 Kigali: The Rwandan envoy in London has furiously dismissed the contested report of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) which among many concerns, says Rwanda is not a good neighbour to live with, an in-depth review of the report suggests. Rwanda does not meet the requirements of the 1991 Harare Declaration which expresses the Commonwealth’s interest in international understanding, co-operation and world peace, according to the 26-page document.
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative : Rwanda is the source of instability in region
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
To the Kagame's government you must know , understand and think Twice where you are taking Rwandas
No more French unless France recolonises Rwanda”
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| By RNA Reporters | |
| Monday, 14 September 2009 Kigali: As the fallout over the implementation of the shift from French to English rages on, a top cabinet official has made it clear that the road away from French is unstoppable, RNA reports. New Education Minister Dr. Charles Murigande shut the door to any more discussion over the policy with the strongest comments ever made by a top government official. Dr. Murigande said Sunday that everything is on course for all schools to start teaching in English.“There is no turning back to French as a language of instruction in this country,” he said to an audience of journalists and stakeholders, while pounding his table. “We have switched to English forever.” Government has argued that taking up English simply reinforces Rwanda’s position in the international system. However critics accuse government of abandoning a constitutional stipulation which makes Rwanda a country with three languages English, French and Kinyarwanda. Last week one of the fiercest critics of government Mr. Paul Rusesabagina – the exiled face behind the Hollywood movie ‘Hotel Rwanda’, also raised his toughest attacks. He claimed in a BBC program that a “small group of between 30,000 and 40,000 people who came from Uganda” is imposing English on the whole country. Mr. Rusesabagina has launched a campaign to ensure Rwanda is not allowed into the British Commonwealth group of nations. Officials just brushed off these latest actions by the man accused here of seeking to acquire fame from the country’s suffering. Rwanda has been French-speaking for ages which completely disqualifies it outrightly from the British grouping, argues Mr. Rusesabagina. But supporters of Kigali have branded him as irrelevant. For Education Minister Dr. Murigande, who is not new to very strong comments against France, the road to ending French is no room for compromise. Rwanda, he told his audience Sunday, will never go back to French “unless France recolonises Africa”. About two years ago, Dr. Murigande, when he was Foreign Affairs Minister told RNA in a wide ranging interview: “We were killed by the French in the name of Francophonie” referring to the grouping of French colonies. Government is finalizing plans to build thousands of new classrooms across the country in time for the start in January of the nine-year basic education program. Education officials also want the expansion program to come with a phasing-in of English in all schools as the language of instruction. Science subjects are already being taught in English and universities have all switched all instruction to English. |
The Rwandan Genocide: Result of a Carefully Planned Military Operation Open Letter to President Kagame
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Arusha, Tanzania, 12th May, 2009
OPEN LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY PAUL KAGAME, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF RWANDA AT KIGALI
OBJECT: The denunciation of the discriminatory actions and intentions of the Rwandan authorities.
Your excellency, President of the Republic,
The detainees of the ICTR, signatories of the present document have judged it necessary to react to your racist and discriminatory intentions announced by several Rwandan personalities on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan “genocide”, celebrated on Nyanza hill, a Kigali the 11th of April 2009. The Rwandan government stated that 5,000 people were taken from the Official Technical School (ETO) at Kicukiro, the 11th of April 1994 and were then massacred at Nyanza hill. Those who stated this were Charles Muligande, M. Simburudi, president of the IBUKA Association which represents the Tutsi survivors of the “genocide” the deputy mayor of Kigali and Dr. Augustin Iyamuremye, senator and former chief of the civilian intelligence services in the Rwandan government of 1994.
We think that the things said do not take any account of the truth or the reality of the history of our country, but instead, have as the purpose of terrorising, intimidating and humiliating the Hutu people of Rwanda who are globally accused of having planned and committed a “genocide” against the Tutsis. Our reaction is motivated by the fact that the RPF regime wants to wipe from the history of Rwanda, the revolutionary period that liberated the people of Rwanda from the yoke of a feudal monarchy and that ushered in national construction once the country achieved its independence. The ultimate objective of the RPF is clearly to erase the history of Rwanda and the benefits of the republican period to better support their false thesis according to which the Hutus only marked the history of the country with barbarism and “genocide” of the Tutsis. It is a vision both false and divisionist and it is clear that, by propagating it, you have abandoned the interests of the Rwandan people.
1.Pre-colonial Rwanda and Colonial Rwanda cannot be a model
The deputy mayor of Kigali stated “We want to change history in order to present another Rwanda that is not that of the period between 1959 and 1994, a Rwanda like it was before; that which we inherited from our ancestors; the Rwanda of children of Rwanda who live without division, without hate, without discrimination.” Thus the RPF regime pretends that in the precolonial and colonial periods the ethnicities composing the Rwandan nation lived harmoniously in peace, understanding and solidarity. It is a complete reversal of history.1
The feudal-monarchical regime of Rwanda is not a model to propose to Rwandans today. It was a period of social, political, economic and cultural inequality that characterised that period and that led to the social revolution of 1959. Many authors including eminent Tutsis in high positions of power have written about this.2
We think that in the context of the search for durable solutions for our country, the RPF must stop the manipulation and falsification of the history of Rwanda. We believe that the remedy is to search for a democratic, political compromise in the context of a sincere dialogue between the power and its opponents. Such a step cannot be accommodated with obscurantism of the past. We condemn without reservation all attempts to rewrite the history of Rwanda for propaganda and ideological aims that seek the monopolisation of power by the Tutsi ethnic group to the exclusion of the others composing the Rwandan society.
