Human Rights Watch reveals —
“19 yrs of Kagame’s arbitrary arrests, detentions, killings…etc”
By Richard A Luce
Rwandan President Paul Kagame: “Whoever betrays the country will pay the price. I assure you. “
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has won worldwide acclaim as the man who stopped the 1994 genocide and ushered in a new era that has largely revamped the country and restored its dignity in the world. The 1994 massacres were largely blamed upon the majority Hutu tribe who, it is claimed, were trying to stop the minority Tutsi getting into power. While many brave writers and journalists have pointed out that President Kagame has a lot to answer regarding this genocide, especially reports that along with his Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) he may have started the massacre when he allegedly ordered the shooting down of the private jet carrying former President Juvenal Habyalimana who was returning from a peace meeting with the RPF in Tanzania that resulted into his death alongside the Burundian President who was travelling with him, Kagame has threatened almost anyone who has dared confront him on the issue. This includes high profile people like UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and former French President Nicholas Sarkozy.
Now the London-based rights organisation, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has issued a document in which it has put down in plain words and format, what it believes has happened in Rwanda during the last 19 years that Kagame has been at the helm of Rwanda’s power. Because we know no other newspaper in the Great Lakes Region will dare post this HRW report, we have decided to let our readers read it verbatim so that you can make up your mind about what HRW says and comment on their report. We reproduce this report knowing very well that our colleagues in the Great Lakes Region dare not reproduce it for fear of the Kagame regime. In reproducing this report as written by HRW without any editing, The London Evening Post is exercising our right to freedom of speech as enshrined in laws that govern the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Here is the full report:
Since the genocide which devastated the country and claimed more than half a million lives in 1994, Rwanda has made great strides in rebuilding its infrastructure, developing its economy, and delivering public services. But civil and political rights remain severely curtailed, and freedom of expression is tightly restricted. The government dominated by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)—a former rebel movement that ended the genocide—does not tolerate opposition, challenge, or criticism. In the 19 years since the RPF took power, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented numerous cases of arbitrary arrests, detentions, prosecutions, killings, torture, enforced disappearances, threats, harassment, and intimidation against government opponents and critics. These abuses emerged in the immediate post-genocide period in the mid-1990s and have continued to this day.
In addition to the repression of critical voices inside Rwanda, dissidents and real or perceived critics outside the country—in neighboring Uganda and Kenya, as well as farther afield in South Africa and Europe—have been victims of attacks and threats.
This document highlights some of the cases involving attacks or threats against critics outside Rwanda since the late 1990s. This list is not exhaustive. Human Rights Watch has documented these cases or received reliable information indicating that the victims are likely to have been targeted because of their criticisms of the Rwandan government, the RPF or President Paul Kagame. There have been other cases of Rwandans who were murdered, attacked, threatened, or who died in unclear circumstances in various countries, but are not included because of insufficient information surrounding these attacks.
Col Patrick Karegeya, the former Rwandan chief of military intelligence who was found dead with a rope around his neck.
Background on Attacks
The victims of the attacks abroad have tended to be political opponents or outspoken critics of the Rwandan government or President Kagame himself. Former RPF officials who have turned against President Kagame and become opponents in exile have particularly been targets of attacks and threats. There are similarities between attacks in high-profile cases, for example, the assassinations of former Minister of Interior Seth Sendashonga in 1998 and former Head of External Intelligence Patrick Karegeya in 2014, and the attempted assassination of former army Chief of Staff Kayumba Nyamwasa in 2010, the former in Kenya, and the latter two in South Africa.
A number of the victims had been granted refugee status in the country to which they had fled, in recognition of the risks they faced in Rwanda. The fact that even recognized refugees have fallen prey to such attacks has heightened fears among exiled Rwandans, who now believe that no one is out of reach.
The persistence of attacks on Rwandan government critics in exile, going back almost 20 years, is striking, with the latest such murder—that of Patrick Karegeya—taking place in January 2014. As critics or opponents of the government, the victims all share a certain profile; prior to these attacks many had been threatened by individuals who were part of, or close to, the Rwandan government. The fact that within Rwanda itself, many government opponents have also faced threats and attacks, and the context of the broader persecution of government critics, provide credibility to the allegation that these attacks were politically motivated. They also raise serious and plausible concerns about the possibility of official state collusion in, or tolerance of, these attacks.
When there is an allegation or suggestion that there may have been collusion of state agents in a killing or an attack, international human rights law requires a prompt, public, independent, and effective investigation to examine the possibility of collusion, seriously and effectively.
However, an issue of concern in almost all the cases cited in this document is the failure to make progress in effective investigations capable of identifying the perpetrators, particularly those who ordered the attacks, and bringing them to justice. With the exception of the trial of six people accused of involvement in the attempted assassination of Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa in 2010, which was ongoing at the time of writing, there have been few arrests and even fewer prosecutions. Three men charged and tried in connection with the assassination of one of the most prominent victims, Seth Sendashonga, in Kenya in 1998, were acquitted. No one has been convicted of his murder.
Rwanda Foreign Minister Mushikiwabo commenting on Karegeya’s death: “This man was a self-declared enemy of my Gov & my country, U expect pity?”
The Rwandan Government Response
The Rwandan government has consistently denied any involvement in attacks and threats against its political opponents and critics, and reacted with indignation to allegations that these attacks may have been ordered or facilitated from Kigali. On occasion, Rwandan government officials have attempted to discredit or insult the victims soon after their death, especially when they have been outspoken government opponents.
For example, reacting to allegations that the Rwandan government may have been behind the murder of journalist Charles Ingabire in Uganda in November 2011, President Kagame told journalists: “That is merely one of the assumptions and I don’t think we need to work on just one assumption and neglect the facts. It is wrong, absolutely wrong.” Claiming that the Rwandan authorities had evidence that Ingabire had embezzled money before fleeing to Uganda, he said: “We have many cases like this in Rwanda of people committing crimes and claiming political persecution.”
More recently, following the murder of Patrick Karegeya in South Africa in January 2014, the Rwandan president, prime minister and ministers of foreign affairs and defence all publicly used strong language, branding Karegeya as a traitor and an enemy and implying that he got what he deserved.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Louise Mushikiwabo wrote on Twitter on January 5, 2014: “It’s not about how u start, it’s how u finish. This man was a self-declared enemy of my Gov & my country, U expect pity?” The following day, Prime Minister Pierre Damien Habumuremyi tweeted: “Betraying citizens and their country that made you a man shall always bear consequences to you.”
Rwanda defence Minister James Kabarebe commenting again on Karegeya’s killing: “: “Do not waste your time on reports that so and so was strangled with a rope on flat 7 in whatever country…When you choose to be a dog, you die like a dog, and the cleaners will wipe away the trash so that it does not stink for them…”
An article in News of Rwanda quoted Minister of Defence James Kabarebe saying, during a speech in Gisenyi on January 11, 2014: “Do not waste your time on reports that so and so was strangled with a rope on flat 7 in whatever country…When you choose to be a dog, you die like a dog, and the cleaners will wipe away the trash so that it does not stink for them. Actually, such consequences are faced by those who have chosen such a path. There is nothing we can do about it, and we should not be interrogated over it.”
Most significantly, President Kagame came close to condoning Karegeya’s murder in a public speech on January 12, 2014, when he stated: “Whoever betrays the country will pay the price. I assure you. Letting down a country, wishing harm on people, you end up suffering the negative consequences. Any person still alive who may be plotting against Rwanda, whoever they are, will pay the price…Whoever it is, it is a matter of time.” He added: “I hear some of our people saying: we are not the ones who did it. It’s true they were not the ones who did it, but that is not my concern, because you should be doing it… What is surprising is that you are not doing it. People who dare to betray, betray the country!” Kagame referenced a series of grenade attacks in Kigali, which the government had previously blamed on Karegeya and his collaborators, and said: “And we have to be apologetic about that? Never!”
On the same day, the following tweet was posted from the official twitter account of the President’s office: “I do not have to be apologetic about people who forgot that Rwanda made them who they are and kill innocent people and children”; and “Those who criticize Rwanda know how far they go to protect their own nation.”
The Role of Foreign Governments
In most cases, there is no suggestion that the host governments of the countries where the victims were living colluded in these attacks in any way. On the contrary, these incidents have at times strained diplomatic relations between Rwanda and some of its most important allies, such as Kenya, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
Ugandan President Museveni who first employed Kagame as Uganda’s chief of army intelligence
Uganda
The situation in Uganda is less clear, mainly because there has been a lack of transparency in the Ugandan authorities’ efforts to investigate and bring to justice perpetrators of attacks on Rwandans in Uganda. HRW is not aware of evidence that Ugandan government authorities have been officially or directly involved in particular incidents, though in at least one case, a high-ranking Ugandan police officer facilitated the forcible return of a Rwandan refugee from Uganda to Rwanda. However, longstanding personal relationships between some Ugandan and Rwandan officials may obstruct access to information about possible collusion to facilitate the commission of these crimes.
Many Rwandans initially flee to Uganda because of its proximity. However, it has become one of the least safe countries for Rwandans facing political persecution because of the close links between the police and intelligence services of the two countries. Diplomatic relations between Uganda and Rwanda have fluctuated over the years, but many senior Rwandan officials, particularly those who grew up in Uganda and served in the Ugandan security forces or intelligence services, retain close links in the country. Rwandan agents can therefore operate in Uganda with considerable ease.
In the past four years alone, numerous Rwandan refugees and asylum-seekers in Uganda have reported to HRW a range of incidents, including personal threats by people they know or believe to be Rwandan, attacks on their homes, beatings, attempted abductions, and, in the most serious cases, killings or attempted killings. Some have also reported being threatened and intimidated by Rwandan diplomatic representatives in Uganda.
Refugees or asylum-seekers who are known to be political opponents, critics, or outspoken journalists, are particularly at risk. For example, following the 2010 presidential elections in Rwanda, several members of Rwandan opposition parties and journalists who had fled Rwanda for their safety were personally threatened in Uganda. Most of them have since moved to other countries. Ugandan journalists who have investigated or reported on security threats against Rwandans in Uganda have also raised concerns for their own security, particularly in 2013.
Need for Action
HRW calls on governments of host countries to heighten protection of Rwandan refugees and asylum-seekers who may have well-founded fears for their security in exile, and to carry out thorough investigations into attacks and threats against Rwandan government opponents and critics on their territory, in order to bring those responsible to justice. The Rwandan government should cooperate fully with such investigations.
Donors and foreign governments with links to Rwanda should press for thorough investigations into these incidents and for full cooperation by the Rwandan government with the authorities of the countries concerned.
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Sunday, 26 May 2013
Lion of Africa? Paul Kagame’s Dangerous Delusions of Grandeur
By Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa
In a letter to the Wall Street Journal of May 19, 2013, written for him probably by his spin doctor, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Paul Kagame states:
"This has been our approach in Rwanda. We have decentralized the state, reformed our business sector and strengthened our institutions. But we have also invested in health care, agriculture and education. As a result, the World Bank this year ranked Rwanda as the eighth easiest place in the world to start a business. A recent index in Foreign Policy magazine named the country the fifth best investment destination world-wide."
There are several flaws in President Kagame's argument but let me cite three most important ones:
First, Rwanda has gone through repeated cycles of death and destruction despite economic gains that previous regimes and the current one were able to achieve. Governance is the fundamental problem in Rwanda, long polarized on ethnic and regional lines. Kagame's record on governance is the worst in Africa. In Rwanda, political parties are banned; opposition leaders, human rights activists and journalists jailed, killed or forced into exile.
According to the U.S. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2012, "the most important human rights problems in Rwanda were lack of respect for the integrity of the person, particularly illegal detention, torture, and disappearance of persons detained by State Security Forces; unwarranted restrictions on the freedoms of speech and press, particularly harassment, violence, and arrest of journalists, political dissidents, and human rights advocates….Other major human rights problems included allegations of attempted assassinations of government opponents, both within the country and abroad."
