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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Rwandan Military Leaders Found Not-Guilty of Conspiracy and Genocide Planning

ARUSHA, Tanzania - December 18 - Today's ICTR judgments in the Military-I trial completely rejected the Prosecution theory of long-term planning and conspiracy to commit genocide by members of the former Rwandan military leadership. All four defendants were found "not guilty" of all counts charging conspiracy to commit genocide, based on the Chambers ruling that their actions prior to April 6, 1994 were based on war-time conditions, not planning to kill civilians or to carry out a genocide against Tutsi Rwandans.

Gen. Gratien Kabiligi was found not guilty of all remaining charges because of the Prosecution's failure to prove his command authority over Rwandan troops, and was ordered released immediately.

The three other defendants were convicted of responsibility for particular acts that the Chambers found were committed by members of the Rwandan military. Col. Theoneste Bagsosora and Col. Anatole Nsengiumva were found guilty of war crimes, acts of genocide and crimes against humanity committed by Rwandan troops under their command. Major Aloys Ntabakuze, whose command was limited to the Para-Commando Battalion was held responsible for three incidents out of more than 40 that the Chamber found were not proved. Many of the crimes of which all three were convicted do not appear in the indictments under which they were prosecuted. All three were sentenced to life in prison and have announced plans to appeal.

The ICTR Military-I Oral Judgment specifically referred to evidence presented to the Chamber that civilian killings in Rwanda were triggered by the assassination of the Rwandan President, which was part of the final military assault to seize power by the RPF army of Paul Kagame in 1994. The Judgements follow by less than a week the UN Security Council's public exposure of the massive continuing crimes of Kagame and the RPF in the Congo and the Great Lakes Region since 1996 and the Open Letter from the President of Human Rights Watch calling for the ICTR to fulfill its mandate by holding Kagame's RPF accountable for crimes committed in 1994 in Rwanda, as well.

After the evidence closed in the Military-1 trial closed in June 2007, INTERPOL warrants have been issued for the RPF leadership and Paul Kagame has been named in two European indictments for the assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana and Burundi President Ntaryamira of Burundi on the night of April 6, 1994. The indictments confirm evidence in the Military-1 record that Kagame and the RPF are responsible for the war crime, and military assault, that touched off the tragic 100 days of war. The indictments also charge Kagame's RPF with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity involving more than 300,000 civilian deaths.

Also after the evidence closed in the Military-1 trial, former ICTR Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and former ICTR Chief Investigator Prosecutor Michael Hourigan have publicly described the on-going "cover-up" of Kagame's responsibility for the assassination and the planned RPF assault to take power. Now Ms. Del Ponte's press aide is being prosecuted for contempt of court at the ICTY FOR her courage in making public the US/UK role in removing Del Ponte from her ICTR post because she insisted on fulfilling her mandate to hold both sides responsible for their crimes in 1994.

To date, the failure of the ICTR Prosecutor to put the full record of crimes committed by the RPF has done a great disservice to the Judicial Chambers of the ICTR and to International Justice. But, most tragically, the juridical impunity created by the ICTR "cover-up" of RPF crimes has been the root cause of the millions of deaths in Rwanda, the Congo and the Great Lakes since the RPF invaded Rwanda with the help of Uganda in 1990.

In light of these disclosures of former ICTR Prosecutors and the December 12, 2008 Security Council Report fixing RPF responsibility for more than 12 years of economic plunder and massive killings in the Congo, which are also confirmed in Security Council Reports in 2001, 2002 and 2003, the ADAD Bureau will present an OPEN LETTER to the ICTR President, the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly detailing the recent revelations that have called the integrity of the Tribunal into question and the systematic withholding of relevant evidence from the Chambers and requesting that all matters at the ICTR be suspended, pending an independent investigation of the Office of the Prosecutor's failure to abide by Security Council Resolution 955, and manipulation of the ICTR by UN member-states, that is now in the public record.

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, December 15, 2008

ICTR: Address Crimes Committed by the RPF

Rwanda Tribunal Should Pursue Justice for RPF Crimes

Failure to Act Risks Undermining Court’s Legacy
December 12, 2008

on biased empty justice

The tribunal has not prosecuted even one of the serious Rwandan Patriotic Front crimes from 1994. This glaring omission means delivering one-sided justice and risks tarnishing the important work that the court has done to date.
Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda's (ICTR) prosecutor's failure to date to bring cases against Rwandan Patriotic Front officers responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1994 genocide risks undermining the court's legacy, Human Rights Watch said today. On December 12, 2008, ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Jallow will brief the Security Council, which is finalizing plans to close the court.

The ICTR is mandated to prosecute persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in Rwanda in 1994. However, unlike the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which has prosecuted crimes committed by all parties to the conflict, the ICTR has thus far prosecuted only persons charged with committing genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

Against the backdrop of the genocide, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which has since become the country's governing party, killed thousands of civilians, in the process committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"The tribunal has not prosecuted even one of the serious Rwandan Patriotic Front crimes from 1994," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program. "This glaring omission means delivering one-sided justice and risks tarnishing the important work that the court has done to date."

RPF crimes have been well-documented, including by a United Nations Commission of Experts, which concluded that the group had "perpetrated serious breaches of international humanitarian law" and "crimes against humanity."

The Field Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as Human Rights Watch and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) documented the RPF's violations of international humanitarian law. Recently, cases have been opened against its leaders in Spain and France.

The prosecutor for the ICTR referred one RPF case to Rwandan national courts involving the killings of 15 civilians, including high officials of the Catholic Church, in June 1994. In October, the Military Court of Kigali acquitted two senior officers for the crimes while two more junior officers who had pleaded guilty to the crimes were given reduced sentences of eight years on grounds that the crimes were not premeditated. The Rwandan prosecutor has appealed the decision to a higher Rwandan court.

After the officers' arrest, the ICTR prosecutor indicated that he would reassert jurisdiction over the case if the trial did not meet international standards, but he is refraining from comment while the decision is on appeal.

In the meantime, the ICTR's trial chambers have in three cases refused to transfer trials for genocide to the courts in Rwanda, citing fair trial concerns, including the ability to secure and protect witnesses.

"The concerns about fair trials expressed by the tribunal are even more pronounced for Rwandan Patriotic Front cases," said Dicker.

