France took part in genocide: Rwandan report

[Raskolnik]

KIGALI (AFP) — France played an active role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a report unveiled Tuesday by the Rwandan government said, naming French political and military officials it says should be prosecuted.

"French forces directly assassinated Tutsis and Hutus accused of hiding Tutsis... French forces committed several rapes on Tutsi survivors," said a justice ministry statement released after the report was presented in Kigali.

The 500-page report alleged that France was aware of preparations for the genocide, contributed to planning the massacres and actively took part in the killing.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOlufsBxNXIw5nXaUj6N_f1QVvuQ


(holy shit!)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Maybe that's why Clinton & Albriight undermined the UN efforts to stop the genocide.

[Raskolnik]

3. I don't understand.

Why would that follow?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Perhaps it doesn't. It's just a possible explanation for their actions.

Personally, I think that what they did was just playing politics to appear moderate in their response because to back the UN would have appeared too risky..and "too liberal".

[TahitiNut]

10. Some just don't understand.

It's "liberal" to use our military forces to PROTECT human lives and personal property.
It's "conservative" to use our military forces to TAKE human lives and personal property.
It's "neoconservative" to use our military forces to DESTROY human lives and personal property.

:shrug:

[Raskolnik]

12. The distinction between those three is less than clear.

If you know of a way to use military force to PROTECT human lives without some amount of TAKING human lives and DESTROYING human lives, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Deploying peacekeepers is all well and good, but peacekeepers deployed in the middle of a messy civil war often have to choose between becoming active participants in hostilities and using force, holing up and letting the war take its course, or getting the hell out of Dodge.

[TahitiNut]

13. Kosovo and Bosnia.

:shrug:

[Raskolnik]

14. Good examples. Do you think NATO exerted its power by dropping candy?

I believe it was a justified use of force, but in order to PROTECT human life, a certain amount of DESTROYING human life was necessary.

[Hannah Bell]

50. no, it was a propanda exercise used to justify use of force to remake

the political landscape, just like rwanda.

Our government doesn't CARE about "life" except the lives of them & theirs.

Those who think so are naive or complicit.

"Human rights" is a political weapon, invented as such.

[Raskolnik]

52. I don't believe you're addressing the point being discussed in this thread

[Hannah Bell]

55. that we had to stop the genocide in kosovo, or destroy life in order to save it...?

which point?

[Selatius]

95. The whole situation with Yugoslavia would not have occurred without neoliberal Shock Therapy.

In the 1980s, neoliberal economic reforms were instituted which shredded the economy. Millions became unemployed and were angry. Scapegoats were found, and ethnic nationalists like Slobodan Milosevic revived dormant ethnic enmity for personal gain at the expense of greater Yugoslavia.

The fact that Yugoslavia's economy was more vibrant and operated differently from the Soviet model made it a threat to people who pushed the idea that there is no alternative to capitalism.

[Leopolds Ghost]

60. Rwanda wasn't a messy civil war. It was a carefully planned genocide interupted by a liberation army

The rapid rebel advance is the only thing that stopped all
Tutsis from being exterminated.

The rebels were Tutsi expatriates from Uganda.

The fact that they may have been secretly funded by the US is a GOOD thing.

Evidence that US foreign policy backed the right horse once.

Anyone who says otherwise is a fool.

The French backed Hutu government was funded and backed by Belgian
expat neo-Nazis, and infused with neo-Nazi ideas about race
(Hutu vs. Tutsi.) everyone in the country had an ethnic identity
card, modeled after Germany in WWII.

It had nothing to do with "tribalism" or "chaos brought on by
fighting the rebels."

Kagame was the person they were negotiating with at Arusha.

The assassination of the "moderate" (Hindenbergian) Hutu leader
caused the talks to collapse and mysteriously, the new Hutu
government immediately staged a coup and initiated an organized
campaign of genocide complete with large shipments of machetes
the very next day.

They learned from the Nazis that you can't kill 2 million people
if you run out of bullets. So they stockpiled machetes and
trained and indoctrinated large numbers of Hutu peasants in the
fascist Interahamwe militia.

[Hannah Bell]

67. See, you don't know the basic history of the genocide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Civil_War

The civil war was 1990-1993, & it's part of the context of the "genocide," as well as the larger & longer Congo Wars & events in Uganda. 8 months after the cease-fire, the rebels shot down the presidential plane & set off the genocide. There was more between as well.

The "expatriates" were US-funded. You can say "good thing" if you like, but there's no evidence kagame's gov't is an improvement over the previous one, or that the previous one was particularly malign - until it was attacked with the intent to overthrow it.

[Leopolds Ghost]

69. I know all about it -- I did a paper on it.

shortly after it was ongoing.

And my limited research on the fascist nature of the rump Hutu force
was quite conclusive. The genocide was an organized campaign undertaken
by death squads aligned with a French-backed military junta.

The neocolonial nature of the assault by the Hutu death squad
regime that succeeded Habyarimana was quite clear merely from
(global, not just American) newspaper reports. The US failure
to openly support the only available force willing to stop the
genocide is sad.

Provided you understood the facts and read past the
"random chaos on both sides by bloodthirsty Africans"
angle, which the French were selling -- and Albright
was repeating in an effort to mollify the French (who
actually threatened us not to intervene, outright saying
that Rwanda was in their sphere of military influence.)

The nature of the "racial" classification program initiated by the
Belgians and adopted by the French-aligned Hutu ethnic nationalists
(who killed an additional 500,000 Tutsis when the king was deposed)
is quite repulsive.

And oh yeah, the last Tutsi king of Rwanda lived in my neighborhood
at the time... and family had Rwandan Tutsi co-workers in the research
profession -- scientists -- who fled the country.

I also did a short paper on Ijwi island, if you're interested.

The study of African feudal systems of government (what Westerners
falsely refer to as "tribes") and its similarity to early European
feudalism, fascinates me.

[Hannah Bell]

72. funny you deny there was a civil war then.

there were formal peace accords with international participation.

[Leopolds Ghost]

80. Yes, and then the genocide happened after the junta siezed power in Kigali.

And continued in all areas not under RPF control, until well after the
junta had retreated to an area along the Congolese border. They then
proceeded into Eastern Congo where they started killing tribesmen
reputed to be "racially Tutsi" and invented a pan-African racial
justification for exterminating what they viewed as a "Hamitic"
Tutsi diaspora that had infiltrated "pure Bantu" culture --
inspired by paranoid Anti-Semitic race doctrine.

They wanted to carry the genocide all the way to Kinshasa, then
the US greenlighted an invasion of Congo by Kagame and Museveni,
prompting the collapse of the Congolese gov't and 2 million deaths.

