Source: Associated Press

•  Soutien au M23: les experts de l’ONU pointent de nouveau le Rwanda et l’Ouganda
• Congo M23 rebels attack army in North Kivu province
  
  
  
  
  
  

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council announced Friday that it intends to impose sanctions on the leaders of the M23 rebel movement in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where violence has flared again.
Guatemala U.N. Ambassador Gert Rosenthal, the current Security Council president, read a statement saying that targeted sanctions would be applied to M23 leaders and others who are breaking the arms embargo in Congo.
 

"The Security Council strongly condemns the M23 and all its attacks on the civilian population, United Nations peacekeepers and humanitarian actors, as well as its abuses of human rights, including summary executions, sexual and gender based violence and large scale recruitment and use of child soldiers," the statement said. "The Security Council also condemns the attempts by the M23 to establish a parallel administration and to undermine State authority."
The M23 rebels have a stronghold on the border with Uganda and Rwanda, which has fueled allegations that those East African nations are backing the rebellion as arms are easily smuggled into rebel territory.

On Tuesday, a leaked U.N. Group of Experts report accused both Uganda and Rwanda of supporting the rebellion, which both countries strongly deny.

The rebels attacked the Congolese army Wednesday in an effort to gain weapons, ending a lull in fighting that had lasted a couple of months.

Congolese Army spokesman Col. Hamuli suggested that Wednesday's attack by the rebels may have been meant to show that they are not backed by Rwanda and Uganda.

The Security Council alluded to the allegations Friday, condemning any external support of the rebellion and calling on all neighboring countries to respect Congo's sovereignty.

"In this regard, the Security Council expresses deep concern at reports indicating that such support continues to be provided to the M23 by neighboring countries," the council statement said. "The Security Council demands that any and all outside support to the M23 as well as other armed groups cease immediately."

The panel of experts' report was leaked ahead of Rwanda's election to the Security Council on Thursday. Rwanda faced no competition in its successful bid, which was opposed by Congo and drew criticism from human rights groups.

Rwanda's Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo rejected the claims in the leaked U.N. report Thursday, dismissing it as the "flawed" work of biased experts and calling the leak's timing "predictable."
Rwanda won a two-year non-permanent seat on the council, starting in 2013, despite a July report by the U.N. experts panel that accused senior Rwandan security officials of supporting the rebellion and sending arms into Congo. Rwanda also rejected that report.


Rwandan and Congolese officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The M23's rebellion has caused at least 320,00,000 villagers in the province of North Kivu to flee their homes this year, according to the U.N. Eastern Congo has been engulfed in fighting since the 1994 Rwanda genocide, when fighters escaped across the border to Congo.


Eastern Congo's latest wave of violence exploded earlier this year when former rebels linked to Gen. Bosco Ntaganda defected, claiming that they weren't being paid by the Congolese military and that the government had failed to hold up their end of the 2009 peace deal that integrated them into the army. Ntaganda is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. END/
 AS International is an international nonpartisan charity organization devoted to defending human rights. It’s an organization working to promote democracy and national reconciliation, inside countries of the African Great lakes Region.

AS International centers its work on the twin concepts of freedom of self-determination and freedom from tyranny. These ideals include the belief that all human beings have the rights to speak freely, to associate with those of like mind, and to leave and enter their countries. Individuals in a free society must be accorded equal treatment and due process under law, and must have the opportunity to participate in the governments of their countries;

AS International’s ideals likewise find expression in the conviction that all human beings have the right to be free from arbitrary detainment or exile and from interference and coercion in matters of conscience. ASI does not support nor condone violence.

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

Date : 15 October 2012.



RWANDA : THE ICC CONFIRMS DRC INVESTIGATIONS IN A FRESH LETTER TO COUNSEL OF FDU-INKINGI AND RNC .

|M.P. Dillon, Head of the Information & Evidence Unit in the Office of the ICC Prosecutor says in a letter with Reference OTP-CR-239/12 dated The Hague, Thursday, 11 October 2012 sent to counsel Barrister Christopher C. Black in relation to the complaint against President Kagame and his accomplices submitted on 17 August 2012 in the Hague (ICC) on behalf of FDU-INKINGI, RNC, Réseau International Femmes pour la Démocratie et la Paix (RIFDP) and other civil and political groups :

«On behalf of the Prosecutor, I thank you for your communication received on 17/08/2012, as well as any subsequent related information, concerning the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). As you probably know, the Office is now investigating the situation in the DRC. In June 2003, in response to various communications, the Prosecutor identified the situation as a priority for his Office. In April 2004, the DRC formally referred the situation of the DRC to the Prosecutor. In June 2004, the Prosecutor announced his decision to open an investigation into the situation in the DRC. In making his announcement, the Prosecutor underscored his intention to focus on the perpetrators most responsible for crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court now being committed in the DRC. (...)»

