Yesterday, I received a copy of the Rwandan governments response to the Draft UN Mapping Report on the DRC. It is divided into five sections, all of which warrant reaction. I'll just make a few points as the Report is perhaps better read as a statement of the extent to which the RPF is loosing international legitimacy.
Before going into some of the substance, I want to point out one consistent reaction from members of the Rwandan government. They do not deny that there its army killed civilians in the DRC, only that these killings do not constitute genocide. Indeed, the government's ineptitude at handling its reaction/response is uncharacteristic of its usual deft skill in "managing" bad press. It may be that so much negative yet accurate press has emerged in international sources the last year as the RPF cracks down on political opponents - both with its own party and outside challengers -- human rights activists, journalists and other segments of civil society that there are serious cracks within the party machine. Time will tell.

There is a great deal in the government's rhetoric, both formally through the UN, and statements from government representatives in the regional and international media, that the fractures and fissures within the ruling RPF are becoming more apparent. At the same time, we see the lengths to which Kigali will go to defend its version of how the genocide happened, how the RPF stopped it and the successes of post-genocide reconstruction and reconciliation processes.

I want to say too, that the RPFs emotive and excessive reaction to the UN Report seem to be the reaction of Kagame himself. Hi is known to be allergic to criticism while maintaining the moral authority of conviction (RPA were stopping genocide, not continuing it!) and insist ad nauseum that his army was only doing what it had to do because of the inaction of the international community. I think the RPF's reaction is also reflective of a government that is losing its grip on power, and had little legitimacy among most Rwandans. The RPF is a party of factions, and only a few are reaping the benefits of power at the moment. This is the most worrying trend....
The Executive Summary of the Report says that its findings are unacceptable to the RPF, and that the allegations of mass murders are the result of the UN manipulating the true facts of the role of the RPF in eastern DRC. In particular, the Response notes that the publication of the Mapping Report might reignite conflict in Rwanda and in the Region. I think if any one actor is going to reignite conflict in the Region, it is the RPF itself.
The RPF's reaction to the historical context, and what happened during the 1994 genocide, are unoriginal. Anyone who has read Pottier (2002), Re-imaging Rwanda, particularly its chapter on how the RPF manages it public relations machinery will agree. The government has made similar assertions in public fora with interested audiences. It appears that the RPF is worried about losing face "in the court of public opinion" (para 5, p. 7). Yet its allegation that the UN leaked the Report out of spite (what it calls asymmetry) is false as it was a reporter with Le Monde that leaked the Report.

In the section The 1994 Rwandan Genocide is equally reactionary. First, there is sufficient empirical evidence to show that the RPA did not stop the genocide as early as it could of (para. 6, p. 7). Instead, it made calculated military moves to assure that it took power in Kigali while Tutsi (and Hutu and Twa) died. Two excellent books, Sibomana's Hope for Rwanda (1999) and Umutesi's Surviving the Slaughter (2004) provide sufficient counter-evidence to the RPF assertion that it directed all of its resources to stopping the genocide. Indeed, anyone aware of how the RPF acted in bad faith during the Arusha Accords will scoff as this section of the Response.

The section Mass Participation in the Genocide downplays the role of the RPF in helping to create the conditions for genocide. I want to make one thing clear. I do not buy into claims that have been circulating recently that the RPF organised the genocide. Instead, I take the argument of Straus (2006) in his The Order of Genocide that the civil war between the RPA and the FAR provided the necessary context of fear and insecurity that made the possibility of genocide by neighbours against neighbours possible, and indeed likely (as we now know with hindsight). I disagree with the assertion of the RPF that mostly young men committed acts of genocide. This is not a new assertion as the government's justice policy follows a logic of maximal prosecution (prosecution of all Hutu men of a particular age). This claim is, in my opinion, revisionist as it neglects the different motivations for killing as well as the strength of network and kinship ties in deciding who lived or died (Fujii, 2009, Webs of Violence).

The Response goes on for another 15 pages in which the RPF defends and justifies its actions in the DRC. I will end simply with this, the RPF doth protest too much.