Responsibility for those deaths is unclear because:

** Rwandan Tutsi-led gov't was trying to wipe out the remaining
Interahamwe militia and protect "ethnically Tutsi" tribes in
Eastern Congo whom the Interahamwe had targeted,
and sieze resources...

** Uganda was seeking to prop up a client of Museveni/US (Kabila)
as Congolese President, in an effort to create a "United
States of Africa" with Uganda and Rwanda...

** Angola and other countries, possiblyt backed by South African
or Euro business interests, invaded to steal more resources
from the mineral-rich Kasai and Katanga regions...

** Interahamwe (former Rwandan junta leaders) wanted a greater
Hutu invasion out of Goma refugee camp to massacre all tribes
in the Eastern Congo reputed to be "racially Tutsi"
while raping and pillaging, and maintain control of the Hutu
refugee camps...

** Mobutu wanted to hold onto power and would kill anyone for it...

** Citizens of Kinshasa and Lumumbashi (Stanleyville) were starving
and rioting fue to Mobutu's US backed kleptocratic reign...

** Mobutu's army was unpaid, for hire/on strike and looting at random...

** Laurent Kabila, Museveni's preferred client, wanted to establish
central government control and "liberate" Kinshasa using Rwandan
invasion (on the pretext of going after Interahamwe) to do so...
He finally did and enjoyed a very brief honeymoon after the
Rwandan Army (nee RPF) marged his rump guerilla force into
Kinshasa and installed him as president of Congo (nee Zaire).
Mobutu's army had already defected or joined the massacres in
Eastern Congo which Kabila failed to have any control during
his reign, succeeded by his son...

** Several provinces wanted to break away as they were relatively
ethnically homogeneous (read: former African kingdoms larger
than several European kingdoms, grafted onto the Belgian colony
by means of newsapaper letters by Stanley, an American journalist
and explorer) and their leaders wanted (Western funded, of course)
military control over the resources...

** Several tribes in Eastern Congo were notorously vicious and
intolerant of outsiders, believed in the power of magic
to stop bullets (many having never fired a gun before)
and needed little prompting (drugs and alcohol mostly)
from one of the various other (Western backed) factions
to go on a mass killing, abduction of child soldiers,
and murder spree of other villages and ethnic groups.

** Tanzania was making a killing smuggling Western armaments
to Uganda and the Congo on planes that returned to europe
laden with 2 tons of fresh fish daily for the Parisian
restaurant market, exactly the amount needed to prevent
Tanzanians from an epidemic of poverty, starvation and
famine, again brought on by European resource extraction
making food too expensive to be grown locally -- only
for the export market. An economic phenomenon of
neo-colonialism not unlike the NAFTA Mexican corn collapse
or the Irish potato famine

(see DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE.)

The only common thread is financial support from the US,
South Africa, Belgium and France for each of the various
factions -- except for the Interahamwe and tribes committing
much of the killings in the interior, who the country-backed
factions nevertheless notably failed to stop.

This is all in the Congo, mind you.

The violence in Rwanda (aside from an initial spate of
disorganized revenge killings seems to have ended after
those EEEVIL RPF (Tutsi) took over. Assuming Museveni
and Kagame are evil, seeing as how they are US clients,
I can't explain the current state of peace that seems
to have broken out in Rwanda and Uganda since they took over.

It might have something to do with their redistributing
power back to legitimate tribal/regional authorities and
embracing Archbishop Tutu's model of tribal reconciliation
committees modeled after traditional African courts.

[Hannah Bell]

85. ...

"Its rulers did not bother to assess the ethnic identities of conquered peoples brought under their sway, simply labeling all of them “Hutu”. The “Hutu” identity, consequently, was to be a trans-ethnic one. Eventually, “Tutsi” and “Hutu” were seen to be economic distinctions, rather than particularly ethnic. In fact, there was social mobility between the Tutsis and Hutus, on the basis of hierachial status. One could kwihutura, or lose “Hutuness”, with the accumulation of wealth.<3> Conversely, a Tutsi bereft of property could gucupira, or lose “Tutsiness”.<4>"

[Leopolds Ghost]

86. Yes, it was all rooted in traditional African ethnic ideas which are not "tribal" but feudal.

And rooted in the existence of (seen as legitimate)
hundreds-years-old feudal kingdoms. Not random warring
bands as Western textbooks refuse to identify African
kingdoms as polities, but only as "tribes". Just as
the Italians were nothing more than "tribes" until the
Roman republic, I suppose.

The Belgians and Germans took Hutu vs. Tutsi and twisted it
into a "Bantu / Hamitic" racial theory rooted in pre-WW II
race doctrine.

[Hannah Bell]

90. That's one version of events.

But, e.g., the guy in "Hotel Rwanda" has a different version.

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1022/0/

There are many versions.

But truthfully, there are no heroes among the powerful.

And the killing hasn't stopped.

[Leopolds Ghost]

93. Of course. Civilization is rooted in 5,000 years of kleptocracy.

[Hannah Bell]

94. I encourage you to read the article.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. And, the "too liberal" UN wanted to use troops to stop the genocide in Rwanda.

But, of course, doing so could have caused Rush and his pals to say unkind things about Billy and Maddy.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[Swede]

5. So the guy the French blame for starting the war is now blaming the French

I don't buy it.

[Raskolnik]

6. We certainly don't have the final word, but if the report is even partially true

France was engaged in some bad business.

[entanglement]

21. Perhaps you're unaware that France committed numerous atrocities in North Africa?

You should disabuse yourself of the notion that they are *incapable* of committing such crimes, which smacks of European nationalist stupidity and denial. In the Rwandan matter, Bernard Kouchner has admitted "political errors were made" which is codespeak for "arming, training and supporting the faction that committed genocide if not actually encouraging them to do so".

[Leopolds Ghost]

64. You don't honestly blame Kagame for government genocide (what you ignorantly call a "war" do you?)

If so you are an idiot and quite possibly racially blinders on just like
the French with their fascist arguments on behalf of the rump Hutu regime
and deliberate attempts to set up a cease-fire line and interpose
themselves so that the killings could continue behind Hutu lines -- just
like in Nazi Germany.

People who make this argument are like the Holocaust deniers who assert
that we should have never let Stalin cross the Elbe, even though it was
Russia who liberated the death camps.

Some of them even wanted us to side with a rump Nazi splinter government
to cease-fire with the Germans and join forces against Russia while the
holocaust continued.

Just like France did in Rwanda.

Read Michael Beschloss, "The Conquerors".

[Hannah Bell]

70. rump regime? habyarimana had been in power since 1973.