On a visit to Rwanda in 2011, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, a well-known defender of President Kagame, remarked that "the political culture in Rwanda remains comparatively closed. Press restrictions persist. Civil society activists, journalists, and political opponents of the government often fear organizing peacefully and speaking out. Some have been harassed. Some have been intimidated by late-night callers. Some have simply disappeared."
Amnesty International Rwanda Report, 2012, documented "severe restrictions on freedom of expression and association, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and enforced disappearances". Human Rights Watch World Report, 2012, cites that in Rwanda "freedom of expression and political space are still severely restricted. Members of opposition parties, journalists, and other perceived critics of the government were arrested, detained, and tried, some solely for expressing their views." The United Nations Human Rights Commission Mapping Report on the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2010, documented war crimes, crimes against humanity and apparent systematic and widespread attacks against Hutu in the Democratic Republic of Congo that could be characterized as "crimes of genocide". The European Parliament on May 23, 2013, passed a resolution calling upon Rwanda to end political persecution and torture, guarantee fundamental freedoms and independence of the judiciary.
President Paul Kagame's catalogue of gross human rights abuses in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo clearly show a pattern of impunity without accountability.
Second, President Kagame's belligerent policies in the Democratic Republic of Congo have a regional destabilizing and humanitarian effect, by undermining efforts towards peace, security, and economic development. President Kagame's regime is isolated in the region. Tanzania and South Africa, key African players in the regional dynamics, are increasingly unhappy about President Kagame's aggressive policies and actions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Third, his latest venture into Congo through M23 proxies left most of the funding to Rwanda's so-called economic miracle delayed or cut off. The U.N. Group of Experts Report, 2012, documented Rwanda's support to the M23 rebel group, leading to unanimous international outcry and condemnation, even from his long term allies, the United States and the United Kingdom. Late last year President Obama called President Kagame to cease and desist from his actions in Congo. Now, on his upcoming visit to Africa next month, President Obama has excluded Rwanda from his itinerary. President Kagame, too used to a cozy relationship with President Clinton and President Bush, will not be amused by this dramatic reversal of fortunes.
Isolated from his own people, Africans and, increasingly, his own allies, it is mere wishful thinking and an empty dream that small and impoverished Rwanda will ever become the lion of Africa. Violent coercion, flattery and appeasement by some in the West do not place Rwanda on a sustainable trajectory for peace and prosperity. There is no short-cut to accountable government, genuine regional co-operation as a more durable anchor for peace and security, and international support that places people, not repressive dictators, as the center-piece of human development.
Rwanda's history repeatedly shows that stakes are extremely high for Rwanda, the Great Lakes region and the international community. It is time for Rwandans, Rwanda's neighbors and the international community to work together to avert the next bloodbath that will inevitably follow President Kagame's policies and actions if they are not stopped and reversed as soon as possible.
Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa was President Paul Kagame's Chief of Staff, Rwanda's Ambassador to the United States, and Secretary General of Rwanda's ruling party, RPF. He is currently the Coordinator of Rwanda National Congress (RNC) and the author of Healing A Nation: A Testimony: Waging and Winning A Peaceful Revolution to Unite and Heal A Broken Rwanda .
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http://survivorsnetworks.blogspot.com/2011/11/is-paul-kagame-of-rwanda-communist.html
RWANDA: Keith Harmon Snow reveals a list to eliminate the Anti-Kagame
The Rwanda Hit List:Revisionism, Denial, and the Genocide Conspiracy
keith harmon snow
12 March 2010
My experience with the Great Lakes region of Africa began in 1991. While traveling in southern Uganda I was witness to the shooting of an unarmed man by unknown assailants believed to be rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front. Since then I have worked tirelessly to uncover the truth about the war in the Dem. Republic of Congo (DRC) and 'genocide' in Rwanda.
Of course, I presumed the man guilty of conspiracy to commit genocide, prior to any trial, according to the prevailing climate of institutionalized suspicion and assumptions of guilt against all Hutu people, and certainly against all officials of the former government under President Juvenal Habyarimana. Major Ntuyahaga committed genocide. We all knew it. Why bother with a trial?
On April 6--the anniversary of the double presidential killings--2001 I gave expert testimony at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing, convened by Cynthia McKinney, ranking member of the International Operations and Human Rights Subcommittee, International Relations Committee, convened to assess genocide and covert operations in Central Africa.1
For the last 15 years I have been investigating militias and criminal rackets and propaganda about Central Africa. I investigated massacres, assassinations, torture, rape as a weapon of war, and disappearing, individuals and groups, multinational corporations, state and non-state actors, Africans and non-Africans.
Eastern Congo's north and south Kivu provinces are effectively controlled to this day by criminal networks from Rwanda: there are Rwandans who have fled Rwanda there, and others who are allied with the Kagame regime.2 In DRC, I investigated numerous cites of atrocities committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front (RPA/F) and Ugandan People's Defense Forces (UPDF) as they marched across Zaire (DRC), calling themselves the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire/Congo (ADFL), and hunted down and slaughtered perhaps as many as 600,000 unarmed refugees, 1996-1997, mostly women and children under 15 years old.3 I have also interviewed European expatriates who are direct witnesses regarding massacres and/or the creation of mass graves, and the destruction of evidence (including the collection, removal and incineration of bodies and/or skeletons).4
My early reportage on Rwanda (1995-1997) unknowingly advanced false narratives about victims v. killers, and the nature of and culpability for atrocities, including 'genocide' in Rwanda. The established narrative remains overly simplified and the truth has been hijacked and suppressed by the mass media. My work has been very high profile, and I have been warned to stay out of Rwanda by Rwandan insiders. A few years ago the Government of Rwanda (GOR) labeled me a 'genocide denier' and I consider myself persona non grata in Rwanda (and Ethiopia).
On February 24, 2010 a communiqué was received by email from a Rwandan human rights organization in Belgium, written in Kinyarwanda and allegedly leaked, listing alleged directives from the Rwandan intelligence services to members of Rwanda's Annual Ambassadors and High Commissioners Retreat. The closed-doors meeting of February 17-18, 2010--'officially' organized by Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Communications (MINAFFET) Minister Ms. Louis Mushikiwabo, and 'officially' held at MINAFFET headquarters in Kigali, Rwanda--was actually held in Gisenyi. The topic was: "Failure to implement Kigali's orders: crack down the on opposition and other people tarnishing the current RPF government image."
The document circulated coincident with the late February 2010 defection and flight of Rwanda's ambassadors to Holland and India (see below). While its origin remains unverified, this document exemplifies the GOR's modus operandi on public and international relations.
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Some Conclusions of the Ambassadors' Meeting in Kigali
During an in camera meeting between the Rwandan ambassadors and President Kagame in February 2010, many issues were discussed.
The ambassadors have been criticized of failing to fulfill their mission of representing Rwanda abroad. They were reminded the instructions they failed to fulfill, with the consequences of tarnishing the Rwanda image following the negative propaganda by the Rwandan refugees.
They were given a report from the Intelligence Services revealing the enemies of the country who should be fought by all means possible and if necessary by assassination. The following are names of foreigners and organizations that need to be fought urgently.
Foreigners to target: Robin Philpot5; C. Peter Erlinder; Keith Harmon Snow; Jordi Palou-Loverdos; Peter Verlinden; Pierre Péan; Charles Onana; Filip Reyntjens; Luc de Temmerman.
Also target Rwandan refugees representing the FDLR [Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Congo] in Africa; Europe; America; and elsewhere.
Organizations to target, starting by their leaders (CLIIR; COSAR; FEDA; AJIIR; AGPJR; OPJDR).
Political parties that are active abroad, starting with their leaders (FDU/UDF; Intwari Partnership; PDR-Ihumure; PDP-Imanzi).
We are still collecting information about the list of the Rwandese people to be hunted specifically because they are sabotaging the Kigali regime. This list is long and it keeps growing, as enemies are getting more numerous.
The ambassadors were given all authority to have these people eliminated or discredited. Each ambassador would request, as needed, the government to provide all capabilities to attain his objectives. Whoever gets more information would kindly share with other group members.
Wishing you all the best.
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The westerners listed above (a few key 'enemies' names do not appear, including Christopher Black, Wayne Madsen, Cynthia McKinney, Luc Marchal, Mick Collins and Helmut Strizek) have pressed against public opinion and propaganda to expose the lies, disinformation and terrorism victimizing innocent people and shielding the true perpetrators of the crimes in Central Africa.
While we are led to believe that the perpetrators are those nasty genocidaires, the extremist Hutus, their Interahamwe militias, the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in Congo, and other undesirables, the primary responsible perpetrators are always protected. These are:
[1] Rwandan President Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front: the elite, extremist Tutsi network that has committed massive atrocities and widespread terrorism in Central Africa as far back as 1980, and primarily responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Rwanda (1990-present) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (1996-present);
[2] Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and the Ugandan People's Defense Forces (UPDF): the elite, extremist Hema networks operating out of Uganda and the source of the RPA/F Tutsi networks, who together perpetrated massive war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, in Uganda (1980-present), Rwanda (1990-1998) the DRC (1996-present);6
[3] The backers, partners, allies and propagandists of the Kagame and Museveni regimes who are from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Europe.
How do these terrorist networks maintain and spread their ideology and terrorism worldwide, even as into the United States?
The Dehumanization of Hutu People
Any person of Rwandan, Ugandan or Burundian origin, no matter their sex, age or ethnicity, or their civilian or military status, who has sought asylum from or in any way annoyed the Government of Rwanda (GOR), will be persecuted, subject to intimidation, arbitrary arrest, and detention without trial, if not torture, forced labor, extrajudicial execution, or being 'disappeared'.
Rwandans inside and outside Rwanda are accused of 'genocide' or 'complicity in genocide' through fabricated evidence, coerced testimonies, bribery, and petty jealousies. There is no possibility of any kind of fair trial procedure in Rwanda and no possibility of freely investigating facts, or identifying and securing witnesses.
The categories 'extremist Hutu' and 'moderate Hutu', like the general categories of 'Hutu' and 'Tutsi,' are complex and not easily negotiated in the context of 'genocide', 'terrorism' and other violence in Rwanda from 1990 to the present. The labels 'genocidaire' and 'Interahamwe' are freely applied by the RPA/F regime to demonize anyone they see fit, no matter the veracity or falseness of the claims against those they accuse.7
The GOR under the one-party control of Paul Kagame projects a shiny veneer of tourism, development and 'entrepreneurism', but submerged barely under the surface of this veneer there exists a climate of absolute terror and there are profound ethnic divisions leading towards war. We are beginning to see this more openly with the approach of the 2010 elections.8
Rwanda (and Uganda) is run by a secretive criminal military organization in parallel with formal government structures, responsible for the systematic and intentional deaths of: scores of thousands of persons in Rwanda from Oct 1, 1990 to April 5, 1994; hundreds of thousands of persons in Rwanda from April 6, 1994 to December 31, 1995; tens of thousands of persons in Rwanda between January 1, 1995 and January 1, 2010; between 200,000 and 700,000 Rwandan refugees in DRC and for the deaths of between 100,000 and 300,000 Burundian refugees in DRC between September 1996 and September 1997; and millions of persons of Rwandan, Congolese, Burundian and Ugandan origin in DRC between September 1996 and the present day.9
Language has also been manipulated for the dehumanization of all Hutu people. For example, the label 'Interahamwe' has come to stand for 'extremist murderous Hutu militias' and has usually been translated from Kinyarwanda to mean "those who attack together." Yet President Paul Kagame and the RPA/F military-intelligence apparatus applies this terminology to mean "anyone who is in opposition to the Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front movement, its government, or its elite clandestine networks," and in the case of Paul Kagame, even to "anyone I don't like," and the labels 'Interahamwe' and genocidaire are used to dehumanize all Hutu people everywhere, just as the Jews were dehumanized by National Socialism in Germany prior to and during World War II. This has created the political, social and economic conditions for the perpetration of genocide by the RPA/F government, and its collaborators, and this dehumanization has been perpetuated through the international mass media, human rights institutions, think tanks, non-government organizations, and foreign governments everywhere.
