Kagame Should Beware of the Tides of Justice

Kagame Should Beware of the Tides of Justice

Written by Observer Staff

Tuesday, 05 June 2012 14:19

According to a Human Rights Watch statement issued on June 4th, 2012, which was titled: “DR Congo: Rwanda Should Stop Aiding War Crimes Suspect,” it was alleged that after a field research conducted by the rights group in March, evidence was uncovered which showed that “Rwandan army officials have provided weapons, ammunition, and an estimated 200 to 300 recruits to support” the army mutiny led by elements of the defunct National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), a Rwandan-backed former rebel group which was incorporated into the ranks of the Congolese National Army as part of an earlier peace agreement.

 However, apparently feeling disaffected, elements of the former rebel group, led by General Bosco Ntaganda—aka The Terminator—who is also wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), have revolted and apparently returned to the bushes.

 This is not the first time that the Tutsi-led government of Paul Kagame, which shares not just common borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo, but also ethnic affiliations, has been accused of supporting rebel forces dominated by their ethnic kin across the border in DR Congo; inflaming that country’s long-standing civil conflict.

 But what is markedly different this time, however, is that General Ntaganda is an indicted war criminal facing charges of arming children and committing various other forms of heinous crimes of war. This has therefore amplified the international protestations being heaped on Rwanda for its alleged support of the mutineers, in no small measure because of the fact that General Ntaganda is an international fugitive facing charges of war crimes in the Hague.

 It was only in March of this year, in what was described as a landmark case, that the ICC convicted a former Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, “for his responsibility for the war crimes of enlisting and conscripting children and using them to participate actively in hostilities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2002 and 2003.” Like Dyilo, Ntaganda has been facing similar charges, but has since been able to evade arrest.

 And now with this latest mutiny, Ntaganda’s case has come to the forefront, placing seemingly greater pressure on Rwanda to withdraw their reported support for Ntaganda or suffer accusations of complicity in aiding and abetting an alleged war criminal’s flight from justice and worse yet, also enabling his continued commission of heinous crimes of war.

 In light of the recent conviction and 50-year sentencing of Liberia’s former President, Charles Taylor for “aiding and abetting” the commission of war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone, it is hard not to draw comparisons between Human Rights Watch’s accusation leveled against Kagame’s government and Taylor’s own support for Foday Sankor’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which landed him in hot water with the international criminal justice system.

 We therefore call on Kagame to take notice and be warned that after the judicial precedence set in Taylor’s trial, one cannot hide behind the helm of the Presidency, when it comes to ultimately suffering penalties for complicity, especially that of “aiding and abetting” a bloody civil crisis in a neighboring country.

 The crimes that Ntaganda has been accused of are despicable and he deserves his day in court to clear his name or suffer the consequences for his crimes. Kagame should therefore beware that even though there are times when Tides of Justice can sometimes seem low and innocuous, there are also times when it becomes high and rises inexorably to the point where it sweeps injustice from its path.

 

http://www.liberianobserver.com/index.php/opinioneditorial/item/1523-kagame-should-beware-of-the-tides-of-justice

Bensouda: the African face of international justice

Posted by AFP on June 15, 2012

New ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda seen with her predecessor, Luis Ocampo/ICC

THE HAGUE, Jun 15 – Gambian lawyer Fatou Bensouda, who reached the pinnacle of international justice Friday when she became chief prosecutor at the world’s war crimes court, has a reputation as a dogged investigator.

The 51-year-old one-time attorney in mainland Africa’s smallest nation, Bensouda is now the public face of the International Criminal Court, The Hague-based tribunal that was established a decade ago with a brief to bring those accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice.

Bensouda, the first woman and the first African to head the team of prosecutors after serving as predecessor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s number two since 2004, has vowed to work for justice for Africans.

