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Friday, June 5, 2009

Interview of George Moose, former assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs

By June 5,2009

How was the Rwanda conflict viewed in 1994?

It's ironic, in a way, that the preoccupation at the time in that part of the continent was not Rwanda; it was Burundi. We were [told that] the meeting on April 5 and April 6 that the two presidents had attended in Dar es Salaam was convened primarily to talk about the situation in Burundi, which people were very fearful was about to explode. We had been, and continue to be engaged in activities which arguably have made a difference, in terms of at least keeping a lid on and preventing the worst kind of outbreak of violence.

So Rwanda is different. It's different because of the scale and the magnitude of the disaster. It's different because we were there; we were involved. We did have the possibility of seeing things and understanding things in a different way, and had we done so, it is conceivable that we might have been able to do something different.

The Arusha agreement-- What was your feeling about what was going on?

It was a hope there was a possibility that we could avert what I think many of us thought would otherwise be a major disaster. You had a situation where you had exiled Tutsis, who'd been mostly living in Uganda for decades, who began to develop a very serious military capability, who were determined that they were going to go back and re-take their country. They had begun launching attacks outside from Uganda as early as 1990. There was a major assault in early 1993.

The governments in the region were mightily concerned. They argued with us that [they] should be involved in this process. The French were very much concerned as well. They wanted us very much to be supportive of this process, but the signing of the peace agreement at least seemed to offer a prospect that we could avert what would otherwise have been a major military conflict, with all the attendant consequences inside Rwanda.

I think it's important to understand there were a lot of other things going on at the time; but notwithstanding all those other things, we were heavily invested in supporting the Arusha process. The day before the downing of the plane which killed the two presidents, I happened to be in Kampala meeting with [Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) General] Paul Kagame. We were trying to resolve the last remaining issues as to the participation and the proposed transitional government. We were arguing about whether one particular group, one of the extremist Hutu groups -- certainly in the eyes of the RPF -- whether it should have a place in the government.
But that's where I was on April 5. I got on a plane the next morning, and I flew from Kampala to Nairobi, and then on to Mogadishu, where we had another major disaster in the making. [I] spent the day in Mogadishu, flew back to Nairobi that evening, and got immediately on a plane to head back to Washington.

When I got off in the plane in Cairo on the morning of April 7, I was told that I had to urgently call my deputy … in Washington. She informed me of the downing of the plane, and her concerns about what might happen as a consequence. …

We were very much involved, in primarily a supportive role, in the Rwandan peace process. We did see [it] as a situation, which if not dealt with, had great potential; not only for Rwanda, but the entire region. Therefore we needed to make an effort to try to be supportive. That's what we were doing. That was our guidance. That was our instruction, not just from me, but from much more senior people in the administration. …

It is certainly true that there were concerns at the National Security Council (NSC) and certain parts of the State Department, the Defense Department and elsewhere about adding yet another major peacekeeping operation to a very long list of peacekeeping operations we had in Africa alone. At the time, we had five major peacekeeping operations in some state of array or disarray. …

There was a lot going on, and there were concerns -- certainly not only in the administration, but in the Congress -- about when and where was it all going to end. Why were we obliged to be involved in or supportive of all these missions? That was very much palpably part of the context in which we were discussing all of these things.

I think in the case of Rwanda, part of the thing reason it made a difference was the French were very insistent that we be supportive of this operation. There was -- if not directly, at least indirectly -- some bargaining going on, because we wanted them to be supportive of an operation in Liberia, which was important to us. … But yes, there were questions asked, [such as], does it need to be that large? Can it be scaled back? Can it be effective with fewer troops? That was part of the dialogue.

Were they concerned about just cost and the burden for the U.S.?

It was a burden about cost, a question about how you justify and rationalize all this to the appropriators and the committees on the Hill, many of whom didn't think we needed to be there at all. …

The Belgians [sent troops to Rwanda]. What was the concern there?

Given the history and the fact that in the eyes of many in the region -- and certainly in Rwanda -- the Belgians were viewed as being responsible, at least in part, for the Tutsi dynasty in Rwanda, [and] they were not perceived as being necessarily impartial between Tutsis and Hutus. … But there clearly was a need for a capable force to provide the peace for this operation. The Belgians, I think partly out of their sense of historical responsibility [and] desire to make this thing work, [decided] to step forward, and you certainly can't fault them for that. …

Do you recall meeting [U.N. Force Commander General Romeo] Dallaire?

do. I just don't recall exactly the circumstances, but I do recall going to New York during that period when he was preparing to go out. But I couldn't tell you exactly when we first met.

Where does the U.N. commander fit in your scope?

He would be somebody with whom I would normally have contact. In terms of that level of people, the U.N. special representative would be one, and then the force commander would be the other. I guess I would say, though, [that I] recall several other major operations going on at the same time. Pru Bushnell [said], "I'm busy doing this; can you take this one?" But she was principally responsible for that [along with] the director of our Office for Central Africa at the time. It was Pru, I recall, who did go out to Rwanda in the run-up to the events of April. Subsequently, afterwards, she went back out several times, both to Rwanda and to Burundi.

Do you recall ever talking to Kofi Annan?

No, not specifically about this. That would have been a level above my concern, the folks who normally would have been doing business with Kofi, though I know him. … It's just that that was not the normal contact.

I don't know that I remember a whole lot about it, except to say that even then there were serious concerns about whether the parties were seriously committed to this process -- on both sides -- because there was concern that the RPF was playing for time; and that eventually, if they saw an advantage, they would break out of the constraints of the peace agreement and move on Kigali.

But certainly we were also concerned about what was happening inside Rwanda, and whether President Habyarimana was seriously committed to this. You have to go back for some time, because well before I came on the scene, there had been efforts going back to the late 1980s, recognizing there was an impending problem here, to get Habyarimana to think seriously about how he was going to reconcile with the exiled Tutsis, who were becoming an increasingly strong factor. So we were concerned.

The notion was that we were going to put it to him, [and] that for us to be able to support this, he needed to assure us that he was committed to making this work and to honoring the terms of the agreement, [and that], moreover, he was going to move the process forward. Because even though there had been an agreement in principle, the steps that were to take place leading up to the installation of the transitional government hadn't been resolved -- for example, the question of who was actually going to be participating in the government -- and they remained unresolved right up until April 6.

You wanted to get a sense of his view about the peace process?

From our perspective, we were already committed. We thought we had a commitment from the administration to go ahead and support this. But we wanted some assurance that, in fact, he was equally committed to holding up his end of the bargain.

Did he give you that assurance?

My recollection is that he said the right things. He made the right noises. He assured us that he wanted this to go forward, that it was important for him to have this peace agreement. My recollection is that actually he wanted us to start moving even earlier on the deployment of the force. But in any event, what he said to us clearly indicated that at least verbally he was committed to making this thing work.

In mid-January, [what were] the signs coming out of Rwanda?

My actual direct involvement in this was somewhat episodic during that period, because I was doing other things. One of the other things we were doing during that period was trying, to the best of our ability, [to] ensure that we were supporting the transition in South Africa. So I was doing a lot of traveling on that. I know I was probably in Angola a couple of times during that period, as well, so that again, I was not involved day to day and following the actual development of events in Rwanda. That said, I think we were all concerned about a number of indications we were getting about violence or threats of violence inside Rwanda.

But I think many of us believed, first and foremost, that it was right to try to complete this negotiation, because if we didn't succeed in completing that negotiation, then what would happen is that you would have a resumption of the RPF's move towards Kigali by force. That would set in motion a whole series of events.

So there was a feeling, a belief that what we needed to do most urgently was to complete this negotiation and get the force deployed, and that once it was deployed, that would help to manage or help us manage and everybody else manage what was happening then in Kigali. That was also predicated on an assumption that indeed the government and the government forces were committed to seeing that the agreement was going to be implemented.

So I think it was not that I was unaware or that others were unaware that there were increasing problems in Kigali and elsewhere inside Rwanda. But I think many of us believed -- I think, in retrospect, somewhat erroneously -- that the solution to that was get the deal done and get the forces deployed, and that would be the way to manage the difficulties that we were finding in Kigali.

At the end of January, you had some meetings in Paris. I think the Belgians might have been there.

It's quite conceivable, because we were having tri-laterals at the time, mainly on Zaire, but obviously we were talking about all of Central Africa. So it is quite conceivable that during that period I would have been meeting with my French and Belgian counterparts.

Does anything stand out from that time?

… I don't have any recollection of that, and I think I would have remembered that. Again, much of our conversation at the time -- not that Rwanda was not important -- but much of our conversations were really about Zaire. There was a grave concern about Zaire. We had a situation in the preceding six or eight months in which more than half a million people had been displaced inside central and southern Zaire, [and] growing signs of ethnic tensions there as well, and a real concern that Zaire was going to come apart at the seams. So that was another distraction.

In terms of U.S. policy influence in Africa, where did Rwanda fit?

I have to say it was not the first order of priority in terms of our policies. It was there because, number one, the regional players, some of them very good friends of ours, were concerned -- Uganda and Tanzania in particular. It was there because the French were concerned. It was there because we also recognized that, if this situation were allowed to get out of hand, then we would have a real catastrophe. I think it was also there because there was concern about what the impact would be on Zaire. So there were a lot of other reasons that made Rwanda of interest to us, but it honestly was not [a] first-tier issue for us at the time.

Second tier?

Maybe third. There were a lot of tiers in this.

The meeting on April 5 with General Dallaire.

I do recall that one of the issues that came from President Habyarimana and his side was an insistence on including certain elements in the transitional government. … One was a committee Pour La Defence de la Revolution, and [there were other] groups [that] were [also] extremist Hutu groups. But Habyarimana was saying that if he was not able to include them, then that was going to be a problem for him.

So part of the conversation I was having with Kagame was about whether he would accept their participation in the government. It was quite clear he thought that these guys were beyond the pale -- and as it turned out, they were -- and that he was extremely resistant to countenancing their participation, their inclusion in the government. But that was one of the major sticking points on whether or not we were going to get this agreement to establish the transitional government.

Pru Bushnell said, around that time she thought, in retrospect, that the U.S. government was so invested in that peace process that it was almost unthinkable to turn back.

I think it's fair to say that we were very much invested in this, and that a lot of people had committed to it. But again, if you step back and look at it objectively and say, "What's the alternative if we don't make this peace process work?" then we go back to status quo ante, which is we've got an increasingly powerful Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Force [that has] determined that they're going to get back to Kigali one way or another.

So yes, we were heavily invested. The absence [of] some way of reconciling these two forces-- We were going to have a disaster with a different kind of a character with perhaps some of the same consequences, so I think we were right to focus on that part of it.

Where we erred seriously was not understanding better the dynamic that was taking place inside of Rwanda, and the motives and the intentions of the Hutu extremist groups. Had we understood that, I think our approach might have been very different.

But it's also interesting to speculate. Had we understood fully just how fragile that situation was and just how shallow the commitment to a peace deal was, [that] raises a serious question about whether we would have agreed to the deployment of a peacekeeping force, because the premise was not valid; there would have been no peace to keep. There were other things that we could have done, like the kinds of things we were doing in Burundi at the time, and indeed which we continue to do today. But it would have been a very different approach from deploying a peacekeeping force.

Dallaire says he was furious. He still feels now the international community, and the U.N. in particular, was falling into a trap.

I have to say when I left my meeting with Kagame in Kampala, I was having some of the same doubts. I mean, he made a very forceful case as to why [the extremist Hutus] should not be allowed in any government, and it was hard frankly to disagree with him. [But] I don't know if other things hadn't intervened when I got back to Washington [that I] would have raised this question and said, "We need to revisit this." I think I might have precisely because Kagame and his colleagues had made such a strong case as to as to why these were folks not to be trusted.

But he pressed this particular issue.

meeting precisely to say, "Why can't you do this? Because we want to get on with the peace process." Yes, in that sense, you're right -- we were very heavily invested in this, and he was quite firm in saying, "Sorry, this is not one that is in our interest to do."

You got a sense that he was not going to budge?

That's certainly the sense I came away with after our meetings in Kampala, [Uganda]. … I came away with the feeling that maybe this wasn't such a good deal and maybe we've got to revisit this. But again, there was never an opportunity to actually follow up on that thought.

Does that make you question the advice you were getting?

