Besigye rejects Museveni's rule

KPFA Weekend News, 02.20.2011:

Audio link: http://goo.gl/3K2nu

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest: And this is KPFA/KPFB in Berkeley, or KFCF, 88.1 in Fresno.  The program is the Weekend News; I'm Anthony Fest with David Landau.   Turning now to news from Africa, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has been in power for the past 25 years, with military, diplomatic, and intelligence support from the U.S.  He officially claimed victory in Uganda's presidential election this morning, but opposition parties and election observers claimed widespread election fraud. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni entered his 26th
year in power, after claiming victory, on 02.20.2011, in
yet another presidential election that opposition parties
declared fraudulent.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: In his introduction to a recent interview with Ugandan President Yoweri Musveni, Aljazeera host Mohammed Adow said that  Museveni had joined the League of African Rulers whose only wish is to stay in power forever. In conversation with Museveni, the Aljazeera host asked whether he would ever consider retiring, and criticized his extreme concentration of power, in his own hands.

Aljazeera's Talk to Jazeera Host Mohammed Adow:  Mr. President, your National Resistance Movement Party is run like a one man show, not an institution. You are the NRM and without you, some say, it's the end of the party.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni:  Oh, they must be sick, because NRM has got nine million members now.  Many of the things they do, I don't even know.  So anybody who said that I'm running that huge organization alone must be sick in his head or her head.

KPFA:   Opposition presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye and the Democracy Group, a non-partisan election monitoring team, were collecting their own election poll tallies after Ugandans went to the polls on Friday, so as to publish their own results, but Museveni's Communications Commission made that impossible by ordering telecom companies to jam their SMS message reception. Besigye, his party and other members of the opposition categorically rejected the election results, and denounced the National Electoral Commission which Museveni selected himself.

They also accused Museveni and his party of ballot stuffing, unsealed ballot boxes, voter intimidation by the army, flagrant vote buying, and using state resources to win. Commonwealth observers observed the same irregularities.

Commonwealth election observers spokesman:  The power of incumbency in this general election, and during the campaign leading to it, was exercised to such an extent as to compromise severely the level playing field between the competing candidates and political parties.

KPFA:  Poverty, especially among Uganda's majority subsistence farmers, was the opposition's central issue, but, poverty also made Ugandans vulnerable to widely reported, flagrant vote buying by the rullng party. Besigye urged hungry Ugandans to take the money, then vote against the thieves who gave it to them, but Job Collins, who ran for Youth Member of Parliament in Uganda's Northern Region, and other members of the opposition said that many impoverished Ugandans feel too disempowered to defy the authority of those who paid for their votes.

Speaking to the press, Besigye said that the opposition rejected not only the election results but also any legal authority based on them:

Dr. Kizza Besigye has rejected the authority of Ugandan
President Yoweri Museveni established by the
02.20.2011 election, because, he claims, it was fraudulent. 

Dr. Kizza Besigye:  We have rejected the outcome of this election.  We are rejecting the leadership that emerges out of this sham election.   And we are going to take steps, in consultation with the various people we have pointed out, all the stakeholders in our country, including the public, as to the means we are going to use to bring the country back to Constitutional rule.  

KPFA: Africa peace and justice activists in the U.S. have stepped up their calls for the U.S. to stop supporting both the Museveni regime and the Rwandan regime of Paul Kagame since the October 1st release of the UN Mapping Report documenting their armies' war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.  

KPFA and AfrobeatRadio News: Melanie Nathan on Uganda's Slain LGBT Activist David Kato and International Human Rights Activism

Rally at Harvey Milk Plaza, San Francisco, to honor slain 

Ugandan LGBT rights activist David Kato, 02.03.2011.

International LGBT rights activist and LezGetReal Editor and Contributor Melanie Nathan speaking to KPFA and AfrobeatRadio.net:   

(URL: http://goo.gl/bEhC4.)
Extended interview with Melanie Nathan:

                         (URL: http://goo.gl/FmOuH.)

Erlinder on Tour: Documents Prove U.S. Complicity in Rwanda Genocide and Congo Wars

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones:  American Law Professor Peter Erlinder is set to begin a speaking tour to present his 70-page compilation of original UN documents and evidence, as well as his analysis of what actually happened in Rwanda between 1993 and 1995. Erlinder says that the U.S., its allies, and the Rwandan government are collaborators in an ongoing coverup of the truth at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.  KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.

Law Professor Peter Erlinder speaking
to the National Lawyers Guild, holding
a duplicate of the pink prison garb
he wore while incarcerated in Rwanda,
after traveling there in May of 2010
to defend opposition leader
Victoire  Ingabire Umuhoza,
who is now in prison herself. 

