Erlinder v. Kagame and Victor's History

Rwanda Genocide, 1994.

KPFA Weekend News Anchor David Rosenberg: April 6th was the 17th anniversary of events that triggered the massacres that the world came to know as the Rwanda Genocide.   The history of the 1994 genocide and the ensuing war in Rwanda's resource rich neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, are fiercely disputed by a growing number of scholars, journalists, and human rights investigators, and by Rwandan and Congolese opposition leaders, genocide survivors, exiles, and refugees.   Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, Rwanda's 43-year-old opposition leader, and mother of three, remains in Rwanda's 1930 maximum security prison, charged with terrorism and disputing the official Rwanda Genocide history.  And, William Mitchell Law Professor and former National Lawyers Guild President Peter Erlinder has now published an 80-page, footnoted and documented report, in the DePaul University Law School's Journal of Justice, in which he argues that Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his Rwandan Patriotic Front regime bear responsibility for the Rwanda Genocide and Congo Wars.   

Professor Peter Erlinder in handcuffs in a
Kigali courtroom, with Kennedy Ogetto, the
Kenyan ICTR lawyer who flew to Kigali to
defend him when he was arrested after
flying there to defend Victoire Ingabire
Umuhoza.

Last year Kagame arrested and imprisoned Erlinder in Rwanda, after he had traveled there to defend Ingabire, and last week the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda came close to sanctioning him for refusing to return to Arusha, Tanzania, to defend another client.  Erlinder had said that he would not return because Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front agents might well assassinate, kidnap, or disappear him if he did.  The court did not acknowledge Erlinder's claim that his life would be in danger in Arusha, but they did excuse him after his doctor reported that he suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome as a consequence of his arrest and imprisonment in Rwanda last year.

KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke to Professor Erlinder by phone from his office at William Mitchell College of Law, in St. Paul, Minneapolis:

Ann Garrison:   Peter Erlinder, this story is still obscure to many KPFA listeners.  Could you explain why Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda, would conceivably want to assassinate, kidnap, or disappear you?

Rwandan opposition leader
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza remains
in Rwanda's 1930 maximum security
prison charged with terrorism and
genocide ideology, i.e., disagreeing with
the official history of the Rwanda
Genocide. 

Peter Erlinder:  Well, during my work at the UN Tribunal, I had an opportunity to have access to the previously secret United Nations files that were kept by UN personnel in Rwanda during the time that's known as the genocide.   And those documents tell a completely different story than the story the world has heard about what happened in Rwanda during that time.  Also I was able to link that to US documents from the State Department, the CIA and the Pentagon and the documents from other countries. 


And I used those documents to defend my client and he and other military officers were acquitted of the charge of conspiracy to commit genocide, which means there was no plan on the part of the previous government and military.  

Ann Garrison:  And do the documents that you've assembled demonstrate that President Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front regime are most responsible for the mass slaughter of 1994 which came to be the principle justification of the Kagame regime?  

Peter Erlinder:  Yeah, what the documents show is that the RPF were the dominant military power in Rwanda.  They were responsible for assassinating the Rwandan and Burundian Presidents, which touched off the mass violence.  They were in a position to stop the mass violence and didn't do so because of their desire to win the war.  And then once they did seize power continued carrying out violence against civilians.

AfrobeatRadio

Ann Garrison:  And what do those documents that you've assembled say about the ensuing Congo War?  


Peter Erlinder:  Well, the documents make clear that the RPF went on to carry out an invasion of the eastern Congo along with Uganda and then essentially to control the eastern Congo, which they do to this day.  And that was accomplished because of ongoing support from the Pentagon, and then, unfortunately, it becomes clear that this support was covered up as the ICTR began to develop.   


Ann Garrison:  Links to Professor Erlinder's report on the Rwanda Genocide and Congo War can be found on the websites of the San Francisco Bay View and AfrobeatRadio.net. 


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


(SF Bay View link for press release and download link Erlinder's report, The United Nations Ad Hoc Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR-TPIR): International justice or judicially-constructed victors’ impunity?)

KPFA News: Kagame wants Professor Peter Erlinder "dead or alive"

Law Professor Peter Erlinder, with his Kenyan lawyer Kennedy Ogetto, who is also one of his fellow criminal defense attorneys at the Interational Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda.  Erlinder wears the pink prison garb of Rwandan prisoners that Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, whom he had traveled to Rwanda to defend, wears now.  

