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Monday, July 6, 2009

The Hidden Story Behind Rwanda's Tragedy

The Hidden Story Behind Rwanda's Tragedy - by Christopher Black
by Mick Collins on Sat 04 Jul 2009 03:21

http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog

[I wish I could be in Moscow later this week when US president Barrack Obama meets Russian president Dmitri Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. I wonder if they'll get around to talking

History? It's the season for liberation celebrations: Obama was in Caen in June to remember the Allies' liberation of France from . . . well, whomever. I mean, there was a French government administering the country for the German occupation forces--the Vichy government of General Petain--and the Free French forces of Charles De Gaulle were not even invited to join in on the Normandy landing of 6 June. They were held back in London until just before the Allies marched into Paris, when De Gaulle was allowed to lead the parade--photo op, maybe. It's hard to say why the US and the UK decided to open up a Western Front against the already beaten Nazis on 6 June 1944, after the Red Army had turned back the Germans on the Eastern Front at Stalingrad on 2 Febru

ary 1943, and chased Hitler's broken legions back to Berlin for their last rites. But, maybe, Medvedev and Putin can swap school notebooks with Obama about just what happened in WWII--or the Great Patriotic War, as it is known in Russia.

Like most Americans, President Obama seems to be sleep-walking through History--and we know how dangerous it can be to wake a sleepwalker. The look on his face as he listened to Elie Wiesel go on and on about his father's smoke floating above the camp at Buchenwald, and how the courageous allies liberated the exhausted Jewish victims, was one of pious confusion--while the courageous Una Merkel looked on in full contrition.

The Wiesel neglected to fill out the history of his confinement: Being

from Transylvania, he had done the bulk of his time at Auschwitz--in fact, it was his grisly descriptions of how the concentration camp victims were dispatched by being heaped into living piles of still-breathing corpses and set ablaze, that gave the Shoah image-makers the idea of a 'Holocaust' in first place.

But as far as liberation went, Wiesel and several of his other Holocaust suvivor/historian cohort, like Primo Levy, were not content to be 'liberated' in Eastern Poland by the Soviet Army, the Red Army ('Better Dead than Red'?) and chose to tag along behind their beaten and fleeing Fascist torturers back into the German Fatherland--back to Buchenwald went The Wiesel--where they, abandoned to a self-administered solitude, awaited the arrival of the victorious Yanks and Brits and Canadians and Aussies.

Now, Obama may not be Burt Lancaster--or Paul Robeson--, but he certainly cannot be totally ignorant of the nuances on the Eastern Front. After all, he invited the Tuskegee Airmen to his inauguration, and the Tuskegees, in the 99th Fighter Squadron and the 332nd Fighter Group, flew missions along side the Soviet Air Force over the Balkans and the Black Sea region--in fact, they shot down the Germans' first operational jet fighter, the Me 262.

Maybe Putin and Medvedev can pull Obama's coat to just how much more his history as a Black American has in common with the Soviet Union and Russia's heroic struggles against global Fascism than it does with Western Finance Captial's ongoing struggles to mortgage our planet in perpetuity to militarized self-consumption.

The advantage the Russian leaders have is that their country has a lot more in its hand that just an overwrought military-industrial complex. GM is in receivership, while Gazprom is furnishing Europe’s energy needs and supporting the Prednistrovian banking system. Today Russia is at peace and prospering; while the US is involved in worldwide, open-ended military adventures that cannot be terminated without bringing the reproductive life of the US to a grim and grinding halt.

President Obama seems to sense this--if he were immediately to withdraw all US forces from Iraq, there would still be nearly 180,000 private military contractors at work maintaining a privatized and bloody chaos in that broken land just to keep the recurring demand for the means of destruction fully pumped. And for the simpletons who would short-cut their institutional critiques of modern Waste Capitalism by blaming all its material ravages and moral compromissions on President Obama, let them remember that the President of the US serves at the whim of the ruling socio-economic elite. No matter what the size of the electoral mandate, the US government--perhaps the most anti-democratic in history--is not wired to serve the majority interests--those interests expressed in the Declaration of Independence as 'self-evident, inalienable rights': to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. In fact, the latter interest/right was initially written as 'Property', but I guess it just didn't scan, either poetically or rationally, like that.

So in this season of Liberation Histories, our Commissar for the Defense, Chris Black, has come up with one more knock-out kick in the sack to the grotesquely resilient Genocide Hustlers (sub-species of the Holocaust Industrialists) who continue to dine out on the long-since putrescent flesh of those mass murder victims they, themselves, mass murdered, and then billed them for the service--especially in all of The Wiesel's favorite drive-thru genocide hang-outs: Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda.

Every time I finish a great book (always in French) about what went down in Rwanda/Congo between way-back-when and day-after-tomorrow, I think my internal organs just can't take any more of this kind of unspeakable evil. Like in ‘Rwanda: The Taking of Kigali--and the Hunting Down of Refugees by the Army of General Paul Kagame’ (Rwanda: La prise de Kigali et la chasse aux réfugiés par l'Armée du Général Paul Kagame), by Faustin Ntilikina (on Éditions Sources du Nil, 2008), or my mainest of mainest men, Charles Onana's latest, ‘These Tutsi Killers’ (Ces Tutsi Tueurs, Duboiris, 2009)--I dunno why I'm citing English titles for these book, they exist only in French, so far!--the Hutus have not only been faced with physical extinction at the hands of those who think of themselves as their moral and ontological betters, the neo-feudal Tutsis, and their North American, European and Israeli sponsors, but they have then been charged and prosecuted in some sort of media kangaroo court for committing the very heinous crimes committed against them. These stories would put Kafka on Paxil. Yet, through all the hopelessness and grinding misery, guys like Chris shine the light of their legal reason and historical experience, and make us see why we have to keep this history, the Real History of the Real World, alive and out there in One.

Maybe on his way back from Russia, my president Obama could stop off in Toronto and get into it a little with Chris about what's up in Central Africa. One of the things I'd hope Chris would point out to the Commander-in-Chief of the American fascist juggernaut is that, at the Buchenwald memorial in June, all of The Wiesel's pet Holocaust spin-offs have one thing in common, which may--or may not--reflect on the real reasons behind their terrifying horrors: Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda are today the homes for three major US military installations: Eagle Air Base in Tuzla, BiH; Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo; and the principal hub for US AFRICOM operations in Central Africa and the Horn, the military base and international airport at Bugesera in Rwanda.

One of the most painful realizations that comes out of the current rational dysfunction at the central of the History that guides Western politics is that rather than reconciliation or rapprochement between conflicting sides--be they the Waste Capitalist West v the more Collectivist and Progressive East, or Israel v Palestine, or Hutu v Tutsi--as long as the essential lie of responsibility for the initial unprovoked aggression, the Crime Against Peace, is artificially maintained--i.e., just who invaded and slaughtered whom and what for?--what is most likely to reoccur, and reoccur sooner than later, is a resumption of the bloody murder, mayhem and terminal madness.--mc]

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The Hidden Story Behind Rwanda's Tragedy

By Christopher Black

July 3rd, 2009

Rwanda before 1990 was considered the Switzerland of Africa, a model of social development.

The result of the 1959 social revolution that deposed the Tutsi monarchy and aristocracy and freed the majority Hutu population from serfdom and a lifetime of humiliation was the establishment of a collective society in which both Hutus, and Tutsis, as well as Twas, lived together in relative harmony.

Tutsis were members of the government, its administration, present in large numbers in the education system, the judiciary, and controlled most of the large private commercial companies in Rwanda.

The Rwandan army was a multiethnic army composed of both Hutus and Tutsis, and it stayed a multiethnic force even when the Rwandan Army was forced by the invaders from Uganda to retreat into the Congo forests in July 1994 because it ran out of ammunition due to the Western embargo on arms and supplies.

Rwanda descended into chaos in 1990 when the self-described Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) forces launched a surprise attack on October 1, 1990, from Uganda. In fact, every one of the enlisted men and officers of that invasion force were members of the Ugandan national Army.

It was an invasion by Uganda disguised as an independent force of “liberation”. Liberation from what, has never been stated. Initially the justification put out by the RPF was that of attaining the return of Tutsi “refugees” from Uganda to Rwanda. However, that problem had been resolved by an agreement between the RPF, Uganda, Rwanda, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the OAU, a few weeks earlier. The Rwandan government had agreed to the return of all those Tutsis in Uganda who wanted to return to Rwanda.

That accord required that Tutsi representatives of the refugees travel to Kigali for a meeting to determine the mechanics of that population-movement, and how to accommodate all those people in a small country. They were expected at the end of September 1990. They never arrived. Instead of civilians returning in peace, Rwanda was viciously attacked on October 1, 1990, by a force that unleashed unbridled savagery.

During that invasion the RPF forces of the Ugandan Army slaughtered everyone in their path, Hutu or Tutsi. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians, the majority Hutu, were butchered. These crimes have never been accounted for. The RPF’s favorite method was the bayonet or knife with which they disembowelled men and women, or to tie their hands behind their backs and smashed their skulls with hoes, the farm tool iconic of the Hutu peasantry.

After several weeks of intense fighting, the RPF forces were destroyed by the small Rwandan Army and the remnants fled, on US instructions, back into Uganda to regroup and reorganize.

The RPF still never justified this aggression and the needless slaughter of civilians in a peaceful country. Individual Tutsis had always been allowed to return to Rwanda from the early 1960s and several times the Rwandan government invited them all to return. However the Tutsi aristocracy, jealous of its lost power and viewing the Hutus as merely subhuman, refused to return unless their absolute power was restored. This the people of Rwanda, even the Tutsis who remained in the country, refused.