2. The Planning Of The Criminal War by the RPF Is The Essential Cause of the Rwandan tragedy
Minister Muligande stated that “the ‘genocide’ of the Tutsis was planned by the government defeated in July 1994, without furnishing the least proof of this alleged planning. Very simply, he stated that the ‘genocide’ was taught over a long time by the MDR/PARMEHUTU and later by the MRND. Such statements are nothing but propaganda. The MDR and MRND parties never practised racism or discrimination against the Tutsis. It is well known that under the Habyarimana regime between 5th July 1973 to the war in October 1990 the Hutus and Tutsis lived in symbiosis. The ethnic divisions of 1990-1994 were the consequence of the strategy of destabilisation of the RPF to rally the Tutsis of the interior of Rwanda to the cause of the RPF Tutsi from Uganda who had invaded the country and to attract sympathy in world opinion.
Following the social Revolution of 1959, a number of Tutsi dignitaries could not accept the democratic changes proclaimed by the people, and fled the country and during many years systematically rejected all offers made by the government to return peacefully and participate in the construction of the country as Rwandans. They took hostage the Tutsi refugees and prevented them from returning as long as they were not assured of taking back their former power to exercise to their profit. The Tutsi diaspora dominated by these extremists preferred to organise in a movement of “liberation” called the INYENZI[3] and conduct several attacks against Rwanda in the 1960s with the aim of taking power by force of arms. It is for this reason that all the calls made to the refugees for their peaceful return to the country were made in vain.4
The MRND party practised a policy of peace, of national unity and progress that was enormously profitable to the Tutsis of the country.5 It is false and unjust to accuse the MRND of having persecuted Tutsis or having refused the right of return to those Tutsis wishing to return to Rwanda. Everyone knows today that it was the RPF who torpedoed the Accords signed between Rwanda and Uganda under the auspices of the UNHCR, the 31st of July, 1990. Instead of permitting the delegation of refugees awaited in Kigali at the end of September, 1990 to go there in the context of working under that Accord to work out the mechanism for the return en masse of refugees the RPF launched a surprise attack against Rwanda on the 1st of October 1990, beginning its war of aggression.
You must have the courage to recognise that this war, launched at the moment when a political solution had been found to the refugee problem is the origin of the Rwandan tragedy. The RPF sowed desolation and created divisions, a climate of terror and distrust among the population subjected to four years of RPF violence. By these terrorist attacks and subversion, the RPF provoked the total destabilisation of Rwanda.6 The RPF planned and executed the attack of April 6, 1994 that took the lives of President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi as well as their respective entourage and the French crew knowing full well that the attack would provoke violence in the country. Directly after the attack they attacked on all fronts, precipitating total chaos throughout the country. It was the RPF that planned the destruction of the country. This is attested to by the incapacity of the prosecutor at the ICTR to prove a plan to commit genocide before its international jurisdiction. Indeed, all the heavy condemnations of genocide pronounced against the Hutus before the ICTR are founded on the illegal judicial notice made by the Appeal Chamber of June 16, 2006. 7 In Rwanda, tribunals continue to condemn en masse the Hutus for having allegedly planned “genocide” without the slightest proof, all the while refusing any debate on the question.8
Despite the judicial notice imposed by the Appeal Chamber of the ICTR on June 16, 2006, for political reasons having the objective of condemning the accused at the Tribunal, the controversy over this decision continues. Conscious of their enormous responsibilities in the Rwandan tragedy, the RPF does not miss any opportunity to cry about the “genocide of the Tutsis.” So, it was not without some thought that the Minister Muligande stated on 11th April at the Nyanza memorial at Kigali;” We had the chance to win the war to get recognition of the genocide. If not, we would become the Armenians whose genocide is still contested because they lost the war.”. M. Mulligande is very conscious of the responsibilities that fall on the RPF, even if he does not have the courage to admit it. The RPF abuses its actual position to impose the “genocide” of the Tutsis, practising the justice of the victor over the vanquished.9 The leaders of the RPF must stop falsifying history with ideological propaganda and have the courage to recognise their heavy responsibility in the Rwandan drama.
3.The Reality of the Numbers of Dead in the Rwandan Tragedy
The loss of life is always regrettable. But the reality of the numbers of dead in the “Rwandan genocide” remains a great mystery 15 years after the events, Even if public opinion agrees with the number if 800,000 to a million victims, many other numbers have been advanced, ranging from 250,000 to 2 million by experts, the UN, NGOs and the RPF such that total confusion reigns. Gerard Prunier recognises that there is no systematic count and that the numbers rely on opinion more than facts.10 The Rwandan government of the RPF prefers too maintain this confusion. That is why it has refused to reveal the numbers of survivors of the “genocide” from which it is easy to evaluate the umber of dead Tutsis and dead Hutus. It prefers things blurred so the world does not know the extent of the massacres committed against the Hutus by the RPF and to inflate the number of Tutsi victims. It is necessary too note that the Census of the population organised under the supervision of the UN (UNDP, UNFAP,CEA) and with the aid of countries such as the USA and Canada that terminated on the 15th of August, 1991 fixed the total number of Tutsis in the country at 8.4% of the population of 7,099.844 persons. Thus, the numbers that suggest that the entire Tutsi population was massacred between April and July 1994 are simply fantasies. It is no secret to anyone that many Tutsis survived even if the government in Kigali does not want to publish the figures. We contest these numbers that create confusion that the regime wants to exploit in order to manipulate national and international opinion for ideological objectives.
