Skulls of victims of one of the massacres during the 1994 Rwandan genocide are displayed at the Genocide Memorial Site church of Ntarama in Nyamata, Rwanda, in 2004.
On 01.20.2010, I published "Rwanda's 1994 genocide and 2010 elections" in the Digital Journal. This morning I received the response,below, from Peter Erlinder, the Lead Defense Council at the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR). Neither Dr. Erlinder, nor I, nor any of the journalists, Rwandan dissidents, exiles, or opposition Rwandan political parties deny that genocidal mass murder occurred in Rwanda. We disagree only with the onesided history, in which the former Hutu government and military are said to have conspired to commit genocide against Tutsis, and in which only Tutsis, not Hutus, were mass murdered.
The victorious, now ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party has made this history not only sacrosanct, but also a legal requirement, by passing laws against "genocide ideology"---meaning history that disagrees with their own.
Members of the RPF are now calling for the prosecution and incarceration of FDU-Inkingi leader Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza for daring to say that Hutus were also targets of genocidal mass murder, upon her return from exile.
"Ms. Garrison,
Thanks for the article. As Lead Defense Council at the ICTR I have had a chance to closely examine a the violence associated with the RPF takeover of Rwanda, and have concluded that the "victors" have told the story of the 4-year war, and its aftermath.
During the past 7 years the Prosecutor at the ICTR, with the help of the Kagame government, US and UK have been unable to marshall evidence that the former military or government planned or conspired to kill civilians, much less Tutsi civilians.
In Feb 2009, the Judgement in the Military I (Bagosora) case found that NONE of the top four officers (including Bagosora) were guilty to conspiracy before or after the assassination of Habyarimana.
In Feb 2009, the former ICTR Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte admitted in her memoirs that she had been ordered to bury evidence of RPF crimes, including Kagame's assassination of Habyarimana which had been known to her office in 1997...by the U.S. State Dept.
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Well if you feel your defence to those who killed the people you put their skulls on your cover story is the best way to make your living then you qualify to be genocider too.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you leave Africa alone?
The colonizations, partition and segregation you brought to Africa stole everything, involved us in world wars, failed up to now to pay for the slave trade gain, is n't that enough to open up your eyes?
Back off our continent Peter go help drug addicts in your country
Here is my question
Do you want to see Rwanda back in a blood shed? why don't you let us enjoy our development?
If democracy works in your countries well where less the 45% turn to polls, in Africa, in a country like Rwanda, we have our own way of management and whether you see it as not good governance, its what works what has worked for us.
USA is the most poorest country on the planet with uneducated people, gangs, the rich live behind iron gates, and indebted to trillions of debts, why don't you handle your problems and leave us alone? Give us a chance.
well you call it foreign policy but i call it poking into other people's back yards before looking into yours.
Promote your gay rights, in African culture it will still be a Taboo, promote free drug use because you see it as rights that is not part of our African culture.
The lack of culture and customs in COUNTRIES LIKE YOURS IS THE REASON YOU FEEL YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO DESTORY OUR LIVELIHOOD LIKE YOU FINISHED THE RED INDIANS AND TOOK THEIR LAND, these days you call them First Nation why??????
Am sorry for expressing my true feelings about people who waste their time using a telescope to make news but mark you , Rwanda is a standing developing model on African soil and forget about the past