In the 1960s and early 1970s various Tutsi groups in Uganda and elsewhere had organized terrorist raids into Rwanda in which they murdered without pity anyone they caught. These raids were repelled by Rwanda’s tiny armed forces. The years that followed were a period of development and peace for Rwandans. Even though one of the smallest and poorest countries in the world, it had the best roads, healthcare, and education systems in Africa. Until the late 1980s, it prospered and received help from both the socialist countries, like the USSR, North Korea and China, and West Germany, France, Israel and others.

Some Tutsis in Uganda became involved in the civil wars there between the socialist Milton Obote and the US- and UK-puppet, Yoweri K. Museveni, who was supported by the West to get rid of socialism in Uganda. By 1990 Tutsis composed a large section of the Ugandan Army and all the senior officers of the RPF were high officers in the Ugandan NRA (the National Resistance Army).

Paul Kagame, himself, was one of the highest-ranking officers in the intelligence services of the Ugandan army and was notorious for his enjoyment of torturing prisoners. Rwanda until 1990 was a one-party socialist state. The ruling party, the National Movement For Revolutionary Development (MRND), was not considered a party as such, but rather a social movement in which everyone in the society took part through local elections and the mechanism of consensus, much like the system in Cuba.

The fall of the Soviet Union led to pressure from the West, notably the United States and France to dismantle the one-party state system and permit multiparty democracy. The President, Juvenal Habyarimana, instead of resisting, agreed to a change in the constitution, and, in 1991, Rwanda became a multiparty democracy. The fact the Rwandan government did this in the middle of a war is more than remarkable. It was also an offer of peace. The RPF, since its abject failure in 1990, had changed its strategy from a frontal assault to the tactics of terrorism.

The RPF likes to refer to this phase as ‘the guerrilla’. However, it was not the guerrilla of a liberation struggle like the FLMN in Vietnam or the FARC in Colombia. It was, instead, a mirror image of the Contras campaign of terrorism conducted against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Its purpose was not to make revolution. Its purpose was to overthrow the 1959 revolution.

And, like the contras, the RPF was supported by the United States. This was clear from the beginning of the war.

When the RPF launched their attack, President Juvenal Habyarimana was in Washington, lured out of the way, by the US State Department. The evidence that the US was aware of and supported the October surprise attack was the US Administration’s offer to Habyarimana of asylum in the United States if he surrendered power to the RPF. Habyarimana refused and immediately flew back home.

There was no condemnation of the Ugandan-RPF aggression by the United States--a matter France raised at the United Nations--or any of its allies despite the big noise they made at the same time about the advance of Iraqi forces into Kuwait. Further, the Rwanda ambassador to the UN, then on the Security Council, filed a protest with the UNSC, but the US had it taken off the agenda.

In fact the US and its allies supported the aggression against Rwanda from its onset, and US Special Forces operated with the RPF from the beginning. Recently, while former president Bill Clinton was in Toronto, he denied any involvement in Rwanda--this is one of the Big Lies of the century. Clinton and George W. Bush are up to their necks in the blood of the Rwandan and Congolese people.

With the arrival of multiparty democracy in 1991, the RPF took full advantage and created several front parties to take away support from the popular MRND. These parties, though claiming to represent different political views, were, in fact, the main front parties for the RPF.

The press was expanded and many of the new papers were financed by and acted as mouthpieces for the RPF. At the same time as these parties sprang up, criticizing the government, the RPF continued its terror campaign: planting mines on roads that killed Hutu and Tutsi alike; assassinating politicians and officials; and blaming it, with the help of various western intelligence agency-funded NGOs, on the government.

In 1992, a coalition government was formed with the RPF, with its front parties seizing control of key ministries and appointing the prime minister. Through these agents they also controlled the civilian intelligence services that they then began to dismantle. The RPF engaged in a “talk and fight” strategy. Always agreeing to a ceasefire, pressing for more power, then launching new attacks on civilians. The most egregious of these ceasefire violations was their major offensive in February 1993 in which they seized the major town of Ruhengeri, while murdering 40,000 civilians, most of them Hutu, in the process.

The Rwandan Army, even though hamstrung by the civilian ministries controlled by the RPF, managed to drive the RPF back. Finally, in August 1993, under pressure from the United States and its allies, Rwanda signed the Arusha Accords, giving the RPF major concessions in return for the formation of a broad-based transition government, which was to be followed by general elections.

However, the RPF knew they could not win such elections, as they were not only unpopular with the majority Hutu population, but it did not even enjoy the support of many internal Tutsis whose lives and businesses had been destroyed by this war that they did not see a need for.

Instead of preparing for elections, the RPF prepared for their final offensive. As far back as December 1993, UN reports document the massive build-up of men and weapons coming in from Uganda. A UN force was deployed supposedly to ensure a peaceful transition; in fact, it was a cover for the US and its allies to assist in this build up.

General Roméo Dallaire, the Canadian general in charge of the UN force, hid this build up from the Rwandan army and the President. The build up was accompanied by death threats against the president. According to an account of Habyarimana’s last conversation with Mobutu Sese Seko, president of what was then Zaire, just two days before the Rwandan president was murdered, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen had, in October 1993, told Habyarimana that unless he ceded all power to the RPF they were going to kill him and drag his body through the streets.

These threats were punctuated by the murder by Tutsi officers in October 1993 of the first democratically-elected Hutu president of neighboring Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye, a terrorist act in which Kagame and the RPF also had a hand; the officers who committed the murder, including Lieutenant Paul Kamana, later fled to Uganda.

Ndadaye was in office a mere four months, having won the country’s first free elections. In the aftermath of that murder, 250,000 Hutus weremassacred by the Tutsi army of Burundi and hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled to Rwanda.

The result of the 1993 offensive was that one million Hutus fled the RPF terror in northern Rwanda towards the capital, Kigali, so that by April 1994, over a million refugees were encamped close to the capital and hundreds of thousands more in camps in the south, all having fled RPF terror. The RPF did all it could in 1994 to paralyze the functioning of the
government, to exacerbate racial tensions, and to prepare for war.

Then on April 6, 1994, they launched their final surprise attack by shooting down the Rwandan presidential plane returning from a meeting in Tanzania that had been arranged by Uganda’s president Museveni. In fact, it is known that Museveni’s half-brother, General Salim Saleh, was at the final meeting in which the date for the shoot-down was fixed.

The missile attack killed Habyarimana, as well as Burundi’s new Hutu president, Cyprien Ntaryamira, and Rwanda’s military chief of staff, and everyone else on board. This was the first massacre of 1994, and it was a massacre of Hutus by the RPF.

The RPF then immediately launched attacks across Kigali and the north of the country. In the sector of Kigali known as Remera, they killed everyone on the night of the 6th and the 7th, wiped out the Gendarme camp there, wiped out the military police camp at Kami and launched a major attack against Camp Kanombe, Camp Kigali and the main gendarme camp at Kacyriu.

The Rwandan government and army called for a ceasefire the same night and the next day. The RPF rejected the call. The Rwandan government asked for more UN help to control the situation. Instead, the US arranged for the main UN force to be pulled out while flying in men and supplies to the RPF in C130 Hercules aircraft.

The Rwandan Army, short on ammunition and unable to contain the RPF’s advances, even offered to surrender unconditionally on April 12th. The RPF rejected even this offer, and, instead, shelled the Nyacyonga refugee camp where one million Hutu refugees were located, provoking their flight into the capital.

The effect of one million people flooding into a small city that itself was under bombardment cannot be described. The RPF used this flood of people to infiltrate its men behind Rwandan army lines. This created panic among the Hutu population, which began killing anyone they did not recognize. It was clear that the RPF was not interested in saving lives, even Tutsi lives, but only in seizing total power and did not want to negotiate at all.

The late Dr. Alison Des Forges, the American who was considered a noted scholar on Rwanda, in her testimony in the Military II trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 2006, testified that the RPF’s claim that they attacked to stop a “genocide” was a myth; just propaganda to justify their attempt to seize power by force of arms.

She also testified that the Rwandan government did not plan and execute genocide. This accords with the testimony of General Dallaire, who also confirmed an earlier statement that there was no genocide planned by the government, as well as that of the deputy head of Belgian Army intelligence, Col. Vincent, who also testified at the ICTR that the idea of a genocide was a fantasy.

The fighting in Kigali was intense. UN officers–confirming what has been said by Rwandan and RPF officers who have testified—state that the RPF was launching hundreds of Katyusha rockets every hour, round the clock, while the Rwandan Army ran out of hand grenades in the first few days and was reduced to fighting the RPF with hand made explosives.

The vaunted RPF could not take Kigali. The siege of Kigali lasted three months and only ended when the Rwandan Army literally ran out of ammunition and ordered a general retreat into the Congo forest.

RPF officers have stated that the RPF killed up to two million Hutus in those 12 weeks in a deliberate campaign to eliminate the Hutu population. The Akagera River, the full-length of which was under RPF control throughout, ran red with the blood of the Hutus massacred on its banks.

The RPF claimed these were Tutsis, but there were no Tutsis in that area and only the RPF had access to it. Robert Gersony, of the USAID, in an October 1994 report to the UNHCR filed as an exhibit at the ICTR, stated that the RPF carried out a systematic and planned massacre of the Hutu population. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gersony As the Rwandan Army, including Tutsi officers within that army and its enlisted men, retreated into the Congo forest, the Hutu population, in fear for their lives, fled in the millions along with them.