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

Transcript:

KPFA Weekend News Host Cameron Jones:
Minnesota William and Mitchell Law Professor and International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda Defense lawyer Peter Erlinder has issued a press release stating that, according to high-level Rwandan officials present at a meeting in Rwanda's capitol Kigali in mid-October, Rwandan President Paul Kagame ordered that he, Erlinder, be brought back to Rwanda “dead or alive.”  KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:
Law Professor Peter Erlinder says that former members of the Rwandan government, now in exile, report that Rwandan President Kagame said “Erlinder’s release was a mistake” and that he and Paul Rusesabagina, the author of "An Ordinary Man," the book that the film Hotel Rwanda was based on, were responsible for drawing worldwide attention to the detailed 600-page UN report released Oct. 1, that exposes the role of Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front and its army in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and massacres of Hutu civilians.

Erlinder says that he has notified federal and local law enforcement officials and the U.S. State Department of the danger, and requested protection both for himself and for his confidential source.   Speaking to KPFA today, from his home in St. Paul-Minneapolis, he explained why he will not be returning to Rwanda:

Law Professor Peter Erlinder:

On Oct. 6, the UN Tribunal for Rwanda issued a decision in which it said that the prosecution against me was illegal under UN immunity rules.  As a result I have no obligation to answer to an illegal prosecution in Rwanda.  And since that time, UN reports of the mass murders by the Kagame regime in Rwanda and in the Congo make it clear that returning to Rwanda would be suicide for anyone that Kagame considers a threat to his absolute power, and my returning to Rwanda is out of the question at this point."

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

What do you think about Kagame's growing enemy list?  

Peter Erlinder:
Well, within the last several months, of course, nearly all of Kagame's opponents and journalists in the independent press have either been arrested or killed.  The government newspaper has reported that Paul Rusesabagina of Hotel Rwanda's foundation is part of an Obama Administration/UN conspiracy to discredit the Kagame regime.  And Rwanda's Ambassador to the U.S. has actually accused the former U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda,  Robert Flatten, of being a gun runner.  And as the enemies' list grows, this desperation only makes the regime more dangerous anywhere in the world, and I must take seriously the death threats that have been reported to me.  


UN documents that are in evidence at the UN Tribunal, which of course are the reason for the charges against me in Rwanda, show that Kagame is responsible for the Rwanda Genocide already.  And RPF culpability for the six million deaths in the Congo, reported in the UN Report that was made public October 1st, is in the public record too.

And a regime capable of these crimes is capable of eliminating its opponents anywhere it can reach them.


KPFA/Ann Garrison:
Has anyone from the State Department responded to the information that you gave them?

Peter Erlinder:
I haven't heard back from the State Department in any official way.

For more coverage of Peter Erlinder's case and related news reported from East/Central Africa, Europe, and the U.S., see the website of the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper, www.sfbayview.com.

For Pacifica, KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.

KPFA News: Rwanda, Congo, Ingabire, and the Netherlands

Audio link: http://goo.gl/gm5QE

KPFA Weekend News Host Anthony Fest:
And turning now to news from Africa, the dispute over who is responsible for the bloodshed in East/Central Africa over the past 16 years intensified this month when, on November 9th, Rwandan President Paul Kagame's former bodyguard testified at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda.  Following that testimony he told a newspaper and website that Kagame summarily executes political enemies.  On November 12 Rwanda's High Court sent an opposition leader back to prison.  Now a new Dutch Parliament seems close to confirming that it will no longer support Kagame's government.   KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:
Rwandan President Paul Kagame's former bodyguard Aloys Ruyenzi testified, at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, that the President of the Interahamwe, the militia said to have massacred the Rwandan Tutsi population in 1994, was himself a Tutsi and Rwandan Patriotic Front and Army agent.  Ruyenzi, in an interview with The Newsline East Africa, also described what he called "killing spots," where, he says, the Kagame regime continues to sort, classify, and then systematically execute those it perceives as enemies.

The Kagame regime's High Court in turn denied opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza's bail appeal, and sent her back to prison to await trial for conspiring with terrorists and genocide ideology, which means disagreeing with the official history of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.

