CirqueMinime/Paris

Riding the "Green Wave" at the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and Beyond - by Ed Herman & David Peterson

2009-09-02T23:39:00.001+02:00

Riding the "Green Wave" at the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and Beyond - by Ed Herman & David Peterson

Riding the "Green Wave" at the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and Beyond - by Ed Herman & David Peterson

[This article was posted on ZNet, 23 July 2009, at http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22109.

By the time we read it, the destabilization of the Iranian nation had reached well beyond the Campaign for Peace and Democracy's Q’n’A-ing of the 12 June presidential elections, and the ensuing bloodshed of the 'nonviolent street theatre’ it encourages, and into the provocation of serious rifts within the Iranian executive branch, involving resignations from President Ahmadinejad's inner circle that could lead to a vote of no-confidence for the duly elected president in the Parliament.

A similar scenario was played out in Zimbabwe in March 2008, with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change preemptively declaring victory while the polls were still open, and the violent, even murderous, public demonstrations leading to the elevation of the MDC’s defeated candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, to the Zimbabwean Prime Minister’s post. And through truly perverse spectacles, like the ones worn around here @ cm/p, one could hallucinate that what these antidemocratic forces for the imposition of Democracy are doing in Iran and elsewhere have certain grotesque parallels to what is happening to President Obama and his health reforms within the US, itself. For, after all, in Western Democracy (what professor Chomsky has called ‘that form of government organized to best serve the interests of US Business.’), once the majority has given its mandate to a president through the electoral process, the system of checks and balances kicks in to make sure that the majority’s interests are in no way served (if served at all) to the detriment of the interests of the ancient financial, commercial, cultural and religious elites--no matter how diseased unto moribund these inbred and immoral bands of imbeciles have become.

However, the Ahmadinejad government has been a target of the 'forced democracy' marketeers for some time now. Several of our most beloved and highly valued contributors began to demonstrate serious flaws in their commitments to universal liberation and the uncompromising pursuit of Historical Verité et Justice early in 2007 by circulated lame jokes about Iranian society and culture, and the person of President Ahmadinejad, himself. These nerdy gags usually involved implications of Iranian anti-Semitism, painfully contorted notions of Holocaust denial in Iran, and began the now incontrovertible misquoting of Ahmadinejad's 2007 speech in which he claimed that, should it continue its nuclear-armed militaristic, expansionist, racist and neocolonialist ways, Israel would, in fact and indeed, 'wipe ITSELF from the map of the Middle East' (a concern held by an important demographic inside contemporary Israel)--and not that Iran or Ahmadinejad, personally, would be doing any of this wiping out. But such is the force of this current self-realizing dread of seeming the coward: the Western terrorists wield their broadsword of 'anti-Semit-o-phobia' so that few can hold fast to their considered critical convictions, be they on the USSR, Yugoslavia, Latin America, Africa, HIV=AIDS or 9/11, without the chill of cultural excommunication or even career crucifixion shaking them into the castrati section of consensus chorale.

However, Peterson and Herman are happily among this courageous few. And they have, once again, given us the great gift of their diligent and rigorous scholarship in this catalogue of the many ways and means disposed of by that Fifth Column which is the old anticommunist Left to promote, protect and defend the most strategic interests of the Western Waste Kultur's obsession with militarizing the as yet ‘undeveloped’ nations and peoples of the world into total, shrieking, bloody extinction--then ripping off, and rinsing the innocent blood from, what is left of their abundant natural riches. Of course, these faux gauchistes, like Steve Zunes and Pete Ackerman, advance their CIA/MI6 agendas by painting their unspeakable crimes in the cuddly camo of the Nonviolent Promotion of Democracy. --mc]

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Riding the "Green Wave" at the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and Beyond

July 23, 2009

By Edward S. Herman and David Peterson    

There are many problems with the Campaign for Peace and Democracy's "Question & Answer on the Iran Crisis," issued by the CPD on July 7, and widely circulated since then.[1]   The CPD adopted this format, it tells us, because "some on the left, and others as well, have questioned the legitimacy of and the need for solidarity with the anti-Ahmadinejad movement," and the CPD believes "those questions need to be squarely addressed."   We believe, on the contrary, that the CPD's 13 questions-and-answers do little to clarify issues related to Iran's June 12 presidential election and its tumultuous aftermath, and even less to help leftists and "American progressives" decide how they should respond to them.   As we try to show below, when stripped of its didactic format, this Q&A amounts to little more than an emotional plea to its target audience to surrender what remains of their leftist instincts (long under siege in the States, and shrinking rapidly), and join its authors[2] for a ride on the "green wave" of yet another color-coded campaign that fits well with one of their government's longest-running programs of destabilization and regime-change. We believe that any "confusion" felt by the left and "American progressives" towards these events is a confusion that has been sown by our would-be instructors.[3]

*** *** ***

 1. Consider first the CPD's selectivity. A look at its "Past Sign-on Statements and Letters" and elsewhere on its website (e.g., "Statement of Purpose") shows that, in contrast to its lengthy, 4,000-word Q&A of July 7, as well as its earlier statement on the "Crisis in Iran" (June 17), the CPD has yet to put up a Q&A related to or a statement announcing its solidarity with the mass demonstrations in Honduras after the June 27-28 military coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of the country, Manuel Zelaya. Neither has the CPD announced its solidarity with the 100 or more indigenous victims of a June 5 massacre by the government of Alan García in Peru, which some groups are calling the "Amazon's Tiananmen," nor with the high numbers of civilian victims of the several-year-long U.S. and NATO bombing campaigns over Afghanistan and Pakistan, now sharply escalated by the new Democratic administration.

If we expand the purview of perpetrator-and-victim sets beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan to other theaters of U.S. and NATO violence, the possibilities for Q&A's and shows of solidarity with the victims would become unmanageably large. But as of July 2009, shouldn't Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Honduras rate a very high priority among American progressives precisely because the U.S. government and its military are destructively engaged in the first two theaters, and in the third, where the U.S. is deeply involved in training and arming the military, and where its influence is unmistakable, almost surely could have prevented the coup, and still could easily reverse it, had the U.S. leadership wanted it reversed?

Given that Hosni Mubarak's Egypt is on the U.S. payroll and a part of the "global spider's web" of secret prisons run by Washington, shouldn't we have been more concerned with Egypt's last presidential election in September 2005, which Mubarak, effectively Egypt's president-for-life, won with 89% of the vote? Shouldn't we pay more attention to the complete absence of elections in U.S. client Saudi Arabia? Or to client-state Mexico, where presidential elections have a long history of vote-rigging, the last one, in July 2006, stolen in favor of the pro-business, U.S.-favored candidate Felipe Calderon, and inspiring a massive tent-city protest in the center of Mexico City to demonstrate people's support for the leftist runner-up, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador?   In each of these theaters and the many others that fall within the U.S. sphere of influence and responsibility, the potential benefits of a sustained left-critique and consciousness-raising about U.S. policy and its devastating impact on the lives of people are far greater than anything to be gained by urging "solidarity" with dissenters in a distant land where the U.S. influence for constructive purposes is minimal, but its hostile and destructive interventionism has been and remains great.

 2. Is it a mere coincidence that these neglected matters, all of which bear undeniably on the cause of peace and democracy, are also ones in which a thoughtful Q&A would inevitably challenge U.S. policy action or inaction, whereas a focus on Iran at this moment fits instead the long-term U.S. policy of demonization, isolation, sanctions, destabilization, and eventual regime-change?   Contemporaneous New York Times coverage of events inside Iran and Honduras (for example) reflects exactly the same set of priorities: That is, on the one hand, a heavy focus on the Iranian election, the charge of vote-fraud on behalf of Ahmadinejad, the protests against this, the violent crackdown across Iranian society, and the shaken legitimacy of the Islamic Republic; and, on the other hand, the downplaying of the Honduran coup and the protests and repression there, the possible U.S. role behind the scene, the credulous reporting of the formula repeated by the Obama administration that it seeks the "restoration of the democratic order in Honduras," rather than of the ousted President, sober questions about what the Honduran Constitution does and does not permit, and a barely concealed apologetics for the coup.  The contrast in the Times's treatment of Iran and Honduras for the first 15 days of coverage after the June 12 election (i.e., June 13 - June 27) and after the June 28 coup (i.e., June 29 - July 13) has been dramatic.[4] The Times devoted at least 61 reports to Iran, and 19 to Honduras, with at least 21 of the Iran reports beginning on Section 1, page 1; in fact, the Times devoted page-1 reports to Iran consecutively for all 15 days in our sample. Only two reports on Honduras started on page 1. The Times also devoted 14 op-eds and 2 editorials to Iran, but only 2 op-eds and 1 editorial to Honduras. In terms of content, the Times's opinion pages unequivocally rejected the fairness and legitimacy of Iran's election and its government's handling of the protests. (Its two editorials were "Neither Real Nor Free" (June 15) and "Iran's Nonrepublic" (June 18).) But when discussing Honduras, it was the legitimacy and tactics of Manuel Zelaya's government that the Times and its contributors questioned, with Zelaya dismissed as an "ally" of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez (Alvaro Vargas Llosa, "The Winner in Honduras: Chavez" (June 30) and the editorial "Mr. Arias Steps In" (July 10)), and a politician whose "larger goal seemed to be a change from our democratic system into a kind of 21st century socialism...to create a Hugo Chavez-type of government" (Roger Marin Neda, "Who Cares About Zelaya?" (July 7)).

For progressive Americans, aren't the New York Time's priorities upside-down? But then how about those of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy? It is interesting that the CPD actually lauds the news media's performance on Iran, claiming that "there is no good evidence so far that Western news reports on the government's electoral fraud and violence repression of dissent have been fundamentally inaccurate" (#7). But there were gross inaccuracies in the establishment media's assertion of vote fraud. As Mark Weisbrot points out,[5] the first sentence in the lead, front-page story run by the New York Times on June 23 reported that "Iran's most powerful oversight council announced on Monday [June 22] that the number of votes recorded in 50 cities exceeded the number of eligible voters there by three million, further tarnishing a presidential election that has set off the most sustained challenge to Iran's leadership in 30 years."[6] Yet, Weisbrot adds, Iran's Guardian Council had actually stated something completely different: 

Candidates campaigns have said that in 80-170 towns and cities, more people have voted than are eligible voters. We have determined, based on preliminary studies, that there are only about 50 such cities or towns....The total number of votes in these cities or towns is something close to three million; therefore, even if we were to throw away all of these votes, it would not change the result.[7]

 So there were 3 million total votes in the 50 towns and cities, not 3 million over-votes. Furthermore, the over-votes did not prove fraud. Iranians can vote at any polling place, so it is—according to the government—common to have more votes than eligible voters where there are a lot of commuters, vacationers, or areas where the voting districts are not clearly delineated. Yet the Times misleading report was picked up widely and used to convince people that the government had "admitted" to having stolen three million votes.

Given the U.S. news media's history of systematically biased and unreliable reporting on issues central to U.S. foreign policy and when dealing with an official enemy, is the CPD's position on media coverage of Iran's election credible? We wonder if the CPD also found media performance on the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq to be fundamentally accurate, ca. 2002-2003? Or on Israel's recent wars against Lebanon (2006) and the Gaza Palestinians (early 2009)? Or on the alleged "threat" that Iran's nuclear program poses to the world? Or is it just the news media's performance on the election and its aftermath in Iran that the CPD finds fundamentally sound?

3. By portraying the Islamic Republic as even more of an outlaw regime than it had been portrayed prior to June 12, doesn't this intensive focus on discrediting the Iranian election feed nicely into the U.S.-Israeli destabilization and regime-change campaign? No matter how much the CPD protests otherwise (#13), doesn't its call for "solidarity with the anti-Ahmadinejad movement" and its advocacy for "a different form of government in Iran" encourage leftists to pull-down their natural defenses against U.S. imperialism?

Much intelligent analysis has pointed to similarities between a strategy employed by the Mousavi camp in June 2009, and the strategy's use in earlier campaigns of destabilization against U.S. targets for regime-change that date back to the elections in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, and the Ukraine in 2004, to name three where it succeeded.[8] As was the case in these three other countries, the challenger Mousavi and his aides started by declaring Mousavi the "definite winner" by very wide margins on the day of the election (Friday, June 12), long before the polls had closed and the votes were counted; one Mousavi aide even told Agence France Presse that "Mousavi has got 65% of the votes cast," a "landslide victory," AFP called it.[9] This was followed by Mousavi's claim on the next day (Saturday, June 13) that his rightful victory and therefore the will of the Iranian people had been stolen by the incumbent President Ahmadinejad's supporters in the Ministry of the Interior, with the official result delegitimized; from here went the calls to Iranians and all democracy-loving peoples the world-over to reject it.[10]

But the regnant portrayal of Iran's 2009 election as a sham, riddled with fraud and illegitimate, also reminds us of the Reagan administration's propaganda campaign in 1984, which focused on the hostile Sandinista treatment of the newspaper La Prensa, the withdrawal of Contra leader Arturo Cruz from the election, and other actions that delegitimized it, thus justifying further U.S.-sponsored terrorism. As early as July 1984, Ronald Reagan himself had likened the Sandinistas' proposal to hold elections in November to a "Soviet-style sham." The editors of the New York Times picked-up on their President's rhetoric, warning first that "If [the Sandinistas] go forward with plans to hold a sham vote..., they will confirm Mr. Reagan's thesis" (October 7), and concluding one month later that "Only the naïve believe that [the] election in Nicaragua was democratic or legitimizing proof of the Sandinistas' popularity.... The Sandinistas made it easy to dismiss their election as a sham" (November 7).[11]

For progressive Americans who'd like to "make it clear to the Iranian people that there is 'another America', one that is independent of the government and opposed to its oppressive and anti-democratic foreign policy" (#12), but whose memory of their own government's history has yet to be Twittered-away, isn't the net-effect of the CPD's activism to increase the likelihood that the next president of Iran, some time in 2013 (if not sooner[12]), will be a U.S.-supported candidate—in the pattern of the "remarkable victory" of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in 1990 that delivered a "devastating rebuke to the Sandinistas," as the New York Times editorialized, a "clear mandate for peace and democracy," in the first President Bush's words?[13] 

4. Even the language used by the CPD displays a revealing bias. At no place in its July 7 Q&A does the CPD refer to the United States or to Washington or to any U.S. leader as "murderous" or "vicious" or "barbaric," or any U.S. action as "ferocious." Instead, such language is reserved for U.S. targets such as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic (#9), and for the clerical-state in Iran. Thus, the CPD's introduction speaks of their "horror at the ferocious response" of Iran and the "brutal repression" in support of the "electoral fraud," and later the CPD refers to the "ferocious violence of the security forces" against the protestors and the general public (#8).   But in the CPD's November 2002 statement (later updated), "We Oppose Both Saddam Hussein and the U.S. War on Iraq: A Call for a New Democratic U.S. Foreign Policy," such invidious language is used only to describe the regime of Saddam Hussein, whom it calls a "killer and serial aggressor," and a "tyrant who should be removed from power," but never the United States.   "War"—not George Bush or the United States—but "War threatens massive harm to Iraqi civilians," the CPD stated, "and will encourage international bullies to pursue further acts of aggression."  The CPD recognized that President Bush's objective was "to expand and solidify U.S. predominance in the Middle East, at the cost of tens of thousands of civilian lives if necessary" (and many more, ultimately). But this didn't make the United States or Washington or President Bush a "bully," a "killer and serial aggressor," or a "terrorist" on a grand scale. 

5. The CPD goes to great length to deny that the post-June 12 protests in Iran can be regarded as a consequence of U.S. policy towards that country, and is adamant that U.S. interference played no role in the election and its aftermath. "[F]oreign meddling does not prove foreign control," the CPD asserts, and "foreign meddling does not automatically discredit mass movements or their goals; it depends on who is calling the shots....[T]there is no evidence that the CIA or any other arm of U.S. intelligence—or Mossad—had anything to do with initiating or leading the protests in Iran...[T]there has been not a scrap of credible evidence that the millions of people in the streets these past few weeks were brought out by CIA money" (#6).   But "foreign control" and "calling the shots" are extreme forms of foreign meddling, and we regard them as straw men of the CPD's making. Another straw man is the CPD's repudiation of the notion that "millions of people in the streets" were on the CIA's payroll, the CPD implying strongly that the consequences of U.S. meddling are too insignificant to be a factor.

But who ever said that huge numbers of Iranians were on the CIA's payroll? More to the point: Does the CPD have any "credible evidence" that none of them are?[14]

Surely the CPD knows that in early 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requested $75 million "in emergency funding to step up pressure on the Iranian government, including expanding radio and television broadcasts into Iran and promoting internal opposition to the rule of religious leaders"? Before the money was appropriated by Congress, $15 million of it was channeled "toward grants for software programmers who specialize in creating programs that thwart Internet firewalls erected by repressive countries such as Iran and China. The idea, which was championed by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), is intended to assist dissidents without making them the target of arrests and harassment."[15]

The CPD ignores ABC TV's report in 2007 that the CIA "received secret presidential approval to mount a covert 'black' operation to destabilize the Iranian government," a policy that "would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime," retired CIA officer Bruce Riedel told ABC. The CPD also ignores Seymour Hersh's report about a "major escalation of covert operations against Iran," worth $400 million, and "designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership." One source familiar with the presidential order told Hersh that its purpose was "to undermine the [Iranian] government through regime change," and involved "working with opposition groups and passing [out] money."[16] As always with how the U.S. "intelligence" agencies spend their massive budgets, the potential for additional unreported operations is great.[17]

The CPD ignores the existence, let alone the impact, of multiple, large, and overlapping governmental and nongovernmental programs devoted to developing the media and expertise necessary for "democratic movements" in other countries, and to "strengthen the bond between indigenous democratic movements abroad and the people of the United States," as the National Endowment for Democracy describes its mission.[18] Despite President Obama's semi-apologetic admission in his speech at Cairo University the week before Iran's election that the United States once "played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,"[19] USA Today reports that "The Obama administration is moving forward with plans to fund groups that support Iranian dissidents,...continuing a program that became controversial when it was expanded by President Bush." Part of the purpose of the $15 million Near Eastern Regional Democracy Initiative, a Senate Appropriations committees spokesman told USA Today, "is to expand access to information and communications through the Internet for Iranians."[20]

In short, there is extensive evidence of U.S. meddling inside Iran, over a very long period of time, and these efforts cannot simply be dismissed as old-style leftist hyperbole.[21]

 6. Also relevant to assessing the true nature and scope of U.S. interference in the lives of Iran's 70 million people—and their election process—but virtually ignored by the CPD are the massive U.S. wars in neighboring Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, the constant threats of attack by the United States and Israel, the use of the International Atomic Energy Agency dating back to 2003 to harass Iran over its legal and NPT-compliant nuclear program,[22] and the serious economic and political sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States, its allies, and the Security Council—all of which add-up to a sum that vastly exceeds "foreign meddling," and the impact of which cannot be dismissed by asserting that there is "no evidence that" the CIA has engineered yet another coup on the model of its 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeq.[23]   Isn't U.S.-organized economic warfare that reduces Iranian standards of living over many years,[24] along with the likelihood that it can only be ended by a U.S.-approved political transformation, a grave form of foreign intervention in Iranian politics, in the June 12 election, and in its aftermath? Isn't it reminiscent of Reagan's and Bush One's blackmailing threat to continue the Contra's terrorist war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua until the people removed the Sandinistas from power? Isn't the CPD's insistence that "American progressives" can safely discount these forms of foreign intervention as having played no important role in recent events inside Iran a form of apologetics for the same ugly operations?

 7. Apart from these ongoing destabilization campaigns, a series of reports since early July have described plans and training for possible future Israeli military attacks on Iran's nuclear program. It is important to remember that such reports have been regular features in the Western media for six years running, invariably contain a psychological warfare component, and are even discussed as psy-ops inside Iran. But this time we notice some novel features to the reports, including an agreement with Egypt for Israeli warships to pass through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, an agreement with Saudi Arabia permitting the Israeli air force to traverse Saudi airspace, several long-range, joint U.S. and NATO training missions with the Israeli Air Force, and joint U.S.-Israeli tests of the Arrow interceptor missile "designed to defend Israel from missile attacks by Iran and Syria," according to the London Times. "It is not by chance that Israel is drilling long-range maneuvers in a public way," an Israeli defense official stated. "This is not a secret operation. This is something that has been published and will showcase Israel's abilities."[25]

There is also U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's response to question by George Stephanopoulos on ABC - TV in the States, widely interpreted as giving a virtual go-ahead to an Israeli bombing attack on Iran:[26]

 --Stephanopoulos: [I]f the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?--

--Biden: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.--

 We find it damning that as these U.S. and Israeli threats to attack Iran have escalated in June and especially in July, the U.S.-based Campaign for Peace and Democracy, while remaining silent on this major threat to international peace and security posed by the United States and Israel, which if carried out would undoubtedly kill many more Iranian civilians than the Iranian government has killed since June 12, initiated its campaign to delegitimize Iran's June 12 election as its cause celebre—and in effect lay down with the lions.

  
8. Considering events inside Iran from June 12 on, it seems highly likely that many of Iran's more affluent, urban-activist and technologically savvy youth had concluded that they could achieve their political objectives best, not at the ballot box in June 2009, and not by arguing their case before the rigid bodies of Iran's executive branch, but by tailoring their messages of dissent to foreign audiences, taking to the streets to provoke repressive responses by state authorities, with every action of the state serving to delegitimize it in the eyes of the West's metropolitan centers, whose recognition and validation the protestors have sought above all.[27] Indeed, the West is where we find the real streets the demonstrators want to control. Not "from Engelob Square to Azadi Square," as Robert Fisk reported it,[28] but how Engelob Square and Azadi Square, Evin Prison and the Basij militia, play in the United States and other Western powers, where 98% of the "internationalists" wouldn't blog, "tweet," text-message, or take to their own streets to stop a single NATO missile from striking a wedding or funeral party in Afghanistan, however much they cheer Iran's dissidents.

Today's mobile communications technology (including voice, text-messaging and Twitter, and digital imaging) played an unprecedented role in the election and its aftermath, as did the Internet (websites, email, Facebook, and photo and video-sharing platforms such YouTube and Flickr), and foreign-based radio and television sources such as the BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera, as well as BBC Persian TV and Voice of America's Persian News Network. By-passing Iran's state-run media, younger Iranians kept informed via these state-of-the-art samizdat and establishment foreign sources. Much of the establishment Western media (print, TV, and radio) also relied heavily on the new samizdat, and for one-to-two weeks running featured content drawn allegedly from Iran's street protestors.[29]

When Tehran's executive branch accuses the U.S. Government and foreign NGOs of trying to foment a "velvet" or "color revolution," this is the modus operandi that Tehran has in mind. Given the U.S., U.K., and Israeli investment in destabilization and regime-change in Iran, we believe it highly plausible that strategy exists for mobilizing Iran's dissident youth via both samizdat and the foreign media beyond their country's borders that feed-back into the consciousnesses of the Iranian street and the executive branch, altering the relation between the two, in precisely the sense that U.S.-based nonviolent action-operatives and foreign regime-changers have been advocating for use in Iran for years.[30]  

In short, the protests are certainly not entirely "home-grown" and have a pretty clear link both to direct destabilization campaigns and to the massive destabilizations imposed upon this region of the world by the United States and its allies just this decade alone. It is also interesting to note that Peter Ackerman, the founding chair of the U.S.-based International Center on Nonviolent Conflict and a former chair of the right-wing Freedom House, along with the ICNC's founding director and president Jack DuVall, once cynically cautioned that for a destabilization campaign such as this to be maximally effective against Iran, it "should not come from the CIA or Defense Department, but rather from pro-democracy programs throughout the West."[31]   None of this is to deny the reality of a massive democratic surge inside Iran on a scale unseen since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. But it is to question how well we understand the role of state-of-the-art communications technology in mobilizing the demonstrators, and how truly "indigenous," autonomous, and independent they are from foreign meddling and influence, where foreign powers have invested considerable resources and know-how in these modern regime-change campaigns.

  9. The question of vote fraud in Iran's reported election results remains hotly contested.[32] There have been allegations of fraud among both Iran's political class and foreign analysts,[33] but the true scale of any possible tampering with the actual ballots cast is uncertain. Still, more than any other factor, it is the allegations of an election rigged by Iran's executive branch to deny the will of the Iranian people that have driven events inside Iran since June 12.

The CPD devotes its first five Q&A's to delegitimizing both the election and Iran's political system. The CPD dismisses the political system's fairness (#1), the "un-elected" nature of its "theocratic rulers" (#2), as well as rejects Ahmadinejad's reported victory (#3 - #5). "[T]here is very powerful evidence that either no one emerged with a majority [in the first round]," the CPD even states at one point, "or that Mousavi won outright" (#3). The CPD also states that the "basic prerequisite of a democratic system—that people can change their government—is missing" in Iran (#2), and that as the "un-elected Guardian Council" filtered out hundreds of potential candidates, leaving only four to run for the presidency, with no free press, free expression and freedom to organize, the June 12 election wasn't free and fair (#1 and #2, and passim).

While we agree that Iran's political system has very serious defects, it towers above others in the Middle East that are U.S. clients and recipients of U.S. aid and protection. If Iran were a U.S. client rather than a U.S. target, its political system would be portrayed as a "fledgling democracy," imperfect but improving over time and with the promise of a democratic future. Furthermore, in the current electoral contest, the three challengers (Mousavi, as well as the former Speaker of the Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, and the former head of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezai) seemed ABLE to voice sharp disagreements with the incumbent and with many aspects of Iranian life under its current executive branch; also, Mousavi's candidacy was supported passionately by large numbers of people, and he had very contentious debates with Ahmadinejad as well as the others two candidates on national TV.[34] We do not recall the CPD ever contesting the legitimacy of the U.S. political system or the fairness of U.S. elections on the grounds that an unelected dictatorship of money—as opposed to the Islamic Council of Guardians—vets the nominees of the Republican and Democratic parties, reducing the options available to U.S. citizens to two candidates, neither of whom can change the foreign or domestic priorities of the imperial U.S. regime. Nor did the CPD draw any important comparison between conditions in Iran, on the one hand, and conditions in Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait, or Iraq and Afghanistan under U.S. military occupation, on the other. And though the CPD mentions that conditions are worse in the "dictatorship" of Saudi Arabia, the CPD never explains why its focus is (and has been) on Iran rather than Saudi Arabia or the United States of America. 