The dehumanization of all Hutu people, and the persecution of anyone in opposition to the RPA/F, was supported as early as 1988 by certain international 'legal' and 'human rights' institutions working as clandestine agents and/or accomplices to the RPA/F agenda.
The terms 'genocidaire' and 'Interahamwe' are meaningless due to the constituency and fluidity of these terms. For example, the President of the Interahamwe, presented to the world as an extremist Hutu killing organization, was Robert Kajuga, a Tutsi businessman. Similarly, the treasurer of the Interahamwe was Dieudonne Niyitegaka, a Hutu businessman resettled in Canada in reward for his collaboration to accuse and frame other Hutus with 'genocide'. The RPA/F had infiltrated and controlled the Interahamwe, and this renders the terminology, and its ideological force, meaningless.
The criminal parallel structure behind the Rwandan government has been identified by numerous experts and investigations, including more than seven United Nations Panels of Experts between 2000 and 2009;10 the high court indictments of Spain11 and France12; the exhaustive analyses by eminent Rwandan experts, including Dr. Filip Reyntjens13; the work of investigative journalists like Charles Onana, Wayne Madsen and myself14; the Michael Hourigan report assessing blame for the presidential assassinations of April 6, 1994; the Robert Gersony report documenting RPF/A atrocities against tens of thousands of Rwandans in Rwanda in 1994; the Helmut Strizek report to the ICTR titled Discredit the Hutu Population Forever;15 ICTR defense attorneys Chris Black, Peter Erlinder, John Philpot, Phil Taylor and others; the McKinney hearings; and research by academics; and by many credible sources, human rights documents, testimonies and other examples in the public record.
Even Tutsis--the supposed victims--have been persecuted by the victorious RPA/F Tutsi regime in Rwanda. We all know the standard story about 800,000 to 1.2 million Tutsis killed. Well, these numbers are wrong, and the constituency of the dead is wrong. It cannot be denied that hundreds of thousands of Tutis were killed in Rwanda, especially if we confine our discussion to the 100 days of genocide from April 6 to July 1994.
Clearly, there is evidence of persecution and threats of persecution against Tutsis based on the established realities about acts of genocide committed by members of the Hutu ethnic group in Rwanda between April 6, 1994 and July 1994, and there has also been retaliatory violence, post-1994, against Tutsis. However, there is substantial documentation about the RPF/A regime killing Tutsis, because this elite Tutsi rebel force did not trust any members of the Tutsi minority who stayed in Rwanda after President Juvenal Habyarimana came to power in 1973: Rwandan Tutsis were generally eliminated, internally displaced, assassinated and/or forced to flee Rwanda.
The Genodynamics Project of academic researchers Dr. Christian Davenport and Dr. Alan Stam, both U.S. citizens, has seriously challenged the Rwanda genocide mythology. Stam and Davenport were labeled 'genocide deniers' by the mass media and the Tutsi expatriate community after publishing their interim research on 'genocide' in Rwanda and they are persona non grata in Rwanda today.16
There is overwhelming evidence establishing that crimes defined, prosecuted and/or punished as 'genocide' in Rwanda, whether before 1994, in 1994, or after 1994, were for reasons other than ethnicity. The GOR itself admits that both 'Tutsis and moderate Hutus' were victims of the violence in 1994. Thus while these acts of violence may constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other crimes--including acts of genocide--the allegation that Hutus were both the victims and the perpetrators of the 1994 violence does not on its face meet the specific intent required of 'genocide' as defined by the international Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.17 The current regime is responsible for massive bloodshed against all ethnic groups in Rwanda, and the façade is supported internationally due to the economic, political and military interests at stake.18 The International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) also supported the façade, as confirmed by Carla Del Ponte, the former Chief Prosecutor of the ICTR, in her memoirs.19
People accused of 'genocide' in Rwanda have been brought before the so-called 'community-based' Gacaca tribunals repeatedly, compelled by the GOR to revisit their cases until a guilty verdict is established; many innocent civilians have been tried and retried until they were found guilty. After one Gacaca tribunal found the accused persons innocent the citizen judges fled for their lives, were captured, returned to their Gacaca and 'compelled' to retry the case, and returned a guilty verdict. Human rights experts have criticized the Gacaca system as a mechanism of terror used to silence critics.20
Apologists for the Regime
The London-based 'non-government organization' African Rights was co-founded by Rakiya Omaar, a woman of Somali origin who has worked since 1990-1991 as a paid agent of the RPA/F regime, always casting the Hutus as perpetrators and Tutsis, and especially the RPA/F Tutsi extremists, as the victims of the violence, creating a positive image for the RPA/F.21
African Rights has generated false accusations against Rwandans that have led to their arrest and imprisonment and its 'human rights investigations' have whitewashed the RPA/F terrorism. African Rights has petitioned governments, the ICTR and other legal bodies, even Pope John Paul II, and it spreads disinformation in international media (only to happy to comply), and accused and secured the arrest and prosecution of RPA/F 'dissidents'.22 For example, African Rights helped frame Monsignor Augustin Misago, the Bishop of Gikongoro, who was subsequently arrested and jailed in 1999, but cleared by the Rwandan Court in 2000.23 They have produced disinformation targeting Rwandan opposition in DRC24 (used by ICTR prosecutors25).
A Rwandan agent working for African Rights for the past 8-10 years, first in Kigali and then in Zambia, fled to seek asylum in Belgium in February 2010. Felicien Bahizi recently testified in a court of law (Scandinavia) about African Rights' clandestine ties to the RPA/F, the falsification of documents and allegations used to accuse, indict and imprison 'enemies' of the regime.
An extension of the RPA/F network into the 'human rights' sector, African Rights is on the payroll of the RPA/F government, as evidenced by a letter from Rakiya Omaar requesting payment of an "outstanding $100,159" for their production of a propaganda book benefiting the regime.26 Rakiya Omaar works freely in Rwanda, where she has a special office.
There are other rights bodies and 'experts' on 'genocide in Rwanda' who have protected the killers and criminalized the victims, including the pro-RPA/F International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda Since October 1, 1990, early reports by Africa Watch and Human Rights Watch, and others.27
The 1993 International Commission of Inquiry [ICI] on Rwanda included the Human Rights Watch expert on Rwanda, Alison Des Forges, and Canadian law professor William Schabas, both of whom have provided expert testimony used to convict Rwandans of genocide or related crimes, and both have been discredited in law courts. Schabas has been one of the U.S. government's witnesses of choice for hunting refugees28 and travels free in Rwanda.
William Schabas and French human rights activist Jean Carbonare, both members of the ICI, were amongst the first to apply the term 'genocide' to Rwanda and against the Hutu government of Juvenal Habyarimana.
"On 22 January 1993, in a press statement published in Paris after returning from Kigali [as a member of the ICI], they accused President Habyarimana of having already committed Genocide against the Tutsis under the pretext of the RPF war launched on 1 October 1990. In a television broadcast with Bruno Masure on 28 January 1993, Jean Carbonare was given the opportunity to repeat the accusation to an audience of millions."29
The ICTR has not prosecuted any suspects of the RPA/F, no matter the evidence of crimes, including: the assassinations of the presidents of Rwanda (Juvenal Habyarimana) and Burundi (Cyprien Ntaryamira), their chiefs of staff, several aides, and the French pilots of the Dassault Falcon 50 aircraft (a gift from French President Mitterand) on April 6, 1994, the pivotal event which sparked the 1994 genocide;30 or the massive crimes described in the indictments issued by the judiciaries of France and Spain.31
In December 2008, the Trial Chamber-1 at the ICTR acquitted the four highest-ranking senior military officers of the former government army, the ex-Forces Armee Rwandaise (ex-FAR), including General Theoneste Bagosora (the supposed 'genocide mastermind'), of conspiracy to commit genocide.32
In November, 2009, the Appeals Chambers of the ICTR acquitted Protais Zigiranyirazo, brother-in-law of President Juvenal Habyarimana, of all charges of 'genocide planning', following seven years of trial at the ICTR, where the court found that the Prosecutor's evidence was explained by normal military planning in the course of the four year Rwandan civil war (1990-1994).
In November, 2009, the Appeals Chambers of the ICTR acquitted, and ordered the immediate release of, Hormistas Nsengimana, charged with genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Rwanda in 1994.
The above ICTR judgments destroy the 'conspiracy to commit genocide' conspiracy universally charged to the former Hutu government and responsible for the total dehumanization of Hutu people everywhere.
ABOVE: Kagame's comrades at the US Army's Fort Levenworth, Kansas, 1990.
Vigilante Journalism
The current regime in Rwanda is aggressively hunting down any perceived threat, including dissidents, refugees, political opposition, former soldiers of the Habyarimana government (ex-FAR) and former RPF/A, regardless of ethnicity.
Goucher College (Md.) professor Dr. Leopold Munyakazi is one of their latest targets, falsely accused of being a genocidaire merely because he has been an outspoken critic of the regime. Dr. Munyakazi was unjustly framed--in support of the RPA/F agenda to neutralize him--by a short-lived NBC News television program that sought to gain high prime time ratings (read: corporate profits) by tracking down and 'exposing' supposed genocidaires. The program was titled THE WANTED, and the morality of 'good versus evil' was subliminally underscored by the choice of the show's commentator, Scott Tyler, an ex-Navy Seal, who by moral implication embodies saintliness, while the wanted man, Dr. Leopold Munyakazi, embodies the devil. The zealous NBC News team acted as accuser, judge and jury against Dr. Munyakazi.33
The U.S. Embassy in Kigali allegedly assisted the criminal RPA/F regime in framing Dr. Munyakazi and, from August to December 2009, the U.S. Embassy collaborated in the RPA/F campaign of intimidation, bribery, detention and punishment of hundreds of people acquainted with Dr. Munyakazi, in order to fabricate evidence and coerce witnesses against him.
At Goucher College "a swirling retinue of about ten cameramen, technicians, and professional interrogators" descended on Dr. Munyakazi as he finished teaching a French class.34 Leading the pack was NBC Producer Adam Ciralsky: when contacted by other journalists, Ciralsky hid behind NBC's corporate PR department.35 Prejudged by journalists and mass media, whether acting overzealously or in collaboration with the RPA/F regime, Rwanda's critics, refugees and survivors have been falsely accused and, through the mass media, publicly branded as genocidaires.
Just as the NBC News television team targeted Dr. Leopold Munyakazi at Goucher College in February 2009, mass media sensationalism and genocidaire branding to advance the criminal aims of the GOR has been used before.
In Laredo, Texas in 1998, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, a Hutu pastor, was accosted by New Yorker magazine writer Philip Gourevitch, an RPA/F supporter and personal friend of Paul Kagame, whose book was one of the earliest propaganda tracts espousing the now entrenched narrative about Hutus (killers) v. Tutsis (victims) and the so-called '100 days of genocide' in Rwanda.36 Ntakirutimana was extradited, tried and cionvicted by the ICTR; his story--sensationalized and fictionalized by Philip Gourevitch--was published in the award-winning non-fiction' book whose title takes it's name from a letter written by Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, but one which Gourevitch misconstrued and criminalized.37
The British Broadcasting Corporation in 2006 publicly branded as genocidaire Dr. Vincent Bajinya, a Hutu physician and U.K. citizen who lived and worked in London for years. Similar to the NBC camera crew's unannounced confrontation with Dr. Leopold Munyakazi in Maryland, without any appointment or prior warning, a BBC team showed up on the street in London and shoved a television camera in Dr. Bajinya's face and began interrogating him about his alleged role as a 'mastermind' of the Rwandan Genocide.38
Within days of the first BBC report, the Dr. Vincent Bajinya story was everywhere in the news and was combined with defamatory stories branding three other Rwandan refugees (Charles Munyaneza, Emmanuel Nteziryayo, and Celestin Ugirashebuja) supposedly 'hiding' in the U.K. The BBC framed all four refugees as 'Most Wanted' criminals and 'masterminds' of 'genocide in Rwanda in 1994'. After confronting Bajinya in London the BBC team traveled to Rwanda and, escorted by GOR agents, filmed the places and people who testified on camera to the alleged crimes.
