Monday, December 26, 2016

Wake up with today’s top Rwandan stories - There is a shame in not wanting to know that Kagame is the mastermind of the Rwandan Genocide

ANN GARRISONDECEMBER 26,2014

[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), disappearances and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]

Flag of Our Fathers : Bring us Together

On 10.07.2014, CBS aired a five minute news piece titled "Militia accused of Rwanda genocide facing onslaught," produced with the aid of the ENOUGH Project to End Geocide and Crimes Against Humanity, a non-profit corporation sheltering under the umbrella of the Center for American Progress, the Democratic Party's corporate funded think tank and organizing operation. The Enough Project was founded by career intelligence professional John Prendergast, who now identifies as a human rights activist, and Gayle Smith, who now serves as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of the National Security Council. Prendergast, Smith, UN Ambassador Samantha Power, and UN National Security Adviser Susan Rice are among the best known proponents of a doctrine known as "Mass Atrocity Prevention," meaning US obligation to undertake humanitarian military interventions. The Rwandan Genocide and the Holocaust are centerpieces of this military doctrine. In Presidential Study Directive 10, which created the inter-agency Mass Atrocities Review Board, President Obama wrote that, "Sixty-six years since the Holocaust and 17 years after Rwanda, the United States still lacks a comprehensive policy framework and a corresponding interagency mechanism for preventing and responding to mass atrocities and genocide."

It's therefore not surprising that the ENOUGH Project would collaborate with CBS to promote a military "onslaught" against the "militia accused of Rwanda Genocide" without reference to any of the well documented books and reportage that have upended the widely held belief about who was killed and who was responsible for the massacres that came to be known as the Rwandan Genocide. These include Surviving the Slaughter, Dying to Live; A Rwandan Family's Five Year Flight Across the Congo, Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa, Accidental Genocide, Rwanda 1994: The Myth of the Akuza Genocide Conspiracy and Its Consequences, Enduring Lies: The Rwandan Genocide in the Propaganda System, 20 Years Later, and the recent BBC documentary "Rwanda's Untold Story."

The CBS report quoted UN official Abdallah Wafy, who said that, "The FDLR are here living with their wives and children. Maybe we need the Marines or special forces with special equipment to engage and neutralize them. I'm not quite sure with our blue helmet and the blue flag [of the U.N.], we can neutralize them." US Special forces are the preferred agents of Mass Atrocities Prevention interventions, as outlined in the Mass Atrocities Prevention Military Handbook produced by the Harvard Kennedy School and the Pentagon.

So, with US Marines and/or Special Forces this close to engaging in a military "onslaught" in the heart of Africa, I decided to see what I could learn about its target, the FDLR militia. The most obvious way to start was to find out how the FDLR explain themselves, so I made inquiries until someone sent me the FDLR's founding document, the Nasho Declaration, which follows here. I was told that FDLR leadership held a meeting in Lubumbashi, DR Congo, and produced the Nasho Declaration, which they then read on local radios and in front of media in the year 2000, though the written statement was not published until April 6, 2001, on the seventh anniversary of the assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira. -Ann Garrison

If a country were to be a ship and the country’s population were to be it’s passengers, what would it be that the passengers on the ship have in common? Dr Werner Boehler

STATEMENT BY DEMOCRATIC FORCES FOR THE LIBERATION OF RWANDA -FDLR- (FORCES DEMOCRATIQUES DE LIBERATION DU RWANDA DEMOCRATIC LIBERATION FORCES OF RWANDA)
Translated from French

The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) take this opportunity of the commemoration of the inter-ethnic massacres in Rwanda to present their sincere condolences to the Rwandan People. The condolences and mutual solidarity are especially expressed to the families of the victims of this unprecedented human tragedy.

The FDLR take this opportunity to make a strong call for justice, an end to impunity in Rwanda, and a state of law with democratically elected institutions. The FDLR condemn all criminals and culprits regardless of their ethnic background or political affiliation.

