A Tale of Atrocity, Nightmare and Hope: Once Upon a Time in RwandaBy Matthew DewaldOnce upon a time there was a kingdom ruled by an evil monarch. One day the long-suffering people rose up against him and drove him and his clan from the land.Once upon a time there was a kingdom ruled by a benevolent monarch. One day base and evil people rose up against him and drove him and his clan from the land.
Once upon a time there was a girl, 8 years old, roused in the middle of the night and sent by her mother into the darkness with her two older brothers. She dodged bullets and bombs and stepped over the mutilated bodies of her neighbors, bodies cut by machetes and smashed by nail-studded cudgels wielded by other neighbors in a methodical slaughter fueled by ideas about power and race, history and revenge.
Once upon a time, there was such a time and such a place and such a little girl. This time was April 1994. The place was and still is Rwanda. The girl is names Clémentine Igilibambe. This is her story.
Clémentine lived in a big house with her parents and brothers and sisters. Her father was an international businessman who traded in building materials. Her mother was director of a school for seamstresses and helped sell building materials at the family store.
The family lived in Gisenyi, near the shores of Lake Kivu, a resort area in northwestern Rwanda. “We went often,” she said. “We went and sat at the beach. I loved looking at the water and walking in the water. A lot of white people came there too.”
The new house was one of five her family owned. Inside its walled compound there was a warehouse, a store for selling building supplies, a plot of sugar cane and an outdoor kitchen. There were houses for the maids, and they had many. One for cooking, one for cleaning, one for tending the cows and the chickens, others for other tasks. Clémentine’s parents paid for their education.
At the back of the family’s compound was the refugee house.
Refugees were common in Rwanda in the early 1990s. They were driven from one place to another by a conflict that had raged hot and cold since 1959, when an army dominated by one ethnic group, the Hutu, overthrew a monarchy and ruling class dominated by another ethnic group, the Tutsi. The monarchy and tens of thousands of refugees fled Rwanda, others were slaughtered and the victorious Hutu established a government and gained independence from Belgium in 1962.
What for the refugees was a loss of life, wealth and nation was for the new leaders a revolution. Thus were borne divergent tales of one kingdom that parents told their children, one of an oppressive Tutsi regime brought down by the long-suffering Hutu people, another of a good Tutsi king brought down by the treacherous Hutu. One nation, two tales.
Many Rwandans told neither tale but wished simply to live their lives free of hunger and flight, politics and war, repression and violence.
Over the next decades, refugees, mostly Tutsis, formed insurgent armies and fought unsuccessfully to retake the country. The Hutu leadership of the Rwandan government responded with reprisals against Tutsis and Hutu political opponents within the country.
In 1990, the Rwanda Patriotic Front, an insurgent army of refugees, launched a new invasion from Uganda, and a Tutsi refugee named Paul Kagame soon after became the RPF’s leader. The fighting displaced and killed more than 600,000 until a tenuous peace agreement was signed in Arusha, Tanzania, in 1993. It was this fighting that refugees comeing to Clémentine’s home were fleeing.
That is a bit much to explain to an 8-year-old girl like Clémentine. When refugees arrived at the gates at her family’s home simply said, “Your uncles and their families are coming to stay.”
“We believed them,” Clémentine said, “because our families are so huge.”
She did not always welcome them.
“I was a little selfish kid,” she said. “We had all of this money and I could have whatever I wanted. Then five families showed up and they had all of these kids and all of a sudden I had to share my stuff. The families would come and go, come and go.”
Then one evening, in one moment, in the crash of one small plane, everything in Clémentine’s life changed. The plane had been hit by two rockets over Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, about 60 miles from Clémentine’s home. Among the 11 killed was Juvénal Habyarimana, a Gisenyi native and the Hutu president of Rwanda who seized power in 1973. He was returning from negotiations on the implementation of the Arusha Accords in Tanzania.
The plane went down on the evening of April 6, 1994. Who shot it down is a matter of international dispute. It may have been Tutsi rebels. It may have been Hutu extremists within the government who opposed the president’s concessions. It may have been Hutu moderates planning a coup d’etat. There are many accusations, but there is no international consensus.
What is known with certainty is that by the morning of April 7, the most massive, efficient and lethal campaign of genocide since the mid-century Nazi regime was under way. It would last 100 days and kill an estimated 800,000. Within hours of the president’s death, ordinary citizens suspected of being Tutsi were being killed at makeshift roadblocks. Roving army units using prepared lists assassinated political opponents. By midday, the dead included Rwanda’s prime minister, the president of Rwanda’s highest court, the minister of agriculture, the minister of labor and community affairs, and the minister of information.
In his memoir, Shake Hands with the Devil, Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire, head of the U.N. peace-keeping forces writes, “By noon on April 7 the moderate political leadership of Rwanda was dead or in hiding, the potential for a future moderate government utterly lost.”
The violence spread quickly from Kigali. Targeted killings of Tutsi and Hutu moderates began occurring all over the country. By the evening of April 7, the RPF had launched an invasion of Kigali and warned the U.N. to stay out of its way.
This was the new world in which 8-year-old Clémentine found herself after the president’s plane went down.
“For me, it fell apart just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “I knew there were Hutus and Tusis, but I didn’t know there were problems between them until then. We intermarried. We had Tutsis and Hutus as best friends. This is when I learned that these two people are different.”
Being Clémentine is complicated. Her father is Hutu. Her mother is mixed Hutu and Tutsi. At a recent dinner honoring scholarship donors and students, a video was shown that included her—she is now a UD student on scholarship—as a smiling girl in Nairobi, Kenya, where her family lived for several years after fleeing Rwanda. She wears a red top and a leopard print fabric wrapped around her skirt. A white strand of beads around her neck compliments the white band keeping the hair out of her eyes. She sways her body in rhythm as she dances with other girls her age dressed like her. All are refugees, all have broad smiles on their faces like hers. The sun shines brightly.
The video does not show her dance teacher, Cyprien Kagorora, nor does it show the famous Rwandan pop singer under whom Kagorora once studied, Simon Bikindi. Bikindi is now on trial at the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha. He is charged with using his fame and talent to indoctrinate and incite members of the Interahamwe militias, one of the chief agents of the genocide. Bikindi has pled not guilty.
Clémentine’s father was out of the country on business those days in early April 1994, so she remained secluded within the walled compound of her home with her mother, who was pregnant, and her siblings. She saw trucks coming and going on the road outside, bringing people with machetes and wooden bats studded with nails.
She heard repeated cries. “Kill him. Kill him.”
“One day I climbed a ladder to see what’s going on. I saw bodies right outside. Their heads were chopped off.”
The wall was about 8 feet high. The ladder she climbed was made of wood.
“I didn’t even cry. I remember my reaction. I went up and I looked around for about 10 seconds. After that I climbed down slowly and went and sat on the veranda and looked into space. I didn’t know what I thought. I didn’t know what to think.”
After about two weeks, a maid awoke Clémentine one night and said, “We have to go now.” The RPF was advancing on Gisenyi, and the genocide was about to be compounded by civil war.
“My dad…had taken our big truck. We only had a small car. My mom, pregnant, got into the car with my younger siblings. The car was full, so me and my brothers walked alongside. There were bombs exploding everywhere. There were bullets everywhere. People were dying. And then a bomb went off near us. My two brothers and I dove for cover and when we got up, my mother’s car was gone.
“We walked for two days. I think it was two days. We stopped to rest at a clearing once. We thought our mother and brothers and sisters had been killed. When I went to sleep it was dark and when I woke up it was dark. I don’t know if I woke up that same night or the next. We were just following this line of children, maybe 20 of them. I knew a couple of them from before. There were other vehicles on the road and bodies everywhere. We jumped over them. On the first day, it was like, ‘Whoa,’ but then we got used to it. It wasn’t like, ‘There’s a body!’ It was ‘Just keep going.’
“We were walking toward the border (at Goma, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). I was thinking, ‘If I could just get across that little stick (the barrier at the border crossing), I will be safe. I will be out of Rwanda.’ We were begging the border guards to let us go through. There were five or six of them with guns holding back the crowd. They robbed everyone. I had a little bag my mother had given me when we left. I don’t even know what was in it, but they took it at the border. I was relieved. It was getting heavy.”
“I feel like I stayed there an hour begging. For anyone in that situation, five minutes feels like forever.”
Finally, she crossed the border into Goma with her brothers, Epaphrodite and Marcellin, ages 10 and 12, respectively. Clémentine did not know it, but she was part of one of the largest mass movements of refugees in human history. Roughly 2 million Rwandans fled the country, mostly to camps just across the border. Another 1.7 million were internally displaced. More than half of Rwanda’s 7.5 million were uprooted or dead.
After crossing the border into Goma with her two older brothers, “we were just walking,” Clémentine said. “We didn’t know where we were going. We knew we were out of Rwanda and we just kept going. Finally, we got to an abandoned house, and we stayed there for three weeks with about 40 other kids.
“We hadn’t eaten in two days. We saw a couple of kids get some food out and we all tackled them. We ate snails, grass. Once or twice other refugees passing by gave us some food.
“My brothers would always say, ‘Eat faster and you’ll feel full.’ My parents had made me go to church by I had never prayed. I thought my parents were dead. I prayed all the time then. Today, I think that’s what brought my parents back.
“I would sit outside crying and praying. One day I was there, sitting on a rock watching the road, praying and crying, and my parents drove up. I’ve never seen anything as awesome as that in my life.”
Her mother pregnant, her family with nowhere to go, Clémentine and her family went into the city and rented an apartment for three months. It was their bad luck that someone with an expensive jeep had a habit of parking it in front of their building. One night, when her father was in Kenya trying to find a way to move the family there, the Congolese police decided they wanted the jeep.
“They came and knocked at our house and demanded the keys,” she said. “My mom told them, ‘It’s not my car.’ They threatened to kill her. I got out of bed and went under it where I could see what was going on…I’m under the bed trying not to cry so they wouldn’t come in our room. I was thinking, ‘I’m gonna die. I’m only 8. I have so many dreams.’ I don’t know why, but I had always wanted to marry a white person.
“They took everything we had and finally left. Three days later, my dad came home and we moved to a refugee camp.”
The family, including a new baby brother was born in Goma, spent two months in Makumba Camp in Congo. Millions of refugees were crowded into similar camps.
“Some people had tents,” she said. “Those are the fortunate people. People were laying in the dirt. They would just take a piece of clothing and lay down on it. There was a lot of smoke from people cooking. Wives were crying. Husbands were frustrated and beating their wives. People were dying every day of cholera.
“I used to pray a lot. I thought that my little brother was going to die. My mother had no milk for him. She refused to eat so we could.”
Her father continued to travel to Kenya and eventually found place for the entire family. They stayed in Nairobi fiver years and applied annually for visas to the United States.
“During my stay in Kenya, I started growing up. …That’s when I started to realize something serious was going on. I realized my parents lost weight. They weren’t eating for a week at a time, only drinking water so we could eat. …That’s one thing I’ll never forget in my whole life, the way my parents sacrificed.”
Money was always running out, and the family lived in six different homes in five years. Then one Tuesday, here family received a letter saying they would leave for the United States in two days. Her uncle, a UD staff member at the time, was sponsoring them, and they would come to Dayton. The family sold its possessions and took a taxi to the airport.
“I thought, ‘I’ve always dreamed of marrying a white person, and now I’m going to the U.S. There are a lot of white people there.”
After waiting in the airport and fearing her family would not be allowed to board, she finally took her seat on the plane and looked out the window as Nairobi got smaller and then disappeared.
“In my whole life, from ’94 to ’99, I feel like that was the first time I took a deep breath and thought, ‘I’m going to be OK. It’s over. I lost a lot of friends in the war but I’m going to be OK.’ That’s when I thought, ‘I’m going to do humanitarian work.’ That’s when the passion of what I’m doing now came to me.”
Clémentine today is beginning her junior year at UD. She is a human rights and international studies major who speaks six languages. She is co-founder and president of UD’s Afrika Club and a member of the Student Leadership Council, the World Youth Alliance and the U.N. Agents of Change. She sees law school and work with refugees in her future. Clémentine is also working to raise money for scholarships so that orphans in Rwanda can attend UD after high school.
Being Clémentine remains complicated. In the West, the Rwandan rebel leader turned Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, is widely celebrated. President George W. Bush presented him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2005. Kagame’s victory is generally credited with stopping the genocide while the West turned its back. He has introduced reforms to reduce ethnic divisions; passports and other identity cards no longer define the bearer’s ethnicity, for example. Rwanda’s currency now depicts its natural beauty and resources, not its leaders. The government is an aggressive critic of the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, arguing that its trials of the genocide’s leaders are too slow.
Clémentine is also a critic of the ICTR, though she believes it is biased against Hutus. She believes that RPF leaders, many of whom now lead Rwanda’s current government, should also stand trial for war crimes. The RPF and its successor, the RPA, summarily executed genocide suspects and massacred innocent civilians as it established control of the country in 1994, according to a U.N. commission and several human rights groups. “If the ICTR completes its trials without providing justice to victims of crimes committed by both sides in Rwanda, the tribunal’s legacy will be at risk,” Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth wrote in an open letter to the United Nations in June 2006.
She also distrusts the gacaca, the village court system set up to try the tens of thousands of ordinary people accused of participating in the genocide. The rules of evidence are too informal, Clémentine believes, and Hutu are sometimes convicted on the word of a single witness. Supporters point out that often only a single witness remains.
In her mistrust of the current government, Clémentine has company. Paul Rusesabagina became famous when his story was told in the film Hotel Rwanda. He has criticized the current government in speeches and his autobiography. Now he “is being denounced by some in his country as a traitor and a criminal,” Terry George, the film’s co-writer, director and producer, wrote in a Washington Post editorial in May. Resesabagina, Rwanda’s hero, no longer travels there out of fear for his safety.
As there was once a large, unsettled Tutsi diaspora, so there is now a large Hutu one living uneasily in exile. Subsequent battles between Rwanda’s new government and remnants of the old Hutu regime who fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo have brought years of war that continues today. In these battles, Kagame faces a Gordian knot he hasn’t yet cut: defeating a Hutu insurgency while reassuring ordinary Hutu refugees that he is not their enemy. In the ruins of Rwanda, in refugee camps and in rebel bases in the bush, the two tales of Rwanda continue to be told.
Such talk concerns Julius Amin, chair of UD’s department of history and an expert in African history.
“One of the fundamental questions is not being asked: How did it get to this situation?” he said. “The crisis is still there. Some of the fundamental issues still have not been addressed. Only by asking and answering this can Rwanda move forward. Families have been shattered. Communities have been shattered. Those things cannot be shelved. They must be dealt with. Kagame ended the genocide. Were Hutus killed in the process? Sure, but a point is being missed by trying to focus all of the attention on the president.”
Clémentine doubts she will ever return to Rwanda. She fears more mass killings lie in Rwanda’s future.
“What happened was genocide, but other things happened too. We have to give respect to all who died in the war, not just the Tutsis killed by the Hutu, not just the Jutu killed by the RPF, but also the Twa. No one ever talks about them.”
The Twa, hunter-gatherers indigenous to Africa’s Great Lakes region, numbered about 30,000 inside Rwanda before the genocide. The United Nations estimates that 10,000 were killed.
Clémentine now focuses on helping refugees, like those her family once took in and she herself once was. There were nearly 15 million refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide at the beginning of 2005, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The people of Rwanda no longer rank in the top 10 in either category.
“My role is to help those who have suffered because they’re not as fortunate as I am now. I don’t want to concentrate on the political side of it. I want to help the victims, whether Hutu, Tutsi or Twa. I want to concentrate on the education of orphans. By educating the people, maybe one day they’ll go back to Rwanda and use their education to make a better country. …The big issue is that so many people lost their lives. Whether it was genocide or a civil war, I just know a lot of people were killed.”
She hopes for peace and reconciliation. Rwanda is by most accounts a country of breathtaking beauty, a land of mist-covered mountains and rolling green countryside. It is the place where God comes to sleep at night, according to a Rwandan saying. It hurts Clémentine that her country is now synonymous with genocide.
“I want to have children,” she said. “I want them to be proud of being from Rwanda.”
She may one day tell them a story of her country, one that begins, “Once upon a time, there was a kingdom and a hose by a lake and a little girl, 8 years old…”
Monday, August 31, 2009
15 YEARS AFTER THE BRUTAL DEATH OF HABYALIMANA AND NTARYAMIRA
It Has Been 15 Years Since The Assassination Of Habyalimana And Ntaryamira, The Two Hutu Presidents Of Both Rwanda And Burundi But The International Criminal Court Has Not Yet Brought To Books Those Terrorists Behind The Killing, Which Sparked The Fratricide In Rwanda. This is a full description of what happened since October1, 1990. This is to help the younger Rwandese generation to know what contains the history of their beloved country Rwanda.