Concerning the dead interred at Nyanza hill in Kigali, Captain Lemaire who commanded the Belgian detachment at the ETO in Kicukiro en April 1994, testified before the ICTR that the refugees there numbered about 1,000 to 2,000 persons,[11] not the 5,000 claimed by the RPF. In the circumstances prevailing at the time the extermination of 5,000 people in several minutes in open terrain is simply impossible. On the contrary, witnesses worthy of the name state that the majority of those buried at Nyzana hill are the thousands of Hutu refugees massacred by the men of the RPF, on the 22 and 23 of May 1994 while they attempted to flee the RPF soldiers who had just captured the garrison at Camp Kanombe.
The deputy mayor of Kigali City presented the Gisozi memorial as the high place of pilgrimage and sad memories of “genocide”. This place stores, according the official declarations of the government, 250,000 human skulls. However, they cannot be from the former prefecture of the city of Kigali as they claim. Indeed, the total population of Kigali city was, according to the census of 15 August 1991, 221, 806 persons, of which 81.4% were Hutu, and 17.9% Tutsi. Using a figure of 3.2% growth per year, the total population of Kigali city was around 240,000 inhabitants in 1994 taken at its maximum, with the Tutsi population being estimated at 50,000 persons at its highest. This figure does not accord with the 250,000 skulls exposed at the Gisozi memorial especially when one remembers that many of the Tutsis in Kigali survived the war.12 The numbers of skulls is even more incomprehensible when on admits that the city of Kigali has other memorials notably that at Nyanza and Rebero where other thousands of remains are exposed. This example shows how the manipulation of numbers is important on a national level.
Several witnesses have stated before the ICTR that Gisozi was occupied by the RPA (army of the RPF) from the 8th of April. Therefore it was the RPF that ethnically cleansed the zones of Gisozi-Kagugu and Kabuye in the Rutongo commune, in the prefecture of Kigali and all undesirable persons including the war displaced refugees from the refugee camps of Nyacyonga and Rusine, who had fled to the city after their camps were bombarded by the RPF. Several former members of the RPF have denounced the massacres of thousands of persons in these zones.13 Al these persons were summarily executed by the agents of the DMI (Directorate of Military Intelligence of the RPF) in the military camp at Kami taken by the RPF in mid-April 1994. These massacres were part and parcel of the plan by the RPF to eliminate as large a number as possible of the cadre of Hutu intellectuals. Today, the same logic of annihilation of the Hutu elite that the RPF follows is behind their lists of pretended “Hutu genocidaires” including those already judged and acquitted. It is the same logic followed in the famous law of confessions of guilt that encourages the denunciation of and false statements against the innocent. The “gacaca” procedures are an extra-judicial system beneath all the jurisdictions. It is used by the regime to annihilate all undesirables. We want to insist that you remember that you yourself, Mr. President, who was the first to suggest this strategy when in 1996, at Nyamirambo, in a large meeting organised by your party, you stated that it would be necessary to have the patience “to empty a barrel of water with a coffee spoon”.14 The damage of your genocidal policy has passed all bounds and we demand that you stop it immediately.
4. The Responsibilities of the International Community in the Rwandan Drama
In their talks the highest authorities of Rwanda have criticised the role of the international community during the “genocide”. Thus, in your speech of 7 April, 2009, you castigated the attitude of the UN, qualifying it as “cowardice” saying; “We are not those who abandoned the people who needed protection; they left them to be killed; are they not guilty? I think also that is cowardice; they left before a single shot was fired!”
We are convinced that such singing speeches vis a vis the international community cannot be indefinitely allowed to pass. However, we invite this same international community to react quickly, they who encouraged and supported your criminal project to take power by force of arms, through the disastrous actions of Genera Romeo Dallaire at the head of UNAMIR, to whom you announced the imminent cataclysm on the 2nd of April 1994[15] and who did nothing to stop it, and the no less criminal actions of the successive prosecutors at the ICTR in Arusha, whom you have succeeded in submitting to your law of terror.
We regret that the UN did not help Rwandans to resolve peacefully the conflict that you brought to the country in 1994, notably in pressing Uganda and the RPF sufficiently and condemning the war of aggression of which Rwanda was the victim. The UN did not even condemn the various violations of ceasefires by the RPF and the peace accords that it signed. The international community complied with your ultimatum made on the 12 of April 1994 to all foreign forces to leave the country in 12 hours or be attacked, that accelerated the retreat of UNAMIR from Rwanda at the time when it was needed most.16 The vote in the Security Council for the resolution to reduce the UNAMIR forces, that was heavy in consequences, aided your organisation in its Machiavellian plans to take power in Kigali as quickly as possible.17 The UN betrayed the government of Rwanda that launched anguished appeals for help to stabilise the security situation in the country. The UN was paralysed by the USA and the United Kingdom; it could not intervene in time to send the 5,500 men of UNAMIR II as the Security Council finally decided to do after the RPF victory. Those forces arrived in Rwanda after your seizing of power and to consolidate your power. They helped you by not reacting to your massacres of the innocents including the 4,000 refugees you murdered at Kibeho in April 1995.
Not only do we accuse the RPF of having chased the international community from Rwanda at the moment when they were needed the most but also we believe that the decisions of the UN were gravely prejudicial to the people and government of Rwanda, in permitting the military victory of the RPF, obtained in a bloodbath. These same decisions gave the RPF the legitimacy to continue its massacres of the Rwandan people and the right to attribute the role of having stopped the “genocide” to themselves and to judges its real victims.
