IOL News
16 January 2010
The head of the only rebel group in the Central African Republic still fighting the government has died after being tortured, the former government minister's wife and his party said on Saturday.
Charles Massi, 57, a former minister who heads the rebel Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP), "has been dead since Friday, January 8 ... following the torture he was subjected to," said Denise Massi and his party in a statement.
Massi was minister under Ange-Felix Patasse, the president toppled in a bloodless coup by current president Francois Bozize in 2003. He also served as a minister in Bozize's administration.
He was arrested in southern Chad in May last year for illegally entering that country and "attempted destabilisation of a neighbouring state."
Denise Massi had earlier said she had learned "unofficially" that her husband was being held in a prison "nicknamed Guantanamo" at Bossembele, 150 kilometres (95 miles) northwest of the capital Bangui.
The statement by her and Massi's party said the news of his death was "based on information from the ground at Bossembele, from (president) Francois Bozize's entourage and from his son Francis Bozize as well as the presidential guard.
"The family and friends of Charles Massi and his party wants President Francois Bozize to prove that their father, spouse and leader is alive," it said.
16 January, 2010
CAR rebels, opposition pull out of poll plans.
Reuters
16 January 2010
By Paul-Marin Ngoupana
Central African Republic's main opposition parties and a former rebel group say they have pulled out of preparations for elections due this year, accusing President Francois Bozize of planning to rig the polls.
The complaints range from failing to implement a peace deal and to introduce an impartial election body. Some anti-Bozize rebels now in the peace process threatened to take up arms again and the opposition has called on the United Nations mission in the country to find an agreed solution to the crisis.
CAR is one of Africa's poorest and most isolated countries and has suffered from decades of internal and regional instability. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group said this week that the nation's fragile peace was at risk.
"Faced by the delicate situation of all these problems which are hanging over the election process, we resign from the process," Henri Pouzere, coordinator of an opposition grouping known as the UFVN, told Reuters on Saturday.
"For some time now, we have seen methodical and wide-ranging efforts by President Francois Bozize to hijack the election for himself and his clan," Pouzere added.
The groups accuse Bozize of failing to implement decisions taken during talks in December 2008 between CAR's various opposition and rebel groups. The talks led to concrete steps to disarm rebels and hold elections.
The election commission has also been criticised for being crammed full of Bozize appointees.
"A range of fraud is being committed by the Independent Election Commission to benefit those in power .... It is unacceptable," said Nicolas Tiangaye, another opposition leader.
The electoral commission and the government declined to comment.
Bozize came to power in a 2003 coup and won elections in 2005. Although the country has had a troubled history since independence from France, its crises are often overlooked by higher-profile conflicts in neighbouring Chad, Sudan and Congo.
Crisis Group said this week Bozize's unwillingness to implement the country's agreements was stalling reconciliation.
"If the government ... fails to re-engage with the opposition on upcoming elections and negotiate with remaining rebels, its fragile peace process will be at serious risk," the group said in a report issued on Jan. 12.
A spokesman for the APRD, a rebel group that operates in CAR's north but is meant to be disarming, issued its own warning.
"Bozize is playing with fire. We will take up arms again if things are not corrected," said spokesman Djim Wei. "For now, we are pulling out of the process to get some clarity."
(Writing by David Lewis; editing by Myra MacDonald)
16 January 2010
By Paul-Marin Ngoupana
Central African Republic's main opposition parties and a former rebel group say they have pulled out of preparations for elections due this year, accusing President Francois Bozize of planning to rig the polls.
The complaints range from failing to implement a peace deal and to introduce an impartial election body. Some anti-Bozize rebels now in the peace process threatened to take up arms again and the opposition has called on the United Nations mission in the country to find an agreed solution to the crisis.
CAR is one of Africa's poorest and most isolated countries and has suffered from decades of internal and regional instability. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group said this week that the nation's fragile peace was at risk.
"Faced by the delicate situation of all these problems which are hanging over the election process, we resign from the process," Henri Pouzere, coordinator of an opposition grouping known as the UFVN, told Reuters on Saturday.
"For some time now, we have seen methodical and wide-ranging efforts by President Francois Bozize to hijack the election for himself and his clan," Pouzere added.
The groups accuse Bozize of failing to implement decisions taken during talks in December 2008 between CAR's various opposition and rebel groups. The talks led to concrete steps to disarm rebels and hold elections.
The election commission has also been criticised for being crammed full of Bozize appointees.
"A range of fraud is being committed by the Independent Election Commission to benefit those in power .... It is unacceptable," said Nicolas Tiangaye, another opposition leader.
The electoral commission and the government declined to comment.
Bozize came to power in a 2003 coup and won elections in 2005. Although the country has had a troubled history since independence from France, its crises are often overlooked by higher-profile conflicts in neighbouring Chad, Sudan and Congo.
Crisis Group said this week Bozize's unwillingness to implement the country's agreements was stalling reconciliation.
"If the government ... fails to re-engage with the opposition on upcoming elections and negotiate with remaining rebels, its fragile peace process will be at serious risk," the group said in a report issued on Jan. 12.
A spokesman for the APRD, a rebel group that operates in CAR's north but is meant to be disarming, issued its own warning.
"Bozize is playing with fire. We will take up arms again if things are not corrected," said spokesman Djim Wei. "For now, we are pulling out of the process to get some clarity."
(Writing by David Lewis; editing by Myra MacDonald)
15 January, 2010
Tanzania opens up petroleum sector.
East African Business Week
11 November 2009
The Tanzania government, through its state-owned Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), plans to engage in marketing of petroleum products to stabilize prices and provide competition to the private sector.
The move was announced earlier, almost four years since it received parliamentary approval, in a bid to guard against price distortion of the strategic fossil fuels. It was deemed important for the Government to have a hand in the marketing of this strategic product and guard against strangulation because most oil firms are foreign.
The TPDC announcement said it had identified an investment/development opportunity for importation and distribution of petroleum products in and outside Tanzania through its subsidiary "Commercial Petroleum Company of Tanzania" (Copec). The corporation is seeking to enter into a public private partnership with a firm or consortia to exploit the oil marketing trade together. Applicants have been given until December 10th, 2009 to submit their applications for partnering.
The TPDC, whose major duties to date is to participate in the exploration of fossil fuels with oil prospecting firms, and parcelling out oil and natural gas exploration areas to mostly foreign firms, will be joining over 50 other oil marketing companies in the market.
Most exploration firms come from Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland and Brazil. The 50-plus oil marketing firms had until last year been raising prices arbitrarily at petrol pumps before the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (EWURA) intervened to propose mandatory maximum price limits in different parts of the country depending on their relative distance from the Dar es Salaam port and the world market.
When the idea of letting TPDC engage in oil marketing was mooted, it was thought the big oil multinational marketing companies were accused of setting up an oil cartel. These oil importers and marketers were said to dictate to smaller ones resulting into uniform price rises of fuel at pumps over night.
11 November 2009
The Tanzania government, through its state-owned Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), plans to engage in marketing of petroleum products to stabilize prices and provide competition to the private sector.
The move was announced earlier, almost four years since it received parliamentary approval, in a bid to guard against price distortion of the strategic fossil fuels. It was deemed important for the Government to have a hand in the marketing of this strategic product and guard against strangulation because most oil firms are foreign.
The TPDC announcement said it had identified an investment/development opportunity for importation and distribution of petroleum products in and outside Tanzania through its subsidiary "Commercial Petroleum Company of Tanzania" (Copec). The corporation is seeking to enter into a public private partnership with a firm or consortia to exploit the oil marketing trade together. Applicants have been given until December 10th, 2009 to submit their applications for partnering.
The TPDC, whose major duties to date is to participate in the exploration of fossil fuels with oil prospecting firms, and parcelling out oil and natural gas exploration areas to mostly foreign firms, will be joining over 50 other oil marketing companies in the market.
Most exploration firms come from Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland and Brazil. The 50-plus oil marketing firms had until last year been raising prices arbitrarily at petrol pumps before the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (EWURA) intervened to propose mandatory maximum price limits in different parts of the country depending on their relative distance from the Dar es Salaam port and the world market.
When the idea of letting TPDC engage in oil marketing was mooted, it was thought the big oil multinational marketing companies were accused of setting up an oil cartel. These oil importers and marketers were said to dictate to smaller ones resulting into uniform price rises of fuel at pumps over night.
Sudan supplies 80 % of Ethiopia's oil demand.
Sudan Tribune
1 December 2009
Ethiopia is importing 80 % of its total demand for petroleum from neighbouring Sudan, easing the horn of Africa country's massive cost on oil imports, said Sudan's giant, Nile Petroleum Company (NPC).
Ethiopia spends over 50 % of its total export earnings to meet nation's fuel demand and Sudan has now become the major source for the fact that it is only next door. According to Ethiopia petroleum enterprise, Ethiopia saves millions of dollars every year by importing from neighbouring Sudan than using Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
Company director Khidir Al-Badri said that NPC is assigned to prepare country's rich ethanol source for the use of fuel. The bio-fuel development and usage strategy is expected to make the oil company a leading stalk holder in the Ethiopian oil energy market.
According to the director, the company currently has opened fuel stations in the capital Addis Ababa and in other major cities of Ethiopia. He further said that Nile Petroleum Company has established partnership with German company for production of petroleum lubricants that are complying with the international standards to meet requirements of the Ethiopian market.
Ethiopia and Sudan have a number of agreements on cultural, social economic, security education, health and political matters. Many other cooperation agreements are also signed between the two neighbours to enhance the people-to-people ties, to harmonize the two people living along the common border and also aimed at fostering trans-boundary trade beyond their official trade.
The vast country imports agricultural products and livestock from Ethiopia. It actually is one of the biggest importing countries of Ethiopian products.
Sudan is now the largest oil producer in the sub-Saharan Africa, next to Nigeria and Angola. Recent figures indicate that the country currently produces over 400,000 barrels of crude oil every day.
Sudan holds proven reserves of 563 mm barrels in 2006.more than twice with what was proven in 2001. With oil exploration efforts still underway the Sudanese energy minister estimates country's total oil reserves at 5 bn barrels.
Long years of civil war in Sudan are said to have limited oil exploration efforts to only central and south central of the country.
The oil industry is now pushing country's gross domestic product. 70 % of its total revenue is a return from its oil exports.
1 December 2009
Ethiopia is importing 80 % of its total demand for petroleum from neighbouring Sudan, easing the horn of Africa country's massive cost on oil imports, said Sudan's giant, Nile Petroleum Company (NPC).
Ethiopia spends over 50 % of its total export earnings to meet nation's fuel demand and Sudan has now become the major source for the fact that it is only next door. According to Ethiopia petroleum enterprise, Ethiopia saves millions of dollars every year by importing from neighbouring Sudan than using Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
Company director Khidir Al-Badri said that NPC is assigned to prepare country's rich ethanol source for the use of fuel. The bio-fuel development and usage strategy is expected to make the oil company a leading stalk holder in the Ethiopian oil energy market.
According to the director, the company currently has opened fuel stations in the capital Addis Ababa and in other major cities of Ethiopia. He further said that Nile Petroleum Company has established partnership with German company for production of petroleum lubricants that are complying with the international standards to meet requirements of the Ethiopian market.
Ethiopia and Sudan have a number of agreements on cultural, social economic, security education, health and political matters. Many other cooperation agreements are also signed between the two neighbours to enhance the people-to-people ties, to harmonize the two people living along the common border and also aimed at fostering trans-boundary trade beyond their official trade.
The vast country imports agricultural products and livestock from Ethiopia. It actually is one of the biggest importing countries of Ethiopian products.
Sudan is now the largest oil producer in the sub-Saharan Africa, next to Nigeria and Angola. Recent figures indicate that the country currently produces over 400,000 barrels of crude oil every day.
Sudan holds proven reserves of 563 mm barrels in 2006.more than twice with what was proven in 2001. With oil exploration efforts still underway the Sudanese energy minister estimates country's total oil reserves at 5 bn barrels.
Long years of civil war in Sudan are said to have limited oil exploration efforts to only central and south central of the country.
The oil industry is now pushing country's gross domestic product. 70 % of its total revenue is a return from its oil exports.
Mr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide May Return to Haiti in Wake of Devastating Earthquake.
The Guardian
15 January 2010
By David Smith
A tearful Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the exiled former president of Haiti, announced his intention today to return to his quake-devastated homeland.
Mr. Aristide, who has been based in South Africa since he was ousted in a 2004 rebellion, said he wanted to help rebuild his country in the wake of Tuesday's disaster, thought to have killed tens of thousands.
"We feel deeply and profoundly that we should be there, in Haiti, with them, trying our best to prevent death," Mr. Aristide told a press conference at an airport hotel in Johannesburg, standing alongside his wife, Mildred. He said friends were ready to give him a plane to return with emergency supplies.
Tears streaming down his face, Mr. Aristide continued: "We cannot wait to be with our sisters and brothers in Haiti. We share the anguish of all Haitians in the diaspora who are desperate to reach family and loved ones.
"As far as we are concerned we are ready to leave today, tomorrow, at any time to join the people of Haiti, to share in their suffering, help rebuild the country, moving from misery to poverty with dignity."
Mr. Aristide's wife stood with her eyes downcast, twisting a handkerchief. Both dabbed their eyes as they left after the brief statement.
A South African foreign affairs ministry official, Saul Kgomotso Molobi, said Mr. Aristide would not take questions because "the situation is difficult and unbearable for the family". He added that South Africa knew of no plans for Mr. Aristide to return to Haiti.
Mr. Aristide was a priest in the Haitian slum of La Saline before becoming the country's first elected president in 1990.
"It is a tragedy that defies expression, a tragedy that compels all people to the highest levels of human compassion and solidarity," he said.
Haitian protesters have periodically called for Mr. Aristide's return over the years. In speeches relayed to supporters in Haiti from South Africa, he has hinted at going back, but said he merely wants to be a teacher.
Mr. Aristide and his wife live with their two daughters in a government villa in Pretoria. The couple have embraced an academic life, with Mr. Aristide writing on the linguistics of Zulu and Haitian Creole, as well as on the theology of love.
15 January 2010
By David Smith
A tearful Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the exiled former president of Haiti, announced his intention today to return to his quake-devastated homeland.
Mr. Aristide, who has been based in South Africa since he was ousted in a 2004 rebellion, said he wanted to help rebuild his country in the wake of Tuesday's disaster, thought to have killed tens of thousands.
"We feel deeply and profoundly that we should be there, in Haiti, with them, trying our best to prevent death," Mr. Aristide told a press conference at an airport hotel in Johannesburg, standing alongside his wife, Mildred. He said friends were ready to give him a plane to return with emergency supplies.
Tears streaming down his face, Mr. Aristide continued: "We cannot wait to be with our sisters and brothers in Haiti. We share the anguish of all Haitians in the diaspora who are desperate to reach family and loved ones.
"As far as we are concerned we are ready to leave today, tomorrow, at any time to join the people of Haiti, to share in their suffering, help rebuild the country, moving from misery to poverty with dignity."
Mr. Aristide's wife stood with her eyes downcast, twisting a handkerchief. Both dabbed their eyes as they left after the brief statement.
A South African foreign affairs ministry official, Saul Kgomotso Molobi, said Mr. Aristide would not take questions because "the situation is difficult and unbearable for the family". He added that South Africa knew of no plans for Mr. Aristide to return to Haiti.
Mr. Aristide was a priest in the Haitian slum of La Saline before becoming the country's first elected president in 1990.
"It is a tragedy that defies expression, a tragedy that compels all people to the highest levels of human compassion and solidarity," he said.
Haitian protesters have periodically called for Mr. Aristide's return over the years. In speeches relayed to supporters in Haiti from South Africa, he has hinted at going back, but said he merely wants to be a teacher.
Mr. Aristide and his wife live with their two daughters in a government villa in Pretoria. The couple have embraced an academic life, with Mr. Aristide writing on the linguistics of Zulu and Haitian Creole, as well as on the theology of love.
US builds up its military bases in oil-rich South America.
The Independent
22 November 2009
By Hugh O'Shaughnessy
The United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia. The development -- and the reaction of Latin American leaders to it -- is further exacerbating America's already fractured relationship with much of the continent.
The new US push is part of an effort to counter the loss of influence it has suffered recently at the hands of a new generation of Latin American leaders no longer willing to accept Washington's political and economic tutelage. President Rafael Correa, for instance, has refused to prolong the US armed presence in Ecuador, and US forces have to quit their base at the port of Manta by the end of December.
So Washington turned to Colombia, which has not gone down well in the region. The country has received military aid worth $ 4.6 bn (£ 2.8 bn) from the US since 2000, despite its poor human rights record. Colombian forces regularly kill the country's indigenous people and other civilians, and last year raided the territory of its southern neighbour, Ecuador, causing at least 17 deaths.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who has not forgotten that US officers were present in government offices in Caracas in 2002 when he was briefly overthrown in a military putsch, warned this month that the bases agreement could mean the possibility of war with Colombia.
In August, President Evo Morales of Bolivia called for the outlawing of foreign military bases in the region. President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, overthrown in a military coup d'état in June and initially exiled, has complained that US forces stationed at the Honduran base of Palmerola collaborated with Roberto Micheletti, the leader of the plotters and the man who claims to be president.
And, this being US foreign policy, a tell-tale trail of oil is evident. Brazil had already expressed its unhappiness at the presence of US naval vessels in its massive new offshore oilfields off Rio de Janeiro, destined soon to make Brazil a giant oil producer eligible for membership in OPEC.
The fact that the US gets half its oil from Latin America was one of the reasons the US Fourth Fleet was re-established in the region's waters in 2008. The fleet's vessels can include Polaris nuclear-armed submarines -- a deployment seen by some experts as a violation of the 1967 Tlatelolco Treaty, which bans nuclear weapons from the continent.
Indications of US willingness to envisage the stationing of nuclear weapons in Colombia are seen as an additional threat to the spirit of nuclear disarmament. After the establishment of the Tlatelolco Treaty in 1967, four more nuclear-weapon-free zones were set up in Africa, the South Pacific, South-east Asia and Central Asia. Between them, the five treaties cover nearly two-thirds of the countries of the world and almost all the southern hemisphere.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the world's leading think-tank about disarmament issues, has now expressed its worries about the US-Colombian arrangements.
With or without nuclear weapons, the bilateral agreement on the seven Colombian bases, signed on 30 October in Bogota, risks a costly new arms race in a region. SIPRI, which is funded by the Swedish government, said it was concerned about rising arms expenditure in Latin America draining resources from social programmes that the poor of the region need.
Much of the new US strategy was clearly set out in May in an enthusiastic US Air Force (USAF) proposal for its military construction programme for the fiscal year 2010. One Colombian air base, Palanquero, was, the proposal said, unique "in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from... anti-US governments".
The proposal sets out a scheme to develop Palanquero which, the USAF says, offers an opportunity for conducting "full-spectrum operations throughout South America.... It also supports mobility missions by providing access to the entire continent, except the Cape Horn region, if fuel is available, and over half the continent if un-refuelled". ("Full-spectrum operations" is the Pentagon's jargon for its long-established goal of securing crushing military superiority with atomic and conventional weapons across the globe and in space.)
Palanquero could also be useful in ferrying arms and personnel to Africa via the British mid-Atlantic island of Ascension, French Guiana and Aruba, the Dutch island off Venezuela. The US has access to them all.
The USAF proposal contradicted the assurances constantly issued by US diplomats that the bases would not be used against third countries. These were repeated by the Colombian military to the Colombian congress on 29 July. That USAF proposal was hastily reissued this month after the signature of the agreement -- but without the reference to "anti-US governments". This has led to suggestions of either US government incompetence, or of a battle between a gung-ho USAF and a State Department conscious of the damage done to US relations with Latin America by its leaders' strong objections to the proposal.
The Colombian forces, for many years notorious for atrocities inflicted on civilians, have cheekily suggested that with US help they could get into the lucrative business of "instructing" other armies about human rights. Civil strife in Colombia meant some 380,000 Colombians were forced from their homes last year, bringing the number of displaced since 1985 to 4.6 mm, one in ten of the population. This little-known statistic indicates a much worse situation than the much-publicised one in Islamist-ruled Sudan where 2.7 mm have fled from their homes.
Amnesty International said: "The Colombian government must urgently bring human rights violators to justice, to break the links between the armed forces and illegal paramilitary groups, and dismantle paramilitary organisations in line with repeated UN recommendations."
Palanquero, which adjoins the town of Puerto Salgar on the broad Magdalena river north-west of the capital, Bogota, is one of the seven bases that the government of President Alvaro Uribe gave to Washington earlier despite howls from many Colombians. Its hangars can take 100 aircraft and there is accommodation for 2,000 personnel. Its main runway was constructed in the 1980s after Colombia bought a force of Israeli Kfir warplanes.
At 3,500 metres, it is 500 metres longer than the longest in Britain, the former US base outside Campbeltown, Scotland. The USAF is awaiting Barack Obama's signature on a bill, already passed by the US Congress, to devote $ 46 mm to works at the base.
Many Colombians are upset at the agreement between the US and Colombia that governs -- or, perhaps more accurately, fails to govern -- US use of Palanquero and the other six bases. The Colombian Council of State, a non-partisan constitutional body with the duty to comment on legislation, has said that the agreements are unfair to Colombia since they put the US and not the host country in the driving seat, and that they should be redrafted in accordance with the Colombian constitution.
The immunities being granted to US soldiers are, the council adds, against the 1961 Vienna Convention; the agreement can be changed by future regulations which can totally transform it; and the permission given to the US to install satellite receivers for radio and television without the usual licences and fees is "without any valid reason".
President Uribe, whose studies at St Antony's College, Oxford, were subsidised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has chosen to disregard the Council of State.
22 November 2009
By Hugh O'Shaughnessy
The United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia. The development -- and the reaction of Latin American leaders to it -- is further exacerbating America's already fractured relationship with much of the continent.
The new US push is part of an effort to counter the loss of influence it has suffered recently at the hands of a new generation of Latin American leaders no longer willing to accept Washington's political and economic tutelage. President Rafael Correa, for instance, has refused to prolong the US armed presence in Ecuador, and US forces have to quit their base at the port of Manta by the end of December.
So Washington turned to Colombia, which has not gone down well in the region. The country has received military aid worth $ 4.6 bn (£ 2.8 bn) from the US since 2000, despite its poor human rights record. Colombian forces regularly kill the country's indigenous people and other civilians, and last year raided the territory of its southern neighbour, Ecuador, causing at least 17 deaths.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who has not forgotten that US officers were present in government offices in Caracas in 2002 when he was briefly overthrown in a military putsch, warned this month that the bases agreement could mean the possibility of war with Colombia.
In August, President Evo Morales of Bolivia called for the outlawing of foreign military bases in the region. President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, overthrown in a military coup d'état in June and initially exiled, has complained that US forces stationed at the Honduran base of Palmerola collaborated with Roberto Micheletti, the leader of the plotters and the man who claims to be president.
And, this being US foreign policy, a tell-tale trail of oil is evident. Brazil had already expressed its unhappiness at the presence of US naval vessels in its massive new offshore oilfields off Rio de Janeiro, destined soon to make Brazil a giant oil producer eligible for membership in OPEC.
The fact that the US gets half its oil from Latin America was one of the reasons the US Fourth Fleet was re-established in the region's waters in 2008. The fleet's vessels can include Polaris nuclear-armed submarines -- a deployment seen by some experts as a violation of the 1967 Tlatelolco Treaty, which bans nuclear weapons from the continent.
Indications of US willingness to envisage the stationing of nuclear weapons in Colombia are seen as an additional threat to the spirit of nuclear disarmament. After the establishment of the Tlatelolco Treaty in 1967, four more nuclear-weapon-free zones were set up in Africa, the South Pacific, South-east Asia and Central Asia. Between them, the five treaties cover nearly two-thirds of the countries of the world and almost all the southern hemisphere.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the world's leading think-tank about disarmament issues, has now expressed its worries about the US-Colombian arrangements.
With or without nuclear weapons, the bilateral agreement on the seven Colombian bases, signed on 30 October in Bogota, risks a costly new arms race in a region. SIPRI, which is funded by the Swedish government, said it was concerned about rising arms expenditure in Latin America draining resources from social programmes that the poor of the region need.
Much of the new US strategy was clearly set out in May in an enthusiastic US Air Force (USAF) proposal for its military construction programme for the fiscal year 2010. One Colombian air base, Palanquero, was, the proposal said, unique "in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from... anti-US governments".
