Good People!

FDLR controls 50 percent of the South Kivu Province but they are a mixture of both Hutu, Tutsi and Congo Rebel groups. M23 is predominantly Tutsi of the Kagame tribal group which is why, Kagame gives its full financial support and protection for Kagame’s benefit looting from Congo. Kagame is the aggressor terrorizing and killing innocent Congolese and driving them our of their land for Tutsi to occupy Congolese land, for which he has created a government within another government inside the DRC Congo for his benefit.

Kagame made M23 to be a strong voice demanding what does not belong to them in Congo.

From intelligence observation, M23 is working with FDLR to benefit Kagame. He has made it a smart business to loot from DRC Congo. This is why Kikwete requested him to talk with FDLR and stop Congolese massacre. If they are able to talk when it is business, why should they not talk when Human Rights demands, after-all, both Ribel group were created by Kagame and Museveni. Kagame created this group was fighting the Habyarimana regime, in 1980s and this part cannot be ignored. Killing Congolese children and women is not justifiable matter. Kagame must be forced to eat a humble pie……..

Regards,

Judy Miriga

Diaspora Spokesperson &

Executive Director for

Confederation Council Foundation for Africa

USA

http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

email: jbatec@yahoo.com

Rwanda, Zambia agree on refugee repatriation

Kagame speaks out on Kikwete's call for negotiations with FDLR rebels

Rwanda President Paul Kagame. Photo/File

By EMMANUEL RUTAYISIRE, Special Correspondent

Posted Monday, June 10 2013 at 18:32

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has described calls for the country to negotiate with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) as “utter nonsense.”

(Read: Unease in Kigali over Kikwete’s call for talks with FDLR)

Speaking on Monday at the Rwanda Military Academy (Nyakinama) in the northern part of the country where he was attending a graduation ceremony of 45 officers, President Kagame said:

“I kept quiet about this because of the contempt I have for it. I thought it was utter nonsense. Maybe it was due to ignorance but if this is an ideological problem for anyone to be thinking this way, then it better stay with those who have it.

"We will have another time to deal with this. As Rwandans, being who we are, achieving what we want to achieve for ourselves is not a myth, its real”.

The call to talk to FDLR was made by Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete at a meeting of Heads of State from the Great Lakes Region in Addis Ababa, on the sidelines of last month’s African Union Summit in Ethiopia.

Kikwete’s remarks have soured the already shaky relations between the two neighbouring countries with foreign affairs ministers from both countries issuing statements.

(Read: Dar-Kigali spat a serious matter)

Kikwete had suggested that Rwanda should consider direct talks with the FDLR rebels since the military option didn’t seem to be working.

President Kikwete also urged Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni to talk to the Allied Democratic Forces and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda, as well as asking DR Congo’s President Joseph Kabila to talk to the M23 rebels and other forces operating in eastern Congo.

This is the first time President Kagame is personally responding to President Kikwete’s remarks even though both presidents attended the Addis Ababa meeting.

(Read: Rwanda can’t talk to FDLR; they’re stone cold killers)

Tanzania has said it is not going to apologise to Kigali over the statements.

The remarks have triggered a diplomatic row between the two countries although observers say it is a pointer to the fact that despite the cordial relationships, Presidents Kagame and Kikwete have never been friends.

The FDLR is a sensitive issue in Kigali because of the former’s role in the 1994 genocide as well as its continued security threat to Rwanda. The militia draws most of its members from the genocidaires who participated in the 1994 mass killings.

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Kagame publicly threatening to hit President Kikwete.

4 juillet 2013

Amakuru

Kagame publicly threatening to hit President Kikwete. jeannet-300x200

She has reason to be worried

It has almost become a tradition in his improvised speeches to hear Rwandan president Paul Kagame spit his anger and express his contempt for Western donors and other foreigner s who do not share his peculiar ideas about governance and political freedom. He does not miss any opportunity to slam what he calls their attempts to give him lessons, while he has no lesson to receive from anybody. We have heard many insults and derogatory words, but an outright threat to “hit” the president of a sovereign neighbouring nation, this is something even those who know him for a long period would not easily had predicted. On Sunday June 30, in a speech to the “youth connect” meeting convened by the Ministry of Youth together with his wife’s own Imbuto foundation, Paul Kagame threatened Tanzanian President Kikwete in unmistakable terms that he will wait for him at the right place and hit him, in response to the latter’s suggestion that Kagame initiate talks with the armed Hutu opposition FDLR.

“And those whom you recently heard speaking for the Interahamwe and FDLR, saying that we should negotiate with them. Negotiate with them? As for me, I do not even argue about this issue because I will wait for you at the right place and I will hit you!! I really did not… I didn’t even reply to him, I never arg… uh… it is known, there is a line you can’t cross. There is a line, there is a line that should never be crossed. Not once. It’s impossible!!…”

From these words pronounced partly in his hallmark unstructured Kinyarwanda mixed with English, Kagame made clear that he is still deeply angered by the mere suggestion to engage in talks with political opponents. That is why he vowed to wait for the right opportunity to strike back at Tanzanian President. It is unheard of in world diplomacy, to see a head of state threatening to hit another head of state of a sovereign nation in time of peace.