We note with great disappointment that the presence of UNAMIR II did not deter you from continuing the massacre of the defenceless Hutu population, over the entire country in 1994-95 and we will not forget the silence of the UN in the face of the innumerable atrocities committed by your troops, when they attacked the refugees camps in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) and their long calvary in the Congo forest. We want to remind you of the 200,000 Hutu refugees who were horribly massacred by your troops in 1996-97. We think that the complacency of the international community on your behalf does not exonerate you of your responsibilities in the Rwandan drama. We demand justice for all Rwandans, Tutsi, Hutu and Twa killed or today traumatised by your criminal policy.
5. The Theory of a Double Genocide
The Minister Muligande vilified “those who try to diminish the genocide, to deny it, by inventing the theory of a “double genocide”, arguing that there were the deaths of Hutus during the genocide.” He clarified his thoughts by referring to the second world war where “there was a genocide of the Jews, but also of 20 million Russians, However, the genocide is recognised as having been against the Jews. This was the same thing concerning the high number of deaths among the German soldiers which surpassed the number of Jews killed, arguing that the Germans were killed to stop the genocide.”
These words of your adviser show that the leaders of the RPF recognise having massacred hundreds of thousands of innocent Hutus. However, we estimate that the comparison has no sense and that the events in Rwanda in 1990-1994 are not comparable to the history of the Second World War. The launching of the Second World War in 1939 rests the responsibility of the government of Germany, just as the responsibility for the invasion of Rwanda in October 1990 from Uganda rests the responsibility of the state of Uganda and the RPF. Hitler launched his offensive to conquer countries and during that long conquest, the Jews were denounced, arrested, killed or deported to concentration camps, principally in Germany. The Jews did not take up arms against Germany. If it is necessary to make a comparison it is rather the RPF and its allies that made war against Rwanda and who, in their mad war for the conquest of power, they massacred hundreds of thousands of Rwandans. Your soldiers Mr. President, conducted a war of extermination; they violated the cease-fire agreements and the Arusha accords to take power by force of arms without caring about the security of the population. How can you explain to Rwandans the obstinate refusal by you of all cease-fire proposals made to you between April and July 1994 if you had any concerns for the protection of the civilian population? And why did you literally empty the population of all the regions you seized? What can you say when 4,000 Hutu refugees were massacred by your troops a Kibeho in April 1995? These are the sad realities of the RPF regime that you want to hide by the abusive usage of the word “negationism” to stop the parents of victims from expressing their suffering and denouncing the injustices done to them?
6. Pardon and Reconciliation
It arises from the present account that the members of the RPF committed crimes and massacres against the defenceless civilian population of the sole reason that they were Hutus.18 This sad reality Minister Muligande wants to cover up by stating it was the Hutus who had to die because the RPF fought to stop the genocide. The coalition of the NRA (Ugandan army) RPF did not attack Rwanda in 1990 to stop a genocide. The manhunt conducted against the peasants of Rwanda, throughout the war, was not designed to stop a “genocide” against the Tutsis. It is illusory to try to deny the responsibility of the RPF in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of victims in Rwanda and the DRC or to minimise them, arrogating only to yourself the right of inquiry, from the sole fact of your military victory. We think that with such a logic national reconciliation is impossible. Because, you want to hide the truth of the tragic events that plunged Rwanda into mourning and that implicate your close collaborators, civil and military. Also we consider that the time has come for your regime to see the reality in front of its face, instead of pursuing your indecent ideological propaganda, that from that time has shamefully exploited unhappiness you have inflicted on the Rwandan people.
The drift of your regime has irremediably distanced the Rwandan people from the objective of national reconciliation, outside the artifices that you have been pleased to serve to the various visitors to Rwanda but which cannot remedy the evil that is very profound. The instrumentalisation of the persecution of the Hutus accused of an “ideology of genocide” constitutes a way to criminalise the Hutus forever; not only those who were alive in 1994 but also those who will be borne in the future. It is sufficient to accuse them of the ideology of genocide to oppress the Hutus and justify this oppression before the world. This policy that has made the immense majority of Rwandans pariahs in the Rwandan society, is inescapable, because it has become a factor of exclusion and marginalising of the Hutus in order to ensure the domination of the Tutsi. The dialogue between power and its opponents is the only voice to get out of this impasse. But after having decreed that only the Tutsis were victims of the war that you launched and that the Hutus do not even have the right to cry for their dead, or even worse, to bury them with dignity, the perspective of political dialogue with your opponents is not on your agenda contrary to dynamic of peace that occupy the other leaders of the region: Kenya, Burundi, RDC, Uganda, Central Africa. You installed the gacaca jurisdiction that has the mandate of criminalising all the Hutus and to force them into self-denunciation and the denunciation of others. In order to allow your regime to get rid of all your political adversaries now and in the future! Such a system can bring augers nothing good and has all the characteristics of fascism; it is the bearer of unhappiness for yourself and for the people of Rwanda. This is why we respectfully demand that you end it. Rwanda must face up to a number of deficiencies. The RPF regime cannot resolve them with humiliation, anathema and marginalising of the majority of the Rwandan population to whom you reserve only unjust and degrading treatment. This is why we encourage all the men and women of good will in Rwanda and around the world to make it possible to have a sincere and constructive dialogue between the power and its opponents in order to put a solid base for a real national reconciliation in Rwanda based on Truth and Justice and equity. We invite the Rwandan government to consider that there can be no national reconciliation in Rwanda based on manipulation and lies and propaganda, of humiliation and inferiority and intimidation of the ideology of genocide used to silence the Hutus who claim their rights. No power, no foreign force can resolve the political problems of Rwanda. It is the Rwandans themselves who must resolve them. As head of state it is entirely your responsibility to bring Rwandans to the path of true reconciliation by denouncing all actions and speeches that are provocative and divisionist as those spoken during the ceremonies of the 15th anniversary of the “genocide” by your close collaborators. In any event you must understand that such speeches do not serve your regime insofar as they are contrary to the vital interests of the Rwandan people and are not going to bring peace and national reconciliation. It is not possible to have national reconciliation as long as the RPF continues to refuse to recognise its clear responsibilities in the Rwandan tragedy, by making the Hutus responsible for a drama that the RPF planned and executed throughout the long war of 1990-1994.
