The Africa Global Village

Two camps, two theories, and two visions of France: 18 years after the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis, the precise role played by Paris is still the subject of heated debate, fueled by the findings of successive criminal investigations. Excerpts.

In a shadowy area of recent French history, the ideological battle over a wound that has yet to heal remains ongoing. Ranged against each other, two camps of intellectuals, politicians and activists who are at war over a question that is as simple as it is terrible: is France in part to blame for the Rwandan genocide which claimed 800,000 lives in one month?

Rwanda's military last month arrested four top army officers and placed them under house arrest for alleged illegal business dealings in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On January 17^th, 2012 four generals were arrested in Rwanda and placed under house arrest. Much speculation has been raised as to the reason for their arrest and detainment. The Government of Rwanda stated the following reason as to their arrests, “According to the official statement of the military authorities, the four senior officers stand accused of having had illegal business dealings in the Democratic Republic of Congo.” Yet, many political analysts have continued so speculate and raise questions about this situation.

In an interview with Alice Muhirwa, FDU-INKINGI Treasurer, conducted on 27 January 2012, she describes the political climate in Rwanda from her experience in a political opposition group in Rwanda. She describes the challenges she faces in supporting Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza who is currently on her second year in jail while her trial continues to be postponed. Ms. Muhirwa delivers food to Mrs. Ingabire Umuhoza on a daily basis and describes the conditions she is suffering in.

By: Jennifer Fierberg, MSW

Imagine the entire state population of Arizona murdered in an 11year period by neighboring rebel groups, all six million people. The women of Phoenix, Flagstaff, Camp Verde and other cities brutally raped while their children and husbands watched. After this horrific act of war, the husbands are shot, dismembered and the women left bleeding and ruined in their communities. For the men who do survive they are unable to look at their wives for the shame they suffered by not being able to protect them from the atrocities that occurred. Imagine the children who were forced to watch their mothers being violently raped and their fathers murdered only to meet the same fate at their tender ages. For those children who were not killed they would be taken as child soldiers and “bush wives” to the rebels. The entire state of Arizona left in ruins with only the stench of dead bodies littered everywhere. Now imagine that the mainstream media ignores the entire 11 year massacre. Fox news, CNN, MSNBC all report on elections, high-speed car chases and celebrity divorces and never once mention that the entire state of Arizona has been massacred. This should seem outlandish yet it is happening every day in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

FDU-INKINGI and RNC Statement on the suspension, arrest and detention of Senior Military Officers of Rwanda Defence Forces

Press Release

20th January 2012

Three Rwandan generals and a colonel were suspended from duty and placed under house arrest on 17 January 2012. The defence spokesman, Colonel Joseph Nzabamwita, confirmed the suspensions, arrests and detentions of Lieutenant General Fred Ibingira (Chief of staff of the Reserve Force), Brigadier General Richard Rutatina (Chief of Military Intelligence), Brigadier General Wilson Gumisiriza (3rd Division Commander) and Colonel Dan Munyuza (Chief of External Security Service). According to the official statement of the military authorities, the four senior officers stand accused of having had illegal business dealings in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The suspensions, arrests and detentions of the officers has generated widespread speculation, with some citizens and foreign analysts speculating that the officers may have been involved in a plan to carry out a coup d’état against the dictatorial regime of President Kagame.

We issue this statement to clarify the situation and to offer our opinion on the implications of this significant development for the people of Rwanda and the region.

According to our investigations, the suspensions, arrests and detention of the four officers have nothing to do with any imaginary failed military coup d’état. Neither do the suspensions, arrests and detention have anything to do with the alleged illegal business dealings in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The truth behind the suspensions, arrests and detentions instead relates to the Rwanda Government’s long standing policy of aggression aiming to perpetually destabilize and exploit the Eastern part of the DRC. This policy is implemented by arming and supporting proxy rebel groups and installing compliant civil authorities in the region. The rationale for this policy is to keep the DRC militarily weak and vulnerable to manipulation and blackmail, and to facilitate the illegal exploitation of its resources. As the proprietor of the major Rwandan business enterprises involved in business in Eastern DRC, President Kagame is the primary beneficiary of the Rwanda’s policy of subversion in Eastern DRC. Instability and volatility in the Eastern DRC serves the personal business interests of President Kagame and the strategic interests of the current dictatorship in Kigali. The maintenance of a chaotic, unstable and volatile atmosphere in the DRC makes it possible for President Kagame to maintain a military presence in Eastern DRC against the will and legitimate wishes of the people of the DRC and to operate freely in the areas as if Eastern DRC is not sovereign territory.

