Christopher Black Barrister at the Hague Counsel to the complainants

 

Alexander B. Mezyaev


The second report is that of Michael Hourigan, the Australian lawyer and Lead Investigator for Louise Arbour when she was Prosecutor. She tasked him with the mission of determining who had assassinated the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi and the Rwandan Army chief of staff on April 6, 1994 when their plane was shot down over Kigali. She did so thinking those responsible were Hutu «extremists». However, Hourigan learned, and had the documentary evidence and testimony to prove it, that the Zero Network of the RPF shot down the plane on Kagame’s orders, with the help of a foreign power. When Hourigan presented this evidence to Arbour she ordered the investigation terminated and the file handed over to her. No further action has been taken on that evidence since. There is evidence that she stopped the investigation on the orders of the American government. This had three consequences; it hid the truth of who was responsible for the events in Rwanda in 1994 from the world, it made Louise Arbour an accessory to a mass murder, and at the same time, it established her value as a cooperative asset that the USA could use in the aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999 when she was told by Bill Clinton to prevent negotiations and prolong the war by charging President Milosevic with false accusations of crimes against humanity.

The third report included in the complaint is the Mapping Report of 2010 to the UN Secretary General that details the large-scale atrocities that were committed by the RPF and the Ugandans and the Congolese in Rwanda and Zaire (DRC) from 1993 to 2003. The final UN report is the Addendum report of the Special Committee of the Security Council (Group of Experts) on the situation in the Congo of June 2012.

These UN reports are supported by the evidence held by the Prosecutors at the ICTR and by the evidence presented by the defence in several of the trials as to what actually transpired in Rwanda from 1990 to 1994. This evidence is completely at odds with the accepted western version but has been studiously ignored by both the western media and academics and many so-called experts.

The UN Report giving the ICC jurisdiction over Kagame is known as the Addendum. It is a supplement to a letter to the Secretary General of the UN submitted by the Group of Experts. Once again, it appears there were efforts to suppress this report as the United States tried to prevent its release. These documents present findings that provide a reasonable basis to conclude that crimes within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court have been and are being committed by Paul Kagame and others under his command and control and which could not escape the attention of an ICC Prosecutor who was dedicated to eliminating impunity for war crimes. The documented evidence establishes that the Rwandan authorities, led by President Paul Kagame, and including, among others, his minister of defence, General James Kaberebe, General Charles Kayonga, the Rwandan Defence Forces Chief of Staff, and his Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, General Jack Nziza, committed serious international crimes in the DRC by supporting the M23 «rebel» group.
Specifically the Addendum provides reliable and documented evidence that these officers are providing direct military assistance to the M23 rebellion inside the DRC including the use of children under the age of 18 as M23 combatants (5), and forced former enemy combatants of the Democratic Forces For the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) to serve with units sent by the Rwanda Defence Forces to reinforce M23 (6). The criminal responsibility of the President Paul Kagame and his subordinates for these crimes is based on Article 28 of the Rome Statute of the ICC concerning superior responsibility.

The Mapping Report of 2010, which covers the period 1993 to 2003, provides evidence that the crimes committed by Kagame and his allies amounting to genocide against the Hutu people in Rwanda spread into the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, beginning in 1996 through to 2003, where the armed forces of Rwanda, Uganda and of the DRC committed genocide against the Hutu ethnic group in the DRC. One Hutu witness at the ICTR who fled 3,000 kilometers through the Congo forest to escape this attempted extermination called it the «genocide with no name and further testified, along with other witnesses, that they observed UN and US spotter planes over them before each RPF attack». (7) During the entire period of time in which these crimes were committed Paul Kagame had command responsibility over the Rwandan armed forces. (8)
The Complainants in the action of August 17 represent various civil society groups in Rwanda and Congo and include former senior members of the RPF government in Rwanda. This action is perhaps the first of its kind by Hutus and Tutsis acting in cooperation against the Kagame regime and provides a basis for optimism that Hutus and Tutsis can come to an accord and can lead Rwanda and its people forward together. They have requested the Prosecutor to commence an investigation with a view to laying charges against Paul Kagame and any other person or persons complicit in the crimes set out in the Addendum and they have relied on the stated intention of the ICC, set out in its preamble, that no one has impunity for crimes committed within the jurisdiction of the ICC.

The Complaint also notes that there is a vast amount of evidence against Kagame in the hands of the Prosecutors of the ICTR and that, while neither this evidence nor that of the Gersony, Hourigan or Mapping reports provide the ICC with evidence of crimes within its jurisdiction, they do provide evidence that the crimes of Kagame are of a continuing and grave nature and reveal a systematic pattern and intention and add credence to the Addendum Report. The Complainants also note that this protection of Kagame and his allies from prosecution at the ICTR has had the direct consequence of giving him a sense of impunity and has encouraged him to commit more crimes. An example of the evidence in the hands of the ICTR, (the Hourigan Report being another cited above) is the testimony of defence witness Abdul Ruzibiza, a former officer of the RPF, who testified in the Military I trial that the assassination of the Rwanda and Burundi presidents in 1994 was planned and committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front under command of current President Kagame and that he was a member of the shoot down team. (9) In September of 2010, Ruzibiza died in Norway at the age of 40 under unclear circumstances and amid rumours of threats against him by the CIA.
This is not the first death of witnesses who gave testimony or others who were intent on exposing the crimes of the RPF and Kagame. Witness GAP, a prosecution witness in the Military II trial against General Bizimungu, the Rwandan army chief of staff, and who had recanted his testimony as false and extorted by threats of the RPF regime was recalled in 2009 to the ICTR to explain his recantation. He never reached the courtroom. He arrived in Arusha and was placed in a UN safe house to await his testimony. The day before he was due to testify he disappeared from the UN safe house and has not been seen by anyone since. Protests and a demand for an investigation by defence counsel about how he could disappear from a UN guarded safe house were ignored.