Please accept, Excellency, Mr. President of the Republic, the expression of our high consideration.
Signatories
Joseph Nzirorera General Augustin Ndindiliyimana Colonel Tharcisse Renzaho Colonel Ephrem Setako Callixte Kahmaanzira Captain Innocent Sagahutu Edouard Karamera
Copied to all UN agencies including the Security Council, all judges and prosecutor of the ICTR, news organisations, ngos and other organisations |
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Rwanda: The unresolved FDLR issue by Elia Varela Serra
Last January the conflict in North Kivu shifted once again with the arrest of CNDP rebel group leader Laurent Nkunda in Rwanda and the entry of the Rwandan national army (RDF) into the DR Congo to root out the FDLR rebel group in joint operations with the national Congolese army (FARDC). The joint offensive was hailed as a success and as a powerful symbol of a new spirit of collaboration between Congo and Rwanda. As Rebecca Feeley of the Enough Said blog explains, the Congolese Minister of Defense, Charles Mwando Nsimba, even went so far as to say that the FDLR threat had been “neutralized.”
Refugees International, a Washington based advocacy organization specialized on refugee issues, released a report in March on the situation in the Kivus. Their conclusions about the joint RDF-FARDC military operation against the FDLR were:
The attempted military solution to the FDLR appears far from having succeeded in crippling the rebel group, despite the recent disarmament of over 400 combatants by MONUC. Instead, the operations led to serious consequences for the Congolese in North and South Kivu, including significant new displacements.
The blog Stop the War in North Kivu commented on the report:
Not many organizations say publicly that the joint military operation has not been a success. I agree 100% with their analysis.
Refugees International also makes the point on the importance of dialogue as the only path for a durable solution to the FDLR presence in the DRC. Eurac expressed the same opinion a few weeks ago. Military solutions to political problems are, in most of the cases, a recipe for disaster.
The FDLR is a militia formed by the defeated Hutu refugees in the DR Congo, that allegedly counts among its ranks some members of the Interahamwe that carried out the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. According to the Wikipedia, during the 1998-2003 war it received extensive backing from the Congolese government who used the FDLR as a proxy force against the foreign armies operating in the country, in particular the Rwandan Patriotic Army and Rwanda-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy. Following several days of talks with Congolese government representatives held in Rome, in March 2005 the FDLR announced that they were abandoning their armed struggle and returning to Rwanda as a political party. However, the Rwandan government stated that any returning genocidaires would face justice, most probably through the gacaca court system.
Mattew Hugo of the blog Why won't they just go home questions Rwanda's position regarding the FDLR:
Historically, the Rwandan government has sought to implicate the entirety of the FDLR in the genocide. In 2004, the International Crisis Group estimated that the number of genocidaires amongst the rebels was roughly ten percent, with the vast majority having been small children in 1994. However in 2008, the Rwandan government provided the Congolese government with a list of suspected FDLR genocidaires containing 6,974 names, coincidentally the common estimate for the total number of rebels.
Stop the War in North Kivu quotes an article written by Nicolás Dorronsoro for the IECAH (Instituto de Estudios sobre Conflictos y Accion Humanitaria) [Es], that explains how political negotiation with the FDLR is taboo in Rwanda (translation from Spanish by Stop the War in North Kivu):
Desde que la ofensiva diplomática de los Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido propiciara el acercamiento entre la RDC y Ruanda, el único discurso con respecto al FDLR ha sido el del abandono inmediato de las armas y la completa derrota militar. Nadie osa hablar de la posibilidad de una negociación, por limitada que sea, con este grupo. Esto resulta sorprendente si tenemos en cuenta que el país al que los integrantes del FDLR aspiran a volver adolece de un extraordinario déficit democrático.
El pasado 19 de marzo, la experta norteamericana Ruth Wedgwood afirmaba ante el Comité de Derechos Humanos de Naciones Unidas que, a día de hoy, formar un partido político en Ruanda parece virtualmente imposible. Wedgwood hizo una reflexión interesante: recordó que las facciones hutu responsables del genocidio habían sido capaces de fomentar la masacre precisamente porque habían alimentado el miedo de que la población hutu sería oprimida y marginada. Lamentablemente, y con independencia de su indudable desarrollo económico, ese temido escenario se asemeja a la realidad actual de Ruanda, según muchos expertos. Filip Reyntjens, catedrático de la universidad de Amberes y uno de los mayores expertos en la región de los Grandes Lagos, afirmaba recientemente que no sólo las últimas elecciones locales ruandesas fueron manipuladas, sino incluso el informe mismo de los observadores electorales de la UE, que las consideró como válidas. Dado este déficit democrático, organizaciones como el European Network for Central Africa (EURAC), han abogado por una negociación política con el FDLR. Sin embargo, la cuestión continúa siendo tabú.
