Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Winner, Supports Fundació S'Olivar Accused by UN Experts
By oscar Nkurunziza
Democracy Human Rights Group
November 26, 2009
Dear Juan - I send you an embrace of peace and goodness.
I hereby express to you my entire solidarity and support to Fundación S Olivar's commitment and active involvement in advancing the well-being of peoples on earth. Those seeking impunity will put up a fight against those denouncing the massacres perpetrated against the people of Rwanda and Congo.
The many years of your involvement and commitment to those peoples are witness of your non-violent action. It's wrong to accuse you and accuse those who work with you of supporting the armed struggle. Your action and deeds have always followed the path of Truth and Justice.
I wish you and all those at your side a great deal of strength and hope; know too that you are not alone. A lot of organizations are aware of the current situation in the world.
The only way of stopping those crimes against humanity from continuing is insisting on the right to Justice.
Fraternally yours,
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
24/11/2009
Benvolgut Joan. Una abraçada de Pau i Bé.
Vull expressar-te tota la meva solidaritat y recolzament al compromís i l’acció de la Fundació S’Olivar, en bé dels pobles. Aquells que busquen la impunitat exerciran resistència enfront les denúncies de les massacres contra els pobles de Ruanda y la RD del Congo.
Els llargs anys de compromís al costat dels pobles testimonien la teva acció no-violenta. Mal poden acusar-te i acusar als qui t’acompanyen de recolzar la lluita armada. La teva acció sempre va ser mitjançant la Veritat i la Justícia.
Et desitjo a tu i a tots els qui t’acompanyen molta força i esperança i que sàpiguen que no esteu sols. Moltes organitzacions estan veient la situació en el món.
La única forma d’impedir que els crims de lesa humanitat continuïn cometent-se és el dret a la Justícia.
Fraternalment,
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Cher Juan, la Paix et le Bien sont avec toi.
Je tiens à t´exprimer toute ma solidarité et mon appui à l´engagement et à l´action de la Fundació S´Olivar pour le bien des peuples. Ceux qui recherchent l´impunité vont exercer une résistance face aux dénonciations des massacres commis contre les populations du Rwanda et du Congo.
Les longues années pendant lesquelles tu t´es engagé aux côtés des populations témoignent de ton action non violente. Ils peuvent difficilement t´accuser et accuser ceux qui t´accompagnent de soutenir la lutte armée. La Vérité et la Justice ont toujours présidé à ton action.
Je te souhaite à toi et à tous ceux qui t´accompagnent beaucoup de force et d´espérance. Sachez que vous n´êtes pas seuls. De nombreuses organisations voient ce qui se passe dans le monde.
La seule façon d´empêcher que de nouveaux crimes de lèse-humanité ne soient commis est de défendre le droit à la Justice.
Bien fraternellement,
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (sé)
Estimado Juan. Un abrazo de Paz y Bien.
Quiero expresarte toda mi solidaridad y apoyo al compromiso y acción de la Fundación S’Olivar en bien de los pueblos. Aquellos que buscan la impunidad ejercerán resistencia frente a las denuncias de las masacres contra los pueblos de Ruanda y la RD del Congo.
Los largos años de compromiso junto a los pueblos testimonian tu acción no-violenta. Mal pueden acusarte y acusar a quienes te acompañan de apoyar la lucha armada. Tu acción siempre fue a través de la Verdad y la Justicia.
Te deseo a ti y todos los que te acompañan mucha fuerza y esperanza y sepan que no están solos. Muchas organizaciones están viendo la situación en el mundo.
La única forma de impedir que los crímenes de lesa humanidad continúen cometiéndose es el derecho a la Justicia.
Fraternalmente,
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
About Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was born in Buenos Aires in 1931. After training as an architect and sculptor he was appointed Professor of Architecture.
In 1974 he relinquished his teaching post in order to devote all his time and energy to the work of co-ordinating the activities of the various non-violent elements in Latin America. It was at a conference in Montevideo in 1968 that the decision was made to set up a joint organisation covering all non-violent elements throughout Latin America.
At a conference in 1974 it was decided to give the organisation a more permanent form, and Pérez Esquivel was appointed its Secretary-General.
In 1976 he initiated an international campaign aimed at persuading the United Nations to establish a Human Rights Commission, and in this connection a document was drawn up recording breaches of human rights in Latin America.
In the Spring of 1977 Pérez Esquivel was imprisoned without cause being shown. In May 1978 he was released, but with the obligation to report to the police as well as being subject to various restrictions. These have subsequently been allowed to lapse, and in 1980 he had an opportunity of visiting Europe.
The organisation of which Pérez Esquivel is the leader, Servicio Paz y Justicia, is a well-established one. Latin America is divided into three regions, each with its own offices, and under these come the national organisations. Their activities are co-ordinated from Pérez Esquivel's office in Buenos Aires.
The organisation is based on a Christian view of life, and enjoys close contact with clergy and bishops critical of present-day conditions in Latin America. The chief task of the movement is to promote respect for human rights, a phrase that is intended to include social and economic rights.
On the practical level this means that Servicio provides assistance to the rural workers in their struggle for land, and to the trade unions in their struggle to protect the rights of their workers. This is done inter alia in the form of legal aid.
Despite the opposition he has encountered, Pérez Esquivel insists that the struggle must only be waged with non-violent means.
From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1980, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1981
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1980
Juan Carrero Saralegui
Human rights activist and president of the S'Olivar Foundation.
Juan Carrero Saralegui was proposed as a candidate for the 2000 Nobel Prize for Peace (the award finally went to Korean president Kim Dae-jung) for his efforts to denounce genocide in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Carrera is the president of the S'Olivar Foundation in Estellencs, on the island of Mallorca. In 1999 he was given the Courage of Conscience Award granted by the Peace Abbey organization of Massachusetts.
Juan Carrero Saralegui was born in Arjona (Jaén) on February 18, 1951. At age 19, after three years of Philosophy studies at university, he and a group of friends established a commune on the S'Olivar farm in Mallorca and spent the following four years devoted to meditation, prayer and the study of Theology. In 1974 he became one of the first conscientious objectors in Spain.
An admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, he spent three years in the Andes teaching children of the Quechua tribe in Argentina, near the border with Chile, along with his wife Susana, whom he'd met at the L'Arch community in France, and an Argentinian friend, future Nobel Peace Prize-winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel. At that time the military coup in Argentina took place, and because of their work they were at the risk of reprisals from the new regime.
Since 1994 Carrero and his foundation, which was established in 1992, have actively denounced the massacres of Hutus in Rwanda and Burundi. In 1996 he walked one thousand kilometers (more than 600 miles) to Geneva to draw attention to the situation in the Great Lakes region of Africa. One year later he went on a 42-fast in front of the European Union Council headquarters. His campaign was supported by 19 Nobel Prize winners including Rigoberta Menchú, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his friend Adolfo Perez Esquivel.
From Spaniards for the 21st century
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UN: Rwandan militia has global support network
BY DAVE CLARK
Mail&Guardian
PARIS, FRANCE
November 25, 2009
Military operations have failed to contain Rwandan-Hutu rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and international action is needed to restrict their financing, said a new report by United Nations experts.
In a major report for the UN Security Council, unpublished but seen by Agence France-Presse, researchers said Congolese, Rwandan and UN forces have tried to disarm the FDLR rebels, who still pose a potent threat to regional stability, but have failed to impose order in a region still wracked by faction fighting.
"This report concludes that military operations against the FDLR have failed to dismantle the organisation's political and military structures on the ground in eastern DRC," the detailed 93-page document begins.
The report also alleges that the FDLR is managing to recruit fighters using profits from a corrupt international trade in minerals.
The militia sprang up in camps in the east of the DRC housing mainly ethnic Hutu refugees who fled Rwanda after their leaders launched the 1994 genocide, which left about 800 000 people dead.
The campaign has been undermined by corruption and brutality within the official Congolese armed forces and by the FDLR's ability to fund its campaigns through the international mineral trade, the report says.
Companies are buying minerals from jungle mines controlled and operated by Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) cadres, while middlemen are smuggling millions of dollars in gold to Dubai every year.
The document was researched on the ground in the DRC and the region over six months by a five-strong stream of experts hired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in order to prepare a report for Security Council members.
It calls on international governments to step up measures to stifle the FDLR support network, which includes members of the Rwandan diaspora based in Europe and North America and foreign sympathisers in Catholic charities.
The experts also warn that since March an offensive against the militia by Congolese forces, some of whose officers have supplied weapons to the rebels, has made life even worse for the beleaguered civilian population.
"Scores of villages have been raided and pillaged, thousands of houses have been burnt and several hundred thousand people have been displaced in order to escape from the violence generated by these military operations," it says.
Official Congolese records show only a few kilos of gold exported legally every year, but the country's own senate estimates that in reality 40 tonnes a year -- worth $1,24-billion -- gets out.
