Your Excellency President Barack H. Obama February 3, 2009
President of The United States of America Nº: 003/PPK/029
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Ref.: Instability in the Great Lakes Region of Africa
Your Excellency President,
We, the Organization for Peace, Justice and Development in Rwanda (OPJDR), a nonpolitical
and not for profit organization based in Delaware, US, congratulates you in this
historic presidency that comes with a sense of unprecedented optimism and hope that
you have inspired in all of us as well as around the world. Since October 1990, the
population in the Great Lakes region of Africa, which is our area of focus with a
particular emphasis on Rwanda, lives in an endemic situation of insecurity, misery and
hopelessness. Your message of change and optimism gives the population in the Great
Lakes Region of Africa, a reason to hope and deeply believe in your goodwill to bring a
brighter future not only to America but also to other countries around the world.
The state of the misery in Great Lakes Region of Africa has started on that fateful day of
October 1, 1990 with a war that was imposed on Rwanda by a group led by Ugandan
military officers of Rwandese origin including its own Department of Military
Intelligence chief, then Major Paul Kagame who later on became Major General and
President of Rwanda. At the time, Rwanda did demonstrate how it was waging a war
against its neighbor Uganda while the latter insisted that it was rather renegade
elements of its military that had invaded Rwanda. And later the international
community came to be persuaded that it was Rwandan refugees, grouped under the
Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) and its military wing, Rwanda Patriotic Army (APR), who
were claiming to return to their homeland. The conflict culminated on April 6, 1994
5830 West Thunderbird Rd, Ste B8-PMB207 Glendale, AZ 85306
PHONE: (603) 623-7945 & (602) 412-3787 www.opjdr.org
OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and
Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
when a presidential jet was shot down near Kigali International Airport, killing
everyone on board including the President of Rwanda Juvenal Habyarimana and the
President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira and their close aides. This terrorist act
performed by the RPF ignited the Rwanda genocide and constituted a short path for
RPF/RPA to seize power in Kigali in July 1994.
Few years later, in 1996, the same playbook was used to attack the then Zaire, the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where an obscure group from the Tutsi tribe of
Rwandese origin, known as Banyamulenge, decided to take their fight to Kinshasa, the
capital city, and capture the entire country with a strong support from General Paul
Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda. Since then, there has
not a single day of peace in the region. Very often, the Rwandan, DRC and Great Lakes
region of Africa issues are presented as being problems either between two major ethnic
groups, Hutu and Tutsi, or simply of regional nature. Many key observers in the region
concur that there has been almost 6 millions of human souls that have perished in that
region so far, essentially in Rwanda and DRC since the invasion of Rwanda on October
1st, 1990 and from the subsequent proxy armed conflicts that followed until today.
In his interview on Europe 1 channel on October 2nd, 2007, the French Foreign and
European Affairs Minister, Mr. Bernard Kouchner stated that during the 1990 – 1994
Rwandan war, France has confronted a significant resistance through a multiform
nature of a battle of influence in the region with an aim on the biggest prize of DRC from
Belgians, British and Americans. Historically, DRC has often been coveted by
developed countries for its tremendous natural resources and one of the main tools to
accomplish that has been to promote corruption and support leaders who will ease the
external access to those resources. For many concerned Africans and friends of Africa,
they don’t cease to wonder when will Africa, in particular its Great Lakes region, break
from the cycle of violence and build solid democracies that will subsequently generate
long term development. The spiral of unacceptable violence, massive corruption,
5830 West Thunderbird Rd, Ste B8-PMB207 Glendale, AZ 85306
PHONE: (603) 623-7945 & (602) 412-3787 www.opjdr.org
OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and
Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
injustice practices and the winner takes all attitude has embarked Rwanda and DRC in a
ticking bomb environment.