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

Join ASI foundation to call on academics and xperienced practitioners around the world to work with and help Rwandan organzations to elucidate the Tragic Rwandan genocide so that the world can fully understand what REALLY happened in Rwanda. Nowhere in the world, the cosmetic economic prosperity of a country should replace human rights and justice.

NEVER STOP QUESTIONING: How president Paul Kagame - the presumably mastermind of the Rwandan genocide and the key destabilizing factor of the region - successfully abused the trust of the international community by manipulating the Rwandan genocide?

Nothing seems plainer than the fact that Paul Kagame has not only orchestrated mass murder of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwandan but also, and most importantly, took part in it.

 We do have plenty of proven facts, reliable information, eyewitnesses from both Tutsi and Hutu communities members repeating the cruelty of Paul Kagame, RPF and his advisers. Actual assassinations, assassinations attempt around the world, the use of poison to kill all of who denounce or know better about Kagame's crimes should open the very blind person, organization still supporting Kagame.

Paul Kagame’s War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and Crimes of Genocide

There is a Rwandan genocide and the mastermind of it is Paul Kagame (RPF liars, advisers & Kagame's backers). Ilt's bloody clear that Paul Kagame didi it to take power and stay there. While Paul Kagame and his advisers use evil and malicious lies to cover the truth about the Rwanda genocide, they forgot one important thing: They cannot lie all the the time !

Rwandans deserve better than a criminal regime, a bloody criminal dictator.

Last thing: Paul Kagame should withdraw Rwandan forces from peacekeeping missions and operations around the world : I've spoken to Mr. Dallaire at that time when he was here in The Netherlands about this issue and he and the entire audience totally agreed with me about this issue regardless years of support of the bloody rebels and criminal RPF leadership.

Read more: Rwanda army carried out genocide in Congo: UN - The Times of India

By Ann Garrison
Colored Opinions
The official Oct. 1 release of the U.N. Report on Human Rights Abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1993-2003, documenting the Rwandan and Ugandan armies’ massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, should be a defining moment for President Barack Obama. How will the USA’s first African American president respond to the detailed and widely publicized U.N. documentation of genocide in the heart of Africa, committed by the USA’s longstanding military proxies, the armies of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni?

Find out more Here
By FRANK JORDANSGENEVA -- On Nov. 14, 1996, armed men surrounded the Mugunga refugee camp in eastern Zaire and began shooting indiscriminately at its inhabitants as they huddled for safety or tried to flee.
The Associated Press
Friday, October 1, 2010; 4:42 PM


Hundreds of men, women and children died over a three-day period, according to eyewitnesses and forensic evidence later gathered from mass graves.

A report published Friday by the U.N. human rights office says the killings at Mugunga may have been one of many instances that qualify as crimes against humanity or even - taken together - genocide by the Rwandan army, which at the time was hunting down Hutu rebels in neighboring Zaire, now called Congo.

In a written riposte to the United Nations, the Rwandan government said its troops "never fired any weapons into the camp" at Mugunga and civilians only were killed when armed rebels inside the camp tried to stop people from fleeing. Later, civilians who were held as human shields by the rebels died in the crossfire, it said.

The Red Cross and other organizations cited in the report refused to comment on it, saying the subject was too sensitive in light of ongoing human rights abuses in the region. The U.N. says more than 500 rapes have been committed in eastern Congo since late July.

Previous reports have described massacres and indiscriminate killings in Congo. But the latest report's depth will make it harder to ignore, experts say.

The report cost $3 million to produce and details 617 incidents from 1993 to 2003, when a five-year civil war that killed millions through disease and neglect ended. It concludes that tens of thousands of people - mostly women and children - were slain in attacks by the many armed groups roving eastern Congo.
Martin Nesirky, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, backed Pillay's statement, saying "it's about helping them to fight impunity and avoid perpetuation of this cycle of violence which we have seen even in the past month."


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

Navanethem Pillay is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. A South African, she was the first non-white woman on the High Court of South Africa, and she has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her four-year term as High Commissioner for Human Rights began on 1 September 2008.

Background

Pillay was born in 1941 in a poor neighbourhood of Durban, South Africa. She is of Tamil descent and her father was a bus driver. She married Gaby Pillay, a lawyer, in January 1965.
Supported by her local Indian community with donations, she graduated from the University of Natal with a BA in 1963 and an LLB in 1965. She later attended Harvard Law School, obtaining an LLM in 1982 and a Doctor of Juridical Science degree in 1988.