In local villages, Hutu neighbors attacked Tutsis in revenge for the murder of Hutus or fearing death at their hands. Tutsis also attacked Hutus. It was total war just as the RPF had wished. The RPF later pursued the Hutus through the Congo forest between 1996 to 1998 and killed hundreds of thousands and possibly millions. They were shelled, machine gunned, raped, cut to pieces with knives. Accounts of that trek are difficult to bear.

The RPF was assisted in its offensive by the United States. The UN Rwanda Emergency Office in Nairobi, in fact, was manned by US Army officers, and acted as the operational headquarters for the RPF, giving them intelligence on Rwandan Army movements, on actions and directions. Prudence Bushnell, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, telephoned the Rwandan Army chief of staff in May 1994 and told him that unless he surrendered he must know that he was fighting the United States of America and would be defeated. US Special Forces fought with the RPF. There is also evidence that Belgian forces of the UN were involved, as an intercepted radio message from Kagame to his forces in the field refers to the help they had received from the Belgians.

There is also evidence that Canadian forces were likewise involved, and Antoine Nyetera, a Tutsi prince, who was in Kigali in that period, testified for the defense in the Military II trial and stated that not only were there no massacres committed against Tutsis by the Rwandan Army, but that it was the RPF that began the massacres after they took Kigali and began killing Hutus.

Nyetera testified that despite the claim by the RPF of being a Tutsi liberation group, when he saw their long columns enter the capital, he saw that most of them were Sudanese, Eritreans, Ethiopians, Tanzanians and others speaking Swahili or Sudanese languages, in other words, mercenaries.

Several RPF officers have testified at the ICTR that they fled the Kagame regime because they had been promised that they were fighting for liberation of the Tutsis. However, when they wanted to take over the streets of Kigali to stop reprisals against Tutsis by Hutu civilians the junior officers were forbidden to do so, putting the lie to Kagame’s claim that he attacked to save Tutsis.

These officers testified that Kagame wanted deaths to justify his war. The RPF could have controlled large parts of Kigali as they had at least 15,000 men in or near the capital opposed to 5,000 Rwandan Army forces. Instead, Kagame used his men to ethnically cleanse the rest of the country of the Hutu population.

The Rwanda War was a total war. All means were used to destroy that country and the Hutu people. The ultimate objective was the resources of the Congo. The US agreed to support the RPF in return for the RPF’s acting as a US proxy force to invade the Congo and seize its resources.

The US now has several military bases in Rwanda, and the country is nothing more than a colony of the US and UK, run by thugs who control the majority of the people through intimidation, murder and disinformation.

None of this could have happened if those in the UN like Kofi Anan, then in charge of the Department of peacekeeping operations, had done their jobs. None of this could have happened without the connivance of the NATO countries and Uganda, from where the invasion was launched.

Ultimately, the prime responsibility rests with the United States of America and, in particular, with the regimes of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush--and now with President Barack Obama. As Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then UN
Secretary General, stated to Canadian historian Robin Philpot in 2004:
“The United States is one hundred percent responsible for what happened in
Rwanda.”

Toronto-based Christopher Black is a Barrister and International Criminal Lawyer. He is Lead Counsel for General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, Chief of Staff, Rwandan Gendarmerie before the International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda (ICTR).

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, July 5, 2009

"British budget support killed our dads, mums, uncles and aunts, our sisters and brothers..."

What these children have in common?
The Killer of their relatives, dads and mums still stay at large and enjoy impunity.

The Rwandan genocide and 5,000,000 Congolese and Hutu refugees killed are the culminating point of a long British battle to expand their influence to the African francophone Great

Lakes Region. The UK supported Kagame’s guerrilla war by providing military intelligence, advice and equipment. The UK refused to intervene to stop the genocide because they were confident that Kagame will win the war at any cost. All Kagame’s 20,000 fighters were on the Ugandan payroll paid by UK budget support.

SUMMARY
· 4 Heads of State assassinated in the francophone African Great Lakes Region.
· 2,000,000 people died in Hutu and Tutsi genocides in Rwanda, Burundi and RD.Congo.
· 500,000 Hutu refugees killed in R.D.Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic and Congo.

· 5,000,000 Congolese dead.
· 3,000,000 internal displaced people.
· 200,000 permanent Rwandan and Burundian Hutu refugees, and Congolese refugees around the world.

The full story on http://www.uk-africa.com/

***
Everything was destroyed by war. Everything. Families gave daughters to the military in return for their lives. Soldiers came and went, leaving girls as young as twelve alone with children of rape that are now starving, the husbands and fathers lost as adult males were conscripted or slaughtered. Teacher’s salaries are 1,000 francs a month, less than three US dollars, and teachers weakened by hunger cannot last to noon. Parents in small villages cannot pay school fees of about one US dollar a month per child.

The FDLR and local Congolese journalists claim that the Rwandan military and their criminal networks and militias continue to plunder raw materials from the DRC and ship them out through Rwanda. In turn, the Kagame government claims the FDLR seeks to destabilize Rwanda and finish what the 1994 genocide started. As violence escalated this spring, officials in Rwanda claimed "genocide against the Banyamulenge" was underway in eastern Congo.

"We would certainly not use the term genocide," said Andrew Philip, spokesman for Amnesty International's Central Africa Team, in a June 15 communication with this reporter. He dismissed claims by RCD commanders and Rwandan officials, noting that all combatants looted, raped and killed civilians of all communities.

A Human Rights Watch statement of June 12 echoed the SRI calls. It also pointed to accounts of Rwanda grooming Congolese proxy forces. "Local sources claimed to have identified Rwandan military working with the dissident forces," HRW noted, "an accusation Rwanda has emphatically denied."

Heritage Oil & Gas was founded by Tony Buckingham, an executive linked to a confusing network of front companies and offshore island holdings. De Standard reported June 19, 2003, on Heritage Oil's maneuvers in DRC and Uganda, and its links to companies like Branch Energy and Diamond Works, both exposed for operations in war-torn Angola and Sierra Leone.

Buckingham is a veteran of the UK's elite SAS military corps, and played a founding role in the private military companies Executive Outcomes of South Africa and Sandline International. De Standard suggested that Buckingham seeks the pacification of Ituri to exploit minerals in the region.

Buckingham's ties to US government officials are detailed in Wayne Madsen's book Genocide And Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999). The SAS mercenary soldier Simon Mann arrested this March with a posse of followers in Zimbabwe (allegedly en route to institute a coup in Equatorial Guinea) is a co-founder with Buckingham of Executive Outcomes.

http://www.allthingspass.com/

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

Création du Front des Patriotes pour le Changement

Acte de création du Front des Patriotes pour le Changement / biso na biso, « FPC », en sigle.

Notre pays la RDC vit les plus sombres moments de son histoire :

5 millions de populations massacrées par les armées étrangères,

800 mille déplacés internes, 300 mille réfugiés en Uganda,

Les viols des femmes,

L’insécurité quasi permanente a élu domicile dans les provinces du Nord Kivu, Sud Kivu et Orientale,

la paupérisation de tout un peuple est devenu un but poursuivi par le Président de la République
La corruption au sommet de l’Etat et au Parlement est monnaie courante, empêchant ainsi de véritables débats démocratiques sur des questions de fond et d’intérêts publics,

L’impunité est encouragée et récompensée, les fossoyeurs du peuple congolais sont protégés par le Président de la République et entend les récompenser en leurs offrant des meilleures places au gouvernement. La dictature, la tyrannie et la trahison du Président de la République s’installent comme mode de gestion de l’Etat.

Les invitations lancées aux armées ennemies sur le sol congolais pour semer le désarroi du Peuple Congolais sont des signes de mépris et de trahison envers toute une Nation.

Les appels répétés des évêques catholiques et des pasteurs des autres églises à l’adresse de Joseph Kabila Kabange, en vue de soulager la souffrance et la douleur de la population sont vains.

Face à ce constat amer de destruction programmée de la Nation Congolaise, devant Dieu et devant le Peuple Congolais, Nous décidons de créer un mouvement dénommé : FRONT des PATRIOTES pour le CHANGEMENT/ Biso na Biso, « FPC », en sigle.

Les membres et les militants du FPC/Biso na Biso s’engagent à :

1. Combattre par les armes le mal et les antivaleurs qu’incarne Joseph Kabila Kabange à la tête de l’Etat Congolais et à promouvoir un nouvel ordre politique en RDC.
2. Défendre notre pays contre ses prédateurs, ses ennemis et ses agresseurs.
3. Exiger la levée de l’impunité octroyée à Jean Bosco NTAGANDA et Laurent NKUNDABATWARE par Joseph Kabila Kabange.
4. Exiger l’arrêt immédiat des opérations militaires menées sur le territoire congolais par le CNDP et ses acolytes rwandais.
5. Exiger une solution politique et diplomatique du problème des rebelles rwandais présents sur le territoire congolais en place et lieu des opérations militaires.
6. Demander à la MONUC de s’abstenir de s’engager dans toutes les opérations militaires menées sur le territoire congolais.

Nous lançons un vibrant appel aux FARDC pour qu’ils se séparent des fossoyeurs du peuple congolais qui sont le CNDP, l’Armée Rwandaise et leurs pions au plus haut sommet de l’Etat. Nous les encourageons à rejoindre massivement les rangs du FPC /Biso na Biso pour l’intérêt
supérieur de la Nation Congolaise et pour sauver la République en danger.

Fait à Goma, le 27 juin 09

Commandant en chef du FPC /Biso na Biso
Gén.Maj. KAKULE SIKULI Lafontaine. Tél. (00243) 810999961
(sé)

Friday, July 3, 2009

Eugenic sterilization is one of the many indispensable measures that RPF programs use to numerously REDUCE the number of the hated Hutu Rwandans

“Everyone is a human being and deserves the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” – Frank Copley

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Who is inspiring the architects of the Rwanda Sterelization Law?

