A Candle For Remembering
May this memorial candle lights up the historical past of our beloved Country: Rwanda, We love U so much. If Tears could build a stairway. And memories were a lane. I would walk right up to heaven. To bring you home again. No farewell words were spoken. No time to say goodbye. You were gone before I knew it And. Only Paul Kagame knows why. My heart still aches with sadness. And secret tears still flow. What It meant to lose you. No one will ever know.
Why did Kagame this to me?
Can't forget. He murdered my mother. What should be my reaction? FYI: the number of orphans in Rwanda has skyrocketed since the 1990's Kagame's invasion. Much higher numbers of orphans had and have no other option but joining FDLR fighters who are identified as children that have Lost their Parents in Kagame's Wars inside and outside of Rwanda.If someone killed your child/spouse/parent(s) would you seek justice or revenge? Deep insight: What would you do to the person who snuffed the life of someone I love beyond reason? Forgiving would bring me no solace. If you take what really matters to me, I will show you what really matters. NITUTIRWANAHO TUZASHIRA. IGIHE KIRAGEZE.If democracy is to sell one's motherland(Africa), for some zionits support, then I prefer the person who is ready to give all his live for his motherland. Viva President Putin!!!
RPF committed the unspeakable
The perverted RPF committed the UNSPEAKABLE.Two orphans, both against the Nazi world. Point is the fact that their parents' murder Kagame & his RPF held no shock in the Western world. Up to now, the Rwandan Hitler Kagame and his death squads still enjoy impunity inside and outside of Rwanda. What goes through someone's mind as they know RPF murdered their parents? A delayed punishment is actually an encouragement to crime, In Praise of the ongoing Bloodshed in Rwanda. “I always think I am a pro-peace person but if someone harmed someone near and dear to me, I don't think I could be so peaceful. I would like to believe that to seek justice could save millions of people living the African Great Lakes Region - I would devote myself to bringing the 'perp' along to a non-happy ending but would that be enough? You'd have to be in the situation I suppose before you could actually know how you would feel or what you would do”. Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana, Libre Penseur
Hutu Children & their Mums
Look at them ! How they are scared to death. Many Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi, Foreign human rights advocates, jounalists and and lawyers are now on Death Row Waiting to be murdered by Kagame and his RPF death squads. Be the last to know.
Almighty God :Justice for US
Hutu children's daily bread: Intimidation, Slavery, Sex abuses led by RPF criminals and Kagame, DMI: Every single day, there are more assassinations, imprisonment, brainwashing & disappearances. Do they have any chance to end this awful life?
Killing Hutus on daily basis
RPF targeted killings, very often in public areas. Killing Hutus on daily basis by Kagame's murderers and the RPF infamous death squads known as the "UNKNOWN WRONGDOERS"
RPF Trade Mark: Akandoya
Rape, torture and assassination and unslaving of hutu women. Genderside: Rape has always been used by kagame's RPF as a Weapon of War, the killings of Hutu women with the help of Local Defense Forces, DMI and the RPF military
The Torture in Rwanda flourishes
How torture flourishes across Rwanda despite extensive global monitoring
Fighting For Our Freedom?
We need Freedom, Liberation of our fatherland, Human rights respect, Mutual respect between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority
Saturday, March 2, 2013
By: Emmanuel Hakizimana, Ph.D., Economist, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
and
Gallican Gasana, Genocide survivor, Toronto, Canada
Related article:
At first, Blair and Buffet argue that cutting aid does nothing to
address the core issues of the Great Lakes region. What they fail to mention is
that Eastern Congo had known peace and stability until the massive exodus of
Rwandan refugees of 1994, shortly followed by the first Rwandan invasion of
1996 and then the first “African World War” of 1998. More than five million
people are estimated to have perished as a direct consequence of the
involvement of Rwanda in Eastern DRC.
The ongoing humanitarian crisis in that part of the world was
recently exacerbated by the M23 rebel group insurrection, created, armed and
commanded by Kigali. In a nutshell, Rwanda is at the very core of DRC problems,
and solving them requires first solving the political conundrum that is Rwanda.
Congo’s problems are the symptoms of a grim syndrome from its smallest
neighbor: cure that neighbor, and Congo will be on its way to healing. We
believe the cascade of foreign aid suspensions triggered by Rwanda’s
unquestionable involvement with M23, albeit overdue, is a welcome response.
