he recognized none of the statements he had actually made . . .”
But let’s try to stay serious here. Can you imagine for a moment that judge Bruguière, with his vast judicial experience, could have been duped like a fresh rookie? If the unpublished documents referred to by Mme Braeckman are like the so-called “Key witness to the Habyarimana assassination” (Le Soir of 6 May 2006), the only person to allege that there were three surface-to-air missiles fired at the president’s plane, then it is not worthy the time it takes to read it.
You would really have to go out and do some serious digging to find such a witness and get such strong stuff! Because everyone who was in Kigali on the night of 6 April 1994 confirms that there were just two missiles, and not three, that were fired on the presidential Falcon 50. Dedicating a one-page article to such a seemingly whacked-out witness has for a long time been a way to cast doubt on the seriousness of the judge’s investigation, which only mentions two missiles being fired.
Is the fact that Fabien Singaye is the son-in-law of Félicien Kabuga, accused of being one of the financiers of the genocide, really irrefutable evidence of the translator’s bias? While we’re at it, why not just put it out there that judge Bruguière is surrounded by a staff of genocidaire associates? A relationship like that of Kabuga with is son-in-law doesn’t fool anyone. Such an allusion is a time-tested means of covering up for the total absence of substance in an argument. If the unpublished documents mentioned are supportive of any real position, why not be more precise as to just what they contain?
This would, at least, keep one from falling into vagaries, innuendos, if not outright defamation. To finish with this second point let me emphasize that the person Mme Braeckman accuses of being a ‘biased interpreter’ was needed for the transcription of the control tower tapes from Kigali airport and the testimony of two witnesses. Fabien Singaye had nothing, directly or indirectly, to do with the testimonies of either Ruzibiza or Ruzigana. Not even with that of Emmanuel Ruzindana, whose name does not even appear in judge Bruguière’s report!
As to the special privileges extended to Mme Rose Kabuye:
Here in Belgium we have recently become aware of a governmental crisis brought on by a simple interference by the executive branch into the judicial branch, or maybe it was the other way round.
How do our French friends see the ‘separation of powers’? If we follow the smarmy, self-serving statements of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner with regard to the Kabuye affair, we get the feeling--shared by many--that the bubbly Mr K. has taken great and grave liberties with regard to the principle of the separation of powers.
Strangely enough, his flagrant interfering has not brought anywhere near as great a reaction from French legislators as what we have seen here in Belgium. To speak of the charges against Mme Kabuye as being a huge ‘misunderstanding’ is a sort of provocation of the French judiciary. It is also a harsh blow to the families of the victims of the 6 April attack.
Even if the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The concern of the French president and his Foreign Minister about normalizing troubled relations between France and Rwanda are, in and of themselves, laudable.
Nevertheless, we believe that all is not acceptable in the name realpolitik, and this normalization of relations would be tantamount to the obliteration of the histories of the several million victims sacrificed on the altar of absolute power. No, there are boundaries that should not be crossed. As disturbing is the appeal made at the beginning of this year by president Sarkozy to set up a new system for managing the resources and the territory of the provinces in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. What? Does he think he’s the Bismarck of the Great Lakes here?
Could he have forgotten what the French used to sing with their hands over their hearts and a tremolo in their throats? “They will not take Alsace and Lorraine . . .!” By what right would he force on the Congolese something which, in the past, the French paid an enormous price fighting against? And how much is he ready to do in order to roll out the red carpet for the new Mwami (King) of Rwanda?
In any case, King Kagame is going to laugh until his lips fall off! Given what we have just seen, to suggest, as CB does, that the privileged treatment that Mme Kabuye received showed the Bruguière report to be nothing but an empty vessel, is to take her readers for idiots.
Conclusion
So many years after the 6 April 1994 attack and things are still not back to normal. If after all these years this terrorist act is still spawning books and other documents about its consequences, it is because things are still unclear. Things are still so unclear that there are many who strive, with or against the current, to impose ‘their unilateral view’ of history on the world. But these views just do not stand up to historical analysis. And it is impossible to ignore that these tenants of public opinion, which enforce, far and wide, a sort of intellectual dictatorship by appropriating the ideas of ‘revisionism’ and ‘negationism’ to overwhelm all those who would dare pose even the slightest challenge to their version of history.
The press should be content simply to play its noble role: to inform the public with complete objectivity. It should avoid, for its own obscure reasons, trying to take on the role of the judiciary. Justice is perfectly capable of meeting its own responsibilities.
To pretend that the Bruguière investigation is about to collapse for want of consistency, is to trivialize another investigation that preceded it and came to the same conclusions. In 1997, Michael Hourigan, lead investigator for the ICTR working out of Kigali, put together a file which implicated the current Kigali regime in the murders of presidents Habyarimana and Ntaryamira.
This investigation was well executed from beginning to end. While it started out with the presumption that the attack was the responsibility of extremist Hutus, the accumulation of evidence indicated that, in reality, the responsibility lay with the RPF. And, of course, we know what became of the ‘Hourigan file’: it was first shoved into the back of a drawer by Canadian Louise Arbour, the ICTR prosecutor at that time. Hourigan was told, summarily, to stop his investigation and to destroy all his supporting documents.
And then, it is not the attempts to denigrate the Bruguière investigation by certain members of the press that will make us change our opinion on the necessity for the judicial process to take its normal course and to bring forth a trial. Only a trial will allow a true debate, with the confrontation of opposing arguments, to take place. It is also by way of a trial that, after all these years of obfuscation, we can hope to bring some real clarity to the history of the attack of 6 April 1994. Luc Marchal 4 May 2009
© Mick Collins
This is all too reminiscent of the early days of the last US Democratic administration, when $3 Bill Clinton, as his first foreign policy gesture, ordered the bombing of Baghdad and killed a world-renowned artist--a woman--yet none dared call Clinton a ‘femmocidaire’.
And Bill was no novice at remote controlled murder, having taken time out of his busy 1991 presidential campaign to sign the death warrant on an auto-lobotomized black man, Ricky Lee Rector--a man so removed from reality that, before entering the infamous Arkansas execution protocol, he stuck a piece of pie, the dessert from his last meal, under his bunk for later, and vowed to fully support his killer’s presidency.
Then, of course, Clinton--in fact, Mr & Mrs Clinton--went on to collaborate on the mass murders of innumerable Middle Easterners, Slavs and Africans, in Palestine, Iraq, Russia, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda/Burundi/Congo--just off the top of my addled pate.
Yeah, those Dems were pretty much equal opportunity liquifacrtionists. So now, the Man from Hope (AR, home of American Mineral Fields, one of the principal parasitic infections in Central Africa), has handed off his executioner’s hood to the Man whose Audacity to Hope he can make a difference is being sorely tested by the wasted nation he has been chosen to lead. When Rush Limbaugh is the Speaker of the Opposition, all I can think of is ‘Praise Jack Lord and pass the Oxycontin!’
But!!! We have not given up on President Obama--yet! However, he is going to have to assert what are coyly called ‘America’s core values’ a little further back into history than just the punishment the Bush/Cheney torture memos. Does ‘We’re Americans! We don’t fucking do that!’ refer only to, like, water-boarding someone with Vanilla Fudge cranked up to 12? Or would CNN’s setting up Radio/Television Serbia, on 23 April 1999, with a Larry King live feed, so that the ‘visibly demented’ General Wesley Clark could fire a Cruise missile into the station and kill 16 of CNN’s putative colleagues--would this qualify as something Americans don’t fucking do?
The Obama administration, if it hopes to save the soul of a nation, is going to have to apply its new standard of decency to the whole murderous juggernaut that has supplanted Cold War anti-communism with an even more barbarous assault on the world’s powerless and poor: the War of Terror on The Terrified.
For the US, through its various military contractors and proxies, like NATO, the IDF, the RPF and al Qaeda, to continue the criminal irrationality currently on display in Afghanistan/Pakistan and Eastern Congo is to condemn his presidency, his nation and its people to a Historical death sentence and a cold, ugly execution at its own hands.--mc]
***
Judge Bruguière’s investigation into the civilian plane shoot down of 6 April 1994--by Col. Luc Marchal
The investigation by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière has continued to bringing on an outpouring printer’s ink and rabid froth from opponents. The journalist Colette Braeckman is one of those who thinks the storm created by this inquest is blowing over. Colonel Luc Marchal’s view is quite the contrary.
Is Judge Bruguière’s investigation of the 6 April 1994 attack nothing but a burst bladder?
Let’s recall the facts.
The French judge’s investigation was begun in 1998 after a complaint against an unnamed party was filed by the daughter of one the members of the flight crew of the Rwandan presidential Falcon 50 jet, and was, subsequently, joined by other members of the victims’ families. At the end of November 2006, judge Bruguière, First Vice President of the Superior Court of Paris charged with anti-terrorism, issued an order for nine international arrest warrants against close associates of Paul Kagame. Since Kagame, as the sitting president of Rwanda, is protected by executive immunity, judge Bruguière has turned to the Secretary General of the UN and demanded that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which has authority over such matters, take up the adjudication of these charges.
Evidence was presented and testimony heard over an eight year period. The least one can say is that these hearings were not rushed. The Rwandan authorities were well aware of the scope of the proceedings and reacted long before the warrants were issued. In 2005 they threatened several times to take France to court over its complicity in the genocide. Charges along these lines were actually filed in Paris against the French military by Rwandan survivors. Then, in April 2006, a commission (called the ‘Muyco Commission’ after its president, Jean de Dieu Muyco) was set up to investigate ‘the role of France before, during and after the genocide.’
Seventy pages long, the order signed by judge Bruguière is somewhat unusual in that it was not composed solely to justify the issuing of international arrest warrants. But this essential moment in the process allowed the synthesis of investigations conducted by the National Anti-terrorist Division (DNAT). Its conclusion is unequivocal: Paul Kagame is directly implicated in the attack of 6 April 1994.
There were various reactions from Kigali, describing the court order as totally unfounded, based on gossip and rumor, and the French judiciary was accused of being motivated more by politics than justice in this case. Other reactions bordered on the surreal, with certain officials contending that President Habyarimana and General Nsabimana, the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Armed Forces, were legitimate targets in the context of an armed conflict. They were no doubt overlooking that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) had recently signed a peace accord, and that the president of Burundi and other dignitaries from both countries were on the Falcon 50. More concretely, Rwanda also broke off diplomatic relations with France, and in March 2007, two Rwandan generals, accused by judge Bruguière, filed a complaint against him in a Belgian court, tantamount to filing charges against the Belgian State.
One should remember two major elements of this situation: First, at the end of 2006, Judge Erik Møse, at that time, Chief Justice of the ICTR and presiding judge in the ‘Military I’ trial, entered the entire Bruguière report into the record of that trial of the four Rwandan officers charged with masterminding the genocide. The second element is the completion, in February 2008, of the investigation of Spanish judge Fernando Andreu Merelles. This inquiry into the killing of nine Spanish nationals carried out in Rwanda between 1994 and 2000, concludes with the ordering of 40 arrest warrants against officers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA).
In a detailed finding of 181 pages, the judge determined that those charged had committed acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and terrorism on the orders of president Kagame. Since Kagame has executive immunity as president of Rwanda, again, a warrant was not issued in his name.
In his conclusions, the judge accuses the RPF of having set up a veritable criminal organization. He estimated that since taking power in Kigali in July 1994, the RPF has created an actual reign of terror, not only in the functioning of its dictatorial regime, but especially by the establishment of parallel structures responsible for committing heinous crimes against the civilian populations, both domestic and foreign. He goes on to state that the overarching aim of this policy was an invasion of Congo, which, after being carried out under the pretext of national security, allowed the invaders to make off with precious natural resources and, at the same time, enabled the government to maintain itself in power and exercise geopolitical domination over the region. The judge furthermore points out that the crimes committed in 1994 are within the purview of the ICTR and, more specifically, within the authority of its prosecutor, the Gambian Hassan Bubacar Jallow. A dubious investigation that is gradually slipping away?
