African Great Lakes Observer

May 18, 2009 Rwanda’s state-owned newspaper published an article by one its editorial staff, Grace Kwinjeh, on May 8, 2009. The article accused Human Rights Watch of (among other things) sanitizing those attempting to negate the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division, Georgette Gagnon, wrote a response and Human Rights Watch submitted it to the New Times on May 9, 2009. As of yet, the New Times has chosen not to publish it, denying Human Rights Watch right of reply. So Human Rights Watch is publishing its rebuttal letter and encouraging readers to read it together with Ms Kwinjeh’s original article (link above). Grace Kwinjeh’s article in The New Times of May 8, 2009, takes issue with a recent article by Kenneth Roth , executive director of Human Rights Watch in the Los Angeles Times. Ms Kwinjeh should explain why an article in this state-owned newspaper did not mention the points that Mr Roth made before “rebutting” them. This would see...

Rwandan presidential candidate plans to visit Dayton on Saturday Many of the about 300 Rwandans living in the Dayton area are refugees. By Hannah C. Bealer, Staff Writer12:38 AM Friday, June 26, 2009 Rwandan presidential candidate and United Democratic Front party member Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza will be at the Dayton North Holiday Inn at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 27. Dayton has a Rwandan population of about 300, said Kristine Ward, chair of the board at the House of the People, a shelter for Rwandan refugees in Dayton . Ward said 17 refugees are currently housed at the center, where they have the opportunity to seek employment and focus on education. In September 2010, Umuhoza will run against President General Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. The Tutsi-formed RPF as well as Hutu extremists are widely believed to have played a part in the killings of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, who died when their plane was shot down in 1994...

Yesterday a victim, today an oppressor: how aid funds war in Congo (07.04.09) Tonight a hush will fall over the national stadium in Kigali as, one by one, a sea of candles is lit to commemorate the 800,000 lives lost in the Rwandan genocide. A screen will fill with the faces of luminaries from the actress Sandra Bullock to David Cameron, the British Conservative leader, speaking of the candles they have lit for Rwanda's victims and survivors. Presiding over it all will be Paul Kagame, the Rwandan President, self-styled liberator and darling of Western aid donors who rushed billions to the tiny nation in the guilty aftermath of foreign inaction to stop the killing. But 15 years on, Mr Kagame finds himself cast more as a perpetrator than victim, with the unveiling of Rwanda's role in the plunder and killing in eastern Congo, a war that has claimed the lives of five times as many people as the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur combined. So why are British taxpayers still supporting h...

Keith Harmon Snow : Whitewashing Rwanda Genocide (21.04.09) On 12 February 2009, Alison Des Forges, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW) for more than 20 years, was killed when Continental Airlines Flight 3407 crashed on route to Buffalo, New York. Des Forges was widely cited as a staunch critic of the Rwandan military government controlled by Paul Kagame and the victors of the war in Rwanda, 1990-1994. In the ongoing life-and-death struggle to reveal the truth about war crimes and genocide in Central Africa, competing factions on all sides have posthumously embraced Alison Des Forges as an activist challenging power and a purveyor of truth and justice against all odds. Meanwhile, in March, 2009, based on false accusations of genocide issued by the Kagame regime—and given the close relations between Rwanda and the Barack Obama Administration’s former Clintonite officials—the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began the process of revisiting all immigration cases of Rwand...

Openings for the Deconstruction of the Official Narrative of the Rwanda Genocide by Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Communication at Western New England College, Springfield, Massachusetts Lecture on Remembering Rwanda: Genocide and Its Aftermath, Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Massachusetts, April 14, 2008. Good evening. I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me to speak on the Rwanda genocide. Whenever I speak on this topic I do get nightmares. In my dreams, I am caught up between the former Rwandan Government Forces and the army of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Sometimes in my dreams I am about to be shot and I get out of my bed and run to the living room, then I wake up and find that I am in the US not in Rwanda. I have titled my presentation “Openings for the Deconstruction of the Official Narrative of the Rwanda Genocide.” The Rwanda genocide has a narrative according to which the Hutu extremists shot down the airplane carrying the...