The civil war was 90-93. You don't seem to know the basic facts of the case, & trying to hide it with emotionalism.

Who is Michael Bescloss & why should I believe him: usual ruling class, private school twit, andover, Harvard, etc:

"Beschloss is married to Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss, who is President and CEO of The Rock Creek Group, a Washington, DC, hedge fund, and former CEO of the asset management division of the Carlyle Group.

Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss (born ca. 1956) is an Iranian national who is currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Rock Creek Group. Prior to this, Ms. Beschloss was the Treasurer and Chief Investment Officer of the World Bank, responsible for managing $65 billion in assets and a $30 billion funding strategy, as well as $160 billion in derivatives and structured products. In this position, Ms. Beschloss was instrumental in developing a $3 billion portfolio of alternative investment funds, as well as private equity strategies. Her previous responsibilities at the World Bank included Senior Manager of the Derivatives and Structured Products Group and Fixed-Income Portfolio Manager. Ms. Beschloss worked for J.P. Morgan in New York and London, for Shell International Group Planning in London, and she taught international trade at Oxford University.

She is Chairman of the Investment Committee of the Ford Foundation and is on the Investment Committee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Urban Institute. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Temple-Inland, Inc.,<1> and of AMB Corporation. She advises international pension funds and central banks and has written a number of journal articles and books.

She has an MPhil (Honors) in Economics from Oxford University and is married to Michael Beschloss, the well known Presidential historian"

& I believe he's related to the family intermarried with the Kennedys.

But I don't give a shit what these kind of folks want me to think.

[Leopolds Ghost]

88. Beschloss is merely a historian. His account of WWII is chilling, tho.

I am sure he is an elite member of the bought and sold ruling caste.
They all are. Try making a name in Washington without being married
into or bought and sold by the permanent government power structure
through various boards of director positions, funding sources or
whatever. Say something unpopular and watch your "causes" that your
wealthy friends & neighbors helped fund suddenly dry up.

The rump Hutu regime, as I'm sure you know, was a radical junta that
came to power AFTER Habyarimana was executed, and immediately began
killing as many Tutsis as they could find. They executed Habyarimana's
moderate Hutu successor.

[Hannah Bell]

96. He's a ruling class historian married to a Carlyle/World Bank exec.

So I'm not so interested in his version of history.

as for habyarimana & the aftermath of his assassination/plane crash, i encourage you to read the interview with paul Rusesabagina of Hotel Rwanda fame. Some interesting perspective.

[Hannah Bell]

7. The US took part too.

It amazes me how easily we're led to believe that people (especially africans) just "go crazy" & start wildly murdering others: "a sudden unexplainable convulsion of violence."

Typically, historically, they're led to do so.

[Raskolnik]

9. In what way? I would agree that the U.S. failed to act, and shamefully so

but these allegations against the French are of a different sort.

[Hannah Bell]

22. Ask yourself what France gains from instigating terror, if it acted alone.

Most of what goes on in Africa & is attributed to Africans inexplicably going crazy has great-power conflicts beneath it.

Who funds & supplies these "rebel" armies? Who trains them? Where is the leadership educated?

These are proxy conflicts; the prize is resources & geo-strategic positioning.

(Rebel) Kagame took power after the "genocide". His "rebel army," the rfp, was US-funded (look it up at DOD), & he was educated in the US, Ft. Leavenworth. Previous gov't & pres who died in "plane crash" that sparked the "genocide" was French-supported/funded.

Start there, & ask where the info on French responsibility is coming from, as well as opposing info on the present gov's (Kagame/RFP)'s responsibility comes from - however, we don't hear the opposing info in our media.

E.G. Spanish courts have indicted US-funded Kagame gov for war crimes in the deaths of Spanish nationals during the "genocide," but not publicized in US.

[closeupready]

25. That's an interesting theory, but the days of colonialism are over.

What resources does Rwanda have that are worth being identified as the source of financing for those who instigated a civil war there? Would Juppe and Mitterand and others want to disgrace their families like that? I seriously don't think so.

I'd need to see a lot more substance before running with these charges, let alone believing they are true.

[Hannah Bell]

31. The days of colonialism never ended.

Sorry if its easier for you to believe africans regularly "go crazy" & kill each other for no reason, & that the US & other big powers, as well as their associated corporations, aren't deeply involved in africa.

Rwanda sits on a major trade route & has coltan, tantalite & oil. It's also centrally located, a good operations base for incursions elsewhere. The bigger prize, resource-wise, is its neighbor, Congo.

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/16876

http://www.scandoil.com/moxie-bm2/news/vangold-reports-airborne-survey-over-rwanda-oil-co.shtml

http://www.bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8930&Itemid=5810

I don't know why you think I'm making some obscure "charges" that require deep study. There was a civil war preceding the genocide: the ruling (nominally hutu) were supported by the french & francophone africa, & the (nominally tutsi) "rebels" (rpf) were funded by the US. The death of the president & the burundian pres in a convenient plane crash were the immediate trigger for the "genocide".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/rwanda/summary.html.

Summary - Report to Congress on U.S. Military Activities in Rwanda, 1994 - August 1997

FISCAL YEAR 1994:

E- IMET (Expanded International Military Education and Training): DoD conducted Phase III of the Naval Justice Seminar in Kigali from 17-21 Jan 94 in support of the Arusha Peace Agreement at a cost of $35.6K. The four instructors wore service Dress B uniform. A total of 33 former Rwandan Government military and civilian officials and 19 military and civilian officials of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) were trained. Of the 19 RPF officials, 12 were Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) officers. The instructors did not transfer any equipment to either the former Rwandan government or to the RPA and re-deployed with all its equipment. Source of funding: FY94 State Foreign Operations, IMET.

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/rwanda/summary.html

Kagame trained at Leavenworth: do you think it's simply coincidence he became the leader of the "rebels"?

These things are a matter of record.

[closeupready]

33. I want to respond to this later.

n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

62. Hannah is right about one thing. Africa is totally occupied by illicit Western military force.

It is all client states held up by threat of illicit hard power
by Western paramilitary units,

like Palestine in the last century BC.

However, France's client government was a fascist regime
backed by Belgian neo-Nazi expats.

So the US's client, Kagame and Museveni, were given emergency
US resources on the condition they would become our (corporations')
clients instead of France.

Doing so stopped the French-backed genocide of Tutsis, however.

We then funded Kagame and Museveni to go into the Congo and
chase down the Hutu war criminals, destabilizing that country
and causing 2 million deaths. The road to hell is paved with
good intentions.