Although serious doubts have been raised about the integrity of Iran's vote-counting process, it is worthy of note that the only relatively scientific, non-partisan poll of Iranian opinion conducted in the pre-election period, between May 11 and 20, asked the question, "If the presidential elections were held today, who would you vote for?"[35] 33.8% of the Iranians surveyed said that they'd vote for Ahmadinejad, compared to 13.6% for Mousavi, 1.7% for Karroubi, and 0.9% for Rezai. These results formed the basis for the pollsters Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty's claim shortly after the election that their "nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by more than a 2 to 1 margin—greater than his actual apparent margin of victory [on June 12]."[36]

While 50.1% who did not name any of these four candidates, either because they didn't know (27.4%), they didn't like any of the four (7.6%), or they refused to answer (15.1%), present a real problem, this deserves less weight than critics of the official results have given it. "If one merely extrapolated from the reported results [of the Ballen - Doherty poll]," Robert Naiman writes, "that is, if one assumed that the people who refused to respond or who didn't know voted for the four candidates in the same proportion as their counterparts who named candidates," Ahmadinejad would have received 66.7% of the votes, almost 4 points more than the Interior Ministry announced on June 13.[37] Moreover, were we to allocate as high as 60% of the undecided votes to the two "reform" candidates (Mousavi and Karroubi) and only 40% to the two "conservative" candidates (Ahmadinejad and Rezai), but in the same proportion that each received from those who answered the "who would you vote for" question by naming their candidate, Naiman projects that Ahmadinejad still would have received 57% to Mousavi's 36%—results that "differ from the Interior Ministry numbers by less than the poll's [3.1%] margin of error."

The CPD tries to get around these results by arguing that the Ballen - Doherty poll was taken early in the campaign, before the TV debates in early June, which were a "turning point" where people "sensed...an opportunity for real change" (#4). But the CPD's contention that Iranian public opinion changed after the poll in May is not only speculative and lacking in evidence, it ignores the fact that Ahmadinejad's forces were also campaigning, and vigorously; and contrary to the CPD implication that the TV debates turned the tide against Ahmadinejad, U.S. journalist Joe Klein, though hostile towards the incumbent, nonetheless reported that Ahmadinejad "was, without question, the best politician in the race," and that his nationally televised debates against both Mousavi and Karroubi "were routs."[38]

The CPD also claims that while Ahmadinejad did get support from the poor with his social welfare programs (i.e., Ahmadinejad's "social welfare programs, funded from oil revenues, have undoubtedly induced many among the poor to give him their allegiance," the CPD sneers (#5)), "there is no evidence that these were enough to give him the huge majorities that he claims" (#5). But we repeat that the only evidence gathered by an opinion poll suggested roughly a 2-1 lead for Ahmadinejad over Mousavi, and hence a possible majority victory. Nowhere does the CPD acknowledge that Ahmadinejad's refusal to kow-tow to the West and his nationalistic stance in opposing the U.S., Israel and a threatening Western establishment, also could have won him votes.

The quasi-official source for the fraud allegation in the West is the U.K.-based Chatham House analysis, released on June 21. When Ahmadinejad defeated Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani by 61.7% to 31.5% in the second-round run-off in June 2005, commentators attributed Ahmadinejad's nearly 2 to 1 margin of victory to Rafsanjani's "symboliz[ing] wealth and power," with Ahmadinejad "capitaliz[ing] on the schism between the government and the people, the poor and the rich," as one senior advisor to the outgoing President Mohammad Khatami explained. "The White House responded to the [2005] election result by reiterating charges made previously by President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the legitimacy of the vote, noting that 'over 1,000 candidates were disqualified from running and there were many allegations of election fraud and interference'," the New York Times reported. [39] But with voter turnout in June 2009 showing "massive across the board increases," rising from 28,100,000 in the first-round of 2005, to 38,700,000 in the first and only round of 2009, Chatham House finds it "problematic" that there was any "correlation between increases in turnout and increased support for any candidate...."[40] This would be a solid objection, if in fact there had been a substantial "swing to Ahmadinejad" in 2009. But out of the total number of valid votes reported by the Interior Ministry on June 13, Ahmadinejad received 62.6% to Mousavi's 33.8%, leaving little evidence of a "swing" or change between the second round of 2005 and 2009. Furthermore, as noted, the Ballen - Doherty poll completed three weeks before the election showed Ahmadinejad with a 2 to 1 edge over Mousavi, and as Naiman indicated, with reasonable adjustments for the effects of non-voting and run-off consolidations, Ahmadinejad's numbers for the June 12 election are consistent with that pre-election poll.

In short, although there is some anecdotal evidence of vote fraud in the reported results of Iran's June 12 election, the CPD's assurances of massive vote fraud and a possible Mousavi majority are not based on any credible evidence whatsoever.[41] Some 700,000 Iranians worked 45,000 polls on June 12, including tens-of-thousands drawn from opposition parties. Ballots were counted at the polling sites in the presence of some 14 - 18 people, including these opposition observers. Numerous other safeguards also would have had to be violated on a massive scale—in the presence of tens- and perhaps hundreds-of-thousands of witnesses. The results of each of the 45,000 polls were posted to the Interior Ministry's website. Neither the Mousavi camp nor anyone else have produced witnesses who can testify to the violation of voting and counting procedures on a scale beyond the anecdotal and therefore marginal. If vote fraud occurred on the scale necessary to rig the election by the nearly 11,290,000 votes that separate its proclaimed winner, the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, from its runner-up, the former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, the fraud would have had to occur outside the voting process. This is possible, but unproven. As Iran's Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in his first post-election sermon, "If the difference was 100,000 or 500,000 or 1 million, well, one may say fraud could have happened. But how can one rig 11 million votes? The Guardian Council has said that if people have doubts they should prove them."[42] It is quite possible that Ahmadinejad won his first-round majority without or despite a resort to fraud.

"The data offers no arbitration in this dispute," the Chatham House analysis cautiously states, and we agree.[43] But this means that the assured conclusion of massive fraud, a stolen election, and a "coup d'état," simply are unproven speculation, and that passions in the West, stirred by the repeated allegations of theft, are deeply problematic—as they would not be, were the same passionate intensity focused closer to home, on the tangible coup d'état in Honduras.

  10. The CPD asks whether Ahmadinejad is "good for world anti-imperialism?" It answers that "There is a foolish argument in some sectors of the left that holds that any state that is opposed by the U.S. government is therefore automatically playing a progressive, anti-imperialist role and should be supported. On these grounds, many such 'leftists' have acted as apologists for murderous dictators like Milosevic and Saddam Hussein" (#9).  This tendentious analysis misrepresents the real issues, and begs several questions. According to both the letter and the spirit of the UN Charter, a state that is on the imperial hit-list ought to be defended against aggression, and interference in its affairs is ruled out. Aggression and subversion should be strenuously opposed by the American left. It should not be suckered into such efforts even when the target is not playing a "progressive, anti-imperialist role."

Whether North Vietnam and the Vietnamese resistance were "playing a progressive, anti-imperialist role" in the years 1950-1975 can be debated. But it must be recalled that folks straightening-out the "confusion" on the left in those years were also busy demonizing the "murderous dictator" Ho Chi Minh and featuring Vietnamese terrorism, thereby providing de facto support to a truly genocidal aggression by the United States.  

The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was not playing a progressive, anti-imperialist role in the 1980s and 1990s. But what leftist would have swallowed the U.S.-U.K. aggression of 2003 on grounds that Saddam was a "murderous dictator"? (For the record, we know that on this occasion, the CPD did not swallow it.) Yet, it appears that in the CPD's judgment, anyone strenuously opposing imperialist attacks on the former Yugoslavia and Iraq could be found guilty of apologizing for "murderous dictators"!  So, while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might not be good for world anti-imperialism, his country is not just "opposed by the United States," it has been under serious U.S. attack and faces a continuing threat of escalated violence. It should be first-order business of a left and supposed campaign for peace as well as democracy to oppose this threat. But with Ahmadinejad a demonized target and Iran's allegedly sham election of June 12 utterly discredited, the CPD's willing participation in that whole process (in contrast to Honduras, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) provides first-class service to the imperial powers.

  Concluding Note: "American progressives"?

The Iranian election of June 12 and its aftermath have been subjected to competing but not necessarily exclusive interpretations. In dealing with these events, some commentators have framed them as features of an autonomous, local struggle for democracy; others view them as an internal struggle tightly integrated into regional and global struggles for conquest of territories and control over scarce energy resources. We may recall that Iran is one of the two remaining members of the "Axis of Evil" (January 2002-), accused then and still today of pursuing weapons of mass destruction and exporting terrorism, "while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom." [44]

We believe that the latter frame is by far the more illuminating and politically relevant, as it emphasizes the fact that the huge publicity given to Iran in the establishment Western political and media systems is closely connected to the U.S., NATO, and Israeli campaign to destabilize and change regimes in Iran, a campaign that is part of a larger program of power-projection, subversion, territorial expansion, and serial warfare. The same basic point applies to the U.S. campaign against Iran's nuclear program, and remains perhaps the most visible part of the regime-change project (i.e., short of an eventual military attack).

It goes without saying that "all peoples have the right to self-determination," and that any struggle for freedom deserves our solidarity and respect. No less compelling to us, however, are the injunctions against the "subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination, and exploitation," "armed action or repressive measures of all kinds directed against dependent peoples," and the "partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country."[45] The Iranian election and the Iranian struggle for freedom are the rightful property of the Iranian people, not something about which their more sophisticated counterparts in the States and on the "internationalist" left need to instruct them. But this is especially true where that struggle is used in the destabilization and subjugation program.

Overall, the Campaign for Peace and Democracy's "Question & Answer on the Iran Crisis" reminds us of the position Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice staked-out in her early 2006 statement before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee: "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," Rice warned. But, she added, "We do not have a problem with the Iranian people. We want the Iranian people to be free. Our problem is with the Iranian regime...."[46]
 
A Gallup World Affairs poll taken in the United States around the same time found that nearly one-in-three Americans ranked Iran "America's greatest enemy," ahead of Iraq (22%) and North Korea (15%), to name the other two notables. The same poll found that Americans rated Iran the "most negatively" out of 22 foreign countries, a place of honor formerly held by Iraq for the previous 15 years (1991-2005). "Generally speaking," Gallup explained, "Americans' ratings of other nations are fairly stable from year to year, though they do change in response to international events."[47]

But the "international events" to which Gallup referred were located in Washington, London, Paris, and Bonn, and directed at Iran, specifically these capitals' use of the IAEA to harass Iran over its nuclear program, to depict its nuclear program as a global threat to international peace and security, and to demonize its president—the latter process ratcheted-up so high since the 12th of June that by now Iran has been demonized beyond recognition.

Rather than countering this process, the CPD pleads with "American progressives" to let their guards down and go for a ride on the "green wave." Instead of U.S. citizens asking the question, What should we do about the current situation in the United States of America? (extended to those parts of the world that suffer beneath its myriad forms of violence and oppression), the CPD asks (#12): "What should we do about the current situation in Iran?"

This approach to "progressive" politics makes us wonder, not whether "Ahmadinejad [is] good for world anti-imperialism?" but, frankly, whether the CPD is? We have our doubts.

  ---- Endnotes ----

[1] Besides its posting to the Campaign for Peace and Democracy's own website, the CPD's July 7 "Question & Answer on the Iran Crisis" has also been posted to websites at AfterDowningStreet.org, CASMII, The Indypendent, Payvand Iran News, Portside, and ZNet, among others. At the time of this writing (July 12), we do not believe that this Q&A has been posted at AlterNet, CommonDreams, Information Clearinghouse, or Truthout—four other left and progressive websites with a sizeable audience.

[2] The four authors as listed on the July 7 document are Stephen R. Shalom, Thomas Harrison, Joanne Landy, and Jesse Lemisch.

[3] As was the case concerning the decade-long dismantling of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, the phenomenon of left-splintering over the true significance of Iran's June 12 election has been marked. For an example of how the subject of Iran in 2009 is being exploited under the banner of the American "left" literally to attack the left and to enforce a doctrinal discipline regarding the election and its aftermath see Reese Erlich, "Iran and Leftist Confusion," CommonDreams, June 29, 2009. It therefore comes as no surprise that the CPD has provided a link this anti-left diatribe by Erlich on the CPD's homepage ("Related Materials, Announcements, and Links"), as well as a listing for "Reese Erlich Speaking Engagements." (See David Peterson, "And Whose Side Are You On?" ZNet, July 1, 2009.)

[4] These results are based on searches of the Factiva database according to the following sets of parameters: (a) rst=nytf and Iran for June 13 through June 27, and (b) rst=nytf and Honduras for June 29 through July 13. We then checked the Factiva-generated results, item-by-item, to generate the final results reported above.

[5] Mark Weisbrot, "Was Iran's Election Stolen?" PostGlobal, June 26, 2009.

[6] Michael Slackman, "Amid Crackdown, Iran Admits Voting Errors," New York Times, June 23, 2009.

[7] According to Mark Weisbrot (personal communication), the Guardian Council's June 22 statement can be found on this webpage, and the English-language translation that he uses was provided by Rostam Pourzal.

[8] See, e.g., Simon Tisdall, "Iran plays the blame game," The Guardian, June 16, 2009; Anthony Dimaggio, "Lapdog Journalists," CounterPunch, June 18, 2009; James Petras, "Iranian Elections: The ‘Stolen Elections' Hoax," Centre for Research on Globalization, June 18, 2009; Phil Wilayto, "Some Observations on the Iranian Presidential Election and Its Aftermath," Truthout, June 19, 2009; Paul Craig Roberts, "Are the Iranian Protests Another U.S. Orchestrated 'Color Revolution'?" CounterPunch, June 19-21, 2009; Steve Weissman, "Iran: Non-Violence 101," Truthout, June 21, 2009; M.K. Bhadrakumar, "Beijing cautions U.S. over Iran," The Hindu, June 22, 2009; Jeremy R. Hammond, "Has the U.S. Played a Role in Fomenting Unrest During Iran's Election?" Foreign Policy Journal, June 23, 2009; Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, "Iran: This Is Not a Revolution," MRZine, June 23, 2009; Huang Xiangyang, "Why Doesn't the Media Leave Iran Alone?" China Daily, June 26, 2009; Elias Akleh, "Demonizing Iranian Democracy," Palestine Chronicle, June 30, 2009; Mazhar Qayyum Khan, "Is 'regime change' at work in Iran?" The Nation (Pakistan), June 30, 2009; Steve Weissman, "Iran: The World Is Watching," Truthout, June 30, 2009; William Blum, "Much Ado about Nothing?" Anti-Empire Report, July 3, 2009; John Laughland, "The Technique of a Coup d'État," LewRockwell.com, July 21, 2009.

[9] "Mousavi says he 'definite winner' in Iran election," Reuters, June 12, 2009; "Mousavi claims landslide victory in Iran vote," Agence France Presse, June 12, 2009.

[10] The Xinhua News Agency reported that a statement posted to the Mir Hossein Mousavi campaign's website dated June 13 decried "obvious and numerous violations and irregularities [on] the election day," asked his supporters "to remain [on] the scene," warned that "such an injustice will cause the removal of the legitimacy" of the government and is "shaking the pillars of the sacred system of [the] Islamic Republic [of Iran]" and amounts to "dictatorship," asked "[Iranian] officials to stop such a process before it is late," and proclaimed that "he will not surrender to such a dangerous show." ("Iran's Mousavi says obvious violations in Iran's presidential election," June 13, 2009.)

[11] Steven R. Weisman, "Reagan Predicts Nicaraguan Vote Will be 'Sham'," New York Times, July 20, 1984; "Going With the Wind in Nicaragua," New York Times, October 7, 1984; "Nobody Won in Nicaragua," New York Times, November 7, 1984.

[12] On Sunday, July 19, some websites began reporting that Iran's former president Mohammad Khatami had called for a referendum on the "current situation" inside Iran. "People should be asked whether they are happy with the current situation," Reuters reported comments attributed to Khatami. "If the vast majority of people are happy with the current situation, we will accept it as well." (Zahra Hosseinian, "Supreme leader warns against helping Iran's enemies," Reuters, July 20, 2009; Robert F. Worth, "Ex-President In Iran Seeks Referendum On Leaders," New York Times, July 20, 2009.)

[13] "The Morning After in Nicaragua," New York Times, February 27, 1990. George Bush's remark was quoted in the same.

[14] The term 'CIA' can refer very precisely to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, with its reported annual budget and the myriad activities that it funds. But 'CIA' is also used much more loosely to refer to all similar agencies of the U.S. Government, their budgets, and their activities, or to refer to the dirtier activities of the U.S. Government—those "covert" activities that one or more agencies of the U.S. Government directs, funds, sponsors, and the like, but which the Government would never publicly admit. In fact, among the general public, these second and third uses of 'CIA' are probably the most frequent.

[15] Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger, "Bush Plans Huge Propaganda Campaign in Iran," The Guardian, February 16, 2006; Glenn Kessler, "Rice Asks for $75 Million to Increase Pressure on Iran," Washington Post, February 16, 2006; Glenn Kessler, "Congress Sets Limits on Aid to Pakistan," Washington Post, December 20, 2007.

[16] Brian Ross, "Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran," ABC News, May 22, 2007; Seymour M. Hersh, "The Bush administration steps up its secret moves against Iran," New Yorker, July 7, 2008. In the latter, Hersh makes it clear that this funding was for terrorist operations against targets inside Iran, and has employed both CIA and Joint Special Operations Command units, as well as regional terrorist groups such as the Jundallah (or Iranian People's Resistance Movement), the Mujahedin-e Khalq, and the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan. Also see Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "The U.S. Aggression Process and Its Collaborators: From Guatemala (1950-1954) to Iran (2002-)," Electric Politics, November 26, 2007.

[17] The reported budget of the U.S. "intelligence" agencies (of which the CIA is by far the largest) for Fiscal Year 2008 was $47.5 billion. ("DNI Releases Budget Figure for 2008 National Intelligence Program," News Release No. 17-08, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, October 28, 2008.)

[18] See "About Us," the National Endowment for Democracy website, accessed in July 2009. Also see the NED's annual budgeted items for promoting "democracy" inside Iran so far this decade: Iran - 2001, Iran - 2002, Iran - 2003, Iran - 2004, Iran - 2005, Iran - 2006, Iran - 2007, and Iran - 2008. Here we'd like to emphasize that the NED is but one of many groups that act and spend lavishly in the name of "democracy," but for which the right to self-determination and the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of States never seems to stand in its way.

[19] Barack Obama, "Remarks by the President on a New Beginning," Cairo, Egypt, White House Office of the Press Secretary, June 4, 2009. A June 7 commentary on Obama's speech in the Iranian newspaper Keyhan noted: "In Cairo, Obama spoke of change," and "pretend[ed] that his country's problems with Iran are purely historical [i.e., things of the past]." But, the commentator added, Obama mentioned only the 1953 coup and Iran's nuclear program today. "America's actions in supporting Saddam when he attacked Iran, bringing down of Iran's airbus passenger plane, attacking Iran's oil rigs, blocking our country's assets, military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and bullying actions against governments and nations did not attract his notice. He merely apologized for an issue when his apology would not change anything and was nothing but a propaganda move." (Sa'dollah Zare'I, "Speech in Cairo; running on sands," Keyhan website, June 7, 2009, as translated by the BBC Monitoring Middle East, June 9, 2009.)

[20] Ken Dilanian, "U.S. grants lend support to Iran's dissidents," USA Today, June 26, 2009.

[21] In William Blum's estimate, the "United States has seriously intervened in some 30 elections around the world" since World War II. ("Much Ado about Nothing?" Anti-Empire Report, July 3, 2009.) Had the U.S. Government kept its hands-off Iran prior to the June 12 election, surely this would have been the first time in post-World War II history that it failed to interfere in a foreign election the outcome of which was important to its global policies.

[22] Sylvia Westall, "No Evidence Iran Seeks Nuclear Arms: New IAEA Head," Reuters, July 3, 2009. We add that since 2003, the IAEA has never reported any hard evidence that Iran seeks nuclear weapons. (See, e.g., "'Iran Has Centrifuge Capacity for Nuclear Arms'?" ZNet, June 6, 2009.) Even the National Intelligence Estimate, Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities (Office of the Director of National Intelligence, November, 2007) asserted with "high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program" (p. 6), the NIE adding that it intends 'nuclear weapons program' to be taken in the minimalist sense of "nuclear weapon design and weaponization work" (n. 1, p. 6), not work on highly enriched, weapons-grade fissile material.

[23] See Malcolm Byrne, Ed., "The Secret History of the Iran Coup," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 28, November 29, 2000. At this webpage, one will also find a PDF of the complete text of Donald Wilber's first-person account, Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran, November 1952-August 1953 (CIA Clandestine Service History, March, 1954).

[24] Following the July 15 crash of a Tehran-based commercial airliner shortly after it took-off from Imam Khomeini Airport, killing everyone on board, the New York Times reported that the crash "underscored the country's vulnerability to aviation disasters. Iran has been unable to adequately maintain its aging fleet of American-built aircraft for 30 years because of an embargo after the Islamic Revolution, and has increasingly relied on aircraft from Russian manufacturers, which have their own troubled safety history." (Robert F. Worth and Nicola Clark, "Iranian Airliner Crashes And Explodes, Killing 168," New York Times, July 16, 2009.)

[25] Yaakov Katz, "Israel sends sub through Suez Canal," Jerusalem Post, July 3, 2009; Dan Williams, "Israeli sub sails Suez, signalling reach to Iran," Reuters, July 3, 2009; Yaakov Kaatz, "IAF to train overseas for Iran strike," Jerusalem Post, July 5, 2009; Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter, "Saudis give nod to Israeli raid on Iran," Sunday Times, July 5, 2009; Sheera Frenkel, "Israel rehearses Iran raid; Warships in Suez a stark signal to Tehran," The Times, July 16, 2009.

[26] Interview with Vice President Joe Biden, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC - TV, July 5, 2009.

[27] This is not to ignore the fact that Shirin Ebadi, Akbar Ganji, and other well-known Iranian dissidents have repeatedly emphasized their refusal to accept the help of the U.S. Government, out of the reasonable fear that to be seen as accepting U.S. Government help discredits their cause and endangers their freedom and safety in Iran.

[28] Robert Fisk, "Iran's day of destiny," The Independent, June 16, 2009; and Robert Fisk, "Fear has gone in a land that has tasted freedom," The Independent, June 17 2009.

[29] Here we would like to register a skeptical question, the answer to which we do not pretend to know: Since June 12-13, how many of the "voices of the 2009 Iranian Revolution" (Twitter, text-messaging, and Internet traffic) have been generated by non-indigenous "intelligence" services, "nongovernmental" organizations, and PR firms exploiting the anonymity inherent to these state-of-the-art communications systems to disseminate a consistent party-line about Iran that is hostile towards its executive branch, favorable towards the opposition—and therefore favorable to foreign destabilizers as well?

[30] In one early commentary advocating regime-change for Iran, the U.S.-based International Center on Nonviolent Conflict's Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall argued that, just as "Serbian dissidents [back in 2000] were given working capital—money for supplies, communications, and, most important, training in strategic nonviolent struggle," so a similar "civilian-based struggle [to make] a country ungovernable through strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other nonviolent tactics—in addition to mass protests—crumbling a government's pillars of support...is possible in Iran." (Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, "The nonviolent script for Iran," Christian Science Monitor, July 22, 2003.)

[31] Ibid.

[32] For a copy of the election results as reported by Iran's Ministry of the Interior on June 13, see Ali Ansari et al., Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran's 2009 Presidential Election, Chatham House (U.K.), Appendix, "By Province Results for the 2009 Iranian Presidential Election," June 21, 2009, pp. 12-13. As determined by the Interior Ministry, the reported total of "valid" votes for the four candidates were: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (24,525,209), Mir Hossein Mousavi (13,225,330), Mohsen Rezai (659,281), and Mehdi Karroubi (328,979).

[33] Ibid. Also see "The contested results," The Guardian, June 17, 2009, which plots the reported results for Ahmadinejad and Mousavi across a province-by-province map of Iran. And see Juan Cole, "Stealing the Iranian Election," Informed Comment, June 13, 2009; Juan Cole, "Terror Free Tomorrow Poll Did not Predict Ahmadinejad Win," Informed Comment, June 15, 2009; and Juan Cole, "Chatham House Study Definitively Shows Massive Ballot Fraud in Iran's Reported Results," Informed Comment, June 22, 2009.

[34] In 2009, televised debates were held for the first time in the history of Iran's 10 presidential elections since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. There were six TV debates in all (June 2, June 3, June 4, June 6, June 7, and June 8), and each one involved two candidates at a time. In only one of these debates did Ahmadinejad and Mousavi face-off against each other (June 3). For a video copy with an English-language voiceover of the June 3 debate between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi, see the IranNegah.com website, June 3, 2009, ; and for an English-language transcript of this June 3 debate, see Charlie Szrom et al., IranTracker, June 9, 2009, .

[35] Results of a New Nationwide Public Opinion Survey of Iran before the June 12, 2009 Presidential Elections, (May 11 - 20), Terror Free Tomorrow, Center for Public Opinion, and New America Foundation, Q27, p. 52.

[36] Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty, "The Iranian People Speak," Washington Post, June 15, 2009.

[37] Robert Naiman, "Based on Terror Free Tomorrow Poll, Ahmadinejad Victory Was Expected," Huffington Post, June 14, 2009.

[38] Joe Klein, "What I Saw at the Revolution," Time Magazine, June 18, 2009.

[39] Ali Akbar Dareni, "Analysts: Rafsanjani Turned Off the Poor," Associated Press, June 27, 2005; Michael Slackman, "Winner in Iran Calls for Unity; Reformists Reel," New York Times, June 26, 2005.

[40] Ansari et al., Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran's 2009 Presidential Election, p. 3. By no means are we simply dismissing the objections raised by the Chatham House analysis. For example, the authors write: "The 2009 data suggests a sudden shift in political support within precisely these rural provinces, which had not previously supported Ahmadinejad or any other conservative...showing substantial swings to Ahmadinejad.... At the same time, the official data suggests that the vote for Mehdi Karrubi, who was extremely popular in these rural, ethnic minority areas in 2005, has collapsed entirely even in his home province of Lorestan, where his vote has gone from 440,247 (55.5%) in 2005 to just 44,036 (4.6%) in 2009. This is paralleled by an overall swing of 50.9% to Ahmadinejad, with official results suggesting that he has captured the support of 47.5% of those who cast their ballots for reformist candidates in 2005. This, more than any other result, is highly implausible, and has been the subject of much debate in Iran" (pp. 10-11).