In an article in the daily ’Le Soir’ of 6 April 2008, which was not the first of its kind, the Belgian journalist Colette Braeckman (CB) tried to show that the ‘Bruguière file’ has deflated like a cheap balloon. How does she actually fault the French judge and his investigation? First off, let’s remember that the only document (in the ‘Bruguière file’) that has been made public is the 17 November 2006 order for international arrest warrants.
The full report itself is available only to those who have the specific legal right to see it. That is, at the current stage of the proceedings, only to Mme Rose Kabuye (who has been brought before the French judiciary) and her lawyers. So, one has to wonder just how Mme Braeckman gained access to this file and is able knowingly to comment on it? Let’s be clear. We are not pretending to know ‘The Truth.’
We do understand, however, that if we are wrong, our errors will be demonstrated to us with objective evidence and not by unwarranted assertions, half-truths, generalizations and other subterfuge aimed at avoiding the essential debate. In a file as fraught with emotion as that of Rwanda and Congo (in the past nearly twenty years, the Great Lakes region of Africa has been transformed into an immense killing field with several million victims), the citizen is within his rights to expect to be informed in the most rigorous fashion. If judge Bruguière’s file, because of whatever human errors, contains certain imperfections or informational lapses, it is quite understandable.
But to use such flaws to reduce an eight-year investigation to a mere non-entity, even to question the integrity of the judge and his colleagues, is to cross a line that should never be crossed. And, by crossing it, which seems to be what has happened in this case, one loses all objectivity and credibility.
Three important elements, among others, are brought up in the CB article to justify her lame analysis of the inconsistencies of the file: The main witnesses have gone back on their testimonies. A Rwandan interpreter and translator, Fabien Singaye, who aided judge Bruguière and his investigators in the interrogation of witnesses, was anything but neutral.
The authorization given Mme Kabuye to return to Rwanda and to continue her official duties, even though the arrest warrant had not been formally revoked [sic--the international arrest warrant was executed on Mme Kabuye at the Frankfurt airport on 10 November 2008, and she was subsequently transferred to Paris, where her appearance in court satisfied that order and the warrant was no longer in force--cm/p], is indicative of the weakness of the charges against her.
What about these different allegations?
As to the retraction of testimony by key witnesses:
Two important witness have gone back on their statements: Abdul Ruzibiza and Emmanuel Ruzigana. They are, in fact, two key witnesses but hardly the only witnesses to have testified in these matters. Take the better known case of Abdul Ruzibiza. His book, ‘Rwanda, l’histoire secrète’ (‘Rwanda, the Secret Story,’ though, as far as I know, not only has the book not been translated into English --the new second language of Rwanda--but it has been banned in that country--cm/p), issued by Éditions du Panama in 2005, greatly troubled the debate on Central Africa.
Basically, this book made the case that Paul Kagame was responsible for the 6 April 1994 attack as well as the far-ranging massacres carried out in Rwanda and Congo-Zaire. Such accusations were not big news at that time. They had already been made against the Kigali strong man well before Ruzibiza or Ruzigana surfaced--notably by Jean-Pierre Mugabe, Aloys Ruyenzi and Déogratias Mushayidi, to name just a few. It is true that, in the Soir article of last April 6th, CB indicates that she had met Ruzibiza back in the day and that she found him to be less than credible.
Shocking when one considers that Ruzibiza’s book was prefaced by two renowned experts on the African Great Lakes region: Claudine Vidal, emeritus director of research at the CNRS and André Guichaoua, professor of sociology at the University of Paris (1--Panthéon-Sorbonne). These folks are not lightweights!
It is not because Ruzibiza flipped on his testimony before Bruguière that the 495 pages of his book become a crock of inventions, or lies and wild fantasies. It is even less reasonable to assume that having lived through some of the situations described in the book, we can attest that the details concerning them are, in fact, correct. But whatever the case, it seems to us a little impetuous to declare Ruzibiza to be just a minor bullshit artist and that the whole Bruguière report goes flat when its principal witness caves in.
It might be useful to remind Mme Braeckman that Ruzibiza also testified before the ICTR and that his testimony, which covered the principal themes of his book, was given under oath. Under such conditions, it is surprising that the prosecutor at the ICTR did not think it necessary to recall this witness and charge him with perjury, since he had the authority to do so and had, in fact, done so in the past. On the journalistic side, this move would have been something else again if, instead of taking Ruzibiza’s retractions at face value, a serious investigation had been opened into the real reasons for his flipping on his statements. Isn’t that, after all, the journalist’s job?
To finish up this first point, we could say that if Ruzibiza had been the only person to accuse Paul Kagame of being directly implicated in the Rwandan tragedy, it would be right to call into question the relevance of all his allegations.
Given that this is not the case and that many other direct witnesses have said substantially the same thing, it would be reasonable to look for the real reasons for Ruzibiza and Ruzigana to have gone back on their statements. Such an action would doubtlessly permit us to learn what exactly was the real motivation for these reversals.
As to the controversial role of Fabien Singaye:
According to CB, “The unpublished documents discovered in Switzerland--and to which we were able to gain exclusive access--establish that the Rwandan translator who assisted Bruguière in the questioning of witnesses was anything but impartial (. . .) so it is not surprising that witnesses like Emmanuel Ruzindana (who speaks no French) subsequently declared that he recognized none of the statements he had actually made . . .”
But let’s try to stay serious here. Can you imagine for a moment that judge Bruguière, with his vast judicial experience, could have been duped like a fresh rookie? If the unpublished documents referred to by Mme Braeckman are like the so-called “Key witness to the Habyarimana assassination” (Le Soir of 6 May 2006), the only person to allege that there were three surface-to-air missiles fired at the president’s plane, then it is not worthy the time it takes to read it.
You would really have to go out and do some serious digging to find such a witness and get such strong stuff! Because everyone who was in Kigali on the night of 6 April 1994 confirms that there were just two missiles, and not three, that were fired on the presidential Falcon 50. Dedicating a one-page article to such a seemingly whacked-out witness has for a long time been a way to cast doubt on the seriousness of the judge’s investigation, which only mentions two missiles being fired.
Is the fact that Fabien Singaye is the son-in-law of Félicien Kabuga, accused of being one of the financiers of the genocide, really irrefutable evidence of the translator’s bias? While we’re at it, why not just put it out there that judge Bruguière is surrounded by a staff of genocidaire associates? A relationship like that of Kabuga with is son-in-law doesn’t fool anyone. Such an allusion is a time-tested means of covering up for the total absence of substance in an argument. If the unpublished documents mentioned are supportive of any real position, why not be more precise as to just what they contain?
This would, at least, keep one from falling into vagaries, innuendos, if not outright defamation. To finish with this second point let me emphasize that the person Mme Braeckman accuses of being a ‘biased interpreter’ was needed for the transcription of the control tower tapes from Kigali airport and the testimony of two witnesses. Fabien Singaye had nothing, directly or indirectly, to do with the testimonies of either Ruzibiza or Ruzigana. Not even with that of Emmanuel Ruzindana, whose name does not even appear in judge Bruguière’s report!
As to the special privileges extended to Mme Rose Kabuye:
Here in Belgium we have recently become aware of a governmental crisis brought on by a simple interference by the executive branch into the judicial branch, or maybe it was the other way round.
How do our French friends see the ‘separation of powers’? If we follow the smarmy, self-serving statements of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner with regard to the Kabuye affair, we get the feeling--shared by many--that the bubbly Mr K. has taken great and grave liberties with regard to the principle of the separation of powers.
Strangely enough, his flagrant interfering has not brought anywhere near as great a reaction from French legislators as what we have seen here in Belgium. To speak of the charges against Mme Kabuye as being a huge ‘misunderstanding’ is a sort of provocation of the French judiciary. It is also a harsh blow to the families of the victims of the 6 April attack.
Even if the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The concern of the French president and his Foreign Minister about normalizing troubled relations between France and Rwanda are, in and of themselves, laudable.
Nevertheless, we believe that all is not acceptable in the name realpolitik, and this normalization of relations would be tantamount to the obliteration of the histories of the several million victims sacrificed on the altar of absolute power. No, there are boundaries that should not be crossed. As disturbing is the appeal made at the beginning of this year by president Sarkozy to set up a new system for managing the resources and the territory of the provinces in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. What? Does he think he’s the Bismarck of the Great Lakes here?
Could he have forgotten what the French used to sing with their hands over their hearts and a tremolo in their throats? “They will not take Alsace and Lorraine . . .!” By what right would he force on the Congolese something which, in the past, the French paid an enormous price fighting against? And how much is he ready to do in order to roll out the red carpet for the new Mwami (King) of Rwanda?
In any case, King Kagame is going to laugh until his lips fall off! Given what we have just seen, to suggest, as CB does, that the privileged treatment that Mme Kabuye received showed the Bruguière report to be nothing but an empty vessel, is to take her readers for idiots.
Conclusion
So many years after the 6 April 1994 attack and things are still not back to normal. If after all these years this terrorist act is still spawning books and other documents about its consequences, it is because things are still unclear. Things are still so unclear that there are many who strive, with or against the current, to impose ‘their unilateral view’ of history on the world. But these views just do not stand up to historical analysis. And it is impossible to ignore that these tenants of public opinion, which enforce, far and wide, a sort of intellectual dictatorship by appropriating the ideas of ‘revisionism’ and ‘negationism’ to overwhelm all those who would dare pose even the slightest challenge to their version of history.
The press should be content simply to play its noble role: to inform the public with complete objectivity. It should avoid, for its own obscure reasons, trying to take on the role of the judiciary. Justice is perfectly capable of meeting its own responsibilities.
To pretend that the Bruguière investigation is about to collapse for want of consistency, is to trivialize another investigation that preceded it and came to the same conclusions. In 1997, Michael Hourigan, lead investigator for the ICTR working out of Kigali, put together a file which implicated the current Kigali regime in the murders of presidents Habyarimana and Ntaryamira.
This investigation was well executed from beginning to end. While it started out with the presumption that the attack was the responsibility of extremist Hutus, the accumulation of evidence indicated that, in reality, the responsibility lay with the RPF. And, of course, we know what became of the ‘Hourigan file’: it was first shoved into the back of a drawer by Canadian Louise Arbour, the ICTR prosecutor at that time. Hourigan was told, summarily, to stop his investigation and to destroy all his supporting documents.
And then, it is not the attempts to denigrate the Bruguière investigation by certain members of the press that will make us change our opinion on the necessity for the judicial process to take its normal course and to bring forth a trial. Only a trial will allow a true debate, with the confrontation of opposing arguments, to take place. It is also by way of a trial that, after all these years of obfuscation, we can hope to bring some real clarity to the history of the attack of 6 April 1994. Luc Marchal 4 May 2009
© Mick 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
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
© Survivors Editions:
***
La situation actuelle du dialogue interne jusqu'ici voulu par le FPR Se présente comme celui-ci à côté =>
***
Rwandans say NO, NO, NOO. There is No way!