Seth Sendashonga, the former RPF Minister of Interior, was assassinated by an RPF death squad in Nairobi May 16, 1998, after he announced he was going to testify at the ICTR that the witnesses provided by the RPF to the tribunal were all forced to give false testimony by the RPF government (10). In December 2005, Juvenal Uwilingiyimana, a Hutu, and former Minister of Trade and Commerce, was found floating in a canal in Brussles, naked, with his hands cut off, after disappearing a few weeks earlier. He had been in contact with Steven Rapp and two of his investigators, who were pressuring him to give false testimony for the prosecution at the ICTR, according to a letter he had sent to the President of the ICTR prior to his disappearance. In the letter to the President of the ICTR and to Rapp, he said that Rapp’s two Canadian investigators had threatened to kill him and cut his body in pieces unless he cooperated. He refused to do so and refused to meet with them again. Shortly after that letter was sent he was murdered. Again, a demand by defence counsel for the suspension of Rapp and the two Canadian investigators pending an investigation into their possible involvement was ignored.

One of the writers (11), counsel to General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, chief of staff of the gendarmerie of Rwanda in the Military II trial, was himself threatened in July 2008 by a CIA officer working at the ICTR that if he did not watch his step he would be killed. This threat, echoing previous threats by the RPF, was reported to the President of the Tribunal but he was disbelieved. Scottish lawyer Andrew McCartan, Scotland’s foremost military lawyer, was killed in October 2003 when his car went off a cliff in Scotland just a few weeks after having told the same writer at a meeting in Toronto that he had tried to confront Bill Clinton about the US role in Rwanda and that he had learned secrets about the US involvement in Rwanda in 1994 and its control of the ICTR. Scottish police could find no cause for the car crash. In her memoirs the former Chief Prosecutor of International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Carla del Ponte, reported that Paul Kagame torpedoed the investigation of crimes committed by RPF and that the US government also put pressure on her to leave Kagame alone and when she refused to sign a document to that effect she was soon replaced. (12) To no one’s surprise the new Prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, immediately lost interest in the RPF and Kagame. In 2010, American defence counsel, Peter Erlinder was arrested by the RPF regime the day he arrived in Rwanda to try to defend FDU-Inkingi politician Victoire Ingabire, facing political charges by the regime, because he had merely repeated publicly what the evidence was at the ICTR about RPF crimes. He was only released after extensive intervention by other defence counsel and the reluctant intervention of the US State Department.

The Rwandan and Ugandan invasions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo beginning in 1996 created a severe problem for Africa. Year by year the situation became worse. In 1999 the Democratic Republic of the Congo initiated proceedings against Rwanda in the International Court of Justice. (13) That proceeding was later discontinued because of the Congo’s expressed belief in their ability to resolve the matter by negotiation. But in 2002 Congo was forced to institute new proceedings against Rwanda. Because of technical reasons (with very questionable argumentation) (14) the ICJ found no jurisdiction in the case, so the Congolese claims stay unanswered. (15)

The attempts by the NATO powers to indict heads of state for actions committed on the territory of foreign countries, using the UN as their tool, have become more and more frequent but the leaders targeted for this treatment are those who stand in the way of western interests, never those that bend to their interests. We can cite as examples the case against Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for the alleged planning and fuelling of the war crimes in Bosnia, that against Liberian President Charles Taylor for his alleged aiding and abetting crimes committed in Sierra Leone, and finally the case against the vice-president of the DRC J-P.Bemba for the military assistance in CAR.

Kagame is an example of an American supported leader whose crimes go unpunished because he is useful to them and because they are party to his crimes. The Prosecutors of the ICTR have wasted 17 years protecting Kagame from his responsibility for the crimes he and his forces committed in Rwanda in 1994. The consequence has been a continuation of those crimes into the Congo, drowning the Great Lakes region of Africa in blood. Since the ICTR has refused to act on its responsibilities, it is now up to the ICC to take up the burden and to commence an investigation into the crimes set out in the Addendum report and the crimes committed by Kagame and others who support him since 2003, the date on which the jurisdiction of the ICC begins. The impunity given to Kagame and his allies can only come to an end, and with it the wars in the Great Lakes region, when his crimes and those of the powers that support him are exposed and brought to justice. It is not enough to study the consequences of these wars. It is necessary to understand the reasons and the causes for these wars. The August 17 action at The Hague is an attempt to start the long delayed process of bringing Kagame and his allies to justice. Only when this is achieved can Africans begin the to create the conditions for the restoration of peace and the conditions necessary to develop Africa’s immense potential . The August 17 action should be supported.

Christopher C. Black – Barrister, Counsel to the complainants in the present case (Canada).

