The 'Rwanda Genocide' Cover-up

original link here: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2008/02/rwanda-genocide-cover-up.php

The 'Rwanda Genocide' Cover-up

JURIST Guest Columnist Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law, lead defense counsel for former Major Aloys Ntabakuze in the Military 1 Trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and president of the UN-ICTR Defense Lawyers Association, says that recently issued French and Spanish international war crimes warrants and new evidence at the UN Rwanda Tribunal have exposed current Rwandan President Paul Kagame as the man primarily responsible for the 1994 “Rwanda Genocide” and the beneficiary of a decades-long US-sponsored “cover-up” of Pentagon complicity in the massacres committed by his regime...
As George Bush continues his much ballyhooed African safari, he has heaped praise on Rwandan President Kagame as a “model for Africa,” and mourned with Kagame the victims of the “Rwanda Genocide”. But recently issued French and Spanish international “war-crimes” warrants, and new evidence at the UN Rwanda Tribunal, have exposed Kagame as the war criminal who actually touched off the 1994 “Rwanda Genocide” by assassinating the previous President and who is benefiting from a decades-long U.S.-sponsored “cover-up” of Pentagon complicity in massacres committed by Kagame’s regime, which even Britain’s Economist has called “the most repressive in Africa.” [1]Multiple “War Crimes” Warrants Issued for Rwanda’s LeadersJust last week, a Spanish judge issued 40 international warrants for current and former members of Kagame’s government, including senior staff at Rwanda’s Washington Embassy. Judge Abreau’s warrants charge Kagame’s clique with war crimes and crimes against humanity that may even fit the definition of “genocide.” But these are not the only international arrest warrants issued for Rwanda’s current leaders. French Judge Bruguiere (famous for indicting “The Jackal”) has also issued international warrants against nearly a dozen members of Kagame’s inner circle. Bruguiere also met with Kofi Annan in late 2006 to personally urge the U.N. Rwanda Tribunal to prosecute Kagame for the assassination of Juvenal Habyarimana, the war crime that re-ignited the four-year Rwanda War and the massive civilian killings in the war’s final 90-days. Could it be that no-one in the Bush Administration was aware of these pending charges against their Rwandan hosts - or is it that they just don’t care? In either case, the French and Spanish international arrest warrants have pierced the wall of U.S./UK/Rwandan propaganda about who bears primary responsibility for the massive tragedy that unfolded in Rwanda - but the “official story” has actually been unraveling for some time.