- Considering that security and reconciliation among all elements of Rwandan Society cannot be guaranteed without peace and justice,

- Considering that the international community and media continue to promote the interests of the conqueror, at the detriment of the conquered, by supporting the current dictatorial and bloodthirsty regime in Rwanda,

- Considering the ever increasing number of refugees and innocent people detained in Rwanda prisons,

-Given that any person opposed to the current regime in Kigali is falsely accused of being Interahamwe or genocidaire, and that the accusation demeans, discriminates, and destroys the human dignity of those accused,

-Considering that in Rwanda dictatorship replaced democracy,

-Given the continued hegemonic invasion of the region by the regime in Kigali,

-Profoundly saddened by the daily persecution of Rwandan people,

The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) consider that the Rwandan people cannot remain passive spectators of the destruction of their country and the relentless extermination of the population at the whim and megalomania of General Paul Kagame. They call the attention of the international community to the extreme plight of the Rwandan people. The international community must acknowledge the right for the Rwandan people to liberate themselves using all available means. The FDLR are prepared to face the challenge of liberating Rwanda and to free their fellow citizens nowadays reduced to slavery by a clique of professional killers and corrupt thugs who form the inner circle of Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)-INKOTANYI led by Paul Kagame.

The FDLR asks Mr. Paul Kagame to abandon the logic of war, to stop using genocide as a commercial fund, and to finally engage on the path of a comprehensive inter-Rwandan dialogue.

The Rwandan people are fed up.

Ten years and five months ago to the day, Rwanda and its people sank into extreme poverty, injustice, and an unjustified and deadly war. The war was launched on October 1, 1990 by the coalition of NRA/FPR-Inkotanyi with the support of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda. The time bomb that was launched from the Northeastern Rwandan border decimated everyone in its path from embryos to elderly people who resisted the invasion by a clique of cynical individuals seeking power at all costs.

The tragic situation reached its fiercest levels in the night of April 6, 1994 with the assassination of Presidents General Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi along with their entourage. In fact, the assassination was the opportunity for the RPF and its army the RPA to resume their 4-year invasion and war that had already created despicable conditions in Rwanda. The RPF and RPA intensified the fighting and massacred anyone on the hit lists established by its agents who had infiltrated all levels of the Rwandan administration. Unfortunately, the international media embargo on RPF's opponents did not allow the truth on the massacres committed by RPF and RPA to come out.

From April 1994 to July 1994, when the RPF seized power in Kigali, thousands of our compatriots, from all ethnic groups, had been massacred in horrible conditions; millions more had fled to neighboring countries, especially Tanzania, Burundi, and Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda have always strongly condemned and reiterated their condemnation of those barbaric acts. The criminals, not the scapegoats, must be brought to justice.

When the RPF-Inkotanyi seized power, it chose to institutionalize vengeance and hatred by promoting hatred groups such as Ibuka and AVEGA Agahozo. Instead of bringing peace, promoting reconciliation and justice, and defending human rights principles, RPF-Inkotanyi created a terrorist and police government and militarized all political and civil institutions.

At the judiciary level, Rwanda has become a huge prison. About 200,000 people have been held in filthy prisons, containers, dungeons, private confinements, leaking bathrooms, military camps and military positions without access to human rights organizations. Most of these detainees have neither official charges nor judicial files. Those outside prisons spend their productive time finding and bringing food to the detainees.

With the militarization of the administration, General Kagame has dispatched death squads in the villages to terrorize or massacre the people. Hundreds of thousands of people are forced into concentration camps, called imidugudu, where death squads select people to summarily execute on simple suspicion or accusation of not supporting the RPF. Under RPF, Rwanda has arguably become the only country in the world where killing a person has become a game and death squads roam and rule the country.