Legal career

In 1967, Pillay became the first woman to open her own law practice in Natal Province. She says she had no other alternative: "No law firm would employ me because they said they could not have white employees taking instructions from a coloured person". As a non-white lawyer under the Apartheid regime, she was not allowed to enter a judge's chambers.


On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her action was not the first of its kind.
She received her Bachelor of Arts and her Bachelor of Law degrees from Natal University in South Africa and later a Master of Law and Doctor of Juridical Science at Harvard University, U.S.A.



As Judge Pillay said in an Occasional Paper she delivered in 2002, the jurisprudence on gender issues emanating from the UN criminal tribunals both in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia “provides a precedent in the ways in which international and regional bodies view and treat sexual violence.” The evidence coming out of these trials so horrified the world community that in 1998 the Statute for the International Criminal Court became the first international treaty “to recognize a range of acts of sexual and gender violence as among the most serious crimes under international law. Most of these crimes had never before been explicitly articulated as crimes in any international instrument or domestic criminal code.”

In February 2003, Judge Pillay was elected by the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute, as one of the 18 Judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Judge Pillay’s commitment to human rights and to women’s issues extends beyond her work on the bench. She is currently honorary chair for Equality Now and serves on the Board of Directors for Nozala Investments, the women’s component of the National Economic Initiative. She has also held key positions with the Women Lawyers Association, the Advice desk for Abused Women, Lawyers for Human Rights, the Women’s National Coalition, Black Lawyers Association and many other groups. She also lectures widely on legal and social issues of equality and human rights.
A Black Woman Who Changed a Nation
Judge Pillay received awards from the IBA for outstanding international woman lawyer, from the National Bar Association for excellence in the pursuit of human rights and was elected honorary member of the American Society of International Law.

A widow, Judge Pillay has two daughters, Isvari Pather and Kamini Pillay. (See the rest on Peter Gruber Foundation).
… It is very difficult to introduce Judge Pillay as she has done so much, and has been the first in so many fields, that it would take up the time that really should go to her, to enumerate them. She has been an attorney for 30 years. She was the first black woman from South Africa to get a doctorate in Law from Harvard. She defended and represented liberationists and activists in South Africa before the changes that happened in that country. She is now sitting on the international – the UN Tribunal for Rwanda – and actually the tribunal is located in Tanzania – the tribunal for Rwanda. She has had an extremely active life with regards to gender and gender issues and women’s activism. She is now the chair of Equality Now, an important women’s human rights organization that brings attention to cases of abuse against women in powerfully effective alerts. I’m also very honored to have her as a member of the advisory group of the Sisterhood is Global Institute. (See the rest of this article on State of the World).

She says: As a child, and even as an adult in South Africa, I never thought that I would see the end of apartheid in my lifetime. And so now I wonder whether children born today in my country will ever really know what apartheid was like for those of us who lived through it. After 300 years, apartheid became history in – relatively- a short period of time. So what I want to look at, in keeping with the theme of the conference, are some of the actions that made a difference in our struggle and some of the other ongoing struggles I’m still engaged in, and how we can apply some of the lessons we have learned to accelerate the pace of social change.
The United Nations compared to The Infamous US Bus
Ban Ki-moon - Pillay's driver
I remember, as a child, being asked to, for instance, pronounce the word ‘water’ at school. And when I did so, properly, then they labeled me, and said, ‘Well, you think you’re a black European.’ Because I said ‘water’ instead of ‘watER’ or something. So the message that came from the community was, ‘Know your place and don’t even try to aspire to be something else. Don’t even try to change.’ So they don’t tell you what your place is and why.
I think, as children, we all start off with the presumption that we are as good as anyone else and then we are trained to be deferential. And in South Africa, we were trained to see ourselves as second class citizens. Those of you who’ve read Nelson Mandela’s book Long Road To Freedom, would see in the first few chapters he said that, for instance, Nelson is not his name. But when he entered school, the teacher assigned them Christian names, and that’s how he was assigned the name Nelson. This is the kind of non-status that we all labored under. Black was a non-person, and you never were proud of being black. For instance, you know, there was a lot of prohibition and banning and one of the things they banned was Black Beauty, because they thought it’s praising black people, and then they realized that this is the name of a horse.