I think we couldn't have had a better team there, and I think all of us -- that certainly includes our U.S. team, and I think everybody else -- and a lot of folks who had a lot closer experience, more knowledge of Rwanda than we did, failed to see that lesson as well -- the French, the Belgians, the U.N. folks and others. What can I say? I can't fault them for what they were trying to do at the time.

Some Rwandans have raised questions about Ambassador [David] Rawson's objectivity. Do you want to address that?

I really have never had any reason to question his objectivity. I think what David admits to is what we all admit to. So there were things going on that we did not give due consideration and weight to; that to the extent that we interpreted or tried to analyze those events, we all saw that as an aspect of the effort we were making on the peace process; and that, if you could only get the peace process done, then you would have, number one, a U.N. presence there, [and] you'd have the wherewithal to support what we thought was a genuine government commitment to dealing with these issues. You'd have been in a very different situation. Again, in retrospect, we were wrong; a lot of other people were wrong too.

So you found out about the plane [carrying the Rwandan and Burundian presidents] being shot down while you were stopping over in Cairo? … What was going through your mind?

Well, a lot of things-- … Should I stay in the region, should I go to Paris or Brussels, or should I come home? Eventually we all agreed that it'd be better for me to come back to Washington. But she was quite aware of the potential consequences here and what might follow, and so we knew we had a serious problem, even [on] the morning of April 7.

Not genocide?

No. But clearly … with all the other forces at play in Kigali, and many which we knew were not supportive of the peace process, any number of things could happen as a result of that.

What was your gut feeling about what the RPF would do?

The concern I think was that the RPF might see [the plane crash] as an effort to sabotage the peace process and therefore say, "OK, well, we'll go back to plan A," which … [was to] get there by force.

Take Kigali by force?

[That] is what they decided to do -- and did.

The Americans' decision to evacuate [Rwanda]-- How did that come about?

I don't even know if it was a decision. It was understood that, given what had happened that day, we would be crazy to leave our people exposed in Kigali. My sense is that it was understood the first thing we were going to have to do was get folks out of there.

But U.S. embassies stay open in chaotic situations sometimes.

… We had a situation where, as Joyce Leader I'm sure described in gory detail, the prime minister lived right next door to her. [On the day she was killed, the prime minister] crossed over the wall into Leader's compound for shelter, was not able to do so, went [to] another U.N. compound somewhere in the neighborhood, and eventually was caught there and killed there. [Unidentified enemy] troops actually broke into Joyce's house and actually fired up into the ceiling, as I recall, because they thought that there might be people hiding up in there, [as in] Belgian troops.

If these guys are wandering around and have the audacity and the ruthlessness to lynch [the prime minister and] 10 Belgian troops [who were protecting the prime minister], what assurances do we have that our people are going to be safe in that situation? So I think it was a foregone conclusion for us that this was just not a situation where we had sufficient confidence. We were [not] going to leave our people exposed and on the ground, and the only question was, how do you get them out [of] there? Ultimately, as you know, they went overland to Burundi, [and] there was a lot of debate about that [and] about how to do it. But I don't think there was any question about whether to do it. …

Closing the embassy-- Would that decision be made at the secretary level?

I'm sure it was eventually signed off by the secretary. …

I'm not clear whether it was a top-down--?

No, I don't think so. I think it was understood by us that we did not wish to leave our people in that situation. We were not going to do it if we can figure out how to do it, and the only question was what's the best way to do this. One of the great debates at the time was whether or not we should pre-position U.S. forces in Burundi as part of an effort to evacuate them. The concern was that the situation in Burundi was so fragile that the mere presence of U.S. forces could trigger something there. That's how bad the situation in Burundi was. Eventually I think we did at least get the authorization to do that, but ultimately, happily it was not necessary. We didn't need to use those forces. …

So you were hearing reports from Joyce and others [once you're back in Washington.] It must have been pretty horrific.

Yes. Joyce's situation in particular, I think, got everybody's attention. …

Was it the right thing to do [for the U.S. to begin pulling out]?

I believe that it was, because I think otherwise we could well have seen-- I mean, if there is no respect for the lives of peacekeepers, there was no assurance whatsoever that, simply by virtue of the fact that we were American people, [the killers] were going to leave us alone.

Were you aware of a request by [U.S. Embassy Officer] Laura Lane and others there to stay?

Yes, I do recall there was the notion that, yes, maybe we could stay behind; maybe we could do something. But then you have to say, "With what do you create a safe haven?" If the Belgian troops could not defend and protect the prime minister from a ruthless attack, what were unarmed Americans bearing a flag going to do?

On the political level, the deadline to sort things out or else the RPF were going to start fighting again-- Was that communicated to you?

I don't know how we learned that [the RPF would fight the Interahamwe], but it was not a surprise. … Once this killing started, once there was a threat to the RPF contingent in Kigali … you had the two parts of this problem. You had the problem of the confrontation between the government and the RPF, and [you had] the internal problem [of the Interahamwe killing the Tutsis].

But they fed each other. One of the things clearly that was feeding the paranoia and the demagoguery of the Hutu extremists was the prospect that the Tutsis and the RPF were going to be in Kigali, whether by force or peacefully. So once the killings started, the RPF were bound and determined that they were going to do everything in their power to get to Kigali to try to save their people.

That is why -- and I think rightly -- we continued to talk about [brokering] a cease-fire, because [as] long as that pressure was coming from outside, the feeling was that [we] were feeding the paranoia and the totally unjustified reactions on the part of Hutu extremists inside the country. To a certain extent, that's true. But I can't fault Kagame for doing what he was doing. He was doing what he felt was absolutely necessary to try to save some of his people. …

What was the impact [of this escalating situation on the U.N. troops]?

It, more than anything else, brought home the fact that this was not the situation that we thought we were going to be dealing with. We thought this whole thing was premised on a political agreement [and] a commitment on both sides to respect that agreement. … What folks signed up [for] was a peacekeeping operation in a "permissive environment," where you had parties who were committed to working with you to maintain that peace, and that clearly was no longer the case. That event, more than anything else, illustrated it.

Now, again, the famous Dallaire message -- which I don't recall seeing -- said one of the things that the extremists intend to do is to attack the Belgians, precisely to precipitate their departure and the collapse of the whole process. But even if I'd known that, I'm not sure it would have changed anything. The fact of the matter is they attacked these guys; they killed them ruthlessly, and if they were prepared to do it once, was anybody prepared to offer an assurance that it would not happen again? The fact is that that incident changed the entire calculation about what kind of a situation we were in and what kind of forces we were up against.

That led to the position that the U.S. took about withdrawing?

Indeed.

Where did that instruction come from?

It came from Washington. I'm sure that that's the kind of thing that somebody senior had to sign off on. But, anyway, I had a very good working relationship with the Belgian Foreign Minister at the time, again because we spent a lot of time talking about [a problem in] Zaire. I recall in that period having a conversation with him [on the] telephone. It's very hard following that incident to look him in the eye in a manner of words and say, "You have an obligation to keep your forces there on the ground, notwithstanding the danger they find themselves in."

If you think back a few months about what happened to our troops in Mogadishu, I certainly was not one to argue that the Belgians should be pressed or obliged to stay in Kigali and Rwanda in a situation that they just frankly had not signed up for. So there's a different aspect to that in the question of, should there have been a suggestion or call for all the troops then to leave, or should we simply have said, "All right, fine, Belgium, if you want to go-- ." But quite clearly the Belgians wanted to have a cover of having others leave as well, and we yielded to that request. In retrospect, I wonder if that was the right thing to do.

Did they ask for that?

My recollection is that they wanted us to support a request for the complete withdrawal, so that they would not be alone in withdrawing their troops from Rwanda.

How was that requested?

The decisive conversation was probably a conversation [involving Secretary of State] Warren Christopher.

The Security Council-- There was an effort to try to do something.

There was an effort to walk it back almost immediately. Dallaire was sending in messages saying, "We can't do this. We can't abandon people who are looking to us to help protect them, and we can't just pull out and run." So eventually the compromise was that he was allowed to retain about 260, 270 troops.

But people were certainly aware of the implications both ways, the implications of pulling people out as well as the implications of leaving people there. [The] implications of leaving people there were you were leaving a bunch of very lightly armed troops exposed to God knew what. The pure implications of pulling people out were that you were leaving a whole bunch of people in the lurch, although as a practical matter people were rightly questioning, what could this force do to prevent the catastrophe that everybody, by that time, saw coming?

What were you advising [to Warren Christopher]?

We were counseling the secretary not to oppose the Belgian request to get the hell out of there. We knew what the implications of that would be. I was not the only voice in here, but I certainly didn't feel that we were in a position to demand the Belgians keep their forces there after what happened.

Once the magnitude of what was going on became clear, once Dallaire made clear his view that he could stay there, that the risks from his perspective were tolerable, and that [they had] a sense that in various ways they could make a difference, they did [stay there], although there were some terrible tragedies there where people looked to the U.N. for protection and didn't find it.

Again, it's the problem of putting people in impossible situations. But once that realization set in, there were certainly many on my team who said, "Look, we've got to figure out some kind of response to this, and we need to figure out a way to try to bolster the U.N. presence in Rwanda." … That was the voice from my bureau, although it was a difficult case to make.

An effort to hatch some kind of African force-- Some people have mentioned it was the images of bodies floating down the river.

…My wife accompanied John Shattuck when John went out to Burundi, mainly, but they also flew over the river and looked down. That was an image that got a lot of people's attention. … The Africans were rightly saying, "We don't understand why there isn't more of a reaction and more of a response to this." I think that was some of the conversation that we had in South Africa when the vice president was there. …

[But what about] this effort to get an African force?

I think the government -- as governments are -- was somewhat divided. But the fact was, we had Africans telling us that they were prepared to do this, and that there were a number of us who felt if they're prepared to do this, then let's support them. Dallaire, by that time, had shown that he could be there and do some things, and that he was not as concerned as [we] were about his security or survivability.

I recall having conversations during that period with [Ghanaian President] Jerry Rawlings, and the Ghanaians were one of the first to step forward and say they'd be prepared to send troops. Their troops are very good, and certainly were at the time. Then we got into long haggles about how we were going to prepare them and equip them and the [Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs)] and a lot of other things, which was one of the most shameful moments in this whole process. But nevertheless, I think the fact that you had Africans questioning why their response was [not] more vigorous, that you had Africans wanting to step forward that in those circumstances-- It only made sense to try to do what we could to facilitate their ability to make a difference in that situation.

Vice President Gore presented -- what?

I don't recall. I'm not sure whether we initiated this conversation, or whether the South Africans initiated the conversation, or whether it was one of those things that mutually we all knew that there was this disaster going on, and [we wondered] what could we do about it. The question was, if there are African forces there willing to do this, would you support their going in? Again, the details of that conversation, I don't pretend right now to recollect.

Why wasn't there an African force?

I think the elements simply weren't there; they just hadn't come together. These were going to be decisions of every individual African government. It wasn't for the South Africans to make the decision that they were going to [put together a force for all of Africa]. …

It wasn't just the U.S. that didn't want to send troops?

… I think anybody looking at the situation would have to ask, "Is this a situation that I want to put my people in?" So there was no great rush here. Early on, there was a concern, because the Tanzanians said that they were going to go in and take care of this. Well, we all thought frankly the Tanzanians seriously overestimated their own capabilities and underestimated the situation they would be getting themselves into. So we were actively discouraging them from doing what had been a sort of unilateral intervention. …

[But] we didn't have a long list of takers for this mission. … [Then] it took an awful long time to eventually assemble the forces, African and other[wise]. … One of the things it says is many of these militaries -- not only in Africa but elsewhere -- however willing they may be, they are not equipped, trained, prepared to move into that kind of a situation. …

It was made very clear to Dallaire [that] the RPF was not going to support an intervention force?

There was the discussion about whether, if you deployed troops into Kigali, you could find ways to have them fan out and either rescue people or bring them into safe centers. Then [there was] the counterproposal, which you are well aware of -- to do it along the borders and set up safe havens -- which eventually went nowhere. The RPF concern was that, whatever the intention was, the practical effect of inserting a force into Rwanda would be to get in their way and, at the same time, not to be in a position to afford any meaningful assistance to the people who were being slaughtered. …

In May, there was a new U.N. resolution including an arms embargo on the whole country, including the RPF. What's the thinking behind that?