Your Excellency Mr. President, some of the two keys points of your campaign have been
to reign in the lobby system as well as prevent unnecessary wars and promote
democracy and justice around the world. On January 21, 2008, Judge Fernando Andreu
Merelles, of the Central Court in Madrid, Spain, after several years of investigations,
indicted 40 high ranked Rwandans officers, including General Paul Kagame, currently
president of Rwanda, for having ordered, participated or executed killings and other
atrocities against children, women and other civilians in Rwanda and DRC between
1990 and 2004. Prior to the Spanish indictments, one recalls that on November 17, 2006,
the French anti-terrorist Jean-Louis Bruguiere, of the Paris Court of Serious Crimes
indicted General Paul Kagame and nine other high ranking officers in his entourage for
the shooting down of the President Juvenal Habyarimana’s jet on April 6, 1994, igniting
the genocide in Rwanda. So far, little have been done to arrest those indicted. They
continue to enjoy the protection of the Government of Rwanda while the developed
countries and the United Nations looked on or continue to provide economic and
political support to Kigali’s regime as if 6 millions people murdered do not deserve
justice. The traumatized people in the Great Lakes region of Africa implore you to lift all
US political and economic supports to President Kagame, so he and his aides can
respond to the charges against them before the court of law. These actions will pave a
way for an environment aimed on promoting truth, dialogue, justice and democracy in
Rwanda, and by the way preventing Kagame to continue his dangerous agenda of
disseminating proxy wars in DRC.
On December 12, 2008, a United Nations (UN) report on the current crisis in Congo
stated that the main rebel leader, Major General Laurent Nkunda, was being essentially
supported by President Kagame of Rwanda. Within weeks after the publication of that
report, some European countries including Netherland and Sweden suspended their
assistance to Rwanda while United Kingdom is reconsidering his cooperation with
5830 West Thunderbird Rd, Ste B8-PMB207 Glendale, AZ 85306
PHONE: (603) 623-7945 & (602) 412-3787 www.opjdr.org
OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and
Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
President Kagame’s regime. It is under these criticisms and pressures that President
Kagame looked into ways to remove the spotlight on him by working out a joint military
campaign between Rwanda and DRC to curb down the rebellion activities in the Eastern
Congo. On January 20, 2009, while in Washington DC, and in most countries and cities
around the world, we were celebrating a historic moment in US democracy, General
Paul Kagame ordered his army to invade once again the Democratic Republic of Congo.
By the 23rd, the Rwandese Defense Forces (RDF) declared that they had the main rebel
leader, Major General Laurent Nkunda in their custody. Furthermore, according to a
New York Times article of January 24th, 2009, several demobilized Rwandan soldiers
recently revealed that there was a secret operation to slip Rwandan soldiers into Congo
to fight alongside General Nkunda. Since the Rwandese Defense Forces entered the
DRC, UN soldiers and other humanitarian personnel have been denied access to the
area. OPJDR fears that innocent civilians specially Rwandan refugees who fled the
regime of Paul Kagame and now living in the area are being massacred in a closed door
scenario, far from cameras and other stream media.
The pivotal question for the Great Lakes region of Africa is: Will General Kagame
continue to rage wars in DRC or other neighboring countries in total impunity? We
strongly believe that helping Rwanda facing its own destiny by decisively asking
President Kagame to open the country political process, to allow Rwandans of all origins
talk the Truth about its recent past, in all inclusive Dialogue and Reconciliation, will
pave the way toward democracy that could start on a stronger footing. Currently the
Rwanda’s political environment is dominated by the ex-rebellion movement, the
Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) which has refused from opening up to a Dialogue with
the opposition political parties or civil society groups despite their multiple requests.
We believe that the United States can provide a significant assistance to this remediation
and OPDJR is available to give more details on hopelessness life of people in Great
Lakes region of Africa.
5830 West Thunderbird Rd, Ste B8-PMB207 Glendale, AZ 85306
PHONE: (603) 623-7945 & (602) 412-3787 www.opjdr.org
OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and
Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
Again congratulations for your historic inauguration as the 44th President of United
States of America.
Sincerely,
Pascal Kalinganire
Coordinator General
.