Should it had happened earlier, who is to tell how many lives it could have
saved. Instead, Rwanda has come to realize it does not need to respect its
citizens’ rights or its neighbor’s sovereignty to sit at the negotiation.
Secondly, Blair and
Buffet contend that the Rwandan economic miracle is too rare to stop in its
course by cutting vital funding. However, the much hyped success story loses
much of its weight when put in perspective. Data from the World Bank show that
Rwandans suffer from mass poverty, growing inequality, and low standards of
living. Income inequalities between the rich and the poor have reached their
highest point in recent history.
Between 1985 and 2011, the share of gross domestic product by the
10% richest almost doubled from 24.58% to 43.22%, while the poorest 10% saw
their share reduced by more than a half, from 4.41% to 2.13%. These are not
just figures on a spreadsheet: According to the United Nations Development Programme,
three Rwandan out of four (76.8%) live below the poverty line on less than $
1.25 per day. Obviously, the majority of the Rwandan population is not part of
the success story alluded to by Blair and Buffet.
Compared to Sub-Saharan Africa, Rwanda is far from being an island
of prosperity in an ocean of misery. The UNDP report on the human development
index puts the gross national income per capita at $ 1,133 in constant prices
of 2005, or $ 800 below the average of the region ($ 1,966). Business towers and
posh neighborhoods may be changing the skyline in Kigali, but the rest of the
countryside stagnates.
The causes of this mass poverty and large disparities can be
traced to the policies in place. In Rwanda, political and economic powers are
concentrated in the hands of General Paul Kagame plus a few close generals and
businessmen. In addition to being President of Rwanda, he is the chairman of
RPF, and as such, the CEO of Crystal Ventures, a conglomerate owned by his
ruling party.
It controls key sectors of the economy ranging from construction,
food processing, and communication to retail and public utilities. It is
estimated that Crystal Ventures is the second largest employer in the country
after the public sector. As is to be expected, numerous conflicts of interest,
disguised monopoly situations and high-level corruption are common practices in Kigali.Policies prevailing in the agricultural sector maintain rural
Rwanda in poverty. Farmers cannot grow or dispose of their crops as they see
fit for them and their natural markets. They are forced to sell their crops at
low prices in cooperatives where a few RPF officers control the entire system
of storage, transport and commercialization of agricultural products.
Discrimination among the victims of the Rwandan tragedy is also another source of continued impoverishment of a large fraction of the Rwandan population. Although the wholesome destruction of human life that culminated in the 1994 genocide and extended into DRC made victims in all groups of the population of Rwanda, survivors’ assistance is granted on a discriminated basis. Added to the multiple violations and abuses widely documented by human rights organizations, these elements show that talk of history of success for Rwanda is, to say the least, misinformation and cynicism.
Discrimination among the victims of the Rwandan tragedy is also another source of continued impoverishment of a large fraction of the Rwandan population. Although the wholesome destruction of human life that culminated in the 1994 genocide and extended into DRC made victims in all groups of the population of Rwanda, survivors’ assistance is granted on a discriminated basis. Added to the multiple violations and abuses widely documented by human rights organizations, these elements show that talk of history of success for Rwanda is, to say the least, misinformation and cynicism.
Rwandans and human rights watch groups have been stating the obvious for so long that the belated recognition of the troubling patterns in Kigali came as a vindication. The international community is still nursing the guilt of not having intervened in 1994 while the genocide against Tutsis was being committed in broad daylight. She subsequently looked away when the victorious RPF methodically massacred Hutus inside Rwanda and in DRC - crimes that multiple UN reports indicate could be defined as genocide by a competent jurisdiction. In short, Blair and Buffet advocate for knowingly continue funding a regime that closed the political space, slowly steering Rwanda to another tragedy. They advise the world to keep looking away while Kigali entertains a climate of insecurity for millions of neighboring Congolese. That can’t be right.
Submitted by: Jennifer
Fierberg
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Sunday, February 24, 2013
"He not only refused to intervene, he actively sought to allow it to happen".
As Press welcomes all ideas that might help to to give the right answer to this question including classified material.
Join and support this effort wherever you are.
- Deny the Rwandan Dictator global space.