Though we welcome this prompt reaction and confirmation that the ICC is "investigating" matters on the DRC, we are still encouraging for an immediate public action on our specific complaint against president Paul Kagame and his accomplices regarding the crimes of the M23 militia in the DRC and the criminal involvement of Rwandan government.

Now there should be no other obstacles stopping international law enforcers to bring to book the perpetrators most responsible for crimes committed by M23 militia and Rwandan military senior officers involved. The UN Group of Experts on the DRC’s report concerning Rwandan government violations of the arms embargo and sanctions regime has submitted on 13 October 2012 its final annual report to the UN Sanctions Committee confirming that Rwanda is still supporting, training and arming the notorious militia despite the international community outcry. Cutting the Rwandan aid by donors is not enough any more, sanctions including travel bans, and regime change are timely.
END/
 AS International is an international nonpartisan charity organization devoted to defending human rights. It’s an organization working to promote democracy and national reconciliation, inside countries of the African Great lakes Region.


AS International centers its work on the twin concepts of freedom of self-determination and freedom from tyranny. These ideals include the belief that all human beings have the rights to speak freely, to associate with those of like mind, and to leave and enter their countries. Individuals in a free society must be accorded equal treatment and due process under law, and must have the opportunity to participate in the governments of their countries;

AS International’s ideals likewise find expression in the conviction that all human beings have the right to be free from arbitrary detainment or exile and from interference and coercion in matters of conscience. ASI does not support nor condone violence.

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

Justine Greening Current International Development Secretary

Andrew Mitchel Former International Development Secretary

Reversal? Justine Greening (left) said yesterday she would take a ‘critical look’ at the decision by Andrew Mitchell (right), her predecessor as International Development Secretary

But Ms Greening could now overrule her predecessor. “I am taking a critical look at the decision,” she said.

Concerns have been raised about Mr Mitchell’s friendship with Mr Kagame, who played a role in helping to ‘detoxify’ the Tory party’s uncaring image.


He helped Mr Mitchell establish a project for Tory volunteers in Rwanda and the senior Tory is thought to have visited the country at least eight times in six years.  

Miss Greening is said to see a ‘distinction’ between humanitarian and development aid and general budget support that goes straight into President Paul Kagame’s (pictured) regime’s coffers


Miss Greening also pledged a ‘new approach’ on the wider aid programme, including starting talks with the Indian government on winding down its £280million a year in aid.

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham yesterday, she pledged to take a tougher approach to aid spending, with a greater focus on helping the world’s poorest.
She said she would travel to Luxembourg next week to demand changes in the European Union’s aid programme, which has come under fire for pouring taxpayers’ money into relatively wealthy countries including Brazil, Iceland and Turkey.
‘I’m going to take a new approach to ensure that every pound we spend has the biggest possible impact,’ she said.
‘And yes, that will mean stopping some programmes where I don’t think they are working.’

 Miss Greening was challenged by Tory delegates to do more to end the waste and corruption in the aid budget. One warned that Mr Cameron’s decision to pour billions more into foreign aid at a time of cutbacks at home remains a ‘very thorny issue on the doorstep’.
Another, Emma Warren, from Reading, urged Miss Greening to do more to ‘make sure our money doesn’t end up in the pockets of corrupt individuals who are holding their country back’.
 Miss Greening insisted there would be no retreat on the Prime Minister’s pledge to spend 0.7 per cent of Britain’s income on aid, which will see the aid budget rocket from £8billion to £12billion.

But she said that aid would be focused more tightly on the poorest countries in future, with India set to lose out. ‘We should recognise that as countries get richer we need to be responsible about how we transition in our relationship from aid to trade,’ she said.

The aid programme to India is the source of huge discontent in Tory ranks, with many arguing it is wrong to hand huge sums to a country that is now wealthy enough to pursue a space programme.

Source : http://in2eastafrica.net/

 [Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying reality : the Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination with an iron fist, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus), mass-arrests and mass-murder by the RPF criminal organization.


