Fw: *DHR* Sudan: The Rwanda Excuse for Geostrategic "Genocide Intervention"

 

http://www.anngarrison.com/audio/sudan-rwanda-as-excuse-for-geostrategic-genocide-intervention Sudan: The Rwanda Excuse for Geostrategic "Genocide Intervention"  Submitted by Ann Garrison on Tue, 06/28/2011 - 12:27 play stop mute 00:00 00:00 Download: RwandaBystanderKPFA.mp3 Was the U.S. a bystander to the Rwanda Genocide?  Professors Peter Erlinder and Edward Herman both say no. Transcript:  KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest:  Turning now to news from Eastern Africa, fighting continued today on the border of what is slated to become two separate nations, North and South Sudan, two weeks from now. Precise borders, the division of oil revenues between north and south, and citizenship issues still remain unresolved. Approximate, still disputed borders of what will become North and South Sudan on July 9, 2011.Stop genocide campaigners at the ENOUGH Project, The New Republic, the New York Times, and other institutions have been calling for U.S. intervention or, at least, for providing aerial bombing capability to the Government of the new country of Southern Sudan, to counter what they describe as aggression from the northern government of President Omar Al-Bashir. The Palestine Telegraph reported, however, that the south's army triggered the north's occupation of the Abyei region by attacking northern troops. The U.S. introduced a United Nations resolution to deploy UN troops to the disputed, oil rich Abyei region, to legitimize the dispatch of 4200 Ethiopian soldiers already on their way. The interventionists argue that the U.S. can't be bystanders to what could become another Rwanda, and must become, instead, quote "upstanders" preventing genocide. Many scholars of the Rwandan Genocide, however, have published evidence that the U.S. was no bystander to the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.  KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke to several of those scholars.KPFA/Ann Garrison: Those who argue that the U.S. was no bystander to the Rwanda Genocide offer evidence that the U.S., to the contrary, backed General Paul Kagame's invasion of Rwanda from Uganda, and that hundreds of thousands of Hutus as well as Tutsis died in the genocidal massacres that ensued.   Ed Herman is Professor of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and co-author, with Noam Chomsky of Manufacturing Consent, and, with independent researcher and writer David Peterson, of The Politics of Genocide.   Professor Herman, was the United States a bystander to the Rwanda Genocide?  Rwanda Genocide, 1994 Ed Herman: The United States didn't stand by. It supported Kagame all the way and prevented intervention, actively prevented intervention by the UN. So the establishment narrative here is completely off the wall. The United States did not stand by.  KPFA:  Peter Erlinder is a William Mitchell Law School Professor, former National Lawyers Guild President, and international criminal defense attorney.   Professor Peter Erlinder, was the U.S. a bystander to the Rwanda Genocide?  Peter Erlinder: Well, the evidence from the files of the U.S. government and from the United Nations would suggest otherwise. These are files that have been hidden for the last 15 years. And they show that the RPF, the government and military that are now in place, went from being a military force of about 2500 to 3000 troops to being a military of between 25,000 and 30,000 well-trained, well-armed troops in a period of two years.  And that could only happen through the support that came from the U.S. and UK through Uganda, which is where the invasion and the military takeover of Rwanda was organized and supported. Then of course there was the ongoing cover-up of the RPF crimes and the RPF initiation of the military assault to take power, all of which is outlined in U.S. government files that are on the websitehttp://www.rwandadocumentsproject.net/. That evidence is all in the public record.KPFA: Professors Erlinder and Herman both said that the U.S. should NOT intervene in Sudan, and Professor Herman said that the U.S. has no moral authority to intervene anywhere for any reason:Ed Herman: I think this is a complete outrage. We have no business intervening anywhere. We have such dirty hands. We're intervening all over the world now. We're the great aggressor nation of the world, and we're using NATO as our agent. Why can't we just leave people alone? The Sudanese can settle their own affairs. They don't need us. And, if we take Rwanda and the Congo as an illustration, the United States intervention there has involved the death of The Rwandan Army band plays as Rwandan soldiers board a U.S. Air Force jet bound for Sudan. Photo: AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Commandmillions of people. And now, with Rwanda, we have a minority dictatorship again. So the whole effect of the U.S. intervention there, not just standing by, but interventions, has been the death of millions.For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.   Tags:  Human Rights John Prendergast Omar al-Bashir Peter Erlinder Hutu genocide Barack Obama KPFA AfrobeatRadio Africa D. R. Congo Congo War Rwanda UN-Peacekeepers Log in or register to post comments

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