London 21 April 2009
OPEN LETTER
Mr Barack H. Obama, US President,
Mr Gordon Brown, UK Prime Minister,
Mr Herman A. Van Rompuy, Belgian Prime Minister,
Mr Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General,
Mr Jean Ping, AU Commission Chairman,
Mr Tony Blair, Special Adviser to President Paul Kagame,
Your Excellencies,
Remembrance of the Rwandan Genocide: 15 Years After
What Lessons Have We Learned?
Action Group for Peace and Justice in Rwanda (AGPJR) believes in your capacity in
influencing and helping to deliver a positive change in Rwanda. The world has directly or indirectly played a big role in bringing closer the belligerents of the Rwandan war (1990-1994) by helping them to negotiate a Peace Agreement which was signed on 4th August 1993 in Arusha by both parties, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the then Rwandan Government. Unfortunately the implementation of this Peace Accord failed short when President Habyarimana was killed, triggering the 1994 mass killings.
Since then, Rwanda has never recovered. In the following paragraphs, AGPJR is raising issues that your Excellencies could take on board and help the Rwandan people overcome their ethnic differences and the legacy of the Rwandan genocide in order to build a Rwanda where every Rwandan has a place and a role to play.
On April 6th, 2009, Rwandans and friends of Rwanda remembered the start of the Rwandan genocide 15 years ago, when, on April 6th 1994, the plane carrying the Rwandan president and his Burundian counterpart and their close collaborators was
shot down while approaching Kigali airport. Despite the length of time elapsed today,
AGPJR is strongly concerned by the lack of national reconciliation and the inexistence of a fair legal framework to deliver unbiased justice to all the victims of genocide and massacres that followed the tragic day.
Trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), inside Rwanda and
elsewhere have so far targeted only members of the Hutu ethnic group. After 15
years, more than a hundred thousand people are still kept in Rwandan prisons. Most of them have been arrested on simple denunciation and kept in prison for years without charges. They have been denied justice since. The current Rwandan government has installed a justice, which aimed at harassing and suppressing critics, criminalised members of the Hutu ethnic group rather than deal with true genocide cases in courts of law. The post-genocide justice system institutionalised in Rwanda has not
contributed to the reconciliation. It has rather created further social division,
tensions and community mistrust as its decisions were mostly influenced by the
executive.
The massacres of civilians did not end with the victory of the RPF. Civilians have been rather massacred in Rwanda steadily ever since and massacres have continued even more seriously in the neighbouring Congo. Meanwhile, members of the RPF who are also accused of these numerous crimes of genocide committed against civilian populations during the war and in the aftermath of the genocide still benefit from total impunity.
Some examples of these crimes are published in the report of November 2006 by the French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who indicted nine close aides of
President Kagame. A more comprehensive investigative report was published in
February 2008 by the Spanish judge, Fernando Andreu Morelles, who issued
international arrest warrants against forty high officers including 11 generals of the
Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). They are accused of crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and terrorism. The investigation looked at the period from 1990 to 2002 and found that RPA committed a lot of crimes including the downing of the President Habyarimana’s plane, the killings of innocent civilians in the demilitarised zone in Byumba and Ruhengeri, the killings of clergymen in Kabgayi and Rwesero, the dramatic killings of the internally displaced persons in the camps of Kibeho and the killings of about 6 millions of civilians including Rwandan refugees and Congolese in the ex-Zaire.
Unfortunately, despite that both sides of the conflict in Rwanda suffered from the
loss of their loved ones, the yearly remembrance celebrated in Rwanda is the only
right for the Tutsis. The Hutu community is not allowed to mourn or remember openly
theirs who have fallen into the hands of the RPF army.
When the RPF took the arms and attacked Rwanda from Uganda in October 1990, it
publically said it did so to restore human rights, liberate Rwandans from
discriminatory policies and bad governance and advance democracy and rule of law in Rwanda. Unfortunately, none of these noble ideas and principles has been implemented after 15 years the RPF has been in total control of all spheres of life in the country.
Looking at the way RPF conducted the war and run the country, there is no doubt now that the unspoken aim was the desire to return Rwanda to a pre-independence
situation in which the Tutsi minority would dominate.