Oh yeah, Museveni deposed the US/British client, Dr. Milton Obote,
who killed more people than Idi Amin. Our government had to make
peace with Museveni, who was backed by Tanzania, because he was a
Bugandan nationalist and didn't need to be propped up by British
divide and rule strategy.

Like Obote and Amin, whose Anglo-aligned governments were founded
on the premise of hiring an educated, ethnic minority elite
to run the country in service of our military/economic interests
in return for protection from (and permission to kill) the occupied
ethnic Bugandan majority

(equivalent to making England a protectorate of the United States
and making it subservient to Scotland and Wales, and hiring only
Scotch-Irish American rednecks to run it, and providing them with
Irish Republican guards to protect them from the angry masses.)

[Hannah Bell]

73. habyarimana took power in 1973. was he "genociding" tutsis for 20

years? not a very effective job, then. you'd think he could have wiped them out in that time.

http://www.rwandagateway.org/article.php3?id_article=5169

kagame seems to be in trouble with the human rights folks too...

[Leopolds Ghost]

89. I have no opinion on Kagame. All I know is he put a stop to the killiings

The rump Hutu junta came to power after Habyarimana was executed.

Habyarimana's gov't was not in power and if Kagame is trying to
allege that prior French funding and sponsorship for Habyarimana
was responsible for the genocide then that is a lie.

Unless that is, he can prove that the radical Hutu elements
who deposed Habyarimana's successor within hours of his
assassination were, in fact, French trained, or whether the
Interahamwe recieved French money.

But the French continued to fund and attempted to set up a
cease-fire to protect the new government-in-name-only junta
while they were still engaged in mass killings. They tried
to prevent RPF (Tutsi rebels/Kagame) from overrunning the
positions of the war criminals and allowed the leaders and
their army to escape, thus precipitating the Congo war.
That is a public fact.

Now whether the RPF or Kagame are anything other than
corrupt authoritarians or tools of US interests who are
willing to tolerate mass killings in OTHER adjacent
countries, I don't know. But I do know he ended the
mass killings and succeeded in jailing or tracking down
most of the perpetrators -- UNLIKE the Serbian leaders,
I'll add.

[Raskolnik]

28. I would agree that Western nations are far from having clean hands when it comes to Africa, but

I do think your post smacks a bit of paternalism. Not everything that happens (for good or ill) in Africa is done at the behest of the U.S. Africans are quite capable of being just without the U.S. pulling their strings, and are also quite capable of horrible acts without the U.S. being the prime motivator.

[Hannah Bell]

32. Nice diversion, but the funding & background is a matter of record.

Except in the US, where folks prefer fairy stories about crazy africans who periodically go "wild" inexplicably - because of "superstition," "tribalism," or any of the other red herrings thrown up by the western press.

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. But you seem to be assuming that only western leaders are capable of inciting genocide

rather than African leaders. The Rwandan leaders, who had the chance to rule the country, had more incentive to incite genocide than foreign leaders.

[Hannah Bell]

38. No, I don't assume it at all. But I look at the history & causes.

The causes:

1) the civil war (instigated by Kagame's US-funded "rebels")
2) the shooting down of the president's plane (by kagame's us-funded forces, apparently).

Did the nominally hutu, french-supported gov't encourage the "genocide" - undoubtably, i think - but defensively, not offensively, in the context of a foreign power instigating rebellion & destabilizing the political situation: & this little matter is almost never discussed in US accounts, & this is what pisses me off.

There is no political reason for the french to promote this "genocide" outside this context of their power base being under attack from the US.

[Leopolds Ghost]

66. And Hitler stepped up the Final Solution because of defeat at Stalingrad. So?

I guess he had a boogeyman to point to, just like France did, trying to blame Kagame for "reverse genocide" and trying to prevent the rump Hutu regime from being deposed (and refusing to allow the US to do it directly, and refusing to let us CALL it a genocide for fear of implicating France, so we had to fund Kagame indirectly thru Uganda instead.)

I'm impressed Clinton had the guts to even do that.

When Uganda and Rwanda invaded the Congo at our behest, things got ugly.

But it did lread to the downfall of Mobutu, another
US client / mass murderer no longer needed & deposed
thru the actions of our new friends, just like Obote --
a Western educated doctor who killed more Ugandans than Amin.

[Hannah Bell]

75. The french-supported regime was in power for 21 years: yet there

are still tutsis.

not a very effective "final solution".

which would follow, since there was no such organized long-term "genocide" as you imply, outside the US propaganda mills.

[Leopolds Ghost]

87. There was no long-term genocide, there were two discrete instances.

The first was more of a pogrom, preceded by a period of Tutsi
repression which instigated subsequent events -- during which
the king was exiled. the Belgians attempted to install the
Tutsi as "light-skinned, intelligent, Hamito-Semitic" racial
system to run Rwanda in their stead, since the Belgians had
cultivated Tutsi for all the administrative jobs using racial
classification to determine who was Hutu and who was Tutsi.

This naturally created an untenable situation of turning the
Tutsi (traditionally upper class) into an untenable and
"racially" iclient regime propped up by Belgium. the Hutus
took over and killed 100,000 Tutsis. Belgium (and more
importantly France) switched sides and reverse use of the
racial classification system, convinced the Hutu that the
Tutsi were elite cosmopolitans and bloodsucking oppressors
and that they needed French help to defend against the
insidious Tutsi living in their midst. Sound familiar?

The most recent genocide was an organized event
perpetrated by a rump junta who took over things
AFTER Habyarimana was assassinated. They were far
to the right of Habyarimana who was merely a "Hutu nationalist".

The junta took power and immediately started killing prominent
Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Habyarimana's cabinet.

Interahamwe organized death squads
in short order thru the radio waves, not unlike Rush.

Some have suggested or inferred that the junta did not control
the Interahamwe, and that the Interahamwe was preparing a Tutsi
genocide anyway -- in anticipation of a trigger event, like
resumption of conflict or the death of Habyarimana, which they
all too conveniently blamed on Kagame given the timing of the
subsequent organized killings.

But the junta was allied to Interahamwe and the junta was
supplied by the French.

[Hannah Bell]

98. you're not making much sense to me. one minute you're talking

about hitler, as though the rwandan massacres involved a well-thought out infrastructure of ovens & workcamps - next minute you're saying the gov't that took power after the assassination was responsible for the genocide. but then it couldn't have been highly planned & all that.

assassination = 4/6/94

first of massacres = next day.

[Raskolnik]

42. I'm not arguing that the U.S. (or China, or France, etc.) haven't contributed to Africa's problems

Sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. I was merely pointing out that your statement smacked of paternalism because it removed most (if not all) responsiblity from Africans for their own actions and placed it elsewhere. I believe that point remains.