The proposal sets out a scheme to develop Palanquero which, the USAF says, offers an opportunity for conducting "full-spectrum operations throughout South America.... It also supports mobility missions by providing access to the entire continent, except the Cape Horn region, if fuel is available, and over half the continent if un-refuelled". ("Full-spectrum operations" is the Pentagon's jargon for its long-established goal of securing crushing military superiority with atomic and conventional weapons across the globe and in space.)
Palanquero could also be useful in ferrying arms and personnel to Africa via the British mid-Atlantic island of Ascension, French Guiana and Aruba, the Dutch island off Venezuela. The US has access to them all.
The USAF proposal contradicted the assurances constantly issued by US diplomats that the bases would not be used against third countries. These were repeated by the Colombian military to the Colombian congress on 29 July. That USAF proposal was hastily reissued this month after the signature of the agreement -- but without the reference to "anti-US governments". This has led to suggestions of either US government incompetence, or of a battle between a gung-ho USAF and a State Department conscious of the damage done to US relations with Latin America by its leaders' strong objections to the proposal.
The Colombian forces, for many years notorious for atrocities inflicted on civilians, have cheekily suggested that with US help they could get into the lucrative business of "instructing" other armies about human rights. Civil strife in Colombia meant some 380,000 Colombians were forced from their homes last year, bringing the number of displaced since 1985 to 4.6 mm, one in ten of the population. This little-known statistic indicates a much worse situation than the much-publicised one in Islamist-ruled Sudan where 2.7 mm have fled from their homes.
Amnesty International said: "The Colombian government must urgently bring human rights violators to justice, to break the links between the armed forces and illegal paramilitary groups, and dismantle paramilitary organisations in line with repeated UN recommendations."
Palanquero, which adjoins the town of Puerto Salgar on the broad Magdalena river north-west of the capital, Bogota, is one of the seven bases that the government of President Alvaro Uribe gave to Washington earlier despite howls from many Colombians. Its hangars can take 100 aircraft and there is accommodation for 2,000 personnel. Its main runway was constructed in the 1980s after Colombia bought a force of Israeli Kfir warplanes.
At 3,500 metres, it is 500 metres longer than the longest in Britain, the former US base outside Campbeltown, Scotland. The USAF is awaiting Barack Obama's signature on a bill, already passed by the US Congress, to devote $ 46 mm to works at the base.
Many Colombians are upset at the agreement between the US and Colombia that governs -- or, perhaps more accurately, fails to govern -- US use of Palanquero and the other six bases. The Colombian Council of State, a non-partisan constitutional body with the duty to comment on legislation, has said that the agreements are unfair to Colombia since they put the US and not the host country in the driving seat, and that they should be redrafted in accordance with the Colombian constitution.
The immunities being granted to US soldiers are, the council adds, against the 1961 Vienna Convention; the agreement can be changed by future regulations which can totally transform it; and the permission given to the US to install satellite receivers for radio and television without the usual licences and fees is "without any valid reason".
President Uribe, whose studies at St Antony's College, Oxford, were subsidised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has chosen to disregard the Council of State.
Turkey and US to cooperate in Iraqi gas exploration.
Anatolia News Agency
3 December 2009
Though they have not agreed on an Iran policy, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz and US envoy Richard Morningstar confirmed they would cooperate in gas exploration and transition projects of Iraq. Morningstar highlighted that the rich Iraqi reserves have the potential to supply the Nabucco pipeline along with Caspian gas.
Iraq has 111 tcf of natural gas reserves and experts claim much more is yet be discovered. Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki at a signing ceremony of the intergovernmental agreement on Nabucco said they could supply 15 bn cm of natural gas.
Turkey, already a major transport country, aims to position itself as a vital energy and trade corridor with its eastern neighbours, including Iraq, Iran, Syria and the South Caucasus.
"Turkey continues its efforts to discover its own resources, but no doubt, it will be a real transit country. Imagine, up to eight pipelines linking east to west and north to south will cross Turkey," Yildiz told.
Turkey, Iraq and the United States facilitate cooperation through a trilateral natural gas working group. A meeting between US and Turkish officials will take place in Ankara. They will discuss in detail how to establish a US-Turkish consortium to join gas exploration tenders in Iraq, Yildiz said.
Turkish Petroleum International Company, or TPYO, is planning to take part in six consortiums and at least one or two will include US companies, Yildiz said.
3 December 2009
Though they have not agreed on an Iran policy, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz and US envoy Richard Morningstar confirmed they would cooperate in gas exploration and transition projects of Iraq. Morningstar highlighted that the rich Iraqi reserves have the potential to supply the Nabucco pipeline along with Caspian gas.
Iraq has 111 tcf of natural gas reserves and experts claim much more is yet be discovered. Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki at a signing ceremony of the intergovernmental agreement on Nabucco said they could supply 15 bn cm of natural gas.
Turkey, already a major transport country, aims to position itself as a vital energy and trade corridor with its eastern neighbours, including Iraq, Iran, Syria and the South Caucasus.
"Turkey continues its efforts to discover its own resources, but no doubt, it will be a real transit country. Imagine, up to eight pipelines linking east to west and north to south will cross Turkey," Yildiz told.
Turkey, Iraq and the United States facilitate cooperation through a trilateral natural gas working group. A meeting between US and Turkish officials will take place in Ankara. They will discuss in detail how to establish a US-Turkish consortium to join gas exploration tenders in Iraq, Yildiz said.
Turkish Petroleum International Company, or TPYO, is planning to take part in six consortiums and at least one or two will include US companies, Yildiz said.
Buganda to sue government over land law.
Daily Monitor
15 January 2010
By Mercy Nalugo
Buganda is considering suing the central government over the new Land Amendments Act, 2010, which was endorsed by President Museveni on Wednesday.
According to sources within Mengo, the Kingdom’s Attorney General, Mr Appolo Makubuya, was yesterday directed to study the law which they called unconstitutional and explore possibilities of suing the government.
“Mengo has always been against the law because most of the clauses there are unconstitutional. We are going to challenge some of the clauses,” an insider told Daily Monitor yesterday.” “We opposed the law because it is not fair on Mengo and landlords,” the source added.
The Mengo spokesperson, Mr Peter Mayiga and his deputy, Mr Medard Ssegona said they were closed up in a meeting and would comment on the matter later.
President Museveni assented to the Land Amendment Bill on Wednesday.
But Mengo said they would not respect the controversial Land Amendment Act, 2010.
The Bill
The new law will hand down a seven-year jail sentence or a fine of Shs 1.9million or both to anyone individual who evicts or attempts to evict tenants without the order of court.
It also empowers the Lands Minister to determine ground rent within six months after district landlords have failed to do so.
15 January 2010
By Mercy Nalugo
Buganda is considering suing the central government over the new Land Amendments Act, 2010, which was endorsed by President Museveni on Wednesday.
According to sources within Mengo, the Kingdom’s Attorney General, Mr Appolo Makubuya, was yesterday directed to study the law which they called unconstitutional and explore possibilities of suing the government.
“Mengo has always been against the law because most of the clauses there are unconstitutional. We are going to challenge some of the clauses,” an insider told Daily Monitor yesterday.” “We opposed the law because it is not fair on Mengo and landlords,” the source added.
The Mengo spokesperson, Mr Peter Mayiga and his deputy, Mr Medard Ssegona said they were closed up in a meeting and would comment on the matter later.
President Museveni assented to the Land Amendment Bill on Wednesday.
But Mengo said they would not respect the controversial Land Amendment Act, 2010.
The Bill
The new law will hand down a seven-year jail sentence or a fine of Shs 1.9million or both to anyone individual who evicts or attempts to evict tenants without the order of court.
It also empowers the Lands Minister to determine ground rent within six months after district landlords have failed to do so.
14 January, 2010
U.S. Army Africa adds two general officers.
Stars and Stripes
By Kent Harris
Stars and Stripes-European edition
January 15, 2010
As a sign of its ongoing transformation, U.S. Army Africa has added two more general officers to its ranks.
Brig. Gen. David Elmo and Brig. Gen. Isaac Osborne will be introduced to the community in a ceremony next week. Both will serve as deputies to Maj. Gen. William Garrett — whose position as commander has been the only general-officer slot assigned to Caserma Ederle.
"Having only one general officer with what we’re being tasked to do can get to be a little tough," said Col. Marcus De Oliveira. "So this is very good news for us."
As a part of U.S. Army Europe, the Southern European Task Force sometimes took on the role of a division-size headquarters and was assigned additional personnel. It received two additional general officers during its stint as the headquarters element for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2005-2006, for instance. Additional personnel from other services were also attached during its stint leading operations off the coast of Liberia in 2003.
Now that the organization has transformed into an Army Service Component Command for U.S. Africa Command, the Army is supplying additional personnel — mostly civilians — to help take on various missions, according De Oliveira.
Much of the personnel arriving in Vicenza over the next several years will be civilians assigned to administrative and support duties, De Oliveira said. About 100 active-duty personnel should arrive in the same time frame, bringing the number of personnel assigned to the organization to about 700. About half will be civilians.
Some soldiers and civilians based in Vicenza do travel to African countries to take on missions, such as training African militaries, participating in joint exercises or building relationships with their African counterparts. But many stay in Vicenza and plan such missions or coordinate them for troops based in the States who are assigned to carry them out.
De Oliveira said that at least 70 percent of soldiers serving various roles in Africa on any given day are members of the U.S. Army Reserve or National Guard.
So Elmo and Osborne are natural fits.
Elmo is a reservist and works as a civilian at the U.S. Consulate in Milan. His two jobs don’t necessarily mix, but the Department of Defense and Department of State have been closely coordinating efforts in Africa — and sometimes intermixing personnel — since the creation of U.S. Africa Command in 2007. Elmo isn’t a stranger to Vicenza. He served as commander of the SETAF Augmentation Unit from 2001 to 2003 and was the SETAF deputy chief of staff for a few months in 2003.
Osborne is assistant adjutant general for the Tennessee National Guard and will likely still spend most of his time in the States.
"We are very much dependent on their organizations to provide us with individuals and units in Africa," De Oliveira said. Unlike other component commands, such as U.S. Army Europe and U.S. Army Pacific, U.S. Army Africa has no subordinate units.
By Kent Harris
Stars and Stripes-European edition
January 15, 2010
As a sign of its ongoing transformation, U.S. Army Africa has added two more general officers to its ranks.
Brig. Gen. David Elmo and Brig. Gen. Isaac Osborne will be introduced to the community in a ceremony next week. Both will serve as deputies to Maj. Gen. William Garrett — whose position as commander has been the only general-officer slot assigned to Caserma Ederle.
"Having only one general officer with what we’re being tasked to do can get to be a little tough," said Col. Marcus De Oliveira. "So this is very good news for us."
As a part of U.S. Army Europe, the Southern European Task Force sometimes took on the role of a division-size headquarters and was assigned additional personnel. It received two additional general officers during its stint as the headquarters element for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2005-2006, for instance. Additional personnel from other services were also attached during its stint leading operations off the coast of Liberia in 2003.
Now that the organization has transformed into an Army Service Component Command for U.S. Africa Command, the Army is supplying additional personnel — mostly civilians — to help take on various missions, according De Oliveira.
Much of the personnel arriving in Vicenza over the next several years will be civilians assigned to administrative and support duties, De Oliveira said. About 100 active-duty personnel should arrive in the same time frame, bringing the number of personnel assigned to the organization to about 700. About half will be civilians.
Some soldiers and civilians based in Vicenza do travel to African countries to take on missions, such as training African militaries, participating in joint exercises or building relationships with their African counterparts. But many stay in Vicenza and plan such missions or coordinate them for troops based in the States who are assigned to carry them out.
De Oliveira said that at least 70 percent of soldiers serving various roles in Africa on any given day are members of the U.S. Army Reserve or National Guard.
So Elmo and Osborne are natural fits.
Elmo is a reservist and works as a civilian at the U.S. Consulate in Milan. His two jobs don’t necessarily mix, but the Department of Defense and Department of State have been closely coordinating efforts in Africa — and sometimes intermixing personnel — since the creation of U.S. Africa Command in 2007. Elmo isn’t a stranger to Vicenza. He served as commander of the SETAF Augmentation Unit from 2001 to 2003 and was the SETAF deputy chief of staff for a few months in 2003.
Osborne is assistant adjutant general for the Tennessee National Guard and will likely still spend most of his time in the States.
"We are very much dependent on their organizations to provide us with individuals and units in Africa," De Oliveira said. Unlike other component commands, such as U.S. Army Europe and U.S. Army Pacific, U.S. Army Africa has no subordinate units.
Unlike al-Bashir, Kiir will not step down as army chief if nominated for presidential election.
Sudan Tribune
14 January 2010
An official of the semi-autonomous Southern Sudan has ruled out any possibility of General Salva Kiir Mayardit stepping down from the army even if he is nominated as SPLM candidate for presidency.
Sudan’s First Vice President Salva Kiir, a former rebel leader in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (AP) Kiir is currently an active army General in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and heads the recently formed military Command Council, composed of more than 40 senior SPLA officers, and also he is the Commander-in-Chief of the army by his being the President of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS).
The minister for Presidential Affairs, Dr. Luka Biong Deng, who is a close aide to Kiir on Wednesday, said Kiir’s candidacy would not need him to step down as commander-in-chief.
Dr. Biong argued that the Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan, 2005, stipulates that the President of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) shall be the Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and if Kiir was nominated for GoSS presidency he would not step down as Commander-in-Chief.
He however admitted that presently the SPLA Act states that no member of the SPLA can participate in political activities but said there will be decisions made within the regulations of southern Sudan.
Biong however did not further explain whether Kiir would still wear military uniform with his active rank as General in the army or be stripped of the military uniform and contest like a civilian if nominated.
The Sudan’s national Interim Constitution, 2005, requires aspirant candidates, who serve in the army, civil service and as judges, to first resign from their professions before their candidatures are approved by law and allow them to run for political positions.
The Southern Sudan interim constitution is however silent about what the aspirant candidates for political positions, while actively serving in the army, should comply with during elections.
There was no body available for comment in the government’s legal institution to explain the implications of the Sudan’s national interim constitution and the national elections law over the Southern Sudan interim constitution when dealing with issues of national competence such as the elections.
During the GoSS formation in 2005, all the draft constitutions of the ten Southern Sudan states including the Southern Sudan Interim Constitution had to be taken to Khartoum for approval by the national legal body to make sure that they were compatible with the Sudan’s national interim constitution, 2005, pending their final enactment by the respective parliaments in the South.
Questions in the minds of many people that are left to the legal experts to answer include which law (national and Southern Sudan) is supreme over the other when it comes to the national issues such as the elections, or whether the National Elections Act only partially applies to the South and leaves the electoral process of Southern Sudan presidency to the constitution of the South.
It also remains to be clear whether the National Elections Act, 2008, which requires that a candidate first steps down from the army, in order to run for the elections, can equally apply to both national and Southern Sudan candidates at all levels.
Currently, Southern Sudan High Elections Committee based in Juba, which is a branch of the National Elections Commission in Khartoum, also requires that all civil servants, judges and those serving in the army in Southern Sudan and aspire to run for political positions should first resign from their incumbent professions if finally nominated as candidates.
The SPLM Political Bureau is expected in the next few days to declare party candidates across Sudan including its presidential candidates for national and Southern Sudan.
There are, however, statements indicating a process for possible alliance with the National Congress Party (NCP) which may lead to SPLM endorsing the NCP’s candidate, the incumbent President Omer Al-Bashir as sole candidate for national presidency.
Bashir on Monday stepped down as chief of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in compliance with the requirements of the National Elections Law, 2008, and the Interim Constitution of Sudan, 2005.
14 January 2010
An official of the semi-autonomous Southern Sudan has ruled out any possibility of General Salva Kiir Mayardit stepping down from the army even if he is nominated as SPLM candidate for presidency.
Sudan’s First Vice President Salva Kiir, a former rebel leader in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (AP) Kiir is currently an active army General in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and heads the recently formed military Command Council, composed of more than 40 senior SPLA officers, and also he is the Commander-in-Chief of the army by his being the President of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS).
The minister for Presidential Affairs, Dr. Luka Biong Deng, who is a close aide to Kiir on Wednesday, said Kiir’s candidacy would not need him to step down as commander-in-chief.
Dr. Biong argued that the Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan, 2005, stipulates that the President of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) shall be the Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and if Kiir was nominated for GoSS presidency he would not step down as Commander-in-Chief.
He however admitted that presently the SPLA Act states that no member of the SPLA can participate in political activities but said there will be decisions made within the regulations of southern Sudan.
Biong however did not further explain whether Kiir would still wear military uniform with his active rank as General in the army or be stripped of the military uniform and contest like a civilian if nominated.
The Sudan’s national Interim Constitution, 2005, requires aspirant candidates, who serve in the army, civil service and as judges, to first resign from their professions before their candidatures are approved by law and allow them to run for political positions.
The Southern Sudan interim constitution is however silent about what the aspirant candidates for political positions, while actively serving in the army, should comply with during elections.
There was no body available for comment in the government’s legal institution to explain the implications of the Sudan’s national interim constitution and the national elections law over the Southern Sudan interim constitution when dealing with issues of national competence such as the elections.
During the GoSS formation in 2005, all the draft constitutions of the ten Southern Sudan states including the Southern Sudan Interim Constitution had to be taken to Khartoum for approval by the national legal body to make sure that they were compatible with the Sudan’s national interim constitution, 2005, pending their final enactment by the respective parliaments in the South.
Questions in the minds of many people that are left to the legal experts to answer include which law (national and Southern Sudan) is supreme over the other when it comes to the national issues such as the elections, or whether the National Elections Act only partially applies to the South and leaves the electoral process of Southern Sudan presidency to the constitution of the South.
It also remains to be clear whether the National Elections Act, 2008, which requires that a candidate first steps down from the army, in order to run for the elections, can equally apply to both national and Southern Sudan candidates at all levels.
Currently, Southern Sudan High Elections Committee based in Juba, which is a branch of the National Elections Commission in Khartoum, also requires that all civil servants, judges and those serving in the army in Southern Sudan and aspire to run for political positions should first resign from their incumbent professions if finally nominated as candidates.
The SPLM Political Bureau is expected in the next few days to declare party candidates across Sudan including its presidential candidates for national and Southern Sudan.
There are, however, statements indicating a process for possible alliance with the National Congress Party (NCP) which may lead to SPLM endorsing the NCP’s candidate, the incumbent President Omer Al-Bashir as sole candidate for national presidency.
Bashir on Monday stepped down as chief of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in compliance with the requirements of the National Elections Law, 2008, and the Interim Constitution of Sudan, 2005.
Anti-Terror Force Arrest 15 Ethiopians Going to Rwanda.
New Vision
13 January 2010
By Herbert Ssempogo
The Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force (JATT) has arrested 15 Ethiopians who attempted to travel to Rwanda early this week. The group was picked on Sunday, moments after their plan to penetrate Rwanda failed, according to a security source.
"They entered Uganda through Busia (at the border with Kenya) where they told border officials that they were going to Rwanda," the source said.
However, when they got to the border point of Katuna, the Rwandan immigration officers turned them away because they did not have visas.
"When they were turned away, they moved to two other points, including Bunagana, but were denied entry," the source said.
Security got suspicious when it appeared that passports of six of the men were forged as the pictures did not correspond with their facial appearances. Rwandan authorities informed JATT, which dispatched a team that rounded them up.
Criminal investigations deputy director, Moses Sakira, confirmed that investigations were underway.
He said they liaised with the Ethiopian embassy.
"We were concerned that they could have been involved in criminal acts.
However, preliminary findings indicate that it could be an immigration issue."
The investigations yesterday suffered a setback when one of them reportedly escaped from the CID head office in Kibuli.
Another security source said the men were scheduled to be deported to Ethiopia.
13 January 2010
By Herbert Ssempogo
The Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force (JATT) has arrested 15 Ethiopians who attempted to travel to Rwanda early this week. The group was picked on Sunday, moments after their plan to penetrate Rwanda failed, according to a security source.
"They entered Uganda through Busia (at the border with Kenya) where they told border officials that they were going to Rwanda," the source said.
However, when they got to the border point of Katuna, the Rwandan immigration officers turned them away because they did not have visas.
"When they were turned away, they moved to two other points, including Bunagana, but were denied entry," the source said.
Security got suspicious when it appeared that passports of six of the men were forged as the pictures did not correspond with their facial appearances. Rwandan authorities informed JATT, which dispatched a team that rounded them up.
Criminal investigations deputy director, Moses Sakira, confirmed that investigations were underway.
He said they liaised with the Ethiopian embassy.
"We were concerned that they could have been involved in criminal acts.
However, preliminary findings indicate that it could be an immigration issue."
The investigations yesterday suffered a setback when one of them reportedly escaped from the CID head office in Kibuli.
Another security source said the men were scheduled to be deported to Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Rebels Return Home from Kenya After Giving Up Arms.
Daily Motion
13 January 2010
Some members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) are surrendering to Ethiopian authorities on the Kenyan side of the border.
On Wednesday, a Moyale DOI, Mr Ngala Mwachiro, said that at least 70 rebels had laid down their arms and crossed into their country, which is preparing to hold parliamentary elections on May 23.
"They started surrendering through Kenya on Saturday, saying they don't want to live in the bush any more," Mr Mwachiro said in his office.
Moyale DC Joshua Nkatha said the surrender would enhance security in northern Kenya and improve ties between the two countries. "Ethiopia has accused us of protecting rebels, which is not true," said the DC.
Have relatives
He added that if the conflict between the OLF rebels and the government in Addis Ababa subsides, the influx of small arms into Kenya would also reduce. The insurgents have been fighting the Ethiopian government since 1973.
They accuse it of colonising the Oromo people who live in the south of the country. Ethiopia has been complaining that the OLF rebels usually cross into northern Kenya, where they have relatives.
On the other hand, the Kenyan government says interaction between the rebels and their relatives usually provides a route for small arms entry into the country.
13 January 2010
Some members of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) are surrendering to Ethiopian authorities on the Kenyan side of the border.
On Wednesday, a Moyale DOI, Mr Ngala Mwachiro, said that at least 70 rebels had laid down their arms and crossed into their country, which is preparing to hold parliamentary elections on May 23.
"They started surrendering through Kenya on Saturday, saying they don't want to live in the bush any more," Mr Mwachiro said in his office.
Moyale DC Joshua Nkatha said the surrender would enhance security in northern Kenya and improve ties between the two countries. "Ethiopia has accused us of protecting rebels, which is not true," said the DC.
Have relatives
He added that if the conflict between the OLF rebels and the government in Addis Ababa subsides, the influx of small arms into Kenya would also reduce. The insurgents have been fighting the Ethiopian government since 1973.
They accuse it of colonising the Oromo people who live in the south of the country. Ethiopia has been complaining that the OLF rebels usually cross into northern Kenya, where they have relatives.
On the other hand, the Kenyan government says interaction between the rebels and their relatives usually provides a route for small arms entry into the country.
Opposition group starts return journey on Friday.
Rwandan News Agency
14 January 2010
Party chief, Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza (left), will lead the delegation which is scheduled to arrive over the weekend. However, prominent party member Mr. Eugène Ndahayo is off the list.
The scheduled date of return to the country by Dutch-based FDU-Inkingi has been moved forward to Friday and not next week as had been planned, as the group scrambles to prepare for the August 09 presidential polls, RNA reports.
In a meeting this week, the Unified Democratic Forces-Inkingi resolved to start their maiden journey home on January 15, instead of the January 18 as had been scheduled in earlier meetings.
The group leader, Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who is also the designated party flag-bearer for the polls, will head the delegation including members from the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Without any inconveniences encountered, the team could be in the country over the weekend.
However, in a statement, the group says it’s First Vice President Mr. Eugène Ndahayo, and other prominent members, will not be party to the team as they have not been able to secure passports from Rwanda.
Though the group has slammed the failure to have the travel documents on the ruling party in Kigali, immigration officials have categorically dismissed the charge. Apparently, they submitted their passport application dossiers as a group, which was rejected in Kigali.
“We do not give passports to political parties,” is how Immigration chief, Mr. Anaclet Kalibata put it to RNA, adding, “Every applicant is assessed on a case by case basis.”
