Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

In her article published in the Washington Post on July 14, 1998, Lynn Duke wrote that in an interview about the massive military assistance of the United States to Rwanda, a US official in the Clinton administration said that "it was necessary to establish a military system very powerful in the African Great Lakes region to impose military solutions to conflicts."

The US military assistance to Rwandan and Ugandan regimes mainly comes from a special budget of the Pentagon. This allocation is beyond the control of Congress and the American public. It comes from a law passed in 1981 which grants the Pentagon millions of dollars each year to finance operations of Special Forces outside the United States. In this context, Washington has transformed Rwanda and Uganda into a true American gendarmery in Africa.

Apart from providing logistics, Rwanda and Uganda actively participate in the following military training and assistance programs:

1. Rapid Intervention Force (RIF)

This program offers a very advanced military training. Historically, many military dictators of the Third World and their Death Squads were trained through this program. This is the case of the Haitian paramilitary organization Tontons Macoutes, the Chilean Caravan of Death, the Argentina's 'Triple A' death squads, and others. Many Tutsi officers are currently enrolled into this program at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. As part of this program, Paul Kagame, then officer in the Ugandan army, participated in such military trainings at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1990 with several Ugandan officers.

3. Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET)

This program falls under the supervision of the US Navy, the US Army and the US Air Force. The purpose of this training is to enable the Rwandan troops to gain military expertise. The units of the 3 and 5 Division of Special Forces participate in this training. Several military courses are taught, including techniques of camouflage, preparation of military operations, mobility of restricted units, maintenance of military equipments, nocturnal navigation, etc.

4. Rwanda Interagency Assessment Team (RIAT)

This project was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of all military trainings involving Rwandan soldiers and officers in order to recommend, if necessary, solutions for improvements.

5. The invasion of the Congo

According to several well informed sources, the US provided logistical support to Rwanda and Uganda. According to the Belgian newspaper "Le Soir", two days before the invasion of Congo, several American military experts were seen near the border of Congo. In addition, two U.S. warships were operating off Matadi, serving as a communications relay between Goma, Kigali and Kitona. They were also relaying communications with the control tower at the military airport of Kitona. In addition, American instructors were training mercenaries from Serbia, Colombia, Somalia and South Africa, in the locality of Dedia, not far from the island of Idjwi in the province of South Kivu.

Diplomatic Support to Rwanda and Uganda

American diplomatic efforts in favor of the extremist regimes of Museveni and Kagame confirm the existence of a strong relationship of patronage between the U.S. government and these regimes.

For instance, please note the following:

1. In order to embellish the image of Museveni and Kagame, the United States and its Western allies continue to praise these two extremist leaders as models in Africa, the leaders of the so-called "African Renaissance". Clinton's trip to Africa, of which the most crucial step took place in Uganda, was aimed at commemorating a new role of gendarmes that the U.S. imperialism had just assigned to these two leaders.

2. The United States has actively lobbied for the impunity of Museveni and Kagame as their responsibilities in the genocide against the Hutus during the destruction of Rwandan refugees camps in Congo. Indeed, under the American pressure, the final report of the United Nations investigations on this issue has been amended to replace the word "genocide" with "massacre". By doing so, Washington wanted to preserve the moral integrity of Museveni and Kagame, because they use the genocide against the Tutsis as the only ethical justification of their ethnic dictatorship.

3. The United States is currently promoting Rwandan and Ugandan interests in several international institutions. For example, although the World Bank has made it clear that reducing the military budget will be the only condition under which African countries would be the granted foreign aid, it continues, under the American pressure, to grant loans to ethnic regimes of Rwanda and Uganda, even though their military budgets have increased by over 400% between 1995 and 1998.

4. As for the invasion of Congo is concerned, strong evidence exists to confirm that the U.S. is indeed the true hinge. Although it is clear that Rwandan and Ugandan troops invaded Congo, and that Uganda went further to confirm it with all the arrogance, the United States have never denounced the attack. And at the United Nations, owing to the U.S. pressure, no resolution was passed to condemn the invasion.

In addition, the United States, through the voice of Susan Rice, then Undersecretary of State for African Affairs, openly justified the invasion of Congo, arguing that Rwanda and Uganda have legitimate security interests to justify their aggression. One shall also remembers how Bill Clinton hastily sent Howard Wolfe to Africa during the collapse of the Rwandan and Ugandan western front, not to ask the invaders to withdraw from the Congolese territory, but rather to coerce Angola and Namibia to stop their support to the Congolese government, yet victim of this unjust aggression.

Furthermore, as the Zimbabwean newspaper Herald reported, Madeleine Albright, then U.S. Secretary of State, herself ordered the U.S. ambassador in Harare to get in contact with the Zimbabwean authorities and obtain a safe-conduct so that the elite unit of the Ugandan army, trained by the Americans, leave the Congo.

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