Par contre, le Dialogue Intra-Rwandais Hautement Inclusif se présente comme celui présenté en bas =>
Dialog based on Mutual Trust and Respect
***
Réunis à Palma de Mallorca- Espagne du 30 Avril au 3 Mai 2009 dans le cadre du dialogue Intra-Rwandais édition 2009 ;
Après avoir passé en revue et approuvé les déclarations des plateformes Allemagne-Belgique, Hollande, Canada, USA, France-Italie tenues en 2007, ainsi que les plateformes femmes et Congo- RDC en 2008 ;
Les représentants de ces plateformes constituées de Hutu, de Tutsi et de Twa, avec la participation de certains congolais, remercient le gouvernement et le Parlement espagnols pour les appuis qu´ils continuent d´apporter à la recherche de la sécurité et la paix durables dans la région de Grands Lacs africains en général et au Rwanda en particulier ;
Tenant compte des résultats d´analyse de la situation actuelle dans la sous-région, des résolutions et des recommandations émises dans les éditions DIR-04-06-07-08, les participants recommandent :1Réunis à Palma de Mallorca- Espagne du 30 Avril au 3 Mai 2009 dans le cadre du dialogue Intra-Rwandais édition 2009 ;
Après avoir passé en revue et approuvé les déclarations des plateformes Allemagne-Belgique – Hollande, Canada – USA, France-Italie tenues en 2007, ainsi que les plateformes femmes et Congo- RDC en 2008 ;
Les représentants de ces plateformes constituées de Hutu, de Tutsi et de Twa, avec la participation de certains congolais, remercient le gouvernement et le Parlement espagnols pour les appuis qu´ils continuent d´apporter à la recherche de la sécurité et la paix durables dans la région de Grands Lacs africains en général et au Rwanda en particulier ;
Tenant compte des résultats d´analyse de la situation actuelle dans la sous-région, des résolutions et des recommandations émises dans les éditions DIR-04-06-07-08, les participants recommandent :
- La mobilisation de tous les moyens possibles pour la tenue du Dialogue Inter-Rwandais Hautement Inclusif (DIRHI), avec la participation des observateurs, avant la tenue des élections prévues en 2010. Ce DIRHI, dans lequel participeraient les différents représentants de la Société Civile et des Partis Politiques de l´intérieur et à l´extérieur du Rwanda, est le seul cadre propice à l´édification du climat de confiance entre les ethnies et indispensable à la réconciliation effective, à la paix et au développement durable dans la région des Grands Lacs. C´est pourquoi les thèmes de discussions seraient entre autres :
- La crise identitaire des rwandais et la constitution d´une équipe d´experts historiens indépendants pour écrire l´histoire du Rwanda qui puisse servir de repères pour la lecture des événements rwandais;
- Les garanties nécessaires pour rassurer et sécuriser toutes les composantes de la société rwandaise ;
- L´instauration d´une justice impartiale et équitable pour toutes les victimes des crimes commis dans la région, ainsi que l´instauration d´une mémoire collective et non exclusive de toutes les victimes ;
- La création d´une commission vérité et réconciliation;
- Le problème de l´équité sociale et de l´égalité des chances;
- La mise en place d´un mécanisme indépendant de promotion, de protection et de surveillance des droits de l´homme;
- Le rôle de la femme et de l´éducation dans la prévention des conflits;
- Le respect de la souveraineté nationale des pays de la région et les relations de bon-voisinage et de cohabitation pacifique;
- Les projets de développement économique transnationaux et la libre circulation des personnes et des biens dans la région.
2. En attendant la tenue du DIRHI, la Société Civile rwandaise, les organisations des jeunes et des femmes, ainsi que les partis politiques doivent se mobiliser pour mettre en œuvre les activités qui rentrent dans leurs attributions en vue d´amener les pays de la sous-région à être des Etats de droit où règnent la démocratie, la justice équitable et l´égalité des chances.
Considérant la catastrophe humanitaire que vivent les populations dans l´Est de la RDC et de la responsabilité criminelle du régime rwandais et des groupes armés dans cette catastrophe, les participants demandent à la communauté internationale de tout mettre en œuvre pour résoudre le contentieux rwandais qui est à l´origine des conflits récurrents dans la région.
Les participants recommandent de mettre en place un cadre rwando-congolais pour analyser ensemble les voies urgentes pour contribuer à résoudre cette situation.
Les participants renouvellent leurs remerciements aux organisateurs, plus particulièrement Juan Carrero, Irma Rognoni et Jordi Palou et leurs collaborateurs pour les efforts et les sacrifices encourus pour accompagner les rwandais dans la recherche des solutions efficaces à un dialogue inter-rwandais et une réconciliation effective.
Les participants félicitent plus particulièrement les organisateurs pour avoir réussi à faire asseoir autour d´une table les Hutu, les Tutsi, les Twa et les rwandais de toutes les régions pour que chacun puisse exposer ses points de vue et proposer des solutions concrètes qui pourraient le rassurer et le sécuriser.
Les participants remercient aussi les observateurs et amis du Rwanda pour leurs contributions aux travaux et engagements qu´ils ont pris pour continuer à aider les rwandais à dialoguer.
Les participants remercient très profondément le Gouvernement des Iles de Balears pour l´accueil chaleureux et les appuis accordés pour le succès de nos travaux.
PARTICIPANTS DIR’09:
Bagirimvano Monique
Bucyedusenge Germaine
Gatabazi Tite Rutikanga
Kabanda Celestin
Kanyamibwa Jacques
Kanyarushoki Claver
Karangwa Semushi, Gerard
Kayombya Jean Damascène
Kayumba Claver
Lwiyando Donato
Makuza Victor
Marara Christian
Matata Joseph
Muhawenimana Chantal
Mujawayezu Spéciose
Mukashema Esperance
Munyurangabo Jeanne d’Arc
Ndagijimana Jean-Marie
Ndayisaba Elysée
Ndereyehe Charles
Njila Heri
Nkinamubanzi Pierre Claver
Numuhoza Marie Lyse
Ntaganzwa Jean Damascène
Nyirankuliza Spéciose
Rwasamanzi Jean Paul;
Twagiramungu Noel
Umuhoza Victoire
Uwimana Clémence Zakiya
OBSERVATEURS DIR’09:
Azparren José Eugenio
Casòliva Joan
De Beule Christiaan
Dekker Nicolaas
Florensa Mª Teresa
Gomariz Manel
Koetsier Nelly
Martínez Waldina
Parada Imma
Sampol Père
Syoen Martine
Vicens Bernat
Vicente Eva
Volosín Susana
FACILITATEURS DIR:
Carrero Juan
Palou Jordi
Rognoni Irma
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, May 3, 2009
UNAMID’s Deputy Force Commander, Major-General Emmanuel Karake Karenzi of Rwanda is believed to be a mass-murder.
He will soon be leaving his post and will be replaced by Major-General Duna Dumisani of South Africa.
It was announced Rwandan Maj. Gen. Emmanuel Karake Karenzi, the U.N. deputy force commander in Darfur, is charged by a Spanish magistrate in February with responsibility in the killings of thousands of ethnic Hutus during the mid-1990s.
Indeed, the Spanish Judge Merelles alleges that Karenzi, who was Rwanda's intelligence chief, had command responsibility for a series of political assassinations and massacres, including the "elimination" of Hutu populations in the towns of Nyakinama and Kinigi, Mukingo and Nkuli, between 1994 and 1997.
Strange how mass-murders become war heroes; does that happen everywhere, and not just in AmeriKa? And the CONGO!
That is ONE HOLOCAUST you NEVER HEAR OF!!!! And THE HOLOCAUST still goes on in both Rwanda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But others in the administration believe Karenzi should go. "There are many in the US government who think we had to dump the guy," said one American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly.
"The message is, 'Listen to the Rwandans,' " the official said.
The Spanish magistrate, D. Fernando Andreu Merelles, insisting on Karenzi's arrest, has issued an indictment in February against 40 Rwandan officials, including Karenzi and Colonel Rugumya John Gacinya, Rwanda's military attaché in Washington, for deliberate killings against Hutus in the years after the Patriotic Front seized power in Rwanda.
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
Indeed, the Spanish Judge Merelles alleges that Karenzi, who was Rwanda's intelligence chief, had command responsibility for a series of political assassinations and massacres, including the "elimination" of Hutu populations in the towns of Nyakinama and Kinigi, Mukingo and Nkuli, between 1994 and 1997.
Strange how mass-murders become war heroes; does that happen everywhere, and not just in AmeriKa? And the CONGO!
That is ONE HOLOCAUST you NEVER HEAR OF!!!! And THE HOLOCAUST still goes on in both Rwanda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But others in the administration believe Karenzi should go. "There are many in the US government who think we had to dump the guy," said one American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly.
"The message is, 'Listen to the Rwandans,' " the official said.
The Spanish magistrate, D. Fernando Andreu Merelles, insisting on Karenzi's arrest, has issued an indictment in February against 40 Rwandan officials, including Karenzi and Colonel Rugumya John Gacinya, Rwanda's military attaché in Washington, for deliberate killings against Hutus in the years after the Patriotic Front seized power in Rwanda.
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
***
Paris, 30 avril 2009, Charles Onana, journaliste d'investigation lors de la présentation de son ouvrage.
***
Jusqu'en dernière minute, les pressions ont été exercées au près de la Congrégation de la Légion de Marie sise au 43 rue Boileau dans le XVIème Arrondissement pour que la présentation de cet ouvrage n'ait pas lieu.
Charles Onana est arrivé serein saluant une bonne partie de salle avant d'être présenté par notre confrère Lilo Miango, modérateur de la manifestation.
Une foule immense des Congolais de la diaspora a été présente dans la salle. Un échange fructueux s'est réalisé lors de la prise de paroles par les congolais mais surtout pendant la dédicace du livre par l'auteur.
Les soeurs catholiques de la légion de Marie ont dû intervenir pour que la salle soit libérée tellement les gens étaient scotchés à leur chaise, la réunion étant déjà finie et l'heure de la clôture largement dépassée.
Vue partielle de l'assistance dans la salle.
Venu presque de la plupart des capitales européennes, le public constitué majoritairement des communautés congolaises et rwandaises, n’a pas regretté son déplacement. Encore une fois, le journaliste d’investigation a apporté avec pertinence, un plus dans son long combat qu’il mène depuis en faveur des victimes de la tragédie congolaise, en rétablissant la vérité sur les douloureux événements qui se sont passés au Rwanda. Dès sa prise de parole, il a tenu l’assistance en haleine expliquant durant deux heures dans un style mélancolique, le calvaire congolais dans son ensemble.
Charles Onana est journaliste d'investigation, auteur, entre autres, de : Les secrets du génocide rwandais (2002), Les secrets de la justice internationale (2005), Joséphine Baker contre Hitler(2006) , Les voyous de l'Arche de Zoé (2008). Il s’est dit consterner par des contres vérités qui alimentent le génocide rwandais et a fustigé l’hypocrisie de la communauté internationale qui se mure dans un silence complice face à ce qui se passe à l’Est de la République démocratique du Congo.
« Avant toute chose, je voudrais d’abord avoir une pensée profonde pour les femmes congolaises qui endurent les souffrances, les viols et les crimes inacceptables. Et mes conclusions ont prouvé que Paul Kagame est le vrai auteur non seulement du génocide rwandais, mais également des crimes abominables qui se perpétuent dans la grande indifférence, dans la région des Grands Lacs. Il bénéficie dans cette entreprise macabre, de la complicité des dirigeants occidentaux et de l’aide de ses acolytes rwandais ». A –t- il annoncé.
Me Marie Thérèse Nlandu était présente dans la salle. Prenant la parole, elle a prôné la dé-tutsisation des institutions congolaises et la libération rapide et sans condition du Congo.
Affichés sur une couverture rouge, couleur du sang congolais qui amplifie le contenu sémantique, les trois personnages qui y figurent (Paul Kagamé, James Kabarebe et Laurent Nkunda), appartiennent tous à l’ethnie tutsi et sont reconnus comme des criminels, selon les investigations de l’auteur. Ces tueurs sont soutenus aux Etats-Unis, en Grande-Bretagne, en France, en Belgique ainsi que par des multinationales et sont devenus les sous-traitants officiels d'une mondialisation sanguinaire en Afrique Noire.
L’auteur dénonce ce silence et s’indigne également du rôle des organisions internationales spécialisées dans la défense des droits de l’homme qui ne font pas assez dans la tragédie congolaise, alors qu’ils font beaucoup des bruits quand il s’agit des autres pays africains. C’est l’exemple du Zimbabwe. Pour le cas de la République démocratique du Congo, elles s’impliquent à géométrie variable dans leurs missions, minimisant si pas ignorant les crimes commis par le président rwandais, Paul Kagamé.
Ce livre se place dans le même contexte que ceux écrits par, Honoré Ngbanda (Crimes organisés en Afrique centrale), Carla DEL PONTE ou encore Koffi Atsu Amega (enquête sur les massacres de réfugiés hutu dans l’ex-Zaïre en 1996-1997) sur le génocide rwandais.