The FDU-Ikingi Executive Committee resolved that once in the country, party leader Ms. Umuhoza will “open a dialogue” with the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) with the sole aim of securing travel documents for the remaining members. It is not clear how that will be done but speculation is rife indicating she will seek a meeting with Rwandan President Kagame of the ruling RPF party.
The party is yet to register – a process that could take several months, before they start canvassing the country searching for members and establishing offices.
So far, only two candidates are known to be preparing for the polls. Social Party (PS)-Imberakuri’s Bernard Ntaganda is another. The RPF has voted President Paul Kagame as its chairman for the next few years, but is yet to name its candidate for the polls.
Some of the RPF six coalition partners are have already indicated they will back President Kagame if he is fronted by the RPF.
Scheduled for August 09, the polls will cost some $10.6million (Rwf 6 billion).
14 January 2010
Party chief, Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza (left), will lead the delegation which is scheduled to arrive over the weekend. However, prominent party member Mr. Eugène Ndahayo is off the list.
The scheduled date of return to the country by Dutch-based FDU-Inkingi has been moved forward to Friday and not next week as had been planned, as the group scrambles to prepare for the August 09 presidential polls, RNA reports.
In a meeting this week, the Unified Democratic Forces-Inkingi resolved to start their maiden journey home on January 15, instead of the January 18 as had been scheduled in earlier meetings.
The group leader, Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who is also the designated party flag-bearer for the polls, will head the delegation including members from the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Without any inconveniences encountered, the team could be in the country over the weekend.
However, in a statement, the group says it’s First Vice President Mr. Eugène Ndahayo, and other prominent members, will not be party to the team as they have not been able to secure passports from Rwanda.
Though the group has slammed the failure to have the travel documents on the ruling party in Kigali, immigration officials have categorically dismissed the charge. Apparently, they submitted their passport application dossiers as a group, which was rejected in Kigali.
“We do not give passports to political parties,” is how Immigration chief, Mr. Anaclet Kalibata put it to RNA, adding, “Every applicant is assessed on a case by case basis.”
The FDU-Ikingi Executive Committee resolved that once in the country, party leader Ms. Umuhoza will “open a dialogue” with the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) with the sole aim of securing travel documents for the remaining members. It is not clear how that will be done but speculation is rife indicating she will seek a meeting with Rwandan President Kagame of the ruling RPF party.
The party is yet to register – a process that could take several months, before they start canvassing the country searching for members and establishing offices.
So far, only two candidates are known to be preparing for the polls. Social Party (PS)-Imberakuri’s Bernard Ntaganda is another. The RPF has voted President Paul Kagame as its chairman for the next few years, but is yet to name its candidate for the polls.
Some of the RPF six coalition partners are have already indicated they will back President Kagame if he is fronted by the RPF.
Scheduled for August 09, the polls will cost some $10.6million (Rwf 6 billion).
13 January, 2010
Venezuela Says It Seized 2 U.S.-Registered Planes for Drug Smuggling.
Latin American Herald Tribune
13 January 2010
Venezuela seized two U.S.-registered planes that were forced to land by warplanes and found traces of cocaine in them, officials said.
A Beech King Air 200 was seized on Jan. 2 and a Beech King Air 300 was seized on Monday, Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami said.
The airplanes were forced to land by Venezuelan F-16s, El Aissami said, without providing details about the fate of the crews.
“The investigations, just started, are leading to the identification of the crews of both planes and the criminal groups involved,” the interior minister said.
Ten Chinese-made radar systems are monitoring Venezuela’s air space, the director of the ONA drug enforcement agency, Col. Nestor Reverol, said.
Venezuela is awaiting delivery in the first quarter of this year of six of the 18 K-8 reconnaissance planes purchased from China for drug enforcement operations, Reverol said.
The security forces have seized 630 kilos of various drugs and arrested 17 suspects so far this year, the officials said.
Venezuela seized 60,164 kilos of drugs last year, nearly the same quantity as in 2008, the officials said. EFE
13 January 2010
Venezuela seized two U.S.-registered planes that were forced to land by warplanes and found traces of cocaine in them, officials said.
A Beech King Air 200 was seized on Jan. 2 and a Beech King Air 300 was seized on Monday, Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami said.
The airplanes were forced to land by Venezuelan F-16s, El Aissami said, without providing details about the fate of the crews.
“The investigations, just started, are leading to the identification of the crews of both planes and the criminal groups involved,” the interior minister said.
Ten Chinese-made radar systems are monitoring Venezuela’s air space, the director of the ONA drug enforcement agency, Col. Nestor Reverol, said.
Venezuela is awaiting delivery in the first quarter of this year of six of the 18 K-8 reconnaissance planes purchased from China for drug enforcement operations, Reverol said.
The security forces have seized 630 kilos of various drugs and arrested 17 suspects so far this year, the officials said.
Venezuela seized 60,164 kilos of drugs last year, nearly the same quantity as in 2008, the officials said. EFE
Tony Blair gave secret promise to George Bush over Iraq invasion.
Times Online
13 January 2010
By David Brown
Tony Blair promised George Bush that Britain would support military action by the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein in a series of secret notes written a year before the invasion of Iraq.
The content of the notes was revealed yesterday by Mr Blair’s former spokesman, Alastair Campbell.
The Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war was electrified by the appearance of Mr Campbell, who disclosed details of the highly sensitive correspondence in a defiant defence of his former boss.
On three separate occasions Mr Campbell spoke of his pride at the way in which the events unfolded.
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The Iraq Inquiry
“As a country we should feel incredibly proud of the role we played in getting rid of one of the most brutal regimes in history,” he said.
Mr Campbell prepared the ground for the eagerly awaited appearance of Mr Blair at the end of this month with an unrepentant and combative justification of the Iraq conflict, which claimed 179 British lives. The former spin doctor said that he was proud of the part he played in the most controversial act of Mr Blair’s premiership.
In a tense five-hour encounter with the five-member inquiry, Mr Campbell placed Gordon Brown, then the Chancellor, at the heart of an inner circle of key ministers and advisers whom he consulted in private on Iraq.
But in the most dramatic revelation, he said that Mr Blair sent notes to President Bush so sensitive that they were not shown in advance even to senior members of the Cabinet. “I sometimes felt that they were quite advisory,” he said of the letters to Mr Bush. “They were very frank.”
He insisted that despite Mr Blair’s “instinct” that he should be with the US, he remained committed to finding a diplomatic resolution right up to the eve of the invasion in March 2003.
He also revealed that, before attending a meeting with President Bush in April 2002, Mr Blair had asked military chiefs to consider the options for a US invasion of Iraq and how then to run the country.
Mr Campbell denied that Mr Blair had misled Parliament by claiming that there was evidence that Saddam had a “growing” programme of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). He also rejected accusations that he was responsible for “sexing up” a government dossier of intelligence on the Iraqi WMDs but accepted that the controversial claim that they could have been deployed within 45 minutes “could have been clearer”.
He described the September 2002 dossier as a cautious assessment and insisted that it had not been designed to present the case for war but to highlight why Mr Blair was concerned about the threat posed by Iraq. “I think the Prime Minister all the way through was trying to get it resolved without a single shot being fired.”
He said that he was never in doubt that Iraq would be found to have WMDs and the realisation after the invasion that Saddam did not have any operational chemical or biological weapons was “very difficult”.
The inquiry was told that Mr Blair wrote a series of private notes to President Bush about overthrowing Saddam that were only seen in advance by his foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning. Mr Campbell said that he assumed that Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, was shown the letters later. But as for whether Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, was sent a copy, he said: “That would depend.”
“The Prime Minister wrote quite a lot of notes to the President,” he said. “I would say the tenor of them was that . . . we share the analysis, we share the concern, we are going to be with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and that Iraq is disarmed. If that cannot be done diplomatically and it is to be done militarily, Britain will be there. That would be the tenor of the communication to the President.”
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the Tory former Foreign Secretary who opposed the invasion, said that the content of the letters should be made public.
Mr Campbell vigorously defended the part that he played in drawing up the dossier. He denied asking Sir John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, to “beef up” the evidence. He said that Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, was excluded from planning for the aftermath of the conflict because of fears that highly sensitive information might be leaked to the media.
13 January 2010
By David Brown
Tony Blair promised George Bush that Britain would support military action by the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein in a series of secret notes written a year before the invasion of Iraq.
The content of the notes was revealed yesterday by Mr Blair’s former spokesman, Alastair Campbell.
The Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war was electrified by the appearance of Mr Campbell, who disclosed details of the highly sensitive correspondence in a defiant defence of his former boss.
On three separate occasions Mr Campbell spoke of his pride at the way in which the events unfolded.
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The Iraq Inquiry
“As a country we should feel incredibly proud of the role we played in getting rid of one of the most brutal regimes in history,” he said.
Mr Campbell prepared the ground for the eagerly awaited appearance of Mr Blair at the end of this month with an unrepentant and combative justification of the Iraq conflict, which claimed 179 British lives. The former spin doctor said that he was proud of the part he played in the most controversial act of Mr Blair’s premiership.
In a tense five-hour encounter with the five-member inquiry, Mr Campbell placed Gordon Brown, then the Chancellor, at the heart of an inner circle of key ministers and advisers whom he consulted in private on Iraq.
But in the most dramatic revelation, he said that Mr Blair sent notes to President Bush so sensitive that they were not shown in advance even to senior members of the Cabinet. “I sometimes felt that they were quite advisory,” he said of the letters to Mr Bush. “They were very frank.”
He insisted that despite Mr Blair’s “instinct” that he should be with the US, he remained committed to finding a diplomatic resolution right up to the eve of the invasion in March 2003.
He also revealed that, before attending a meeting with President Bush in April 2002, Mr Blair had asked military chiefs to consider the options for a US invasion of Iraq and how then to run the country.
Mr Campbell denied that Mr Blair had misled Parliament by claiming that there was evidence that Saddam had a “growing” programme of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). He also rejected accusations that he was responsible for “sexing up” a government dossier of intelligence on the Iraqi WMDs but accepted that the controversial claim that they could have been deployed within 45 minutes “could have been clearer”.
He described the September 2002 dossier as a cautious assessment and insisted that it had not been designed to present the case for war but to highlight why Mr Blair was concerned about the threat posed by Iraq. “I think the Prime Minister all the way through was trying to get it resolved without a single shot being fired.”
He said that he was never in doubt that Iraq would be found to have WMDs and the realisation after the invasion that Saddam did not have any operational chemical or biological weapons was “very difficult”.
The inquiry was told that Mr Blair wrote a series of private notes to President Bush about overthrowing Saddam that were only seen in advance by his foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning. Mr Campbell said that he assumed that Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, was shown the letters later. But as for whether Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, was sent a copy, he said: “That would depend.”
“The Prime Minister wrote quite a lot of notes to the President,” he said. “I would say the tenor of them was that . . . we share the analysis, we share the concern, we are going to be with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and that Iraq is disarmed. If that cannot be done diplomatically and it is to be done militarily, Britain will be there. That would be the tenor of the communication to the President.”
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the Tory former Foreign Secretary who opposed the invasion, said that the content of the letters should be made public.
Mr Campbell vigorously defended the part that he played in drawing up the dossier. He denied asking Sir John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, to “beef up” the evidence. He said that Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, was excluded from planning for the aftermath of the conflict because of fears that highly sensitive information might be leaked to the media.
12 January, 2010
Federal Reserve Seeks to Protect U.S. Bailout Secrets.
Bloomberg
11 January 2010
By David Glovin and Thom Weidlich
The Federal Reserve asked a U.S. appeals court to block a ruling that for the first time would force the central bank to reveal secret identities of financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest government bailout in U.S. history.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan will decide whether the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. In August, a federal judge ordered that the information be released, responding to a request by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.
“This case is about the identity of the borrower,” said Matthew Collette, a lawyer for the government, in oral arguments today. “This is the equivalent of saying ‘I want all the loan applications that were submitted.’”
Bloomberg argues that the public has the right to know basic information about the “unprecedented and highly controversial use” of public money. Banks and the Fed warn that bailed-out lenders may be hurt if the documents are made public, causing a run or a sell-off by investors. Disclosure may hamstring the Fed’s ability to deal with another crisis, they also argued. The lower court agreed with Bloomberg.
‘Right to Know’
“The question is at what point does the government get so involved in the life of the institution that the public has a right to know?” said Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Davis isn’t involved in the lawsuit.
The ruling by the three-judge appeals panel may not come for months and is unlikely to be the final word. The loser may seek a rehearing or appeal to the full appeals court and eventually petition the U.S. Supreme Court, said Anne Weismann, chief lawyer for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a Washington advocacy group that supports Bloomberg’s lawsuit.
New York-based Bloomberg, majority-owned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued in November 2008 after the Fed refused to name the firms it lent to or disclose the amounts or assets used as collateral under its lending programs. Most were put in place in response to the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
‘Almost Two Years’
“Bloomberg has been trying for almost two years to break down a brick wall of secrecy in order to vindicate the public’s right to learn basic information,” Thomas Golden, an attorney for the company with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, wrote in court filings. He said the Fed may be trying “to draw out the proceedings long enough so that the information Bloomberg seeks is no longer of interest.”
The Fed’s balance sheet debt doubled after lending standards were relaxed following Lehman’s failure on Sept. 15, 2008. That year, the Fed began extending credit directly to companies that weren’t banks for the first time since the 1930s. Total central bank lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time on Nov. 6, 2008, reaching $2.14 trillion on Sept. 23, 2009.
The lawsuit, brought under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, came as President Barack Obama criticized the previous administration’s handling of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed by Congress in October 2008. Obama has said funds were spent by the administration of former President George W. Bush with little accountability or transparency.
Press and Public
FOIA requires federal agencies to make government documents available to the press and public.
In her Aug. 24 ruling, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in New York said loan records are covered by FOIA and rejected the Fed’s claim that their disclosure might harm banks and shareholders. An exception to the statute that protects trade secrets and privileged or confidential financial data didn’t apply because there’s no proof banks would suffer, she said.
The central bank “speculates on how a borrower might enter a downward spiral of financial instability if its participation in the Federal Reserve lending programs were to be disclosed,” Preska, the chief judge of the Manhattan federal court, said in her 47-page ruling. “Conjecture, without evidence of imminent harm, simply fails to meet the board’s burden” of proof.
In its appeal, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System argued that disclosure of “highly sensitive” documents, including 231 pages of daily lending reports, threatens to stigmatize lenders and cause them “severe and irreparable competitive injury.”
‘Confidentiality is Essential’
“Confidentiality is essential to the success of the board’s statutory mission to maintain the health of the nation’s financial system and conduct monetary policy,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Tony West and Fed lawyer Richard Ashton wrote in a legal brief to the appeals court.
“The board’s ability to administer lending programs crucial to maintaining national financial and economic stability will be severely undermined” if lenders won’t come to the regional Federal Reserve Banks “for their funding needs, particularly in time of economic crisis,” they said.
Historically, the type of government documents sought in the case has been protected from public disclosure because they might reveal competitive trade secrets, Davis said. Laws governing such disclosures may be due for a change, he said, following the far-reaching U.S. bailout.
“If you are in need of a bailout and turn to the federal government and say, ‘help,’ with that comes some requirements in terms of transparency,” Davis said.
Joined in Bid
The Fed is joined in its bid to overturn Preska’s order by the Clearing House Association LLC, an industry-owned group in New York that processes payments between banks. The group assailed the judge’s decision for what it said were legal errors, such as applying the wrong standard in weighing the exception to FOIA.
The group includes ABN Amro Bank NV, a unit of Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, Bank of America Corp., The Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co., US Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co.
Preska allowed the association to join the case so that it could directly participate in the appeal. More than a dozen other groups or companies filed amicus, or friend-of-the-court, briefs, including the American Society of News Editors and individual news organizations.
The judge postponed the application of her ruling to allow the appeals court to consider the case.
Also today, the same appeals court was to hear arguments in a lawsuit brought by News Corp. unit Fox News Network seeking similar documents. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in New York sided with the Fed in that case and refused to order the agency to release the documents.
The case is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 09-04083, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (New York).
To contact the reporters on this story: Thom Weidlich in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan at tweidlich@bloomberg.net and; David Glovin in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York at dglovin@bloomberg.net.
11 January 2010
By David Glovin and Thom Weidlich
The Federal Reserve asked a U.S. appeals court to block a ruling that for the first time would force the central bank to reveal secret identities of financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest government bailout in U.S. history.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan will decide whether the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. In August, a federal judge ordered that the information be released, responding to a request by Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.
“This case is about the identity of the borrower,” said Matthew Collette, a lawyer for the government, in oral arguments today. “This is the equivalent of saying ‘I want all the loan applications that were submitted.’”
Bloomberg argues that the public has the right to know basic information about the “unprecedented and highly controversial use” of public money. Banks and the Fed warn that bailed-out lenders may be hurt if the documents are made public, causing a run or a sell-off by investors. Disclosure may hamstring the Fed’s ability to deal with another crisis, they also argued. The lower court agreed with Bloomberg.
‘Right to Know’
“The question is at what point does the government get so involved in the life of the institution that the public has a right to know?” said Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Davis isn’t involved in the lawsuit.
The ruling by the three-judge appeals panel may not come for months and is unlikely to be the final word. The loser may seek a rehearing or appeal to the full appeals court and eventually petition the U.S. Supreme Court, said Anne Weismann, chief lawyer for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a Washington advocacy group that supports Bloomberg’s lawsuit.
New York-based Bloomberg, majority-owned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued in November 2008 after the Fed refused to name the firms it lent to or disclose the amounts or assets used as collateral under its lending programs. Most were put in place in response to the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
‘Almost Two Years’
“Bloomberg has been trying for almost two years to break down a brick wall of secrecy in order to vindicate the public’s right to learn basic information,” Thomas Golden, an attorney for the company with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, wrote in court filings. He said the Fed may be trying “to draw out the proceedings long enough so that the information Bloomberg seeks is no longer of interest.”
The Fed’s balance sheet debt doubled after lending standards were relaxed following Lehman’s failure on Sept. 15, 2008. That year, the Fed began extending credit directly to companies that weren’t banks for the first time since the 1930s. Total central bank lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time on Nov. 6, 2008, reaching $2.14 trillion on Sept. 23, 2009.
The lawsuit, brought under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, came as President Barack Obama criticized the previous administration’s handling of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed by Congress in October 2008. Obama has said funds were spent by the administration of former President George W. Bush with little accountability or transparency.
Press and Public
FOIA requires federal agencies to make government documents available to the press and public.
In her Aug. 24 ruling, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in New York said loan records are covered by FOIA and rejected the Fed’s claim that their disclosure might harm banks and shareholders. An exception to the statute that protects trade secrets and privileged or confidential financial data didn’t apply because there’s no proof banks would suffer, she said.
The central bank “speculates on how a borrower might enter a downward spiral of financial instability if its participation in the Federal Reserve lending programs were to be disclosed,” Preska, the chief judge of the Manhattan federal court, said in her 47-page ruling. “Conjecture, without evidence of imminent harm, simply fails to meet the board’s burden” of proof.
In its appeal, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System argued that disclosure of “highly sensitive” documents, including 231 pages of daily lending reports, threatens to stigmatize lenders and cause them “severe and irreparable competitive injury.”
‘Confidentiality is Essential’
“Confidentiality is essential to the success of the board’s statutory mission to maintain the health of the nation’s financial system and conduct monetary policy,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Tony West and Fed lawyer Richard Ashton wrote in a legal brief to the appeals court.
“The board’s ability to administer lending programs crucial to maintaining national financial and economic stability will be severely undermined” if lenders won’t come to the regional Federal Reserve Banks “for their funding needs, particularly in time of economic crisis,” they said.
Historically, the type of government documents sought in the case has been protected from public disclosure because they might reveal competitive trade secrets, Davis said. Laws governing such disclosures may be due for a change, he said, following the far-reaching U.S. bailout.
“If you are in need of a bailout and turn to the federal government and say, ‘help,’ with that comes some requirements in terms of transparency,” Davis said.
Joined in Bid
The Fed is joined in its bid to overturn Preska’s order by the Clearing House Association LLC, an industry-owned group in New York that processes payments between banks. The group assailed the judge’s decision for what it said were legal errors, such as applying the wrong standard in weighing the exception to FOIA.
The group includes ABN Amro Bank NV, a unit of Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, Bank of America Corp., The Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co., US Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co.
Preska allowed the association to join the case so that it could directly participate in the appeal. More than a dozen other groups or companies filed amicus, or friend-of-the-court, briefs, including the American Society of News Editors and individual news organizations.
The judge postponed the application of her ruling to allow the appeals court to consider the case.
Also today, the same appeals court was to hear arguments in a lawsuit brought by News Corp. unit Fox News Network seeking similar documents. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in New York sided with the Fed in that case and refused to order the agency to release the documents.
The case is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 09-04083, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (New York).
To contact the reporters on this story: Thom Weidlich in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan at tweidlich@bloomberg.net and; David Glovin in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York at dglovin@bloomberg.net.
SEC order helps maintain AIG bailout mystery.
Reuters
11 January 2010
By Matthew Goldstein
Editor's Note: AIG is a rabbit hole researchers should know is worth going down.
It could take until November 2018 to get the full story behind the U.S. bailout of insurance giant American International Group (AIG.N) because of an action taken last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most controversial aspect of the AIG bailout: the funneling of tens of billions of dollars to big banks like Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Merrill Lynch.
The SEC's Division of Corporation Finance, in granting AIG's request for confidential treatment, said the "excluded information" will not be made public until Nov. 25, 2018, according to a copy of the agency's May 22 order.
The SEC said the insurer had demonstrated the information in the exhibit, called Schedule A, "qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information."
The expiration date for the SEC order falls on the 10th anniversary of Federal Reserve of New York's decision to provide emergency financing to an entity set up to specifically acquire some $60 billion in collateralized debt obligations from 16 banks in the United States and Europe.
All the banks that got money from the Fed-sponsored entity -- Maiden Lane III -- had purchased insurance contracts, or credit default swaps, on those mortgage-related securities from AIG.
The SEC's decision to approve AIG's request for confidential treatment got scant attention at the time. But it could spark controversy now following the release last week of 14-month-old emails that reveal that some at the New York Fed had discussions with AIG officials about how much information should be disclosed to the public about the Maiden Lane III transaction.
The New York Fed, then led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, plays a critical role in the world of finance given its close dealings with all the major Wall Street banks, many of which were counterparties of AIG.
SEC spokesman John Nestor declined to comment on the reasons for granting AIG's request to treat the exhibit as confidential.
In a typical year, the SEC receives 1,500 requests from U.S. companies for confidential treatment for portions of regulatory filing, said Nestor. The agency grants those requests, "all or in part," 95 percent of the time, he said.
It's not clear what information is in the exhibit beyond a listing of the 16 banks that were beneficiaries of the Maiden Lane transaction. Last March, under pressure from Congress, AIG released the names of the banks that sold CDOs to Maiden Lane and how much money the banks got in the process.
When AIG filed the Schedule A exhibit with the SEC, it redacted the information it wanted to keep confidential, in anticipation regulators would approve its request.
The Fed's bailout of AIG long has been controversial because the banks that sold CDOs to Maiden Lane III were paid 100 percent of face value, even though many of the securities were worth substantially less at the time of the government bailout.
Last Thursday the furor over the Maiden Lane transaction was reignited after Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, released copies of emails detailing discussions between the New York Fed and AIG over how much information to disclose.
The emails have provided fresh ammunition for critics of Geithner. New York Fed General Counsel Thomas Baxter Jr. said in a letter to Issa's office that Geithner "played no role in, and had no knowledge of" the emails.
Issa, the highest-ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said the panel will soon hold hearings about how information was disclosed to the public about the Maiden Lane deal.
Issa's spokesman Kurt Bardella declined to comment on the SEC's handling of the AIG's confidentiality request.
But Issa, in a prepared statement, said "as much information as possible should be made available to Congress to review the details and decisions" regarding the payments.
The batch of emails released by Issa discussed the SEC's requests for more information about the exhibit that AIG wanted to keep secret. But the emails did not mention the SEC's decision to grant AIG's request for confidential treatment.
(Reporting by Matthew Goldstein; Editing by Gary Hill)
11 January 2010
By Matthew Goldstein
Editor's Note: AIG is a rabbit hole researchers should know is worth going down.