The ICTR is currently scheduled to finalize trials by the end of 2009. Unless the Security Council grants an extension, it will be difficult to bring RPF cases before the court.
"The doors seem to be closing with the mandate of the court unfulfilled," said Dicker. "The victims of the RPF crimes also deserve justice. Failure to bring these cases before the court will call into question the impartiality and independence of the ICTR."
Human Rights Watch raised its concerns in a letter to the ICTR prosecutor today.

A Letter to the ICTR Prosecutor

December 11, 2008

Related Materials:

Rwanda Tribunal Should Pursue Justice for RPF Crimes

Justice Hassan B. JallowOffice of the ProsecutorInternational Criminal Tribunal for RwandaKigali, Rwanda

Dear Mr. Prosecutor,

With plans for the closing of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) nearing completion, we write publicly to urge you to address crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front. To date the Tribunal has achieved considerable success in holding to account some of those most responsible for the genocide and in ensuring that victims of the genocide see some justice and can be justifiably proud of its legacy. However, failing to address the fact that in 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) killed thousands of civilians, in the process committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, will have a negative impact on that legacy. As a longtime supporter of the Tribunal, we believe that it is imperative to raise this issue with you again now.

As you know, the crimes alleged to have been committed by the RPF have been well documented by a UN Commission of Experts which concluded that the RPF had “perpetrated serious breaches of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity.”

These crimes were not of the same nature or scale as the genocide, but they are serious crimes that fall under the ICTR’s jurisdiction. We are sure that you and members of the Security Council will agree that the victims of these crimes also deserve justice. The fact that these crimes are well-known throughout Rwanda and the world would make a failure to address them particularly glaring.

Allowing these crimes to be prosecuted in Rwanda is not an acceptable alternative. The ICTR’s trial chambers have now ruled three times in decisions confirmed on appeal that obstacles exist to having fair trials for genocide cases in Rwanda. In their decisions, the judges expressed concerns about the ability to secure witnesses and to guarantee their safety. These concerns are even more profound in cases against the RPF than for cases of genocide.

In the nearly fifteen years since the crimes were committed, the Rwandan government prosecuted no soldiers for violations of international humanitarian law until the recent case referred by you to Rwandan national courts. This one trial for violations of international humanitarian law resulted in two acquittals and two persons sentenced to eight years of prison for having killed fifteen civilians, including one child who was himself a Tutsi survivor of genocide. The conduct of that trial, like the penalties imposed, fail to demonstrate the necessary capacity and political will for Rwanda to deliver complete justice for victims of RPF crimes, who number in the thousands.

There were practical reasons why bringing cases against the RPF earlier was not possible, including the readiness of the government of Rwanda to impede prosecutions for the genocide as a way to ensure ICTR inaction on RPF cases. But as the tribunal plans for its closure, we believe that it is essential for you to notify the Security Council that the ICTR will need time for RPF trials. A failure to do so would taint the perception of the Tribunal’s impartiality in carrying out its mandate and thereby undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of future generations.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely yours,Kenneth Roth

Cc: Patricia O’Brien, Under-Secretary-General, The Legal Counsel, Office of Legal Affairs

Richard Dowden: Britain should cease its one-sided support of Rwanda

If Kagame doesn't rein in Nkunda, we should tell him we won't fund him.

Monday, 15 December 2008

When United Nations experts revealed in a recent report the links between the Rwandan government and the forces of Laurent Nkunda, the Tutsi warlord of Eastern Congo, the Dutch government cut its direct budget support for Rwanda in protest. Should Britain do the same?

Paul Kagame, Rwanda's clever and combative president has been a favourite of Britain's Africa ministers going back to Clare Short and Lynda Chalker before her. Rwanda's government receives tens of millions in direct budget support from Britain. Tony Blair is its adviser. It is not hard to see why. The previous Rwandan government organised the 1994 genocide, so when Kagame overthrew it and set up a new government in Kigali he was seen as the good guy by the US and Britain. Their guilt over the decision to pull out the UN force in Rwanda as the genocide began reinforced their moral support for Kagame.

When his fighters pursued the remnants of the old Rwandan army into Congo, Britain and the US did not ask too many questions. Nor did they question when Kagame's army and their Ugandan allies, turned that pursuit into a full-scale attack on their vast neighbour, Congo, that ended in the overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko, the corrupt old Congolese dictator.

Kagame, a visionary leader and a formidable man of action, is warmly welcomed in London and Washington. For them, at last, here was an African leader who spoke their language of progress and could deliver. Rwanda's education and health systems are good. Kagame says he wants to create a new Rwanda where Hutu and Tutsi allegiances would be forgotten. Britain is prepared to pay for that.

Kagame does not, however, believe in too much democracy. Parliamentary elections last September were described by the EU observer team as lacking in transparency. There was "an absence of real political opposition". Kagame does not tolerate one.

But it is his behaviour in eastern Congo that causes most disquiet. Kagame argues that Rwanda will never be safe as long as the genocidaires – those who killed in 1994 – are on the loose in Congo. In 1998, when the government he installed in Congo began to support them and the rump of the old Rwandan army camped there, Kagame and the Ugandans invaded again. Britain and America kept quiet.

This time their intervention triggered a terrible war in which some say five million people have now died. They had all miscalculated the political reaction from other African rulers and the Congolese, who objected to what they saw as a Western-backed rogue state rampaging around the continent. The Rwandans and Ugandans were stopped but they set up local Congolese allies in the border zones. Most of these were Congolese Tutsis. And the genocidaires were able to recruit and rearm as well – sometimes with support from the Congolese army.

The war that had threatened to tear Congo apart has become limited to a vicious battle for the Kivus; eastern Congo and Uganda and Rwanda's borderlands. The Tutsi population was now under threat, seen as a fifth column for the Rwandans. Its self styled protector in North Kivu is the flamboyant but murderous Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi and once a member of Kagame's army.

In November he carried out a massacre of some 150 people at Kiwanja. Kagame denies he is a Rwanda proxy but the UN report shows he uses Rwandan banks and has had direct support from the army. It also shows how Nkunda's forces operate out of Rwandan territory and recruit soldiers from its army.