Chief UN Prosecutor Del Ponte in 2003: “Rwanda’s Leaders Guilty of War Crimes” In the summer of 2003, Swiss Judge Carla Del Ponte, then Chief Prosecutor for both the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals, publicly announced that she would soon begin the prosecution of members of Kagame’s government for the same kinds of crimes now charged in the French and Spanish warrants. But nearly five years later, not one case has been filed against one member of Kagame’s government, nor against Kagame himself, despite the direct request of Judge Bruguiere. The Del Ponte-announced prosecutions did not go forward because she was replaced at the ICTR within 90 days of her announcement by Abubacar Jallow, a US/UK-approved Prosecutor who pledged not to prosecute any on Kagame’s side, no matter what the Del Ponte and the European judges’ findings! Prosecutor Del Ponte’s long-time press-aide, Florence Hartmann, published a book in Paris in September 2007 that explains exactly how and why Del Ponte was replaced. According to the Hartmann book, that Del Ponte has not repudicated, Del Ponte was called to Washington just after her 2003 announcement and threatened with removal from office by Bush “war crimes ambassador” Pierre Prosper because of a long-standing political quid pro quo between Washington and the Kagame regime that is spelled out in detail in the book. (Ironically, Prosper was a former ICTR prosecutor under Del Ponte, and must have had access to the same information motivated her decision to prosecute the U.S. ally). When she refused to ignore her UN-mandate, to prosecute all crimes committed during the 1994 Rwanda War, she was sacked by the U.S. and U.K.[2] ICTR Chief Investigator in 1997: “Rwanda’s Kagame Assassinated Previous President”But this is not the first time that crimes of Kagame have been “covered-up” at the ICTR. According to sworn affidavits, placed in the ICTR record in early 2006, well respected ICTR Lead Investigative Prosecutor Michael Hourigan, an Australian QC, recommended that Kagame himsel, be prosecuted for the assassination of Habyarimana in 1997! But then-Chief UN Prosecutor, Louise Arbour of Canada, ordered him to drop the Kagame investigation; to forget it ever happened; and, to burn his notes! Hourigan resigned rather than comply and copies of his original notes are now part of the ICTR public record for all to see. [3] The “Rwanda Genocide” Cover-up on Clinton’s WatchThe Hourigan affidavit makes clear that the “Rwanda Genocide" cover-up has been going on for at least a decade, but the reasons for the cover-up did not become clear until late 2007, when a senior Clinton administration diplomat, Brian Atwood, was confronted with UN documents describing a 1994 “cover-up” meeting with the Rwandan Foreign Minister in Kigali and the UN’s Kofi Annan. According to the UN documents, U.S.-sponsored human rights reports by investigator Robert Gersony had documented massive military-style executions of civilians by Kagame’s troops, during and after the final 90 days of the four-year Rwanda War.[4]The former Rwandan Foreign Minister at the meeting, Jean Marie Ndagiyimana, testified at the ICTR that, rather than participate in the proposed “cover-up,” he resigned and went into exile, where he remains today. His ICTR testimony confirmed that Clinton’s USAID Chief for Africa, Brian Atwood, and the chief of the UN Department of Peace Keeping Operations Kofi Annan, were both in his office in late October 1994 urging him to assist in the “cover-up” the war crimes committed by Kagame’s forces. [5]The “Inconvenient Truth” Behind the Cover-up: Pentagon Complicity in the 1994 Rwanda War The damning “Gersony Report” included first-hand evidence of tens of thousands of civilians being massacred by Kagame’s troops in eastern Rwanda, later confirmed by similar reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The U.N. document (also in the ICTR record) says that Annan told the Foreign Minister that public knowledge of the Report would be “embarrassing to the UN” and the former U.S. Clinton administration diplomat, Brian Atwood, not only confirmed he was at the meeting, but explained that he had engaged Gersony, and that Gersony’s findings of war-crimes being committed by Kagame were “…an inconvenient truth” for both the United States and the UN.According to Atwood, unknown to the State Department, “the Pentagon had been supporting Kagame since before the 1990 invasion, when he was the head of Military Intelligence for the Museveni government of Uganda.” The “Gersony Report” tied the Pentagon to the crimes of Kagame’s invading, Pentagon-trained and funded forces. More UN documents in the ICTR record reveal that the State Department was negotiating for a peaceful settlement of the war at the same time the Pentagon was supporting Kagame’s invasion. The Clinton Administration sought to enlist Atwood and Kofi Annan in keeping evidence of Kagame’s crimes from ever seeing the light of day, to prevent Pentagon involvement in the “Rwandan Genocide” from ever coming to light.[6] The existence of a separate Pentagon foreign policy on Rwanda also tallies with the ICTR testimony of former Ambassador Robert Flaten, who testified that he seriously doubted that Habyarimana’s supporters planned to kill civilians on a massive scale because the CIA and other intelligence agencies would have reported it when he was in Rwanda from 1990 to late 93.