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Peter Erlinder, international criminal defense attorney, and law professor at Minnesota's William Mitchell College of Law, will begin his speaking tour at George Washington University Law School in Washington D.C. on January 24th, then visit Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania and Temple University Law Schools, then, Fordham University Law Shool and the Brecht Forum in New York City, and the University of Pittsburgh. The tour will coincide with DePaul University's Journal of Social Justice's publication of his original UN documents and evidence, and his analysis of what actually happened in Rwanda, at the time of the epic massacres now known as the Rwanda Genocide. Professor Erlinder spoke to KPFA from his home in St. Paul Minnesota:

KPFA:  What do you think Americans most need to understand about what happened in Rwanda, and then in Congo?  What does this have to do with us?

Peter Erlinder:  Well, I think that what this has to do with us I'd like to answer first.  The United States has played an active role in destabilizing the Great Lakes Region of Africa for the last 25 years.  It's a role that the American people, however, do not understand, and because they don't understand it, they're not able to take action to change it.  But with respect to Rwanda, what the evidence in the files show, that have been kept secret until I was able to get them, is that actually it was the Pentagon that created the RPF, grew them from 2500 to 25,000 troops in a period of two years, provided the material and the support necessary for them to take over the country, that at the same time the State Department was attempting to get the RPF to agree to give up its power and to enter into a minority position in the government, the Pentagon was continuing to support them and make them an even larger military force, so there was no incentive for them to give up their militarily superior position.

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the Rwandan opposition leader
that Professor Peter Erlinder traveled to Rwanda to defend
was taken, head shaven, handcuffed, and in pink prison garb,
to a Kigali court in handcuffs, where she was again denied
bail, on January 20, 2011. 

And the American people should also know that the UN documents and US government documents from FOIA disclosures that we have show that a U.S. engineered cover-up of RPF crimes began in August of 1994 because the State Department found out that the Pentagon was actually behind the RPF and therefore was responsible fundamentally for the Rwanda Genocide.  And that it's that connection to the United States that the American people don't know and is not acknowledged.  That's also the reason that the Rwanda Tribunal has had to prosecute only one side, because if Kagame ever is prosecuted, it's quite sure that he will explain the role of the United States in making him who he is.

It's also true that in 1996 and 1998, Rwanda and Uganda, both with the support of the US and UK, invaded the eastern Congo and have occupied the eastern Congo since that time.   Reports to the UN Security Council from experts that were engaged by the Security Council have reported repeatedly, 2001, 2, 3, 2008, 2010, that the armies of Uganda and Rwanda are occupying the eastern Congo, killing millions of people, at least six million, and raping the resources of the Congo.   But unfortunately, because both of these are proxy armies that are convenient for the United States, we don't hear about those crimes, and the perpetrators of the crimes are not called before the International Criminal Court, and the American people are in a position where they don't realize that their country is actually responsible for the massive crimes in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and we should care about that greatly because these crimes are being done in our name.

KPFA:  Peter Erlinder, thank you for speaking to KPFA.  For Pacifica, KPFA, and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Audio link:
http://www.anngarrison.com/images/mp3s/erlindertour.mp3.

Erlinder on Tour: U.S. Is Responsible for Rwanda Genocide and Congo Wars

 

Law Professor Peter Erlinder
speaking to the National Lawyers Guild
last year, holding the pink prison garb
he wore while incarcerated in Rwanda,
after traveling there to defend Victoire
Ingabire Umuhoza, the Rwandan opposition leader who
is now in prison herself.

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones:  American Law Professor Peter Erlinder is set to begin a speaking tour to present his 70-page compilation of original UN documents and evidence, as well as his analysis of what actually happened in Rwanda between 1993 and 1995. Erlinder says that the U.S., its allies, and the Rwandan government are collaborators in an ongoing coverup of the truth at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.  KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.  

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Peter Erlinder, international criminal defense attorney, and law professor at Minnesota's William Mitchell College of Law, will begin his speaking tour at George Washington University Law School in Washington D.C. on January 24th, then visit Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania and Temple University Law Schools, then, Fordham University Law Shool and the Brecht Forum in New York City, and the University of Pittsburgh. The tour will coincide with DePaul University's Journal of Social Justice's publication of his original UN documents and evidence, and his analysis of what actually happened in Rwanda, at the time of the epic massacres now known as the Rwanda Genocide. Professor Erlinder spoke to KPFA from his home in St. Paul Minnesota:

KPFA:  What do you think Americans most need to understand about what happened in Rwanda, and then in Congo?  What does this have to do with us?

