Ambassador Susan Rice shielding President Paul Kagame
Ambassador Susan Rice -UN Picture
"I find Susan Rice as culprit as Paul Kagame."
At first, I don't guess he did imagine at the time that the tracking of his people including himself, like animals chased by hunters went so far and so deep inside the US administration.
One, he didn't have the mind to think properly, two, his thoughts were driven by the fallen bodies of women, elderly and children he was passing by running, only preoccupied by escaping from being the next victim.
I suppose he thought he was being purchased only by the Rwandan president Paul Kagame's rebels.
But I suppose when he read the news, he was confirmed in what he must've somehow suspected all these years.
I received the news about the particular relations between US Ambassador Susan Rice to the UN and the Rwandan regime from a survivor of Paul Kagame's crimes in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The source saw their parents and friends and others unknown to them being killed, disappearing, or being tortured from Kigali, passing through Goma, Tingi Tingi, Kinshasa, Brazzaville, Libreville, and back to Kigali in a miraculous journey during which they cannot recall how many died while they survived.
They managed to be rescued from the dead by the Red Cross in Kigali which packaged them out of Rwanda in a special delivery to a foreign country. The survivor witness is currently living outside Rwanda. The comment which accompanies the message they sent me says:
"I find Susan Rice as culprit as Paul Kagame."
The New York Times revealed on December 9th, 2012 that there were personal interests that made Ambassador Susan Rice protects Paul Kagame for so long, despite his numerous crimes investigated and confirmed by the UN experts.
"Aides to Ms. Rice acknowledge that she is close to Mr. Kagame and that Mr. Kagame's government was her client when she worked at Intellibridge, a strategic analysis firm in Washington. Ms. Rice, who served as the State Department's top African affairs expert in the Clinton administration, worked at the firm with several other former Clinton administration officials, including David J. Rothkopf, who was an acting under secretary in the Commerce Department; Anthony Lake, Mr. Clinton's national security adviser; and John M. Deutch, who was director of the Central Intelligence Agency."
However, there are many unanswered questions which will remain. Only the Ambassador knows deep down and can clearly explain her motivations in so protecting the Rwandan President who has overseen the death of almost 8 million people both in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Payton Knopf, a spokesman for Ms. Rice, declined to comment about whether her work with Rwanda at Intellibridge affected her dealings with Rwanda in her present job as the United States ambassador to the United Nations.
Two months ago, at a meeting with her French and British counterparts at the French Mission to the United Nations, according to a Western diplomat with knowledge of the meeting, Ms. Rice objected strongly to a call by the French envoy, Gerard Araud, for explicitly "naming and shaming" Mr. Kagame and the Rwandan government for its support of M23, and to his proposal to consider sanctions to pressure Rwanda to abandon the rebel group.
"Listen Gerard," she said, according to the diplomat. "This is the D.R.C. If it weren't the M23 doing this, it would be some other group." The exchange was reported in Foreign Policy magazine last week."
The revelations of the NYT don't still indicate how the closeness between the Ambassador and the Rwandan president could so blind someone to the staggering number of so many lives.
"A few weeks later, Ms. Rice again stepped in to protect Mr. Kagame. After delaying for weeks the publication of a United Nations report denouncing Rwanda's support for the M23 and opposing any direct references to Rwanda in United Nations statements and resolutions on the crisis, Ms. Rice intervened to water down a Security Council resolution that strongly condemned the M23 for widespread rape, summary executions and recruitment of child soldiers. The resolution expressed "deep concern" about external actors supporting the M23. But Ms. Rice prevailed in preventing the resolution from explicitly naming Rwanda when it was passed on Nov. 20."
Ms Rice has closely worked with Joweri Museveni of Uganda and Paul Kagame of Rwanda, almost giving them a blank cheque about anything related to the Great Lakes region.
"[she] tacitly approved of an invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo that was orchestrated by Mr. Kagame of Rwanda and supported by Mr. Museveni of Uganda. In The New York Review of Books in 2009, Mr. French reported that witnesses had heard Ms. Rice describe the two men as the best insurance against genocide in the region. "They know how to deal with that," he reported her as having said. "The only thing we have to do is look the other way." Ms. Rice has denied supporting the invasion."
Whether or not Ms Rice replaces Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, that does not matter and that's not the fundamental question. The millions of Rwandans and Congolese who have been victims or continue to suffer because of her persistent protection of the person that many have called the African Hitler can be seen in the past. Not much can be done to rectify it. Any improvement to her negative positions about the Great Lakes region demands to look at the present and the future. This might of course imply for her not getting the position of Secretary State.
The critical question which arises is this: in those quiet moments when one looks in the eyes of the person in the mirror, thinking back at Ms Rice's part in the atrocities that the Great Lakes have suffered for almost more than two decades, can she feel any sincere regrets or remorse and for example ask for forgiveness for the wrong decisions she made protecting president Paul Kagame?
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