This threat should be taken seriously. Kagame has already proven in the past that he is able to strike his adversaries and silence them. Whether fellow presidents or his own (former) trusted collaborators, his prowess in murdering those he thinks are his enemies would not shy from a comparison with L. Sulla’s famous bragging. Melchior Ndadaye, Juvénal Habyarimana, Cyprien Ntaryamira, Laurent-Desiré Kabila are all heads of states in whose assassination he has allegedly had a hand. Théoneste Lizinde and Seth Sendashonga, are former collaborators eliminated in covert operations from afar. The last known feat in this series is the failed assassination of his former army chief of staff Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who survived a shooting in Johannesburg, South Africa. The lesser known cases of eliminated military officers who had knowledge of damaging secrets of his cruelty or could become rivals for power in the military, is no less impressive.

The grudge against Kikwete has other sources as well. Kagame’s big ego does not suffer being second to anybody. Being overshadowed by Kikwete as the most visible leader in the region is an additional source of personal resentment towards the charismatic Tanzanian President who, in less than a year, has been honoured by the official visits of the presidents of the two most powerful nations in the world. The recent attempt by Kagame, Museveni and Uhuru Kenyatta to bypass Kikwete and meet in Entebbe without him underscores a rampant feeling of discomfort at the growing strategic importance of Tanzania in the region.

Tanzania’s resolve to play its full role in restoring peace in the region has borne him many enemies among the neighbours who most benefit from the chaos they have helped perpetuate in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Uganda and Rwanda will namely be the losers if peace returns in the region because violence has long been their cover and their opportunity to loot Congolese resources. But whether they like it or not, Kagame and Kaguta will have to understand that time for peace has now come.

Kagame doesn’t seem to notice the changing circumstances however. In his self-righteousness, he said in the same speech that he was the paramount example of tolerance because he accepts to live in the same country with an ethnical group of genocidaires. He said that allowing Hutus to stay alive is the biggest political space he could think of, anywhere in the world. He urged the Hutus, even those who were not born at the time of the mass slaughters of 1994 to repent and ask forgiveness on behalf of their ethnical group (Suddenly. There are ethnical groups in Rwanda again!). He made them understand that they owed their lives to him because his soldiers would have slaughtered the entire Hutu population that he characterizes as a genocidaire ethnical group, was it not for his magnanimity that forced him to stop the RPA soldiers. In return for RPF soldiers not slaughtering all Hutus, he urges them to bear the burden of perpetual guilt, because, according to him, crimes were committed on their behalf.

It is remarkable that the Rwandan president’s own wife has already understood the dangers of criminalizing a whole population group. In her own speech in the same event, she emphasized that criminal responsibility was individual and “every knee will have to kneel for itself”. She underlined the importance of liberating the youth from the burden of event in which they did not take part. When Kagame’s own wife starts signaling that she has understood the dangers of his principal political principle (criminalizing all Hutus), the peace in the region can’t continue to be held up by just one individual.

This is what Tanzania has understood much earlier. But Kikwete also knows that those who sow chaos in order to harvest in violence will not easily give up their booty. By accepting to step in, to make his voice for peace heard, Tanzanian President Kikwete knew there was a price. It is now up to the entire population of the region (Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and obviously Tanzania) to step in and stand with President Kikwete, ensure his protection and denounce any attempt to threaten his physical integrity.

Dr Alexis Habiyaremye/ Leprophete.fr

Hamid Kalisa•a month ago

So Mr.President, has a military solution worked for you? If it has not, then why not explore other options including talking to the rebels themselves. I commend the efforts of the unity and reconciliation effort in Rwanda in diffusing the genocide ideology and enabling peaceful co-exsitance in Rwanda based on mutual respect. Why not extent the same spirit to these rebels, talk to them, give them amnesty, rehabilitate them and allow them to reintegrate with the new Rwanda. I am pretty much sure that no sane Rwandan would entertain any genocide propaganda after the reconciliation that has been going on. So naturally the ideology will die out. Keeping them at bay actually gives them recognition and a platform onto which to spread harmful propaganda.

Unease in Kigali over Kikwete’s call for talks with FDLR

FDLR soldiers in 2009. The rebels remain a security headache for Rwanda. Photo/FILE

By GAAKI KIGAMBO Special Correspondent

Posted Saturday, June 8 2013 at 09:53

In Summary

The FDLR is a sensitive issue in Kigali because of its role in the 1994 genocide as well as the continual security threats it poses to Rwanda.
Although the inspiration for President Kikwete’s remarks remains unclear, regional observers have begun linking them to events surrounding the arrest of Gen Stanislas Nzeyimana aka Bigaruka Izabayo, a top FDLR commander.
As the story is told, Gen Nzeyimana went to Tanzania apparently on the invitation of elements within Tanzania’s military for consultations regarding the deployment of the Tanzanian component of the would-be intervention brigade.
Kigali has insisted it won’t talk to any entity that still harbours genocide ideologies and plans to carry out another genocide. The bitter exchange of words between Kigali and Dar over the past two weeks is a pointer to longstanding subterranean tensions between the two countries.