The policy of lies and hypocrisy, initiated with the invasion of Rwanda, has allowed General Kagame to blindfold the international community on the war crimes

and crimes against humanity committed by the RPF. In fact, according to human rights organization, more than 3,000,000 Rwandan have been killed since October 1990. With its the responsibility in these massacres, the RPF has foiled any attempt by the International Community to investigate the assassination of President Habyarimana, to conduct a census of Rwandans killed since 1990 or determine the circumstances of these massacres, to find those responsible, and to punish the culprits. Currently, testimonies establishing the responsibility of General Kagame for the assassination of Presidents Habyarimana and Ntaryamira abound. The testimonies demonstrate how General Kagame is the planer, executor, and beneficiary of the assassinations.

With its extreme megalomania and warmongering and expansionist ambitions, the militaro-political oligarchy of RPF invaded the Democratic Republic of the Congo, leaving a trail of death and rape and looting the natural riches of this country.

The FDLR condemn the barbaric and ignominious aggression that tarnishes the reputation of the Rwandan People. Hence, the FDLR hold Kagame and his army responsible for genocide of the Rwandan people, war crimes and crimes against humanity and economic crimes committed in Rwandan and in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

The current regime of Kigali imposes its rule by ways of the arms. Benefits of the 1959 Social Revolution are denied to the People. Democratic rules and symbols of national independence are trembled with. The FDLR oppose these dilatory maneuvers aimed at erasing the symbols of freedom from slavery and servitude.

The bloodthirsty, expansionist, and hegemonic regime of Kigali is now gangrened by corruption and nepotism. In order to attract more international aid in order to sustain its aggression against the sovereign states of the Region conducted sham elections.

The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda reject the fake elections. The elections were coercive, unfair and nontransparent. Paul Kagame has suffocated all political parties and organizations but the RPF. The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda urge all countries that value peace, justice, and democracy and the International Community in general to condemn these elections intended to legitimate a bloody dictatorship the RPF is. Furthermore, Kagame and his clique being responsible for the Rwandan tragedy do not deserve to govern the Country and therefore, cannot organize legitimate elections.

On several occasions calls were made to the Kigali regime to open up for dialogue with armed and unarmed opposition in order to bring back democracy and the respect of basic human rights. To these calls the RPF responded with arrogance, disdain and systematic repression. Nevertheless, FDLR support the idea of an International Conference of Peace in the Great Lakes Region. The Conference will constitute an ideal forum for debating the lack of democracy and the source of insecurity. The Conference will become a privileged place where regimes in power must start dialogue with their oppositions without distinction or exclusion. The dialogue will lead to durable solutions to the crises destroying the countries and the People of the region.

The FDLR invite Rwandans inside the country and in the Diaspora to defend their cause, claim their rights, and reject the intimidation by the RPF. In fact, in order to discourage people from rejecting the RPF and its crimes, to deny their rights to the refugees, and to suffocate and behead any opposition, the so-called genocidaire lists are established on the basis of false accusations. Anyone who refuses to serve the RPF or denounces its crimes is labeled genocidaire Interahamwe. This concept has lost its meaning to designate the bad person from RPF's perspective.

The FDLR believe that criminals must be found and punished. However, as the voice for the voiceless, the FDLR urge the International Community and host countries to reject the lists established by RPF and not to use them as a reference or a basis to decide on the cases of Refugees and asylum seekers. The FDLR ask that the refugees be given the right to express their opinion and claims against the regime of Kagame.

The RPF wants the international community to believe that Rwandans who fled the country in 1994 are genocidaire. However, recent events point to the contrary. The exile of the two Prime ministers of the RPF, the Speaker of the Parliament, Ministers, Members of the Parliament, Ambassadors, high ranking civil servants and business people who had rallied behind the RPF, high ranking military officers of the RPA and the recent resignation of some of the founders of the Rwandan Patriotic Front show that those who fled in 1994 had anticipated the current dangers posed by the RPF regime.