Cependant, bien que Charles Onana ne se soit pas rendu au Congo, attaque acerbe émise par ses adversaires, la préface de Cynthia McKinney, ancienne sénatrice américaine et envoyée spéciale de Bill Clinton en Afrique, rajoute une valeur refuge dans l’enquête de notre confrère. Hormis cela, les témoignages obtenus auprès des acteurs de cette tragédie, notamment Victor Mpoyo ou le Général Mofu, l’homme qui a tout fait pour la prise de Kinshasa lors de la conquête de l’AFDL en 1997 ou les documents confidentiels de l’union européenne créditent la thèse d’un travail de grande qualité.
Bénéficiant des exemplaires destinés à la presse, Réveil-FM qui a lu ce chef-d’œuvre, reprend ci-dessous quelques passages choisis pour aider ses lecteurs.
Instrumentalisant la mémoire de la Shoah, ils s'autoproclament victimes d'un génocide au Rwanda. Pourtant, en 1994, ils ont assassiné deux chefs d'Etat africains, des milliers de Rwandais ainsi que des témoins français, espagnols et canadiens.
Ils sont aussi soupçonnés d'avoir froidement abattu les parents du chanteur Corneille. En 1997, ils envahissent la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC) où ils exterminent des milliers de réfugiés hutus.
Bénéficiant de l'impunité, ils torturent et violent les femmes à l'Est de la RDC et massacrent plus de 6 millions de Congolais chez eux (...)
L'enquêteur qui a obtenu nombreux documents confidentiels de l'Union Européenne, révèle que depuis 2005, le président de la RDC, Joseph Kabila qui bénéficie les soutiens les plus actifs au sein de l'Union Européenne, serait disposé à partager les richesses de son pays avec le Rwanda; une curieuse idée émise également par le chef de l'Etat français Nicolas Sarkozy en 2009 et qui n’a pas été condamné par le chef de l’Etat Congolais.
Curieux silence de la part du garant de l’intégralité territoriale du Congo !
Le commissaire européen, Louis Michel dont le nom était chahuté chaque fois qu’il était cité, joue un rôle très décisif dans le malheur du peuple congolais. A l'instar du ministre français Bernard Kouchner qui soigne ses relations avec le régime tutsi de Kigali et de l'ancien Premier ministre britannique Tony Blair, devenu "conseiller bénévole" du dictateur Paul Kagame, cet homme est le soutien indéfectible des tueurs tutsi.
En tout cas, certains chapitres de cet ouvrage, racontent exceptionnellement aussi comment l'uranium du Congo a servi à fabriquer la bombe atomique américaine en 1942 et comment le gouvernement américain a formé des extrémistes tutsi pour déstabiliser l'Afrique Centrale sous le regard complaisant de la communauté internationale et des grandes démocraties.
Appuyés par les témoignages de Victor Mpoyo, l’auteur démontre comment des puissances étrangères, pillent massivement les ressources minières de la RDC pour les vendre à Kigali et craint que les nations africaines ayant d’énormes réserves pétrolières, puissent être demain, victimes de la même méthode.
Pour l’assistance, où on a noté la présence remarquable des figures de la scène politique congolaise au sein de la diaspora comme de Me Marie Thèrese Nlandu (venue spécialement de Londres), Jean-Pierre Bolefa (proche de l’Apareco), M.José ode Tuba et M.Dekeke Tukemba, respectivement vice-président et président du Mouvement de Résistance de la diaspora Congolaise en France et bien d’autres. Même l'artiste musicien Felix Wazekwa était dans la salle. Il est clairement établit que la situation dans la quelle s’embourbe le pays est cillement voulue et il y pas de doute.
La République démocratique du Congo est victime de ses richesses. La présence de Joseph Kabila à la tête du pays marque le début de la balkanisation de ce pays.
Jean-Pierre Bolefa, proche de l'Apareco s’est indigné la complicité de Joseph Kabila et des Joséphistes sur les malheurs qui s'abattent sur les Congolais
Le départ de Mobutu est même évoqué dans plusieurs passages où on comprendra, les raisons invraisemblables de la coalition des armées étrangères qui se sont précipitées en se battant sur le sol zaïrois pour faire partir « le Grand Léopard » du pouvoir.
Ces mercenaires de l'horreur ont un nom : les extrémistes tutsi du Rwanda.
En effet, Charles Onana fait remarquer qu’il faut bien différencier les extrémistes tutsi aux autres citoyens du Rwanda qui ne sont pas tous tueurs, mais sont instrumentalisé s par les criminels précités et marginalisés également par le régime de Kigali.
Venu presque de la plupart des capitales européennes, le public constitué majoritairement des communautés congolaises et rwandaises, n’a pas regretté son déplacement. Encore une fois, le journaliste d’investigation a apporté avec pertinence, un plus dans son long combat qu’il mène depuis en faveur des victimes de la tragédie congolaise, en rétablissant la vérité sur les douloureux événements qui se sont passés au Rwanda. Dès sa prise de parole, il a tenu l’assistance en haleine expliquant durant deux heures dans un style mélancolique, le calvaire congolais dans son ensemble.
Charles Onana est journaliste d'investigation, auteur, entre autres, de : Les secrets du génocide rwandais (2002), Les secrets de la justice internationale (2005), Joséphine Baker contre Hitler(2006) , Les voyous de l'Arche de Zoé (2008). Il s’est dit consterner par des contres vérités qui alimentent le génocide rwandais et a fustigé l’hypocrisie de la communauté internationale qui se mure dans un silence complice face à ce qui se passe à l’Est de la République démocratique du Congo.
« Avant toute chose, je voudrais d’abord avoir une pensée profonde pour les femmes congolaises qui endurent les souffrances, les viols et les crimes inacceptables. Et mes conclusions ont prouvé que Paul Kagame est le vrai auteur non seulement du génocide rwandais, mais également des crimes abominables qui se perpétuent dans la grande indifférence, dans la région des Grands Lacs. Il bénéficie dans cette entreprise macabre, de la complicité des dirigeants occidentaux et de l’aide de ses acolytes rwandais ». A –t- il annoncé.
Me Marie Thérèse Nlandu était présente dans la salle. Prenant la parole, elle a prôné la dé-tutsisation des institutions congolaises et la libération rapide et sans condition du Congo.Affichés sur une couverture rouge, couleur du sang congolais qui amplifie le contenu sémantique, les trois personnages qui y figurent (Paul Kagamé, James Kabarebe et Laurent Nkunda), appartiennent tous à l’ethnie tutsi et sont reconnus comme des criminels, selon les investigations de l’auteur. Ces tueurs sont soutenus aux Etats-Unis, en Grande-Bretagne, en France, en Belgique ainsi que par des multinationales et sont devenus les sous-traitants officiels d'une mondialisation sanguinaire en Afrique Noire.
L’auteur dénonce ce silence et s’indigne également du rôle des organisions internationales spécialisées dans la défense des droits de l’homme qui ne font pas assez dans la tragédie congolaise, alors qu’ils font beaucoup des bruits quand il s’agit des autres pays africains. C’est l’exemple du Zimbabwe. Pour le cas de la République démocratique du Congo, elles s’impliquent à géométrie variable dans leurs missions, minimisant si pas ignorant les crimes commis par le président rwandais, Paul Kagamé.
Ce livre se place dans le même contexte que ceux écrits par, Honoré Ngbanda (Crimes organisés en Afrique centrale), Carla DEL PONTE ou encore Koffi Atsu Amega (enquête sur les massacres de réfugiés hutu dans l’ex-Zaïre en 1996-1997) sur le génocide rwandais.
Cependant, bien que Charles Onana ne se soit pas rendu au Congo, attaque acerbe émise par ses adversaires, la préface de Cynthia McKinney, ancienne sénatrice américaine et envoyée spéciale de Bill Clinton en Afrique, rajoute une valeur refuge dans l’enquête de notre confrère. Hormis cela, les témoignages obtenus auprès des acteurs de cette tragédie, notamment Victor Mpoyo ou le Général Mofu, l’homme qui a tout fait pour la prise de Kinshasa lors de la conquête de l’AFDL en 1997 ou les documents confidentiels de l’union européenne créditent la thèse d’un travail de grande qualité.
Bénéficiant des exemplaires destinés à la presse, Réveil-FM qui a lu ce chef-d’œuvre, reprend ci-dessous quelques passages choisis pour aider ses lecteurs.
Instrumentalisant la mémoire de la Shoah, ils s'autoproclament victimes d'un génocide au Rwanda. Pourtant, en 1994, ils ont assassiné deux chefs d'Etat africains, des milliers de Rwandais ainsi que des témoins français, espagnols et canadiens.
Ils sont aussi soupçonnés d'avoir froidement abattu les parents du chanteur Corneille. En 1997, ils envahissent la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC) où ils exterminent des milliers de réfugiés hutus.
Bénéficiant de l'impunité, ils torturent et violent les femmes à l'Est de la RDC et massacrent plus de 6 millions de Congolais chez eux (...)
L'enquêteur qui a obtenu nombreux documents confidentiels de l'Union Européenne, révèle que depuis 2005, le président de la RDC, Joseph Kabila qui bénéficie les soutiens les plus actifs au sein de l'Union Européenne, serait disposé à partager les richesses de son pays avec le Rwanda; une curieuse idée émise également par le chef de l'Etat français Nicolas Sarkozy en 2009 et qui n’a pas été condamné par le chef de l’Etat Congolais.
Curieux silence de la part du garant de l’intégralité territoriale du Congo !
Le commissaire européen, Louis Michel dont le nom était chahuté chaque fois qu’il était cité, joue un rôle très décisif dans le malheur du peuple congolais. A l'instar du ministre français Bernard Kouchner qui soigne ses relations avec le régime tutsi de Kigali et de l'ancien Premier ministre britannique Tony Blair, devenu "conseiller bénévole" du dictateur Paul Kagame, cet homme est le soutien indéfectible des tueurs tutsi.
En tout cas, certains chapitres de cet ouvrage, racontent exceptionnellement aussi comment l'uranium du Congo a servi à fabriquer la bombe atomique américaine en 1942 et comment le gouvernement américain a formé des extrémistes tutsi pour déstabiliser l'Afrique Centrale sous le regard complaisant de la communauté internationale et des grandes démocraties.
Appuyés par les témoignages de Victor Mpoyo, l’auteur démontre comment des puissances étrangères, pillent massivement les ressources minières de la RDC pour les vendre à Kigali et craint que les nations africaines ayant d’énormes réserves pétrolières, puissent être demain, victimes de la même méthode.
Pour l’assistance, où on a noté la présence remarquable des figures de la scène politique congolaise au sein de la diaspora comme de Me Marie Thèrese Nlandu (venue spécialement de Londres), Jean-Pierre Bolefa (proche de l’Apareco), M.José ode Tuba et M.Dekeke Tukemba, respectivement vice-président et président du Mouvement de Résistance de la diaspora Congolaise en France et bien d’autres. Même l'artiste musicien Felix Wazekwa était dans la salle. Il est clairement établit que la situation dans la quelle s’embourbe le pays est cillement voulue et il y pas de doute.
La République démocratique du Congo est victime de ses richesses. La présence de Joseph Kabila à la tête du pays marque le début de la balkanisation de ce pays.
Jean-Pierre Bolefa, proche de l'Apareco s’est indigné la complicité de Joseph Kabila et des Joséphistes sur les malheurs qui s'abattent sur les Congolais
Le départ de Mobutu est même évoqué dans plusieurs passages où on comprendra, les raisons invraisemblables de la coalition des armées étrangères qui se sont précipitées en se battant sur le sol zaïrois pour faire partir « le Grand Léopard » du pouvoir.
Ces mercenaires de l'horreur ont un nom : les extrémistes tutsi du Rwanda.
En effet, Charles Onana fait remarquer qu’il faut bien différencier les extrémistes tutsi aux autres citoyens du Rwanda qui ne sont pas tous tueurs, mais sont instrumentalisé s par les criminels précités et marginalisés également par le régime de Kigali.
Albert Ntare, président de la diaspora rwandaise demandant pardon au peuple congolais.