[41] This paragraph summarizes the work of Mark Weisbrot, "Was Iran's Election Stolen?" PostGlobal, June 26, 2009.

[42] See Richard Beeston, "'The most evil of the Western countries is the British Government'," The Times, June 20, 2009. For a more complete version, see "'Western intelligence services, Zionists' behind post-election disturbances Iran leader," BBC Monitoring Middle East, June 19, 2009.

[43] Ansari et al., Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran's 2009 Presidential Election, p. 6.

[44] George W. Bush, Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union, January 29, 2002.

[45] See Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (A/RES/1514), UN General Assembly, December 14, 1960, para. 2, 1, 4, and 6. As para. 7 adds: "All States [shall act] on the basis of equality, non-interference in the internal affairs of all States, and respect the sovereign rights of all peoples and their territorial integrity."

[46] Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Opening Remarks before the Senate Appropriations Committee, "FY 2006 Supplemental Budget Proposal," March 9, 2006. Rice added: "We have proposed a $75 million package that would allow us to broadcast more effectively in Iran, better messaging for Iran. We have proposed money that would be used for innovation in our efforts to reach the Iranian people through websites and modern technology. We have also proposed that we would be able to support non-governmental organizations that can function in Iran and in many ways, most importantly, to improve and increase our educational and cultural outreach to the people of Iran."

[47] Joseph Carroll, "Americans Say Iran Is Their Greatest Enemy," Gallup, February 23, 2006; and Jeffrey M. Jones, "Americans Rate Iran Most Negatively of 22 Countries," Gallup, February 23, 2006.

Deep Delusions, Bitter Truth (The Trial of a Rwandan General) [A Play in Two Acts]-- Compiled by CM/P from the actual trial transcripts of 24 & 25 Jun

2009-09-02T23:30:00.003+02:00

Deep Delusions, Bitter Truth (The Trial of a Rwandan General) [A Play in Two Acts]-- Compiled by CM/P from the actual trial transcripts of 24 & 25 Jun
Deep Delusions, Bitter Truth (The Trial of a Rwandan General) [A Play in Two Acts]-- Compiled by CM/P from the actual trial transcripts of 24 & 25 June, 2009

[It's as if Obama just can't exert himself, can't stand up to his full moral height, in the face of US militarism. After all, he didn't pick the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates--Gates was Bush's replacement for the piss-drunk and mendacious Donald Rumsfeld. He's trying to stand by his campaign promises of pulling US troops out of Iraq--though he has really nothing to say about US military strategy and tactics, martial appointments, field promotions. And as the violence mounts--and the bizarre phenomenon of multiple daily suicide bombings moves inexorably from Israel/Palestine and Iraq (with the occasional diversion into a Western capital like NYC/Washington, DC, London or Madrid) into Iran and Afghanistan--and with mostly political feints toward moving US troops around in that bedeviled region; and the Zionist campaign to destabilize the entire Middle East unto Russia's Central Asian 'near abroad' get kicked into some hyperdrive with uncritical--even, in some cases, unconscious mainstream media support of the by-now familiar manipulations of 'pro-Democracy', 'non-violent', ‘civil society’ regime changers attempting to invalidate popular elections: the US president can only react as if everything he knew about everything he learned from Wolf Blitzer in the Sitchiation Room.

{--Or, even worse than The Wolfman is the gruelingly unfunny Hoser, Jonathan Mann, who, while commenting on Obama’s Russian excursion on his pretentiously named CNN show, The Political Mann, noted that Russia now has two leaders: PM Vladimir Putin and President SERGEI Medvedev. I have yet to read or hear an erratum on this one--but there go all the Dr Strangelove gags.}

Look at President Obama’s speech in Accra:

Obama: “But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants.”

Really? CNN might've missed this, or it might be another Bush legacy, but . . .

--The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 states that U.S. sanctions will remain in place against the Zimbabwean "government" [euphemism for "the people"] until the U.S. president certifies that the "rule of law has been restored in Zimbabwe, including respect for ownership and title to property. . . and an end to. . .lawlessness."
(from a site at http://www.nathanielturner.com/sanctionsonzimbabwe.htm -- with the interesting headnote: "Let's review the history of Zimbabwe lest we forget how European White settlers killed, plundered and stole in order to position themselves where they are today in Zimbabwe.")

One would think a Harvard lawyer might be able to work his way rhetorically around such dishonest denial without having to dump on all his criminal predecessors. For were not these British settlers Cecil Rhodes led into the former-Rhodesia to seize the best land for themselves, and work it with the life forces of the local residents, the same sort of parasitic teabags who used to call President Obama's Kenyan father and grandfather 'boy'?

And, though, ok, maybe Colonialism IS way overrated, why does he seem to gloat over the managed elections of March 2008 in Zimbabwe--a political strong-arm robbery mirrored in the Iranian voting of June 2009.

Obama: “We saw it in Zimbabwe, where the Election Support Network braved brutal repression to stand up for the principle that a person's vote is their sacred right. . . . “

In both cases the minority opposition made a preemptive claim of victory before the polls had even closed. Then the ensuing street demonstrations instigated by Western Democracy-thru-non-violent-regime-change agents-provocateurs, spawns of the NED, USAID, and Geo Soros' Open Society cabal, created sufficient bloody chaos to break down the authority of the majority government. Because US liberals, including Obama, see little difference between majority interests and minority interests, this sort of glib, equivocating obscurantism is no surprise:

--”The people of Ghana have worked hard to put democracy on a firmer footing, with repeated peaceful transfers of power even in the wake of closely contested elections. (Applause.) And by the way, can I say that for that the minority deserves as much credit as the majority.”--(What does this mean?)

And, of course, what is being obscured is the far too obvious iron hand of American militarism at the throat of African history. Obama cites all the usual African transgressions, but manages to turn responsibility for them back onto the victims, themselves: Tribal or ethnic or religious wars, using child soldiers, involving rape (systemic rape, whatever that is), and the inevitable terrorism unto genocide--and he localizes all these abominations most strategically: 'the value of every child in Darfur and the dignity of every woman in the Congo'; genocide in Darfur and (Islamic?) terrorism in Somalia; no US-ordered foreign invasions, no US-trained and equipped mercenaries leading death squads throughout the continent, no unconscionable dumping of deadly weapons and as-deadly medicines to mix with the unregulated degradation of ecosystems by the effluvia of industrial mining--the real African plagues being covered up by the HIV/AIDS phantasmagoria.

I suppose that Obama got out of Russia without ever acknowledging the US and NATO's responsibility for the wave of terrorism that has afflicted that country since the destabilization of Afghanistan by the US-backed mujahadeen in the late 1970s (now the Taliban), and the so-called Islamic uprisings from Bosnia and Kosovo to Chechnya that allowed the metastasis of US military bases currently strangling the former Soviet territories and China; that he got out of Italy without having to kiss Berlesconi's ring or the Pope's teenage boyfriend; and that he got out of Africa without having to explain why his hands-off policy toward his ancient homeland last year necessitated at $2 billion allotment for military aid and a still undisclosed budget for AFRICOM: I suppose these are all testimony to Obama's endearing young charm and his skills as an orator. But as long as he remains this far away from quotidian Reality, driven off by the monstrous killing machine that has taken over the entire reproductive-force of the USA, there can be little or no hope of his ever realizing an end to territorial and resource wars and bringing international war criminals to justice.

As goes the African proverb sampled by Robin Philpot in his wonderful 'Ça n'est pas passé comme ça à Kigali' (now in English translation as 'Rwanda 1994: Colonialism Dies Hard', and available free on Phil Taylor's site linked to the right of this blog):

--Until lions produce their own historians, the story of the hunt will glorify only the hunter.--

But we here at CM/P are trying hard to produce our own hunters--or historians--or something. We're producing a new play, at any rate. And it's attached to the bottom of this post. We composed, or compiled this two-act, one-man show from the transcripts of General Ndindiliyimana's trial at the ICTR. To be exact, the piece is made up mostly of Chris Black's final summation to the Tribunal in the Military II case.

So, here it is: The End of The General's Trial: Begging or Buggering Justice? --mc]

*********************************

Deep Delusions, Bitter Truth
(The Trial of a Rwandan General)

[A Courtroom Drama in Two Acts]

[COMPILED BY CM/P FROM THE ACTUAL TRIAL TRANSCRIPTS OF 24 & 25 JUNE, 2009]

THE SET: The stage is empty but for a small table with a lectern on it around CS. On the Cyclorama is
a large ‘Big Brother’ screen on which are projected images, still and moving pictures,
appropriate to what is being said on stage.

IN BLACK:

FIRST VO [Prosecutor Mr. Van]
Mr. President, if you hate somebody, it's not because you want to live with that person. And we are in a
war context. So if you consider that the Tutsi are an enemy, the Hutu, who did not want the Tutsi, and
actually hated the Tutsi, logically had to hurriedly exterminate the Tutsi, or else the Tutsi would
exterminate them. And that is the situation. When you say that you hate somebody, it is not a joke.
Besides, Mr. President, Your Honors, the results are there; the Tutsis were killed. They were
massacred, they were exterminated, and there was genocide.

SECOND VO [Thespus]
Yet the Tutsis minority wound up seizing state power and taking over Rwanda from the Hutu majority!

FIRST VO
In the Karemera case, the Appeals Chamber took judicial note of that.

SECOND VO
The order to take ‘Judicial Notice’ effectively removed from the Prosecution any burden of having to
produce evidence to prove the genocide actually took place.

LIGHTS UP:
Alone on stage is Maitre Christopher Black, Defense attorney to Major General Augustin
Ndindiliyimana, former Chief of Staff of the Rwandan National Gendarmerie during the troubles
of 1993 and 1994, on trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in Arusha,
Tanzania, on charges of Crimes against Humanity unto Genocide.

Mr. Black is just over 60 and very weary from his long travail.

The Judges sit OS DR, the Prosecution is OS UR, and the Defendants are OS UL. After

SEVERAL BEATS, Maitre Black speaks:

MR. BLACK:
Mr. Sefon, yesterday, referred to two interesting books. And I find the reference he made--and the fact
that he made that reference--that the Prosecution made that reference, very interesting. He referred to
Niccolò Machiavelli's book, The Prince. Everybody here, I assume, who went to law school has read
that at some time. And it's a book written by a man who was forced by a regime, the Medicis at that
time, to bow to a dictatorship, and decided to write a book to please his master about how to rule a
people who did not want to be ruled by a dictator. And one of Machiavelli's words of wisdom in that
book of realpolitik was that deception is one of the ways in which to control a people, deception and
fear.

Mr Sefon also made reference to The Art of War, by the Chinese military scholar, Sun Tzu. That is also
a very important book, studied in all military colleges and by philosophers, because it sets out how wars
are really conducted. And Sun Tzu's first lesson in that book, in the opening pages, is about the art of
deception, and how the art of deception is the key to winning any conflict.

And I raise that because it's quite clear that the Prosecution in this Tribunal is part and parcel of the
grand deception which is being woven--has been woven by the RPF and its neocolonial masters, the
United States and the United Kingdom, for the last 15 years.

Why do I say that? I will go into why it's evident that the--the Prosecution here has manipulated this
Court since day-one, and how they have tried to cover up the crimes of the RPF, how they, despite the
rank hypocrisy expressed by Mr. [Abubacarr] Tambadou and Mr. [Alphonse] Van, that they wish and
desire international justice and the erasing of immunity from prosecution for world leaders, when they, in
fact, have done nothing but grant those murderers in the RPF immunity from prosecution from the
beginning.

And I'm not alone in saying this. I have here a letter which has been sent by 50 world scholars and
human rights defenders from universities in Canada, the United States, Britain, from
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International. They include professors from Columbia University,
Princeton, the University of California, the University of Antwerp, and on and on. Including the husband
of the late Dr. Alison Des Forges, Professor Roger Des Forges, and including the former expert for the
Prosecution, Filip Reyntjens, who refuses to work for the Prosecution any longer.

This letter is addressed to Ban Ki-Moon, President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and
copied to Hillary Clinton and various other American and British Foreign Ministry officials, because,
obviously, they're the ones who control this Tribunal. It is also copied to Judge Dennis Byron, and to
Prosecutor Hassan B. Jallow.

It says that Mr. Jallow--that the RPF has committed crimes, and that Mr. Jallow expresses an evident
reluctance to prosecute these RPF crimes. And this is clearly the result of intimidation and
obstructionism by the RPF, which now rules Rwanda. The Prosecutor, Jallow, has severely
compromised his prosecutorial independence and the Tribunal's integrity.

But they conclude with this: "In conclusion, we call on you to ensure that the ICTR prosecutes RPF
crimes. This issue should be raised when Prosecutor Jallow addresses the United Nations
Security Council about his completion strategy on June 4th, 2009. Unless the Prosecutor acts swiftly,
the ICTR will squander not only its last chance to provide accountability for those serious crimes, but
also its legitimacy."

It's dated May 31st of this year. Another professor, Dr. Hans Köchler, at the University of Innsbruck in
Austria, and who was selected as the Secretary General's personal representative at the Lockerbie trial
and still acts in that capacity, wrote a book called Global Justice and Global Revenge, about these
ad hoc tribunals and, with respect to the ICTR, stated that the Prosecution has engaged in selective
prosecution on ‘a massive scale,’ quote-unquote, ‘a massive scale.’ Now, why?

I don't think Mr. Jallow is afraid of a little man like Mr. Kagame in in Kigali. No. Mr. Jallow is not afraid
of that little man. He is controlled by bigger powers than that. And that's why this letter is addressed to
those powers. And if my friends over there [the Prosecution] want to sit in service of neocolonialism,
shame on them. But I don't think this Court should acquiesce to the planning out of neocolonialism and
imperialism in Africa by listening and accepting the manipulations presented to this Court and the
argument they pretend to make as evidence.

[To read more see the entire play in the attachment.--cm/p]

.
Attachments:
Deep Delusions, Bitter Truth.pdf (246KB)

2009-09-02T23:27:00.002+02:00

Are Zunes' 'unspeakable crimes' really 'unspeakable'? -- by CM/P

Answering Professor Stephen Zunes' question about his 'unspeakable crimes.' -- by CM/P
[This appears as a response to Zunes' comment, sorta 'Why are my crimes unspeakable?' on my introduction to the article 'Riding the Green Wave . . . ' by Ed Herman and David Peterson (see below) over on Cyrano's Journal Online at

http://www.bestcyrano.org/?p=3144&cpage=1#comment-317

Hope you enjoy it--and he doesn't. --mc]

*************

What is 'unspeakable' about your crimes, Mr Zunes, is that you PRETEND to advocate non-violence and democracy and oppose US imperialism and oppressive regimes, yet the results of the programs and policies you promote and support are the destruction of the democratic process and the murder, in the name of regime-change, of democratically elected socialist leaders. I’ll speak in particular of the aid and comfort you gave to the military violence that changed the duly-elected Milosevic regime in Serbia/Yugoslavia in 2000.

The stated purpose of the 78-day bombing of Serbia and its environs--stated by its supporters like General Wesley Clark, Javier Solano, and Richard Holbrooke (all, like you, warriors for peace?)-- was to 'bring down the Stalinist strongman Milosevic.' Now, you can demur and say you opposed the bombing as 'immoral, illegal, and unnecessary' and that it actually delayed the 'non-violent' movements effectively 'Bringing Down the Dictator,' but certainly anyone who lived through that bombing and the subsequent singularly non-non-violent riots around the Yugoslav presidential elections of 2000, would hear this as little more than liberal cant.

In your glorified fictionalization of how "The people of Serbia were able to do nonviolently what 11 weeks of NATO bombs could not," you omit some important history:

First, those 2000 presidential (early) elections called by then-Yugoslavia president Slobodan Milosevic, in response to enormous pressure from movements forcing non-violent and democratic regime-change, were the first time that the Yugoslav presidency had been put to a popular vote. Milosevic had assumed the role of president as he was the leader of the most popular political party, and as such was the head of the Yugoslav presidentium. The 'Stalinist' Milosevic did not run for a third term as the much more politically influential president of Serbia because of constitutional term limits on that office. Certainly conduct most unbecoming a repressive, authoritarian dictator.

And when it looked like the election would run its democratic course--and that is not to say that it appeared Milosevic was a cinch to win or lose--the real threat to you and yours became that the principles of Serbian/Yugoslav democracy (a real socialist democracy) would be shown to be far superior (i.e., far more honestly in the service of the real interests of the majority of its people) to those of any of the NATO nations seeking to 'change' Serbia/Yugoslavia. This was the moment the violent, anti-democratic forces in your movement kicked in.

The riots, the looting and burning and beatings, the mass destruction of public property, the circling of Belgrade with heavily armed troops: was this somehow separate and apart from your instructions to the OTPOR cadres in Budapest?

And when Milosevic came in second after the first round of voting to Vojislav Kostunica (though neither gained the 51% majority required to win outright), why was it imperative for your regime-change program to nullify the elections and threaten Milosevic with even more bloody civil war if he continued to pursue the electoral process into a constitutionally-mandated second round? Why couldn't Milosevic have been allowed to lose the second round?

Here is where your crimes become 'unspeakable.' Because your idea of regime change in Serbia went well-beyond the man, Milosevic, who, after all, was just that, one man, a man who had served his country lawfully, loyally and in the best traditions of revolutionary socialism. He could not be allowed to continue in Serbian/Yugoslav politics, especially as leader of the opposition, because that would have validated that country's socialist democracy, and it was that absolute need to destroy socialist democracy everywhere, that forced you not only to 'bring down' the politician Milosevic, along with his Socialist Party of Serbia (as your ilk has subsequently done with Vojslav Seselj and his Radical Party of Serbia), but you had, in the great tradition of non-violence, to put this decent, majoritarian leader to death.

First, your 'non-violent' ground forces arrested Slobodan Milosevic, put him in Belgrade's central prison, held him without ever bring charges against him (because, despite all your insinuations, your stooges have admitted there were no charges that could be brought!), and conning your craven bagman, PM Zoran Djindjic, into ransoming the President to NATO's kangaroo court in The Hague--a ransom that was never paid, of course, but then no sensible person puts any stock in the word of the NATO fascists you front.

And, in Holland, after a protracted circus of mendacious wheedling and prolonging the war against Yugoslav socialism by other means, it became painfully evident that the Tribunal could not convict Milosevic of the charges for which they had, again, produced no evidence. Yet they certainly could not acquit him--let him go home to assume the parliamentary seat he’d been democratically elected to while locked down--they couldn’t cut him loose without admitting their own subhuman criminality--so they just murdered him in prison--made it look like he slipped in the shower, choked on his mac and cheese, overdosed on allergy medication.

But, hey, the Tribunal investigated itself and absolved itself of any responsibility in the President’s death, so . . . as with 9/11: Democracy Rules! Death to Tyrants!

Then it became easy enough for Javier Solano and the rest of your NATO cohort to go about 'imposing' Peace and Democracy by eviscerating Serbia's political institutions and indenturing the people for generations to come through the private sale of that once proudly independent socialist nation to venal and vulgar Western financial and commercial mafias.

When I was in Belgrade in March to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing, I turned on the TV and saw where the World Bank or IMF had granted Serbia a $4.3 billion loan. Good news? For privateers like you maybe. But the people of Serbia are going to have to further reduce their social spending by 30%.

So, see, this is where your crimes become truly 'unspeakable'--and whether you are now or ever have been paid on CIA/MI6/Mossad check stock is irrelevant. Your programs, through the most violent and anti-democratic means, have ruined the health of the Serbian/Yugoslav peoples with your use of depleted uranium arms and destroyed the river systems through the pollution brought on by the bombing of chemical and petroleum refineries; you have allowed the murders of thousands of innocent people and relegated the survivors to a life of miserable dependence on the Western Waste Culture that sponsors you.

The Peace your non-violence brings is the peace of death. And Serbia is but one example.

Now you are going to go down and help the anti-coup forces, the pro-Zelaya forces in Honduras? This is how you mean to oppose US imperialism? By showing them that documentary about how you brought down the democratically-elected dictator Milosevic, and by giving them some lessons in non-violence and democracy from young Serbian Quislings?

The Hondurans--and the world at large--need to be warned: You dishonor and destroy everyone you pretend to help.

You are truly unspeakable.

Mick Collins
CirqueMinime/Paris

"Obama War Crimes Ambassador Complicit in War Crimes Cover-up."--Does Obama Know? or Care? - by Prof. Peter Erlinder

2009-09-02T18:39:00.004+02:00

“Obama War Crimes Ambassador Complicit in War Crimes Cover-up.”--Does Obama Know? or Care? - by Prof. Peter Erlinder

[CM/P continues to support President Obama despite all the seeming insults to the intelligence of his constituency--and to History, itself. The appointments of Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke--to name just three--are hard unto impossible to explain except as reflexes of a deeply decadant and savagely anti-democratic system for the administration of such a large and powerful nation.

Biden, like so many other good working-class American Catholics, was a rabid supporter of the illegal secession from the Yugoslav Socialist Federation in 1991 of the revived Fascist Croatian Free State (and the cannonization of the Ustashi's own Arch-Bishop Stepinac); Clinton, like so many other sentimental feminists (Eve Ensler and Ben Affleck also come to mind), did yeo(wo)man's work in arranging important financial incentives for making rape (of women and children, one supposes, though this crime has recently claimed victims among fighting-age males in Congo), which has always been a crime in every nation on the planet, into a war crime, a crime against Humanity and even an act of genocide (Ms Clinton got a $600K reward together that brought such an indictment from the ICTR against the Former Rwandan Women's Development and Family Welfare Minister, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, see p://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/419850.stm); and Holbrooke, like all noble knights errant of the financial round table, almost single handedly from his broker's chair at Credit Suiss First Boston, broke into the privileged trade relations of the former Yugoslav Republics of Croatia and BiH, to insinuate therein the wasteful ministrations of Western investment banks, collected significant courtier's fees and service charges, and so raised the cost of living in these nominally socialist-administered political-economies that many chose suicide to paying outlandishly high energy prices for the same Russian feul they'd gotten pre-Dick at a third the price from YugoGaz when Slobodan Milosevic was heading that agency, just to help the Holbrookes with the rent on their Eastside Manhattan coop.

Maybe these appointments can be written off as corrupt Clinton-era legacies--or just further murky reflections in an ever-more degenerating and putrescent US social service employees pool. But President Obama's recent appointment of Stephen Rapp as his Ambassador for War Crimes, replacing Pierre Prosper--coming as it does at this critical moment in the writing of recent military history in Africa and elsewhere, and having as much or as little as it does of Obama's own political volition behind it--can only exacerbate an already morbidly ill US foreign policy, especially where the vast, rich and strategically essential African continent is concerned.

We won't blame Obama for this selection, yet another set back for Historical Truth and Justice; but we will come in as hot as we can to bring out the evidence of its folly.

For after all, as Prof Erlinder, a great and good fighter in our cause, mentioned in a personal email:

--I "like" Obama too, and would much rather shoot hoops with him, than cut brush with Bush ... but, we now have the smartest, most likeable and most competent captain that the Titanic has ever had. .... But he does not own the ship, does not determine the ports of call, has already demonstrated that "first class" gets the lifeboats and, even though he hears us yelling down in steerage--and was once down here himself-- ..... we are not a priority for the "Cunard Line" mukimuks that pay his salary.

More importantly, no matter how hard he pulls on the wheel .... when allowed to ..... the course of the ship was set long ago, and .... the iceberg is still looming in the darkness.--

Wow, whadda buzz-kill, huh. Man, let's all just pull up a deck chair, kick back, ice up those cocktails (there's a whole lot a fresh ice right off the port bow), and see what the band'll play next.

You think they know Louie, Louie? --mc]

**************************************

Former Chief UN Rwanda Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte:
“Obama War Crimes Ambassador Complicit in War Crimes Cover-up.”

Does Obama Know? ….or Care?

by Prof. Peter Erlinder

In mid-July, the NY Times reported that the Obama administration had selected Stephen Rapp to replace Pierre Prosper, the Bush administration’s Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes. A former Iowa U.S. Attorney, and Democrat politico, Rapp began his international career at the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2001, while Carla Del Ponte was Chief Prosecutor. In Del Ponte’s 2008 memoir, Madam Prosecutor: Confronting Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity, translated into English in early 2009, Del Ponte explains how she was removed from her ICTR position in 2003 by U.S. Ambassador Prosper, himself, because she refused to cooperate with a U.S.-initiated “cover-up” of war crimes committed by the current Rwandan government during the 1994 “Rwandan Genocide.”

According to Del Ponte, the ICTR Prosecutor had the evidence long before 2003 to prosecute Kagame for “touching-off” the Rwanda Genocide by ordering the assassination of Rwanda’s sitting President Juvenal Habyarimana. Her book also details dozens of massacre sites involving thousands of victims for which the Kagame government and military should be prosecuted. The well-publicized canard, that “the identity of the assassins is unknown” is a bald-faced lie, known to all ICTR senior prosecutors, according to Ms. Del Ponte.

Two years after Del Ponte was removed from office, Rapp became “Chief” of ICTR Prosecutions with access to all of the evidence known to Ms. Del Ponte, and more. During his four years at the ICTR, Rapp also was in a position to prosecute Kagame and members of the current government of Rwanda, but, to this date, not ONE member of Kagame’s military has been prosecuted at the ICTR … and the “cover-up” continues to this day. Unlike, Ms. Del Ponte, Mr. Rapp was rewarded with an appointment as Chief Prosecutor at the U.S.-funded Sierra Leone Tribunal and, now, with a coveted ambassadorship.

Former Chief ICTR Prosecutor Del Ponte Details ICTR “Cover-up”

According to Del Ponte, in May 2003 she was called to Washington D.C. by Prosper (ironically, also a former ICTR prosecutor with knowledge of Kagame’s crimes) who informed her that the U.S. would remove her from her UN post if she carried through with her publicly announced plans to indict Kagame and members of his government and military. According to Del Ponte, when she refused to knuckle-under because “she worked for the UN, not for the U.S,” Prosper told her her ICTR career was over. True to his threat, by October, Del Ponte was replaced by a US-approved ICTR prosecutor, Hassan Abubacar Jallow. Stephen Rapp was elevated to Chief of Prosecution by Jallow two years later.