It could take until November 2018 to get the full story behind the U.S. bailout of insurance giant American International Group (AIG.N) because of an action taken last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most controversial aspect of the AIG bailout: the funneling of tens of billions of dollars to big banks like Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Merrill Lynch.
The SEC's Division of Corporation Finance, in granting AIG's request for confidential treatment, said the "excluded information" will not be made public until Nov. 25, 2018, according to a copy of the agency's May 22 order.
The SEC said the insurer had demonstrated the information in the exhibit, called Schedule A, "qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information."
The expiration date for the SEC order falls on the 10th anniversary of Federal Reserve of New York's decision to provide emergency financing to an entity set up to specifically acquire some $60 billion in collateralized debt obligations from 16 banks in the United States and Europe.
All the banks that got money from the Fed-sponsored entity -- Maiden Lane III -- had purchased insurance contracts, or credit default swaps, on those mortgage-related securities from AIG.
The SEC's decision to approve AIG's request for confidential treatment got scant attention at the time. But it could spark controversy now following the release last week of 14-month-old emails that reveal that some at the New York Fed had discussions with AIG officials about how much information should be disclosed to the public about the Maiden Lane III transaction.
The New York Fed, then led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, plays a critical role in the world of finance given its close dealings with all the major Wall Street banks, many of which were counterparties of AIG.
SEC spokesman John Nestor declined to comment on the reasons for granting AIG's request to treat the exhibit as confidential.
In a typical year, the SEC receives 1,500 requests from U.S. companies for confidential treatment for portions of regulatory filing, said Nestor. The agency grants those requests, "all or in part," 95 percent of the time, he said.
It's not clear what information is in the exhibit beyond a listing of the 16 banks that were beneficiaries of the Maiden Lane transaction. Last March, under pressure from Congress, AIG released the names of the banks that sold CDOs to Maiden Lane and how much money the banks got in the process.
When AIG filed the Schedule A exhibit with the SEC, it redacted the information it wanted to keep confidential, in anticipation regulators would approve its request.
The Fed's bailout of AIG long has been controversial because the banks that sold CDOs to Maiden Lane III were paid 100 percent of face value, even though many of the securities were worth substantially less at the time of the government bailout.
Last Thursday the furor over the Maiden Lane transaction was reignited after Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, released copies of emails detailing discussions between the New York Fed and AIG over how much information to disclose.
The emails have provided fresh ammunition for critics of Geithner. New York Fed General Counsel Thomas Baxter Jr. said in a letter to Issa's office that Geithner "played no role in, and had no knowledge of" the emails.
Issa, the highest-ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said the panel will soon hold hearings about how information was disclosed to the public about the Maiden Lane deal.
Issa's spokesman Kurt Bardella declined to comment on the SEC's handling of the AIG's confidentiality request.
But Issa, in a prepared statement, said "as much information as possible should be made available to Congress to review the details and decisions" regarding the payments.
The batch of emails released by Issa discussed the SEC's requests for more information about the exhibit that AIG wanted to keep secret. But the emails did not mention the SEC's decision to grant AIG's request for confidential treatment.
(Reporting by Matthew Goldstein; Editing by Gary Hill)
La délation est institutionnalisée au Rwanda,
CENTRE DE LUTTE CONTRE L’IMPUNITE
ET L’INJUSTICE AU RWANDA (CLIIR*)
Boulevard Léopold II,
n°227
La Haye, le 14 novembre 2009
1080 BRUXELLES
Tél/Fax : 0032.81.60.11.13
GSM : 0032.476.70.15.69
Mail : cliir2004@yahoo.fr
INTRODUCTION :
D’après le dictionnaire, la délation est une dénonciation intéressée et méprisable.
Un délateur est une personne qui pratique la délation, un dénonciateur. La délation dont nous parlons dans ce document est un système criminel mis en place par le régime du (FPR) Front Patriotique Rwandais pour calomnier et emprisonner des personnes innocentes. Ce régime a implanté au Rwanda des milliers de syndicats de délateurs directement recrutés, formés, protégés et financés par les agents de la DMI (Directorate of Military Intelligence).
Depuis juillet 1994 jusqu’à ce jour et sous l’actuel régime rwandais, des veufs, des orphelins, des militaires, des miliciens tutsi et des simples citoyens ont été sensibilisés (pour certains rescapés tutsis du génocide), forcés (pour d'autres rescapés hutus des massacres et des emprisonnements arbitraires), encouragés et sollicités pour se constituer en "associations ou syndicats de délateurs".
Ces "Syndicats de délateurs" sont couramment utilisés dans la constitution de faux témoignages et faux dossiers pour:
- permettre aux Forces Rwandaises de Défense (FRD) et la branche de renseignements
militaires "Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) à sévir contre tous les hutus en général (considérés comme des opposants et d’ennemis du nouveau régime) et plus particulièrement contre des "anciens opposants hutus" rescapés du génocide, des massacres, de la guerre et de la répression aveugle de l'Armée Patriotique Rwandaise APR.
- faciliter et favoriser les arrestations et détentions arbitraires (±90% des prisonniers rwandais n'ont pas fait l'objet d'une enquête préliminaire). Chaque militaire, policier ou milicien LDF (Local Defense Forces) (puisque le Front Patriotique Rwandais (FPR) les a créées aussi) est autorisé à arrêter et faire incarcérer des gens sans même les interroger ou les informer des motifs de leur arrestation. Les magistrats des Parquets n'ont aucun pouvoir de s'opposer à ces pratiques maffieux des militaires et policiers, des encadreurs politiques et miliciens du FPR présents et puissants dans les villes et les villages.
- permettre et faciliter la confiscation ou l'occupation illégale des biens appartenant aux personnes arrêtées injustement. Ce phénomène pousse aujourd'hui une bonne partie de hutus innocents et impuissants à s'exiler du pays et décourage la grande majorité de réfugiés hutus à retourner au Rwanda.
- Intimider et éliminer des éventuels et futurs opposants au nouveau régime de Paul Kagame.
Ce climat de délation, encouragé et entretenu par les détenteurs du "pouvoir occulte", est responsable de la terreur qui s'exerce sur tous les citoyens rwandais, les membres du Gouvernement, du Parlement, du Sénat et de la Magistrature sans "pouvoir réel". Toutes les "Institutions de l'Etat Rwandais” actuel (sauf les FRD) ne jouissent d'aucune autorité et souveraineté et restent noyautées et paralysées par les chefs militaires et politiques du FPR. Ces derniers sont impliqués dans les crimes de génocide et font l’objet de 40 mandats d’arrêt délivrés le 06/02/2008 par le juge espagnol Andreu Merelles et 9 mandats d’arrêt délivrés le 17/11/2006 par le juge antiterroriste français Jean Louis Bruguière. Au Rwanda l’impunité leur est assurée. Le "pouvoir réel" est détenu par un petit "noyau de chefs militaires et politiques et certains commerçants" extrémistes Tutsi qui n'ont qu'un seul objectif: garder le pouvoir et s’enrichir.
1) La délation avant le génocide d’avril à juillet 1994.
La délation a toujours servi comme une arme destinée à mâter les opposants depuis
l’époque féodo-monarchique. Souvent victimes de la délation et des intrigues que ce soit à la Cour Royale ou à la Présidence de la première ou de la deuxième république, les présumés opposants au régime en place étaient voués à la mort, à la prison ou à l’exil. Donc tous les régimes rwandais ont utilisé et exploité la délation comme une arme redoutable.
La plupart des 10.000 personnes présumées complices du FPR, arrêtées et emprisonnées
massivement en octobre 1990, furent victimes de la « délation ». Cette délation était souvent motivée par des règlements de compte, des cas de jalousies, la convoitise d’un emploi, etc…
2) Les syndicats de délateurs créés par le Front Patriotique Rwandais après Avril 1994:
En juillet 1994, après la victoire militaire du FPR et son arrivée au pouvoir, la délation a été institutionnalisée, utilisée, encouragée et entretenue par le « pouvoir occulte » des extrémistes tutsi dominé par un noyau dur de chefs militaires et politiques du FPR.
Dès avril 1994, les premiers noyaux de « syndicats de délateurs » ont apparu dans les
camps de rassemblement créés par le FPR pendant la guerre d’avril à juillet 1994. Des
personnes innocentes ainsi que leurs membres de familles furent accusés injustement,
enlevées et portées disparues. « Pointés du doigt », le mari, sa femme et leurs enfants disparaissaient sans laisser des traces après leur enlèvement par les militaires du FPR.
Entre septembre et novembre 1994, la mise en place de véritables syndicats de
délateurs tant au niveau national qu’international a été opérée par les extrémistes tutsi sur tout le territoire national et dans plusieurs pays occidentaux. Ces syndicats allaient compliquer le travail des magistrats courageux, honnêtes et consciencieux tant au Rwanda qu’à l’étranger.
La consolidation de ces syndicats de délateurs s’est accompagnée par une terrible
« épuration ethnique et politique de la Magistrature rwandaise ». Elle débuta par
l’enlèvement et la disparition du Président ad intérim du Tribunal de Première Instance de Kigali, Monsieur Gratien RUHORAHOZA le 5 octobre 1994 parce qu’il avait libéré des détenus dont les dossiers étaient tout à fait vides.
Plus de 40 magistrats hutu courageux et honnêtes furent ciblés (par des délateurs
manipulés par les extrémistes tutsi) et emprisonnés en vue de les museler et de les écarter. De nombreux détenus innocents libérés furent interceptés devant les prisons tandis que d’autres furent maintenus en prison par les militaires qui désobéissaient aux magistrats civils.
Les personnes libérées par les commissions de triage (mises en place par le Ministère de la Défense, celui de la Justice et celui de l’Intérieur) furent reprises, portées disparues ou assassinées chez eux quelques jours après leur libération. Ce fut notamment le cas de l’ancien Sous Préfet de RUHANGO, Placide KOLONI, assassiné puis brûlé chez lui avec sa femme, ses deux filles et leur domestique le 27 juillet 1995, soit trois jours après sa libération.
La Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) s’ingère dans le travail de la justice par des enquêtes et des arrestations arbitraires et illégales. Les listes de présumés génocidaires furent confectionnées et publiées sur instigation des agents de la DMI qui remplacent les Inspecteurs de la Police Judiciaire dans certaines juridictions du pays comme à BUTARE. Des dossiers manifestement vides se remplissent de faux et ridicules témoignages confectionnés par les syndicats de délateurs qui sévissent sur les collines et dans les villes.
3) Les délateurs expérimentés se transforment en acteurs de Cinéma
Au début en 1994, les délateurs étaient des amateurs qui bricolaient plus ou moins des mensonges, de fausses preuves pour calomnier des personnes désignées.
Aujourd’hui (15 ans après) les délateurs, qui ont grandi dans la culture du mensonge et qui ont acquis beaucoup d’expérience dans l’art de mentir, sont devenus de véritables acteurs de cinéma capables de jouer dans plusieurs spectacles «judiciaires». Depuis 15 ans, le régime FPR a imposé au peuple rwandais la culture du mensonge comme un «nouveau mode de vie». Devant toutes les juridictions du Rwanda que ce soit les tribunaux ordinaires ou les tribunaux GACACA, des citoyens Hutus sont victimes du «Mensonge collectif». Celui qui tente de démonter ce mensonge est exclu, persécuté, emprisonné, exilé, voire tué.
Si à Hollywood, l’industrie cinématographique a enrichi de nombreux acteurs de cinéma, au Rwanda c’est l’INDUSTRIE du GENOCIDE qui s’est développé durant ces 15 dernières années. Les délateurs bien expérimentés dans l’ART de MENTIR et de calomnier, sont très sollicités et utilisés dans les procès GACACA très expéditifs qui ne visent qu’à condamner un maximum de citoyens Hutus propriétaires de biens immobiliers et des propriétés terriens. Les propriétaires, MORTS ou VIFS sont condamnés sans état d’âme avec l’objectif immédiat de vendre aux enchères leurs biens pour soit disant « dédommager des rescapés Tutsis » qui prétendent souvent avoir été pillés pendant le génocide. Naturellement, les pillards sont des intellectuels et des hommes d’affaires Hutus qui seraient devenus tous des voleurs pendant le génocide. En réalité, la plupart des procès GACACA qui se tiennent aujourd’hui partout au Rwanda ne visent qu’à enrichir les dignitaires du régime FPR et les syndicats de délateurs qui facilitent les emprisonnements arbitraires des Hutus innocents. C’est cette façon de s’enrichir en spoliant les biens des Hutus innocents qui est qualifiée d’industrie du génocide rwandais. Cette industrie du génocide a déjà ruiné plusieurs familles Hutus, des veuves et des orphelins Hutus dont les maris et les parents ont été massacrés par le FPR au Rwanda et au Congo.
A l’aide des ventes aux enchères, leur héritage familial est volé par des dignitaires tutsis sous la couverture des tribunaux GACACA détournés, depuis 2002, de leur mission principal:
rétablir la vérité et réconcilier les rwandais (voir Communiqué n°80/2005 du CLIIR).
Cette « industrie du génocide rwandais », sous couvert des tribunaux GACACA, a permis au régime FPR de raffiner sa politique génocidaire contre des citoyens innocents. L’industrie du génocide a transformé les GACACA en un système d’escroquerie collective réglementée par des juges mercenaires, des huissiers de justice, des policiers et des autorités administratives et judiciaires du Rwanda.
A leur tour, ces autorités rwandaises, qui se sont constitués dans de véritables bandes de gangsters, s’organisent pour localiser des immeubles, des propriétés terriens appartenant à des Hutus innocents qui sont ensuite convoqués, jugés, condamnés et emprisonnés à l’issue de faux procès Gacaca. A l’aide des ventes aux enchères, ces autorités ont déjà ruiné des dizaines de milliers de familles Hutu.
Pour des familles ou des rwandais Hutus exilés à l’étranger, les tribunaux GACACA les
condamnent systématiquement à perpétuité et vendent aux enchères immédiatement leurs
maisons et propriétés terriens. Les acheteurs ne paient pas la valeur réelle des biens car l’objectif poursuivit par les autorités rwandaises est d’appauvrir les Hutus innocents en s’appropriant de leurs biens L’argent provenant de la vente des maisons est distribué officiellement aux victimes Tutsis du génocide et officieusement les juges GACACA et les autorités locales se partagent un certain montant. Parfois, les juges GACACA inventent un faux dossier contre un riche propriétaire Hutu et l’invitent (par l’intermédiaire d’un ami) à se racheter à coup de millions de Francs rwandais. Lorsque des parents ont leurs enfants en Europe, ils deviennent de véritables vaches laitières pour les autorités administratives et judiciaires.
Pour faire prospérer l’industrie du génocide, les tribunaux GACACA ont subit une terrible épuration ethnique. En effet plus de 45.000 juges Gacaca élus par la population en 2002, ont été disqualifiés par les autorités rwandaises qui les ont tout simplement ajoutés sur les listes noires des présumés génocidaires Hutus. Après cette épuration ethnique, les tribunaux GACACA ont été à leur tour noyautés, contrôlés et paralysés par les agents de la DMI qui les administrent officieusement.
Ainsi, lorsqu’un Hutu honnête est acquitté par le tribunal de son lieu de résidence, les agents de la DMI, infiltrés dans le Service National des Juridictions GACACA (SNJG), s’arrangent pour déplacer les juges Gacaca d’une autre juridiction pour venir le condamner en intimidant ou en refusant d’écouter les témoins à décharge. A l’issue de plusieurs procès GACACA, des témoins à décharge ont été condamnés eux-mêmes à des peines de prison comprises entre 3 mois et 30 ans (Voir le cas du commerçant Thomas KANYANGOGA de Kayonza, Kibungo dans la province de l’Est dont 9 témoins à décharge ont été emprisonnés et d’autres mis en fuite). L’élection de ces personnes intègres a permis au Régime FPR d’identifier des Hutus honnêtes et connus pour leur intégrité morale afin de les neutraliser, de les assassiner ou les emprisonner arbitrairement.
4) Des délateurs parmi les agents et les hautes autorités de l’Etat :
On trouve les délateurs professionnels parmi les agents de l’Etat, les simples citoyens et parmis les plus hautes autorités du pays. L’on peut relever le discours incendiaire de Kibeho prononcé par l’ancien président de la république, M. Pasteur BIZIMUNGU, qui proposait le 7 avril 1999 que l’évêque de Gikongoro, Mgr Augustin MISAGO soit exilé car il n’avait pas pu empêché les massacres dans son diocèse. Il fut arrêté le 14/04/1999 et passa une année en prison d’où il fut libéré le 15 juin 2000. Rappelons également le procès intenté contre le Lieutenant Colonel Patrick KAREGEYA grâce à l’intervention d’un « délateur spécial », le général KABAREBE qui joua le rôle d’unique délateur dans ce procès.
5) Des juges GACACA sombrent dans la délation institutionnalisée :
Dans plusieurs procès GACACA, les syndicats de délateurs ont pris le dessus et semblent s’imposer partout au Rwanda. Lorsqu’on examine plusieurs procès, on est choqué de constater la complaisance permanente des responsables du Service National des Juridictions GACACA (SNJG) supervisé par Madame Domithille MUKANTAGANZWA, une femme juriste dont le mari fut longtemps le maire de la Préfecture de la Ville de Kigali, Capitale du Rwanda.
Chaque fois qu’une juridiction GACACA locale juge normal d’acquitter un intellectuel, un religieux ou un commerçant Hutu calomnié par un groupe de délateurs, le SNJG intervient pour imposer un nouveau procès avec une équipe itinérante des juges Gacaca soumis au diktat de la DMI.
Les cas sont très nombreux :
· L’Abbé Joseph NDAGIJIMANA, curé de la paroisse Byimana vient de passer plus de 14
ans en prison alors qu’il est connu comme un prêtre juste qui a sauvé, nourri, évacué et caché des centaines de personnes menacées de mort pendant les massacres d’avril à juillet 1994. Son procès Gacaca est le plus long puisqu’il a commencé le 1er septembre 2005. Ce juste a fait l’objet de plus de 10 (dix) communiqués du Centre de Lutte contre l’Impunité et l’Injustice au Rwanda. Il a été acquitté le 26 Août 2009 mais le SNJG est intervenu pour le maintenir en prison. Il a écrit en vain au président de la République et attend toujours la réponse. Son petit frère et sa soeur ont été récemment condamnés par le Gacaca à l’aide d’un syndicat de délateurs de Gitarama (actuel district de Muhanga)..
Le Docteur NIYITEGEKA Théoneste est un ancien candidat aux élections présidentielles de 2003 et opposant politique au président Paul KAGAME. Ce dernier lui a concocté un procès GACACA qui l’a condamné à 15 ans de prison grâce à un seul « délateur spécial » envoyé par la présidence de la république rwandaise. Il avait été acquitté à deux reprises par le tribunal Gacaca de son lieu de résidence (Gahogo) dans la ville de Gitarama.
Nous pouvons citer plusieurs cas où les délateurs ont monopolisé la parole et ou les témoins à décharge ont été intimidés, chassés ou humiliés par les juges Gacaca soumis au pouvoir exécutif. Citons entre autres quelques cas : Eugène NGABWA condamné à 25 ans de prison alors qu’il est lui-même un rescapé du génocide. Il a perdu sa femme tutsi et ses trois enfants pendant les massacres d’avril à juillet 1994. Il est en prison pour rien. Le professeur RUNYINYA Barabwiliza est détenu pendant 15 ans. Son épouse est morte après avoir été détenue longtemps dans un container chauffé au soleil à Kigali. Récemment il a été traduit devant le tribunal Gacaca à Kigali où aucun crime n’a pu être établi à sa charge. Mais les juges l’ont placé sur la liste des plus grands planificateurs.
D’autres intellectuels et commerçants hutu innocents ont été condamnés arbitrairement
par les tribunaux GACACA :
Aloys MUJYABWAMI (de Cyangugu), le docteur vétérinaire Ambroise CYUBAHIRO (de Nyanza), ainsi que plusieurs médecins de Butare qui ont été condamné le 5/09/2007. Des députés et des sénateurs tels que SAFARI Stanley, Elie BISENGIMANA, l’ancien président du Parlement Rwandais, Alfred MUKEZAMFURA, la sénatrice Béatrice NIRERE, le député Etienne MAGALI, etc..
Des intellectuels Hutus connus pour leur intégrité sont condamnés arbitrairement : Le
matin du 07/10/2009, ce fut le tour de l’ancienne Maire adjointe, Mme Domina
NYIRAKABANO, 51 ans, d’être à nouveau déposée dans la prison mouroir de Gitarama
(Muhanga). Le tribunal Gacaca de Takwe à 50km de Nyabikenke, l’a condamnée à 30 ans de prison, et plus. Selon l’accusation préfabriquée, elle et 4 autres intellectuels innocents (les enseignants: NSENGIYUMVA Léon, GASIRINGI Joseph, PFUKAMADUSENGE
Christiane, RUTIHUNZA Emile) auraient, de passage à Takwe en 94, suggéré à des
délinquants postés sur un barrage génocidaire de tuer Mr Nkinahe, un natif de Takwe migré et marié à Nyabikenke, voire assez proche de la famille de Domina. Mr Nkinahe est hélas l’une des premières victimes du génocide de Rwandais en 94. Et il aurait été tué à Takwe. Mais Domina n’a jamais mis ses pieds à Takwe.
Plusieurs personnalités rwandaises et de nombreuses organisations des
droits humains n’ont jamais cessé de dénoncer « la délation institutionnalisée au Rwanda » :
1) Témoignage de l’ancien Ministre de la Justice, Faustin NTEZILYAYO in Dialogue
n°213 de novembre-décembre 1999 dans son article « Enlisement du système judiciaire et dérive des droits humains au Rwanda » :
…… « Une question préoccupante touchant directement la justice et les droits humains est celle des arrestations et détentions arbitraires prolongées sans aucun respect des normes et procédures guidant la détention provisoire.
En effet, avec l’arrivée au pouvoir du régime en place à Kigali, en juillet 1994,
plusieurs personnes ont été arrêtées sur simple dénonciation par des autorités militaires et administratives (ne possédant aucune qualité légale en matière d’arrestation et de détention provisoire) et accusées de participation au génocide et autres crimes commis en 1994.
Aucune instance judiciaire n’existait alors.
Dans cette confusion générale, la délation a pris le dessus et plusieurs personnes ont été jetées en prison par des gens voulant les évincer des postes qu’elles occupaient dans l’administration publique ou dans la société civile ou pour s’arroger leurs propriétés ou poussées par la vengeance ou des règlements de compte. Le pouvoir militaro-politique en a profité aussi pour incarcérer les personnes qu’il considérait comme opposants politiques ».
…….. Un autre exemple de la violation du principe de la présomption d’innocence est
illustrée par des dispositions prévoyant la confection, avant jugement, de la liste des personnes rangées dans la première catégorie des personnes poursuivies pour crime de génocide et d’autres crimes contre l’humanité commis au Rwanda. … Force est de constater toutefois que la confection de cette liste a plus servi à un agenda politique d’éliminer les personnalités de l’ancien régime considérées comme opposants politiques ou d’autres personnes ayant une certaine influence au sein de la société civile qu’à l’avancement des poursuites en permettant d’identifier les vrais responsables du drame rwandais. La conséquence de ces lois injustes a été le maintien en détention des personnes qui, pour la plupart, viennent de passer plus de cinq ans en prison sans qu’aucune charge ne soit portée contre elles……….
De fait, les différentes tentatives de faire la lumière sur ces dossiers ont échoué, tant les autorités militaires et administratives qui ont procédé à ces arrestations et détentions, actionnant la branche extrémiste du mouvement des rescapés, ont bloqué toutes les mesures visant à libérer les personnes contre qui ne pesait aucune charge……… Ainsi certaines personnes libérées suite au non-lieu décidé par les magistrats de Parquet, ont été par la suite victimes de meurtres et d’assassinats, emportant souvent aussi un grand nombre des membres de leur famille……….
……..Une illustration en est donnée par la pratique des magistrats du Parquet de mener des enquêtes seulement à charge du prévenu, sans possibilité de confrontation entre le prévenu et le témoin. Il en est de même des représailles à l’égard des avocats de la défense qui ont abandonné l’assistance des personnes accusées suite à l’enlèvement et à la disparition d’un de leurs collègues ». Rappel : L’avocat Innocent MURENGEZI fut porté disparu en février 1997 quelques jours seulement avant l’assassinat du Président du Conseil d’Etat, Monsieur Vincent NKEZABAGANWA, mitraillé chez lui le 14 février 1997 vers 19h et achevé à la baïonnette par des militaires APR qui se sont proposés pour le conduire au Centre Hospitalier de Kigali (CHK) où sa femme le retrouva tout nu et le ventre ouvert à la morgue une demi heure plus tard. Les habits et les militaires sont restés introuvables ! Aucun médecin n’avait vu le cadavre.