The spat, an unexpected setback for regional diplomacy, was triggered a fortnight ago after Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete suggested that Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame consider direct talks with rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

READ: Kikwete’s plea for peace talks angers Rwanda

He also urged Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni to talk to the Allied Democratic Forces and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda, as well as asking DR Congo’s President Joseph Kabila to talk to the M23 rebels and other forces that have established havens in eastern Congo.

President Kikwete raised the issue of dialogue with the FDLR and the other armed groups during a special meeting of Heads of State from the Great Lakes Region in Addis Ababa.

It had been convened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the sidelines of the 21st AU Summit to discuss the Regional Oversight Mechanism of the Peace, Security and Co-operation Framework for the DRC and the region.

The FDLR is a sensitive issue in Kigali because of its role in the 1994 genocide as well as the continual security threats it poses to Rwanda, even if, according to Defence Minister Gen James Kabarebe, its strength has been significantly cut down from 150,000 to 2,000 people.

The Kagame regime is also unhappy with what it feels is the “flippant” manner in which the international community has treated the issue.

“Appreciation in the region and beyond of what happened in Rwanda in 1994 is unequal. The sad fact is that people forget and people would like to forget what happened in Rwanda, in particular,” one source told The EastAfrican.

The US blacklisted FDLR as a terrorist organisation in 2005, nearly 10 years after the genocide. In April this year, it added its overall commander Sylvestre Mudacumura to its war crimes programme, under which it offers up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest of designated foreign nationals accused of crimes against humanity, genocide, or war crimes.

While the Kagame administration sees the FDLR as the last holdout of the people responsible for orchestrating the 1994 genocide in which Rwanda lost up to a million lives, it suspects that Tanzania, where many of the suspects initially fled, is indifferent to the threat they pose to Rwanda’s long-term security.

Although the inspiration for President Kikwete’s remarks remains unclear, regional observers have begun linking them to events surrounding the arrest of Gen Stanislas Nzeyimana aka Bigaruka Izabayo, a top FDLR commander.

As the story is told, Gen Nzeyimana went to Tanzania apparently on the invitation of elements within Tanzania’s military for consultations regarding the deployment of the Tanzanian component of the would-be intervention brigade.

While there, intelligence operatives picked him up as he was out visiting friends in Dar, mistaking him for Mudacumura, FDLR’s overall commander, who carries a $5 million bounty on his head.

Upon clarification that he wasn’t Mudacumura, Gen. Nzeyimana was set free. It is then claimed that agents from Rwanda’s Directorate of Military Intelligence abducted him as he crossed through Kigoma en route to eastern Congo through Burundi.

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Kagame publicly threatening to hit President Kikwete

Thursday 4 July 2013, 10:36
Dr Alexis Habiyaremye

Source: leprophete.fr

Jeudi 4 juillet 2013404/07/Juil/201310:29-Ecrire un commentaire

It is remarkable that the Rwandan president's own wife has already understood the dangers of criminalizing a whole population group. In her own speech in the same event, she emphasized that criminal responsibility was individual and “every knee will have to kneel for itself”. She underlined the importance of liberating the youth from the burden of event in which they did not take part. When Kagame’s own wife starts signaling that she has understood the dangers of his principal political principle (criminalizing all Hutus), the peace in the region can’t continue to be held up by just one individual.

Dr Alexis Habiyaremye

http://www.editions-sources-du-nil.com/article-kagame-publicly-threatening-to-hit-president-kikwete-118887725.html

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Acknowledging the Congolese genocide/What people are saying.

Posted on July 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

53 years after, the struggle continues. We are going to fight for the heart of Africa until death.

On Thursday 4th July 2013, the Citizen Movement Don’t Be Blind This Time launched an online petition asking the UN Secretary General, African Union Chairperson and African governments to acknowledge the genocide against the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The petition has so far gathered 215 signatures from different places across the world. The target is to get 10,000 or more within a period of 3 months. I am reproducing here comments from those who have already signed.

Anonymous LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

The people of the Democratic Republic of Congo have suffered for the fertility of the lands upon which they were born. Their unearned suffering is a stain upon our collective conscience and more specifically upon the record of the international, corporate and national institutions that inflict, participate, facilitate or knowingly ignore this human inflicted suffering. STOP IT, NOW!

Patrick Muimba INGLEWOOD, CA

More than 10 millions have fallen in DR congo. Someone has to be held accountable.

Kany Kabuya MOMBAYARD, INDIA

From 1994 I saw Congolese people dying and no one, no nation saying anything. It is time to get justice for all those victims.

Bonface Wafula NAIROBI, KENYA

How can we keep quiet while millions of people are dying in Congolese forests? I lived there and I know what I witnessed to. More than what we can imagine, it is a horror movie happening right under our eyes. Let’s scream and shout!

Nshimyumuremyi Donatien MONS, BELGIUM

Truth is important for Justice and Justice is important for Peace.

Jennifer Mcmurray, LAKE BLUFF, IL

Human rights are a vital issue to all people. Those of us in a position to help are called to do so.