The argument that this is about protecting Congo's Tutsi minority is undermined by Nkunda's grab for the region's wealth. Local people have been forced to mine gold, diamonds, casserite and other minerals that abound in Kivu and export them through Kigali, the Rwandan capital. What had begun as an apparently defensive military operation to protect Rwanda and Uganda from genocidal gangs in Congo seemed to be turning into a violent imperialism aimed more at looting the area than bringing peace.

On paper the solution is simple. The rump of fighters who carried out the genocide now operating in eastern Congo, and Nkunda's forces must both disarm or be disarmed. The two states – and Uganda – must make this happen and make peace. There is no major issue between the states of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, but nor is there trust between them. Outsiders must help build that trust and Britain, a medium-sized player in the region, must not been seen as backing one side or the other. It is time to tell Kagame that if he does not rein in Nkunda, Britain will not fund his government.

The writer is Director of the Royal African Society

Comments

To solve the problem of Rwanda,Congo conflict,there should be a real politic ability.Efforts should be done by all the parts!I think that when the interest of the population will not be prior,war will continue. The consequence is negative to the Africa's image!

The British policy is to subside the wars in Africa. Then, to reward the winner. This what the British did with Museveni, then Kagame, now it is Nkunda. If Nkunda wins his war against the RDC government, then Nkunda will be assured to get funding from the British tax payers for national budget support for several years to come. Just imagine how the British's budget support has contributed to destabilise the whole African Great lakes Region.

Western politician always make mistake about their choice of which president to back because of their obsessive behaviour of getting their interest. Now most african president had learnt the game they give what western want and so they can be free to kill anybody who try to challenge their power then change what democracy is about and their western partner will play the blind eyes about their politic. since genocide had given kagame power, kagame has drawn a theory of sacrifying his own people so he can gain sympathie from the international comunities then he can get what he wants. this system is inflicting hanger on people so people will loose control then will attack tutsi then kagame will get opportunity to have a cause he did that with Hutus and want to do that with congolese by raping women ,girls and killing all youngs boys to make congolese loose control like hutus did but unfortunately for him and nkunda congolese are not going to make that mistake

We are all - ALL - guilty, as Dr Heinz Kiosk would say. While it is undeniably tragic that the Tutsis are chopping up the Hutsis and the Hutus are chopping up the Tutus, the finger of blame must be pointed unequivocally at the neo-colonialist oppressors and their running dogs. A peace-keeping force made up of well-armed NuLabour baronesses and spin doctors must be sent to both North and South Kivu at the earliest possible moment. A hand-picked battalion of knife-wielding yardies from the nastier estates of Greater London would be a welcome addition to this fearsome expeditionary force. Perhaps a few dozen Gap Year kiddies from the Home Counties and a platoon or two of grief counsellors and diversity co-ordinators could accompany the gallant band. Is Marty Arty-Sari available to lead from the front? Which lucky, lucky EU taxpayers will have the privilege of footing the bill?

The Independent, Thank you for your independence. This is an excellent input into the British overseas politics and manoeuvres. Britain is run like a dictatorship regime. You cannot find in Britain an independent NGO or campaigning group which can question about British policy in Africa. This is because UK NGOs depend heavily on government funding. They have to keep quite to avoid any lost of funding. However, in France you will find pressure groups such as Survie which are openly opposed to the French policy in Africa. The French debate their policy in Africa. The French NGOs have even managed to influence Sarkozy to fine-tune the French policy in Africa. But the British are reinforcing their old hegemonic politics in Africa. They are fighting to be where the French have left.

It seems like the whole world is blind about the bloody war in eastern congo; it is also so surprising that people still don't know who is behind Kagame's powers. Of course Britain & the US are the planners of the whole war not only the one in eastern congo, but the one also that caused genocide in 1994 in Rwanda. The whole story about congolese tutsis is a fake coz Nkunda himself is a Rwandan never a congolese & to let you know the truth Tutsis are orginally only from Rwanda & Burundi, & wherever else you'll find them they are there as settlers & no one likes them as they are all trouble makers. Its about time that US & Britain stop supporting their killing puppets so that innocent african people may enjoy their lives as everyone else in europe & north america do.

Well said dowden. And dont forget that britain illegally installed idi amin. And should therefore pay very sizeable reparations. Alex weir. Gaborone

Richard Dowden: Britain should cease its one-sided support of Rwanda I agree. I just read that the blunder in The Iraq war has cost not just USA but UK also a packet. What would you say to those blunders? Read the New York Times? People are buying in heaps as the mess splashed says the tarpapers’ have coughed up a lot of cash on the Iraq wars and Iraq wants UA to build Iraq the way it was? Discounts lure shoppers, but sales stay slow Clothing, particularly children’s wear, electronics are a bright spot While Ben Bernanke was teaching economics at Princeton University in late 1999, he admonished officials in Japan for doing too little to get their country out of its economic funk. Where are we going wrong? I thank you Firozali A. Mulla

I would like say one thing: Shame on Tony Blair, Shame on Tony Blair! Thank you mister Dowdwen for your analysis.

I am a hutu from the North of Rwanda. Kagame and RPF Killed all my family. I have never had the opportunity to mourn the dead members of my family. The French did not kill any Rwandans, Tutsi or hutu. We killed each other. Let’s not blame other people.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Le génocide contre les Hutus (facilité par leur diabolisation par Kagame) et le pillage des ressources restent le moteur du conflit à l’est du Congo

Le Rwanda apporte une aide multiforme, notamment dans le recrutement d'enfants soldats, au groupe rebelle du tutsi Laurent Nkunda dans l'est de la République démocratique du Congo (RDC) voisine, affirme un rapport d'experts de l'ONU publié vendredi. Lire la suite l'articleP

Pour "balancer l'information"(disent-ils), certains média Occidentaux participent activement à la diabolisation des Hutus et donc rendent facile les massacres contre cuex-ci qui sont devenus voilà déjà 18 ans une proie facile à abattre (par l'armée Tutsi du FPR et ces groupes armées disséminés au Congo). Souvenez-vous que les Hutus constituaient 85% de la population rwandaise avant 1990, et la majorité de la population à l'Est de la République Démocratique du Congo suivis de Nandés.