She has already carved out a reputation in legal circles for her dogged investigations of atrocities such as the Rwandan genocide and the use of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The court has been the target of widespread criticism from within Africa as every one of the 25 suspects who have been the target of investigations or prosecutions to date have hailed from there.

The list includes Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir and the late Libyan dictator Moaner Gaddafi while Ivory Coast’s toppled leader Laurent Gbagbo is currently awaiting trial in the Netherlands.

But, rather than worrying about the status of the suspects, Bensouda says she sees her task as an opportunity “to give victims the voice they need”.

Bensouda takes oath of office at The Hague on Friday/COURTESY-ICC

“I don’t think about the leaders we are pursuing,” she told AFP in a recent interview.

“I am working for the victims of Africa, they are African like me. That’s where I get my inspiration and my pride.”

Bensouda has spent the last eight years as the number two to Argentina’s Moreno-Ocampo, most of that time heading the ICC’s prosecution division.

She first came to prominence in international legal circles as a trial attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, and later as its senior legal advisor.

Since her election as the ICC’s deputy prosecutor in August 2004, she has been involved in some of the court’s most high profile cases.

Her CV includes the ICC’s first successful prosecution in March when Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga was found guilty of abducting children as young as 11 and forcing them to fight.

The daughter of a civil servant and a housewife, Bensouda grew up in Banjul, the capital of Gambia, a tiny English-speaking west African country which borders Senegal.

She graduated from the Nigerian Law School in Lagos, returning to Gambia to begin a career in 1987 as a public prosecutor.

In 1998, she was appointed Gambia’s justice minister and attorney-general before quitting to run the International Bank for Commerce as its general manager in Banjul for two years.

But she said: “It was not my thing, I missed the court.”

Bensouda entered the international justice arena in May 2002 as a trial attorney for the ICTR prosecutor’s office, taking to task those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which some 800,000 people were slaughtered.

The mother of two sons who have completed their studies in architecture and finance, one living in Banjul and the other in the United States, Bensouda also adopted a sister’s daughter, Saddy, 27.

Her own father was polygamous. Asked how many brothers or sisters she has, she replied: “I come from a big family, let’s say it that way.”

http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2012/06/bensouda-the-african-face-of-international-justice/

Fw: *DHR* 17 years! Criminals in the Assassination of former Rwandan President Habyarimana still off the hook?

 