[Hannah Bell]

48. what statement would that be?

i've been speaking about specific, documented facts surrounding the rwandan civil war, genocide & aftermath, not making vague generalizations about africa & the us.

perhaps you're reading your own preconceptions into the conversation.

to say "most of what goes on in africa has great power conflicts beneath it" is like saying "most of what goes on in the us has big capital conflicts beneath it". That's what structures the political landscape: money, guns, & control of the conversation.

[hedgehog]

63. Ever hear of Patrice Lumumba or Dag Hammerskold?

"Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was an African anti-colonial leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped to win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in coup during the Congo Crisis. He was subsequently imprisoned and assassinated under controversial circumstances.
....

On September 14,(1960) a coup d’état endorsed by the CIA and organized by Colonel Joseph Mobutu removed Lumumba from office."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba


"Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (Dag Hammarskjöld (help·info)) (July 29, 1905 – September 18, 1961) was a Swedish diplomat, Christian mystic, and the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. He served from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961 under mysterious circumstances. The exact cause of his death has never been conclusively determined. He is the only person to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.<1> Hammarskjöld is still the only U.N. Secretary-General to die in office."

U.S. President John F. Kennedy has called Hammarskjöld “the greatest statesman of our century.”<2>

I refer you to the Wiki articles for an outline of the various conspiracy theories regarding his death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Hammarskj%C3%B6ld

[hedgehog]

61. I've long seen hints of both France and Belgium continuing to

exploit Rwanda and the Congo.

[Hannah Bell]

76. no doubt. doesn't change the facts. france had nothing in particular

to gain from "genocide" outside the context of the great power rivalry & power struggle.

[Leopolds Ghost]

65. I refuse to speak with someone who puts "genocide" in scare quotes.

What happened in Rwanda was the result of genocide. PERIOD.

And the genocide was every bit as organized and one-sided
(carried out by the French backed Hutu rump regime founded
on ideas and money inherited from colonial Belgian neo-Nazis
and Leopold-lovers) as the one in Nazi germany.

NOT "chaos" or "Africans going crazy".

Your argument is like saying that the French fleet was a tool of
American business interests that prevented England from ending a
destructive and mindless colonial uprising instigated by France.

[Hannah Bell]

77. genocide is the planned extermination of an entire people.

which did not occur.

it's an over-used, emotion-laden term.

what actually happened in the genocide is highly contested.

unlike us funding for kagame, or the rwandan civil war you don't believe existed.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. The U.S. has left bloody fingerprints all over Africa.

[Raskolnik]

19. Of course it has, but what does that have to do with the allegations of the Rwandan report?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. I'm not contesting it. The French, Brits, Dutch, Spanish..have much to answer for.

Africa has long been, and still is, a rich picking ground for the West.

[itsrobert]

58. The US took part?

I was in Uganda supporting the Military Airlift of supplies. We didn't take part in the killings.

[Leopolds Ghost]

68. Hanna says your assistance was wrong. After all, y'all allowed the Tutsis to liberate the country

And they are nothing more than US-trained and backed instigators right?

:eyes:

[Hannah Bell]

78. kagame's group are no more representative of "tutsis" than

gw bush is representative of "texans," & the US funding is a matter of record.

[Hannah Bell]

71. No, we just funded the rebels & the assassination of the president.

as well as various forms of propaganda & arms.

[SidDithers]

8. Interview with Romeo Dallaire...

The Canadian General who headed up the UN mission. He's got a book out, called "Shake Hands with the Devil". MotherJones did an interview with him here:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/01/dallaire.html

Sid

[closeupready]

11. What possible motive would there have been for French officials?

The article doesn't say, and it's unclear. Without such a motive, I find even the idea nonsensical.

[entanglement]

23. I recommend this excellent column by Andrew Wallis in the UK Times on France's role in the genocide

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article659897.ece

[closeupready]

26. Thanks, I'll read it.

:hi:

[Hannah Bell]

40. what a load of hooey.

Title: inflammatory:
France, steeped in genocidal blood, must face trial

Notes French support for habyarimana; complete disappearance of US support for Kagame, which was the destabilizing factor directly responsible for the massacre.

Labels H gov't "corrupt," etc. & whitewashes equally corrupt Kagame gov't.

If you wanted mainstream evidence that the roots of the rwandan genocide lie in the territorial rivalry between France & US, this can be exhibit A: not for what it says, but for everything it inexplicably doesn't say - all of which has the result of completely disappearing the US (& UK) involvement in rwanda.

[Leopolds Ghost]

74. Habyarimana was not the issue. He was Hindenburg to Bizimungu's Hitler.

And Rutuganda and the Interahamwe was Himmler to Hitler's SS.

They explicitly saw themselves as fascist on a small scale,
like all right-wing paramilitary death squads backed by
secret funding from the regime in power.

Besides, France felt the new junta would allow them to concentrate
military influence in Kigali, which had been previously shared by Belgium
and other neocolonial powers such as the US/Uganda aligned Tutsis
who had an ally for the first time in the person of Museveni.

BEFORE Museveni became a US ally, he was instigating an army of
orphans in the Bugandan heartland known as the Triangle of Death
to depose US-backed mass murderer Dr. Milton Obote.

During that time, the Tutsis' only ally were the tribal/provincial
leaders of Ankole, a breakaway republic under Amin and Obote's
harsh reign -- a former kingdom on the Uganda/Rwanda border near
Gorillas National Park -- who were nominally ethnically affiliated
with the Tutsi and gave shelter to large numbers of Tutsi refugees,
from whence sprang the RPF.

However, Kagame and Museveni both shared time as Western educated
rebels hiding out in Ankole, not coincidental -- assuming they were
both independently operating western assets, which is not too far a
conclusion given all the "new leadership programs" we've set up
to train (and keep tabs on) future Third World leaders.

If so, once we lost interest in propping up the mass murderer Obote
and greenlighted Museveni to restore Bugandan control of Uganda for
the first time since the 1880s, we naturally followed that RPF would
become a US client since RPF and Museveni were close allies.

It was France who chose to prop up the new junta to keep RPF from
siezing control. (They were winning a war of attrition along the
border, which is why Hutu nationalism was so easy to stir up, and
is also why the Arusha peace accords even occurred -- the RPF had
fought the Hutu nationalist government to a standstill.)

[Hannah Bell]

81. You seem to like the hitler comparisons.

But they're ridiculous.

[Leopolds Ghost]

92. Genocide in Rwanda is not comparable to genocide in Europe?

Stalin invaded Eastern Europe and interrupted the Holocaust.