Alexander B. Mezyaev – Head of the Department of International Law, Law Faculty, University of Management (Russia).



(1) Christopher Black

(2) The United Forces For Democracy in Rwanda (FDU), the Rwanda National Congress (RNC), le Reseau International des Femmes pour la Democratie et la Paix (RIFDP) – from Rwanda; and L’Association Pour la Promotion de la Democratie et du Developpement de la RDC (APRODEC) and Congonova, represent significant elements of the civil society of the Democratic Republic of Congo – from the DRC.

(3)Article 15 (1) of the ICC Statute states that «The Prosecutor may initiate investigations proprio motu on the basis of information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court». And article 53 of the ICC Statute requires the Prosecutor to «initiate an investigation unless he or she determines there is no reasonable basis to proceed…».

(4) The report of Robert Gersony to the UNHCR of October 1994 and the report of ICTR Lead investigator for Louise Arbour of 1997 to the UN OIOS (Office of Internal Oversight)

(5) See Addendum (para 19). This action constitutes a war crime under Article 8(b)(xxvi) and 8(e)(vii) of the ICC Statute.

(6) See Addendum (paras 20-21). This action constitutes a war crime under Article 8(2)(a)(v) of the ICC Statute (that forbids compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power).

(7) Transcripts, Military II Trial, ICTR.

(8) DRC Final Report (the Mapping Report) of June 2010 (made to the Secretary-General of the United Nations by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights N.Pillay,). Paras 20-33.

(9) Prosecutor v. Bagosora et al., transcript of 9 March 2006. See also the book of this witness «Rwanda. L’Histoire Secret». Paris. 2005.

(10) Prunier, Gerard (2009) Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwanda Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe, Oxford

(11) Christopher Black

(12) C. Del Ponte, The Hunt. Me and the War Criminals. 2008, Oxford, Oxford University Press pp 366-367.

(13) Application instituting proceedings see on the official website of the International Court of Justice on the Internet: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/117/7071.pdf. The Livre blanc prepared of the Government of the DRC is available: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/117/13461.pdf.

(14) Two judges expressed their dissenting opinions and eight judges – separate opinions to the judgment.

(15) Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New Application : 2002) (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Rwanda). ICJ Judgment of 3 February 2006.



As International is an international nonpartisan charity organization devoted to defending human rights. It’s an organization working to promote democracy and national reconciliation, inside countries of the African Great lakes Region.


As International centers its work on the twin concepts of freedom of self-determination and freedom from tyranny. These ideals include the belief that all human beings have the rights to speak freely, to associate with those of like mind, and to leave and enter their countries. Individuals in a free society must be accorded equal treatment and due process under law, and must have the opportunity to participate in the governments of their countries;

As International’s ideals likewise find expression in the conviction that all human beings have the right to be free from arbitrary detainment or exile and from interference and coercion in matters of conscience. ASI does not support nor condone violence.

  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

Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying reality : the Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination with an iron fist, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus), mass-arrests and mass-murder by the RPF criminal organization.


So long as justice and accountability for RPF past and current crimes are ignored and delayed, Peace and Stability will remain illusive and impossible in Rwanda=>AS International]
 

http://www.rtbf.be/video/v_en-bref-manif-de-rwandais-a-bruxelles?id=1757383&category=info
La communaute rwandaise en exile à Bruxelles s'est rassemblé samedi à Woluwe-Saint-Pierre en soutien à l'opposante rwandaise Victoire Ingabire, actuellement détenue à Kigali et poursuivie notamment pour complicité de terrorisme et propagation de l'idéologie du génocide.

Mrs Ingabire Victoire The would-be President of Rwanda

Présidente des Forces démocratiques Unies (FDU), formation d'opposition non reconnue par Kigali, Mme Ingabire, une Hutue, est incarcérée depuis octobre 2010 et poursuivie pour complicité de terrorisme, propagation de l'idéologie du génocide, sectarisme et divisionnisme, atteinte à la sûreté intérieure de l'Etat, création d'un groupe armé avec l'intention de provoquer la guerre. Le verdict de son procès est attendu en octobre. Les manifestants issus de la diaspora rwandaise, se sont rassemblés à 12h00 rond-point Montgomery avant d'entamer une marche vers l'ambassade du Rwanda. Leur objectif était de dénoncer le caractère politique du procès de Mme Ingabire et d'exiger sa libération immédiate. Dans la foulée, ils ont également condamné les actes de violations des droits de l'homme et d'intimidation contre les membres de l'opposition politique à Kigali.

"Pour chaque chef d'accusation, Victoire Ingabire risque la perpétuité. Depuis son arrestation en 2010, elle est à l'isolement total. Le gouvernement rwandais sait que les charges qui pèsent contre elle sont si faibles qu'il n'ose pas se prononcer de peur de perdre la face", a dit Joseph Bukeye, responsable du FDU en Belgique. "Le Rwanda est financé à plus de 80% par l'aide étrangère.


As International is an international nonpartisan charity organization devoted to defending human rights. It’s an organization working to promote democracy and national reconciliation, inside countries of the African Great lakes Region.
As International centers its work on the twin concepts of freedom of self-determination and freedom from tyranny. These ideals include the belief that all human beings have the rights to speak freely, to associate with those of like mind, and to leave and enter their countries. Individuals in a free society must be accorded equal treatment and due process under law, and must have the opportunity to participate in the governments of their countries;

As International’s ideals likewise find expression in the conviction that all human beings have the right to be free from arbitrary detainment or exile and from interference and coercion in matters of conscience. ASI does not support nor condone violence.