Congo/Zaire: U.N. team investigating massacres withdrawn Congo/Zaire: U.N. team investigating massacres withdrawn6 October 1997 The United Nations on October 1 decided to withdraw a team sent which it sent to Congo/Zaire to investigate allegations of multiple massacres of refugees committed by President Kabila's troops. Officially, the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was calling three leaders of the team for 'consultations' and until the Kabila government's policy was 'clarified'. The move followed reports that Kabila was about to expel the team. Twenty forensic experts are staying in Kinshasa for the time being. While the President was officially reassuring Mr Annan that the team would be allowed to enter the country's interior, the government was doing all it could to stop the investigation. Kabila came to power in May after a rebellion against the government of the late Mobutu Sese Seko. His forces were led by officers from the Banyamulenge ethnic group...

Does Rwanda deserve development assistance? By Pieternel Gruppen* 08-11-2008 The violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has led to renewed debate about the wisdom of providing Rwanda with developmental assistance. Although Rwanda is involved in the violence, the central African country can still count on around 230 million euros in foreign aid a year. Rwandan President Paul Kagame was one of the participants in Friday's summit on the crisis in the DRC. Proponents of continued aid to Rwanda believe that he took part in the talks because the aid is an inducement to taking a more conciliatory role. Opponents, on the other hand, say that since Rwanda is part of the problem in the DRC, aid should be suspended.ScoundrelThe Netherlands is one of the donor countries. Arend Jan Boekestijn, MP for the conservative opposition VVD party in the Dutch parliament, gets angry when speaking about the fact that the Netherlands gives more than 17 million euros in aid to ...

Does Rwanda deserve development assistance? By Pieternel Gruppen* 08-11-2008 The violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has led to renewed debate about the wisdom of providing Rwanda with developmental assistance. Although Rwanda is involved in the violence, the central African country can still count on around 230 million euros in foreign aid a year. Rwandan President Paul Kagame was one of the participants in Friday's summit on the crisis in the DRC. Proponents of continued aid to Rwanda believe that he took part in the talks because the aid is an inducement to taking a more conciliatory role. Opponents, on the other hand, say that since Rwanda is part of the problem in the DRC, aid should be suspended.ScoundrelThe Netherlands is one of the donor countries. Arend Jan Boekestijn, MP for the conservative opposition VVD party in the Dutch parliament, gets angry when speaking about the fact that the Netherlands gives more than 17 million euros in aid to Rwanda...

Democratic Republic of Congo: Murder of Hutu women and children around Mbandaka by Kabila-led Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo (AFDL) rebel troops in 1997 A 23 September 1997 New York Times article states that following Laurent Désiré Kabila's ascension to power in May 1997, there were "persistent" reports that Kabila-led Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo (AFDL) have been responsible for the massacre of 2,000 refugees in the cities of Wendji and Mbandaka in western Zaire. The killings reportedly took place four days before Kabila gained full control of the country. The report also states that the United Nations team sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to investigate war crimes had been, as of mid-September 1997, denied access to the Mbandaka area by the DRC authorities and fears were that they had proceeded to clear the massacre sites and to round up potential witnesses. An 8 August 1997 article in La...

UN's Rwanda Tribunal: Tainted by Expediency The proceedings at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, raise serious doubts whether it will serve the purpose of contributing "to the process of national reconciliation and to the restoration and maintenance of peace" in Rwanda, as stated in United Nations Resolution 955 which set up the tribunal in November 1994. Political observers in Arusha say the overall direction of the proceedings is completely one-sided, and that important international aspects of the conflict which led to the catastrophe are excluded from the deliberations of the courts. Some call this victors' justice, others even say, this is the legal lynching of the former Hutu elite of Rwanda. Considering the fact that the basis for the UN Resolution 955 was a request by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government, the least one can say is, that this tribunal is tainted by political expediency in favor of the victorious R...