Cliquez ici : Ces enfants Hutus seront ensuite assassinés par le protégé de Kagame

La ministre des affaires étrangères rwandaise Rosemary Museminali a réagi en qualifiant le rapport d'inexact et le comparant à une "vendetta" destinée à détourner la région des efforts de paix en cours.
"Ce qui ressort quand vous prenez connaissance du rapport c'est d'abord qu'il est rempli d'inexactitudes" , a-t-elle dit à des journalistes à Bujumbura (Burundi).
Le groupe de cinq experts mandaté par le Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU a "trouvé des preuves que les autorités rwandaises se sont rendues complices du recrutement de soldats, y compris des enfants, et ont facilité la fourniture d'équipement militaire" au Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CNDP) de l'ex-général Nkunda, affirme le rapport.

***Les autorités rwandaises ont également "envoyé des officiers et des unités des Forces de défense rwandaises en territoire congolais pour soutenir le CNDP", poursuit-il.
Le groupe a également établi que "le CNDP utilise le territoire rwandais comme base arrière pour lever des fonds et tenir des comptes bancaires".

De leur côté, des unités de l'armée régulière de la RDC (FARDC) "collaborent étroitement" avec des groupes armés dans l'est du pays, notamment les FDLR, rebelles hutu du Rwanda qui comptent parmi eux des interhahamwe (anciens responsables du génocide de 1994), et les Pareco (Patriotes de la résistance congolaise), affirme le rapport.
Cette coopération recouvre notamment "la fourniture de munitions et la conduite d'opérations conjointes contre le CNDP".

Le groupe d'experts affirme n'avoir pas trouvé de preuves que les multiples groupes armés illégaux opérant dans l'est de la RDC se fournissent en armes sur le marché international et en conclut que "les FARDC demeurent la principale source" de ces armements.
Le rapport confirme également que ces groupes armés, notamment le CNDP et les FDLR, détournent à leur profit des sommes colossales en exploitant illégalement les richesses minières de la région.

Ainsi le CNDP contrôle la mine de coltan de Bibatama sur le territoire de Masisi et vend le minerai à la Munsad, une société dont le siège est à Goma, chef-lieu du Nord-Kivu, et contrôlée par un proche de Nkunda. Le coltan est un minerai utilisé dans les composants électroniques
.
Le coordinateur du groupe d'experts, Jason Stearns, a ensuite déclaré à la presse que le rapport s'accompagnait "d'une annexe confidentielle recommandant la prise de sanctions contre certains individus et entités."

Il a précisé que les sanctions recommandées consisteraient en un gel d'avoirs financiers et en une interdiction de voyager à l'étranger et qu'elles seraient soumises à l'examen du Conseil de sécurité et de son comité des sanctions.

Kinshasa accuse depuis longtemps le Rwanda de soutenir Nkunda, ce que Kigali dément. Pour sa part, Nkunda affirme que les rebelles hutu rwandais -- dont certains anciens génocidaires -- font partie d'une nébuleuse de groupes armés qui soutiennent les forces gouvernementales de la RDC.

La province du Nord-Kivu fait face depuis fin août à une reprise des affrontements entre d'un côté le CNDP et de l'autre l'armée et divers groupes armés.

La rébellion du général déchu tutsi congolais Laurent Nkunda a infligé d'humiliantes défaites à l'armée régulière et campe depuis fin octobre aux portes de Goma.
Ces combats ont jeté sur les routes plus de 250.000 personnes, survivant dans des conditions catastrophiques.

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

Louis Michel and Paul Kagame are looting the Congo mineral resources like there'll be no tomorrow

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0eAY1M_KqGM

Déclaration indigne d'un "ministre" Européen, devenu mégaphone de Paul Kagame

"Le président "Kagame m'a demandé d'utiliser un ton dur envers Nkunda, qui l'a mal pris", a en substance affirmé M. Louis Michel samedi à Bruxelles à son retour d'une visite de deux jours à Kigali et à Kinshasa!

Qui est derrière Louis Michel? Qui tire les ficelles?

Louis Michel, Un ministre Européen, indigne de l'être.

Be aware:

Paul Kagame and Louis Michel aren't brothers. They are neither friends.

Their common interest: To loot the DRC mireral ressources

Louis Michel and Paul Kagame are looting the Congo mineral resources like there'll be no tomorrow.

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 13, 2008

UN's Rwanda Prosecutor Says He Cleared Karenzi, Contra Navi Pillay ...

UN's Rwanda Prosecutor Says He Cleared Karenzi, Contra Navi Pillay, No News On Nepali Generals
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, December 12 --

The UN system's approach to Rwanda was shown this week to be in disarray. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, Hassan B. Jallow, told the Press on Friday that his Office had been asked about the service with the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur by Rwandan General Karenzi Karake, indicted for war crimes by a judge in Spain. Jallow said his answer had been that he had no case against Karenzi, who as a consequence is still in his UN job.
But on December 9 in the same room, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay had told the Press that her Office had raised issues of war crimes by Karenzi Karake

while with the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RFP), well as getting several Nepali generals

removed from peacekeeping missions due to their involvement in disappearances. Inner City Press had asked Ms. Pillay what the UN does about abuses among its peacekeepers, and was told on December 10 that further information was being sought from Ms. Pillay, which two days later has not been provided.
So the UN system's top human rights official is taking credit for raising war crimes issues about a top UN peacekeeping general, while a top UN system prosecutor first says he doesn't recognize the general's name, then says he cleared him.
Jallow with another UN prosecutor, General Karenzi and Ms. Pillay not shown
Meanwhile, the UN's Congo sanctions committee has issued a report linking the RPF-successor Rwandan government with the rebels in Congo led by Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda, while saying on the other hand that the Congolese government army is in league with the Hutu FDLR rebels.
News analysis: Could the ICTR's refusal to prosecute any RFP abusers, and UN Peacekeeping's failure to heed what the UN Human Rights Commissioner says she raised about RFP general Karenzi, have played a role in creating the atmosphere in which the Rwandan support of Nkunda described in the report takes place? The UN doesn't report on itself, at least not on issues like this. But it should.

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, December 8, 2008

Le Congrès espagnol a demandé de juger en Espagne les responsables du génocide rwandais

Le Congrès espagnol lance un appel Pour que les responsables Tutsis du "génocide" de 1994 soient jugés en Espagne.

