African Great Lakes Observer

Amnesty International Report on Rwanda, May 2009 Head of state Paul Kagame Head of government Bernard Makuza Death penalty abolitionist for all crimes Population 10 million Life expectancy 45.2 years Under-5 mortality (m/f) 199/173 per 1,000 Adult literacy 64.9 per cent The government continued to reform the judicial system, but the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Tanzania declined to transfer cases to Rwanda, citing fair trial concerns, especially protection of witnesses. Legislative elections reaffirmed the political dominance of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the ruling political party. Freedom of expression was limited and civil society and the media were under close scrutiny by the government. Four former combatants of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), the armed wing of the political movement, were tried for murder in a military court. No other charges were brought against members of the RPA for crimes under international law committed before, during and a...

David Cameron faced down accusations yesterday that he was ignoring bread-and-butter issues as he set off on a two-day visit to Rwanda to champion the Conservatives' emphasis on international development. Aides said the Tory leader was relaxed about signs of renewed strife in the party's ranks after two byelection defeats and a run of negative polls. The latest, by YouGov for yesterday's Sunday Times, put Labour seven points ahead. But at least two, and perhaps as many as six, unnamed MPs have written to Sir Michael Spicer, chairman of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, urging a vote of no confidence, according to the Sunday Telegraph. Though the chances of such a motion being tabled are unlikely - 29 names are needed to force a vote - it was reinforced by attacks from the former home office minister Ann Widdecombe and David Davies, the MP for Monmouth, who urged him to concentrate on crime and immigration. Ms Widdecombe said: "He has been very successful in gett...

At the beginning of April 2004, people around the world will be marking the ten-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. Although interest is likely to focus on survivors in Rwanda and the situation in the country since the events of 1994, it is important to remember that the UK is also home to a number of Rwandans who came to the UK after the genocide. This signpost on Rwandan refugees in the UK provides details of resources, organisations, projects, real live stories, and statistical data that may be useful to researchers, teachers, journalists, civil society groups, and other interested parties seeking to compile information about Rwandan exiles in this country. The signpost does not focus on resources relating to Rwanda and Rwandan refugees outside the UK. However, many of the organisations listed work in Rwanda as well as the UK and many items listed have relevance beyond the UK context. For more international information of this type, visit http://www.forcedmigration.org . http...

Don't demonise Rwanda's Hutus. They've often been the victims For centuries, Tutsi leaders have oppressed and brutalised the country's majority people Chris McGreal produced a good-versus-evil caricature of the situation in Rwanda and eastern Congo ( We have to kill Tutsis wherever they are , May 16). The reality is that criminal individuals can be found on all sides. McGreal writes that "nowhere on the continent are [child soldiers] as driven by hate and ideology as among the Rwandan Hutu refugees in eastern Congo. Here ... a second generation of killers is being imbued with the mind-altering ideology of extermination and reared to hate and murder Tutsis." Is it credible that Hutu children allegedly being fed hate propaganda are the root of the war in Congo? Are African children so mindless as to be so easily incited by such savage hatemongers? This is undoubtedly, for the west, a convenient stereotype. But what if the child soldiers had been "imbued...

PROXY WARS IN CENTRAL AFRICA? Profits, Propaganda and Luxury Goods for the West --Pacification, Rape and Slavery for the Rest http://ww4report.com/static/proxy.html by keith harmon snow Brigitte Botsi is a seven year-old girl living in the village of Yalisenge, in Equateur province, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). At 4:00 PM on April 30, Brigitte was raped by a soldier. Related directly by e-mail from a humanitarian aid worker based in the area, Brigitte's rape went otherwise unreported. (The aid worker's life would be endangered if name or position were revealed.) The soldier, loyal to the DRC transitional government of President Joseph Kabila, remains unpunished. On May 6, a girl was raped in public in Mondombe, Equateur. Villagers watched as she was stripped naked and beaten by DRC government troops. The previous day, DRC troops had abducted two young daughters of a family in Equateur--the girls were freed after a foreign aid worker complained to their commander. Brigitt...

America's War in Central Africa The Pentagon's proxy war in the Eastern Congo by Keith Harmon Snow http://globalresearch.ca/, February 1, 2009 The purported 'arrest' of General Laurent Nkunda, on January 22, 2009, by the troops of the joint FARDC and Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) operation is no surprise, it is merely damage control, with Nkunda 'arrested'-most likely shuffled off to luxury in Rwanda-to recover some sense of credibility for the international police forces-the Pentagon and its proxy armies in Rwanda (Kagame), Uganda (Museveni) and Congo (Kabila)-and to enable the Kagame military cabal to distance itself from the recent exposés documenting Rwanda's machinations in eastern Congo. A U.S. military team has also been deployed in Eastern Congo, to buttress the Pentagon's proxy warriors. Nothing has changed for the people of Congo, and MONUC Chief Alan Doss has warned people to expect "collateral damage" against the innocent people of C...