When I was at Harvard, I was there with my children, so my daughter, [Carmony] was ten years old, so she had a year’s schooling at Cambridge, near Harvard. When we went back, I think the school asked her to speak and the teachers called me to say that what she said to the assembly was, “In the United States I was treated as a person, and here I am treated as a thing.” So, this kind of non-status was instilled in the law, but we didn’t know that. We grew up thinking that it was THE way of life to be classified European and non-European – the non-person. And we grew accustomed to accepting that facilities such as park benches, beaches, housing, schools, were reserved for Europeans only. And so we were very amused when some Americans thought, when they visited, that they couldn’t enjoy these European-only facilities.

Feb. 26, 2010 - Navanethem Pillay - 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty - ECPM from ECPM on Vimeo.

Read on news India-Times online: Durban – A South African Indian woman who has excelled in international law is the country?s candidate for election to the International Criminal Court. Judge Navanethem Pillay is currently the president of the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda.

The United Nations appointed her as a judge in 1995. Her tasks involve presiding over the trial of scores of people accused of genocide in the fighting that left thousands dead in Rwanda and Burundi. Pillay, 62, obtained a masters of law and doctorate of juridical science at Harvard University. She was the first Indian woman attorney in South Africa to be appointed as an acting judge. Positions of judges were previously reserved for whites only under apartheid.

Her book: A Society of Mankind, Not States – Law and Policy, Federation Press.


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

by David O'Brian Posted: Friday, 10/1/2010


Philip J. Crowley

Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Public Affairs
Washington, DC

"Well, we strongly support accountability for serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law around the world and in the DRC. We will review carefully the report when it’s released."


On Friday October 1, 2010, The United States Government, through the Assistant Secretary in charge of the Bureau of Public Affairs, Philip J. Crowley, has called for accountability for crimes committed against Congolese and Rwandan ethnic Hutus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) over the last decades. The call follows the publication on October 1, 2010 by UN High Commission for Human Rights of what is known as DRC Mapping Report, or with the long title: “Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003.”

The DRC Mapping Report documents crimes against humanity, war crimes, and systematic massacres characterized as genocide committed against the Rwandan and Congolese ethnic Hutus by the Rwandan Patriotic Army, the military branch of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). According to the report the RPF, dominated by extremist Tutsis targeted Hutus, mostly children and women, with systematic massacres and for extermination.

“ The report raises serious allegations of brutal and horrific mass killings, rape and other abuses during the period in question,” said the US Government.

The statement by Philip J. Crowley insists on accountability to end impunity and stop ongoing atrocities in the DRC:
“The United States strongly supports accountability for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law around the world, including in the DRC…Accountability is an important step toward ensuring that further such incidents do not occur. The United States is firmly committed to helping the DRC and other nations in the region take positive steps to end the corrosive cycle of violence and impunity.”

©AfroAmerica Network, 2010.


 
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has released a report documenting atrocities, including serious violations of human rights, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the decade between March 1993 and June 2003. The report raises serious allegations of brutal and horrific mass killings, rape and other abuses during the period in question.

The United States strongly supports accountability for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law around the world, including in the DRC. We welcome the improvement in regional relations since the reporting period and call on countries in the region to continue to collaborate closely to stop the ongoing atrocities in the DRC.

As we contemplate the contents of the report, it is crucially important that we remain focused on the tens of thousands of victims in the DRC. Accountability is an important step toward ensuring that further such incidents do not occur. The United States is firmly committed to helping the DRC and other nations in the region take positive steps to end the corrosive cycle of violence and impunity.


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

By Peter Erlinder











[Global: Africa]

With respect to the United Nations Report officially released October 1, showing the role of the RPF and other parties in genocide against Hutus in the Congo (1993-2003).

I think that the language used in the report is much less important than the pattern of commission of massive crimes against civilians, killing 6 million or more, and the illegal extraction of resources from the eastern Congo which the report confirms, once again.