17 years! Criminals in the Assassination of former Rwandan President Habyarimana still off the hook? Posted on April 6, 2011 by therisingcontinent| Leave a comment By Francis Xavier Ndagabanye Muhoozi (http://therisingcontinent.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/17-years-criminals-in-the-assassination-of-former-rwandan-president-habyarimana-still-off-the-hook/) On April 6, 1994, two missiles blew the plane carrying Rwanda's President Juvenal Habyarimana out of the skies, killing all on board, including the President of Burundi and Rwanda's army chief of staff. April 6, 2011, as people around the world mark the 17th anniversary of the terrible Rwandan tragedy triggered by the shooting down of former Rwandan President Habyarimana's plane on April 6, 1994, many reports including the report by French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière of 2006, Spanish Judge Fernando Andreu's 182-page indictment with two accompanying summary documents, and the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma provide cause to reconsider some accepted ideas about those events by placing the entire blame for the missile attack on President Habyarimana's plane on current Rwandan President Paul Kagame. That attack was surely one of the worst terrorist acts of the 1990s. Think about it! Two African heads of state were killed–President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi was also in the plane ­, the fragile peace based on the Arusha accords of 1993 was shattered, war resumed, and masses of people were massacred. The perpetrators of that attack–the Rwandan Patriotic Front according to these reports knew what would happen, as did their principal backers, the United States and the United Kingdom through the Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni. Unclassified internal Clinton Administration documents show that on that very night, immediately after learning of President Habyarimana's death, Prudence Bushnell of the American Embassy in Kigali presciently wrote to Secretary of State Warren Christopher in Washington: "If, as it appears, both Presidents have been killed, there is a strong likelihood that widespread violence could break out in either or both countries, particularly if it is confirmed that the plane was shot down." Over 15 years of rigorous investigations now finally cast light on an event that changed the course of Rwandan–and central African–history and names. Had the plane not been shot down, the massacres might have been avoided. These reports are also particularly damning for many people who have shaped the narrative of the Rwanda tragedy since 1994. Among them, Kofi Annan, who in 1998 commissioned an Independent Inquiry into UN Actions during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. In that very official report states: "At approximately 20:30, Habyarimana and President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi were killed in a plane crash just outside the Kigali airport." Indictment documents produced by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda also calls it a "plane crash". Two surface to air missiles were shot, but the official UN story was that the plane fell out of the sky! That probably explains why the black box disappeared in UN offices for 10 years. The report is also damning for Louise Arbour, recently appointed by Kofi Annan to head the UN Human Rights Commission. In her capacity as Chief Prosecutor of the Tribunal, Louise Arbour nixed the only UN sponsored investigation into the assassination of the Rwandan president. When investigator Michael Hourigan turned up evidence pointing to Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front along with testimony from RPF members who had participated in the missile attack, Louise Arbour, though initially enthusiastic, suppressed his findings and ordered him to go no further. It is damning for former UN mission commander general Romeo Dallaire: first he provides no explanation for the disappearance of the plane's cockpit voice recorder (black box), which surfaced in 2003 at UN headquarters. Dallaire was in charge of the so-called Kigali weapons secure area from where the missile was shot. Secondly, his 600-page book does not even try to explain how the former Rwandan president was killed and who did it. Worse still, he continually refers to the assassination as an "accident". These reports are damning for Uganda and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. The missiles used to shoot down the plane were the property of the Ugandan Army. Uganda had bought them from the Soviet Union in 1987. Whereas the official story would have it that the tragedy in Rwanda was an internal crisis, the ownership of those missiles points directly to the fact that the so-called RPF rebels were high ranking members of the Ugandan army until the day they invaded Rwanda on October 1, 1990. Paul Kagame had been one of the Uganda's chiefs of Military Intelligence and benefited from Ugandan until he took power in July 1994. These reports are also very damning for United States, and particularly the Clinton administration, which has supported Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front unfailingly since the early 1990s. How could a country supposedly so intent on fighting terrorism treat the assassination of two African heads of state so lightly that it never forced the UN get to the bottom of it? After all, the Washington has always gotten its way on Rwanda at the UN. For instance, when it was time to act in 1994 and protect the Rwandan civilians like it is being done in Libya today, another unclassified State Department document dated April 15, 1994, state that for the United States the first priority of the UN Security Council was "to instruct the Secretary general to implement an orderly withdrawal of all/all UNAMIR forces from Rwanda." That is exactly what the UN did, thus prompting former UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali to declare that "the Rwandan Genocide was 100 percent an American responsibility". Hopefully, the 17th anniversary commemoration will be an opportunity to find out more about why so many people died in Rwanda and later in the Congo. Moral indignation is fine. But it cannot replace hard facts. These reports and many other findings have uncovered some important facts that have been carefully edited out of the official story about  Rwanda. Extracted from a new book, "A Deficit of Logic in the Great Lakes of Africa."

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Fw: *DHR* Rwanda Genocide: Honoring the Dead Without Honoring the Lies

 