Little has been said about the role of the RPF in creating the explosive situation in
Rwanda and lightening the spark that triggered mass killings that developed into
genocide in 1994. No one can dissociate the 1994 mass killings from the four-year
long war started by RPF on 1st October 1990. This war has exacerbated the already
existing tension between Tutsis and Hutus inherited from the monarchy and the 1959
revolution. The Rwandan war was widely perceived as a war fought between the two
ethnic groups and finds its origin in the ethnic conflict for power between the Tutsis
and the Hutus. Any search of a solution to the Rwandan problem cannot ignore this
reality. While attempting to bring before justice those who were involved in the
genocide and other related crimes, irrespective of their ethnic background, every
effort should be made to address the root causes of the Rwandan problem in order to foster a genuine reconciliation in Rwanda.
The guilt of the international community not to have intervened to stop the genocide
in 1994 has given a green light to President Kagame and his government to perpetrate the killings of innocent civilians inside Rwanda and Congo and to install discriminatory policies of governance in Rwanda. It is now known that the non intervention of the international community in Rwanda has rather helped the RPF to take power in Rwanda.
The Rwandan government should cease continuous, ridiculous and endless international community condemnation of not having intervened in Rwanda as it is the RFP which strongly opposed to any intervention and campaigned to the departure of the UN troops. In fact, on April 30th, 1994, Gerald Gahima and Claude Dusaidi of the RPF political bureau reiterated this position in a slightly less forceful statement which declared: ‘’The time for U.N. intervention is long past. The genocide is almost completed. Most of the potential victims of the regime have either been killed or have since fled.’’
Genocide has always been used as a political instrument to justify repressive policies such as the controversial gacaca courts and the crimes related to genocide ideology, genocide denial and revisionism. The RPF basically runs a one-party state where the political opposition has been virtually inexistent. The independent press has been silenced and the majority of the Hutu population are living in a constant fear of being accused one day of the past participation in genocide. With the help of the blind eye of the international community and the double standards practiced by some countries unconditionally supporting the Kigali regime, President Kagame and his government have succeeded in creating in Rwanda a form of governance where Hutus are almost excluded in the army and public administration and in the political and economic activities of the country.
AGPJR believes that a durable peace cannot take place in Rwanda if the truth about the root causes of the genocide and the strains of the Hutu-Tutsi relationships are not openly discussed. Rwandan people should be taught how to live together with their differences (ethnic backgrounds) and how to build together a country where equal opportunity for all is guaranteed. Rwanda needs to put in place a political structure with clear boundaries which guarantees the protection of minorities and allow the emergency of contradictory debate and a strong and responsible civil society involving the full participation of all ethnic groups. While an independent and impartial tribunal is needed to judge those who played a role in the Rwandan tragedy, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South African style) is also required to find out all responsibilities in the Rwandan genocide and call for forgiveness. This would be necessary to get on the road to a real reconciliation among Rwandans.
AGPJR warns Rwandans and the international community that many problems which led to the 1990 war and later to the 1994 killings are still there. The current Rwandan government has centered power around a small circle of individuals close to President Kagame. The management of the country's affairs is characterised by intolerance, discrimination, exclusion of some members of the Rwandan population in the running of the country and a large number of refugees living outside Rwanda. Therefore any attempt in helping Rwanda should carefully look into these problems and adopt an impartial approach which will set a basis for a long lasting peace among Rwandans.
Summarising the above points, AGPJR would like to recommend the followings:
· The Rwandan government should establish a fair and equitable justice system for all victims of genocide and massacres that have been committed by Hutus militias and RPF army;
· The Rwandan government should open up political space to enable a democratic system that would allow all Rwandans with different opinions to take part in shaping its governance and directions;
· The Rwandan government should promote, respect and protect the Human Rights in all aspect of the Rwanda society;
· The Rwandan government should stop the hunting down of innocent people and the indiscriminate condemnation of all members of the Hutu ethnic group by labelling them génocidaires and perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide;
· The Rwandan government should organise, with the help of the international community, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which will bring together all political fractions (including those based in exile), civil societies, Human Rights organisations and religious leaders to find out the truth about the Rwandan genocide and discuss the future of Rwanda;
· The international community should make pressure to the Rwandan government to implement the above recommendations;
· The international community should help to implement the arrest warrants against close aides of President Kagame and high ranking military officers of the RPA.
· These arrest warrants were issued by the French and Spanish judges who found them involved in various crimes and acts of genocide committed in Rwanda and ex-Zaire.