I think it was the same logic. We were focusing on the whole peace process here. [There was] the concern that, somehow or other, you needed to constrain the actions on both sides. There were a lot of people at the time who thought the arms embargo was kind of a meaningless thing, that it would have little, if any, impact on the ground, because the people who were carrying out [the] slaughter on the one side either had all the arms they needed, or weren't conducting the massacres in that way. Second, the RPF was not seriously going to be affected by anything we might do at the Security Council. It sort of fell into the category of, what can you do? Well, you can impose an arms embargo. …

Let me just ask you now about this term "genocide."

Let me just ask you now about this term "genocide." …

… I do recall an awful lot of debate and discussion in the department about when and under what circumstances we could say that genocide was taking place in Rwanda. I think one of the most shameful failures that certainly rises right to the top -- the fact that it took us so long to come to what should have been a fairly obvious conclusion. I understand all the concerns, and many of us are not lawyers. We don't walk around with copies of the Genocide Convention in our pockets, and most of us were coming to it for the very first time. But, nevertheless, I think the fact that we dithered and were not able to make that determination was one of the shameful features of our handling of the Rwandan situation. …

So why didn't you say it?

Because of this tortured debate, first and foremost, over the facts, and secondly, over what obligations might flow [from there]. There was concern. It is ludicrous, in retrospect, that the discussion was about how might we be viewed if we declared that there is genocide and then we are not in a position -- not ready, or willing, or able -- to do anything about it. The fact of the matter was it was there, and the fact that we didn't say so was already tarnishing our credibility and our capacity to do something about it. …

You used the word "shameful" about the APCs.

Yes, because we spent so much time wrangling about who was going to pay for them, who was going to pay for refurbishing them, who was going to transport them, who was going to pay for the transport, [and] who was going to pay for the training of the Ghanaians so that they could use them. Again, it's sort of bureaucracy at its very worst, and at our level, we couldn't break through that. Somebody else would have had to intervene to say, "This is nonsense. Get on with it. Do it."

And that was coming from -- where?

It's coming from our colleagues at the Pentagon, and it's what they are paid to do. They are paid to say, "All right, who's going to sign on the dotted line?" as to the cost of all these items. Some of us argued that we'd already paid for them, because they would have gone to Somalia in the first place, as I recall. I can't remember where they were coming from.

But the point is that it's the kind of bureaucratic gridlock that often happens. But in this situation, [it] shouldn't have been allowed to happen. Something, somebody should have stepped in to say that this issue was far too important, "We'll worry about the cost later." But we weren't in a position to do that.

You talked to the guys at the Pentagon and they said, "Look, this is what we're paid to do."

Exactly. I'm not faulting them. They were doing exactly what they were paid to do. It's not for them to say, "We're going to waive all of these conditions." They've got rules and regulations that [they] have to apply. Somebody else would have had to [make changes].

Somebody else, being--?

Somebody else higher up, either in their hierarchy or at the White House.

What was the message coming from higher up?

Well, I don't know. I think I can fault myself here and say perhaps we should have been more aggressive in making sure this issue should have got bucked up to the higher-ups, and perhaps forced a resolution or decision. But as I said, this was allowed to go on far longer than it should have or needed to before getting resolved.

… There's the working group, and I know Bushnell was deeply involved in that. … She said [they] had a lot of meetings. But I now realize that the number of meetings that [they] had, and the level at which they were being held was an indication that nothing was really--

I think I would have to agree with her. Again, certainly there were things we should have done to say that this needs to be bucked up to another level, that it needs to be considered by the so-called "deputies committee" meetings at the NSC, if not by the principals themselves. My recollection is that the occasions on which it was discussed at the deputies [committee], it was not the main event. It was done as part of discussion of other truly pressing issues. But, again, in retrospect, there were things that we, at my level, could and should have done to say, "We need help. We need some guidance, direction and decision, and somebody to break the bureaucratic logjam."

Did you discuss Rwanda with Secretary [Christopher]?

I can certainly recall a couple of conversations on the genocide issue with [the] secretary in his office, but my memories of 10 years ago are not easy to recollect. Certainly it was the subject at [Deputy Secretary of State] Strobe [Talbott's] morning meetings whenever I was there or whenever Pru was there. Almost inevitably, the subject of Rwanda would come up.

So it was there. We were constantly updating people. We were letting people know where we were, what we were dealing with, what issues we were wrestling with. It's not as though it didn't get raised or-- But I think again, there were probably ways in which we could have raised it more pointedly and more aggressively in order to say, "We really need help in resolving some of these issues."

I mean, the other truly shameful episode was the whole failure to do anything about Radio Mille Collines, [the radio station inciting the violence]. When I think back upon it, those are the three things that come to mind. It was the decision on whether to call it genocide. It was the Mille Collines radio decision, which [was] truly atrocious that we weren't able to do something because of some legal nicety about international radio conventions. Then, the APC thing [was] sort of emblematic, symptomatic of the difficulties we were having in doing what we said we wanted to do -- namely, be supportive of those countries that were prepared to commit to this operation.

Just how engaged were Talbott and Bushnell in Rwanda?

I would have to say, in honesty, not deeply engaged. I wouldn't say they were holding themselves aloof. Certainly that's not Strobe's style. It's not his inclination. I'm sure he probably said to me, and to Pru and others, "If you need my help, come and see me." Perhaps we weren't as aggressive in pursuing that invitation as we should have been.

And the secretary?

Less involved, although he certainly was involved in this whole discussion on the genocide issue, as he would be, given his legal background. …

One theory I've heard is that people at the highest levels … allowed this issue to be dealt with at [the] Pru Bushnell, [the president's adviser for Africa] Donald Steinberg level, precisely because they didn't want to get involved.

Perhaps. But again, in fairness, I think one has to sit back and look at what the landscape looked like at that time. I don't exactly know where we were on Haiti, but it wasn't a good place. I know exactly where we were in [the former Yugoslavia], but it wasn't a very good place. There were a lot of things that certainly deserved as much attention, if not more attention than Rwanda.

How about you personally? How involved were you?

Involved. Certainly involved. But I was involved in several other things, as well. I was back in South Africa in May. I was there in April as part of an observer mission in the run-up to the elections [and] back again for the inauguration. We were very heavily invested in South Africa, and I think for good reason.

Were you in Rwanda, in particular, during the genocide?

I have recollections of going to Rwanda, certainly [of] meeting with Kagame after he was there. [I] probably would have been [there in] early July. Don't hold me to that date. But certainly I was involved. But Pru, again, [and I had] an understanding we had a division of labor and a division of responsibilities. Pru had Rwanda, for better or worse.

She says one of her regrets is she didn't buck her chain of command.

Yes. I think all of us felt that one. We probably should have tried harder.

Take more risks?

And [took] more risks.

What does it tell you about the institution, in the way the U.S. government [takes] risks? …

In some senses, we were taking risks in a lot of places. We were doing some risky things in a lot of places, and we were committing the U.S. government both in its name and in its resources to a lot of things -- in Liberia, in Angola, and lots of other places. I won't say the people were jumping all over us and telling us [what] not to do. But I think by the same token, everybody was very conscious of the fact that there was serious aversion -- not only in the administration, but in the Congress -- to what they saw as our growing, uncontrolled, unrestrained involvement in all kinds of things, all over the place.

Again, we had nine peace operations, just if you count the U.N. ones, going on simultaneously in 1994. Five of them were in Africa, and two of them weren't doing too well. So I think we were all extremely conscious of that reality, and almost certainly, in consequence, curbed our own expectations. …

The lessons that you take from this, personally and officially?

One of the lessons -- and I think it's a lesson that a lot of us learned during that period, although it's a lesson as time passes [that] maybe is less poignant, salient -- the first lesson is that there's a correlation between your instruments, your tools, and your willingness and your will to use them. One of the things that severely constrained us in Rwanda is we didn't have the tools. We didn't have a collection of ready, willing and able forces that could be deployed in a relatively short period of time to respond to this kind of crisis. Hence the effort to try and figure out how we could support [and] stand up African forces to do this. …

I know that some people viewed that as a way to avoid responsibly on the part of the United States, by saying, "We'll let the Africans take care of their problems," although I frankly do believe that, if in fact you had capable African forces in whom you had some confidence, [that] increased the likelihood that we would be going to go in with them in situations such as Rwanda.

But I'm not sure we've really learned that lesson. The U.N. report, the inquiry of 1999, came out with a whole list of recommendations. I think if you went back and looked at how well and how thoroughly those recommendations had been implemented, you would find we're probably not in much better shape today than we were back in 1994.

I do recall looking at the U.N. web site to see who had actually signed up to be part of those so-called rapid reaction, rapid deployment force, and I recall there were only two countries on that list. That's not the fault of the U.N. only. It's the fault of all of us, all the member states, because only if you've got member states who are not only supporting, but are actually willing to take the lead to do this will it happen. So I don't have the sense that there's any great enthusiasm in the current administration either for the effort to build the capacities of other troops.

And it was not just African. There were other things going on at the time in Europe, and elsewhere as well, or in the capacity of the United Nations either to manage or organize these kinds of operations. I guess -- back to the other point -- I have personally been very wary of invoking that expression "Never again," because to do so implies that you have changed something; you have done something; you've created something -- a modality, a mechanism, an instrument -- that will allow you credibly to say that, "We will not allow this to happen ever again." And I don't think we're there.

But the other part of this -- and this is a more difficult one for me, and I've thought about this a lot … I'm not really sure that we have in fact learned, or internalized or acted on the lessons of what in fact we would need to do in order to at least be in a better position to deal with something like Rwanda in the future. I'm not sure that, were we confronted with a similar situation today, that we would be any better prepared to respond to it, let alone prevent it, than we were back in 1994.

But there's another part of that which I've wrestled with, and that is the other aspect of "Never again" is that you have some understanding of why what happened in Rwanda happened. I haven't read all the literature, but nothing that I've read to date has helped me to understand how it was possible for people who had lived with each other, who were neighbors, who had intermarried, to systematically go about the destruction of an entire ethnic group.

We could even debate whether in fact it is a separate ethnic group, given the history. It's not comparable to the Holocaust of Nazi Germany. It's not comparable to Cambodia, where you had governments and government instrumentalities both instigating but also actually carrying this out. In this case, you had people who, admittedly, had been manipulated and provoked into actions. But still, these were neighbors killing neighbors.

I do recall, for example, reading some of the most chilling accounts. One I recall very well [was] of a man who stood by -- had no choice but to stand by -- as his own relatives came in and killed his wife, who was a Tutsi, but he was powerless to stop that from happening. In another situation, a woman was set upon her neighbor and her neighbor's children with a machete, while she carried her own child on her back.

It's very hard to understand what kind of a psychosis there is that makes it possible for people to behave in that way. I think that until, and unless, we have some understanding of what happened, it's very hard to say that we know how to prevent it from happening it again, or even recognizing it when we see it again.

I do think one of the major problems we had in Rwanda was -- for me, certainly -- an inability to imagine that what happened was possible -- that you could actually see nearly a million people massacred, not by some military machine, but by neighbors killing neighbors, and to have it happen in the space of three months.

So that's a far more difficult lesson, I think. Again, from my own perspective, until one can better understand and explain what happened there, it's very hard to say, "We are in a position to ensure that it's not going to happen again."

Does that mean that once it began, there really there was little the outside world could do to stop it?

I think frankly that our major mistakes were the mistakes we made before it started. Had we recognized better, had we understood better, had we analyzed more correctly what was going on beforehand, we might have been able to make a difference. By April 6, I think we were severely limited in what we could have done to actually preventing this from going the way it went.

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

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Re: Ensuring ICTR Prosecutions for RPF War Crimes

June 1, 2009

Mr. Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General
United Nations
New York, NY 10017

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Prime Minister Gordon Brown
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA

Dear Secretary General, President, and Prime Minister,

We the undersigned scholars and human rights defenders are writing to express our grave concern at the ongoing failure of Prosecutor Hassan Jallow to fulfil the mandate of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) by bringing indictments against those soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) who committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rwanda in 1994.

While we commend the ICTR for vigorously prosecuting numerous perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, we are deeply concerned that the failure to indict a single RPF soldier for killing civilians causes the Tribunal to be dismissed as “victor’s justice,” sets a dangerous precedent for future international prosecutions, and undermines efforts at achieving peace, security, and reconciliation in Rwanda and the Great Lakes region as a whole.