The Spanish indictment also details more than 300,000 deaths prefecture by prefecture committed by the RPF in Rwanda during 1994, and the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, as a means to trigger Burundi-like civilian massacres to de-stabilize Rwanda as part of the RPF war plan, is well-documented in UN documents in the public record at the ICTR, as well.

It is this evidence that caused the ICTR to find Gen. Gratien Kabiligi not guilty of all charges, and to find Col Theoneste Bagosora, Col. Anatole Nsengiyumva and Maj. Aloys Ntabakuze not guilty of "conspiracy and long-term planning to commit genocide," which completely rejects the RPF story of the "Rwandan-genocide" and is why I was arrested as a genocide denier by the Kagame regime.

The Past Is The Past..... (talking about genocide against Hutus and recent murders of the RPF before the August elections).
Just Forget It And Move On => In Rwanda

The infamous Rick Warren' statement at Kagame's swearing in ceremony

It was stated more out of cynism and irony than anything else. => simple observation (ASIF)

This does not deny mass violence took place, but the mass violence did not take place as described by the RPF victors in the Rwanda War. Whether the massive RPF crimes in Congo are called "war crimes," "crimes against humanity" or "genocide" the punishment is the same under international law. President Kagame's insistence that the Report's language be changed does not change the fact that ICTR Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte had the evidence to prosecute him and the RPF in 2003 or earlier, and was prevented from doing so by the U.S. State Department. "

Toning down" the language is far from being able to "bury" the entire report, as the U.S. has been able to do with similar reports and even evidence at UN tribunals, up until now.

Now that the RPF/Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni crimes are being exposed, U.S.-created "impunity" for the last 20-years of these crimes in the Great Lakes Region begins to verge on U.S "complicity." A complete reversal of U.S. policy is necessary, and soon.

Prof. Peter Erlinder is an American lawyer and teaches at Wm. Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, MN. He also represented Rwanda opposition politician Ms. Victoire Ingabire, who was prevented from running in the sham elections in August and remains under confinement. Erlinder was arrested in May and held for weeks in Rwanda after he went there to represent Ingabire.

"Speaking Truth To Empower."

Related article

• Genocide In Africa: Exposing Ban Ki-Moon's And Ocampo's Coverups

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

Kenneth Roth, executive director 

(New York) - United Nations members should make a concerted international effort to initiate judicial investigations into grave human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo documented by the UN and bring those responsible to justice, Human Rights Watch said today.

International Efforts Needed to Create Mechanisms to Ensure Justice

On October 1, 2010, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published the report of its human rights mapping exercise on Congo. The report covers the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed in Congo between March 1993 and June 2003.

"This detailed and thorough report is a powerful reminder of the scale of the crimes committed in Congo and of the shocking absence of justice," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "These events can no longer be swept under the carpet. If followed by strong regional and international action, this report could make a major contribution to ending the impunity that lies behind the cycle of atrocities in the Great Lakes region of Africa."

The report documents 617 violent incidents, covering all provinces, and describes the role of all the main Congolese and foreign parties responsible - including military or armed groups from Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and Angola.
An earlier version of the report was leaked to the news media in August. The Rwandan government, whose troops are accused of some of the most serious crimes documented in the report, reacted angrily, threatening to pull its peacekeepers out of UN missions if the UN published the report.

"The UN has done the right thing by refusing to give in to these threats and by publishing the report," Roth said. "This information has been stifled for too long. The world has the right to know what happened, and the victims have a right to justice."

The UN had tried to investigate some of the events described in the report, notably in 1997 and 1998, but these investigations were repeatedly blocked by the Congolese government, then headed by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, father of the current president, Joseph Kabila. Despite those efforts, information about massacres, rapes, and other abuses against Rwandan refugees and Congolese citizens in the late 1990s was published at the time by the UN and by human rights organizations. However, no action was taken to hold those responsible to account.

"The time has come to identify and prosecute the people responsible for carrying out and ordering these atrocities, going right up the chain of command," Roth said. "Governments around the world remained silent when hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians were being slaughtered in Congo. They have a responsibility now to ensure that justice is done."