Yours sincerely
(Signed)
Dr Alexis NDIBWAMI
Secretary
Open letter from:
Action Group for Peace and Justice in Rwanda
A Community Interest Company
AGPJR Cic Registered Office: 1-2 Universal House, Wentworth Street, London E1 7SA. Registered in England and Wales No 06446782
PO Box 49993, London SE5 5DJ
Email: agpjr6@yahoo.co.uk
Web: www.agpjr.org
OPEN LETTER
Mr Barack H. Obama, US President,
Mr Gordon Brown, UK Prime Minister,
Mr Herman A. Van Rompuy, Belgian Prime Minister,
Mr Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General,
Mr Jean Ping, AU Commission Chairman,
Mr Tony Blair, Special Adviser to President Paul Kagame,
Your Excellencies,
Remembrance of the Rwandan Genocide: 15 Years After
What Lessons Have We Learned?
Action Group for Peace and Justice in Rwanda (AGPJR) believes in your capacity in
influencing and helping to deliver a positive change in Rwanda. The world has directly or indirectly played a big role in bringing closer the belligerents of the Rwandan war (1990-1994) by helping them to negotiate a Peace Agreement which was signed on 4th August 1993 in Arusha by both parties, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the then Rwandan Government. Unfortunately the implementation of this Peace Accord failed short when President Habyarimana was killed, triggering the 1994 mass killings.
Since then, Rwanda has never recovered. In the following paragraphs, AGPJR is raising issues that your Excellencies could take on board and help the Rwandan people overcome their ethnic differences and the legacy of the Rwandan genocide in order to build a Rwanda where every Rwandan has a place and a role to play.
On April 6th, 2009, Rwandans and friends of Rwanda remembered the start of the Rwandan genocide 15 years ago, when, on April 6th 1994, the plane carrying the Rwandan president and his Burundian counterpart and their close collaborators was
shot down while approaching Kigali airport. Despite the length of time elapsed today,
AGPJR is strongly concerned by the lack of national reconciliation and the inexistence of a fair legal framework to deliver unbiased justice to all the victims of genocide and massacres that followed the tragic day.
Trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), inside Rwanda and
elsewhere have so far targeted only members of the Hutu ethnic group. After 15
years, more than a hundred thousand people are still kept in Rwandan prisons. Most of them have been arrested on simple denunciation and kept in prison for years without charges. They have been denied justice since. The current Rwandan government has installed a justice, which aimed at harassing and suppressing critics, criminalised members of the Hutu ethnic group rather than deal with true genocide cases in courts of law. The post-genocide justice system institutionalised in Rwanda has not
contributed to the reconciliation. It has rather created further social division,
tensions and community mistrust as its decisions were mostly influenced by the
executive.
The massacres of civilians did not end with the victory of the RPF. Civilians have been rather massacred in Rwanda steadily ever since and massacres have continued even more seriously in the neighbouring Congo. Meanwhile, members of the RPF who are also accused of these numerous crimes of genocide committed against civilian populations during the war and in the aftermath of the genocide still benefit from total impunity.
Some examples of these crimes are published in the report of November 2006 by the French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who indicted nine close aides of
President Kagame. A more comprehensive investigative report was published in
February 2008 by the Spanish judge, Fernando Andreu Morelles, who issued
international arrest warrants against forty high officers including 11 generals of the
Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). They are accused of crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and terrorism. The investigation looked at the period from 1990 to 2002 and found that RPA committed a lot of crimes including the downing of the President Habyarimana’s plane, the killings of innocent civilians in the demilitarised zone in Byumba and Ruhengeri, the killings of clergymen in Kabgayi and Rwesero, the dramatic killings of the internally displaced persons in the camps of Kibeho and the killings of about 6 millions of civilians including Rwandan refugees and Congolese in the ex-Zaire.
Unfortunately, despite that both sides of the conflict in Rwanda suffered from the
loss of their loved ones, the yearly remembrance celebrated in Rwanda is the only
right for the Tutsis. The Hutu community is not allowed to mourn or remember openly
theirs who have fallen into the hands of the RPF army.
When the RPF took the arms and attacked Rwanda from Uganda in October 1990, it
publically said it did so to restore human rights, liberate Rwandans from
discriminatory policies and bad governance and advance democracy and rule of law in Rwanda. Unfortunately, none of these noble ideas and principles has been implemented after 15 years the RPF has been in total control of all spheres of life in the country.
Looking at the way RPF conducted the war and run the country, there is no doubt now that the unspoken aim was the desire to return Rwanda to a pre-independence
situation in which the Tutsi minority would dominate.