We certainly recognize that the RPF’s crimes against humanity and war crimes are not comparable to the genocide, either in scope or intent. Yet, that is no argument for granting impunity for those crimes. As Alison Des Forges, the historian and human rights defender, eloquently wrote before her untimely death earlier this year:

To insist on the right to justice for all victims, as did the [1994] UN Commission of Experts, is not to deny the genocide, nor does such an insistence equate war crimes with genocide; it simply asserts that all victims, regardless of their affiliation, regardless of the nature of the crime committed against them, and regardless of the affiliation of the perpetrator, must have equal opportunity to seek redress for the wrongs done them.

Indeed, today’s international war crimes tribunals, unlike their predecessors at Nuremberg and Tokyo, are founded on the principle of even-handed justice for all victims of serious violations of international humanitarian law.

The UN has repeatedly insisted on impartial justice for all international crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994. According to experts working for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, RPF soldiers killed an estimated 25,000 to 45,000 civilians in 1994. A UN Commission of Experts, set up by the UN Security Council in 1994, “strongly recommend[ed]” prosecuting the perpetrators of those crimes. Following that recommendation, the Security Council established the ICTR with a clear mandate to prosecute not only the génocidaires, but also those responsible for “other serious violations of international humanitarian law” in order to achieve both justice and “national reconciliation.” The Security Council reaffirmed this commitment to impartial justice with Resolutions in 2003 and 2004 that called “on all States, especially Rwanda . . . to intensify cooperation with and render all necessary assistance to the ICTR, including on investigations of the Rwandan Patriotic Army . . . .”

Prosecutor Jallow’s evident reluctance to prosecute RPF crimes is clearly the result of intimidation and obstructionism by the RPF, which now rules Rwanda. Several years ago, after the Prosecutor’s predecessor announced a timetable for issuing RPF indictments, the Rwandan government brought the ICTR to a grinding halt by preventing prosecution witnesses from travelling to the Tribunal to testify in genocide trials. That action blatantly violated Rwanda’s legal obligation to cooperate with the ICTR, directly defied the Security Council, and strongly suggested that the RPF-led government puts impunity for RPF crimes ahead of justice for the genocide.

By capitulating to this continuing threat of non-cooperation, Prosecutor Jallow has severely compromised his prosecutorial independence and the Tribunal’s integrity. Indeed, the ICTR’s one-sided justice stands in sharp contrast to the impartial justice achieved by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which have resolutely prosecuted all sides of those conflicts.

Last year, Prosecutor Jallow ceded the Tribunal’s primacy over RPF crimes by striking a deal with the RPF-led government whereby they would try four RPF officers for the notorious June 5, 1994 massacre of the Catholic Archbishop of Kigali, three bishops, nine clergy, and two other civilians who had been taken into the RPF’s supposedly protective custody. Flawed proceedings resulted in five-year prison sentences for two lower-ranking officers (who confessed to the killings) and acquittals for the two commanding officers.

This domestic case was a completely inappropriate substitute for ICTR prosecutions. For the past 15 years, the RPF-led government has shown that it is neither willing nor able to deliver justice for such politically sensitive crimes. First, the RPF never prosecuted any of its soldiers for war crimes in 1994 until this 2008 case. Second, the two acquittals and two light sentences handed down in this case do not reflect the gravity of the crimes committed. Third, in the past year, several ICTR trial chambers, the ICTR appeals chamber, and England’s High Court of Justice have ruled that Rwanda cannot even provide fair trials in high-profile genocide cases. The English High Court, in particular, expressed serious concerns about the Rwandan judiciary’s independence and impartiality.

Prosecutor Jallow promised to assess the Rwandan proceedings and reassert jurisdiction over the case if they did not meet international standards. Although the appeal process concluded in late February, Prosecutor Jallow has remained silent on the integrity of Rwanda’s RPF trial. He should take back jurisdiction over that case.

In conclusion, we call on you to ensure that the ICTR prosecutes RPF crimes. This issue should be raised when Prosecutor Jallow addresses the United Nations Security Council about his completion strategy on June 4, 2009. Under the current strategy, the ICTR is supposed to complete all trials in 2009 and all appeals in 2011. Unless the Prosecutor acts swiftly, the ICTR will squander not only its last chance to provide accountability for those serious crimes, but also its legitimacy.

cc:

Patricia O’Brien, Under-Secretary-General, The Legal Counsel, Office of Legal Affairs
Judge Charles Michael Dennis Byron, President, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Prosecutor Hassan Jallow, Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State
Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa
HE Dr. Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations
HE Clint Williamson, US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues
Michelle Gavin, Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council
James B. Donovan, Deputy Legal Adviser, United States Mission to the United Nations

David Miliband, UK Foreign Secretary
Lord Malloch-Brown, Minister with responsibility for Africa in the Foreign Office
Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development
HE Sir John Sawers, UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Cathy Adams, Legal Counsellor, United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations

Signatories

Professor Erin Baines, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Elizabeth Barad
Larissa Begley, University of Sussex, UK
Professor David Black, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
Professor Stephen Brown, University of Ottawa
Professor Anuradha Chakravarty, University of South Carolina
Professor Christina Clark-Kazak, York University, Toronto, Canada
Professor Roger Des Forges, University at Buffalo
Professor Nigel Eltringham, University of Sussex
Conor Foley, International housing, land and property rights expert
Professor Paul Gready, Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York
Professor Sarah Freedman, University of California at Berkeley
Dr. Ann Griffiths, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
Aloys Habimana, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Professor Rhoda Howard-Hassman, FRSC, Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights, Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada
Chris Huggins, Specialist, Conflicts over Land and Natural Resources Rights
Catharine Jenkins, Chair, Centre for Law & Conflict, SOAS, London
Professor Emeritus René Lemarchand, University of Florida
Professor Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Princeton University
Professor Timothy Longman, Director, African Studies Center, Boston University
Dr. J. Paul Martin, Director, Human Rights Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University
Constance Morrill, Human rights advocate
Professor Rosemary Nagy, Nipissing University, Thunder Bay, Canada
Professor Catharine Newbury, Smith College
Professor David Newbury, Smith College
Dr. Scott Newton, School of Law, SOAS
Professor Victor Peskin, School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University
Tiamoyo Peterson, M.A., University of California, Irvine, USA
Professor Vern Neufeld Redekop, Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada
Dr. Luc Reydams, University of Notre Dame
Professor Filip Reyntjens, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Samantha A. Smith, University of California, Irvine, USA
Professor Chandra Lekha Sriram, Director, Centre on Human Rights in Conflict, University of East London
Karen Stauss, Former Human Rights Watch researcher for the Democratic Republic of Congo
Professor Scott Straus, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Tony Tate, Former Human Rights Watch researcher for Burundi
Carina Tertsakian, Former Amnesty International researcher on Rwanda
Dr. Susan Thomson, University of Ottawa, Canada
Alana Tiemessen, PhD Candidate, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Professor Kathryn Trevenen, Institute of Women's Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada
Noel Twagiramungu, Tufts University
Professor Jan Vansina, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Michele D. Wagner, former professor, University of Minnesota
Lars Waldorf, Director, Centre for International Human Rights, University of London
Peter Webster
Professor Harvey M. Weinstein, University of California at Berkeley
Professor Richard A. Wilson, Director, Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut
Eugenia Zorbas, Former staff, UNHCR-Rwanda

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

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Amnesty report 2009 (Rwanda)Thursday, May 28, 2009 9:20 PM

Rwanda

Head of state Paul Kagame
Head of government Bernard Makuza
Death penalty abolitionist for all crimes
Population 10 million

***

The government continued to reform the judicial system, but the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania declined to transfer cases to Rwanda, citing fair trial concerns, especially protection of witnesses. Legislative elections reaffirmed the political dominance of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the ruling political party. Freedom of expression was limited and ci

vil society and the media were under close scrutiny by the government. Four former combatants of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), the armed wing of the political movement, were tried for murder in a military court. No other charges were brought against members of the RPA for crimes under international law committed before, during and after the genocide.

Background

The RPF continued to dominate all levels of political life in Rwanda, from the executive down to the local administration.

The government reacted with hostility to criticism. Donor governments were locked into a close relationship with the Rwandan authorities and did not for the most part challenge or criticize them openly, preferring a policy of soft diplomacy. Governments were however critical when a UN report found that Rwanda was supporting a rebel group in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, leading to a withdrawal of aid from the Netherlands and Sweden in December.

Significant economic growth was reported by the government in 2008. Donor governments provided considerable support; one development agency estimated that approximately 50 per cent of the national budget came from foreign aid. The same agency reported an overall reduction in poverty, including improvements in health and education. However, despite this overall reduction, the poor remained marginalized and inequalities between the urban elite and the rural poor reportedly grew.

Kigali showed signs of rapid urbanization, following the expropriation of land for urban reconstruction. Some Kigali residents complained that they had received inadequate compensation.

The National Assembly amended the Constitution to give former Presidents immunity from prosecution for life, including for crimes under international law. Another amendment reduced judge’s tenure of office from life to four years, potentially compromising the independence of the judiciary.

Legislative elections in September were monitored by the EU Election Observation Mission to Rwanda, whose preliminary findings noted a lack of real political debate during the pre-election period and certain irregularities. The two main opposition parties, the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, were allied to the RPF. Local election monitors stated that the voter turn-out of 98 per cent was indicative of coercion. They also stated that local results consistently gave the RPF well over 95 per cent, and that consolidated national results giving the RPF 78.9 per cent were deliberately lowered to lend the elections greater credibility.

"War crimes and crimes against humanity committed during and after the genocide remained largely unprosecuted. "

The report of the Mucyo Commission, set up in 2006 by the Rwandan government to investigate the role of France in the 1994 genocide, was published on 5 August 2008. The report alleged the involvement of 33 current and former French political and military figures in the genocide. The Prosecutor General stated on 15 November that the authorities were ready to indict 23 of those named.

The Mucyo report followed an investigation instituted by a French judge into the shooting down in 1994 of a plane whose passengers included President Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda, President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi and three French nationals. The French judge issued international arrest warrants on 17 November 2006 against nine leading members of the RPF for shooting down the plane. Rose Kabuye, Chief of Protocol for President Kagame, was arrested on 9 November 2008 in Frankfurt, Germany. She was transferred to France and charged with “complicity in murder in relation to terrorism”.

Freedom of expression – the media

Freedom of expression remained severely limited. Journalists critical of the government were closely monitored by the authorities. Foreign journalists and Rwandan journalists working for foreign newspapers were prevented on several occasions from entering Rwanda or attending official events.

On 2 May, the editors of three newspapers were turned away from the World Media Celebration Day (a day to coincide with Press Freedom Day), by order of the Information Minister.

On 18 August, the Information Minister threatened to close the BBC and Voice of America broadcasts in national languages and accused the two broadcasters of lies and exaggeration.

Human rights defenders

Human rights work remained strictly controlled and limited by the government. There was little or no space for domestic human rights organizations critical of the government, and human rights defenders and other members of civil society generally applied self-censorship to avoid confrontation with the authorities.

Some election observers from a local NGO were prevented from carrying out their work by the authorities. The organization issued a public statement in September alleging that the election process was marred by irregularities.

Prisoner of conscience

Charles Ntakirutinka, a former government minister, remained in Kigali Central Prison, serving a 10-year sentence. He had been convicted, in an unfair trial, of inciting civil disobedience and association with criminal elements.

International justice

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

The ICTR was to

finish all first-instance trials by the end of 2008 and complete all work by 2010, according to UN Security Council Resolution 1503. This deadline became unfeasible, given the 28 detainees on trial and the nine accused awaiting trial. In July, the UN Security Council extended the terms of the Trial Chamber and its judges until 31 December 2009.

Four requests by the Rwandan Prosecutor General for cases to be transferred from the ICTR to Rwanda were rejected on the basis that the accused were at risk of being subjected to an unfair trial. The four decisions cited reports that defence witnesses inside and outside Rwanda risk being rejected by their community, mistreated, arrested, detained, beaten, tortured and in some cases killed. In this context, the presiding judges voiced concern that the accused would have limited ability to call defence witnesses to trial.

The 2007 transfer law abolished capital punishment and replaced it with life imprisonment in solitary confinement, commonly considered as a violation of Article 7 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. The ICTR decisions ruled that the application of life in solitary confinement as punishment would prevent the transfer of the cases to Rwanda. The Rwandan Parliament passed a law on 3 November to prohibit solitary confinement for transfer cases.