[7] He said that his requests for Pentagon-DIA spy satellite photographs showing the status of the war in the countryside were turned down because of “clouds over Rwanda,” during his entire 3-plus years in Rwanda. [8] Former Amb. Flaten also noted the obvious: Uganda’s military assistance for the 1990 Kagame invasion coincided with increased Ugandan military funding by the U.S./U.K. Most importantly, Flaten also testified that he personally warned Kagame that “he (Kagame) would be responsible for massacres like just happened in Burundi, if Kagame broke the cease-fire and re-started that war". Now the evidence in the ICTR record, shows Kagame did exactly that! In short, the evidence that is now in the public record shows that during the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, the Pentagon could have stopped the carnage with a phone call, and the State Department apparently did not know enough about the Pentagon’s close ties to Kagame to ask them to do so, at least until USAID’s Atwood was informed of Pentagon panicked reaction to the “Gersony Report,” in the summer of 1994.Other de-classified State Department documents show that it was the invading Kagame forces that were the aggressors, and were blocking the State Departments efforts to implement the Arusha Accords, peace agreement.[9] The UN’s General Dallaire has testified that Kagame would not agree to a ceasefire to use troops to stop the massacres because “he was winning the war.”[10] And, now we know what Dallaire may not have known, until later…Kagame was winning with the Pentagon’s help.The Great “Rwanda Genocide” Cover-up Continues under BushThe “Rwanda Genocide” cover-up of Pentagon complicity in Kagame’s crimes is almost complete, with the U.S. cutting ICTR funding to shut it down by the end of 2008. Carla Del Ponte’s replacement, Abubacar Jallow, will be conveniently unable to carry out the prosecutions that Del Ponte urged in 2003, or those initiated by Judge Bruguiere in 2006, or Judge Abreau, just last week. However, the international warrants are still in effect, and the Del Ponte book and Hourigan’s affidavit have begun to unravel the whole sordid manipulation, but unless the “Rwanda Genocide” cover-up makes it onto "page one" in Europe and North America, it may be too late for the ICTR detainees who are being held responsible for the crimes of the Kagame regime - a bit like the UN holding the Japanese responsible for Hiroshima and the Germans for the fire-bombing of Dresden.With U.S. and U.K. support, Kagame’s government is actively campaigning to have all ICTR matters transferred to Rwanda and has issued 40,000 warrants for Kagame’s Hutu and Tutsi opponents in the worldwide Rwandan diaspora (a movement that includes such as figures Paul Rusesabagina, the real hero of Hotel Rwanda). Correcting the Historical Record and Ending the Cover-upBut I have to disclose my own bias. Under the laws of Rwanda, I too am a criminal “negationist” for writing this essay, and President Kagame has personally denounced me as a “genocidaire” for my work as an ICTR defense lawyer. My former investigator is seeking asylum in Europe and the ICTR Prosecutor who replaced Carla Del Ponte is now prosecuting another defense investigator for asking too many questions in Rwanda while denouncing Judge Bruguiere’s request for the UN to prosecute Kagame and Spanish Judge Abreau as well. An ICTR defense lawyer like me has to hope that despite all that is now known about the manipulations of the ICTR by the U.S. and U.K. for their own political purposes, the ICTR judges will not be influenced by the sacking of Del Ponte and that they will carefully evaluate the evidence in my client’s case. But it it is hard to be too optimistic. At least my conscience is clear, now that the great “Rwanda Genocide” cover-up has been exposed. But I wonder if the judges, prosecutors, other UN-ICTR officials (who now know about the manipulation of their best efforts) will be able to say the same, if they allow the cover-up to continue? During the week’s festivities in Rwanda, Presidents Bush and Kagame are sure to find much in common, as would Tony Blair, who has recently signed-on as an “unpaid” advisor to Kagame. All three stand accused of war crimes, and are mutually benefiting from the US/UK/Rwandan “cover-up” of their own complicity in the “Rwandan Genocide” tragedy that should put all three in the dock at the ICTR.(c) 2008 Peter Erlinder. All of the documents and testimony referenced above are in the court record at the ICTR, except for the interview of Ambassador Brian Atwood, which occurred in December 2007 at his office at the University of Minnesota, Humphrey Institute, Mpls. MN. Notes[1] The Economist, April, 2004[2] Hartmann, Paix et chatiment: les guerres del la politique (2007 Flammarion, Paris)[3] See Hourigan Affidavit and related documents in Miltary 1 record at the ICTR.[4] See, UN documents in the Military 1 trial record at the ICTR.[5] See ICTR Testimony of Ndagiyimana, November 2006, and related documents[6] Interview with Dean Brian Atwood, Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota, December 22, 2007.[7] See Flaten ICTR testimony, June 2006.[8] Interview with Robert Flaten in Arusha TZ, June 2006.[9] See, April 1, 1994 Cable from U.S. Embassy in Kigali to Kampala Uganda in the ICTR Military 1 Trial Record.[10] See ICTR Testimony of Gen. Romeo Dallaire and associated documents, January 2006.Peter Erlinder is a professor at William Mitchell College of Law. He is a past-President of the National Lawyers Guild.
February 19, 2008