ICTR Trials: More Evidence of Rwanda Crimes Cover-Up

Del Ponte’s revelations are not the only evidence that a U.S. initiated “ICTR cover-up” is creating impunity for crimes committed by Kagame and his military. Memos from September 10, 1994, in evidence in the ICTR Military-1 Trial, confirm that U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher was informed that Kagame’s troops were killing “10,000 civilians a month” in military-style, according to an investigation funded by USAID. And, in early 1997, Chief ICTR Investigative Prosecutor and former Australian Crown Prosecutor Michael Hourigan; former FBI Agent James Lyons; and former UN-Chief of Military Intelligence in Rwanda, Amadou Deme: all reported to Ms. Del Ponte’s predecessor, Louise Arbour, that Kagame should be prosecuted for assassinating the previous president. Arbour scuttled the investigation, suppressed the report and disbanded the investigative team. Shortly thereafter, Arbour was elevated to Canada’s Supreme Court and has recently been chosen to head the International Crisis Group, after an illustrious UN career.

Former ICTR Prosecutor Rapp Complicit in Cover-up

But, even though Arbour suppressed the “Hourigan Report” it must have been known to Ms. Del Ponte, Mr. Rapp and other ICTR prosecutors, because ICTR judges had ordered the ICTR Prosecutor to release the “Hourigan report” which had already been released to a defense team as early as 2000, a year before Rapp began his ICTR work, and two years before Del Ponte was fired by Prosper.

Like Del Ponte, when Rapp became the ICTR Chief of Prosecutions under Jallow in 2005, he had access to all of the information necessary to prosecute Kagame and main figures in his military and government. But to date, not one indictment has been issued against Kagame by the ICTR Prosecutor.

Kagame & Co. Already Indicted in France and Spain

Athough the U.S. has been successful in preventing Kagame’s crew from being indicted at the ICTR, other courts have indicted Kagame and members of his retinue. In late 2007, French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière indicted the assassins of Habyarimana and recommended that Kagame be prosecuted by the ICTR. And, in February 2008, Spanish Judge Fernando Merelles issued a 180-page indictment specifically charging Kagame with Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, including the massacres of more than 300,000 civilians. And Mr. Rapp’s former boss, Mr. Jallow, publicly admitted before the UN Security Council in spring 2008 that Kagame’s military is responsible for the assassination of Rwanda’s Catholic leadership in 1994. But still no ICTR prosecutions.

The Consequences of the ICTR Cover-up of Kagame’s Crimes

The tragic consequence of the failure to prosecute Kagame at the ICTR, from 1994 to-date, is that Kagame was free to invade Congo in 1996 and 1998, and is currently occupying a part of eastern Congo 14-times larger than Rwanda. No less than four UN Security Counsel-commissioned Panel of Experts Report(s) on the Illegal Exploitation of the DR Congo (2001, 2002, 2003 and December 2008) have detailed the massive rape of the Congo’s resources that has brought vast riches to Kagame and his inner circle. Since the first invasion in 1996, Kagame’s Congo invasions have been responsible for more than 5-million deaths, more every few months than the total alleged to have died in Darfur, crimes for which Sudanese President Bashir, a figure disfavored by the U.S., has been indicted by the ICC.

While Rapp was ICTR Senior Trial Attorney and Chief of Prosecutions, Kagame was effectively elected President-for-Life with 95% of the vote, after banning opposition parties and jailing opponents, in “a climate of intimidation” according to EU observers. According to the Economist report on the 10th Anniversary of the “genocide” in 2004:

“[Kagame] tolerates no serious domestic opposition, nor much in the way of free speech. Rwanda today is a thinly-disguised autocracy, where dissidents are usually accused of genocidal tendencies, live in fear, or exile, or both. The regime is a threat to its neighbors.

ICTR Chief of Prosecutions Rapp Personally Withheld Exculpatory Evidence from Defense Counsel and ICTR Judges

As if this wasn’t enough, in February 2009, the ICTR issued its Judgement in the Military-1 case, the main case at the ICTR, in which Mr. Rapp personally appeared for the Prosecution. Although massive violence did occur in Rwanda, the court certainly recognized that blaming only one side WAS a falsehood, when it acquitted all of the “architects of the killing machine” (as Mr. Rapp called the defendants in court) of conspiracy or planning to kill civilians. The highest ranking military-officer was acquitted of all charges.

And, although it is now clear from Ms. Del Ponte’s memoirs that Mr. Rapp had the evidence that would clear the defendants of the assassination charges and that both sides had committed crimes, for which the losing side has been blamed entirely. Simply put, Mr. Rapp and other ICTR prosecutors have: withheld evidence at the ICTR that would be beneficial to the defense; prosecuted defendants for crimes they knew were committed by Kagame and the RPF; and created a system of “judicial impunity” that has permitted Kagame to kill millions in the eastern Congo.

All of which raises the uncomfortable question regarding President Obama’s nomination of Mr. Rapp: Are his advisors ignorant of the public record regarding Rapp’s complicity in an ICTR Cover-up? … or does Obama just not give a damn?

Prof. Peter Erlinder
Wm. Mitchell College of Law
St. Paul, MN 55105
Posted to:
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OPEN LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY PAUL KAGAME

2009-05-28T22:32:00.006+02:00

Pastor Fuzz & HIs Excellency: Who's Your Daddy?

OPEN LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY PAUL KAGAME, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF RWANDA AT KIGALI

[Here's an Open Letter from the UN Political Prisoners in the ICTR's detention unit by that little airport just outside Arusha, Tanzania. I just got it from Chris Black, who translated it from the French.

It's always struck me as sadly ironic that these innocent Rwandan victims of a foreign aggression (1 October 1990), Nuremberg's primal crime against Peace, these representatives of the rational, majoritarian, revolutionary government of mid-1990s Rwanda, led by its duly-elected and grotesquely martyred (6 April 1994) Hutu president, Juvénal Habyarimana, these patriots who, after unsuccessfully defending their homes and loved ones against a proxy military force from the world's most developed and dangerously venal nations (US, UK, Belgium, Israel) on a full-tilt feeding frenzy for the riches of Congo, find themselves cast into a dungeon of UnReason and charged with the genocide of the very people they had committed to defend by the very neo-feudal Sadists who had razed their homes, slaughtered their friends and families, demolished the national infrastructure it had taken them 30 years to build up, and returned their once-thriving African society to a mere shade of its former colonial self: that these profoundly decent people have not been driven hatter mad or madder and continue to petition their pitiless tormentors and executioners, at the UN and in Obama's Washington, with well-tempered and soundly reasoned historical arguments for the innocence of the majority of the Rwandan people and the redemption of the Rwandan nation, makes me shiver with insignificance.

It is not that I envy their tolerance so much as that I am shocked and awed by their patient understanding--their wisdom. They really make Job look like Mr Lucky. So, if you can read their story--the Rwandan story that is all over this blog--without becoming so angry you bleed from the anus, then you'd better double-check you've still got any pulse at all.--mc]

****************************

Arusha, Tanzania, 12 May 2009

OPEN LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY PAUL KAGAME, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF RWANDA AT KIGALI

OBJECT: The denunciation of the discriminatory actions and intentions of the Rwandan authorities.

Your excellency, President of the Republic,

The detainees of the ICTR, signatories of the present document, have judged it necessary to react to your racist and discriminatory intentions announced by several Rwandan personalities on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan “genocide”, celebrated on Nyanza hill, at Kigali, 11 April 2009. The Rwandan government stated that 5,000 people were taken from the Official Technical School (ETO) at Kicukiro, 11 April 1994, and were then massacred at Nyanza hill. Those who stated this were Charles Muligande, M. Simburudi, president of the IBUKA Association which represents the Tutsi survivors of the “genocide” and the deputy mayor of Kigali, and Dr. Augustin Iyamuremye, senator and former chief of the civilian intelligence services in the Rwandan government of 1994.

We think that the things said do not take any account of the truth or the reality of the history of our country, but instead, have as a purpose the terrorizing, intimidating and humiliating of the Hutu people of Rwanda, who are globally accused of having planned and committed a “genocide” against the Tutsis. Our reaction is motivated by the fact that the RPF regime wants to wipe from the history of Rwanda the revolutionary period that liberated the people of Rwanda from the yoke of a feudal monarchy and ushered in national construction once the country had achieved its independence. The ultimate objective of the RPF is clearly to erase from the history of Rwanda the benefits of the republican period to better support their false thesis according to which the Hutus only marked the history of the country with barbarism and “genocide” of the Tutsis. It is a false and divisive vision, and clearly, by propagating it, you have abandoned the interests of the Rwandan people.

1. Pre-colonial and Colonial Rwanda cannot be a model

The deputy mayor of Kigali stated, “We want to change history in order to present another Rwanda that is not that of the period between 1959 and 1994, a Rwanda like it was before; the one we inherited from our ancestors; the Rwanda of children who live without division, without hate, without discrimination.” Thus the RPF regime pretends that in the pre-colonial and colonial periods the ethnicities composing the Rwandan nation lived harmoniously in peace, understanding and solidarity. It is a complete reversal of history.[1]

The feudal-monarchical regime of Rwanda is not a model to propose to Rwandans today. It was a period of social, political, economic and cultural inequality and led to the social revolution of 1959. Many writers, including eminent Tutsis in positions of high authority, have written about this.[2]

We think that in the search for durable solutions for our country, the RPF must stop the manipulation and falsification of Rwandan history. We believe that the remedy is to search for a democratic political compromise in a sincere dialogue between the power and its opponents. Such a step cannot be accommodated with obscurantism of the past. We condemn without reservation all attempts to rewrite the history of Rwanda for propaganda and ideological aims that seek the monopolization of power by the Tutsi ethnic group to the exclusion of the others that make up Rwandan society.

2. The Planning Of The Criminal War by the RPF Is The Essential Cause of the Rwandan Tragedy

Minister Muligande stated that “the ‘genocide’ of the Tutsis was planned by the government defeated in July 1994,” without furnishing the least proof of this alleged planning. Very simply, he stated that the ‘genocide’ was taught over a long time by the MDR/PARMEHUTU and later by the MRND. Such statements are nothing but propaganda. The MDR and MRND parties never practiced racism or discrimination against the Tutsis. It is well known that under the Habyarimana regime, between 5 July 1973 and the war in October 1990, the Hutus and Tutsis lived in symbiosis. The ethnic divisions of 1990-1994 were the consequence of the strategy of destabilization carried out by the RPF to rally the Tutsis of the interior of Rwanda to the cause of the RPF Tutsis from Uganda, who had invaded the country, as a means of attracting sympathy in world opinion.

Following the social Revolution of 1959, a number of Tutsi dignitaries could not accept the democratic changes proclaimed by the people, and fled the country, and, for many years, systematically rejected all offers by the government to return peacefully and participate in the construction of the country as Rwandans. They took the Tutsi refugees hostage and prevented them from returning to Rwanda as long as they were not sure of taking back their former power to exercise to their class advantages. The Tutsi diaspora dominated by these extremists preferred to organize a movement of “liberation” called the INYENZI[3] and conducted several attacks against Rwanda in the 1960s with the aim of taking power by force of arms. It is for this reason that all the calls made by the Rwandan government to the refugees for their peaceful return to the country were made in vain.[4]

The MRND party practiced a policy of peace, national unity and progress, that was enormously beneficial to the Tutsis of the country.[5] It is false and unjust to accuse the MRND of having persecuted Tutsis or having refused the right of return to those Tutsis wishing to come back to Rwanda. Everyone knows today that it was the RPF who torpedoed the Accords signed between Rwanda and Uganda under the auspices of the UNHCR on 31 July 1990. Instead of permitting the delegation of refugees expected in Kigali at the end of September 1990 to go to Rwanda and work under the auspices of that Accord to bring about the mass return of refugees, the RPF launched a surprise attack against Rwanda on 1 October 1990, beginning its war of aggression.

You must have the courage to recognize that this war, launched at the moment when a political solution had been found to the refugee problem, is the origin of the Rwandan tragedy. The RPF sowed desolation and created divisions, a climate of terror and distrust among a population subjected to four years of RPF violence. By these terrorist attacks and subversion, the RPF provoked the total destabilization of Rwanda.[6] The RPF planned and executed the attack of 6 April 1994 that took the lives of Presidents Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, as well as those of their respective entourages and the French flight-crew, knowing full well that the attack would provoke violence in the country. Directly after shooting down the presidents’ plane, they attacked on all fronts, precipitating total chaos throughout the country. It was the RPF that planned the destruction of the country. This is attested to by the inability of the prosecutor at the ICTR to prove that any plan to commit genocide existed. Indeed, all the heavy condemnations of genocide pronounced against the Hutus before the ICTR are founded on the illegal judicial notice ordered by the Appeals Chamber on 16 June 2006.[7] In Rwanda, courts continue to condemn the Hutus, en masse and without evidence, for allegedly planning “genocide,” all the while refusing any debate on the question.[8]

Despite the judicial notice imposed by the Appeals Chamber of the ICTR on 16 June 2006, in order to condemn the accused at the Tribunal for political reasons, the controversy over this issue continues. Conscious of their enormous responsibilities in the Rwandan tragedy, the RPF has not missed a single opportunity to cry about the “genocide of the Tutsis.” So, it was not without some thought that Minister Muligande stated on 11 April at the Nyanza memorial at Kigali: ”We had the chance to win the war to get recognition of the genocide. If not, we would have become the Armenians whose genocide is still contested because they lost the war.” M. Mulgiande is very conscious of the responsibilities born by the RPF, even if he does not have the courage to admit them. The RPF abuses its current position by imposing the “genocide” of the Tutsis and practicing victors’ justice over the vanquished.[9] The leaders of the RPF must stop falsifying history with ideological propaganda and find the courage to recognize their heavy responsibility in the Rwandan drama.

3. The Reality of the Numbers of Dead in the Rwandan Tragedy

Loss of life is always regrettable. Bu the reality of the numbers of dead in the “Rwandan genocide” remains a great mystery fifteen years after the events. Even if public opinion agrees with the figures ‘800,000 to one million’ victims, so many other numbers have been advanced by experts, the UN, NGOs and the RPF, from 250,000 to 2 million, that total confusion reigns. Gerard Prunier recognizes that there is no systematic accounting and that the numbers depend on opinion more than empirical facts.[10] The Rwandan government of the RPF prefers to maintain this confusion. That is why it has refused to reveal the numbers of survivors of the “genocide,” from which it would be easy to evaluate the number of dead Tutsis and dead Hutus. It prefers to keep things blurred so the world does not know the extent of the massacres committed against the Hutus by the RPF, and, thereby, to inflate the number of Tutsi victims. It is necessary to note that the Census of the population organized under the supervision of the UN (UNDP, UNFAP, CEA), with the aid of countries like the USA and Canada, that concluded on 15 August 1991, fixed the total number of Tutsis in the country at 8.4% of the population of 7,099.844. Thus, those numbers that suggest that the entire Tutsi population was massacred between April and July 1994 are simply fantasies. It is no secret to anyone that many Tutsis survived even if the government in Kigali does not want to publish the figures. We contest these numbers, that only create confusion that the regime exploits to manipulate national and international opinion for ideological reasons.

Concerning the dead interred at Nyanza hill in Kigali, Captain Lemaire, commander of the Belgian detachment at the ETO in Kicukiro in April 1994, testified before the ICTR that the refugees there numbered between 1,000 and 2,000[11], and not the 5,000 claimed by the RPF. Given the circumstances prevailing at the time, the extermination of 5,000 people in several minutes, in open terrain, is simply impossible. On the contrary, reliable witnesses state that the majority of those buried at Nyzana hill are Hutu refugees massacred by the RPF on 22 and 23 May 1994, while they attempted to flee the RPF troops who had just captured the garrison at Camp Kanombe.

The deputy mayor of Kigali City presented the Gisozi memorial as a sacred site for pilgrimage and a sad memorial to the “genocide.” According the official declarations of the government, this place holds 250,000 human skulls. However, they cannot be those of the residents of the prefecture of the city of Kigali as is claimed. Indeed, the total population of Kigali City was, according to the census of 15 August 1991, 221,806, of whom 81.4% were Hutu, and 17.9% Tutsi. Using a figure of 3.2% growth per year, the total population of Kigali City would have been no more than about 240,000 inhabitants in 1994, with the Tutsi population estimated at no more than 50,000. This figure does not accord with the 250,000 skulls exhibited at the Gisozi memorial, especially when one recalls that many of the Tutsis in Kigali survived the war.[12] The number of skulls is even more incomprehensible when one considers that the city of Kigali has other memorials, notably that at Nyanza and Rebero, where the remains of thousands of others are on display. This example shows how important the manipulation of numbers is at a national level.

Several witnesses have stated before the ICTR that Gisozi was occupied by the RPA (the army of the RPF) from 8 April 1994. Therefore, it was the RPF that ethnically cleansed the zones of Gisozi-Kagugu and Kabuye in the Rutongo commune, the prefecture of Kigali, and liquidated all the undesirables, including those displaced persons from the refugee camps at Nyacyonga and Rusine, who had fled to the city after their camps were bombarded by the RPF. Several former members of the RPF have denounced the massacres of thousands in these zones.[13] All these people were summarily executed by agents of the DMI (the Directorate of Military Intelligence of the RPF) in the military camp at Kami, which was captured by the RPF in mid-April 1994. These massacres were an essential part of the RPF plan to eliminate as many Hutu intellectuals as possible. Today, the same logic of annihilation of the Hutu elite followed by the RPF is behind their lists of alleged “Hutu genocidaires” that include those already tried and acquitted. This is the same logic followed by the famous law of forced confessions that lead to the denunciation of, and false statements against, the innocent. The “gacaca” trials are part of an extra-judicial system contained in every jurisdiction. They are used by the regime to eliminate all undesirables. We want to insist that you remember that you, yourself, Mr. President, who first suggested this strategy, when, in 1996, at Nyamirambo, in a large meeting organized by your party, you stated that it would be necessary to have the patience “to empty a barrel of water with a coffee spoon.”[14] The damage of your genocidal policies have exceeded all bounds, and we demand that you end them immediately.

4. The Responsibilities of the International Community in the Rwandan Drama

The highest authorities of Rwanda have spoken out critically on the role of the international community in the “genocide.” So, in your speech of 7 April 2009, you castigated the attitude of the UN as “cowardice,” saying: “We are not the ones who abandoned the people who needed protection; they left them to be killed; are they not guilty? I think that too is cowardice; they left before a single shot was fired!”

We are convinced that such stinging speeches vis-à-vis the international community cannot be allowed to pass indefinitely. However, we invite this same international community to react quickly, those who encouraged and supported your criminal project to take power by force of arms; through the disastrous actions of UNAMIR commanding General Roméo Dallaire, to whom you announced the imminent cataclysm on 2 April 1994[15], and who did nothing to stop it; and the no less criminal actions of the successive prosecutors at the ICTR in Arusha, whom you have succeeded in cowing with your reign of terror.

We regret that the UN did not help Rwandans peacefully resolve the conflict that you brought to the country in 1994, notably by effectively pressuring Uganda and the RPF and condemning the war of aggression of which Rwanda was the victim. The UN did not even condemn the various violations of ceasefires and peace agreements the RPF had signed. The international community complied with your ultimatum of 12 April 1994 that all foreign forces leave the country in 12 hours or be attacked, which accelerated the retreat of UNAMIR from Rwanda at a time when it was needed most.[16] The vote in the Security Council for a resolution to reduce the UNAMIR forces, an action weighted with consequences, aided your organization in its Machiavellian plans to take power in Kigali as quickly as possible.[17] The UN betrayed the Rwandan government after it had launched anguished appeals for help to stabilize the security situation in the country. The UN was paralyzed by the USA and the United Kingdom; it could not intervene in time to send the 5,500 men of UNAMIR II. The Security Council only decided to take this action after the RPF victory. Those forces arrived in Rwanda after you had seized and consolidate state power. They helped you by not reacting to your massacre of the innocents, including the 4,000 refugees you murdered at Kibeho in April 1995.

Not only do we accuse the RPF of having chased the international community from Rwanda at the moment when they were most needed, but we also believe that the decisions of the UN were gravely prejudicial to the people and government of Rwanda in permitting the bloodbath that brought the military victory of the RPF. These same decisions gave the RPF the legitimacy to continue its massacre of the Rwandan people, while crediting it with having stopped the “genocide” and conferring the authority to judge its real victims.

We note with great disappointment that the presence of UNAMIR II did not deter you from continuing the massacre of the defenseless Hutu population, throughout Rwanda in 1994-95, and we will not forget the silence of the UN in the face of the innumerable atrocities committed by your troops when they attacked the refugee camps in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) and relentlessly pursued their Hutu prey into the forests of Congo. We want to remind you of the 200,000 Hutu refugees who were horribly massacred by your troops in 1996-97. We think that the complacency of the international community toward your inhuman actions does not exonerate you of your responsibilities in the Rwandan drama. We demand justice for all Rwandans, Tutsi, Hutu and Twa, who were killed or today live with severe trauma because of your criminal policy.

5. The Theory of a Double Genocide

Minister Muligande vilified “those who try to diminish the genocide, to deny it, by inventing the theory of a ‘double genocide,’ arguing that there were the deaths of Hutus during the genocide.” He clarified his thoughts by referring to the Second World War, where “there was a genocide of the Jews, but also of 20 million Russians. However, the genocide is recognized as having been against the Jews. It was the same thing with the high number of German soldier’s deaths which surpassed the number of Jews killed, arguing that the Germans were killed to stop the genocide.”

Your adviser’s words show that the leaders of the RPF admit having massacred hundreds of thousands of innocent Hutus. However, we think that this comparison is nonsense and that the events in Rwanda in 1990-1994 bear no comparison with the history of the Second World War. The launching of World War II in 1939 remains entirely the responsibility of the German government, just as the invasion of Rwanda from Uganda in October 1990 remains the responsibility of the state of Uganda and the RPF. Hitler launched his offensive to conquer countries and during that long conquest, the Jews were denounced, arrested, killed or deported to concentration camps, principally in Germany. The Jews did not take up arms against Germany. If it is necessary to make a comparison, it is rather the RPF and its allies that made war against Rwanda and who, in their mad conquest of power, massacred hundreds of thousands of Rwandans.

Your soldiers, Mr. President, conducted a war of extermination; they violated the cease-fire agreements and the Arusha Accords to take power by force of arms without any concern for the security of the population. How can you explain to Rwandans that you were concerned with the protection of the civilian population while you obstinately refused all cease-fire proposals between April and July 1994? And why did you literally depopulate all the regions you seized? What can you say when 4,000 Hutu refugees were massacred by your troops a Kibeho in April 1995? These are the sad realities of the RPF regime that you want to hide behind the abusive charge of “negationism,” and thereby stop the parents of victims from expressing their grief and denouncing the injustices committed against them?

6. Pardon and Reconciliation

It is clear from the present account that the RPF committed crimes and carried out massacres against a defenseless civilian population for the sole reason that they were Hutus.18 Minister Muligande wants to cover up this sad reality by stating the Hutus had to die because the RPF fought to stop the genocide. The coalition of the NRA (Ugandan army) and the RPF did not attack Rwanda in 1990 to stop a genocide. The manhunt conducted against the peasants of Rwanda, throughout the war, was not designed to stop a “genocide” against the Tutsis. It is delusional to try to deny the responsibility of the RPF in the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Rwanda and the DRC, or to minimize them, arrogating to yourself, alone, the right of inquiry, solely because of your military victory. We think that with such logic, national reconciliation is impossible. So you want to hide the truth of the tragic events that plunged Rwanda into mourning and implicate your closest collaborators, civil and military. Also, we consider that the time has come for your regime to see the reality in front of its face, instead of continuing your indecent ideological propaganda, that has shamefully exploited the unhappiness you have inflicted on the Rwandan people.

The policies of your regime have irremediably alienated the Rwandan people from any hope of national reconciliation, even with the artifice with which you have tried to seduce various visitors to Rwanda, there is no remedy for this very profound evil. The persecution of the Hutus accused of an “ideology of genocide” is a way to criminalize the Hutus forever; not only those who were alive in 1994, but also those yet to be born. It is sufficient to accuse them of the ideology of genocide to oppress the Hutus and justify their oppression to the world. This policy, that has made the vast majority of Rwandans pariahs in their own society, is inescapable, because it has become a force of marginalization and exclusion of the Hutus in order to ensure the domination of the Tutsis. A dialogue between power and its opponents is the only way to get beyond of this impasse. But after having decreed that only the Tutsis were victims of the war that you launched, and that the Hutus do not even have the right to cry for their dead, or, even worse, to bury them with dignity, the prospect of political dialogue with your opponents is not on your agenda, unlike the desire for peace that occupies the other national leaders of the region: in Kenya, Burundi, RDC, Uganda, Central Africa. You installed the gacaca jurisdiction that has the mandate to criminalize all Hutus and to force them into self-denunciation and the denunciation of others. In order to allow your regime to eliminate all your political adversaries, present and future! Such a system bodes ill and bears all the characteristics of fascism; it is the purveyor of unhappiness for your and for the people of Rwanda. This is why we respectfully demand that you end it. Rwanda must face up to a number of deficiencies. The RPF regime cannot make up for them with the humiliation, marginalization and exclusion of the majority of the Rwandan people, for whom you reserve only unjust and degrading treatment. This is why we encourage all the men and women of good will in Rwanda and around the world to join in a sincere and constructive dialogue between the power and its opponents in order to build a solid foundation of Truth and Justice for a real Rwandan national reconciliation. We invite the Rwandan government to consider that there can be no national reconciliation based on manipulation, lies and propaganda, on humiliation, inferiority and intimidation, on an ideology of genocide used to silence Hutus who claim their rights. No power, no foreign force can resolve the political problems of Rwanda. It is the Rwandans, themselves, who must resolve these difficult situations. As head of state it is entirely your responsibility to bring Rwandans to the path of true reconciliation by denouncing all actions and speeches that are as provocative and divisive as those spoken during the ceremonies of the 15th anniversary of the “genocide” by your close collaborators. In any event you must understand that such speeches do not serve your regime insofar as they are contrary to the vital interests of the Rwandan people and are not going to bring peace and national reconciliation. It is not possible to have national reconciliation as long as the RPF continues to refuse to recognize its clear responsibilities in the Rwandan tragedy, by making the Hutus responsible for a drama that the RPF, itself, planned and executed throughout the long war of 1990-1994.

Please accept, Excellency, Mr. President of the Republic, the expression of our high consideration.