Alexis Habiyaremye, ANTALYA, TURKEY

The world must know and recognize that more than 8 million people in DRC, including more than 300,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees have been slaughtered by an army of Rwandan Tutsi supremacists under the orders of General Paul Kagame and his allies.

Bolema Bossio Wangi, PLAISIR, FRANCE

I am Congolese and it’s my people and country which are of concern here. It’s by ourselves and for us I want to be involved [translation from French].

Mulang Mika KIEV, UKRAINE

I know for a fact that this petition is going nowhere and will not change a thing…Why? Because we are dealing with machines…They will not have pity on the inhuman suffering of our people. They have no heart…Only pure dominance and unsupervised and illegal exploitation of our riches excite them (I doubt they feel anything at all)…So? How do you fight the machine? Sending them petitions? Pffff…The people of the earth are organizing to rise against the machines…coming soon because the revolution will be televised!

Dieudonne Mutshaka DAGENHAM, UNITED KINGDOM

Something has to be done about the killing of women children in DRC.

Collectif des médecins Congolais de l’étranger – CMCE BRUXELLES, BELGIUM

Justice

Hugues Mukeza LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

Because this has been going on for so long, and the rest of the world has been too silent about it, (it’s) suspicious!

Kimpioka Lufuankenda Guy MONS, BELGIUM

Because this genocide of Congolese people is the most horrible in the world.

Chris Cole FRANCE

Congo is an African country.

Victoria Fernado FRANCE

It is a shame that this crime is still not recognized! Innocents die and women are victims of sexual abuse! I condemn the UN to shut eyes for eventually natural resources and economic strategies. What a shame! And it pretends to be a human rights organisation?

Jugocer Ekopimolo MONTREAL, CANADA

This is a holocaust of over millions dead human beings. This should be everybody’s concern because everybody fuels the crisis by purchasing newest electronic devices creating a vicious circle. People need to know and be responsible. Mining corporations must be held accountable for perpetrating the most horrible ever holocaust of all times.

Jean Limbo Bakoto DUBLIN, IRELAND

Because my people suffer.

Victoria Dimandja LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

The widespread impunity and lack of accountability for crimes perpetrated on the Congolese people is appalling. Seeking peace, stability and justice in the Congo is not only in the best interest of every nation in the region, but also in line with the humanity values. Impunity must stop; all war criminals involved in the Congo’s crisis must be brought to justice. There would never be peace and development within the Great Lakes Region of Africa without justice.

Arsene Rutiyombya KIGALI, RWANDA

People from the Great Lakes Region have the right to justice. The genocide that has been committed against Hutus and Congolese must be recognized, the perpetrators must be prosecuted.

Patrick Ndombasi LOS ANGELES, CA

Because I believe all humans have to be free and no one has the right to take out somebody else’s life.

Fred Nguyen MAPLEWOOD, NJ

I want the Western powers out of Africa.

Yibeltal Belachew TAKOMA PARK, MD

Because injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.

Medard Abenge Yega JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

I think Susan Rice, the number one advocate of the current Rwandan Head of State, and the American government have rewarded Paul Kagame with another genocide after the one of 1994 masterminded by the same person. It does not make any sense to me to kill more than 6 millions on the Congolese soil for no valid reason. Signing this petition is for me a direct way of telling the US, UN, AU and Joseph Kabila to stop being soft to Paul Kagame. The killings haven’t stopped; many lives are still being lost to date. MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo remain very blurred regardless the setting up of a Combat Intervention Brigade. The European Union is very reluctant to take a decisive step on the holocaust given that some of their member States draw dividend from this human carnage. We want it to stop, and stop now!

Erry Marsden BELPER, UNITED KINGDOM

It’s time to stop Western powers taking advantage of the DR-Congo minerals and the killing of innocent men women and children

GG Amos SAN FRANCISCO, CA

Because “The apparent well planned decimation of populations of the Great Lakes by Rwandan, Burundian and Ugandan armed militias is pursued in conjunction with the plundering of Congolese natural resources. The unrestrained exploitation of minerals enables these countries to enrich themselves and their governments stay in power, and at the same time serve the interests of multinationals and those of some Western powerful countries.”

I couldn’t put it better myself.

This is genocide, a holocaust, a travesty to human progress, an unquestionable crime by the rich against the poor, and ALL people of conscience must, at the very least, be aware of it and speak out against it.

Nicolas-Patience Basabose JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

I only have ONE place to call HOME and that is DR CONGO…

Kamilu Kaveva BUTEMBO, CONGO, THE DEMOCRATIC

For cultural value of the DR Congo People.

TO SIGN THE PETITION, PLEASE CLICK HERE, THEN SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH ALL YOUR FRIENDS.

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Why Blair and Buffett are wrong about giving international aid to Rwanda

By criticising the UN expert report, the former British prime minister is hampering the peace process in the eastern Congo

When a UN Group of Experts report found that Rwanda was supporting rebels fighting a deadly conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a number of countries including the US and Britain cut or suspended foreign aid in protest.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame steadfastly denied supporting the Congo militias that have been wreaking havoc along the Rwanda-Congo border, but the evidence was strong enough to convince even some of Kagame’s biggest supporters that the western powers needed to send a message of disapproval.