So long as justice and accountability for RPF past and current crimes are ignored and delayed, Peace and Stability will remain illusive and impossible in Rwanda=>AS International]

• Rwanda : Dans le plus grand secret. Détention illégale et torture aux mains du Service de renseignement militaire

1. INTRODUCTION

“Nine months at Kami, It is shameful for a state of law.”

Civilian detained at Camp Kami without charge for nine months and alleged to have been tortured. March 2012, Kigali, Rwanda.

“[Eight] months went by without knowing if my husband existed or not.” Wife of man unlawfully detained and alleged to have been tortured by the military at Camp Kami. March 2012, Kigali, Rwanda.

SUMMARY

Progress over the last decade by the government of Rwanda in improving conditions of detention in prisons falling under the authority of the Rwanda Correctional Service (RCS) is being undermined by the parallel detention system run by the military. Scores of people are held in detention in military camps and the safeguards which protect detainees in police stations and other official places of detention are circumvented. Hidden from view, detainees have been unlawfully detained as well as reportedly tortured and otherwise ill-treated.


Akandoya: Kagame's Trade Mark

This report details unlawful detention, torture and other forms of ill-treatment and enforced disappearances, mostly of civilians, at the hands of Rwanda’s military intelligence, known as J2. It is based on information gathered during more than two years of research, including seven visits to Rwanda. The report documents more than 45 cases of unlawful detention and 18 allegations of torture or other ill-treatment by Rwandan military intelligence in 2010 and 2011. Some individuals who were disappeared remain in secret detention in 2012.
Amnesty International believes that the actual number of people who were detained and who were at risk of, or subjected to, torture and other ill-treatment during this period is higher than those documented here.

Amnesty International began to receive reports of enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment by Rwandan military intelligence in March 2010.

This spate of human rights violations happened as military intelligence launched investigations into threats to national security in the run-up to the August 2010 presidential elections. Grenade attacks, rare in recent years, multiplied after February 2010. Some security analysts attributed them to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed opposition group based in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).1 Growing tensions within the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) following the departure of the former army chief, General Kayumba Nyamwasa, in February 2010 also allegedly raised the spectre of potential security threats from within the army.
As part of the Rwandan authorities’ investigations into security matters, individuals were arrested, often arbitrarily, by the military, sometimes acting in collaboration with the police.

Those arrested were almost exclusively men aged between 20 and 45. Most of the cases documented here are of civilians, including demobilized military. Other cases include members of the Rwandan army or individuals suspected by the Rwandan authorities of belonging to the FDLR.



METHODOLOGY

This report is based on seven research visits to Rwanda in September 2010, February, July and November 2011, and February, March and June 2012, as well as a trial observation between September 2011 and June 2012. Amnesty International also interviewed individuals previously illegally detained in Rwanda and their family members outside Rwanda at various times between 2011 and 2012. The report does not take into account developments after the end of June 2012.

Amnesty International conducted more than 70 face-to-face interviews for this report, including eight interviews with torture victims previously detained by the military. The organization also interviewed family members of individuals disappeared, unlawfully detained or tortured, as well as lawyers, members of civil society, and individuals who had observed court proceedings. Interviews were conducted in English or French, or from Kinyarwanda with the assistance of interpreters.

Through these interviews, Amnesty International documented more than 45 cases of unlawful detention for periods ranging from 10 days to nine months, primarily of civilians in military camps and other secret detention locations during 2010 and 2011. Two cases of enforced disappearances of more than two years were also documented. Amnesty International was able to cross-check the identities of these former detainees through various sources, including other detainees, lawyers, court documents and news reports. Amnesty International received single source information on tens of other former detainees but because of the lack of corroboration has not included them in this report.
This report documents 18 allegations of torture or other ill-treatment by Rwandan military intelligence and other security personnel. Restrictions on prison access made it impossible to ascertain the extent of torture and other ill-treatment of individuals previously detained by the military and later transferred to civilian prisons. For these reasons, Amnesty International believes that the number of people detained by the military at risk of torture, or who may have been subjected to torture or other ill-treatment, is higher than the number of cases documented.

Amnesty International gathered documentation related to criminal cases in military and civilian courts, including statements of arrest and court decisions and orders. The report also draws on Amnesty International’s observation of the trial from September 2011 to June 2012 of those accused along with opposition leader Victoire Ingabire. They had been unlawfully detained at Camp Kami.