2) Témoignage de Human Rights Watch et la FIDH dans leur rapport d’Avril 1995
« Rwanda, persistance de l’état de crise » :
« Un nombre important de dénonciations repose sur de faux témoignages, motivés
par l’espoir de gains personnels (…), par la rivalité politique, ou par des règlements de compte personnels. Human Rights Watch et la Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme ont appris qu’un groupe de personnes à Butare, qui ont survécu au génocide, sert d’ « accusateurs sur demande » pour d’autres lorsque ces dernières souhaitent faire emprisonner quelqu’un. Le Collectif rwandais des Ligues et Associations des Droits de l’Homme (CLADHO) a signalé la même activité dans d’autres parties du pays. Le Ministre de la justice et le Procureur de Kigali ont affirmé qu’ils sont convaincus que 20% des prisonniers sont détenus sans aucune charge pour les poursuivre. De nombreux cas ont été signalés à Human Rights Watch et à la FIDH où des accusations apparaissent absolument dénuées de tout fondement …».
3) Le Centre de Lutte contre l’Impunité et l’Injustice au Rwanda a publié plusieurs
Dossiers et communiqués sur les « syndicats de délateurs » depuis mai 1996 (Voir « lesSyndicats de délateurs » Mai 1997). Lundi 23 avril 2001, devant la Cour d’Assises de Bruxelles, le Coordinateur du Centre, Joseph MATATA, a témoigné pendant environ une heure sur l’existence et le nocivité des « syndicats de délateurs » entretenus et exploités à des fins socio-politiques et socio-économiques par les détenteurs du « pouvoir occulte » de Kigali.
Les principaux Syndicats de délateurs oeuvrant dans les pays occidentaux et manipulés par les membres et propagandistes du FPR:
La carte et la liste des principaux Associations proches du FPR et faisant partie du
principal réseau extrémiste du FPR en Europe a été diffusée par le Bulletin de liaisons Rwanda N°3 octobre-novembre 1995 et n°5 avril 1996 dans sa publication interne du réseau.
Nous énumérons ici celles qui ont été les plus actives dans la délation et la diabolisation aveugle contre des intellectuels hutu réfugiés un peu partout en Europe :
L’organisation londonienne AFRICAN RIGHTS, a récemment fait arrêter l’abbé
Emmanuel UWAYEZU, un prêtre hutu résidant en Italie. Ce prêtre serait accusé de n’avoir pas pu protéger plus de 80 élèves du groupe scolaire Marie Merci de Kibeho dont il était directeur en avril 1994. La directrice d’African Rights, Mme Rakiya Omar, est la seule militante des droits humains qui est tolérée par le régime du président Paul KAGAME au moment où feu Madame Alison Desforges n’étaient plus autorisée à se rendre au Rwanda.
Plus de 40 militants rwandais des droits humains et membres du CLADHO (Collectif des
Ligues et Associations de défense des Droits de l’Homme au Rwanda) ont été contraints de s’exiler. Cette organisation animée par la somalienne RAKIYA Omar, s’illustra dans ses publications sur le génocide rwandais notamment par son premier rapport d’environ 1000 pages «Death, Despair and Defiance » version de Septembre 1994. Après s’être fait remarquer par les chefs militaires de la DMI (Directorate of Military Intelligence), elle remania le même rapport et le rediffusa en Août 1995 avec une autre version. Ainsi, les démocrates hutu présumés tués par la milice Hutu dans son édition de septembre 1994 deviennent de « sauvages génocidaires et extrémistes hutu » dans la nouvelle édition d’Août 1995. Depuis que RAKIYA Omar a accepté de servir les intérêts des extrémistes tutsi, elle s’est attaqué à plusieurs intellectuels hutu notamment ceux qui venaient d’occuper des postes intéressants dans les Universités et les ONG internationales.
C’est ainsi que AFRICAN RIGHTS s’attaqua à :
- Monsieur Innocent MAZIMPAKA, ancien Président de la Ligue Rwandaise pour la
Promotion des Droits de l’homme (LIPRODHOR), qui était devenu Coordinateur de SNV
(une ONG Hollandaise) au Bénin. Il est décédé au Bénin;
- Le Docteur Sosthène MUNYEMANA (ancien habitant de Tumba à Butare) fut attaqué et
présenté comme « le boucher de Tumba : en liberté en France » par African Rights dans son magazine WITNESS, Issue 2, de février 1996. L’Université de Bordeaux, qui l’avait engagé dans son projet sur le SIDA, fut contraint de le licencier suite à cette campagne.
- Le Docteur Pierre MUGABO (ancien habitant de Butare) fut attaqué et présenté comme un génocidaire parce qu’il venait d’être embauché par l’University of Naïrobi de décembre 1994 à février 1997. Il a été lui aussi récemment la cible d’une virulente campagne médiatique en Afrique du Sud où il est professeur à l’University of Western Cape depuis février 1997.
- Le Professeur Mathias CYAMUKUNGU (ancien habitant de Butare) fut lui aussi attaqué
par African Rights dans la seconde édition d’Août 1995 où plusieurs intellectuels et
professeurs hutu de l’Université Nationale du Rwanda furent la cible de cette organisation 8 londonienne qui s’est mise à faire de la délation pour le compte de la DMI et les délateurs rwandais.
- Le représentant d’African Rights, Monsieur Théodore NYILINKWAYA, n’a pas hésité
à exposé les employés de la COFORWA (Compagnie des Fontainiers du Rwanda de l’Abbé
BOURGUET) en les dénonçant aux militaires APR qui venaient eux-mêmes d’assassiner le
représentant légal de COFORWA, Jean Baptiste NGIRABATWARE, tué dans la soirée du 5
juillet 1997 avec sa femme et ses cinq enfants. Ce représentant d’African Rights a livré aux militaires le fax qui expliquait cet assassinat pour leur permettre de traquer celui qui l’avait rédigé. Cet ancien employé de COFORWA est aujourd’hui réfugié en France.
- African Rights a menti dans le dossier de Soeur GERTRUDE et Soeur KIZITO puisque
l’Adjudant Chef REKERAHO a nié avoir rencontré un enquêteur de cette organisation. Cela veut dire qu’African Rights a répercuté des éléments d’enquête réalisés par quelqu’un d’autre.
- Le Général de Brigade Léonidas RUSATIRA fut un ex-FAR qui a sauvé plusieurs
dizaines de familles tutsi pendant le génocide de 1994. Dans son dernier rapport « Livrés à la mort à l’ETO (Ecole Technique Officielle de Kicukiro) et à Nyanza » de 112 pages publié le 11/04/2001 sur les histoires de civils rwandais abandonnés par des troupes de l’ONU le 11 avril 1994, African Rights s’attaque à cet officier reconnu comme un héros et un homme juste qui a utilisé tous les moyens à sa disposition pour sauver les personnes menacées.
- Amnesty International fut attaqué par African Rights dans son livre de 263 pages publié sur « l’insurrection dans le Nord-Ouest du Rwanda » le 22 septembre 1998. Sur plusieurs pages African Rights accuse cette organisation très crédible de publier des fausses informations sur les massacres de civils non armés commis par l’APR dans cette région. Ces accusations ressemblaient exactement à celles du Gouvernement rwandais contre Amnesty International.
- Mgr André SIBOMANA fut un ancien Directeur du journal catholique Kinyamateka
lauréat de Reporter Sans Frontières (RSF) (très critique contre toutes les dictatures) et Président de l’ADL (Association Rwandaise pour la défense des Droits de l’homme et des Libertés publiques). Il s’est fait attaqué par Rakiya Omar grâce aux manipulations des extrémistes tutsi. Le Rapport de RSF, qui a enquêté sur son Lauréat, a rétabli la vérité sur son innocence dans le génocide.
D’autres associations qui furent très actives dans les années 1996 à 2002 se sont essoufflées petit à petit. Mais elles ont été très nocives car elles s’attaquent systématiquement aux réfugiés rwandais exilés en Europe, au Canada ou aux USA non pas souvent pour les crimes qu’ils auraient commis, mais parce qu’ils sont nés Hutus.
Les réfugiés rwandais ne sont pas dangereux, ils sont en danger et victimes d’une chasse à l’homme qui ne semble pas prendre fin.
La délation est la plus vieille arme de toutes les dictatures. Elle a beaucoup servi sous les régimes soviétiques (sous Lénine et Staline) et les dictatures militaires de l’Amérique Latine, en Afrique, en Asie et partout dans le monde où l’absence de démocratie impose la violation permanente des droits humains et des libertés publiques.
La Haye le 14 novembre 2009,
MATATA Joseph, Coordinateur du CLIIR.
CLIIR* : Le Centre de Lutte contre l’Impunité et l’Injustice au Rwanda est une association de défense des droits humains basée en Belgique, créée le 18 août 1995. Ses membres sont des militants des droits humains de longue date. Certains ont été actifs au sein d’associations rwandaises de défense des droits humains et ont participé à l’enquête CLADHO/Kanyarwanda sur le génocide de 1994. Lorsqu’ils ont commencé à enquêter sur les crimes du régime rwandais actuel, ils ont subi des menaces et ont été contraints de s’exiler à l’étranger où ils poursuivent leur engagement en faveur des droits humains.
ET L’INJUSTICE AU RWANDA (CLIIR*)
Boulevard Léopold II,
n°227
La Haye, le 14 novembre 2009
1080 BRUXELLES
Tél/Fax : 0032.81.60.11.13
GSM : 0032.476.70.15.69
Mail : cliir2004@yahoo.fr
INTRODUCTION :
D’après le dictionnaire, la délation est une dénonciation intéressée et méprisable.
Un délateur est une personne qui pratique la délation, un dénonciateur. La délation dont nous parlons dans ce document est un système criminel mis en place par le régime du (FPR) Front Patriotique Rwandais pour calomnier et emprisonner des personnes innocentes. Ce régime a implanté au Rwanda des milliers de syndicats de délateurs directement recrutés, formés, protégés et financés par les agents de la DMI (Directorate of Military Intelligence).
Depuis juillet 1994 jusqu’à ce jour et sous l’actuel régime rwandais, des veufs, des orphelins, des militaires, des miliciens tutsi et des simples citoyens ont été sensibilisés (pour certains rescapés tutsis du génocide), forcés (pour d'autres rescapés hutus des massacres et des emprisonnements arbitraires), encouragés et sollicités pour se constituer en "associations ou syndicats de délateurs".
Ces "Syndicats de délateurs" sont couramment utilisés dans la constitution de faux témoignages et faux dossiers pour:
- permettre aux Forces Rwandaises de Défense (FRD) et la branche de renseignements
militaires "Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) à sévir contre tous les hutus en général (considérés comme des opposants et d’ennemis du nouveau régime) et plus particulièrement contre des "anciens opposants hutus" rescapés du génocide, des massacres, de la guerre et de la répression aveugle de l'Armée Patriotique Rwandaise APR.
- faciliter et favoriser les arrestations et détentions arbitraires (±90% des prisonniers rwandais n'ont pas fait l'objet d'une enquête préliminaire). Chaque militaire, policier ou milicien LDF (Local Defense Forces) (puisque le Front Patriotique Rwandais (FPR) les a créées aussi) est autorisé à arrêter et faire incarcérer des gens sans même les interroger ou les informer des motifs de leur arrestation. Les magistrats des Parquets n'ont aucun pouvoir de s'opposer à ces pratiques maffieux des militaires et policiers, des encadreurs politiques et miliciens du FPR présents et puissants dans les villes et les villages.
- permettre et faciliter la confiscation ou l'occupation illégale des biens appartenant aux personnes arrêtées injustement. Ce phénomène pousse aujourd'hui une bonne partie de hutus innocents et impuissants à s'exiler du pays et décourage la grande majorité de réfugiés hutus à retourner au Rwanda.
- Intimider et éliminer des éventuels et futurs opposants au nouveau régime de Paul Kagame.
Ce climat de délation, encouragé et entretenu par les détenteurs du "pouvoir occulte", est responsable de la terreur qui s'exerce sur tous les citoyens rwandais, les membres du Gouvernement, du Parlement, du Sénat et de la Magistrature sans "pouvoir réel". Toutes les "Institutions de l'Etat Rwandais” actuel (sauf les FRD) ne jouissent d'aucune autorité et souveraineté et restent noyautées et paralysées par les chefs militaires et politiques du FPR. Ces derniers sont impliqués dans les crimes de génocide et font l’objet de 40 mandats d’arrêt délivrés le 06/02/2008 par le juge espagnol Andreu Merelles et 9 mandats d’arrêt délivrés le 17/11/2006 par le juge antiterroriste français Jean Louis Bruguière. Au Rwanda l’impunité leur est assurée. Le "pouvoir réel" est détenu par un petit "noyau de chefs militaires et politiques et certains commerçants" extrémistes Tutsi qui n'ont qu'un seul objectif: garder le pouvoir et s’enrichir.
1) La délation avant le génocide d’avril à juillet 1994.
La délation a toujours servi comme une arme destinée à mâter les opposants depuis
l’époque féodo-monarchique. Souvent victimes de la délation et des intrigues que ce soit à la Cour Royale ou à la Présidence de la première ou de la deuxième république, les présumés opposants au régime en place étaient voués à la mort, à la prison ou à l’exil. Donc tous les régimes rwandais ont utilisé et exploité la délation comme une arme redoutable.
La plupart des 10.000 personnes présumées complices du FPR, arrêtées et emprisonnées
massivement en octobre 1990, furent victimes de la « délation ». Cette délation était souvent motivée par des règlements de compte, des cas de jalousies, la convoitise d’un emploi, etc…
2) Les syndicats de délateurs créés par le Front Patriotique Rwandais après Avril 1994:
En juillet 1994, après la victoire militaire du FPR et son arrivée au pouvoir, la délation a été institutionnalisée, utilisée, encouragée et entretenue par le « pouvoir occulte » des extrémistes tutsi dominé par un noyau dur de chefs militaires et politiques du FPR.
Dès avril 1994, les premiers noyaux de « syndicats de délateurs » ont apparu dans les
camps de rassemblement créés par le FPR pendant la guerre d’avril à juillet 1994. Des
personnes innocentes ainsi que leurs membres de familles furent accusés injustement,
enlevées et portées disparues. « Pointés du doigt », le mari, sa femme et leurs enfants disparaissaient sans laisser des traces après leur enlèvement par les militaires du FPR.
Entre septembre et novembre 1994, la mise en place de véritables syndicats de
délateurs tant au niveau national qu’international a été opérée par les extrémistes tutsi sur tout le territoire national et dans plusieurs pays occidentaux. Ces syndicats allaient compliquer le travail des magistrats courageux, honnêtes et consciencieux tant au Rwanda qu’à l’étranger.
La consolidation de ces syndicats de délateurs s’est accompagnée par une terrible
« épuration ethnique et politique de la Magistrature rwandaise ». Elle débuta par
l’enlèvement et la disparition du Président ad intérim du Tribunal de Première Instance de Kigali, Monsieur Gratien RUHORAHOZA le 5 octobre 1994 parce qu’il avait libéré des détenus dont les dossiers étaient tout à fait vides.
Plus de 40 magistrats hutu courageux et honnêtes furent ciblés (par des délateurs
manipulés par les extrémistes tutsi) et emprisonnés en vue de les museler et de les écarter. De nombreux détenus innocents libérés furent interceptés devant les prisons tandis que d’autres furent maintenus en prison par les militaires qui désobéissaient aux magistrats civils.
Les personnes libérées par les commissions de triage (mises en place par le Ministère de la Défense, celui de la Justice et celui de l’Intérieur) furent reprises, portées disparues ou assassinées chez eux quelques jours après leur libération. Ce fut notamment le cas de l’ancien Sous Préfet de RUHANGO, Placide KOLONI, assassiné puis brûlé chez lui avec sa femme, ses deux filles et leur domestique le 27 juillet 1995, soit trois jours après sa libération.
La Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) s’ingère dans le travail de la justice par des enquêtes et des arrestations arbitraires et illégales. Les listes de présumés génocidaires furent confectionnées et publiées sur instigation des agents de la DMI qui remplacent les Inspecteurs de la Police Judiciaire dans certaines juridictions du pays comme à BUTARE. Des dossiers manifestement vides se remplissent de faux et ridicules témoignages confectionnés par les syndicats de délateurs qui sévissent sur les collines et dans les villes.
3) Les délateurs expérimentés se transforment en acteurs de Cinéma
Au début en 1994, les délateurs étaient des amateurs qui bricolaient plus ou moins des mensonges, de fausses preuves pour calomnier des personnes désignées.
Aujourd’hui (15 ans après) les délateurs, qui ont grandi dans la culture du mensonge et qui ont acquis beaucoup d’expérience dans l’art de mentir, sont devenus de véritables acteurs de cinéma capables de jouer dans plusieurs spectacles «judiciaires». Depuis 15 ans, le régime FPR a imposé au peuple rwandais la culture du mensonge comme un «nouveau mode de vie». Devant toutes les juridictions du Rwanda que ce soit les tribunaux ordinaires ou les tribunaux GACACA, des citoyens Hutus sont victimes du «Mensonge collectif». Celui qui tente de démonter ce mensonge est exclu, persécuté, emprisonné, exilé, voire tué.
Si à Hollywood, l’industrie cinématographique a enrichi de nombreux acteurs de cinéma, au Rwanda c’est l’INDUSTRIE du GENOCIDE qui s’est développé durant ces 15 dernières années. Les délateurs bien expérimentés dans l’ART de MENTIR et de calomnier, sont très sollicités et utilisés dans les procès GACACA très expéditifs qui ne visent qu’à condamner un maximum de citoyens Hutus propriétaires de biens immobiliers et des propriétés terriens. Les propriétaires, MORTS ou VIFS sont condamnés sans état d’âme avec l’objectif immédiat de vendre aux enchères leurs biens pour soit disant « dédommager des rescapés Tutsis » qui prétendent souvent avoir été pillés pendant le génocide. Naturellement, les pillards sont des intellectuels et des hommes d’affaires Hutus qui seraient devenus tous des voleurs pendant le génocide. En réalité, la plupart des procès GACACA qui se tiennent aujourd’hui partout au Rwanda ne visent qu’à enrichir les dignitaires du régime FPR et les syndicats de délateurs qui facilitent les emprisonnements arbitraires des Hutus innocents. C’est cette façon de s’enrichir en spoliant les biens des Hutus innocents qui est qualifiée d’industrie du génocide rwandais. Cette industrie du génocide a déjà ruiné plusieurs familles Hutus, des veuves et des orphelins Hutus dont les maris et les parents ont été massacrés par le FPR au Rwanda et au Congo.
A l’aide des ventes aux enchères, leur héritage familial est volé par des dignitaires tutsis sous la couverture des tribunaux GACACA détournés, depuis 2002, de leur mission principal:
rétablir la vérité et réconcilier les rwandais (voir Communiqué n°80/2005 du CLIIR).
Cette « industrie du génocide rwandais », sous couvert des tribunaux GACACA, a permis au régime FPR de raffiner sa politique génocidaire contre des citoyens innocents. L’industrie du génocide a transformé les GACACA en un système d’escroquerie collective réglementée par des juges mercenaires, des huissiers de justice, des policiers et des autorités administratives et judiciaires du Rwanda.
A leur tour, ces autorités rwandaises, qui se sont constitués dans de véritables bandes de gangsters, s’organisent pour localiser des immeubles, des propriétés terriens appartenant à des Hutus innocents qui sont ensuite convoqués, jugés, condamnés et emprisonnés à l’issue de faux procès Gacaca. A l’aide des ventes aux enchères, ces autorités ont déjà ruiné des dizaines de milliers de familles Hutu.
Pour des familles ou des rwandais Hutus exilés à l’étranger, les tribunaux GACACA les
condamnent systématiquement à perpétuité et vendent aux enchères immédiatement leurs
maisons et propriétés terriens. Les acheteurs ne paient pas la valeur réelle des biens car l’objectif poursuivit par les autorités rwandaises est d’appauvrir les Hutus innocents en s’appropriant de leurs biens L’argent provenant de la vente des maisons est distribué officiellement aux victimes Tutsis du génocide et officieusement les juges GACACA et les autorités locales se partagent un certain montant. Parfois, les juges GACACA inventent un faux dossier contre un riche propriétaire Hutu et l’invitent (par l’intermédiaire d’un ami) à se racheter à coup de millions de Francs rwandais. Lorsque des parents ont leurs enfants en Europe, ils deviennent de véritables vaches laitières pour les autorités administratives et judiciaires.
Pour faire prospérer l’industrie du génocide, les tribunaux GACACA ont subit une terrible épuration ethnique. En effet plus de 45.000 juges Gacaca élus par la population en 2002, ont été disqualifiés par les autorités rwandaises qui les ont tout simplement ajoutés sur les listes noires des présumés génocidaires Hutus. Après cette épuration ethnique, les tribunaux GACACA ont été à leur tour noyautés, contrôlés et paralysés par les agents de la DMI qui les administrent officieusement.
Ainsi, lorsqu’un Hutu honnête est acquitté par le tribunal de son lieu de résidence, les agents de la DMI, infiltrés dans le Service National des Juridictions GACACA (SNJG), s’arrangent pour déplacer les juges Gacaca d’une autre juridiction pour venir le condamner en intimidant ou en refusant d’écouter les témoins à décharge. A l’issue de plusieurs procès GACACA, des témoins à décharge ont été condamnés eux-mêmes à des peines de prison comprises entre 3 mois et 30 ans (Voir le cas du commerçant Thomas KANYANGOGA de Kayonza, Kibungo dans la province de l’Est dont 9 témoins à décharge ont été emprisonnés et d’autres mis en fuite). L’élection de ces personnes intègres a permis au Régime FPR d’identifier des Hutus honnêtes et connus pour leur intégrité morale afin de les neutraliser, de les assassiner ou les emprisonner arbitrairement.
4) Des délateurs parmi les agents et les hautes autorités de l’Etat :
On trouve les délateurs professionnels parmi les agents de l’Etat, les simples citoyens et parmis les plus hautes autorités du pays. L’on peut relever le discours incendiaire de Kibeho prononcé par l’ancien président de la république, M. Pasteur BIZIMUNGU, qui proposait le 7 avril 1999 que l’évêque de Gikongoro, Mgr Augustin MISAGO soit exilé car il n’avait pas pu empêché les massacres dans son diocèse. Il fut arrêté le 14/04/1999 et passa une année en prison d’où il fut libéré le 15 juin 2000. Rappelons également le procès intenté contre le Lieutenant Colonel Patrick KAREGEYA grâce à l’intervention d’un « délateur spécial », le général KABAREBE qui joua le rôle d’unique délateur dans ce procès.
5) Des juges GACACA sombrent dans la délation institutionnalisée :
Dans plusieurs procès GACACA, les syndicats de délateurs ont pris le dessus et semblent s’imposer partout au Rwanda. Lorsqu’on examine plusieurs procès, on est choqué de constater la complaisance permanente des responsables du Service National des Juridictions GACACA (SNJG) supervisé par Madame Domithille MUKANTAGANZWA, une femme juriste dont le mari fut longtemps le maire de la Préfecture de la Ville de Kigali, Capitale du Rwanda.
Chaque fois qu’une juridiction GACACA locale juge normal d’acquitter un intellectuel, un religieux ou un commerçant Hutu calomnié par un groupe de délateurs, le SNJG intervient pour imposer un nouveau procès avec une équipe itinérante des juges Gacaca soumis au diktat de la DMI.
Les cas sont très nombreux :
· L’Abbé Joseph NDAGIJIMANA, curé de la paroisse Byimana vient de passer plus de 14
ans en prison alors qu’il est connu comme un prêtre juste qui a sauvé, nourri, évacué et caché des centaines de personnes menacées de mort pendant les massacres d’avril à juillet 1994. Son procès Gacaca est le plus long puisqu’il a commencé le 1er septembre 2005. Ce juste a fait l’objet de plus de 10 (dix) communiqués du Centre de Lutte contre l’Impunité et l’Injustice au Rwanda. Il a été acquitté le 26 Août 2009 mais le SNJG est intervenu pour le maintenir en prison. Il a écrit en vain au président de la République et attend toujours la réponse. Son petit frère et sa soeur ont été récemment condamnés par le Gacaca à l’aide d’un syndicat de délateurs de Gitarama (actuel district de Muhanga)..