Rwanda Genocide: Honoring the Dead Without Honoring the Lies (http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/1762/rwanda-genocide-honoring-the-dead-without-honoring-the-lies/) The Nyamata Memorial in Rwanda, pays tribute to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of Rwandans killed during the 1994 genocide. By Ann Garrison April 8, 2010 On April 7 the United Nations began its annual commemoration of the anniversary of what we know as the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, when as many as one million Rwandans were slaughtered in 100 days. The ceremonies raise several questions for all those who contest the received history of the Rwanda Genocide: How to honor Rwanda's dead without honoring the lies? And, how to honor six million more Congolese dead, but not commemorated, in the ongoing aftermath of the Rwanda Genocide when Rwanda's war crossed its western border into neighboring D.R. Congo? Though both tell the received history of the Rwanda Genocide; the BBC and Wikipedia mark its outset not on April 7th, as the UK, UN, and Rwandan officialdom do, but on April 6th, when, in 1994, the assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira triggered the ensuing panic and violence that grew into the horror of the next 100 days and beyond. The two presidents were flying home from a conference between east and central African leaders in Tanzania, held to discuss ways to end violence between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis from Burundi and Rwanda, when their plane was shot out of the sky over Rwanda's capitol, Kigali. On the evening of April 6, 1994, the BBC reported: The deaths of the presidents, both Hutus, look likely to make the situation in both states [Rwanda and Burundi] worse. Heavy fighting has already been reported around the presidential palace in Rwanda after news of the deaths spread. News agencies in Kigali said explosions have been rocking the city but it was not immediately clear who was involved in the fighting. Shortly before 8:20 pm local time (6:20 pm UTC), on April 6, 1994, the Rwandan presidential jet, a Dassault Falcon, circled once around Kigali International Airport before coming in for final approach in clear skies. A surface-to-air missile struck one of the wings, 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, killing both the Rwandan and Burundian presidents. Photo courtesy Wikimeda Commons. Carla del Ponte, lead prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals on Rwanda and Yugoslavia, in her book "Madame Prosecutor; Confrontations with Humanity's Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity," tells the story of how she was fired by the UN after announcing her intent to prosecute sitting Rwandan President Paul Kagame for the assassination of Presidents Habyarimana and Ntaryamira that triggered the genocide. Former President Bill Clinton is such a good friend and admirer of Rwandan President Paul Kagame that he presented Kagame with one of his Global Citizenship Awards in a ceremony on September 24, 2009. The received history says that former President Bill Clinton and the rest of the world stood by and let extremist Hutus murder up to a million Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus until current Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) army arrived in Kigali to end the killing, restore order and begin a reconciliation process. Volumes of interviews, testimonies, mass-grave exhumations and identifications as well as statistical analysis by five different teams of investigators, tell a far more complex story that includes a psychosis-induced mass-murder. Five teams of investigators came to varying sets of conclusions which University of Michigan Professor Allan Stam explained in Coming to a New Understanding of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. Four out of five teams concluded that the vast majority of those who died were Hutus. French is Dead, Long Live English! Some say that Clinton could have stopped it with a phone call because the US and UK were backing Kagame's RPF Tutsi Army, whose advance from the north after the assassinations stirred waves of panic and consequent violence in southern Rwanda. But, whether he could have stopped it that easily or not, and/or at what point, the Rwanda Genocide ultimately represented the triumph of the US, the UK, and their allies over France in a fierce scramble for Central Africa's vast natural resources, including the dense mineral wealth in eastern D.R. Congo. President Paul Kagame, an English speaking Rwandan refugee in Uganda from the age of two, rose to become an officer in Uganda's Army, then Intelligence Chief, then RPF Commander, after training at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where future generals learn to plan invasions. Paul Kagame, far right, with his comrades at the US