Amnesty International was unable to interview individuals currently detained in Rwanda. Since July 2011, Amnesty International has twice formally requested authorization to interview detainees and prisoners in private. Most recently, the organization requested permission to visit prisons in advance of arriving in the country. They requested private interviews with detainees in Kigali Central Prison, Ruhengeri Prison and Rubavu (commonly known as Gisenyi) Prison in March 2012. The organization’s representatives were informed one working day before leaving Rwanda by the Ministry of Internal Security that they had the
right to request authorization. However, they were told that under Rwandan law they could only interview detainees and prisoners in the presence of a prison guard. Amnesty International subsequently received a letter from the RCS authorizing the delegates to visit prisons on 4 April 2012, six days after leaving Rwanda.

The initial impetus for the report was a number of specific requests from family members for Amnesty International’s help in finding their disappeared relatives. In researching these cases, details emerged of other men who had been subjected to enforced disappearance or who had been previously detained by the military. This report sheds light on the circumstances and conditions of their detention which remain shrouded in secrecy.
Many other individuals who had been detained by the military declined to speak to Amnesty International delegates for fear of retribution. Former detainees and their family members who shared their stories expressed fear of reprisals. To protect their identities, Amnesty International has excluded their names, other identifying details, and some interview dates and locations.

Amnesty International does not take a position on the guilt or innocence of those arrested. Our concern is that they were subjected to a pattern of human rights violations: arrests in violation of the law, detention in secret locations, unlawful detention, often for several months, and a lack of access to lawyers, family members or doctors. This string of abuses violates the rights of the detained persons and renders them more vulnerable to torture and ill-treatment.


It was against this backdrop that Rwanda’s military intelligence rounded up scores of young men accused of threatening national security. For their families, unable to confirm their whereabouts, or whether they were alive, they had simply disappeared. The torture and other ill-treatment that some of these men reportedly experienced during their unlawful detention is documented in this report.



INTERNATIONAL LAW

The unspeakable RPF weapon for TORTURE In Rwandan prisons

( d ) The authority responsible for supervising the deprivation of liberty;
( e ) The place of deprivation of liberty, the date and time of admission to the place of deprivation of liberty and the authority responsible for the place of deprivation of liberty;
( f ) Elements relating to the state of health of the person deprived of liberty;

destination of the remains;

Since early 2010, the role of the military and the police in arresting individuals suspected of  threatening national security became increasingly blurred. In February 2010, Rwandan authorities created a Joint Operational Centre to facilitate information sharing between the RDF, RNP, National Intelligence and Security Service and the RCS.29 The following month, March 2010, Amnesty International began to receive reports of enforced disappearances, torture and other forms of ill-treatment in military detention facilities. These joint operations may reduce oversight and confuse reporting lines, rendering accountability for abuses less likely.

RPF symbol of terror



4. SECRET AND INCOMMUNICADO DETENTION



All former detainees told Amnesty International that they were held incommunicado in military custody for long periods of time – in many cases for more than two months and, in some cases, up to eight or nine months – before being presented to a prosecutor or court or being transferred to a civilian prison. During military custody, they were unable to contact a lawyer or relatives and their cases were not subject to judicial review. Such incommunicado detention, which includes no access to lawyers, doctors, and relatives

TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT
SERIOUS BEATINGS DURING INTERROGATIONS

All individuals formerly detained in military facilities and their family members interviewed by Amnesty ernational reported that they were severely beaten by military officers during interrogations. One former detainee of Camp Kami said, “The interrogation, it is beating” and described his time at Camp Kami as a “living death”.

Some family members and lawyers reported seeing marks from beatings on their relatives or clients. One family member described the first time they saw their relative after a month’s unlawful detention at Camp Kami, “His face, hands and legs were all swollen. We couldn’t easily recognize him”. 40 The individual concerned had not been charged by the prosecution or brought before a court during his time at Camp Kami.41 The vast majority, however, said that no visible signs were left due to the months that had elapsed since the beatings took place, shortly after their arrest and in the immediate months that followed.

ELECTRIC SHOCKS

Three former detainees from Camp Kami recounted to Amnesty International that they were subjected to electric shocks during interrogations. Two of these detainees described that this happened to them on one occasion each. Both of them reported that military intelligence had used these devices during interrogations at MINADEF shortly after their arrest and prior to their transfer to Camp Kami. Both interrogations took place at night. The other man had been electrocuted after his transfer to Camp Kami.
   Read more on http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR47/004/2012/en/ca2e51a2-1c3f-4bb4-b7b9-e44ccbb2b8de/afr470042012en.pdf



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