Reunion

Last week, the Rudenstines graciously hosted a reunion at their home and it was a wonderful opportunity for us to take time out of our hectic lives and reconvene and simply enjoy each other's company. While I had seen my classmates at school, we chatted mostly in passing. Thus, as we had shared many different moments together in Africa, so last Thursday, when we came together again to share a meal and a quiet evening, we shared what the trip meant to each of us in its aftermath. We reflected on transitioning back to life here in New York City and how to come to terms with the intensity of our experience. Apparently, we were all going through a similar process of readjusting: a sense of ennui and difficulty in transcribing our thoughts into words.

Our experience was such an intense one that every time I try to write it down, it takes much of my strength and energy (hence the dearth of entries!). Even just recounting the daily events of our trip has been difficult because each meeting, encounter, and experience I had there was, to put it plain and simple, incredibly powerful and moving. As I write this now, I am reminded of how amazing the trip was and how much it has transformed my perspective. It has guided me in developing my own understanding of what I truly value and who I will advocate for. I wish I could explicate in concrete terms what this trip has meant for me, but I honestly believe that the reality of its transformative power remains to be seen in the days that lay ahead of us. For some, maybe it has opened up a new career path, one in international human rights. For others, it was a window into Africa. Who knows? I can, however, say one thing for sure: this trip has definitely given me the courage to become a better advocate. And I believe that I am only one of many that have been empowered.

As promised, some Itinerary Highlights. (Thank you Amy!)

Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Conflict Rwanda
Professor Sheri Rosenberg
December 31 –January 14, 2008

Meetings
• Richard Kaminski, Political Counselor, US Embassy, Kigali
• Zarir Merat, Head of Mission, Avocats San Frontiere
• Andrews Kanaga, Legal Officer and Denis Bikesha, Director of Training, Mobilisation and
Sensitisation, National Gacaca Service
• Assumpta Umurungi, Executive Secretary, AVEGA (Association of Genocide Widows)
• IBUKA (Association of Genocide Survivors)
• Cheryl Sims, Deputy Chief of Mission, US Embassy Kigali
• Ambassador Joseph Mutaboba, Secretary General, Ministry of Internal Security
• Alex Mugabo, National Unity and Reconciliation Commission
• Denis Bikesha, Director of Training, Mobilisation and Sensitisation, National Service of Gacaca

Courts
• Tharcisse Karugarama, Minister of Justice
• Hassan Jallow, Chief Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal Rwanda (ICTR)
• Bongani Majola, Deputy Prosecutor of ICTR
• Defense Attorney François Cantier, ICTR
• Don Webster, ICTR Prosecutor
• Judge Dennis Byron, President of the ICTR

Site Visits
• Kigali Genocide Memorial
• Gacaca hearing
• National University of Law, Butare, Rwanda
• Lake Muhazi, day trip with Rwandan children orphaned during the genocide
• Kigali Central Prison
• International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Entry by: Kathy Hwang

Spanish judge indicts 40 Rwandan military officers for genocide

Spanish judge indicts 40 Rwandan military officers for genocide.

Original article here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/02/06/spain.indictments.rwanda/

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A Spanish judge Wednesday indicted 40 current or former Rwandan military officers for several counts of genocide and human rights abuses during the 1990s when several million Rwandans died or disappeared.

General James Kabarebe, left, is one of the 40 indicted for several counts of genocide and human rights abuses.

The judge issued international arrest warrants against the 40, including Gen. James Kabarebe, whom the judge said is believed to be the chief of staff of Rwanda's military; Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, whom the judge said is believed to be Rwanda's ambassador to India; and Lt. Col. Rugumya Gacinya, whom the judge said is believed to be a military attaches at Rwanda's embassy in Washington, according to court documents viewed by CNN.

Rwanda does not have an extradition treaty with Spain, a court spokeswoman told CNN.