The UN report details how both the anti-Rwandan government FDLR and their enemies in pro-Kigali militias use the same ethnic Indian middlemen to smuggle gold to souks in the United Arab Emirates.
It also says the FDLR profits from the export of cassiterite.
'Regular financial support'
In September, British group AMC said it would stop buying Congolese cassiterite, insisting the trade was legal but complaining of "negative campaigning from advocacy groups and adverse coverage".
The UN experts also "collected information on individuals affiliated with the Catholic Church and other religious and charitable organisations ... who provide financial and material support to the FDLR."
This is said to include "regular financial, logistical and political support from individuals" linked to two Spanish organisations, including the Fundacio S'Olivar, which is funded by the government of the Balearic Islands.
The islands' regional parliament issued a statement defending the Fundacio, denying that it supports armed groups and insisting that it works "in defence of peace, justice and solidarity, always applying pacifist principles."
Meanwhile, FDLR leaders command their troops from the safety of Europe.
"Some of these supporters and leaders are suspected participants in the 1994 Rwandan genocide," the report says, going on to detail telephone traffic and cash transfers between exiled Rwandan politicians and militia warlords.
The experts tracked down 240 calls between German-based FDLR leader Ignance Murwanashyaka and militia commanders in DRC, while these commanders were in turn in touch with contacts in 25 countries in Europe and America.
The report was addressed to the chairperson of the UN Security Council committee on September 9. It is not known when it will be published. -- AFP
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Researchers say offensive by Congolese, UN forces has only made life worse in Congo's North and South Kivu provinces, more than 1,000 civilians have been killed since offensive began in January.
By VOANews
November 25, 2009
Photo:
Rwandan Hutu rebel carries a gun as he walks past a UN peacekeeper encampment in the village of Kimua, eastern Congo (File)
A new report says a United Nations-backed military effort has failed to subdue Rwandan Hutu rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
In a report for the U.N. Security Council, researchers say the offensive by Congolese and U.N. forces has only made life worse for civilians in Congo's North and South Kivu provinces. The report says the fighting and related violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
A coalition of human rights groups made similar claims last month, saying more than 1,000 civilians have been killed since the offensive began in January.
The offensive targets the FDLR, a group of ethnic Hutu fighters, many of whom fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.
U.N. researchers say the FDLR is funding its operations through the illegal mining of gold and cassiterite, a material used in many cell phones.
The U.N. has about 17,000 peacekeepers in Congo, providing food, fuel, medical and transportation support to Congolese government soldiers.
Congo's government is still trying to assert control over North and South Kivu, more than six years after the end of a brutal civil war.
Various rebel groups and militias continue to operate in the area, despite repeated attempts by the army and U.N. forces to stabilize the region. Efforts to integrate rebels into the army have been only partially successful.
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Rebels led by Rwandan Hutus dominating Congo battle, UN warns
By Steven Edwards
Canwest News Service
November 25, 2009
UNITED NATIONS — Rebels led in part by Rwandan Hutus responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide have prevailed over a United Nations-backed military campaign in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, UN investigators are warning.
Several hundred thousand people have been forced to flee their homes in Eastern Congo despite the presence of the UN's largest peacekeeping force in the world, says a report that the investigators have privately handed to the UN Security Council.
The world body had backed Congo's regular army, but that force itself has been accused of committing atrocities, even as it seeks to destroy the Hutu rebels, who call themselves the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
The UN report speaks of a "possible contradiction of (the UN force's) mandate to protect civilians on a priority basis, and that of providing logistic support to the (Congo army), while the latter continues to commit abuses against the civilian population."
The Security Council is set to debate the report and is already facing calls from human rights groups for an overhaul of its strategy in the Central African country.
"The FDLR's capacity to harm civilians remains intact and civilians face grave threats from the UN-backed Congolese army as well," Oxfam spokeswoman Nicole Widdersheim said.
"For every rebel combatant disarmed during the operation, one civilian has been killed, seven women and girls have been raped, six houses have been burned and destroyed and 900 people have been forced to flee their homes."
Human Rights Watch says the UN's backing for the Congo army had always been at the risk of UN complicity in rapes and murders.
"There needs to be a comprehensive approach to dealing with this group," HRW researcher Anneke Van Woudenberg told the BBC's Network Africa.
Mineral wealth in Eastern Congo feeds the conflict, which comes after millions died in the 1998-2003 war in Congo, involving the armies of six countries. Currently, rebels control lucrative tin mines, and are also funnelling gold through Uganda and Burundi, according to the UN investigation.
"The (UN experts') report . . . shows the huge diaspora networks that assist in money laundering, in arms trafficking, in the extraction of minerals and in the sale of those minerals," Van Woudenberg added.
FDLR grew from Hutu extremists who fled to Congo after helping kill up to 800,000 members of the minority Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda, and well as Hutu moderates, 15 years ago.
They seek to displace Rwanda's current Tutsi-led government, which itself emerged from a former Tutsi rebel army that ended the genocide.
"Military operations have not succeeded in neutralizing the FDLR," the UN report says. It also warns that the Congo army offensive also permitted "an expansion of" the Rwandan-backed DRC-Tutsi rebel group known as the Congress for the Defence of the People.
The UN this month suspended support to army units it believed were responsible for killing 60 civilians in operations against local militias, but continued to defend its overall strategy in Congo, where the world body has stationed 20,000 troops.
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UN report: Congo rebel network spans 25 countries
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
Associated Press Writer
FindLaw.com
November 25, 2009
CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) - One of Africa's most brutal rebel movements relies on a vast, international network of supporters in at least 25 countries, including the United States and some in Europe, a United Nations report said.
The U.N. findings show that the network of people help rebels in Congo buy arms and transfer money. The findings were slated to be discussed by the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday and are a scathing indictment of how little the international community has done to cut off logistical support to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, known by its French acronym FDLR, an ethnic Hutu militia which has wreaked havoc in Congo.
The report, which was not made public but was made available to The Associated Press, reveals that supporters in North America, Europe and Africa have become the backbone of the group's day-to-day operations, including in formulating its military strategy.
The Congolese army has also been funneling weapons and ammunition to the rebel militia in violation of U.N. sanctions, and its own interests of eradicating the group, according to the report, a charge Congolese army officials denied.
"There is no army officer or soldier who's helping and arming rebels," said Col. Delphin Kahimbi. "I don't understand how you can help the same people we are fighting."
The report also says the military operation mounted earlier this year against rebel group has largely failed. Although the militia was initially dislodged from strategic positions, they have since regained much of the lost territory and have launched reprisal attacks against civilians.
The U.N. Security Council met in a closed-door session Wednesday for a briefing by its sanctions committee on Congo but members did not take up the report, said U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq. They are likely to discuss it on Monday, he said, but an official involved in the debate says that council members are trying to table the discussion because the findings include evidence of material support to the rebel group by member states.
The report says the rebel group continues to control lucrative gold mines in eastern Congo, allowing them to traffic millions of dollars in minerals through the country's porous borders.
The FDLR is a rebel group made-up of Hutu refugees from Rwanda who took cover in neighboring Congo after the end of Rwanda's 1994 genocide of half a million Tutsis. Many of the FDLR's founders and several of their current leaders are accused of having led the genocide.
U.N. investigators analyzed telephone logs of senior militia commanders, showing regular contact with individuals, charity groups and government officials in at least 25 countries, mostly in Europe but also in the United States.
While previous reports have indicated that the Hutu militia's main source of funding is its control of Congo's mineral riches, the U.N. report argues that the FDLR's international network living abroad is a critical source of support.
The U.N. found evidence that the group's Germany-based president Ignace Murwanashyaka was helping negotiate arms shipments as well as organizing Western Union money transfers to commanders in the field. The report says he was also managing large sums of money raised through the illicit sale of natural resources in areas under the control of the FDLR and wired to Germany from a minerals trading house in the Congolese town of Bukavu.
The 46-year-old chairman of the rebel army was arrested in Germany earlier this month. He had been on a U.N. sanctions list for his rebel activities. Despite the sanctions, investigators found that Murwanashyaka continued to funnel money to his colleagues through other Hutu refugees in Germany.
"Here is a group that was allowed to grow after the genocide. Nothing happened to them," said Gregory Alex, a senior U.N. official who was in Rwanda in 1994 and now heads a U.N. team in Congo charged with trying to disarm FDLR rebels. "Compare them to the Nazis. Somebody stopped their continuation. Many were captured and punished. But with the FDLR, nothing happened until two weeks ago," he said, referring to Murwanashyaka's arrest.
The logs show that prior to his arrest, Murwanashyaka had made more than 240 calls to satellite phones used by FDLR field commanders, including numerous calls to the telephone of Gen. Sylvestre Muducumura, the rebel movement's army chief in eastern Congo.