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I. Introduction

Who is Horst Schumann?

Dr. Horst Schumann (1906-1983) was a SS doctor. Originally, he worked at Auschwitz in Dr. Viktor Brack's T4 axiom.
Originally, he worked at Auschwitz in Dr. Viktor Brack's T4 axiom. Dr. Brack had asked to be placed in charge of the sterilization program, however, Himmler chose Schumann for the position instead. Later Schumann conducted experiments at Birkenbau.

Schumann was a part of the sterilization program for both men and women at Auschwitz and Birkenbau (13). He conducted various unethical research on women, including injections such as formalin, novacain, progynon, and prolusion (9). The injections were supposed to sterilize Jewish women and gypsy women.

The substances would cause infections and scarring of the fallopian tubes which wo

uld prevent both fertilization and implantation of eggs in the uterus. Many of the women actually died from pelvic inflammation of their uterus and ruptured fallopian tubes during these experiments.

Schumann's sterilization of men also stemmed around injections, castration and x-rays or intentional radiation of men's penises, scrotums and testes.
Schumann never published any of his research like other Nazi doctors did after the war. Instead, the documentation for most of his research disappeared and the Allied forces were only able to find out the names of the experiments, how many people Schumann got for each experiment, and what each experiment was supposed to be for. Schumann and another doctor escaped to ano

ther area of Germany and they took on fake aliases as refugees.

They used a refugee credit to start up a medical practice under their aliases. When they were discovered, Schumann fled to Africa and all we know is what Schumann claimed himself. Schumann claimed that from 1950-1955 that he was a ship's doctor. In 1955, Schumann went to Sudan where he claimed to have studied "sleeping sickness." For some reason, Schumann fled Sudan or his alias was discovered where he fled to Nigeria and then on to Ghana. In 1966, the government of Ghana handed Schumann back to the German government.

Clearly, it is a curiosity which anyone would want to know. What were Schumann's aliases in Africa? (so that someone can track him down) And is there any patient of Schumann in Africa that is still alive?

Should the Africans (Sudanese, Nigerians, Ghanaian’s and Rwandans) trust Schumann's needles, considering that he was a Nazi doctor and killed most of his patients using his needles? Should anyone trust the needles of a man that chooses to poison 575 people by injections in the heart?

The Rockefellers monopolized American medicine in the 1920s. They, along with I.G. Farben, Germany's leading industrial organization, held the monopoly on the world's chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The Rockefellers and I.G. Farben worked together before World War II and during World War II. For all practical purposes, the Rockefellers and I.G. Farben were the Third Reich.

To give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation [concentration camps] or sterilization", advocated the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger in April 1932 ("A Plan For Peace", Birth Control Review; see 'appendix' for this full unabridged seminal article).

Which country pioneered forced sterilization in the 20th century, Germany or the United States of America? The German program began in January 1934, but the U.S. state of Indiana passed a forced sterilization law (for mental defectives) in 1907 (when Adolf Hitler was 18 years old).

Before the German program began, at least seventeen U.S. states (including California) had 'forced sterilization' laws. Before 1930 there were 200-600 forced sterilizations per year (in the U.S.A.) but in the 1930s the rate jumped to 2,000-4,000 per year.

Who 'Inspired' the architects of the German Sterilization law?
"The leaders in the German sterilization movement state repeatedly that their legislation was formulated after careful study of the California experiment as reported by Mr. Gosney and Dr. [Paul] Popenoe. It would have been impossible, they say, to understake such a venture involving some 1 million people without drawing heavily upon previous experience elsewhere."

Who is Dr. Paul Popenoe? He was a leader in the U.S. eugenics movement and wrote (1933) the article 'Eugenic Sterilization' in the journal (BCR) that Margaret Sanger started. How many Americans did Dr. Popenoe estimate should be subjected to sterilization? Between five million and ten million Americans. "The situation [in the U.S.A] will grow worse instead of better if steps are not taken to control the reproduction of mentally handicapped. Eugenic sterilization represents one such step that is practicable, humanitarian, and certain in its results."

Who is Ernst Rudin?

Ernst Rudin was director of the foremost German eugenics research institute (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Genealogy, in Munich, Germany). "On June 2, 1933, [German] Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick announced the formation of an Expert Committee on Questions of Population and Racial Policy .... to plan the course of Nazi racial policy. The committee brought together the elite of Nazi racial theory: Alfred Ploetz, ..... Ernst Rudin, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Genealogy in Munich;...."

On July 14, 1933 this committee's recommendations were made law, the sterilization law ("Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring"); the start date for exercising the law was 1 Jan 1934. What was Ernst Rudin's opinion of Adolf Hitler and eugenics ('racial hygiene')?

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II. Rwanda is being urged to drop a draft law which (OFFICIALLY) would forcibly sterilise people who are mentally disabled.

*

It is a well-known fact that Tutsi extremists group like RPF promote these types of ideas all over the country as a part of the culture of death from the false family planning and population growth reduction to their extermination.

During the past two decades of the RPF Nazi era in Rwanda, eugenics prompted the sterilization of several hundred thousand Hutus in the anti Hutu majority programmes of euthanasia and ultimately, of course, to the Imidugudu, eugenics laws, IDPS, Refugees in the Congo and death camps (Kibeho). The whole intention is to reduce the majority population in Rwanda blamed to be the cause of the overcrowded population on a very small land.

Fury at Rwanda sterilisation bill

The Rwandan Parliament is currently discussing a draft law which would "require the sterilization of all individuals with intellectual disabilities."

Human Rights Watch said the proposed law was a gross violation of human rights.

This bill "undermines reproductive health goals and undo decades of work to ensure respect for reproductive rights," said Joe Amon, the health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch.

The Human Rights Watch has urged the Rwandan government to remove this provision from the bill.

(March 2006) The latest Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) of the Republic of Rwanda was conducted in 2005. This 2005 survey shows that the national policy to reduce population growth, while not yet seeing a reduction in fertility rates, has resulted in the increased use of family planning. In addition, the widespread awareness of HIV suggests that the country is having some success in addressing that significant threat to public health.

In May 2008, Rwanda ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The convention upholds the rights of persons with disabilities, including intellectual disabilities, to equal rights.

This new law under discussion in the Rwandan Parliament would go against the above mentioned convention.

Furthermore, forced sterilization is considered a crime against humanity by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

© SurViVors Editions

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, July 2, 2009

Former RPF Fighters in Uganda Demand Compensation from Rwandan Government

NDLR: There was NO CIVIL WAR IN RWANDA BUT INVASION BY OUTSIDERS AND TERRORISTS. Who's the brain behind the Rwanda genocide Look at him here above =>
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3,700,000,000 Frw only for Ugandan fighters.
What about Somalis, Burundians, Ethiopians, Erythreans, Tanzanians, AlQaeda, and other mercenaries?

Whose the bill? RPF/A or Rwandans?

To get an idea of the scope of the war, it is very easy to get information and details in Addis Ababa, where you will find people who were hired to fight for the RPF.

They will tell you that the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia recruited foreign fighters (including al Shabaab militia, World-Wide Jihad and Al
Qaeda) for the RPF. These soldiers came from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and South Sudan to fight against the Rwandan Government.

Obviously, there is no need to say that the 1990-1994 war was a civil war as it was described before and after the RPF seized power. Even today there are Somalis living in Rwanda with full Rwandan citizenship and still others who were disappointed and left for Europe. That is why, at the end of the day, the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) said Paul Kagame was linked to Al-Qaeda without giving more detailed information. Many of those guys fighting with the RPF were actually terrorists, but that label was not used with those countries at that time because it was before September the eleventh, 2001!

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Wednesday, 01 July 2009 14:11

A group of men claiming to be former members of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) which helped to overthrow the government of Juvenal Habyarimana in 1994 are demanding payment of their salaries and compensation. The former fighters want a total of seven billion shillings accumulated over the past 13 years.

On Monday 50 of the former RPF officers held a meeting at Kasana Football Ground in Masaka town to discuss their demands. They said they were giving the Rwandan government two weeks to clear their arrears or they would seek legal redress.

Aquino Matega, a retired sergeant in the RPF who now serves as the representative of the claimants, says he is personally demanding for 12 million shillings. He claims that his leg was wounded by a landmine during the 1994 push to Kigali and he has never been compensated by the Rwandan government.

The claim for compensation is based on an agreement allegedly made with the Rwandan government and a group of 600 former officers in 1996. The soldiers were reportedly told to return to their countries of origin with the agreement that they would be paid for the efforts in the war.

The contract signed by Colonel Sam Kanyemera Kaka, the former Rwandan Army Chief of Staff and the non-Rwandan citizen fighters entitled them to a pay of between 300,000 shillings and 740,000 shillings depending on their rank. Payment was to be effected from September 1996.

In total 235 Ugandans who claim to have fought in the Rwandese Patriotic Front between 1990 and 1995 claim that they have never been paid.

Ibrahim Kaliisa, one of the former fighters, says he and his colleagues still have identity cards and documents recognizing them as Rwandan soldiers. He says he wants six million shillings in compensation because he played a central role in the Virunga Forest battle in 1993. He claims that he killed 20 government soldiers during that battle.

A Rwandan Embassy official who identified herself as Regina Chantal called the RPF claimants greedy and impatient. She said the issue is still pending a decision in Rwanda and the former fighter should wait for an official answer.

Major John Karangwa, an official from the Rwandan Ministry of Defense, in a phone interview from Kigali, said he is aware of the demands of the RPF claimants. He said he regrets the delays and confirms that his government is working closely with the Rwandan Embassy in Uganda to compensate the soldiers.