INTRODUCTIONThe assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on the evening of April 6, 1994 when they were from a peace negotiations in Arusha, Tanzania. This was the catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide. The airplane carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda. Responsibility for the attack is disputed, with most theories proposing as suspects either the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) or government-aligned Hutu extremists opposed to negotiation with the RPF. The Hutu Extremist theory is believed to have disseminated by the RPF propagandists who wanted to distract the world on the terrorism investigations. But whichever the case two Hut presidents were assassinated by RPF in order to carry out its agenda to take over power by force. This set in motion some of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.
The Jet of Habyalimana leaving Arusha on 6 April 1994
BACKGROUND OF THE RPF INVASION IN RWANDAIn 1990, the Rwandan Civil War began when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, dominated by the Tutsi ethnic group, invaded northern Rwanda from Uganda. Most of the RPF fighters were either refugees or the sons of refugees who had fled ethnic purges by the Hutu government in the middle of the century. The attempt to overthrow the government failed, though the RPF was able to maintain control of a border region. As it became clear that the war had reached a stalemate, the sides began peace negotiations in May 1992, which resulted in the signing in August 1993 of the Arusha Accords to create a power-sharing government. This happened in Arusha in Tanzania where the complicity of Museveni, Nyerere, United Kingdom, and USA were present.However, the war radicalized the internal opposition. There were some greedy Hutus such as Twagiramungu who succumbed to RPF pressure and they re-aligned with Tutsi led RPF in order to get power from backdoors. But the more the war continued the more Hutus discovered that it was not about power and leadership or returning of Tutsi refugees from Uganda, but the return of serfdom and slavery which was eradicated in 1959 during the UN sponsored Referendum. The more of a threat the RPF became, the more mainstream the Hutu freedom ideology became. This portrayed the RPF as an alien force intent on reinstating the Tutsi monarchy and enslaving the Hutus that had to be resisted at all costs. This political force led to the collapse of the first Habyarimana government in July 1993, when Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye criticized the president in writing for delaying a peace agreement. This was because of what Hutu satirical expression of Inda nini which refers to Hutu greediness. Nsengiyaremye Dismas was not concerned by the threats that the RPF was causing to the country but his higher chance of becoming the Prime Minister and later the President of Rwanda after the departure of Habyalimana. President Habyarimana who was a member of Mouvement Revolutionaire pour le Developement du Rwanda MRND, dismissed Nsengiyarmye and appointed Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who was seen as less sympathetic to the RPF, in his stead. However, the main opposition parties then refused to support Madame Agathe’s appointment, each splitting into two factions: one calling for the unwavering defense of Hutu Power and the other, labeled “moderate” that sought a negotiated settlement to the war. As Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana was unable to form a coalition government, ratification of the Arusha Accords was impossible. The most extreme of the Hutu parties, the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic, which was reminding Hutus the way their ancestors were enslaved by Tutsis over 500 years of servitude and serfdom known as Ubucakara (Corvee).The security situation deteriorated throughout 1993. the RPF distributed small arms among all young Tutsis which led to Hutus to start arming themselves to counter RPF to take over power by force. The UN peacekeeping mission MINUAR clandestinely supported RPF by allowing it to bring its military into the Capital of Kigali in disguise of firewood. February 1994, Roméo Dallaire, the head of the military force attached to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), which had been sent to observe the implementation of the Arusha Accords, informed his superiors, “Time does seem to be running out for political discussions, as any spark on the security side could have catastrophic consequences. But the UN did not do any thing to curb the situation since the United States had vested interest in Rwanda insecurity in order to go and loot DR Congo, the UN couldn’t take any measures to facilitate the Arusha Accords. In the United Nations Security Council, early April 1994 saw a sharp disagreement between the United States and the non-permament members of the council over UNAMIR. Despite a classified February Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysis predicting half a million deaths if the Arusha process failed, the U.S. was attempting to reduce its international commitments in the wake of the Somalia debacle and lobbied to end the mission. A compromise extending UNAMIR’s mandate for three more months was finally reached on the evening of Tuesday, the fifth of April. Meanwhile, Habyarimana was finishing regional travel. On April 4th, he had flown to Zaire to meet with president Mobutu Sese Seko and on the sixth flew to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for a one-day regional summit for heads of state convened by Tanzania’s President Mzee Julius Nyerere Kambarage who was supporting the RPF, and was aware of the assassination. On the return trip that evening he was joined by Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, and a couple of his ministers, who preferred the faster Dassault Falcon 50 that the French government had given to Habyarimana over his own presidential plane. They also wanted to go talking about the business of their two countries which were under threats from Tutisis.According to interim Prime Minister Jean Kambanda’s confession to the ICTR, President Mobutu Sese Seko of neighboring Zaire, (now DRC) had warned Habyarimana not to go to Dar-es-Salaam on April 6. Mobutu said this warning had come from a very senior official in the Elysée Palace in Paris. There was a link between this warning, said Mobutu, and the subsequent suicide in the Elysée of François de Grossouvre, a senior high-ranking official working for President François Mitterrand, an official who had killed himself on April 7 after learning about the downing of the Falcon. Description of attack
The presidential jet was a Dassault Falcon 50 given by Francois Mitterand who was the President of France and a very close friend to Habyalimana Juvenal.Shortly before 8:20 pm local time (6:20 pm UTC), the presidential jet circled once around Kigali International Airport before coming in for final approach in clear skies. A weekly flight by a Belgian C-130 Hercules carrying UNAMIR troops returning from leave had been scheduled to land before the presidential jet, but was waved off to give the presidents priority.
A surface-to-air missile struck one of the wings of the Dassault Falcon, before a second missile hit its tail. The plane erupted into flames in mid-air before crashing into the garden of the presidential palace, exploding on impact. The plane carried three French crew and nine passengers.The attack was witnessed by numerous people. One of two Belgian officers in the garden of a house in Kanombe, the district in which the airport is located, saw and heard the first missile climb into the sky, saw a red flash in the sky and heard an aircraft engine stopping, and then another missile climb. He immediately called Major de Saint-Quentin, part of the French team attached to the Rwandan para-commando battalion Commandos de recherche et d’action en profondeur (CRAP), who advised him to organize protection for his Belgian comrades. Similarly, another Belgian officer stationed in an unused airport control tower saw the lights of an approaching aircraft, a light traveling upward from the ground and then the aircraft lights going out. This was followed by a second light rising from the same place as the first and the plane turning into a falling ball of fire. This officer immediately radioed his company commander, who confirmed with the used control tower that the plane was the presidential aircraft.
A Rwandan soldier in the military camp in Kanombe recalled,You know, its engine sound was different from other planes; that is, the president’s engine’s sound … We were looking towards where the plane was coming from, and we saw a projectile and we saw a ball of flame or flash and we saw the plane go down; and I saw it. I was the leader of the bloc so I asked the soldiers to get up and I told them “Get up because Kinani [a Kinyarwanda nickname for Habyarimana meaning "famous" or "invincible"] has been shot down.’ They told me, “You are lying.” I said, “It’s true.” So I opened my wardrobe, I put on my uniform and I heard the bugle sound.[14]A Rwandan officer cadet at the airport who was listening to the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines heard the announcer state that the presidential jet was coming in to land. The spoken broadcast then stopped suddenly in favor of a selection of classical music
Twelve people were killed. They were:1. President of Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana2. President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira3. Bernard Ciza, Burundian Minister of Public Works4. Cyriaque Simbizi, Burundian Minister of Communication5. General Deogratias Nsabimana, Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Defence Forces6. Major Thaddée Bagaragaza, responsible for the “maison militaire” of the Rwandan president7. Colonel Elie Sagatwa, Member of the special secretariat of the Rwandan president, Chief of the Military Cabinet of the Rwandan president8. Juvénal Renaho, foreign affairs advisor to the Rwandan president9. Emmanuel Akingeneye, personal physician to the Rwandan presidentFrench aircraft crew:10. Jacky Héraud (pilot)11. Jean-Pierre Minoberry (copilot)12. Jean-Michel Perrine (flight engineer)Immediate reactionChaos ensued on the ground. The Presidential Guard, who had been waiting to escort the president home from the airport, threatened people with their weapons. Twenty Belgian peacekeepers who had been stationed along the perimeter of the airport were surrounded by the Presidential Guard and some were disarmed.[15] The airport was closed and the circling Belgian Hercules was diverted to Nairobi.
In Camp Kanombe, the bugle call immediately after the crash was taken by soldiers to mean that the Rwandan Patriotic Front had attacked the camp. Every soldier rushed to his unit’s armory to equip themselves. Soldiers of the paracommando brigade Commandos de recherche et d’action en profondeur (CRAP) assembled on the parade ground at around 9 pm while members of other units gathered elsewhere in the camp.At least one witness stated that about an hour after the crash there was the sound of gunfire in Kanombe. Munitions explosions at Camp Kanombe were also initially reported.
The senior officer for the Kigali operational zone called the Ministry of Defence with the news. Defence Minister Augustin Bizimana was out of the country, and the officer who took the call failed to reach Col. Théoneste Bagosora, the director of the office of the minister of defence, who was apparently at a reception given by UNAMIR’s Bangladeshi officers. The news of the crash, initially reported as an explosion of UNAMIR’s ammunition dump, was quickly relayed to UNAMIR Force Commander Dallaire. He ordered UNAMIR Kigali sector commander Luc Marchal to send a patrol to the crash site. Numerous people began calling UNAMIR seeking information, including Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and Lando Ndasingwa. Madame Agathe informed Dallaire that she was trying to gather her cabinet but many ministers were afraid to leave their families. She also reported that all of the hardline ministers had disappeared. Dallaire asked the prime minister if she could confirm that it was the president’s plane that had crashed, and then called UNAMIR political head Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh to inform him of developments. Madame Agathe then called back to confirm that it was the president’s jet and he was presumed to be on board. She also asked for UNAMIR help in regaining control of the political situation, as she was legally next in the line of succession, but some moderate ministers allied to her had already begun fleeing their homes in search of safety.
At 9:18 pm, Presidential Guards whom a UNAMIR report described as “nervous and dangerous” established a roadblock near the Hotel Méridien. Several other roadblocks had been set up prior to the attack as part of security preparations for Habyarimana’s arrival. The patrol of UNAMIR Belgian soldiers sent to investigate the crash site was stopped at a Presidential Guards roadblock at 9:35 pm, disarmed and sent to the airport.Soldiers in Camp Kanombe had interpreted the bugle after the crash to mean that the RPF had attacked the military camp and ran to arm themselves. Units had gathered at assembly points by around 9 pm. One such unit was a section of the para-commando brigade CRAP, which was ordered to collect bodies from the crash site. Later, two French soldiers arrived at the crash and asked to be given the flight data recorder once it was recovered.
A Rwandan colonel who called the army command about 40 minutes after the crash was told that there was no confirmation that the president was dead. About half an hour later, roughly 9:30, the situation was still confused at army command, though it appeared clear that the presidential aircraft had exploded and that it had probably been hit by a missile. News then arrived that Major-General Déogratias Nsabimana, the army chief of staff, had been on the plane. The officers present realized that they would have to appoint a new chief of staff in order to clarify the chain of command and began a meeting to decide whom to appoint. Col. Bagosora joined them soon afterward. At about 10 pm, Ephrem Rwabalinda, the government liaison officer to UNAMIR, called Dallaire to inform him that a crisis committee was about to meet. After informing his superiors in New York of the situation, Dallaire went to attend the meeting, where he found Bagosora in charge.
Long-term eventsThe assassination was taken by Hutu extremists as a signal to implement a plan for the mass killing of Tutsis and Hutu moderates who supported a negotiated end to the war. The death toll of the Rwandan Genocide is commonly estimated at 800,000, though some estimates top one million. The RPF invaded, eventually capturing the country and installing a new government. About 4 million refugees fled to neighboring countries, due to fear of RPF retribution. The Great Lakes refugee crisis thus became increasingly politicized and militarized until the RPF supported a rebel attack to exterminate remaining Hutus whom they had not been able to kill or jail when they captured power in 1994.
The refugee camps across the border in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1996. The rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo continued their offensive, in what some call the First Congo War, until they overthrew the government of Mobutu Sese Seko. In 1998, the new Congolese president, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, had a falling out with his foreign backers, who began another rebellion to put a more amenable government into place.
The resulting Second Congo War (1998-2003) drew in eight nations and became the deadliest conflict since World War II, killing an estimated 3.8 million people.The Burundi Civil War continued after the death of Ntaryamira, both being sustained by and feeding into the instability in its Rwandan and Congolese neighbors. Over 300,000 people would die until a government of national unity was established in 2005.
At some point following the April 6 assassination, Juvenal Habyarimana’s remains were obtained by Zairian President Mobutu Sese Soko and stored in a private mausoleum in Gbadolite, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo). Mobutu promised Habyarimana’s family that his body would eventually be given a proper burial in Rwanda. On May 12, 1997, as Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s ADFL rebels were advancing on Gbadolite, Mobutu had the remains flown by cargo plane to Kinshasa where they waited on the tarmac of Kinshasa International Airport for three days. On May 16, the day before Mobutu fled Zaire, Habyarimana’s remains were burned under the supervision of Indian Hindu leader.
Responsibility
There have been several reports since 2000 stating that the attack was carried out by the RPF on the orders of Paul Kagame, who went on to become president of Rwanda. However, all such evidence is heavily disputed and many academics, as well as the United Nations, have refrained from issuing a definitive finding. Especially having in mind that UN was involved in the whole plan to assassinate Habyalimana as its major funder the USA influenced all steps in investigations and support to RPF. According to all reports published by Peter Erlinder and Michael Hourigan who were working at the ICTR as chief prosecutors. They discovered a lot about who shot Habyalimana’s plane and the USA involvement in planning genocide in Rwanda. Mark Doyle, a BBC News correspondent who reported out of Kigali through the 1994 genocide, noted in 2006 that the identities of the assassins “could turn out to be one of the great mysteries of the late 20th Century. The BBC has been one of the powerful propaganda media that supported RPF and disseminated RPF lies to frustrate Hutu refugees in exile.
A January 2000 article in the Canadian National Post reported that International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda prosecutor Louise Arbour had suppressed a report detailing accusations by three Tutsi informants that the RPF under Kagame had carried out the assassination with the help of a foreign government. The UN later clarified that the ‘report’ was actually a three page memorandum by investigator Michael Hourigan of Australia, who had been unsure of the credibility of the information and simply filed it into archives. The UN then sent the memo on to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where defense attorneys had expressed interest in using it on behalf of their clients.In 2004, a report by French anti-terrorist magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, investigating the deaths of the French aircraft crew, stated that the assassination had been carried out on the orders of Paul Kagame. The report relies heavily on the testimony of Abdul Ruzibiza, a former lieutenant in the RPF, who states that he was part of a cell that carried out the assassination with shoulder-fired SA-16 missiles.
Ruzibaza later published his testimony in a press release, detailing his account and further accusing the RPF of starting the conflict, prolonging the genocide, carrying out widespread atrocities during the genocide and political repression.[ The former RPF officer went on to publish a 2005 book Rwanda. L’histoire secrete with his account. Bruguière reportedly says that the CIA was involved in Habyarimana’s assassination.
In November 2006, Bruguière issued another report accusing Kagame and the RPF of masterminding the assassination. In protest, Kagame broke diplomatic relations between France and Rwanda. Linda Melvern, author of Conspiracy to Murder: the Rwandan Genocide, notedThe evidence the French judge had presented alleging President Kagame’s involvement in the murder of his predecessor was very sparse, and that some of it, concerning the alleged anti-aircraft missiles used to down the presidential jet, had already been rejected by a French Parliamentary enquiry.
Bruguière also issued arrest warrants for nine Kagame aides, in order to question them about the assassination. In November 2008 the German government implemented the first of these European warrants and arrested Rose Kabuye, Kagame’s chief of protocol, upon her arrival in Frankfurt. Kabuye apparently agreed to be transferred to French custody immediately in order to respond to Bruguière’s questions. All these 15 years have been marked by an untold genocide carried out by the RPF and there is none has ever reported about it. Millions of people from Butare, Gikongoro, Byumba, Ruhengeri, Gisenyi, and Gitarama, without forgetting Kibuye have been murdered in a cold blood slaughter. The UN has gotten evidence which they have refused to release. This led to the resignation of the ICTR prosecutor Carl Del Ponte. Koffi Annan should be a witness in this new case that Rwandans want to file to ask why the ICTR hunt only Hutus only and yet there are clear evidence of how Kagame gave instructions to shoot Habyalimana’s plane which ignited the fratricide in Rwanda.