Peter Erlinder:  Well, I think that what this has to do with us I'd like to answer first.  The United States has played an active role in destabilizing the Great Lakes Region of Africa for the last 25 years.  It's a role that the American people, however, do not understand, and because they don't understand it, they're not able to take action to change it.  But with respect to Rwanda, what the evidence in the files show, that have been kept secret until I was able to get them, is that actually it was the Pentagon that created the RPF, grew them from 2500 to 25,000 troops in a period of two years, provided the material and the support necessary for them to take over the country, that at the same time the State Department was attempting to get the RPF to agree to give up its power and to enter into a minority position in the government, the Pentagon was continuing to support them and make them an even larger military force, so there was no incentive for them to give up their militarily superior position.

And the American people should also know that the UN documents and US government documents from FOIA disclosures that we have show that a U.S. engineered cover-up of RPF crimes began in August of 1994 because the State Department found out that the Pentagon was actually behind the RPF and therefore was responsible fundamentally for the Rwanda Genocide.  And that it's that connection to the United States that the American people don't know and is not acknowledged.  That's also the reason that the Rwanda Tribunal has had to prosecute only one side, because if Kagame ever is prosecuted, it's quite sure that he will explain the role of the United States in making him who he is.

Rwandan opposition leaderVictoire Ingabire Umuhoza,
in pink prison garb, and with her head shaved was
led to court where she was again denied bail,
on January 20th, 2011.   

It's also true that in 1996 and 1998, Rwanda and Uganda, both with the support of the US and UK,  invaded the eastern Congo and have occupied the eastern Congo since that time.   Reports to the UN Security Council from experts that were engaged by the Security Council have reported repeatedly, 2001, 2, 3, 2008, 2010, that the armies of Uganda and Rwanda are occupying the eastern Congo, killing millions of people, at least six million, and raping the resources of the Congo.   But unfortunately, because both of these are proxy armies that are convenient for the United States, we don't hear about those crimes, and the perpetrators of the crimes are not called before the International Criminal Court, and the American people are in a position where they don't realize that their country is actually responsible for the massive crimes in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and we should care about that greatly because these crimes are being done in our name.  

KPFA:  Peter Erlinder, thank you for speaking to KPFA.  For Pacifica, KPFA, and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison. 

Audio link:

http://www.anngarrison.com/images/mp3s/erlindertour.mp3.

AfrobeatRadio Special on the Southern Sudanese Referendum on Independence

Rev. Dr. Nikita Imani, Associate
Professor of Sociology at James
Madison University and ordained
minister in both the Baptist and
African Orthodox Churches spoke to
Afrobeat Radio about the Southern
Sudanese Referendum.

Are peace and self-determination possible for the Sudanese people, despite troops amassing in both north and the south, and vast oil wealth, concentrated in the South and coveted by competitive foreign powers? Ann Garrison reports on Sudan Referendum January Sat 8, on WBAI 99.5 FM NY, streaming live @ WBAI.Org at 4:00 PM EST. Guests: Mugume D. Rwakaringi, Rev. Dr. Nikita Imani, Peter Erlinder, Milton Allimadi.

Audio link:  http://www.anngarrison.com/images/mp3s/afrobeatequalized.mp3.

Voting began in Southern Sudan on their referendum on independence began on January 9, 2011.

Children in Armed Conflict: Olara Otunnu speaks to KPFA and AfrobeatRadio

Acholi children in an Internally Displaced Persons 

(IDP) camp in Kitgum, in Northern Uganda. 

"They think that a refugee camp is home."  

-Ugandan human rights advocate and presidential candidate Olara Otunnu

Olara Otunnu, Ugandan lawyer,
human rights advocate, and
presidential candidate

KPFA Audio Archive URL:  http://goo.gl/sPhKA. 


KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones:
Much of the world focuses on family and creating safe and loving environments for children during the holidays , but many of the world's children suffer extreme deprivation and abuse of their human rights.   Last night, on New Year's Eve, KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke today to Olara Otunnu, a Ugandan lawyer and human rights advocate, who has been President of the International Peace Academy, UN Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, and President of the LBL Foundation for Children based in New York City.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:
Olara Otunnu, internationally known advocate for human rights, and especially for children in armed conflict regions, returned to Uganda this year, to become the presidential candidate of the Uganda People's Congress, one of the country's leading opposition parties.  He  is running against Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's president for the past 24 years.  He spoke to KPFA from Uganda's capitol, Kampala.