The four Rwandans were jailed for 28 months and the case was supported by RPA/F intelligence agent Jean Bosco Mutangana, the head of Rwanda's genocide fugitives tracking unit, who also turned up with the NBC News crew and confronted the President of Goucher College (MD) and Dr. Leopold Munyakazi.39
The City of Westminster Magistrates' Court ordered the extradition of all four Rwandans but an appeals court on April 8, 2009, ruled that there was no freedom or justice in Rwanda ordered their release.40, 41
Enemies of the State
Who are Paul Kagame and the RPA/F regime's 'enemies'?
Since August 2009 the Kagame regime has been intimidating, bribing and forcing 'witnesses' to fabricate evidence of Dr. Munyakazi's guilt in order to attempt to substantiate these charges and convince the U.S. and public opinion that there are grounds for Dr. Munyakazi's extradition. Some 200-300 people have been terrorized by the RPA/F regime in order to compel witness testimonies out of fear, and to frame Dr. Leopold Munyakazi.
In 2002, two of Dr. Munyakazi's children were threatened and forced to flee to Europe where they were granted refugee status. In 2006 Dr. Munyakazi's wife fled to the United States and applied for asylum after being threatened with imprisonment by local Rwandan authorities and blamed with "being married to a Hutu Interahamwe" because she refused to give false testimonies against the former neighbors of the Munyakazis. Between October and December 2006, three children of Dr. Munyakazi were systematically harassed and terrified, often through unannounced middle of the night visits, by the RPF/A Directorate of Military Intelligence and Local Defense Force agents; the family members fled to Uganda.
On August 3rd 2009, the chairperson of the Gacaca tribunal in Dr. Munyakazi's native area reportedly confirmed that a dozen persons were put in jail because they had refused to give false accusations against Dr. Munyakazi. On September 2, 2009, she again informed Dr. Munyakazi that some 200 people had their cases revised before the Gacaca tribunal mainly to get a 'legal reason' to incarcerate them. From October 12-30, 2009, the Gacaca tribunal condemned 15 of these people to lengthy prison terms based on these fabricated crimes.
In seeking to fabricate evidence and extort or coerce testimonies against Dr. Leopold Munyakazi, the GOR has reportedly forced hundreds (minimum) of civilians from their homes in Dr. Leopold Munyakazi's native and neighboring areas (Gitarama Prefecture), taken them to Kigali, and 'interviewed' them inside the U.S. Embassy, and with the collaboration of U.S. Embassy officials. Many refused to testify against Dr. Munyakazi and were subsequently, while some have accepted bribes to testify against Dr. Munyakazi, and some have later changed their minds when threatened with being brought before a Gacaca court on charges of 'complicity in genocide', while others have had their Gacaca hearings 're-done,' with the understanding that no one is innocent, on penalty of violence from the GOR.
When Victims Become Killers
One of the latest pro-RPA/F vigilante refugee hunters on the Rwanda 'genocidaire' trail is Jason Stearns, a former U.N. (MONUC) and International Crises Group 'analyst' (the ICG and its clone groups ENOUGH and Raise Hope for Congo are front for the U.S. National Security apparatus funded by the Center for American Progress).
Stearns also worked on several U.N. panels of experts on the illegal exploitation in the DR Congo, including the U.N. 'experts' report of November 2009, which launched a smear campaign against Fundacio S'Olivar and Inshuti, Spanish charities affiliated with Juan Carrero Seralegui, Jordi Palou-Loverdos (named on Rwanda's 'Hit List' above) and Joan Casoliva Barcons, accusing them of backing terrorists in Congo. This is the U.N.'s failed attempt to discredit the Spanish indictments against the RPA/F.44, 45
A key 'confidential source' for the U.N. Panel of Experts [sic] has been the RPA/F front group African Rights: the November 'experts' report was fed information through RPA/F agents Theodore Nyilinkawaya in Brussels and Rakiya Omaar in Kigali. It appears that African Rights has maintained a tight connection to previous U.N. Panel of Expert's as well.
Working out of Yale University grad school, Stearns has been zealously gunning for Rwandans connected to the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an organization also targeted on Rwanda's 'Hit List' (above) and Kagame's disingenuous excuse, over and over, for RPA/F terrorism in DRC. "For an excellent review of the FDLR Diaspora," Stearns wrote, citing the RPA/F front African Rights, "see Rakiya Omaar's recent report: 'The end in sight?'"46
The Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)--until 2000 known as the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR)--are not the evil genocidaires respondible for every war crime in Central Africa, as they are billed by western flak organizations like ENOUGH, Raise Hope for Congo, the U.N. panels of experts, Jason Stearns and their benefactors in the Kagame muilitary regime. FDLR include ex-FAR soldiers forced out of Rwanda during the illegal RPA/F invasion and coup d'etat. Being in the losing side does not automatically make these soldiers genocidaires or war criminals: their cuilpability in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide is far less evident than the culpability of the RPA/F regime. So-called "FDLR" in Congo also include innocent women and children who have been subject to war crimes by the RPA/F and its factions (RCD, CNDP, etc.) and their artners, including the FARDC, and the United Nations Observers Mission for DR Congo (MONUC). To add insult to injury, the organized crime networks of the Kagame government, and even Canadian BANRO Ciorporation (illegally occupying and terrorizing South Kivu) have alliances and realtyionships with FDLR and other Hutu groups in eastern Congo.
The criminalized genocidaire label of 'FDLR' offers the ready made sound bite utilized by the media, by white skinned propagandists like Nicholas Kristof and Jeffrey Gettleman, by actorvists like Ben Affleck and George Clooney, and by western institutions like the United Nations, and US Government, to whitewash their own involvement in criminal exploitation of one stripe or another. The ultimate goal is western corporatte control achieved with through such supposedly 'progressive' legislation as the U.S. Congress bills in Blood Minerals. The situation with the Lord's resistance Army--the scapegoat for which to excuse President Yoweri Museveni--and the LRA Disarmanent Act is identical, but different, but only to serve wetsren militarization and expropriation of African people's lives and lands and loves.
U.N. 'expert' Jason Stearns never mentions the western corporations, intelligence agents or U.S. officials involved in the Great Lakes plunder. Instead, Stearns is on crusade against Dr. Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro and Dr. Felicien Kanyamibwa, two Rwandan intellectuals living in the U.S.A. named as leaders or former leaders of the FDLR. Stearns has lobbied the U.S. State Department to arrest and charge the Rwandan opposition leaders, by any means necessary, to "get them for material support to a terrorist organization" or "for having committed fraud on their immigration documents." 47
Dr. Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro was director of the Rwandan Information Office (ORINOFOR) under the Habyarimana government: Dr. Higiro was a member of the MDR (Mouvement Démocratique Républicain), a political party opposed to the Habyarimana regime. He is one of very few intellectuals left alive with an insider's understanding of the genocide propaganda leading up to April 6, 1994, and what scares the U.S. and their RPA/F proxy is his understanding of the genocidal media of the RPA/F.48
Dr. Higiro's daughter was born in the USA, and Dr. Higiro and his family were evacuated from Rwanda to Burundi by the U.S. Embassy on April 9, 1994, was flown on a U.S. military Hercules C-130 to Nairobi (the USAF billed him for the flight). He was appointed Minister of Information to the RPF/A government on July 19, 1994, the day he flew to the U.S. He declined to return after reports of the RPF/A's "unmistakable patterns of killings" of scores of thousands of Hutus.49, 50
Dr. Higiro has lived under constant threats and accusations--and assumptions of his 'complicity in genocide'--to the present day, teaching at Western New England College in Springfield, Ma, a U.S. citizen since 2000. A photo that Dr. Higiro (his child in his arms) sent to his aged father in Rwanda was confiscated when African Rights investigators intimidated Dr. Higiro's father at his home village in Rushaki, Rwanda; the photo identifies Dr. Higiro (one of the FDLR terrorists) in an African Rights document authored by Rakiya Omaar.51
Dr. Felicien Kanyamibwa left Rwanda in 1991 and was a Ph.D student in the U.S. in 1994. Funneled disinformation from African Rights, the Rwandan state media accused him of being a Hutu 'hardliner' tied to the Interahamwe and ex-FAR, casting him as a genocidaire.52 Dr. Kanyamibwa lives in New Jersey. As with most Rwandans being hunted by the RPA/F, the Department of Homeland Security is constantly harassing him.
The Christian Science Monitor has also been practicing vigilante journalism for the RPA/F through Max Delany and Scott Baldauf.53 The CSM advances U.S. State propaganda through the International Crises Group intelligence agents John Prendergast, former National Security Council under William Jefferson Clinton, and Guillaume Lacaille, former U.N. Political Affairs Officer and U.S. Embassy Attaché, and they protect western corporations plundering eastern Congo (Banro Resources, Cabot, Moto Gold, Anglo-Ashanti, etc.). Of course, the U.S. military's AFRICOM is all over Central Africa, backing, training and funding the RPA/F and UPDF, building bases in Rwanda, Uganda, Congo and South Sudan, and force missions are run by the Pentagon's Special Operations Command--SOCOM: covert operations, death squads, snatch-and-grab black ops, psychological warfare, other terrorism of the kind that first brought the RPA/F to power.54
Max Delany is working on a hit piece about Dr. Higiro and Dr. Kanyamibwa, expected to appear on April 6, 2010--the anniversary of the 'plane crash' [sic] that sparked the '100 days of genocide' [sic]. "I hope that North America will do something about the FDLR leaders on their soil too," the CSM quotes the ICG's Lacaille to say. "Because when you go against the [Hutu] genocidaires of 1994, you are doing it because of justice. When you go against someone like Ignace Murwanashyaka"55--or Dr. Higiro, or Dr. Munyakazi--"it's not only justice, it's about security in the Democratic Republic of Congo."56
The end to impunity for war and terrorism in Central Africa begins with the arrest of the 40 extremist Tutsi RPA/F war criminals indicted by the Spanish court, and with the arrest and indictment of His Excellency, Paul Kagame, the man they call 'the Butcher of Kigali'--one of AFRICOM's leading men in Central Africa.
56 Scott Baldauf, "Rwanda Rebel Leaders: US, French, Spanish and Congo Business Links," Christian Science Monitor, December 2, 2009(
Hello
@Pierre -- please see my extensive reporting on the white criminals and their war crimes in Congo (central Africa) some of which is on this site and much more on my old site www.allthingspass.com .
@Chris -- The Clinton's are deeply aligned with Kagame and seek to cover up teh truth (like this). Thats why the propaganda system portrays a Rwanda that is a success story and why they keep giving awards to Kagame. Meanwhile, depopulation is apparently a policy in Central Africa -- its no dfifferent than the white people's genocide in North America 1492 to 1900, and into the present. The veneer of stability in Rwanda is slowly cracking open to reveal the truth of massive suffering and terrorism by the Kagame regime. People don't seem to know that famine is widespread in Rwanda, that peasants are FORCED to plant cash crops like COFFEE -- Starbusk genocide coffee -- for export, yet can't feed their families. Also, the average age of death for women is 39 or 40 and men a little higher. The Clintons. Andrew Young, their other pals like Riock Warren -- all wrapped up in organized crime. Who will tell the story? Alison Des Forges was correct when she titled her book LEAVE NONE TO TELL THe STORY -- only she had the victims and killers reversed (being, as she was, an agent of the US Gov).
While we are led to believe that the perpetrators are those nasty genocidaires, the extremist Hutus, their Interahamwe militias, the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in Congo, and other undesirables, the primary responsible perpetrators are always protected. These are:
[1] Rwandan President Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front: the elite, extremist Tutsi network that has committed massive atrocities and widespread terrorism in Central Africa as far back as 1980, and primarily responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Rwanda (1990-present) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (1996-present);
[2] Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and the Ugandan People's Defense Forces (UPDF): the elite, extremist Hema networks operating out of Uganda and the source of the RPA/F Tutsi networks, who together perpetrated massive war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, in Uganda (1980-present), Rwanda (1990-1998) the DRC (1996-present);6
[3] The backers, partners, allies and propagandists of the Kagame and Museveni regimes who are from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Europe.
