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.

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza arrested in Rwanda

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, leader of Rwanda's FDU-Inkingi coalition of opposition parties. 

Opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza has been arrested in Rwanda, according to members of her FDU-Inkingi Coalition of Rwandan political parties, who also report that authorities have taken her to an undisclosed location.

In a press release sent at 5 a.m. Pacific Time, FDU-Inkingi Executive Secretary Sylvain Sibomana wrote: “After a week of siege without any explanation whatsoever, the police has just drifted in the house and arrested Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the Chair of FDU-Inkingi. She was taken immediately to the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for unknown reasons. This arrest comes amid a climate of heavy political tension marked by wanton attacks against the democratic opposition.”

Read more at San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, http://sfbayview.com/2010/rwandan-opposition-leader-victoire-ingabire-arrested/.

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

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

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:

Democracy Now: As Congo Marks 50th Anniversary of Independence, Human Rights Abuses Rise in Congo and Neighboring Rwanda

Erlinder released as Kagame cracks down on his own

Rwandan Umuvugizi journalist Jean Leonard Rugambage was assassinated in Kigali Rwanda on June 24, 2010, after publishing a report that Rwandan President Paul Kagame had ordered the attempted assassination of General Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa.

As U.S. Law Professor Peter Erlinder was released, after three weeks incarceration in Rwanda, Kagame cracked down hard on his own.   Read at San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, http://goo.gl/CSdo.

Rwanda: arrests, assassinations, and Pentagon intervention

Saturday, June 26th, 2010, memorial service for Rwandan journalist Jean Leonard Rugambage, assassinated in Kigali, Rwanda on Thursday, June 24th.

KPFA News on Rwanda and Africa, 06.26.2010: 

Pirate Cat Radio: Rwanda, Congo, and Law Professor Peter Erlinder

U.S. Law Professor Peter Erlinder and Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza in a Kigali, Rwanda courtroom.  Professor Erlinder wore one of Rwanda's pink prison uniforms.

On Friday evening, June 19th, San Francisco's Pirate Cat Radio's League of Pissed Off Voters Show invited me on to talk about U.S. Law Professor Peter Erlinder's arrest in Kigali, Rwanda and its context, including:

---Reverend Rick Warren on Trial in the Court of Public Opinion, 


--Rwanda's 2010 presidential election, with August 9th polls, which will be no more than a charade, because none of the viable candidates have been allowed to register and freely campaign,


--AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, which was meeting in Kigali, to plan an August "exercise" in Accra, Ghana, to watchdog West African oil and gas and oil and gas transport corridors while Professor Peter Erlinder sat in a Rwanda prison, 


--Rwandan prisons, some of the world's most crowded, with the second highest per capita prison population in the world.  

--Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza's appeal to the world to stand with Rwanda now, as they stood with Professor Erlinder.

(And we actually finished up there, for now, because the next Pirate Cat programmer came in.  Pirate Cat Radio is a fairly informal operation, and, as League of Pissed Off Voters Radio host Andy Blue said, "It is no longer broadcasting on 87.9FM," not to the knowledge of anyone there.)

In his press conference at William and Mitchell College of Law in Minneapolis/St. Paul on Wednesday, 05.23.2010, following his return, Professor Erlinder thanked all the people around the world who had called for his release, and said that he owed his life to them and to the Internet.  His release was, he said, a triumph for people power, but he also said that it would not have occurred if he had not been a white American lawyer with friends, family, and allies capable of organizing and lobbying relentlessly for his release.


He also said that he would have been disappeared if he hadn't sat down in a Kigali hotel hallway and started making noise, refusing to cooperate, demanding to speak to his Embassy till the police called them. Airline records, and the U.S. Embassy's records, on the day of his arrest, said that he'd already flown out of Kigali to Nairobi the previous morning.


He appeared at the press conference in a suit and tie, but held up a replica of the pink Rwandan prison costume he had worn in Kigali and promised to wear it in future appearances, in solidarity with the Rwandan people and prisoners, though he had promised his family not to wear it on Wednesday.  

Video of Peter Erlinder's 06.23 press conference at William and Mitchell Law College in Minneapolis is not available yet, but the Minneapolis Star Tribune made this video of his homecoming available on the Youtube:



--Ann Garrison

Peter Erlinder's release and Victoire Ingabire's appeal

U.S. Law Professor Peter Erlinder's lawyer Otachi Gershom and presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza left a Kigali, Rwanda courtroom, on Jun 17th, where a Rwandan judge had just handed down a decision to release Erlinder on medical grounds. 

On June 17, a Rwanda judge released U.S. Law Professor and international criminal defense attorney Peter Erlinder from a Rwandan Prison, on medical grounds.

Erlinder has been imprisoned since May 28th, several days after traveling to Rwanda to defend presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza against the same "genocide ideology" charges he now faces in Rwanda. Erlinder, however, will be allowed to return to the United States, unlike Ingabire, who remains under house arrest in Rwanda.

Ingabire appealed to the international community to stand, now, with Rwanda, as they have with Professor Peter Erlinder.

Read at Digital Journal:

Kagame releases Professor Erlinder on medical grounds

Ingabire's appeal: Stand with Rwanda, as with Professor Peter Erlinder

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.

U.S. House Resolution Urging Rwanda to Free Law Professor Peter Erlinder

Congresswoman Betty McCollum represents Professor Peter Erlinder in Minnesota's 4th District.

Congressman Keith Ellison, D-MN, represents Minnesota's 5th District and is a personal friend of Professor Peter Erlinder. 