The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine

The Truth on Kagame, the mastermind of the Rwandan genocide is a work in progress.


The world has known many brutal and bloody regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere since WW1, but none of them was more barbaric, savage and cruel than the current  Kagame and RPF dictatorship.

The merciless, sadistic, bloody, evil, mean and ferocious Rwandan RPF Junta headed by the bloody dictator "General" Paul Kagame ruling Junta has  few rivals because of intimidation and assassinations.
The murderous Kagame Rwandan regime that has been in power for almost 20 years shows no respect whatsoever to its own people’s dignity, rights, feelings, pain, grief, safety, and welfare.Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying reality : the Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda.

The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination with an iron fist, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus), mass-arrests and mass-murder by the RPF criminal organization. Because of support of some Westerners, Kagame has won't be intimidated to deprive the Rwandan people particularly the Hutu ethnic group and majority of Rwandans even of their own basic freedom and rights.

The  controlled military in Rwanda will NEVER ALLOW THE ERADICATION OF IMPUNITY.

So long as justice and accountability for RPF past and current crimes are ignored and delayed, Peace and Stability will remain illusive and impossible in Rwanda. Kagame is undoubtedly more than usually obsessed by the Hutu majority in Rwanda. To its shame, the whole world did nothing while millions of Hutus were mass-slaughtered by the Tutsi and Kagame and other Hutu refugees were forcibly to run away making 80,000 miles to Mbandaka fleeing RPF unspeakable barbarism and cruelty.
KPFA Weekend News : - 

Why Kagame Hate the Hutu and Demos cratus?

 The prevailing narrative and Kagame's scenarion of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide is that extremist Hutus massacred 800,000 or more Rwandan Tutsi and moderate Hutu, who tried to protect them. But, many scholars, journalists, and human rights investigators now argue that both Tutsi and Hutu massacred one another because of their ethnicity as a result, more than 3,5 million Hutus were either mass-slaughtered, assassinated or disappeared. The slavery of the majority of the imprisoned Hutus is on its highest level with the help of the TIG institutionalized slavery, the genocide ideology settled to creatd millions of prisoners. you will not be surprised to realize that the economic boom of Kigali in Rwanda is due to the unpaid millions of Hutus told used to work for paiying back  the presumably crimes they committed during the Rwandan 1994 genocide.

Kagame and RPF's regime resorts to evil tactics of murder, terrorism, kidnapping, assassination, cruelty, a policy of divide and conquer, and barbarism against the Hutu and Congolese people. More than 3,5 millions of Hutu majority of Rwandans,  250 thousands of the Tutsi ethnic group citizens and more than 6 millions of Congolese people disappeared, one and more 2 million fled the country, hundred of thousands of innocent Hutus, victms of the genocide Kagame's ideology were imprisoned scores of presidents, politicians, clergy, journalists and intellectuals were assassinated, and all the country’s governmental institutions are infiltrated with DMI spies and agents. The remaining Hutus, men, women and children are marginalized from Economy and education.
My memory snags for a moment on the haunted eyes of those hutu women forcibly work in those RPF plantatations together with their imprisoned husbands halfly released to forcibly work entire of their lives in those highjacked plantations the tutsi and RPF members and followers.
Stop drinking Rwandan coffee.

Unslaved women are all of the Hutu ethnic group forcibly working without being paid in coffee plantantions of Kagame families and RPF party

The question is: are Paul Kagame and RPF massacres organizers responsible for this horrible crime human beings? No they are not. They are criminals, killers and mere barbaric savages that must not be left to continue ruling Rwanda and terrorizing its people.
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Read more on Anngarrison.com

Witness Paul Kagame and RPF Unthinkable Barbarism and Cruelty



src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GI_hwnboN0E?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

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

Revenons-en au sujet :

Hier soir BBC Kinyrwanda a volontairement voulu déformer l'information sur la culpabilité du rwanda dans les massacres et le génocide qui se pérpètrent encore sur le sol Congolais en accordant un interview au x rwandais et en particulier au Général de brigade Nzabamwita. et  c'était la seule info que plusieurs des rwandais n'ont peu recueillir plutôt que de savoir que leurs dirigeants sont des criminels inégalables et inégalés. Pour ce faire nous demandons à la direction de BBC de respecter les règles journalistiques en accordant interview aux deux "bérigérants".
Comparez vous mêmes les dires des journalistes de BBC et de leurs maîtres à Kigali :


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

So long as justice and accountability for RPF past and current crimes are ignored and delayed, Peace and Stability will remain illusive and impossible in Rwanda=>AS International]






With These Facts Stated – Mankind And Rwanda IN Particular, Can Build Its Future!
United States of America have much to apologize for, including failure to understand the majority of Rwandans beginning the RPF invasion in 1990, refusal to defer sufficiently to the majority Hutu, selfishness in pursuing U.S. interests as opposed to global interests, and showing far too much concern for U.S. sovereignty, independence, and freedom of action. The second idea is that multilateral institutions offer the best hope for restraining U.S. power and moderating Rwandans' national assertiveness.

If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them."