The indictments against the 40 are for "crimes of genocide, human rights abuses and terrorism," during the 1990s in Rwanda, "when more than four million Rwandans were killed or disappeared under an extermination plan for ethnic and/or political reasons," the court documents said.
The judge, Fernando Andreu, named eight Spaniards who died or disappeared during those tumultuous years in Rwanda. Their plight prompted his investigation at Spain's National Court in Madrid, which previously has investigated human rights violations against Spaniards during past military regimes in Chile, Argentina and elsewhere.

Five of the Spanish victims were missionaries. The bodies of four of them were found in late 1996 after they were tortured, and shot or hacked to death with machetes, the documents said, while a fifth is still missing.

Three other Spaniards were shot to death in early 1997 while working for a non-profit medical group providing aid to Hutu refugees in Rwanda, the documents said.

The majority of the victims during the wave of terror, the documents said, were Hutu Rwandan refugees or Congolese civilians, mainly Hutus as well.

The judge did not indict Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, because he has immunity as head of state, the documents said. But the judge also found evidence of criminal activity by Kagame, based on the testimony of an informant who told the judge he previously worked on Kagame's security detail, the documents said.

In preparing the indictments, the judge heard testimony from 22 people who said they witnessed the horrors in Rwanda in the 1990s. All of them live in exile, mainly in Europe, and all have changed their identity for security reasons, except Maria Beatrice Umutesi, who lives in Belgium and has written a book about the killings, the documents said.

The documents included a 182-page indictment and two accompanying summary documents.

Ex Post Facto Prelude

It is often said that the more you experience different things, the more you realize who you are...On the day of our departure, I had written about the hopes I had for this trip and the expectation of transformation...I write this three weeks after our return from our trip and little can be said of how it has changed me, not because it has not changed my perspective and enhanced my understanding, but because the true impact of a once-in-a-lifetime experience such as this will have its true realization not in the moment of the event, but in the days that lay before me and I am challenged to make choices and allow the true brunt of an experience such as this impact me in my daily life.

For now, each day I experience here is a day of heightened senses - an osmosis of my environment into my very physical being - and the instantaneous synapses firing in my brain. My emotional memory is reminding me of how I felt a short three weeks ago...I walk down the street on 12th Street in front of Cardozo and just as easily as I allow myself, I am transported back to Kigali, Rwanda and could easily be walking down the road from our Hotel Gorillas to the city centre. How easily I am transported, yet how stark the contrast, how tangible the difference.

For the sake of posterity, as they say, the next few weeks will be filled with recollections of the two weeks we spent in Rwanda and Tanzania.

Rwanda 'still teaching genocide'

Rwanda 'still teaching genocide'

More than 800,000 people died in the 1994 genocide

Rwanda's education minister is under strong pressure from MPs, over what they call "genocide ideology" present in some schools in the country.

A parliamentary investigation found cases where students were made to wear different uniforms according to their ethnic group and books inciting hatred.

Minister Jeanne d'Arc Mujawamariya, who MPs could sack, says those behind such incidents have been punished.

Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died in 100 days in the 1994 genocide.

Minister of State for Primary and Secondary Education Joseph Murekeraho has also been questioned by law makers.

Poems of hatred

Ms Mujawamariya says that the teachers responsible have been taken to court and those found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred sacked.

But the MPs say she has still not adequately answered their questions and have summoned her to appear before a commission for a third time.

Last month's parliamentary report said old books "distorting history" had been found in libraries.

Some claimed, for instance, that Tutsis should not be considered Rwandan.

The Hutu extremists behind the genocide said the Tutsis had come to Rwanda from Ethiopia.

Poems promoting hatred and division were also found in school libraries.

After the report was presented to parliament, a special commission was set up to deal with the matter as it was felt the education ministry had not done enough to resolve the problems - five years after they first surfaced.

The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma in the capital, Kigali, says the issue has shown the problems prevailing in Rwandan society 13 years after the genocide.

Many believe that if ethnic division is visible in schools, then the situation might be even worse at home, he says.

The present Tutsi-dominated government seized power in 1994, ending the genocide.

