Rwanda Arming Congo Rebels
According to a U.N. report, Rwanda’s defense minister is commanding a rebellion in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that is being armed by Rwanda and Uganda, both of which sent troops to aid the insurgency in a deadly attack on U.N. peacekeepers.
The U.N. Security Council’s Group of Experts said in a confidential report that Rwanda and Uganda – despite their strong denials – continued to support M23 rebels in their six-month fight against Congolese government troops in North Kivu province.
“Both Rwanda and Uganda have been supporting M23,” said the 44-page report, which was seen by Reuters on Tuesday. “While Rwandan officials coordinated the creation of the rebel movement as well as its major military operations, Uganda’s more subtle support to M23 allowed the rebel group’s political branch to operate from within Kampala and boost its external relations,” it said.
EU Freezes Aid to Rwanda Over Congo
KINSHASA (Reuters) – The European Union has frozen further budgetary support to Rwanda over allegations that the Central African state supports anti-government rebels in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, the EU’s ambassador to Congo said on Wednesday.
The EU is the latest western partner to impose aid suspensions against Kigali over an independent United Nations report that said Rwanda was behind a six-month rebellion in Congo’s eastern hills, which has forced 470,000 people to flee their homes.
“It was agreed to freeze the program of budgetary assistance and to not agree to any supplementary budgetary credit for Rwanda without them giving signs of co-operating,” Jean-Michel Dumond, the EU’s ambassador in Kinshasa, told the U.N.-backed broadcaster Radio Okapi.
Kagame Opponents Press For Charges
Rwandan opposition parties in exile are to ask the international criminal court to press charges against the country’s president, Paul Kagame, after a UN report accused his regime of supporting rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Representatives of the United Democratic Forces party and the Rwandan National Congress will travel to The Hague on Friday to demand that the court examines claims that Kagame’s regime is recruiting and arming the rebels in an attempt to annex the DRC’s Kivu provinces. They also want an investigation into suggestions that Rwanda is stealing eastern Congo’s mineral resources.
In late July the head of the US war crimes office, Stephen Rapp, suggested that Kagame and other implicated Rwandan government figures could face prosecution at the ICC if M23 committed atrocities in the DRC. Rapp said Kagame could potentially face charges of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity in the DRC.
Opposition groups want Kagame investigated for war crimes
Rwandan and Congolese groups opposed to Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s rule asked the International Criminal Court on Friday to investigate him for war crimes for allegedly backing rebel groups in eastern Congo.
A small group gathered outside the court in The Hague, Netherlands, with banners reading “Kagame Assassin,” and “Freedom for Congo.”
The gesture is symbolic, as Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has not said whether she has any plans to investigate Kagame — though she is already probing members of the M23 rebel group in eastern Congo that formed this April with alleged ties to his regime across the border. Kagame denies involvement.
Christopher Block, a lawyer for the groups that want Kagame investigated, said Friday that Bensouda need only turn to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to launch a case against Kagame, asserting it has a “mountain” of evidence against him in its archives. Kagame has been an important military leader in Rwanda since 1990 and its president since 2000.
The Rwanda tribunal itself, based in Tanzania, never pressed any charges against Kagame.
The End of the West’s Humiliating Affair With Paul Kagame
A “visionary leader,” said Tony Blair; “one of the greatest leaders of our time,” echoed Bill Clinton. Such hero worship is usually reserved for South Africa’s Nelson Mandela. But Blair and Clinton were describing the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame.
The UK and US have staked their pride, reputations and ability to judge character, not to mention hundreds of millions of pounds in aid, on Kagame’s powers of post-genocide healing and reconciliation matching those of Mandela after apartheid.
That is why the US decision to cut aid, and now to warn Kagame that he could even face criminal prosecution over meddling in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, is a humiliating but long overdue reversal.
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Posted on September 21, 2012
Video of the landmark IHLI “Truth and Reconciliation” Roundtable of November 28, 2011 is now available online.
On October 1, 2011, formerly Rwanda’s Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa, issued a public apology to the Rwandan People for his role in the RPF cover-up of Paul Kagame’s assassination of the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6, 1994 that triggered the “Rwanda genocide.”
On November 28, 2011, at the IHLI Rwandan Truth and Reconciliation Roundtable, Dr. Rudasingwa announced he had personally apologized to the widow of the slain Rwandan president just before coming to the Roundtable. Madam Habyarimana thanked him for his courage in coming forward, despite the very real threat of his own assassination; for his honesty, although too long delayed; and, she forgave him for his role in the cover-up of RPF crimes, including the assassination of her husband, President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda, in the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation which will be necessary to heal the suffering of both Hutu and Tutsi Rwandans.
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Posted on August 27, 2012
On Aug. 17, 2012, Rwandans, Congolese and international criminal attorney Christopher Black gathered in The Hague to deliver a complaint and documentary evidence to Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, calling upon her to investigate Rwandan President Paul Kagame for war crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
On the same day, members of opposition parties walked to Kigali’s 1930 maximum security prison, where their leaders are incarcerated, in solidarity.
KPFA spoke to Alice Muhirwa, treasurer of the United Democratic Forces or FDU-Inking opposition party in Rwanda. More here.
View the Complaint filed against Kagame here.
Posted on July 27, 2012
This re-publication of the original September 1993 UN Reconnaissance Report on Rwanda by UN General Romeo Dallaire is the first volume in the International Humanitarian Law Institute “Rwanda Genocide Papers” Series of selected, previously-suppressed, UN and US government documents. They reveal a completely different “Rwanda genocide” narrative than the “long-planned genocide” myth promulgated by the RPF victors in the 1990-94 war for power and promoted by the US and UK through manipulation of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda [ICTR] at the expense of the truth.
Proposed future volumes in this series include: Volume II, 1988-1990; Build-up to war and the Uganda/RPF invasion. Volume III, 1991-1992; Post-invasion guerilla war and multi-party political intrigue. Volume IV, 1993; RPF military superiority, 1.2 million displaced by February RPF assault, economic and social destabilization, the October “Burundi genocide,” as precursors to the “Rwanda genocide” and, Volume V, 1994-5; RPF war-planning/blocking peace process, the RPF double-assassinations and resulting mass violence, as predicted by the State Department, September 1994 USAID reports to UN Annan and US Warren Christopher confirming May 17 UNHCR reports of RPF mass crimes continuing after July 1994, and US-assisted cover-up begins even before the ICTR was established by US through the Security Council in November 1994.
The documents collected in these volumes are also part of a much larger on-line collection, in the IHLI researchable database at: www.rwandadocumentsproject.net.
Available for purchase on Amazon
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