If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them."
Democracy is defined in Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary as:

Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them either directly or through their elected agents;... a state of society characterized by nominal equality of rights and privileges.



What is left out of the dictionary definition of democracy is what constitutes "the people." In practice, democracy is governed by its most popularly understood principle: majority rule. Namely, the side with the most votes wins, whether it is an election, a legislative bill, a contract proposal to a union, or a shareholder motion in a corporation. The majority (or in some cases plurality) vote decides. Thus, when it is said that "the people have spoken" or the "people's will should be respected," the people are generally expressed through its majority.

Democracy Requires Minority Rights

Yet majority rule can not be the only expression of "supreme power" in a democracy. If so, as Tocqueville notes above, the majority would too easily tyrannize the minority. Thus, while it is clear that democracy must guarantee the expression of the popular will through majority rule, it is equally clear that it must guarantee that the majority will not abuse use its power to violate the basic and inalienable rights of the minority. For one, a defining characteristic of democracy must be the people's right to change the majority through elections. This right is the people's "supreme authority." The minority, therefore, must have the right to seek to become the majority and possess all the rights necessary to compete fairly in elections—speech, assembly, association, petition—since otherwise the majority would make itself permanent and become a dictatorship. For the majority, ensuring the minority's rights becomes a matter of self-interest, since it must utilize the same rights when it is in minority to seek to become a majority again. This holds equally true in a multiparty parliamentary democracy, where no party has a majority, since a government must still be formed in coalition by a majority of parliament members.

And minority rule is antithetical to democracy. But the founders worried that the majority could abuse its powers to oppress a minority just as easily as a king.

Minority Rights I: Individual Rights vs. Majority Tyranny

Democracy therefore requires minority rights equally as it does majority rule. Indeed, as democracy is conceived today, the minority's rights must be protected no matter how singular or alienated that minority is from the majority society; otherwise, the majority's rights lose their meaning. In the United States, basic individual liberties are protected through the Bill of Rights, which were drafted by James Madison and adopted in the form of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. These enumerate the rights that may not be violated by the government, safeguarding—in theory, at least—the rights of any minority against majority tyranny. Today, these rights are considered the essential element of any liberal democracy.

The British political philosopher John Stuart Mill took this principle further. In his essay On Liberty he wrote, "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others." Mill's "no harm principle" aims to prevent government from becoming a vehicle for the "tyranny of the majority," which he viewed as not just a political but also a social tyranny that stifled minority voices and imposed a regimentation of thought and values. Mill's views became the basis for much of liberal political philosophy since, whether it is free market or economic liberalism or social liberalism.

How do majority rule and the protection of minority rights function in practice? Clearly, the two can easily collide when the assertion of Madisonian rights and Millian liberalism confront an unmovable democratic majority. In politics, the regularity of elections and the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances (see "Constitutional Limits") are the means for ensuring debate over the people's interests and views.

Minority Rights II: Protecting Minority Groups in Society

Madisonian and Millian principles safeguard individual and political minorities. But the danger of majority tyranny lies not just in the infringements of individual rights or the marginalization of a political minority, but in the oppression of minority groups in society based simply on criteria such as skin color, ethnicity or nationality, religion, or sexual orientation. Judicial checks on majority tyranny were supposed to expand political and civil rights over time; however, the American courts were themselves often a part of majority tyranny, as numerous Supreme Court cases attest. The 19th-century Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson decisions ruled that African Americans were socially inferior and thus not guaranteed equal protection of the laws (see descriptions of these two cases on the African American History web page).

The African American Experience

In the United States, it is the African American experience that most warns of the danger of such majority tyranny. The Constitution, officially implemented in 1789, flatly contradicted the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Its infamous "three-fifths compromise" (which determined that a slave constitutedonly three-fifths of a person) sanctioned slavery and the terrible mistreatment of millions of Africans brought to America in chains. Even after the Civil War's end, amendments to the Constitution abolishing slavery and guaranteeing equal rights did not prevent the adoption of Jim Crow laws in the Southern states, which collectively maintained a system of institutionalized segregation, or pervasive discrimination against African Americans in the North. In the South, whites disenfranchised black voters through so-called literacy tests, poll taxes, and property qualifications that were never applied to poor and illiterate whites.

John Trumbull's famous painting of the Founding Fathers

To overcome this form of majority tyranny, maintained for nearly 100 years, the African American minority, just over 12 percent of the population in the late 1800s, had to confront the reality that nearly all political avenues were closed to it. In the South the right to vote had effectively been taken away, and in the North it was ineffectual. In the early 20th century, some African American leaders therefore adopted a strategy of nonviolence and civil disobedience that took the fullest advantage of the freedoms contained in the Bill of Rights and challenged American institutions to live up to America's democratic principles. In their strategy, the rational answer to systematic denial of freedom was the exercise of freedom. The answer to systematic denial of inequality was demanding legal equality and justice in the courts. The ultimate success of this strategy—which began in 1905 with the Niagara Movement of W. E. B. Du Bois and demanded equal rights and eventually led to the development of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—fulfilled the stated ideals of American democracy and as a result made the African American civil rights movement an enduring international symbol for world freedom. Its nonviolent method has become a much-used model for how an oppressed minority can seek freedom through the peaceful use of democratic rights.