[En guise de Rappel, l'armée française a porté plainte contre le Rwanda pour avoir discrédité ses soldats dans l'intervention turquoise. Aussi Bernard Kouchner est poursuivi pour complot avec Paul Kagame pour ses actes et propos irresposnables qu'il nhésite pas à prononcer contre son propre pays, (Kouchner est connu pour collaboration avec M. Kagame, le plus grand criminel qui a assassiné les citoyens français dans un attentat terroriste qui a couté la vie aux Présidents Rwandais et Burundais) faisant fi des mandats d'arrêt du Juge Français Jean-Louis Bruguière:

http://www.dailymotion.com/aloulo77/video/x7nhtg_colonel-hogard-le-gnocide-rouandais_news]

Ainsi donc:

Le Congrès espagnol a demandé de juger en Espagne les responsables du génocide rwandais

Tous les groupes parlementaires ont soutenu la proposition pour que les crimes «ne restent pas impunis»

V.V./AGENCIAS

Cette semaine, les groupes parlementaires ont approuvé à l’unanimité, dans la Commission des Affaires Étrangères du Congrès, une proposition d’arrêté, avec laquelle l’on demande au Gouvernement de déclencher les mécanismes nécessaires pour que les militaires accusés des massacres arrivées pendant les années 90 dans certaines régions de Rwanda et dans la région de Grands Lacs soient amenés en justice en Espagne. Le Tribunal espagnol chargé des procès initiés à l’étranger, La Audiencia Nacional, a déjà accusé 40 des responsables présumés de ces génocides, qui pourraient avoir provoqué la mort, entre autres, de neuf ressortissants espagnols entre 1994 et 1997.

La Commission des Affaires Étrangères du Congrès a approuvé, avec le voix favorable de tous les groupes politiques, un amendement transactionnel sur la proposition d’arrêté originaire de la fédération des partis CiU sur la conduite au Rwanda et aux Grands Lacs. À travers cette initiative l'on demande de juger en Espagne les accusés des génocides arrivés pendant les années 90 dans ces régions de l’Afrique, où neuf ressortissants espagnols ont aussi perdu leurs vies.
40 personnes accusées par La Audiencia Nacional.

Cette initiative demande au Gouvernement de monsieur Zapatero de «continuer à soutenir» une enquête «complète, objective et indépendante de l’atroce assassinat» de ces neuf personnes et des autres décédés pendant les massacres. Le 6 février 2008, le juge de l’Audiencia Nacional, Fernando Andreu, a ordonné l’arrêt de 40 militaires de l’Armée Patriotique Rwandaise comme responsables présumés de crimes internationaux de génocide, crimes contre l’humanité et de guerre ainsi que de torture. L'Interpol et le système européen Sirène ont déjà annoncé des mandats d’arrêts internationaux contre eux.
Postes clé des responsables

Cependant, neuf de ces accusés occupent actuellement «de postes clé et d’une certaine importance politique et diplomatique en dehors les frontières de Rwanda», selon a dénoncé le député de CiU Jordi Xuclà. Parmi eux on trouve, par exemple, l’ambassadeur rwandais en Inde. En plus, il y en a d’autres qui font parti de la Force Hybride de Maintien de la Paix de l’ONU et de l’Union Africaine au Darfour.

«Les crimes ne peuvent pas rester impunis»

Le député du parti socialiste espagnol, Eduardo Madina, a expliqué que cette initiative traite «d'un des grands trous noirs» de la fin du XXème siècle. C’est pour cela que le Gouvernement doit «continuer à agir afin que les assassins soient amenés en justice», a-t-il souligné, puisque leurs crimes «ne doivent pas et ne peuvent pas rester impunis».

Conserver les coopérants

Le député du parti de centre-droit, le PP, José Ignacio Landaluce, a aussi montré le soutien de son groupe à la proposition et a insisté sur le besoin de réaliser une enquête «exhaustive» des faits afin que l’on puisse capturer les coupables et adopter des mesures susceptibles de conserver les coopérants, puisque six des neuf personnes décédées au Rwanda faisaient de travaux humanitaires. Aitor Esteban, député du parti nationaliste basque PNV, partage la même idée et a demandé en plus la comparution du général espagnol Vicente Díaz de Villegas, qui a été à la tête militaire de la Mission de l’ONU au Congo pendant cinq semaines, et dont le témoignage pourrait «éclairer» la situation.

Justice universelle

Selon Gaspar Llamazares, le parti politique de gauche IU partage aussi l’esprit de cette initiative au nom de la justice universelle. C’est cette justice qu’a été demandée, avant la session de la Commission, par Jordi Palau, avocat des neuf victimes espagnoles et d'autres victimes rwandaises et qui a montré sa satisfaction à propos de l’initiative. À son avis, le Gouvernement peut demander l’extradition des responsables pour être jugés dans notre pays ainsi que « beaucoup faire dans le domaine politique » pour que les accusés soient finalement amenés en justice -

Source : elplural.com

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Merchants Of Death: Exposing Corporate-Financed Holocaust In Africa

Pour comprendre: http://www.rd-congo.info/video/kivu_msf.htm

Editor's Note To Readers:

Generalissimo" Laurent Nkunda; not quite the liberator but a Rwanda- backed frontman for global corporate theft that uses genocide as a modus operandi

White Collar War Crimes; Black African Fall Guys
By Keith Harmon Snow

If your confused by or tired of reading the propaganda and misinformation in The New York Times and or listening to it on the BBC about the wars, genocide, and looting of natural resources in East and Central Africaby Western corporations --while being abetted by corrupt African governments and "media" such as the Times and BBC and Western governments-- read brilliant investigative reporter Keith Harmon Snow's expose.

Use this article as your reference and guide every time the corrupt corporate media try to deceive and hoodwink you. After a series of recent editorials on blackstarnews.com calling out the Times on their corrupt coverage and cover-up of genocide, the newspaper finally threw a piece of dry bone on the dining table on December 4 with an article about Rwanda's not-so-secret war of aggression against Congo. For the real deal, read what follows. It's long but everyword is an expose. After you're done readingplease call President elect Obama's transition office and ask what Secretary of StateClinton will do to end U.S. involvement in the African genocide:

How "Media" Facilitates Mass Murder And Looting In Africa

War in Congo has again been splashed across world headlines and the same old clichés about violence and suffering are repackaged and rebroadcast as "news". Meanwhile, early indications out of America are that President-elect Barack Obama will assemble a foreign policy-team primed for business as usual.