FDLR deserters told the U.N. investigators that Muducumura does not carry out any major military operation without first consulting the group's Germany-based chairman.
In one particularly horrific attack in May, the villagers of Busurungi were attacked by FDLR rebels. Women were gang-raped by soldiers and then hacked to pieces with machetes, according to U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
The phone logs show that just before and just after the massacre, there was a flurry of calls between phones used by top FDLR cadres, including 14 calls to Murwanashyaka's numbers in Germany. He received a text message on May 11 from Muducumura's number coinciding with the end of the massacre.
Besides Germany, the telephone logs indicated that the most frequent contact between the satellite phones used by top FDLR commanders was with five other countries, including Belgium and France.
The report says investigators found 21 phone numbers in France that had been in regular contact with FDLR military satellite phones over the past year. France, the report says, did not respond to the U.N.'s frequent requests for details on these numbers. French officials could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.
In the United States, a New Jersey-based supported has been making Western Union money transfers to a Congo-based liaison officer of RUD, a splinter group allied with the FDLR. The U.N. also traced contacts and money transfers to Catholic charities in Spain and telephone calls between FDLR commanders and government officials in Tanzania and Burundi, two countries neighboring eastern Congo.
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The coalition forces of Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC), and UN Mission of Congo (MONUC) have failed to dismantle Rwandan rebels, says UN Experts Report.
By David O’Brian
AfroAmerica Network
Baltimore, November 25, 2009
AfroAmerica Network just finished to review a copy of the UN Group of Experts report leaked to the media, and to us. The conclusion of the Report is damning for everybody and especially discredits the claims by the coalition of the Congolese Defense Forces (FARDC), Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) and MONUC of having broken the military and political structure of the rwandan rebels, including Democratic Liberation Forces (FDLR) and the Rally For Unity and Democracy (RUD-Urunana).
Instead, the report asserts, these two rebels groups, not long ago competitors, have created alliances among themselves and with the Congolese ethnic groups including Hunde, Nande, and Congolese Hutu in North-Kivu and Tutsis Bagogwe and Banyamulenge in Masisi and South-Kivu. Besides, the report affirms that the two groups, especially a RUD Colonel named Winceslas Nizeyimana, has been recruiting hundreds of combatants across the border in Uganda from the refugee camps of Nakivale and Cyaka. CNDP, led by the accused war criminal General Bosco Ntaganda has increased in numbers, strength, and wealth and committed most of the worst abuses, including massive rapes, mass slaughters of civilians, looting and illegal levy of taxes, following its integration within the congolese army, the FARDC.
As most human rights group have pointed out, the UN Experts’ report concurs that instead of reaching sought out solutions, the military operations known as Umoja Wetu, Kimia I and KImiaII against the rwandan rebels, have complicated the problem, and created one of the most appalling human catastrophe the humanity has experienced: thousands of women and girls raped, thousands of civilians killed, hundreds of thousand of refugees and displaced, countless villages looted and burned to ground.
All countries are accused of supporting or helping the Rwandan rebels: China, Angola, South Africa, Russia, Tanzania, North Korea, Sudan, France, Germany, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, North America, Great Britain, Switzerland, and most importantly the Democratic Republic of the Congo itself.
Among the Congolese accused of supporting FDLR and RUD-Urunana are: Congo-Kinshasa’s Minister of Decentralization, Mbusa Nyamwisi, who was previously Foreign Minister, and the businessman Kasereka Maghulu, also known as Kavatsi, who has apparently been helping RUD-URUNANA to obtain food supplies, arms, ammunition and cash in return for minerals and timber. The commanders of the FARDC 10th military region, General Pacifique Masunzu, a Banyamulenge (South Kivu Banyamulenge Tutsi) who broke with the Rwandan-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) back in 2003 and who clearly remains implacably opposed to the Rwandan government, and his deputy Colonel Baudouin Nakabaka, a former Mai-Mai fighter accused responsible of providing logistical support to Rwandan rebels.
One interesting accusation is directed to Roman Catholic networks. The UN Group particularly names two Spanish charities linked with the Roman Catholic church, the Fundació S’Olivar and Inshuti, and funded by the government of the Islas Baleares Province. The Spanish charities, Fundació S’Olivar and Inshuti are accused of providing financial support to the FDLR, funding allegedly used to recruit combatants from refugee camps and young Congolese Hutus. Fundació S’Olivar is run by the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize nominee Juan Carrero, a prominent figure in Spain and
renown conscience objector. Inshuti used to be run by Joan Casoliva.
Both men are cited in the report as being FDLR sympathizers and for seeking the prosecution of RPF officials in the Spanish courts. Inshuti is accused of collaborating with a Belgian brother of a charity called Constant Goetschalckxhas.
The UN Experts especially targets the FDLR political leaders in the following sections (93 - 95):
93. To further corroborate the modus operandi of the FDLR chain of command, the Group worked in collaboration with an FDLR ex-combatant who in turn obtained information in the presence of the Group from a radio operator active in DRC. This conversation, which was heard and transcribed by the Group, related to military instructions issued in March 2009 by the FDLR high command to attack civilian populations and hospitals ........
For more information visit: UN Expert Report: Failure in Congo or afroamerica home page and go to the Blog page.
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Rwanda: ICTR dismisses IBUKA boycott threats
By RNA reporter
November 25, 2009
Arusha, Tanzania: The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has defended the judicial process and principles of law over the threat by the umbrella body of genocide survivors in Rwanda (IBUKA) to halt co-operation with the UN Tribunal following last week’s two acquittals of 1994 genocide suspects.
The ICTR says it is only doing its job.
IBUKA on Friday held a peaceful demonstration in Kigali against what they described as “malpractices” by ICTR and threatened to stop co-operation with it.
“It’s not the first time that an acquittal has occurred and acquittal is a normal process within the justice system,” Roland Amoussouga, ICTR spokesman said Monday, adding that the judges decisions are not made on the basis of vested interests.
“They are based on due process, equity, fairness, transparency, the principles of law, evidence produced and the merit of arguments made by the parties during the judicial proceedings,” he said.
The ICTR spokesman defended the judges, saying they were of high professionalism and integrity. “They are above all independent. It will be wrong for anyone to attack the integrity of the ICTR Judicial process without due regard to the work that is being done,” he stressed.
Amoussouga explained that an acquittal could occur anywhere, including Rwanda. “One may understand the frustrations of some people, but this should not be the ground for undermining the integrity of the judicial process and for preventing justice from being rendered to all the victims, suspects, accused persons and the mankind,” he underscored.
“We are all against ICTR’s decisions. Releasing genocide perpetrators is outright denial of genocide, releasing a person like (Protais) Zigiranyirazo, (Emmanuel) Bagambiki, Andre Ntagerura, Ignace Bagilishema, Gen Gratien Kabirigi and others, proves injustice and we are against this, we are protesting this,” New Times quoted a demonstrator chanting from a loudspeaker on Friday.
IBUKA has threatened to end all cooperation with the Tribunal – including stopping to send any more survivors to testify at the court. Protestors demanded Friday that government blocks all ICTR investigators from coming into the country.
On November 16, the Appeals chamber reversed 20-year sentence imposed on Protais Zigiranyirazo, brother-in-law of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, and instead acquitted him of 1994 genocide charges. The Chamber, presided by the American judge Theodor Meron, ordered an immediate release of Zigiranyirazo.
The upper chamber traced to errors by the lower court when sentencing the suspect in December 2008.
The ICTR lower court ordered immediate release of former head of College Christ-Roi, Father Hormisdas Nsengimana, 55, after finding him not guilty of 1994 genocide, on November 17.
In reaching its conclusions, the Chamber stated that it had assessed all the evidence of the prosecution. ‘'They do not establish Nsengimana's criminal responsibility or impact the Chamber's findings,'' stressed presiding judge Erik Mose from Norway.
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'Crisis-hit' Commonwealth holds pre-Copenhagen summit
By Space Daily
November 25, 2009
LONDON, Nov 25 (AFP)--Commonwealth leaders gather in Trinidad from Friday in the last major international meeting before a crucial UN climate conference in Copenhagen.
The 53-nation gathering is being portrayed as an essential stepping stone to Copenhagen, where world leaders will try to draw up a post-2012 accord to slash emissions from fossil fuels that cause greenhouse gases.
Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma said the twin challenges of the pressing need for action on climate change and the battle against the global recession made the three-day meeting in Port of Spain a "crisis summit".
"We have all had a bad few years of crisis upon crisis. The fuel and food crises of last year have been compounded by a financial crisis in 2009, in which less no less than half of our members are suffering negative growth," he told Commonwealth civic leaders in Trinidad ahead of the talks.
Founded 60 years ago, the Commonwealth now stretches around the globe, encompassing two billion people and accounting for a fifth of world trade.