Last March 19th, the American human rights expert Ruth Wedgwood affirmed at the UN Human Rights Comittee that forming a political party in Rwanda today seems virtually impossible. Wedgwood made an interesting reflection: she reminded that hutu factions responsible for the genocide had been capable of fostering the massacre because they had nourished the fear of hutu population being oppressed and marginalized. Unfortunately, and leaving aside the economic sucess Rwanda is undoubtedly experiencing, that feared scenario seem to be similar to actual Rwanda, according to many experts. Filip Reyntjens, Professor in the University of Antwerp and one of the most respected scholars in the Great Lakes region, recently affirmed that not only the last local elections in Rwanda were manipulated, but even the report of the EU electoral observers itself, which considered them as valid. Given this democratic deficit, organizations like the European Network for Central Africa (EURAC), have advocated for a political negotiation with the FDLR. However, this issue continues to be a taboo.
Congolese diaspora blogger Colored Opinions, quoted a former Force Commander of MONUC (UN peacekeeping in the DRC) that was also advocating for a political solution to the FDLR problem:
Former MONUC Force Commander, General Patrick Cammaert, was interviewed recently on dutch tv concerning the war in Congo. He said: “The problems have to be solved politicallly. That is true also concerning the genocidal hutus. President Kagame is strongly (involved) in that. The president of Rwanda sees the genocide-hutus as a threat to his country, I don't agree with that, I don't think that those genocide-hutus represent a threat to his country at all […]”
A young FDLR combatant wishing to demobilize speaking with Amani from South Kivu (picture by Steve Hege)
Matthew Hugo, who has worked in the Great Lakes region for a few years, illustrates the taboo that the FDLR issue is in Rwanda and the difficulties of the return and reintegration programs of FDLR combattants, with the story of former FDLR General Seraphin Bizimungu, known as Amani Amahoro, that he followed first-hand:
I first met Gen. Amani while I was conducting research on Rwandan refugees in 2005. He was the widely celebrated leader of an internal mutiny within the FDLR. Just five months prior, the FDLR’s political leadership surprisingly declared that they would unilaterally disarm and return en masse to Rwanda.
[…]
Amani emerged with the support of the Congolese government, and promised to lead the return movement despite the lack of security guarantees. In a press conference, he accused the group’s leadership of sabotaging the historic opportunity to remove themselves from the military equation of the region. The pretext of the rebel threat is what permitted the Rwandan government to continue to wage a proxy war against the Congo according to him.By all accounts, including the Rwandan government itself, Amani was not suspected of any participation in the genocide and was widely considered a political moderate. During an interview I had with him, he claimed that fighting non-violently for political opening from within Rwanda was the only path to truly sustainable peace for the region.
[…] in December [2005] Amani fulfilled his promise and returned to Rwanda with over 150 loyal soldiers, one of the largest groups of ex-combatants since the inception of the UN’s demobilization and repatriation program (DDRRR). […]
Following his departure, Gen. Amani was rapidly transformed into the poster child of the UN’s sensitization efforts to promote future desertion amongst the FDLR. He was featured prominently in numerous pamphlets distributed to rebels throughout remote mountains and jungles as the quintessential example of how warmly Rwanda welcomed its brethren who chose to return home.
[…]
So compelling was Amani’s message that when I began working with DDRRR, I frequently put FDLR combatants in touch with him directly by Satellite phone from isolated areas of the Congolese jungle. His personal testimony was often enough to put to rest their fears of reprisals and incarcerations in Rwanda which were widely shared amongst the young rebels. Amani always sounded quite eager to respond to these calls and he often reiterated to the FDLR that real political change could only be achieved from within Rwanda.
And so compelling was Amani's message that, according to Matthew Hugo, Amani was featured in numerous DDRRR pamphlets distributed to rebels throughout remote mountains and jungles “as the quintessential example of how warmly Rwanda welcomed its brethren who chose to return home” and became “the poster child of the UN’s sensitization efforts to promote future desertion amongst the FDLR”. However, and in spite of the good example Amani set, genocide charges were brought against him in late 2008 and he was then summoned before the traditional Gacaca courts conducted by village elders. On January 22nd, two days after the Rwandan army began its joint military operations against the FDLR in the eastern Congo, the Gacaca elders condemned Amani to life in prison.
Matthew Hugo concludes his story expressing frustration at the seemingly permanent stalemate on the FDLR issue:
Thanks to this strategy of associating all political opposition with the genocide, the RPF’s Ugandan clique has managed to systematically tighten their stranglehold over power in Kigali. Not only did informal EU electoral observer reports suggest that they might have won as much as 98% of the vote in recent local elections, but even the U.S.’s legal expert on the UN Human Rights Committee stated that it is “virtually impossible to set up a political party in Rwanda“.
Nevertheless, despite resounding support for peace processes with the ruthless rebel groups in the region like the LRA and the FNL, the mere notion of political dialogue between Rwanda and the FDLR remains utterly inconceivable.
The blog Mo’dernity, Mo’problems recently commented on an article written by the director of Human Rights Watch on the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide:
In memory of the Rwanda genocide, Ken Roth keeps up the quality of Human Rights Watch Rwanda analysis after Allison Des Forge’s passing and writes:
[…] “The best way to prevent another genocide is to insist that Kagame stop manipulating the last one”.