The Persistence of Discrimination

America's experience is unique in scope, but all democracies have witnessed "the tyranny of the majority" applied against different social groups. Nearly all democracies, for example, restricted voting to specific economic groups, most frequently to male property owners, and only slowly expanded the franchise to men generally. Women were systematically denied equal political and social rights. The first state to grant equal suffrage was Wyoming, then still a territory, in 1869; the first country to do so was New Zealand, but only in 1893. British women over the age of 30 were given the vote in 1918, and in 1928 the age limit was lowered to 21. Women in the United States gained suffrage in 1920, while France did not adopt universal suffrage until after liberation from the Nazi occupation in 1944. Despite having the right to vote in most countries today, women still suffer formal discrimination in many places in the world.

In Europe, minority Muslim communities from former colonies in northern Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia have struggled against pervasive discrimination and the denial of equal opportunities in education, jobs, and housing. In India, the "untouchables," or harijan, have only recently gained rights to enter the mainstream of society. Majority indigenous groups in Bolivia and several other Latin American countries have long been treated as "the minority" for most of their countries' constitutional histories. Indeed, the issues of minorities seeking greater freedom, equality, autonomy, and protection against discrimination and unequal treatment are current throughout the world. Usually they are being addressed through nonviolent protests, legislation, the courts, protection of native lands, education, and other efforts granting regional autonomy or specific rights and privileges.

Conclusion

The Democratic Ideal

On a practical level, the application of majority rule and minority rights relies on a set of rules agreed to by everyone in a political community. How are majorities determined? What are the limits of debate and speech? How can members in a community propose a motion or law? Should a minority be allowed to prevent the majority's will by abusing its rights? There is no one answer to these questions, and many democracies have answered them differently.


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 ANJAN SUNDARAM

For years, Rwanda's budding dictator, Paul Kagame, has gotten away with murder, while winning praise (and billions of dollars) from the West. But is the blind support for this strongman finally drying up?

• Rwanda needs more than guilt money
• Rwanda loses £16 million of UK aid
• Washington signals shift in policy

"To exclude aggression from international judicial scrutiny is to grant immunity to those responsible for what the Nuremberg court condemned, and the United Nations unanimously affirmed, as ''the supreme international crime.'' Children, and their parents, are best protected where those responsible for illegal war are held accountable".

BENJAMIN B. FERENCZ
KIGALI, Rwanda — Despite years of credible accusations of repression and war crimes leveled at Rwanda, both within the country and abroad, the United States, Britain, and a host of Western governments have consistently looked the other way, showering this tiny central African country with aid, touting it as a paragon of post-conflict reform, and protecting it staunchly against criticism. The accusations have included killing tens of thousands of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, supporting violent rebellions in that country, illegally controlling Congo's lucrative mineral trade, and running an authoritarian regime that severely represses political opponents, journalists, and citizens in its own country.


The Rwandan reputed bloods leader angrily speaks as the the UN experts found Him guilty of aiding, abetting war crimes and Genocide in Congo

 But this summer, after a U.N. Group of Experts report accused Rwanda of aiding a Congolese rebel group, many of these same donors -- almost inexplicably, given the gravity of the accusations they were willing to overlook in the past -- have suddenly begun to ask tough questions of Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, "We have deep concerns about Rwanda's support to the Congolese rebel group that goes by the name M23." A number of countries have gone as far as suspending aid to Rwanda, which, until recently, was a darling of the international development community.
 
Aid going to the Kagame dictatorship and 90% of it is lining the pockets of the Rwandan  strongman and his cronies
The development community is heavily invested in Rwanda's success, providing over $1 billion annually in development assistance to this small country of 10 million people. To many, the country incarnates the hope that Africa will rise from its poverty. The government has reported an average 8.2 percent annual GDP growth rate over the last five years, even in the midst of the global financial crisis, and claims to have lifted 1 million people out of poverty during the same period. The World Bank unequivocally praises its progress on development. And Kagame -- along with Western governments -- has promoted a narrative of a country rising spectacularly from a horrific genocide in 1994, a shining example that foreign aid, if well managed, can indeed give poor countries a leg up.
But Kagame, who relies on Western aid for about half of his country's budget, has reason now to be alarmed. For weeks, his government has fended off the damning accusations, not wavering from its usual strategy of forcefully denying all criticism and claiming the evidence has been fabricated. Rwanda generally argues that the crimes it is accused of would be against its interests -- for instance, that a war on its border would hurt its own economic growth and development. But the old arguments seem to be no longer working for Kagame. While Western donors in the past seemed content to give the president the benefit of the doubt, it appears now that his staunchest friends no longer believe his repeated denials.
Don't Miss The Truth about ONE of the The delusional RPF bunc who help M23 rebellion in Democratic Republoic of The Congo (DRC) under his direct command with the preparation, instigation and execution of crimes by helping General Ntaganda and his M23 to design the  strategy of establishing business in blood diamonds & coltan in the Eastern region of DRC.
Kagame lashed out in late July, dismissing America's aid cut as stemming from ignorance and saying the international community -- once his unwavering ally -- has "twisted everything" and is not listening to him.
The U.S. government, Rwanda's staunchest ally and largest donor, began its surprising about-face with a July 22 announcement that it was suspending military aid to Rwanda. The amount of aid cut was minuscule -- only $200,000 -- and is unlikely to apply to the full extent of U.S. military support to Rwanda, which includes training Kagame's son at the West Point military academy, but analysts saw the announcement as deeply symbolic.

