KPFA Weekend News Anchor: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's state newspaper, The New Vision, has reported that the UN Security Council and the Democratic Republic of Congo have agreed to join Museveni's army, the Uganda People's Defense Force, in a new offensive to hunt Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, and Jamil Mukulu’s Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. The U.S.A.'s LRA Disarmament Act, which President Obama signed into law in 2010, authorizes funding, training, and collaboration with the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Defense, the US Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Intelligence Community to hunt down the LRA. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more:
Uganda and its neighbors, the
Democratic Republic of
Congo, Central African
Republic, and Sudan.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: The Security Council, and the Congolese and Ugandan Defense Ministers said that the Ugandan Army needs to launch this new military offensive in Congo and the Central African Republic, or CAR, because the LRA keep raping and killing civilians there, though the UN Mapping Report released on October 1st, 2010, documents the Ugandan Army's own civilian massacres, mass rapes, and other sexual atrocities in Congo.
Michael Kirkpatrick is a Black Star News contributor who has traveled back and forth to Uganda and its Acholi region frequently since 1998. He says that Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army are always the most convenient excuse for military intervention:
Black Star News contributor Michael
Kirkpatrick in Northern Uganda
Michael Kirkpatrick: There is a pattern of demonizing Joseph Kony for every atrocity and every crime. Joseph Kony has become demonized to justify military intervention by the U.S. and by other forces in that part of Africa. He's become a phantom menace. He's almost like this mysterious fog that is just creeping around Central Africa but he's been able to survive for over 20 years. He's nothing but a gang leader. He's a thug. He's a rag tag bunch of criminals that's somehow been able to survive for over 20 years. There's a reason he's been able to survive. He is the bad guy in the battle. To say that, somehow, modern armies haven't been able to capture, in twenty years, a rebel thug, is preposterous.
Uganda's Rolling Stone tabloid's cover story about Islamic "homo generals" with ties to the Lord's Resistance Army.
KPFA: Last November Uganda's fanatically homophobic tabloid newspaper Rolling Stone ran a story about what it called Islamic Homo Generals, meaning terrorists, with ties to the Lord's Resistance Army.
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 Cameron Jones: Ugandans voted in parliamentary, presidential, and local elections on Friday, after the Uganda Communications Commission’s telecom companies told bulk SMS providers to block messages containing key words or phrases such as “Tunisia,” “Egypt,” “Mubarak,” “Ben Ali” or “people power.” Uganda’s National Electoral Commission has projected President Yoweri Museveni the winner. Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986, with U.S. military, diplomatic, intelligence and financial support. KPFA’s Ann Garrison has more.
President Yoweri Museveni
celebrating his 26th year in power.
Ann Garrison: Before yesterday’s polls, Uganda's Daily Monitor reported that there were roughly 140,000 dead people, 5,000 people 110 years and older, and half a million foreigners on Uganda's voter rolls. Ugandan American newspaper editor Milton Allimadi wrote that, “The dead people might be so appalled that they’ll vote for the opposition this time,” but leading opposition presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye warned that ghost votes would be some of the most serious fraud.
He also predicted widespread vote buying by Museveni’s party and urged hungry Ugandans to take the money, get a good meal, then go out and vote against those who paid them:
Campaign posters for opposition candidates Anne Mugisha
and Dr. Kizza Besigye at a campaign rally in Uganda.
Dr. Kizza Besigye: Well, the money must be eaten. It is our money. It is not anybody else’s money. This is YOUR money. Eat it and vote against the thieves.
Ann Garrison: Today Anne Mugisha, a member of Besigye’s party and a candidate for Women’s Member of Parliament in Uganda’s Mbarara District, reported that one of her volunteers came close to being arrested for disturbing the peace when she objected to agents of Museveni’s party openly buying votes in a village square.
Mugisha, like Besigye, is reporting a host of election violations as the National Electoral Commission projects her as a second place finisher, but she says this is no surprise:
Anne Mugisha: It’s like walking into a casino knowing that the guy who owns it has to make a profit. Sometimes a few lucky people make some money but most of the time people lose. So this time around I lost. A few of our opposition people did scrape through, but the casino is owned by the ruling party and President Museveni, and they will definitely be looking to make a profit.