As memories of the genocide turn 15, it seems like Rwanda is facing a tumultuous media anniversary. Recent coverage of the anniversary have attacked the ways in which the current Rwandan administration abuses the genocide as a form of political repression and a justification of warmongering.
le blog aboumashimango [Fr], a Rwandese diaspora blogger, calls for an end to civil and political rights violations in Rwanda :
Le génocide des Tutsi et massacres des Hutus démocrates (opposants politiques, défenseurs des droits de l'homme, journalistes… et populations civiles innocentes) de 1994 trouvent leur racines dans l'histoire politico-ethnique du pays, la fracture sociale, l'angoisse et la terreur, ainsi que la mauvaise gestion politique de la question ethnique. A cela s'ajoute l'absence de l'espace démocratique et de la culture des droits de l'homme.
[…] En ces moments où nous commémorons le 15ème anniversaire de Génocide des Tutsi et massacres des Hutus démocrates, j'appelle à la conscience de la Communauté internationale de faire preuve de courage pour mettre fin à des situations des violations flagrantes des droits civils et politiques que connaît le Rwanda, notamment le droit d'avoir une justice équitable…
[…] At this moment when we commemorate the 15th anniversary of the genocide against the Tutsi and the massacres of democrat Hutu, I appeal at the conscience of the international community to show the courage to put an end to the blatant situations of civil and political rights violations happening in Rwanda, especially the right to a fair trial…
Why are repressive regimes given the succour of British aid?
Ian BirrellWhy are repressive regimes given the succour of British aid?
A mission to eliminate poverty is laudable. But ours is riddled with contradictions
Thursday, 17 September 2009
The Independent, UK
Fifteen years ago, as the horror of genocide ripped apart Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina became a hero. A humble hotel manager, he saved 1,268 people who had sought sanctuary from the machete-wielding mobs, an act of such courage it was rapidly immortalised in print and on screen. Rusesabagina spent days pleading with bands of killers to spare his charges, buying lives with alcohol when that failed, then spent nights on the one phone line that had not been cut off sending faxes to kings and presidents begging for international help to stop the butchery.
Today, Rusesabagina is once again calling for international action. Why, he asks, is Britain handing out so much aid to his nation when its ruler is fighting a proxy war in the Congo; when its elites are getting rich on stolen minerals; when democracy is a sham and dissent is stifled? "We know what happened in the past. But that does not mean we close our eyes to what is happening now," he told me this week. "I did not keep silent in 1994 and I cannot keep silent now. The British taxpayer is financing a proxy war. We need justice, not aid."
He is right to be alarmed. Britain is Rwanda's biggest donor, pumping in £52m this year in direct contributions, a form of aid-giving reserved for those that have proved good governance. But human rights groups are increasingly concerned by restrictions on freedom of speech in Rwanda; even the BBC has not escaped a ban on its local language service. And other major donors, including the Netherlands and Sweden, suspended direct aid after a UN report highlighted Rwanda's role in eastern Congo, where war has claimed the lives of six times as many people as the Rwandan genocide.
Paul Kagame, Rwanda's charismatic president, plays the guilt card with such skill that his regime has, literally, got away with murder. His defenders point to impressive economic growth rates, improved health and education, and the healing of some of the genocide scars. But the case of Rwanda illustrates a glaring problem with British foreign policy, most notably in Africa. And it is a problem that raises uncomfortable questions at a time of looming spending cutbacks.
Many of the issues revolve around the Government's golden child, the Department for International Development (Dfid), set up by Tony Blair in 1997 as a dramatic gesture of modernisation. Dfid is seen as the sexiest branch of Whitehall, attracting the brightest entrants who find the prospect of improving schools in Mozambique far more enticing than improving schools in Middlesbrough. Its staff were encouraged from the start not to play by the normal fusty rules of Whitehall.
Dfid behaves more like a charity than an arm of government, armed with soaring wealth and driven by its laudable, if rather ambitious, mission to eliminate poverty. Its first budget was £2.6bn, twice that of the foreign office. A decade later it was handed £5.3bn and next year, as the Government pushes on to meet its Gleneagles commitment to increase aid to 0.7 per cent of gross national income, it will be given just under £8bn. These budgets are set to keep on rising, whoever wins the next election.
This raises several problems. First, and most obviously, this torrent of money must be spent. People tasked with doling out aid rarely win promotion by finding reasons not to spend it. But there are only a finite number of countries that need aid, deserve aid and are not so shattered that it is like pouring water into a sieve. So when decisions are taken to back regimes, officials tend to stick by them.
As a result, there is no criticism of Kagame. And aid flows into Uganda, where Yoweri Museveni's regime has been accused of torture and repression. Britain increased total aid to Ethiopia even after Meles Zenawi, another poster boy for this supposed new wave of African leaders, oversaw a brutal clampdown following a blatantly rigged election and waged war on Somalia. A strange paradox seems to be emerging: the more money spent on aid, the less chance of criticism.
Second, despite soaring budgets, the number of full-time civil servants working for Dfid has actually fallen slightly since its creation. The number of staff appointed "in country" has also been reduced in recent years. This is commendable productivity. But it means more reliance on charities and consultants, more pressure to hand over aid directly and, inevitably, less effective scrutiny.
