Rwanda's Other Genocide

KPFA News: Protestors from 3 continents converge on NYC to protest Kagame at the UN

Audio link: http://goo.gl/mYYV.

Victoire Ingabire on the UN report on Congo genocide

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza spoke to Womens International News Gathering Service about "the Pucinella secret that so many knew but pretended not to know" in July 2010, a month before the UN confirmed it.

by Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza was widely considered the leading opposition candidate in this year’s presidential election, likely to win had the election been fair, but instead of being free to run, she was jailed briefly and is still not permitted to leave Kigali.

The U.N. report on human rights abuse, including genocide, in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been explosive in the international community, but it simply confirms what has long been a “Pucinella” secret that many knew but pretended not to know. So many atrocities were committed, some during broad daylight, in both Rwanda and Congo, during this time that they could not be concealed forever.

What happened in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the subject of the report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), was just a continuation of a pattern of atrocities that Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) committed after seizing power in Rwanda, encouraged by the silence and complacency of the international community.

Read more at San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, http://sfbayview.com/2010/on-the-u-n-report-on-congo-genocide/.

Pacifica Radio WBAI-NYC, 99.5FM, Afro Beat: Stop Impunity in Rwanda

Rwanda Genocide survivor Claude Gatebuka and Spanish "End Impunity in Rwanda" activist Susana Sanz Guardo on WBAI, Sept. 18, 2010:

Stop Impunity in Rwanda from AfrobeatRadio on Vimeo.

Dear ANN, September 09, 2010

Dear ANN

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Between You and Claudine Mukantwali

Claudine Mukantwali September 9 at 1:03am Report

Have you been to Rwanda? if you are a rwandan you got to doctor's and you pay only ten per cent of tratment. My children go to secondary school because they deserve it not because they are tutsi or hutu how it use to be 17 years ago. I am woman and I have opportunity to do my small busness which I never had before not even my friends. What is you problem about Rwanda? congolaise people died? of cos they did same as Irakis and Pakistanis. Please go to bed and have some sleep and give Rwanda a break.

Ann Garrison September 9 at 4:28am

Same as Irakis and Pakistanis? Very interesting argument that. What is the similarity or logic there?

Claudine Mukantwali September 9 at 8:05am Report

you American went to war because of what so called terorists innocents people died same as in congo. Why you never write about what you are doing not others doing? white!! think that you are clever and better than us. What did you do during genocide? nothing! after genocide you made movies and made money! you what you need is to sitdown and think twice. Kagame and rwanda are not innocent, who is? give me one example country which has democraty American nooo

Ann Garrison September 9 at 8:29am

I opposed those wars, Claudine. I have adamantly opposed every war my country has been involved in all of my life.

I write about what my country does all the time. I have said over and over that my main concern in the Great Lakes Region of Africa is seeing the U.S./Pentagon leave, stop building bases, and manipulating regional tensions to benefit a tiny corporate and military executive class.

I myself had no idea what was happening in Rwanda in 1994 besides what the Western media was reporting. The San Francisco Examiner flew an African American friend of mine over there to report and she said to me, "Like they think I'm supposed to understand this just because I'm Black." (She was actually a religion reporter, but, she's Black.)

I didn't make any movies or make any money. I think Hotel Rwanda is a terrible movie if that's what you're talking about, and I certainly had nothing to do with it. I didn't even see it until 2008.

Democracy does seem to be a big flop, doesn't it? I don't think it has much of a chance without some degree of economic democracy and shared social ownership of resources as well.

Claudine Mukantwali September 9 at 8:34am Report

next time to harrass my country you have to know history of it. Stop taking sides, the war is bad, very bad. If you have lost people in 9/11 you know what I mean. Democracy is not happen in one hour it takes time. Give us a break

Claudine Mukantwali September 9 at 8:44am Report

how many black people in American goverment? when Obama went in The White house was the only black president i American how many years you had democracy?????

Ann Garrison September 9 at 9:07am

Claudine, you're arguing with the wrong person. I think my country is horrible, absolutely horrible, the most violent, racist, predatory nation on the planet and in history. That's why I'm always pushing for my country to get out of yours.

I think 09/11 was an inside job. I'm upset by what my country uses 09/11 as an excuse to do. I can't imagine where you get this idea that I'm in love with my country.