Army's Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1990. The RPF army invaded Rwanda across its northern border with Uganda in 1990 and arrived victorious in Kigali at the end of the 100 days following the Habyarimana and Ntaryamira assassinations. Though reported to have stood by during the genocide, the US moved in to build a large military base in Rwanda almost as soon as the RPF triumphed, as reported in the New York Times, July 27, 1994: The United States is preparing to send troops to help establish a large base in Rwanda to bolster the relief effort in the devastated African nation, Administration officials said today. (Administration officials' claim that relief was the base's purpose is disputed by those who dispute the history of the genocide.) General, and now Rwandan President, Paul Kagame. All Rwandans share the native African language, Kinyarwanda, "Rwanda" for short, but before the English-speaking RPF victory, urban, educated Rwandans also spoke French, the language of the dominant European power and thus the language in which Rwanda conducted international business. The new RPF rulers declared English the language of business, causing enormous stress and dislocation to French-speaking Rwandan professionals, and in November 2009, the Commonwealth Heads of Government welcomed Rwanda, a former member of the Commonwealth's equivalent, La Francophonie, as a member. Shortly thereafter, "French is dead; long live English in Rwanda!" a news report from the English stream of French-based satellite channel, celebrated the end of 100 years dominance of the French language and French business ties. Law Professor Peter Erlinder, former National Lawyer's Guild President, lead defense counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, and author of the Rwanda Documents Project, offered these comments on the commemoration of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide: "Commemorating the 'Rwandan Genocide' is certainly a noble goal, but without acknowledging the role of the current Rwandan President Kagame in the assassination of Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, and the crimes committed by his forces in their 90-day assault to seize power in 1994, whether those crimes are called 'Genocide' or 'Crimes Against Humanity,' converts a solemn remembrance into a farce of political deception and 'cover-up, organized by the dominant member of the UN Security Council and Kagame's most-important backer, the government of the United States. "Investigating judges in France and Spain have indicted Kagame and his RPF forces. US government and UN documents from 1994 confirm that Kagame's RPF is guilty of mass-killings during all of 1994, which continue in the eastern Congo to this day. More than 6-million have died as a result of the Kagame-initiated war and violence in Central Africa and the former Chief UN Prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, has concluded that Kagame's RPF is responsible for crimes that have been charged to the side that lost the Rwandan Civil War between 1990 and 1994. "In 2009, the four top-military leaders of the vanquished army have been acquitted of planning or conspiring to commit genocide, or any other crimes, in the UN Tribunal. "Del Ponte has publicly said that she was fired from her UN job by the US in 2003, when she insisted on prosecuting Kagame and the RPF. "There is much, much more to a 'genocide remembrance' than meets the eye even when the UN is involved and history is ignored, or 'covered-up' in the interests of superpower geopolitical interests." Never again? This admonition from the web pages of the UN's 2010 Rwanda Genocide commemoration could not more perfectly describe Rwanda as it is now, under Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his ruling RPF Party: Warning Signs of Genocide The Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, working with other genocide experts, has compiled a list of warning signs that could indicate that a community is at risk for genocide or similar atrocities. It includes: • the country has a totalitarian or authoritarian government where only one group controls power • the country is at war or there is a lawless environment in which massacres can take place without being quickly noticed or easily documented The UN is at least good for comic relief, but pretending that these were warning signs of Rwanda's past, and not its present, does not honor the dead. It honors the lies told by the US, the UK, and the UN to cover their responsibility for the loss of millions of African lives. Senator Russ Feingold calls for political space in Rwanda On March 2nd, as grenades exploded in Kigali, and Kagame's political targets fled the country, Senator Russ Feingold, Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Africa, read the Feingold Statement on the Fragility of Democracy in Africa, into the Congressional