That didn’t include Howard Buffett, Warren Buffett’s son, or Tony Blair. Buffett and Blair argued against the move, contending that reducing aid to Rwanda would just cause more harm than good to the unstable Great Lakes region of central Africa.

“Cutting aid does nothing to address the underlying issues driving conflict in the region, it only ensures that the Rwandan people will suffer — and risks further destabilizing an already troubled region,” Blair and Buffett wrote in a recent Foreign Policy article

This was followed by a report from the Howard G Buffett Foundation echoing the same points. The report went further by questioning the reliability of the UN experts – the group that originally reported evidence that the Rwandan government was supporting rebels in the eastern DRC.

It’s worth noting that the Buffett Foundation report was written by unknown authors and using unnamed sources. It attacks the UN experts and then makes the case that pointing fingers is counterproductive. Says the report; “Our Foundation is not interested in apportioning blame for what we view is a fundamental failure in the GoE process in 2012….”

“We will let the report – and the information on our website – speak for itself,” replied the foundation’s chief of staff, Ann Kelly when asked about the unnamed contributors.

Lake Partners Strategy Consultants and the Crumpton Group LLC are listed as organisations that worked on the report, but they too were unwilling to talk about the report or how they reached their conclusions.

So, I spoke to regional experts about the report both on and off the record and a consensus emerged. The Buffett Foundation report is simply inaccurate, they said. Despite its imperfections, the UN expert report provides sufficient evidence to prove Rwanda’s connection to the armed rebels in the DRC. Since the US and British governments have long been big supporters of Paul Kagame’s Rwanda, it’s reasonable to conclude it would have taken convincing evidence to prompt a suspension of foreign aid.

Many east Africa experts say Rwanda continues to destabilise the region and sap resources for reform. The actions by the international community and the ongoing UN peace talks and framework provide an opportunity to engage in meaningful change for the DRC, many say. Ensuring its success means preventing rebellion and holding all supporters accountable, these experts told me.

Meddling in the DRC

Accusations have been leveled at Rwanda in the past for its meddling in the region. Former Rwandan ambassador to Washington, Theogene Rudasingwa, explained to Newsweek in a January article how the Rwandan government extracted money out of the DRC:

“After the first Congo war, money began coming in through military channels and never entered the coffers of the Rwandan state,” says Rudasingwa, Kagame’s former lieutenant. “It is RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front, Kagame’s party) money, and Kagame is the only one who knows how much money it is—or how it is spent. In meetings it was often said, ‘For Rwanda to be strong, Congo must be weak, and the Congolese must be divided.’”

In 2012, the anonymous group of UN experts found evidence that the M23 rebels benefited from coordination with and support from the Rwandan military. Further, the report cited that the level of support went all the way up to the Rwandan defence minister. The UK reacted promptly by withholding £16 million in aid promised to Rwanda. International development secretary Justine Greening announced the suspension of £21m in planned budget support for Rwanda at the end of November.

Military aid totaling $200,000 was withheld by the United States when the information first emerged in July, but sanctions stopped there. Human Rights groups joined members of Congress in December imploring the Obama Administration to put pressure on Rwanda. Germany held back €21 million in planned aid and the EU suspended €70 million in planned budgetary support.

“This is not a matter of aid stopping because of advocacy efforts, explained Aaron Hall, associate director of Research for the Enough Project. “Aid stopped because there was credible information from state intelligence reports that showed these connections are real and that Rwanda was in violation of the UN Arms Embargo on Congo and implicated in destabilising a neighboring state.”

A reliance on aid likely affords Rwanda the opportunity to spend money on arming and supporting the M23 rebellion, said academic Laura Seay in a blog post responding to Blair and Buffett’s FP article.

Blair and Buffett also ignore the fact that having so much aid support frees up other resources for the Rwandan government to use in its military adventures in the Congo. Were Rwanda not wasting money on supporting the M23, Kigali would be able to fund many of the excellent development initiatives that were previously funded with aid dollars.

Other nations reacted to the report by withholding or delaying portions of aid to Rwanda. For a country that relies on foreign aid to account for over 40% of its budget, the cuts were a significant action by the international community. According to experts that I spoke with, the disruption in aid flows to Rwanda are working to the extent that Rwanda is no longer supporting the M23 rebels and is participating in the regional peace framework.

The aid cuts are having a direct economic impact. The Rwandan finance ministry revised its GDP growth expectation down from 7.8% to 6.3%, reported the Economist.

Too Much Finger Pointing?

The Buffett Foundation report makes it clear that it does not have interest in assigning blame.

“Our Foundation is not interested in apportioning blame for what we view is a fundamental failure in the GoE process in 2012; we will leave the point-counterpoint on questions of fact to others,” says the only bold section in the report’s introduction.

It calls for the cooperation between regional, state and international actors in order to resolve the many problems that exist in the DRC. Kagame has taken a similar tactic when asked about the issue of Rwanda’s involvement in the M23 rebellion.