Criticism of universal jurisdiction

At the AU summit in June, President Kagame criticized abuse of the principles of universal jurisdiction in response to arrest warrants issued in France and Spain against leading RPF members. The AU summit called for an international regulatory body “to review and/or handle complaints or appeals arising out of abuse of the principle of universal jurisdiction” by states.

Genocide suspects living abroad

Judicial proceedings against genocide suspects took place in Belgium, Canada, France and the Netherlands. Extradition hearings against genocide suspects in Sweden, Germany and Norway were continuing. A genocide suspect was detained in Finland and it remained unclear whether he would be extradited to Rwanda. During the year, France refused an extradition request made by Rwanda. In the UK, the Home Secretary ruled that four genocide suspects in the UK should be extradited to Rwanda. The suspects all lodged appeals.

Justice system

At the end of December, Rwanda’s prisons contained 59,532 people. Of these, 37,277 people had been accused of genocide and 22,321 of other offences. Most pre-trial detainees were being held on ordinary criminal charges, not genocide-related charges.

The international community supported the government in reforms of the justice system, including training judicial staff, training the Rwandan Bar Association and developing information management systems for prisons.

Gacaca proceedings

In October, an estimated 10,000 category one cases were pending before gacaca courts, whose procedures fail to meet international standards of fair trial. Category one cases involve the planners, organizers, instigators and supervisors of the genocide. Of these, at least 6,000 were rape cases which were transferred to category one in May 2008.

Gacaca trials were reportedly marred by false accusations and corruption. In addition, defence witnesses were reluctant to come forward because they feared that the authorities would level false accusations against them.

On 21 January, a gacaca judge in Karana sector was accused of trying to bribe a prosecution witness. The case was at the appeal stage and the accused had been sentenced to 27 years’ imprisonment.

Impunity

War crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the RPF and RPA before, during and after the genocide remained largely unprosecuted.

In an isolated case, four former RPA officers were tried for the killing of 13 members of the Roman Catholic clergy in Kabgayi district in June 1994. The investigation was undertaken jointly by the Rwandan prosecution and the ICTR. On 24 October the Military Tribunal of Kigali sentenced two captains, who pleaded guilty, to eight years’ imprisonment. The other two were acquitted.

Law on ‘genocidal ideology’

A new law criminalizing “genocidal ideology”, whose terms are vague and ambiguous, was promulgated on 1 October. The offence is punishable by 10 to 25 years’ imprisonment. This law could potentially stifle freedom of expression, and restrict the ability of the accused to put forward a defence in criminal trials.

Rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people

The government was hostile towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, whose members faced harassment and intimidation. In March, two female LGBT activists were accused of forging documents and detained for two weeks after attending a LGBT conference in Mozambique. They were subsequently released.

The National Assembly was considering an amendment to the Penal Code which would criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relationships.

Beyond Ethnic Politics and Fear: Hutu, Tutsi, and Ethnicity in Rwanda

***
by Felicien Kanyamibwa, PhD.
New Jersey, USA, May 19, 2009.

***

INTRODUCTION

Fifteen years after the small nation of Rwanda experienced one of the worst tragedies of the modern history, the core problems remain unresolved. While most people, including Great Lakes Region experts, humanitarian and human rights organizations, diplomats, intelligence services, and Great Lakes region nationals agree on the social roots of the problems, they disagree on the
solutions.

The agreement that ethnic politics constitute the root of the problem remains widespread. Ethnic politics have set the stage for the tragedy to happen and have continued to profoundly shape the political landscape. Several propositions to resolve the conflict have been put forward. Unfortunately, these proposed solutions appear not based on clear specific, measurable, achievable, pragmatic and time-bound objectives.

Without such clearly defined objectives, the roads to durable solutions in the Great Lakes region, especially in Rwanda, may only lead nowhere. This lack of clear vision has lead to the multiple
invasions of the DRC by Rwanda and Uganda, the recent invasion of the DRC by Rwanda through proxy forces, and the combined military operations by the Rwandan Army, Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) and the congolese army, FARDC, against congolese militias, rwandan rebels, and rwandan refugees.

The world has been experimenting with Henry Kissinger’s theory that “If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there” and the Roman Empire narcissistic approach that “all roads lead to Rome”. The result of the chaotic approach to solving the problems of the Great Lakes region has been more chaos, massive losses of life, missed economic opportunities, and making the problem even more complex.

This memorandum goes from lessons learned from my own personal tragedy and attempts to propose an approach and find solutions to reach durable peace in the Great Lakes region. The memorandum proposes to look at the ways of the past without following the roads that led to failure. As the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho said: “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.” The experience of our predecessors can teach us what made them fail despite their honest vision.

They sought a peaceful and prosperous region, where ethnic groups will live harmoniously, while individuals would thrive, and the region would live in an economic integration. For that purpose, our Rwandan predecessors tried ethnic politics and failed: from the seeds of ethnic politics, Rwandans harvested unbearable suffering. It is the task for the current Rwandan leaders and the future generations to follow the legitimate aspirations of their predecessors, but track a different road: a road beyond ethnic politics and fear.

The memorandum describes the road as envisioned. The proposition in the memorandum maps four critical phases:

Recognize the fallacies behind the denial of ethnic identities;

Mobilize the Rwandan people for consensual democracy;

Aim for the full democracy, where platforms of ideas will transcend ethnic
identities;

Openness to the World, beginning with good neighborhood and regional
integration.

A DAY OF RECKONING

I can claim that my active interest in the Rwandan politics started on March 2, 1997. That date will remain forever engraved in my memory. In the morning of March 2, 1997 a company of Tutsi soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) army, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), encircled the villages and small towns of my origin, in Jenda, Cellule Kabatezi, Sector Nkuri, Prefecture Ruhengeri, Norwestern Rwanda.

They rounded up all Hutu men and young boys they could find, tied their arms in the back with sturdy ropes (also known as “Akandoya”, one of the torture methods in RPA arsenal) and led them into the mountains of Konoma, Rubare, and Runyanjya. Late that evening, women and a few men who by chance had escaped, heard heavy fusillades. When the fusillades ceased, the
RPA soldiers descended down the mountains and left the villages.

During the night, the surviving men, conquering their fear, went to the place where the fusillades took place. The macabre scene lit by the moon could only be equaled by episodes from the scariest horror movie. Torn apart bodies of young boys and men, old and not old, lay in pools of blood, some with arms tied in the back by sturdy ropes that had eaten away the flesh.

Unrecognizable and severed heads were smashed and lifeless bodies were riddled with bullets. Few of these surviving men, frozen by fear, had enough courage to burry some of the bodies before the sunrise. In the following morning the RPA troops came back with trucks and led terrified Hutu porters up in the mountains to carry the bodies and load them in waiting trucks. When the RPA troops could not find some of the bodies, they went on rampage, killing more Hutu men, torturing and executing women they suspected of knowing where the missing bodies
were buried.

The cleansing operations took several days. After the operations, only a few Hutu men and young boys from the villages of Jenda and the surroundings had escaped the pogrom. Several women and children, including infants, were massacred. Hutu men and young boys and women who were spared were because they either were mistaken for Tutsis or were hidden by
Tutsis.

On the single day of March 2, 1997, thousands of Hutu people were systematically massacred by Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) troops. My close family alone lost 57 people. These are 57 brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, nieces, uncles and aunts, and their wives, husbands or kids, who were killed by the RPA for one reason: being Hutu or suspected of being Hutu or Tutsi
associated with Hutus. However, even the most brutal regime cannot annihilate an entire clan. Several more brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, nieces, uncles, and aunts, along with their spouses or kids survived the pogrom. Some survived because they were Tutsis, or mistaken for Tutsis, others because of the flip side of the human wicked face: humanity.

This is how Human Rights Watch recounted these events in an report titled:

“Rwanda: the search for Security and Human Rights Abuses, published by Human Rights Watch on April 1, 2000: “In 1997, ex-FAR and Interahamwe who had returned from the Congo and who had strengthened their forces by recruiting inside Rwanda, conducted a major insurgency in the northwestern prefectures of Gisenyi and Ruhengeri. In suppressing this uprising, as in the first Congo war, RPA troops killed tens of thousands of unarmed civilians, a slaughter which Rwandan authorities sought to justify by their need for security.”

In that period of total darkness, a dim light shone and humanity prevailed in some cases. Some Tutsis conquered their fear and risked their lives to protect some of my surviving relatives against the murderous madness of their Tutsi brothers of the RPA. My Hutu relatives who survived that day owe their lives to these courageous and selfless Tutsis. When I contacted my surviving relatives they could not tell me the story: It was too painful to relate. It is from these
Tutsis that I came to know the tragic story of what happened in my village on that fateful day of March 2, 1997.

From those tragic moments, I retained the names of two individuals: the criminal commander of the Tutsi RPA company responsible for the ethnic cleansing, and one of the fearless and self-sacrificing Tutsis who stood guard in front of the shacks and caverns where some of my Hutu relatives hid for days. Sadly, RPA soldiers, when they learned that these Tutsis had protected my relatives, murdered some of them.

When I asked one of the Tutsis who saved my relatives why he did it, he simply answered: I am a Christian. I did what any good christian would do: “having the fear of God’s judgment and making amends by loving your neighbor as yourself.” He attempted to apologize on the behalf of the Tutsis but I stopped him. I explained that the horrendous crimes were not committed by Tutsis, but that criminals just happened to be Tutsis. I also gave him the example of Tutsis
relatives who were massacred in the same period.

FEARLESSNESS, A NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE OF TRUTH

The Tutsi’s answer reminded me of Gandhi’s vow of fearlessness: “When we fear God, we shall fear no man, no matter how high-placed he may be. And if you want to follow the vow of truth in any shape of form, fearlessness is the necessary consequence. And so you find, in the Bhagawad Gita, fearlessness is declared as the first essential quality of Brahmin. We fear consequences, and therefore we are afraid to tell the truth. A man who fears God will certainly not fear any earthly consequence.”
In the days following March 2, 1997 and after listening to the amazing story of the fearless Tutsis who stood guard in front of the hideout of my relatives and gave them the chance to live another day, I took two important decisions: first to honor the memory of my 57 relatives brutally murdered for their ethnicity on March 2, 1997 and second, as a tribute to the bravery and selflessness of the fearless Tutsis. These two decisions have followed me and guided my political engagement for the last 12 years:

1) I will tell the truth about the Rwandan tragedy
2) I will strive for fearlessness in pursuing the truth

These incidents happened when a number of Rwandan refugees living in the
United States of America, Europe, and Africa were busy building the human
rights organization, Organization for Peace Justice, and Development in Rwanda
(OPJDR) that we had co-created in 1995. As the Coordinator General of OPJDR,
I looked at the human rights organization as a launching pad and a platform for
fulfilling the vows I had made.

The OPJDR sought to actively and objectively create awareness about the situation in Rwanda. During an investigation on massacres committed in Eastern Rwanda, I received troubling reports regarding my relatives who had moved to and resettled in Rusumo region of Kibungo Prefecture and Mutara region of Byumba Prefecture in search of land and other economic opportunities.

I learned that when Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) resumed attacks on April 6, 1994, RPA troops quickly reached Gabiro and Kabarore. An uncle lived there and owned a prosperous small business in Kabarore, Mutara. The first day of the attacks, RPA troops captured the small town of Kabarore, rounded up all Hutu men, including my uncle, his sons, and neighbors and massacred them. My uncle’s wives and a few of his remaining children fled South-East to Rusumo to live with my other relatives, including uncles, aunts, cousins and their spouses and kids. The RPA troops caught up with them around the end of April - early May 1994.

A company of RPF soldiers massacred them and dumped their bodies into the Akagera river. It is believed their bodies were among those found hundreds of miles away in Lake Victoria and that I watched with horror on US TV floating and being recuperated and buried by Ugandans. Refugees International, working with UNHCR recounted the massacres in the May 17, 1994 SITREP by Mark Prutsalis transmitted to George Hogeman, Program Officer of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration at the U.S. Department of State:

“At Rusumo commune, sectors NYAMUGARI, GISENYI, NYARUBUYE, the RPF comes
at 05h00 waiting for villagers to open their doors. The villagers are caught and taken
away to the river by trucks. No one has returned. Refugees of the area have seen
people being tied together and thrown into the river…

Asked by UNHCR field officer refugees said that RPF did not care whether victims were hutu or tutsi villagers” In these Rusumo massacres, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) massacred
almost all my relatives who had migrated to Rusumo and Mutara, including 43 adults, and an unknown number of children. Only two young men are known to have escaped to Tanzania and are still alive.