Signatories

Joseph Nzirorera
General Augustin Ndindiliyimana
Colonel Tharcisse Renzaho
Colonel Ephrem Setako
Callixte Kahmaanzira
Captain Innocent Sagahutu
Edouard Karamera

Copied to all UN agencies including the Security Council, all judges and prosecutor of the ICTR, news organizations, NGOs and other organizations

English translation by Christopher Black, Barrister, Toronto, Canada
bar@idirect.com

Notes:

1 Many historians, including Tutsis such as Alexis Kagame, wrote about the Rwanda of the colonial period.

2 In the New review, Book XXVIII, no. 12 December 1958, pages 594-597, the Abbe Bushayijia, a Tutsi priest who sat on the supreme counsel of the country, denounced the injustices and inequalities of that epoch in these terms: “The feeling of injustice that is sensed at a given moment, the roman plebiens vis-à-vis the patricians, the serfs vis-à-vis the lords in the old regime, is such that today it distresses the Bahutu compared with the Batutsi. They seek their emancipation, their place in a world free and equal for all.”

3 Journal Kanguka No 52 Anne 1992. In his interview in this journal, M.M. Aloys Ngurumbe, former Inyenzi chief, explained the origin of this term. He stated that it was a nom de guerre for those Tutsi terrorists of the period 1960-67. He explained that this acronym stood for Ingangurarugo Yiyemeje Kuba Ingenzi.

4 Msg. Andre Perraudin, A Bishop In Rwanda, Editions Saint Augustin, 2003, pp 276-77.

5 Valens Kajeguhakwa, From the Land of Peace to the Land of Blood and After, Editions Remi Perrin, 2001.

6 Many credible witnesses, including members of the RPF, have confirmed that terrorist and subversive activities were carried out inside Rwanda by the RPF over the long course of the war.

7 This decision, taken to accommodate the ICTR completion strategy, is against the Statute of the Tribunal since the matter of planning remains a contested issue.

8 The acquittal, on December 18, 2008, of all the accused in the Military I trial, a judgement against which the prosecutor has not appealed, provoked protests in Rwanda. Certain authorities in the RPF are agitated and state that it’s as if someone wanted to place the responsibility for planning the genocide on them. That agitation is justified as they know very well that they are the ones responsible.

9 Carla del Ponte, Confronting Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity, Other Press, New York, 2009, pp 177-192 , 223-241.

10 Gerard Prunier, Rwanda, 1959-1996, History of a Genocide, 1997.

11 Transcripts of September 30, 1997, pp 61, 110, 146-147. It must be noted that this includes Hutus and Tutsis both.

12 Note by translator: General Dallaire states that he saw 14,000 Tutsis being led out of the city by RPF forces in mid-April. Bernard Kouchner on his visit to Kigali in late May stated there were then 20,000 Tutsis still in Kigali, and it is known that many fled the fighting in the city early on after the RPF began its siege of Kigali. The Tutsi prince Antoine Nyetera testified in the Military II trial that he saw thousands of Tutsis alive in the stadium when the RPF rounded up all inhabitants as Kigali fell to their forces and began executing Hutus. Therefore the number of dead Tutsis killed in Kigali cannot be more than 15,000, and must be lower than that, as many escaped the fighting.

13 All this evidence is to be found in the archives of the ICTR, e.g., in the document listed as R0000230 of 9 February 2002.

14 E Ndahayo, Rwanda. Les dessous des cartes, Ed. L’Harmattan, Paris, 2002, p.157.

15 Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands With the Devil, Random House, Canada, 2003, p 279 (French edition).

16 See the Belgian intelligence report no. 940412/305 of 12 April 1994.

17 See the Belgian intelligence report no. 940412/305, 12 April 1994.18 See for example the file established by the Spanish judge Andreu Fernando Merelles and many statements and reports available in the files of the ICTR.

Six Decades of Terror: NATO is al QAEDA-pt 2.2 - The Final Argument in The General's Trial {vol.2//now replaced by the Complete Document}- by Me Chris

2009-04-13T20:11:00.003+02:00

Six Decades of Terror: NATO is al QAEDA-pt 2.2 - The Final Argument in The General's Trial {vol.2//now replaced by the Complete Document}- by Me Christopher Black & the D-team

[7 April 2009 - Paris

On this day fifteen years ago, 7 April 1994, amid the nationwide chaos created when the RPF terrorist 'Network Commando' assassinated the sitting Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana, and his Army Chief of Staff, Deogratias Nsabimana, effectively decapitating the majoritarian Rwandan government and Armed Forces, and simultaneously launching a massive military offensive, both from their northern command post in Mulindi, as well as from their encampment on the CND in the center of the Rwandan capital city of Kigali, with the avowed aim of seizing state power through force of arms--the only means available to this tiny neo-feudal minority: this marked the opening day of what has become one of the world’s big guilt-money industries, The Rwandan Genocide. Here's how the Tutsi historian Antoine Nyetera describes the events of that day:

**The battalion of 600 RPF troops, supported by 4,000 armed infiltrators, half of whom were already installed on the CND, the former site of the Rwandan Parliament, had as their sole mission the protection of RPF political authorities. But on 7 April 1994, they received orders from their leaders [Kagame & Co. in Mulindi--nb] to move out from their encampment and attack Camp Kimihurura (of the Presidential Guard) and the surrounding area, all in full-view and full-knowledge of the UNAMIR (the UN Assistance Mission to Rwanda). The political office of the RPF had called an extraordinary emergency meeting three days before the attack [on the presidential jet--nb], where it was decided to resume the war to take advantage of the disorganization that would be caused by the assassination of President Habyarimana. [. . .] Early on the morning of 7 April, RPF troops entered the private homes of selected personalities and murdered them, along with their families. These targeted assassinations were committed primarily in the areas of Remera and Kimihurura, and according to prepared lists. [. . .] Moreover, on the morning of 8 April, RPF troops stationed in offensive positions in Rutongo came down on the unfortunate refugee camp at Nyacyonga, about eight km north of the capital, which had been full to overflowing since February 1993. This created a new exodus of hundreds of thousands of Hutu(1) peasants fleeing the war; a very large number of these people were massacred, according to testimony of survivors who fled to Gitarama.(2)**
[From French investigative-journalist Pierre Péan’s magnificent book on Rwanda, Noires Fureurs, Blancs Menteurs, Milles et une nuits, Paris, 2005--CM/P’s translation]

But the French are a funny lot--not so much funny ha-ha as funny wack. For example, in commemoration of this dark chapter in Françafrican history, there is to be a colloquium at the French National Assembly (room 6237), tomorrow, 8 April 2009, sponsored by those paid RPF flacks at Survie, and entitled, ‘France/Rwanda: La démocratie française à l’épreuve du génocide des Tutsi’ [French Democracy tested by the Tutsi genocide]. Considering that Survie’s idea of a ‘Tutsi genocide’ (i.e., 800,000 Tutsis and ‘moderate’ Hutus being macheted to death by ‘Extremist Hutus Power freaks in a mere 100 days) has failed any number of legal tests, this title seems beyond ironic and pushing real hard on ridiculous. But the stand-outs on the guest speakers list, like Linda Melvern and Patrick de St Exupéry, are among the epoch’s most toxic historical prevaricators and the earliest of the moral jackals who got fat off the carrion of the Rwandan tragedy.

It is as if the French national proclivity for SnM humiliation under the polished jackboot of the Fascist juggernaut du jour, has become its last marketable asset in the global hawk shop of ideas. My adopted concitoyens REALLY seem to prendre leur pied (get off) on dressing up in ass-less Hugo Boss chaps and leather blinders, with that hard-rubber ball firmly strapped between their Gaulois-tainted teeth, and trying to croon, with a leitmotif suggesting The Marseillaises, 'Nous somme tous les genocidaires--tra-la, la, la, la, . . . oh-la-la!'--and all on Canal+. But the philosophical convergence of the Fascist and the Business Cultures should not be discounted in this analysis: If French public intellectuals choose to trivialize, even criminalize, the relatively honorable conduct of their government and military in regard to 1990s Rwanda (actually heroic when compared to that of its anglophone counterparts), it is only because there is so much more money to be made by French chatterers and scribblers from work under contract to the Holocaust Industry than from anything driven by ethical commitment to Historical Truth and International Justice.

This want of moral tumescence is likewise evident in France’s recent return to the NATO manger. On the eve of the Alliance’s 60th anniversary, and in a seeming slight to the memory of his idol, Charles De Gaulle, Nicodemus Sarkozy announced France’s rejoining NATO’s ‘integrated command’ after a 40+ year, but completely indiscernible, absence--the sort of non-event that has recently marked the mangey way France plays the 'Great Game.' How else can one explain this prurient self-absorption with its (non)role in the Western holocaust in Central Africa, while publicly speaking or writing naught at all about that parallel paroxysm of military wastage, the NATO (or l’OTAN, as the French dyslexically put it) terror-bombing of Yugoslavia, from 1992 to 1995 over Bosnia, and for 78 days in 1999 over Kosovo. Here’s how my friend, the French General Pierre-Marie Gallois, so sagely describes the unspoken (because unspeakable?) French/NATO betrayal of their ancient comrade-in-arms, Yugoslavia/Serbia--the sort of betrayal that would turn Wild Bill Shakespeare green with envie:

**The West showed itself to be so duplicitous that it surprised me, because what interested me in this was what they call in France, England and even in Germany, the “Rights of Man.” But the old demon, the warrior demon that is Germany, was resurrected in this regard (and in the context of NATO) and it led to the chaos that now exists in these territories, whether in the Serbian Republic in Bosnia or in Kosovo, naturally, which is to say that the heart, the very origins of Serbian civilization, are now in Muslim hands (and under NATO military occupation--mc]. And for sometime they have been destroying dozens and dozens of ancient masterpieces of Serbian religious art, and have basically destroyed the origins of the Serbian people. It is as if here in France we had destroyed the Loire Valley and all its chateaux, or the whole region around the capital city of Paris, where the very heart of the French nation is found.**(3)

But while France did NOT destroy--or have destroyed--the heart of its culture or its beautiful capital city--and my home, Paris--by joining in NATO’s terrorism against the civilian populations of Yugoslavia and Serbia, French pilots, dropping French bombs, did desecrate the tombs of many of those French war heros who fell in the 20th Century-long battle against global Fascism. So, I guess that piece of its cultural heart France cut out of itself, to offer as a burnt offering for the mercies of the US and NATO, was of no more use to them anyway.

Attached below is Me Chris Black’s Final Argument for the Defense in the Trial of General Ndindiliyimana at the ICTR in Arusha. This is an important addition to the growing body of evidence that corrects the historical record as to what actually happened during the globalization wars of the last century. There is a great deal of well-paid, if not particularly high-quality, work being ordered up to bury the truth on the recolonization of Balkans and Central Africa; and there are many heroic patriots who are currently languishing in prisons--those who, unlike Habyarimana, Ntaryamira, Miloseivc, Arafat or Saddam, have not already been murdered--to sustain the lying vampires who live on the purloined blood of the honest and the innocent in the suspended morbidity of their Un-Death, and to keep them from being reduced to putrid dust by the clear, sacred light of this Truth and blown away by the imaginative winds of History.

FREE ALL THE PRISONERS OF UN/NATO!! LONG LIVE PAN-SLAVIC and PAN-AFRICAN ANTI-FASCISM!!--mc]

Notes:

1 According to witness testimony, at the moment the RPF/RPA moved on the capital, Tutsi families were separated out and placed behind RPF lines away from the front, while Hutus fled toward the capital.

2 This is also confirmed by the testimony of RPA Capt. Abdul Ruzibiza.

3 From General Gallois’ intervention at the Belgrade Forum’s Conference in Commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of the NATO Bombing. [the CM/P translation].

Attachments:
Final Argument PDF--complete.pdf (3.7MB)

Six Decades of Terror: NATO is al QAEDA-pt 2.1 - The Final Argument in The General's Trial - by Me Christopher Black & the D-team

2009-04-13T20:07:00.002+02:00

Six Decades of Terror: NATO is al QAEDA-pt 2.1 - The Final Argument in The General's Trial - by Me Christopher Black & the D-team

[On the eve of the 15th anniversary of the assassination, by terrorists belonging to the Rwandan Patriotic Front's (RPF) 'Network Commando,' of two democratically elected African heads of state, Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi and Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda, on 6 April 1994, an event universally occulted by the imperialist institutions like the UN, the mainstream media and academia, in order to hide the homicidal heart of the current comprador regime in Kigali, but universally recognized as having triggered the mass killings that have come to be known as the 'Rwandan Genocide of 100 Days' and given rise to the extralegal creation by the UN Security Council of the judicial arm of these globalization wars in the form of ad hoc Tribunals, like those in Arusha (for Rwanda), The Hague (for Yugoslavia), and elsewhere: at this auspicious time CM/P is honored to present the Final Defense Arguments in The General's Trial--how we have come to refer to the trial at the ICTR in Arusha of our dear friend and strong comrade in the struggle for Historical Truth and International Justice, and the former chief of the Rwandan National Gendarmarie, Major General Augustin Ndindiliyimana.

This Closing Argument, a not-at-all brief, three-volume brief {though now they are condensed into one attachment} recapitulating evidence presented over the course of this trial that kicked off on 29 September 2004, is the result of the long, rigorous, diligent and dedicated work of The General's lead defense counsel, and CM/P's own Minister of Defense, Me Christopher Black--a small part of whose large body of writing has become a cornerstone of this blog. And it comes at a time when the whole world is struggling to understand and begin to find some way to resolve the financial and commercial crisis which is slowly cutting humankind's throat. With the coincidence of several anniversaries like the murders of the two sitting majoritarian (Hutu) presidents and that of NATO's 60th year as the one true global terrorist network, many have been forced to take another look at the wars of the 1990s, the destructions of popular, revolutionary governments in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Rwanda (just to name the three that have concerned us most at CM/P), in light of the continuation of the European Fascist Business Plan that NATO took upon itself after Hitler's Legions were turned back and neutralized with extreme prejudice by Stalin's heroic Red Army. And though NATO unashamedly claims that their intervention in the Balkans was their first military engagement since its formation in 1949, it is impossible not to see the destabilization (the 'de-Sovietization) and eventual destruction of the Yugoslav Socialist Federation as a road-test of that shocking and awful war wagon that would roll over those territories that were not as-yet under Western military occupation and financial and commercial domination. So, Rwanda and Iraq are as much NATO missions, as were the devastations of Yugoslavia and the rest of the Eastern European (Slavic) and Central Asian countries, like Afghanistan and now Pakistan, or Southeast Asian countries like North Korea and Vietnam, that were formerly included in the Soviet and Red Chinese spheres of influence.

But just who is really looking at this History? Whatever changes have recently occurred in the US, any reevaluation of its historical cosmology and cosmogony (i.e., its national sense of world history and its defining of the role it plays in this history) is not among them.

One can only feel acute embarrassment for President and Mrs. Obama as they fete the 60th anniversary of NATO, calling it--as if sampling that great Muslim practitioner of the 'Sweet Science,' Mohammed Ali--'the the most successful alliance of ALL TIIIIME.' When the new President congratulated NATO neophytes Albania and Croatia for their 'reforms' in stepping up to 'NATO standards,' one wondered if a NATO/IMF/World Bank-coerced return to the dank and dusty WWII Nazi free-state folkways and mores that so effectively elevated the interests of the industrial and financial cartels above those of the Jewish and Slavic masses was now being openly endorsed by President Obama, and it became painfully clear that the young, brilliant Chicago-Hawaiian pol had had little or no experience of Balkan or Slavic History outside, maybe, a couple seminars at that Cold War version of Hogwarts, the Larry Summers Harvard School of Hedge Funds, or a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee or DoD briefing.

All this self-congratulatory posing over the success of NATO's continuation of European Fascism's eastward longings for lebensraum, and all at the expense of the lives of tens of millions of 'untermenschen' Jews and Slavs--and Palestinian and other Arabs and Black Africans--, might have seemed grimly ironic had there been even a hint that Mr. and Mrs. President Obama and the rest of the beautiful, well turned-out People people had a clue as to NATO's real role in spearheading the terror-driven militarization of the planet, and, as the principal commander of the sort of waste production, war production, production for destruction, that has dried up what little was left of any wholesome, self-sustaining Capital circulation, concentrating the ever-more virtual self-valorizing value of Finance Capital into fewer and fewer feckless hands, of being chiefly responsible for herding a terrified and impoverished world public into this shit-stinking cul-de-sac of a global economic crisis. It truly was a case of the well-dressed leading the better-dressed around in a circle jerk. But, as circle jerks go, I think it can be said that in this one, the US finished first--and tied for third with the always-up-and-coming Sarkozyan French.

Though its self-admitted criminal aggression against Yugoslavia, with its near constant bombing from 1992 to 1999 (see, unlike NATO, that fag Hitler used actually to pause every few days to allow the Yugoslavs to bury their dead--NATO would only pause about tens minutes between air strikes so as to sucker some of the EMTs and other first-responders into its second wave of killing. Think: Twin Towers collapse.) in close air-support of the Private Military Contractors (PMCs), like Dyncorp and MPRI, that trained and led Croatian, Bosnian and Albanian 'secessionist' armies against Yugoslav Popular Defense Forces, was supposed to be its first involvement in an armed conflict (and coyly filed under the rubric 'humanitarian crisis management'), NATO has, from its inception, presented a more ruthless and barbaric version the European Wehrmacht that waged the 20th-century-defining conflict between Authoritarian Liberalism or Fascism (Military or Waste Capitalism) and Soviet and Chinese Communism (Majoritarian Populism).

Today, in the post-Soviet era, NATO is the command center for the endless wars to globalize Western Waste Culture by militarily occupying and commercially and financially dominating those spheres of influence that were formerly Russian and Chinese. And its favored tactic in its terrorist trick-bag is the murderous false flag or friendly fire black provocation--with the sort of 'Plausible Deniability' it offers allowing NATO to transfer the full responsibility for its crimes onto its victims. As with the Alliance's implications in the so-called 'Islamic expansionist' uprisings in 1970s-1980s Afghanistan or 1990s Chechnya, Bosnia, and Kosovo, with their consequent atrocities, like the massacres in the Moscow theatre or the bombing of the Moscow apartment blocks, the slaughter of school children at Beslan, attacks on Bosnia breadlines and marketplaces, and various and sundry 'civil aviation incidents,' NATO's tacit involvement in this global reign of terror is vividly laid out even in the Business pages of the NY Times. So whether the unspeakable horror involves the slaughter of 800,000 Black Africans by their machete-wielding neighbors, or the commandeering of phantom airliners to be used as missiles in an elaborate DoD PR/AIG insurance scam, the beneficiaries are always the same: The Warlords of Global Finance Capital. Just tote up the number of Islamic military bases erected in these Muslim expansionist zones, and compare it to the number of NATO/US (permanent) bases that have come out of these same conflicts: Even the most sclerotic of imaginations should have little trouble getting itself around the fact that the perpetrators of these crimes are the same, too.

Attached please find Me Black's closing arguments for The General's innocence. I hope they will help clarify a tragic chapter in the tortured history of the Western Waste Culture's self-abusive unto suicidal notions of human progress toward liberation. And I also hope President Obama, as a legal scholar, will read them, disseminate them throughout his government, and, then, begin to make the real policy changes necessary to avert what is certainly our imminent annihilation. --mc]

Six Decades of Terror: NATO is al QAEDA-pt1 -- by Mick Collins

2009-04-13T19:56:00.002+02:00

Six Decades of Terror: NATO is al QAEDA-pt1 -- by Mick Collins

[This is the first installment of our series commemorating the last 15 years of the six decades of US-backed global anti-majoritarian (i.e., anti-Communist) terrorism. Brief recap:

11 March 2006 is the date of President Slobodan Milosevic's death at the hands of the NATO Tribunal in The Hague (mistakenly and illegally credited to the UNSC);

23 March 1999 marks the beginning of NATO's terror-bombing of Yugoslavia over Kosovo;

6 April 1994 is the date of the double presidential assassination that is said to have triggered a paroxysm of mass killing in Rwanda, come to be known as the 'Genocide of 100 Days,' in a parallel campaign of NATO terror in Central Africa;

and 23 April 1999 is the date independent journalism began its slow dance of death in the world media with the bombing of Belgrade's Radio/Television Serbia (RTS), which killed 16 journalists and station staff, and, as with the other cited atrocities (or 911), has gone without an investigation worthy of the name--and its real perps have gone unapprehended--but the victims of all these NATO crimes will continue to pay for them in perpetuity.

We are just back from an all-too-short stay in Belgrade (we being my son Max and I), where a truncated version of this text was presented at an anti-NATO/EU/Fascism rally in Republic Square on Tuesday night the 24th.

The initial intention of this writing was to convey in English the essence of a statement made for the Commemoration Conference at the Sava Center, by French General Pierre-Marie Gallois, one of Serbia's oldest and best friends in France, and the man who accepted the unconditioned release of two French NATO pilots downed over Bosnia in December 1995, from his Yugoslav Army homologue, General Radko Mladic. Both these men are venerated by their peoples as great war heros, though Mladic has been turned by NATO expedience and cowardice into a most-wanted war crimes suspect unto genocidaire.

But Max's presence at my side in Belgrade changed a lot. Just as this visit to Serbia, to Slobodan Milosevic's grave in Pozarevac, and to the prison where Dragoljub Milanović, the chief of RTS, is currently stepping off a dime bid--a 'reckless endangerment' beef so humbug it'd bend Lady Justice double and choke her with her own vomit--this whole trip has racked focus on the Western wars for commercial and financial domination against small independence-minded nations, revealing them for the hideous campaigns of global terror and victim-blaming they really are.

So, NATO is al QAEDA, nobullshit!--but will Obama be Osama? Stay tuned for Part 2. --mc]

************************

Six Decades of Terror:
NATO is al QAEDA--pt 1.

--Belgrade, 23 March 2009

Ten years ago, while NATO was ‘terror-bombing’ Yugoslavia over Kosovo (Newsweek’s pre-911 terminology), I had already been working on the Balkan Dossier for about four years. In 1995, during my first summer in Paris, I wrote a play about the Bosnian war, Black Samba, which was done in New York City at Soho Rep in 1998. By then the nation of Yugoslavia was just a memory in America, or a trivia question, like “Automobiles for $50: In what Southeastern European country is the Yugo manufactured?”. I couldn’t figure out why or how everyone fell into the easy, uncritical use of names like the ex-, or former-, or rump-Yugoslavia. I didn’t know what had become of the Yugoslavs, where their Yugoslavia had gone, but I had a hunch I knew the guys who’d gotten rid of it pretty well.

During the 1999 NATO bombing, the young woman with whom I was working to produce the Paris revival of my first Los Angeles play, WinoTime,--and who would later get me my greatest reproduction, my son Max--took me to a little restaurant, just outside Paris in Montreuil, called Le Café Yougoslavie. We would watch the gruesome news reports from Belgrade's RTS on a wall-sized projection TV. What we saw was people just like us--not little Southeast Asians or black Africans or swarthy Middle Easterners--, living in houses like ours--not in thatched huts or broken down refugee camps--, with cars like ours, and little families with beautiful kids--like everywhere in the world: we saw all this being destroyed, being blown to pieces, live and in color, and it was all being sponsored by those good people in the Human Rights business. It really made no sense--or, at least, what sense I did make of it was almost too cynical and too sinister to be anything else but inHuman Wrongs.

From the very beginning of the discussion, the conflict in the Balkans was seen to be an internecine battle among the once-Federated Republics, which had almost magically been declared independent sovereign nations by, first Germany, then the fledgling EEC-EU, and finally, once the US had weighed in, the entire ‘International Community’--less Russia and China, of course. It was instantly identified, even by the best historians, as a ‘civil war,’ just like the one that went down there during WWII: a war over territory, waged by the various Yugoslav ‘national minorities’, Croats, Bosnians and Serbs, with their goal of becoming a ‘national minority’ but within their own nations.

The disappearance of the United Nations-founding member-state of Yugoslavia, the nation of the Southern Slavs, into the historico-toxic fog of a disinformation-driven civil war, allowed the original aggression against the Socialist Federated Republic of Yugoslavia by US and EU financial and commercial interests, backed by endless waves of private-military terrorists, just like those being deployed in the Middle East and Central Africa at the same time, to be occulted within, even effaced from, the Historical Record, and eventually retro-blamed on the very Slav victims of the aggression, itself. Western financial speculators from Enron, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse/First Boston supported the extra-legal secessions from Yugoslavia, especially by Croatia and Bosnia, and seized the recently deregulated markets, then used their formidable Private Military Contractors, like DynCorp and MPRI, to dissolve all public sector protection from the now emaciated Yugoslav State by going after the Yugoslav People’s Army, the JNA. As long as Yugoslavia could be seen to be acting out age-old religious, ethnic and national animosities; as long as the Slavs, in defending themselves, could be seen to be trying to kill each other off: it was stupidly simple to convince the world that all the killing had its origins not in response to any foreign aggression, but in the restlessness of the hateful native tribes, and that the best way to put a stop to it was, first, to choke them hard with embargoes and other economic sanctions, then to interpose the world’s most powerful military force, but call it a ‘Humanitarian Intervention,’ and, finally, just bomb the shit outta all these petty ‘nationalists’ until they’re begging for peace--then bomb them some more. However costly in human lives this joint criminal enterprise might be, the Chicago School policy adopted by the Western Business interests involved dictated that it should be paid. Of course this war--like all wars--was great for Business, but those who actually paid the real costs were no longer of much economic good for anything else.

The time, of course, was very right. The Soviet Union was broken up, and the European Union was about to put ink to its Maastricht Treaty. Globalization was on a roll, freeing capital to go wherever it wanted, to do whatever it wanted and without answering to anyone but its self-valorizing self. One by one, the countries that had depended on the Soviet Union for support to maintain their subsidized housing and domestic food-farming sectors, their universal free health care systems, their universal free education and their guaranteed full-employment; these former spudniks were freed from their orbits of privileged trade with Russia (especially in the realm of energy resources) and allowed, with full liberty and the wily ministrations of Western investment banks and brokers, to develop into morbidly exploitive and criminally anarchic market economies--all now the crushing bondage of NATO membership. Today, too late, they wish things had gone another way.

Yet the European moral vacuum necessary for this kind of Orwellian anti-rationality to be passed off as progress (e.g., wage slavery as an improvement on a socially guaranteed, healthy working life; victimization by profit-driven medical/pharmaceutical complexes that guarantee death by debt as preferable to socially supported protection against catastrophic illness; forced labor in the service of militarism and the wastage of never-ending war as preferable to living a peaceful, reflective and [pro]creative life) was sucked out in France by the elevation and celebration of nouveaux collabos-intellos, like Bernard Kouchner and Bernard Henri-Levy; and in the US by the achievement of state power by class collaborationists, and just common greed-heads, like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and even the porcine Richard Holbrooke.