“The blame game doesn’t help anyone,” said Kagame to Christiane Amanpour when she confronted him about Rwanda’s involvement. “It’s not just an issue of M23 or one other problem. It’s a number of problems that are together that we need to sort out.”

Former US assistant secretary of state for African affairs Jendayi Frazer made the same case to Al Jazeera saying, “I think the key issue here is to look forward and see how to resolve this. The pointing of fingers has never helped to resolve the crisis in the Great Lakes region.”

According to the Buffett Foundation report, the UN experts place too much attention on the role of Rwanda and not enough on the systemic problems in the region. Hall refuted this, saying that the mandate of the UN experts is to track illegal arms trafficking and trade to rebel groups.

Jason Stearns, director of the Rift Valley Institute’s Usalama Project, agreed with Hall, adding: “The (report) does place most weight on the M23, but I think that is fair, given that this rebellion was the largest source of instability in the region in 2012. But the GoE does spill a lot of ink discussing criminal networks within the Congolese army, as well as support to other armed groups.”

Stearns added that there are questions to be raised about the lack of collaboration with the UN peacekeeping mission and the governments of Uganda and Rwanda. However, the Buffett Foundation does nothing to carry out a “serious” evaluation of the UN report. There is room for improvement in the report, he says, but the broad conclusions are basically sound.

The Buffett report also points to the breakdown of the relationship between the UN experts and the governments of Rwanda and Uganda. “It is not significant who was first to withdraw cooperation,” it says. “The failure in process undermines the credibility of the findings, limiting potential policy prescriptions that could reduce violence in the Great Lakes region.”

Stearns refuted this, saying that the breakdown of the relationship may have been tied to the fact that the experts uncovered information that Rwanda and Uganda did not like. Journalist David Aronson took a stronger tone in accusing Rwanda for the breakdown in its relationship with the group:

“[T]here’s zero doubt about who broke off the relationship between the GoE and the Rwandan government. The Rwandans did,” wrote Aronson in his blog.

The Way Forward

The attempt to discredit the experts’ report and shift the conversation away from Rwanda’s involvement in the DRC has worked to some extent. Donors are responding by channeling aid through non-government actors. Greening announced at the start of March that £16 million in UK aid money will make its way to humanitarian groups working in Rwanda rather than the government. Germany also reversed course and unblocked the $26 million it suspended in 2012.

Critics of the Buffett Foundation report agree that the causes of instability in the DRC are multifaceted and require a host of solutions. “The Congolese government has certainly played a very negative role in the conflict, often arming armed groups and failing to crack down on criminal networks within its own security forces,” explained Stearns.

That means that any lasting peace deal will require engagement from a diverse sets of interests with the Congolese government. “It appears as if the government in the first line is not interested in reforms. The non-existence of any meaningful security sector reform approaches tells the tale,” said Christoph Vogel, Mercator Fellow on international affairs.

“I have not witnessed any peace effort in DRC so far, that has tried to – either by carrots or sticks – seriously embrace political elites that have been engaging in incitement, funding, or protection of illegal and armed activity in the DRC.”

Congolese experts argue that the continued rebellions make it difficult for such reforms. “[I]gnoring Rwanda’s role in the Kivus as a source of conflict will make the situation worse, not better. And continuing to fund a government that spends its own resources on rebels who rape women and conscript child soldiers is unconscionable for most taxpayers in donor states,” said Seay.

A UN led regional framework was signed in Addis Ababa by 11 African countries, including the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, in February. Despite the challenges, there is a feeling of optimism in response to the UN framework. With neighbouring countries participating and the global community engaged, it appears that now is the time to take permanent steps towards peace.

“There is a unique opportunity given the engagement locally, regionally and internationally to change the security situation in the DR Congo through the UN framework,” says Hall.

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Date: 7th May 2013

At Prof Peter Tufano

Dean- Saïd Business School Park End Street Oxford OX1 1HP -UK

Dear Sir,

Re: Please stop Kagame from entering the Oxford University

Dear Prof Tufano,

We have learnt with sorrow and disappointment that, on 18

th May2013, your school is preparing to roll out a red carpet to President Kagame of Rwanda, one of the bloodiest dictators and criminals in recent human history. By welcoming Mr Kagame, the university of Oxford is jeopardizing its reputation and will be judged by history as having been an accomplice in all the crimes that Mr Kagame has and continues to commit not only on his own people in Rwanda but also on peoples in the Great Lakes region of Africa.

We are British citizens of Rwandan and Congolese origin. We represent different political and civil society organisations pre-occupied by the poverty and political situation as well as bloody wars that Mr Kagame has imposed on Rwandans and Congolese people for 20 years now. We all have parents, brothers, sisters, friends and other relatives who are victims of Mr Kagame’s criminal and warmongering agenda.

Prof Tufano, the list of crimes committed by Kagame is endless. We will just cite here a few and we urge you to do your own research. We are sure you will discover more of his dark personality not worthy to be associated with the University of Oxford.