How do these terrorist networks maintain and spread their ideology and terrorism worldwide, even as into the United States?
ABOVE: Map from the petroleum sector showing petroleum concessions (green) under Lake Albert and in northern Uganda areas where the Ugandan government has interned Acholi people in death cames, leading to one of the greatest unacknowledged genocides of the current era, and the Barrick Gold (Bau) concessions in Congo and Tanzania.
Any person of Rwandan, Ugandan or Burundian origin, no matter their sex, age or ethnicity, or their civilian or military status, who has sought asylum from or in any way annoyed the Government of Rwanda (GOR), will be persecuted, subject to intimidation, arbitrary arrest, and detention without trial, if not torture, forced labor, extrajudicial execution, or being 'disappeared'.
Rwandans inside and outside Rwanda are accused of 'genocide' or 'complicity in genocide' through fabricated evidence, coerced testimonies, bribery, and petty jealousies. There is no possibility of any kind of fair trial procedure in Rwanda and no possibility of freely investigating facts, or identifying and securing witnesses.
The categories 'extremist Hutu' and 'moderate Hutu', like the general categories of 'Hutu' and 'Tutsi,' are complex and not easily negotiated in the context of 'genocide', 'terrorism' and other violence in Rwanda from 1990 to the present. The labels 'genocidaire' and 'Interahamwe' are freely applied by the RPA/F regime to demonize anyone they see fit, no matter the veracity or falseness of the claims against those they accuse.7
The GOR under the one-party control of Paul Kagame projects a shiny veneer of tourism, development and 'entrepreneurism', but submerged barely under the surface of this veneer there exists a climate of absolute terror and there are profound ethnic divisions leading towards war. We are beginning to see this more openly with the approach of the 2010 elections.8
Rwanda (and Uganda) is run by a secretive criminal military organization in parallel with formal government structures, responsible for the systematic and intentional deaths of: scores of thousands of persons in Rwanda from Oct 1, 1990 to April 5, 1994; hundreds of thousands of persons in Rwanda from April 6, 1994 to December 31, 1995; tens of thousands of persons in Rwanda between January 1, 1995 and January 1, 2010; between 200,000 and 700,000 Rwandan refugees in DRC and for the deaths of between 100,000 and 300,000 Burundian refugees in DRC between September 1996 and September 1997; and millions of persons of Rwandan, Congolese, Burundian and Ugandan origin in DRC between September 1996 and the present day.9
Language has also been manipulated for the dehumanization of all Hutu people. For example, the label 'Interahamwe' has come to stand for 'extremist murderous Hutu militias' and has usually been translated from Kinyarwanda to mean "those who attack together." Yet President Paul Kagame and the RPA/F military-intelligence apparatus applies this terminology to mean "anyone who is in opposition to the Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front movement, its government, or its elite clandestine networks," and in the case of Paul Kagame, even to "anyone I don't like," and the labels 'Interahamwe' and genocidaire are used to dehumanize all Hutu people everywhere, just as the Jews were dehumanized by National Socialism in Germany prior to and during World War II. This has created the political, social and economic conditions for the perpetration of genocide by the RPA/F government, and its collaborators, and this dehumanization has been perpetuated through the international mass media, human rights institutions, think tanks, non-government organizations, and foreign governments everywhere.
ABOVE:
Hutu people in the DR Congo, as everywhere, have become the scapegoats
for the international organized crime and its white collar war
criminals, and their porxy agents, in Central Africa. This is the
dehumanization of innocent men, women and children, and even babies have
been massacred by the RPA in Rwanda and through the RPA's invaders in
Congo (RCD, CNDP) masquerading as Congolese. The FDLR -- Forces for the
Democratic Liberation of Rwanda -- are some of the most misunderstood
and legitimate fighters in Central Africa. Comprisd of soldiers who fled
the murderous US -RPA coup d'etat, these people are not Central
Africa's nightmare, as they are everywhere portrayed. War is peace.
Victims are klillers, teh supposed killers are the victims.
Hutu people in the DR Congo, as everywhere, have become the scapegoats
for the international organized crime and its white collar war
criminals, and their porxy agents, in Central Africa. This is the
dehumanization of innocent men, women and children, and even babies have
been massacred by the RPA in Rwanda and through the RPA's invaders in
Congo (RCD, CNDP) masquerading as Congolese. The FDLR -- Forces for the
Democratic Liberation of Rwanda -- are some of the most misunderstood
and legitimate fighters in Central Africa. Comprisd of soldiers who fled
the murderous US -RPA coup d'etat, these people are not Central
Africa's nightmare, as they are everywhere portrayed. War is peace.
Victims are klillers, teh supposed killers are the victims.
The terms 'genocidaire' and 'Interahamwe' are meaningless due to the constituency and fluidity of these terms. For example, the President of the Interahamwe, presented to the world as an extremist Hutu killing organization, was Robert Kajuga, a Tutsi businessman. Similarly, the treasurer of the Interahamwe was Dieudonne Niyitegaka, a Hutu businessman resettled in Canada in reward for his collaboration to accuse and frame other Hutus with 'genocide'. The RPA/F had infiltrated and controlled the Interahamwe, and this renders the terminology, and its ideological force, meaningless.
The criminal parallel structure behind the Rwandan government has been identified by numerous experts and investigations, including more than seven United Nations Panels of Experts between 2000 and 2009;10 the high court indictments of Spain11 and France12; the exhaustive analyses by eminent Rwandan experts, including Dr. Filip Reyntjens13; the work of investigative journalists like Charles Onana, Wayne Madsen and myself14; the Michael Hourigan report assessing blame for the presidential assassinations of April 6, 1994; the Robert Gersony report documenting RPF/A atrocities against tens of thousands of Rwandans in Rwanda in 1994; the Helmut Strizek report to the ICTR titled Discredit the Hutu Population Forever;15 ICTR defense attorneys Chris Black, Peter Erlinder, John Philpot, Phil Taylor and others; the McKinney hearings; and research by academics; and by many credible sources, human rights documents, testimonies and other examples in the public record.
Even Tutsis--the supposed victims--have been persecuted by the victorious RPA/F Tutsi regime in Rwanda. We all know the standard story about 800,000 to 1.2 million Tutsis killed. Well, these numbers are wrong, and the constituency of the dead is wrong. It cannot be denied that hundreds of thousands of Tutis were killed in Rwanda, especially if we confine our discussion to the 100 days of genocide from April 6 to July 1994.
Clearly, there is evidence of persecution and threats of persecution against Tutsis based on the established realities about acts of genocide committed by members of the Hutu ethnic group in Rwanda between April 6, 1994 and July 1994, and there has also been retaliatory violence, post-1994, against Tutsis. However, there is substantial documentation about the RPF/A regime killing Tutsis, because this elite Tutsi rebel force did not trust any members of the Tutsi minority who stayed in Rwanda after President Juvenal Habyarimana came to power in 1973: Rwandan Tutsis were generally eliminated, internally displaced, assassinated and/or forced to flee Rwanda.
The Genodynamics Project of academic researchers Dr. Christian Davenport and Dr. Alan Stam, both U.S. citizens, has seriously challenged the Rwanda genocide mythology. Stam and Davenport were labeled 'genocide deniers' by the mass media and the Tutsi expatriate community after publishing their interim research on 'genocide' in Rwanda and they are persona non grata in Rwanda today.16
ABOVE:
Pro-RPF propaganda in the (zionist) New York Times Magazine takes many
forms but all leads to the dehumanization of the Hutu people en masse,
and lays the groundwork for the ongoing genocide against them.
Pro-RPF propaganda in the (zionist) New York Times Magazine takes many
forms but all leads to the dehumanization of the Hutu people en masse,
and lays the groundwork for the ongoing genocide against them.
There is overwhelming evidence establishing that crimes defined, prosecuted and/or punished as 'genocide' in Rwanda, whether before 1994, in 1994, or after 1994, were for reasons other than ethnicity. The GOR itself admits that both 'Tutsis and moderate Hutus' were victims of the violence in 1994. Thus while these acts of violence may constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other crimes--including acts of genocide--the allegation that Hutus were both the victims and the perpetrators of the 1994 violence does not on its face meet the specific intent required of 'genocide' as defined by the international Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.17 The current regime is responsible for massive bloodshed against all ethnic groups in Rwanda, and the façade is supported internationally due to the economic, political and military interests at stake.18 The International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) also supported the façade, as confirmed by Carla Del Ponte, the former Chief Prosecutor of the ICTR, in her memoirs.19
People accused of 'genocide' in Rwanda have been brought before the so-called 'community-based' Gacaca tribunals repeatedly, compelled by the GOR to revisit their cases until a guilty verdict is established; many innocent civilians have been tried and retried until they were found guilty. After one Gacaca tribunal found the accused persons innocent the citizen judges fled for their lives, were captured, returned to their Gacaca and 'compelled' to retry the case, and returned a guilty verdict. Human rights experts have criticized the Gacaca system as a mechanism of terror used to silence critics.20
(Photo credit unknown.)
ABOVE: The murderous Rwandan RPF-aligned military (RCD, CNDP, etc etc) are the primary problem for eastern Congo, with Ugandan military (UPDF) a close second, and with the Penntagon, and now AFFRICOM, behind them.
The London-based 'non-government organization' African Rights was co-founded by Rakiya Omaar, a woman of Somali origin who has worked since 1990-1991 as a paid agent of the RPA/F regime, always casting the Hutus as perpetrators and Tutsis, and especially the RPA/F Tutsi extremists, as the victims of the violence, creating a positive image for the RPA/F.21
African Rights has generated false accusations against Rwandans that have led to their arrest and imprisonment and its 'human rights investigations' have whitewashed the RPA/F terrorism. African Rights has petitioned governments, the ICTR and other legal bodies, even Pope John Paul II, and it spreads disinformation in international media (only to happy to comply), and accused and secured the arrest and prosecution of RPA/F 'dissidents'.22 For example, African Rights helped frame Monsignor Augustin Misago, the Bishop of Gikongoro, who was subsequently arrested and jailed in 1999, but cleared by the Rwandan Court in 2000.23 They have produced disinformation targeting Rwandan opposition in DRC24 (used by ICTR prosecutors25).
A Rwandan agent working for African Rights for the past 8-10 years, first in Kigali and then in Zambia, fled to seek asylum in Belgium in February 2010. Felicien Bahizi recently testified in a court of law (Scandinavia) about African Rights' clandestine ties to the RPA/F, the falsification of documents and allegations used to accuse, indict and imprison 'enemies' of the regime.
An extension of the RPA/F network into the 'human rights' sector, African Rights is on the payroll of the RPA/F government, as evidenced by a letter from Rakiya Omaar requesting payment of an "outstanding $100,159" for their production of a propaganda book benefiting the regime.26 Rakiya Omaar works freely in Rwanda, where she has a special office.
There are other rights bodies and 'experts' on 'genocide in Rwanda' who have protected the killers and criminalized the victims, including the pro-RPA/F International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda Since October 1, 1990, early reports by Africa Watch and Human Rights Watch, and others.27
The 1993 International Commission of Inquiry [ICI] on Rwanda included the Human Rights Watch expert on Rwanda, Alison Des Forges, and Canadian law professor William Schabas, both of whom have provided expert testimony used to convict Rwandans of genocide or related crimes, and both have been discredited in law courts. Schabas has been one of the U.S. government's witnesses of choice for hunting refugees28 and travels free in Rwanda.
William Schabas and French human rights activist Jean Carbonare, both members of the ICI, were amongst the first to apply the term 'genocide' to Rwanda and against the Hutu government of Juvenal Habyarimana.