RPF crimes against Hutu refugees in Congo
Geüpload door SaveRwanda. - Bekijk de laatste nieuwscontent.
Are American and British friends that have sustained Kagame politically and economically ahead of Rwandans to change the regime?

Obama's ambassador at large for war crimes, Stephen Rapp, then issued an astounding warning, reported on July 25 by Britain's Guardian newspaper, that Kagame could be charged with war crimes for "aiding and abetting" crimes against humanity in a neighboring country. The Dutch government followed by suspending aid to Rwanda. Britain -- one of Rwanda's largest donors and strongest allies, which had facilitated the country's entry to the Commonwealth -- did the same. Germany also held back payments, with Development Minister Dirk Niebel saying, "The suspension of aid is an unmistakable signal to the Rwandan government." Even the African Development Bank -- usually apolitical, and headed by a Rwandan, Donald Kaberuka, who is sometimes mentioned as Kagame's successor (the president, who has run Rwanda for almost two decades, insists he will step down in 2017) -- has been forced by its Scandinavian board members and India to suspend aid payments.
The U.N. Group of Experts' late-June report that led to this surge of defection from Rwanda's camp alleged that the country had violated a U.N. arms embargo by providing troops and weapons to M23, the Congolese rebel group. The embargo, in place since 2003, was designed to help bring peace to a volatile region that the world has tried to secure for years. The United Nations' largest peacekeeping force, at a cost of $1.5 billion annually, has been deployed in this effort. The report laid out credible evidence that officials at the highest levels of the Rwandan government -- in Kagame's immediate entourage -- were involved in supporting the rebels.


M23, an RDF battalion

 M23 is made up of soldiers who defected from the Congolese army this year, and the group appears to be trying to carve out an area of eastern Congo for itself. It is composed of ethnic Tutsis who have been historically marginalized in Congo but also count among their ranks powerful politicians and wealthy businessmen, with ties to Rwanda, who are supporting the rebellion. Kagame -- and much of the elite in his government -- is also Tutsi. The rebellion has caused great turmoil, displacing more than 260,000 Congolese in the last four months as it has seized territory and successfully fought off Congolese government troops backed by U.N. forces. The U.N. report suggests not only that Rwanda has been subverting the world's attempt to bring peace to Congo, but that it seems, according to the report, to be helping the rebels take control of a part of its neighbor.
The charges are grave. But then again, Kagame has been accused of far worse in the past. And donors have been more than happy to ignore those transgressions. With few exceptions, they never withdrew their aid or even criticized his government.
** *
When Rwanda invaded Congo in 1996 and 1998, deposing Congo's longstanding dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, and installing a new leader, Laurent Kabila, Kagame's forces were accused of systematically killing tens or hundreds of thousands of people, including unarmed women and children living in refugee camps. The invasions left a trail of mass graves across Congo. The Rwandan government has said it was pursuing the perpetrators of its 1994 genocide, in which 800,000 people were killed. But a 2010 U.N. report mapped the killings -- in which Rwanda was not the only foreign country involved -- and raised the question of whether Kagame's forces might have themselves committed crimes of genocide. Two previous U.N. reports had concluded that genocide might have been committed.
Since these invasions, Rwanda has plundered tens of millions of dollars annually -- by conservative estimates -- through control of lucrative tin, coltan, and gold mines in Congo. Rwanda has always denied these claims, and the plundered wealth does not appear on the national budget. But diplomats say Rwanda uses the Congo profits to finance the country's formidable army. Kagame's government has long supported proxy armies on Congolese territories, and his immediate circle has enriched itself immensely from these wars, as well as through corruption. The wealth is visible in Rwanda's capital. A newly developed boulevard in Kigali -- housing many of the government's elite, along with well-off expatriates -- is informally called "Congo Street" by residents who are well aware that it was funded with this illicit money.
 The Rwandan aggressive war is not a national right but an international crime
Six years ago, Rwanda supported a rebellion almost identical to M23's. That rebellion was accused of multiple war crimes -- including incidents of mass rape -- for which Congo issued an international warrant for rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. The Rwandan-backed rebellion acted with impunity, attacking and capturing cities almost at will, taking control of vast swaths of Congo, and displacing several hundred-thousand people. Nkunda eventually became a bit too hot for Kagame to handle, and Rwandan forces arrested him in 2009. He has been held in secret detention in Rwanda ever since.


Recruitment of Hutu children as a war crime misses a vital point

Kagame subsequently won the election with 93 percent of the vote. By the end of the election, according to Freedom House, "the government no longer allowed any independent media capable of criticizing it to function in Rwanda."
Rwanda has denied deploying assassins against its opponents abroad, though Scotland Yard has issued letters to critics of Kagame living in Britain, stating that the Rwandan government posed an imminent threat to their lives.
Remarkably, none of these transgressions led to any serious international penalties for Rwanda. Indeed, despite the gravity of the accusations and the degree of available evidence, the dominant narrative from the West has been not one of criticism, but of stunning praise for Kagame as a new breed of African leader.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has called him "one of the greatest leaders of our time"; former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has described him as a "visionary." In fact, Clinton was in Rwanda with his daughter on July 19 to inaugurate a new cancer hospital and issue more praise for "the strong national leadership … from His Excellency President Kagame." (There are no reports that Clinton discussed the M23 allegations with Kagame.) Visiting U.N. supremos regularly say that Rwanda has much to teach the world about good governance. On June 23, 2010, the day before the journalist was killed in Kigali, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon named Kagame co-leader of a prestigious panel of development experts, dubbed the Millennium Development Goals "superheroes."