Only such lunatic sociopaths could accept rewards, however grand the money amounts or haughty the positions, for foisting onto their fellows a false consciousness, a culture of murderous lies and manipulations--the very sort of atmosphere that has allowed the tyranny of NATO to continue well beyond its real anti-Soviet relevancy. And even though by now they all, BK & BH-L & Holbrooke, have admitted in their various writings that the rationale of a ‘Serbian fascist aggression’ against, and the ethnic cleansing of, all non-Serbs (non-Slavs?) from the other innocently self-determining former-Yugoslav Republics, as well as its own southern province of Kosovo; that the tabloid stories of death and rape camps, even unto ‘a genocide of non-Serbs’ (non-Christians?), were the pure creations of Western marketing--principal among the tub-thumpers being Ruder-Finn International ‘s director James Harff(1), whose motto, ‘The client comes first, second and third. The Truth? We’ll get back to you on that after lunch,’ became the overly long mantra of everyone in the War Biz.

‘The French Doctor' Kouchner, in a scene from his autobiography, A Warrior for Peace, describes a dying Bosnian president Izetbegovic telling him that it was at the instigation of his Western minders--like Ambassador Warren Zimmermann, who talked him into pulling his signature off the 1992 Lisbon Accords(2), and on the word of President Clinton, himself, (who also ordered up the Srebrenica phantasmagoria)--that the Serbian death camp lie was cooked up:

INT: A SARAJEVO HOSPITAL ROOM--Day

An obvious dying old man lies in bed with all the necessary tubes and monitors in place and beeping:

Dr. K: You remember President Mitterand’s visit?

President Izedbegovic (Through a death rattle): I remember.

Dr. K: In the course of conversation, you mentioned that there were {makes the quotes with his fingers} “EXTERMINATION CAMPS” in Bosnia. You repeated that to journalists. That provoked a lot of strong feelings in the world. . . . (beats) François {referring to French President François Mitterand} sent me to Omarska. . . and . . . we opened some other prisons. (several beats) They were pretty horrible places, ok? . . . But the people there were not systematically exterminated. . . {LONG PAUSE} You know that, right?

President Izedbegovic (Reluctantly): Yeah. . . . (beats) I thought my revelations would put a rush on the [NATO] bombing. . . . I saw how the French and others reacted. . . I was wrong.

Richard Holbrooke: You saw that at Helsinki President Bush didn’t react.

President Izedbegovic (Resignedly): Yes . . . I tried. But it was a bad call. . . . (beats) There were no Death Camps, however shitty those places were.(3)

Bernard Henri-Levy wrote in his book, Who Killed Daniel Pearl?(4), about the ‘open secret’ among the supporters of the Bosnian Muslims concerning the lies and manipulations that the Serb atrocity stories were, including the so-called Siege of Sarajevo, the bombing of bakeries and market places and, especially, the rape and death camps. But this secret truth never mitigated BH-L's support for the ferocious bombing of Serbian/Yugoslav positions in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995, and then, again, over Kosovo in 1999. Throughout, BH-L kept clutching Bosnian Muslims to his blue-blazer-clad bosom.

And just to show that the Kosovo terror bombing was not some isolated aberration of US foreign policy in the Balkans: Scott O’Grady, a USAF pilot who took part in the 1992-1995 NATO bombing of Serb positions in Bosnia, and the subject of John Glenn’s film, Behind Enemy Lines(5) [included in the CM/P seminar, Movies and the UnMaking-Of History], confessed in his book, Return With Honor(6), that he was briefed before his fateful mission that the massacres of civilians in Sarajevo had been authorized by the Izetbegovic government, itself, and not carried out by the Serbs. Despite O’Grady’s disclosures of the real balance of forces on the ground in Bosnia, the Hollywood-led demonization of the Bosnian Serbs in films like Welcome to Sarajevo(7) and The Fourth Angel(8), made NATO’s terrorizing of Yugoslavia in 1999 both understandable and forgivable.

Women, too, showed themselves capable of abandoning moral dignity and shunning human decency for the sake of power and position. Who could forget Madeleine Albright, in a grotesque impersonation of a human being, claiming to CBS’s Leslie Stahl that the price of half a million Iraqi children’s lives was worth paying to stop Saddam Hussien(9). The same sort of ghoulish accounting was employed by Bernard Koucher’s wife, Christine Ockrent (a leading French radio and TV journalist), when she suggested that all the hundreds of thousands of refugees being created by the 1999 NATO terror in Serbia’s southern province, were preferable to allowing Milosevic and his ‘Serb thugs’ to kill as many or more Kosovo Albanians by doing nothing. This is not just human discernment degraded by ignorance; this is Human Reason and Decency mortgaged to geopolitical expediency. And it is also proof that women are no more likely to get it right than men.

But Holbrooke, Albright, Kouchner and their ilk seem so co-opted by the political powers that they are not able to be in the same room with Truth and Justice, even with the fierce gravity of the ever-burgeoning mass of legally determined evidence. Judicial calls like the ICTY’s acquittal of Serbian President Milan Miltunovic on all charges of crimes against humanity in Kosovo(10); the ICTR's verdict in the Military I case, where the so-called Extremist Hutu ‘masterminds’ of the Rwandan Genocide were acquitted on all charges of ‘planning or conspiring to commit genocide’(11); the February 2007 ICJ ruling absolving Serbia of any active responsibility for genocide in Bosnia(12): these judgments indicate that the expedient application of the charge of Genocide, so essential to sustaining the global spread of neocolonial domination, is historically unfounded, judicially unprovable, and can only be stipulated to or otherwise ordered by a court ‘to take judicial notice of’--as was done by the Appeals Chamber at the ICTR on 16 June 2006(13). So, now years after the discovery of the decomposing body of lies on which these congenital, carrion-slarving cowards have nourished their public careers, Holbrooke and Kouchner have once again been rewarded with promotions--Holbrooke with Obama’s appointment to be the US's man in Afghanistan and Pakistan (officially charged with supervising the bombing of wedding parties and mosques), and Kouchner with the French Foreign Minister’s gig from the sweaty, ever-more demented and Nixon-like Nicolas Sarkozy--and all without ever having to acknowledge their complicity in one of the great war crimes and national betrayals of the late 20th Century: NATO’s 78-day and 79-night terror bombing of Yugoslavia/Serbia-Montenegro.

So why can’t all this evidence of who were the real aggressors and who were the real aggressed be applied to correcting the Historical Record, rehabilitating the policies of those governments that sinned, and repairing and restoring the lives of those who were wrongfully damaged in this geopolitical crime spree known as globalization? An important reason--though far from the only reason--is a want of solidarity among the targeted countries with the establishment of ruling compradors. In the past ten years, we have all lost the sense of our shared history to an atomizing multifarious terror, and our struggles for Independence and Justice are only effective when they are joined. Divided we fail.

Like that young woman who got me my son: ten years ago, as we sat together in the Café Yougoslavie--now called ‘Il y a une fois un Yougoslavie’ (Once upon a time there was a country called Yugoslavia)--and as we watched the suffering of the Serbian people, our Slavic kith and kin, she vowed to come with me to Belgrade, and she assured me that everything would be all right. That hooked me back then.

However, now she’s at home in Paris, and I’m not sure just how far things are from ever being all right--at home or anywhere else--because I still have a feeling that most things are gone terribly wrong. But because Max is with me here in Belgrade, I do have hope--real live hope. And by giving him this opportunity to come to Belgrade and meet some truly heroic people, I feel like these paternal strivings of mine, to get things right in the world, will not end with me, and, maybe, ten years from now, when we come back to Serbia, Max will have made far more things far better than I ever could.

That’s my audacity of hope. Because today is a new day. There’s a new administration in Washington (though it is redolent of the corruption of the previous Democratic government that destroyed Yugoslavia), and for the first time in my life I can support a US president because he seems truly to want to promote majoritarian interests.

So far, my President Obama has shown his intelligence and decency by listening, deeply and intently, to everyone who speaks to him, and fully considering everything before he speaks--and some of his statements are so politic, like his position on the expansion of NATO (‘All countries that want to join, should be allowed to join!”), as to be almost comical.

If we can all get together to write the true history of the real crimes against humanity committed against Yugoslavia, against Serbia and all the Slavic people, and present this story to President Obama; if we can show him the horrific misdeeds of his Democratic predecessors, the Clintons, the Holbrookes, the Bidens and Wes Clark’s NATO, in perpetuating a moribund socio-economic system, a system of production that only destroys life through terror, war and waste; if he can be shown the unprovoked violence, the unnecessary death and destruction, the wanton murder of brave patriots protecting their homes and families, the criminalization of national self-defense, the flagrant theft of territory and resources and the indeterminate indenture of ordinary people with extraordinary courage: perhaps--and just perhaps--we can begin to make tomorrow a better day for Max and his generation and all the generations to come.

Mick Collins
CirqueMinime/Paris

Notes:

1 http://www.greens.org/s-r/20/20-24.html

2 http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Catastrophe-Yugoslavia-Destroyers-Ambassador/dp/0812963997

3 In Pierre Péan’s Le Monde Selon K (The World According to K), Fayard, Paris, 2009. pp 96-97. {translated from the French and adapted for the stage/screen by CM/P}

4 http://www.amazon.com/Killed-Daniel-Pearl-Bernard-Henri/dp/0971865949

5 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159273/

6 http://www.amazon.com/Return-Honor-Scott-OGrady/dp/0385483309

7 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120490/

8 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254334/

9 http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2009/01/slander-of-madeleine-albright.html

10 http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/65507/-hague-tribunal-acquits-milutinovic-convicts-5-others.html

11 http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2008/12/23/4033400.html

12 http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=21672&Cr=ICJ&Cr1

13 http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2008/12/23/4033400.html

Recognizing the Other's Right to Exist -- Willy Gutman on Netanyahu's Israel

2009-04-13T19:54:00.000+02:00

Recognizing the Other's Right to Exist -- Willy Gutman on Netanyahu's Israel

[Willy Gutman is a friend of mine. After nearly 50 years in show bizness, I have quite a few Jewish friends, and Willy's one of the best of them. I'm told with that much time down studying under rabbis like Henny Youngman, Lenny Bruce and Teddy Adorno, I have earned the right to consider myself an honorary Jew.

But when it comes to criticizing Israeli militarism--and what with the ubiquitous spiritual Gestapo-ing of the Holocaust Industry and it's Stop the Fucking Genocide wing--if I try to weigh in against the latest IDF atrocities in the refugee camps of Gaza or Lebanon, or question the pensée unique on designer genocides like those mawkishly bleated over in Yugoslavia or Rwanda, I immediately get hung with a foul-mouthed anti-Semite jacket.

You know: goys will be goys.

So now seems like a good time to let an authentic defender of Jewish humanism and understanding have a word.

Here are a couple things Willy wrote that reflect on the recent ascension of BiBi Netanyahu to the Israeli Premiership. You can really feel the suffering of this good man's heart that has had to endure the tortures of ethnic prejudice and militaristic (and religious) nationalism in the wasting of an ancient humanist tradition of wisdom and tolerance.

'It is better to endure evil than to inflict it.' I find this a very 'Jewish' precept--and it's one that I've always tried to live by.--mc]

*****************************

This letter should have been written years ago, when the incident that prompts its belated publication took place.

More than a letter, it's an apology, heartfelt and long overdue. I have been haunted by its urgency for more than three decades.

I cannot wait any longer and hope it is neither too late nor in vain.

Some 30 years ago or so, as I absent-mindedly browsed the merchandise in a Times Square novelty shop in New York, a young man, clean-cut and neatly attired, asked me if I needed help.

I thanked him and said no, not for the moment. I detected a familiar accent and asked him where he was from.

"Palestine."

"There is no such a place," I replied. I had uttered these incredibly cruel and humiliating words without a hint of animosity, without the slightest passion, the way one talks about some banal occurrence, like the weather.

I knew better.

I had lived in Israel as a boy, and several of the kids I played with in the Greek Colony in Jerusalem were Palestinians. My first girlfriend - my first young love, Leila - was my age, beautiful, smart, educated and proud.

Her father was a respected local businessman. My parents, who didn't have a prejudiced bone in their bodies, took an instant liking to Leila and neither said nor did anything to discourage what was my first teen romance.

Our neighbors were not quite as fair-minded. Circuitous and irresolute at first, the community's resentment toward my parents, first for sending me to a Catholic French school (going to a Hebrew public school would have set me back to first grade) reached a furious pitch when I befriended Leila.

One day, a delegation of about a dozen persons headed by a rabbi came to our house unannounced and uninvited. The rabbi addressed my father in Yiddish.

He admonished him for keeping me at the College St. Joseph and asked him to discourage me from "fraternizing with the enemy." He meant Leila and the other kids.

My father, a physician and a man of unimpeachable integrity who was never to be trifled with --especially by bigoted busybodies -- stood his ground. He was magnificent.

I don't remember his words and won't attempt to reconstruct them for fear of diluting what must surely have been a knockout riposte. What I vividly recall is that he opened the door and asked the "delegation" to get out of our house.

Predictably, my father's uncompromising stance did not help mend fences in the Greek Colony. Acrimony and ugly rhetoric festered for the duration of our stay in Jerusalem.

Leila ceased to visit. I looked for her. Her father told me she was no longer allowed to see me. "It's best this way," he said. There was sadness in his voice.

I was heartbroken. We soon left Jerusalem for Ramat-Gan, and I later left Israel on my own for good.

It was the same look of mortification and sadness that I saw in the young salesman's eyes more than two decades later in New York, where I lived. It didn't take long to realize the ugliness of my gaffe.

I had not only offended a human being, depersonalizing him, but I had trivialized his national identity and stripped him of the one thing stateless people aspire to most: the hope of nationhood, security and self-determination.

I returned to the store the next day, eager to apologize, in need of the kind of moral cleansing that only sincere expiation of a wrong can provide. The young man had left his employ. His co-workers, also Palestinians, volunteered no information as to his whereabouts.

Time, personal and professional preoccupations dulled the memory of my unforgivable affront. But they did not erase it. It kept surging in my mind like a recurring abscess, and every time it did, fresh pangs of conscience filled me with regret and remorse.

I am now 71 and semi-retired. I will not dwell on the partisan politics that continue to cleave that region. I will not comment on the hegemonic objectives that doggedly retard the prospects for peace in a land bloodied by years of hatred and violence.

I have family in Israel and I wish that nation well. But in the name of decency and justice, as a human being and a journalist, I cannot silently watch the continued dismantlement, expropriation, marginalization and, yes, dehumanization of a people who have just as much right to selfhood and dignity and peace as does the state of Israel.

As for the recent actions by Jewish "settlers" in Hebron, I join those who characterized their obscene behavior as nothing short of a "pogrom," something worthy of Hitler's thugs. As a Jew, I, too, am deeply ashamed that Jews could do such a thing.

What I did nearly a lifetime ago in a Times Square souvenir shop may seem trivial to some. I have been haunted by it ever since. Call it a matter of scruples, of conscience, of principles.

It is with sincere good wishes for a brighter, secure and prosperous future that I offer my most sincere apologies to the people of Palestine, in their homeland and in exile, for the stupidity and cruelty of idle, unreasoned words.

Palestine exists. In body and soul. I hope the young man, and by extension the people I once insulted, read this letter and find it in their hearts to forgive.

**************************

Netanyahu Wrong Choice for Mideast Peace and Tranquility
W. E. Gutman

In an editorial published in the Connecticut Post in August 1997 in which I urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign, I wrote that, as a Jew, I opposed the expansion of settlements in Israeli-occupied areas of Palestine. I also called for an immediate and permanent cessation to the expropriation of Arab lands, a practice still regarded by the world community as a blatant provocation and an invitation to unrest and violence.

As an American with relatives living in Israel, and after much soul-wrenching self-inquiry, I also concluded that Mr. Netanyahu’s regime was a calamity and a recipe for disaster. I further argued that dastardly alliances with jingoist generals, unholy covenants with religious zealots who use ideological extortion to force a theocracy on a largely secular society, the inexplicable compulsion to scuttle peace negotiations, a wrathful, neurotic disdain toward international criticism, a savage antipathy toward the Palestinian people -- all hallmarks of an administration wavering between ineptitude and aberration – pose grave dangers to peace in the Middle East and, by extension, to the region.

My views, harshly criticized in the press, would be validated by ensuing events. Mr. Netanyahu’s stern and capricious governance brought not one iota of security -- perceived or actual -- to Israel. Instead, as successive political crises between his government and the Palestinian Authority deepened, Jews and Arabs became mired in frustration and endless conflict.

His combative style and pugnacious rhetoric exhumed and re-ignited old hatreds, reopened unhealed wounds, fomented a new swell of cynicism, misgivings and suspicions. Israelis were demoralized. Israel’s sympathizers abroad were exasperated. Negotiating partners were unnerved. Bitterness and rancor deepened with every stroke of his ministerial pen, with every hostile decree, every calculated vacillation, every broken word, every rubber bullet.

This pernicious alchemy, in the name of national defense, yielded confusion, anxiety, sorrow and, yes, insecurity. Stimulated by the wild possibility of a peaceful settlement of their protracted conflict, Israelis and Palestinians were now bewildered and apprehensive. Neither side could endure the suspense and agony of occupation, piecemeal concessions and fragmentary, snail-paced progress routinely nullified by spasms of retributive violence.

Last, echoing the musings of distinguished Israeli journalist Yosef Lapid, who wrote that the prime minister exhibited a crass disregard for reality and humanism, I described Mr. Netanyahu’s vision of peace and security as “trapped in paranoia and the corruptive forces of chauvinism.”

Twelve bloodstained years later, and after weeks of infighting following the general elections in February, Benjamin Netanyahu is set to become Israel's Prime Minister -- for the second time. In so doing, he will be putting Israel on a potential collision course with its Palestinians partners, its Arab neighbors and perhaps even its long-time American ally. His latest pronouncements, which betray his notorious ultra-nationalism, his intransigence and deep-rooted hostility toward Arabs, rule out any possibility of reaching some modus vivendi by encouraging and participating in an open exchange of grievances.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians are fighting for fragments of their homeland.

President Harry S. Truman, through the United Nations, made it possible for the Jewish people to return to their Biblical homeland. By an act of international law, the Palestinians were moved aside. The Israelis developed the land and opened up Palestine to hundreds of thousands of Diaspora Jews. Over the years more land was needed to absorb waves of newcomers. As a result the Palestinians found themselves outnumbered, marginalized. They became strangers in their own land.

MIT-educated Netanyahu laid waste to the delicate foundations for peace that were being erected. Issued from the sword and resting on the Bible, his policies have daunted and discouraged serious attempts to bring about regional security and stability. His lifelong antagonism toward the Palestinians, whom he considers “a sinister and divisive element,” has palliated the religious Right, whose enormous financial resources helped underwrite his campaign and whose gluttonous territorial expansionist objectives he endorses.

Mr. Netanyahu’s victory does not “prove that there is a God in heaven,” as a euphoric rabbi was heard clamoring. It demonstrates instead that Satan still dwells in the hearts of men who would give up spiritual self-renewal in a world daring to be brave.

Given these sobering realities and the volatile political landscape on which he has cast his shadow, the once-and-yet-again prime minister, his colossal ambitions fulfilled and his hawkish supporters placated, may wish to glance earthward and heed non-partisan wisdom: Hard line begets hard line. Security by intimidation, repression and economic persecution produces animosity and insecurity. He who sows the wind reaps the tempest.

__________
W. E. Gutman is a widely published veteran journalist and author, and a former press officer at Israel’s Consulate General in New York. From 1991 to 2004 he was on assignment in Central America where he covered politics, the military, human rights and other socio-economic issues. He now lives in southern California's High Desert.

FDLR PRESS RELEASE - FEBRUARY 2009 - STOP KILLING & KIDNAPPING HUTU REFUGEES IN CONGO!!

2009-02-19T21:33:00.001+01:00

FDLR PRESS RELEASE - FEBRUARY 2009 - STOP KILLING & KIDNAPPING HUTU REFUGEES IN CONGO!!

[The recent, untimely death of Alison Des Forges, Human Rights Watch's Central Africa hand, in a fiery plane crash, has become the source of a great deal of the acrid smoke now being blown to cover HRW's expedient misreadings of African history--like their long-standing support of the now bankrupt '800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus'-version of the Rwandan genocide. They have long been, in the Dr. Kouchnerian vein, Humanitarians for Hire.

After several appearances at the Rwanda Tribunal in Arusha (ICTR), Prof. Des Forges had several changes of heart--or, at least, changes of testimony under cross examination from the Defense--on what had actually happened in those four terror-filled years from the 1 October 1990 RPF invasion of Rwanda from Uganda to the 6 April 1994 RPF missile strike on Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana's Falcon 50 executive jet (which, with the killings of Burundian presidents Cyprien Ntaryamira, on the plane with Habyarimana, and Melchior Ndadaye, six months earlier in a Tutsi-led military coup in Bujumbura, brought to three the number of sets of Hutu testicles on Paul Kagame's war drum). It would not be crazy to assume that HRW's Des Forges had so disappointed her Kigali sponsors with her testimony in recent genocide trials that that is why the Kagame regime banned her from returning to her thesis country.

And one has to wonder just what her last thoughts might have been, as her commuter jet fell straight down out of an icy Buffalo sky; if she considered how long she had trivialized the double African presidential assassination as a mere 'plane crash--a terrorist act that, along with the simultaneous RPF offensive, indisputably triggered the social chaos and mass killings, '--even while feeding the popular speculation that 'Hutu Extremists', including the President's wife and her 'Little House' inner circle, had killed the popular Rwandan leader. Irony of ironies? Or cynicism of cynicisms?

But further pissing into the information pool, with what might be seen as a perverse sort of tribute to their late, apostate colleague, HRW is now dumping great gobs of toxic nonsense on some of the unhappiest victims of the globalization wars, the Rwandan Hutu refugees in Eastern Congo. Having fled the RPF's murder and mayhem in 1994, only to be hunted like game by these same tormentors in 1996 and 1998, killed in the hundreds of thousands unto millions, led into ambushes and even shot down and blown up by UN forces (MONUC) and Humanitarian NGOs, these bogusly alleged genocidaires, with their genetically genocidal wives and children, and their front group, the FDLR (Forces Democratique pour Liberation du Rwanda), are now being charged with killing Congolese civilians in the hundreds. And why? Who needs reasons? HRW's talking genocidaires here--they're talking Pure Evil.

Well, here below's another Press Release from Callixte Mbarushimana and the FDLR. Remember that the Hutu governments of Burundi and Rwanda that were destroyed by the Tutsi RPF 'rebels' were duly elected--democratically elected majority governments. The only way the interests of a huge majority can be sublated by those of a tiny minority is by the unrestrained and heartless use of unReason. --mc]

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

PRESS RELEASE N ° 05/SE/CD/FEBRUARY/ 2009 OF THE FDLR

*****

The FDLR warn the United Nations against the MONUC's fighting alongside the military coalition RPA / FARDC against Rwandan refugees in the DRC and members of the FDLR.

The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) inform the public and the media that a helicopter of the United Nations Mission in DRC (MONUC) has participated in an air raid by the coalition of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) and the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) on 12 February 2009 in Gashebere, North Kivu, in DRC.

The record of this unfortunate air raid is two (2) people with minor injuries and hundreds of Rwandan refugees and local civilians displaced. On 13 February 2009, the armed coalition of the RPA / FARDC launched an air raid in Kayanja and Kanyabutsindo, which left no victims, to support its ground forces which were in disarray in the face of the brave troops of the FDLR they had gone to attack.

The FDLR strongly condemn this act of barbarism against innocent civilians and warn the MONUC of a danger resulting from its alignment with the Rwandan-Congolese troops in their campaign against the Rwandan refugees and Congolese civilian populations in Kivu. The FDLR recall that they have always favoured and continue to favour a peaceful solution to the political problem of Rwanda. They point out to MONUC that its mission is not to hunt Rwandan refugees and innocent civilians, but rather to ensure their protection.

The FDLR invite the Security Council of the United Nations and the African Union to condemn unequivocally the use of MONUC forces by some UN officials serving the interests of the gravediggers of the people of the Great Lakes region of Africa.

The FDLR urge, once again, that the Rwandan and Congolese authorities immediately stop the dirty war they have launched against the Rwandan refugees and the FDLR, and engage in dialogue with them. The FDLR reaffirm that they continue to favour the path of peace, but if the armed coalition against them continue to chase and shoot at the Rwandan refugees and other innocent people in Congo, they will have no other choice but to protect Rwandan refugees and the civilian populations, which has been their leitmotiv since their creation.

The FDLR still hope that within the United Nations, Rwanda and the DRC, there are women and men of goodwill who will do everything possible to stop this insane war going on in the DRC.

Filed in Paris on February 17, 2009.

Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
(sé)

THAT JUSTICE BE DONE! Col. Jacques Hogard Interviewed by Alain Chevalérias

2009-02-08T23:06:00.001+01:00

THAT JUSTICE BE DONE! Col. Jacques Hogard interviewed by Alain Chevaléria--translated from the French by CM/P

[These early Obama days in France are all abuzz over the new Pierre Péan book pantsing Bernie Kouchner, “Le Monde Selon K.” (kind of a riff on another French journalist’s work, Karl Zero's fucku-Bush-a-mentary, "The World According to W.", or Oliver Stone's cute comedy, just plain 'W'.--W's even pictured caressing K on Péan’s cover.).

The shock in this so-called 'livre de choc' seems to be that Dr. K's double dipping, his conflicts of interest between doctor’s bag and diplomatic portfolio--or maybe it's his private investment portfolio's the rub--that the French Dr. (as PP affectionately refers to K, and not to be confused with my Dr. French in Steppling’s ‘Sea of Cortez’) was working his Humanitarian hustle in order to take money off a bunch of vile African dictators. Think of Lenny dressed up as a priest soliciting donations for a leper colony--only not as funny.

But Paris is really burning over the cheap shots they think Péan has taken at the poor old soixante-retard founder of Medecins Sans Scruples (MSF, MDM and all other similar med groups he may have claimed, at one time or another, were, in fact, founded by others). Questioning the Foreign Minister’s patriotism and the genuineness of his dedication to the emergency health needs of the victims of certain sides in certain wars calls into question the real intentions of the whole Human Rights movement with its innumerable NGOs, of the foreign policy of the Sarkozy government, even of the French national spirit.

