Obama take heed: French judge files charges against Kagame allies

Rwandan President Paul Kagame leads his troops.

Cynthia McKinney held hearings in 2001, in which she wrote:


There have been others since, including those held by Orange County Republican Congressman Ed Royce, who concluded that "the State Department didn't want to hear any of this though, as Kagame sat on their pedestal, and largely still does." 

Obama shepherded Senate Bill 2125, the Obama Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act into law in 2006. The Spanish Audiencia Nacional indicted Kagame's top officers for genocide.  There have been many UN and other human reports documenting the Kagame regime's atrocities and minerals plunder in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  On October 1st, the UN Mapping Report documented Rwanda's war crimes, crimes against humanity, and civilian massacres in D. R. Congo, crimes that an international criminal court would be expected to try as genocide.  How much more will it take?

How many of Obama's 2008 supporters ever read his 2006 Senate Bill, the only Senate Bill that will ever bear his name?

When will Obama revisit his own 2006 Senate Bill, and take heed of the 10.01 UN Report?  And, now, of the new French charges?  How much longer will the U.S. back the regime sued on two continents, in three countries, France, Spain, and the U.S.?   How long will the U.S. back the president that Professor Ed Herman, co-author, with David Peterson, of The Politics of Genocide, and, with Noam Chomsky, of "Manufacturing Consent," calls "the worst killer on the planet"?

Washington Post, 12.15.2010, http://goo.gl/eRHFT.

French judge files charges against Kagame allies

By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARDThe Associated Press

By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD

The Associated Press
Thursday, December 16, 2010; 9:38 AM

PARIS -- A French judge has filed preliminary charges against six people close to President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, including the defense minister, over the 1994 assassination of the country's then-president in a missile attack on his plane, their lawyers said Thursday.

The six - some ranking Rwandan army officials - were charged last week over the killing of Juvenal Habyarimana, they said. The assassination was widely seen as a trigger to Rwanda's genocide, in which an estimated 500,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were massacred in 100 days of frenzied killing led by radical Hutus.
Investigating Judge Marc Trevidic visited the Burundi capital of Bujumbura from Dec. 5 to Dec. 15, when the six agreed to be placed under investigation, said Bernard Maingain and Lev Forster, who represent all of the men.
Preliminary charges give officials time to pursue a probe before deciding whether to send suspects for trial or drop the case, and give suspects access to court files.

France is investigating the Rwanda case because the plane's crew was French and died with Habyaramina, along with then-president of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira.
Among the six people in question are ranking Rwandan army officers, including James Kabarebe, who has been Rwanda's defense minister since April, Charles Kayonga and Jackson Nkurunziza, the attorneys said. The remaining three were identified as Jacob Tumwine, Sam Kaka and Franck Nziza.
In November 2006, a now-retired anti-terrorism magistrate, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, delivered nine arrest warrants against people close to Kagame, all suspected of participating to various degrees in the April 6, 1994, attack.
The warrants triggered a break in diplomatic ties between France and Rwanda - re-established only in 2009. President Nicolas Sarkozy visited the Rwandan capital of Kigali last February, the first visit to Rwanda by a French leader in 25 years.

A Rwandan government-commissioned inquiry concluded that Hutu soldiers shot down the Hutu president's plane because they were opposed to a powersharing deal he backed.