Le Docteur NIYITEGEKA Théoneste est un ancien candidat aux élections présidentielles de 2003 et opposant politique au président Paul KAGAME. Ce dernier lui a concocté un procès GACACA qui l’a condamné à 15 ans de prison grâce à un seul « délateur spécial » envoyé par la présidence de la république rwandaise. Il avait été acquitté à deux reprises par le tribunal Gacaca de son lieu de résidence (Gahogo) dans la ville de Gitarama.
Nous pouvons citer plusieurs cas où les délateurs ont monopolisé la parole et ou les témoins à décharge ont été intimidés, chassés ou humiliés par les juges Gacaca soumis au pouvoir exécutif. Citons entre autres quelques cas : Eugène NGABWA condamné à 25 ans de prison alors qu’il est lui-même un rescapé du génocide. Il a perdu sa femme tutsi et ses trois enfants pendant les massacres d’avril à juillet 1994. Il est en prison pour rien. Le professeur RUNYINYA Barabwiliza est détenu pendant 15 ans. Son épouse est morte après avoir été détenue longtemps dans un container chauffé au soleil à Kigali. Récemment il a été traduit devant le tribunal Gacaca à Kigali où aucun crime n’a pu être établi à sa charge. Mais les juges l’ont placé sur la liste des plus grands planificateurs.
D’autres intellectuels et commerçants hutu innocents ont été condamnés arbitrairement
par les tribunaux GACACA :
Aloys MUJYABWAMI (de Cyangugu), le docteur vétérinaire Ambroise CYUBAHIRO (de Nyanza), ainsi que plusieurs médecins de Butare qui ont été condamné le 5/09/2007. Des députés et des sénateurs tels que SAFARI Stanley, Elie BISENGIMANA, l’ancien président du Parlement Rwandais, Alfred MUKEZAMFURA, la sénatrice Béatrice NIRERE, le député Etienne MAGALI, etc..
Des intellectuels Hutus connus pour leur intégrité sont condamnés arbitrairement : Le
matin du 07/10/2009, ce fut le tour de l’ancienne Maire adjointe, Mme Domina
NYIRAKABANO, 51 ans, d’être à nouveau déposée dans la prison mouroir de Gitarama
(Muhanga). Le tribunal Gacaca de Takwe à 50km de Nyabikenke, l’a condamnée à 30 ans de prison, et plus. Selon l’accusation préfabriquée, elle et 4 autres intellectuels innocents (les enseignants: NSENGIYUMVA Léon, GASIRINGI Joseph, PFUKAMADUSENGE
Christiane, RUTIHUNZA Emile) auraient, de passage à Takwe en 94, suggéré à des
délinquants postés sur un barrage génocidaire de tuer Mr Nkinahe, un natif de Takwe migré et marié à Nyabikenke, voire assez proche de la famille de Domina. Mr Nkinahe est hélas l’une des premières victimes du génocide de Rwandais en 94. Et il aurait été tué à Takwe. Mais Domina n’a jamais mis ses pieds à Takwe.
Plusieurs personnalités rwandaises et de nombreuses organisations des
droits humains n’ont jamais cessé de dénoncer « la délation institutionnalisée au Rwanda » :
1) Témoignage de l’ancien Ministre de la Justice, Faustin NTEZILYAYO in Dialogue
n°213 de novembre-décembre 1999 dans son article « Enlisement du système judiciaire et dérive des droits humains au Rwanda » :
…… « Une question préoccupante touchant directement la justice et les droits humains est celle des arrestations et détentions arbitraires prolongées sans aucun respect des normes et procédures guidant la détention provisoire.
En effet, avec l’arrivée au pouvoir du régime en place à Kigali, en juillet 1994,
plusieurs personnes ont été arrêtées sur simple dénonciation par des autorités militaires et administratives (ne possédant aucune qualité légale en matière d’arrestation et de détention provisoire) et accusées de participation au génocide et autres crimes commis en 1994.
Aucune instance judiciaire n’existait alors.
Dans cette confusion générale, la délation a pris le dessus et plusieurs personnes ont été jetées en prison par des gens voulant les évincer des postes qu’elles occupaient dans l’administration publique ou dans la société civile ou pour s’arroger leurs propriétés ou poussées par la vengeance ou des règlements de compte. Le pouvoir militaro-politique en a profité aussi pour incarcérer les personnes qu’il considérait comme opposants politiques ».
…….. Un autre exemple de la violation du principe de la présomption d’innocence est
illustrée par des dispositions prévoyant la confection, avant jugement, de la liste des personnes rangées dans la première catégorie des personnes poursuivies pour crime de génocide et d’autres crimes contre l’humanité commis au Rwanda. … Force est de constater toutefois que la confection de cette liste a plus servi à un agenda politique d’éliminer les personnalités de l’ancien régime considérées comme opposants politiques ou d’autres personnes ayant une certaine influence au sein de la société civile qu’à l’avancement des poursuites en permettant d’identifier les vrais responsables du drame rwandais. La conséquence de ces lois injustes a été le maintien en détention des personnes qui, pour la plupart, viennent de passer plus de cinq ans en prison sans qu’aucune charge ne soit portée contre elles……….
De fait, les différentes tentatives de faire la lumière sur ces dossiers ont échoué, tant les autorités militaires et administratives qui ont procédé à ces arrestations et détentions, actionnant la branche extrémiste du mouvement des rescapés, ont bloqué toutes les mesures visant à libérer les personnes contre qui ne pesait aucune charge……… Ainsi certaines personnes libérées suite au non-lieu décidé par les magistrats de Parquet, ont été par la suite victimes de meurtres et d’assassinats, emportant souvent aussi un grand nombre des membres de leur famille……….
……..Une illustration en est donnée par la pratique des magistrats du Parquet de mener des enquêtes seulement à charge du prévenu, sans possibilité de confrontation entre le prévenu et le témoin. Il en est de même des représailles à l’égard des avocats de la défense qui ont abandonné l’assistance des personnes accusées suite à l’enlèvement et à la disparition d’un de leurs collègues ». Rappel : L’avocat Innocent MURENGEZI fut porté disparu en février 1997 quelques jours seulement avant l’assassinat du Président du Conseil d’Etat, Monsieur Vincent NKEZABAGANWA, mitraillé chez lui le 14 février 1997 vers 19h et achevé à la baïonnette par des militaires APR qui se sont proposés pour le conduire au Centre Hospitalier de Kigali (CHK) où sa femme le retrouva tout nu et le ventre ouvert à la morgue une demi heure plus tard. Les habits et les militaires sont restés introuvables ! Aucun médecin n’avait vu le cadavre.
2) Témoignage de Human Rights Watch et la FIDH dans leur rapport d’Avril 1995
« Rwanda, persistance de l’état de crise » :
« Un nombre important de dénonciations repose sur de faux témoignages, motivés
par l’espoir de gains personnels (…), par la rivalité politique, ou par des règlements de compte personnels. Human Rights Watch et la Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme ont appris qu’un groupe de personnes à Butare, qui ont survécu au génocide, sert d’ « accusateurs sur demande » pour d’autres lorsque ces dernières souhaitent faire emprisonner quelqu’un. Le Collectif rwandais des Ligues et Associations des Droits de l’Homme (CLADHO) a signalé la même activité dans d’autres parties du pays. Le Ministre de la justice et le Procureur de Kigali ont affirmé qu’ils sont convaincus que 20% des prisonniers sont détenus sans aucune charge pour les poursuivre. De nombreux cas ont été signalés à Human Rights Watch et à la FIDH où des accusations apparaissent absolument dénuées de tout fondement …».
3) Le Centre de Lutte contre l’Impunité et l’Injustice au Rwanda a publié plusieurs
Dossiers et communiqués sur les « syndicats de délateurs » depuis mai 1996 (Voir « lesSyndicats de délateurs » Mai 1997). Lundi 23 avril 2001, devant la Cour d’Assises de Bruxelles, le Coordinateur du Centre, Joseph MATATA, a témoigné pendant environ une heure sur l’existence et le nocivité des « syndicats de délateurs » entretenus et exploités à des fins socio-politiques et socio-économiques par les détenteurs du « pouvoir occulte » de Kigali.
Les principaux Syndicats de délateurs oeuvrant dans les pays occidentaux et manipulés par les membres et propagandistes du FPR:
La carte et la liste des principaux Associations proches du FPR et faisant partie du
principal réseau extrémiste du FPR en Europe a été diffusée par le Bulletin de liaisons Rwanda N°3 octobre-novembre 1995 et n°5 avril 1996 dans sa publication interne du réseau.
Nous énumérons ici celles qui ont été les plus actives dans la délation et la diabolisation aveugle contre des intellectuels hutu réfugiés un peu partout en Europe :
L’organisation londonienne AFRICAN RIGHTS, a récemment fait arrêter l’abbé
Emmanuel UWAYEZU, un prêtre hutu résidant en Italie. Ce prêtre serait accusé de n’avoir pas pu protéger plus de 80 élèves du groupe scolaire Marie Merci de Kibeho dont il était directeur en avril 1994. La directrice d’African Rights, Mme Rakiya Omar, est la seule militante des droits humains qui est tolérée par le régime du président Paul KAGAME au moment où feu Madame Alison Desforges n’étaient plus autorisée à se rendre au Rwanda.
Plus de 40 militants rwandais des droits humains et membres du CLADHO (Collectif des
Ligues et Associations de défense des Droits de l’Homme au Rwanda) ont été contraints de s’exiler. Cette organisation animée par la somalienne RAKIYA Omar, s’illustra dans ses publications sur le génocide rwandais notamment par son premier rapport d’environ 1000 pages «Death, Despair and Defiance » version de Septembre 1994. Après s’être fait remarquer par les chefs militaires de la DMI (Directorate of Military Intelligence), elle remania le même rapport et le rediffusa en Août 1995 avec une autre version. Ainsi, les démocrates hutu présumés tués par la milice Hutu dans son édition de septembre 1994 deviennent de « sauvages génocidaires et extrémistes hutu » dans la nouvelle édition d’Août 1995. Depuis que RAKIYA Omar a accepté de servir les intérêts des extrémistes tutsi, elle s’est attaqué à plusieurs intellectuels hutu notamment ceux qui venaient d’occuper des postes intéressants dans les Universités et les ONG internationales.
C’est ainsi que AFRICAN RIGHTS s’attaqua à :
- Monsieur Innocent MAZIMPAKA, ancien Président de la Ligue Rwandaise pour la
Promotion des Droits de l’homme (LIPRODHOR), qui était devenu Coordinateur de SNV
(une ONG Hollandaise) au Bénin. Il est décédé au Bénin;
- Le Docteur Sosthène MUNYEMANA (ancien habitant de Tumba à Butare) fut attaqué et
présenté comme « le boucher de Tumba : en liberté en France » par African Rights dans son magazine WITNESS, Issue 2, de février 1996. L’Université de Bordeaux, qui l’avait engagé dans son projet sur le SIDA, fut contraint de le licencier suite à cette campagne.
- Le Docteur Pierre MUGABO (ancien habitant de Butare) fut attaqué et présenté comme un génocidaire parce qu’il venait d’être embauché par l’University of Naïrobi de décembre 1994 à février 1997. Il a été lui aussi récemment la cible d’une virulente campagne médiatique en Afrique du Sud où il est professeur à l’University of Western Cape depuis février 1997.
- Le Professeur Mathias CYAMUKUNGU (ancien habitant de Butare) fut lui aussi attaqué
par African Rights dans la seconde édition d’Août 1995 où plusieurs intellectuels et
professeurs hutu de l’Université Nationale du Rwanda furent la cible de cette organisation 8 londonienne qui s’est mise à faire de la délation pour le compte de la DMI et les délateurs rwandais.
- Le représentant d’African Rights, Monsieur Théodore NYILINKWAYA, n’a pas hésité
à exposé les employés de la COFORWA (Compagnie des Fontainiers du Rwanda de l’Abbé
BOURGUET) en les dénonçant aux militaires APR qui venaient eux-mêmes d’assassiner le
représentant légal de COFORWA, Jean Baptiste NGIRABATWARE, tué dans la soirée du 5
juillet 1997 avec sa femme et ses cinq enfants. Ce représentant d’African Rights a livré aux militaires le fax qui expliquait cet assassinat pour leur permettre de traquer celui qui l’avait rédigé. Cet ancien employé de COFORWA est aujourd’hui réfugié en France.
- African Rights a menti dans le dossier de Soeur GERTRUDE et Soeur KIZITO puisque
l’Adjudant Chef REKERAHO a nié avoir rencontré un enquêteur de cette organisation. Cela veut dire qu’African Rights a répercuté des éléments d’enquête réalisés par quelqu’un d’autre.
- Le Général de Brigade Léonidas RUSATIRA fut un ex-FAR qui a sauvé plusieurs
dizaines de familles tutsi pendant le génocide de 1994. Dans son dernier rapport « Livrés à la mort à l’ETO (Ecole Technique Officielle de Kicukiro) et à Nyanza » de 112 pages publié le 11/04/2001 sur les histoires de civils rwandais abandonnés par des troupes de l’ONU le 11 avril 1994, African Rights s’attaque à cet officier reconnu comme un héros et un homme juste qui a utilisé tous les moyens à sa disposition pour sauver les personnes menacées.
- Amnesty International fut attaqué par African Rights dans son livre de 263 pages publié sur « l’insurrection dans le Nord-Ouest du Rwanda » le 22 septembre 1998. Sur plusieurs pages African Rights accuse cette organisation très crédible de publier des fausses informations sur les massacres de civils non armés commis par l’APR dans cette région. Ces accusations ressemblaient exactement à celles du Gouvernement rwandais contre Amnesty International.
- Mgr André SIBOMANA fut un ancien Directeur du journal catholique Kinyamateka
lauréat de Reporter Sans Frontières (RSF) (très critique contre toutes les dictatures) et Président de l’ADL (Association Rwandaise pour la défense des Droits de l’homme et des Libertés publiques). Il s’est fait attaqué par Rakiya Omar grâce aux manipulations des extrémistes tutsi. Le Rapport de RSF, qui a enquêté sur son Lauréat, a rétabli la vérité sur son innocence dans le génocide.
D’autres associations qui furent très actives dans les années 1996 à 2002 se sont essoufflées petit à petit. Mais elles ont été très nocives car elles s’attaquent systématiquement aux réfugiés rwandais exilés en Europe, au Canada ou aux USA non pas souvent pour les crimes qu’ils auraient commis, mais parce qu’ils sont nés Hutus.
Les réfugiés rwandais ne sont pas dangereux, ils sont en danger et victimes d’une chasse à l’homme qui ne semble pas prendre fin.
La délation est la plus vieille arme de toutes les dictatures. Elle a beaucoup servi sous les régimes soviétiques (sous Lénine et Staline) et les dictatures militaires de l’Amérique Latine, en Afrique, en Asie et partout dans le monde où l’absence de démocratie impose la violation permanente des droits humains et des libertés publiques.
La Haye le 14 novembre 2009,
MATATA Joseph, Coordinateur du CLIIR.
CLIIR* : Le Centre de Lutte contre l’Impunité et l’Injustice au Rwanda est une association de défense des droits humains basée en Belgique, créée le 18 août 1995. Ses membres sont des militants des droits humains de longue date. Certains ont été actifs au sein d’associations rwandaises de défense des droits humains et ont participé à l’enquête CLADHO/Kanyarwanda sur le génocide de 1994. Lorsqu’ils ont commencé à enquêter sur les crimes du régime rwandais actuel, ils ont subi des menaces et ont été contraints de s’exiler à l’étranger où ils poursuivent leur engagement en faveur des droits humains.
The Influence of the International Background on the Creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
By Herr Dr. Helmut Strizek
November 2009
This paper intends to point out the importance of the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s (RPF) influence on parts of the private human rights movement and the UN Commission on Human Rights in the establishment of the ICTR.
The idea to ask for a Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is closely linked to the RFP’s accusation that the Habyarimana regime planned the genocide against the Tutsi population before the RPF attack on 8 February 1993. The RPF rebels based their claim on the report of the “International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda since October 1, 1990” (ICI). The Commission had been dispatched to Rwanda from 7 to 21 January 1993 at the request of Rwandan human rights groups opposed to President Habyarimana. The ICI Report indeed contained such accusations. The RPF and its supporters were aware that the ultimate conquest of power in Kigali could lead to mass murders against the Tutsi population. The rebels had the idea to use this possibility for their cause from the beginning. They undertook the necessary steps to create a situation where desperate Hutu would in fact perpetrate mass murder against the Tutsi; however, it was crucial that the Rwandan Government first be accused of planning genocide. This allegation would justify their aggression, hence inevitably creating the situation in question. The genocide was conceived to convince the world that the subsequent military regime, lead by the RPF, would be the only solution to stabilize Rwanda after such an event. Jean-Marie Vianney Ndagijimana recently summarized this fact in a breathtaking booklet, in which he explains how Paul Kagame sacrificed the Tutsi population within Rwanda with this intent. The ICI Report proved very successful in hiding the intentions of the RPF and blaming “Hutu extremists” in advance for all the evil that would occur. The RPF succeeded in soon having the ICI conclusions published in official UN documents.
The ICI Report
Historically the first persons to use the word “genocide” in connection with the Rwandan Government were Canadian law professor William Schabas and French human rights activist Jean Carbonare, both members of the ICI. On 22 January 1993 in a press statement published in Paris after returning from Kigali, they accused President Habyarimana of having already committed genocide against the Tutsi under the pretext of the RPF war launched on 1 October 1990. In a television broadcast with Bruno Masure on 28 January 1993, Jean Carbonare was given the opportunity to repeat the accusation to an audience of millions.
The RPF took the accusations of Carbonare, Schabas et al. as a pretext for breaking the existing ceasefire and launching the long-since planned resumption of the war on 8 February 1993. Officially, the ICI waited until the end of the RPF aggression in February 1993 before publishing its final report on 8 March 1993. As in the meantime the whole world had become aware of the thousands of victims of this RPF aggression and the resulting one million displaced Hutu in the country, the organizers of the ICI were more cautious on the question of genocide.
The ICI made the Rwandan state responsible for almost 2,000 Tutsi victims since October 1990 and stated under the heading, “The question of genocide”, in chapter 4 that some legal experts believe that this number does not suffice to qualify these massacres as genocide. However, ultimately the authors suggest this conclusion by affirming that the victims were killed because they were part of a “specific group” mentioned as condition in the Genocide Convention of 1948.
Apart from the political effect achieved by sustainably discrediting President Habyarimana, the ICI also achieved the planned effects of the Belgian Government terminating its cooperation with the Rwandan Government. After the publication of the ICI Report some governments established arms embargos against the Rwandan state.
The ICI Report is based mainly on the videotaped testimony of a certain Janvier Afrika. He affirms that the Habyarimana family was behind a killer gang named “Escadrons de la mort”. He even affirmed to have been present at a meeting presided by Habyarimana preparing the killings.
As Janvier Afrika admitted in an open letter to the Security Council on 14 November 1994 that he was at the time an agent of the RPF, the credibility of this witness has been destroyed. Pierre Péan, as well as others such as Ferdinand Nahimana, have in the meantime proven that Janvier Afrika was in fact lying. Colonel Michel Robardey helped as Adviser to the Rwandan Gendarmerie to prove that Janvier Afrika had never “attended the meetings he described”. A Rwandan governmental commission led by the former Minister of Economy Mathieu Ngirira refuted – without being heard – the accusations contained in the report of the ICI. Robin Philpot already provided the most important hints in 2003 that the ICI was an invention of the RPF and that Jean Carbonare was an “RPF submarine” in the commission. Filip Reyntjens, who participated in the preparation of the ICI, finally did not take part in the mission because of the role played by Gasana Ndoba by infiltrating Jean Carbonare into the group of “investigators”.
Besides the case of Janvier Afrika, it is also proven that the accusation that the Mayor of Kinigi, Thaddée Gasana, organized anti-Tutsi massacres in 1991 is not founded. On the contrary, when he was filmed shocked by the skeletons he saw behind the communal office, he did not plead guilty, but was distressed by the memory of what had really happened in January 1991. The victims identified as Tutsi were in fact Hutu, who had been killed by the RPF in its attack in the Ruhengeri region in January 1991. In order to prevent Thaddée Gasana from testifying against Carbonare and others, the RPF killed him when the war resumed on 8 February 1993, just some days after the appearance of Jean Carbonare on French television and long before the publication of the written report on 8 March 1993.
The ICI Report lays down the entire strategy on how the RFP would construct its future media campaign to affirm that genocide was planned long before it really happened. Those who conceived the ICI were quite aware of the usefulness in disposing of documents, proving that the genocide was planned in advance. The ICI Report should, to a certain extent, play the role of the Wannsee Protocols of 20 January 1942, in which the German Government’s plans for genocide are proven in an irrefutable way. And indeed, the ICI Report was presented by the prosecutor of the ICTR and its expert witness Alison Des Forges as an irrefutable piece of evidence for the planning of genocide by “Hutu extremists” for a number of years. When the background of the so-called investigation became evident it lost its significance and the prosecutor tried to prevent other witnesses from referring to the report and disclosing the manipulation of the truth contained in it.
He who speaks of genocide inevitably asks for the punishment of those responsible. Thus it was obvious to seek inspiration in the establishment of the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague in spring 1993 - the first ad hoc international tribunal after the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials in the aftermath of the Second World War. However, formally no such claim appears in the ICI Report.
The next step: the Ndiaye Report on his mission in April 1993
The ICI Report was to a certain extent transformed into an official UN document by Bacre Waly Ndiaye , Special Rapporteur of the Geneva-based UN Commission on Human Rights (linked to ECOSOC). He had refused to be a member of the ICI due to his official position within the UN Commission on Human Rights. On 1 March 1993, when he had enough information on the ICI Report, which was due to be published on 8 March 1993, he asked President Habyarimana to be invited to Rwanda. “On 8 March 1993, the President of the Rwandese Republic kindly complied with that request by inviting the Special Rapporteur to visit Rwanda.”
The report of B.W. Ndiaye on his mission to Rwanda in April 1993 was only submitted on 11 August 1993 just after the conclusion of the Arusha Peace Agreement. However, his conclusions were known before and increased the pressure on President Habyarimana to sign this agreement on 4 August 1993.
Despite the fact that President Habyarimana and Prime Minister Nsengiyaremye had refuted in a written statement the government’s responsibility in the massacres described in the ICI Report, Ndiaye wrote that Habyarimana and Nsengiyaremye: “recognize the substance of the allegations contained in the report”. He came to the conclusion: “After cross-checking, the Special Rapporteur concluded that the substance of the allegations contained in the Commission’s report could, by and large, be regarded as established. He none the less proceeded to collect information on events after the report.” This information, of course, confirmed his preconceived condemnation of the Rwandan Government in the interest of the RPF, although he had to recognize: “because of the shortage of time and of material and human resources available to the Special Rapporteur (he stayed only about 10 days, from 8 to 17 April 1993), there was no question of undertaking an in-depth fact-finding or verification mission, which would have entailed, inter alia, substantial logistic and scientific resources; for example, experts in forensic medicine would have been needed to verify the existence of mass graves.”
The very beginning of this report makes clear that the pro-RPF part of the international human rights movement had already won the affection of the majority of ECOSOC’s Commission on Human Rights: “1. In recent years, Rwanda has attracted the attention of the human rights protection mechanisms established by the Commission on Human Rights. Reference was thus made to the human rights situation in that country in several reports submitted to the Commission at its forty-ninth session; of particular relevance is the information contained in the report of the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture (E/CN.4/1993/26, paras. 386 to 390), and in that Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. (E/CN.4/1993/25, paras. 441 to 446). 2. Mr. Wako, the previous Special Rapporteur, included allegations of violations of the right to life in Rwanda in his report to the commission at its forty-eighth session (E/CN.4/1992/30, paras. 461 to 467). During 1992, the current Special Rapporteur received reports and allegations relating to extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions of unarmed civilians by the Rwandese security forces in connection with the armed conflict between government security forces and the Rwandese Patriotic Front (FPR) since October 1990.”