"On 22 January 1993, in a press statement published in Paris after returning from Kigali [as a member of the ICI], they accused President Habyarimana of having already committed Genocide against the Tutsis under the pretext of the RPF war launched on 1 October 1990. In a television broadcast with Bruno Masure on 28 January 1993, Jean Carbonare was given the opportunity to repeat the accusation to an audience of millions."29
The ICTR has not prosecuted any suspects of the RPA/F, no matter the evidence of crimes, including: the assassinations of the presidents of Rwanda (Juvenal Habyarimana) and Burundi (Cyprien Ntaryamira), their chiefs of staff, several aides, and the French pilots of the Dassault Falcon 50 aircraft (a gift from French President Mitterand) on April 6, 1994, the pivotal event which sparked the 1994 genocide;30 or the massive crimes described in the indictments issued by the judiciaries of France and Spain.31
In December 2008, the Trial Chamber-1 at the ICTR acquitted the four highest-ranking senior military officers of the former government army, the ex-Forces Armee Rwandaise (ex-FAR), including General Theoneste Bagosora (the supposed 'genocide mastermind'), of conspiracy to commit genocide.32
In November, 2009, the Appeals Chambers of the ICTR acquitted Protais Zigiranyirazo, brother-in-law of President Juvenal Habyarimana, of all charges of 'genocide planning', following seven years of trial at the ICTR, where the court found that the Prosecutor's evidence was explained by normal military planning in the course of the four year Rwandan civil war (1990-1994).
In November, 2009, the Appeals Chambers of the ICTR acquitted, and ordered the immediate release of, Hormistas Nsengimana, charged with genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Rwanda in 1994.
The above ICTR judgments destroy the 'conspiracy to commit genocide' conspiracy universally charged to the former Hutu government and responsible for the total dehumanization of Hutu people everywhere.
ABOVE: Kagame's comrades at the US Army's Fort Levenworth, Kansas, 1990.
Vigilante Journalism
The current regime in Rwanda is aggressively hunting down any perceived threat, including dissidents, refugees, political opposition, former soldiers of the Habyarimana government (ex-FAR) and former RPF/A, regardless of ethnicity.
Goucher College (Md.) professor Dr. Leopold Munyakazi is one of their latest targets, falsely accused of being a genocidaire merely because he has been an outspoken critic of the regime. Dr. Munyakazi was unjustly framed--in support of the RPA/F agenda to neutralize him--by a short-lived NBC News television program that sought to gain high prime time ratings (read: corporate profits) by tracking down and 'exposing' supposed genocidaires. The program was titled THE WANTED, and the morality of 'good versus evil' was subliminally underscored by the choice of the show's commentator, Scott Tyler, an ex-Navy Seal, who by moral implication embodies saintliness, while the wanted man, Dr. Leopold Munyakazi, embodies the devil. The zealous NBC News team acted as accuser, judge and jury against Dr. Munyakazi.33
The U.S. Embassy in Kigali allegedly assisted the criminal RPA/F regime in framing Dr. Munyakazi and, from August to December 2009, the U.S. Embassy collaborated in the RPA/F campaign of intimidation, bribery, detention and punishment of hundreds of people acquainted with Dr. Munyakazi, in order to fabricate evidence and coerce witnesses against him.
At Goucher College "a swirling retinue of about ten cameramen, technicians, and professional interrogators" descended on Dr. Munyakazi as he finished teaching a French class.34 Leading the pack was NBC Producer Adam Ciralsky: when contacted by other journalists, Ciralsky hid behind NBC's corporate PR department.35 Prejudged by journalists and mass media, whether acting overzealously or in collaboration with the RPA/F regime, Rwanda's critics, refugees and survivors have been falsely accused and, through the mass media, publicly branded as genocidaires.
Just as the NBC News television team targeted Dr. Leopold Munyakazi at Goucher College in February 2009, mass media sensationalism and genocidaire branding to advance the criminal aims of the GOR has been used before.
In Laredo, Texas in 1998, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, a Hutu pastor, was accosted by New Yorker magazine writer Philip Gourevitch, an RPA/F supporter and personal friend of Paul Kagame, whose book was one of the earliest propaganda tracts espousing the now entrenched narrative about Hutus (killers) v. Tutsis (victims) and the so-called '100 days of genocide' in Rwanda.36 Ntakirutimana was extradited, tried and cionvicted by the ICTR; his story--sensationalized and fictionalized by Philip Gourevitch--was published in the award-winning non-fiction' book whose title takes it's name from a letter written by Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, but one which Gourevitch misconstrued and criminalized.37
ABOVE:
More of Philip Gourevitch's pro-RPF propaganda in the (zionist) The New Yorker
("The Life After," 4 May 2009) manufactures concepts of justice, if
problematic, at so-called "community-based" Gacaca tribunals in Rwandan
villages. Gourevitch is cranking out one-sided propaganda: see, e.g., The New
Yorker: "The Arrest of Madame Agathe," March 2, 2010, and "The
Mutsinzi report on the Rwandan Genocide," January 8, 2010.
More of Philip Gourevitch's pro-RPF propaganda in the (zionist) The New Yorker
("The Life After," 4 May 2009) manufactures concepts of justice, if
problematic, at so-called "community-based" Gacaca tribunals in Rwandan
villages. Gourevitch is cranking out one-sided propaganda: see, e.g., The New
Yorker: "The Arrest of Madame Agathe," March 2, 2010, and "The
Mutsinzi report on the Rwandan Genocide," January 8, 2010.
The British Broadcasting Corporation in 2006 publicly branded as genocidaire Dr. Vincent Bajinya, a Hutu physician and U.K. citizen who lived and worked in London for years. Similar to the NBC camera crew's unannounced confrontation with Dr. Leopold Munyakazi in Maryland, without any appointment or prior warning, a BBC team showed up on the street in London and shoved a television camera in Dr. Bajinya's face and began interrogating him about his alleged role as a 'mastermind' of the Rwandan Genocide.38
Within days of the first BBC report, the Dr. Vincent Bajinya story was everywhere in the news and was combined with defamatory stories branding three other Rwandan refugees (Charles Munyaneza, Emmanuel Nteziryayo, and Celestin Ugirashebuja) supposedly 'hiding' in the U.K. The BBC framed all four refugees as 'Most Wanted' criminals and 'masterminds' of 'genocide in Rwanda in 1994'. After confronting Bajinya in London the BBC team traveled to Rwanda and, escorted by GOR agents, filmed the places and people who testified on camera to the alleged crimes.
The four Rwandans were jailed for 28 months and the case was supported by RPA/F intelligence agent Jean Bosco Mutangana, the head of Rwanda's genocide fugitives tracking unit, who also turned up with the NBC News crew and confronted the President of Goucher College (MD) and Dr. Leopold Munyakazi.39
The City of Westminster Magistrates' Court ordered the extradition of all four Rwandans but an appeals court on April 8, 2009, ruled that there was no freedom or justice in Rwanda ordered their release.40, 41
Enemies of the State
Who are Paul Kagame and the RPA/F regime's 'enemies'?
- Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu, Hutu, opponent of the previous Hutu (Habyarimana) government, later the first Prime Minister appointed by the RPF/A in 1994, who fled to exile 1995 after he challenged the RPF/A massacres of thousands of Hutu civilians at Kibeho refugee camp in April 1995;
- Seth Sendashonga, Hutu, member of RPF/A, forced into exile in Kenya, 1995, after challenging the Kibeho massacres, assassinated in Kenya in 1998;
- Pierre Celestin Rwigema, Hutu, Prime minister (circa 1995-2000), who fell out with the regime and went into exile in the US, and afterwards he was accused on 'genocide' charges (because he owned a gun in Kigali prior to 1994);
- Alfred Mukezamfura, Hutu, Speaker of Rwanda's National Assembly, who fled Rwanda to exile in Belgium (2008-2009), and who was afterwards accused of 'genocide', tried by the Gacaca courts in abstentia, and sentenced to 30 years in prison, who lives in exile, under the threat of an international arrest warrant issued by Kigali;
- Stanley Safari, Hutu, civil servant under the Habayrimana government, who later became a Member of Parliament under the RPF government, a position held until 2009, who was forced to flee Rwanda in 2009, and was subsequently tried in abstentia by the Gacaca courts, on 'genocide' charges, and sentenced to 30 years in prison (Mr. Safari, who currently resides in the U.S., is accused by Rwandans in exile of denouncing innocent people who were subsequently imprisoned by the Kagame regime, and sentenced to harsh prison terms, between 1994 and 2009);
- General Emmanuel Habyarimana, Hutu, ex-Forces Armee Rwandaise (ex-FAR), the RPF/A Minister of Defense after 1994, now residing in Switzerland, subject to threats of assassination to this day;
- Theobald Gabwaya Rwaka, Hutu, founder of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LIPRODHOR), Minister of the Interior under the RPA/F, fled Rwanda April 2002, lives in the U.S.
- Claudine Mazimpaka, Hutu, wife of Jean-Baptise Mberabahizi, Hutu, Secretary General of Unified Democratic Forces (FDU) opposition party, attacked in Belgium on October 24, 2009 by unidentified assailants (presumed to be sent by Kagame;
- Joseph Ntawangundi, Hutu, aide to FDU opposition leader Victoire Ingabire, convicted in abstentia by Gacaca courts in 2007, beaten and jailed on 'genocide' charges in Kigali in February, 2010, after returning from exile to Rwanda in January 2010, to register an opposition party for the national elections of 2011; Mr. Ntawangundi was reportedly in Sweden (International Federation of Trade Unions) during the 1994 genocide, and returned after several months to Kenya, where he stayed in exile, and who remains in prison in Rwanda today;
- Colonel Theoneste Lizinde, Hutu, FAR, Director General of Intelligence; imprisoned by the Habyarimana regime for an attempted coup d'etat; freed from a Ruhengeri prison by the RPA in a military raid in 1992; joined the RPA/F high military command: reportedly provided critical information about Kigali International Airport for the April 6, 1994 attack on the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. Fled to Zaire after becoming disenchanted with the RPA/F (1994-1995): assassinated by the RPA/F in Nairobi, 1995;
- Jean-Pierre Bizimana, Hutu, former RPF/A intelligence agent, later the RPF government Minister of Education, most recently (2009-2010) Ambassador to the Netherlands, fled Rwanda into exile in late February 2010, after threats against him, allegedly due to his ties to the Rwandan opposition FUD party, and who is at this time seeking asylum in the Republic of Ireland;
- Victoire Ingabire, Hutu, leader of the FDU opposition party, formerly exiled in Holland since 1994, threatened and attacked in Rwanda after taking the opposition struggle back to Rwanda, under investigation by the RPA/F for espousing 'genocide ideology' today because she publicly raised questions about massacres of Hutus (and Tutsis) in Rwanda;
- Joseph Sebarinzi, Tutsi, went into exile from Rwanda in 1979, returned to Rwanda under the Habyarimana government prior to 1990, but fled to Burundi in 1994, and returned to Rwanda after July 1994 to become Speaker of the National Assembly under the RPF/A government, and then fled (circa 2000) Rwanda after falling out of favor with the Kagame regime, and is now a United States citizen accused by the Kagame regime of treason for supporting the 1959 King of Rwanda;
- Col. Balthazar Ndengeyinka, Hutu, member of the RPF/A, in exile in Switzerland after falling out with the Kagame regime;
- Journalist Godwin Agaba, previously imprisoned for courageous reporting from inside Rwanda, who was forced into hiding in early March 2010 and is on the run for his life, with an arrest warrant issued by the kagame regime;
- Madame Agathe Habyarimana, Hutu wife of the assassinated President Juvenal Habayrimana, who tops Rwanda's 'most wanted' list, falsely accused and arrested in Paris on March 2, 2010, the day after President Sarkozy made a deal with Kagame in Kigali;
- The many other Hutu victims of the unjust ICTR court and the Kagame regime it protects.
(Photo credit unknown.)
ABOVE: Military strategist Kagame with his junior officer Hypolitte Kanambe, alias Joseph Kabila, now President of the DRC, behind him, circa 1995, in the RPA in Rwanda--before the RPA and UPDF marched across Congo murdering inncoent Hutu men, women and children by the hundreds of thousands.