KPFA:

Can you describe what the holidays have been like for children living in the world's armed conflict regions?

Olara Otunnu:

Well, millions of children who have been caught up in situations of war, they would be today not in homes, not with their families perhaps, but in camps for displaced persons, or for refugees.    Instead of having a feast and celebrating, they most likely would be anxious, afraid of what is to come.  They would be struggling and worrying about mere survival.   

Here in Uganda, a celebration of Christmas and New Year's is not very different, perhaps, from other parts of the world, here in the capitol, but that is not the case in the countryside, where there is extreme and humiliating poverty, and it certainly isn't the case elsewhere in the world, including in parts of Uganda, where children and families have suffered terribly from armed conflict.

KPFA:

Is there armed conflict in Uganda now or are children suffering the consequences of conflict which has subsided?

Olara Otunnu:

Acholiland, the homeland of Uganda's
indigenous Acholi people, in northern Uganda.
The Acholi also live in Southern Sudan.

Well, between 15 to 20 years, the northern part of Uganda, especially the Acholiland, it was sheer hell.   The government of Mr. Museveni herded two million people into 200 concentration camps, for the better part of 20 straight years, in such abominable conditions people were dying at a rate of one thousand, five hundred a week.  The society, the culture, the family structure, education systems; everything has been destroyed.   What was done in Northern Uganda by the Museveni regime is probably the most comprehensive genocide in recent times.  

But within Uganda, the concentration camps finally, for the most part, were dismantled last year.  But after 20 years in the concentration camps, the survivors are completely lost.  They're deeply traumatized.  The society is collapsed.  

KPFA:

What would you say to Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the American people about the support that our government has given to Yoweri Museveni since the Bush War which brought him to power? 

Olara:

It's a very painful issue.   The incredible support and sponsorship that democratic governments, in the West particularly, have provided to Museveni over 25 years, even as genocide was going on in Northern Uganda, even as we had torture chambers littered throughout the country, even as the level of plunder of Uganda, the level of corruption by Museveni, his family, his ministers is such as I've never seen anywhere before, even as Museveni invaded the Congo and plundered the Congo.   It's a matter which, I can only say, requires a lot of soul searching on the part of the West.  

KPFA:  

Olara Otunnu, thank you for speaking to KPFA.   

Olara Otunnu:

Thank you so much.  

KPFA:

A longer conversation with Olara Otunnu is available at AfrobeatRadio.net.  For Pacifica/KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.  

Rwanda, New Media, and the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper

U.S. AFRICOM Commander William "Kip" Ward with 

Rwandan General James Kabarebe in Rwanda.

On December 27th, the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper published my editorial "Obama take heed; French judge files charges against Kagame allies."    Comments are interesting as ever, including:

1)  A complaint that my editorial was also published on the website of AfrobeatRadio.net, the website of AfrobeatRadio, a weekly radio hour on WBAI-New York City, one of the five metropolitan stations within the Pacifica Radio Network.

2)  An argument that there is an alternative viewpoint, that of the U.S. Army, as expressed on their news website.

Many writers consider themselves above responding to those who comment on their work, but I've engaged with many of the Rwandan readers of the SF Bay View throughout the past year, as I have here:

Sagakiga· 16 hours ago

While you keep repeating yourself with such articles it tends to be boring and waste of tax payers money to spread wrong opinions. Just the same article ont this link http://afrobeatradio.net/2010/12/27/obama-take-he....

Ma point is Rwanda is a Country for Rwandan Citzen ready to walk the talk and so people will always talk ,write inconsistent articles cover them with a nice picture like US Commander Kip meeting the Rwandan General. There are 2 different stories http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/04/23/20181-ward-i...

Report

Reply

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

+1

Ann_Garrison64p· 29 minutes ago

Words like "boring" and "wrong" do not persuade; they are simply adjectives. I can use them too. You are boring and wrong. Does that persuade or prove anything?

And, I am wasting tax payers money? That's choice. There is no tax payers' money coming to me or to the SF Bay View. I think you are confusing the SF Bay View with Rwanda's "The New Times, Government Supporting Daily," and confusing me with its scribes Edmund Kagire, Edwin Musoni, or perhaps Sunny Ntayomba.

As to this article also appearing on AfrobeatRadio, a weekly radio show on WBAI-New York CIty:

Have you failed to notice that most all newspapers and newspaper websites in the U.S.A. are the same now, that they are all running the Associated Press wire stories on most international stories? The SF Bay View has earned a high Google page rank in part because it consistently publishes unique content, every day. My reporting and analysis occasionally appears on two or three outlets and may be posted to other sites and Yahoo lists.