The club of mainly former British colonies could grow further as the meeting will consider a membership application from Rwanda, a move backed by Commonwealth heavyweights though opposed by human rights campaigners.
But with the clock ticking to the start of the talks on December 7, the issue of climate has risen to the top of the agenda.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon as well as Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen will go to Trinidad for discussions on climate warming with Commonwealth leaders on Friday.
In an unusual move, French President Nicolas Sarkozy will also attend, fresh from taking part in a meeting of eight Amazon countries in the Brazilian city of Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon jungle.
Sharma said he wanted the Trinidad meeting to produce a strong political statement to take to Copenhagen but stressed the need to ensure that the voice of the Commonwealth's smaller nations is heard.
"The ones most starkly affected in many instances by global warming are the many small and vulnerable states that have negligible carbon footprints," he told reporters in a pre-meeting briefing in London.
Politicians from one tiny Commonwealth member, the Maldives, donned flippers and snorkels for an underwater cabinet meeting in October to warn against rising sea levels that threaten to submerge the low-lying archipelago.
Its president, Mohamed Nasheed, has warned that if every developed country enters the Copenhagen negotiations seeking to keep their own emissions as high as possible, it would be a "recipe for collective suicide."
Rwanda's bid to join the Commonwealth, 15 years after hundreds of thousands of people were killed in a genocide, is supported by Britain and Canada, two of the organisation's main financial contributors.
They argue that if the former German colony, which later came under a Belgian mandate from the League of Nations, joined the club it would be forced to raise its standards under increased international scrutiny.
But Human Rights Watch claims President Paul Kagame's administration suppresses democracy, freedom of speech, the press and human rights.
The group says the Commonwealth's claim to uphold those values would be undermined if it opened its doors to Rwanda.
The Commonwealth must also consider how to persuade Fiji to return to democracy.
The Pacific country had its membership suspended in September after its military ruler refused to meet Commonwealth demands to call elections by October next year, following a coup in December 2006.
Earlier this month, Commonwealth members Australia and New Zealand expelled Fiji's top envoys in a tit-for-tat retaliation for a similar move by the country's military regime, abruptly raising regional tensions.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, the Head of the Commonwealth, will officially open the talks on Friday.
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Comment on the Law Relating to the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Ideology of Rwanda
Rwanda, investors sign $250 million bio-fuel deal
By ABC7News.com
November 24th, 2009
San Francisco Bay Area-based Eco-Fuel Global this week signed an agreement with the Government of Rwanda to produce bio-fuels from Jatropha Curcas. The deal, estimated to be worth in excess of $250 million, would replace up to 20 percent of the Rwandan fossil fuel requirement with low emission bio-fuels.
Jatropha Curcas is a poisonous shrub whose seeds contain oil that is used to produce biodiesel fuel that is usable in a standard diesel engine.
“This marks the beginning of one of the largest sustainable biofuel projects in the world,” Mark O’Brien, CEO of Eco-Fuel Global, said in a statement. “Rwanda is leading the world in a new generation of environmentally friendly and economically responsible energy production.”
Eco-Fuel Global said some of the benefits of the project include:
■ Increased fuel security and reduced price risk.
■ Direct employment estimated at 6,500 jobs.
■ Environmental benefits such as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, soil stability and watershed protection.
■ Expanding U.S. exports through the use of U.S. – based biofuel refinery equipment and technology.
■ Food security through production of fertilizer as a by-product of the biofuel and the potential to increase agricultural yields with intercropping.
The company plans to grow Jatropha Curcas on 10,000 hectares of land near Akagera National Park, which is projected to yield an estimated 20 million liters of bio-fuel annually.
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The "Kagame's Cuckoo Strategy" and the Cuckoo's Takeoff
By A.M.I.
Democracy Human Rights Group
November 21, 2009
I have recently and regularly read the following quoting from an article published in the Washington Post on November 22, 2009 by the American writer Stephen Kinzer: "In his memoir, "God Sleeps in Rwanda" Joseph Sebarenzi presents a thoughtful critique of Kagame's regime. His tale is a provocative warning to the many outsiders who are ready to canonize Kagame". In fact it is also a provocative warning to Stephen Kinzer himself, who has already canonized Kagame.
Let me remind you that the same American writer Stephen Kinzer recently published the book: "A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It."
This Kagame canonizing book has been written in the typical "Blancs Menteurs" or parrot's tradition, which precisely canonizes Kagame, refusing to have any honest consideration for the Rwandese and Congolese victims of Kagame and his RPF dictatorial regime. A parrot is a tropical bird with hooked beak and fleshy tongue who repeats words without understanding their meaning (Penguin English Dictionary, op cit., p.513).
Let us further read and comment some of Stephen Kinzer’s statements:
1) "By all accounts, the credit goes to President Paul Kagame, whose rebel army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, deposed the genocidal regime in 1994 and who has been the country's strongman ever since".
Comment: This is not the truth, because there are more and more accounts discrediting Kagame for: having perpetrated a terrorist coup d'Etat on April the 6th , 1994, for having killed two democratically elected African presidents (Rwanda and Burundi), having deliberately sacrificed the intramural Tutsis, having murdered hundreds of thousands of Hutus in both the Northern and Eastern parts of Rwanda at least during the period spanning from 1990-1994, having killed hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees in the forests of Zaire/RDC since November 1996, being responsible of both direct and indirect death of millions of innocent Congolese citizens in both South and North Kivu in order to transform these regions in a no man's land to further be colonized by RPF…
2) "Kagame is one of the world's most intriguing leaders".
Comment: Kagame, an intriguing leader? What does the verb "intrigue" mean? In the classical Penguin English Dictionary (G.N. Garmonsway, 2nd edition, 1969, p.395) we read: "plot secretly, make sly schemes, have a secret love affair, rouse the curiosity of, fascinate, puzzle, mystify". Of course, Kagame plotted secretly, on the sly, and his secret sly schemes have been secretly dissimulated and covered up by his New World Order's bosses. Of course, Kagame rouses the morbid and fascinating curiosity of many uninformed persons because a broad network of Kagame’s lovers systematically conceals, disguises, and camouflages the truth about the Rwandan tragedy. I it the way Kagame has a secret love affair?
3."Fearing for his life, Sebarenzi fled the country for a second time".
Comment: Of course, Sebarenzi, who formerly fled to Zaïre/D.R.C., has been warned by close friends and insiders of the RPF regime that Kagame would literally bump him off!
4. “Kagame is likely to have only token opposition and may win with something like the 95 percent margin he claimed in 2003”.
Comment: Everybody will agree not to disagree with me if I ask the following question: "For Rwanda's dictator, would it be so difficult not to win?"
Let me give some examples. All of the political parties wear the RPF’s hat. All of the real political opponents of Kagame live outside of Rwanda by fear to be killed or to be charged during the heretical Gacaca trials, the goal of which is to make an under-society of pauperized Hutu slaves, accused of being "genocide mentality and genetically affected" revisionists, negationists, divisionists and justificationists, such an underworld surviving under the orders of a minority of newly wealthy Tutsi extremists. All of the socialist villages are supervised by the Local Defense Forces (L.D.F.). Both the Kigali-City region and the Eastern part of Rwanda de facto became a Tutsiland, but where are the former Hutu inhabitants between both the Muvumba, Akagera, and Akanyaru rivers? Of course, the "democratic" Kagame obtained and will obtain circa 95%, like former Zaïrian President Mobutu Sese Seko N'kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Douglashvilli Staline or the mythical King Ubu.
5."Sebarenzi writes. "He also may well be afraid of the outcome of a classical democracy in a majority-minority divided society, which might well translate into a demographic election in which Hutu would overwhelmingly win".
Comment: Of course since the preparation of the broad scale offensive from their strongholds in Uganda, RANU/RPF/RPA leaders made a socio-cultural analysis of the political issues in Rwanda, in term of ethnical solidarity, ethnos or predominant characteristics of the cultural communities of Rwanda, and demographic statistics. The majority of the Rwandan people meaning the Hutu (circa 85%) ubwoko (tribe, ethnos), and the democracy meaning a "one man, one vote" scheme, it was impossible for the RPF to get a regularly majority vote and to access to power without taking this power by brutal, terrorist, and military means. Of course, one of the practical tactics necessarily to achieve this strategy of power control consisted in reducing the intramural population, both Hutu and the so-called "class five" Tutsi, in order to, first of all, make place in the country, and secondarily in the neighbouring Zaïre/D.R.C., for a further re-colonization by the RPF supporters. I would define Kagame's strategy as the "*Kagame Cuckoo Strategy*", because there is no difference between the "RPF strategy" and the "*Cuckoo strategy*", the migratory cuckoo in the nest of a bird being a harmful intruder, like the Tutsi diaspora and Kagame's RPF in Rwanda. The democratic power in Kagame's mind means RPF dictatorship reigning on a blameworthy accused majority of Hutu slaves.