- Do it for falsely imprisoned opposition leaders, Victoire Ingabire, Deo Mushayidi and Bernard Ntaganda.
- Do it the murdered opposition leader Andrew Kagwa Rwisereka and journalist Leonard Rugambage.
- Do it for all the Rwandans the serial killer Kagame has murdered in the last 17 years.
The architects of the Rwanda genocide, Paul Kagame and his main advisors are free and remain at large. Beware: They move among you.
Kagame's definition:
Myth 1: A Deficit of Logic in the Great Lakes of Africa(2011) by Francis Xavier Ndagabanye Muhoozi
Myth 2 : The Rwanda Crisis (1995)
Myth 3: A Biographical Encyclopedia of Contemporary Genocide (2012)
Myth 4: The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought (2010)
Paul Kagame became president in 2000 and led Rwanda into an unsuccessful and bloody conflict with the Democratic Republic of Congo, which....bla,bla,bla and bla, bla.
This made the Rwanda place first place in a ranking of countries that are the biggest sources of financial outflow attributed to corruption, bloody diamonds, slavery, bribery, theft, massacres, forced disappearances, tax evasion, smuggling and other illegal activities between Kagame cohorts and the essential elements of the system are secrecy, jurisdictions, disguised corporations, anonymous trust accounts, and fake charitable foundations among which Blair and Clinton's NGOs. One of the world’s biggest financial black holes is in Rwanda.
Rwanda's genocide and the bloody legacy of Anglo-American guilt
Paul Kagame : African success story or authoritarian state?
The guest speaker was Paul Kagame – the President of Rwanda – who is credited with lifting Rwanda out of
poverty. He is also a despot who rigs elections, tortures dissenters, and kills political opponents.
Dangerous Liaisons
At the lecture, Gearty heaped effusive praise on Kagame. It went above and beyond what courtesy required; it bordered on the sycophantic. It was also misleading. Gearty described Kagame as winning “a landslide victory in democratically contested elections,” and lauded his “experience in dealing with rights abuses.”
Most alarming of all was the reaction of the audience. Probably knowing little about Rwanda, they looked to Gearty’s behavior for guidance. And they followed his cue. They laughed at Kagame’s terrible jokes, and when, at one point, a Congolese rights campaigner got up and criticized Kagame for his abuses, the audience laughed and jeered at the campaigner like he was a clown.
Kagame, of course, loved it. He smiled smugly. With no hint of irony he criticized African “one-party states” and addressed his lone critic like he was indulging a local loon. Not once did Gearty even question Kagame (an act within his rights as the moderator), and when Kagame denounced human rights organizations, Gearty didn’t even blink. And I squirmed in my seat thinking that either I or everyone else in the hall had gone mad.
- Kagame didn't turn out to be a reformer, as western media freely acknowledges.
- Kagame fashions himself as a man of the people, a man who stopped the genocide (he masterminded), as a reformer.
- Kagame, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi. What is that difference?
Rwanda Genocide: Honoring the Dead Without Honoring the Lies
Michael Hourigan was afraid to single out publicly the name of Clinton
Michael Hourigan, dans le secret profond de ses enquêtes spéciales, a découvert que c'étaient Kagame et Bill Clinton qui avaient abattu l'avion de Habyarimana, déclenchant la tragédie du Rwanda.
The Obama administration should heed the call. Kagame's legitimacy comes less from highly-manipulated elections than from the recognition he gets at home and abroad as the man who stopped the genocide.
The crowds head towards the hilltop - thousands of Rwandans streaming in from the surrounding fields and villages. They are ushered, efficiently, into smaller groups; searched, given flags, and then guided towards orderly clusters of roped-off areas. It is all done neatly, and without fuss.
"....Then come the speeches. First a local man, then a woman, stand on the podium and tell the crowd how they have become rich - quickly. The woman started with one goat. Now she has two hundred cows and seven staff. The crowd roars.
I have been to my fair share of election rallies in Africa. They do not normally start like this. They are certainly never on time. The subtext is always power, not prosperity. In Kenya, the guest speakers are usually defectors from rival parties who grovel and confess.
I have been to my fair share of election rallies in Africa. They do not normally start like this. They are certainly never on time. The subtext is always power, not prosperity. In Kenya, the guest speakers are usually defectors from rival parties who grovel and confess.