In furtherance of the policy to continue to destabilize and exploit the eastern part of the DRC, President Kagame have over the recent past deployed large numbers of senior Rwanda Defence Forces personnel, including the above named four officers, on multiple missions into the DRC to organize the rigging of elections of local and regional government authorities. The four officers were jointly responsible for the plan. Unfortunately, the subversive activities of the Rwanda government and the frequent visits of RDF officers in particular came to the knowledge of DRC’s President Kabila. Armed with overwhelming evidence of the above mentioned subversive activities, President Kabila reportedly confronted President Kagame over the presence and activities of RDF officers on DRC territory.

The alleged suspension and detention of the four officers aims to simply create a diversion because President Paul Kagame approved the operations and deployment of the four and many other members of the Rwanda Defence Forces in the DRC beforehand. The activities of the four officers on DRC territory would otherwise be an indication of Kagame’s loss of control over the army. The allegations of the officers’ involvement in business dealings with civilians in the DRC are a cover-up. The civilians (such as Mr. Safari, Mr. Mabati and Mr. Muzungu) who have been arrested alongside the military leaders are local administration officials and not businessmen. If anybody ought to be held accountable for crimes relating to smuggling from the DRC and the illegal exploitation of the resources of the DRC, it should be President Kagame, the employees of his personal businesses and his close business associates. Private companies owned by President Kagame or by very close business associates of General Kagame are still operating between Rwanda and the Eastern DRC. We have no doubt that the suspended military officers will, in conformity with past practice, be quietly released and reintegrated into the military as soon as international attention towards the illegal activities of the Rwanda Government in the DRC wanes. General Ibingira was similarly put under house arrest in 1995 after the Kibeho massacres of internally displaced persons for which he was responsible.

We take the opportunity of these recent developments to reiterate our opposition to President Kagame’s use of the institutions and instruments of the state to promote his personal business and financial interests. We also once again draw to the attention of the people of Rwanda, the peoples and governments of neighboring states and the wider international community to the grave consequences of the Rwanda Government’s campaign of destabilization and exploitation of the DRC. We call upon the international community to condemn President Kagame’s policies of subversion against the DRC. These policies perpetuate instability and suffering in the DRC, continue to poison relations between the peoples of both countries and future generations and are such counter to the long term interests of the people of the Great Lakes region as a whole.

Lausanne, Switzerland

Dr. Nkiko Nsengimana

Co-ordinator,

FDU-Inkingi Co-ordination Committee

Washington D.C., USA

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa

Co-ordinator

RNC Interim Committee

Jean-Bosco Uwinkindi is the first suspect to be sent to Rwanda by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Former pastor and Rwanda genocide suspect Jean Uwinkindi is going home.

More than six months after the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda announced its decision to send him to Rwanda to stand trial, Uwinkindi has lost his last appeal and will face a Kigali courtroom, according to a statement issued by the Rwandan government.

The ICTR was created 17 years ago, when Rwanda lay in ruins after the civil war and the fastest genocide in history.

Uwinkindi was arrested in Uganda in 2010 and is the first genocide suspect to be sent back to Rwanda by the United Nations-backed court. In a statement on its website, the court says the Rwandan justice system is now ready to give him a fair trial.

“Rwanda had made material changes in its laws and had indicated its capacity and willingness to prosecute cases referred by the ICTR adhering to internationally recognized fair trial standards,” reads the statement.

The Rwandan government has declared the transfer a victory, saying it “shows the world how far we have come.” Critics have accused the Rwandan courts of being politicized, and under the thumb of the ruling party, the Rwanda Patriotic Front party of President Paul Kagame.

In the past, the court has refused Rwanda’s previous requests to transfer genocide suspects to Kigali, saying the country did not have the capacity to hold a fair trial. Observers will be sent to monitor Uwinkindi's trial, and the court reserves the right to bring him back to Tanzania if things go awry, according the court statement.