President of The United States of America Nº: 003/PPK/029
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Ref.: Instability in the Great Lakes Region of Africa
Your Excellency President,
We, the Organization for Peace, Justice and Development in Rwanda (OPJDR), a nonpolitical
and not for profit organization based in Delaware, US, congratulates you in this
historic presidency that comes with a sense of unprecedented optimism and hope that
you have inspired in all of us as well as around the world. Since October 1990, the
population in the Great Lakes region of Africa, which is our area of focus with a
particular emphasis on Rwanda, lives in an endemic situation of insecurity, misery and
hopelessness. Your message of change and optimism gives the population in the Great
Lakes Region of Africa, a reason to hope and deeply believe in your goodwill to bring a
brighter future not only to America but also to other countries around the world.
The state of the misery in Great Lakes Region of Africa has started on that fateful day of
October 1, 1990 with a war that was imposed on Rwanda by a group led by Ugandan
military officers of Rwandese origin including its own Department of Military
Intelligence chief, then Major Paul Kagame who later on became Major General and
President of Rwanda. At the time, Rwanda did demonstrate how it was waging a war
against its neighbor Uganda while the latter insisted that it was rather renegade
elements of its military that had invaded Rwanda. And later the international
community came to be persuaded that it was Rwandan refugees, grouped under the
Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) and its military wing, Rwanda Patriotic Army (APR), who
were claiming to return to their homeland. The conflict culminated on April 6, 1994
5830 West Thunderbird Rd, Ste B8-PMB207 Glendale, AZ 85306
PHONE: (603) 623-7945 & (602) 412-3787 www.opjdr.org
OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and
Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
when a presidential jet was shot down near Kigali International Airport, killing
everyone on board including the President of Rwanda Juvenal Habyarimana and the
President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira and their close aides. This terrorist act
performed by the RPF ignited the Rwanda genocide and constituted a short path for
RPF/RPA to seize power in Kigali in July 1994.
Few years later, in 1996, the same playbook was used to attack the then Zaire, the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where an obscure group from the Tutsi tribe of
Rwandese origin, known as Banyamulenge, decided to take their fight to Kinshasa, the
capital city, and capture the entire country with a strong support from General Paul
Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda. Since then, there has
not a single day of peace in the region. Very often, the Rwandan, DRC and Great Lakes
region of Africa issues are presented as being problems either between two major ethnic
groups, Hutu and Tutsi, or simply of regional nature. Many key observers in the region
concur that there has been almost 6 millions of human souls that have perished in that
region so far, essentially in Rwanda and DRC since the invasion of Rwanda on October
1st, 1990 and from the subsequent proxy armed conflicts that followed until today.
In his interview on Europe 1 channel on October 2nd, 2007, the French Foreign and
European Affairs Minister, Mr. Bernard Kouchner stated that during the 1990 – 1994
Rwandan war, France has confronted a significant resistance through a multiform
nature of a battle of influence in the region with an aim on the biggest prize of DRC from
Belgians, British and Americans. Historically, DRC has often been coveted by
developed countries for its tremendous natural resources and one of the main tools to
accomplish that has been to promote corruption and support leaders who will ease the
external access to those resources. For many concerned Africans and friends of Africa,
they don’t cease to wonder when will Africa, in particular its Great Lakes region, break
from the cycle of violence and build solid democracies that will subsequently generate
long term development. The spiral of unacceptable violence, massive corruption,
5830 West Thunderbird Rd, Ste B8-PMB207 Glendale, AZ 85306
PHONE: (603) 623-7945 & (602) 412-3787 www.opjdr.org
OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and
Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
injustice practices and the winner takes all attitude has embarked Rwanda and DRC in a
ticking bomb environment.