In 2002, two of Dr. Munyakazi's children were threatened and forced to flee to Europe where they were granted refugee status. In 2006 Dr. Munyakazi's wife fled to the United States and applied for asylum after being threatened with imprisonment by local Rwandan authorities and blamed with "being married to a Hutu Interahamwe" because she refused to give false testimonies against the former neighbors of the Munyakazis. Between October and December 2006, three children of Dr. Munyakazi were systematically harassed and terrified, often through unannounced middle of the night visits, by the RPF/A Directorate of Military Intelligence and Local Defense Force agents; the family members fled to Uganda.
On August 3rd 2009, the chairperson of the Gacaca tribunal in Dr. Munyakazi's native area reportedly confirmed that a dozen persons were put in jail because they had refused to give false accusations against Dr. Munyakazi. On September 2, 2009, she again informed Dr. Munyakazi that some 200 people had their cases revised before the Gacaca tribunal mainly to get a 'legal reason' to incarcerate them. From October 12-30, 2009, the Gacaca tribunal condemned 15 of these people to lengthy prison terms based on these fabricated crimes.
In seeking to fabricate evidence and extort or coerce testimonies against Dr. Leopold Munyakazi, the GOR has reportedly forced hundreds (minimum) of civilians from their homes in Dr. Leopold Munyakazi's native and neighboring areas (Gitarama Prefecture), taken them to Kigali, and 'interviewed' them inside the U.S. Embassy, and with the collaboration of U.S. Embassy officials. Many refused to testify against Dr. Munyakazi and were subsequently, while some have accepted bribes to testify against Dr. Munyakazi, and some have later changed their minds when threatened with being brought before a Gacaca court on charges of 'complicity in genocide', while others have had their Gacaca hearings 're-done,' with the understanding that no one is innocent, on penalty of violence from the GOR.
When Victims Become Killers
One of the latest pro-RPA/F vigilante refugee hunters on the Rwanda 'genocidaire' trail is Jason Stearns, a former U.N. (MONUC) and International Crises Group 'analyst' (the ICG and its clone groups ENOUGH and Raise Hope for Congo are front for the U.S. National Security apparatus funded by the Center for American Progress).
Stearns also worked on several U.N. panels of experts on the illegal exploitation in the DR Congo, including the U.N. 'experts' report of November 2009, which launched a smear campaign against Fundacio S'Olivar and Inshuti, Spanish charities affiliated with Juan Carrero Seralegui, Jordi Palou-Loverdos (named on Rwanda's 'Hit List' above) and Joan Casoliva Barcons, accusing them of backing terrorists in Congo. This is the U.N.'s failed attempt to discredit the Spanish indictments against the RPA/F.44, 45
A key 'confidential source' for the U.N. Panel of Experts [sic] has been the RPA/F front group African Rights: the November 'experts' report was fed information through RPA/F agents Theodore Nyilinkawaya in Brussels and Rakiya Omaar in Kigali. It appears that African Rights has maintained a tight connection to previous U.N. Panel of Expert's as well.
Working out of Yale University grad school, Stearns has been zealously gunning for Rwandans connected to the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an organization also targeted on Rwanda's 'Hit List' (above) and Kagame's disingenuous excuse, over and over, for RPA/F terrorism in DRC. "For an excellent review of the FDLR Diaspora," Stearns wrote, citing the RPA/F front African Rights, "see Rakiya Omaar's recent report: 'The end in sight?'"46
The Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)--until 2000 known as the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR)--are not the evil genocidaires respondible for every war crime in Central Africa, as they are billed by western flak organizations like ENOUGH, Raise Hope for Congo, the U.N. panels of experts, Jason Stearns and their benefactors in the Kagame muilitary regime. FDLR include ex-FAR soldiers forced out of Rwanda during the illegal RPA/F invasion and coup d'etat. Being in the losing side does not automatically make these soldiers genocidaires or war criminals: their cuilpability in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide is far less evident than the culpability of the RPA/F regime. So-called "FDLR" in Congo also include innocent women and children who have been subject to war crimes by the RPA/F and its factions (RCD, CNDP, etc.) and their artners, including the FARDC, and the United Nations Observers Mission for DR Congo (MONUC). To add insult to injury, the organized crime networks of the Kagame government, and even Canadian BANRO Ciorporation (illegally occupying and terrorizing South Kivu) have alliances and realtyionships with FDLR and other Hutu groups in eastern Congo.
The criminalized genocidaire label of 'FDLR' offers the ready made sound bite utilized by the media, by white skinned propagandists like Nicholas Kristof and Jeffrey Gettleman, by actorvists like Ben Affleck and George Clooney, and by western institutions like the United Nations, and US Government, to whitewash their own involvement in criminal exploitation of one stripe or another. The ultimate goal is western corporatte control achieved with through such supposedly 'progressive' legislation as the U.S. Congress bills in Blood Minerals. The situation with the Lord's resistance Army--the scapegoat for which to excuse President Yoweri Museveni--and the LRA Disarmanent Act is identical, but different, but only to serve wetsren militarization and expropriation of African people's lives and lands and loves.
U.N. 'expert' Jason Stearns never mentions the western corporations, intelligence agents or U.S. officials involved in the Great Lakes plunder. Instead, Stearns is on crusade against Dr. Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro and Dr. Felicien Kanyamibwa, two Rwandan intellectuals living in the U.S.A. named as leaders or former leaders of the FDLR. Stearns has lobbied the U.S. State Department to arrest and charge the Rwandan opposition leaders, by any means necessary, to "get them for material support to a terrorist organization" or "for having committed fraud on their immigration documents." 47
Dr. Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro was director of the Rwandan Information Office (ORINOFOR) under the Habyarimana government: Dr. Higiro was a member of the MDR (Mouvement Démocratique Républicain), a political party opposed to the Habyarimana regime. He is one of very few intellectuals left alive with an insider's understanding of the genocide propaganda leading up to April 6, 1994, and what scares the U.S. and their RPA/F proxy is his understanding of the genocidal media of the RPA/F.48
Dr. Higiro's daughter was born in the USA, and Dr. Higiro and his family were evacuated from Rwanda to Burundi by the U.S. Embassy on April 9, 1994, was flown on a U.S. military Hercules C-130 to Nairobi (the USAF billed him for the flight). He was appointed Minister of Information to the RPF/A government on July 19, 1994, the day he flew to the U.S. He declined to return after reports of the RPF/A's "unmistakable patterns of killings" of scores of thousands of Hutus.49, 50
Dr. Higiro has lived under constant threats and accusations--and assumptions of his 'complicity in genocide'--to the present day, teaching at Western New England College in Springfield, Ma, a U.S. citizen since 2000. A photo that Dr. Higiro (his child in his arms) sent to his aged father in Rwanda was confiscated when African Rights investigators intimidated Dr. Higiro's father at his home village in Rushaki, Rwanda; the photo identifies Dr. Higiro (one of the FDLR terrorists) in an African Rights document authored by Rakiya Omaar.51
Dr. Felicien Kanyamibwa left Rwanda in 1991 and was a Ph.D student in the U.S. in 1994. Funneled disinformation from African Rights, the Rwandan state media accused him of being a Hutu 'hardliner' tied to the Interahamwe and ex-FAR, casting him as a genocidaire.52 Dr. Kanyamibwa lives in New Jersey. As with most Rwandans being hunted by the RPA/F, the Department of Homeland Security is constantly harassing him.
The Christian Science Monitor has also been practicing vigilante journalism for the RPA/F through Max Delany and Scott Baldauf.53 The CSM advances U.S. State propaganda through the International Crises Group intelligence agents John Prendergast, former National Security Council under William Jefferson Clinton, and Guillaume Lacaille, former U.N. Political Affairs Officer and U.S. Embassy Attaché, and they protect western corporations plundering eastern Congo (Banro Resources, Cabot, Moto Gold, Anglo-Ashanti, etc.). Of course, the U.S. military's AFRICOM is all over Central Africa, backing, training and funding the RPA/F and UPDF, building bases in Rwanda, Uganda, Congo and South Sudan, and force missions are run by the Pentagon's Special Operations Command--SOCOM: covert operations, death squads, snatch-and-grab black ops, psychological warfare, other terrorism of the kind that first brought the RPA/F to power.54
Max Delany is working on a hit piece about Dr. Higiro and Dr. Kanyamibwa, expected to appear on April 6, 2010--the anniversary of the 'plane crash' [sic] that sparked the '100 days of genocide' [sic]. "I hope that North America will do something about the FDLR leaders on their soil too," the CSM quotes the ICG's Lacaille to say. "Because when you go against the [Hutu] genocidaires of 1994, you are doing it because of justice. When you go against someone like Ignace Murwanashyaka"55--or Dr. Higiro, or Dr. Munyakazi--"it's not only justice, it's about security in the Democratic Republic of Congo."56
The end to impunity for war and terrorism in Central Africa begins with the arrest of the 40 extremist Tutsi RPA/F war criminals indicted by the Spanish court, and with the arrest and indictment of His Excellency, Paul Kagame, the man they call 'the Butcher of Kigali'--one of AFRICOM's leading men in Central Africa.
ABOVE: The Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations all supported war crimes and genocide in Central Africa by backing the guerrila warfare of Yoweri Museveni (now President in Uganda) and his National Resistance Army/Movement and then Paul Kagame (Museveni's former Director of Military Intelligence) and the Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front in Rwanda. (Photo credit: some photographer serving the propaganda system.)
______________
Footnotes:
1 Jim Lyons, former Commander of Investigations for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, also provided expert testimony at this hearing.
2 See, e.g.: keith harmon snow: "Three Cheers for Eve Ensler?" ZNet, October 24, 2007; "Merchant's of Death: Exposing Corporate Financed Holocaust in Africa," Dissident Voice, December 8, 2008; "Over Five Million Dead in Congo? Fifteen hundred People Daily?" February 4, 2008.
3 The ADFL (RPF/A + UPDF + U.S. & U.K. & Israel backing) war crimes and genocide against Rwandan and Burundian refugees is well documented. In August 1996 there were an estimated 1.5 million refugees in eastern Zaire, and by November the estimated 500,000 to 750,000 Rwandan refugees that did not return to Rwanda under the illegal forced repatriation became the targets of a systematic manhunt by ADFL forces. See, e.g., Roberto Garreton, Special Rapporteur of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Zaire No. E/CN.4/1996/66, June 29, 1996; Howard French, A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa, Vintage Books, 2005; and Filip Reyntjens, The Great African War, Cambridge University Press, 2009; Gerard Prunier, Africa's World War, Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 120-128; Wayne Madsen, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999, Edwin Mellen Press, 1999; and International Non-governmental Commission of Inquiry into the Massive Violations of Human Rights Committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Former Zaire) 1996-1997, Int'l Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, 1998; DRC: What Kabila is Hiding: Civilian Killings and Impunity in Congo, Human Rights Watch, Vol. 9, No. 5(A), October 1997.
4 E.g., [1] [name withheld] former Manager for David Blattner SAFBOIS logging corporation in Bosondjo, Equateur Province, DRC; [2] [name withheld] businessman in Kisangani, Orientale, DRC, whose bulldozers were confiscated by the RPF/A and UPDF for excavation and covering of mass graves.
5 See: Robin Philpot, Ça ne s'est pas passé comme ça à Kigali, (That's Not What Happened in Kigali), published in English by the (Phil) Taylor Report: Rwanda 1994: Colonialism Dies Hard, 2004, http://www.taylor-report.com/Rwanda_1994/.
6 Although Rwandan and Ugandan troops warred against each other in Kisangani, DRC, in 2000, and their leaders hate each other, these criminal networks have links, common interests, and equal culpability for ongoing terrorism in Central Africa, Sudan and Somalia.
7 The French term genocidaire has universally been used to castigate innocent Hutus as deeply sinister and evil.
8 This double reality--economic advances and political regression--has been seen before in cases, for example, such as Chile, backed by western powers, under General Augusto Pinochet.
