Rwanda 20 Years Later: Genocide, Western Plunder of Congo, and President Kagame
Twenty years after the Rwandan genocide, survivor & activist Claude
Gatebuke and filmmaker Andre Vltchek discuss what was really behind
America's decision not to intervene, and its ongoing support for
Rwandan President Paul Kagame - April 10, 14
Bio
Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist.
He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His
discussion with Noam Chomsky On Western Terrorism is available in
print. His critically acclaimed political novel Point of No Return is
now re-edited and available. He has just completed the feature
documentary Rwanda Gambit about Rwandan history and the plunder of DR
Congo. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania,
Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa.
Claude Gatebuke is a Rwandan Civil War survivor, genocide survivor,
and human rights advocate. He is the executive director and co-founder
of the African Great Lakes Action Network (AGLAN), an organization
focused on justice, peace and prosperity in the Great Lakes Region of
Africa, based in Nashville, TN. He is also a member of the African
Great Lakes Advocacy Coalition (AGLAC). The AGLAC unites over a dozen
advocacy organizations with a common vision for a peaceful Great Lakes
Region of Africa.
Transcript
JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network.
I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.
This week marks the 20th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, where
more than 800,000 people were killed in just 100 days. It is
remembered by many as the time when the U.S. did not immediately
recognize the massacre as a genocide, leading then-president Clinton
to not intervene in order to stop the mass killings.
Now joining us to discuss the present state of Rwanda and the role of
foreign governments are our two guests. Andre Vltchek is an opposition
intellectual, novelist, filmmaker, and investigative journalist. He's
also the writer and director of the new documentary film Rwanda
Gambit.
Also joining us is Claude Gatebuke. Claude is a Rwandan genocide and
civil war survivor. He's also the executive director of the African
Great Lakes Action Network, an organization dedicated to bringing
peace, justice, and prosperity in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
Thank you both for joining us.
ANDRE VLTCHEK, WRITER & DIRECTOR, RWANDA GAMBIT: Thank you so much.
CLAUDE GATEBUKE, RWANDAN SURVIVOR, EXEC. DIR. OF AFRICAN GREAT LAKES
ACTION NETWORK: Thank you. Thank you for having us.
DESVARIEUX: So, Claude, I'm going to start off with you, Claude. You
were just 14 years old living in Rwanda during the genocide. The
closest most people came to understanding what was even happening in
Rwanda was probably Hotel Rwanda. But you actually lived through this.
Can you just describe for us your experience? And was there a specific
moment that still stays with you?
GATEBUKE: There are a lot of moments that still stay with me. But
first I would like to just share how Rwanda was a very peaceful
country when I was growing up and never thought that there would be
that much violence or chaos in the same country that I knew growing
up, up until I was about ten years old: Rwanda was invaded. And the
invaders were a group of Tutsis who had been exiled 30 years earlier.
And they invaded Rwanda from the northern part of the country
bordering the country of Uganda. And they had the support of Ugandan
troops and matériel. And they came down, and for years, for four years
they fought a war where whenever they came down, they would burn down
villages, they would massacre people, call people to meetings and bomb
them, and those who survived were killed with hand weapons.
And with that, I started to understand that this war was actually very
dangerous at a young age. And this is prior to '94.
And so now fast forward to right before 1994. There were a lot of
political movements that were born, and some aligned with the
government, and others aligned with the rebels, and others in
opposition or others in the middle. Every day there were riots in the
streets. Whenever we went to school, we weren't sure that we would
come back safely, because these youth groups were in the streets
fighting a lot of times. And prior to April 6, 1994, there were a lot
of politicians that were assassinated. And every time there was an
assassination, there were massacres.
So fast forward now to April 6, 1994, which is one of the biggest
major events of the genocide, when the president's plane was shot in
Rwanda and he died along with everyone else on that plane, including
the Burundian president, who had only been president for six months,
or maybe less than six months, since the last president had been
assassinated in Burundi.
And Rwanda, the city of Kigali, where I grew up, was full of people
coming from the northern part of the country. A million people had
fled the rebels. And 300,000 people ran into Rwanda from Burundi. And
so this country is totally full of people, and people were very
hungry. And on April 6, when the plane was shot, Rwanda exploded into
total chaos and total terror. The same night, I started hearing
shelling, explosions from one side of the city whistling over our
heads and then going silent and dropping on the other end of the city.
