Erlinder v. Kagame and Victor's History

Rwanda Genocide, 1994.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

AfrobeatRadio

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


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


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


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


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

AfrobeatRadio Special on the Southern Sudanese Referendum on Independence

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

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

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

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

ICTR Lawyers: No International Justice for Congo

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

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

Africa advocates to Obama: Don’t recognize Kagame’s election

Support real freedom and democracy in Africa

by the Africa Faith and Justice Network, Friends of the Congo, Hotel Rwanda/Rusesabagina Foundation, International Humanitarian Law Institute of Minnesota, Institute for Policy Studies, Mobilization for Justice and Peace in Congo, Africa Action, and Chicago Coalition for Congo

President Obama said, in his 2009 speech in Accra, Ghana, that America should support strong institutions and not strong men. However, in the case of Rwanda, this has been no more than rhetoric. Rwandans, like most Africans, cheered Obama’s election, hoping that it might signal a new, more peaceful and cooperative relationship between the U.S. and Africa, but Obama has expanded AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, and now he remains silent as Rwanda’s strongman, President Paul Kagame, prepares a sham presidential election to retain his brutal grip on power.


On Aug. 3, in Washington D.C., we, Africa advocates, will gather at the National Press Club to call on President Obama and the U.S. State Department not to recognize the legitimacy of Rwanda’s upcoming Aug. 9 election results and to stop militarizing Africa and supporting repressive regimes.


“The U.S. policy has been to support strongmen,” says Maurice Carney, executive director of Friends of the Congo. “And at the head of the class is Paul Kagame, who has received military support, weapons, training and intelligence and as a result has been able to invade its neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and sustain proxy militia fighting there to rob the Congolese people of their natural resources. He has contributed to the death of over 6 million people in Congo and to the destabilization of Africa’s whole Great Lakes region.”

Read more at San Francisco Bay View, http://sfbayview.com/2010/africa-advocates-to-obama-dont-recognize-kagames-election/.

Kagame tortures opposition, arrests Ingabire's Rwandan lawyer

Rwandan President Paul Kagame 

Rwandan opposition leaders Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza and Frank Habineza report ongoing torture of opposition party members arrested in Kigali on June 24th, 2010, as they attempted to protest exclusion from this year's presidential election.  Ingabire is the presidential candidate of Rwanda's FDU-Inkingi Party, Habineza of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda.

Ingabire also reports that her new lawyer, Mr. Theogene Muhayeyezu, has been arrested, tortured, and detained incommunicado. Yesterday her former U.S. lawyer, Peter Erlinder, and his Kenyan lawyers Kennedy Ogeto and Otachi Gershom, addressed the Chicago Chapter of the National Lawyers' Guild, about the meaning of his three weeks incarceration in Rwanda after traveling there to defend Ingabire against charges of "genocide ideology," which he called "trumped up charges" and "thought crime." Rwanda's genocide ideology statutes ban disagreement with the official version of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, or, many say, disagreement with sitting President Paul Kagame.

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

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

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.

WBAI Radio-N.Y.C. re Rwanda and D.R. Congo, 04.29.2010

WBAI Radio interview with Professor Peter Erlinder egarding the lawsuit Habyarimana vs. Kagame, filed in an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma federal court on 04.29.2010:


Click to play:


WBAI Radio-N.Y.C.: Peter Erlinder on WBAI Radio-N.Y.C. re Rwanda and D.R. Congo

Lawsuit alleges Rwandan President's guilt in D.R. Congo

Rwandan exile and demonstrator Claude Gatebuke spoke to the Associated Press outside the Oklahoma Christian University hall where Paul Kagame was giving the commencement address, on the same day a team of process servers and lawyers attempted to serve him with the lawsuit filed in an Oklahoma City federal court on April 30, 2010 . 

On April 30, in Edmond, Oklahoma, a team of lawyers and process servers attempted to personally serve Rwandan President Paul Kagame with an eight count lawsuit, which incudes racketeering to acquire and control the resources of eastern D.R. Congo.

Kagame delivered the commencement address at Oklahoma Christian University in Edmond, while demonstrators held up signs outside the hall. Inside, Kagame's aides refused to accept the documents presented by lawyers and process servers. University officials then ordered the lawyers and process servers to leave, and Kagame himself left early, surrounded by bodyguards

Full text at Digital Journal. 

Lawsuit alleges Rwandan President is guilty of Rwanda Genocide and racketeering in eastern Congo

On April 30, 2010, Rwandan President Paul Kagame delivered the commencement address at Oklahoma Christian University in Edmond, Oklahoma.   Demonstrators held up signs outside, and inside, a team of lawyers and process servers attempted to personally serve Kagame with an eight count lawsuit, until university officials asked them to leave.  


The lawsuit alleged that Kagame and nine of his current and former military officers and officials are guilty of the assassination of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira and subsequent acts that caused the 1994 massacres that came to be known as the Rwanda Genocide.  


They filed the suit on behalf of Agathe Habyarimana, widow of Juvenal Habyarimana, and Sylvana Ntaryamira, widow of Cyprien Ntaryamira. 