9 The question of mortality statistics by ethnic category have been addressed by Filip Reyntjens, Christian Davenport, Alan Stam and others, leading to the conclusion that the number of Hutu deaths in Rwanda during the so-called "100 days of genocide" of 1994 exceed the possible numbers of Tutsi deaths, a complete inversion of the claims by the GOR, and its supporters and allies, who have always maintained some 800,000 to 1.2 million Tutsis killed in the "Rwanda genocide".
10 E.g., Final report of the Group of Experts on the DRC submitted in accordance with paragraph 8 of Security Council resolution 1857 (2008); e.g., Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the DRC, October 2003; Final report of the Group of Experts on the DRC submitted in accordance with paragraph 18(d) of Security Council resolution 1807 (2008); Final report of the Group of Experts on the DRC submitted in accordance with paragraph 8 of Security Council resolution 1857 (2008).
11 Spanish Indictment (Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles), February 2008. The 182 pp. Spanish indictment charges President Kagame and forty members of the RPF/A regime with the deaths of more than 300,000 civilians, detailed in Prefecture-by-Prefecture totals.
12 French Indictments (Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere), December 2006.
13 Filip Reyntjens, The Great African War, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
14 E.g., Wayne Madsen, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999, Edwin Mellen Press, 1999; Howard French, A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa, Vintage Books, 2005; and International Non-governmental Commission of Inquiry into the Massive Violations of Human Rights Committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Former Zaire) 1996-1997, International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, 1998.
15 Dr. Helmut Strizek, Discredit the Hutu Population Forever, Report by Dr. Helmut Strizek, Expert Witness in "The Prosecutor v. Innocent Sagahutu," Before the International Criminal tribunal For Rwanda, (Case No. ICTR 2000-56-I), entered into ICTR records October 30, 2008.
16 See, e.g., Christian Davenport and Alan C. Stam, "What Really Happened in Rwanda," Miller McCune, 2009.
17 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Approved by the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 260 A (III) of December 9, 1948, came into effect on January 12, 1951.
18 See, e.g., the conclusions of the Genodynamics Project of Dr. Christian Davenport and Dr. Alan Stam or the countless human rights reports documenting RPA/F atrocities, e.g., Rwanda: Civilians Trapped in Armed Conflict: The Dead Can No Longer Be Counted, Amnesty International, December 19, 1997.
19 Carla Del Ponte and Chuck Sudetic, Madame Prosecutor: Confrontations with Humanity's Worst War Criminals, and the Culture of Impunity, The Other Press (NY), 2009.
21 See, e.g., Rakiya Omaar, The Leadership of Rwandan Armed Groups Abroad With a Focus on the FDLR and RUD-URUNANA, December 2008: p. 8.
22 See, e.g.: [1] Rakiya Omaar and Alex de Waal, Death, Despair and Defiance, African Rights, November 1994; [2] Rakiya Omaar, Rwanda: Insurgency in the Northwest, African Rights, 1998; [3] Rakiya Omaar, Letter to Ambassador Mihnea Ioan Motoc, President of the United Nations Security Council, African Rights, October 19, 2005; [4] Rakiya Omaar, An Open Letter to His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, African Rights, May 13, 1998.
23 See, e.g., An Open Letter to His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, African Rights, May 13, 1998.
24 African Rights, A Welcome Expression of Intent: The Nairobi Communique and the Ex-FAR/Interahamwe, December 2007.
25 International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, Minutes of Proceedings, Hategekimana: ICTR-00-55-T, July 1, 2009.
26 See: Delivery of the Murambi Book and African Rights outstanding $100,159, Letters from the GOR's National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide to Rakiya Omaar, Director of African Rights, dated June 6, 2008, and June 22, 2008, stamped with an official seal, and copied to H.E. The President of the Republic, the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister, The Minister of Sports and Culture, and the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning (Kigali).
27 See, e.g., Report of the International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda Since October 1, 1990, Final Report, Federation Internationale Des Droits de L'Homme (FIDH) (Paris), Africa Watch (New York, Washington, London), Union Interafricaine Des Droits de L'Homme et des Peuples (UIDH)(Ouagadougou), Centre Internationale des Droits De La Personne et du Developpement Democratique (CIDPDD/ICHRDD) (Montreal), March, 1993. Notable members of this Commission included Alison Des Forges and William Schabas.
28 See, e.g., Munyaneza & Ors v. Government of Rwanda, Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, April 8, 2009; and Dr. Helmut Strizek, The Influence of the International Background on the Creation of the International Tribunal for Rwanda: An Historian's View, October 24, 2009.
29 Dr. Helmut Strizek, The Influence of the International Background on the Creation of the International Tribunal for Rwanda: An Historian's View, October 24, 2009.
30 French indictment Judge Bruguiere, November 2006.
31 Spanish Indictment (Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles), February 2008.
32 Prosecutor v. Bagosora, 98-41-T, Judgment of 12/18/08, published in full February 9, 2009 (www.ictr.org).
33 While the article and the framework for the article are in many ways flawed, displaying the same tendencies toward a priori assumptions of guilt, please see, e.g.: Andrew Rice, "Doubt: A Professor, A Genocide, and NBC's Quest for a Prime Time Hit," The New Republic, August 12, 2009.
34 Andrew Rice, "Doubt: A Professor, A Genocide, and NBC's Quest for a Prime Time Hit," The New Republic, August 12, 2009.
35 Jack Shafer, "To Catch a War Criminal? Why is NBC Being so Cagey about it's New Series?" Slate, February 10, 2009.
36 Notably, a U.S. immigration judge in St. Paul Minnesota imposed Gourevitch's book as compulsory reading for all attorneys dealing with Rwandan refugees requesting political asylum. Similarly, the International human Rights Law Clinic at American University for several years (at least) asked students to read Philip Gourevitch on genocide in Rwanda, in preparation for legal work with the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. Professor Melissa Crow, who worked with the Law Clinic, followed her term at Human Rights Watch (1994-1995) working for the Office of the ICTR Prosecutor from Kigali, Rwanda, under the RPA/F regime.
37 Philip Gourevitch, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1998.
38 Fergal Keane, "Rwanda Genocide Suspect in UK" and Fergal Keane, "Rwanda Suspect Worked at UK Trust," BBC News, November 6, 2006.
39 The Government of the Republic of Rwanda v. Vincent Bajinya, Charles Munyaneza, Emmanuel Nteziryayo, and Celestin Ugirashebuja, Decision by Anthony Evans, Designated District Judge, June 6, 2008.
40 Munyaneza & Ors v. Government of Rwanda, Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, April 8, 2009.
41 The BBC article reporting their release was highly biased, citing, for example, how the Rwandan "president died in a plane crash," and not an act of terrorism--being the double presidential assassinations--and another example of language used to skew perceptions about violence, victims, and killers in Rwanda. See: Unsigned, "Rwanda Accused Win UK Court Case," BBC News, April 8, 2009.
42 Spanish Indictment (Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles), February 2008.
43 French Indictments (Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere), December 2006.
44 See: "The UN in Congo: Watchdog of the Great Mining Interests," Save Rwanda (.org), November 11, 2009.
45 The latest 'Panel of Experts' report on Congo revealed the true pro-RPA/F bias of the United Nations, and discredited the report, which has some solid information in it about certain western criminals, such as, for example, Philippe de Moerloose, whom this author has previously cited for war crimes.
46 Jason Stearns: Congo Siasa (.blogspot.com) [1] "Are We Really Serious About Getting Rid of the FDLR?" October 27, 2009;
47 Jason Stearns: Congo Siasa (.blogspot.com) [1] "Are We Really Serious About Getting Rid of the FDLR?" October 27, 2009; [2] "Ignace in Handcuffs," November 18, 2009
48 Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, "Rwandan Private Print Media on the Eve of the Genocide," in Thompson, Ed., The Media and the Rwanda Genocide, Pluto Press, 2007.
49 U.N. High Commission for Refugees investigator Robert Gersony reported in September 1994 on the RPA/F's killing of more than 30,000 ethnic Hutus--in a period of two months--and gave a detailed account of locations, dates and nature of crimes, as well as the methods used to kill and to make the bodies disappear. Gersony also identified RPF leaders responsible for the killings. The classified U.N. "Gersony Report" has never been released. Sections of the 'Gersony Report' were referenced in other documents, and the conclusions were similar in a declassified Refugees International Situation Report of 1994 (begging questions about why refugees Inetrenationals SITREP are classified by the U.S. State Department...).
50 Raymond Bonner: "Rwandans Say the Victors Kill Many Who Go Back," New York Times, August 5, 1994; and "UN Stops returning Rwandan Refugees," New York Times, September 28,1994.
51 Rakiya Omaar, The Leadership of Rwandan Armed Groups Abroad With a Focus on the FDLR and RUD-URUNANA, December 2008: p. 8.
52 RNA reporter, "U.S. Government Investigating FDLR Official," Rwanda News Agency, December 12, 2008.
53 Max Delany & Scott Baldauf, "Germany Arrests Congo Rebel Leaders," Christian Science Monitor, November 17, 2009; Scott Baldauf, "The Legacy of Rwanda's Genocide: More Assertive International Justice," Christian Science Monitor, April 7, 2009; Scott Baldauf, "Rwanda Rebel Leaders: US, French, Spanish and Congo Business Links," Christian Science Monitor, December 2, 2009.
54 See, e.g., Nicole Dalyrimple, "U.S. and DRC in Partnership to Train Model Congolese Battalion," U.S. AFRICOM Public Affairs, February 18, 2010, http://www.africom.mil/printStory.asp?art=4032; and Kenneth Fiddler, "Ward Leads Africa Command Delegation to Rwanda," U.S. AFRICOM Public Affairs, April 22, 2009, http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=2931.
55 FDLR leader Ignace Murwanashyaka was arrested in Germany in November 2009.
Written by: keith harmon snow
Photography Credits: keith harmon snow
Categories: Rwanda
3 Comments
pierre Mongo | March 13, 2010 12:30 PM
the situation in kongo kinshasa was of double standard by the socalled international community in dealing with the after mobutu era and actualy the clinton admnistration the british government the belgium elite as louis michel the canadians the germans and many coo rporate as been in planing big genocide in the kongo for they exploitation of the rich sole of the eastern part of the kongo we knew the plan of socalled civilised society.
the kongolese people have no friend for they survival only the God creater of the world
all nation of the world many of them are against kongo is wealth God willing kongo will succeed. thanks pierre
the kongolese people have no friend for they survival only the God creater of the world
all nation of the world many of them are against kongo is wealth God willing kongo will succeed. thanks pierre
chris | March 13, 2010 5:25 PM
So I am curious as to what are the writer's thoughts as to why Clinton, Bush, and now Obama have not made this fiasco a priority? Is it because there are too many other issues currently happening that need more urgent attention, is it because there are cover-ups, or is it that no one wants to rock the boat of a country that looks like it is doing well by its people 16 years after a genocide?
@Pierre -- please see my extensive reporting on the white criminals and their war crimes in Congo (central Africa) some of which is on this site and much more on my old site www.allthingspass.com .
@Chris -- The Clinton's are deeply aligned with Kagame and seek to cover up teh truth (like this). Thats why the propaganda system portrays a Rwanda that is a success story and why they keep giving awards to Kagame. Meanwhile, depopulation is apparently a policy in Central Africa -- its no dfifferent than the white people's genocide in North America 1492 to 1900, and into the present. The veneer of stability in Rwanda is slowly cracking open to reveal the truth of massive suffering and terrorism by the Kagame regime. People don't seem to know that famine is widespread in Rwanda, that peasants are FORCED to plant cash crops like COFFEE -- Starbusk genocide coffee -- for export, yet can't feed their families. Also, the average age of death for women is 39 or 40 and men a little higher. The Clintons. Andrew Young, their other pals like Riock Warren -- all wrapped up in organized crime. Who will tell the story? Alison Des Forges was correct when she titled her book LEAVE NONE TO TELL THe STORY -- only she had the victims and killers reversed (being, as she was, an agent of the US Gov).