AT THIS 15TH FRATRICIDE COMMEMORATION WE HONOR HABYALIMANA’S AND NTARYAMIRA’S
DEATH I HOPE IT WILL BRING NATIONAL RECONCILIATION.
INTRODUCTIONThe assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on the evening of April 6, 1994 when they were from a peace negotiations in Arusha, Tanzania. This was the catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide. The airplane carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda. Responsibility for the attack is disputed, with most theories proposing as suspects either the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) or government-aligned Hutu extremists opposed to negotiation with the RPF. The Hutu Extremist theory is believed to have disseminated by the RPF propagandists who wanted to distract the world on the terrorism investigations. But whichever the case two Hut presidents were assassinated by RPF in order to carry out its agenda to take over power by force. This set in motion some of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.
The Jet of Habyalimana leaving Arusha on 6 April 1994
BACKGROUND OF THE RPF INVASION IN RWANDAIn 1990, the Rwandan Civil War began when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, dominated by the Tutsi ethnic group, invaded northern Rwanda from Uganda. Most of the RPF fighters were either refugees or the sons of refugees who had fled ethnic purges by the Hutu government in the middle of the century. The attempt to overthrow the government failed, though the RPF was able to maintain control of a border region. As it became clear that the war had reached a stalemate, the sides began peace negotiations in May 1992, which resulted in the signing in August 1993 of the Arusha Accords to create a power-sharing government. This happened in Arusha in Tanzania where the complicity of Museveni, Nyerere, United Kingdom, and USA were present.However, the war radicalized the internal opposition. There were some greedy Hutus such as Twagiramungu who succumbed to RPF pressure and they re-aligned with Tutsi led RPF in order to get power from backdoors. But the more the war continued the more Hutus discovered that it was not about power and leadership or returning of Tutsi refugees from Uganda, but the return of serfdom and slavery which was eradicated in 1959 during the UN sponsored Referendum. The more of a threat the RPF became, the more mainstream the Hutu freedom ideology became. This portrayed the RPF as an alien force intent on reinstating the Tutsi monarchy and enslaving the Hutus that had to be resisted at all costs. This political force led to the collapse of the first Habyarimana government in July 1993, when Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye criticized the president in writing for delaying a peace agreement. This was because of what Hutu satirical expression of Inda nini which refers to Hutu greediness. Nsengiyaremye Dismas was not concerned by the threats that the RPF was causing to the country but his higher chance of becoming the Prime Minister and later the President of Rwanda after the departure of Habyalimana. President Habyarimana who was a member of Mouvement Revolutionaire pour le Developement du Rwanda MRND, dismissed Nsengiyarmye and appointed Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who was seen as less sympathetic to the RPF, in his stead. However, the main opposition parties then refused to support Madame Agathe’s appointment, each splitting into two factions: one calling for the unwavering defense of Hutu Power and the other, labeled “moderate” that sought a negotiated settlement to the war. As Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana was unable to form a coalition government, ratification of the Arusha Accords was impossible. The most extreme of the Hutu parties, the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic, which was reminding Hutus the way their ancestors were enslaved by Tutsis over 500 years of servitude and serfdom known as Ubucakara (Corvee).The security situation deteriorated throughout 1993. the RPF distributed small arms among all young Tutsis which led to Hutus to start arming themselves to counter RPF to take over power by force. The UN peacekeeping mission MINUAR clandestinely supported RPF by allowing it to bring its military into the Capital of Kigali in disguise of firewood. February 1994, Roméo Dallaire, the head of the military force attached to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), which had been sent to observe the implementation of the Arusha Accords, informed his superiors, “Time does seem to be running out for political discussions, as any spark on the security side could have catastrophic consequences. But the UN did not do any thing to curb the situation since the United States had vested interest in Rwanda insecurity in order to go and loot DR Congo, the UN couldn’t take any measures to facilitate the Arusha Accords. In the United Nations Security Council, early April 1994 saw a sharp disagreement between the United States and the non-permament members of the council over UNAMIR. Despite a classified February Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysis predicting half a million deaths if the Arusha process failed, the U.S. was attempting to reduce its international commitments in the wake of the Somalia debacle and lobbied to end the mission. A compromise extending UNAMIR’s mandate for three more months was finally reached on the evening of Tuesday, the fifth of April. Meanwhile, Habyarimana was finishing regional travel. On April 4th, he had flown to Zaire to meet with president Mobutu Sese Seko and on the sixth flew to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for a one-day regional summit for heads of state convened by Tanzania’s President Mzee Julius Nyerere Kambarage who was supporting the RPF, and was aware of the assassination. On the return trip that evening he was joined by Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, and a couple of his ministers, who preferred the faster Dassault Falcon 50 that the French government had given to Habyarimana over his own presidential plane. They also wanted to go talking about the business of their two countries which were under threats from Tutisis.According to interim Prime Minister Jean Kambanda’s confession to the ICTR, President Mobutu Sese Seko of neighboring Zaire, (now DRC) had warned Habyarimana not to go to Dar-es-Salaam on April 6. Mobutu said this warning had come from a very senior official in the Elysée Palace in Paris. There was a link between this warning, said Mobutu, and the subsequent suicide in the Elysée of François de Grossouvre, a senior high-ranking official working for President François Mitterrand, an official who had killed himself on April 7 after learning about the downing of the Falcon. Description of attack
The presidential jet was a Dassault Falcon 50 given by Francois Mitterand who was the President of France and a very close friend to Habyalimana Juvenal.Shortly before 8:20 pm local time (6:20 pm UTC), the presidential jet circled once around Kigali International Airport before coming in for final approach in clear skies. A weekly flight by a Belgian C-130 Hercules carrying UNAMIR troops returning from leave had been scheduled to land before the presidential jet, but was waved off to give the presidents priority.
A surface-to-air missile struck one of the wings of the Dassault Falcon, before a second missile hit its tail. The plane erupted into flames in mid-air before crashing into the garden of the presidential palace, exploding on impact. The plane carried three French crew and nine passengers.The attack was witnessed by numerous people. One of two Belgian officers in the garden of a house in Kanombe, the district in which the airport is located, saw and heard the first missile climb into the sky, saw a red flash in the sky and heard an aircraft engine stopping, and then another missile climb. He immediately called Major de Saint-Quentin, part of the French team attached to the Rwandan para-commando battalion Commandos de recherche et d’action en profondeur (CRAP), who advised him to organize protection for his Belgian comrades. Similarly, another Belgian officer stationed in an unused airport control tower saw the lights of an approaching aircraft, a light traveling upward from the ground and then the aircraft lights going out. This was followed by a second light rising from the same place as the first and the plane turning into a falling ball of fire. This officer immediately radioed his company commander, who confirmed with the used control tower that the plane was the presidential aircraft.
A Rwandan soldier in the military camp in Kanombe recalled,You know, its engine sound was different from other planes; that is, the president’s engine’s sound … We were looking towards where the plane was coming from, and we saw a projectile and we saw a ball of flame or flash and we saw the plane go down; and I saw it. I was the leader of the bloc so I asked the soldiers to get up and I told them “Get up because Kinani [a Kinyarwanda nickname for Habyarimana meaning "famous" or "invincible"] has been shot down.’ They told me, “You are lying.” I said, “It’s true.” So I opened my wardrobe, I put on my uniform and I heard the bugle sound.[14]A Rwandan officer cadet at the airport who was listening to the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines heard the announcer state that the presidential jet was coming in to land. The spoken broadcast then stopped suddenly in favor of a selection of classical music
Twelve people were killed. They were:1. President of Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana2. President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira3. Bernard Ciza, Burundian Minister of Public Works4. Cyriaque Simbizi, Burundian Minister of Communication5. General Deogratias Nsabimana, Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Defence Forces6. Major Thaddée Bagaragaza, responsible for the “maison militaire” of the Rwandan president7. Colonel Elie Sagatwa, Member of the special secretariat of the Rwandan president, Chief of the Military Cabinet of the Rwandan president8. Juvénal Renaho, foreign affairs advisor to the Rwandan president9. Emmanuel Akingeneye, personal physician to the Rwandan presidentFrench aircraft crew:10. Jacky Héraud (pilot)11. Jean-Pierre Minoberry (copilot)12. Jean-Michel Perrine (flight engineer)Immediate reactionChaos ensued on the ground. The Presidential Guard, who had been waiting to escort the president home from the airport, threatened people with their weapons. Twenty Belgian peacekeepers who had been stationed along the perimeter of the airport were surrounded by the Presidential Guard and some were disarmed.[15] The airport was closed and the circling Belgian Hercules was diverted to Nairobi.
In Camp Kanombe, the bugle call immediately after the crash was taken by soldiers to mean that the Rwandan Patriotic Front had attacked the camp. Every soldier rushed to his unit’s armory to equip themselves. Soldiers of the paracommando brigade Commandos de recherche et d’action en profondeur (CRAP) assembled on the parade ground at around 9 pm while members of other units gathered elsewhere in the camp.At least one witness stated that about an hour after the crash there was the sound of gunfire in Kanombe. Munitions explosions at Camp Kanombe were also initially reported.
The senior officer for the Kigali operational zone called the Ministry of Defence with the news. Defence Minister Augustin Bizimana was out of the country, and the officer who took the call failed to reach Col. Théoneste Bagosora, the director of the office of the minister of defence, who was apparently at a reception given by UNAMIR’s Bangladeshi officers. The news of the crash, initially reported as an explosion of UNAMIR’s ammunition dump, was quickly relayed to UNAMIR Force Commander Dallaire. He ordered UNAMIR Kigali sector commander Luc Marchal to send a patrol to the crash site. Numerous people began calling UNAMIR seeking information, including Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and Lando Ndasingwa. Madame Agathe informed Dallaire that she was trying to gather her cabinet but many ministers were afraid to leave their families. She also reported that all of the hardline ministers had disappeared. Dallaire asked the prime minister if she could confirm that it was the president’s plane that had crashed, and then called UNAMIR political head Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh to inform him of developments. Madame Agathe then called back to confirm that it was the president’s jet and he was presumed to be on board. She also asked for UNAMIR help in regaining control of the political situation, as she was legally next in the line of succession, but some moderate ministers allied to her had already begun fleeing their homes in search of safety.
At 9:18 pm, Presidential Guards whom a UNAMIR report described as “nervous and dangerous” established a roadblock near the Hotel Méridien. Several other roadblocks had been set up prior to the attack as part of security preparations for Habyarimana’s arrival. The patrol of UNAMIR Belgian soldiers sent to investigate the crash site was stopped at a Presidential Guards roadblock at 9:35 pm, disarmed and sent to the airport.Soldiers in Camp Kanombe had interpreted the bugle after the crash to mean that the RPF had attacked the military camp and ran to arm themselves. Units had gathered at assembly points by around 9 pm. One such unit was a section of the para-commando brigade CRAP, which was ordered to collect bodies from the crash site. Later, two French soldiers arrived at the crash and asked to be given the flight data recorder once it was recovered.
A Rwandan colonel who called the army command about 40 minutes after the crash was told that there was no confirmation that the president was dead. About half an hour later, roughly 9:30, the situation was still confused at army command, though it appeared clear that the presidential aircraft had exploded and that it had probably been hit by a missile. News then arrived that Major-General Déogratias Nsabimana, the army chief of staff, had been on the plane. The officers present realized that they would have to appoint a new chief of staff in order to clarify the chain of command and began a meeting to decide whom to appoint. Col. Bagosora joined them soon afterward. At about 10 pm, Ephrem Rwabalinda, the government liaison officer to UNAMIR, called Dallaire to inform him that a crisis committee was about to meet. After informing his superiors in New York of the situation, Dallaire went to attend the meeting, where he found Bagosora in charge.
Long-term eventsThe assassination was taken by Hutu extremists as a signal to implement a plan for the mass killing of Tutsis and Hutu moderates who supported a negotiated end to the war. The death toll of the Rwandan Genocide is commonly estimated at 800,000, though some estimates top one million. The RPF invaded, eventually capturing the country and installing a new government. About 4 million refugees fled to neighboring countries, due to fear of RPF retribution. The Great Lakes refugee crisis thus became increasingly politicized and militarized until the RPF supported a rebel attack to exterminate remaining Hutus whom they had not been able to kill or jail when they captured power in 1994.
The refugee camps across the border in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1996. The rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo continued their offensive, in what some call the First Congo War, until they overthrew the government of Mobutu Sese Seko. In 1998, the new Congolese president, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, had a falling out with his foreign backers, who began another rebellion to put a more amenable government into place.
The resulting Second Congo War (1998-2003) drew in eight nations and became the deadliest conflict since World War II, killing an estimated 3.8 million people.The Burundi Civil War continued after the death of Ntaryamira, both being sustained by and feeding into the instability in its Rwandan and Congolese neighbors. Over 300,000 people would die until a government of national unity was established in 2005.
At some point following the April 6 assassination, Juvenal Habyarimana’s remains were obtained by Zairian President Mobutu Sese Soko and stored in a private mausoleum in Gbadolite, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo). Mobutu promised Habyarimana’s family that his body would eventually be given a proper burial in Rwanda. On May 12, 1997, as Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s ADFL rebels were advancing on Gbadolite, Mobutu had the remains flown by cargo plane to Kinshasa where they waited on the tarmac of Kinshasa International Airport for three days. On May 16, the day before Mobutu fled Zaire, Habyarimana’s remains were burned under the supervision of Indian Hindu leader.
Responsibility
There have been several reports since 2000 stating that the attack was carried out by the RPF on the orders of Paul Kagame, who went on to become president of Rwanda. However, all such evidence is heavily disputed and many academics, as well as the United Nations, have refrained from issuing a definitive finding. Especially having in mind that UN was involved in the whole plan to assassinate Habyalimana as its major funder the USA influenced all steps in investigations and support to RPF. According to all reports published by Peter Erlinder and Michael Hourigan who were working at the ICTR as chief prosecutors. They discovered a lot about who shot Habyalimana’s plane and the USA involvement in planning genocide in Rwanda. Mark Doyle, a BBC News correspondent who reported out of Kigali through the 1994 genocide, noted in 2006 that the identities of the assassins “could turn out to be one of the great mysteries of the late 20th Century. The BBC has been one of the powerful propaganda media that supported RPF and disseminated RPF lies to frustrate Hutu refugees in exile.
A January 2000 article in the Canadian National Post reported that International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda prosecutor Louise Arbour had suppressed a report detailing accusations by three Tutsi informants that the RPF under Kagame had carried out the assassination with the help of a foreign government. The UN later clarified that the ‘report’ was actually a three page memorandum by investigator Michael Hourigan of Australia, who had been unsure of the credibility of the information and simply filed it into archives. The UN then sent the memo on to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where defense attorneys had expressed interest in using it on behalf of their clients.In 2004, a report by French anti-terrorist magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, investigating the deaths of the French aircraft crew, stated that the assassination had been carried out on the orders of Paul Kagame. The report relies heavily on the testimony of Abdul Ruzibiza, a former lieutenant in the RPF, who states that he was part of a cell that carried out the assassination with shoulder-fired SA-16 missiles.
Ruzibaza later published his testimony in a press release, detailing his account and further accusing the RPF of starting the conflict, prolonging the genocide, carrying out widespread atrocities during the genocide and political repression.[ The former RPF officer went on to publish a 2005 book Rwanda. L’histoire secrete with his account. Bruguière reportedly says that the CIA was involved in Habyarimana’s assassination.
In November 2006, Bruguière issued another report accusing Kagame and the RPF of masterminding the assassination. In protest, Kagame broke diplomatic relations between France and Rwanda. Linda Melvern, author of Conspiracy to Murder: the Rwandan Genocide, notedThe evidence the French judge had presented alleging President Kagame’s involvement in the murder of his predecessor was very sparse, and that some of it, concerning the alleged anti-aircraft missiles used to down the presidential jet, had already been rejected by a French Parliamentary enquiry.