Foreign Minister Sam Kuteesa, who has been a reference point for many of the fighters, said he is also aware of the demands. He urged the former fighters to remain calm.

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

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

There Is No Military Solutions To Political Problems

By MUJYANAMA
June 10, 2009
Fifteen (15) years after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and nineteen (19) years after the Rwandan civil war of 1990, a non-negligible portion of the Rwandan population does neither have a place to live in their home country nor rights in many western power's foreign policies.

In January and February 2009, a joint military operation “Umoja wetu” between the Rwandan army (RDF) and the Congolese army (FARDC) was launched in the Province of North Kivu (DRC) with the specific mission of tracking down Rwandan Hutu refugees, some of which have joined the FDLR rebellion.

The official goal for "Umoja wetu" operation was to disarm these combatants and force them to return home in Rwanda. Sin

ce the operation “Umoja wetu” has failed, attentions are now turned to the Province of South Kivu where a similar military operation, “Kimya II” is underway with the same specific mission of tracking down Rwandan Hutu refugees who just await their voluntary repatriation in dignity and tranquility.

Meanwile, the Congolese people continue to pay for a political deadlock whose solutions are not military but political.

Mujyanama, a citizen of Rwanda, contributed the following pertinent analysis of the endless crisis in the African Great Lakes region and proposed some solutions.

IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (DRC)

After “Umoja wetu” in North Kivu, “Kimya II" in South Kivu

In North Kivu, during the operation “Umoja wetu” (our unity), which was launched on January 20, 2009 and officially ended on February 25, 2009, there was no fightings between the FDLR combatants and the Rwando-Congolese coalition soldiers.

The FDLR were good at ambushing the coalition soldiers in order to delay their inward progress and has fought only once in February at Katoyi in Masisi territory, when they suddenly became surrounded by the coalition soldiers. There were many dead and wounded among the Rwandan troops and very little among the FDLR combatants.

Even though the Rwandan authorities have stated that the operation “Umoja wetu” was a succes in 80%, the FDLR are still there. The FDLR have moved further inward in the forest. They are now scattered in several groups and very few of them have returned home in Rwanda.

Currently, a similar operation, prepared by the arrival of many more Rwandan troops, called “Kimya II” (Silence), is underway in South Kivu.

Officially, the operation Kimya II is only conducted by the Congolese (FARDC) soldiers with a logistical support from UN (MONUC) peacekeepers.

However, local Congolese populations have deeply expressed their worries to see among these troops a strong presence of Rwandan (RDF) soldiers, newly arrived, and therefore other than the CNDP soldiers.

As far as the FDLR are concerned, they are determined to defend themselves if they are attacked. However they constantly ask the Congolese soldiers the following questions:

“We have already married your sisters. How can you attack your brothers-in- law, your sisters, your nephews?” We have been welcomed in this country by Laurent Desire Kabila, we fought with you against the RCD, a Rwandan proxy rebellion. We have even saved the life of your current President from the hands of the RPF soldiers in Pweto. How is it possible that you now mistakenly consider us your enemies?”

Long before “Kimya II” operation began, the Congolese population suffered from extensive exactions of the FARDC soldiers: the burning of houses, rapes, and some of the massacres that are officially attributed to the FDLR on a regular basis.

Indeed, for many of the alleged FDLR massacres, strong evidence has proven otherwise.

There are some Congolese soldiers that are poorly paid. There are other Congolese soldiers that are corrupted by the Kigali regime. There also are some Rwandan (RDF) soldiers who have already infiltrated the FARDC. There are several groups of bandits, etc.

Their misdeeds continue to tarnish the FDLR image so that the “Kimya II” operation can continue to receive support from the International Community.

Concerning lootings, one should keep in mind that Rwandan refugees in DRC were used to grow their own crops, had their own livestock and were used to sell their products at several local markets. Now that these refugees are forced to be on a constant run, they are left without any means of survival.

Military operations with hidden goals

Is it possible that the Rwandan (RDF) soldiers, perpetrators of several massacres of Congolese poeple in Kasika, Makobola, Katogota during the invasion war in 1998 can now bring peace to DRC?

Has anyone forgot that on November 6, 2008, more than four hundreds (400) Congolese aged between 14 and 40 were massacred by the Rwandan soldiers led by Laurent Nkunda in Kiwanja, North Kivu?

Obviously, military operations in the eastern provinces of DRC have hidden goals that the Congolese will surely discover in the future.

Under the umbrella of “Umoja wetu” operation, several thousands of Rwandan soldiers entered the Congo. When the operation officially ended in February 2009, only a very small number of these soldiers returned home in Rwanda while thousands joined the CNDP rebels and have been integrated into the FARDC.

A number of witnesses have reported several nocturnal entries of Rwandan soldiers in Bukavu, by the border or across the Kivu Lake. These soldiers soon after their entries take their lead in the forest.

Last year, President Kagame, speaking to the Rwandan youth, Tutsis and Hutus included, who had failed the final exams for their degrees that year, told them:

“Do not get discouraged. The end of school education does not mean the end of life! I will give you some job.”

Soon after the speech, these young man and women have been invited to join the Rwandan army (RDF). They underwent military trainings provided by the American instructors. Upon completion of these accelerated trainings, the young people were immediately sent to the Congo. one group encompassing some Presidential Guards of Paul Kagame, went deeper into the forest. Another group remained in Bukavu.

Their specific mission could not be clearer: kill as many people as possible and put the blame on the FDLR rebels. These slodiers all speak native languages of North and South Kivu.

Thus continues the sinister plan aimed at strengthening the Rwandan military and political presence within all Congolese institutions in order to install the Hima hegemony in this country.

Owing to the fact that many Congolese are prone to corruption, it is much easier to conquer them. Thus, the Machiavellian plan aimed at annexing the eastern Congo to Rwanda inexorably stays on the right path towards its realization.

IN RWANDA

The fate of Hutus repatriated to Rwanda

Most of the Rwandan refugees who have been “voluntarly” repatriated from DRC during the operations “Umoja wetu” and “Kimya II”, are women, children, and the elderly. Usually, it is the UNHCR that transports them to Rwanda. Once in Rwanda, they spend a few days in a transit camp and are then sent to their home villages with an insertion kit.

When these people leave the transit camp, the camp authorities call the RPF agents in the village of destination for theses returnees. The camp authorities ask the RPF agents whether they are willing to accept the returnee's arrival. If the answer is no, the police officer will immediately proceed by arresting these returnees and put them in prison, accusing them of having participated in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Some of these returnees manage to make it to their home land. However, since for many of their houses have been destroyed, most of these returnees end up living in "small houses" that the government has built along the roadsides.

Women refugees returning to Rwanda from DRC are subject to extensive harassments and intimidations mostly owing to the fact that in Rwanda there is a saying that "he who kills a snake must also kill that snake’s youngsters".

For instance, in the former Commune of Cyimbogo, the RPF soldiers have recently falsely accused and unjustly imprisoned two young men, Niyibizi, son of Rwanzegushira, and Kaze, son of Nyandwi.

Following this unfortunate incident, a representative of Ibuka gave a speech that frightened local populations:

“In the past, the Tutsis have dominated the Hutus, so must also be it until this very day!”

Concerning the FDLR fighters who decided to return home, their fate is still uncertain: some of them ended up in prison.

Demobilized RPF soldiers and demobilized FDLR rebels have different ID cards. On the ID cards of the latter it is written that: “He distanced himself from the rebels”.

This is why some of these repatriated refugees are returning to the Congo.

The Gacaca courts still pose problems

In Rwandan prisons, prisoners are mercilessly packed up. The prisoners are massively dying in prison on a daily basis. Families of prisoners are no longer allowed to bring food to their imprisoned relatives. People continue to be unjustly arrested. The “gacaca courts”, traditional tribunals, that judge Hutus accused of genocide, are supposedly aimed at bringing about Truth and Reconciliation in Rwanda.

In reality the Gacaca courts have become instruments of repression for Tutsi

revenge against the Hutus with the financial and moral support from the International Community.

The Gacaca Courts were supposed to end in late 2007, but their mandate has been prolonged up to June 2009. They still deal with allegations of property damage during genocide.

Through the Gacaca courts many Hutus have been expropriated but on top of that corrupted genocide Tutsi survivors are now in process of appealing several court rulings so that the acquitted Hutus can once again be imprisoned.

The Gacaca courts absolutely seek to convict those Hutus who have been already released from prison. Specifically, Hutu elites are the main targeted. These are Hutus who worked for the former regime. These Hutus have always lived in Rwanda without being harassed. Some of them have been even working for the RPF.

In Rwanda anyone who thinks, anyone who can share his/her thoughts, becomes a danger to the public. These people are targeted by the Rwandan authorities who usually manage to silence them and set them aside.

The Rwandan President Paul Kagame knows very well that the majority of the people who are routinely arrested in Rwanda on genocide charges are innocent.

In order to hold on power, the Rwandan authorities rely on arbitrary massive imprisonments of innocent people.

Recently, the Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) in New York wrote a letter to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Arusha, Tanzania, and asked him to also address the crimes committed by the RPF soldiers.

The Rwandan Minister of Justice ironically responded by saying that it would be a tautology, because the RPF criminals, have been already prosecuted in Rwanda.

Stay silent otherwise die or become slaves

People who have parents or children abroad, particularly refugees in Congo, are persecuted, in order to force their family members in exile to return home.

The RPF agents with the specific duty of identifying those families require the “nyumbakumi”, local leaders controlling just ten (10) households, to directly report to these agents if there are any opponents among the ten families under their control.