Fait marquant, le représentant de la communauté rwandaise venu de Bruxelles a pris la parole en demandant pardon au peuple congolais. « Je viens ici pour demander pardon au peuple congolais qui nous tellement aidé, dans notre malheur. Kagamé est l’un de plus grands criminels que l’humanité a connu. Et nous continuerons toujours à le dire tant que nous serons vivant avec l’aide de Dieu.»
Le président de la société civile de la communauté rwandaise de Belgique, Albert Ntare qui sort d’une détention à Bruxelles pour avoir manifesté le jour de la commémoration du génocide rwandais, a insisté que la communauté internationale arrête de gratifier Paul Kagame de ses crimes.
Il a été grandement ovationné par l’assistance qui le connaît pour ses prises de position à l’égard de tueurs tutsi.
Pour sa part, la presse de la diaspora africaine et le public ont suffisamment accompagné l’action de Charles Onana. Pour minorer ses dépenses, l’auteur a écoulé plus de deux cartons de cet ouvrage, rien que ce soir là. Certains ont acheté plusieurs dizaines, le cas de Albert Ntare et Jean-Pierre Bolefa qui en ont offert quelques exemplaires aux amis.
Que peut-on tirer comme leçon après la publication de ce livre ? Cette question revient fréquemment lors des ce genre des débats. Après Honoré Ngbanda, Carla Del Ponte et Charles Onana pour ne citer que ceux-là, que faut-il encore faire pour trouver des solutions à la situation congolaise ?
C’est la question posée souvent par les congolais. Certes l’ouvrage s’ajoute aux nombreux livres écrits par quelques personnalités qui veulent rétablir la vérité sur les crimes dont sont victimes les congolais et rwandais.
Il faut rendre hommage à ces gens qui affrontent les fauves dans leur rage.
Pour que leur travail soit utile et intéressant, il appartient aux Congolais, aux dirigeants africains et aux peuples humiliés à travers le monde, d’agir avec courage. Surtout, il faut que les Congolais se réveillent.
Si les Congolais se mobilisent et mesurent l’humiliation qui leur est infligée, il se passera quelque chose. Sinon, les tueurs et les amis continueront à dire "Gloria Victis", "Gloire aux vaincus" !
*
Fait marquant, le représentant de la communauté rwandaise venu de Bruxelles a pris la parole en demandant pardon au peuple congolais. « Je viens ici pour demander pardon au peuple congolais qui nous tellement aidé, dans notre malheur. Kagamé est l’un de plus grands criminels que l’humanité a connu. Et nous continuerons toujours à le dire tant que nous serons vivant avec l’aide de Dieu.»
Le président de la société civile de la communauté rwandaise de Belgique, Albert Ntare qui sort d’une détention à Bruxelles pour avoir manifesté le jour de la commémoration du génocide rwandais, a insisté que la communauté internationale arrête de gratifier Paul Kagame de ses crimes.
Il a été grandement ovationné par l’assistance qui le connaît pour ses prises de position à l’égard de tueurs tutsi.
Pour sa part, la presse de la diaspora africaine et le public ont suffisamment accompagné l’action de Charles Onana. Pour minorer ses dépenses, l’auteur a écoulé plus de deux cartons de cet ouvrage, rien que ce soir là. Certains ont acheté plusieurs dizaines, le cas de Albert Ntare et Jean-Pierre Bolefa qui en ont offert quelques exemplaires aux amis.
Que peut-on tirer comme leçon après la publication de ce livre ? Cette question revient fréquemment lors des ce genre des débats. Après Honoré Ngbanda, Carla Del Ponte et Charles Onana pour ne citer que ceux-là, que faut-il encore faire pour trouver des solutions à la situation congolaise ?
C’est la question posée souvent par les congolais. Certes l’ouvrage s’ajoute aux nombreux livres écrits par quelques personnalités qui veulent rétablir la vérité sur les crimes dont sont victimes les congolais et rwandais.
Il faut rendre hommage à ces gens qui affrontent les fauves dans leur rage.
Pour que leur travail soit utile et intéressant, il appartient aux Congolais, aux dirigeants africains et aux peuples humiliés à travers le monde, d’agir avec courage. Surtout, il faut que les Congolais se réveillent.
Si les Congolais se mobilisent et mesurent l’humiliation qui leur est infligée, il se passera quelque chose. Sinon, les tueurs et les amis continueront à dire "Gloria Victis", "Gloire aux vaincus" !
*
*.*Grand merci à Charles ONANA pour son combat pour la vérité...*.*
*
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, April 29, 2009
L'ONU AU SERVICE DES CRIMINELS TUTSIS RWANDAIS
Selon le correspondant de la BBC en République démocratique du Congo (RDC), Thomas Fessy, le général Bosco Ntaganda alias "Terminator", ex-rebelle du Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CND) et bras droit de Laurent Nkunda, prendrait part à la chaîne de commandement de la Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies en RDC (MONUC).
Selon le correspondant de la BBC en République démocratique du Congo (RDC), Thomas Fessy, le général Bosco Ntaganda alias "Terminator", ex-rebelle du Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CND) et bras droit de Laurent Nkunda, prendrait part à la chaîne de commandement de la Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies en RDC (MONUC).
Le correspondant de la BBC aurait vu un document interne de l’armée congolaise, daté du 4 avril 2009, rapportant cette information. Or Bosco Ntaganda est sous le coup d’un mandat d’arrêt de la Cour pénale internationale pour crime de guerre. Il aurait enrôlé des enfants dans les rangs du CNDP en 2002-2003.
Plutôt que de forcer les criminels de Kigali à quitter le pouvoir, l'ONU ou son réseau criminel opte pour la collaboration étroite avec les criminels de guerre Rwandais qui, pour mieux exploiter ces minerais immenses disent publiquement qu' ils sont congolais. 
Et quels criminels de guerre: des Tutsis Rwandais se retrouvant sur la sol congolais pour l'exploitation des minerais et le génocide des populations Hutus et bantous se trouvant dans la région.
Et quels criminels de guerre: des Tutsis Rwandais se retrouvant sur la sol congolais pour l'exploitation des minerais et le génocide des populations Hutus et bantous se trouvant dans la région.La Monuc doit être tenue responsable de chacune des morts dues à leurs actes inhumains et calculés puisque imputés slur ces enfants orphelins des FDLR au Nord et au Sud Kivu.
La vraie question est de savoir comment faire pression sur l'ONU ou la MONUC, responsable djà de plus de 8 millions de Rwandais et de Congolais voilà environ 13 ans de puis 1996 jusqu' à nos jours. Nous pensons que la lutte contre l'impunité de Paul Kagame de ses pions et du FPR est indissociable de la recherche de la paix au Rwanda et à l'Est de la RDC.
La vraie question est de savoir comment faire pression sur l'ONU ou la MONUC, responsable djà de plus de 8 millions de Rwandais et de Congolais voilà environ 13 ans de puis 1996 jusqu' à nos jours. Nous pensons que la lutte contre l'impunité de Paul Kagame de ses pions et du FPR est indissociable de la recherche de la paix au Rwanda et à l'Est de la RDC.
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
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
This suspension of the BBC reflects the Rwandan government's growing crackdown on free speech. If Rwanda is truly committed to the fundamental right of free expression, it should allow differing viewpoints on genocide issues and related government policies.
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Hum
New York) - The Rwandan government should immediately reverse its suspension of the Kinyarwanda radio service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Human Rights Watch said today.
The Rwandan minister of information, Louise Mushikiwabo, justified the suspension on the grounds that the program amounted to a "blatant denial of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda" and called it "unacceptable speech."
Since the genocide, the Kagame-led government has sought to portray an image of national unity in Rwanda and it allows no public references in any form to Hutu or Tutsi ethnicity.
"This suspension of the BBC reflects the Rwandan government's growing crackdown on free speech," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "If Rwanda is truly committed to the fundamental right of free expression, it should allow differing viewpoints on genocide issues and related government policies."
The BBC's suspension is part of a broader pattern of increasing government interference in the Rwandan media, including threats to suspend major media outlets such as the BBC and Voice of America and the banning of independent Rwandan journalists from government news conferences.
The BBC suspension on April 25, 2009 occurred after the station broadcast a coming attraction for its weekly program Imvo n'imvano ("Analysis of the Source of a Problem") that was to include a debate on forgiveness among Rwandans after the genocide.
The advance segment included comments by a former presidential candidate, Faustin Twagiramungu, opposing the government's attempt to have the country's entire Hutu population apologize for the genocide, since not all Hutu people had killed Tutsi or otherwise participated in the genocide.
It also included a man of mixed Hutu-Tutsi ethnicity questioning why the government had refused to allow relatives of those killed by the RPF forces to grieve for their loved ones.
According to estimates from experts working for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the group's soldiers killed between 25,000 and 45,000 people between April and August 1994.
The suspension comes days before Rwanda is to host a regional conference celebrating "World Press Day," to be attended by high level delegates from the East African Community. The theme of this year's event is the role of media in reconciliatory dialogue.
"Meaningful and open discussion on the genocide and its aftermath could help foster reconciliation and stability in Rwanda," said Gagnon. "Repressive restrictions on such discussions by branding them as ‘unacceptable speech' may achieve the opposite."
Recent legislation, currently awaiting presidential approval, proposes to ban all national journalists without a university degree or certificate in journalism. Most independent Rwandan journalists have neither. The legislation would make defamation a criminal offense in addition to other civil and administrative sanctions, and would impose a wide range of restrictions on gathering and reporting information.
In March, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concerns over reports that the Rwandan government had subjected journalists critical of government policies to intimidation and harassment and had charged other journalists with "divisionism," a crime vaguely defined under Rwandan law as spreading ideas that encourage ethnic animosity between the country's Tutsi and Hutu populations.
"Divisionism" is often used interchangeably with the term "genocide ideology" - a crime that was first adopted into Rwanda's law in 2008 but that the government has used for at least five years to punish expression of any ideas that could lead to genocide. The government lodged complaints against the BBC radio station in 2004 after a parliamentary report accused it of propagating "genocide ideology.
" Rwanda's international donors and human rights organizations have criticized the terms as too sweeping and punishing speech that is intended neither to incite violence nor to deny the existence of the genocide.
The UN committee urged the Rwandan government to guarantee freedom of expression for the press and all citizens in accordance with the government's international obligations under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In August 2008, shortly before Rwanda's parliamentary elections, the country's information minister warned the BBC that it would be suspended it if failed to abandon its "non-factual reporting." BBC journalists from the Kinyarwanda service have been excluded from several government events since that time.
During World Press Day celebrations in Kigali in May 2008, the government removed three leading independent journalists - Charles Kabonero of Umuseso, Jean Bosco Gasasira of Umuvugizi, and Jean Grober Burasa of Rushyashya - from the celebrations and barred them from all official news conferences.
The journalists were also prohibited from interviewing government officials, with both prohibitions continuing to this day. A diplomatic incident occurred in September 2008 when a scheduled news conference marking the signature of a new US Millennium Challenge Corporation partnership agreement with Rwanda had to be cancelled by the US embassy in Kigali because the Rwandan government refused to allow the three journalists to attend.
In late 2007, the government accused a BBC journalist, Yusuf Mugenzi, of exacerbating ethnic differences through the Imvo n'imvano program, which brings together leading - and at times controversial - figures from the Rwandan diaspora. Government officials accused the program of giving airtime to "genocide fugitives," referring to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu rebel group based in eastern Congo, some of whose members took part in the 1994 genocide and continue to threaten stability in the region. The government also warned that BBC's license might not be renewed if the program did not assume a more positive tone.
"Rwanda's targeting of the media, including the suspension of the BBC, calls into question Rwanda's respect for press freedom," said Gagnon. "With presidential elections scheduled for 2010, it is critical that the government guarantee free and fair discussion of issues, failing which Rwanda cannot be viewed by it partners as a thriving democracy."
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 Rwandan minister of information, Louise Mushikiwabo, justified the suspension on the grounds that the program amounted to a "blatant denial of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi of Rwanda" and called it "unacceptable speech."