The RPF government tried to deny the massacres and attacked the UNHCR in the “Statements on the Questions of Refugees and Security in Rwanda”, published on 25 September 1994 by Colonel Frank Mugambage from the Ministry of Defense and Claudine Nyinawumwami
Umutoni Deputy Minister for Rehabilitation and Social Welfare (MINIREISO): “At the height of the genocide in April-May this year the UNHCR officials dared to make a false report that RPF forces were responsible for the genocide…

The UNHCR accepted and widely publicized false reports by MRND-CDR militias in refugee camp in Ngara… UNHCR officials encouraged the people [from the zone Turquoise] to run to Zaire lest they be killed by the RPF forces when the French Forces left … UNHCR reported bodies (of HUTU) in Akagera river in early September purportedly as a result of Government atrocities. Following this, the President [Pasteur Bizimungu] made a week long verification tour in areas along the river and did not come across a single body in the river...

The above cases raise suspicions that UNHCR could be having other motives not yet known to us. Otherwise how does one explain their continued baseless and unfounded allegations up this day.”
From that time on, the UNHCR was intimidated and remained silent about the atrocities committed by the Rwandan government, to the point of declaring in the April 1997 report called “REFUGEE CAMP SECURITY IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION that: “The fatal accident which befell the President of Rwanda in April 1994 gave the signal for the start of a brutal genocide which was to last for several months and involve the massacre of several hundred thousand civilians,” when it was already public knowledge that President Juvenal Habyarimana’s
plane was shot down by a missile.

I fell sick when I learned about the massacres and dumping the bodies into Akagera river, including those of at least 43 of my relatives. As I remembered seeing on TV and in news papers and magazines the bloated bodies floating in the Akagera river, the hands tied in the back, and those being fished in the Lake Victoria I could only imagine the cruel death these Hutus and Tutsis suffered in the hands of an organization that claimed to liberate them and the country.
The denial by the RPF government officials was a sharp knife in a bleeding wound, a proof that a monster had inherited a den full of preys: the innocent Rwandan Hutu,Tutsi, and Twa alike.

The fact that RPF systematically massacred Hutus, Tutsis and Twas while claiming to stop the “genocide of Tutsis” showed an even more sinister side of the regime. I believed the RPF wanted to eradicate Hutus and Tutsis living alongside them in selected areas, so that the separation
between Hutus and Tutsis would be effective and any reconciliation and cohabitation would be doomed forever. This realization convinced me that remaining a mere activist would be equivalent to staying silent in the face of the worst evil.

Thus, I embarked on the second project towards reaching the goals I set for myself. I researched the circumstances of the assassination of the two Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi and their entourage. The research led to the publication in September 1999 of the “Memorandum on the Assassination of the President Habyarimana.”

These two experiments - launching OPJDR and the publication of the memorandum- taught me several things that I had long sensed, but never really pinpointed.

1) Ethnic politics were entrenched in our lives; we could not move forward before we face the sad reality heads-on;

2) Wherever I looked, and despite the tragedy that separated Rwandans, I found people who, though conscious of their ethnicity, sought ways to escape the entangling web of ethnic politics. Somehow these individuals aspired to be transported into a “neverland” where ethnic groups would have never existed, and the events that have plunged the Rwandan nation in an endless cycle of violence, retribution, fear, and bloodshed since 1990 were just a nightmare;

3) There were, and possibly will always be, some cliques of individuals who will seek to use ethnicity to reach their machiavellian goals at all cost including assuming the helm of the power.

CONQUERING ETHNIC POLITICS.

I realized that we can ignore ethnicity only to our own risk. At the same time I found genuine people who would see ethnic identity as a positive addition to the diversity of ideas, experiences, and enrichment in a nation that has always regarded peaceful coexistence as a major, if not the key source of resources and progress. This realization and finding led me to contemplate the third idea, and to engage on a path that would alter the course of my life forever.

My participation in the creation of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) lay within that approach. The co-founders of the FDLR believed that on both sides of the ethnic divide, there are forces of good that can mobilize the rest to sit at the table and debate their differences within a fraternal and constructive framework. The Inter-Rwandan Dialogue which constituted the backbone of the FDLR platform stemmed from this core belief, shared by the
initial members of the FDLR.

A few years later, a light shone on this idea with the birth of the “Alliance pour la Démocratie et la Reconciliation Nationale (ADRN-Igihango)”. ADRN-Igihango was an experiment, where Tutsis, who could no longer tolerate the cruelty, brutality and dictatorial methods of the ruling RPF, and Hutus, mostly refugees, met, debated, and proposed a platform for change: the Consensual Democracy.

The Consensual Democracy envisioned a democratic society where an effective representation and protection of all the components of the Rwandan society would be guaranteed. Meanwhile, it had became clear that some key leaders of the FDLR no longer had the vision of the founding members and favored political profiteering to the goals of rebuilding the society beyond ethnic politics. Several of the founders, including myself, and a large number of my companions of the struggle could no longer identify themselves with what had become of the FDLR. We decided to
pursue our vision and objectives outside the organization and leaders resigned from the FDLR in September 2004.

The ADRN-Igihango could not survive the departure of the leaders who had engineered the platform of inter-ethnic dialogue and consensual democracy. Despite its failure, the ADRN-Igihango experiment, remained a watershed in conquering ethnic politics.Along with other political leadership companions, the failure of ADRN-Igihango coincided with our resignation from the FDLR in September 2004.

However, the ADRN-Igihango experience left me with the following important lessons that would fuel my next political move:

1) Several Hutus and Tutsis share core aspirations for the creation of a democratic, yet diverse and plurastic society, where people’s voices will be heard, and truth and genuine participation will be given precedence over fear and ethnics politics;

2) Building a consensus around the idea of Consensual Democracy is an arduous enterprise, that requires a ground up approach of mobilizing the grassroots before diffusing innovative ideas slowly across the Rwandan social fabric;

3) Time is the best friend of success.
It is with this realization that I, working with other struggle companions that had resigned from the FDLR, embarked on a new initiative: the creation of the Rally for Unity and Democracy (RUD-Urunana). The principle behind the initiative remained the shared vision of consensual democracy, the constant dialogue among ethnic groups, the mobilization for a Rwandan nation united for the common purpose, while aiming for a sustained development and regional
integration to the benefit of all the components of the society.

The RUD experiment was unique, yet promising because of the existence of a team with a focused vision, a sense of common purpose, an idea that we could not afford to lose. An impetus was added when Tutsis brothers and sisters of the Rally for the Rwandan People (RPR), mostly ex-RPA, joined the Army National (AN-Imboneza), to protect Hutu refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The fact that hundreds of Tutsis troops who, a few months or years before were part of the RPA that sought to exterminate the Hutu refugees, had joined their former Hutus opponents to fight for a common good and just cause, while protecting Hutu refugees, was a first and a major step in the direction of the birth of a new Rwanda: a Rwanda with a political landscape void of ethnic politics. It was a major victory over ethnic politics and a significant blow to the clique of Hutus or Tutsis who promoted these politics. It was an awesome experience lived by fearless individuals, Hutus, Tutsis and Twas.

THE THREAT OF FEARLESSNESS TO ETHNIC POLITICS

The RUD/RPR experiment threatened those who sought to plant fear among Rwandan ethnics groups to better control them. The Tutsi-led Rwandan regime, whose ethnic politics is the root and the engine of its existence, felt particularly vulnerable. The Rwandan Intelligence and security services apparatus launched a terrorist campaign targeting all the Hutus and Tutsis suspected rightly or wrongly of being behind the RUD-RPR coalition initiative.

After dismissing the existence of RUD-Urunana/RPR on Voice of America (VOA), Mr. Richard Sezibera, then Rwandan President Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, suddenly made a volte-face. On March 17, 2006, Mr. Sezibera published in the Daily Monitor, one of the leading Ugandan newspapers, an article alleging that Rwandan dissidents in Kampala were preparing to wage a war against their homeland. He particularly singled out RUD-Urunana and RPR. His article showed that the Rwandan regime was clearly alarmed by pespectives of the collaboration among mostly Hutu and mostly Tutsi political organizations.

The article set off a chain of repressive actions by the Kigali regime. Mobilizing its full financial, diplomatic, and political machine, Kigali hunted down people across Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region suspected of supporting the two organizations. People were arrested and accused of all sorts of things: Tutsis were accused of being members of “Army of the Tutsi King”.

Already in September 2006, just after they learned of the collaboration between the RPR and RUD, Kigali government officials circulated a list to the Tripartite-Plus, on which the founders of the two political parties were included. On that list, the former RPA officer Major Gerard Ntashamaje, a Tutsi and the leader of RPR was included as a Hutu and a former ex-FAR.

Yet, Major Gerard Ntashamaje, whose father was a prominent Tutsi, government Minister, Supreme Court Judge, and Prosecutor under the previous regimes, was until 2000, an RPA soldier and RPF high ranking government official. On March 17, 2007, after the Rwandan Government exerted a heavy diplomatic pressure on the Ugandan Government, 10 people, including 9 Tutsis and 1 Hutu that were arrested in Uganda a few months earlier were handed over to the Rwandan intelligence services and accused of being RUD/RPR members.

The uneasiness of the Rwandan Government about the peaceful cohabitation between Hutu and Tutsis was clearly underlined by several independent observers. In an report published on April 1, 2000 and titled: “Rwanda: the search for Security and Human Rights Abuses,” Human Rights Watch observes:

“Between November 15 and 20, 1999 local authorities in Nyamirambo, a section of the capital city, Kigali, detained more than 200 young people on the charge of being part of the "army of the king".

They arrested the young men on the streets, where they had supposedly been awaiting transport to take them to places where they would receive military training. The young men were detained in the local lockup for two days and then handed over to the Department of Military Intelligence (DMI), which reportedly released them after they had confessed to
unspecified crimes. Unlike previous opposition groups identified solely with Hutu, the monarchists include both Hutu and Tutsi.”

The Human Rights Watch Report continues further: “Some Tutsi soldiers of the RPA, both survivors of the genocide and those from Burundi and the Congo, say they have no wish to fight the war in the Congo. They want that conflict settled by negotiations, even if this means coming to terms with the insurgents.

The multi-ethnic nature of the monarchist group poses a major challenge to authorities who previously could discredit opposition groups for being composed only of Hutu and for including persons implicated in the genocide. Now both the RPF and the government are themselves increasingly criticized for being dominated by Tutsi. Although they continue to talk about the multi-ethnic sharing of power, about nationalism, and about reconciliation, the RPF and the
government have progressively excluded all the major Hutu leaders who once participated in power.”

The Rwandan Supreme court judgment Nr RPA 0017/07/CS of October 25, 2007 of Prosecutor vs Rukeba Francois (Tutsi) , Ugirimpuhwe Leonard (Hutu), Kabagambe Peter (Tutsi), and Iyarwema Vedaste (Tutsi) accused of seeking to overthrow the Rwandan government under the provisions of articles 164 and 165 reinforce the trend of Rwandan ethnic and fear politics. The three Supreme Court judges: Mukanyundo Patricie, Hatangimbabazi Fabien and Kanyange
Fidelite convicted the defendants of creating the RPR and having cooperated with RUD-Urunana.

Specifically they convicted them of “having talked on phone with Kanyamibwa (myself), residing in America” and of “belonging to the political party created by Ntashamaje Gerard.” The case of Rukeba Francois took its roots long before 2000. The Tutsi-led government National Rights Commission writes in its 2000 Annual report published in March 2001, under the section: “The arrest and detention of Second Lieutenant MURERA Bertin, Pte BYABAGAMBA Innocent, RUTABANA Benjamin, RUKEBA Francois and RUGEMA Janvier”.

“The families of the soldiers MURERA Bertin and BYABAGAMBA Innocent, together with those of the Civilians, Benjamin RUTABANA (known by the name Ben) and François RUKEBA sought verbally the Commission's assistance so as to know where these four men had been detained. They had been arrested, some in Tanzania, others in Burundi and forced back into the country by Rwanda Government.

