Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza
remains in maximum security prison in Kigali, Rwanda,
where she has now been more isolated.
Kigali 06 May 2011
Ms. Victoire Ingabire, FDU-INKINGI chairperson and Rwandan political prisoner is spending her 204th day in captivity in maximum prison today.
More isolation measures are now in force. The party members who visited the prison today were not given a chance to see Ms. Ingabire. The jailers informed that they have orders to follow and that any other questions should be addressed to the Minister of internal Security.
On 29 April 2011 a dozen FDU-INKINGI party members were chased away by the maximum prison security staff. Security Minister Fazil Harelimana told the BBC-Kinyarwanda that Madame Victoire Ingabire “must herself submit in advance a list of 5 people prior to the visitation days because the government does not want anybody to disturb prisoners when they are watching TV, reading or enjoying their siesta." The political prisoner is incommunicado and has no means to pre-screen and shortlist her visitors days before. This is enormously inconvenient and has the direct effect of making visits impossible.
Since January 2011, the defense counsel has not been allowed to take confidential instructions from the client due to continuous and persistent monitoring of their discussions by security operatives. Prompt access has been often denied too. Those persistent violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are seriously compromising all chances for a fair trial in Rwanda.
We call upon President Paul Kagame and his government to consider the humanity of political prisoners and remove all those obstacles.
KPFA Weekend News Host: The prevailing narrative of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide is that extremist Hutus massacred 800,000 or more Rwandan Tutsi and moderate Hutu, who tried to protect them. But, many scholars, journalists, and human rights investigators now argue that both Tutsi and Hutu massacred one another because of their ethnicity.
The truth is now more and more significant for all Africa, as NATO wages war in Libya, and U.S. policy lobbyists promote a proposal to use Predator Drones to "stop genocide," specifically to stop the next Rwanda or Darfur from happening elsewhere in Africa, such as Libya or Sudan. KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke to a Rwandan American legal scholar and a Rwandan Genocide survivor about the Rwandan massacres of 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.
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?)
"Rwandans so poor to be sterilized"
Photo illustrating legal scholar Charles Kambanda's essay,
"Why sterilize the poor?"
Reading the OpEdNews, which the Wikipedia defines as a United States-based, progressive/liberalnews, activism, and opinion website, on 04.06.2011, the 17th anniversary of the Rwanda Genocide, I came across some deeply dangerous, ethnic hate speech demonizing East/Central African Hutu people, in a piece of writing titled "Rwanda, a Light for the World."
This piece of writing had already been promoted to the site's #3 headline, risen to #39 on the list of most viewed posts, and been reposted to Facebook four times.
Its appearance, on a website that would never tolerate such talk of African Americans, Native Americans, or any other American ethnic group, demonstrates how widely accepted the official version of the Rwanda Genocide history, that Hutu extremists killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days, is----and, how widely accepted the consequent demonization and/or dehumanization of East/ Central African Hutu people is. In order for this to be published in the liberal, "progressive" OpEdNews, an OpEdNews editor had to approve it.
Most ethnic hate speech is based on inaccurate information, but even if the official version of the Rwanda Genocide history were accurate, it could not possibly justify this wholesale demonization of Hutu people, which comes very close to an overt argument for genocide and/or, one form of genocide--- the Kagame regime's plan to sterilize 700,000 adult Rwandan males, which legal scholar Charles Kambanda so eloquently deconstructs in "Rwanda: Why Sterilize the Poor?" (The majority of Rwandans are Hutu, and, very poor.)
"Mass migrations have taken place since 1959 when Tutsi refugees spilled into the neighboring countries of Burundi, Congo, Uganda and Tanzania because Hutu regimes preached hate and discrimination. President Paul Kagame, who led the rebel army against the Hutu government in 1994 and subsequently quelled the 100-day genocide, was among those Tutsi families who fled to Uganda.
Since the Tutsi takeover of government, 3 million Hutu have left the country, some of them still lusting after Tutsi blood. This massive dislocation of the population is unsettling for Rwandans as well as for their neighbors who are forced to host refugees they don't want.Meanwhile, Rwanda remains one of the poorest, most densely-populated countries in the world with scarce resources to boot."
Even as she claims to be praising Rwanda a model for ethnic reconciliation, Bonfiglio sounds as though she would really like to exterminate---e.g., by sterilization---this Hutu refugee population which is "still lusting after Tutsi blood," and is such a burden, not only to neighboring countries who don't want them, but also to Rwanda, which is already so poor and overpopulated without them.