The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda invite the Rwandan People to adhere to its objectives and the international community to support its program. The Objectives of the FDLR are to:

- Promote long lasting peace in Rwanda and the region;

- Establish a regime based on universal principles of the rule of law, the multiparty system of democracy, free and honest elections organized on the basis of one man = one vote principle, as well as the republican values;

- Promote moral values with strict respect of life and human dignity, honesty, truth, freedom, individual emancipation, equality, justice, respect, brotherhood, confidence, and interdependence among the Rwandan people;

- Work for national reconciliation and reconstruction and for social and economic development of the country;

- Establish the truth on the Rwandan tragedy, in order to punish the culprits and to rehabilitate all victims without distinction;

- Promote peace as well as co-operation between Rwanda, the neighboring nations, and the International Community;

- Ensure good management of the public property.

The FDLR are committed to the guarantee of individual and collective fundamental freedoms, the respect of minority rights, the protection of cultural identities, the right of the Rwandan people to establish a state of law and a democratic rule based on the cultural values of Rwanda and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The FDLR invite Rwandans of all ages to raise up as one and mount a strong resistance against the ignominious and dictatorial regime of Kigali in order to restore Democracy and equitable justice, the respect of human rights, and peace in Rwanda and in the Great Lakes Region of Africa in order to achieve development for the benefit of all people of the region.

Together victory is ours!

Signed in NASHO, April 6, 2001,

Alexis Nshimyimana FDLR Spokesperson

This week, the FDLR released a statement available here, which says that they are prepared to disarm and engage in dialogue with the Rwandan government.

Isaiah Isaiah 42:18-25:
“Hear, you deaf. Look, you blind, and see!
"Listen, you deaf people, and look up, you blind people, so you may see!"

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

Saturday, December 17, 2016

The UN Judge Determined to Free All Genocide Convicts

[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), disappearances and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]

Judge Theodor Meron

There is shock in Rwanda. A judge at a UN court that has been trying genocide suspects – whose pattern of court decisions have also been contested by his colleagues, has ordered for the early release of two of the most high profile convicts. And there is fear that the man who emerged as the “brain” of the genocide Col Theoneste Bagosora could be next.

Elderly Judge Theodor Meron is the man who will go down in history as a single sympathetic voice of men and women who planned and executed the 1994 genocide against Tutsi. In the latest turn of events, Judge Meron has ordered early release of convicts Ferdinard Nahimana and Catholic priest Father Emmanuel Rukundo. Other candidates would not have caused the shock these two have provoked.

Judge Meron is the current President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. It is a replacement system for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) which was closed down so that genocide cases are transferred to Rwanda. Suspects still at large are to be tried by the country where they will be arrested. Before, the current job, Judge Meron was an Appeals Chamber judge of ICTR.

Ferdinad Nahimana

On Wednesday this week, Judge Meron issued an order granting early release for Ferdinard Nahimana, founder of the incendiary hate radio RTLM. Nahimana is serving 30 years for genocide – convicted in November 2007. Coincidentally, Nahimana had been sentenced to life in prison, but Judge Meron at the time reduced the term in the 2007 Appeals verdict.

A panel of trial judges had found that RTLM broadcasts after 6 April 1994 constituted acts of persecution against the Tutsi population and held Nahimana liable for crimes of direct and public incitement to commit genocide and persecution as a crime against humanity for his failure to prevent and punish broadcasting of criminal speech by his subordinates at RTLM.

Rukundo Emmanuel

In the same release order, Judge Meron wants Father Rukundo free – a man trial judges described as the “devil in Kabgayi” – in reference to the seat of Rwanda Catholic Church. In October 2010, the Appeals court sentenced Rukundo to 23 years for genocide.

Father Rukundo was the ‘Military Chaplain’ for the army when the genocide was planned and executed. Court found him liable for genocide, murder and extermination in relation to abduction and murder of Tutsi who had sought refuge at Saint Joseph’s College and Saint Leon Minor Seminary, both situated in Gitarama prefecture, Central Rwanda.