Bruguière also issued arrest warrants for nine Kagame aides, in order to question them about the assassination. In November 2008 the German government implemented the first of these European warrants and arrested Rose Kabuye, Kagame’s chief of protocol, upon her arrival in Frankfurt. Kabuye apparently agreed to be transferred to French custody immediately in order to respond to Bruguière’s questions. All these 15 years have been marked by an untold genocide carried out by the RPF and there is none has ever reported about it. Millions of people from Butare, Gikongoro, Byumba, Ruhengeri, Gisenyi, and Gitarama, without forgetting Kibuye have been murdered in a cold blood slaughter. The UN has gotten evidence which they have refused to release. This led to the resignation of the ICTR prosecutor Carl Del Ponte. Koffi Annan should be a witness in this new case that Rwandans want to file to ask why the ICTR hunt only Hutus only and yet there are clear evidence of how Kagame gave instructions to shoot Habyalimana’s plane which ignited the fratricide in Rwanda.
AT THIS 15TH FRATRICIDE COMMEMORATION WE HONOR HABYALIMANA’S AND NTARYAMIRA’S
DEATH I HOPE IT WILL BRING NATIONAL RECONCILIATION. The Jet of Habyalimana leaving Arusha on 6 April 1994
Thursday, August 27, 2009
PRESS RELEASE NR. 07/SE/CD/AUGUST/2009 OF THE FDLR
The FDLR refute the false information published by journalists KRON JOSH and JEFFREY
GETTLEMAN in “The New York Times” on August 21, 2009 that the FDLR are a movement
"of Hutuism", recruit Burundians in their army and exploit the wealth of the DRC.
The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) categorically deny the false and outrageous
content of the article entitled "Congo's Militias Lure Former Rebels from Burundi", published by
JOSH KRON and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN in the newspaper “The New York Times“ of August 21,
2009 that the FDLR would be a movement "of Hutuism" that would recruit Burundians in its army
and exploit the wealth of the DRC like gold and diamonds mines that it would use to pay its
recruits.
The FDLR inform the public and the media that they are a movement open to all Rwandan women
and men who want to be its members regardless of their ethnic, religious or regional background.
The FDLR have never and will never have a program of recruiting foreigners to join their armed
forces "Abacunguzi" because they are currently in sufficient numbers to meet the challenges that the
FDLR could be faced with in achieving their objective which is and remains the liberation of the
Rwandan people from the yoke of the fascism of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF-Inkotanyi).
The lies spread by these two journalists of The New York Times that the FDLR would exploit gold
and diamond mines and pay $ 500 for each new recruit are shameful, groundless and unacceptable.
The FDLR remind everyone, including these merchants of lies of another age, that Abacunguzi
fighters are united only by the ideal of freeing the people, of Rwanda of all ethnicities, from the
yoke of a clique of criminals organized in the RPF-Inkotanyi currently in power in Kigali and
helped by international lobbies. No Umucunguzi is paid for his/her mission and no Umucunguzi is
and will ever be engaged in the exploitation of wealth of the DRC or of any other foreign country.
The FDLR remind the public and the media that there are many ill-intentioned individuals, some
working for the Kigali regime and its international lobby, who spread lies in order to show that the
FDLR would be the source of insecurity in the African Great Lakes Region and thereby legitimize
the unjust and unnecessary ongoing war that warmongers and their international criminal lobbies
have again imposed on peace-loving peoples of the African Great Lakes Region in order to
maintain a permanent chaos and become masters of the enormous wealth of this area.
The FDLR warn the public and the media of the stories fabricated by some politicians, some
international institutions authorities, journalists and other individuals in order to tarnish the
reputation of the FDLR when pressure on the criminal Kigali regime to accept unconditional direct
talks with the FDLR is becoming increasingly untenable for that regime.
The FDLR remain convinced that only the truth and not falsehood can free man, and reiterate their
call made to journalists and politicians to stop spreading hatred and lies but to work to bring out the
truth about the Rwandan tragedy that is the source of insecurity and perennial hegemonic wars that
continue to afflict the African Great Lakes Region, and that since 1 October 1990.
Done in Paris on August 27, 2009
Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
(Sé)
GETTLEMAN in “The New York Times” on August 21, 2009 that the FDLR are a movement
"of Hutuism", recruit Burundians in their army and exploit the wealth of the DRC.
The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) categorically deny the false and outrageous
content of the article entitled "Congo's Militias Lure Former Rebels from Burundi", published by
JOSH KRON and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN in the newspaper “The New York Times“ of August 21,
2009 that the FDLR would be a movement "of Hutuism" that would recruit Burundians in its army
and exploit the wealth of the DRC like gold and diamonds mines that it would use to pay its
recruits.
The FDLR inform the public and the media that they are a movement open to all Rwandan women
and men who want to be its members regardless of their ethnic, religious or regional background.
The FDLR have never and will never have a program of recruiting foreigners to join their armed
forces "Abacunguzi" because they are currently in sufficient numbers to meet the challenges that the
FDLR could be faced with in achieving their objective which is and remains the liberation of the
Rwandan people from the yoke of the fascism of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF-Inkotanyi).
The lies spread by these two journalists of The New York Times that the FDLR would exploit gold
and diamond mines and pay $ 500 for each new recruit are shameful, groundless and unacceptable.
The FDLR remind everyone, including these merchants of lies of another age, that Abacunguzi
fighters are united only by the ideal of freeing the people, of Rwanda of all ethnicities, from the
yoke of a clique of criminals organized in the RPF-Inkotanyi currently in power in Kigali and
helped by international lobbies. No Umucunguzi is paid for his/her mission and no Umucunguzi is
and will ever be engaged in the exploitation of wealth of the DRC or of any other foreign country.
The FDLR remind the public and the media that there are many ill-intentioned individuals, some
working for the Kigali regime and its international lobby, who spread lies in order to show that the
FDLR would be the source of insecurity in the African Great Lakes Region and thereby legitimize
the unjust and unnecessary ongoing war that warmongers and their international criminal lobbies
have again imposed on peace-loving peoples of the African Great Lakes Region in order to
maintain a permanent chaos and become masters of the enormous wealth of this area.
The FDLR warn the public and the media of the stories fabricated by some politicians, some
international institutions authorities, journalists and other individuals in order to tarnish the
reputation of the FDLR when pressure on the criminal Kigali regime to accept unconditional direct
talks with the FDLR is becoming increasingly untenable for that regime.
The FDLR remain convinced that only the truth and not falsehood can free man, and reiterate their
call made to journalists and politicians to stop spreading hatred and lies but to work to bring out the
truth about the Rwandan tragedy that is the source of insecurity and perennial hegemonic wars that
continue to afflict the African Great Lakes Region, and that since 1 October 1990.
Done in Paris on August 27, 2009
Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
(Sé)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
FDLR PRESS RELEASE NR. 06/SE/CD/AUGUST/2009
The FDLR refute the misinformation propagated in the press by certain members of the
Burundian government that some members of the FDLR reportedly entered with weapons in
Burundi from the DRC.
The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) categorically deny the misinformation
propagated in the media by some members of the Burundian government that some members of the
FDLR have entered in recent days with their weapons on the territory of Burundi from the DRC.
Statements made by Lieutenant-General Germain Niyoyankana, Burundian Minister of Defense, on
August 20, 2009 at a press conference in Bujumbura and those of Major General Lazare Nduwayo,
spokesman of the Burundian army made on August 21, 2009 on the BBC airwaves, are completely
unfounded and are intended to distract the peoples of the African Great Lakes Region, especially the
peoples of Burundi and Rwanda, from serious problems they currently face.
The FDLR inform the public, media and the international community that none of their members has
entered in Burundi. The truth is that there are some unhappy demobilized soldiers from the National
Liberation Forces (FNL) and National Defense Forces (FDN i.e. the Burundian national army) who
cross the river Rusizi and go to steal and plunder border posts with the DRC (Luvungi, Bwegera,
Katogota etc.), and ambush vehicles on the axis Bukavu-Uvira. Some of them were arrested by the
Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) and are detained in Bukavu. Last week, some demobilized
soldiers of the FNL and FDN looted and burned houses in the centre of Runingu in DRC and then
crossed the river Rusizi towards the locality of Rukoko in Burundi.
The FDLR urge politicians of the African Great Lakes Region to seriously work to find viable
solutions to internal political problems of their respective countries rather than look for scapegoats in
the FDLR.
Specifically, the FDLR urge the authorities of Burundi to find a solution to the problems of
demobilized soldiers of the FNL and the FDN instead of taking as a pretext for their own problems the
FDLR, an organization that seeks to liberate its people currently languishing under the yoke of a
criminal group supported by international lobbies.
The FDLR also condemn the statements made by General Niyoyankana aimed at creating a regional
war by proposing that the armed forces of the CEPGL countries come together to fight the FDLR. The
will to put fire on all the African Great Lakes Region to solve a political problem which is internal to
one country is extremely dangerous and should be unreservedly condemned by all women and all men
who love peace and concord in the African Great Lakes Region.
The FDLR ask the media not to relay information whose content is nothing but a blatant lie such as
statements from these Burundian authorities cited above.
The FDLR remain committed to peace and are convinced that only dialogue and not war can solve the
political problem of Rwanda which is the basis of the various hegemonic wars that have afflicted the
African Great Lakes Region since October 1st, 1990.
Done in Paris on 24 August 2009
Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
(Sé)
Burundian government that some members of the FDLR reportedly entered with weapons in
Burundi from the DRC.
The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) categorically deny the misinformation
propagated in the media by some members of the Burundian government that some members of the
FDLR have entered in recent days with their weapons on the territory of Burundi from the DRC.
Statements made by Lieutenant-General Germain Niyoyankana, Burundian Minister of Defense, on
August 20, 2009 at a press conference in Bujumbura and those of Major General Lazare Nduwayo,
spokesman of the Burundian army made on August 21, 2009 on the BBC airwaves, are completely
unfounded and are intended to distract the peoples of the African Great Lakes Region, especially the
peoples of Burundi and Rwanda, from serious problems they currently face.
The FDLR inform the public, media and the international community that none of their members has
entered in Burundi. The truth is that there are some unhappy demobilized soldiers from the National
Liberation Forces (FNL) and National Defense Forces (FDN i.e. the Burundian national army) who
cross the river Rusizi and go to steal and plunder border posts with the DRC (Luvungi, Bwegera,
Katogota etc.), and ambush vehicles on the axis Bukavu-Uvira. Some of them were arrested by the
Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) and are detained in Bukavu. Last week, some demobilized
soldiers of the FNL and FDN looted and burned houses in the centre of Runingu in DRC and then
crossed the river Rusizi towards the locality of Rukoko in Burundi.
The FDLR urge politicians of the African Great Lakes Region to seriously work to find viable
solutions to internal political problems of their respective countries rather than look for scapegoats in
the FDLR.
Specifically, the FDLR urge the authorities of Burundi to find a solution to the problems of
demobilized soldiers of the FNL and the FDN instead of taking as a pretext for their own problems the
FDLR, an organization that seeks to liberate its people currently languishing under the yoke of a
criminal group supported by international lobbies.
The FDLR also condemn the statements made by General Niyoyankana aimed at creating a regional
war by proposing that the armed forces of the CEPGL countries come together to fight the FDLR. The
will to put fire on all the African Great Lakes Region to solve a political problem which is internal to
one country is extremely dangerous and should be unreservedly condemned by all women and all men
who love peace and concord in the African Great Lakes Region.
The FDLR ask the media not to relay information whose content is nothing but a blatant lie such as
statements from these Burundian authorities cited above.
The FDLR remain committed to peace and are convinced that only dialogue and not war can solve the
political problem of Rwanda which is the basis of the various hegemonic wars that have afflicted the
African Great Lakes Region since October 1st, 1990.
Done in Paris on 24 August 2009
Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
(Sé)
Monday, August 24, 2009
Rwandan Hutu rebels cross into Burundi
BUJUMBURA — The Burundian army said Monday that around 10 Rwandan Hutu rebels had entered the country from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo but did not pose a threat to peace.
It said the rebels had entered the country to escape an offensive by the Congolese army and UN peacekeepers, but were not in a position to carry out an attack.
"The army last week received information about incursions into Burundi by FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) rebels ... escaping from the military pressure resulting from the raids by the Congolese army and blue helmets" in DR Congo, army spokesman General Lazare Nduwayo told AFP.
"It's a team of about 10 men who have infiltrated through Kibira forest," he said, adding: "There's no reason to be alarmed as nothing proves there is a large FDLR or Interhamwe unit in Burundi".
"If some FDLR elements are present they're not in a position to carry out any sort of an attack, either against the DRC or against Rwanda," the spokesman said.
The FDLR denied the report, saying the men were either demobilised former Burundian rebels or demobilised former Burundian government soldiers who crossed back home after going into DR Congo to "loot border villages and ambush vehicles".
Up to 6,000 FDLR fighters, including some believed to have taken part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide of Tutsis, are still believed to be based in eastern DR Congo despite a joint military offensive by the armies of Kigali and Kinshasa last year.
It said the rebels had entered the country to escape an offensive by the Congolese army and UN peacekeepers, but were not in a position to carry out an attack.
"The army last week received information about incursions into Burundi by FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) rebels ... escaping from the military pressure resulting from the raids by the Congolese army and blue helmets" in DR Congo, army spokesman General Lazare Nduwayo told AFP.
"It's a team of about 10 men who have infiltrated through Kibira forest," he said, adding: "There's no reason to be alarmed as nothing proves there is a large FDLR or Interhamwe unit in Burundi".
"If some FDLR elements are present they're not in a position to carry out any sort of an attack, either against the DRC or against Rwanda," the spokesman said.
The FDLR denied the report, saying the men were either demobilised former Burundian rebels or demobilised former Burundian government soldiers who crossed back home after going into DR Congo to "loot border villages and ambush vehicles".
Up to 6,000 FDLR fighters, including some believed to have taken part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide of Tutsis, are still believed to be based in eastern DR Congo despite a joint military offensive by the armies of Kigali and Kinshasa last year.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Congo’s Militias Lure Former Rebels From Burundi
By JOSH KRON and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: August 20, 2009
LUBERIZI, Congo — For Takwita Mungu, like many leftover soldiers from Burundi’s recently ended civil war, it all began with a phone call.
Every month, recruits from Burundi arrive in Luberizi.
After seven years of bush fighting, and then giving up his gun under a new disarmament program for Burundian rebels, Private Mungu was unemployed, broke and restless. But the militia recruiter on the other end of the phone offered a glittering promise: diamonds, gold and a job fighting for the last bastion of militant Hutuism, in Congo.
“I knew right away,” said Private Mungu, 28, who had agreed to demobilize this past April but said he received neither compensation nor a job, only a shove back into the wilds of civilian life.
According to United Nations and Burundian military officials, Private Mungu is just one of hundreds of former Burundian rebel soldiers who are blazing an illicit trail across rivers and borders to fight for their brethren here in eastern Congo, worsening an already devastating conflict.
The men are joining the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or F.D.L.R., an ethnic Hutu militia based in Congo that is considered one of Africa’s most venomous rebel movements. It was also the target of the recent, joint Congo-Rwanda military offensive intended to finally bring peace to this war-racked region.
For decades, the same ethnic tensions that plunged Rwanda into genocide in 1994 have brought violence to Burundi. The country, whose demographics, economy and history mirror those of Rwanda, has been a relatively forgotten piece of the Hutu-Tutsi saga that has plagued Africa’s Great Lakes Region.
Just as the violence in Rwanda spread beyond its borders, the fighting in Burundi has spilled over into Congo, where militants and their extremist ideologies prey on villages and the minerals beneath them. While a recent peace deal in Burundi has officially ended years of rebellion and bloodshed there, it has disenfranchised many former fighters.
The way Private Mungu describes it, he was a pawn in a veteran Hutu resistance movement, which fought its way to a power-sharing agreement in Burundi in December that granted its members cabinet posts and a slice of the country’s security apparatus.
But most of the jobs went to the top rebel officers, leaving more than 10,000 — from soldiers to schoolteachers — out in the cold. The most fortunate of these received less than $100 in disarmament packages; many, like Private Mungu, say they got nothing. Some have been hired to bolster shaky political parties, and according to a June report by Human Rights Watch, several former fighters have died doing it. Congo has been another option.
Each month, about 40 new Burundian recruits arrive in Luberizi, a sleepy, palm-strewn town just across the Burundi border in Congo, said Safari Ndabachekure, the local F.D.L.R. recruiter. Many of the Burundian rebels live under the nose of a Congolese Army base nearby. While the two sides are formally at war, politics seem to disappear in Luberizi. Government officials and militia members live side by side in poverty, passing and greeting one another when they are not in the mountains, where the bulk of fighting goes on.