Instead of accusing the invaders of having unilaterally broken the ceasefire agreements on 8 February 1993 he justifies - as a consequence of alleged Hutu provocations - the attack, which caused the killings of thousands of Hutu and led to one million internally displaced Hutu peasants. He looked only in the direction of the Rwandan Government: “On 15 February 1993, an urgent appeal was sent to the Rwandese Government following reports of a resumption of the killings and of reprisals and acts of intimidation against persons who had collaborated with or testified before the ICI”. The RPF bias could not be more outspoken.
Ndiaye continues: “Since 8 February 1993, the date on which the RPF violated the ceasefire agreement concluded at Arusha, at least 300 Tutsi and political opponents are said to have been killed, mainly in the prefectures of Gisenyi, Ruhengeri, Kibuye and Byumba.”
With regard to the murders committed by the RPF during the February 1993 attack, Ndiaye provides a very one-sided picture, seen from the knowledge available today: “A number of alleged violations of the right to life attributable to forces of the Rwandese Patriotic Front have been brought to the attention of the Special Rapporteur. Although several accusations of massacres of civilian populations levelled against the FPR are lacking in credibility, the fact remains that reliable sources have revealed that the FPR has in fact perpetrated executions in the areas under its control. (…) It is accordingly important that a more extensive investigation should be held, covering not only the areas under FPR control, but also certain border regions situated in Ugandan territory. Such an investigation could be carried out by an international team of experts providing every guarantee of independence and impartiality, such as the team which visited Rwanda in January 1993. The contacts which the Special Rapporteur had in Rwanda with the FPR indicate that the latter would be willing to receive a fact-finding mission of this kind.“
In the light of RPF’s behaviour in refusing all investigations on what happened in 1994 and up to now, the last part of this quotation makes it clear that Ndiaye affirms a readiness of the RPF to accept investigations that never existed.
The accusation that the 2nd Rwandan Republic used racist arguments against the Tutsi invaders of October 1990 and in so doing prepared for the global anti-Tutsi genocide contained in the ICI Report is fully maintained.
Thus the Ndiaye Report is the first official document to more or less openly accuse the Rwandan Government of preparing for genocide. In the “Conclusions” chapter, Art. 11 is titled “The Genocide Question” Para. 78 starts with the following formulation: “The question whether the massacres described above may be termed genocide has often been raised. It is not for the Special Rapporteur to pass judgement at this stage, but an initial reply may be put forward.“ Para. 79 of the Ndiaye Report reads as follows and gives an affirmative answer to the raised question: “The cases of intercommunal violence brought to the Special Rapporteur’s attention indicate very clearly that the victims of the attacks, Tutsis in the overwhelming majority of cases, have been targeted solely because of their membership of a certain ethnic group, and for no other objective reason. Article II, paragraphs (a) and (b),[of the Genocide Convention of 1948] might therefore be considered to apply to these cases.”
Even if the question of an International Tribunal against the Habyarimana regime was not mentioned in the Ndiaye Report the de facto accusation that the Rwandan President was preparing for genocide called for juridical prosecution.
The evolution of the political situation
In the climate prepared by the ICI and B.W. Ndiaye the international condemnation of the Habyarimana regime increased despite the conclusion of the Arusha Accords. Habyarimana was accused of not implementing the agreements.
The decision to bring the RPF to power in Kigali with a military takeover was taken in Washington D.C. after the Mogadishu disaster on 3 October 1993. Two days later the American Government refused to honour its commitment to participate in the peacekeeping force foreseen in the Arusha Peace Agreement. The assassination of the newly-elected Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye on 21 October 1993 marks the beginning of the planning for the military takeover in Rwanda. The implementation of this planning starts with the assassination of President Habyarimana and President Cyprien Ntaryamira, the successor of Melchior Ndadaye on 6 April 1994. This attack also served to decapitate the military command of the Rwandan Armed Forces.
The Degni-Ségui Reports in 1994
The RPF did not lose its sympathy within the Geneva Commission on Human Rights as B.W. Ndiaye was succeeded by René Degni-Ségui a law professor from the Ivory Coast, who had been a member of the ICI! This fact was very important when the war was again resumed by the RPF rebels on 6 April 1994.
On 25 May 1994, when the massacres – that the US Government refused to call genocide – were in full swing Degni-Ségui was mandated by the Commission on Human Rights to report on the situation prevailing in Rwanda. He delivered three reports in 1994, finally convincing the Security Council to establish the ICTR.
His first report was presented on 29 June 1994. When he arrived in Rwanda on 9 June 1994, accompanied by his predecessor B.W. Ndiaye, the RPF had already called for the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute the genocide that, according to the RPF, had been planned long ago by the Habyarimana regime. This had been done in a letter addressed to the Security Council and written by the RPF Representative in New York, Claude Dusaidi, on 13 April 1994 – four days after the formation of the interim government. The date indicates that the RPF took up the accusations already contained in the ICI Report over a year earlier. Only six days after the resumption of war by the RPF and affirming the responsibility of Hutu extremists for the downing of the Rwandan presidential aircraft, the RPF started to implement the strategy laid down in the ICI Report with the support of the Clinton administration.
The Degni-Ségui Report of June 1994 is often quoted because he points out, that the attack of the presidential airplane on 6 April 1994 is “the immediate cause of the grievous and tragic events which Rwanda is currently undergoing. (…) The death of President Juvénal Habyarimana was the spark to the powder keg which set off the massacre of civilians.” However, this neutral diagnosis is followed by clearly pro-RPF biased messages. He states that in the territory under the influence of the interim government “most of the massacres are carried out by the militias… Interahamwe and … Impuzamugabi. (…) In the area controlled by the FPR, the cases of massacres reported are rather rare, indeed virtually non-existent perhaps because little is known of them.” (paras. 21 and 22)
In June 1994, when Degni-Ségui and Ndiaye were in Rwanda, the Security Council had – under the pressure of Paul Kagame and Bill Clinton – already sealed the fate of the Tutsi with its decision on 21 April 1994, which essentially rendered the UNAMIR, the only force capable of providing shelter to the Tutsi, powerless. However, the envoys of the Commission on Human Rights failed to even criticize the United Nations for what was probably the most horrible decision the Security Council had ever made.
Without the possibility of investigation, Degni-Ségui and Ndiaye estimated the figures of Tutsi victims at 500,000 and held “Hutu extremists” accountable. However, “Some observers think that the figure is close to a million.” Although there is no serious evidence to back up this figure, the RPF continues to use the figure until today.
The report reads as a repetition of the ICI Report of March 1993. It already designs the complete strategy that the ICTR prosecutors will use later.
The report of 29 June 1994 confirms that the use of the term genocide “is appropriate”. The justification of the ICTR is established and consequently para. 75 concludes: “Pending the establishment of a permanent international criminal court, the UN should establish an ad hoc international tribunal to hear the evidence and judge the guilty parties, or, alternatively should extend the jurisdiction of the international tribunal on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.”
This recommendation was submitted to the UN Plenary Session on 16 October 1994. The Security Council subsequently adopted Resolution 955 on 8 November 1994, establishing the ICTR against the vote of the new Rwandan Government.
Kagame probably saw that there was a danger that the tribunal would not only deal with the genocide against the Tutsi population, but also with war crimes perpetrated by the RPF. He would also have preferred the ICTR to be located in Kigali.
Whereas his wish to have the ICTR under his control in Rwanda could not be satisfied, his allies in Washington, London and elsewhere have to this day been able to protect him against any investigation concerning the crimes perpetrated by the RPF.
Neither various letters from Kenneth Roth (HRW) nor a request from a group of scholars on 1 June 2009 to ensure “ICTR Prosecutions for RPF War Crimes” are likely to induce a change of mind in Washington. And Degni-Ségui is not likely to be any more successful in this respect despite stressing that the ICTR would prevent reconciliation in Rwanda if it remained a victor’s tribunal .
Conclusion
The ICTR, as the political brainchild of the RPF and its supporters – who were first united in the International Commission of Investigation of January 1993 – was conceived with the intent to justify the military regime that would follow the military victory of the RPF in the guerrilla war it waged called the “national liberation war”. The initiators of the ICTR took advantage of the fact that the ICTY had been established in The Hague in May 1993 – although with other objectives.
However, they were not truly satisfied with the child that was finally born in November 1994. The initial objective that the ICTR should only bring crimes perpetrated against the Tutsi population to justice and be placed under the supervision of the victors was not fully realized. UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali hindered the implementation of these intentions to a certain extent. War crimes and crimes against humanity were finally included in the catalogue of crimes to be pursued by the tribunal. Despite the Prosecutors Office being in Kigali, the location of the tribunal in Arusha prevented Kagame from gaining full control of the ICTR.
Thus two major contradictions accompanied the tribunal throughout its lifetime, decisively influencing it:
a) The political aim was set before the occurrence of the events that would serve as the pretext for its establishment and, in reality, the events did not fit the preconceived pattern properly.
b) The victor’s lack of control over the tribunal resulting in it issuing judgements that did not fit in scheme.
Contradiction a)
The creators did not abandon their objective to use the ICTR as a political instrument to whitewash the “most notorious war criminal in office” (Reyntjens) and to prevent the judges from fulfilling their duty to prosecute all mass crimes perpetrated in Rwanda in 1994. In fact, the initiators of the ICTR actively attempted to suppress the search for what really had happened.
Madeleine Albright succeeded in removing Boutros-Ghali and replaced him with the more “appreciative” Kofi Annan. Things went better for the creators of the tribunal under his influence. Kofi Annan was able to suppress the investigation into the downing of the presidential aircraft on 6 April 1994 and later helped to oust Carla Del Ponte, who had really been trying to investigate the war crimes committed by the RPF. Her successor Hassan Bubacar Jallow was more “reasonable” and made sure that the RPF was not molested any further. Bill Clinton for his part recently provided evidence of his perseverance in protecting Kagame at all costs when his Foundation affirmed that “President Kagame has forged a strong, unified and growing nation with the potential to become a model for the rest of Africa and the world.”
Under these circumstances, the costly efforts of the international community were unfortunately unable to promote the application and further development of international law.
The fact that it was possible to prevent the prosecutors from investigating the war crimes committed by the RPF means that the ICTR remains a victor’s tribunal to this day. It was unable to contribute to the establishment of legal peace and reconciliation. It did not even really contribute to depicting the entire picture of the crimes perpetrated against the Tutsi population. Judge Møse summarized this fact in the Bagosora Judgement of 18 December 2008: “The process of a criminal trial cannot depict the entire picture of what happened in Rwanda, even in a case of this magnitude.”
The creators of the tribunal, as well as both the Clinton and Bush Jr. administrations, were not interested in having the entire picture depicted. As long as this fact prevails historians have no chance to put forward the whole truth and paint the entire picture.
Contradiction b)
The Kagame regime’s lack of complete control brought about the stratagem of history – the idea evoked by the German philosopher Hegel that history often results in the opposite of what some politicians intended – with the ICTR still rendering some beneficial knowledge on what had happened in Rwanda after 1 October 1990. The main reason was the long life of this “everlasting tribunal”, which failed to prevent the defence lawyers from revealing some of the contradictions in the “official reading” of the history already conceived by Alexander Kimneyi, Gasana Ndoba, José Kagabo and many others and transformed into an “International Commission of Investigation” by Alison Des Forges, William Schabas, Jean Carbonare, Eric Gillet et al. who became the spiritual creators of a tribunal to be established once the provocation of Hutu masses produced the intended “Hutu génocidaires”. The judgement of 18 December 2008 stating that the planning of the Tutsi genocide by the four accused high rank former Rwandan army officers could not be proven – is one of the main signs that the creators of the ICTR were unable to really control the output of the ICTR.
It would be insincere to only blame the authors of the ICI Report and those who abided by it, for if it had not been with the help of some –English-speaking- “big fish” within the Security Council, their actions would have been of little significance.
Peter Erlinder has the merit of having drawn attention to the cover-up of the truth and the hidden agenda of some of these “big fish” in his writings and Robin Philpot was right when he said: “Ça ne s’est pas passé comme ça à Kigali” (That’s not what happened in Rwanda).
24 October 2009 in Bonn
Endnotes
1. As far as I could verify, the report was never published in English. It was handed out to the press in early March 1993 with the mention “Embargo 8 mars 1993, 11:00” in French with a short English summary by Africa Watch/New York and Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH)/Paris. The original title is: „Commission Internationale d’Enquête sur les Violations des Droits de l’Homme au Rwanda depuis le 1er octobre 1990 (7-21 janvier 1993). Rapport final“.
2. The ICI was composed – under the influence of persons like Gasana Ndoba, et al. – by a group of “like-minded” legal experts (William Schabas, Eric Gillet, René Degni-Ségui, et al.) and human rights activists (Jean Carbonare, Alison Des Forges, Philippe Dahinden, et al.). The ICI was mainly financed by Africa Watch (later named Human Rights Watch)/New York and FIDH/Paris. The technical organization at the Africa Watch headquarters in New York was undertaken by Alison Des Forges who at that time appeared on the international pro-RPF scene after Rakiya Omaar had to leave Africa Watch because of her US-critical position following the deployment of Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in late 1992.
3. Ndagijimana, Jean-Marie Vianney. 2009. Paul Kagame a sacrifié les Tutsi. Orléans: Editions La Pagaie. 164 p.; ISBN 978-2-916380-07-0.
4. In a Dailymotion clip this broadcast is dated 24 January 1993; however, Pierre Péan speaks of 28 January 1993.
5. In the ICI Report written in French this part reads: “Certains juristes estiment que le nombre de tués est un élément d’importance pour que l’on puisse parler de génocide. Les chiffres que nous avons cités, certes considérables pour le Rwanda, pourraient, aux yeux de ces juristes, rester en deça du seuil juridique requis. La Commission estime que, quoi qu’il en soit des qualifications juridiques, la réalité est tragiquement identique: de nombreux Tutsis, pour la seule raison qu’ils appartiennent à ce groupe, sont morts, disparus ou gravement blessés et mutiliés.”
6. Excerpt from the Commission’s Report of 8 March 1993: “Outre ces preuves qui ressortissent des événements eux-mêmes et dès témoins oculaires, il y a encore le témoignage présenté par quelqu’un qui a, a-t-il dit, participé à des réunions pour organiser ces massacres. Le journaliste Janvier Afrika a travaillé comme agent du Service Central de Renseignement jusqu’au début de la guerre; après quoi il a travaillé directement pour la Présidence. Il affirme qu’il a assisté à des réunions du groupe connu sous le nom d’Escadron de la Mort. Il dit qu’il se souvient d’une réunion qui s’est tenue à 2 heures du matin en janvier 1991 avant la prise de la ville de Ruhengeri. Participaient à cette réunion Joseph Nzirorera (alors Ministre des Mines et de l’Artisanat), Charles Nzabagerageza (alors préfet de Ruhengeri), Côme Bizimungu (alors préfet de Gisenyi) et Casimir Bizimungu (alors Ministre des Affaires Etrangères). Après la libération de la ville, ils ont décidé de tuer les Bagogwe.”
7. Letter reproduced in: Péan, Pierre, Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs, Paris 2005, pp.528-534.
8. I admit that I do not understand how Filip Reyntjens, who was the first to meet Janvier Afrika in prison some weeks before the Commission came to Rwanda and who recommended to the Commission to see him, still maintains that Afrika’s information is credible. On 14 May 2007 he wrote in a communication to the Forum DHR: “Les constats faits en septembre 1992 l’ont été après une enquête assez brève (2 semaines) mais sérieuse. Les données recueillies à Kigali ont été recoupées avec celle du terrain dans le Bugesera. Afrika n’était pas la seule source, puisqu’il y avait en outre plusieurs politiciens (du MRND) et des officiers supérieurs. Ce n’est pas en m’appelant gratuitement “blanc menteur” que vous me convaincrez que ces constats étaient faux. Au contraire, je crois qu’ils étaient vrais et ils ont par la suite été confirmés par des événements survenus ultérieurement.”
9. Personal communication of Michel Robardey.
10. See Philpot, Robin. 2003. Ça ne s'est pas passé comme ça à Kigali. Montréal, Québec: Editions Les Intouchables. 224 p. ISBN 2-89549-097-X. The English translation of the book titled “Colonialism dies hard” is published online at: http://www.taylor-report.com/Rwanda_1994/
11. See F. Reyntjens, Les risques du métier, Paris, 2009, p. 69. Despite the recognized RPF-bias of the ICI, Reyntjens maintains that the result of the Commission is “globally reliable” (“dans son ensemble fiable”). As evidence Reyntjens puts forward the fact that Bacre Waly Ndiaye in his report of 11 August 1993 extensively quotes the ICI report and gives him credibility. However, this paper will later show that the report was merely a copy of the ICI findings.
12. The Kinigi case and the fate of Thaddée Gasana has been described in detail by Ferdinand Nahimana in his book Rwanda. Les virages ratés, Lille 2007, pages 163-169.
13. I was unable to verify which organization first called for an international tribunal or in which document it first appears.
14. Normally this Senegalese name is written: N’Diaye. In this paper I maintain the form in which it appears in the report.
15. ECOSOC Document E/CN.4/1994/7/Add.1, 11 August 1993.
16. In this respect he wrote: “The justifications given are as follows: shortcomings in the judicial system and failure of certain authorities adequately to ensure the security of persons and their property, “uncontrolled behaviour” by certain undisciplined members of the armed forces, and the existence of criminal organizations. The facts denounced by the report are therefore recognized, even though the Joint Statement is critical of the methods of the International Commission of Inquiry, especially the lack of balance between denunciations levelled at the authorities and those aimed at the FPR, and the fact that the persons accused of human rights violations were not heard by the investigators. The Commission of inquiry is also reproached for not having drawn the attention of the international community sufficiently to the critical situation of persons displaced by war, and for giving the impression that human rights violations in Rwanda are directed against a particular ethnic group. The Joint Statement concludes with a series of recommendations along the same lines as those contained in the report of the International Commission of Inquiry.”
17. Thus Linda Melvern was wrong when she wrote in The Independent on 16 December 1997: “There was no doubt in Dusaidi’s mind that this was genocide and he was the first person to use the word in relation to Rwanda in an official document, in an RPF press release on 12 April 1994.”
18. Excerpt from the Carlsson Report of 1994: “The RPF Representative to the United Nations, Mr Claude Dusaidi, in his letter to the President of the Security Council, [13 April 1994], said that “a crime of genocide” had been committed against the Rwandan people in the presence of a United Nations international force. He requested the Council to immediately set up a United Nations war crimes tribunal and apprehend those responsible for the massacres.”
19. At an ICTR Colloquium in Geneva from 9 to 11 July 2009. Le MONDE wrote on 5 August 2009: “Ancien rapporteur spécial des Nations Unies sur le Rwanda, le professeur René Degni-Ségui se demande, dès lors, “si la réconciliation peut-être possible si on y voit une justice de vainqueurs (...), j’ai bien peur qu’on ne puisse y voir la réconciliation, si on ne poursuit pas également l’autre partie, sans pour autant jouer les équilibristes”. Il pointe encore l’opacité des procès tenus par le TPIR, dont les jugements ne sont pas traduits en kinyarwanda. “Si la population n’a pas accès aux jugements, est-ce que vraiment cela aura une portée pour la réconciliation nationale ?”
20. In an interview with LE SOIR on 13 January 2005 Reyntjens characterized Kagame as “le plus grand criminel de guerre en fonction”.
21. My preliminary appreciation of the ICTR is laid down in a recent publication: Strizek, Helmut, Das Arusha-Gericht. Die schwierige juristische Aufarbeitung einer Katastrophe. Eine vorläufige Zwischenbilanz. In: Entwicklung als Beruf. Festschrift für Peter Molt, Baden-Baden, Nomos-Verlag, 2009, pp. 202-218. (ISBN: 978-3-8329-4967-9).
22. This was recently confirmed by Christian Davenport and Allan C. Stam in a Miller-McCune Research Essay titled “What really happened in Rwanda?” published in Miller-McCune Online Magazine on 10 October 2009. See: http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture_society/what-really-happened-in-rwanda-1504
23. Allusion to Philpot’s already mentioned book of 2003.
November 2009
This paper intends to point out the importance of the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s (RPF) influence on parts of the private human rights movement and the UN Commission on Human Rights in the establishment of the ICTR.
The idea to ask for a Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is closely linked to the RFP’s accusation that the Habyarimana regime planned the genocide against the Tutsi population before the RPF attack on 8 February 1993. The RPF rebels based their claim on the report of the “International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda since October 1, 1990” (ICI). The Commission had been dispatched to Rwanda from 7 to 21 January 1993 at the request of Rwandan human rights groups opposed to President Habyarimana. The ICI Report indeed contained such accusations. The RPF and its supporters were aware that the ultimate conquest of power in Kigali could lead to mass murders against the Tutsi population. The rebels had the idea to use this possibility for their cause from the beginning. They undertook the necessary steps to create a situation where desperate Hutu would in fact perpetrate mass murder against the Tutsi; however, it was crucial that the Rwandan Government first be accused of planning genocide. This allegation would justify their aggression, hence inevitably creating the situation in question. The genocide was conceived to convince the world that the subsequent military regime, lead by the RPF, would be the only solution to stabilize Rwanda after such an event. Jean-Marie Vianney Ndagijimana recently summarized this fact in a breathtaking booklet, in which he explains how Paul Kagame sacrificed the Tutsi population within Rwanda with this intent. The ICI Report proved very successful in hiding the intentions of the RPF and blaming “Hutu extremists” in advance for all the evil that would occur. The RPF succeeded in soon having the ICI conclusions published in official UN documents.
The ICI Report
Historically the first persons to use the word “genocide” in connection with the Rwandan Government were Canadian law professor William Schabas and French human rights activist Jean Carbonare, both members of the ICI. On 22 January 1993 in a press statement published in Paris after returning from Kigali, they accused President Habyarimana of having already committed genocide against the Tutsi under the pretext of the RPF war launched on 1 October 1990. In a television broadcast with Bruno Masure on 28 January 1993, Jean Carbonare was given the opportunity to repeat the accusation to an audience of millions.
The RPF took the accusations of Carbonare, Schabas et al. as a pretext for breaking the existing ceasefire and launching the long-since planned resumption of the war on 8 February 1993. Officially, the ICI waited until the end of the RPF aggression in February 1993 before publishing its final report on 8 March 1993. As in the meantime the whole world had become aware of the thousands of victims of this RPF aggression and the resulting one million displaced Hutu in the country, the organizers of the ICI were more cautious on the question of genocide.
The ICI made the Rwandan state responsible for almost 2,000 Tutsi victims since October 1990 and stated under the heading, “The question of genocide”, in chapter 4 that some legal experts believe that this number does not suffice to qualify these massacres as genocide. However, ultimately the authors suggest this conclusion by affirming that the victims were killed because they were part of a “specific group” mentioned as condition in the Genocide Convention of 1948.
Apart from the political effect achieved by sustainably discrediting President Habyarimana, the ICI also achieved the planned effects of the Belgian Government terminating its cooperation with the Rwandan Government. After the publication of the ICI Report some governments established arms embargos against the Rwandan state.
The ICI Report is based mainly on the videotaped testimony of a certain Janvier Afrika. He affirms that the Habyarimana family was behind a killer gang named “Escadrons de la mort”. He even affirmed to have been present at a meeting presided by Habyarimana preparing the killings.
As Janvier Afrika admitted in an open letter to the Security Council on 14 November 1994 that he was at the time an agent of the RPF, the credibility of this witness has been destroyed. Pierre Péan, as well as others such as Ferdinand Nahimana, have in the meantime proven that Janvier Afrika was in fact lying. Colonel Michel Robardey helped as Adviser to the Rwandan Gendarmerie to prove that Janvier Afrika had never “attended the meetings he described”. A Rwandan governmental commission led by the former Minister of Economy Mathieu Ngirira refuted – without being heard – the accusations contained in the report of the ICI. Robin Philpot already provided the most important hints in 2003 that the ICI was an invention of the RPF and that Jean Carbonare was an “RPF submarine” in the commission. Filip Reyntjens, who participated in the preparation of the ICI, finally did not take part in the mission because of the role played by Gasana Ndoba by infiltrating Jean Carbonare into the group of “investigators”.