In one particularly terrifying case, according to the verdict, Rukundo attempted to rape a Tutsi girl at the St. Leon Minor Seminary. However, instead of sheltering her, he told the Tutsi girl, that she and her entire family were to be killed for assisting the Inyenzi(coakroaches). The Tutsi girl, dubbed witness CHH, had testified before the court.

In the order to have Nahimana (66) and Fr. Rukundo (57) set free, Judge Meron says the two had “shown signs of rehabilitation”.

The litany of Judge Meron’s previous court decisions has provoked anger among genocide survivors, and his colleagues. Two years ago, a leaked confidential letter by a Danish judge Frederik Harhoff revealed that Meron had exerted “persistent and intense” pressure on his fellow judges to allow suspects go free at the Yugoslavia war crimes court.

Judge Meron acquitted Protais Zigiranyirazo in November 2009 and, then recently, ministers Justin Mugenzi and Prosper Mugiraneza, all senior officials of the Akazu inner circle. Zigiranyirazo known as “Mr. Z” during the heydays – was brother-in-law of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana.

Judge Meron and other judges also reversed convictions and reduced considerably the sentences of Col. Theoneste Bagosora–the mastermind of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi–and Lt. Col. Anatole Nsengiyumva.

According to the national commission for the fight against genocide (CNLG), “justice is being held hostage” by the Polish judge. “It appears from several appeal decisions by Judge Meron that the legal reasoning thereof was insufficiently defensible and that such decisions aim at nothing less than neutralizing bold decisions rendered by Trial Chambers,” says CNLG in a protest note issued June last year amid other cases.

The Appeals Chamber in February 2014 acquitted General Augustin Ndindiliyimana and the former commander of the Reconnaissance Battalion , Major Francois -Xavier Nzuwonemeye while Captain Innocent Sagahutu, second-in-command of Reconnaissance Battalion , had his sentence reduced from 20 to 15 years.

CNLG said; “Strangely enough, the verdict on the principal defendant, General Augustin Bizimungu whose case was severed from that of other defendants, was deferred with no explanation. It should be remembered that the Trial Chamber had sentenced him to 30 years in prison for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.”

“Why was this deferral ordered while the case was heard in a joint trial known as “Military II?”

In another decision in May 2004, Judge Meron order acquittal of Dr. Ntakirutimana Gerard, a physician and medical director at Mugonero hospital of Kibuye prefecture where the French commandos were stationed. Dr. Ntakirutimana had been earlier on sentenced to 25 years in jail for his role in the 1994 genocide.

Genocide survivors’ umbrella organisation IBUKA has described Judge Meron’s decisions as “trivializing the genocide”.

IBUKA has vowed that it will stop at nothing to ensure the world knows Judge Meron is determined to “cleanse” genocide masterminds.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

To lionise dictators like Paul Kagame is to mock those they persecuted -

To lionise dictators like Paul Kagame is to mock those they persecuted(Anjan Sundaram)

ASI has always whined about the hidden agenda of shadowy manipulators of U.S. foreign policy, complained about hiding the existing and real claims of RPF and General Kagame’s human rights abuses and blasted the American government for lying outright to undermine their credibility and portray them as international pariahs.

General Paul Kagame is one of the world's most repressive dictators. Rwandans struggle very hard to remove this cockroach from power.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

US advises rwandan president to step down after tenure expiration in 2017

US urges Kagame to retire in 2017 (Rwanda)

By Reuters

Kagame must go when term ends in 2017, says senior US diplomat

U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, says Washington expects Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, to set an example for the region and step down at the end of his second term in office in 2017.

Rwanda - The United States expects Rwandan President Paul Kagame to set an example for the region and step down at the end of his second term in office next year, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on Tuesday.“President Kagame has an opportunity to set an example for a region in which leaders seem too tempted to view themselves as indispensable to their own countries’ trajectories,” Power told reporters.