Congo’s laxity with the F.D.L.R. has led Rwanda to invade twice since the mid-1990s. But in January, Congo-Rwanda relations appeared to suddenly flip from enemies to partners, as the two countries agreed to work together to wipe out the Hutu militiamen along the border. But despite the official position of Congo’s government, human rights groups say that Congolese soldiers are still supporting Hutu militiamen, who come from different nations.
Burundian militiamen have been swept into Congo’s battles before. According to United Nations agencies and human rights groups, Burundians were being lured by similar means to Laurent Nkunda, a renegade Tutsi general who wreaked havoc in eastern Congo until he was seized in January. Before that, Burundians fought for another Congolese militia, the Mai Mai. As Burundi’s war has wound down, many of the former rebel soldiers have been willing to kill for whoever pays them, regardless of ethnic allegiances.
“In Burundi, the good life is only for the big person,” said Mr. Safari, the recruiter, who arrived in Congo two years ago. Now he helps orchestrate a circuit through which new arrivals receive temporary shelter, financial assistance and a free weapon.
“The first purpose is to promote the Hutu persons,” he said. “The second is to look for money.”
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo has called the rebel migrations a destabilizing factor, and it said it was Burundian fighters who raided a prison in eastern Congo in April, freeing 220 rebels.
The flow of Burundian fighters into Congo is “definitely a concern,” said Lt. Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich, a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission, though he said it was limited to a small portion of Burundi’s former combatants.
Several former Burundian soldiers said Congo was a last resort; they do not have a burning desire to return to the bush.
“We are tired of fighting,” said Jean-Pierre Habiyaremye, 28, a former Burundian rebel who has resisted the offers to fight in Congo. “We want to form associations and build with our hands.”
But for his disarmament package, he said he was given $41 and a frying pan, while the Hutu rebels in Congo dangle promises of up to $500 cash. “With money like that,” he said, “it’s easy for them to find people.”
Published: August 20, 2009
LUBERIZI, Congo — For Takwita Mungu, like many leftover soldiers from Burundi’s recently ended civil war, it all began with a phone call.
Every month, recruits from Burundi arrive in Luberizi.
After seven years of bush fighting, and then giving up his gun under a new disarmament program for Burundian rebels, Private Mungu was unemployed, broke and restless. But the militia recruiter on the other end of the phone offered a glittering promise: diamonds, gold and a job fighting for the last bastion of militant Hutuism, in Congo.
“I knew right away,” said Private Mungu, 28, who had agreed to demobilize this past April but said he received neither compensation nor a job, only a shove back into the wilds of civilian life.
According to United Nations and Burundian military officials, Private Mungu is just one of hundreds of former Burundian rebel soldiers who are blazing an illicit trail across rivers and borders to fight for their brethren here in eastern Congo, worsening an already devastating conflict.
The men are joining the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or F.D.L.R., an ethnic Hutu militia based in Congo that is considered one of Africa’s most venomous rebel movements. It was also the target of the recent, joint Congo-Rwanda military offensive intended to finally bring peace to this war-racked region.
For decades, the same ethnic tensions that plunged Rwanda into genocide in 1994 have brought violence to Burundi. The country, whose demographics, economy and history mirror those of Rwanda, has been a relatively forgotten piece of the Hutu-Tutsi saga that has plagued Africa’s Great Lakes Region.
Just as the violence in Rwanda spread beyond its borders, the fighting in Burundi has spilled over into Congo, where militants and their extremist ideologies prey on villages and the minerals beneath them. While a recent peace deal in Burundi has officially ended years of rebellion and bloodshed there, it has disenfranchised many former fighters.
The way Private Mungu describes it, he was a pawn in a veteran Hutu resistance movement, which fought its way to a power-sharing agreement in Burundi in December that granted its members cabinet posts and a slice of the country’s security apparatus.
But most of the jobs went to the top rebel officers, leaving more than 10,000 — from soldiers to schoolteachers — out in the cold. The most fortunate of these received less than $100 in disarmament packages; many, like Private Mungu, say they got nothing. Some have been hired to bolster shaky political parties, and according to a June report by Human Rights Watch, several former fighters have died doing it. Congo has been another option.
Each month, about 40 new Burundian recruits arrive in Luberizi, a sleepy, palm-strewn town just across the Burundi border in Congo, said Safari Ndabachekure, the local F.D.L.R. recruiter. Many of the Burundian rebels live under the nose of a Congolese Army base nearby. While the two sides are formally at war, politics seem to disappear in Luberizi. Government officials and militia members live side by side in poverty, passing and greeting one another when they are not in the mountains, where the bulk of fighting goes on.
Congo’s laxity with the F.D.L.R. has led Rwanda to invade twice since the mid-1990s. But in January, Congo-Rwanda relations appeared to suddenly flip from enemies to partners, as the two countries agreed to work together to wipe out the Hutu militiamen along the border. But despite the official position of Congo’s government, human rights groups say that Congolese soldiers are still supporting Hutu militiamen, who come from different nations.
Burundian militiamen have been swept into Congo’s battles before. According to United Nations agencies and human rights groups, Burundians were being lured by similar means to Laurent Nkunda, a renegade Tutsi general who wreaked havoc in eastern Congo until he was seized in January. Before that, Burundians fought for another Congolese militia, the Mai Mai. As Burundi’s war has wound down, many of the former rebel soldiers have been willing to kill for whoever pays them, regardless of ethnic allegiances.
“In Burundi, the good life is only for the big person,” said Mr. Safari, the recruiter, who arrived in Congo two years ago. Now he helps orchestrate a circuit through which new arrivals receive temporary shelter, financial assistance and a free weapon.
“The first purpose is to promote the Hutu persons,” he said. “The second is to look for money.”
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo has called the rebel migrations a destabilizing factor, and it said it was Burundian fighters who raided a prison in eastern Congo in April, freeing 220 rebels.
The flow of Burundian fighters into Congo is “definitely a concern,” said Lt. Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich, a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission, though he said it was limited to a small portion of Burundi’s former combatants.
Several former Burundian soldiers said Congo was a last resort; they do not have a burning desire to return to the bush.
“We are tired of fighting,” said Jean-Pierre Habiyaremye, 28, a former Burundian rebel who has resisted the offers to fight in Congo. “We want to form associations and build with our hands.”
But for his disarmament package, he said he was given $41 and a frying pan, while the Hutu rebels in Congo dangle promises of up to $500 cash. “With money like that,” he said, “it’s easy for them to find people.”
Monday, August 17, 2009
Lawyer: U.S. Rwandan innocent in genocide
BUFFALO, N.Y., Aug. 3 (UPI) -- An attorney for a Rwandan refugee living in Amherst, N.Y., says allegations his client is complicit in the African country's 1994 genocide are untrue.
Instead, Buffalo attorney Mark Mahoney says Benoit Kabayiza, 39, is a hard-working family man who rose from not knowing a word of English to become a successful accountant, The Buffalo News reported Monday.
"We have every reason to believe that the charges against Benoit are false and politically motivated," said Mahoney of his client, a Hutu who Interpol says trained, encouraged and provided guns to mobs who killed and raped Tutsis. "Benoit is married to a Tutsi woman. He didn't kill Tutsis. During the genocide, he protected Tutsis from being murdered."
Mahoney said human rights researcher Alison Des Forges, who died this year in the crash of Continental Connections Flight 3407 near Buffalo, was working on collecting evidence to prove the charges against Kabayiza are bogus.
"She was convinced that Rwanda's system of prosecution was very suspect and that Benoit is innocent," Mahoney told the News.
Instead, Buffalo attorney Mark Mahoney says Benoit Kabayiza, 39, is a hard-working family man who rose from not knowing a word of English to become a successful accountant, The Buffalo News reported Monday.
"We have every reason to believe that the charges against Benoit are false and politically motivated," said Mahoney of his client, a Hutu who Interpol says trained, encouraged and provided guns to mobs who killed and raped Tutsis. "Benoit is married to a Tutsi woman. He didn't kill Tutsis. During the genocide, he protected Tutsis from being murdered."
Mahoney said human rights researcher Alison Des Forges, who died this year in the crash of Continental Connections Flight 3407 near Buffalo, was working on collecting evidence to prove the charges against Kabayiza are bogus.
"She was convinced that Rwanda's system of prosecution was very suspect and that Benoit is innocent," Mahoney told the News.
HRW urges prosecutions of Rwandan leaders
NEW YORK, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- The Rwandan genocide tribunal still needs to prosecute war crimes allegedly perpetrated by the now-ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front, advocates say.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has done its job in bringing to justice leading figures behind the genocide, but it has so far failed to pursue certain officers of the RPF, Human Rights Watch said in a release issued in New York Monday. The officers, while bringing the 1994 genocide to an end, were alleged to have killed between 25,000 and 45,000 civilians, HRW said.
A declaration by the tribunal's prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, that he has done everything he can to investigate crimes on all sides of the genocide brought a rejoinder from HRW.
"The prosecutor's failure to commit to prosecuting senior RPF officers has undermined his credibility and that of the ICTR," Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in the release.
The human rights group said Jallow has repeatedly failed to outline his plans for prosecuting the Rwandan Patriotic Front's alleged crimes before the tribunal's tenure ends at the end of 2010.
Jallow has told the United Nations he does not have enough evidence to prosecute RPF officers, HRW said.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has done its job in bringing to justice leading figures behind the genocide, but it has so far failed to pursue certain officers of the RPF, Human Rights Watch said in a release issued in New York Monday. The officers, while bringing the 1994 genocide to an end, were alleged to have killed between 25,000 and 45,000 civilians, HRW said.
A declaration by the tribunal's prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, that he has done everything he can to investigate crimes on all sides of the genocide brought a rejoinder from HRW.
"The prosecutor's failure to commit to prosecuting senior RPF officers has undermined his credibility and that of the ICTR," Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in the release.
The human rights group said Jallow has repeatedly failed to outline his plans for prosecuting the Rwandan Patriotic Front's alleged crimes before the tribunal's tenure ends at the end of 2010.
Jallow has told the United Nations he does not have enough evidence to prosecute RPF officers, HRW said.
Friday, August 14, 2009
FDLR PRESS RELEASE NR. 03/SE/CD/AUGUST/2009
Mr. Grégoire Ndahimana is not a member of the FDLR and has not been captured by the
FARDC; he has voluntarily surrendered to the ICTR.
The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) categorically deny false information spread by
some Congolese officials among which is a spokesman of the Congolese Government and certain
media that Mr. Grégoire Ndahimana, former Mayor of the Municipality of Kivumu, is a member of
the FDLR and was captured by the FARDC during the operation “KIMIA II”.
The FDLR declare that Mr Grégoire Ndahimana is a simple Rwandan refugee living in eastern DRC.
He was not part of any structure of the FDLR because he is not a member of this organization.
Moreover, he has not been captured by the FARDC as suggests the spokesman for the Congolese
Government.
According to reliable information available to us, negotiations to voluntarily surrender to the ICTR
began a few months ago between Mr. Ndahimana, some Congolese officials and the ICTR. According
to preliminary information available to the FDLR, Mr. Ndahimana surrendered himself voluntarily to
civil Congolese officials in Kashunga, around Pinga/Peti, in North Kivu in order to be accompanied to
Goma where ICTR officials were waiting for him.
The FDLR have always expressed their willingness to cooperate with international justice and
welcome the gesture by Mr. Grégoire Ndahimana who voluntarily surrendered to the ICTR to finally
have the opportunity to present elements for his defence against allegations against him.
The FDLR urge the dignitaries of the Rwandan regime of RPF indicted by Spanish and French courts
in the attack against the plane of President Habyarimana, the religious massacres in Rwanda and the
massacres of people in Rwanda and DRC to follow the example of Mr. Ndahimana and surrender
voluntarily to the courts in order to answer for their alleged acts.
The FDLR urge once again the regimes of Kigali and Kinshasa to end the ongoing war whose main
victims are Congolese civilians and Rwandan refugees in eastern DRC.
Done in Paris on 14 August 2009
Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
(Sé)
FARDC; he has voluntarily surrendered to the ICTR.
The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) categorically deny false information spread by
some Congolese officials among which is a spokesman of the Congolese Government and certain
media that Mr. Grégoire Ndahimana, former Mayor of the Municipality of Kivumu, is a member of
the FDLR and was captured by the FARDC during the operation “KIMIA II”.
The FDLR declare that Mr Grégoire Ndahimana is a simple Rwandan refugee living in eastern DRC.
He was not part of any structure of the FDLR because he is not a member of this organization.
Moreover, he has not been captured by the FARDC as suggests the spokesman for the Congolese
Government.
According to reliable information available to us, negotiations to voluntarily surrender to the ICTR
began a few months ago between Mr. Ndahimana, some Congolese officials and the ICTR. According
to preliminary information available to the FDLR, Mr. Ndahimana surrendered himself voluntarily to
civil Congolese officials in Kashunga, around Pinga/Peti, in North Kivu in order to be accompanied to
Goma where ICTR officials were waiting for him.
The FDLR have always expressed their willingness to cooperate with international justice and
welcome the gesture by Mr. Grégoire Ndahimana who voluntarily surrendered to the ICTR to finally
have the opportunity to present elements for his defence against allegations against him.
The FDLR urge the dignitaries of the Rwandan regime of RPF indicted by Spanish and French courts
in the attack against the plane of President Habyarimana, the religious massacres in Rwanda and the
massacres of people in Rwanda and DRC to follow the example of Mr. Ndahimana and surrender
voluntarily to the courts in order to answer for their alleged acts.
The FDLR urge once again the regimes of Kigali and Kinshasa to end the ongoing war whose main
victims are Congolese civilians and Rwandan refugees in eastern DRC.
Done in Paris on 14 August 2009
Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
(Sé)
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Genocide – Jack Straw to strengthen law. Jack Straw was the British Foreign Office Secretary of Mr Tony Blair, the current Kagame Advisor.
07.07.2009 Instead of fueling hatred among Rwandans, AEGIS TRUST SHOULD HELP THE SPANISH AND FRENCH JUDGES TO PRESSURE ON THE EUROPEAN UNION.Rwandan SurViVors have welcomed such a decision even if Gen. Paul Kagame, the brain behind the Rwandan genocide still enjoys presidential immunity. But What does Mr Straw say about criminals' immunity? He obviously doesn't get IT.***New plans to strengthen the law on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity were announced by Justice Secretary Jack Straw today.The government is strongly committed to the fight against these heinous crimes. We must send a clear signal that the UK is no safe haven for those who commit them. Paul Kagame and other 40 RPF high ranked military officers must and will be prosecuted for such crimes. Justice is for victims and NOT for criminals.These three types of crime are covered by the International Criminal Court Act 2001. But the UK cannot currently prosecute under the Act those who committed such crimes before that year.To allow for prosecutions of earlier crimes, Mr Straw said the government has now decided to extend the law so those suspected of committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity since 1 January 1991 can be prosecuted in the UK.This exceptional step has been made possible by the fact these types of crime were recognised in international law before our own law came into force. Amendments to the Coroners and Justice Bill will be laid before Parliament in order to bring the changes into force.Mr Straw said:‘The government is strongly committed to the fight against these heinous crimes. We must send a clear signal that the UK is no safe haven for those who commit them.‘Those who have committed genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity over the last two decades must not escape justice. These people must face up to their terrible crimes and we are doing everything in our power to make them accountable for their actions.‘We have looked at whether our law at present is strong enough. Our preference is for those alleged to have committed such terrible crimes to be brought to justice in the country where the crimes took place, which allows the community that has suffered to see the perpetrators brought to justice.‘But when this is not possible, we are committed to ensuring those guilty of these crimes are punished appropriately and to the full extent of the law in this country.’Mr Straw explained the government has no plans to change the categories of people covered by existing legislation. That is, UK nationals and residents including those who commit crimes abroad, and subsequently become residents.However he said he was looking at how we might provide more certainty as to who may be considered a UK resident.Proposals to change the law will be brought forward by the government introducing amendments to the Coroners and Justice Bill, which is currently being debated in Parliament, and are due to be discussed this week when the House of Lords considers the Bill in Committee. We will be setting out our position in that debate and will bring forward a detailed proposal in the autumn when the Lords will again debate the Bill.Mr Straw added:‘I am grateful to those who have campaigned for the change and raised it for debate in the context of the Coroners and Justice Bill.‘I met John Bercow and Mary Creagh from the All Party Parliamentary Group for Genocide Prevention in May and they made a very powerful case for the inclusion of genocide as an extra-territorial offence within our law.‘Since then I have consulted widely with colleagues about the best way to proceed, and this announcement is the result of those discussions. There should, however, be no illusion that this is a case of making a straightforward change to the law – it is a complex area that will require further detailed discussion.’Statement on genocide lawThe Right Honourable Jack Straw MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice:‘I told the House on 5 May 2009 (Official Report col. 19) that I had met representatives from the All Party Parliamentary Group for Genocide Prevention, and they had made a very powerful case for the inclusion of genocide as an extra-territorial offence within our law. Since then I have consulted widely with colleagues about the best way to proceed.‘Serious crimes of this nature are best dealt with in the country where the crimes took place. That is where the evidence will be most easily accessible, and where witnesses will be easier to contact. It is also the best solution because witnesses and survivors can see justice being done. Failing that, these crimes should be dealt with by international courts or tribunals where they exist. However, there may be circumstances where these options are not available. We have therefore decided that we should strengthen domestic law in this area.‘We propose that, as far is permissible under the legal principles applicable to retrospection, we should seek to cover the categories of crime of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity from 1 January 1991. It is that date from which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had jurisdiction to try offences under the Tribunal’s Statute adopted by the United Nations Security Council. ‘Making these changes will be quite complex.The offence of genocide, along with offences of war crimes and crimes against humanity, is contained in the International Criminal Court Act 2001. From 2001, we have jurisdiction to try those crimes in the UK if committed by a UK national or resident wherever they took place. The 2001 Act is based on the Rome Statute of 1998 establishing the International Criminal Court. While international law existed in respect of all these areas earlier, the offences in the 2001 Act may be wider than those recognised before the Rome Statute and any change will need to take account of this.‘We propose no change to the categories of people covered by the legislation, which should remain UK nationals and residents (including those who commit crimes, and subsequently become resident). However we are exploring the possibility of providing more certainty as to who may (or may not) be considered to be a UK resident.‘We intend to introduce these changes by bringing forward amendments to the Coroners and Justice Bill at Report stage in the House of Lords in the autumn.’Notes to editors
The government proposes that, as far is permissible under the legal principles applicable to retrospection, we should seek to cover the categories of crime of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity from 1 January 1991. It is that date from which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had jurisdiction to try offences under the Tribunal’s Statute adopted by the United Nations Security Council.