“As for RUTABANA Benjamin, he said that the charges referred against him were fabricated and not the real reason for his arrest. He thought the real reason could be that, he had been uspected of aiding and abetting in the escape of former Speaker of Parliament, Mr. SEBARENZI KABUYE Joseph.”

On his part, RUKEBA François admitted to have taken BYABAGAMBA Innocent in his car as far as Butare, on the day BYABAGAMBA fled the country. He did not however, know that he was running away from the country. He said they later on met in Burundi by coincidence. RUKEBA François denied any involvement in the soldier's escape.

During these discussions at the Kigali Military Prosecutor's Office, none of the detainees said he had been tortured or undergone any other cruel, in-human treatment. However, they showed such signs as unusual fatigue that the Commission believed those men might have experienced such kind of treatment but, out of fear, they concealed the fact.

Five months after the Commission met them for the first time, all the five were bailed out. They are currently waiting to appear before the court, free from detention.

However, at the time of writing this report, some information yet to be confirmed by the Commission says that two of them, namely RUKEBA François and RUGEMA Janvier,
might have fled the Country.”

The government will once more catch up with Rukeba Francois in Uganda a few years later and accuse him of allying himself with Hutus seeking to overthrow the government. Reading both Reports, one by the completely independent Human Rights Watch and the other by the Tutsi-led government sponsored commission, one may realize the following:

1) Like Hutu, Tutsis seeking to free themselves from ethnic politics and politics of fear are equally targeted by the Tutsi-led government;

2) They also, like Hutu, are arrested on trumped up charges and eventually tortured It is clear that ethnic politics and fear are used to intimidate both Tutsis and Hutus. The policy of division has been embraced, promoted, and enhanced into a method of governance by the Tutsi-led regime, since its inception. The regime has expanded the policy to promote divisions based on criteria such as clan, region of origin, second language.

FEARLESSNESS ON A LONG AND NARROW ROAD BEYOND ETHNIC POLITICS

This year, amazing things happened in the World. America got its first Black President (and first Black First Lady). On January 20, 2009 the voice of the Black President echoed across the halls where decisions that shake the entire World are made.

The man came from a race, which less than 50 years ago, was struggling to move from the back of the bus to decent schools, whose males were being lynched for making innocuous comments or gestures, women raped for being in a wrong neighborhood, and both men and women imprisoned or killed for just claiming their basic rights.

In his speech, the Black president preached hope, racial harmony, and a new order of peace around the World. Most Americans agreed with him that race and diversity should be a source of richness of ideas, initiatives, entrepreneurship and openness that would propel the most powerful and richest country to new heights of prosperity and respect around the World. The
American people, the most diverse nation in the World, made a bet on the complementarily of races, nationalities, and ethnic groups and won the war over racial and divisive politics.

America heeded the call of Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered in his March 4, 1933 First Inaugural Address: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”

When the American people were making strides and renewing their shared commitment of building a nation as a beacon of hope and racial harmony, somewhere, in Africa, Rwanda in particular, ethnic identities were exploited and used for the politics lethal to the interests of the African people. The current Tutsi-led Rwandan regime has used and continues to use these politics to the criminal perfection.

On April 11, 2009 , in an article published in Los Angeles Times and titled: “The power of horror in Rwanda”,

Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth wrote:

“One tool of repression has been the gacaca courts … which the government established at the community level to try alleged perpetrators of the genocide. …the law outlawing "genocide ideology" is written so broadly that it can encompass even the most innocuous comments. As many Rwandans have discovered, disagreeing with the government or making unpopular statements can easily be portrayed as genocide ideology, punishable by sentences of 10 to
25 years. That leaves little political space for dissent.”

In Rwanda, both the Gacaca courts and the law on “genocide ideology” targets one ethnic group: The Hutus. The purpose of these two instruments of repression is to keep both Hutus and Tutsis in constant fear and mutual distrust. The Hutus fear being jailed, tortured, or killed. The Tutsis are always reminded that Hutus are seeking to exterminate them.

It is a win-win situation for the small clique in power. The cynicism behind the logic is simple: Hutus will never express any dissent, and Tutsis will keep loyalty to a clique that promises
protection. It is a lose-lose situation for the Rwandan people: reconciliation will remain a distant dream. Therefore ethnic distrust will prevail while racial conflicts, like a ticking bomb, are bound to erupt.

Gandhi, in his speech on “Ashram Vows” at YMCA, Madras and published in Indian Review in February 1916 and The Hindu, 16 Feb 1916, writes about the Untouchables “There is an ineffaceable blot that Hinduism today carries with it. I have declined to believe that it has been handed to us from immemorial times.

I think that this miserable, wretched, enslaving spirit of “Untouchableness” must have come to us when we were in the cycle of our lives, at our lowest ebb, and that evil has still stuck to us and it still remains with us. It is to my mind, a curse that has come to us, and as long as that curse remains with us, so long I think we are bound to consider that every affliction that we labour under in this sacred land is a fit and proper punishment for this great and indelible crime we are
committing.

That any person should be considered untouchable because of his calling passes one’s comprehension; and you, the student world, who receives this modern education, if you become a party to this crime, it were better that you received no education whatsoever.” In Rwanda, a new class of “Untouchables” is being created. This class is made mostly of Hutus, but also of Tutsis who question the rationale behind ethnic politics.

Fear has, like a metastatic cancer, spread its tentacles into the fabric of a nation, fueled by ethnic politics. One sees it in the administration, in the private enterprise, and public ceremonies, in schools, in the military, in the police, in the financial system, in the judiciary system, and in the media: in summary, the entire public and private administration.

Every year, in April, Rwandans remembers the survivors of the 1994 madness. Usually, the first day, Rwandan leaders make speeches and survivors remember the departed. In all speeches, there is no mention of Hutus victims. Only Tutsis are mentioned and remembered. Only Tutsis have the right to remember, to shed tears, to cry, and to commemorate. As recently as in January 2009, a delegation of Hutu refugees visited the Memorial erected in Gisozi for Tutsis
killed in 1994. When her baby cried, the Hutu mother was expelled from the memorial site, being accused of defiling the sacred place.

Rwanda has moved from the period of ethnic politics to ethnic annihilation. Annihilation of Hutus has become a public policy: Hutus and Tutsis who sympathize with them are excluded at all cost, in order for the clique leading the country to maintain itself in power. In a resolution, the United Nations (UN) Security Council concluded that events in Rwanda in 1994 constitute “Rwandan
Genocide”. The Rwandan government, while denying the existence of a Tutsi ethic group, renamed the events “Tutsi genocide”.

The new qualification of the 1994 events by the current Tutsi-led government only solidifies the exclusion and annihilation of Hutus under three forms:

1) Constantly and wrongly reminding the other ethnic groups (Hutus and Twas)
that are criminals;
2) Trying to pretend that ethnic groups do not exist in Rwanda;
3) Imposing the belief that only Tutsis were killed.

With this politics, Hutus and Twas cannot claim being discriminated against: How can one be discriminated against if he or she doesn’t exist? Job, public service, scholarships, admissions to high and higher education, and other benefits can be given to one ethnic group without being accused of discrimination.

At the same time, Hutus can be arrested, accused of “genocidal ideology” and crimes against the Tutsi survivors, and be subjected to torture, summary execution, and arbitrary imprisonment because they are “marked” as being responsible for the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Hence, only Tutsis, as the only recognized survivors may benefit from all the programs such as Fond d’Aide aux Rescapés du Génocide (FARG), a fund set up to assist “ Tutsi genocide survivors” and Travaux d’Interets General (TIG), forced public work executed by Hutu prisoners.

Hutus and Twas cannot be survivors, because they are not Tutsis, and cannot claim to exist because there are no ethnic groups in Rwanda. Hutus and Twas as members of ethnic groups have been annihilated and Tutsis who sympathize with them suffer the same fate.
The annihilation of Hutus is fueled by fear:

Fear by Tutsis to tell the truth about the blatant repression against Hutus;

Fear by Tutsis to sympathize with the plight of Hutu, because they may risk to
loose the support of or being persecuted by a Tutsi government;

Fear by Hutu to tell the truth, because they are already accused of being
criminals and risk being accused of “genocide ideology.”, negationism or
revisionism.

Maintaining fear among Tutsis and Hutu through ethnic politics is the only efficient and effective tool the current Tutsi-regime has to maintain itself in power. The Tutsi-led power preys on the nation and will devour the people if nothing is done. Tutsi and Hutus who have understood the machiavellian scheme have no other choice than finding ways to move beyond fear and ethnic
politics for their own survival but, most importantly, for the survival of Tutsis, Hutus, and Twas, and of Rwanda as a nation.

ETHNIC POLITICS WAS TRIED IN RWANDA BEFORE AND FAILED: IT LED TO 1959
BLOODY REVOLUTION

Between 13 and 28 June 1956, the Conseil Superior du Pays, exclusively composed of Tutsis, held a closed-door meeting called “Huitième Session du Conseil Supérieur du Pays”. The question of ethnicity was raised, following the general discontent of Hutus across the entire country. The Hutus openly complained about excesses, abuses, and repression by Tutsis. The Conseil Superior asked the Rwandan King to make the following statement to the nation
[French]:

“Certaines personnes peu ou mal informées répètent ou écrivent volontiers que les Batutsis venus dans le Pays en conquérant ont spoliés les Bahutu [Hutus] de leurs biens et les ont maintenus à un rang inférieur. Une telle affirmation relève d’une tendance à ne voir que le mauvais côté des choses. Ceux qui la formulent perdent de vue que certaines lacunes de l’organisation politique et sociale des Bututsi [Tutsis] étaient compensées par l’assurance qu’avaient les serviteurs de jouir de la protection de leurs maîtres, les administrés de celle de leurs chefs, cette protection revêtant un caractère nettement familial. …

“Les Bahutu eurent en tout temps l’occasion d’acquérir richesses et considération sociale. Quant au pouvoir politique, des Bahutu et même certains Batwa furent nommés chefs par le Mwami[King] du Ruanda. Si la chose a été perdue de vue, si l’on a pu croire que seuls les Batutsi étaient aux postes de commande du Pays, c’est que des alliances de ces chefs Bahutu et Batwa avec des familles Batutsi avaient tôt fait d’aplanir les différences sociales et raciales de sorte que toute distinction devenait impossible.

A plus forte raison sous le régime actuel, les chances sont-elles laissées à tous, suivant leur capacités et leur mérites, d’accéder a toutes les fonctions vacntes. “Le conseil Supérieur du Pays émet le voeu suivant: “que les mentions “Mututsi, muhutu ou mutwa soient rayés dans les livrets de recensement, fiches ainsi que dans tous les actes officiels.” La séance est suspendue à 12 heures.”

Hence, to the complaints of ethnic discriminations and the monopolization of power by one ethnic group, Tutsis, the Conseil Supérieur du Pays, composed exclusively by the Tutsi ethnic group decided to suppress he mention of ethnic groups in official records and documents. However, in months that followed, the complaints by Hutus became even louder across the entire country.

On October 21, 1957, the Hutus wrote a letter to the Mwami Mutara III
Rudahigwa asking for equal representation of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa within the
Conseil Supérieur du Pays.
In October 1957, the Hutu published the Manifeste des Bahutu asking for democracy in general, and a constitutional democracy, in particular. On March 7, 1958, Vianney Bendantunguka, a prominent Hutu political activist, compared the situation in Rwanda to that at the night of the French Revolution on 4 August 1789.

However, he suggested that the King still had time for a peaceful revolution, instead of a bloody one, in order to replace a society based on privilege of one ethnic group by a society based on Democracy.

A series of unrelenting complaints came from all the regions of the country:

In Marangara:

Hutu asked why only Tutsis were allowed in colleges and universities, demanded the abolition of forced labor and sharecropping by Hutu, the introduction of competitive examination in attribution of scholarships, the participation of Hutu in Conseil Supérieur du Pays, the abolition of arbitrary confiscation or appropriation of Hutu farms by Tutsis, etc.

In Bushiru:

Hutus observed that all the Chiefs, Deputy Chiefs, Judges, and public servants were Tutsis; that even these were imposed to the Hutus. Hutu owned the land, but now Tutsis had decided that land belonged to Tutsis. Hutu were not allowed to graze cattle on their own farms. Tutsis who failed schools were hired as teachers of agriculture, when Hutu farmers knew better.
In Kingogo: Hutus wondered why only Tutsis were the only ethnic group allowed to inherit. If a Hutu died, his property became the property of a Tutsi chief. All public functions were occupied by Tutsis. Hutus demanded the abolition of arbitrary confiscation or appropriation of Hutu farms by Tutsis, etc.

