Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

Reaction of the FDLR on the International Crisis Group report of July 9, 2009

By Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
July 23, 2009
Paris, France

The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) are up against the conclusions and recommendations made by the ICG in its report dated 9 July 2009 about the causes of insecurity in the African Great Lakes Region and solutions to it.

For many years, the ICG has never ceased to advocate openly for the dismantling of the FDLR by force of arms and demand the heads of the FDLR leaders. All military actions launched by the FARDC on the one hand, and by the coalition RPA/FARDC and MONUC on the other hand, have always been preceded by reports of so-called independent experts on the African Great Lakes Region working for the ICG and advancing the war as the only way to solve the problem of the existence of the FDLR and put an end to the immense suffering of civilian populations in the African Great Lakes Region.
The reasons advanced by the ICG have never changed of one iota. These "experts" accuse the members of the FDLR to be “genocidaires”, to be the major obstacle to the consolidation of peace in the African Great Lakes Region in general and in the DRC in particular, to be the origin of extreme violence perpetrated against the people, to loot the resources of the DRC, to prevent the Rwandan Hutu refugees to return to their country and of being holocaust deniers or revisionists. All these reasons put forward by the famous "experts" do not stand up because:

The FDLR is an organization that fights for the liberation of a people languishing under the yoke of a bloodthirsty dictatorship which is the primary responsible of the Rwandan genocide. The FDLR has nothing to do with the genocide that took place several years before its creation. Moreover, the FDLR remain convinced that criminal responsibility is an individual matter that must first be proven before a neutral and fair court, not by a government or a political organization, and is not a collective matter that one can put on the head of an entire group or on any ethnic group as the ICG seems to suggest. The presumption of innocence applies not only to the dignitaries of the Kigali regime, as the ICG tends to believe, but to all Rwandan citizens, including members of the FDLR.

The FDLR are not the source of the present insecurity in eastern DRC. Everyone, with the exception of the ICG, is aware of those who ignited not only the eastern DRC but also the entire African Great Lakes Region which was until the 1980s an island of peace throughout the continent. The FDLR was created not only to liberate the people of Rwanda but also for the protection of defenceless civilian populations both Rwandan and Congolese who were abandoned by the international community to their own fate, having found that millions of people among which were hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees were massacred by the criminal Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPA) of Kagame, the AFDL and their sponsors in the Congolese forests under the indifferent or accomplice eyes of the international community. Today, some influential members of the international community do not want any witnesses of the genocide committed in the guise of some powers of the International Community on the Congolese people and the Rwandan Hutu refugees in eastern DRC.

The FDLR are not responsible for various serious human rights violations committed in DRC that they have repeatedly condemned and still condemn firmly. The FDLR have never ceased to demand the establishment of international and independent commissions of inquiry to look into these crimes so that the real perpetrators are identified and brought to justice. According to reliable information at our disposal, the armed groups which commit human rights abuses in eastern DRC are groups created, posted, maintained and/or remotely controlled by the Kigali regime for committing atrocities in the DRC and to blame FDLR in order to tarnish their reputation.

The FDLR have never had any ambition to plunder the resources of the DRC; they seek only to fulfil their noble mission to liberate the Rwandan people from the yoke of fascism of the RPF and the peoples of the African Great Lakes Region who are victims of a plot by a group of international criminals to bring them and take ownership of their enormous wealth. Therefore the FDLR fully understand the virulence of some powerful international lobbies which until now have been unable to completely put a hand on the wealth of the African Great Lakes Region and for which the FDLR are a major obstacle to achieving their macabre project.

The FDLR have never prevented anyone from returning to Rwanda . The assessment of the political and security situation within Rwanda is an individual matter which in the past years led to regular movements of Rwandans of all ethnicities fleeing massively Rwanda since 1994. In the other direction, MONUC regularly publishes a list of Rwandans who have returned to Rwanda . In addition, the Rwandan diaspora is scattered across the globe including an impressive number that is found in Western countries in Europe and in in America . Is it the FDLR that prevent the thousands of Rwandans who are in U.S.A, Europe, Canada and in Asian countries to return to their country? Even women, parents and children of senior dignitaries of the Kigali regime prefer to live abroad with refugee status rather than to return to Rwanda .
The ICG should understand that neither sanctions nor armed attacks, or unfair prosecution, or other macabre plans to sow divisions within Abacunguzi, will never make them abandon their goal of restoring dignity to the people of Rwanda .
The ICG should leave the mantle of think-tank of the criminal Kigali regime that it has never ceased to bear if it wants to remain credible and contribute to genuine reconciliation of the Rwandan people with itself and with its neighbours.
Those who call themselves “experts” of the African Great Lakes Region should understand that war has no place not only in the West but also in Africa and especially in the African Great Lakes Region, and the principle of self-determination of peoples is valid both in the West and in Africa .
The disarmament of the FDLR can not provide a solution to the problem of oppression, lack of democracy, terror, the culture of lies and debauchery, segregation, exclusion and poor governance hat characterize the current regime in Kigali .
The only way to disarm the FDLR is to accept without preconditions a genuine and frank dialogue between the FDLR and the Rwandan authorities to find compromise on the future management of their homeland.
The ICG and all warmongers that advocate for putting fire on the African Great Lakes Region should be aware that the war they preach can not put an end to the immense suffering of civilian populations as they claim, resolve the political problem of Rwanda, bring democracy and good governance in Rwanda or stop the looting of the resources of the African Great Lakes Region, and that sooner or later they will have to answer for their role in these wars that they have initiated directly or indirectly in the African Great Lakes Region.

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posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 9:28 AM