Since the genocide, the Kagame-led government has sought to portray an image of national unity in Rwanda and it allows no public references in any form to Hutu or Tutsi ethnicity.
"This suspension of the BBC reflects the Rwandan government's growing crackdown on free speech," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "If Rwanda is truly committed to the fundamental right of free expression, it should allow differing viewpoints on genocide issues and related government policies."
The BBC's suspension is part of a broader pattern of increasing government interference in the Rwandan media, including threats to suspend major media outlets such as the BBC and Voice of America and the banning of independent Rwandan journalists from government news conferences.
The BBC suspension on April 25, 2009 occurred after the station broadcast a coming attraction for its weekly program Imvo n'imvano ("Analysis of the Source of a Problem") that was to include a debate on forgiveness among Rwandans after the genocide.
The advance segment included comments by a former presidential candidate, Faustin Twagiramungu, opposing the government's attempt to have the country's entire Hutu population apologize for the genocide, since not all Hutu people had killed Tutsi or otherwise participated in the genocide.
It also included a man of mixed Hutu-Tutsi ethnicity questioning why the government had refused to allow relatives of those killed by the RPF forces to grieve for their loved ones.
According to estimates from experts working for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the group's soldiers killed between 25,000 and 45,000 people between April and August 1994.
The suspension comes days before Rwanda is to host a regional conference celebrating "World Press Day," to be attended by high level delegates from the East African Community. The theme of this year's event is the role of media in reconciliatory dialogue.
"Meaningful and open discussion on the genocide and its aftermath could help foster reconciliation and stability in Rwanda," said Gagnon. "Repressive restrictions on such discussions by branding them as ‘unacceptable speech' may achieve the opposite."
Recent legislation, currently awaiting presidential approval, proposes to ban all national journalists without a university degree or certificate in journalism. Most independent Rwandan journalists have neither. The legislation would make defamation a criminal offense in addition to other civil and administrative sanctions, and would impose a wide range of restrictions on gathering and reporting information.
In March, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concerns over reports that the Rwandan government had subjected journalists critical of government policies to intimidation and harassment and had charged other journalists with "divisionism," a crime vaguely defined under Rwandan law as spreading ideas that encourage ethnic animosity between the country's Tutsi and Hutu populations.
"Divisionism" is often used interchangeably with the term "genocide ideology" - a crime that was first adopted into Rwanda's law in 2008 but that the government has used for at least five years to punish expression of any ideas that could lead to genocide. The government lodged complaints against the BBC radio station in 2004 after a parliamentary report accused it of propagating "genocide ideology.
" Rwanda's international donors and human rights organizations have criticized the terms as too sweeping and punishing speech that is intended neither to incite violence nor to deny the existence of the genocide.
The UN committee urged the Rwandan government to guarantee freedom of expression for the press and all citizens in accordance with the government's international obligations under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In August 2008, shortly before Rwanda's parliamentary elections, the country's information minister warned the BBC that it would be suspended it if failed to abandon its "non-factual reporting." BBC journalists from the Kinyarwanda service have been excluded from several government events since that time.
During World Press Day celebrations in Kigali in May 2008, the government removed three leading independent journalists - Charles Kabonero of Umuseso, Jean Bosco Gasasira of Umuvugizi, and Jean Grober Burasa of Rushyashya - from the celebrations and barred them from all official news conferences.
The journalists were also prohibited from interviewing government officials, with both prohibitions continuing to this day. A diplomatic incident occurred in September 2008 when a scheduled news conference marking the signature of a new US Millennium Challenge Corporation partnership agreement with Rwanda had to be cancelled by the US embassy in Kigali because the Rwandan government refused to allow the three journalists to attend.
In late 2007, the government accused a BBC journalist, Yusuf Mugenzi, of exacerbating ethnic differences through the Imvo n'imvano program, which brings together leading - and at times controversial - figures from the Rwandan diaspora. Government officials accused the program of giving airtime to "genocide fugitives," referring to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu rebel group based in eastern Congo, some of whose members took part in the 1994 genocide and continue to threaten stability in the region. The government also warned that BBC's license might not be renewed if the program did not assume a more positive tone.
"Rwanda's targeting of the media, including the suspension of the BBC, calls into question Rwanda's respect for press freedom," said Gagnon. "With presidential elections scheduled for 2010, it is critical that the government guarantee free and fair discussion of issues, failing which Rwanda cannot be viewed by it partners as a thriving democracy."
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
They are well aware of many of Kagame's atrocities (the 1990s had been the height of Kagame's terror) but consciously whitewash Kagame's image and paint Rwanda as a happy place.***
What we don't understand is why, now that the full extent of Kagame and his RPF atrocities is known, it is still acceptable or even hip to worship and praise Paul Kagame,while it is (understandably) gauche to show any similar respect to Nazism and its head honchos.
© Survivors Editions
© Survivors Editions
***
by Nick Gordon
Excerpt from Sunday Express
The regime that slaughtered a million people was destroyed in 1994, but the nightmare didn't end. With the Hutus beaten, the Tutsis are exacting revenge. Nick Gordon revisits the killing fields of Rwanda
It could, I suppose, be compared to eating a picnic outside Auschwitz. For a start we are not meant to be here. This is the Mutara, the forbidden zone of Rwanda - a desolate and treeless former game reserve in north-east of this homicidal little country that is off-limits to anyone but the army.. Anyway, Mutara or not, the photographer and I are sitting in a hired car in the only lay-by in Rwanda, tearing a baton of bread to shreds and trying not to be too conspicuous as we observe the buildings on the hill half a mile away.
The three primitive one-story barrack blocks, one with its roof being repaired, are basic shelters for the men at the Gabiro army camp. It all looks devastatingly innocent, a complex that may be an affront to the classic rolling African skyline, but no more than that.
There are no tell-tale chimneys, no railway lines leading into the restricted area. Indeed, as I munch my bread and wait for the photographer to snatch his picture, it is hard to believe that this dot on the map is an extermination camp.
Excerpt from Sunday Express
The regime that slaughtered a million people was destroyed in 1994, but the nightmare didn't end. With the Hutus beaten, the Tutsis are exacting revenge. Nick Gordon revisits the killing fields of Rwanda
It could, I suppose, be compared to eating a picnic outside Auschwitz. For a start we are not meant to be here. This is the Mutara, the forbidden zone of Rwanda - a desolate and treeless former game reserve in north-east of this homicidal little country that is off-limits to anyone but the army.. Anyway, Mutara or not, the photographer and I are sitting in a hired car in the only lay-by in Rwanda, tearing a baton of bread to shreds and trying not to be too conspicuous as we observe the buildings on the hill half a mile away.
The three primitive one-story barrack blocks, one with its roof being repaired, are basic shelters for the men at the Gabiro army camp. It all looks devastatingly innocent, a complex that may be an affront to the classic rolling African skyline, but no more than that.
There are no tell-tale chimneys, no railway lines leading into the restricted area. Indeed, as I munch my bread and wait for the photographer to snatch his picture, it is hard to believe that this dot on the map is an extermination camp.
But then belief, cognition, awakening to evil, call it what you will, has never come easily in Rwanda. Two years ago, the Hutu-led genocide of the Tutsi tribe reached an unimaginably grisly climax. Up to a million people were hacked, kicked, stoned, grenaded, even skewered to death.
When peace came, with the murderers out of the country or in prison and a Tutsi-led government in control embracing all ethnic groups, who would have thought that there would be any appetite for further slaughter in Rwanda?
But appetite there is - with one profound difference. It is not the Tutsis who are being hunted down. The minority who were once their countrymen's prey are now themselves the remorseless hunters.
What goes on inside Gabiro is truly revolting, and it is not an isolated example. All over the country since the new government took control, Hutus have been killed in Their thousands. Granted, the numbers do not yet approach the 1994 slaughter. But, according to former members of the new government, a figure of 100,000 men, women and children killed would not be an exaggeration.
This being Africa, we are not talking about a high-tech way of death courtesy of Zyklon-B gas canisters. The death that is dealt out in the Gabiro camp and elsewhere is a makeshift Third Word version where the victim is held down and has his skull dented by a hammer...
Pierre N is a frightened man. THis 25-year-old Hutu is telling me about the nine months he spent as a soldier in the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), the former rebel force. Its commander, General Paul Kagame, is now Rwanda's Vice-President, Minister of Defense and self-styled "Protector" - a Tutsi version of Oliver Cromwell.
"I didn't want to join either the government army or the rebels," Pierre tells me at a secret rendezvous. "During the genocide I hid. I detest war. I was a medical student in my second year at university when the genocide began.
"I had nothing to do with the interahamwe death squads, or the Hutu militia, or the CDR (the old Hutu government's thuggish redshirts). But because I was learning medecine, I was told I had no choice."
He hands me a piece of paper, a certificate which shows he is a private in the RPA. It gives his name, rank and number.
I was based in Kigali (the capital of Rwanda). Soldiers kept coming up to me and asking me for a sick note. They were not wounded, or even ill with malaria. They just wanted an excuse, anything to get them off manpower duties."
I ask Pierre what he means by "manpower duties". "Well, the officers would tell the men that there were 'manpower problems' and they should be ready to solve them. They would have to take prisoners to a house, tie their arms and legs, and then they took a hammer and they would hit them on the front bone." Pierre taps his forehead, the frontal lobe. "And then they would burn the bodies. The stench was horrible."
I ask him if he did it... used the hammer? He shakes his head. "No. I was a medic. But this house was nearby and I could smell the burning. A friend told me they killed 6,000 people in five days there."
More than 1,000 a day? "Sometimes maybe 1,5000 to 2,000. But many times I signed those sick papers. The next month I was sent to Gabiro, to a training wing of the RPA. WE were there to learn to use guns, be a soldier.
"But one kilometre away there was another camp that had been built by the old government. This was a killing place manned by the DMI, the Diretorate of Military Intelligence.
"Every day on the road between our camp and their place I would see lorries, big trailers trucks carrying wood, and fuel tankers imported from Uganda. There were 'manpower problems' here, too, so many of my collegues were assigned to work with the DMI.
It was the same method of killings as in Kigali. Every evening, at around six, they poured the paraffin on to huge piles of wood and got rid of the bodies that way. All day there was a bulldozer spreading the ashes into the soil. It was going on all the time for months. The smoke and the smell were horrible.
"I left this place, Gabiro, in April last year when I got permission to go back to university in Butare. When I got there I found the same thing happening. Hutus who had managed to flee from the Kibeho camp were taken to a military academy in the town, and a captain in the RPA told all of us students that we would be required to help out with a manpower problem.
"I knew then that I would have to do what I had been trying to avoid for the last nine months. I decided to desert, and I fled that night."
Pierre is still in hiding, a seriously traumatised and frightened young man. Why did he risk talking to me? All I can say is that he had already made a far more courageous and dangerous choice: not to kill his fellow Rwandans.
Even in Nairobi, two plane hours from Kigali, one cannot escape the terror. Here, sitting in the shadows of a walled garden in a suburb of the Kenyan capital, two men are poring over page after page, name after name, of their countrymen.
These are the lists of the missing.
Until six months ago, these two men were among the most powerfull in Rwanda. They are Hutus, yet they played prominent roles in the revolution that ended the old Hutu regime. Seth Sendashonga was the Minister of Internal Affairs in the Tutsi-led Kagame government. Sixbert Musangamfura, a journalist when I met him in 1992, was Kagame's director of civilian intelligence - boss of Rwanda's MI5.
Both men were at the heart of the new government, heading particulary sensitive departments of state. Now they no longer live in Rwanda. They are viewed as deadly opponents of the governments, so much so that in February an attempt was made on Seth Sendashonga' s live. Fortunately he was only slightly wounded - a bullet passed throught his right shoulder - but his nephew is still recovering from serious wounds in Nairobi hospital.
Until six months ago, these two men were among the most powerfull in Rwanda. They are Hutus, yet they played prominent roles in the revolution that ended the old Hutu regime. Seth Sendashonga was the Minister of Internal Affairs in the Tutsi-led Kagame government. Sixbert Musangamfura, a journalist when I met him in 1992, was Kagame's director of civilian intelligence - boss of Rwanda's MI5.