Your Excellency Mr. President, some of the two keys points of your campaign have been
to reign in the lobby system as well as prevent unnecessary wars and promote
democracy and justice around the world. On January 21, 2008, Judge Fernando Andreu
Merelles, of the Central Court in Madrid, Spain, after several years of investigations,
indicted 40 high ranked Rwandans officers, including General Paul Kagame, currently
president of Rwanda, for having ordered, participated or executed killings and other
atrocities against children, women and other civilians in Rwanda and DRC between
1990 and 2004. Prior to the Spanish indictments, one recalls that on November 17, 2006,
the French anti-terrorist Jean-Louis Bruguiere, of the Paris Court of Serious Crimes
indicted General Paul Kagame and nine other high ranking officers in his entourage for
the shooting down of the President Juvenal Habyarimana’s jet on April 6, 1994, igniting
the genocide in Rwanda. So far, little have been done to arrest those indicted. They
continue to enjoy the protection of the Government of Rwanda while the developed
countries and the United Nations looked on or continue to provide economic and
political support to Kigali’s regime as if 6 millions people murdered do not deserve
justice. The traumatized people in the Great Lakes region of Africa implore you to lift all
US political and economic supports to President Kagame, so he and his aides can
respond to the charges against them before the court of law. These actions will pave a
way for an environment aimed on promoting truth, dialogue, justice and democracy in
Rwanda, and by the way preventing Kagame to continue his dangerous agenda of
disseminating proxy wars in DRC.
On December 12, 2008, a United Nations (UN) report on the current crisis in Congo
stated that the main rebel leader, Major General Laurent Nkunda, was being essentially
supported by President Kagame of Rwanda. Within weeks after the publication of that
report, some European countries including Netherland and Sweden suspended their
assistance to Rwanda while United Kingdom is reconsidering his cooperation with
5830 West Thunderbird Rd, Ste B8-PMB207 Glendale, AZ 85306
PHONE: (603) 623-7945 & (602) 412-3787 www.opjdr.org
OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and
Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
President Kagame’s regime. It is under these criticisms and pressures that President
Kagame looked into ways to remove the spotlight on him by working out a joint military
campaign between Rwanda and DRC to curb down the rebellion activities in the Eastern
Congo. On January 20, 2009, while in Washington DC, and in most countries and cities
around the world, we were celebrating a historic moment in US democracy, General
Paul Kagame ordered his army to invade once again the Democratic Republic of Congo.
By the 23rd, the Rwandese Defense Forces (RDF) declared that they had the main rebel
leader, Major General Laurent Nkunda in their custody. Furthermore, according to a
New York Times article of January 24th, 2009, several demobilized Rwandan soldiers
recently revealed that there was a secret operation to slip Rwandan soldiers into Congo
to fight alongside General Nkunda. Since the Rwandese Defense Forces entered the
DRC, UN soldiers and other humanitarian personnel have been denied access to the
area. OPJDR fears that innocent civilians specially Rwandan refugees who fled the
regime of Paul Kagame and now living in the area are being massacred in a closed door
scenario, far from cameras and other stream media.
The pivotal question for the Great Lakes region of Africa is: Will General Kagame
continue to rage wars in DRC or other neighboring countries in total impunity? We
strongly believe that helping Rwanda facing its own destiny by decisively asking
President Kagame to open the country political process, to allow Rwandans of all origins
talk the Truth about its recent past, in all inclusive Dialogue and Reconciliation, will
pave the way toward democracy that could start on a stronger footing. Currently the
Rwanda’s political environment is dominated by the ex-rebellion movement, the
Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) which has refused from opening up to a Dialogue with
the opposition political parties or civil society groups despite their multiple requests.
We believe that the United States can provide a significant assistance to this remediation
and OPDJR is available to give more details on hopelessness life of people in Great
Lakes region of Africa.
5830 West Thunderbird Rd, Ste B8-PMB207 Glendale, AZ 85306
PHONE: (603) 623-7945 & (602) 412-3787 www.opjdr.org
OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and
Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
Again congratulations for your historic inauguration as the 44th President of United
States of America.
Sincerely,
Pascal Kalinganire
Coordinator General
.
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