As with Péan's previous great book, “Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs,” the French shyster community has gotten its suits and briefs all up in a sweaty bunch over PP's allegations that Kouchner expressed a certain ‘cosmopolitanism’ ('Anglo-Saxone cosmopolitanisme' is how Péan qualifies it) when he refused to stand for the Marseillaise, after having risen for 'God Save the Queen' (and not the Pistols' version, either) at a private screening of a France/England rugby game. All this is in just the 11-page teaser of the 330-some page book. But it is taken to be a suggestion of K’s dual-use as a diplomat/businessman in the service of the highest bidder. It has even been said (in Le Figaro, as I recall) that both Sarko and K are sayyam, homegrown Israeli agents. But you have to be super careful with that kind of insinuation in this country where every other guy is known to be an enemy collaborator by every other guy; where a Vichy functionary, after becoming the Socialist president of the Republic, ordered the extradition, trial and condemnation of a Nazi occupation functionary who had merely followed Pétain’s orders in deporting French Jewish children.

Well, if you'll remember, a want of national pride or respect and the placing of personal gain over national weal were charges made against the Jews back in the day. And since anti-Semitism is in such vogue these days as an instant invalidation of political or historical writings (no critical thought required, and, certainly, no need to read the book), Péan is straight away being sized up for another ‘Hate Speech’ beef.

In his earlier book on Rwanda, Péan cites an old Tutsi historian, Antoine Nyetera, who contends that the Tutsi culture of Rwanda was a culture of the lie. That little bit of historical trivia took up all of four pages in this fat book, but the many pro-RPF, pro-genocide survivor organizations, like IBUKA, AVEGA and SOS Racisme (which the Jewish Péan actually helped found) were all over PP with charges of racial discrimination and inciting racial hatred faster than you can say ‘the Bruguière Report.’ He was acquitted of all this humbug, of course, but with the subsequent arrival from Kigali of the Mucyo Commission Report, charging France with aiding and abetting the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus between 6 April and 16 July 1994, one had to start wondering where this tiny, densely populated tea plantation of a country was finding all its surplus vitriol.

Well, our Colonel Jacques Hogard, in this interview with Alain Chevalérias, goes quite a ways to explaining what is really behind the current France-Rwanda feud. And as you should have no problem guessing if you’ve ever glanced at this blog, the answer is the “US and A,” and its culture of criminally insane wastage.

With a steadier hand now on the helm in Washington, can we here in France, and all you all all around the world, hope to get our history in proper enough order to hand off to our kids, and to get the likes of Sarkozy and Kouchner the hell out of it?

Not until President Obama can come to grips with the real history of the decade-long Clintonian crime spree that birthed this Central African bloodbath, the responsibility for which its instigators, the RPF, the Kagame Reich and its Gallic collaborators, are trying to fob off on France. And while French President Sarkozy may have, for some unfathomable reason, lumbered his nation with the toxic offices of the craven narcissist Bernie Kouchner, US President Obama, too, responding to what we can only call The Terror, has taken upon himself that malignant waste product from the Balkan wars of the 1990s that is the visibly deranged and jellied eel-like Richard Holbrooke.

Down with the Occupation! Death to all Collaborators!! Long Live the Resistance and the People’s Struggle for Peace and Justice!!! --mc]

**************************

Interview with Col. Jacques Hogard: That Justice Be Done!

by Alain Chevaléria

27 January 2009

{Alain Chevaléria is the webmaster of the site http://www.recherches-sur-le-terrorisme.com [where the original French version of this interview can be found--cm/p], which regularly publishes analyses of Terrorism as well as information on current international and geopolitical events. He is a professional journalist, author of several books on bin Laden and, most recently, on the Mujahadin of the Iranian People.}

Alain Chevaléria: Colonel Jacques Hogard, who are you?

Jacques Hogard: I was born in 1955 into a family of officers. So I was raised in the military tradition. My father served in the naval infantry [the Marines] and I spent many years of my youth in Africa, following him from post to post. Naturally, I also chose a career in the military. After leaving Coëtquidan [a French military school in Brittany--nb] in 1979, I decided on the infantry, and then I joined the Foreign Legion before being assigned to the 2nd REP [Paratroopers Regiment]. This was in the 80s, with interventions in Lebanon, Chad and the Central African Republic. I spent several great years there as a lieutenant and captain. Then I followed the normal career track. I joined the Army Chief of Staff in Paris as a young superior officer in 1989 to prepare the École de guerre [War College]. Then I found myself stationed in Djibouti from 1992 to 1994. I had a very intense stay there. At that time, the country was experiencing attempts at destabilization from elements originating in Ethiopia, with the routing and collapse of the Eritrean Army, followed by the Afars rebellion which threatened the capital, Djibouti [In Djibouti, beginning in 1991, tensions between Afars and the Issa-dominated government resulted in an Afar rebellion]. I had a great deal of personal sympathy for this ethnic group. Having spent my teenage years in the country and having returned several times as a young officers with the 2nd REP, I knew their characteristics and, especially, their fidelity to France. In Djibouti I also had the opportunity to take part in the spring 1994 intervention in South Yemen, but, also, before that, in 1992/1993, in Somalia at the time of “Operation Restore Hope.” A great show. I was the “Chief of Operations” for the French force “Oryx” sent along with the multinational forces under American command. My tour in Djibouti ended with the intervention in Rwanda in 1994. Then I came back to France, where I continued my career with the Legion before joining the Special Operations Command (COS), created in 1992. Again in 1998-1999, I had the opportunity to command a detachment of Special Forces ordered to open the way for the French Army to enter Kosovo. It was then I got the feeling that I had nothing more to do in the Army, having done everything that really interested me. I took early retirement on 16 December 1999. After attending a seven-month course at the Centre de Perfectionnement des Affaires (CPA)[a Business School in Paris], held at the Chamber of Commerce, on 1 September 2000, I was taken off the active duty rolls of the Army after 26 years of service.

A.C.: Let’s talk about Rwanda! When did you get to Rwanda, or, more precisely, Eastern Zaire, now the DRC?

J.H.: I arrived there at the end of June 1994, coming from Djibouti. We landed in Goma, the Zairean town on the border with Rwanda, which served as the staging point for the forces of the French intervention. Our mission was to put an end, by any means necessary, including force of arms, to the massacres that were taking place on the other side of border in Rwanda. These mass killings had broken out after the attack on 6 April 1994 against the President of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira. We had to reestablish order and security as well as, to whatever extent possible, the necessary agreement to carry on a dialogue between the two communities. Goma is situated on the shores of Lake Kivu and was chosen because it has a hard-surface runway that can accommodate large cargo planes like the Antonovs and Ilushians chartered by the French military from countries of the ex-Soviet Union. Thanks to them, we were able to project a nearly three thousand man force in record time.

A.C.: What flags were these planes flying under?

J.H.: Russian and Ukrainian, I think. They were old military aircraft refurbished by civilian air-charter companies.

A.C.: But why planes from countries of the old USSR?

J.H.: France didn’t have any large strategic transports. At that time, we asked the US to furnish us with the means to fly our troops and equipment into Rwanda. The US refused because they were opposed to any French intervention there. It should be further emphasized that the Clinton Administration did all it could to create serious difficulties for France. The Chief of Staff, with the full support of the government, decided to call on the Russians. We understood that these chartered planes would cost us, but the Russians doubtlessly were pleased to make the deal for this mission because of the sweet irony of the situation.

A.C.: What kind of force did you have to stop the massacres?

J.H.: “Operation Turquoise”, commanded by General Lafourcade, was made up of about 2,800 men in three tactical groups. The first group to arrive, made up of Special Forces, was commanded by Col. Jacques Rosier, the most decorated soldier in France. It included a detachment of the 1st RPIMa [Régiment de Parachutistes d’Infanterie de Marine], a detachment of Navy Commandos and a detachment of Air Force Para-Commandos. It was assigned its own helicopters and C160 cargo plane, and was pre-positioned at the Rwandan border, awaiting the vote on UNSC Resolution 924, which would authorize the French intervention in Rwanda at the head of a multinational coalition force. The second group, commanded by Col. Patrice Sartre, was made up of Navy troops, particularly its prestigious regiment, the RICM (Régiment d’Infanterie de Char de Marine)[Marine Tank Infantry]. I was at the head of the third group, which was composed, essentially, of combat units assigned to regiments of the Legion, stationed in Africa or in France.

A.C.: Isn’t it a little surreal to assign such a small force to stop the massacres?

J.H.: We actually had a ridiculously small body considering the size of the mission at hand. But the units deployed were from the elite of the French Army. And then, we were also reenforced by African troops. So I had in my command the Chadian detachment. One hundred fifty additional men, which made a big difference when we had only 400 to start with! They had a big job to do. We didn’t lack in personnel, but the French soldiers were of the highest quality. They gave a great deal of their time and of themselves. They doubled, maybe even tripled their efforts by giving up their personal time and their sleep.

A.C.: France had signed a defense agreement with Rwanda. What was that?

J.H.: We had a military cooperation agreement with Kigali, signed in 1975 under Giscard d’Estaing, but not a defense agreement in the strictest sense. So some reduced elements of the French Army were in Rwanda as part of that military cooperation agreement in October 1990, when the Tutsi rebels, recruited in Uganda under the supervision of the Ugandan Army, launched an offensive against Rwanda. Just to go back a little: it all began in 1961, at the time of Rwandan independence. The Hutu majority (85% of the population) revolted against the Tutsis, who had, until then, exercised absolute power over them. Many Tutsis chose exile in Uganda. There, they made a home, and many of them became part of the guerilla movement led by the current president, Yoweri Museveni, against the government of Milton Obote in Kampala. When these guerillas took power, many Tutsis were given important jobs in the new Ugandan Army. Some were even made heads of very important departments, like today’s Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, who was the number two man in Military Intelligence. He was a Colonel in the Ugandan Army and was trained in the US. [at Ft Leavenworth, Kansas]

A.C.: So Kagame is a comrade in arms with the current Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni . . .

J.H.: Yes, at a certain moment, all these Rwandans became a little too visible to the Ugandan people, and Museveni decided to encourage them to return, in force, to their nation of origin, counting on this, also, to expand his influence in Central Africa. For me, without any doubt, Museveni already had his eye on the mineral riches of Kivu, today very prominent in the news with all the activities of the warlord Laurent Nkunda.

A.C.: Since August 2008, in Kivu, doesn’t it seem that a reenactment of the invasion of Rwanda is taking place--but this time the invasion is against Congo, the ex-Zaire--and it is coming from Rwanda?

J.H.: Absolutely. This time we see Laurent Nkunda, a Tutsi from Congo, organizing a rebellion against his own country of origin with the help of his Rwandan neighbor. In October 1990, Museveni’s Uganda encouraged the Tutsis, under the banner of the RPF[1], to overthrow the government in Kigali. Rwandan President Habyarimana, seeing his country under attack by a neighbor and finding himself in great difficulty, asked for help from France and Zaire. The Zairean Army, badly trained and undisciplined, was not up to the job. Nevertheless, at that time, French President [François] Mitterand thought he could settle the problem by rushing two companies of paratroopers. On his orders, the first detachment of “Operation Noroît” was sent in October 1990. Renewed every four months, this intervention would last a little more than three years, until October 1993. It was ended right after the Arusha Accords were signed in August 1993, under pressure from Western powers, and especially from France. You have to give Mitterand credit because his supported of the government of President Habyarimana was not unconditional: “I support you militarily,” he said essentially. “So I allow you to stay in power, but you are going to have to open your country up to democracy.”

A.C.: Yes, because this Habyarimana was not a great democrat . . .

J.H.: He was an African head of state of his era, like many others. Authoritarian, paternalistic, his regime was based on a one-party system. It was a sort of ‘enlightened despotism,’ committedly Christian, that practiced the politics of quotas, allocating to the Tutsis 15% of the military posts, the university positions, and even places in the seminaries where priests were trained, as the vast majority of the population, both Hutu and Tutsi, were Catholics.

A.C.: There are many African countries in which the minorities are not represented at all in the power structure.

J.H.: Yes, this is why I can say, without any irony on my part, that Rwanda, under the Habyarimana regime, was a developing country in every sense of the term. It had a real administrative organization, a highway system in good condition, a functioning infrastructure, a medical organization and even health centers in every community. One day each week, the population was invited to give its time to maintain the roads and public spaces. I described the Habyarimana regime as paternalistic and even authoritarian, but it was not a totalitarian regime like today’s Kagame regime is. You didn’t see kidnappings, assassinations, deportations, sessions of political reeducation, people’s courts or arbitrary arrests. All these things are abundantly present in today’s Rwanda. In December 1993, in keeping with the terms of the Arusha Accords, the last French troops left Rwanda and gave way to the UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda), about 2,800 men provided by countries like Belgium, Ghana or Bangladesh.

A.C.: So, the French military was not present in Rwanda at the time of the massacres in 1994 . . .

J.H.: No, there were no longer any French troops on Rwandan territory after December 1993. Only about 17 military advisers were left, if memory serves, who wore Rwandan military uniforms and served as technical assistants. They had no combat mission, but were assigned to give technical instruction and training. It is an important point and one which must be stressed. Because there are the most irresponsible rumors extant accusing France of crimes that were supposed to have been committed during the genocide. While its forces had been gone from the country for several months. So I repeat, on 6 April 1994, the date the genocide began, the only foreign military present in Rwanda was that of the UN. [emphasis in original]

A.C.: So it was wearing Blue Helmets?

J.H.: Yes, wearing Blue Helmets and commanded by a Canadian general, Roméo Dallaire, who, eight days after the genocide began, without protesting, allowed the UN to reduce his troop-strength by 90%. The UNAMIR thus went from 2,800 men to 280, at the order of the UN Security Council. A totally mad decision! If he had been a responsible and courageous man, an officer worthy of the title, General Dallaire would have resigned immediately and returned to his country, to Canada. This is what the Spanish General, Vicente Diaz de Villegas, did last October, in Kivu, when he realized the he did not have the means necessary to end the violence provoked by the attack of Nkunda and his Tutsi rebels.

A.C.: OK, let’s go back to your arrival at the Rwandan border in 1994. As you said, you were part of Operation Turquoise, mounted with the authorization of a UN Resolution . . .

J.H.: Yes, voted with the abstention of the US, which did not, however, use its veto. Madeleine Albright, then Secretary of State, right away described Operation Turquoise as an “abnormal operation.” As if you could call an operation designed to put a stop to these unprecedented massacres “abnormal.”

A.C.: It’s a paradox, France, alone, with some other African countries, stepping in to stop the blood shed, today finding itself in the dock accused of crimes by the government in Kigali.

J.H.: In this context, France was even the first to speak of genocide in Rwanda. It was Alain Juppé, French Foreign Minister at the time, who first mentioned it. The International Community dummied up. Worse yet, the US did everything it could to prevent any intervention.

A.C.: Why didn’t the US want a military intervention to stop the genocide?

J.H.: Here we are at the heart of a problem that is still with us today. Neither Rwanda nor Burundi was a country that particularly interested anyone: both little, overpopulated agricultural countries, whose territories, until today, had not revealed any important resources. On the other hand, they are close to the Congolese provinces of Shaba, the former Katanga, and of Kivu, which scientists agree is a ‘geological scandal,’ as it’s hiding such vast mineral wealth. Recently, interest in Kivu has grown with the discovery of uranium and coltan, a rare metal much appreciated by industrialists for its resistance to corrosion.

A.C.: Are the mineral riches of Kivu being exploited by Congo?

J.H.: Absolutely not. You just have to ask yourself who is interested in this extraordinary mineral potential. Certainly, there is little Rwanda, with Kagame in charge: the pupil of Museveni who is trying to outdo his master. But I can see that behind this downstage player is the upstage shadow of the US, the UK and, I believe, also Israel. These three powers, I learned while on the ground there, have a very clear vision of the possibilities of this region and of the stakes in making this war, which is for the control of the primary resources there.

A.C.: Do you have any evidence for this?

J.H.: Museveni’s Uganda is a totalitarian regime. You also see the US working to build an alliance between Kampala and Kigali, between Museveni and Kagame. For example, after Kagame’s victory in Rwanda, it was the US Army Corps of Engineers that built the highway between these two capitals. Washington also supplied the armored M113s and other military equipment to the victorious Tutsi army. [nb--A huge number of M113 Armored Personnel Carrier variants have been created, ranging from infantry carriers to nuclear missile carriers.]

A.C.: Were you a witness to precisely any of these facts?

J.H.: One incident especially struck me. When I was in charge of the southern part of Turquoise, in the southeast of Rwanda, one beautiful day I watched an unmarked American C130 land. A Jeep Cherokee rolled out of it with an American Army Rangers Lt.-Col. on board. He said his name was James Babbit, if memory serves, and worked as the Defense attaché at the American Embassy in Brazzaville, in Congo. He spoke our language [French] like you and me. He said to me:

“I am assigned as a liaison officer to your tactical Chief of Staff.”

“Liaison Officer, but with whom?” I responded. “Are there any American troops on the ground here?”

I told my boss, General Lafourcade, who commanded the operation.

“Yes, the orders came from the top,” he told me. “You stay close to him and be careful.”

In fact, this strange liaison officer didn’t stop getting information, acting like a spy at the center of our general staff. That became very annoying. I couldn’t get a written message to General Fourcade without his being around it. I had to ask him to keep his distance. Irritated, I wrote on a box of combat rations: “Forbidden to unauthorized persons” and I stuck the note up at the entrance to the part of the HQ used for transmissions.

Mad as hell, he asked me: “Who is this notice intended for?”

Looking him straight in the eyes, I replied: “Who speaks English around here?”

He grumbled that it was not very friendly.

I shot back: “What’s really not very friendly is the manner in which you’re acting.”

A.C.: How did this affair end up?

J.H.:Two days after this incident, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a sergeant of the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment on watch at the HQ. He had discovered the American liaison officer going through my desk. As a precaution, I kept all important documents with me in a brief case. He wasn’t going to find much! Nevertheless, I asked him what he was doing in there. He said he couldn’t sleep, and that he was “just looking for some magazines to amuse himself with.” This incident allowed me to get him moved out of there the next morning. It struck me, because some friends of the special operations commander’s had warned me: “With the Tutsis, there are always some US or British Special Forces.” I made the connection.

A.C.: How did this American officer work and, above all, with whom was he in liaison?

J.H.: He was all over the radio equipment and obviously in contact with Kigali, where the Staff Offices of the UNAMIR and its chief, General Dallaire, were located. But, Dallaire, as is well known to the public, worked very closely with Kagame. Logically, he was also in liaison with elements of the American forces present throughout the region. The real question is what were these American forces doing there and who was directing them on the ground? If you consider all these little indictations, you can see that what has been happening in Kivu since last August is just a continuation of the American offensive in the region to which I was a witness in 1994. It’s really like a Russian doll. In Kivu, you have Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi and a puppet of Kagame, the president of Rwanda. Above them, pulling the strings, you have Museveni, the Ugandan and his tribe, the Himas of Ankole, cousins of the Rwandan Tutsis. One floor up are the US and Great Britain. In their immediate perimeter there is Israel, which is very interested in the region. You know, too, that Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, has recently become an official adviser to Paul Kagame. This is not by chance. If you have the opportunity, read the excellent novel, “The Mission Song,” by John Le Carré. This sympathetic writer, despite coming out of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, describes exactly, in this book which came out in 2006, what is going on in Kivu today. This is not from some kind of premonition, but because of a real understanding of the situation on the ground.

A.C.: Many people believe that the election of Barack Obama is going to change American policies. Do you think that will be the case in Africa, in the Great Lakes region?

J.H.: I think after we get past the Obamania, we will discover that Obama is an American who defends American interests, above all and without scruple, whatever might be the finer qualities of the individual himself. Anecdotally, it is interesting to note that President Obama’s father was a Kenyan Luo, a Nilotic East African tribe relatively close to the Tutsis. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton, the new Secretary of State, is still the wife of Bill Clinton, who, as President, actively supported Museveni. I don’t think that things are going to stop, but, on the contrary, that they are just getting started. The Clinton Administration is back!

A.C.: Do you have any tangible evidence of an Israeli intervention in this conflict?

J.H.: Nothing tangible, but the presence of Israelis is prominent. They have military advisers with the Ugandan and Rwandan Armies. They express a remarkable determination to install themselves in the Francophone zone, in the Central African Republic, for example.

A.C.: And in Côte d’Ivoire [Ivory Coast] . . .

J.H.: You’re right to mention Côte d’Ivoire. They have installed themselves there and not for any philanthropic reasons.

A.C.: Along these lines, you know that Nkunda, the Tutsi from Kivu, is a convert to evangelism. He is what is called a “born again.” He says he has converted his men to this version of Christian fundamentalism. He wears an insignia on his uniform which carries the inscription, in English: “Rebels for Christ.”

J.H.: Yes, that doesn’t surprise me and it typifies the problem posed by these Christian sects that originate in America. They are very active in Central Africa and in Western Africa, like in Ivory Côte d’Ivoire, where Laurent Gbagbo and, especially, his wife, Simone, are themselves converts to this movement. I see in this form or evangelism a vector for American penetration to take control of Africa, more specifically, of Francophone Africa. Returning to Rwanda, under the Habyarimana government, a minority faction of Hutus, very active, formed the opposition. They are now called “moderate Hutus” and they accompanied the Tutsis on their rise to power. But, many of them belonged to these Protestant churches close to evangelism. I don’t think that this is a coincidence. Also, the RPF assassinated a significant number of Rwandan Catholic bishops, expressing a hatred for Rome that was impossible to hide. This caused about forty Rwandans close to Kagame and Kagame, himself, to be investigated by a Spanish Judge and named on international arrest warrants for assassinations committed, in particular, against Spanish churchmen. We can easily see how the Catholic church interfered with Kagame’s bigger plans.

A.C.: When did you leave Rwanda?

J.H.: I only stayed 60 days during the summer of 1994. That’s all in the title of the little book I wrote on the subject.

A.C.: We watched France try to bring peace to Rwanda by supporting the Arusha Accords. So, why is Kagame making all these accusations of genocide against France?

J.H.: In my opinion, the Franco-Rwandan feud is principally the result of the hatred engendered against our country by one man, the current Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame. When he was the leader of the RPF and the chief of the rebellion, he came to France, in 1992 or 1993, to meet with political leaders. Paul Dijoud, the director of the Africa desk at the Quai d’Orsay, called attention to this meeting at the Hilton Hotel on the Avenue Suffren in Paris. Kagame was accused of carrying illegal arms. He spent 48 hours in custody, and was questioned by the French police in a manner judged to be less than diplomatically correct. Humiliated, Kagame has obviously hung onto this bad memory. Recently, he related the story to President Sarkozy when the two met at the UN General Assemby in New York last October.

A.C.: Aren’t there also reasons of a strategic nature?

J.H.: Some strategic reason, perhaps. But I believe that, first and foremost, the French interfered with Kagame on his way to seizing power. Apparently, he played along with the Arusha negotiations in 1994, but this kind of political discussion was not at all this style. He could not bring himself to play second fiddle in a Rwanda reconciled and at peace. He wanted absolute power, and he has made that very clear today.

A.C.: The war had to continue . . .

J.H.: Yes, in his eyes, the war had to continue. It was out of the question for him to accept a role in the opposition. He knew he could not gain power through elections, him being a Tutsi in a country that is 85% Hutu. He needed an event to trigger the renewal of hostilities that would allow him to change the direction of history. That’s why he ordered the assassination of President Habyarimana, his predecessor. He knew very well that it would provoke a cataclysm.

A.C.: Leading to a genocide of his own ethnic group, you believe?

J.H.: I don’t know if his plan, if his cynicism, went that far. He did know, however, that this event had a high symbolic value and would trigger widespread massacres that would, in turn, legitimate his intervention, the return of the war, his seizure of power and his long-term installation as head of the country, without the international community being able to raise a single objection. His legitimacy was cinched when he presented himself as the one who put an end to the abomination of the massacres, but also as a member of the victim ethnic group. At the same time, in this very cynical way, he was able to get rid of the Tutsis from inside Rwanda, those Tutsis he mistrusted because the had stayed in Rwanda after 1961 and lived under majority Hutu rule. To him, these unfortunate brothers from inside the country were just renegades and traitors to the cause of Tutsi greatness! Kagame is, at once, a strategist, which he has well demonstrated, and a cynic, of which there can no longer be any doubt.

A.C.: Allow me to find that a little fantastic: we have a military leader using the genocide of his own people, in full view of the international community, to extend his power and influence with the support of the Anglo-Saxons, the Americans and the British united. For that, he reignites the war and stokes its murderous fires because the end of hostilities would mark the end of the expansion of his power and territory. That seems a lot like something else . . .

J.H.: Yes, that does very much resemble something else. In fact, it is quite a well-known and simple scheme.

A.C.: A condition putting in place a propaganda campaign meant to . . .

J.H.: Yes, a condition that would bring about good propaganda, that he had the intelligence to create.

A.C.: All this so he could drive his foot soldiers toward Zaire . . .

J.H.: Yes, this plot, intended to establish a ‘Tutsi Empire,’ is not just a dream, but also a reality that is still taking shape.

A.C.: What are the accusations being made against you?

J.H.: The Mucyo Commission, ordered by the Rwandan authorities, is supposed to have established proof of crimes allegedly committed by the French in Rwanda in the course of the genocide of 1994. Some members of this commission came secretly to France in 2007. Strangely, they never sought to contact us, neither me, nor most of the other people charged. The report issued by this commission is accompanied by a communiqué from the Rwandan Attorney General. To it is attached a list of 33 names of French personalities, “those most implicated in the Rwandan genocide,” to use their words. Besides 20 military officers, there are 13 civilians, including François Mitterand, ex-Prime Ministers Edouard Balladur, Alain Juppé, Dominique de Villepin, and several French ambassadors. My name appears among those of the 20 accused officers. What’s funny is, as you know, I didn’t get there with the French troops until the end of the genocide, on a UN mandate, and only to put a stop to the killing. Before that I had never set foot in Rwanda.

A.C.: Why did the Rwandan authorities get themselves all off into such a fantastic set up?

J.H.: It’s a political deal, a kind of tit for tat after the accusations made by Judge Bruguière against people close to Kagame in his report on the investigation of the assassination of President Habyarimana. This report provoked the breaking off of diplomatic relations between Rwanda and France two year ago. It issued nine international arrest warrants. A tenth could not be issued because it was intended for Kagame, himself, and, as a sitting head of state, he has immunity. The nine people accused are implicated in the terrorist attack that cost the life of the Rwandan President, his Burundian counterpart, their entourages, as well as the French flight crew of the Falcon 50 presidential jet.

A.C.: It really was a terrorist act, and not just an act of war, because the assassination of President Habyarimana, of his Burundian opposite number and their companions, took place after the signing of the Arusha Accords. Besides, if my memory serves, the RPF, Kagame’s party, had gained representation inside the Rwandan political structure . . .