Rwandan exiles and supporters have demonstrated in Brussels, the Hague, and London since Ingabire's arrest, and the new Dutch Parliament seems to be moving toward a vote to sustain a 2008 decision to cut economic aid to Kagame's Rwandan regime because of its human rights abuses in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and because of Ingabire's imprisonment.

Vincent Harris is a Dutch new media consultant and writer.  Harris says that the Dutch Parliament's decision could raise the question of why other European nations and the U.S. continue to provide economic and military aid to Rwanda:

Colored Opinions Blogger/Writer/New Media Consultant Vincent Harris:  
In December the final decision concerning budget support, whether the Netherlands will resume budget support  to Rwanda, will be made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs.  Kigali's reputation is at stake.  Once the Dutch government freezes budget support again, it's a strong signal to all European partners, and also to, for instance, the US and the UK  to explain why they think they should keep supporting this regime.

KPFA/Ann:
Harris says that Ingabire was a respectable, working, lawabiding, resident of the Netherlands, where her family still resides, for 16 years, before her return to Rwanda, and that church groups with significant influence are collecting petition signatures, to be addressed to the Dutch Parliament, asking the legislative body to lobby for her safety and human rights.

Harris reports that the Dutch Parliament has already asked its embassy staff to attend her trial as witnesses, though they do not believe that she can receive a fair trial in Rwanda.

For Pacifica, KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.

ICTR Lawyers: No International Justice for Congo

Human rights activists around the world have called for international justice and an end to impunity in the wake of the UN Mapping Report on Human Rights Abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but  defense lawyers for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda say that there is no reason to expect justice from an international criminal tribunal.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/298764#ixzz11zrvO6b3.

KPFA Radio News on Congo and International Justice, 10-09-2010

Link at http://goo.gl/BzBx.

Defense lawyers condemn assassination of ICTR lawyer Mwaikusa

The Association of Defense Lawyers have condemned the murder of International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) lawyer and University of Dar es Salaam Law Professor Jwani Mwaikusa, who was gunned down outside his home on July 14.

Professor Mwaikusa had recently prevented the transfer of ICTR defendants to Rwanda on “lack of fair trial" grounds, and announced the appeal of his client, Yusuf Munyakazi's July 3 conviction.

Read more at Digital Journal, http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/294794.

KPFA News on Rwanda, Mwaikusa assassination in Tanzania, ICTR lawyers, and Kagame protest in Spain, 07.18.2010:

Jwani Mwaikusa, human rights lawyer, ICTR Defense Counsel, and Law Professor at the University of Dar Es Salaam (USDM), Tanzania, was buried on Saturday, in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.  The gunmen who killed him outside his home there on Tuesday stole his briefcase and legal documents.  The San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper published Charles Kambanda's memories of Professor Mwaikuza, and Tanzania's "The Citizen" website reported on the funeral and the ongoing investigation, quoting retired UDSM law lecturer, Prof Issa Shivji, who said:

"The circumstances of his death are very difficult to explain. It does not appear to have been an ordinary robbery. I think it was calculated and definitely had a motive. This is a brutal killing we would want our investigators to work on and give us an answer.”

KPFA Radio News reported the Association of Defense Lawyers' response:

Ogetto warns of dangerous international legal precedent in Rwanda

Kenyan Lawyer Kennedy Ogetto with his client American Law Professor Peter Erlinder on June 14th, outside a Rwandan courtroom, where Erlinder appealed a Rwandan judge's decision denying him bail on June 7th.

Kennedy Ogetto, Kenyan lawyer and Defense Counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda warned that Rwanda's arrest of American Law Professor Peter Erlinder sets a very dangerous international legal precedent.

Ogetto, is now in Rwanda's capitol, Kigali, defending Erlinder, who was arrested on May 28th, for speech crime, in Rwanda. He said that the prosecution's use of statements Erlinder made as a defense lawyer at the ICTR as evidence against him will make it impossible for defense lawyers to safely defend anyone in international courts, and called on the international community to insist more adamantly on Erlinder's release.

Read/listen at Digital Journal, http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/293386.