And it was like a big tropical storm of bombs and bullets. And then,
in the morning, my neighbors, the extremist Hutu neighbors started
butchering our Tutsi neighbors, and a lot of people were chopped to
death and bodies thrown to the side of the road. We finally, as we
were escaping the city, got--kept getting stopped at checkpoints, and
at one of the checkpoints I was pulled out with my mother and we were
made, we were ordered to dig our own graves so that they can bury us
after we were killed.
What ended up happening is neighbors rushed in and pleaded for us to
be saved, and we were finally able to leave this place. And once we
left, months later, we fled into the Congo with just about everybody
in Rwanda that was still surviving and that was able to cross the
border and flee the bombing campaign that was approaching us.
And so that was, in short, my experience during the genocide. I
witnessed one of my friends that I played soccer with getting killed
with a machete, where he was chopped down to death. I saw a lot of
people get killed with hand weapons. And I also saw a lot of people
get shot. The place stunk. It smelled like human flesh mixed with
gunpowder, and the air was all smoky with all the bombings that were
taking place. And at night we could actually see the flashes of the
bombs and the bullets.
So that was my experience during the genocide in a nutshell.
DESVARIEUX: Claude, I mean, your story is so powerful, and we do often
hear about these horrific events, but what we don't really hear about
is the U.S.'s role in all of this.
And, Andre, I want to turn to you and ask what actually has been the
role of the United States before and after the Rwandan genocide in
1994.
VLTCHEK: Well, Jessica, as Claude already suggested, the 1994 genocide
did not come from the blue. Of course there were raids of Tutsi group
RPF, which was based in Uganda. It was led by General Kagame, who is
presently president of Rwanda. The group was--RPF was supplied by both
Ugandan forces, but also by the United States. There was a very close
link between them and the United States. It grew from very
insignificant group to a force of thousands of well-armed men.
General Kagame at the time was--he was intelligence chief of Ugandan
military, of Ugandan army. Can you imagine a foreigner actually being
intelligence chief in the foreign country?
And then what was happening is that, as was told to me by a former
ambassador of the United States to Rwanda, Mr. Flaten, the
relationship was very close and very--and there was a direct--there
was direct supply, direct training, direct support of the United
States for RPF. After the genocide, after 1994, when many Hutus
actually fled to neighboring Congo, Rwanda became a place which was
used, together with Uganda, to fulfill geopolitical and economic
ambitions of the United States and European Union in that area,
meaning Congo, which is one of the richest places on earth in terms of
natural resources--it has coltan, which we use for our mobile phones
[incompr.] uranium, diamond, gold, and so on. Congo was actually
plundered by RPF, by Rwandan forces, but also by Ugandan army, on
behalf of the U.S. and European multinational companies, and some
would say on behalf of the governments.
Now, just to show you how close the relationships were and are, some
people, like Tony Blair, the prime minister of U.K., after retiring,
he became, actually, a direct adviser to Paul Kagame. Bill Clinton was
very close to the government. And also, as we probably all know,
Kagame before and after was several times visiting United States. He
received military training at the U.S. bases. And his son is also
receiving military training--received military training in the U.S. So
this is just a short overview.
DESVARIEUX: Claude, the Rwandan people elected Kagame. So I want to
get your take on how is he perceived in Rwanda. Do people see him as
sort of being this sort of puppet president of the United States and
multinational corporations?
GATEBUKE: I think saying that he was actually elected by Rwandan
people is an overstatement at best. He was elected by himself,
because, for one, he runs the Election Commission. No one--it is
totally unheard of, other than, you know, those who assign themselves
an amount of votes. No one wins an election by 93 percent. That is the
vote that he, quote-unquote, received from an election.
Rwandan people have rejected Kagame in multiple elections, except that
he knows how to rig these elections, and in some cases there are
soldiers standing at polling stations. Actually, in many cases,
soldiers are standing at polling places where they've already voted
for a person before the person even goes out to the poll. So I
wouldn't say that he was elected by Rwandan people.
He came to power through the barrel of the gun in 1994, when he won
the war against the former government. Do people see him as a puppet
of the United States and Western governments, the U.K. and other
governments? Yes, they do. And a prime example, actually, going back
to what Andre was saying, is in spite of--in addition to plundering
the Congo, he's committed massive atrocities in the Congo. A UN report
in 2010, the UN Mapping Report, say that if taken to court, Rwandan
troops--and this is--I want to make it clear it's not representative
of all Rwandans. This is the clique that's leading the Rwandan
government are responsible for this. But if taken to court, that they
could be found guilty of genocide.