Besides the case of Janvier Afrika, it is also proven that the accusation that the Mayor of Kinigi, Thaddée Gasana, organized anti-Tutsi massacres in 1991 is not founded. On the contrary, when he was filmed shocked by the skeletons he saw behind the communal office, he did not plead guilty, but was distressed by the memory of what had really happened in January 1991. The victims identified as Tutsi were in fact Hutu, who had been killed by the RPF in its attack in the Ruhengeri region in January 1991. In order to prevent Thaddée Gasana from testifying against Carbonare and others, the RPF killed him when the war resumed on 8 February 1993, just some days after the appearance of Jean Carbonare on French television and long before the publication of the written report on 8 March 1993.
The ICI Report lays down the entire strategy on how the RFP would construct its future media campaign to affirm that genocide was planned long before it really happened. Those who conceived the ICI were quite aware of the usefulness in disposing of documents, proving that the genocide was planned in advance. The ICI Report should, to a certain extent, play the role of the Wannsee Protocols of 20 January 1942, in which the German Government’s plans for genocide are proven in an irrefutable way. And indeed, the ICI Report was presented by the prosecutor of the ICTR and its expert witness Alison Des Forges as an irrefutable piece of evidence for the planning of genocide by “Hutu extremists” for a number of years. When the background of the so-called investigation became evident it lost its significance and the prosecutor tried to prevent other witnesses from referring to the report and disclosing the manipulation of the truth contained in it.
He who speaks of genocide inevitably asks for the punishment of those responsible. Thus it was obvious to seek inspiration in the establishment of the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague in spring 1993 - the first ad hoc international tribunal after the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials in the aftermath of the Second World War. However, formally no such claim appears in the ICI Report.
The next step: the Ndiaye Report on his mission in April 1993
The ICI Report was to a certain extent transformed into an official UN document by Bacre Waly Ndiaye , Special Rapporteur of the Geneva-based UN Commission on Human Rights (linked to ECOSOC). He had refused to be a member of the ICI due to his official position within the UN Commission on Human Rights. On 1 March 1993, when he had enough information on the ICI Report, which was due to be published on 8 March 1993, he asked President Habyarimana to be invited to Rwanda. “On 8 March 1993, the President of the Rwandese Republic kindly complied with that request by inviting the Special Rapporteur to visit Rwanda.”
The report of B.W. Ndiaye on his mission to Rwanda in April 1993 was only submitted on 11 August 1993 just after the conclusion of the Arusha Peace Agreement. However, his conclusions were known before and increased the pressure on President Habyarimana to sign this agreement on 4 August 1993.
Despite the fact that President Habyarimana and Prime Minister Nsengiyaremye had refuted in a written statement the government’s responsibility in the massacres described in the ICI Report, Ndiaye wrote that Habyarimana and Nsengiyaremye: “recognize the substance of the allegations contained in the report”. He came to the conclusion: “After cross-checking, the Special Rapporteur concluded that the substance of the allegations contained in the Commission’s report could, by and large, be regarded as established. He none the less proceeded to collect information on events after the report.” This information, of course, confirmed his preconceived condemnation of the Rwandan Government in the interest of the RPF, although he had to recognize: “because of the shortage of time and of material and human resources available to the Special Rapporteur (he stayed only about 10 days, from 8 to 17 April 1993), there was no question of undertaking an in-depth fact-finding or verification mission, which would have entailed, inter alia, substantial logistic and scientific resources; for example, experts in forensic medicine would have been needed to verify the existence of mass graves.”
The very beginning of this report makes clear that the pro-RPF part of the international human rights movement had already won the affection of the majority of ECOSOC’s Commission on Human Rights: “1. In recent years, Rwanda has attracted the attention of the human rights protection mechanisms established by the Commission on Human Rights. Reference was thus made to the human rights situation in that country in several reports submitted to the Commission at its forty-ninth session; of particular relevance is the information contained in the report of the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture (E/CN.4/1993/26, paras. 386 to 390), and in that Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. (E/CN.4/1993/25, paras. 441 to 446). 2. Mr. Wako, the previous Special Rapporteur, included allegations of violations of the right to life in Rwanda in his report to the commission at its forty-eighth session (E/CN.4/1992/30, paras. 461 to 467). During 1992, the current Special Rapporteur received reports and allegations relating to extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions of unarmed civilians by the Rwandese security forces in connection with the armed conflict between government security forces and the Rwandese Patriotic Front (FPR) since October 1990.”
Instead of accusing the invaders of having unilaterally broken the ceasefire agreements on 8 February 1993 he justifies - as a consequence of alleged Hutu provocations - the attack, which caused the killings of thousands of Hutu and led to one million internally displaced Hutu peasants. He looked only in the direction of the Rwandan Government: “On 15 February 1993, an urgent appeal was sent to the Rwandese Government following reports of a resumption of the killings and of reprisals and acts of intimidation against persons who had collaborated with or testified before the ICI”. The RPF bias could not be more outspoken.
Ndiaye continues: “Since 8 February 1993, the date on which the RPF violated the ceasefire agreement concluded at Arusha, at least 300 Tutsi and political opponents are said to have been killed, mainly in the prefectures of Gisenyi, Ruhengeri, Kibuye and Byumba.”
With regard to the murders committed by the RPF during the February 1993 attack, Ndiaye provides a very one-sided picture, seen from the knowledge available today: “A number of alleged violations of the right to life attributable to forces of the Rwandese Patriotic Front have been brought to the attention of the Special Rapporteur. Although several accusations of massacres of civilian populations levelled against the FPR are lacking in credibility, the fact remains that reliable sources have revealed that the FPR has in fact perpetrated executions in the areas under its control. (…) It is accordingly important that a more extensive investigation should be held, covering not only the areas under FPR control, but also certain border regions situated in Ugandan territory. Such an investigation could be carried out by an international team of experts providing every guarantee of independence and impartiality, such as the team which visited Rwanda in January 1993. The contacts which the Special Rapporteur had in Rwanda with the FPR indicate that the latter would be willing to receive a fact-finding mission of this kind.“
In the light of RPF’s behaviour in refusing all investigations on what happened in 1994 and up to now, the last part of this quotation makes it clear that Ndiaye affirms a readiness of the RPF to accept investigations that never existed.
The accusation that the 2nd Rwandan Republic used racist arguments against the Tutsi invaders of October 1990 and in so doing prepared for the global anti-Tutsi genocide contained in the ICI Report is fully maintained.
Thus the Ndiaye Report is the first official document to more or less openly accuse the Rwandan Government of preparing for genocide. In the “Conclusions” chapter, Art. 11 is titled “The Genocide Question” Para. 78 starts with the following formulation: “The question whether the massacres described above may be termed genocide has often been raised. It is not for the Special Rapporteur to pass judgement at this stage, but an initial reply may be put forward.“ Para. 79 of the Ndiaye Report reads as follows and gives an affirmative answer to the raised question: “The cases of intercommunal violence brought to the Special Rapporteur’s attention indicate very clearly that the victims of the attacks, Tutsis in the overwhelming majority of cases, have been targeted solely because of their membership of a certain ethnic group, and for no other objective reason. Article II, paragraphs (a) and (b),[of the Genocide Convention of 1948] might therefore be considered to apply to these cases.”
Even if the question of an International Tribunal against the Habyarimana regime was not mentioned in the Ndiaye Report the de facto accusation that the Rwandan President was preparing for genocide called for juridical prosecution.
The evolution of the political situation
In the climate prepared by the ICI and B.W. Ndiaye the international condemnation of the Habyarimana regime increased despite the conclusion of the Arusha Accords. Habyarimana was accused of not implementing the agreements.
The decision to bring the RPF to power in Kigali with a military takeover was taken in Washington D.C. after the Mogadishu disaster on 3 October 1993. Two days later the American Government refused to honour its commitment to participate in the peacekeeping force foreseen in the Arusha Peace Agreement. The assassination of the newly-elected Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye on 21 October 1993 marks the beginning of the planning for the military takeover in Rwanda. The implementation of this planning starts with the assassination of President Habyarimana and President Cyprien Ntaryamira, the successor of Melchior Ndadaye on 6 April 1994. This attack also served to decapitate the military command of the Rwandan Armed Forces.
The Degni-Ségui Reports in 1994
The RPF did not lose its sympathy within the Geneva Commission on Human Rights as B.W. Ndiaye was succeeded by René Degni-Ségui a law professor from the Ivory Coast, who had been a member of the ICI! This fact was very important when the war was again resumed by the RPF rebels on 6 April 1994.
On 25 May 1994, when the massacres – that the US Government refused to call genocide – were in full swing Degni-Ségui was mandated by the Commission on Human Rights to report on the situation prevailing in Rwanda. He delivered three reports in 1994, finally convincing the Security Council to establish the ICTR.
His first report was presented on 29 June 1994. When he arrived in Rwanda on 9 June 1994, accompanied by his predecessor B.W. Ndiaye, the RPF had already called for the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute the genocide that, according to the RPF, had been planned long ago by the Habyarimana regime. This had been done in a letter addressed to the Security Council and written by the RPF Representative in New York, Claude Dusaidi, on 13 April 1994 – four days after the formation of the interim government. The date indicates that the RPF took up the accusations already contained in the ICI Report over a year earlier. Only six days after the resumption of war by the RPF and affirming the responsibility of Hutu extremists for the downing of the Rwandan presidential aircraft, the RPF started to implement the strategy laid down in the ICI Report with the support of the Clinton administration.
The Degni-Ségui Report of June 1994 is often quoted because he points out, that the attack of the presidential airplane on 6 April 1994 is “the immediate cause of the grievous and tragic events which Rwanda is currently undergoing. (…) The death of President Juvénal Habyarimana was the spark to the powder keg which set off the massacre of civilians.” However, this neutral diagnosis is followed by clearly pro-RPF biased messages. He states that in the territory under the influence of the interim government “most of the massacres are carried out by the militias… Interahamwe and … Impuzamugabi. (…) In the area controlled by the FPR, the cases of massacres reported are rather rare, indeed virtually non-existent perhaps because little is known of them.” (paras. 21 and 22)
In June 1994, when Degni-Ségui and Ndiaye were in Rwanda, the Security Council had – under the pressure of Paul Kagame and Bill Clinton – already sealed the fate of the Tutsi with its decision on 21 April 1994, which essentially rendered the UNAMIR, the only force capable of providing shelter to the Tutsi, powerless. However, the envoys of the Commission on Human Rights failed to even criticize the United Nations for what was probably the most horrible decision the Security Council had ever made.
Without the possibility of investigation, Degni-Ségui and Ndiaye estimated the figures of Tutsi victims at 500,000 and held “Hutu extremists” accountable. However, “Some observers think that the figure is close to a million.” Although there is no serious evidence to back up this figure, the RPF continues to use the figure until today.
The report reads as a repetition of the ICI Report of March 1993. It already designs the complete strategy that the ICTR prosecutors will use later.
The report of 29 June 1994 confirms that the use of the term genocide “is appropriate”. The justification of the ICTR is established and consequently para. 75 concludes: “Pending the establishment of a permanent international criminal court, the UN should establish an ad hoc international tribunal to hear the evidence and judge the guilty parties, or, alternatively should extend the jurisdiction of the international tribunal on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.”
This recommendation was submitted to the UN Plenary Session on 16 October 1994. The Security Council subsequently adopted Resolution 955 on 8 November 1994, establishing the ICTR against the vote of the new Rwandan Government.
Kagame probably saw that there was a danger that the tribunal would not only deal with the genocide against the Tutsi population, but also with war crimes perpetrated by the RPF. He would also have preferred the ICTR to be located in Kigali.
Whereas his wish to have the ICTR under his control in Rwanda could not be satisfied, his allies in Washington, London and elsewhere have to this day been able to protect him against any investigation concerning the crimes perpetrated by the RPF.
Neither various letters from Kenneth Roth (HRW) nor a request from a group of scholars on 1 June 2009 to ensure “ICTR Prosecutions for RPF War Crimes” are likely to induce a change of mind in Washington. And Degni-Ségui is not likely to be any more successful in this respect despite stressing that the ICTR would prevent reconciliation in Rwanda if it remained a victor’s tribunal .
Conclusion
The ICTR, as the political brainchild of the RPF and its supporters – who were first united in the International Commission of Investigation of January 1993 – was conceived with the intent to justify the military regime that would follow the military victory of the RPF in the guerrilla war it waged called the “national liberation war”. The initiators of the ICTR took advantage of the fact that the ICTY had been established in The Hague in May 1993 – although with other objectives.
However, they were not truly satisfied with the child that was finally born in November 1994. The initial objective that the ICTR should only bring crimes perpetrated against the Tutsi population to justice and be placed under the supervision of the victors was not fully realized. UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali hindered the implementation of these intentions to a certain extent. War crimes and crimes against humanity were finally included in the catalogue of crimes to be pursued by the tribunal. Despite the Prosecutors Office being in Kigali, the location of the tribunal in Arusha prevented Kagame from gaining full control of the ICTR.
Thus two major contradictions accompanied the tribunal throughout its lifetime, decisively influencing it:
a) The political aim was set before the occurrence of the events that would serve as the pretext for its establishment and, in reality, the events did not fit the preconceived pattern properly.
b) The victor’s lack of control over the tribunal resulting in it issuing judgements that did not fit in scheme.
Contradiction a)
The creators did not abandon their objective to use the ICTR as a political instrument to whitewash the “most notorious war criminal in office” (Reyntjens) and to prevent the judges from fulfilling their duty to prosecute all mass crimes perpetrated in Rwanda in 1994. In fact, the initiators of the ICTR actively attempted to suppress the search for what really had happened.
Madeleine Albright succeeded in removing Boutros-Ghali and replaced him with the more “appreciative” Kofi Annan. Things went better for the creators of the tribunal under his influence. Kofi Annan was able to suppress the investigation into the downing of the presidential aircraft on 6 April 1994 and later helped to oust Carla Del Ponte, who had really been trying to investigate the war crimes committed by the RPF. Her successor Hassan Bubacar Jallow was more “reasonable” and made sure that the RPF was not molested any further. Bill Clinton for his part recently provided evidence of his perseverance in protecting Kagame at all costs when his Foundation affirmed that “President Kagame has forged a strong, unified and growing nation with the potential to become a model for the rest of Africa and the world.”
Under these circumstances, the costly efforts of the international community were unfortunately unable to promote the application and further development of international law.
The fact that it was possible to prevent the prosecutors from investigating the war crimes committed by the RPF means that the ICTR remains a victor’s tribunal to this day. It was unable to contribute to the establishment of legal peace and reconciliation. It did not even really contribute to depicting the entire picture of the crimes perpetrated against the Tutsi population. Judge Møse summarized this fact in the Bagosora Judgement of 18 December 2008: “The process of a criminal trial cannot depict the entire picture of what happened in Rwanda, even in a case of this magnitude.”
The creators of the tribunal, as well as both the Clinton and Bush Jr. administrations, were not interested in having the entire picture depicted. As long as this fact prevails historians have no chance to put forward the whole truth and paint the entire picture.
Contradiction b)
The Kagame regime’s lack of complete control brought about the stratagem of history – the idea evoked by the German philosopher Hegel that history often results in the opposite of what some politicians intended – with the ICTR still rendering some beneficial knowledge on what had happened in Rwanda after 1 October 1990. The main reason was the long life of this “everlasting tribunal”, which failed to prevent the defence lawyers from revealing some of the contradictions in the “official reading” of the history already conceived by Alexander Kimneyi, Gasana Ndoba, José Kagabo and many others and transformed into an “International Commission of Investigation” by Alison Des Forges, William Schabas, Jean Carbonare, Eric Gillet et al. who became the spiritual creators of a tribunal to be established once the provocation of Hutu masses produced the intended “Hutu génocidaires”. The judgement of 18 December 2008 stating that the planning of the Tutsi genocide by the four accused high rank former Rwandan army officers could not be proven – is one of the main signs that the creators of the ICTR were unable to really control the output of the ICTR.
It would be insincere to only blame the authors of the ICI Report and those who abided by it, for if it had not been with the help of some –English-speaking- “big fish” within the Security Council, their actions would have been of little significance.
Peter Erlinder has the merit of having drawn attention to the cover-up of the truth and the hidden agenda of some of these “big fish” in his writings and Robin Philpot was right when he said: “Ça ne s’est pas passé comme ça à Kigali” (That’s not what happened in Rwanda).
24 October 2009 in Bonn
Endnotes
1. As far as I could verify, the report was never published in English. It was handed out to the press in early March 1993 with the mention “Embargo 8 mars 1993, 11:00” in French with a short English summary by Africa Watch/New York and Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH)/Paris. The original title is: „Commission Internationale d’Enquête sur les Violations des Droits de l’Homme au Rwanda depuis le 1er octobre 1990 (7-21 janvier 1993). Rapport final“.
2. The ICI was composed – under the influence of persons like Gasana Ndoba, et al. – by a group of “like-minded” legal experts (William Schabas, Eric Gillet, René Degni-Ségui, et al.) and human rights activists (Jean Carbonare, Alison Des Forges, Philippe Dahinden, et al.). The ICI was mainly financed by Africa Watch (later named Human Rights Watch)/New York and FIDH/Paris. The technical organization at the Africa Watch headquarters in New York was undertaken by Alison Des Forges who at that time appeared on the international pro-RPF scene after Rakiya Omaar had to leave Africa Watch because of her US-critical position following the deployment of Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in late 1992.
3. Ndagijimana, Jean-Marie Vianney. 2009. Paul Kagame a sacrifié les Tutsi. Orléans: Editions La Pagaie. 164 p.; ISBN 978-2-916380-07-0.
4. In a Dailymotion clip this broadcast is dated 24 January 1993; however, Pierre Péan speaks of 28 January 1993.
5. In the ICI Report written in French this part reads: “Certains juristes estiment que le nombre de tués est un élément d’importance pour que l’on puisse parler de génocide. Les chiffres que nous avons cités, certes considérables pour le Rwanda, pourraient, aux yeux de ces juristes, rester en deça du seuil juridique requis. La Commission estime que, quoi qu’il en soit des qualifications juridiques, la réalité est tragiquement identique: de nombreux Tutsis, pour la seule raison qu’ils appartiennent à ce groupe, sont morts, disparus ou gravement blessés et mutiliés.”
6. Excerpt from the Commission’s Report of 8 March 1993: “Outre ces preuves qui ressortissent des événements eux-mêmes et dès témoins oculaires, il y a encore le témoignage présenté par quelqu’un qui a, a-t-il dit, participé à des réunions pour organiser ces massacres. Le journaliste Janvier Afrika a travaillé comme agent du Service Central de Renseignement jusqu’au début de la guerre; après quoi il a travaillé directement pour la Présidence. Il affirme qu’il a assisté à des réunions du groupe connu sous le nom d’Escadron de la Mort. Il dit qu’il se souvient d’une réunion qui s’est tenue à 2 heures du matin en janvier 1991 avant la prise de la ville de Ruhengeri. Participaient à cette réunion Joseph Nzirorera (alors Ministre des Mines et de l’Artisanat), Charles Nzabagerageza (alors préfet de Ruhengeri), Côme Bizimungu (alors préfet de Gisenyi) et Casimir Bizimungu (alors Ministre des Affaires Etrangères). Après la libération de la ville, ils ont décidé de tuer les Bagogwe.”
7. Letter reproduced in: Péan, Pierre, Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs, Paris 2005, pp.528-534.
8. I admit that I do not understand how Filip Reyntjens, who was the first to meet Janvier Afrika in prison some weeks before the Commission came to Rwanda and who recommended to the Commission to see him, still maintains that Afrika’s information is credible. On 14 May 2007 he wrote in a communication to the Forum DHR: “Les constats faits en septembre 1992 l’ont été après une enquête assez brève (2 semaines) mais sérieuse. Les données recueillies à Kigali ont été recoupées avec celle du terrain dans le Bugesera. Afrika n’était pas la seule source, puisqu’il y avait en outre plusieurs politiciens (du MRND) et des officiers supérieurs. Ce n’est pas en m’appelant gratuitement “blanc menteur” que vous me convaincrez que ces constats étaient faux. Au contraire, je crois qu’ils étaient vrais et ils ont par la suite été confirmés par des événements survenus ultérieurement.”
9. Personal communication of Michel Robardey.
10. See Philpot, Robin. 2003. Ça ne s'est pas passé comme ça à Kigali. Montréal, Québec: Editions Les Intouchables. 224 p. ISBN 2-89549-097-X. The English translation of the book titled “Colonialism dies hard” is published online at: http://www.taylor-report.com/Rwanda_1994/
11. See F. Reyntjens, Les risques du métier, Paris, 2009, p. 69. Despite the recognized RPF-bias of the ICI, Reyntjens maintains that the result of the Commission is “globally reliable” (“dans son ensemble fiable”). As evidence Reyntjens puts forward the fact that Bacre Waly Ndiaye in his report of 11 August 1993 extensively quotes the ICI report and gives him credibility. However, this paper will later show that the report was merely a copy of the ICI findings.
12. The Kinigi case and the fate of Thaddée Gasana has been described in detail by Ferdinand Nahimana in his book Rwanda. Les virages ratés, Lille 2007, pages 163-169.
13. I was unable to verify which organization first called for an international tribunal or in which document it first appears.
14. Normally this Senegalese name is written: N’Diaye. In this paper I maintain the form in which it appears in the report.
15. ECOSOC Document E/CN.4/1994/7/Add.1, 11 August 1993.
16. In this respect he wrote: “The justifications given are as follows: shortcomings in the judicial system and failure of certain authorities adequately to ensure the security of persons and their property, “uncontrolled behaviour” by certain undisciplined members of the armed forces, and the existence of criminal organizations. The facts denounced by the report are therefore recognized, even though the Joint Statement is critical of the methods of the International Commission of Inquiry, especially the lack of balance between denunciations levelled at the authorities and those aimed at the FPR, and the fact that the persons accused of human rights violations were not heard by the investigators. The Commission of inquiry is also reproached for not having drawn the attention of the international community sufficiently to the critical situation of persons displaced by war, and for giving the impression that human rights violations in Rwanda are directed against a particular ethnic group. The Joint Statement concludes with a series of recommendations along the same lines as those contained in the report of the International Commission of Inquiry.”
17. Thus Linda Melvern was wrong when she wrote in The Independent on 16 December 1997: “There was no doubt in Dusaidi’s mind that this was genocide and he was the first person to use the word in relation to Rwanda in an official document, in an RPF press release on 12 April 1994.”
18. Excerpt from the Carlsson Report of 1994: “The RPF Representative to the United Nations, Mr Claude Dusaidi, in his letter to the President of the Security Council, [13 April 1994], said that “a crime of genocide” had been committed against the Rwandan people in the presence of a United Nations international force. He requested the Council to immediately set up a United Nations war crimes tribunal and apprehend those responsible for the massacres.”
19. At an ICTR Colloquium in Geneva from 9 to 11 July 2009. Le MONDE wrote on 5 August 2009: “Ancien rapporteur spécial des Nations Unies sur le Rwanda, le professeur René Degni-Ségui se demande, dès lors, “si la réconciliation peut-être possible si on y voit une justice de vainqueurs (...), j’ai bien peur qu’on ne puisse y voir la réconciliation, si on ne poursuit pas également l’autre partie, sans pour autant jouer les équilibristes”. Il pointe encore l’opacité des procès tenus par le TPIR, dont les jugements ne sont pas traduits en kinyarwanda. “Si la population n’a pas accès aux jugements, est-ce que vraiment cela aura une portée pour la réconciliation nationale ?”
20. In an interview with LE SOIR on 13 January 2005 Reyntjens characterized Kagame as “le plus grand criminel de guerre en fonction”.
21. My preliminary appreciation of the ICTR is laid down in a recent publication: Strizek, Helmut, Das Arusha-Gericht. Die schwierige juristische Aufarbeitung einer Katastrophe. Eine vorläufige Zwischenbilanz. In: Entwicklung als Beruf. Festschrift für Peter Molt, Baden-Baden, Nomos-Verlag, 2009, pp. 202-218. (ISBN: 978-3-8329-4967-9).
22. This was recently confirmed by Christian Davenport and Allan C. Stam in a Miller-McCune Research Essay titled “What really happened in Rwanda?” published in Miller-McCune Online Magazine on 10 October 2009. See: http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture_society/what-really-happened-in-rwanda-1504
23. Allusion to Philpot’s already mentioned book of 2003.
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