Kagame invaded Rwanda and ended the genocide there.

Saying that is not a reflection on whether or not
Kagame happens to be a tyrant in his own right,
as you can see in this example. Only that he was
on our side at the time, against an even greater
evil (at the time).

[Hannah Bell]

101. no, it's not comparable.

the nazi genocide was state sponsored & involved a long-standing national infrastructure of work camps, denial of civil rights, stolen property, & targeted extermination.

the rwandan situation was more in the way of a massacre, in the context of war & assassination, & both hutus & tutsis were instigators & victims.

again, i encourage you to read the interview with paul r. of hotel rwanda. many interesting factoids, e.g the leader of the interhamwe, the supposedly "hutu" group genociding tutsis, was - a tutsi.

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1022/0

the rwandan case is more like the riots in the us after the death of mlk. an explosion of anger & revenge, partly spontaneous, partly manipulated. but not "planned" in any strict sense, as the german concentration camps were planned.

[DrCory]

17. If it's in a report it must be true! N/T

[Raskolnik]

18. No, but you've got to admit it's a pretty serious allegation if even partially true.

[DrCory]

24. The "seriousness" of the allegation...

Is irrelevant. Do we convict based on the "seriousness" of allegations? Where's the proof?

[Raskolnik]

29. I expect some sort of proof (or refutation) will be forthcoming.

I do not believe anyone is calling for parties to be "convicted" based on the seriousness of the allegations, but I do think the seriousness of the allegations demands attention.

If it turns out to be bunk, then it's bunk. But if it's not...

[Hannah Bell]

27. Kagame's gov & "rebel" fighting force, which took over Rwanda

after the genocide, was funded & trained by the US, & Kagame was trained at Ft. Leavenworth, KS.

So it's the US funding this report v. France - who, coincidentally, supported the previous gov't.

[Raskolnik]

30. Claiming "it's the US funding this report" is more than a bit of a stretch.

And again, smacks of paternalism.

[Hannah Bell]

35. US support for Kagame, his "rebel" army, & his present gov't are

a matter of record.

Your repetitious charge of "paternalism" is diversionary & stupid.

Here's Spain's indictment of Kagame's gov:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06822465.htm

The "Hotel Rwanda" guy accuses Kagame of war crimes & assassination:

http://www.taylor-report.com/articles/index.php?id=28

French charge Kagame:

http://www.afrol.com/articles/22823

"In 1990, while Kagame was studying at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, that invasion—mostly involving Tutsi veterans of the Ugandan army—was undertaken and repulsed. In the process the other three members of the FPR command were killed. Kagame assumed direction of the civil war, which was suspended in August 1993 by a peace agreement that promised—but never delivered—real power sharing.

Early in April 1994 Rwandan Pres. Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was killed when his plane was shot down over Kigali; this sparked a campaign of genocide against the Tutsi and their moderate Hutu allies. In response, Kagame led a force of 10,000–14,000 FPR soldiers against the Hutu forces perpetrating the genocide."

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/309587/Paul-Kagame

Judge Bruguière's Report on the Assassination of former Rwandan President Habyarimana

By Robin Philpot
March 12, 2003

As people around the world prepare to mark the 10th anniversary of the terrible Rwandan tragedy triggered by the shooting down of former Rwandan President Habyarimana's plane on April 6, 1994, the report by French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière provides cause to reconsider some accepted ideas about those events. The 225-page report leaked to Le Monde places the entire blame for the missile attack on President Habyarimana's plane on current Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

That attack was surely one of the worst terrorist acts of the 1990s. Think about it! Two African heads of state were killed--President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi was also in the plane ­, the fragile peace based on the Arusha accords of 1993 was shattered, war resumed, and masses of people were massacred. The perpetrators of that attack--the Rwandan Patriotic Front according to Bruguière--knew what would happen, as did their principal backers, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Unclassified internal Clinton Administration documents show that on that very night, immediately after learning of President Habyarimana's death, Prudence Bushnell of the American Embassy in Kigali presciently wrote to Secretary of State Warren Christopher in Washington: "If, as it appears, both Presidents have been killed, there is a strong likelihood that widespread violence could break out in either or both countries, particularly if it is confirmed that the plane was shot down."

http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/2004/rwanda.html

[Raskolnik]

39. Stating that the U.S. has supported Kagame in the past is not the same thing

as stating "it's the US funding this report."

And my point remains: I believe your statements (to some degree) strip Africans of their independent agency and assign responsibility to the U.S., which smacks of paternalism.

[Hannah Bell]

41. whatever, dude. he who pays the piper calls the tune of the white papers.

btw, it's ongoing funding, not just past funding.

[Raskolnik]

43. And if/when Rwanda gets it shit together, I'm sure a lot of people in the U.S. will pat themselves

on the back and congratulate us for being such wise guides to our little African brothers.

And as fucked up as that sentiment is, I believe is comes from the same place that seeks to portray all the problems of Africa as being attibutable to the U.S. standing above the continent pulling the strings.

[Hannah Bell]

45. Nice red herring. You're certainly persistent with it.

But here's what I actually said & documented:

1) The US funded & trained the "rebels" in the Rwandan civil war, & their leader, Kagame.
2) There's evidence Kagame's forces shot down the former president's plane, touching off the "genocide"
3) Kagame & the RPF's been accused of war crimes by Spain & France.
4) Kagame's now president of Rwanda.
5) The US funds at least 6% of the entire Rwandan GDP.


According to you, that amounts to saying: "ALL the problems of AFRICA are attibutable to the U.S. pulling the strings."

Yeah, just keep dragging that stinky fish across the trail.

[Raskolnik]

47. What you actually said was "So it's the US funding this report v. France"

Thereby removing Africans from the equation.

[Hannah Bell]

49. tell me something, squid. are the facts i've laid out in error? if not, is there

any reason to think a US-funded puppet represents "africans"?

or are you just pulling the same tired old ethnic divide & distract shit?

but whatever, dude.

[Raskolnik]

53. As I stated previously, claiming "it's the US funding this report" is more than a bit of a stret

particularly when you haven't supported that very specific claim.

[Hannah Bell]

54. 6% of gdp, inky.

[Hannah Bell]

46. edit double post

[Hannah Bell]

44. US gave $167 million to rwanda JUST from USAID: undoubtably there

was some additional support, e.g. military.

But even if we assume this 167 million was it, R's GDP = 2.8 billion, so the US aid = 6% of GDP.

Rather substantial.

[Leopolds Ghost]

56. So who ended the Rwandan genocide, Hannah Bell? Or do you believe it was somehow justified?

Yeah, I imagine Kagame was behind the intensive planning by the
colonial Belgium/French-backed Hutu government and militia into
mass killings on an organized scale immediately after the plane
was shot down.