Ann Garrison: Dr. Kizza Besigye held a press conference at the end of the day today in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, to say that this year’s election had been even more rigged than before and that he will hold another press conference tomorrow to announce his response. Both he and opposition presidential candidate Olara Otunnu, before the polls, urged Ugandans not to accept the results that they knew would be rigged.
When asked what he would do if people protested, Museveni said that was simple, that he would lock them up.
Dominique Diomi, a survivor of the ongoing Congo conflict which has cost millions of lives, said that Ugandans are far from the only ones concerned about Museveni retaining his hold on power.
Dominique Diomi: It is a disgrace that Yoweri Museveni was even allowed to stand for the presidency again, after the UN Mapping Report which was released on October 1st last year, documented that his army perpetrated crimes against humanity and genocide and massacre of civilians in the Congo.
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.
David Kato, LGBT activist, Advocacy Officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda, slain by an assailant, who broke into his home and hit him over the head with a hammer until he was dead on 01.26.2011.
Warren had also, during his campaign for Proposition 8, California's gay marriage ban, equated homosexuality with incest, pedophilia and bestiality, in this interview on Beliefnet:
In 2008, after the outrage consequent to his invitation to Warren, Obama justified his invitation to Rick Warren as an instance of inclusion, including Reverend Rick Warren's voice as one of many in his inauguration:
Here is the White House statement of sorrow and affirmation of LGBT rights as fundamental human rights, in response to David Kato's murder in Uganda:
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
January 27, 2011
Statement by the President on the Killing of David Kato
I am deeply saddened to learn of the murder of David Kato. In Uganda, David showed tremendous courage in speaking out against hate. He was a powerful advocate for fairness and freedom. The United States mourns his murder, and we recommit ourselves to David’s work.
At home and around the world, LGBT persons continue to be subjected to unconscionable bullying, discrimination, and hate. In the weeks preceding David Kato’s murder in Uganda, five members of the LGBT community in Honduras were also murdered. It is essential that the Governments of Uganda and Honduras investigate these killings and hold the perpetrators accountable.
LGBT rights are not special rights; they are human rights. My Administration will continue to strongly support human rights and assistance work on behalf of LGBT persons abroad. We do this because we recognize the threat faced by leaders like David Kato, and we share their commitment to advancing freedom, fairness, and equality for all.
Of course we have to be glad that President Obama was moved, and/or obliged to make such a statement, but many questions remain unanswered, regarding Obama, Reverend Rick Warren, and the East African Presidents, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and Burundian President Pierre Nkrunziza, all three of whom have promoted the criminalization of homosexuality, and provided troops in service to the American military agenda in Africa.
Unlike other forms of violence in Africa, David Kato's murder, and Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, makes 10-20% of the world, regardless of racial and national identities, feel targeted.
The UN Security has no moral authority anywhere, but this is about Congo, weaponized rape and weaponized rape prosecution, organized by representatives of the Security Council, in eastern Congo. I responded, below, and on the KPFA Radio and Free Speech Radio News websites, to this segment from the Free Speech Radio News broadcast of January 21, 2011 regarding the weaponization of rape and rape prosecution in eastern Congo, which also aired on the KPFA Evening News the same day:
DRC arrests soldiers for rape
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC, officials arrested a group of soldiers for their involvement in the rapes of dozens of women on New Year’s Day. They could be tried as early as next week. A UN spokesperson told Reuters that the commander who authorized the attack on the town of Fizi in the eastern part of the country has also been arrested. Human rights groups have long raised concern about armed groups using rape as a weapon of war in DRC. And some say sexual violence will continue if authorities fail to investigate and prosecute those responsible. The UN’s Jocelyne Sambira has more.
SUBMITTED BY ANN GARRISON ON THU, 01/27/2011 - 02:32.
The Security Council has no moral authority whatsoever, but this is a response to your story citing the Security Council's moral authority with regard to the weaponization of rape, and the prosecution of rape, in eastern Congo.
The story described rape charges against the FDLR, a Rwandan Hutu militia, and against the FARDC, the Congolese Army, in eastern Congo, without any context about what those two groups really are, or, any context about the politicization of rape prosecutions in the region.