We Rwandans know Kagame as a man who started the 1994 genocide by shooting down the plane of his predecessor while a peace agreement to end the war had been signed. He knows the truth as we do and that is why he does not even deny it himself

1. We also know him as a pagan butcher who decapitated the Rwandan Catholic Church by killing 4 bishops and many priests. We will not forget him for ordering the killing of more than 8,000 Rwandans in Kibeho2 in May 1995, a place that came to be known as the Srebrenica of Rwanda.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/progs/06/hardtalk/kagame07dec.ram

Combat Medic: An Australian's Eyewitness Account of the Kibeho Massacre

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/ZR/DRC_MAPPING_REPORT_FINAL_EN.pdf page 14, para 31.

The war that Mr Kagame has imposed on DR Congo since 1996 has now claimed the lives of

more than 6 million of our brothers and sisters, making of him the only person to rival Adolf Hitler in terms of numbers of people killed. After describing more than 600 incidents where thousands and thousands of women, children and the elderly were shot, killed by blows from bayonets or hit by shrapnel, the 2010 UN mapping report even talks about a possible genocide that Mr Kagame and his thugs may have committed on Hutus (one of the two main tribes in Rwanda) in Congo : "the apparent systematic and widespread attacks described in this report reveal a number of inculpatory elements that, could be characterized as crimes of genocide"3. The report goes further and says "This report shows that the vast majority of incidents listed, fall within the scope of widespread or

Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo rebel leader with drone

19May

Sunday 19 May 2013

In an exclusive interview with Chris McGreal in Kigali, Rwanda’s president denies backing an accused Congolese war criminal and says challenge to senior US official proves his innocence

M23 rebels train in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A new M23 recruit demonstrates his martial arts skills in the Democratic Republic of the Congo last week. Rwanda denies aiding them. Photograph: James Akena/Reuters

Rwanda‘s president, Paul Kagame, has rejected accusations from Washington that he was supporting a rebel leader and accused war criminal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by challenging a senior US official to send a drone to kill the wanted man.

In an interview with the Observer Magazine, Kagame said that on a visit to Washington in March he came under pressure from the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, Johnnie Carson, to arrest Bosco Ntaganda, leader of the M23 rebels, who was wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). The US administration was increasing pressure on Kagame following a UN report claiming to have uncovered evidence showing that the Rwandan military provided weapons and other support to Ntaganda, whose forces briefly seized control of the region’s main city, Goma.

“I told him: ‘Assistant secretary of state, you support [the UN peacekeeping force] in the Congo. Such a big force, so much money. Have you failed to use that force to arrest whoever you want to arrest in Congo? Now you are turning to me, you are turning to Rwanda?’” he said. “I said that, since you are used to sending drones and gunning people down, why don’t you send a drone and get rid of him and stop this nonsense? And he just laughed. I told him: ‘I’m serious’.”

Kagame said that, after he returned to Rwanda, Carson kept up the pressure with a letter demanding that he act against Ntaganda. Days later, the M23 leader appeared at the US embassy in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, saying that he wanted to surrender to the ICC. He was transferred to The Hague. The Rwandan leadership denies any prior knowledge of Ntaganda’s decision to hand himself over. It suggests he was facing a rebellion within M23 and feared for his safety.

But Kagame’s confrontation with Carson reflects how much relationships with even close allies have deteriorated over allegations that Rwanda continues to play a part in the bloodletting in Congo. The US and Britain, Rwanda’s largest bilateral aid donors, withheld financial assistance, as did the EU, prompting accusations of betrayal by Rwandan officials. The political impact added impetus to a government campaign to condition the population to become more self-reliant.

Kagame is angered by the moves and criticisms of his human rights record in Rwanda, including allegations that he blocks opponents by misusing laws banning hate speech to accuse them of promoting genocide and suppresses press criticism. The Rwandan president is also embittered that countries, led by the US and UK, that blocked intervention to stop the 1994 genocide, and France which sided with the Hutu extremist regime that led the killings, are now judging him on human rights.

“We don’t live our lives or we don’t deal with our affairs more from the dictates from outside than from the dictates of our own situation and conditions,” Kagame said. “The outside viewpoint, sometimes you don’t know what it is. It keeps changing. They tell you they want you to respect this or fight this and you are doing it and they say you’re not doing it the right way. They keep shifting goalposts and interpreting things about us or what we are doing to suit the moment.”

He is agitated about what he sees as Rwanda being held responsible for all the ills of Congo, when Kigali’s military intervention began in 1996 to clear out Hutu extremists using UN-funded refugee camps for raids to murder Tutsis. Kagame said that Rwanda was not responsible for the situation after decades of western colonisation and backing for the Mobutu dictatorship.

The Rwandan leader denies supporting M23 and said he has been falsely accused because Congo’s president, Joseph Kabila, needs someone to blame because his army cannot fight. “To defeat these fellows doesn’t take bravery because they don’t go to fight. They just hear bullets and are on the loose running anywhere, looting, raping and doing anything. That’s what happened,” he said.

“President Kabila and the government had made statements about how this issue is going to be contained. They had to look for an explanation for how they were being defeated. They said we are not fighting [Ntaganda], we’re actually fighting Rwanda.”

SOurce: The Guardian

Politics

Is Kagame Africa’s Lincoln or a tyrant exploiting Rwanda’s tragic history?