Claudine Mukantwali September 9 at 10:19am Report

hahaaa If you don't love your country you are very sad. SORRY I LOVE MINE AND I DETESTE PEOPLE WHO try to harrass it. SORRY YOU HAVE NO LIFE LOL. IF IT WASN'T KAGAME I shouldn't be talking to you. I learnt english becouse of him, we have internet because of him what those Interahamwe done before? nothing just raping women and small girls. Killing everyone with machettes!! do you know what they done to me? I can't even take picture cos I have one aye chpped arms, raped to death! Kagame will follow them until the end.

Ann Garrison September 9 at 10:40am

That's not your picture?

Kagame sworn in after UN report of guilt in Congo genocide

Rwandan President Paul Kagame was sworn in to serve another seven-year term on September 6, 2010, eleven days after the explosive August 26th leak of a UN report documenting genocide committed by his army in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The official publication of the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), leaked to Le Monde on August 26th, has been postponed until October 1st, 2010, to give those countries accused, most notably Rwanda and Uganda, time to prepare responses. Its UNHCHR investigators mapped and collected evidence of "the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo between March 1993 and June 2003," including massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus, hunted down from Congo's far eastern to

far western borders, in what some call "the Congo Genocide."

Read more at San Francisco Bay View, http://sfbayview.com/2010/kagame-sworn-in-after-u-n-report-of-guilt-in-congo-genocide/.

KPFA News on the UNHCHR report on Congo Genocide, 09.06.2010

KPFA Radio News on the leaked UNHCHR report documenting the RPA's massacres of Hutu people in Congo, and Kagame's threat to withdraw Rwandan "peacekeepers" from Darfur and Haiti if it's included in the official, 10.01 version:

Read more at San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, http://goo.gl/bKR9.

Rwandan "peacekeepers" prepare to board a U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft in Sudan after a stop in Abeche, Chad, on Oct. 4, 2005. The peacekeepers are departing the region and returning to Rwanda after a six-month deployment supporting the African Union Mission. DoD photo by Master Sgt. David D. Underwood, Jr., U.S. Air Force.

The world turned its back on Rwanda, in 1994?

General Paul Kagame on his sat phone, during the RPF 

invasion of Rwanda from Uganda, circa 1993-1994.

Paul Kagame has been blackmailing the Western world for "turning its back on Rwanda" in 1994 ever since, but this May 1994 Reuters news clip reports that Kagame actually threatened to fire on UN peacekeepers as though they were enemy combatants, if they tried to stand between his invading Rwandan Patriotic Army  and Rwanda's Forces Armées du Rwanda (Rwandan Armed Forces):

"RWANDA: RWANDA's REBEL ARMY WARNS THE UNITED NATIONS IT WILL TREAT THE ORGANIZATION AS THE ENEMY IF THEY ATTEMPT TO COME BETWEEN THEM AND GOVERNMENT TROOPS. 

Story

Rebel forces in Rwanda warned peacekeeping officials on Friday (May 20) they would treat United Nations (U.N.) forces as the enemy if the organization attempted to come between them and government troops.

Rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) Deputy Vice Chairman Denis Polisi warned if there was any interference by the U.N. they "would be engaged".

Senior U.N. officials are heading for Kigali to try to persuade warring parties to cooperate with peacekeeping forces.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Rwanda is currently made up of 470 troops, shortly to be bolstered by the 2,500 additional troops ordered by the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

Meanwhile the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) are operating feeding centres and medical clinics in the North Rwandan town of Mulundi.

In Tanzania many refugees caught up and wounded in the violence in Rwanda have found safety in the Benaco camp, but some continue to die from their previously inflicted wounds.

Those who die are buried just a few metres (yards) from the camp perimeter in shallow graves."

Reuters, May 18, 1994, archived on ITN, http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/1994/05/18/605070335/

Rwanda's Foreign Minister Louise Musikiwabo, however, quoted in the Financial Times's 09.05.2010 report, "UN faces dilemma in report on Congo killings," now says that, "It is patently absurd for the UN, which deliberately turned its back on the Rwandan people during the 1994 genocide, to accuse the army that stopped the genocide of committing atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo."  

Since Musikiwabo seems to argue that the UN turned its back on Rwanda by not intervening in 1994, are we to conclude that the UN turned its back by not stopping her President, then General, Paul Kagame, when he threatened to fire on its peacekeepers if they did intervene?   

Are we to conclude that the UN then turned its back on D.R. Congo? 

The official version of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights report mapping human rights abuses, 1993-2003, including documentation of the Rwandan Patriotic Army's genocidal massacres of Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus, is due for release on October 1st, 2010, after being leaked to Le Monde on August 26th, and reported all over the world.