6. "Whether he can do so may determine the long-term success of Rwanda's audacious experiment".
Comment: This is a terrific sentence. What does an "audacious experiment" for Rwanda mean? First of all, the word "audacious" means: "daring, intrepid, presumptuous, and impudent" (Penguin English Dictionary, op cit., p.42). Secondly, the word "experiment" means: "test or observation for scientific purposes, under conditions controlled by the experimenter", "test, attempt to verify theory or discover new facts" and "investigation by trial and error" (Penguin English Dictionary, op cit., p.265). Therefore, we could logically define Kagame as an audacious, intrepid, daring, presumptuous and impudent experimenter who controlled the conditions of his experiment, alternatively by trial and error. Furthermore, everybody knowing that all the experiments are closely planed, we are allowed to raise the question for an enquiry about the criminals responsible for the planning of both the civilian war and the broad scale genocide in both Rwanda and Zaïre/D.R.C. In Arusha, Tanzania, the ICTR judges recently and iteratively issued a ruling that "there is no proof that the genocide has been planned by the Rwandan government’s side". Logically, the genocide has thus been planned by the other warring side. That is the RPF and its boss, Paul Kagame.
Conclusion
I would say that Stephen Kinzer, as a writer and/or journalist, is a good example of a weather vane or a weather cock, changing his mind depending on which way the wind is blowing, and almost passing the hat round when there is a hope of good return. He wrote his last above mentioned book praising the beloved dictator Kagame to the skies, and as by magic, he now smells that things could flare up if everybody understands the real roots of the "*Kagame Cuckoo Strategy*" in the ancestral Rwanda where milk and honey flowed like the four rivers encircling Havilah in the Eden Garden.
But Kagame is not eternal like the "Eternal Flame" on John Fitzgerald Kennedy's tomb, in the National Arlington Cemetery, West of the Potomac River in Washington. Kagame came from his Mulindi headquarters, crossing the Mulindi River for capturing Kigali and Rwanda. Mulindi, like Potomac, prefigure the Acheron or the Styx rivers, leading to Hadès or Infernus.
I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes, in his size 53 shoes, when, once upon a time, somewhere in the world, a judge will grab him by the scuff of his neck for war crimes, crimes against humanity, criminal conspiracy, economical crimes and genocide, not a particular genocide against one African tribe, but a genocide against humanity!
Of course, father of both Ugandan and Rwandan departments of military intelligence (DMI), President Paul Kagame is an intelligent man, capable of reasoning, but that does not mean that he's a cleaver person. He knows that his apocalyptic cavalcade in Central African Great Lakes countries leads him to a "no out let road". He took along with him too many innocent people and that has to be stopped now. The sole hope for the humanity, is that Kagame definitively understands that his soul is in danger of eternal death, that he recognizes his crimes, and that he asks forgiveness to the martyrized Rwandan people, so that the "Kagame's Cuckoo Strategy" will end with the Cuckoo’s Takeoff.
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Rwanda: Paul Kagame Sacrificed The Tutsis
Rwanda: Paul Kagame’s War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and Crimes of Genocide
Rwanda: Paul Kagame’s War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and Crimes of Genocide
By Free Uganda
October 28, 2009
Athough the U.S. has been successful in preventing Kagame’s crew from being indicted at the ICTR, other courts have indicted Kagame and members of his retinue. In late 2007, French Judge Bruguiere indicted the assassins of Habyarimana and personally recommended to Kofi Annan that Kagame be prosecuted by the ICTR.[22] And, in February 2008 Spanish Judge Merelles issued a 180-page indictment specifically charging Kagame with: Genocide; War Crimes; Crimes Against Humanity; including the massacres of more than 300,000 civilians.
The Ruhengeri city attack of January 23, 1991
The RPF staged a night attack on the city of Ruhengeri, resulting in heavy civilian casualties and heavy property damage. The RPF opened the gates of Ruhengeri prison, freeing many prisoners and enrolling them as fighters. The RPF also engaged in heavy looting activity in the city, and a reported 400 people were forced out of their homes to help carry the loot. These 400 civilians were all killed afterwards, along with another 100 civilians around the city as the RPF retreated back into the volcano forest. (Abdul J. Ruzibiza, Rwanda, L’Histoire? Secrete, 2005, p. 132)
The Butaro massacre of May 199
At Rusasa in the commune of Butaro, in the province of Ruhengeri, the RPF attacked displaced people on a small island in the swamps of Rugezi, destroying their shelters and killing their goats and sheep. 150 people were reportedly killed in this attack. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)
The notorious Ruhengeri and Byumba massacre of February 8, 1993
The RPF staged a major attack in several communes of the Provinces of Ruhengeri and Byumba, killing many people and inflicting heavy damage on state and privately-owned property. During this attack, the RPF killed a total of 24,400 people in Ruhengeri, and of15,800 in Byumba. (James K. Gasana, Rwanda: du parti-Etat a l’Etat garnison, 2002, p. 185)
The political assassination of May 18, 1993
The RPF is reported to have killed Emmanuel Gapyisi, a prominent political leader from the south and vice president of the MDR party. He was one of the most clear-minded and respected leaders of the MDR party. His killing removed a powerful RPF opponent because Gapyisi was very critical of RPF violent methods and practices. But this also was an extremely reckless crime capable of plunging the country into widespread violence between southerners and northerners especially if the former came to believe the latter had killed their man. Gapyisi’s killing was among the first in a wave of assassinations nationwide targeting Hutu political leaders, including businessmen, mayors, parliamentarians, and leading up to the assassination of Gatabazi, Bucyana, and finally President Habyarimana. An investigation is needed to clear the mystery of these assassinations once and for all.
Other crimes and terrorist acts
Throughout the year of 1993, Rwanda experienced a major spike in acts of armed banditry, grenade attacks and mini-bus taxi explosions in several parts of the country. According to several credible witnesses, among them former RPF officer Lieutenant Abdul Rizibiza now in exile in Norway, the acts were the work of infiltrated RPF hit squad members and spy operatives all belonging to the “RPF Network”, who were assigned to spreading violence and insecurity, thus rendering the country ungovernable in a bid to overthrow the government and seize power by force. (Abdul J. Ruzibiza, Testimony of Abdul Ruzibiza, March 14, 2004)
RPF crimes from January 1, 1995 to November 8, 2006
RPF War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and Crimes of Genocide (January 1,1995 – Present: November 8, 2006)
The gruesome Kibeho massacre of April 17-23, 1995
An estimated 4000 internally displaced people were reported killed on the orders of Major General Paul Kagame when army units collectively fired on the Kibeho camp that was estimated to shelter about 100,000 people, indiscriminately killing unarmed men, women, children, and many elderly. Paul Kagame, then vice president and minister of defense, reportedly had established his local operations headquarters in nearby Butare to closely supervise the siege and dismantling of the Kibeho camp. It took one full night of non-stop body disposal by truck towards the Nyungwe forest for mass incineration (many areas of the site were cordoned off for supposed “security and military reasons”) before the RPF allowed journalists, independent observers and UN monitors, to access the site. (Paul Jordan, Witness to Genocide – A Personal Account of the 1995 Kibeho Massacre, 1998; Abdul J. Ruzibiza, Rwanda, L’Histoire? Secrete, 2005)
This was a well-publicized massacre brazenly carried out by the RPF government, in the presence of the UN military contingent from Zambia and officials from NGO’s assisting these refugees, and many pictures of which were taken and made public. The simple question, then, is why hasn’t there been any independent inquiry so that the perpetrators can be officially identified and punished?
The deadliest year of 1996
The year of the infamous mass murder of refugees in Zaïre (currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and forced deportation of refugees: The RPA army carried out perhaps the most brutal and genocidal campaign in modern history by attacking the sprawling refugee camps in Goma and Bukavu in Zaïre, home to an estimated 1 to 2 million Rwandan refugees. There is little doubt that among these refugees were those who had participated in the mass killings inside Rwanda 2 years before. But the RPA army put the guilty and the innocent in the same bag, and indiscriminately fired on the camps and crowds of unarmed fleeing refugees, especially women, children and the elderly who were the weakest and unable to run fast, hunting down many of them like beasts deep into the tropical Zairian forest all the way to Tingi Tingi and Mbandaka. By all accounts, it is estimated this whole operation claimed the lives of 400,000 Rwandan refugees. While this operation was underway, the RPA army undertook one of the biggest deportation campaigns ever, by forcibly (i.e. against their will) airlifting an estimated 700,000 refugees back to their respective original communes in Rwanda. Then the RPF started a long-running criminal process of killing these returnees, as a result of which about 50% of the returnees are not living today. These horrific crimes, both in Zaïre and in Rwanda, were executed with orders received from their leaders. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living; Marie Beatrice Umutesi, Fuir ou Mourir au Zaire: Le vécu d’une réfugiée Rwandaise, 2000)
The International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development (CIDPDD), in teaming with the African Association for the Defense of Human Rights in DRC (ASADHO), concluded that “It appears pertinently that the Rwandan government can be held accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide” in their document entitled “Report of inquiry by the international non-government commission on human rights violations in DRC (former Zaire) 1996-1998”, 1998, p.78.