Fox News confuses Rwanda's presidential election with the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda

Peter Erlinder speaking on 22 May 2010 in Brussels from ICTR Legacy on Vimeo.

Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, Law Professor Peter Erlinder's client, in Rwanda, before his own arrest.   

Fox News reached new extremes of irresponsibility today by reporting that Professor Peter Erlinder is in Kigali, Rwanda to defend "the alleged perpetrators of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide."   Professor Erlinder is in Rwanda to defend opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza against charges of genocide ideology, a speech crime unique to Rwanda which means challenging the received history of the Rwanda Genocide, a crime he himself was arrested for, within days after arriving in Rwanda to defend Ingabire. 


Fox News, in its own words:  


"Erlinder, who has not spoken to friends or family since being detained, was in Rwanda defending alleged leaders of the country's 1994 genocide, but Friday the judge charged him with denying genocide and with publishing articles threatening the country's security. " 


Fox seems to be confusing Rwanda's 2010 presidential election, which his client Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, keeps trying to enter as an opposition candidate, with the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, (ICTR), in Arusha, Tanzania, where Erlinder has served as Lead Defense Counsel for several of the accused.   



Professor Erlinder's evidence, the Rwanda Documents Project, gathered during his years of work as a defender at the ICTR, is the basis of his argument that the received history of the Rwanda Genocide is history written by the victors, as he said here, at the Second International Defense Lawyer's Conference in Bruxxelles, just before flying to Kigali to defend Victoire. 

Peter Erlinder speaking on 22 May 2010 in Brussels from ICTR Legacy on Vimeo.

Disputed histories of the Rwanda Genocide

Skulls of victims of one of the massacres during the 1994 Rwandan genocide displayed at the Genocide Memorial Site church of Ntarama in Nyamata, Rwanda.

I was surprised and alarmed on, 02.02.2010, to read Amil Omara-Otunnu's one-sided history of the Rwanda Genocide, "Rwanda Genocide: Lessons for Human Rights Advocacy," in the Black Star News, a publication I rely on for investigative reporting and commentary about Africa.  This is especially disturbing now, as tension around disputed Rwanda Genocide history increases amidst political repression leading up to Rwanda's August 2010 national elections.  

Professor Omara-Otunnu's elegant English, rationality, and partial rightness put this essay leagues above the vicious propaganda currently being published in the Rwanda New Times or the confusion in the Rwanda News Agency, both of which are promptly reproduced on allAfrica.com, seemingly without editorial review or discretion, but his account of the Rwanda Genocide and its aftermath is wholly biased towards Rwandan President Paul Kagame, his ruling RPF Party, and the suffering of Rwandans identified as Tutsi.  It disregards all the evidence that Kagame and the RPF are themselves guilty of major human rights violations, including compromised courts and elections, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal violence against Rwandan Hutus, and, of ruthless invasion and resource theft in Eastern Congo.  

Omara-Otunnu makes no mention of the tension and repression of opposition political parties in Rwanda now, as the nation's 2010 national elections approach.

And he makes no mention of the Human Rights Watch release pointing to the failure of the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) to indict the ruling RPF, which makes the ICTR's legacy an example of one-sided justice rather than a historic example for human rights investigations and courts to emulate.  

Nor does he mention Rwanda's prisons, which house the third highest per capita prison population in the world, including many political prisoners.

Though he decries the international community's "inaction," in accordance with the received Rwanda genocide narrative, he says nothing about evidence of foreign powers covert involvement, including that of the U.S. and its allies, and France, and/or of their ongoing involvement in Rwanda and the wider region now.

This essay is elegantly written, but the writer's disregard for disputed narratives of the Rwanda Genocide, including those of Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza, FDU/UDF-Inkingi's 2010 presidential candidate, and the need to reconcile disputed narratives is dangerous and irresponsible.

I should add, however, that Professor Amara-Otunnu's has been outspoken in his opposition to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's state terror and genocidal violence against the Acholi people of Northern Uganda. 

See: 

"Rwanda's 1994 genocide and the 2010 elections" 

"ICTR's legacy threatened by failure to charge Rwandan Patriotic Front," 

All Things Pass, Writings of Keith Harmon Snow  

David Barouski's Z-Space Page

Rwanda Documents Project, created by Dr. Peter Erlinger, Lead Defense Counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda