Reactions to the article "Rwanda's Himmler: The man behind the genocide"

The following are letters addressed to the Guardian Editor by two of our blog readers with regard to the article "Rwanda's Himmler: The man behind the genocide" published in the UK by the Guardian on December 18, 2008.

Letter #1:

To Whom It May Concern:

I just read your article "Rwanda's Himmler: The man behind the genocide" and found it to be full of inacuracies. This type of journalism will only prolong the suffering of the Rwandan people. The Rwandan genocide was a two sided affair.

Both the RPF Tutsi rebellion and the Rwandan Hutu Government during those days played major roles in the genocide. To reduce the RPF's involvement and to call them the saviors is to ignore the thousands of Rwandans who were murdered by the RPF.

My own family members were exterminated by the RPF. They lived in the RPF controlled areas. Mind you, some of these family members were Tutsis. Do you mean to tell me that the Hutu government at that time killed them?

In addition, there has been evidence coming from the RPF camp that the shooting of Habyalimana's airplane was carried out by the RPF. The ICTR where Mulvaney (the prosecutor quoted in your article) works, has been looking for evidence that the Hutu extremists carried out the shooting. They have not found anything or any witnesses for this in the last 15 years. When has a court of justice ever used "BELIEF" as evidence in a criminal case? Mulvaney's belief is irrelevant in the absence of evidence. The terrorist act of shooting the airplane took place in April 1994 and is fully within the jurisdiction of the ICTR. Has Mulvaney's team taken time to investigate this criminal act that triggered the Rwandan genocide?

We still have a long way before the dust settles on the Rwandan tragedy. I am 100% in support of the arrest and conviction of any Hutus that took part in this tragedy. I am also 100% in support of the arrest of any Tutsis who took part in this tragedy. I know there were many Tutsis in the RPF who took part in this and the sad part is that they have not yet been arrested to face justice.

The dust will never settle until the culprits on both sides are either punished equitably or forgiven. Rwandan reconciliation will never take place as long as president Kagame and his RPF are parading the surviving members of my family as victims of the genocide carried out by Hutus when the RPF are the real killers.

Today, the RPF claims they are victims of the genocide but still do not receive the benefits afforded to other genocide survivors. This hippocrisy will be exposed when the WHOLE truth comes out about the Rwandan Tragedy. I hope that the Guardian will engage in search for the truth instead of just presenting a point of view from a prosecutor who operates on "BELIEF".

Thank you.


Letter #2:

To the Editor of the Guardian:

I was so shocked to see that in his last article on Bagosora's trial, your Africa's correspondent, Chris McGreal, continued to mislead the British people with regard to the truth about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.

Is Chris McGreal aware of the level of suffering he currently is imposing to the Rwandan people as a whole by helping coverring up Kagame’s lies? I hope he is not. With his expertise in Africa's Affairs, shouldn’t he be calling the British people to massively join our plea for justice, fairness and an end to the culture of impunity that is widespread in the African Great Lakes region?

Paul Kagame, the current Rwandan President, continues to dismiss calls for justice, fairness and end of the culture of impunity widespread in the African Great Lakes Region.

Kagame alleges that such calls are politically motivated efforts to place his liberation army on the same moral plane as mass murderers and thereby weaken his government’s moral authority.

Indeed, with the capture of Kigali by RPF, on July 4, 1994, the simultaneous killings of both Tutsis and Hutus finally came to a temporary halt.It is widely known that after Kigali’s capture by the RPF, the rebels continued killing Hutu civilians and other Tutsi and Twa dissenters in what has now come to be absurdly rationalized as their “reprisal killings.” Just as in the course of the civil war, a large numbers of Hutu civilians were deliberately massacred by RPF troops – a fact substantiated in the so-called Gersony report named after the UN official who investigated the killings. After the RPF took over power, an even greater number of Hutu lost their lives within and outside Rwanda at their hands.

According to Dr Alexandre Kimenyi, a former Director of Research and Documentation within the RPF Executive Committee, RPF soldiers did not stop genocide.

Instead, RPF soldiers committed mass murder in the process of “liberating Rwanda” not collaterally but deliberately. There is no shortage of witnesses, survivors, and documentations of RPA massacres before, during, and after genocide such as: Compendum of some RPF crimes, Rwanda: Alarming resurgence of killings, and Rwanda: Ending the silence to name just a few.

Therefore, as Dr Guillaume Murere pointed it out all the experts remain certain: the killings in 1994 were so systematic that they must have been pre-planned. Then, one must ask, who was the planner?

Who was the real mastermind of the Rwandan Genocide? Investigations of the Rwandan Government’s part have (so far) failed to find any evidence of pre-planning by Hutus. In addition, the ICTR during the Bagosora trial acknowledged that there was no conspiracy and nor prior genocide planning by the Rwandan government.

With all this information available to your team, would it not be logical that Chris McGreal join the International Hungry for Truth movement that tirelessly urges the United Nations to investigate the other warring side, that is, the RPF leadership, about the root-causes of the Rwandan genocide?

Thanks.