Third, money is power. Much of Britain's foreign policy in sub-Saharan Africa is now dictated by Dfid, not the Foreign Office as elsewhere in the world. The Foreign Office, of course, has a far from perfect record. But this sends out a sign that we see Africa as a place in need of salvation, rather than a complex continent of 53 nations deserving respect as our equals. And for all the honeyed words of ministers and officials, the result is too much emphasis on the ambiguous cause of development rather than relentless focus on good governance, human rights and long-term strategic issues.
The most outrageous example was in Kenya, where Dfid officials tried to prevent the British ambassador from speaking out against obscene corruption. Only last week I heard of a senior minister who, told he was signing agreements with one of Kenya's most corrupt politicians, glibly replied that he was less interested in the man's record than the desire to get children into education. Little wonder Kenya remains plagued by corruption.
Then there are wider issues about the effectiveness of our approach. Dfid has won global respect for its tenacity – and there can be no doubt British aid has led to improvements in the daily lives of thousands. But for all the new schools and clinics, justified questions remain over whether pouring in vast levels of aid help or hinder a country's long-term development. As Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society, says, it is noticeable that none of the most passionate advocates of aid are African – and some of its harshest critics are, such as the Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo.
Immense sums have been poured in over the decades and significant economic growth remains elusive. Studies have indicated that aid is subject to diminishing returns as it is increased, ceasing to be effective after it reaches 16 per cent of a country's gross domestic product. Africa was close to that level before Gleneagles – and by 2005 aid was already accounting for a quarter of Rwanda's GDP. On top of this, the sacred target of handing over 0.7 per cent of national income, first calculated more than four decades ago, appears increasingly arbitrary and outdated.
Our approach to the continent is riddled with contradictions. We pour in billions in aid while erecting trade barriers that squeeze out African firms. We encourage land tenure in Africa, then drive farmers out of business by dumping cheap produce. We pay lip service to good governance, then prop up repressive regimes, do deals with despots and allow our banks to launder their plunder. We retain prohibitive drugs laws that are spreading chaos through some West African states, having wrecked parts of South and Latin America already. Then we complain when migrants flee the consequent poverty and unrest.
Few would argue for aid spending to be savaged. And emergency relief remains vital, not least since climate change will exacerbate Africa's difficulties. But our approach to aid, driven by pop stars and designed to appease domestic audiences, seems anachronistic. In the current economic climate, even some of those who helped create Labour's policy on Africa admit privately that it is hard to offer Dfid immunity from cuts based upon its effectiveness in encouraging lasting development. Maybe it is time to ignore the hype and end the hypocrisy.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Camouflage democracy in Rwanda
Dictatorship is dangerous when it considers itself as if it is in the democratization process. Such unpredictable nature confuses others who know democracy and good governance. It is very difficult to advise such a system because the real sickness has been hidden. In a rule of camouflage democracy there is always slow killings of citizen, torture and imprisonment. Currently open dictatorship changed its strategy to camouflage democracy i.e. the worst face of dictatorship. Among many countries in the world like Rwanda, Sudan, Eritrea, Zimbabwe can be considered as the best examples which are practicing camouflage democracy. The systemic approach of violating human rights and the way it controls the basic human necessities clearly depicts the new nature of false democracy. In the case of a country like Rwanda camouflage democratic system it is very difficult to anticipate the degree of violence and ethnic segregation because processes like conducting elections, having parliaments etc are varnished by political talks and discourse which disguise the truth on the ground.after genocide in 1994 Rwanda advanced from open military dictatorship to camouflage democracy. In this system of democracy the minorities are dominating the majority ethnics. It uses the true democratic system structures and principles for the sustainability of the dictator rule in power. The very centralized ruling power is in the hands of one person. This person has already arranged mechanisms by which he can select trustful servants to implement the verbal instructions given from top down. In the process of implementing the direct procedures there will be zero tolerance for anybody or anything. A person who questions the practicality of the command above will face a very serious persecution. Normally what is happening in the current Rwanda ruling system is that if a person or group or society consider as a resistance to the camouflage democracy the consequence is horrifying. From the past experience of the country individuals had been dismissed from their professional job,fake allegations to the gacaca courts threaten to continue supporting the ruling regime so that they would remain in their work, kidnapped, put in jail, tortured and even killed.
The basic principle of camouflage democracy in Rwanda is “if you do not belong to us you are a potential threat and enemy on the nation ”. The guideline principle is implementing by poor countries like Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe and other poor countries of the world. Dictator leaders of countries under the camouflage democracy are trying to widen their scope as the former communist countries had been trying. Leaders of camouflage democracy consult in a closed door on the mechanism by which they can contain any political opposition possibly emanate. For example Rwanda and Congo leaders established coalition called “Umoja wetu in February 2009 ” to hunt down FDLR fighters .to resist external resistances for their power control.In congo there is so many Rwanda innocent civilian refugees who survived Kagame is Genocide in congo from 1996 to 2002 and the international community remain silent in all th is crimes,and crime against humanity ,no body ever said about RPF is crime the have all the evidence for RPF 's war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The leaders of the ruling system of Rwanda have been in power since 1994, and their know the theories of true democracy but when coming to implementing it they use the hidden principles of camouflage democracy. so we are tired of camouflage democracy,we have lost our families on both side(hutu,tutsi)The Rwanda conflict is political in essence. Political solutions must be found;,we need to promote moral values with strict respect of life and human dignity, honesty, truth,freedom, individual emancipation, equality, justice, respect, brotherhood, confidence, and interdependence among the Rwandan people and to work on national reconciliation and reconstruction of social and economic development of the our beloved motherland Rwanda.