Record, calling on President Barack Obama to make human and political rights a condition for the support of the US and other "donor nations" in Africa. Feingold stressed the urgency of the Rwandan political situation, with presidential election polls approaching in August. The Africa Faith and Justice Network, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Friends of the Congo, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative Group, Reporters without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Greens/European Free Alliance, have also called for a free and fair election in Rwanda and an end to civil and human rights abuses. This is advocacy within a very narrow, very contradictory political space, that of Western parliamentary democracy within the larger context of an unsustainable Western scramble for Africa's energy and mineral resources, driven by the West's unsustainable, growth-driven culture and economy. Ann Garrison is an independent journalist and contributor to the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Digital Journal, KPFA and KMEC Radio News, and her own blog, Plutocracy Now: the War and Plunder Report. More of her radio/video reports available on YouTube. More Info KPFA News report 4/4/10: Peter Erlinder and Paul Rusesabagina discuss the 16th anniversary of political assassinations that triggered the Rwanda Genocide Spread the word: Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tweet about it Subscribe to the comments on this post Filed under: News, Politics, War Email This Article  Print This Article 11 Responses to "Rwanda Genocide: Honoring the Dead Without Honoring the Lies" Ralph , on April 8th, 2010at 12:36 pm Said: In 2004, my wife and I visited Rwanda, primarily to visit the mountain gorillas in Volcanoe National Park. We did see two gorilla families, each of which had a newborn. Fantastic experience. Our Rwandan guide recommended a visit to the Kigali Memorial Centre (the Genocide Museum), a sobering experience. The Museum is set up much like the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. A series of panels set forth the events leading up to the Genocide, the Genocide, and its aftermath. There is video footage of Rwandans being murdered, oral testimony of witnesses, and piles of victims' skulls and bones. Outside the museum, a number of concrete vaults hold the bodies of the genocide victims. As bodies are recovered, they are placed in caskets. When a vault is full of caskets, a concrete cover is lowered over the vault and sealed. It is estimated that over 1 million Rwandans were murdered over a 100-day period in 1994. The banner over the entrance to the Museum states, "Never Again." After, Darfur/Sudan, it probably should say, "Almost Never Again." General Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general in charge of the UN forces during the genocide, wrote about his experiences before, during, and after the Genocide in "Shaking Hands With the Devil." The book was recommended to us by our Rwandan guide. We highly recommend the book. We also recommend Peter Raymont's documentary, "Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire," which won the World Cinema Documentary Award at Sundance. Other books we recommend are: "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda" by Philip Gourevitch, and "A Sunday At the Pool in Kigali" by Gil Courtemanche. Finally, we rcommend the movies "Sometimes in April" (HBO); "Hotel Rwanda"; and "Beyond the Gates." There also was a powerful short story, "My Parents' Bedroom" by Uwen Akpan, in the 6/12/06 issue of The New Yorker. Ann Garrison , on April 8th, 2010at 3:49 pm Said: Re Hotel Rwanda: The movie was based on Paul Rusesabagina's autobiography, "An Ordinary Man." If you listen to the KPFA News with Peter Erlinder and Paul Rusesabagina, you'll hear him confirm that he now lives in San Antonio where he is heavily bodyguarded all the time because sitting President Paul Kagame's agents have already tried to assassinate him, and, twice ransacked his house and stole all his papers in Brussels. He was sitting in a plane, about to take off to Brussels, the home of many French-speaking Rwandan refugees when I recorded him for KPFA. President Kagame accuses both Paul Rusesabagina and Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza, the FDU-Inkingi Party's presidential candidate, of "Double Genocide Theory," because they dare to say that Hutus were also victims of crimes against humanity.. http://goo.gl/ne3K aimable59 , on April 8th, 2010at 8:46 pm Said: Huge thanks to the Fog City Journal for finally publishing the truth about the Rwandan tragedy. Indeed, a majority of us Rwandans know that as long as the terrorist who killed President Habyarimana and President Ntaryamira has not been convicted in an international court of law, there is a danger that the cycle of violence will continue in our