You cannot report this honestly and responsibly without explaining that the CNDP, another Rwandan and Ugandan militia, was integrated into the very Congolese Army it had been fighting in January 2009, in a new phase of the Rwandan and Ugandan Tutsi elite control of the region and its resources, with the backing of the real beneficiaries, the U.S. and the UK.
You cannot report it honestly and responsibly without attempting to explain who's charging and prosecuting whom for this, and why, and explaining the UN Security Council's political agenda in determining who charges and prosecutes whom.
This story, in a matter sure to satisfy the UN Security Council and the U.S. State Department, disregards the UN Mapping Report leaked on August 26th and released on October 1st, which documents the Ugandan and Rwandan armies' use of rape as a weapon in eastern Congo. No one from either the Rwandan or Ugandan armies is being prosecuted.
The report cites the UN Security Council as a moral authority, though nothing could be further from the truth, especially in eastern Congo and especially with regard to the weaponization of rape in eastern Congo.
Neither FSRN nor KPFA should be citing the UN Security Council as a moral authority in this situation, or any other.
That's the simplest starting point.
Who, for starters, are the permanent members of the Security Council? To be considered for membership, a nation must first of all have a nuclear bomb, and, the more the better, although China was admitted after only their second detonation, with only a few nuclear bombs.
India, one of the newer nuclear weapons states, is the most recent contender for a permanent Security Council seat as well. Japan seemed to be under consideration for awhile, despite not having a bomb, but it wasn't admitted. And Japan could never even have been considered if the world's most powerful nations hadn't known that it's so nuclear, and industrial, that it could build one in a long weekend.
The other prerequisite for becoming a permanent member of the Security Council, at the time it was formed, was being a victor in World War II, and the Security Council has been firmly committed to victor's justice ever since. In Rwanda and Congo, it has been committed to the justice that prosecutes the losers of the Rwandan Civil War, "Hutu genocidaires," at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR), and demonizes "Hutu militias," meaning the refugee army that retreated into eastern Congo. Hence, "Hutu militias" have been blamed, by the Security Council, for nearly all the violence done to the people of eastern Congo since 1994.
I recorded and then quoted ICTR defense lawyers Christopher Black and Peter Erlinder on victor's justice at the ICTR and other international tribunals on KPFA News, and in Global Research and the San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, http://goo.gl/X2PiY.
I should add, so that it doesn't seem like I'm unfairly attacking FSRN, that Democracy Now has made the same error, re the UN Security Council, on this issue. Democracy Now has also, however, radically improved its East/Central Africa reporting this year and given attention to the Mapping Report documenting atrocities, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocidal massacres of civilians, and mass, weaponized rape, committed most of all by the armies of Rwanda and Uganda in D.R. Congo. That should be a key reference point for any story about rape in eastern Congo now. I'd like to see FSRN keep the Mapping Report on hand, and see both FSRN and Democracy Now stop granting moral authority to the Security Council.
Like most of the Pacifica community, I value FSRN, but that's why I'm taking the time to say that it should do better, much better. Both the Pacifica audience, and the African people of the Great Lakes Region, deserve better. Sad to say, not reporting this story at all would have been much better than this.
-Ann Garrison, KPFA Weekend News Reporter, WBAI AfrobeatRadio Radio Producer, regular contributor to the San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper, Global Research, and the Newsline EA (East Africa)
Several of my Rwandan friends posted these responses on the KPFA Website:
Ann you are correct about the reporting of the rape story in Eastern Congo as has been told by the UN Security council. This story was known by the UN Security Council for weeks before they said a word about it? Why did they come out with it when they did? Because a leaked shameful/embarrassing report about Rwanda and Uganda, darlings of the UN Security council was released. Who made the report? It was made by the UN Human Rights High Commissioner. Why was it blocked? Because the security council didn't want Rwanda's and Uganda's disgraceful atrocities, including possible genocide brought public. What did the Security Council do after they couldn't block the Human Rights High Commissioner report anymore? They screamed about the rape story to create a distraction, even though they hadn't even conducted an investigation.
KPFA would do best to investigate this rape story before reporting on it. They will find those involved in perpetrating the crime to be more diverse and will include Congo's regular army, the Rwandan army, and the Ugandan army and their proxies.