One of the most controversial passages of the report concerns crimes committed by Rwandan troops. The UN report raises the question of whether some might be classified "crimes of genocide". The possible use of the term "genocide" to describe the conduct of the Rwandan army has dominated media coverage of the leaked report.

"Questions of qualification and terminology are important, but should not overshadow the need to act on the content of the report regardless of how the crimes are characterized," Roth said. "At the very least, Rwandan troops and their Congolese allies committed massive war crimes and crimes against humanity, and large numbers of civilians were killed with total impunity. That is what we must remember, and that is what demands concerted action for justice."

The report has received widespread support from Congolese civil society, with 220 Congolese organizations signing a statement welcoming the report and calling for a range of mechanisms to deliver justice.

The mapping exercise has its origins in the UN's earlier investigations into crimes committed in Congo from 1993 to 1997. In September 2005, the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, MONUC, discovered three mass graves in Rutshuru, in North Kivu province of eastern Congo, relating to crimes committed in 1996 and 1997. The gruesome discovery acted as a trigger to re-open investigations. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, with the support of the UN Secretary-General, initiated the mapping exercise and broadened the mandate to include crimes committed during Congo's second war from 1998 to 2003.

The mapping exercise was conducted with the support of the Congolese government. However, the Congolese justice system has neither the capacity nor sufficient guarantees of independence to adequately ensure justice for these crimes, Human Rights Watch said. The report therefore suggests other options, involving a combination of Congolese, foreign, and international jurisdictions.

These could include a court with both Congolese and international personnel as well as prosecution by other states on the basis of universal jurisdiction. Human Rights Watch supports the establishment of a mixed chamber, with jurisdiction over past and current war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Congo.
Countries in the region whose armies are implicated in the report should carry out their own investigations and initiate action against individuals responsible for crimes, Human Rights Watch said.

The report is both important for highlighting past injustices and relevant to the situation in present-day Congo, Human Rights Watch said.

"This is more than a historical report," Roth said. "Many of the patterns of abuse against civilians documented by the UN team continue in Congo today, fed by a culture of impunity. Creating a justice mechanism to address past and present crimes will be crucial to ending this cycle of impunity and violence."

L’horreur du génocide des Tutsis du Rwanda par les Hutus en 1994 continue de neutraliser tout inventaire supplémentaire de l’apocalypse qui a frappé l’Afrique des Grands Lacs à l’orée du XXIe siècle. A tel point que l’élimination en 1996-1997, cette fois-ci, de centaines de milliers d’Hutus par l’armée tutsie du général Kagamé reste un crime politiquement incorrect qu’il demeure délicat d’évoquer, sous peine de se voir taxer des intentions les plus vicieuses.



Si accablant que puisse être le pré-rapport de l’ONU sur les crimes commis en République démocratique du Congo (RDC) de 1993 à 2003, divulgué par Le Monde, il pourrait faire naître de faux espoirs à ceux qui désespèrent que la tragédie absolue qui a causé la mort de centaines de milliers de personnes dans l’Est du Congo reste à jamais sans sépulture judiciaire. Car le chemin qui reste à parcourir pour conduire les responsables devant un tribunal sera long. Et il est bien possible qu’ils bénéficient encore une fois d’un classement sans suite.
Juillet 1995, Srebrenica, Bosnie : 6 000 à 8 000 morts. Certains des auteurs ont été condamnés. Milosevic a fini ses jours en prison. Karadzic se fait juger. Comment est-il possible, par comparaison, qu’il ait fallu autant d’années avant que ne commence seulement à être esquissée la nécessité de punir des crimes qui sont au minimum contre l’humanité – des milliers de morts – pour ne pas parler de génocide, puisque cela froisse Paul Kagamé ? Le génocide des Tutsis au Rwanda en 1994 a rendu depuis lors le vainqueur, encore au pouvoir à Kigali seize ans après, totalement intouchable.