Both men were at the heart of the new government, heading particulary sensitive departments of state. Now they no longer live in Rwanda. They are viewed as deadly opponents of the governments, so much so that in February an attempt was made on Seth Sendashonga' s live. Fortunately he was only slightly wounded - a bullet passed throught his right shoulder - but his nephew is still recovering from serious wounds in Nairobi hospital.
There is no doubt who sent the assassins. A Rwandan diplomat was arrested nearby, carrying a pistol. So why should Protector Kagame want to kill his former colleagues in the rebel movement and in government? "Because I and Sixbert know too much. We know there is a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing. We know they are attempting social engineering on a vast, murderous scale."
Why? "First, to instill terror. Then to even up the population figures.. Look at the Rwandan equation: how can a minority tribe of 1+ million govern a country dominated by a tribe of enemies who outnumber them three to one?" He pauses, and looks back at their lists that litter the table and patio. "They want to make it Hutus 50 per cent, Tutsi 50 per cent," he says. "But to do that they will have to kill a lot of hutus."
"When I was in charge of civilian intelligence I started to make a list, "Sixbert adds. I had a network of informers, and soon saw that something bad was going on. By the time I left in August 1995, we had the confirmed names, dates and methods of killing of 100,000 people. But the killing still went on after I fled, and we are investigating the fates of another 200,000 people." But hadn't these people taken part in genocide?
"There are killings and killings," says Seth. "I can understand revenge killing, when a soldier comes home and discovers that his family has been wiped out. But this is something far more repellent. I would call it "counter-genocide. "
Seth says that the killing began as soon as the new government took over. "I warned Colonel Charles Kayonga, who commanded the RPA battalion in Kigali, about the conduct of his troops. He said the RPA did not take prisoners. I was very shocked".
Seth also warned General Kagame, but he did nothing. "I had been a member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front since 1991," says Sendashonga. "I was a political interface between the army and politicians. I knew the people we would need in Rwanda was to recover, but many of these people were being got rid of. It seemed crazy, because our businessman were like businessman anywhere: they were not loyal to any party. Often they backed both sides.
"I had a good relationship with Kagame. Most people were scarred of him and told him what he wanted to hear, but I knew it was my duty to inform him about the killings. I wrote six memos to him with lists of names of the missing. I met him and expressed my concerns. He reassured us that something would be done. But the killings did not stop." Seth describes what he went on whenever the RPA took more territory.
Seth says that the killing began as soon as the new government took over. "I warned Colonel Charles Kayonga, who commanded the RPA battalion in Kigali, about the conduct of his troops. He said the RPA did not take prisoners. I was very shocked".
Seth also warned General Kagame, but he did nothing. "I had been a member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front since 1991," says Sendashonga. "I was a political interface between the army and politicians. I knew the people we would need in Rwanda was to recover, but many of these people were being got rid of. It seemed crazy, because our businessman were like businessman anywhere: they were not loyal to any party. Often they backed both sides.
"I had a good relationship with Kagame. Most people were scarred of him and told him what he wanted to hear, but I knew it was my duty to inform him about the killings. I wrote six memos to him with lists of names of the missing. I met him and expressed my concerns. He reassured us that something would be done. But the killings did not stop." Seth describes what he went on whenever the RPA took more territory.
"People would be called to meetings where they would be given food. At the next meeting they would come in large numbers. Then the place would be surrounded and grenades thrown in. So many reports were similar, I realized these were not random killings. This was large-scale. It had to be planned." "They were even making jokes about it," says Sixbert. "Rwandans have two expressions - kwitaba imana and kwitaba inama. The first means to die naturally. The second, to go to a meeting. Now, they mean the same."
Both men paint a dark picture of Rwanda after the civil war. Wherever the RPA went, the pattern was the same: meetings, killings, then burials or burning. So who were they killing? "Innocent people, largely," says Seth. "The real killers, the leaders of the interahamwe, had fled across the border into Zaire or the camps in Tanzania.
"The people who were left were easy prey. Some of these killings take place in areas where there had been no genocide, so what was the excuse for them?" Despite Seth's attempts to draw attention to the killings, they went on unabated. He and Sixbert realized there was no future for them in Rwanda. "We felt that we were going to be next," says Sixbert. "It was ironic really, because I had opposed the last dictator here, President Habyarimana, and survived the interahamwe gangs by hiding in a sewer for over a week.
"I thought Kagame and the RPF would mean freedom for our country, but all he has brought is more oppression, more death."
At the Milles Collines Hotel in Kigali, a solitary European businessman strokes his way through the Hockeney-blue swimming pool. It is very peaceful here, but the confidential document I am reading tells another story. Whoever compiled it has done a thorough job. It is unsigned, but that is no surprise, given what it contains.
It lists 174 sites where there are mass graves - such as Nyamabuye, where 20,000 are buried, and the veterinary college at Butare, where the bodies have been exhumed and moved to the Mutara. The document even pinpoints schools, military barracks and latrines.
Scratch the surface, the red earth of Rwanda, and you will, it appears, find one vast cemetery. The people who passed me the document know it will be hard to investigate. Many areas are no-fly zones. The government has exhumed graves, dried the skeletons and burned them. Some graves have been used more once: they contain bodies from both the first genocide and the counter-genocide. Often the people who have buried the dead, the creusers, are themselves killed so they cannot bear witness.
Jean Rudakubana, a judge who works for the Association for the Defense of Liberty in Rwanda, tells me that many people believe there could be a repeat of the slaughter of April 1994. "It could happen this April" - as a reminder."
Rudakubana shows me a copy of a letter he has sent to the authorities. It reports that twice during November, a group of armed men tried to enter his house in the night. He identifies them as members of the army.
He says that every day he receives reports of "incidents", but nothing comes out, such is the authorities' grip on public information. And when some incident does escape censorship, it is explained away as an "anti-terrorist initiative".
In Kigali there is triumphalism mixed with the doom. Triumphalism because it is tutsi Town now. Doom because their mind are intoxicated by the dark trauma of genocide. They continually talk about it, but it is not therapeutic. Hutus, they say, are murders, and should be wiped out. Away from Kigali, in Nyakinama, a man who refuses to give his name tells me that when the villagers see a soldier, they hide. They are afraid. They don't want to have to bury the bodies. "What bodies?" I ask.
But he doesn't want to speak to me any more. He is too frightened. This is the dangerously oppressive atmosphere that choked Sixbert Musangamfura and Seth Sendashonga. Now, they are committed to telling the world just what is going on in their country. They do not think it will be easy. After all, the West, particularly the media, took little interest in Rwanda before the genocide of 1994. No doubt it will choose to turn a blind eye to the present events. "People will say that because we are hutus we have no right to expose what is going on," says Sixbert. "They will ignore the fact that we fought the old dictatorship, and were fortunate to survive the genocide ourselves."
Seth Sendashonga says there is "a politically correct attitude to Rwanda. The tutsis are the small guys, the downtrodden tribe, who hold the moral high ground, and they can get away with murder. Literally".
He is right, of course. It suits the world to think this way. Why dig up more graves, discover more trouble in a country which no one understands and which cannot solve its own problems anyway? But that will not stop Seth and Sixbert pressing for an international commission of inquiry.
Meanwhile, people live in fear, and hide when soldiers come for them to bury the bodies.
Sixbert Musangamfura and Seth Sendashonga held high office in Paul Kagame's government, but have fled Rwanda to try to draw the world's attention to "ethnic cleansing on a vast scale". Seth, was hot in February but survived. Paul Kagame, leading the RPA to victory. Below: Now in power, he mourns the 1994 genocide - but his army is behind the current killings.
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, April 26, 2009
Prejudice : “detriment or injury caused to a person by the preconceived, unfavorable conviction of another or others.”
Western media in demonization and criminalization of all Hutus
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
Western media in demonization and criminalization of all Hutus
Ordinarily, we don't write introductions to articles or essays published in The Black Star News but the following column by Keith Harmon Snow warrants it.
Snow has been at the forefront, as has this newspaper, in exposing
Western duplicity in Africa and how U.S. and U.K. corporate and government interests have caused the deaths of millions of Africans; all for the love of money.
In the end, the African actors, the bit players really, are the ones who are blamed; wars of blood money and profits are referred to euphemistically by major newspapers, including The New York Times as "tribal wars," so that Americans can nod their heads and continue on with their lives without bothering to ask any further questions.
After all, "tribal wars" are endemic to Africa; they always happen. Africans just wake up one day, grab machetes and start chopping off their neighbors' heads to satisfy "blood lust;" a term actually once used by Time magazine to explain what the magazine contended was the reason for the Rwanda massacres of 1994.
Meanwhile, no one writes about the Western companies that somehow just always happen to be around digging the gold and the diamonds and ferrying off the timber and the young Congolese girls, even as the chopping off of heads and limbs occur.
But Keith Harmon Snow, whose long report follows, is not with the program. He is the anti-New York Times kind of reporter; and the anti-New Yorker magazine; and, anti-BBC and anti-Washington Post kind of journalist.
In fact, he is beyond being a mere journalist. He is the type of forthright individual that corporate media would refer to as "radical," in order to impugn his reputation, without having to challenge him on a single fact. He salvages a little respectability for the profession of journalism, which has been corrupted by corporate media.
He is a crusader with a mission; his goal is to expose United States' and Britain's roles in the genocide in Uganda and in the Congo; with characters like Rwanda's president Paul Kagame and Uganda's Yoweri K. Museveni and Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir all playing the bit roles.
Snow writes long; he cannot help it because he feels the pain of the Congolese and the Ugandans and he wants someone somewhere here in the United States and Britain– to pay a price. He might be accused of being overly passionate; one has to be, when one feels the kind of indignation that Snow feels. When it is a matter of genocide no article can be too long. Readers that bear with Snow and read all his words will learn information not found in the corporate media.
Corporate media are often accomplices to crimes against humanity. Sometimes in a most perverted manner. Take The New York Times' resident Sudanese genocide expert, Nicholas Kristoff. If Kristoff really cares about the suffering of Africans, and not just about winning a Pulitzer Prize as he did for his Sudanese crusade, don't you think he would lend his big pen to expose with equal passion the suffering of Congolese and Ugandan civilians; or might that lead to the indictment of Kagame and Museveni, "friends" of United States interests?
Why would a humanitarian be selective in fighting against genocide unless there was a hidden agenda?
Thank the creator for the Internet. In the past, the world was held hostage to the tyranny of selective coverage and cover-ups by newspapers such as The New York Times and writers like Kristoff. He is a hero to Africans in his own mind. The Internet era has broken the monopoly of disinformation and misinformation once enjoyed by elite media.
Many years ago, George Orwell had warned against the dangers of propaganda, or what he called "New Speak." We hear New Speak every day; where everything is turned upside down, killers are praised, while innocents are marched off to shallow graves in the forests. New Speak celebrates murderers as heroes and denounces victims.
Although successive generations have always declared "never again;" and "not on our watch," as surely as the sun rises, humanity never fails and genocide always occurs. New Speak always exonerates the killers. New Speak is public relations disinformation; black becomes white; red is yellow; and bad is good.
As one of the characters in Orwell's 1984 puts it: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."
Ah, yes; New Speak has helped send millions of Africans six feet under or to the crocodiles in the Kagera river, the Nile, and Lake Victoria.
Snow has been at the forefront, as has this newspaper, in exposing
Western duplicity in Africa and how U.S. and U.K. corporate and government interests have caused the deaths of millions of Africans; all for the love of money.In the end, the African actors, the bit players really, are the ones who are blamed; wars of blood money and profits are referred to euphemistically by major newspapers, including The New York Times as "tribal wars," so that Americans can nod their heads and continue on with their lives without bothering to ask any further questions.
After all, "tribal wars" are endemic to Africa; they always happen. Africans just wake up one day, grab machetes and start chopping off their neighbors' heads to satisfy "blood lust;" a term actually once used by Time magazine to explain what the magazine contended was the reason for the Rwanda massacres of 1994.