KPFA Radio News reported this story on 05.01.2010.  To listen, click "KPFA Radio News: Lawsuit alleges Rwandan President is guilty of Rwanda Genocide." 


The lawsuit's sixth count alleged violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.   Specifically:


 "From not later than 1990 to the present, Kagame et. al, and his agents, and their co-conspirators formed a "RICO" enterprise within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. §:1961(4) engaged in foreign and interstate commerce." 

. . .  and

"Over a period of years and continuing to the present, through a pattern of racketeering activity, have acquired and maintained an interest in resources in the eastern Congo to their own benefit." 


Kagame avoided personal service, by leaving the commencement ceremony early, surrounded by bodyguards. However, as Law Professor Peter Erlinder explained to KPFA News, it is arguable that he intentionally avoided service.  An Oklahoma judge will decide. 


The eight counts in the complaint are:


1) Wrongful Death - Murder, 
2) Crimes against Humanity, 
3) Violation of the Rights of Life, Liberty, and Security of Person, 
4) Assault and Battery, 
5) Intentional Infliction of Emotional Stress, 
6) Violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act,
7) Torture, and, 
8) Conspiracy to Torture

KPFA News on the 16th anniversary of the Rwanda Genocide

KPFA Radio News:
Peter Erlinder and Paul Rusesabagina on the 16th anniversary of political assassinations that triggered the Rwanda Genocide.  (Click to play.)

On Sunday, April 4th, two days before the 16th anniversary of the political assassinations of Rwandan President Juvenal Habayarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, KPFA Radio Weekend News reported on the 16th anniversary of the Rwanda Genocide, with the responses of Law Professor Peter Erlinder, Lead Defense Counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, and Paul Rusesabagina, whose autobiography "An Ordinary Man" became the movie Hotel Rwanda.  

UK and US finance Central African War; eight million Africans die

KPFA Radio News broadcast, 03.23.2010:





As a law professor, criminal lawyer, and Lead Defense Counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, Professor Erlinder is very careful to be sure he has evidence supporting any statement he stands by, and he says the evidence is all here, in his Rwanda Documents Project which I'm just getting started on, http://www.rwandadocumentsproject.net/gsdl/cgi-bin/library


He knows he's on the Rwanda Hit List that Keith Snow reported last week, http://www.consciousbeingalliance.com/2010/03/the-rwanda-hit-list/, but said he's expendable because the documents are all there.


He also said that if there had been any reporters with audience at the ICTR in 2009 when the court ruled that there was no conspiracy to commit genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the received history of the genocide---including Kinzer's---and the RPF/Kagame regime's justification would have crumbled.


I told him that Kagame had compared the Rwanda Genocide to 09/11 when talking to Christiane Amanpour on CNN last week, and he said, "That would be ironic indeed, wouldn't it? If 09/11 really were a false flag," meaning a false history to rally around, like the received history of the Rwanda Genocide. 


But, he didn't want to comment on 09/11 beyond that, having no proof at hand.

Dr. Peter Erlinder and "The Rwanda Genocide Cover-up"

Skulls of victims of one of the massacres during the 1994 Rwandan genocide are displayed at the Genocide Memorial Site church of Ntarama in Nyamata, Rwanda, in 2004.

On 01.20.2010, I published "Rwanda's 1994 genocide and 2010 elections" in the Digital Journal.

This morning I received the response,below, from Peter Erlinder, the Lead Defense Council at the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR).   Neither Dr. Erlinder, nor I, nor any of the journalists, Rwandan dissidents, exiles, or opposition Rwandan political parties deny that genocidal mass murder occurred in Rwanda. We disagree only with the onesided history, in which the former Hutu government and military are said to have conspired to commit genocide against Tutsis, and in which only Tutsis, not Hutus, were mass murdered.

The victorious, now ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party has made this history not only sacrosanct, but also a legal requirement, by passing laws against "genocide ideology"---meaning history that disagrees with their own.

Members of the RPF are now calling for the prosecution and incarceration of FDU-Inkingi leader Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza for daring to say that Hutus were also targets of genocidal mass murder, upon her return from exile.

"Ms. Garrison,

Thanks for the article. As Lead Defense Council at the ICTR I have had a chance to closely examine a the violence associated with the RPF takeover of Rwanda, and have concluded that the "victors" have told the story of the 4-year war, and its aftermath.

During the past 7 years the Prosecutor at the ICTR, with the help of the Kagame government, US and UK have been unable to marshall evidence that the former military or government planned or conspired to kill civilians, much less Tutsi civilians.

In Feb 2009, the Judgement in the Military I (Bagosora) case found that NONE of the top four officers (including Bagosora) were guilty to conspiracy before or after the assassination of Habyarimana.

In Feb 2009, the former ICTR Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte admitted in her memoirs that she had been ordered to bury evidence of RPF crimes, including Kagame's assassination of Habyarimana which had been known to her office in 1997...by the U.S. State Dept.
 

'The Great Rwanda Genocide-Coverup' is beginning to unravel....but US, as you note, is deeply invested in maintaining a Prussian-style military presence in Central Africa. I have posted several articles and the - Rwanda Documents Project - has many of the contemporaneous confirming documents.  -Peter Erlinder"