country. For the sake of the 800,000 to 1 million innocent civilians who were butchered in Rwanda during the genocide, the truth needs to come out. Who made that decision to shoot down the Falcon 50 plane and did this person know at the time that they were risking the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians? Is it the current Rwandan president General Kagame as the judges in Spain and France said? The current Rwandan government talks so much about honoring the victims of the genocide. Yet, General Kagame's government continues to block any attempts for the United Nations to find out who the culprit was. It is time for his government to do more than talking. It is time for the Rwandan government to ask for a United Nations investigation into this terrorist act. The truth about who actually ordered the shooting down of that presidential plane is a better way to honor the genocide victims, better than all the talk by the government. Snyiranzayire , on April 9th, 2010at 1:38 am Said: This article highlight the hidden truths about the Rwandan Genocide. Kagame is not a hero as most people are forced to believe. He is not the innocent victim but rather the trigger that sparked genocide. He is using genocide as goodwill to make more money and oppress the Rwandan people. The problem is Rwanda is deep rooted in the conquest of the natural resources in Central Africa. Genocide is a means to an end. This does not mean in anyway that what happened is not serious. On the other hand it just show that the people who should be brought to book are the judges. Ultimately, the deaths of millions of people in Rwanda or in Congo does not help any country. The UK and the US might have established English as the main language of Rwanda and maintained a dictatorial leader in Rwanda convicted of crimes against humanity, but the price is so high the the consequences difficult to fanthom. The UN that was controlling Kigali during the genocide period, the US and the UK that were bombing Rwanda to install Kagame as a President should take responsibilities for what happened. Every Rwandan know what happened, but the way forward is to build a new Rwanda and reconstruct not only roads and buildings, but lives destroyed. Ann Garrison , on April 9th, 2010at 11:52 am Said: Exact, Snyiranzayire. Genocide is a means to an end in Central Africa: natural resources. I hope that San Franciscans, the majority of Fog City Journal readers, are reading this as well, although my guess is that, if they are, the subject is so unfamiliar that they don't have an opinion and therefore aren't commenting, though the San Francisco Bay Area uses far more of Rwanda and Congo's resources than Rwandan and Congolese people do. That's a no-brainer if one simply considers the defense and electronics industries, apart from all the other food and mineral manufacturing inputs, gold and diamonds, electricity, and Starbuck's coffee (grown in Rwanda). I could say the same about the City of San Francisco, less than a million people, as well, though I'll have to sit down and play with #s to support that. And here's San Francisco's Congressional Rep Nancy Pelosi lighting a candle and saying "Never again," on April 7th, 2009, with the US/UK/UN/Kagame/RPF, not on April 6th, the day that President Habyarimana's plane was shot down, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT_4CpAvEUI Ann Garrison , on April 9th, 2010at 12:07 pm Said: I should have added that Nancy Pelosi lights her candle only for Rwandans, not for six million war dead in the aftermath in D.R. Congo. And, she seems to have been poorly briefed to say "more than 100,000 people" in Rwanda. nouvelle_ange , on April 10th, 2010at 12:51 pm Said: The Fog City Journal and Ann Garrison, thank you so much for this article, which contributes to making the truth known about what happened in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Robert McNamara, the former US Secretary of Defence once described a conversation he had with General LeMay of the United States Air Force. McNamara said " LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?" This is exactly what happened in the Rwandan situation. The RPF committed so many war crimes and crimes against humanity before the genocide, during the genocide, and after the genocide. As one of the millions of the victims of these RPF crimes, it saddens me every single time I see so many other avenues where they praise the RPF and General Kagame and totally ignore how many millions of lives the RPF has shattered. Thank you so much for having the courage to speak up for the truth when so many others find it easier to echo the false pro-RPF narrative! The truth is the only way to say "Never Again" and actually mean it. There cannot be a "Never Again" when the truth is stifled. Thank you for daring to tell the truth! Kidume , on April 12th, 2010at 2:34 pm Said: Thanks Fog