On the other hand, Ann has been spot on in her reports about the Rwandan and Ugandan army involvement in the atrocities in the region as well as both of these armies serving as the US proxy militias in conflicts in Africa. Ann, you are make KPFA listeners proud with your Africa reporting.
As a survivor of the carnage that has engulfed Rwanda and neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, I was shocked by the bias in the report regarding the rape in DRC. The story talks about stopping impunity. It goes on to mention various sides of the conflict in DRC. But somehow it does not mention how the current president of Rwanda, General Kagame is the one who started the conflict in DRC. The United Nations is mentioned but somehow, there is no single mention of the October 1st, 2010 United Nations report that accused General Kagame's extremist Tutsi forces of rape as well as genocide.
That UN report said "The extensive use of edged weapons (primarily hammers) and the systematic massacres of survivors after the camps had been taken show that the numerous deaths cannot be attributed to the hazards of war or seen as equating to collateral damage. The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who were often undernourished and posed no threat to the attacking forces. Numerous serious attacks on the physical or mental integrity of members of the group were also committed, with a very high number of Hutus shot, raped, burnt or beaten. The systematic, methodological and premeditated nature of the attacks listed against the Hutus is also marked: these attacks took place in each location where refugees had been screened by the AFDL/APR over a vast area of the country. The pursuit lasted for months, and on occasion, the humanitarian assistance intended for them was deliberately blocked, particularly in the Orientale province, thus depriving them of resources essential to their survival. Thus the systematic and widespread attacks described in this report reveal a number of damning elements that, if proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide."
I expected better from KPFA. I expected more professional, unbiased reporting and that story was a total disappointment for me.
This is not the first time that I have objected to FSRN's Africa reporting. I can't, at this point, remember an FSRN story on Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo that I have not objected to, and many of my African friends, including Rwandan journalist Eleneus Akanga, contributor to the Newsline EA, and Hampshire College Professor Susan Thomson went to the FSRN website to object to its false reconciliation story, Rwanda village brings together Hutus and Tutsis on path toward reconciliation. Zack Baddorf, FSRN Reporter and Board President Zack Baddorf, and the producer of that piece, failed to respond. Nathan Moore, FSRN Administrative Director, responded instead, but without addressing the fundamental issue---that, FSRN had reported a story of false reconciliation, as described by as Hampshire College Professor and Africa/Rwanda expert Susan Thomson wrote, in her response to that piece:
SUBMITTED BY SUSAN THOMSON ON WED, 09/29/2010 - 18:49.
I am writing to express my concern about the quality of reporting on this piece. It reads as government propaganda, and indeed many of the reactions I've read thus far support this claim. However, I think the journalist is simply naive and perhaps a little lazy. It is certainly note the kind of reporting I expect from FSRN. It is important to go beyond the narratives of the ruling RPF to understand the various motivations and methods of killing as well as the structures of power put in place since (controlled as they are by the RPF) to understand and explain "reconciliation". Indeed, it is an affair of the heart, and of the stomach as poor and traumatised individuals are left to fend for themselves for their daily needs. At the same time the government is strictly monitoring their political activities to assure commitment to the "script" of national unity and reconciliation. In other words, if you ask people who have lived their lives in chronic adversity to speak about their real feelings in a government-controlled space like the reconciliation village what do you expect their answers to be? I am hungry? I can't send my children to school because I am not the right kind of survivor? Or I lost my health benefits because I didn't forgive correctly at gacaca? No. Of course not. So yes, there is tolerance, which is conceptually different than reconciliation. Tolerance means you have no option but to accept sharing with another individual. Reconciliation means something different, and in the Rwanda context it means to heal the heart. Such cultural clues go unrecognised on this shameful piece.
Stations throughout the Pacifica Network, with five sister stations in New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Houston, and many affiliated independent radio stations throughout the United States, play FSRN, and FSRN has, over the years, done a great deal of good reporting on other issues. So, I keep responding and suggesting that others, who understand what's wrong with FSRN's reporting on this part of the world, do the same. Here's the link, for writing to FSRN about their January 21st, 2011 broadcast: http://goo.gl/Vo4U0, and here's the link for KPFA Evening News, http://goo.gl/vU7IY.
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.
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The UN Security Council Has No Moral Authority in Congo
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