Rwanda: Professors of Hate
By Editorial
Focus Media
Kigali
June 16, 2009
A group of academics who call themselves defenders of human rights have began a clamor, demanding that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda indict senior members of the RDF for war crimes.
Sheltered from the real world, these so-called defenders of human rights - including people like Filip Reyntjens and Rene Lemarchand whose hobby is to write material trivializing the Genocide of Tutsis - have petitioned prominent personalities, including UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, US President Barack Obama, British Premier Gordon to have ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Jallow bring indictments against the unnamed members of the RDF (who were the Rwandan Patriotic Front in 1994).
Since these academics are talking about alleged war crimes that happened in 1994 and since they name no RPF soldiers in particular, it is safe to assume what they are demanding of Ban, Obama and Brown is nothing short of making Jallow indict the entire RPF high command of war crimes and have them join perpetrators of the Genocide at the ICTR detention center in Arusha.
They howl that the ICTR's failure to indict a single RPF soldier for killing civilians causes the tribunal to be dismissed as victor's justice. For these people there is nothing good to be said about the fact that the RPF itself court marshaled those of its soldiers who were caught committing acts of revenge. Some even got the death penalty.
For the academics the trial last year of four RPF officers for the June 1994 killing of the Catholic Archbishop of Kigali and twelve other priests was not justice, even though the proceedings resulted in five-year prison sentences for two of the officers. The only thing that would satisfy these academics, you can be certain, is if Maj. Gen. Wilson Gumisiriza and the others were shanghaied to Arusha to share a cell with a mastermind of the Genocide like Bagosora. Or, better still, for Bagosora to be declared innocent and Gumisiriza or any other senior RDF officer to take his place.
The academics in their petitions totally disregard the fact that every Hutu Roman Catholic priest in Rwanda turned into a combatant and participant in the Genocide. Or that Tutsi parishioners who fled to churches thinking they were going to places of sanctuary could only look on as their nightmares intensified when priest after priest turned up, AK 47s in their cassocks, to direct the massacres, calling in the Interahamwe, and shooting any poor Tutsis who tried to escape.
So an angry soldier - at no one's orders - shoots them, in revenge. Because these people, their fancy robes notwithstanding, are abapawa extremists who had murdered their entire families. This in no way qualifies such a soldier to stand trial side by side with the Genocidaires in Arusha, as opposed to a court marshal back home?
Why are "defenders of human rights" too blinded to see this?
These distinguished professors are blinded and unified by one thing: they can't stand the government in Kigali, and they can't stand the Rwandan military.
They are dismissive of the fact the RPF, now the RDF, is often cited as one of the most professional and disciplined armies on the continent. They would rather have members of a force that stopped the Genocide that no one else would to stand trial side by side with its most notorious suspects.
Hate is the fuel that drives these professors, nothing more nothing less.
But this is as it should be. No people and certainly no government can be loved by everyone.
By now those Rwandans who are upset that these academics are vocally demanding that heroes of the Rwandese Patriotic Front be made to stand trial should take comfort in one thing: these people have no credibility whatsoever - especially when they begin mouthing things like "the ICTR is victor's justice." Who is a victor after a genocide?
You can only claim someone is a victor after genocide only if you want to deprive that person of his humanity - by implying that he somehow finds satisfaction in seeing over a million members of his ethnic group hacked to death in the most gruesome ways, or raped and tortured with unfathomable cruelty.
Click here to read comments to the original article.
Related Materials:
Rwanda: Tribunal Risks Supporting ‘Victor’s Justice’
UN: Highlight Rights and Justice on Africa Trip
Rwanda: Academic Scholars Call for ICTR to Fulfill Mandate and Prosecute RPF/RPA Members
Letter to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Regarding the Prosecution of RPF Crimes
Rwanda: RPF's Paranoia Over HRW
ICTR: Stop biasness, Rwanda Tribunal told
posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 6:22 PM
1 Comments:
Sorry but the writer of this article is totally misguided.
Saying that the RPF court marshalls its own criminal soldiers is as laughable as saying that the genocidaires judge those who committed genocide.
There is overwhelming evidence that RPF soldiers were ordered to kill civilians. The writer of this articler comes up with a BIG LIE about soldiers committing revenge crimes. What were the RPF soldiers revenging between October 1990 and march 1994? If you are telling yourself that they did not commit massacres, you are lying to yourself.
Until the leaders of the RPF are judged in a real court for crimes they committed, there will be a cry for their trial. Justice will be rendered but not by the RPF.
the ICTR was put in place to judge crimes committed in Rwanda in 1994 from January to December. These are genocide crimes, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The RPF committed such and must be judged for it.
Now the masquerade called court marshalls by the RDF is a big farce. Even England, the biggest ally of Rwanda has said that Rwanda's justice system cannot be trusted, is not free, and is not fair. How do you expect REAL INTELLECTUALS to believe in judgements passed by those courts?
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