The slaughter of the Nyarutovu wedding, January 18-19, 1997
In the night of January 18-19, 1997, the RPF attacked and killed each and every one of the guests, including the bride and groom and their parents, at a civil wedding in the home of Major Laurent Bizabarimana in Nyarutovu in the northern province of Ruhengeri. 50 peoplewere collectively slaughtered that night. Major Laurent Bizabarimana and his family had recently returned from Zaire during the massive forced deportation by the RPF, and became victims of a brutal RPF nationwide campaign inside Rwanda to eliminate “genocidaire elements” from among these returnees. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)
The horrors of the Nyakinama Cave, October 23-28, 1997
RPA soldiers are reported to have pursued and killed8,000 unarmed civilians, especially women, children and the elderly who were too weak to run who had sought refuge in the cave of Nyakinama, in the commune of Kanama, to escape indiscriminate shootings and bombings by the RPA in the area. RPA soldiers reacted by lobbing grenades and other explosives into the cave, then went on to seal off the entrance of the cave with rocks and gravel so no one would be able to come out. ( Amnesty International, The dead can no longer be counted, report, December 1997)
The Hutu Christmas massacre of Kayonza, December 23-25, 1998
In the evening hours of December 23, 1998, a passenger on a mini-bus taxi from Kigali got off near Nyagatare, and suddenly fired a gun into the air before running off into the hills of near-by Ngarama. The next day, people woke up to road blocks at Kayonza and Musha, and to military security sweep operations in the surrounding communes of Ngarama, Muvumba, Murambi, Kayonza, and Bicumbi. All taxis to and from Kigali were stopped and carefully screened for Hutus, who were ordered out before the taxis were allowed to resume their journey. These Hutus were then all executed using guns or used up hoes, then loaded up onto trucks and shipped to humming incineration centers in the Mutara region, with the ashes later dispersed into the Akagara National Park. An estimated 5,000 innocent civilians, including the cousin of one witness, perished in this macabre 2-day operation. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)
The brutal reprisal campaigns against Abacengezi (1997-2000) and the ethnic cleansing of the Mutara region (1995 and after)
From 1997 to around 2000, the RPF faced an increased number of cross-border raids from Zaire into Rwanda carried out by remnants of the previous army who called themselves “Abacengezi” (or inroad specialists). Each time they attacked, the RPA army responded by unleashing a brutal reprisal campaign targeting the civilian population, especially in the northwestern provinces of Ruhengeri and Gisenyi, in order to break the will of the insurgents, many of whom originated from these provinces. More than 50,000 people were killed in many communes of these 2 provinces from 1997 to 2000. In the meantime, the RPF returned to the Mutara region in the northeast and started where it had left off in cleansing the area of all ethnic Hutus. The RPF decimated native Hutus, as well as other Hutus who had immigrated into this once under-populated area from other parts of the country in search of land and new jobs during the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s. The Mutara region is now the new all-Tutsi land of Rwanda, complete with farms and cattle ranches for the Tutsi herders. There have been reports that these ranching activities, in search of grazing pasture, have led to severe encroachments into the adjacent Akagera National Park, destroying the ecosystem of the area and the natural habitat of many wild animals. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)
Other alleged RPF crimes
The crime of denying people their right to seek medical treatment overseas: Since taking power in July 1994, theRPF has put in place a criminal policy of systematic non-issuance of medical treatment exit visas for people it wants to punish for multiple reasons. These are mostly people who have voiced their criticism of the government or the army, or are perceived to be in the political opposition, etc. One of the most glaring cases is that of Father Andre Sibomana,former Editor of the independent newspaper“Kinyamateka”, and a former interim Bishop of the Diocese of Kabgayi after the assassination of Bishop Thaddee Nsengiyumva in June 1994. He was a staunch social justice advocate and human rights activist known for his editorials denouncing the excesses of the RPF regime. He was never allowed to seek expert medical treatment overseas, and succumbed to his illness in Kabgayi at the young age of 43 on March 7, 1998. Dr. Jean Bagiramenshi, a veterinarian who worked for the government and later consulted for the World Bank, was another victim of this policy. He suffered from multiple ailments, including kidney malfunction and gout, and may have had liver problems as well. He was prevented several times from seeking medical treatment out of Rwanda on his own money, and by the time he was allowed to leave, it was too late. He died in Belgium in 2005.Investigations must be carried out to determine how many people have fallen victim to this criminal policy.(Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)
RPF death squads on the trail of opponents inside and outside Rwanda
On May 5, 1998, former Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga was assassinated in Nairobi, Kenya; on October 6, 1996, Colonel Theoneste Lizinde and businessman Augustin Bugirimfura were assassinated in Nairobi, Kenya; in the night of February 14-15, 1999, former CEO of Rwanda African Continental Bank (BACAR) Pasteur Musabe was assassinated in Yaounde, Cameroon. Inside Rwanda, former Council of State presidentVincent Nsanzabaganwa was assassinated on February 14, 1997; former presidential advisor Assiel Kabera was gunned down on March 5, 2000; on April 7, 2003, parliamentarian Leonard Hitimana was assassinated, and no inquiry has been conducted. Two weeks later on April 23, 2003, Colonel Augustin Cyiza was abducted and killed.Edouard Mutsinzi, former editor of “Le Messager” newspaper in Kigali, was abducted and beaten up, with his ribs broken, his eyes taken out, and his brain damaged so bad that he lives in a vegetative state in Belgium. All the victims were either critics of the government or potential compromising witnesses in possession of top state secrets. These crimes and many others were reported to have been committed by RPF death squad members assigned to do the dirty work against RPF opponents in different world capitals. They must be investigated, and their perpetrators brought to justice.
The cruel and inhumane use of prisoners in de-mining operations: The RPF has been reported sending hundreds to Hutu prisoners to their immediate death by forcing them to run in areas where landmines are suspected of having been planted by the ousted army, especially in the Bugesera region. These allegations must be fully investigated and prosecuted. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)
The cruel and inhumane treatment and exploitation of Rwandan prisoners in the Congo war for the profit of President Paul Kagame
During the Congo war and the occupation of Eastern DRC by the RPA, reports abounded about Rwandan prisoners being sent to die at the forefront of a brutal war of occupation and exploitation of the DRC. There were also numerous reports that hundreds, maybe thousands, of Rwandan prisoners were sent to RPA-occupied areas of the Congo to work as forced labor in the digging of minerals, especially Coltan, gold and diamonds, for the top brass members of the RPA army, starting with President Paul Kagame himself. This was a flagrant violation of international laws governing prisoners and a despicable trampling of human dignity. A full investigation and prosecution of these crimes is warranted. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)
Final Observations
When this RPF crime compendium is released, I expect the RPF government to hit back with blanket accusations, without any proof, that I am a “revisionist and a negationist of the Rwandan genocide”, and that “I harbor an ideology of genocide and divisionism”. The international community must take a very close and careful look at such character assassination, and in many cases outright persecution, of all real and perceived contrary opinion holders and political opponents, social justice advocates and human rights critics in Rwanda by the RPF government, and find a proper way to address it.
The present compendium was conceived as an effort to document most reported and under-reported crimes by the RPF organization as a predominantly Tutsi rebel group and government with a view to bring to light its apparent share of responsibility in the whole Rwandan tragedy. Even though it places a premium on seemingly forgotten Hutu casualties, this document did not and does not intend to belittle Tutsi and Twa casualties of the Rwandan genocide. All sons and daughters of Rwanda, as well as foreigners who perished in this tragedy were a terrible loss to humanity and must be equally mourned and remembered, regardless of their ethnicity. We need to know with certainty who massacred the Bagogwe Tutsi sub-clan of Gisenyi in 1991 and 1992. We need to know with certainty who butchered the Banyamulenge Tutsis and Bagobwe Tutis sheltered at Mudende camps in August, November, and December 1997. We need to know with certainty who killed the American, British, Australian and New Zealand tourists at Bwindi National Park in Uganda in 1999. Who killed the Spanish volunteers in Rwanda in 1997 and in Congo in the following years? Who abducted, mutilated and killed former Rwandan cabinet minister Juvenal Uwiringiyimana before dumping his body in a Brussels canal in December 2005? Was he or not a victim of the RPF death squad in Europe as widely suspected? The overall goal of this document is to lift the cloud of mystery and secrecy hanging over the Rwandan tragedy. It is to fight impunity and help bring equitable justice to Rwanda: whoever killed a Tutsi must pay, whoever killed a Hutu must pay, whoever killed a Twa must pay, and whoever killed a foreigner must pay.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame is now widely believed to be behind the shooting down of the aircraft carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana on that fateful night of April 6, 1994. In that capacity, he is the suspected triggerman of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the architect of the genocide after 1994. Kagame outright denies these allegations. But a better way to refute the charges and clear his name once and for all is to allow an independent investigation to look into these crimes. Of course Kagame will never request such an independent investigation, because he knows he is guilty. That’s why we ask the UN to mandate the ITCR to investigate these tragedies not covered by the current mandate.