How will Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State compromise the Obama Administration’s capacity to honestly redress the untold suffering, massive theft of resources and millions of deaths in Africa? And Tom Daschle? Behind the media smokescreens are people whose involvement has been documented and exposed, but there is always some African fall guy—the ‘embraceable’ black subordinate or ‘rebel’ commander—charged with war crimes and used to deflect attention from the leaders of organized white-collar crime networks.

lacked out are the corporate executives, government officials and expatriate personnel of Western enterprises whose success amidst chaos implicates them in the deracination and death of millions of black people. What’s behind the recent escalation of violence and media posturing?

In a darkling plain in a far away place the skeletons of hundreds of unnamed people lie strewn over the land amidst the red dirt and brown grasses scorched by the equatorial sun. Bones poke into the air here and there, hidden by the tall grass, tripping you up as you walk; others lay bleaching white in piles where the bodies fell.

These are the killing fields of Bogoro, a small hillside village on a southerly road out of Bunia, a metropolis of suffering in the wild, wild east of Congo.

The grassy plains of Bogoro were guarded by soldiers and when I arrived the militia of the day wore black trench coats and black mirror sunglasses to enhance the aura of terror that surrounds them. With AK-47’s slung over their shoulders they talked on shiny Nokias and Motorolas and Samsungs—cell phones built with the blood minerals of the Congolese people.

Sandrine—not her real name—is a survivor who participated in the massacre at Bogoro. I interviewed Sandrine, just seventeen at the time, in 2007, and she recounted her ordeal as the sex slave of soldiers. Sandrine told how people were forced by militia commanders to chase down neighbors and kill or be killed. I found Sandrine living in misery in an evacuated refugee camp.

Sandrine knows nothing at all of the vast mining operations or minerals shipments being flown out of remote jungle airstrips in her home territory—or even that such airstrips exist. Ditto for the Congolese researchers I met, in Orientale, who worked with the International Criminal Court. Moto Gold? Mwana Africa? Walter Kansteiner?

They had never heard of such companies, or such people.

In Western media reportage the plunder of raw materials in Congo is usually de-linked from the killing, even though the extractive industries are directly behind it, and even though almost everyone has begun to parrot the accusation of "resource wars" in Congo.

The Bogoro massacre occurred in February 2003 and, like the Hutu-Tutsi stories from Rwanda, the media whipped up the specter of ancient "tribal" animosities between Hema and Lendu people. But the real story is not quite so black and white. Or is it?

Today the International Criminal Court (ICC) holds three Congolese "warlords" in the ICC prison at The Hague, Netherlands, and all three were associated with events at Bogoro. However, the white patrons reaping the profits behind the bloodletting in the eastern Congo are protected by a new humanitarian order predicated on permanent inequality, structural violence and race politics.

But for a few brief periods of relative calm, the war in Congo’s eastern Orientale andKivus provinces has hardly stopped since its’ beginning in 1996, and the realities have been shrouded in media clichés and stereotypes and disingenuous expressions of outrage that deflect attention from the true protagonists and root causes of war and plunder in Africa.

[1]GOOD VERSUS EVIL AND THE NAMES GAMES

The UPC, FPRI, FNI—these are three of the scores of militias that have risen and fallen in Orientale since the war began in 1996 and, more poignantly, they are meaningless acronyms used to scramble the brains of western spectator-news-consumers.

First there was the Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A) that invaded Rwanda, and then came the Alliance for the Democratic Liberation of Zaire (ADFL) that marched across Zaire to unseat President Mobutu. Next came the "rebellion" with Jean-Pierre Bemba and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), and all the different factions of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie, or Congolese Rally for Democracy—RCD, RCD-G (Goma), RCD-K, RCD-K-ML—backed by Rwanda and Uganda.

Here are the comrades in arms who studied together at the Marxist University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania: Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president; Laurent Desire Kabila, the ADFL figurehead and assassinated president of the Democratic Republic of Congo; Meles Zenawi, president of Ethiopia; Isaias Afwerki, president of Eritrea; Africa scholar Mahmood Mamdani; former RCD leader Wamba dia Wamba; Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president; and John Garang (d. 2005), former leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and first president of South Sudan.

Both the RPF/A and SPLA waged successful covert guerrilla wars against governments that were considered "undesirable" by Washington, both achieved their objectives of seizing land and gaining control, and both insurgencies were covertly backed by U.S. Committee for Refugees official Roger Winter—a pivotal U.S. intelligence asset operating in Sudan and a dedicated ally of Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame and John Garang. Winter’s protégé is Susan Rice, Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Rice was one of the primary architects of the Pentagon’s prized Africa Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI)—a euphemistically named entity created to project U.S. power in Africa, and run by U.S. Army Special Forces Command (SOCOM).

[2]The coups d’état in Rwanda and Burundi occurred after the presidents Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira were assassinated on April 6, 1994. Similarly, more than a decade of covert U.S. military support for the SPLA, channeled through Uganda and Ethiopia, led to the Naivasha Peace Agreement of January 2005 and the creation of the autonomous country of South Sudan.

The "Rwanda genocide" began with the 1990 invasion of northern Rwanda by Ugandan forces that brutally targeted everyone in their path. By the time the RPF/A forces—comprised mostly of seasoned Ugandan troops—reached Kigali, more than 800,000 IDPs were hovering around the capital city: they were terrified, they were homeless, they were hungry, they were angry and—justifiably—they took up arms. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) and its Canadian General Romeo Dallaire clandestinely backed the illegal guerrilla war.

[3]The guerrilla wars in Rwanda and South Sudan were prosecuted much like the CIA-backed low-intensity guerrilla warfare, spawned by Washington, against populist movements in Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile and Guatemala. This is exactly what is playing out in Congo and Sudan today: low-intensity guerrilla warfare prosecuted by powerful shadow forces competing for land and loot.

SPLA leader John Garang received military training at the School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia. Paul Kagame received training at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. At the time he was sent for training, Kagame was Museveni’s director of military intelligence; upon his return he assumed command of the army created, financed and trained by Uganda: the Rwanda Patriotic Army.