The cheering from the back of the crowd signals the arrival of President Paul Kagame.
Tall, thin, slow to smile - he walks down the aisle like a university professor dutifully acknowledging his students' approval, but concerned that some of their essays are not up to scratch.
Whoever shot down the plane, the killing began within hours, as Kagame and his Tutsi army fought their way toward Kigali to stop the genocide they had helped provoke. Traveling with them, by his own account, was at least one American - the refugee's friend Roger Winter.
Should Congress ever investigate America's role in the Rwandan holocaust, Mr. Winter would be a star witness.
Should Congress ever investigate America's role in the Rwandan holocaust, Mr. Winter would be a star witness.
Lying About Rwanda's Genocide Why President Clinton refused to intervene in Rwanda? The advice
The omission that made him and Kagame famous !
From the early 1980s, Winter ran the U.S. Committee on Refugees, a private Non-Governmental Organization. Washington provided some 75% of his NGO's budget, but Winter - unlike overt government officials - was free to help the Tutsis organize a conference in Washington in August 1988. The meeting greatly increased support from exiles outside Uganda to the political wing of the Tutsi army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front.
The RPF, as it was known, played down its Tutsi roots, called itself multi-ethnic, and placed prominent Hutu dissidents in leadership posts. But Kagame and his Tutsi associates kept it - and their army - under firm control, and continued to press for a change in the Hutu government of President Juvenal Habyarimana that would permit the refugees to return to Rwanda.
Washington increased its support for Musaveni's Uganda, which permitted his military to give increasing supplies of munitions, automatic rifles, mortars, artillery, and Soviet-designed Katyusha multiple rocket systems to Kagame's Tutsi troops. With this support, the Tutsis stepped up their incursions into Rwanda from their Ugandan bases.
At the same time, both Paris and Washington pressed President Habyarimana to accept a UN-brokered power-sharing agreement that would allow the Tutsi refugees to return to Rwanda. Perhaps the deep thinkers in Washington saw the Tutsi military attacks as pressure toward a peaceful settlement. If they did, they soon found out how wrong they were.
The climax came on April 6, 1994, when Habyarimana was flying home from peace talks in Tanzania. As his French Falcon 50 aircraft approached Kigali airport, a ground-to-air missile blew the plane apart.
American officials quickly blamed Hutu extremists, who saw Habyarimana as too willing to compromise with the Tutsis. Now, the well-respected French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere is reportedly accusing Kagame of personally ordering the assassination - a charge that the Rwandan ruler bitterly denies. Other reports suggest that a Tutsi commando team in Kigali fired Soviet missiles that the Americans captured during the first Gulf War and gave to the Ugandans.
Again and again :
Whoever shot down the plane, the killing began within hours, as Kagame and his Tutsi army fought their way toward Kigali to stop the genocide they had helped provoke. Traveling with them, by his own account, was at least one American - the refugee's friend Roger Winter.
Should Congress ever investigate America's role in the Rwandan holocaust, Mr. Winter would be a star witness.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Monday, February 18, 2013
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
Ubutumwa ku
- "Intwali za Demokakarasi zili mu munyururu
Abo bose RPF yashyize i Mpanga ndetse nahandi bagomba kuva ko ali Intwali za Demokarasi. Demokarasi bitangiye niiyo natwe twitangiye. Kandi mbasezeraniye ko tuli ku rugamba aho batali, turimo turahatana kandi byanze bikunze TUZATSINDA. NI IKIBAZO CY'IGIHE GUSA. - Abanyarwanda bose:
Kuko abanyarwanda bose ni abanyururu. U Rwanda Rwose ni prison bavuga ko n'ikirere ahali gifunze. Abanyarwanda ndababwira ko byanze bikunze Ishyaka PDR mbereye umuyobozi, ulmugambi waryo ali uwo kubabohoza. Kandi barabona ko twatangiye urugamba, tururiho, kandi byanze bikunze IHUMURE rizataha i Rwanda".
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Sunday, February 17, 2013
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE N° 004/P.S.IMB/013
DISPARITION DU MARI DU SECRETAIRE GENERAL
KIGALI - Le parti social IMBERAKURI informe les rwandais, les amis du Rwanda et les IMBERAKURI en particulier de son inquiétude sur la disparition de Monsieur Erwin Fidèle KALIMBA, le mari de Madame Immaculée UWIZEYE KANSIIME, Secrétaire Général du parti PS IMBERAKURI.