Congresswoman Betty McCollum, D-MN, and Congressman Keith Ellison, D-MN, have introduced this resolution urging the Government of Rwanda to free Professor Peter Erlinder, who was arrested by the government of Rwanda on May 28th, 2010, and now remains in a Rwandan prison, denied bail.  U.S. citizens can find  telephone #s to call their House Reps and ask them to support the resolution on this Africa Faith and Justice Network page:  http://goo.gl/Wgf2. 

FREE PETER ERLINDER RESOLUTION IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

HRES 1426 IH

111th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. RES. 1426

Urging the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and President Paul Kagame to immediately release human rights lawyer Professor Peter Erlinder from jail and allow him to return to the United States.

FREE PETER ERLINDER RESOLUTION IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

HRES 1426 IH

111th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. RES. 1426

Urging the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and President Paul Kagame to immediately release human rights lawyer Professor Peter Erlinder from jail and allow him to return to the United States.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

June 8, 2010

Ms. MCCOLLUM (for herself and Mr. ELLISON) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs:

RESOLUTION

Urging the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and President Paul Kagame to immediately release human rights lawyer Professor Peter Erlinder from jail and allow him to return to the United States.

Whereas the Constitution of Rwanda, adopted on May 26, 2003, states that Rwanda is `Resolved to build a State governed by the rule of law, based on respect for fundamental human rights, pluralistic democracy, equitable power sharing, tolerance and resolution of issues through dialogue';

Whereas there is an increasing pattern of restrictions of free expression in Rwanda ahead of the August presidential elections, including the denial of a work visa to a senior Human Rights Watch researcher and the crackdown of opposition members and journalists;

Whereas the United States Government has provided over $1,034,000,000 billion in United States taxpayer-funded foreign assistance to Rwanda since 2000, and an additional $240,200,000 is proposed in the President's fiscal year 2011 budget;

Whereas Peter Erlinder is a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and has served as a lead defense attorney for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania;

Whereas Peter Erlinder was arrested on May 28, 2010, in Kigali, Rwanda, and is currently being detained at Kicukiro Prison on charges of `genocide ideology' based in part upon legal arguments made during his work as a defense attorney at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and

Whereas United States Department of State Spokesman P.J. Crowley announced on June 3, 2010, that the United States Government was pressing the Government of Rwanda to `resolve this case quickly' and that the Department of State hoped for Peter Erlinder's release on `compassionate grounds': Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives urges the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and President Paul Kagame to immediately release Professor Peter Erlinder from jail and allow him to return to the United States.

Professor Peter Erlinder in handcuffs in a Kigali, Rwanda courtroom. 

Call Pelosi, Feinstein, Boxer, to lobby for Law Professor Peter Erlinder's release in Rwanda

Law Professor Peter Erlinder is back in jail for speech crime in Rwanda, and, on Monday, 06.7.2010, denied bail.  See Fog City Journal and San Francisco Bay View.  

Californians, please call Senators Feinstein, 202) 224-3841 and Boxer, 202) 224-3553,  and House Speaker Pelosi, (202) 225-4965.    Pelosi's San Francisco office: (415) 556-4862. 

Those outside California and San Francisco, but in the U.S., can find #s for their Senators and House Reps on this Africa Faith and Justice Network page:  http://goo.gl/lTMP.  


Sample call:

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.

KPFA Radio News on Ingabire's American lawyer's arrest in Kigali

KPFA Radio News reported on the arrest of Rwandan Presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza's American lawyer on Sunday evening, 05.30.2010.   To play, click KPFA News: Rwanda arrests Peter Erlinder.

Rwanda arrests Ingabire's American lawyer Peter Erlinder in Kigali

Rwandan Police have arrested Peter Erlinder, the American lawyer who traveled to Rwanda's capitol, Kigali, on Monday, May 23rd, to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Ingabire was released after being summoned to a Rwandan police station yesterday, much to the relief of her supporters, but this morning both she and the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported that Erlinder had been arrested and charged with "genocide ideology," a crime unique to Rwanda which Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the U.S. State Department have denounced as a tool of political repression.


Read at Digital Journal, http://www.digitaljournal.com/user/515407/news.

Election Rwanda 2010: Ingabire supporters fear her second arrest

Read at Digital Journal, http://goo.gl/fmAW

Criminal defense lawyers dispute Rwanda's genocide history

Martin Ngoga, Rwanda's Chief Prosecutor, who threatened Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza with arrest if she keeps talking to the press, and accused the international criminal lawyers at the Second International Criminal Defense Conference in Bruxelles of genocide denial.  

May 21, 2010, Bruxelles  - The ad hoc organizing committee of the Second International Criminal Defense Conference being held in Bruxelles on May 21-23, thanked Rwanda Chief Prosecutor Ngoga, and Kigali’s New Times, for publicizing their efforts.


This week, as the conference dates approached, The New Times published several articles condemning it and quoting Rwanda's Chief Prosecutor Ngoga saying that, "For a few years now, some defense lawyers at the ICTR have badly deviated from their professional duties and turned into activists and advocates of genocide denial."


Last week Ngoga warned Ingabire that she might be jailed once again if she continues speaking to the press.  


Full story at Digital Journal, http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/292310.

Law Professor Peter Erlinder on Preventing the Falsification of History

William and Mitchell College of Law Professor Peter Erlinder is also Lead Defense Counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, Director of the Humanitarian Law Institute in Minneapolis, Plaintiff's Counsel in Habyarimana vs. Kagame, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Defense Counsel in Kagame vs. Ingabire, in Kigali, Rwanda.

Preventing the Falsification of History from TPIR heritage on Vimeo.

Kagame threatens challenger with prison for speaking to press

May 14, 2010---The Rwanda New Times reported that Rwandan Prosecutor General Ngoga threatened to jail Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza for speaking with press. Ingabire has not been allowed to register to formally run against Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Read at Digital Journal, 
http://goo.gl/ejRL.