The offence of genocide, along with offences of war crimes and crimes against humanity, is contained in the International Criminal Court Act 2001. From 2001, we have jurisdiction to try those crimes in the UK if committed by a UK national or resident wherever they took place.
The most serious types of war crimes committed in international armed conflicts, namely grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, have been covered in UK law since 1957 under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957.
The 2001 Act is based on the Rome Statute of 1998 establishing the International Criminal Court.
While international law existed in respect of all these areas earlier, the offences in the 2001 Act may be wider than those recognised before the Rome Statute and any change will need to take account of this.
Baroness D’Souza and Lord Carlile have tabled amendments on this issue for committee stage of the Coroners and Justice Bill. Those amendments will be debated on 7 July 2009.
Going back to 1991 would cover, for example, the period of the Rwanda genocide and the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. For more information please contact the Ministry of Justice press office on 020 3334 3536.
The government proposes that, as far is permissible under the legal principles applicable to retrospection, we should seek to cover the categories of crime of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity from 1 January 1991. It is that date from which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had jurisdiction to try offences under the Tribunal’s Statute adopted by the United Nations Security Council.
The offence of genocide, along with offences of war crimes and crimes against humanity, is contained in the International Criminal Court Act 2001. From 2001, we have jurisdiction to try those crimes in the UK if committed by a UK national or resident wherever they took place.
The most serious types of war crimes committed in international armed conflicts, namely grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, have been covered in UK law since 1957 under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957.
The 2001 Act is based on the Rome Statute of 1998 establishing the International Criminal Court.
While international law existed in respect of all these areas earlier, the offences in the 2001 Act may be wider than those recognised before the Rome Statute and any change will need to take account of this.
Baroness D’Souza and Lord Carlile have tabled amendments on this issue for committee stage of the Coroners and Justice Bill. Those amendments will be debated on 7 July 2009.
Going back to 1991 would cover, for example, the period of the Rwanda genocide and the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. For more information please contact the Ministry of Justice press office on 020 3334 3536.
MEMORANDUM DU CAUCUS DES DEPUTES NATIONAUX DE LA PROVINCE DU SUD-KIVU A LA SECRETAIRE D’ETAT AMERICAINE DES AFFAIRES ETRANGERES
MADAME LA SECRETAIRE D’ETAT AMERICAINE,C/O Ambassade des USA à Kinshasa,En RD Congo.
Nous, Députés Nationaux, représentants élus de la population du Sud-Kivu, saluons votre passage dans notre pays et vous chargeons de transmettre nos souhaits de meilleurs vœux de succès à l’actuel Locataire de la Maison Blanche à l’occasion de sa brillante élection à la tête des USA.Nous profitons de l’occasion nous offerte par votre présence sur la terre de nos aïeux , pour porter à votre connaissance que la RD Congo que vous visitez à ce jour est un pays non seulement sinistré de suite de différentes guerres d’agression injustement imposées à nos populations depuis bientôt quinze (15) ans, mais aussi un pays où le processus démocratique piloté par l’ONU s’enlise , mettant ainsi en doute la crédibilité des Nations Unies dans un pays qui, tout au long de son histoire, n'a cessé d'être dans le camp de cette gigantesque Organisation mondiale tant lors de 2 guerres mondiales que de la guerre froide.Voilà pourquoi, de prime abord, nous exhortons l’Administration OBAMA de se pencher sur les deux points suivants :1) Au nom des milliers des femmes violées, enterrées vivantes, des hommes émasculés et toutes les personnes tuées à l'Est de la RD Congo en général, au Sud-Kivu en particulier ; nous vous prions de joindre votre voix à la nôtre pour exiger la fin de l'impunité, d’abord par l'arrestation immédiate de tous les responsables de cette tragédie y compris Laurent Nkundabatware, Bosco Ntaganda et autres complices de tout bord car auteurs et co-auteurs de diverses exactions au cœur de cette tragédie congolaise tant décriée.Ce faisant, les USA, auront contribué aux yeux du monde, à mettre fin à cette politique injuste et partiale qui assure le soutien et la longévité aux régimes dont les dirigeants accusent des abus du pouvoir et un déficit démocratique caractérisé par le favoritisme à outrance d’une poignée des gens au détriment de la majorité des habitants de l'Afrique Centrale.Aussi, pouvons-nous, au jour d’aujourd’hui, vous confirmer que la partie orientale de la RD Congo est devenue un oasis d’extermination des populations innocentes sans défense et sans assistance aucunes, en présence d’une armée sélectivement constituée des bourreaux en ce compris des anciens FDLR rapatriés au Rwanda, y recyclés puis renvoyés au sein du CNDP pour leur incorporation dans les FARDC.Bref, une guerre d’usure est savamment entretenue et minutieusement alimentée pour le pillage de nos ressources, le dépeuplement des territoires concernés par cette guerre et très bientôt leur balkanisation.2) Cette politique a conduit notamment au renforcement des puissances mono-ethniques au Rwanda (au nom d’un génocide à responsabilité s partagées) et en Ouganda, au point où plus ou moins 10% de la population maintiennent en domination plus de 90% de la population. C’est ici le lieu de stigmatiser que fort du soutien des USA et de la Grande Bretagne principalement, le Rwanda a déversé sa haine tribale sur la RD Congo où son soutien et sa participation aux côtés des pseudo-mouvements insurrectionnels sont une flagrance indéniable.En effet, l’implication des firmes multinationales dans la livraison des armes et le pillage des richesses de la République Démocratique du Congo pour le cas des grandes puissances d’un côté et de l’autre, les cas de Mutebusi, de Nkundabatware, de Bosco Ntaganda et la présence flagrante de beaucoup de militaires rwandais au sein des troupes intégrées du CNDP pour le cas du Rwanda ; confirment notre assertion.Madame la Secrétaire d’Etat,Votre voyage en Afrique aux lendemains de la prise du pouvoir par Son Excellence BARACK Hussein Obama ne manque pas d’intérêts et suscite d’énormes espoirs chez le peuple congolais meurtri depuis les régimes précédents aux USA, étant donné que la présence d’une personnalité de l’Administration américaine de votre rang sur le sol congolais date des années 1990.Voilà pourquoi, en sus de ces quelques préoccupations majeures ci-haut décrites, nous nous permettons de vous tenir copie de notre mémo remis à leurs Excellences membres de la délégation du Conseil de Sécurité de l’ONU qui était de passage eux aussi en RD Congo en date du 19 Mai 2009, lequel mémo retrace le drame dont est victime le peuple congolais et qui se résume comme suit :« C’est depuis 1994 que des Hutu, superbement armés, fuyant l’avancée de l’Armée Patriotique Rwandaise traversent les frontières congolaises à la faveur de l’opération Onusienne dénommée « turquoise », chapeautée par la France. Ces Hutu s’installent dans les provinces du Nord-Kivu et du Sud-Kivu, et ce, en violation flagrante de toutes les normes internationales régissant le droit d’asile ou de refuge.Connus sous le nom des « Interahamwe » ou FDLR, Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda, etc., ces Hutu se singularisent particulièrement en RD Congo par la pratique des actes de pillages, de viols, de massacres etc. Et depuis, ils sont devenus un prétexte pour les autorités de Kigali de justifier la présence, en RD Congo de leur armée régulière, du reste coresponsable des actuelles atrocités et massacres subis par notre peuple à Makobola, Kasika, Katogota, Lemera, Nindja, Kaniola, Kalambi, Bunyakiri, Kaziba, Luhwindja, Kalonge, Bukavu, Uvira,Kiliba, Katumba, Kalehe, Bwegera, Kamituga, Mwenga, Shabunda, Lugushwa, Ngando, Ndolera, Kigulube,Bijombo, Masango, Tubimbi, Kakungwe, Mushago, Kitutu, Lubuga, Mutambala, Fizi, Minembwe, Bibokoboko, Baraka, Kagabwe pour ne citer que ceux là, en ce qui concerne le Sud-Kivu.Notons en passant pour souligner que l’histoire du Rwanda est émaillée par des guerres cycliques et fratricides édictées par l’esprit de non tolérance et de vengeance entre les Hutu et les Tutsi. Ainsi donc lorsque ce sont les rwandais de l’ethnie Tutsi qui sont au pouvoir, leurs congénères de la composante majoritaire, les Hutu, vont en exil. Et vice-versa. La RD Congo devenant ainsi chaque fois, le pays de pérégrination des uns et des autres.Bien plus, Nous, Députés nationaux du Sud Kivu non seulement dénonçons le silence coupable de la Communauté Internationale en général, des USA en particulier, Nation par excellence qui encense la démocratie et la paix ; mais aussi nous indignons du rôle des organisations internationales spécialisées dans la défense des droits de l’homme qui ne font pas assez comme ailleurs en face de cette tragédie qui couve le génocide congolais.Des pistes des solutions pour le retour et le rétablissement de la paix ont été explorées par le Gouvernement congolais, mais hélas, celles-ci se sont butées à la mauvaise foi des tireurs de ficelles externes de cette guerre qui s’appuient sur des complicités internes.Citons entre autres, à titre illustratif:La rencontre de Sun-City en Afrique du Sud avec le dialogue inter-congolais qui a abouti au système de transition dit 1+4, la Conférence de Goma en janvier 2008, et plus récemment les opérations conjointes RDC/Rwanda pour la traque des FDRL.Ces opérations conjointes sont émaillées des dégâts collatéraux au Nord Kivu et au Sud Kivu où nous déplorons tous aujourd’hui des pertes en vies humaines doublées d’autres conséquences fâcheuses incalculables : mouvements massifs des populations, famine, maladies, destructions méchantes des biens et des infrastructures, pillages des ressources naturelles, viols, vols, et autres traitements dégradants…Pour mieux dire, le peuple congolais, votre frère, ami et allié de tous les temps, ne mérite pas ces traitements inhumains. Il a tout donné pour que revienne la paix dans la Région des Grands lacs. Plus rien ne lui reste à donner pour assouvir les appétits gloutons et bellicistes de ses voisins. Le peuple congolais a même vainement obéi et rencontré tous les prétextes et autres subterfuges fallacieux à la base desquels des guerres injustes lui ont été imposées : Cas de la nationalité, accès et partage du pouvoir politique et militaire, instauration d’une démocratie pluraliste sincère, mixage, intégration pour les uns, brassage pour les autres, rapatriement des réfugiés rwandais, traque des éléments FDRL etc.Face à ce tableau sombre, Nous, Députés nationaux de la Province du Sud-Kivu, forts de notre expérience et solidaires avec notre population qui nous a élus, estimons que la paix gagnée au bout des canons est toujours éphémère.C’est pourquoi, et ce pour une paix durable sécurisant chacune des parties en présence dans la sous-région des Grands Lacs africains, nous vous proposons entre autres les pistes des solutions suivantes :1.-Que la Communauté Internationale exige du Président Paul Kagame, l’organisation d’un dialogue inter-rwandais qui regrouperait autour d’une même table toutes les composantes des tribus rwandaises, de l’extérieur comme de l’intérieur pour trouver des solutions aux problèmes internes qui les opposent.2.-L’implication des Etats-Unis d’Amérique pour l’instauration au Rwanda d’une démocratie équilibrée, bien pensée et non discriminatoire à l’instar de la position ( que nous saluons positivement) de votre gouvernement actuel face aux conflits entre l’Etat d’Israël et de la Palestine. Ceci pour le rétablissement d’une paix définitive d’une part entre Rwandais eux-mêmes sur leur sol et d’autre part entre l’Etat rwandais et celui de la RD Congo.3.-La contribution stricte des USA dans la réglementation de la vente, de la livraison et de l’achat des armes et munitions de guerre à l’endroit des dirigeants impliqués dans le conflit armé qui sévit dans la sous-région des pays des Grands-Lacs : le Rwanda, l’Ouganda essentiellement.