City Journal for this article. When Hillary Clinton qualified Kagame and his government as a beacon of hope and when her husband was giving an award to Kagame, I was thinking that most American can only see Rwanda and its history through lazy journalists' headlines. In other words, i never expected this kind of thoroughly and well researched article from here. We do appreciate that at least someone tells the truth about Rwandans, Burundians and Congolese silent long suffering that has been going on for three decades now. Our countries are far away from headlights of the media, but the blood-stained mineral resources, for which millions of ordinary people have lost their lives, end up in every american and british household. That is why it matters much that the whole world should know about the price paid for the western technological satisfaction. Kidume Ann Garrison , on April 12th, 2010at 11:54 pm Said: Thanks, Kidume. The UK has at least finally provided some comic relief amidst Rwanda's increasingly tense political environment by inviting Members of Parliament, including Rwandan MPS to the UK to observe elections next month, http://goo.gl/JnzE HA HA HA HA!!! HA!!! Thank you, Tony Blair, no doubt, for that. I just urged one of my Rwandan friends, an exile and activist n London, not to waste any well reasoned argument on this, though I might try to summon my own comic muse and encourage Rwandans to do the same. Tony Blair, special advisor to Paul Kagame, joined Kagame and California's own Reverend Rick Warren for a national prayer breakfast in Kigali last year. Guest Commentary: "Rwanda Genocide: Honoring the Dead Without Honoring the Lies" , on April 14th, 2010at 7:19 am Said: [...] Garrison wrote an article entitled "Rwanda Genocide: Honoring the Dead Without Honoring the Lies" that is an excellent synopsis of the current political situation in Rwanda on the 16th [...] Ann Garrison , on April 14th, 2010at 2:08 pm Said: Re French/English in Rwanda: here's a great cartoon from Umuseso, an independent Kinyarwanda tabloid that the government just shut down, http://kigaliwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Umuseso-commonwealth-cartoon.jpg Leave a Reply You must be logged in to post a comment. Recent Posts SF Unions Rally to Support Wisconsin Workers, Condemn Corporate Greed Bait and Switch: A Walk Down Twitter Lane <br>(Part Two) Overheard in Fog City: Avalos Considering Mayoral Run <br>Peskin, Campos Out Marketing and Promotion of Tobacco Products Hellman to Run for Mayor of San Francisco? Court Jester Rates Class of 2011 Save The Rave: Electronic Dance Music Community <br>Speaks Out A Walk Down Twitter Lane Zionist Extremist Hate Crime Against Rabbi Lerner: <br>Third Attack on His Home Mid-Market Payroll Tax Exemption: <br>Downtown's Latest Land Grab Media Complaints Triggers SFPD Press Pass Revocations Why Progressives Should Support Pension Reform Saint Patrick's Day Adachi Calls for Ban on Master Key Abuse <br>SRO Owner Says Police Assaulted Him Buck Tavern Doubles as Anti-Twitter Tax Exemption Headquarters Gascón Pitches DA Candidacy to SF Young Dems No Concessions: Hotel Workers Beat Hilton and Blackstone, Fight On Fourth Surveillance Video Further Exposes SFPD Perjury, Misconduct GOP Says No to Distressed Homeowners and Consumers Onek Calls for Independent Investigation <br>into Alleged SFPD Misconduct << Previous Post           Home           Next Post >>

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Fw: *DHR* The film Crisis In The Congo: Uncovering The Truth

 

Crisis In The Congo: Uncovering The Truth The film Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering The Truth explores the role that the United States and its allies, Rwanda and Uganda, have played in triggering the greatest humanitarian crisis at the dawn of the 21st century. The film is a short version of a feature length production to be released in the near future. It locates the Congo crisis in a historical, social and political context. It unveils analysis and prescriptions by leading experts, practitioners, activists and intellectuals that are not normally available to the general public. The film is a call to conscience and action. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ii3tlD-l6k&sns=em)

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Fw: *DHR* Kagame & media: Hard times for wolf in sheep’s clothing

 

Kagame & media: Hard times for wolf in sheep's clothing (http://www.africandictator.org/?p=2772)   Forget Gaddafi. Blair's NEW best friend is a despot guilty of even bloodier slaughter (1.000) Rwandan Constitutional Law & Oppression of Political Opposition & Dissidents (1.000) Who is Paul Kagame (1.000) Why do they soil themselves with African Dictators? (1.000) Rwandan dictator shows his true intolerant colors on BBC interview (1.000) Shortlink:

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