“We really do expect President Kagame to follow through on the commitments that he has made many times in the past to allow the next generation of leaders to come forward,” she said. “We expect President Kagame to step down at the end of his term in 2017.”

Last month the African nation’s Senate approved a draft constitution to allow President Kagame, in power since 2000, to seek a third term in office, clearing the path for a nationwide referendum that is not expected to face much opposition.

Power said the United States was aware of the “parliamentary maneuverings” but noted that Kagame himself has not said what his intentions were regarding a possible third term in office.
< She was addressing a news conference on her plans as president of the United Nations Security Council for the month of December. She said the 15-nation council was discussing a possible visit to Rwanda’s neighbor Burundi this month, where there has been months of bloodshed.

Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands have fled Burundi during months of violence that began when President Pierre Nkurunziza decided in April to run for a third term. He won a disputed election in July.

Kagame has won widespread praise for rebuilding the landlocked Central African country since a 1994 genocide killed about 800,000 people, most of them ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

While praising Rwanda’s economic and social development since then, rights groups have said the government severely restricts freedom of expression and does not tolerate dissent. The government has denied these charges.

Kagame, 58, is the latest long-serving ruler in Africa to attempt to extend his hold on power. Similar moves have sparked violence and instability in Burkina Faso and Congo Republic.

Wolverine

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Breaking News : CLINTON CASH OFFICIAL DOCUMENTARY MOVIE ( FULL ) Be The Last to know

CLINTON CASH OFFICIAL DOCUMENTARY MOVIE ( FULL )

The book does not hit shelves until May 5, but already the Republican Rand Paul has called its findings “big news” that will “shock people” and make voters “question” the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer — a 186-page investigation of donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities — is proving the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.

Breaking News : CLINTON CASH OFFICIAL DOCUMENTARY MOVIE ( FULL ) Be The Last to know

CLINTON CASH OFFICIAL DOCUMENTARY MOVIE ( FULL )

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Kagame government blocked criminal probe, former chief prosecutor says

Image result for habyarimana assassination

Ms. Arbour, a retired Supreme Court of Canada justice, revealed details in an interview with The Globe and Mail of how the Kagame government and its supporters made it difficult for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to investigate many serious crimes, including the assassination of two presidents – the event that ignited the genocide in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

Ms. Arbour's revelations about her three-year stint as the tribunal's chief prosecutor came after The Globe obtained two documents – a deposition by one of Mr. Kagame's former top aides and an earlier report by investigators at the UN Rwanda tribunal – pointing to the involvement of Mr. Kagame's forces in the death of Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana.

The missile strike on the night of April 6, 1994, that killed Mr. Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira remains a mystery, but investigating magistrates in France have now reopened their probe to consider the new deposition by the former Kagame aide, who says he heard Mr. Kagame and two other aides admitting that they orchestrated the attack.

The French investigation was precipitated by a case filed by the families of the French crew of the plane carrying the two presidents, but later went into limbo because of a lack of witnesses.

Mr. Habyarimana's daughter Marie-Rose, now a Canadian citizen, has criticized the UN tribunal for failing to pursue charges in connection with the assassination. "People have closed their eyes," she told The Globe in an interview this month.

But Ms. Arbour said in her interview that Mr. Kagame's government "could turn on and off the co-operative tap at will, depending whether they were pleased or not with the work that was being done."

The tribunal, which closed last December after more than two decades of work, indicted 95 suspects and convicted 61 of them, but all were linked to the former Hutu regime of Mr. Habyarimana, which was driven out of power by Mr. Kagame's forces after the genocide. Critics have said the tribunal became a form of "victor's justice."

No-one has been prosecuted for the downing of the plane.

'Doesn't make sense'

The shooting down of the Rwandan presidential jet, killing the Hutu president, in April 1994, continues to create international controversy.