Rwandan President
Paul Kagame
Best I can say is that Bonfiglio at least acknowledges that there was a Tutsi takeover of the Rwandan government in 1994, a reality that Rwandan President Paul Kagame and most of his other propagandists are still trying to deny, claiming that they have instead abolished ethnic identification and privilege based on ethnic identification.
Bonfiglio seems strangely unable to perceive the contradictions between:
1) Her claim, like theirs, that Rwanda is "the light of the world," a model of reconciliation, and,
2) Her acknowledgment of an ethnic Tutsi takeover, and,
3) Her hate speech demonizing and dehumanizing Hutu people as so many have since the Tutsi, Rwandan Patriotic Front victory in the Rwandan Civil War of 1990-1994.
KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: The Great Lakes Region of Africa Coalition of peace and social justice activists in the U.S. is preparing for a March 2nd Congressional briefing on the UN Mapping Report documenting atrocities committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report was leaked on August 26th, 2010, and officially released by the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights on October 1st.
President and General Paul Kagame leads the army whose
crimes in Congo are documented in the UN Mapping Report
leaked 08.26.2010, and officially released 10.01.2010.
The armies of Congo's neighbors to the east, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, and most of all that of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, are most implicated, but the U.S. continues to collaborate with all three militarily. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: International, multilingual broadcast headlines following the August 26th leak of the UN Mapping Report were later combined into this sound collage to introduce "The contradictions of General Paul Kagame:," a video posted to the Youtube and Jambo News, a publication covering Africa's Great Lakes Region:
Audio collage of headlines: (Audio collage of broadcast headlines during the week following the 08.26.2010 leak of the report.)
KPFA/Ann Garrison: Despite the Mapping Report's documentation of atrocities including mass rape, civilian massacres, destruction of hospitals and other essential infrastructure, and even genocide, there have been no international criminal indictments. Within the last year Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, and Burundi's President Pierre Nkrunziza, all of whom are implicated in the UN report, held onto power in elections that much of the world understood as window dressing for dictatorship.
The U.S. and UK have continued to arm, train, and collaborate with the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi in Somalia, Sudan, and elsewhere on the African continent. Last July the Pentagon awarded Northrop Grumman and three other defense and security contractors a $500 million contract to train the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi and other African allies.
Jacques Bahati, Policy Analyst for the Washington D.C.-based Africa Faith and Justice Network spoke to KPFA about the Great Lakes Coalition's hopes for its March 2nd briefing on Capitol Hill:
Jacques Bahati: Our goal is to rally U.S. support for justice for the crimes committed by the Rwandan, Ugandan, and Burundian armies and their Congolese collaborators in the war against Congo in 1996 to 2003. Also we want the U.S. to take a clear stand on this issue, supporting the UN Mapping Report recommendations to set up an investigation to determine whether the targeted and massive killing of Congolese, Burundian, and Rwandan Hutu were a genocide.
KPFA: There have been many Congressional hearings and many UN reports about this. What are you hoping might be different this time?
Jacques Bahati: Well, we can't get tired. We will continue to push and rally the international community for peace and stability of the region. Although they might not hear us or they haven't heard us, we believe that one day they will hear what we are saying, because the evidence is very clear. Many people died and justice has to be served.
President Barack Obama, as a Senator, authored Senate
Bill 2125, the Congo, Relief, Security, and Democracy
Promotion Act of 2006.
Ann Garrison: Bahati also said that they would be asking Congress to push for implementation of Senate Bill 2125, the Obama Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006, and the only bill that President Obama, as a Senator, ushered into law on his own. The bill calls for appointment of a Special Envoy to the Congo, and for the cancellation of U.S. assistance to any country invading the Congo and plundering its resources, as the Mapping Report and previous UN reports demonstrate, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi have.
The Great Lakes Coalition is asking Americans to call their Senators and Congressmembers to ask them to attend the March 2nd briefing on the UN Mapping Report on Capitol Hill. For updates on the hearings, see the websites of the Africa Faith and Justice Network and Friends of the Congo.
For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.
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.
On February 6th, the day of my KPFA News report below, Uganda's Daily Monitor reported that US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, were in Uganda to speak to the three opposition presidential candidates, Kizza Besigye of Inter-Party Cooperation, Olara Otunnu of the Uganda Peoples Congress, and Norbert Mao of the Democratic Party, and that the meeting "formed the basis of their engagement with President Museveni." The Monitor also reported that "Uganda is a key strategic partner to the US in its role in maintaining regional stability."
KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest: Uganda is approaching parliamentary and presidential elections on February 18th. The current regime of Yoweri Museveni imprisoned one of the leading candidates, Dr. Kizza Besigye, when he ran against Museveni in 2005 and 2006, but all charges were dropped and Besigye is running again this year. Internationally known human rights advocate Olara Otunnu, former U.N. Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict Zones returned from exile to run for president, and Norbert Mao, a Ugandan lawyer known for his negotiations to bring peace to Uganda's wartorn north, is running against Museveni as well. KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: Uganda, appears to be having a real presidential election, unlike Rwanda, where two of three viable presidential candidates had been arrested before the election year was over and both remain in maximum security prison. Uganda's leading presidential candidates are actively campaigning, as are parliamentary candidates, though election violence is feared and few expect the election to be free or fair. Dr. Kizza Besigye has said that he will conduct his own presidential exit polls, though Museveni has threatened to arrest him if he does.
The main campaign issues are poverty, government corruption, and segregated education, which leaves children of the majority peasant population being shuffled through poor public schools, without acquiring any skills, while children of the elite attend private school.
Olara Otunnu, leader of the Uganda People's
Congress party, arrives for his nomination as
presidential candidate in the capital Kampala.
Presidential candidate Olara Otunnu, who attended primary and secondary school in a mud hut in Uganda's indigenous Acholi region, went on to Uganda's Makerere University and from there to Oxford and Harvard Law School, but he says that his story is not possible in Uganda now
Olara Otunnu: The education system, especially at the primary level and the elementary level, have completely collapsed. The government has abandoned the public schools, the government schools. And instead, with the corruption, the country has seen a mushrooming of top quality private schools for those who are very, very wealthy. And then, this completely collapsed the system for the vast majority of children. These schools are no longer able to lay the foundation for children who go on to secondary schools, who can become teachers, and doctors, and engineers, as it used to be in our school system.
KPFA: Melanie Nathan, Marin County Human Rights Commissioner, Editor/Contributor to LezGetReal, a Gay Girl's View of the World, and international LGBT activist says that damage to Uganda's public schools is a tragedy for Ugandans and for LGBT rights:
Melanie Nathan: Destroying pubic education, as Museveni has in Uganda, is a great way to encourage the fearful religious fundamentalism manipulated by those trying to institute homicidal homophobia with this Anti-Homosexuality Act, also known as the Hang-the-Gays Bill.
N
Uganda's Democratic Party presidential
candidate Norbert Mao, listened
to this woman in Kazo, Kiruhuura district.
KPFA: Many Congolese people, including Eric Kamba, of the Boston-based Congolese Development Center, would like to see Museveni voted out of office because of his army's war crimes in Congo, which have been documented in many UN reports. Kamba, a refugee from Congo's central Kasai Province, says that he would be assassinated if he went home because he has accused the Congolese President Joseph Kabila of corruption and collaboration with Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the invasion and occupation of Congo.
Eric Kamba: As an African, I would like to see Yoweri Museveni voted out of office because he caused the collapse of the most fundamental social institutions and high levels of poverty and corruption in his own country. As a Congolese refugee, I want to see his regime end because he invaded and occupied Congo, and is still plundering its natural resources. In 2008, the International Refugee Commission, estimated that there have been 5.4 million deaths due to the conflict in Congo, and there have been many more since 2008 that no one has counted.
KPFA: And what would you expect from Uganda's other presidential candidates?
Eric Kamba: Dr Kizza Besigye has spoken out against Uganda's invasion of Congo for years and the other leading presidential candidates oppose it as well; any of them would be a big improvement for Uganda, Congo, and Africa. Museveni has been clinging to power and terrorizing the whole Great Lakes Region for the past 25 years.
KPFA: For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.
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.
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.
Photo -- "Keith Harmon Snow asked to swap camera for RPG Rocket Launcher" -- FARDC Operation "Iron Fist" (spin-off), remote hills in or near Kahuzi Beiga National Park, South Kivu (province), DRC. Circa June 2006.
On Sunday, 01.23.2011, I called veteran Africa investigator Keith Harmon Snow for KPFA Weekend News regarding the second anniversary of the outset of the catastrophic 2009 Eastern Congo Offensive. As is always the case with “sound bite news,” I couldn’t include most of our conversation, but Keith was kind enough to write out his answers to the questions I’d sent for AfrobeatRadio.net. We at AfrobeatRadio consider Keith’s website, Conscious Being Alliance and the various audio recordings of his presentations, including, recently, his Lecture on Profiteering from Genocide in Central Africa, at the Brecht Forum in New York City, to be some of the best investigative reporting and analysis of African issues available. -Ann Garrison
KPFA/Ann Garrison: Most Americans, including those who campaigned hardest for Obama, would have a near impossible time making sense of this. Few would recognize the acronyms of the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF), the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), or the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
Keith Harmon Snow: There has been a US backed campaign to destabilize, depopulate, and colonize eastern Congo/Zaire since the first US-supported invasion of 1996, which occurred under William Jefferson Clinton, and which followed the US destabilization and coup d’etat in Rwanda. The US and its allies are deploying their proxy army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) — renamed the Rwandan Defense Forces or RDF about 10 years ago – in our secret campaign to balkanize Congo and create a Republic of the Volcanoes in this region. This would be an expansion of Rwanda achieved through the annexation of the Kivu provinces of Congo, possibly along with Maniema Province. Uganda for its part, with US support, would like to annex the Ituri province. These campaigns are backed by multinational corporations, and the goals are political, military and, mostly, economic.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: So, what sense does it make, to say that Barack Obama invaded Congo, the heart of Africa, on his Inauguration Day?