4.-La mise sous embargo de toutes les firmes américaines et occidentales trafiquant les matières précieuses dites du « sang » (coltan, diamant, or, cassitérite etc.).5.-L’instauration d’une justice internationale (Cour Pénale Internationale) équitable qui châtierait impitoyablement tous les dirigeants politiques et autres opérateurs économiques de la sous-région ou d’ailleurs, impliqués dans les combines de cette guerre.6.-La mise sur pied d’un plan de développement avec des projets intégrateurs pragmatiques dans la sous-région des pays des Grands-Lacs en général, à l’Est de la République Démocratique du Congo en particulier, à l’instar du Plan Marshall.7.-L’implication accrue de la MONUC d’abord dans le triage des éléments rwandais intégrés au sein du CNDP pour qu’ils rentrent dans leur pays, le Rwanda, et ensuite obtenir l’éloignement en dehors des provinces du Nord-Kivu et du Sud-Kivu de tous les officiers militaires et hommes des troupes, toutes tendances confondues, qui ont presté dans cette partie de la République pendant la période des conflits armés.8.-La redéfinition de la mission et du rôle de la MONUC, Mission d’Observation des Nations-Unies en République Démocratique du Congo, en vue d’éviter les atrocités et les exactions tant déplorées.9.-En définitive, Nous, Députés nationaux du Sud-Kivu, espérons vivement que votre séjour dans notre pays, contrairement aux expériences amères et tristes (politique, diplomatique, économique, commerciale, sociale, culturelle, humanitaire. ..) du passé vécu et aux dires de certains analystes avisés de l'histoire de la RD Congo, va désormais, poser les jalons d'une coopération bilatérale sincère et avantageuse, tant pour le peuple américain que pour le peuple congolais.Ainsi donc, dans le cadre de cette coopération que nous souhaitons réciproque et harmonieuse; et compte tenu de la position géostratégique de la RD Congo, recommandons à l'Administration Obama de traiter directement avec des Institutions congolaises légalement établies en lieu et place des intermédiaires ou des sous-traitants.Fait à Kinshasa, le 05 Août 2009.Les Députés du Sud-Kivu présents à Kinshasa1. Hon KANYEGERE LWABOSHI Samuel, (243) 9909033452. Hon BIRINDWA CHANIKIRE Solide, (243) 9909033293.Hon MASUMBUKO BASHOMBA Christophe, (243) 9909033644.Hon BASHOMBERWA LALIA Marthe, (243) 9909031155. Hon KIKA ZAMUDA Marie-Jeanne, (243)90903625
6. Hon BAPOLISI BAHUGA Paulin ,(243) 9909031137. Hon BITAKWIRA BIHONA-HAYI Justin, (243)9909033308. Hon MPANANO NTAMWENGE Roger, (243)9909024759. Hon BUHERWA LUPINI Désiré.Texte distribué par:Mwalimu Kadari M. Mwene-Kabyana, Ph.D.2311 rue CentreMontréal (Québec)CanadaH3K 1J6Tél. (514) 937-2362Fax (514) 937-9693
Nous, Députés Nationaux, représentants élus de la population du Sud-Kivu, saluons votre passage dans notre pays et vous chargeons de transmettre nos souhaits de meilleurs vœux de succès à l’actuel Locataire de la Maison Blanche à l’occasion de sa brillante élection à la tête des USA.Nous profitons de l’occasion nous offerte par votre présence sur la terre de nos aïeux , pour porter à votre connaissance que la RD Congo que vous visitez à ce jour est un pays non seulement sinistré de suite de différentes guerres d’agression injustement imposées à nos populations depuis bientôt quinze (15) ans, mais aussi un pays où le processus démocratique piloté par l’ONU s’enlise , mettant ainsi en doute la crédibilité des Nations Unies dans un pays qui, tout au long de son histoire, n'a cessé d'être dans le camp de cette gigantesque Organisation mondiale tant lors de 2 guerres mondiales que de la guerre froide.Voilà pourquoi, de prime abord, nous exhortons l’Administration OBAMA de se pencher sur les deux points suivants :1) Au nom des milliers des femmes violées, enterrées vivantes, des hommes émasculés et toutes les personnes tuées à l'Est de la RD Congo en général, au Sud-Kivu en particulier ; nous vous prions de joindre votre voix à la nôtre pour exiger la fin de l'impunité, d’abord par l'arrestation immédiate de tous les responsables de cette tragédie y compris Laurent Nkundabatware, Bosco Ntaganda et autres complices de tout bord car auteurs et co-auteurs de diverses exactions au cœur de cette tragédie congolaise tant décriée.Ce faisant, les USA, auront contribué aux yeux du monde, à mettre fin à cette politique injuste et partiale qui assure le soutien et la longévité aux régimes dont les dirigeants accusent des abus du pouvoir et un déficit démocratique caractérisé par le favoritisme à outrance d’une poignée des gens au détriment de la majorité des habitants de l'Afrique Centrale.Aussi, pouvons-nous, au jour d’aujourd’hui, vous confirmer que la partie orientale de la RD Congo est devenue un oasis d’extermination des populations innocentes sans défense et sans assistance aucunes, en présence d’une armée sélectivement constituée des bourreaux en ce compris des anciens FDLR rapatriés au Rwanda, y recyclés puis renvoyés au sein du CNDP pour leur incorporation dans les FARDC.Bref, une guerre d’usure est savamment entretenue et minutieusement alimentée pour le pillage de nos ressources, le dépeuplement des territoires concernés par cette guerre et très bientôt leur balkanisation.2) Cette politique a conduit notamment au renforcement des puissances mono-ethniques au Rwanda (au nom d’un génocide à responsabilité s partagées) et en Ouganda, au point où plus ou moins 10% de la population maintiennent en domination plus de 90% de la population. C’est ici le lieu de stigmatiser que fort du soutien des USA et de la Grande Bretagne principalement, le Rwanda a déversé sa haine tribale sur la RD Congo où son soutien et sa participation aux côtés des pseudo-mouvements insurrectionnels sont une flagrance indéniable.En effet, l’implication des firmes multinationales dans la livraison des armes et le pillage des richesses de la République Démocratique du Congo pour le cas des grandes puissances d’un côté et de l’autre, les cas de Mutebusi, de Nkundabatware, de Bosco Ntaganda et la présence flagrante de beaucoup de militaires rwandais au sein des troupes intégrées du CNDP pour le cas du Rwanda ; confirment notre assertion.Madame la Secrétaire d’Etat,Votre voyage en Afrique aux lendemains de la prise du pouvoir par Son Excellence BARACK Hussein Obama ne manque pas d’intérêts et suscite d’énormes espoirs chez le peuple congolais meurtri depuis les régimes précédents aux USA, étant donné que la présence d’une personnalité de l’Administration américaine de votre rang sur le sol congolais date des années 1990.Voilà pourquoi, en sus de ces quelques préoccupations majeures ci-haut décrites, nous nous permettons de vous tenir copie de notre mémo remis à leurs Excellences membres de la délégation du Conseil de Sécurité de l’ONU qui était de passage eux aussi en RD Congo en date du 19 Mai 2009, lequel mémo retrace le drame dont est victime le peuple congolais et qui se résume comme suit :« C’est depuis 1994 que des Hutu, superbement armés, fuyant l’avancée de l’Armée Patriotique Rwandaise traversent les frontières congolaises à la faveur de l’opération Onusienne dénommée « turquoise », chapeautée par la France. Ces Hutu s’installent dans les provinces du Nord-Kivu et du Sud-Kivu, et ce, en violation flagrante de toutes les normes internationales régissant le droit d’asile ou de refuge.Connus sous le nom des « Interahamwe » ou FDLR, Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda, etc., ces Hutu se singularisent particulièrement en RD Congo par la pratique des actes de pillages, de viols, de massacres etc. Et depuis, ils sont devenus un prétexte pour les autorités de Kigali de justifier la présence, en RD Congo de leur armée régulière, du reste coresponsable des actuelles atrocités et massacres subis par notre peuple à Makobola, Kasika, Katogota, Lemera, Nindja, Kaniola, Kalambi, Bunyakiri, Kaziba, Luhwindja, Kalonge, Bukavu, Uvira,Kiliba, Katumba, Kalehe, Bwegera, Kamituga, Mwenga, Shabunda, Lugushwa, Ngando, Ndolera, Kigulube,Bijombo, Masango, Tubimbi, Kakungwe, Mushago, Kitutu, Lubuga, Mutambala, Fizi, Minembwe, Bibokoboko, Baraka, Kagabwe pour ne citer que ceux là, en ce qui concerne le Sud-Kivu.Notons en passant pour souligner que l’histoire du Rwanda est émaillée par des guerres cycliques et fratricides édictées par l’esprit de non tolérance et de vengeance entre les Hutu et les Tutsi. Ainsi donc lorsque ce sont les rwandais de l’ethnie Tutsi qui sont au pouvoir, leurs congénères de la composante majoritaire, les Hutu, vont en exil. Et vice-versa. La RD Congo devenant ainsi chaque fois, le pays de pérégrination des uns et des autres.Bien plus, Nous, Députés nationaux du Sud Kivu non seulement dénonçons le silence coupable de la Communauté Internationale en général, des USA en particulier, Nation par excellence qui encense la démocratie et la paix ; mais aussi nous indignons du rôle des organisations internationales spécialisées dans la défense des droits de l’homme qui ne font pas assez comme ailleurs en face de cette tragédie qui couve le génocide congolais.Des pistes des solutions pour le retour et le rétablissement de la paix ont été explorées par le Gouvernement congolais, mais hélas, celles-ci se sont butées à la mauvaise foi des tireurs de ficelles externes de cette guerre qui s’appuient sur des complicités internes.Citons entre autres, à titre illustratif:La rencontre de Sun-City en Afrique du Sud avec le dialogue inter-congolais qui a abouti au système de transition dit 1+4, la Conférence de Goma en janvier 2008, et plus récemment les opérations conjointes RDC/Rwanda pour la traque des FDRL.Ces opérations conjointes sont émaillées des dégâts collatéraux au Nord Kivu et au Sud Kivu où nous déplorons tous aujourd’hui des pertes en vies humaines doublées d’autres conséquences fâcheuses incalculables : mouvements massifs des populations, famine, maladies, destructions méchantes des biens et des infrastructures, pillages des ressources naturelles, viols, vols, et autres traitements dégradants…Pour mieux dire, le peuple congolais, votre frère, ami et allié de tous les temps, ne mérite pas ces traitements inhumains. Il a tout donné pour que revienne la paix dans la Région des Grands lacs. Plus rien ne lui reste à donner pour assouvir les appétits gloutons et bellicistes de ses voisins. Le peuple congolais a même vainement obéi et rencontré tous les prétextes et autres subterfuges fallacieux à la base desquels des guerres injustes lui ont été imposées : Cas de la nationalité, accès et partage du pouvoir politique et militaire, instauration d’une démocratie pluraliste sincère, mixage, intégration pour les uns, brassage pour les autres, rapatriement des réfugiés rwandais, traque des éléments FDRL etc.Face à ce tableau sombre, Nous, Députés nationaux de la Province du Sud-Kivu, forts de notre expérience et solidaires avec notre population qui nous a élus, estimons que la paix gagnée au bout des canons est toujours éphémère.C’est pourquoi, et ce pour une paix durable sécurisant chacune des parties en présence dans la sous-région des Grands Lacs africains, nous vous proposons entre autres les pistes des solutions suivantes :1.-Que la Communauté Internationale exige du Président Paul Kagame, l’organisation d’un dialogue inter-rwandais qui regrouperait autour d’une même table toutes les composantes des tribus rwandaises, de l’extérieur comme de l’intérieur pour trouver des solutions aux problèmes internes qui les opposent.2.-L’implication des Etats-Unis d’Amérique pour l’instauration au Rwanda d’une démocratie équilibrée, bien pensée et non discriminatoire à l’instar de la position ( que nous saluons positivement) de votre gouvernement actuel face aux conflits entre l’Etat d’Israël et de la Palestine. Ceci pour le rétablissement d’une paix définitive d’une part entre Rwandais eux-mêmes sur leur sol et d’autre part entre l’Etat rwandais et celui de la RD Congo.3.-La contribution stricte des USA dans la réglementation de la vente, de la livraison et de l’achat des armes et munitions de guerre à l’endroit des dirigeants impliqués dans le conflit armé qui sévit dans la sous-région des pays des Grands-Lacs : le Rwanda, l’Ouganda essentiellement.
4.-La mise sous embargo de toutes les firmes américaines et occidentales trafiquant les matières précieuses dites du « sang » (coltan, diamant, or, cassitérite etc.).5.-L’instauration d’une justice internationale (Cour Pénale Internationale) équitable qui châtierait impitoyablement tous les dirigeants politiques et autres opérateurs économiques de la sous-région ou d’ailleurs, impliqués dans les combines de cette guerre.6.-La mise sur pied d’un plan de développement avec des projets intégrateurs pragmatiques dans la sous-région des pays des Grands-Lacs en général, à l’Est de la République Démocratique du Congo en particulier, à l’instar du Plan Marshall.7.-L’implication accrue de la MONUC d’abord dans le triage des éléments rwandais intégrés au sein du CNDP pour qu’ils rentrent dans leur pays, le Rwanda, et ensuite obtenir l’éloignement en dehors des provinces du Nord-Kivu et du Sud-Kivu de tous les officiers militaires et hommes des troupes, toutes tendances confondues, qui ont presté dans cette partie de la République pendant la période des conflits armés.8.-La redéfinition de la mission et du rôle de la MONUC, Mission d’Observation des Nations-Unies en République Démocratique du Congo, en vue d’éviter les atrocités et les exactions tant déplorées.9.-En définitive, Nous, Députés nationaux du Sud-Kivu, espérons vivement que votre séjour dans notre pays, contrairement aux expériences amères et tristes (politique, diplomatique, économique, commerciale, sociale, culturelle, humanitaire. ..) du passé vécu et aux dires de certains analystes avisés de l'histoire de la RD Congo, va désormais, poser les jalons d'une coopération bilatérale sincère et avantageuse, tant pour le peuple américain que pour le peuple congolais.Ainsi donc, dans le cadre de cette coopération que nous souhaitons réciproque et harmonieuse; et compte tenu de la position géostratégique de la RD Congo, recommandons à l'Administration Obama de traiter directement avec des Institutions congolaises légalement établies en lieu et place des intermédiaires ou des sous-traitants.Fait à Kinshasa, le 05 Août 2009.Les Députés du Sud-Kivu présents à Kinshasa1. Hon KANYEGERE LWABOSHI Samuel, (243) 9909033452. Hon BIRINDWA CHANIKIRE Solide, (243) 9909033293.Hon MASUMBUKO BASHOMBA Christophe, (243) 9909033644.Hon BASHOMBERWA LALIA Marthe, (243) 9909031155. Hon KIKA ZAMUDA Marie-Jeanne, (243)90903625
6. Hon BAPOLISI BAHUGA Paulin ,(243) 9909031137. Hon BITAKWIRA BIHONA-HAYI Justin, (243)9909033308. Hon MPANANO NTAMWENGE Roger, (243)9909024759. Hon BUHERWA LUPINI Désiré.Texte distribué par:Mwalimu Kadari M. Mwene-Kabyana, Ph.D.2311 rue CentreMontréal (Québec)CanadaH3K 1J6Tél. (514) 937-2362Fax (514) 937-9693
Tribunal Should Vigorously Pursue Crimes of Rwandan Patriotic
RELATED MATERIALS: Letter to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Regarding the Prosecution of RPF Crimes UN: Highlight Rights and Justice on Africa Trip The tribunal’s failure to address the war crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front risks leaving the impression that it is delivering only victor’s justice.
That’s a poor legacy for this historic effort at international justice. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch (New York) – The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda should urgently indict senior officers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) who are alleged to have committed war crimes in Rwanda in 1994, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the ICTR’s chief prosecutor released today.
To date, the tribunal has tried only leading figures responsible for Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and has failed to bring cases against RPF officers despite having jurisdiction to pursue these crimes. On June 4, 2009, the chief prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, and the tribunal’s president, Judge Dennis Byron, will brief the UN Security Council in New York on the progress of the tribunal’s genocide trials over the past six months. The tribunal’s mandate requires it to prosecute persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in Rwanda in 1994.
However, unlike the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which has prosecuted crimes committed by all parties to the conflict, the ICTR has prosecuted persons belonging to only one side. The Rwandan Patriotic Front is now the country’s ruling party. “The tribunal’s failure to address the war crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front risks leaving the impression that it is delivering only victor’s justice,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “
That’s a poor legacy for this historic effort at international justice.” In 1994, the Rwandan government, assisted by tens of thousands of soldiers, militia, and ordinary citizens, began a genocidal campaign to wipe out the country’s Tutsi population. The campaign took place over three months, leading to the deaths of up to 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu, while the world community looked on and failed to end the slaughter.
The Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by current President Paul Kagame, ended the genocide after a military campaign in which its forces killed tens of thousands of civilians in the same three-month period. “Seeking justice for the victims of RPF crimes neither denies the genocide nor equates these crimes with genocide,” said Roth. “It simply asserts that all victims, regardless of the power of the alleged perpetrators, have the right to see justice done.”
Crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front have been well documented, including by a United Nations Commission of Experts in 1994 which concluded that the group “perpetrated serious breaches of international humanitarian law” and “crimes against humanity.” According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between April and August 1994, the RPF killed between 25,000 and 45,000 civilians. At least four United Nations agencies, Human Rights Watch, and other nongovernmental organizations have also documented RPF crimes. The tribunal has investigated crimes committed by the RPF for more than 10 years and has gathered witness testimony and physical evidence. Instead of pursuing indictments of such cases at the Tanzania-based tribunal, Chief Prosecutor Hassan Jallow decided in June 2008 to transfer files of Rwandan Patriotic Front suspects to Rwanda for a domestic prosecution. At the time, two of the tribunal’s trial chambers had just denied requests to transfer pending genocide cases to Rwanda on the grounds that the Rwandan judiciary could not guarantee a fair trial.
“Given the tribunal’s decision not to transfer genocide cases to Rwanda for fear of political interference by the Rwandan authorities, it is hard to understand why the prosecutor sent those same authorities a sensitive Rwandan Patriotic Front case for trial,” said Roth. “The prosecutor should have ensured justice is served by trying the cases at the tribunal before a fair and impartial panel of judges.” In a briefing to the UN Security Council in June 2008, Jallow made a commitment to monitor the Rwandan RPF trial closely and to recall the case if the proceedings failed to meet international standards. The prosecution of RPF officers in Rwanda proved to be a political whitewash. Rwandan authorities arrested four military officers in June 2008 and charged them with war crimes for the 1994 killings of 15 civilians, including 13 clergy and a 9-year-old boy.