Both Garang and Kagame likely received "counter-insurgency" training through the Pentagon’s International Military Education and Training Program (IMET). Since 1998, the IMET program has provided training to 318 RDF and 291 UPDF soldiers. Many other IMET soldiers who attended the notorious School of the Americas are today known human rights violators in Latin America.

In North Kivu province we find the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the National Congress for the Defense of the People, the CNDP, created by self-appointed Rwandan "General" Laurent Nkunda. Here the media has historically cast General Nkunda as good, the FDLR as evil. Only recently has Nkunda come under any kind of "harsh" criticism.

The war in Eastern Congo is almost universally described with clichés about the "Rwanda genocide." The usual targets of white media racial profiling and hysterical academic polemics are the Hutu—the infamous Interahamwe and FDLR—the "killers" that "fled Rwanda after committing genocide" there. This is how millions of innocent Hutu people—comprising over 85% of the populations of Rwanda and Burundi—are collectively dehumanized.

Congolese Mai Mai militias are described as "nationalists" sometimes "wearing bathroom fixtures on their heads" and "shooting magic bullets." The Mai Mai are the closest thing to a people’s or indigenous justice movement in Congo. The Mai Mai have most recently allied with the Congo’s national army, the Armed Forces for the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC), and the Mai Mai are sometimes cast as good, but usually as evil.

In 2007 the Mai Mai and FLDR joined forces to form the Front for the National Liberation of Kivu (FNLK). Backed by the FARDC, the FNLK is purportedly vying for power against General Nkunda’s CNDP. However, alliances are constantly shifting based on private profit and "warlord" fiefdoms, and ALL factions, at some point or other, have collaborated in war and resource plunder.

Western news stories throw the acronyms and names of militias around with little or no information about their rise or fall, and nothing substantive about foreign backers they collaborate with. Militias mysteriously appear and disappear. Indeed, the more you read about Congo from venues like the New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, or the Atlantic Monthly, the less you will understand. This is no accident, and—no, you are not dumb.

Take the militia FNI: but for the victims and their suffering, it makes no difference what the acronym stands for, it’s all one big sadistic joke of language and power. The most significant fact to remember about this "F" "N" "I" is that they served as the private proxy army for the gold mining operations of Metalor, a Swedish firm, and AngloGold Ashanti, headquartered in South Africa and partnered with Barrick Gold.

[4] Secondly, they were agents for Ugandan power brokers.

Anglo-Gold Ashanti directors include Sir Sam Jonah, who is also a director of shady mining-cum-military companies operating in Sierra Leone and connected to Tony Buckingham and other white-collar mercenaries. Buckingham affiliated companies—e.g. Heritage Oil and Gas, Branch Energy, Saracen Uganda—collaborate with the Museveni regime. Saracen’s top shareholder is General Salim Saleh, half-brother of Yoweri Museveni, and Congo’s nemesis, a Ugandan agent cited by the United Nations for war and plunder in Congo.

AngloGold Ashanti is the Anglo American mining conglomerate of the Oppenheimers and De Beers mining cartels of Britain and South Africa, interests deeply aligned with Belgian American intelligence insider Maurice Tempelsman—the godfather of covert operations in Africa. Tempelsman’s diamond interests in Congo were, at least partially, displaced by the Israeli cartels of Dan Gertler and Benny Steinmetz.

[5] It is a no-brainer that that the Tempelsman gang backs Rwanda’s occupation of eastern Congo.For a second example, media corporations have consistently blacked out the truth about the lucrative corporate "conservation" industry with articles like the recent New York Times production "Congo Violence Reaches Endangered Mountain Gorillas" (Jeffrey Gettleman, 11/18/08). Unreported however are the many accusations coming out of North Kivu that link the Jane Goodall Institute and Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund to local Mai Mai and FDLR: like every other militia, or occupation army, these factions have infiltrated villages and now prey on, intimidate and abuse the locals.

The white agents working for Western "conservation" NGOs—and we know their names—are directly responsible for extortion, racketeering, land theft, human rights atrocities and for ripping apart the social fabric.
[6] "The commander of the Mai-Mai is Colonel Ntasibanga and the commander of the FDLR is Colonel Faraja," report Congolese locals who have been documenting the abuses (the facts are confirmed by a Spanish journalist). "We count already five people killed because of this [conservation] project… DFGF and JGI are without doubt corrupt… they are paying armed groups and forcing us off of our lands."

[7]The Gettleman NYT article, on the other hand, cites one of these agents, Samantha Newport, described as "a spokeswoman for Virunga National Park," who in fact works for Richard Leakey’s organization Wildlife Direct, a shady paramilitary entity involving Walter Kansteiner.

A LITTLE MATTER OF GENOCIDE

The international arrest warrants issued by Spain and France against some 40 former RPF/A and current Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) are patently dismissed by Western media of all stripes, buried behind waves of pro-RPF propaganda and intimidation that labels anyone who does not support the Kigali military dictatorship as genocide deniers, themselves guilty, by extension, of genocide.

While the RPF/A and UPDF are often named for leading the charge and supplying the bulk of the forces, the 1996 invasion of Zaire, launched from Uganda and Rwanda, involved U.S. covert forces with state-of-the-art C4ISTR—Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance—and there were Humvees and C-130 aircraft ferrying black-skinned U.S. Special Forces into South Sudan and northeastern Congo. The invasion also involved Israeli military experts, an assortment of Eritrean and Ethiopian regulars, and SPLA forces.

[8] The Anglo-European-Israeli forces penetrated eastern Zaire through the Gulu and Arua Districts of northwestern Uganda—the heart of Acholiland and ground zero for the ongoing genocide of the indigenous Acholi people—and they backed the RPA/UPDF who marched across Zaire massacring refugees, mostly women and children, mostly Hutus, that fled Kigali in 1994. ,
[9], [10]Howard French, then the Africa Bureau Chief for the New York Times, witnessed the Hutu genocide in Zaire, and wrote about it. [11] Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani—who by no means was an impartial observer when he arrived in Goma in September 1997—described "an indiscriminate slaughter" of Interahamwe, of unarmed Hutu refugees, and of Congolese Hutus in the Kivus.