While all this was happening, aid to Rwanda kept steadily increasing, and more and more of it was channeled directly to Kagame's government. The adulation and money gave Kagame an aura of invincibility. If the president was seen as doing no wrong, it gave him the ability to act with impunity, whether overseeing repression in his own country or pursuing his opponents and interests in Congo and the world.
Such was the level of support for Rwanda that the United States has reportedly for many years helped block investigations into the crimes in Congo. The 2010 U.N. mapping report was issued more than a decade after the massacres and only as a result of an investigation conducted with an unusual level of secrecy -- to prevent Rwanda from mobilizing its allies to block the inquiry yet again, investigators have said in private.
Academics, diplomats, and journalists observing the region have long been intrigued by such total support from the West for Kagame. Adam Hochschild, author of a book on Congo, has written about Kagame: "How this media-savvy autocrat has managed to convince so many American journalists, diplomats and political leaders that he is a great statesman is worth a book in itself." Some have said it was due to Western guilt for not intervening in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, during which the Clinton administration in particular refused to act. Others have cited Rwanda's contribution of troops to foreign peacekeeping missions, relieving the burden of military intervention from the West.
There was also Rwanda's efficient autocratic state, which appeared to carry out foreign aid programs to their last details. Prominent development experts like Columbia University's Jeffrey Sachs champion Rwanda's programs. This led to Rwanda's emergence as a poster child for a global movement that believed in the power of foreign aid to turn around Africa. And Kagame has used his influence with astuteness, both to consolidate political power within his country and to make Rwanda the region's most formidable military force.
At a news conference in Kigali, the Rwandan president cut off a foreign journalist, ordering her not to even mention Human Rights Watch, which had been among the first to accuse Kagame of complicity in the Congo rebellion. It was a typical display of defiance -- and irritation -- from the president.

Rwanda must have assumed that it would be able to block or dismiss this report, as it had all the other accusations in the past. The U.N. investigative team has claimed that Kagame's government refused to engage with it on its findings, despite the team's efforts, as far back as this May.

After the team first presented its findings -- orally -- about one month ago at the U.N. Security Council, every member state, including China, Russia, and Britain, voted in favor of publishing the findings that were damaging to Rwanda, according to diplomats who witnessed the meeting and spoke with me under condition of confidentiality. But the United States blocked the release.
Then, suddenly, the U.S. government announced that, for the first time, it was suspending military aid -- to the tune of $200,000, which had been earmarked for a military training academy -- to its longtime ally. In an emailed statement, Hilary Fuller Renner, a State Department spokeswoman, wrote, "The United States government is deeply concerned about the evidence that Rwanda is implicated in the provision of support to Congolese rebel groups, including M23."
It was the first sign of a change in policy. And though Kagame dismissed the cut as "nothing," he was obviously concerned. A team of French journalists reporting on the president noted how much of Kagame's time was spent dealing with the M23 accusations -- and his government's denial has been swift and strident. But it seems the West's patience for Kagame's interference in Congo has run out. A Human Rights Watch director has claimed that the United States is "sick of being lied to."
Kagame is the region's most powerful figure, and his army could neutralize the M23 rebels if he ordered it. Additionally, if the alleged Rwandan support for M23 were to end and Rwanda offered the rebels no escape route, the rebellion would quite likely be beaten into submission by Congolese and U.N. forces. But there's no indication yet that Kagame intends to exercise either of these options.
The bottom line is that there's a long history of support for Rwanda despite evidence of human rights violations. The regime that Kagame toppled back in 1994, which was responsible for the genocide, also received large amounts of aid and support from the West. And that government was also praised for maintaining peace and stability in a troubled region and for managing foreign funds effectively. Kagame has been equally effective in casting a spell over donors and extricating himself from tight diplomatic situations. But one judges by the increasingly bitter tone of Kagame's public pronouncements, it seems that the Rwandan autocrat is tiring of constant Western scrutiny. And the West may be getting tired of him as well.
Should this money be strictly conditional on reform? Should it only go to civil society with the participation of the opposition parties inside and outside Rwanda? And are there any other ways out of the dilemma like a cutting of aid aiming to topple Kagame the dictator and the mastermind of the Rwandan and Congolese genocides?

We are very keen to hear what you think.
As International is an international nonpartisan charity organization devoted to defending human rights. It’s an organization working to promote democracy and national reconciliation, inside countries of the African Great lakes Region.
As International centers its work on the twin concepts of freedom of self-determination and freedom from tyranny. These ideals include the belief that all human beings have the rights to speak freely, to associate with those of like mind, and to leave and enter their countries. Individuals in a free society must be accorded equal treatment and due process under law, and must have the opportunity to participate in the governments of their countries;
As International’s ideals likewise find expression in the conviction that all human beings have the right to be free from arbitrary detainment or exile and from interference and coercion in matters of conscience. ASI does not support nor condone violence.
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