Regardons le Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda (TPIR). Alors que sa mission était également de juger les crimes de masse perpétrés par l’Armée patriotique rwandaise (APR) du général Kagamé, pas un seul accusé n’a été présenté devant une chambre. Le Rwanda a pratiqué le chantage, bloqué le fonctionnement du tribunal pour que finalement après le départ de Carla Del Ponte, le nouveau procureur du TPIR abandonne définitivement toutes velléités de faire juger quiconque du pouvoir rwandais actuel. Aurait-on osé devant l’histoire, s’agissant de l’ex-Yougoslavie, ne poursuivre que des criminels Serbes sans s’intéresser à ce qu’avaient fait les Croates ou les Bosniaques ? Il semble, en effet, que les critères soient différents lorsqu’on touche à l’Afrique et en particulier au Rwanda.

L’élimination organisée et volontaire d’au moins 200 000 Rwandais en 1996-1997 par l’APR est connue et documentée depuis des années. La communauté internationale avait assisté presque en direct à la disparition dans les forêts congolaises des refugiés rwandais. Emma Bonino, Commissaire européen aux droits de l’homme, avait interpellé le Conseil de sécurité sur le danger mortel que courraient des centaines de milliers de personnes. Un projet d’une force internationale était alors évoqué et bientôt sabordé par les soutiens de Kigali qui, de son côté, fermait la zone aux ONG et aux journalistes.

Et une fois de plus, malgré le caractère immense et notoire des massacres, on a tourné la tête, voir nié. Mieux, en ne poursuivant ni les crimes de l’APR en 1994 au Rwanda, ni ceux de 1996-1997, c’est un véritable permis de tuer que l’on a octroyé au pouvoir rwandais. Et depuis lors, son dossier criminel s’est nourri du pillage, avec d’autres, des ressources minières du Kivu et de l’Ituri, de l’entretien de la guerre et de ses chefs comme Laurent Nkunda. Avec pour constante, le martyr des populations vulnérables, dans ces forêts congolaises que certains rescapés surnomment la zone du diable.

DEUX POIDS, DEUX MESURES ?

Voilà seize ans que cela dure. Paul Kagamé vient de faire renouveler à 94 % son mandat de dictateur. Le pouvoir rwandais a réglé à l’intérieur le problème du questionnement de sa responsabilité dans les événements de 1994 qu’il appelle du négationnisme. Le procureur du Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda, lui, s’est satisfait d’un déni international de justice. Et le secrétaire général des Nations unies court à Kigali parce qu’on craint que le Rwanda ne retire ses troupes du Darfour : pensez donc, un projet de rapport onusien utilise une qualification – génocide – inapproprié… Et ce n’est pas le moindre des paradoxes non plus que le ministre de la défense rwandais, James Kabarebe, fasse l’objet d’un mandat d’arrêt de la justice espagnole, précisément pour les événements du Congo.

Il faut terriblement ignorer le Rwanda pour penser que l’impunité laissée au vainqueur de 1994 sur les crimes commis contre sa propre population pourra contribuer à solder les comptes de l’horreur. Les braises de la haine ne s’éteindront jamais tant que les crimes de l’APR ne seront pas jugés. L’injustice faite aux victimes Hutus du Congo vient nourrir les excuses que se donnent déjà les anciens tueurs de Tutsis au Rwanda. Loin des trottoirs de Kigali, refaits à neuf avec l’argent des bailleurs de fonds, la rancœur fermente dans les collines.
Alors, maintenant qu’un peu de lumière est à nouveau jetée sur le charnier congolais, la diplomatie de couloir va-t-elle encore une fois réussir à escamoter les responsables ? C’est bien probable. C’est une fosse commune judiciaire que l’on prépare pour enterrer définitivement de véritables excommuniés du droit international. Les faits n’entrent dans la compétence d’aucune des juridictions internationales existantes et l’on ne peut compter sur les dirigeants impliqués pour se mettre en accusation. Si un tribunal spécial pour le Congo n’est pas créé, les assassins ne seront ni poursuivis, ni jugés.

Après l’attentat ayant coûté la vie au Liban à Rafic Hariri, l’émotion de la communauté internationale et l’action des diplomates avaient poussé les Nations unies à instituer un tribunal spécial pour juger de l’assassinat d’un seul homme. L’élimination de certains groupes entiers d’êtres humains a-t-il moins d’importance ? L’ONU fait-elle deux poids, deux mesures ? Il est encore temps pour le Conseil de sécurité et le Secrétaire général des Nations unies de nous prouver le contraire.

Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse, avocat au Barreau de Paris