19May

Sunday 19 May 2013

Pressing the flesh: with Bill Clinton, who described Kagame as ‘one of the greatest leaders of our time’. Photograph: Ed Ou/Getty Images

Paul Kagame is angrier than I’ve ever seen him. Rwanda‘s president is famously direct with his critics. His contempt for governments he’s crossed swords with, led by the French, is only marginally less vitriolic than his view of human-rights groups daring to lecture him, the rebel leader whose army put a stop to the 1994 genocide of 800,0000 Tutsis. But now even friends are regarded with suspicion to the point of hostility. Take London and Washington accusing Rwanda of perpetuating the interminable and bloody conflict across the border in Congo and flagging up concerns that Kagame is constructing a de-facto one-party state.

They are hypocrites, blind to their own histories, says Rwanda’s president. “Who are these gods who police others for their rights?” he says in an interview with the Observer at the presidential office in Kigali. “One of the things I live for is to challenge that. I grew up in a refugee camp. Thirty years. This so-called human-rights world didn’t ask me what was happening for me to be there 30 years.”

Nearly two decades after the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) emerged from the hills to overthrow the extremist Hutu regime trying to exterminate the Tutsi population, Kagame is still a combative and divisive figure. To some he is the Lincoln of Africa for rising above his country’s old divisions – and his own suffering after narrowly escaping as a child across the border to Uganda during an earlier bout of Tutsi killing – to preach forgiveness, reconciliation and hard work as he forges a new Rwanda out of the ashes of genocide.

The warrior: Paul Kagame with RPF troops in 1993, during the civil war that preceded the genocide. Photograph: Joel Stettenheim/CorbisTo others, Kagame has exploited his country’s tragic history, and the west’s guilt over its inaction during the slaughter, to construct a new Tutsi-dominated authoritarian regime using the legacy of genocide to suppress opposition and cover up for the crimes of his own side. In doing so, critics warn, he is laying the groundwork for another bout of bloodletting down the road.

For years, the heroic view of Kagame prevailed, not least in Britain and the US which, between them, provided about half the money to fund the Rwandan government’s budget. But, in recent months, there’s been a very public shift. Once-unquestioning support from Washington, where Bill Clinton called Kagame “one of the greatest leaders of our time”, has given way to cuts in military aid and warnings from the US war crimes chief that Rwanda’s leadership could find itself under investigation from the international criminal court over its backing for rebels in eastern Congo.

Britain, too, has stepped back from support so unequivocal that Clare Short, then Labour’s international development secretary, called Kagame “a sweetie” and Tony Blair established a foundation to help the man he calls a “visionary leader” to govern. Britain’s Conservative party has been no less enthusiastic. It set up a social-action project in Rwanda to bring hundreds of volunteers over recent years, including Tory MPs, to assist with construction of schools and community centres. Now the relationship is cooler as Congo’s own tragedy, and Rwanda’s part in it, can no longer be ignored.

A trail of imprisoned opponents, exiled former allies and assassinations pinned on Kagame by critics has also eaten away at his claims to be an enlightened, modernising leader who embraces new technology and is an enthusiastic blogger and tweeter. Among those locked up was Kagame’s predecessor as president, Pasteur Bizimungu, while former allies from the RPF’s days as a rebel army have fled abroad. They include Kagame’s former chief aide, Theogene Rudasingwa, who formed a new political party with other exiles including former army chief of staff, General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who was wounded in an apparent assassination attempt in South Africa.

Another former ally, ex-interior minister Seth Sendashonga, who posed a serious political challenge after breaking with Kagame, was assassinated in Kenya 15 years ago. Rwanda’s president has repeatedly denied any hand in the murder and several other apparently politically motivated killings since. But as a pattern of jailings, disappearances and deaths has developed there’s no shortage of people ready to believe the worst.

Kagame increasingly takes a “with us or against us” view of even sympathetic criticism. The sharpness of his reaction suggests he was caught unawares by those he regarded as loyal friends deciding to keep a distance. He denies this. “Nothing would catch me off guard because I understand the world I live in. I understand it very well. And the world I live in is not necessarily a fair or just world. I have dealt with these injustices for the bigger part of my life,” he says.

On the run: in 1996, Kagame’s troops drove Hutu refugees out of UN camps in Congo, and back to Rwanda. Photograph: Yunghi Kim/Contact Press ImagesPart of what infuriates Kagame is what he sees as the age-old duplicity of neo-colonial powers. On the one hand politicians in western capitals are critical over democratic shortcomings in Rwanda. On the other, their diplomatic missions in Kigali praise Kagame for his single-minded, some say authoritarian, leadership in reconstructing his country and are wary of the day he leaves power.

Certainly, Rwanda is a better place than could have been imagined in the aftermath of the genocide. When Kagame’s RPF rebels overthrew the Hutu extremist regime and seized power in 1994 they inherited a country dotted with mass graves and stripped of people. A sizeable proportion of the Hutu population fled across the borders to Zaire and Tanzania driven by fear, and a defeated Hutu leadership determined that Kagame should take over a “country without a people

Socio Economic Network

Friday, July 12, 2013

Kagame hit on Kikwete for Advicing him