The provinces of Byumba and Ruhengeri did not experience the wave of genocidal killings that engulfed the rest of the country in April 1994, because they were already under RPF control. Yet, the vast majority of families currently living in these regions (about 80% of all inhabitants of these areas) are made up of widows and orphans, who tell stories of their husbands and fathers having been killed by the RPF. International non-government organizations (NGO’s) have been prohibited by the RPF government to go into these areas and assist these widow-run families to move ahead, and to mend the traditional family nucleus and the social fabric which have been completely shattered. Families in these areas with a member in the previous government army have been especially targeted and hit the hardest by the RPF. The simple question is this: why has the international community remained blind in the face of such blatant brutalization of human life? From 1990 to 1994, a reported 400,000 people have died in these areas. Who killed them?
Reports have circulated that many extremist RPF members in Kigali and other cities had large caches of weapons in their residences, and had dug up very deep pits in their backyards a few months before the genocide. What was the purpose of these weapons and pits? There have been reports that in the ceasefire months leading up to April 1994, many RPF youths received extensive fire arms training in the CND parliament building housing the RPF battalion, and at the RPF headquarters in Mulindi. Also, it is no secret that while the ruling MRND party had the Interahamwe militia, the MDR party had the JDR (Democratic Republican Youth) militia, and the PSD party had the Abakombozi militia, the RPF had a youth militia of its own that inflicted as much damage as the other militias. An independent inquiry of these facts is needed, and witnesses are available to testify openly.
The killings in Rwanda in 1994 were called genocide. Today, the killings in Darfur are being denounced as genocide. The killings in Zaire from 1996 to 2001, which took the lives of more than 4 million innocent lives, were called just that: killings. Where is the logic? Some of the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide have been punished, and from all indications the perpetrators of the Darfur genocide will be punished, since the setting up of an International Criminal Tribunal for Darfur is already in the works. That’s all good. But when are we going to have the International Criminal Tribunal for Congo? When will the perpetrators of the Zairian killings be punished? Never mind calling the Zairian killings genocide, can their perpetrators at least be punished? There are countries which do not have a total of 4 million inhabitants. That’s a lot of people to kill and live freely ever after. We all know beyond a doubt that the RPF committed these killings. You, the international community, can you tell us who you hold responsible for these wholesale massacres? For the same crimes, there must be the same punishments.
More than 50% of current inmates in Rwanda have no official criminal charges against them, but continue to be kept in jail and out of active life. The government keeps the inmates on meagre meals that must be supplemented with additional food rations from their families, or they will die from hunger – when they do not succumb to torture so rampant under different forms inside official prisons throughout the country and inside hidden unofficial torture centers. In most cases, women, including those educated, cannot keep a paying job because they need 2 to 3 hours per day to go feed their husbands in jail. No employer will agree to so much time off every day. This means that for the 100,000 married men in prison, there are 100,000 women not working, or a total of 200,000 people not actively contributing to the economy. With an average of 4 children per Rwandan household, that’s a total of 400,000 children nationwide that lack parental guidance and money to attend school. And all of a sudden, the grim picture of the legacy of the RPF regime comes into full focus: the pauperization and illiterate-ization of an entire generation of Rwandans. If this is not slow genocide, then genocide does not exist. Truthfully, there are 5 main factors of genocide: bad leadership, bad media, impunity, poverty, and lack of education. Today, all these 5 genocide factors are in place in Rwanda. The height of injustice in Rwanda can be summed up this way: manyinnocent Hutu civilians are in jail, while all criminal RPF elements are free. Where is the UN while all of this is happening? There cannot be any possible reconciliation in any nation where one part of the population is having a field day at the expense of the other part of the population on its knees.
Joseph Matata, a Rwandan human rights advocate who heads the Brussels-based “Center against Impunity and Injustice in Rwanda”, has reported that about 100 ex-FAR military officers are jailed at the Kibungo military prison since April 1999. An additional 37 or so ex-FAR military officers remain unaccounted for, while many other former comrades have been summarily executed Report of April 14, 1999.The “official” political parties in Rwanda today function under the umbrella of the so-called “Forum of Parties” where the RPF is sole master. In view of all this, the question is this: Does the Arusha Peace Agreement of August 1993, painfully reached between the then-RPF rebels and the then-government, and which called for a merger of the 2 fighting armies and free political activity in Rwanda, have any relevance left?
Contrary to RPF claims, there is no peace in Rwanda. That explains why far too many Rwandans continue to flee overseas and are easily granted asylee or refugee status. How long is the RPF going to use genocide as a pretext to stifle democracy and entrench one of the most predatory dictatorships ever? Political opposition is completely muzzled. How long will the people of Rwanda continue to die a slow death? Former President Pasteur Bizimungu and his collaborators, such as Charles Ntakirutinka, are rotting in jail for having started a political party. In fact, in Rwanda there is no shortage of political prisoners, prisoners of opinion, prisoners of hate, prisoners of race, etc., and Colonel Stanislas Biseruka, reporter Dominique Makeri, and Colonel Patrick Karegeya are only a handful in a long list. You, the ICTR, whose original mandate was to reconcile the Rwandan people among other things, what is going to be your legacy for Rwanda when your time expires?
The recent brutal killing of many businessmen among them Fulgence Nsengiyumva of Gitarama, aged 49, by the RPF government army on August 6, 2006 must be condemned vehemently. His wife is being persecuted for reclaiming the confiscated truck that belonged to him, and their 5 innocent children will be traumatized for the rest of their lives. The recent arrest, search and strip of old women in an open market place by RPF police in broad day light as a way to humiliate and force all old and barefoot women to never set foot in a market place again, is abhorrent and must be condemned vehemently. The on-going campaign to ban bicycles and motorcycles from cities, especially Kigali, as well as the on-going campaign to raze all banana plantations, is an act of economic depredation on the Rwandan population by its RPF government and will result in the starvation of the masses. It must be condemned vehemently. The on-going campaign to expel from Kigali city all the poor, all AIDS orphans, all war widows and war invalids, is criminal. It all started with a seemingly simple desire to take the poor away from the city, then the campaign targeted the bare-foot crowd, then those wearing sandals and slippers, then the pedestrians, then the bicyclists, and finally the motorcyclists. Who is it going to be next? There is clearly a pattern of criminal exclusion that must be condemned. In reality, this whole campaign is an empty attempt by RPF rulers to project to visitors and donors the deceptive impression that Kigali in particular, and Rwanda in general, are well-managed to deserve more financial aid. Chasing all these poor people away from the city without addressing the root cause of their misery is a window dressing, whitened-sepulcher, or sweep-under-the-rug type of approach to development, and it obviously can’t help any poor Rwandan. It can’t fool any foreign donor country either. So the simple question to the United Nations is this: why are the people of Rwanda being so toyed with, persecuted and killed by their own government in this fashion and nothing is being done about it?
Finally, what is Presidential Immunity? It seems to mean that someone can kill all the people he or she wants, and not worry about any consequences as long as he or she is president of a given country! We are in the 21st century, and humanity sure can come up with better laws.
General Conclusions
The above list of RPF crimes is by no means exhaustive. There are reports of countless RPF crimes before 1994, in 1994, and after 1994 that could not be compiled in this document. For example, in the small eastern town of Muhura as the RPF marched onto Kigali in the Spring of 1994, General Paul Kagame himself is reported not only having given direct orders to fire on crowds of wandering displaced people, but also having personally sprayed bullets into these crowds with his own machine gun. An investigation of this massacre is needed, and witnesses are available to tell the story.
Currently, there is a general, state-sponsored crime being perpetrated by the RPF government against an entire segment of the Rwandan population, specifically Hutus, through the infamous Gacaca Courts. The RPF government is attempting to incriminate the biggest number of Rwandans possible by officially labeling them “killers” or “genocidaires”, thus ostracizing them from public life and creating a caste of second class citizens or “untouchables”. Gacaca trials are an age-old, small-courts-type Rwandan tradition designed to settle only misdemeanors, such as stealing a cow, a goat, or chickens, and minor land disputes between neighbors. By its nature, a Gacaca trial does not require judges and jurors to have law school training and degrees, only common sense. Conversely, the crime of genocide is so grave by nature that it cannot be tried in a Gacaca court, with semi-literate judges and jurors, and with no legal defense, without being diminished and debased.