Keith Harmon Snow: The US backed military invasion of 20 January 2009 included US military commanders, special forces, military advisers, technicians and other US military personnel, and it involved weaponry supplied by the US and Britain.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: Can you explain the CNDP militia and the significance of its integration into the Congolese army, the FARDC, on January 20, 2009?
Keith Harmon Snow: First, the name CNDP – Congress for the Defense of the People – couldn’t be further from the truth. The CNDP was a Rwandan Tutsi based militia that was created by Rwandan war criminals that had infiltrated Eastern Congo, infiltrated troops into eastern Congo, and that mobilized, armed and economically empowered Rwandan Tutsi civilians that had infiltrated eastern Congo in recent years and in recent decades. There was a tripartite agreement between Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame, Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni, and the president of Congo – another Rwandan – Joseph Kabila – which worked behind the massive propaganda of “peace talks” to advance the military campaign to infiltrate and control eastern Congo. By quote “integrating” these Rwandan militia elements into the Congolese National Army the Rwandan program was advanced through a kind of Trojan horse operation.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: Can you explain the arrest of Laurent Nkunda and Bosco Ntaganda’s assumption of CNDP leadership in his place?
Keith Harmon Snow: This was a cosmetic move with no real importance, meant only to pacify certain international calls to arrest and remove the self-proclaimed General Laurent Nkundabatware. Both Nkunda and Bosco Ntaganda were documented war criminals. Nkunda of course knows too much, he is too much of a liability to Kagame, and so he is living a very good life at present in Rwanda.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: And, what about the UN Mapping Report leaked on August 26th, then finally released on October 1st?
Keith Harmon Snow: Well, that report, while revealing and progressive, in the sense of holding certain armies and individuals accountable for war crimes, was also a whitewash of the real situation. On one hand it introduced, for the first time, some credible evidence, produced by international bodies and the United Nations, that the Rwandan and Ugandan militaries committed genocide against unarmed Hutu people – mostly women and children – in Congo from circa 1995 to 1999. At the same time the evidence and facts are distorted and downplayed, and the criminality of Rwanda and Uganda are downplayed and even questioned, and the numbers of dead and kinds of atrocities are downplayed or distorted, and there is absolutely no mention of western agents or militaries or corporations involved in the killing. For example, we know the names of US diplomats, USAID officials, and military commanders involved in hunting down and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Hutus, mostly women and children.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: What do you think this operation, the 2009 Eastern Congo Offensive, which began on Obama’s Inauguration Day, says about the racial justice that many hoped the election of Barack Obama would represent?
Keith Harmon Snow: The operation called “Umoja Wetu” resulted in massive war crimes, and Barack Obama is no symbol or agent of racial equality, but just another US official involved in persecuting people of color everywhere, and through all sorts of horrible deprivations and war crimes.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: And what about the racism inherent in this mission to “hunt down Hutu militias”?
Keith Harmon Snow: Well, this is more nonsense—the whole “hunt for Hutu genocidaires was a key element of the psychological operation against the western English-speaking world to cover up for western imperialism and the commission of massive war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide—and plunder of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of minerals, timber, and lives. Under this psychological operation—using such propaganda films as Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April and Shake Hands With The Devil and Beyond the Gates—the English-speaking world suffers a collective mental illness about what really happened in Rwanda. Instead of the racist story about Hutus killing Tusis with machetes in 100 days of genocide, the truth is that the US, British and Israeli military and their Ugandan and Rwandan proxy forces are responsible for genocide against both Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, Congo and Burundi. Who are the victims? The innocent civilians in Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Congo and they are still suffering massively under US overt and covert operations in the Great Lakes region.
Many thanks to Ann Garrison, David Landau & Anthony Fest, and the KPFA Weekend News. -Keith Harmon Snow
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The truth is now more and more significant for all Africa, as NATO wages war in Libya, and U.S. policy lobbyists promote a 
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