Les informations qui nous parviennent sont que Mr Erwin Fidèle KALIMBA a été vu pour la dernière fois le vendredi 08 Février 2013 et que c’est ce même jour qu’il a pu parler avec son épouse Immaculée qui est actuellement en visite en Europe.
De notre côté, nous avons tenté de le joindre sur son téléphone mobile en vain, nous avons été chez lui où nous avons remarqué que sa maison était fermée. Ses voisins nous ont également appris que ça fait quelques jours qu’ils ne le voient pas. De son côté, Immaculée s’est faite aidée par sa famille et c’est là qu’elle a su que le dernier contact qu’il a eu était ce 08/02/2013.
| General Paul Kagame Chef de l'armée RDF Chef des Services secrets Rwandais Chef des milices du FPR |
Comme nous n’avons cessé de le faire savoir, ce voyage du Secrétaire Général a fait trop parlé le pouvoir de Kigali à tel point que plusieurs responsables du parti à différents niveaux sont régulièrement approchés pour les dissuader à quitter leur parti et rejoindre le FPR sans quoi, ils seront considérés comme des ennemis du pays.
Le parti social IMBERAKURI demande aussi à toute personne qui de près ou de loin pourrait lui venir en aide pour sauver la vie de Mr Erwin Fidèle KALIMBA de le faire sans tarder. Le parti rappelle également que ces actes de violence n’avanceront en rien le Rwanda, qu’ils sont plutôt à bannir.
Fait à Kigali, le 17/02/2013
Alexis BAKUNZIBAKE
Premier Vice Président
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see....Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed.
By TRICIA L. NADOLNY Monitor staff
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
(Published in print: Wednesday, February 13, 2013)
(Published in print: Wednesday, February 13, 2013)
A federal court judge criticized prosecutors’ handling of Beatrice Munyenyezi’s trial yesterday, calling their case “unbalanced” and accusing them of eliciting 40 minutes of rambling testimony for every 5 minutes of evidence.
Judge Steven McAuliffe’s harsh words came as the fifth day of testimony, in a trial the judge is trying to cap at two weeks, came to a close. Munyenyezi is accused of helping identify Tutsis to be killed at a roadblock during the 1994 genocide, then lying about her involvement when she applied for U.S. citizenship.
But several of the Rwandan witnesses who have already taken the stand have given substantial testimony about Munyenyezi’s husband and mother-in-law, who have each been convicted in an international court of helping organize and carry out the genocide.
McAuliffe decided to remind the lawyers who they’re prosecuting.
“Shalom is not on trial here, okay?” McAuliffe said, naming Munyenyezi’s husband.
One of the prosecutors said he was aware of that fact.
“Well you don’t seem to,” McAuliffe continued. “Your opening statement was all about, ‘This is not about genocide. It’s about lying on forms.’ And yet all the questions are about the mother-in-law” and the husband.
McAuliffe has been critical of the prosecutors before, but this was the first time the judge hit at the substance, not just the delivery, of their case.
As he spoke to the lawyers after the jury at U.S. District Court in Concord was dismissed, McAuliffe again asked them to pick up the pace and spend less time going over the same details with each witness, such as the political affiliation of Munyenyezi’s family members and the precise location of the hotel where they lived together.
The prosecutors, though, have argued that they need to show each witness has a deep and personal knowledge of the topic because the defense is intent on attacking their credibility. Munyenyezi’s lawyers say she’s innocent and argue her accusers are relaying a story promoted by the Rwandan government.
But McAuliffe said the testimony is painfully repetitive.
“The jury is giving me looks like, ‘Can’t you stop this?’ ” he said.
McAuliffe reminded the lawyers that he can.
“The jury has heard this over and over and over and over,” he said before suggesting a more direct approach for the prosecutors. “ ‘Do you live in Butare? How old were you? Are you familiar with the town you grew up in? Do you know the (Hotel Ihuriro)? Great, tell us about it.’ You don’t need to spend 30 minutes on, ‘Did you walk by it every day or every other day?’ ”
Part of the machine?
Prosecutors have described Munyenyezi as a piece in the “machinery” of Rwanda’s genocide, 100 days of turmoil in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis, 80 percent of the population, were killed. She’s accused of checking identification cards at a roadblock outside her family’s hotel in Butare and sorting out those who would be murdered or raped.
As each Rwandan witness has described that roadblock, they’ve first pointed out the hotel on a set of grainy, gray satellite photos taken in June and July 1994, in the midst of the genocide.
Yesterday, the prosecutors zoomed in on the images. And an expert described details not visible to an untrained eye, like two dozen items clustered in the backyard of a school next to the hotel.
Department of Defense image analyst Eric Benn said those items weren’t there on a satellite photo taken four days prior.
“Some are light. Many are quite dark,” he said, describing the marks. “Some of them are almost too big to be individuals. If they are people they could be pairs of people or multiples of people.”
He called them “features.” And beside the features, he described what appeared to be a mound of dirt.
Benn’s assessment of the images from June and July 1994 also appeared to support what witnesses have already said about a roadblock where Munyenyezi is accused of working. A man who testified last week that he passed through the barricade on foot described it as a series of items in the roadway that cars had to swerve around to pass. Benn yesterday, reviewing the image, pointed out several cars that appeared to be curving around items in the roadway.
But defense attorney David Ruoff questioned why the government only produced photographs showing the area around the hotel during a small portion of the genocide, which started April 6, 1994, and spread to Butare about two weeks later. Ruoff showed Benn another satellite image, which the prosecutor hadn’t shown the jury, that was taken in late May of that year. That image, while blurry, didn’t appear to show any obstacles in the road, Benn said.
Ruoff asked if any images were taken in April. (Several of the witnesses have testified that is when they saw the roadblock in front of the hotel.)
Benn responded that those in his office who had worked on the case hadn’t produced images from April; he couldn’t confirm that none existed. He said the Department of Defense was asked to review satellite images and look for any showing obstructions in the roadway, not images showing a lack of obstructions.
That prompted McAuliffe to ask Benn if he could get a definitive answer one way or the other.
“The basic problem is the defense wants to know, ‘Are there images of this road in April that may show no obstructions?’ ” McAuliffe said.
But U.S. Attorney John Capin said he asked for any images taken during the genocide. Defense attorney Mark Howard then asked Capin to provide that initial written request.
The prosecutors said they would look for it. The issue was not taken up again yesterday.
Eyewitness?
While the defense questioned the existence of a roadblock outside the hotel in late April 1994, another Rwandan witness testified yesterday that he saw that blockade with his own eyes.
Jean Paul Rutaganda, who was about 15 years old during the genocide, said he hid with other Tutsis at the school next to the hotel while Hutus canvassed the city looking for people to kill. Rutaganda said from the school he could see Munyenyezi at the roadblock, writing in a notebook. And he said that from one corner of the compound he could hear screams and cries of people who were being killed in the nearby woods.
But at times during Rutaganda’s testimony it was unclear if he was talking about things he had actually witnessed during his three days at the school, which is several hundred feet from the hotel, or things that he inferred to have taken place. At one point, Capin asked what he saw Munyenyezi doing at the roadblock.
“She was counting, registering dead Tutsis and others who were not yet dead,” he said, testifying through a translator.
Capin asked how he knew that.
“Tutsis that would die at that time had been already registered and counted,” Rutaganda responded.
The prosecutor asked if he could see what Munyenyezi was writing.
“I couldn’t see the words,” he said. “But you could see exactly what the action she was doing.”
Ruoff, though, questioned just how well Rutaganda could see the roadblock. Reading an investigation report from when U.S. agents interviewed him about the genocide, Howard asked if Rutaganda had claimed to have seen Munyenyezi wearing a pin with the president’s picture on it.
The witness agreed that he had.
Rutaganda also testified yesterday that he had spent much of his time at the school in the corner of the compound farthest from the hotel. Pointing to that space on one of the satellite photos, Ruoff asked if he had seen Munyenyezi writing down Tutsis’ names from there. Rutaganda said he had.
When Capin again questioned the witness, he asked Rutaganda whether he had moved around the school compound and been in spaces where the roadblock was more easily seen.
The man agreed that was the case.
(Tricia L. Nadolny can be reached at 369-3306 or tnadolny@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @tricia_nadolny.)
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
Friday, February 8, 2013
by
Published in:
Foreign PolicyIn this new world, standing up for human rights reflects not only America's values but also its interests. It should be at the heart of U.S. policy, not an option of convenience. If Obama wants to bolster his legacy in his second term, he can and should get tough on some of the United States' most unsavory friends and allies. Here is a good start:
Afghanistan: As the Pentagon bows out, it is counting on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to see through the planned 2014 transition. But the Obama administration hasn't used its considerable leverage to dissuade Karzai from undermining women's rights, appointing an alleged torturer as intelligence chief, tolerating rampant corruption, and blocking efforts to hold accountable his warlord allies.
Uzbekistan: During
the 2005 uprising in the town of Andijan, President Islam Karimov
ordered troops to surround the demonstrators and shoot everyone in
sight. Hundreds were slaughtered. His government routinely tortures
dissidents and imprisons them for 15 or 20 years. Some have even been
boiled alive. Yet the Obama administration soft-pedals his brutality --
and waived restrictions on selling him military equipment -- because
Uzbekistan provides an alternative to Pakistan for resupplying the
troops in Afghanistan. Especially as this rationale disappears, the
Faustian bargain should end.Cambodia: In 28 years as prime minister, Hun Sen has presided over the killing of countless political opponents while increasing his control of the army, police, and courts. But the Obama administration has done little to discourage him from building a one-party state, such as insisting that exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy be allowed home without fear of arrest, and has placed no conditions on increased military ties or aid. Cambodia is where Obama should demonstrate that his Asian "pivot" isn't a competition with China for the loyalty of autocrats but a vision for Asian democracy.
Rwanda: Led by President Paul Kagame, the Rwandan government has long benefited from Washington's genocide guilt (Bill Clinton's administration sat on its hands during the 1994 massacre of more than half a million people) and admiration for its progress rebuilding the country. But the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which became the national army, itself murdered tens of thousands of civilians in the 1990s; the government uses detention and violence to shut down political opposition; and the military, despite persistent government denials, has actively supported a succession of rebel groups in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the U.S. Congress's insistence, the Obama administration has finally suspended some military aid to Rwanda, but it continues to run political interference for the government and downplay its crimes, most recently its military support for the murderous M23 rebellion in eastern Congo.
Ethiopia: Washington had a blind spot for growing repression under the late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who died in August. In return for Ethiopia's help fighting terrorism and battling al-Shabab militants in Somalia, the Obama administration muffled its criticism of the security forces' war crimes and the government's restrictions on civil society, detention of journalists, violence against demonstrators, and pursuit of development policies that penalize political opponents.
Saudi Arabia: Yes, it has lots of oil. But the Saudis, who need cash to fuel their welfare state, are going to sell it regardless of how Obama treats them. Meanwhile, the Saudi monarchy holds thousands in arbitrary detention, imposes archaic restrictions on women, suppresses most dissent, mistreats its Shiite minority, and insists that the neighboring Bahraini monarchy crush its pro-democracy movement. Obama has been silent.
Bahrain: Saudi Arabia's next-door neighbor is the most glaring exception to Obama's generally supportive posture toward Arab Spring demonstrators. The ruling Al Khalifa family uses lethal force, torture, and arbitrary detention to crush protests. Yet out of deference to Saudi sensibilities and fear of losing the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet base, the Obama administration has allowed its security relationship with Bahrain to trump its concern for the rights of Bahrainis -- a selectivity that undermines its broader support for Arab freedom.
Mexico: The country's drug cartels have committed horrific crimes, but so have the security forces that former President Felipe Calderón sent to combat them. Obama routinely praised Calderón's "great courage" in fighting the cartels with nary a word about widespread military and police abuses. Instead, the administration has sent some $2 billion to support Mexico's counternarcotics efforts, despite ample evidence of human rights violations and security forces so corrupt that the Mexican government has turned to its navy to crack down on the cartels.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Subscribe to:
Posts
(Atom)
AS International
SurViVors SPEAK OUT - Rights of Victims Seeking Justice and Compensation for the RPF Genocide. This is an Exciting Collaborative Project launched by The AS International Founder Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana, Economist and Human Rights Activist. Join US and Be the First to know about the Mastermind of the Rwandan Genocide Still At large and enjoing Impunity.