The list of opponents is transmitted to the military leadership. At night, RPF spying agents spend sometimes near the residential homes of these alleged opponents, listening to their conversations or their phone calls.

If they notice that they were talking about their exiled relatives or talking with them on phone, they arrest them. The alleged opponents who dare to leave their homes after 8:00PM will be severely beaten up.

Selected by the President of Ibuka, the “Intore” (the chosen ones), have a fundamental task of constantly terrorizing the population in preparation of the 2010 presidential elections and specifically to submit the names of the people who have family relatives in the Congo and to monitor their movements and conversations.

They are supposed to provide daily reports on what they heard behind closed doors. Other spying agents cross the Kivu Lake at night to Bukavu in order to capture some information about the FDLR.

In each cell (also called Akagari), there is a leader responsible of death squad.. The main duty of this leader is to physically eliminate opponents.

On May 7, 2009 in Cyato Sector, a meeting took place. The meeting was chaired by a representative of Ibuka. To the meeting, only Tutsis born to a Tutsi father and a Tutsi mother were invited. There were more than two hundreds people including the leaders of Ibuka and the leaders of death squads in each Sector.

Here is an excerpt of their concluding remarks:

"All those Hutus you know to harbor bad ideologies, and those believed to be physically strong, must have a file of participation in genocide and get arrested. Those who have lands or money, they should quickly be imprisoned before the elections take place.

We will start by arresting two persons in each sector, the following week we will arrest four, within a month, eight, and so on, until all of them have been arrested. They have to work for us in land managements, field works on our hills, or build our houses.

The Hutus are physically strong. If we do not imprison them they won’t be able to work for us as Tigists (from the French acronym TIG: Travaux d'Interets Generaux or Works of General Interests). The Gacaca courts must be reinstated, so that the Hutus who have never been imprisoned be arrested and that those who have been released be imprisoned again."

A population impoverished and intimidated

Bullying looms throughout Rwanda. Every Rwandan is afraid to express his/her opinion on any situation even within close friends.

In April 2009, during a visit to Byumba, President Kagame said that:

“whoever is unable to follow his instructions, has to leave the country, and that he who diverts public funds will be imprisoned”.

Paradoxically, it is the smal group of people that run the country that are incredibly accumulating wealth beyond any measure.

In schools, during break times, the Tutsi students associate themselves according to their social classes. Their whispers usually worry the Hutu students. Such associations of ethnic character among students in Rwanda are surely not aimed at fostering justice and reconciliation.

Although the institution of the “mutual healthcare” system guarantees primary health cares, the gap between rich and poor people is widening on a daily basis.

In Kigali-City the small houses belonging to the Hutus i.e the poor people, have been destroyed to make way to make room for the villas, and these Hutu people had to leave the city towards rural areas with a meager compensation.

No small venders are allowed to sell goods on the roadsides, and many small shops are going out of business because of too high taxes. Peasants have been forced to cut down their banana plantations under false allegations that bananana consumption may cause malnutrition. Instead, it is through banana plantations that the ordinary Rwandan family gets some cash.

Even among the Tutsis, the Banyamulenge from DRC, those of Burundi origin, and those who have always lived in the country, briefly all those who do not belong to the English speaking group that came from Uganda, are increasingly getting marginalized. Any one who wants to do the right thing is threatened and pushed aside.

A regime that enjoys international support

Despite the unspeakable levels of social injustice in Rwanda, the International Community continues to use the double standards, two sets of rules and continues to support the Kigali regime.

There are numerous signs:

-During all those years of civil war since October 1, 1990 too much blood has been shed from one side to the other: why then labeling some people as victims and the other ones as perpetrators, instead of promoting a process of genuine investigation of the facts in truth and justice, so that all Rwandan children can rebuild their country together?

-Why didn’t we see any follow up about the two arrest warrants issued, one by the French Judge Bruguiere against nine senior leaders of the RPF, and the other one by the Spanish judge Merelles against forty officers including high ranking official close to Paul Kagamé?

-While the RPF-Inkotanyi used child soldiers during their conquest war in Rwanda, why up to date no international institution has expressed any concern about this issue?

-Why the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), whose mandate is to investigate all crimes committed in Rwanda and neighboring counties from January 1, 1994 until December 31, 1994, has only prosecuted the Hutus?

-Why the USA has long supported the rebel Laurent Nkunda affiliated to Rwanda, whose soldires in two years of war in North Kivu, has killed so many people and has displaced nearly two million people?

-Upon the publication last December, of the UN report on the Rwandan aggression in the Congo through Nkunda's forces, the Netherlands and Sweden have suspended budgetary aid to Rwanda. Why didn’t other donors do the same?

-The December 2008 agreement between the Congolese President, Joseph Kabila and the Rwandan President, Paul Kagame has made it possible to arrest Nkunda so that the FDLR track down in North Kivu can begin in January 2009.

-The International Community supports these military operations and refuses to listen to the voice of helpless Hutu refugees in DRC: they are hunting them down. Are they all killers? What about the children born in the DRC in exile, the young people born in Rwanda but who were children in 1994, women, elderly and many adult people, who were also victims of the Rwanda civil war?

Conclusion

It is not understandable that one wants to repatriate the Hutu refugees by force, while some of those returnees are now returning back to DRC. One cannot force someone to go home: it is a crime and history will prove it. Rwandan Hutu refugees in Congo would really love to return home, but they cannot be forced to do so, when there is not guarantee for their security and dignity in Rwanda.

Their return that these war operations in North and South Kivu allege to aim at will be achieved not by violence, which is making new victims and displacing people, but by a democratic change in Rwanda. The only solution to restore peace in Rwanda is through an inclusive inter-Rwandan dialogue so that Rwandans at all society levels can discuss the future of their country, just as other people have done so, and build a country where everyone feels free and protected.

The International Community should abstain from supporting perpetuation of crimes against the Hutus worldwide and especially in the eastern provinces of DRC. The Hutu have been equally created by the same God as any other human beings and are therefore entitled to the right to life, the right to claim anything they are entitled to, the right to express themselves and right to receive assistance of any kind.

The International Community should put pressure on the Rwandan government, so that:

- An inclusive inter-Rwandan dialogue can take place, in order to build the country's future in peace;

- A general amnesty be given to all ex-FAR (the army of the previous regime) soldiers and even to every Rwandan so that altogether the Rwandan children can rebuild their country.

- A functioning multiparty system be installed in the country without delay on the eve of the 2010 presidential elections, and that these elections be transparent and free and democratic.

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

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Aside with the heavyweight criminal Paul Kagame, Zuma is out of Step with History -

Written by Comfort Ero and Piers Pigou
29 June 2009

Guest column-Just ahead of this week’s African Union summit in Libya, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has advocated an old and discredited approach for dealing with African heads of state facing international justice, write Comfort Ero and Piers Pigou.

When a leader of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress speaks on such critical issues as impunity for the perpetrators of human rights violations, the rest of Africa listens. We listen because we recall with passion how apartheid was dismantled, ushering in a new era of democracy for South Africa.

So it comes as a shock that President Jacob Zuma used the recent meeting of the World Economic Forum for Africa to call for a continental policy favouring impunity. Sharing a roundtable conversation with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Zuma proclaimed that the “world has changed” and that we must “do things differently and … not emphasise punishment” in dealing with leading perpetrators of serious crimes.

His statement is embarrassing and retrogressive, especially because the world has indeed changed – but not in the ways Zuma assumed.

What has changed is that over the last two decades a global consensus has grown that amnesty for violent crimes is morally and legally unacceptable. Africa led this change in many respects, and the newly-democratised South Africa enthusiastically supported the creation of the International Criminal Court in 2002.

What Zuma now proposes is not a “new” approach but an old and discredited one that would reinforce outdated visions of an Africa which resists human rights and is willing to tolerate the worst forms of brutality.

At a time when Radovan Karadzic is being brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, Charles Taylor faces justice before the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and Peru has tried and convicted Alberto Fujimori, Zuma has chosen to make the worst kind of rationalization for African exceptionalism.

Even worse, Zuma’s statement was made just ahead of this week’s African Union summit in Libya, which has on its draft agenda at least two reports dealing with attempts to bring to trial African heads of state. Zuma’s “new” approach, coming just as the continent faces pressures from some of its leaders to thwart justice, threatens to undermine the legitimacy of international humanitarian law.

Zuma’s approach would protect the perpetrators and architects of violence at the expense of redress for their victims. Not only is no thought given to providing reparation to victims of such violence, but their right to see justice done would be extinguished. When societies fail to make victims’ needs a priority, those societies risk new cycles of violence.

President Zuma did not distinguish between short-term peace processes and durable peacebuilding. His “bold approach” would do more to promote political violence as a means of gaining power than promote peace. He would invite leaders of political violence to look forward to impunity and a mansion in a neighbouring state.

Zuma presents this position – a safe retirement home for African despots – as being “for the sake of our people,” when clearly this protection is antithetical to the public interest. His position suggests that domestic, regional and international legal commitments can be airbrushed away, cloaked under the rubric of the pragmatic notions of what best serves Africa.

Many commentators assume Zuma’s remarks refer mainly to President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Zuma is indeed faced with a serious problem in Zimbabwe that is likely to be resolved only when Mugabe is persuaded to step aside.

Mugabe’s decision to leave the scene will likely depend on guarantees of impunity being extended to members of his inner circle. That is all the more reason that accountability should not be bargained away. Prospects for sustainable transformation in Zimbabwe require more, not less accountability, extending to economic crimes and corruption.