[Hannah Bell]

82. the folks who started it. duh.

[cobalt1999]

34. France's history in Africa is soaked in blood.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was true.

[Hannah Bell]

37. and maybe this too:

KBR and the Rwandan Genocide:

In 1990, the first invasion of Rwanda took place by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a militant organization from Uganda, overseen by a man by the name of Paul Kagame. The aim of this Tutsi rebel organization was the overthrow of Rwanda’s then-Hutu President Habyarimana, who was at the time, using World Bank loans to import enormous numbers of machetes under World Bank surveillance of Rwanda’s expenditure.5 This was the offset of the Rwandan civil war, which lasted until 1993, when a peace agreement was being brokered between Rwanda’s president and other neighboring leaders, including the President of Burundi. When the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were flying back to Rwanda during the time of peace settlements, in 1994, their plane, also carrying on board many French officials, was shot down. This is the event that triggered the Rwandan genocide.

The first invasion of Rwanda by the RPF in 1990 “had the military backing of the first Bush administration <1989-1993>, including Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.”6 In 1992, “then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney commissioned Brown & Root to produce a classified report examining the benefits of greatly expanding logistics privatization. The report led the Pentagon to solicit bids from thirty-seven firms for an unprecedented five-year contract to provide the bulk of the Army’s overseas logistics needs. Later that year, the Defense Department chose Brown & Root as the first such umbrella logistics contractor.”7

In 1993, newly elected President Bill Clinton continued this policy of supporting the RPF. His trusted allies in the United Nations, Madeline Albright, then US Ambassador to the United Nations and Kofi Annan, then head of the UN’s peacekeeping operations, ensured that the relationship would be concealed from the public. Wayne Madsen reported that both Albright and Annan, “conveniently chose to ignore evidence that a US-trained and supplied guerrilla force – the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) – was responsible for the fateful April 6, 1994 terrorist missile attack on the aircraft carrying the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi home from a peace summit in Tanzania.”8

Paul Kagame, leader of the RPF, had been trained at US military bases in the United States in guerilla warfare tactics, and had very close ties to the Pentagon, the US State Department and the CIA.9 It also turns out that the US supplied the RPF with the missiles used to shoot down the plane carrying the two presidents, and that a UN investigation revealed that the warehouse which was used in assembling the missile launchers was leased to a company linked to none other than the CIA. Albright and Annan also ensured that information did not reach the public.10

Madsen revealed that a French investigation in 2004 about the shooting down of the plane, carried out on behalf of the French citizens who were killed on the plane, revealed that there was a startling connection to an organization that goes by the name of the, “International Strategic and Tactical Organization” , which represents powerful political and corporate interests, including Armitage and Associates LC, a firm founded by George W. Bush’s first Deputy Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, and KBR, or Kellogg Brown & Root, then a subsidiary of Halliburton.11 In 1994, KBR was in Rwanda under a $6.3 million contract called “Operation Support Hope.”12

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8258.

[Leopolds Ghost]

59. The fact that Kagame is a US client does not absolve France's client state from genocide.

[Hannah Bell]

83. no, never said it does. what irritates me is the total disappearance

of the US role from the narrative, & the white-washing of kagame into some kind of freedom fighter/liberator.

The fact remains, however, that without US-sponsored attack of the French regime in power, there would have been no "genocide". It was a product of the destabilization of war & the use of vile propaganda on both sides; but the US sponsored the initial aggression toward a regime in power since 1973.

[Leopolds Ghost]

91. I would love to see an expose of Kagame's and US role in the Congo nightmare.

I certainly don't believe his shit don't stink.

For one thing, he went from Secretary of Defense to VP to President
and party chairman, and seems unlikely to leave that position.

Although his reasoning might be rational... like Tito...
"apres moi le deluge."

Then again, I don't believe he had any role in the killings
of 1 million Tutsis other than ending them and (by and large)
ensuring that no revenge killings took place, and the current
Rwanda gov't seems to be trying to break the cycle of violence
by truth and reconciliation courts.

Given all that, maybe the US SHOULD have allowed Rwanda and
Uganda to occupy the Kivu region, as an autonomous province
of Congo/Zaire. (Congo really needs to be split up, it is
a colonial abomination akin to the Austro-Hungarian Empire).

Then the killings in that part of the Congo that have
been allowed to continue for 10 years thanks to the 1996
Congolese invasion would be on their heads.

[Hannah Bell]

97. well, paul Rusesabagina disagrees with you on k.

[Leopolds Ghost]

57. France and Belgium, which still treat Rwanda like a colony and insisted on other troops not entering

"their" protectorate of influence (Rwanda) during the genocide.

for comparison, Russia let us set up bases in former Soviet republics.

Or read up on Belgium's King Leopold.

[Hannah Bell]

99. yeah, leopold's ghost is a good read.

does the author mention how the hochschild fortunes were made, or the hochschild family's continuing involvement in africa?

100-year late mea culpas, but they never give up the ill-gotten gains.

you seem to have a blind eye for us/uk crimes, still ongoing.

yet i'm assuming you're american.

kagame's way involved in congo. as is the us. uganda is the center of us operation in africa.

[Flagg]

51. Mitterand may have had many flaws

but genocide ?

[galledgoblin]

79. all leading nations are to blame when genocide happens

through inaction and indirect involvement.

I'm not the least bit surprised that one may have been actively involved.

[JustAnotherGen]

84. My immediate thought is . . .

I'm tired of thinking about Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Kurds in Iraq, the Balkans, and Rwanda. There's a Genocide we could get off our asses and intervene in right now:


But Bush is the Saudi's and China's bitch so we do n-o-t-h-i-n-g.

As a matter of fact, the 'easy way out of Iraq' is to pull back over the horizon, let the genocide happen, and then the world will applause us for inaction for the mess we created.

As an American - I could care less about what France did 16 or 20 years ago. Or what Belgium did when they FIRST colonized it and established the 'race differentiators' so the good white folks could figure which of the :sarcasm: 'darkies' :sarcasm: they could feel 'good' around.

Deconstructing Rwanda doesn't help women in Darfur who get raped to death when they leave their camps to get fire wood.

I refuse to hide my head in the blood that ran through the streets of Kigali when I've shaken hands with the man who shook hands with the Devil. If anyone ever gets the opportunity to see/hear Romeo speak - I would urge you to do so. If anything - in the two times I've heard him speak - and the one time I met him and had a wonderful discussion with him - he reminds you . ..