[12] Bill Richardson, President Clinton’s Ambassador to the United Nations, stated in a may 1997 interview: "I think there’s strong evidence that there have been these massacres." [13] But the subject of Hutus being slaughtered was only broached as a tool to hammer down the uppity black rebel who diverged from his script and upset Washington’s plans. Indeed, the rise and fall of ADFL figurehead Laurent Desire Kabila exemplifies the embraceable black leader transformed almost overnight into the unembraceable black fall guy.

In the end, a bullet dispatched Laurent Kabila on 16 January 2001, exactly 40 years after the assassination of Patrice Lumumba (17 January 1961). Anyone who dismisses the organized and intentional RPF/A and UPDF military campaign against millions of Hutu peoplebutchered all the way across Zaire—is a genocide denier. (Of course, the UPDF-RPF/A alliancealso summarily executed and massacred Rwandan Tutsis and indigenous Twa, and Congolese people).

Similarly, anyone who dismisses the organized persecution and atrocities against the Acholi people in northern Uganda—maintained by the Museveni government and the UPDF occupation—is a genocide denier. The criminality of the Kagame regime is whitewashed by the massive public relations campaigns involving Kagame’s special advisor/sponsors: former Ambassador Andrew Young and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Young’s Goodworks International also backs the Museveni regime. Buffing the shiny image of the government of Congo’s President Joseph Kabila is Stevens and Schriefer Group the Washington D.C. PR-firm that twice helped get George W. Bush elected [http://www.ssg-dc.com/]. The New Yorker and CNN have consistently manufacturedthe pro-RPF/A propaganda, reported by Christiane Amanpour and Philip Gourevitch.

Amanpour is married to James Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Assistant Secretaryof State and Madeleine Albright’s right-hand man, and now economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama. Gourevitch—who produced the celebrated pro-RPF/A text "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families," is a close friend of Paul Kagame and a conduit for State Department disinformation passed by James Rubin, who was also Chief Spokesman for the Clinton State Department (1997-2000), and whose sister, Elizabeth Rubin, was dating Gourevitch.U.S. business tycoon Joe Ritchie "has volunteered in Rwanda for the past five years introducing the country to business leaders around the world."

Ritchie also runs an "entrepreneurial philanthropy" called Friends of Rwanda and serves on President Paul Kagame's Advisory Council and as CEO of the Rwanda Development Board. , [14], [15] Like Walter Kansteiner, Joe Ritchie is a commodities and options trader from Chicago with deep pockets and dark secrets: involved in a private attempt to overthrow the Taliban in 2000, Joe and James Ritchie were aided by their favorite consultant, former national security adviser Robert McFarlane, who successfully lobbied the CIA to dispatch an Unmanned Aerospace Vehicle (UAV) to the skies over Afghanistan.

[16]The Congo wars have direct links to the many long years of war in Sudan and Uganda, and they are intertwined with the current low-intensity warfare and the mass murder in Darfur, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. If we apply the genocide label to conflicts where it surely fits, then genocide is ongoing in Congo’s Orientale and Kivus provinces, and in Acholiland in Northern Uganda.

[17] But it is also occurring in Iraq, Afghanistan, Burundi, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Botswana, Columbia, the Palestinian Territories and Malaysia, to mention a few irrefutable cases.These geopolitical and strategic hotspots remain mostly blanketed by media reportage that quite literally blacks out key white protagonists by putting a black African face on things. Another example: there has been little reported about the perpetual warfare and human rights atrocities in Orientale linked to tight little airstrips carved out of the rainforest and paved with support from the Pentagon-connected United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

[18]Consider Mwana Africa, a South African firm that controls the Kilo-Moto gold fields in Zani, DRC. The Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), led by Thomas Lubanga, occupied the Zani gold fields in 2002 and stirred up ethnic animosities that led to massive suffering and depopulation. However, according to Congolese locals, it was the white missionaries from the Africa Inland Mission (www.aimint.org/usa/where_we_work/) that deeply divided local ethnic groups.

French tycoons Jacques and Alvaro Hachuel own Mwana Africa. Mwana Africa’s European director, Etienne Denis, began his long career of impoverishing the Congo at Umicore, formerly the Belgian mining giant Union Miniere, in 1974. The Mwana Africa airstrip at Zani, and nearby roads, were built with USAID backing, and the gold is flown out to Tanzania—one of the most underappreciated criminal players funneling weapons to Uganda and Congo—or sometimes shipped out by road through Uganda.

[19] Mwana Africa is also involved in Congo’s bloody MIBA diamond concessions in Mbuji Mayi and the cobalt/copper concessions in Katanga. [20]Similarly, almost nothing in context has been reported of the white mercenaries and their petroleum operations on the Uganda border with Orientale.

[21] Like the ongoing covert war in Darfur, where the backers of the "mysterious" rebel groups are never exposed, the militias operating in Congo are proxy armies that serve the interests of external power blocks at the expense of their competitors. Most reporting from the Kivus zooms in on sexual violence and the Western media always blames the victims—Congolese soldiers caught in the maelstrom of international proxy warfare and organized crime—but we hear nothing about U.S. or Canadian or Australian mining companies—and for those rare times that we do the reportage de-links the mining from the mass murder.

[22] More often, the media turns the story upside down, claiming that responsible Western mining executives are waiting in the wings for security to improve so they can provide jobs and accountability and "sustainable development" for the Congolese people. Nothing could be further from the truth.A recent front-page news feature, "Congo’s Riches, Looted by Renegade Troops," about the Bisie tin mine in North Kivu, offers the perfect example.

"On paper, the exploration rights to this mine belong to a consortium of British and South African investors who say they will turn this perilous and exploitative operation into a safe, modern beacon of prosperity for Congo," wrote Jeffrey Gettleman for the New York Times. "But in practice, the consortium's workers cannot even set foot on the mountain. Like a mafia, Colonel Matumo and his men extort, tax and appropriate at will, draining this vast operation, worth as much as $80 million a year."

[23] And thus do the valiant white knights of the New York Times shine their spotlight on plunder and extortion in Congo. Alas, it is a selective shining, an expedient "humanitarian" concern, and an arrogant moral high ground. Indeed, it is just another shade of the black and white race politics behind the politicization of the International Criminal Court.

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