Uwinkindi is accused of crimes against humanity including planning, instigating, ordering and committing acts of genocide, according to his ICTR profile. The prosecution says that after the former pastor fled Rwanda in 1994, about 2,000 corpses were found near his church.

The Rwandan genocide was the fastest in history, with roughly 1 million people slaughtered in 100 days. The genocide was planned and executed by Hutu extremists, with intent of exterminating Rwanda's Tutsi minority. The victims were Tutsis and sympathetic Hutus attempting to protect their neighbors.

The genocide ended in 1994, as the Rwandan Patriotic Front took over the country ending the slaughter and the ongoing civil war. Once a rebel army, the RPF remains the country’s ruling party and has overseen the trials of more than a million genocide suspects in community-based courts in Rwanda.

Human Rights Watch criticized the community-based courts, saying the system was flawed, partially because the courts would not hear crimes allegedly committed by RPF soldiers during the war or in retaliation for the genocide.

Source: www.globalpost.com

By: Heather Murdock

RESPONDING TO THE FRENCH JUDGE MARC TREVIDIC’S TECHNICAL REPORT

Washington DC, 10th January 2012

On the 1st October 2011, I published a confession in which I stated that Paul Kagame, then overall commander of the Rwandese Patriotic Army, the armed wing of the Rwandese Patriotic Front, was personally responsible for the shooting down of the plane on April 6, 1994, in which President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda, President Cyprian Ntaryamira of Burundi, Deogratias Nsabimana, Elie Sagatwa, Thaddee Bagaragaza, Emmanuel Akingeneye, Bernard Ciza, Cyriaque Simbizi, Jacky Heraud, Jean-Pierre Minaberry and Jean-Michel were killed. I stated that Paul Kagame himself had told me, in July 1994, that he was responsible for the shooting down of the plane. I stated that Paul Kagame has to be brought to account for his role in this terrorist crime that provided a trigger for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. I have also stated that myself and other witnesses are willing, able, and ready to provide further evidence to national or/and international jurisdictions interested in contributing to truth, justice, reconciliation and healing in Rwanda.

Neither myself nor other new, willing, and able witnesses have yet been able to meet Judge Marc Trevidic, or any other international tribunal/court. to give the true account of the events surrounding the shooting down of the plane.

Today, 10th January, 2012, the French Judge, Marc Trevidic, investigating the 1994 terrorist crime, made public the findings of the Technical Report by ballistic experts. Among other things, the technical report stated that a) the experts were leaning more towards the version of the events that the missile that shot down the plane originated from several areas, especially around the Kanombe area in Kigali; b) the missiles were made and supplied from the former Soviet Union and, c) lawyers and other interested parties have up to three months to contest any matters arising from the report.

In this regard, I would like to state the following:

1. That the missile was fired from a number of areas in the Kanombe area does not exonerate Paul Kagame from having committed the crime;

2. That the missiles were of Soviet Union origin will prove to be of substantive help in establishing who the real culprit is, and;

3. That there is time for us ( myself and other interested and new witnesses) to respond fully to the technical report and provide credible testimony to Judge Marc Trevidic, or any other in the international jurisdiction, to pin down Paul Kagame as the culprit in this terrorist crime.
I stand fully behind the letter and spirit of my October 1st, 2011 confession. Judge Marc Trevidic’s technical report has not proved me wrong. Nor has it exonerated Paul Kagame from this crime, and yet Kigali is spinning the story out of context to celebrate what it calls “victory”. In the coming months and years, myself, other witnesses, Rwandans and others in the international community who heed the call, will continue to endeavor to have Paul Kagame account for his role in this and other crimes.

I would like to remind all Rwandans and the international community that this is not Judge Marc Trevidic’s final judgment on the matter. Furthermore, matters of truth and justice for Rwandans will primarily be decided by us Rwandans. Even when the international community and foreigners in general have had the reputation of disappointing Rwandans, we must have faith in our struggle for truth, justice, healing, and reconciliation.

Let us mobilize and organize, for truth and justice shall ultimately prevail.

We shall win.

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa

Editor note: The final report has not been made public. Upon its publication the link will be provided in the comments of this article.

Submitted by: Jennifer Fierberg, MSW