Little has been said about the role of the RPF in creating the explosive situation in
Rwanda and lightening the spark that triggered mass killings that developed into
genocide in 1994. No one can dissociate the 1994 mass killings from the four-year
long war started by RPF on 1st October 1990. This war has exacerbated the already
existing tension between Tutsis and Hutus inherited from the monarchy and the 1959
revolution. The Rwandan war was widely perceived as a war fought between the two
ethnic groups and finds its origin in the ethnic conflict for power between the Tutsis
and the Hutus. Any search of a solution to the Rwandan problem cannot ignore this
reality. While attempting to bring before justice those who were involved in the
genocide and other related crimes, irrespective of their ethnic background, every
effort should be made to address the root causes of the Rwandan problem in order to foster a genuine reconciliation in Rwanda.
The guilt of the international community not to have intervened to stop the genocide
in 1994 has given a green light to President Kagame and his government to perpetrate the killings of innocent civilians inside Rwanda and Congo and to install discriminatory policies of governance in Rwanda. It is now known that the non intervention of the international community in Rwanda has rather helped the RPF to take power in Rwanda.
The Rwandan government should cease continuous, ridiculous and endless international community condemnation of not having intervened in Rwanda as it is the RFP which strongly opposed to any intervention and campaigned to the departure of the UN troops. In fact, on April 30th, 1994, Gerald Gahima and Claude Dusaidi of the RPF political bureau reiterated this position in a slightly less forceful statement which declared: ‘’The time for U.N. intervention is long past. The genocide is almost completed. Most of the potential victims of the regime have either been killed or have since fled.’’
Genocide has always been used as a political instrument to justify repressive policies such as the controversial gacaca courts and the crimes related to genocide ideology, genocide denial and revisionism. The RPF basically runs a one-party state where the political opposition has been virtually inexistent. The independent press has been silenced and the majority of the Hutu population are living in a constant fear of being accused one day of the past participation in genocide. With the help of the blind eye of the international community and the double standards practiced by some countries unconditionally supporting the Kigali regime, President Kagame and his government have succeeded in creating in Rwanda a form of governance where Hutus are almost excluded in the army and public administration and in the political and economic activities of the country.
AGPJR believes that a durable peace cannot take place in Rwanda if the truth about the root causes of the genocide and the strains of the Hutu-Tutsi relationships are not openly discussed. Rwandan people should be taught how to live together with their differences (ethnic backgrounds) and how to build together a country where equal opportunity for all is guaranteed. Rwanda needs to put in place a political structure with clear boundaries which guarantees the protection of minorities and allow the emergency of contradictory debate and a strong and responsible civil society involving the full participation of all ethnic groups. While an independent and impartial tribunal is needed to judge those who played a role in the Rwandan tragedy, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South African style) is also required to find out all responsibilities in the Rwandan genocide and call for forgiveness. This would be necessary to get on the road to a real reconciliation among Rwandans.
AGPJR warns Rwandans and the international community that many problems which led to the 1990 war and later to the 1994 killings are still there. The current Rwandan government has centered power around a small circle of individuals close to President Kagame. The management of the country's affairs is characterised by intolerance, discrimination, exclusion of some members of the Rwandan population in the running of the country and a large number of refugees living outside Rwanda. Therefore any attempt in helping Rwanda should carefully look into these problems and adopt an impartial approach which will set a basis for a long lasting peace among Rwandans.
Summarising the above points, AGPJR would like to recommend the followings:
· The Rwandan government should establish a fair and equitable justice system for all victims of genocide and massacres that have been committed by Hutus militias and RPF army;
· The Rwandan government should open up political space to enable a democratic system that would allow all Rwandans with different opinions to take part in shaping its governance and directions;
· The Rwandan government should promote, respect and protect the Human Rights in all aspect of the Rwanda society;
· The Rwandan government should stop the hunting down of innocent people and the indiscriminate condemnation of all members of the Hutu ethnic group by labelling them génocidaires and perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide;
· The Rwandan government should organise, with the help of the international community, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which will bring together all political fractions (including those based in exile), civil societies, Human Rights organisations and religious leaders to find out the truth about the Rwandan genocide and discuss the future of Rwanda;
· The international community should make pressure to the Rwandan government to implement the above recommendations;
· The international community should help to implement the arrest warrants against close aides of President Kagame and high ranking military officers of the RPA.
· These arrest warrants were issued by the French and Spanish judges who found them involved in various crimes and acts of genocide committed in Rwanda and ex-Zaire.
Yours sincerely
(Signed)
Dr Alexis NDIBWAMI
Secretary
Open letter from:
Action Group for Peace and Justice in Rwanda
A Community Interest Company
AGPJR Cic Registered Office: 1-2 Universal House, Wentworth Street, London E1 7SA. Registered in England and Wales No 06446782
PO Box 49993, London SE5 5DJ
Email: agpjr6@yahoo.co.uk
Web: www.agpjr.org
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