Meanwhile, no one writes about the Western companies that somehow just always happen to be around digging the gold and the diamonds and ferrying off the timber and the young Congolese girls, even as the chopping off of heads and limbs occur.
But Keith Harmon Snow, whose long report follows, is not with the program. He is the anti-New York Times kind of reporter; and the anti-New Yorker magazine; and, anti-BBC and anti-Washington Post kind of journalist.
In fact, he is beyond being a mere journalist. He is the type of forthright individual that corporate media would refer to as "radical," in order to impugn his reputation, without having to challenge him on a single fact. He salvages a little respectability for the profession of journalism, which has been corrupted by corporate media.
He is a crusader with a mission; his goal is to expose United States' and Britain's roles in the genocide in Uganda and in the Congo; with characters like Rwanda's president Paul Kagame and Uganda's Yoweri K. Museveni and Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir all playing the bit roles.
Snow writes long; he cannot help it because he feels the pain of the Congolese and the Ugandans and he wants someone somewhere here in the United States and Britain– to pay a price. He might be accused of being overly passionate; one has to be, when one feels the kind of indignation that Snow feels. When it is a matter of genocide no article can be too long. Readers that bear with Snow and read all his words will learn information not found in the corporate media.
Corporate media are often accomplices to crimes against humanity. Sometimes in a most perverted manner. Take The New York Times' resident Sudanese genocide expert, Nicholas Kristoff. If Kristoff really cares about the suffering of Africans, and not just about winning a Pulitzer Prize as he did for his Sudanese crusade, don't you think he would lend his big pen to expose with equal passion the suffering of Congolese and Ugandan civilians; or might that lead to the indictment of Kagame and Museveni, "friends" of United States interests?
Why would a humanitarian be selective in fighting against genocide unless there was a hidden agenda?
Thank the creator for the Internet. In the past, the world was held hostage to the tyranny of selective coverage and cover-ups by newspapers such as The New York Times and writers like Kristoff. He is a hero to Africans in his own mind. The Internet era has broken the monopoly of disinformation and misinformation once enjoyed by elite media.
Many years ago, George Orwell had warned against the dangers of propaganda, or what he called "New Speak." We hear New Speak every day; where everything is turned upside down, killers are praised, while innocents are marched off to shallow graves in the forests. New Speak celebrates murderers as heroes and denounces victims.
Although successive generations have always declared "never again;" and "not on our watch," as surely as the sun rises, humanity never fails and genocide always occurs. New Speak always exonerates the killers. New Speak is public relations disinformation; black becomes white; red is yellow; and bad is good.
As one of the characters in Orwell's 1984 puts it: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."
Ah, yes; New Speak has helped send millions of Africans six feet under or to the crocodiles in the Kagera river, the Nile, and Lake Victoria.
Take Uganda's Yoweri Museveni as an example; he is a master New Speaker. He has single-handedly, with the assistance of U.K. and U.S. financing and military hardware, caused the deaths of more than eight million Africans –half a million or more in Uganda; one million in Rwanda; seven million in Congo. Please see http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/116/10455.pdf
Yet, at least up until the time President George W. Bush left office, he was treated like some respected elder statesman of politics in the West.
He is such a smooth New Speaker that he attends the funerals of people whom he has reportedly eliminated in Uganda. He is such a smooth operator that he even secured an audience with President Bush in the White House in 2007 even though The Wall Street Journal had already reported on June 8, 2006, that he is being investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes committed by his troops and militia in Congo between 1998-2003 and conceivably, like Liberia's former president Charles Taylor, and like Sudan's president al-Bashir, he too may be indicted by the ICC.
While President Bush could ignore the inconvenient truth and entertain Museveni in the White House, praising him for fighting HIV/Aids, even as he used his other hand to eliminate millions of Africans, it is difficult to imagine how President Barack Obama, a constitutional law professor, could ignore the smell of blood emanating from the Ugandan. Then again, on this earth, anything is possible.
Rwanda's Kagame is another master New Speaker.
Earlier this week, he presided over memorial ceremonies for the victims of the 1994 massacres. Kagame indulges in this macabre exercise each year even though he was instrumental in the very genocide which he now "mourns": he commanded the invasion of Rwanda from Uganda in 1990 and a French court has concluded that he ordered the missile downing of the presidential plane carrying Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntayamira of Burundi, sparking the 100 days of mass murders.
Western media had also prepared the global community for the eventual demonization and criminalization of all Hutus –even the ones who never participated in the mass murders of 1994– with a racist campaign against them in major magazines such as The New York Times magazine and The New Yorker, both with circulation in the millions.
One of the first media volleys against the Hutus was an article by Alex Shoumatoff, published on June 20, 1992 in The New Yorker, where he described people he had observed while travelling in Burundi, which has the same ethnic combustibility between the majority Hutus and minority Tutsis; at that time Burundi’s army and government were controlled by the Tutsi minority.
"There were three obvious Tutsis," Shoumatoff wrote, of the people he saw in a taxi cab, "Tall, slender with high foreheads, prominent cheekbones, and narrow features." He added: "They were a different physical type from the five passengers who were short and stocky and had the flat noses and thick lips typical of Hutus."
Almost three months later, an even more insidious article by Shoumatoff, "Rwanda's Aristocratic Guerrillas," was published on December 13, 1992, in The New York Times magazine. By this time, the invasion of Rwanda was in its second year and the RPF had already committed numerous massacres against Hutu civilians, as a lexis-nexus search of news reports will reveal. These crimes were glossed over or ignored in Shoumatoff's article and all contemporary and subsequent accounts in major newspapers such as the Times.
Moreover, Shoumatoff was married to a Tutsi woman who was the first cousin of the RPF's spokesperson and he was met at Entebbe airport in Uganda by RPF officials who guided him to the zones they controlled. So, The New York Times knowingly participated in the demonization campaign against the Hutus, who make up 85% of the population in both Rwanda and Burundi.
"In the late 19th Century," Shoumatoff, acting as an unofficial propagandist for the invading army wrote in The New York Times magazine, describing Tutsis, "early ethnologists were fascinated by these 'languidly haughty' pastoral aristocrats whose high foreheads, aquiline noses and thin lips seemed more Caucasian than Negroid, and they classified them as 'false negroes.' In a popular theory of the day, the Tutsis were thought to be highly civilized people, the race of fallen Europeans, whose existence in Central Africa had been rumored for centuries."
Shoumatoff added, of the Tutsis: "They are not a race or a tribe, as often described, but a population, a stratum, a mystical, warrior-priest elite, like the Druids in Celtic society." As for the Hutus, they were far from resembling warrior priests: as Shoumatoff revealed, they were "short, stocky local Bantu agriculturalists." [To read more critique of Western media demonization of Africans, please see "The Hearts Of Darkness, How White Writers Created The Racist Image of Africa," (Black Star Books, 2005)]
Yes, henious crimes against humanity and war crimes occurred in Rwanda, not only in 1994, but right from the time of the Uganda-sponsored invasion in 1990. Yet, the account here shows, many people would rather pretend that the atrocities started in 1994.
Some of the people who participated in the crimes have been caught and tried; many who have been tried and convicted did not even participate; those prosecuted so far have been only Hutus.
The story can never be complete when others involved in the same crime are exonerated through New Speak–some are outside Rwanda, including Museveni, for sponsoring the invasion and reportedly for supplying the missile used to down Habyarimana's jet; others, indicted and unindicted criminals now govern Rwanda.
— Milton Allimadi, BlackStar News
Yet, at least up until the time President George W. Bush left office, he was treated like some respected elder statesman of politics in the West.
He is such a smooth New Speaker that he attends the funerals of people whom he has reportedly eliminated in Uganda. He is such a smooth operator that he even secured an audience with President Bush in the White House in 2007 even though The Wall Street Journal had already reported on June 8, 2006, that he is being investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes committed by his troops and militia in Congo between 1998-2003 and conceivably, like Liberia's former president Charles Taylor, and like Sudan's president al-Bashir, he too may be indicted by the ICC.
While President Bush could ignore the inconvenient truth and entertain Museveni in the White House, praising him for fighting HIV/Aids, even as he used his other hand to eliminate millions of Africans, it is difficult to imagine how President Barack Obama, a constitutional law professor, could ignore the smell of blood emanating from the Ugandan. Then again, on this earth, anything is possible.
Rwanda's Kagame is another master New Speaker.
Earlier this week, he presided over memorial ceremonies for the victims of the 1994 massacres. Kagame indulges in this macabre exercise each year even though he was instrumental in the very genocide which he now "mourns": he commanded the invasion of Rwanda from Uganda in 1990 and a French court has concluded that he ordered the missile downing of the presidential plane carrying Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntayamira of Burundi, sparking the 100 days of mass murders.
Western media had also prepared the global community for the eventual demonization and criminalization of all Hutus –even the ones who never participated in the mass murders of 1994– with a racist campaign against them in major magazines such as The New York Times magazine and The New Yorker, both with circulation in the millions.
One of the first media volleys against the Hutus was an article by Alex Shoumatoff, published on June 20, 1992 in The New Yorker, where he described people he had observed while travelling in Burundi, which has the same ethnic combustibility between the majority Hutus and minority Tutsis; at that time Burundi’s army and government were controlled by the Tutsi minority.
"There were three obvious Tutsis," Shoumatoff wrote, of the people he saw in a taxi cab, "Tall, slender with high foreheads, prominent cheekbones, and narrow features." He added: "They were a different physical type from the five passengers who were short and stocky and had the flat noses and thick lips typical of Hutus."
Almost three months later, an even more insidious article by Shoumatoff, "Rwanda's Aristocratic Guerrillas," was published on December 13, 1992, in The New York Times magazine. By this time, the invasion of Rwanda was in its second year and the RPF had already committed numerous massacres against Hutu civilians, as a lexis-nexus search of news reports will reveal. These crimes were glossed over or ignored in Shoumatoff's article and all contemporary and subsequent accounts in major newspapers such as the Times.
Moreover, Shoumatoff was married to a Tutsi woman who was the first cousin of the RPF's spokesperson and he was met at Entebbe airport in Uganda by RPF officials who guided him to the zones they controlled. So, The New York Times knowingly participated in the demonization campaign against the Hutus, who make up 85% of the population in both Rwanda and Burundi.
"In the late 19th Century," Shoumatoff, acting as an unofficial propagandist for the invading army wrote in The New York Times magazine, describing Tutsis, "early ethnologists were fascinated by these 'languidly haughty' pastoral aristocrats whose high foreheads, aquiline noses and thin lips seemed more Caucasian than Negroid, and they classified them as 'false negroes.' In a popular theory of the day, the Tutsis were thought to be highly civilized people, the race of fallen Europeans, whose existence in Central Africa had been rumored for centuries."
Shoumatoff added, of the Tutsis: "They are not a race or a tribe, as often described, but a population, a stratum, a mystical, warrior-priest elite, like the Druids in Celtic society." As for the Hutus, they were far from resembling warrior priests: as Shoumatoff revealed, they were "short, stocky local Bantu agriculturalists." [To read more critique of Western media demonization of Africans, please see "The Hearts Of Darkness, How White Writers Created The Racist Image of Africa," (Black Star Books, 2005)]
Yes, henious crimes against humanity and war crimes occurred in Rwanda, not only in 1994, but right from the time of the Uganda-sponsored invasion in 1990. Yet, the account here shows, many people would rather pretend that the atrocities started in 1994.
Some of the people who participated in the crimes have been caught and tried; many who have been tried and convicted did not even participate; those prosecuted so far have been only Hutus.
The story can never be complete when others involved in the same crime are exonerated through New Speak–some are outside Rwanda, including Museveni, for sponsoring the invasion and reportedly for supplying the missile used to down Habyarimana's jet; others, indicted and unindicted criminals now govern Rwanda.
— Milton Allimadi, BlackStar News
But ours is a mere introduction. Let Keith Harmon Snow tell the sordid story. Find out by opening the link here below:
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
Subscribe to:
Posts
(Atom)
AS International
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.