Trial proceedings lasted only a matter of days with little-to-no international attention. The tribunal’s Office of the Prosecutor sent an observer for one day of trial, closing arguments, and the verdict. Two of the officers confessed to the killing and were sentenced to eight years in prison (later reduced to five years on appeal). Two more senior officers were acquitted. The prosecutor’s office has yet to release a statement indicating whether the trial met international fair trial standards. “
The Office of the Prosecutor did not diligently monitor the trial and has not yet stated publicly whether it met international standards,” said Roth. “Prosecutor Jallow should provide his assessment when he briefs the Security Council and make a commitment to seek indictments for other Rwandan Patriotic Front cases. A failure to do so betrays the rights of the victims’ families to obtain justice and risks undermining the tribunal’s legitimacy in the eyes of future generations.”
That’s a poor legacy for this historic effort at international justice. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch (New York) – The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda should urgently indict senior officers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) who are alleged to have committed war crimes in Rwanda in 1994, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the ICTR’s chief prosecutor released today.
To date, the tribunal has tried only leading figures responsible for Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and has failed to bring cases against RPF officers despite having jurisdiction to pursue these crimes. On June 4, 2009, the chief prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, and the tribunal’s president, Judge Dennis Byron, will brief the UN Security Council in New York on the progress of the tribunal’s genocide trials over the past six months. The tribunal’s mandate requires it to prosecute persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in Rwanda in 1994.
However, unlike the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which has prosecuted crimes committed by all parties to the conflict, the ICTR has prosecuted persons belonging to only one side. The Rwandan Patriotic Front is now the country’s ruling party. “The tribunal’s failure to address the war crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front risks leaving the impression that it is delivering only victor’s justice,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “
That’s a poor legacy for this historic effort at international justice.” In 1994, the Rwandan government, assisted by tens of thousands of soldiers, militia, and ordinary citizens, began a genocidal campaign to wipe out the country’s Tutsi population. The campaign took place over three months, leading to the deaths of up to 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu, while the world community looked on and failed to end the slaughter.
The Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by current President Paul Kagame, ended the genocide after a military campaign in which its forces killed tens of thousands of civilians in the same three-month period. “Seeking justice for the victims of RPF crimes neither denies the genocide nor equates these crimes with genocide,” said Roth. “It simply asserts that all victims, regardless of the power of the alleged perpetrators, have the right to see justice done.”
Crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front have been well documented, including by a United Nations Commission of Experts in 1994 which concluded that the group “perpetrated serious breaches of international humanitarian law” and “crimes against humanity.” According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between April and August 1994, the RPF killed between 25,000 and 45,000 civilians. At least four United Nations agencies, Human Rights Watch, and other nongovernmental organizations have also documented RPF crimes. The tribunal has investigated crimes committed by the RPF for more than 10 years and has gathered witness testimony and physical evidence. Instead of pursuing indictments of such cases at the Tanzania-based tribunal, Chief Prosecutor Hassan Jallow decided in June 2008 to transfer files of Rwandan Patriotic Front suspects to Rwanda for a domestic prosecution. At the time, two of the tribunal’s trial chambers had just denied requests to transfer pending genocide cases to Rwanda on the grounds that the Rwandan judiciary could not guarantee a fair trial.
“Given the tribunal’s decision not to transfer genocide cases to Rwanda for fear of political interference by the Rwandan authorities, it is hard to understand why the prosecutor sent those same authorities a sensitive Rwandan Patriotic Front case for trial,” said Roth. “The prosecutor should have ensured justice is served by trying the cases at the tribunal before a fair and impartial panel of judges.” In a briefing to the UN Security Council in June 2008, Jallow made a commitment to monitor the Rwandan RPF trial closely and to recall the case if the proceedings failed to meet international standards. The prosecution of RPF officers in Rwanda proved to be a political whitewash. Rwandan authorities arrested four military officers in June 2008 and charged them with war crimes for the 1994 killings of 15 civilians, including 13 clergy and a 9-year-old boy.
Trial proceedings lasted only a matter of days with little-to-no international attention. The tribunal’s Office of the Prosecutor sent an observer for one day of trial, closing arguments, and the verdict. Two of the officers confessed to the killing and were sentenced to eight years in prison (later reduced to five years on appeal). Two more senior officers were acquitted. The prosecutor’s office has yet to release a statement indicating whether the trial met international fair trial standards. “
The Office of the Prosecutor did not diligently monitor the trial and has not yet stated publicly whether it met international standards,” said Roth. “Prosecutor Jallow should provide his assessment when he briefs the Security Council and make a commitment to seek indictments for other Rwandan Patriotic Front cases. A failure to do so betrays the rights of the victims’ families to obtain justice and risks undermining the tribunal’s legitimacy in the eyes of future generations.”
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Will Clinton press for peace in Congo?
As a top representative of the world's most powerful nation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might feel a certain tug to "fix" the next country on her seven-nation African tour, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
And why not? Congo has been the center of an on-again off-again civil war – funded largely by the control of lucrative mines by rebel militias – that has killed some 5 million people since the mid-1990s and turned one of Africa's richest sources of minerals into one of the world's poorest countries.
At present, Congo is carrying out a joint operation with the world's largest United Nations peacekeeping operation to eradicate a foreign militia that has had free reign in the eastern part of the country for more than a decade and that is blamed for the genocide of more than 800,000 Rwandans in 1994. If ever there was a country that would seem to need America's support, it is Congo.
Yet security analysts and human rights activists warn that the US should be careful in how it gives its support in Congo. The US should press the Congolese government to protect its citizens more, they say, and should press Congolese President Joseph Kabila to move beyond a purely military response to rebel groups to a more strategic effort to bring lasting peace.
Turning point?
"We are at a turning point for the DRC, and this might be the right moment for more international involvement in Congo, led by the United States," says Guillaume Lacaille, a Congo analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group in Nairobi, Kenya. Pointing to a recent joint operation between Rwandan forces and Congolese forces that has flushed out some Rwandan rebels known as the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), Mr. Lacaille says that Congo has finally reached a point where it can end its many wars and work towards true governance.
"Rwanda and Congo are working together jointly; there is fresh thinking among the international community about how to bring peace to Congo," says Lacaille. "While there are problems with the Congo's current operations, the FDLR [ARE] now totally isolated, and the fact that they have decided to go after the population is a sign that they have lost their political backers and lost all legitimacy as a political movement. This is the time for the international community to act, now."
Military operation provokes backlash
A purely military solution simply won't work, Lacaille and many human rights activists agree. While an ongoing joint operation between the Congolese Army and the UN peacekeeping force has managed to push FDLR rebels deeper into the bush, it has only managed to disarm about 500 FDLR soldiers (out of a 6,000-strong standing force). Meanwhile, the operation has radicalized the FDLR, who have intensified brutal attacks against civilian populations in FDLR-held areas.
Since the military operations began in January, more than 600 civilians have been killed in eastern Congo, and some 800,000 displaced from their homes.
"The UN-backed offensive that was supposed to make life better for the people of eastern Congo is instead becoming a human tragedy," said Marcel Stoessel, head of Oxfam for the DRC, in a statement. "Secretary Clinton needs to make it very clear that US support for the UN's efforts in Congo is not a blank check and that civilians should be protected."
And why not? Congo has been the center of an on-again off-again civil war – funded largely by the control of lucrative mines by rebel militias – that has killed some 5 million people since the mid-1990s and turned one of Africa's richest sources of minerals into one of the world's poorest countries.
At present, Congo is carrying out a joint operation with the world's largest United Nations peacekeeping operation to eradicate a foreign militia that has had free reign in the eastern part of the country for more than a decade and that is blamed for the genocide of more than 800,000 Rwandans in 1994. If ever there was a country that would seem to need America's support, it is Congo.
Yet security analysts and human rights activists warn that the US should be careful in how it gives its support in Congo. The US should press the Congolese government to protect its citizens more, they say, and should press Congolese President Joseph Kabila to move beyond a purely military response to rebel groups to a more strategic effort to bring lasting peace.
Turning point?
"We are at a turning point for the DRC, and this might be the right moment for more international involvement in Congo, led by the United States," says Guillaume Lacaille, a Congo analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group in Nairobi, Kenya. Pointing to a recent joint operation between Rwandan forces and Congolese forces that has flushed out some Rwandan rebels known as the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), Mr. Lacaille says that Congo has finally reached a point where it can end its many wars and work towards true governance.
"Rwanda and Congo are working together jointly; there is fresh thinking among the international community about how to bring peace to Congo," says Lacaille. "While there are problems with the Congo's current operations, the FDLR [ARE] now totally isolated, and the fact that they have decided to go after the population is a sign that they have lost their political backers and lost all legitimacy as a political movement. This is the time for the international community to act, now."
Military operation provokes backlash
A purely military solution simply won't work, Lacaille and many human rights activists agree. While an ongoing joint operation between the Congolese Army and the UN peacekeeping force has managed to push FDLR rebels deeper into the bush, it has only managed to disarm about 500 FDLR soldiers (out of a 6,000-strong standing force). Meanwhile, the operation has radicalized the FDLR, who have intensified brutal attacks against civilian populations in FDLR-held areas.
Since the military operations began in January, more than 600 civilians have been killed in eastern Congo, and some 800,000 displaced from their homes.
"The UN-backed offensive that was supposed to make life better for the people of eastern Congo is instead becoming a human tragedy," said Marcel Stoessel, head of Oxfam for the DRC, in a statement. "Secretary Clinton needs to make it very clear that US support for the UN's efforts in Congo is not a blank check and that civilians should be protected."
Monday, August 10, 2009
Clinton's challenge in Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo is a tragedy. It's also a vast, organized scam. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived there today. If she doesn't address the scam, the suffering will not end.
Congo is a tragedy for reasons that many know well, including the 5 million who have died from conflict since 1998, the thousands gang-raped by soldiers and rebels, and nearly 2 million who've been displaced from their homes. Add to that a population of more than 60 million citizens suffering from the state's chronic inability to provide safety, dignity, and anything close to development. Progress has been painfully slow. A so-called democratic transition, six years of postconflict intervention, billions in foreign aid, and some 20,000 UN soldiers have done little to end the violence.
A major reason for this tragedy is that Congo's governance resembles a racket. Its politicians and administrators are mostly corrupt, getting rich from keeping their state dysfunctional, and promoting local violence to serve their interests. Throughout the country, people in positions of state authority systematically dominate and extract resources from those below them, all under the guise of sovereign power.
Congo presents Mrs. Clinton with the most daunting challenges and greatest opportunities of her seven-country trip to Africa. Yet outsiders have too often made things worse by cajoling and rewarding rapacious politicians and soldiers, reinforcing rather than abating the authority of a criminal state. Recent UN-supported operations against Rwandan Hutu rebels, for example, have encouraged the deployment of unpaid and poorly trained soldiers who loot, rape, and terrorize more than they protect.
Although Clinton will speak against "gender-based violence," and Congress has approved a $15 million project for a "professional rapid reaction force" of Congolese trained in "the fundamental principles of respect for human rights," this is unlikely to achieve much. Soldiers terrorize because they, like other state officials, benefit from near total impunity; they steal because their officers and politicians hijack their pay; and they rape because it is an easy way to control and dominate civilians.
It is only by exposing and stopping the scam that Congo's tragedy will end. The more we contribute to rebuilding the state, however, the more we inadvertently restore authoritarianism, domination, and predation, features that have characterized Congo since its creation by Leopold II of Belgium in 1885. However failed a state Congo might be, Clinton must avert uncritically embracing its rebirth.
What can she do? First, she must exert vigorous pressure on Congo and Rwanda to neutralize once and for all the remaining 5,000 or so Hutu rebels and their genocidal leaders, who have wreaked havoc in the Kivu provinces since being chased out of Rwanda in 1994. In addition to their own atrocious exactions on local populations, these rebels have provided the trigger for larger conflicts in the area, and the motivation for the formation of many xenophobic Congolese militias. The Rwandan Army is best suited to do this, and it should do so under the authority of the UN. Belgium or France, which have significant historical responsibility in this conflict, should also participate. United States Africa Command can play a logistical role and redeem itself from its association with botched operations against the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Congo in 2008.
Second, the current policy of integrating defecting rebels into an ever-growing and ever-more-dangerous military must be abandoned. Eventually, the Kivu provinces must be demilitarized.
Yet no lasting peace will come until the power of the state to dominate and predate is curbed. The US must more forcefully support Congolese human rights groups in pushing back the overwhelming culture of impunity. Local self-help initiatives, which have sustained people during years of state truancy, must be encouraged as they provide the foundations of accountable state reconstruction. Simultaneously, the legal authority of local state agents must be curtailed. A land reform would deprive chiefs of the opportunity to give land to their ethnic kin, which feeds inter-communal grievances.
Finally, rather than sinking more aid in the quagmire of Congolese corruption, the US should help create a manufacturing sector that would deflate the importance of land and public office, and offer youth an alternative to warfare. Congolese labor is cheap. Rwanda, whose leadership has visions of becoming an African Singapore, could help create a free-trade zone with eastern Congo. Congo would then become eligible for the many benefits of the US African Growth Opportunity Act, which Clinton has promoted throughout her trip. Together, these efforts may finally give the country a fighting chance to escape misery.
Congo is a tragedy for reasons that many know well, including the 5 million who have died from conflict since 1998, the thousands gang-raped by soldiers and rebels, and nearly 2 million who've been displaced from their homes. Add to that a population of more than 60 million citizens suffering from the state's chronic inability to provide safety, dignity, and anything close to development. Progress has been painfully slow. A so-called democratic transition, six years of postconflict intervention, billions in foreign aid, and some 20,000 UN soldiers have done little to end the violence.
A major reason for this tragedy is that Congo's governance resembles a racket. Its politicians and administrators are mostly corrupt, getting rich from keeping their state dysfunctional, and promoting local violence to serve their interests. Throughout the country, people in positions of state authority systematically dominate and extract resources from those below them, all under the guise of sovereign power.
Congo presents Mrs. Clinton with the most daunting challenges and greatest opportunities of her seven-country trip to Africa. Yet outsiders have too often made things worse by cajoling and rewarding rapacious politicians and soldiers, reinforcing rather than abating the authority of a criminal state. Recent UN-supported operations against Rwandan Hutu rebels, for example, have encouraged the deployment of unpaid and poorly trained soldiers who loot, rape, and terrorize more than they protect.
Although Clinton will speak against "gender-based violence," and Congress has approved a $15 million project for a "professional rapid reaction force" of Congolese trained in "the fundamental principles of respect for human rights," this is unlikely to achieve much. Soldiers terrorize because they, like other state officials, benefit from near total impunity; they steal because their officers and politicians hijack their pay; and they rape because it is an easy way to control and dominate civilians.
It is only by exposing and stopping the scam that Congo's tragedy will end. The more we contribute to rebuilding the state, however, the more we inadvertently restore authoritarianism, domination, and predation, features that have characterized Congo since its creation by Leopold II of Belgium in 1885. However failed a state Congo might be, Clinton must avert uncritically embracing its rebirth.
What can she do? First, she must exert vigorous pressure on Congo and Rwanda to neutralize once and for all the remaining 5,000 or so Hutu rebels and their genocidal leaders, who have wreaked havoc in the Kivu provinces since being chased out of Rwanda in 1994. In addition to their own atrocious exactions on local populations, these rebels have provided the trigger for larger conflicts in the area, and the motivation for the formation of many xenophobic Congolese militias. The Rwandan Army is best suited to do this, and it should do so under the authority of the UN. Belgium or France, which have significant historical responsibility in this conflict, should also participate. United States Africa Command can play a logistical role and redeem itself from its association with botched operations against the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Congo in 2008.
Second, the current policy of integrating defecting rebels into an ever-growing and ever-more-dangerous military must be abandoned. Eventually, the Kivu provinces must be demilitarized.
Yet no lasting peace will come until the power of the state to dominate and predate is curbed. The US must more forcefully support Congolese human rights groups in pushing back the overwhelming culture of impunity. Local self-help initiatives, which have sustained people during years of state truancy, must be encouraged as they provide the foundations of accountable state reconstruction. Simultaneously, the legal authority of local state agents must be curtailed. A land reform would deprive chiefs of the opportunity to give land to their ethnic kin, which feeds inter-communal grievances.
Finally, rather than sinking more aid in the quagmire of Congolese corruption, the US should help create a manufacturing sector that would deflate the importance of land and public office, and offer youth an alternative to warfare. Congolese labor is cheap. Rwanda, whose leadership has visions of becoming an African Singapore, could help create a free-trade zone with eastern Congo. Congo would then become eligible for the many benefits of the US African Growth Opportunity Act, which Clinton has promoted throughout her trip. Together, these efforts may finally give the country a fighting chance to escape misery.
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