All this b.s. about who did what when won't do us a damn bit of good when he's out there beating the drum for intervention NOW in Darfur. There were human beings killed in Rwanda over B.S., human beings killed in the Balkans over some SUPER b.s. -

And it's happening again.

[Hannah Bell]

102. Keith Harmon Snow talks with Paul Rusesabagina, the ordinary man who inspired the film Hotel Rwanda.

KHS: What role did Canadian General Romeo play? (27) Because it's claimed by ICTR lawyers—for the defense—that Dallaire and the UNAMIR forces closed down half the runway, eliminating one possible approach, which made it possible to shoot down the plane carrying the two presidents. (28)

PR: Well, General Dallaire openly helped the RPF rebels, unfortunately.


KHS: He was working for the RPF…


PR: I couldn’t tell exactly who he was working for. For me, what I cannot understand: A Canadian general who came to Rwanda in 1993, who has 2,500 soldiers, and when they are in the genocide and 10 Belgian soldiers were killed, the Belgian government decided to pullout . And they had about 350 soldiers in the U.N. , supported by the United States, and the United Kingdom, and the whole world decided to pull out, and to abandon the whole mission, to abandon Rwanda. When they decided to abandon, the General himself decided to remain, this time not with 2,500 soldiers, but with 200 soldiers. Can you imagine a Canadian general commanding 200 African soldiers? That is a big question mark. I can't imagine, a U.S. or Canadian general commanding 200 soldiers, and African soldiers… maybe if he was a lieutenant he could have done that…


KHS: So you are saying it was highly irregular for a Canadian General to stay in Rwanda at the time and be commanding only 200 soldiers… So the question then arises: what was a Canadian General doing with 200 African soldiers? Was he working for Canada?


PR: No, not as a Canadian, but maybe on his own.


KHS: Not officially for Canada...


PR: No, not officially.


KHS: But he wasn't officially U.N. anymore either, is that right?


PR: But he was still, in the end, he was still supposed to be a United Nations commander. But myself, I don't imagine a Canadian general commanding 200 soldiers. Can you imagine? And knowing, purposely, that he is unable to do anything to protect any one civilian? And with only 200 soldiers for the whole country: you can imagine what it means: nothing, zero.


KHS: Why did he stay?


PR: Why did he stay? That remains a mystery to me. I haven't understood. But maybe if I was in his position—myself, I would have resigned. Because giving me 200 soldiers, that is a humiliation for a general. So resigning, and staying, remaining, knowing purposely that he was not going to change anything… that was a game. Or maybe secretly he was working for someone else.


KHS: In other words, the only sensible conclusion is that General Romeo Dallaire remained in Rwanda—after the UNAMIR “peacekeeping” mission was aborted—because he was expected to play a role in the overthrow of the Habyarimana government. And he did play a role: he supported the RPF.


PR: Well, that is a big question mark. Dallaire’s army, his soldiers were bringing RPF soldiers, in their cars, from the RPF side, to the CND, the house of the parliament in Kigali. (29)


KHS: You are saying that UNAMIR was transporting RPF soldiers from the RPF side of Rwanda, across the ceasefire zone, to Kigali, and this was before April 1994?


PR: Yes, before April 6, 1994. Initially there were supposed to be 600 soldiers, but in 1994 when the genocide broke out there were about 4000 RPF soldiers.


KHS: And what was the official number of RPF soldiers allowed to be in Kigali? Wasn’t there a restriction of RPF soldiers in Kigali according to the Arusha Peace Accords of 1993?


PR: Yes. Under the Arusha Accords it was 600 soldiers.


KHS: So, officially, only 600 RPA soldiers were allowed in Kigali, but in fact there were almost 4000 RPA. So obviously Habyarimana knew that, but he couldn’t do anything about it.


PR: Yes, and that is why he was angry against each and every one. He was always upset.


KHS: Did you ever hear anything about the investigations into the shooting down of the presidential plane? The 6 April 1994 event that is always credited with “sparking the genocide?”

[JackRiddler]

103. Snow's work is important... thanks. Please provide link. Thanks!

[Hannah Bell]

104. ...

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1022/0

[JackRiddler]

100. The debate on this thread is unnecessary - France and US took proxies in Rwanda

Both bear a measure of responsibility for what happened.

I was in Germany in 1994 and the press extensively covered the French involvement - intervention, in fact - on behalf of the Hutu Power, post-Habariyama state. Special forces were deployed to cover the retreat of the Hutus before the victorious RPF forces under Kagame. German public pressure played a role in causing France to end the overt operation on behalf of those who did indeed massacre hundreds of thousands of people.

At the same time, the US had armed Kagame's forces. Kagame himself was training at Ft. Leavenworth when the prior leader of the RPF died. He took a flight straight from Kansas to the leadership of the RPF.

Then Habariyama's plane went down with the Burundi president also on board. It is vital to note that the US insisted that all genocide investigations concerning the events of 1994 in Rwanda begin on the day after the plane was shot down. What does that imply? For years, the UN said the black boxes were never found - until it was admitted they were, long after the international investigations and prosecutions were underway, and the question of who shot down the plane (the CIA-backed RPF, presumably) had been rendered irrelevant.

There is no contradiction (sadly) in the idea that US forces simultaneously provided aid to the victims, even as other US agencies had prepared and armed the RPF for a proxy war with France over the African spoils (and please, don't tell me it isn't worth it to control a country - imperialists always find a reason, an interest in each piece of the earth that seems compelling enough to them, that's what the history tells us).

The idea that the West stood by while the Rwandan genocide happened is thus a ridiculous myth of "humanitarian imperialism," justifying future military interventions in Africa on a false basis. In reality, France and the US were both involved heavily in the history that preceded the genocide, contributing to the opposing forces who fought in the conflict leading up to it. France did actively intervene - on behalf of the forces blamed for the majority of the massacres.

This is happening in Africa all the time. It doesn't exonerate or "patronize" Africans to admit the reality of constant western intervention in their affairs, with African states (whether good or bad in themselves) generally powerless to prevent it. Imperialism never ended - it merely shifted to different, covert strategies in the wake of the independence wave. People should not take pride in issuing platitudes about Africa while knowing very little of the history.

[JustAnotherGen]

105. Not worthy!

And I couldn't agree more. I 100% agree that the imperialism is covert these days.

I'd like to see overt imperialism. Since the glorified debate club in Manhattan won't get off their asses and do something about the genocide now - I say we drop guns into the camps in Darfur with instruction manuals so at least those folks can shoot back.

My Solar Cookers I've been sending? They might be able to give a bastard a good whack - but that's nothing compared to what an Uzi could do to the janjaweed.