And in spite of all of that, the United States continue to provide
nearly $200 million in aid to Rwanda. A prime example why people see
him as a puppet of the United States and the U.K.--who provide 40
percent of the aid received in Rwanda, by the way--when they withheld
their aid recently because of Rwanda's involvement in the Congo in
recruiting child soldiers with the help of the M23, which is basically
a proxy Rwandan army or a proxy Rwandan rebel group. Because of the
M23, the United States withheld aid, military aid, the U.K. withheld
aid, and some of the other donors also withheld aid from Rwanda. And
it almost instantly ended that rebellion. There were additional
actions that were taken to end that rebellion. But there's proof that
without this, the help, the support, political backing, diplomatic
backing, and financial backing of the United States and United
Kingdom, Kagame is powerless.
And in Rwanda he's known as a dictator. It's--basically, living in
Rwanda is like being in a big prison, where people are afraid to speak
out. Those who have spoken out, like the--Victoire Ingabere is, the
lady who returned to Rwanda to run for president, Bernard Ntaganda,
and others are today in jail, and many unknown people. Many civilians,
including press, including just regular civilians who have dared to
express an opinion that disagrees with Kagame and the RPF's policies,
are today in jail, exiled, or have been killed. So he's known,
definitely, as a puppet, but also as a dictator and a tyrant that is
causing total chaos in the region, especially in the Congo.
DESVARIEUX: Alright. Let's turn back to the genocide of 1994. And,
Andre, I want to get your take on this. What should humanity learn
from this genocide?
VLTCHEK: Well, first of all, humanity should learn that the fate of
the nation should be left in their own hands. There was too much
mingling in the affairs of the Great Lakes region before 1994 and
after--during 1994 and after 1994.
What happened after--other very important lesson is that truth always
has to be learned, because we are always talking about the genocide of
1994 in Rwanda, and of course it was horrible and people died, and
800,000 people died. But as I was told by Congolese presidential
candidate at the time, /bɛnkəˈlɑːlɑː/, he said, well, we are talking
about 800,000 people, and I'm very sorry for them, but look what
happened in Congo. Between six and, by now, between six and ten
million people died. Ten million. That's the worst genocide, actually,
that happened after the Second World War. It was probably worse than
partition between Pakistan and India. And nobody's talking about it.
It's a total taboo subject.
So we also have to--one thing we can learn is that if one thing is
left unchecked, if the history is not being addressed, like the
history of 1994, a horrible bloodletting or genocide, then the
conflict can spread all over the region, as it can destroy many more
lives. So in this case, in the case of Congo, it was perhaps ten times
more people who vanished than those who died during the [incompr.]
genocide itself.
Also what we have to learn is that geopolitical interests of the West
should by no means be allowed to destroy entire nations. I mean, we
have what happened in Rwanda in 1994 again is somehow very similar or
it is resembling the events in Indonesia in 1965 or in Chile in 1973.
So there are many lessons that we can learn. But definitely some very
powerful ones about neocolonialism, and also about the truth, about
the truth not being told.
DESVARIEUX: Claude, I'm going to ask you the same question just really
quickly. What do you think we should learn, as human beings, from this
genocide?
GATEBUKE: I think we should make never again a reality. And what I
mean by that is when it comes to atrocities and genocide and just the
killing raping and destroying human life, it should be taken seriously
and all perpetrators should be held accountable. There should be a
justice process, a truth process, to address these things and set an
example. Impunity is one of the worst enemies of humanity. And when
criminals continue to hunt down people, then kill them because of
their opinions or because they are inconveniently telling a truth
about massive atrocities that are being told, that continues to
perpetrate the cycle of violence.
So, for example, I think that anyone that was responsible for genocide
in Rwanda should be held accountable. Equally, the RPF, who are today
in power, should be held accountable for the crimes they committed,
for the number of people they killed in Rwanda and Congo. And that
will set an example and a precedent to anyone who thinks that they can
get away with committing crimes.
Today, genocide survivors like Déo Mushyayidi are in prison in Rwanda
for exactly saying what I'm saying here, for telling the truth about
the atrocities that were committed in Rwanda. That shouldn't be the
case. What should be the case is that all criminals should be brought
to court and dealt with and not supported and celebrated across the
world.
DESVARIEUX: Alright. Claude Gatebuke and Andre Vltchek, thank you both
for joining us.
VLTCHEK: Thank you.
GATEBUKE: Thank you.
DESVARIEUX: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
End
DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are
typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their
complete accuracy.
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