Perhaps Zuma’s public remarks are a tactical gamble, presenting himself as “on side” with the recalcitrant leaders while knowing full well that Africa’s political leadership can provide no meaningful guarantees of impunity. If this benign interpretation is true, is it worth the egg that has landed on his face as a result of appearing an apologist for the continent’s perpetrators?

Comfort Ero is deputy director of the Africa Program of the International Center for Transitional Justice. Piers Pigou is a senior associate at the ICTJ.

Kivu, annexion ou colonisation rwandaise?L’incendie des maisons préparerait l’installation des Tutsis rwandais. Qui pouvait imaginer ce plan macabre ?

Un plan copié et collé du génocide Rwandais.

Les populations civiles de Kanyabayonga sont unanimes : L’incendie des maisons par des militaires, le recrutement massif des jeunes diplômés à qui l'on promet une formation militaire et politique à l’étranger, les conflits terriens ainsi que les assassinats des chefs coutumiers et des civils, sont des actes barbares commis délibérément pour préparer le terrain aux colonies de peuplement tutsi. Les faits suivants en témoignent!

La cité de

Kanyabayonga, à une centaine de kilomètres au sud de Butembo, dans le territoire de Lubero, au Nord-Kivu, a été, dans la nuit de mardi à mercredi 24 juin, le théâtre d’une incursion d’hommes en uniforme militaire non autrement identifiés qui ont mis le feu à plusieurs maisons d’habitation.

L’opération macabre a eu lieu entre 22h et 3 h du matin, heure locale. Au total 31 maisons ont été incendiées au quartier Muhola, à l’extrême Nord de la cité

de Kanyabayonga, et 7 autres à Bulotwa environ 3 kilomètres au nord de Kanyabayonga, comme nous l'a relaté une de victime de cette barbarie qui a eu lieu dans cité ayant plusieurs camps militaires et plusieurs militaires qui se disent en zone opérationnelle.

Le fait que les incendies des maisons était devenue monnaie courante sans qu’un seul bandit soit arrêté et sans qu’il y ait une enquête, suffit pour dire que le génocide qui se commet à petit feu dans la région de Beni-Lubero est l’œuvre des Fardc brassés déployés dans la province. C’est cela la conclusion à laquelle la population victime est arrivée, identifiant les hommes en uniforme militaire comme ses premiers ennemis.

Selon plusieurs victimes, certains assaillants parlaient Kinyarwanda et d’autres Lingala pour expulser les habitants de leurs maisons avant de les incendier. Longtemps après le crime, soit entre 7h00 et 8h00 du mercredi 24 juin, une équipe des FARDC a voulu se déployer sur le lieu du crime, soit disant pour diligenter une enquête. Les jeunes du quartier Muhola en colère ont jeté des coups de pierre à ces sapeurs pompiers qui n’ont jamais été à l’heure là où on les appellait… Une véritable intifada a eu lieu…

Depuis quelques temps, le climat entre la population et les FARDC déployés dans la région se détériore du jour au lendemain comme en 1996, lors de la première occupation rwando-burundo-ougandaise. La lune de miel avec les rwandais-burundais-ougandais après la libération des beniluberois des FAZ du feu Maréchal Mobutu n’avait durée que deux semaines.

En effet, la résistance armée était née spontanément à la suite du comportement pillard et sanguinaire des libérateurs. Si en 1996, il s’agissait d’une guerre ouverte, celle qui se déroule actuellement au Kivu est sournoise car ses concepteurs pensent arriver à leurs objectifs machiavéliques en utilisant le mensonge et la diversion. Mais les Kivutiens en particulier et les congolais d’une manière générale suivent la situation à la loupe.

L’incendie des maisons au Nord-Kivu aurait ainsi comme objectif de préparer le terrain pour l’installation des populations rwandaises Tutsi qu’on appelle refugiés congolais au Rwanda, Tanzanie, Burundi, Uganda, etc. Ceux qui sont attendus en Territoire de Lubero seraient au nombre de 40 000 familles ! Les habitants de villages incendiés ne se rappellent pas pourtant avoir vécu avec des rwandais qui se seraient refugiés au Rwanda ou ailleurs dans un passé récent…

Si tel était le cas, le HCR pouvait réinstaller les refugiés revenants cas par cas comme il le fait pour les disparus congolais de la même région. Le fait d’incendier les maisons signifie que ceux qu’on appelle r

efugiés revenant du Rwanda n’ont jamais été au Congo auparavant. Il faut leur créer un territoire en toute pièce.

Paul Kagame, dans sa conquête de l' Est de la RDC, massacre les Hutus autochtones et les fait remplacer par des Tutsis venus de tous horizons. But poursuivi: colonie de peuplement.

Liste non exhaustive des Hutus massacrées par le RPF/APR/CNDP/RCD.

1. Uwihoreye Richard, Male, 40 ans
2. Munyandinda Jean-Marie Vianney, Male, 50 ans
3. Uwamahoro Beatha, Femelle, 2 ans

4. Muhetsi, Male, 40 ans

5. Gahungu, Male, 1 an
6. Gaudence, Femelle, 35 ans
7. Julienne, Femelle, 2 ans
8. Mukandayisenga, Femelle, 1an
9. Mujyambere, Male, 48 ans
10.Kazwinande Jean d’Amour, Male, 50 ans
11.Fumberi, Male, 40 ans
12.Habiyaremye Pascal, Male, 55 ans
13.Nyirarugendo Thaciana, Femelle, 54 ans
14.Bimenyimana Fidèle, Male, 45 ans
15.Ndaziganje Lucien, Male, 50 ans
16.Mugoyi, Male, 45 ans
17.Nyiraneza Elisabeth, Femelle, 70 ans
18.Ntakirutinka, Male, 60 ans
19.Kwigira Cyprien, Male, 42 ans
20.Mushimiye, Femelle, 20 ans
21.Mushi Anastase, Male, 35 ans
22.Byiringiro Erneste, Male, 5 ans
23.Mbabazi Samuel, Male, 40 ans
24. Kaneza Catherine, Femelle, 37 ans
25.Uwimbabazi Anne Marie, Femelle, 12 ans
26.Niyomugabo Emmanuel, Male, 10 ans
27. Mushimiyimana Godeleive, Femelle, 8 ans
28.Nzabazira Eric, Male, 10 ans
29.Ngabonziza Eric, Male, 16 ans
30.Safali Oscar, Male, 3 ans
31.Ingabire, Femelle, 14 ans
32.Bikorimana Jean, Male, 2 ans
33.Ndahimana, Male, 9 ans
34.Uwamahoro Pascasie, Femelle, 44 ans
35.Mukantwari Devota, Femelle, 14 ans
36.Karekezi Adam, Male, 59 ans
37.Muhire Jean Marie Vienney, Male, 40 ans
38.Muvandimwe, Male, 36 ans
39.Koboyi Theogene, Male, 40 ans
40.Uwitonze Jeanne, Femelle, 12 ans
41.Gishuhe Thomas, Male, 14 ans
42.Uzamukunda Lea, Femelle, 20 ans
43.Musabyimana Philippe, Male, 17 ans
44.Nyiranzabonimana, Femelle, 25 ans
45.Agatha, Femelle, 45 ans
46.Nzarora John, Male, 15 ans
47.Ubarijoro Léonard, Male, 65 ans
48.Habimana Fidèle, Male, 12 ans
49.Mukamanzi Drocelle, Femelle, 50 ans
50.Nyiraneza Esperance, Femelle, 17 ans
51.Gashema Moïse, Male, 54 ans
52.Hakizimana Emmanuel, Male, 25 ans
53.Niyonsaba, Femelle, 24 ans
54.Uwiragiye Josephine, Femelle, 8 ans
55.Furaha, Femelle, 5 ans
56.Nahayo, Male, 2 ans
57.Nyiramana, Femelle, 5 ans
58.Mukantwari, Femelle, 10 ans
59.Uwinema Marie, Femelle, 7 ans
60.Habiyambere , Male, 25 ans
61.Ayinkamiye Julienne, Femelle, 24 ans
62.Muhawenimana, Femelle, 6 ans
63.Mukantabana, Femelle, 20 ans

D’après nos sources, la première tentative de cette colonie de peuplement devait se dérouler à Luofu au Sud-de Lubero. Elle n’a pas eu lieu car la population sinistrée refuse de quitter les villages réduits en cendres. Certains habitants auraient déjà reconstruit leurs cases incendiées. Sachant que le territoire de Lubero est le territoire rural le plus peuplé de la R.D. Congo, les concepteurs de la colonie de peuplement Tutsi au sud de Lubero cogitent sur les conséquences de l’implantation d’une petite colonie Tutsi au milieu des Nande. Mais ils ne s’avouent pas encore vaincus.

Une autre stratégie d’anéantissement de la Province est l’existence de plusieurs opérations de recrutement des jeunes congolais dans la province du Nord-Kivu. La cible privilegiée de ce recrutement est les jeunes universitaires au chômage après leur licence ou leur graduat dans les universités de la région.

L’objectif de ce nième recrutement militaire dans un pays qui compte déjà plus des militaires qu’il ne peut entretenir, serait l’anéantissement de toute résistance contre les colonies de peuplement en perspective.

Aux jeunes qu’on recrute et qui se réunissent nuitamment dans des résidences bien connues, on promet une formation militaire ou politique à l’étranger, un poste de commandement juteux dans l’armée, la police, la garde présidentielle, etc. Toute présence aux rencontres souvent nocturnes est rémunérée en espèces sonnantes et trébuchantes (au moins 50 US$) après des repas et des libations somptueux.