In Kabagali:

Hutus pointed out that all Judges and prosecutors were Tutsis. They insisted that there were 3 races in Rwandal: Hutu, Twa and Tutsis. They asked what criteria to get a public position: race (ethnic group) or competency. They wondered whether all Hutu were incompetent. They demanded the abolition of arbitrary confiscation or appropriation of Hutu farms by Tutsis, etc.
In Cyanika-Bufundu: Hutus asked why only Tutsis receive scholarships to study in Europe. They complained that all Jugdes were Tutsis. Hutu denounced corruption and arbitrary confiscation or appropriation of Hutu farms by Tutsis, etc.

And several other complaints from individuals or groups landed at the Royal court, in tracts, newspapers, magazines, reports from local meetings, etc. The core of those complaints was: Tutsis hierarchy oppressed Hutus and occupied most of the public positions; Tutsis were exclusively represented in the highest institutions of the country, such as Conseil Supérieur du Pays, Chiefs and Deputy Chiefs, Judges, persecutors. Tutsi were exclusively admitted in public high and higher education and exclusively received public scholarships;

Tutsi aristocrats misappropriated the farms of Hutus.

The situation before 1959 appears similar to what we observe in Rwanda today. At the invitation of the Government of Kigali and the international community and between 23 and 28 January 2008, a delegation of the combatants and their dependents of the Rally for Unity and Democracy (RUD)/Rally of the Rwandan People (RPR) conducted an exploratory visit to Rwanda.

The visit was in the agenda within the framework of the Peace Process initiated in Rome on May 9, 2008 between the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a coalition between RUD and RPR, under the facilitation of the Community Sant' Egidio.

The Roadmap of the Process was published in Kisangani on May 26, 2008. In executing the process, a first group of combatants of RUD/RPR voluntarily disarmed in an official ceremony held in Kasiki, Lubero Territory, North-Kivu, on July 31 2008. The combatants, their dependents and other Rwandan refugees were subsequently grouped in Kasiki.

The exploratory visit to Rwanda was organized in order for the delegation to enquire about the security conditions and social, economical, and political participation of Rwandans inside Rwanda with the purpose of a voluntary and peaceful repatriation of Rwandan refugees. The report published by the delegation after their visit underlines the following findings about the general political and social situation inside Rwanda:

pervasive lack of security for individuals;

terror by government militias, Local Defense Forces (LDF), et intelligence
services;

harassment, targeting one ethnic group, fabrication of accusations and
general lack of justice in the Gacaca courts;

lack of freedom in political and social participation;

selective exclusion of Hutus from government jobs, the army, the police et
businesses;

arbitrary confiscation of private properties without compensation;

forced labor in Travaux d’Intérêt Generaux (TIG);

cruel treatment of prisoners and detainees;

forced recruitment of ex-combatants to fight in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, within CNDP or the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF).

The current Rwandan regime repeats the same mistakes and follows the roads of the past generations. The same causes lead to the same results. That is why it is important to reject ethnic politics, before its is too late. We need to create a just system, regardless of the ethnic background of those, with legitimate aspirations, who would associate with it.

However, the presence of all the components of the Rwandan social and historical fabric must be sought at all costs. All the components must be empowered. Leaders must earn the confidence of the Rwandan people in the legitimacy of their leadership, the positive goals of their purposes, and their vision.

Rwanda as a nation belongs to all Rwandans. In January 2008, at the invitation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) a delegation of Rwandan political leaders visited Kinshasa. The purpose was to find peaceful solutions to the resolution of the 15 years old problem of Rwandan refugees in Eastern DRC.

At the conclusion of the visit, I, as the head of the delegation, challenged General Paul Kagame, in our 24 January 2008 statement in Kinshasa on peace in the Great Lakes Region, to rebuild “the Rwandan nation on a model [not] based on the failed past, but a future Rwanda where our descendants will rise above what has until now divided Rwandans; a Rwanda where our children and our descendants will not live in the confrontation but rather would spend their time exploring and putting into practice solutions for the development of Rwanda.”

Yet again, in Kasiki, on July 31, 2008, I invited General Paul Kagame to open the doors for the Rwandan refugees to go home. I invited him, first as a man, second as a former refugee, and third as a leader. The challenge has been the constence of our calls and we have always stated our willingness to meet General Paul Kagame anytime with the facilitation of fair and independent minded mediators.

We made the call because we believed, as a Chinese proverb teaches us, that “A Great Man Can Bend and Stretch.” The current Rwandan leaders need to show they can bend lower and stretch farther. The urgency of acting now, before it is too late, compels Rwandans to learn from the mistakes of the past and to avoid them. Both the French and the Rwandan Revolution had their time and taught us the consequences of ignoring the aspirations of the people and the tragedy of ethnic politics and politics of fear.

We need to free ourselves from fear and ethnic distrust, move beyond bitterness and retribution, so that Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region would not remain plagued by a cycle of violence and bloodshed. Other countries and nations became victors over ethnic politics and fear. We can learn from them and even do better. I remain convinced that Rwandans can get there if they focus their energies to reaching these stated goals.

A GRADUAL ROAD TO THE SOCIETY BEYOND ETHNIC POLITICS AND FEAR.

Rwanda has been living in a vicious cycle for which the velocity is fueled by ethnic politics. Ethnic politics can only exist because of fear and mistrust among the various ethnic groups. Dishonest politicians, like scavengers and parasites, feed on that fear, keep the mistrust alive, and inflame popular emotions to maintain themselves in power.

On December 12, 1958, less than a year before Hutu rebelled against the Tutsi monarchy in a bloody revolution, a Tutsi priest warned both the Tutsi aristocrats and the Colonial aministration about the impeding tragedy.

In an article titled “Aux Origines du problem Bahutu au Rwanda, published in Revue Nouvelle XXVII, no 12 p1-5, the priest Stanislas Bushayija wrote [French]:

“Le sentiment d’injustice que ressentirent à un moment donné les plébéiens romains
vis-à-vis des patriciens, les serfs vis-à-vis des seigneurs dans l’ancien régime, est celui
qu’éprouvent aujourd’hui les Bahutu par rapport aux Batutsi. Ils cherchent leur
émancipation, leur accession à un monde libre et égal pour tous.

C’est ainsi qu’il faut comprendre les discussions, les manifestes, les articles qui se succèdent à un rythme de plus en plus rapide. L’histoire nous montre que lorsque des revendication arrivent à
ce point de maturité, elles aboutissent fatalement à des révolutions ou des guerres civiles, si les responsables ne leur donnent pas une réponse satisfaisante.”

[Translation: “The sense of injustice felt at one time by the Roman plebeians towards the Patricians, the Serfs towards the Lords in the former regime, is now felt by the Hutu towards the Tutsis. They seek their emancipation, to access equal rights. Thus, it is necessary to understand the complaints, the events, the journal articles that follow each other at an accelerated pace. History shows that when claims reach such a point of maturity, they inevitably lead to revolutions or civil wars, if the leaders do not give them a satisfactory answer.”]

Unfortunately, very few leaders learn from history. As I recently pointed out in a speech I delivered at Rutgers University, citing the Irish author and Nobel Prize Laureate George Bernard Shaw: “If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience... Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.”

The observation by the Tutsi priest remains relevant now and applies to the current situation in Rwanda. On October 30, 1959, Father Stanislas Bushayija wrote to the colonial Administrator to propose measures for calming the impeding social explosion [French]:

“ D’autre part, je suis persuadé que le temps est révolu où il était possible de gouverner le Munyarwanda, surtout le mututsi, par des négotiations douceureuses et concessions factices, c’est, aujourd’hui, l’énérgie (j’allais dire la force, mais je n’y pense pas moins)dans la justice et l’équité, qui doit et peut gouverner le Ruanda.”

[Translation: “On the other side, I remain convinced that the time where it was possible to rule on the Rwandan people, especially the Tutsis, by sweet negotiations and fake concessions has passed. Today, it is by strength (I was going to propose force, although I believe it is the right approach) with justice and equity of treatment, that must and should govern Rwanda.”
Eight days later, on November 7, 1959, the 1959 Rwandan Social Revolution had started, plunging the nation into an orgy of bloodbath that has marked the history of Rwanda to date.

Unfortunately, the dire consequences predicted by Father Bushayija are bound to happen. When tragedy strikes again, the flames from the fire of social revolution undoubtedly would consume masses of innocent people. That is why we cannot remain oblivious by-standers, and let Rwanda go on a road to perdition and annihilation. A society beyond ethnic politics is possible. I propose the following steps to get there.

1) Recognize the fallacies behind the denial of ethnic identities. Ethnic identity is who we are, our social heritage, our essence as people or group of people, whether we want it or not or others want to define us as such. It is not the existence of ethnic identity that is the problem: it is the use of ethnic groups to reach misguided political aims that dooms us. We need to question, fight against, and defeat this cursed heritage that our forefathers have left us with.

Ethnic groups cannot be suppressed or kept conveniently at the whims of politicians or one ethnic group. The social nation must determine the best way to manage a multi-ethnic state and use ethnic identity as a source of richness of ideas, initiatives, driven entrepreneurship, and openness and prosperity.

Rwanda has a good example in America, Canada, India, Great Britain, France, South Africa and other increasingly multiracial, multi-ethnic states, where diversity has become the best resource that fosters the goodness of the respective societies.

2) Consensual democracy remains the best solution to ethnic politics and fear. Ethnic politics in Rwanda is a curse. As Gandhi urged us, as long as that curse remains with us, the Rwandan people will be afflicted by suffering, exile, uprooting, bloodshed, and one day, annihilation. Annihilation can only be avoided by self recognition and acknowledgment of others, in a society where, as argued Philosophers Jurgen Harbermas and Bruce Barry, the legitimacy of our nation Rwanda must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects.

However, we need to marry those individual rights with the approach put forward by political scientists like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka:

Rwanda must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within the boundaries of a strong and fair political structure accepted by all.

Brief, we need a system where the voice of every individual is heard, but in which ethnic groups strive. That is the concept of Consensual Democracy.

3) Consensual democracy will phased out in favor of a full democracy.

Consensual democracy will protect minorities, specifically ethnic minorities, from the potential tyranny of ethnic majority. However, as trust among ethnic groups grow and political groups form around a platform of ideas and trensend ethnic identities, the consensual democracy will have outlived its usefulness, and eventually lead to a unfettered democracy.
4) Rwanda must work outward not inward.

Most of ethnic conflicts may be linked to limited resources. Unfortunately, overpopulated, landlocked, with limited natural resources, Rwanda and its people must only rely on their ingenuity, sense of entrepreneurship, and hard work.

They must develop good neighborhood and a sense of seizing opportunity wherever it comes from or may be found. Rwandans are bound to be good neighbors if they have to survive as a nation. They must be flexible, proactive, and strategic thinkers. They must anticipate and seize opportunities around and in front of them. However, they cannot do it if they do not burry their clothes of victims, and wear those of victors: Victorious over Ethnic Politics and Fear.

CONCLUSION

Despite all its complexity, problems arising from the current policy of ethnic politics and politics of fear promoted by the current Rwandan regime may find practical and actionable solutions. The fact that so many Tutsis are fleeing the country, and some are joining the so called “Hutu rebels” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or elsewhere, or creating their own armedrebellions is an indication that the policies of division and fear promoted by the current Rwandan regime have failed and Rwandans leaders are “building on moving sand”.

A system based on democratic values, respect for individual rights and freedom, exclusion of the complex of the conqueror, and the social, political, and economic participation of all the components of the Rwandan society is more likely to succeed. We, Rwandans, can not built a nation on vengeful and domination premises. Rwandans cannot get there alone. True friends of the Rwandan people cannot afford to watch Rwandans led on the path of destruction, like a flock of sheep to the butcher. These true friends have also an awesome and uplifting responsibility. It is this kind of system, with the help of true friends that would lead the Rwandan nation beyond ethnic politics and fear.

Felicien Kanyamibwa, PhD.
New Jersey, USA.
May 19, 2009.
E-mail: kanyami@optonline.net.
Tel: +(1) 201-794-6542
©Copyright 2009, Felicien Kanyamibwa.

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

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