The tribunal had the power to investigate crimes during the entire year of 1994, including the period before and after the genocide, but it did not indict anyone linked to Mr. Kagame and his Tutsi-led forces, despite many allegations against them.

"These kinds of very credible allegations have been made time and again," Ms. Arbour said. "And in the 22 years of its history, the tribunal has never been able to take that on."

The concerns about the imbalance in the tribunal's prosecutions are valid, she said.

Ms. Arbour disclosed that she had told her successor, Carla Del Ponte, that the tribunal "had to make some efforts" to investigate "serious allegations of crimes" by "elements or sympathizers" of Mr. Kagame's forces.

Those investigations "could only be done from outside the country" because of the dangers and difficulties of working inside Rwanda, she told Ms. Del Ponte in 1999, when she left the tribunal to become a Supreme Court justice.

"The office of the prosecutor was sitting right in the middle of the country, where allegedly some of the leadership elements had to be investigated," Ms. Arbour told The Globe. "That's not, frankly, very doable."

Asked whether the tribunal could have investigated the assassination of the two presidents in 1994, she said: "We worked in a very fragile environment. I had a lot of concerns about the safety, the security of our witnesses. I don't think we had anywhere near the kind of human resources, capacity, know-how, to do that work while we were sitting in that country."

She drew a comparison to the criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where she was also the chief prosecutor and where she indicted former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes.

"I don't think we would have managed to do leadership investigations in Yugoslavia had we been, in a sense, hostage to the government of Croatia, Bosnia or Serbia," she said.

"Without being able to operate safely from the outside [of Rwanda] with a lot of credible, independent, outside investigative support – it's not an excuse, but it's in part an explanation as to why maybe this has never been done. It certainly would not have been doable in the first few years of the tribunal."

The tribunal was "constantly in a conflictual position vis-à-vis President Kagame," she said. For example, his government insisted that some genocide suspects should be put on trial domestically in Rwanda, rather than sent to the tribunal's court in neighbouring Tanzania, she said.

"So even in the genocide prosecutions, we were very often – regularly – in conflict with the government, whom we would have thought would have been supportive of our work. So you can imagine what kind of situation we would have been in, sitting in the country needing visas to come in and out. … None of that was feasible without the full co-operation of the government."

In a forthcoming book by freelance writer Judi Rever, a former senior official at the Rwanda tribunal says it was difficult to ensure the safety of witnesses who had information incriminating Mr. Kagame.

"The problem was that witnesses kept disappearing," says Douglas Marks Moore, now a judge in Britain who was senior counsel to a team of investigators at the tribunal.

When the government of Rwanda was a judge in its own case: Genocide film: Rwanda urged to take action against BBC

Many witnesses against Mr. Kagame fled to neighbouring countries such as Kenya and Uganda, but were then "extracted, tortured and killed," he says.

This led to a serious depletion of the witness pool, he says in Ms. Rever's book, In Praise of Blood, to be published by Random House Canada.

Mr. Marks Moore says it was "unwise" for the tribunal to have prosecuted only "one side" of the crimes in Rwanda.

Another senior investigator at the tribunal, former U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Jim Lyons, told Ms. Rever that in 1997 the investigators heard detailed evidence from three witnesses who said Mr. Kagame was involved in planning the missile attack that killed the two presidents.

In the forthcoming book, Mr. Lyons says one of the tribunal investigators, Michael Hourigan, took the information to Ms. Arbour in 1997. "Arbour told him to shut down the investigation, that the ICTR had no mandate to investigate the plane crash – it had no jurisdiction," he says.

Ms. Arbour said she met Mr. Hourigan only once. The information that he brought her about the plane crash "didn't fall, in my view, within our prosecutorial agenda," she told The Globe. "I don't think we had the capacity or the resources, even if I had otherwise felt that we should collect information."

FOLLOW MICHELLE ZILIO AND GEOFFREY YORK ON TWITTER@MICHELLEZILIO @GEOFFREYYORK

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