Dans cette rubrique, il faut ajouter que certaines sociétés de gardiennage de la Province forment leurs sentinelles à l’étranger… Une enquête est en cours sur ce vaste réseau de déstabilisation de la province par des promesses fallacieuses aux jeunes et aux forces vives….

Les jeunes du Nord-Kivu sont donc prévenus de ce vaste réseau de recrutement qui n’a d’autre but que le contrôle des forces vives de la Province afin de les anéantir en les éloignant de chez eux sous-prétexte de formation à l’étranger ! Le mirage de Poto, de Mikili, serait ainsi utilisé pour chasser les congolais de leurs terres… Tristesse !

Une des preuves pour convaincre les plus sceptiques est que tous les jeunes de la région qui étaient recrutés lors de la première occupation rwando-burundo-ougandaise n’ont jamais été promus mais vivent aujourd’hui dans la galère des grandes villes du pays, loin du Nord-Kivu. Ceux d’entre eux formés au Rwanda et en Ouganda qui avaient accédé aux postes de commandement militaire sont aujourd’hui morts, souvent de mort mystérieuse : accident de circulation, assassinat, etc.

D’autres sources concordantes parlent de la vente des terrains par certains chefs coutumiers corrompus. Plusieurs conflits terriens du moment seraient aussi dûs à cette montée exponentielle des enchères par les collabos des rwandais. Les chefs coutumiers retrouvés morts ces derniers temps seraient parmi ceux qui auraient refusé de se prêter à cet exercice diabolique de bradage du territoire national.

Les congolais doivent ainsi ouvrir l’œil et le bon car l’épée de Damoclès est suspendue sur notre coup ! Méfions-nous des faux-fuyants politiques ( remaniement, affaire Jean-Pierre Bemba, Muzito) dont le seul but est de nous distraire pendant que l’occupation effective de l’est du pays se met en place dans la douleur, la violation grave des droits humains fondamentaux des congolais !

http://www.benilubero.com/

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Kagame blackmails Western powers - Kagame still pumps the 1994 genocide for every ounce of legitimacy

Kagame is one of the puppets for the geopolitical powershift in Africa that the Anglo-American powers have organized in their favor. Aftermath: millions of Rwandan and Congolese people got butchered. Kagame says he's not responsible!

Who's still not convinced Paul Kagame is behind the genocide that the world quite simply sat and watched?

Why would Paul Kagame say the following in response to such allegations?
"Would I care that bloody Habyarimana died? I don't give a damn."

Please witness Kagame's choice of words during BBC HardTalk show. There is no doubt about it. After killing so millions of innocent Rwandans including dozens of innocent people from different nationalities, Kagame deserves to be taken into custody, held in the cells of the International Criminal Tribunal Court in Arusha or in The Hague where he should be tried hopefully before 2010.

By Jooneed Khan

The short and swift way to stop the ongoing holocaust in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) goes through Rwanda: the Anglophone Tutsi minority that has ruled Kigali since the 1994 genocide must be brought to reconcile with the Hutu majority, and accept its full participation in open democratic elections.

All other measures, from so-called "peace processes" to emergency aid and human rights campaigns, albeit necessary and praiseworthy, will be just more band-aid remedies applied to the symptoms of the crisis. The root cause of the "looters' war" is in Rwanda: it is the continuation, on Congolese soil, of Rwanda's unfinished civil war of 1990-94.

The latest band-aid measure is the 3,100 reinforcements added to the 21,000 MONUC (UN Mission in the Congo) this week by the Security Council after the Congolese stoned UN offices and vehicles, disgusted with the MONUC's nine-year failure, or unwillingness, to crush pro-Rwandan Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda's "rebellion" force of 10,000.

General Paul Kagamé, the Rwandan dictator and darling of the West (especially of the Anglo-Saxon axis), who still pumps the 1994 genocide for every ounce of legitimacy, is totally self-serving when he says that the crisis in North and South Kivu "is an internal Congolese matter, not a problem between the Congo and 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

by Kevin Jon Heller

NDLR: In a 2007 interview with the BBC, Mr Kagame said he would co-operate with an impartial inquiry. So why then he's not satisfied with the Spanish inquiry on the matter and other crimes committed in Rwanda? What matters?

I have been reading Roger’s fascinating missives from Rwanda with great interest and agree with much of what he has to say. But I have to demur from the claim that “Kagame is personally invested in making Rwanda a country that is committed to reconciliation, human rights and self-sufficiency.” Self-sufficiency, perhaps — there is no question that Rwanda has experienced significant economic growth over the past decade, although it is important to emphasize that, according to USAID, “[a] majority of the population lives on less than $1 per day and nearly nine in ten live on less than $2 per day.”

As for Kagame’s investment in reconciliation and human rights? Here is the summary paragraph from the State Department’s 2008 Country Report on Rwanda — which was one of its better years:

Significant human rights abuses occurred, although there were improvements in some areas. Citizens’ right to change their government was restricted, and local defense forces (LDF) personnel were responsible for four killings during the year. Violence against genocide survivors and witnesses by unknown assailants claimed at least 16 lives. There were reports of torture and abuse of suspects, although significantly fewer than in previous years. Prison and detention center conditions remained harsh. Security forces arbitrarily arrested and detained persons. Prolonged pretrial detention was a problem, and government officials attempted to influence judicial outcomes, mostly regarding the community-based justice system known as gacaca. There continued to be limits on freedom of speech and of association, and restrictions on the press increased. The government limited religious freedom, and official corruption was a problem. Restrictions on civil society, societal violence and discrimination against women, recruitment of child soldiers by representatives of a Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)-based armed group, trafficking in persons, child labor, and restrictions on labor rights occurred.

As for democracy, if Rwanda gets good marks, it’s only because the bar is set so low in the region. Here is the State Department again:

National Electoral Commission (NEC) rulings restricted the ability of the PSD and the PL to effectively spread their message, allowing the RPF to dominate the 22-day electoral campaign. The media devoted the bulk of its coverage to the RPF. There were credible reports of local government interference with PL and PSD rallies and meetings, and security forces briefly detained several campaign workers.

According to observers many voting stations opened early, did not make proper use of forms, and did not initially seal ballot boxes. Observers were often prevented by NEC and other government officials from monitoring the ballot counting above the polling station and polling center level (the first two levels). The Civil Society Election Observation Mission observed in its Statement of Preliminary Findings that “in a significant proportion of cases, it was not possible to confirm the accuracy of consolidated results at any stage beyond polling center consolidation.”

In 2003 President Paul Kagame won a landslide victory against two independent presidential candidates, receiving 95 percent of the vote in a largely peaceful but seriously marred election.

The constitution provides for a multiparty system but offers few rights for parties and their candidates. According to the 2006 African Peer Review Mechanism report, released by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, a mandated initiative of the African Union, the country had made significant progress toward political pluralism, but parties were still “not able to operate freely” and faced legal sanctions if accused of engaging in divisive acts. The government’s continuing campaign against divisionism discouraged debate or criticism of the government and resulted in brief detentions and the holding of one political prisoner, former minister Ntakarutinka.

All political organizations were constitutionally required to join the Forum for Political Organizations, which continued to limit competitive political pluralism, according to the 2006 APRM report. Despite a June 2007 law allowing political parties to open offices at every administrative level, local officials on occasion reportedly prevented opposition meetings preceding the September parliamentary elections, citing improper paperwork or venue booking conflicts. During the year there were no reported efforts to form any new parties or efforts by the government to deny registration to any party.

And, of course, we cannot forget Kagame’s multiple invasions of the Congo, using the need to hunt down the FDLR as a pretext for illegally exploiting Congo’s natural resources — leading the UN to describe Kagame as one of the “godfathers” of such exploitation — and his unwavering support for Congolese rebel groups such as the RCD and Nkunda’s CNDP, which has led to suffering on a scale not seen since WW II.

Rwandan presidential hopeful makes Dayton stop

An exile from her native land, Victoire Umuhoza seeks ethnic reconciliation.

By Doug Page, Staff Writer
1:25 AM Sunday, June 28, 2009

DAYTON — Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza is one of the estimated 500,000 Rwandans living in exile.

The mother of three hopes to end her exile in September, returning to her country to get her political party on the 2010 presidential ballot.

Umuhoza is chairwoman of the United Democratic Forces, which espouses nonviolence and reconciliation among the various Rwandan ethnic groups following the 1994 genocide.

“It is time to get the (democratic) process back on track,” she said Saturday, June 27, prior to speaking to members of the local Rwandan community at the Holiday Inn North. “I am speaking to the exiles, telling them they can play a role in solving these problems.

“The first step is to end the use of violence. We must give a chance (to) a peaceful transition of power.”

Unlike some in her audience Saturday, Umuhoza did not witness the genocide that killed an estimated 1 million people. She left her country for school in the Netherlands several months before the start of the countrywide violence.

But what she saw on television started her down a political path.

Recently, several disparate exile groups formed a political coalition of the Umuhoza’s United Democratic Forces and the Rwanda Democratic Opposition Party to put forward a presidential candidate: Umuhoza.

There are several roadblocks the coalition must pass. It must be recognized by the current government, which prohibits opposition parties, to appear on the ballot.

And Umuhoza must get a passport and return to Rwanda for the first time since 1994. If allowed back and her candidacy is recognized, then comes a likely uphill campaign.

“I will do anything for my country,” she said, though admitted some trepidation about returning to Rwanda. “The regime does not accept dissenting voices.”

She hopes that her appearances before Rwandans in Europe and the United States will encourage Western governments with investments in Rwanda to speak out on her behalf to the current Rwandan government.

“I hope the United States government will support the democratic process, put words into action,” she said.

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