Retrospective

So it turns out that the internet access in both Rwanda and Tanzania was limited and slow, so if you have been checking daily for developments, I apologize for the lack of posting. We have only just arrived back in New York and I will do my best to recap the events of our trip. Please check back soon! But for now, here is an article with one perspective on reconciliation:

RWANDA: Living side by side – genocide victims and perpetrators reconcile the past

Photo: Noel King/IRIN

Genocide survivors and perpetrators live together peacefully in Rwanda's reconciliation village

KIGALI, 11 January 2008 (IRIN) - Before the Rwandan genocide, Mutiribambi Aziri and Jaqueline Mukamana were neighbours in the town of Nyamata, south of the capital Kigali. When the 100-day slaughter began in April 1994, Mukamana, a teenage Tutsi student, and Aziri, a Hutu farmer, found themselves on opposite sides as 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu militias, known as the Interahamwe, and ordinary Rwandans.

Mukamana went to fetch water from the community well and returned to find her entire family hacked to death by neighbours. She hid in the fields and then fled on foot to neighbouring Burundi.

Aziri was one of those whipped up into a killing spree by Rwanda’s hard-line Hutu administration. He did not murder Mukamana’s family but he admits to killing some of her neighbours with a machete.

Thirteen years later, they are neighbours again, chatting on the dusty roads and attending church services together.

“We help each other,” Aziri told IRIN. “When a member of one family is sick, we drop by.” Most importantly, he says, “our kids are friends”.

The 40 families living in Imidugudo, which translates as “reconciliation village”, in Nyamata, 30km south of the capital, Kigali, are part of an experiment whereby genocide survivors and confessed perpetrators live in the same community, in small tin-roofed houses they built themselves.

The village is the brainchild of Pastor Steven Gahigi, an Anglican clergyman who survived the genocide by fleeing to Burundi with his wife and two children. His mother, father and siblings all died and Gahigi thought he had lost his ability to forgive.

“I prayed until one night I saw an image of Jesus Christ on the cross,” Gahigi says. “I thought of how he forgave and I knew that I and others could also do it.”

Inspired by the vision, Gahigi began preaching forgiveness not only in Nyamata parish, but in the cramped prisons where hundreds of thousands of perpetrators were awaiting trial.

Seeking forgiveness

In 2003, faced with crowded prisons and a shortage of qualified judges, the Rwandan government began offering a provisional release to low-level perpetrators, including the sick, elderly and those who were children at the time of the genocide.

People tried by Rwanda’s traditional “gacaca” courts, in which members of the community act as judges, had their sentences halved if they confessed their involvement in the genocide.

Today, Gahigi provides spiritual council to both perpetrators and victims, most of whom work as small farmers, just as they did before the genocide.

The path to forgiveness was not easy, residents say.

Photo: IRIN

Skulls of genocides victims at the Murambi Genocide Memorial site in Gikongoro Province, southeastern Rwanda

“I did not think I could forgive,” Mukamana says, “until I heard the pastor’s message.” Now, she is fond of elderly Aziri, who often stops by her house to chat.

Residents say their ability to forgive is rooted in Christian beliefs.

“These people killed my parents,” Janet Mukabyagaju told IRIN. “It is not easy for me to forgive them. But God forgave. I must do the same.”

With funding from non-profit Christian organisation Prison Fellowship International, survivors and perpetrators agreed to live together harmoniously. The founding members of the community voted on who could live at Imidugudo - a practice that continues today.

Gahigi said they generally choose families who are most vulnerable due to poverty or illness.

Reconciliation

While Rwanda’s current administration has renounced the use of ethnic terminology and instead promotes reconciliation, many Rwandans say there is still a raging undercurrent of mistrust among those who survived the genocide and those who committed it.

Residents in Imidugudo say although the terms Hutu and Tutsi should no longer be a part of Rwandan society, they do not believe in painting over the past. They speak to their children about their roles in the genocide.

“Genocide has enormous consequences for those who did it and for those who survived,” Xavier Namay, an admitted perpetrator, told IRIN. “My children must know what I did so they can rebuild this country positively.”

nk/sr/mw

Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Governance, (IRIN) Human Rights

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