The justice system in place wants detainees to admit to the crime of killing if they want to be freed. Then, they head to a local Gacaca court where they not only must confess (and explain) their crimes but also reveal and denounce other killers. Anything short of this is a half-confession and not acceptable, and the suspect must go back to jail. In other cases, witnesses are produced from the woodwork to incriminate suspects for crimes they never committed. Very clearly, there is an attempt here on the part of the RPF government to humiliate and exterminate an entire people.
Paul Kagame is the living satan of the great lakes. As long as this butcher is free, the dead will continue to demand for Justice.
Related Materials:
Kibeho Massacre
Rwanda: Damning testimonies against the Rwandan Patriotic Front
Rwanda: Is Paul Kagame the New Hitler?
Rwanda: Testimony on Kagame’s death squads
The Legacy of The Crematoriums of Rwanda
Mbandaka Terminus: The Path of Rwandan Refugee Mass Graves in Congo
What Really Happened in Rwanda?
The conquest of Rwanda (1990-1994): Recognizing the international conspiracy
Planting bio-fuels, in Rwanda, while Rwandans go hungry
By Ann Garrison
OpEdNews.com
November 22, 2009
Rwanda's greatest natural resource is its fertile agricultural land, but most is centralized in the hands of government elites and planted in export crops, coffee, tea, flowers, and soon, bio-fuels----while Rwandans go hungry.
On November 9, 2009, Benoit Ndagijimana, Deputy Secretary General of the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda, a.k.a., the UDF-IINKINGI, a dissident Rwandan political party, protested the Rwandan government's dedication of 10,000 hectares of land,in Eastern Rwanda, to produce bio-fuels, in a consortium with U.S.-based Eco-Fuel Global and UK-based Eco Positive:
"This unique decision is made when prices of food commodities are increasing every day, but many Rwandans barely have one meal a day and display obvious undernourishment, and, when at least 60% of households in the rural areas of Rwanda suffer from different degrees of food insecurity. This decision poses additional harms to the Rwandan peasants already afflicted not only by current land expropriation underway since July 1994 but also by forced villagization and technocratic regionalization of crops. . ." (Hungry for Truth,Peace and Justice Blog).
Rwanda's greatest natural resource is its fertile agricultural land, but most of it is centralized in the hands of government elites and planted in coffee, tea, and flowers for export. This Global Eco-Fuels investment, like Costco and Starbuck's investment in Rwandan coffee plantations, obviously undermines most Rwandans struggle to secure life's most basic necessity---food.
The best hope of redistributing Rwandan land to Rwandan people, for sustainable agriculture that might feed them, is a fair and honest election in Rwanda in August 2010, which the government of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, the U.S.A.'s greatest ally in Africa, is doing all it can to prevent----as evidenced by its repression of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda's four attempts to convene, and, its refusal to grant a passport to the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda's First Vice Chairman Eugène Ndahayo.
If allowed to participate, the Rwandan Greens, the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda, and other parties would probably be able to form a coalition capable of winning the election.
For a critique of bio-fuels planting on the entire African continent, see the Pambazuka News, "Bio-fuels and neo-colonialism," which describes it as "a new and massive land-grabbing scramble in Africa, unprecedented since the fall of colonialism."
Related Materials:
More than 50% children in Rwanda are stunted
Rwanda: campaigners say the country is starving while the government says criticism is unfounded
Rwanda: Cabinet approves US35m Bio-diesel project
Rwandan peasants on the brink of extinction
Rwanda: World Bank (WB) agrees with International Monetary Fund (IFM): Rwanda is off track to attaining most of its millennium development goals (MDG)
The UDF-INKINGI condemn the decision to sell 10,000 hectares for bio-fuel production to the detriment of people's food security in Rwanda
Kenya: Food versus Jatropha
Mozambique: Will Jatropha Invade?
Rwanda Vision 2020 and an emerging, active diaspora
By Urusaro Bakuramutsa
The Tufts Daily
November 17, 2009
Tufts University has been an active friend of Rwanda. In 2005, Tufts President Lawrence Bacow launched the Talloires Network, which has been dedicated to enhancing social responsibility in Rwanda, among other places, for the past four years. Last month, Tufts held Race4Rwanda, an event in which Rwandans living in Boston and their friends were able to participate. Tufts has been exemplary in terms of pushing for socio-economic development through initiatives and not just donations only.
Fifteen years after the genocide, Rwanda, a small landlocked country, has emerged as one of the leading developing sub-Saharan African nations. The World Bank recognized Rwanda in 2009 for its improvement in providing a business-friendly environment. A business investment hub, Rwanda has reformed investment, banking, construction, transportation, trade and information and technology. As Rwanda moves towards achieving its Vision 2020 goals, the diaspora population will play an intricate role in boosting socio-economic development.
As foreign investment is welcomed and pursued by the Rwanda Investment and Export Agency, so is investment by the Rwandan diaspora. Areas of business investment are booming in the country, but there are areas still in need of development, such as capacity building, education, civil society and societal empowerment within the Rwandan diaspora communities. Currently, they are over 10,000 professional Rwandans living in the diaspora whose expertise and knowledge are needed in Rwanda. The diaspora has been given first priority to invest in Rwanda. Opportunities range from low-interest loans for small businesses, facilitation for land acquirement and real estate purchases to first bids on capital market bonds.
Should we rely on the international community? Throughout history we have questioned the role of the citizen and government. English political philosopher John Locke argued that the government is only as powerful as its citizens; French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote about the concept of a social contract between citizens and their governments. Rwanda has aimed to provide its diaspora that same social contract and privilege. The development of the Diaspora Desk at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rwanda aims to provide the diaspora with information on business investment, job opportunities and current events in Rwanda. It seeks to entice the Rwandan diaspora to be more active and strengthen its role in Rwanda economically, socially and politically.
Is it not the role of citizens to develop their nation? Through an active diaspora that invests in and questions the current events in Rwanda, the future of the country would not rely on donor organizations and government initiatives but rather on its active Rwandan citizens and the diaspora. John F. Kennedy said it best when he stated, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.” As we move toward a prosperous Rwanda, the Rwanda Convention Association’s (RCA) vision is to provide that bridge between Rwanda, foreign investors and the Rwandan Diaspora.
The RCA aims to provide a platform for investment in Rwanda by foreign investors and most importantly the diaspora. The RCA currently advocates strongly for youth leadership and education initiatives both in Rwanda and in the diaspora. Currently, as we look at Rwanda Vision 2020, we must also look at our youth. The RCA believes that through an educated, empowered and strong youth movement, Rwanda will be able to establish a strong workforce, promote civic leadership among high school and university students and most importantly mentor Rwanda’s future leaders. The RCA further supports education development. Through a strong education system and civil society, Rwandan economic development, social development and capacity building will be advanced. Through the Rwandan diaspora’s transfer of knowledge by project initiatives, joining the workforce and even capacity training, it is expected that the Economic Development Poverty Reduction Strategy will be complete by 2015.
In 2010, the Rwanda Convention will push to be the epicenter of the new age of Rwanda. As we move forward in the development of Rwanda we must not dwell on the past but look on how we can change, develop and strive towards achieving Rwanda’s Millennium Development Goals. Consequently, the convention will provide investment opportunities in East Africa and promote education projects that will enable and strengthen capacity building, transfer of knowledge and youth leadership. It will further address the development of media in Rwanda and the impact of freedom of press on the development of a new democratic Rwanda.
As we enter the new year, it is time the African diaspora takes a step forward in the rebranding of Africa. Even though it is known for its poverty, wars, ethnic divisions and political corruption, the African continent is rich in resources, culture, history and beauty. As a result, the goal of the seventh annual RCA convention is to provide a platform for the Rwanda that has not been seen: a land of a thousand hills where investment is welcomed, tourism is booming and education is the future. The RCA will provide an arena for investment in banking, private sector, real estate and education.
Tomorrow’s Rwanda does not rely only on donor organizations; it depends on foreign investors, as well as in Rwandans taking a leading role.
Note:
Urusaro Bakuramutsa is President of the Rwanda Convention Association.
Related Materials:
On The Myth of Economic Prosperity in Rwanda
Rwanda: Elementary school students take classes under a tree
Rwandan peasants on the brink of extinction
Rwanda: Economic Growth Sustained Through Free Labor
Rwanda: World Bank (WB) agrees with International Monetary Fund (IFM): Rwanda is off track to attaining most of its millennium development goals (MDG)
More than 50% children in Rwanda are stunted
Rwanda: campaigners say the country is starving while the government says criticism is unfounded
Striving for growth, bypassing the poor?A critical review of Rwanda’s rural sector policies