J.H.: Exactly right. As prescribed by the accords that had just been signed, a battalion of the RPF was installed in Kigali, at the CND, the site of the former Parliament. Kagame took advantage of this to introduce the surface-to-air SAM 17 missiles that his commandos would use to carry out the attack. Judge Bruguière is not the only one to know this. Michael Hourigan, assistant prosecutor at the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), an Australian, had already reported it. He was dismissed from his functions at the ICTR for it. Kagame could not forgive France for proclaiming loud and clear a truth that greatly embarrassed him.

A.C.: How did the French authorities react to these accusations against their political leaders and military officers?

J.H.: I took part in two meetings a the Élysée, a few months ago. It should be first acknowledged that Kagame’s principal objective is to obtain the withdrawal of the Bruguière report and the quashing of the arrest warrants issued against his close collaborators. He is on his way to getting this done by promising in exchange to forget all about the Mucyo Commission Report: a compilation of false accusations and horrors, of gratuitous murders, of acts of torture, and of sordid rapes. The rapes hold an important place in the report. To answer your question, we, the officers charged, have asked the President of the French Republic, Chief of the Army, to clearly condemn this document. We were assured that President Sarkozy would do it publicly at the beginning of November. It’s the beginning of December now and nothing has come out yet.

A.C.: Is this why you have decided to speak to the press?

J.H.: Not entirely. We have witnessed a rapid and unexpected rekindling of French-Rwandan diplomatic relations at the instigation of Bernard Kouchner. It must be recognized that our Foreign Minister is an old friend of Kagame’s. He met him in the maquis in 1992. I think that a certain Third World sensibility plays an important part in the fascination that the military chief Kagame holds for him. I can see it because the man has charisma. Whatever else, though it may seem incredible, Kagame is Kouchner’s friend. Kouchner, who defends Human Rights, has closed his eyes to the exactions being committed in Rwanda today.

A.C.: How do you explain the arrest of Rose Kabuyé, implicated in the assassination of President Habyarimana, according to the Bruguière report?

J.H.: We are in the middle of a thoroughly staged operation. Lt.-Col. Rose Kabuye currently holds the position of Kagame’s chief of protocol. She was sent to Europe on a mission, with full knowledge of its purpose. The Germans had warned her that coming to their country on private business, without diplomatic cover, would oblige them to arrest her on the international warrant that had been issued in her name. After more than a month of round trips to the Old Continent, she was stopped at the Frankfurt airport last November 9th [2008]. She was extradited to France but not jailed, as should have been expected, but held in a large Paris hotel, then in a very comfortable apartment! She even had a visit from her husband and children, and, seemingly to avoid a growing scandal, was quickly authorized to return to Rwanda to celebrate the Christmas holidays! I don’t have the slightest doubt that Bernard Kouchner intervened to get her this favorable treatment[2]. Proof of the arrangement is that she was traveling on a normal passport and not a diplomatic passport, which would have protected her from arrest.

A.C.: How did Kouchner manage to maintain credibility considering his relations to Kagame and his avowed friendship with François Mitterand, when the former French president is, himself, charged in the Rwandan [Mucyo] report?

J.H.: I can’t answer that, but we must not tolerate these accusations against the French State. I am not a fierce defender of François Mitterand, but I know that he was never a cause of the genocide.

He said: “I am going to rein in my friend Habyarimana to create more democracy, and we will come to an arrangement for peace and civil accord.”

This seems to me to be based on fundamentally good intentions. To accuse him today of having contributed to the planning of a genocide is indecent. I really wish the French authorities had the courage to take a clear position vis-à-vis the Rwandan government and its leader, to reject these abominable charges and let Justice do its job. We hear a lot about independent Justice, but it’s now or never if we’re going to make our actions conform to our principles. Don’t forget that the crew of President Habyarimana’s Falcon 50 were French. Their families, who filed a legitimate complaint with the court, should be able to see Justice done! I don’t think we have the right to deny them this, even under the pretext of international diplomacy.

Notes:

[1] Rwandan Patriotic Front, the Tutsi rebel party of Paul Kagame.

[2] On 23 December 2008, Rose Kabuye was authorized to leave French territory so she could return to Rwanda to celebrate the holidays. According to her lawyer, she was ordered to return to France no later than 10 January (2009). This is extraordinary leniency toward someone charged with multiple murders.

[Translated from the French by CM/P]

The Critique of The Mucyo Commission Report--by the Political Prisoners of the UN in Arusha

2009-02-01T10:30:00.002+01:00

The Critique of The Mucyo Commission Report--by the Political Prisoners of the UN in Arusha

[It’s The Terror that’s descending on the new Obama administration, making them hesitate, equivocate, compromise with real evil, morally neutralizing their best intentions. Close Gitmo and stop torture? Great! But what about the ad hoc Tribunals and the secret gulag of renditions sites? What happens if the Obama government tries to address the state criminality of the illegal imprisonment and unjustified prosecution of political detainees from Israel to Iraq and Afghanistan to Holland and EEurope to Tanzania and Rwanda? What happens is The Terror.

Think back to the look on Eliot Spitzer’s face: the popularly elected Democratic governor of New York forced by the FBI to resign his public office over some private dalliance with a young, overpriced tartlette--and all that just as “the Sheriff of Wall St.” was bringing regulatory heat down on the bandits of The Street--that’s The Terror.

And remember Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s public hounding for political corruption (‘patronage’ if your guy’s doing it; ‘payola’ if it’s the other side’s DJ) by Federal Attorneys (fresh from some ‘short-eyes’ stings in Florida?) wielding recordings of bugged private conversations--and all that just a day after Blago’d applied his gubernatorial authority to pressuring Bank of America, one of the big winners on Bail Out Bingo Night, to do the right thing by striking Illinois glass workers. That, too, is The Terror--or as J. Edgar Hoover used to call it, ‘just another day at the COINTELPRO office.’

The Terror is how the powers that be--the real institutional and unelected powers that drive, and thrive on, the globalized crime that is advanced Waste Capitalism--get to be (and stay) the powers that be. Just ask Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic or Juvénal Habyarimana or Rafik Hariri or 1,200+ Gazans and their duly elected Hamas leaders about The Terror. Oh, yeah, right, too late.

Sure, ding, dong, the wicked Bush is gone--at last! But The Terror lingers on, like the stink of stale beer-soaked snouts after an eight-year kegger. The unwholesomeness of the former government has wafted away with the speed of a departing moving van, leaving our new president to deal with that older residual putrescence, the ungodly pung of The Terror that has soaked deep into Washington carpets and woodwork, fear from Watergate, the Afghan Bear Trap, Iran/Contra, The Savings & Loan debacle, all grown even more foul with the horrors of the craven, class-collaborationist Clinton years. Now the deathly stench seems to be getting absorbed through the pores of the new administration.

We are rapidly bearing down on two anniversaries of pre-Bush, pre-911 Western-forced orgies of state terrorism: the 10th of the 78-day and night NATO bombing of Yugoslavia over Kosovo in March, and, April thru July, the 15th of the Rwandan bloodbath over the anglophone globalization of Congo’s riches--which, by all accounts, is still going strong. The attached document, which deals in depth with Rwanda, but also bears direct evidence on the Balkans tragedy, and all the rest of the US/NATO’s criminal insanity, from Afghanistan through Gaza and Lebanon to Zimbabwe, might give a good shove to the young, bright constitutional scholar now occupying the Oval Office. This rational illumination of the consensus mythology of machete-wielding tribesmen acting out age-old ethnic and racial hatreds, which is the popular media version of history, might just be what it takes to coax Mr. President Obama, himself the son of such a tribesman, toward a more accurate and honest understanding of the historically malignant policies he has inherited from his intellectually flaccid and morally devolved Democratic predecessors.

So here’s CM/P’s translation of the Critique by the Political Prisoners at the UN detention unit in Arusha, Tanzania, of the Kagame regime’s [Jean de Dieu] Mucyo Commission Report on France’s role in the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.

After the 2004 publication of the report by French antiterrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière (another CM/P translation on this blog), which called for the arrests of several high officials in the current Rwandan [Kagame] government for their involvement in the shooting down, on 6 April 1994, of the Rwandan presidential plane carrying two democratically elected, sitting African heads of state, both Hutus, Burundi’s Cyprien Ntaryamira and Rwanda’s Juvénal Habyarimana, along with their entourages, including the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan military, General Deogratias Nsabimana, and the three members of the French flight crew: the government in Kigali, first, broke off diplomatic relations with France; then, in tight goose-step with the pro-RPF propagandists and Tutsi survivor organizations, like IBUKA and AVEGA, started a tarantella of distraction unto delirium to cover their lurid history of Western-backed war crimes, crimes against humanity and mass exterminations, all in their violent pursuit of political power, by blaming the targeted Habyarimana regime and its European ally, France, for, what amounts to, destroying themselves and their country to the advantage of the foreign military forces that had invaded them, and clearing Rwanda of a goodly part of its people to make land available for returning member of the former [Tutsi] aristocracy.

Just think of Israel’s blaming Hamas and Hezbollah, along with their sponsor nations, Syria and Iran, for the carnage in Lebanon and Gaza, because these indigenous movements born of resistance to Israeli occupation recklessly tried to defend their homes by firing on the invading armies. Because these parallels between recent atrocities in the Middle East and Central Africa are as creepily close as those between the Bush and Obama administrations are fast becoming.

Though in wide use for some time, the reference to the Tutsis as “The Jews of Africa,” was recently explained in a very sympathetic and historically misinformed article in the August 19, 2004, British business periodical, The Economist. The term “Rwanda: The Israel of Africa” is a headline on the 20 January 2009 BBC online site. Since the latest Palestinian pogrom in Gaza, Israel is protesting rather too much against these analogies.

The IDF’s monstrous three-week rampage in the Gaza Strip has been a giant step toward the realization of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s prediction: that Israel would ERASE ITSELF from the map of the Middle East by wiping out its neighbors. The ever-growing military belligerence of the putative Jewish State has squandered vast amounts of international public sympathy, and it currently finds only weak and cringingly insincere moral support, even from those Western political leaders the AIPAC and other Zionist lobbies have so thoroughly terrorized that for these bought-off flunkies merely to suggest criticism of the US/UK/Israeli criminal cabal would be tantamount to their committing not just political suicide, but actually begging a Mossad agent to put a couple behind their ear. In the case of our new president, suggesting the IDF might be abusing all that US-donated ordnance would be like his going back to Kenya, walking into a Mau Mau meeting and spitting on the witch doctor.

This association of the Tutsis with the Jews has long been part of a colonialist strategy to separate the grand, royal, “Hamitic” herding people from the other more common, dwarfish, flat-nosed African field hands, and to justify their long-standing (neo)feudalist pretensions--i.e., to rationalize the tyranny of a tiny majority over the basic interests of an important majority. Though traditionally the Jews have been associated with popular, majoritarian, anti-fascist, liberal democratic movements--like the AFofL/CIO or the ACLU or the USSR (why the Nazis got so pissed at them)--it was the majority Hutus who were, in the 1930s, accused by the Bishop of Kigali of being under the intellectual influence of Russian Communism. But since the early 1950s, when the virus of anti-communism (read Big Business or Fascism) infected so many of the once progressive Left movements, including, most markedly, the State of Israel, the Jewish identity has been instrumentalized as a victimating mechanism to create sympathy for otherwise aggressive, militaristically expansionist, elitist groups, much as the Tutsis have done with their claim to having suffered a genocide at the hands of the communist [majoritarian] Hutu masses since being deposed as the Rwandan monarchy in the social revolution of 1959-62. Ultimately, this victimating is used to justify the Tutsi/RPF invasion of Rwanda from Uganda on 1 October 1990, and the bloody and ecumenically murderous onslaught that has eliminated anywhere from 5 to 9 millions people from the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa to make way for a free-trade zone from the Congo to the Nile river basins and the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

I first learned about Rwanda's Mucyo Commission Report, the 500-page, 2.5-kilo, so-called inquiry into France's so-called role in the so-called 1994 genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis, right after it came out in autumn 2008, from Col. Jacques Hogard, a former Legionnaire, who had worked in and written about France's lifesaving “Operation Turquoise.” Then Chris Black, General Ndindiliyimana’s lead counsel in the Military II case and a strong contributor to the decolonization of African history (and this blog), sent me the UN Political Prisoners’ response to Kagame’s obese piece of bovine moral wriggling, and said the detainees wanted me to translate it.

Then the judgement on the Military I case came in. And though the defendants were all found guilty of allowing or failing to prevent the commission of “individual genocidal acts” by others in their charge and sentenced to life in prison (actually one defendant, who is very tight with the RPF, was cut loose on all charges), they were all found NOT GUILTY of any PLANNING or CONSPIRACY in the commission of genocide. That is to say--since genocide requires a preconceived or premeditated plan to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, if there’s no pre-planning or conspiracy, there no genocide--unless, of course, you decide to drive around all the legal hassle of having to prove genocide and just stipulate to it, like calling for the court to “take judicial notice of the fact of genocide,” as the ad hocs in The Hague and Arusha, and the national judiciary in Rwanda, have done. (See on this blog:
NO Conspiracy? NO Planning? NO Genocide? NO Problem! at
http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2008/12/23/4033400.html)

This Military I verdict congrued perfectly with the UN prisoners critique of Muyco--in fact, the Critique drew much of its evidence from the Military I trial--but sadly neglects some important evidence discovered in the Military II trial, like the total fabrication of the so-call Dallaire Genocide Fax [see Me Blacks article here at
http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/6/1437840.html]. No planning, no training of civilians and militias, no distribution of Red Chinese-made machetes, no lists of Tutsis to be killed, no government ordered rapes of Tutsi girls, and no French involvement in any of these non-happenings--in short, NO GENOCIDE, just lots of nasty killing, like everywhere else the Imperialist are trying to prolong their moribund wastage of our world’s life energies.

So how do we get this important information to President Obama? How do we make sure he sits down and really gets into this material with his new people? Especially the really dirty ones: Secry of State Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice, a Harvard colleague of that noted Genocide Industrialist Samantha Power. Because they are among those Clinton-era Humanitarian Militarists who know all too well the real story of who did what and with which and for whom in early-90s Rwanda: they must know better than most that, to paraphrase former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali from an interview with Robin Philpot, The Rwandan Genocide is a 100% US production.

Now that a UN Report on Rwanda’s criminal exploitation of resources in Eastern Congo has seemingly turned The Terror on Rwandan President Kagame, who responded on 23 January, the day after his forces, yet again, invaded Eastern Congo to cap some more genocidaire refugee women and children, ordered the arrest of his fellow-Tutsi warlord and proxy Hutu refugee exterminator, Laurent ‘slaughterhouse’ Nkunda, it might be just the right moment to get our new African-American Commander-in-Chief up to speed on the real history of his fatherland--or his father’s land. -- mc]

Attachments:
The Mucyo Commission Report.pdf (421KB)

Rwanda Invades Congo!!--AGAIN!!!--Press Release by the FDLR

2009-02-01T10:27:00.001+01:00

Rwanda Invades Congo!!--AGAIN!!!--Press Release by the FDLR

[Here is the headline from the New Zealand Herald:

Rwandan troops enter Congo to help oust Hutu rebels
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10552877&ref=emailfriend

Before being distracted by the spectacle of 'the enthronement of Barack Obama', as the French foppishly referred to the 20 January 2009 swearing-in of the 44th US president before the largest audience, on-scene and worldwide, in the history of audiences, we witnessed a three-week IDF dynamite-fishing expedition into the brackish waters of Gaza--with 1,300 dead and the Strip reduced to dusty rubble, this latest example of modern Hebraic humanism was more intensely murderous than previous Israeli/US joint criminal ventures, like the 2006 'war with Hezbollah' (which, after killing only 1,200 people and doing billions in structural damage, Israel 'strategically lost', so it could try again, fail again, fail bloodier!) or any of the dozens of diabolical destruction derbies inside the refugee camps of this blighted region.

Now we are being presented a parallel nightmare, with the 'Jews of Africa', the Rwandan Tutsis, currently running a thoroughly corrupted Rwandan USAID-based government ('the Israel of Africa'--nb: 16% of Rwanda's aid money goes to the Tutsi-dominated military sector, while only 3% goes to the impoverished, predominantly Hutu agricultural sector--so Rwanda IS a real model . . . of neoliberal wastage.), seeking revenge against ( 'the Palestinians of Africa'?), the (still) majoritarian Rwandan Hutus, a great many of whom were dispossessed, displaced and just straight-up run off out of their country, mostly into neighboring Zaire (now DRC) in 1994, after a four-year reign of terror that eventuated in the assassination of the sitting Rwandan president, Juvénal Habyarimana, and some top military officials, including the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Army (the FAR) at the hands of the RPF ('the IDF of Africa'), all of this leading to the final and bloody seizure of political power by Paul Kagame's Western proxy forces and the subsequent, highly ecumenical slaughter of millions of refugees in Eastern Congo.

Just as each Israeli onslaught against the Palestinians is serialized for our moral and (anti-)intellectual protection--so we don't have to remember all the past episodes, each liquifactionist paroxysm, with its incumbent hypocritical apologias, is a self-contained and easilydigested informational meal in itself--thus this latest invasion of Congo by AFRICOM-backed Rwandan forces is presented as an ahistorical 'current event', garnished with a lot of unresearched, soporific slop about tribes and ethnicities, confusing victims with villains.

But look around--even if it's just around this blog!--and you'll see that what's going down with these 'righteous acts of national self defense' is really just another assault on the majoritarian interests of a nation and/or a people. The only way elitist governments like Israel's and Rwanda's can continue is by sowing terror and grisly death among the great general mass of the population. The great achievement of the Obama victory is that a great majority of the American people, a mass with its roots in popular movements from Abolition, to Universal Suffrage, to Civil Rights, to Black Power, to various antiwar movements, has demanded its rights be recognized and its interests served.

Just as with Paul Robeson and the Tuskegee Airmen and the Scotsboro Boys and Huey Newton and Bobby Seal and Fred Hampton and Mark Clark and Eldrige Cleaver and Bobby Hutton and George and Jonathan Jackson and Malcolm X and, the most recognized of all, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King; like all those Black men who knew they had a responsibility to protect the great mass of the world's poor and powerless from theirs, the most powerful and wasteful country in the world: so Barack Obama is more than just an African American, for his roots are deeper than just his race--and he reflects the sort of class allegiances that defy the bourgeois nonsense definitions of class as lifestyle--Obama is a paid-up member of that great Union of Workers of the World, a passionate advocate for the suffering of the Surplus Army of the Unemployed, and he is one of what we here like to call the International Proletariate. He is one of us.

So President Obama must see this tortured history of his homeland. If and when he does, he will surely join us in supporting, in every way we can, the struggle of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda. Not to recognize this continuing, bloody aggression against the people of Africa is to permit the spread and continuation of this threat against all of us--the perpetuation of this, yet another, mortal injury to human dignity and decency.--mc]

***********************

FDLR PRESS RELEASE No. 02/SE/CD/JANUARY/2009

The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda condemn the ongoing war that enemies of peace have just imposed to the peaceful peoples of the Great Lakes region of Africa.

The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) strongly condemn the ongoing war that the enemies of peace, prosperity and democracy are once again about to impose to peaceful peoples of the African Great Lakes region.

The FDLR inform the public and the International Community that the first contingent of the Rwanda Patriotic Army comprising more than 4,000 heavily armed soldiers have crossed the Congolese border since January 19, 2009, and will soon begin their dirty work of exterminating the Rwandan Hutu refugees, the few survivors of the genocide committed by the RPF-Inkotanyi and its allies against them in the years 1996-1998 in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo..

The FDLR urge the International Community to strongly condemn this new war and immediately take severe sanctions against the Rwandan government which is the primarily responsible for this new war.

The FDLR inform the public and the International Community that this new war is not only senseless but also unnecessary and risks to engulf the entire Great Lakes region of Africa. Moreover, those who conceived and implemented the plan to exterminate the peoples of the African Great Lakes Region, whoever they may be, must understand that their acts will not go unpunished and that they will sooner or later have to answer before the law for all the serious consequences that will result from that war.

The FDLR recall that they have repeatedly extended a hand to the regime of Kigali in order to peacefully resolve the political problem of Rwanda and that Rwanda has always refused this offer and preferred the logic of armed confrontation.

The FDLR call upon all women and all men of good will and peace-loving nations around the world to condemn in the strongest terms this logic of war in a region already scarred by years of fratricidal and endless wars.

The FDLR reaffirm their commitments made in Rome as stated in their Declaration of 31 March 2005, and urge once again the Kigali regime to sit on the same table, under the Rome process, to find a peaceful solution to the political problem of Rwanda.

The FDLR call upon the Rwandan and Congolese people, and the members of the FDLR to remain calm and united in order to foil the macabre plan of the dictatorial regime in Kigali and its sponsors aimed at exterminating the peoples of the Great Lakes region of Africa.

Done in Paris on 21 January 2009.

Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR

NO Conspiracy? NO Planning? NO Genocide? NO Problem!--Professor Peter Erlinder's Commentary in 23 December 2008, JURIST

2009-02-01T10:24:00.000+01:00

NO Conspiracy? NO Planning? NO Genocide? NO Problem!--Professor Peter Erlinder's Commentary in 23 December 2008, JURIST

[The December 18, 2008, announcement of the convictions of three of the four defendants in what has come to be known as the Military I trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda made the headlines on all the major Western news media.

On CNN-International, the bloated and ghoulish Jim Clancy, whose very career slithered from the piles of decomposing corpses left behind by the rampaging Western liquifactionists in their aggressions against the popular (majoritarian) revolutions in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, was joined on-air by a similarly flaccid, a lifeless but for his moral squirming, David Scheffer, Clinton's 'Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes' (theirs, not ours), in some anile clucking over yet another victory for International Justice in the never-ending struggle to 'Stop the Fucking Genocide' (theirs, not ours). The acquittal on all charges of one Defendant and his immediate release (former Rwandan Armed Forces Gen. Gratien Kabiligi is known to stand in good stead with the ruling RPF, and will probably join in seasonal festivities with his compatriot, RPF Col. Rose Kubaye, Rwandan President Paul Kagame's chief of protocol, recently arrested in Frankfurt on a warrant issued by French anti-terrorist judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière, for the murders of all on board the Rwandan presidential jet, including the three French crew members, on 6 April 1994, extradited to France, and then cut loose at the insistence of a craven collaborator, French Foreign Minister, Bernie Kouchner); and the fact that ALL Defendants were acquitted of having planned the systematic killing of Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians, or of having taken part in any sort of conspiracy to commit genocide (which is sine qua non for this chic crime), are being written off as evidence of the Tribunal's independence and objectivity, or as mere judicial oversights that will be corrected on appeal.

(Scheffer showed not the slightest shame or even self-consciousness when, while referring to Theoneste Bagosora et al, the Defendants, as the brains and the instigators of the Rwandan genocide, the very crimes of which they had just be absolved, he suggested the Prosecution might file an appeal on the great victory that he and Clancy had just been fondling one another over).

Below, Professor Peter Erlinder describes just how 'NON-victorious' was this, yet another, shabby hit-and-run against real History and the rule of law.

But, with all due respect—and I certainly hope Professor Erlinder knows in what high regard I hold him and his excellent work—in twice referring to the martyred president of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, as the 'FORMER-Rwandan president' at the moment he was torn to shreds by one of Paul Kagame's US-supplied SAM missiles, he makes the sort of telltale misstatement more commonly used by the purveyors of RPF propaganda to minimize the significance of the events that led to the 100-day liquidation of the majoritarian Rwandan government by the neo-feudal Tutsi militarists.

Since President Habyarimana was the sitting civilian head of state at the time of his murder, and would doubtlessly have been returned to the Rwandan presidency had the democratic elections called for by the 1993 Arusha Accords been duly carried out, the only way Kagame & the RPF could effectively take power in that already war-ravaged country was by a brutally and brazenly murdering the highly-popular Habyarimana as the signal for their final assault and seizure of state power by taking the capital city of Kigali (and emptying the country of an important part of its Hutu majority, to be gruesomely eliminated later in Congo), referring to Habyarimana as the 'former president' or the 'ex-president' of Rwanda—like referring to the RPF’s missile strike of 6 April 1994 that brought down the Falcon 50 presidential jet as a 'plane crash', or worse still, 'an accident', sufficiently minimizes this terrorist act and trivializes the culpability of its perpetrators, and allows the ever-more mawkish plaints over a generations-old 'genocide against Tutsis' to continue unquestioned. And those who dare criticize this feeble orthodoxy are tagged as ‘negationists’ or even ‘Holocaust deniers’.

Professor Erlinder also leaves out a much earlier admission by the Prosecution that it had no case on the genocide charges. Some time ago the ad hoc Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda abandoned any genuine efforts to establish the legal or historical reality of the Genocide Charge. Expert supporters of this illegal or extralegal system have even stated that the nature of the crime, itself, makes it impossible to prove—like the existence of God or of extra-terrestrial interventions or of Sharon Stone’s intelligence, a Genocide Charge is based more on intuition or faith (or political expediency) than rational evidence.

So, exacerbating the already inherent presumption of guilt in all these victims' (victors') justice proceedings, the Appeals Chamber of the ICTR instructed the Trial Chamber on 16 June 2006, in the case of the Prosecutor v Édouard Karemera, Mathieu Ngirumpatse, and Joseph Nzirorera (Case No. ICTR-98-44-AR73[C]) to ‘TAKE JUDICIAL NOTICE’ of the 'FACT OF GENOCIDE’.

Dr. John Laughland, in his otherwise excruciatingly careless book, The History of Political Trials from Charles I to Saddam Hussein (Peter Lang, Oxford, 2008), explains this para-legal shuck thus:

<
procedure by which the need for proof is waived when
the facts in question are uncontested and uncontroversial,
and usually when they do not bear on the matter in hand.
Examples of the kinds of things of which judicial notice can
be taken include the location of a place or the day of the week
on which a certain date falls. When judicial notice is taken of
a fact, it means that that fact can no longer be disputed in court.

To instruct the Trial Chamber to take judicial notice of the fact
of genocide, however, is to remove from defendants the right to
plead that genocide did not occur. (p. 212)>>

And it also creates a sort of hard-wired, simultaneous Double Jeopardy, allowing the court to acquit the Defendants of genocide while convicting them of individual ‘acts of genocide’ ALLEGEDLY COMMITTED BY OTHERS and condemning them to perpetual imprisonment.

But because of the tenaciously committed work of lawyers like Erlinder and Chris Black and Tiphaine Dickson, the ICTR has turned into its sponsors' and minders' worst nightmare: a livid recording of the unwholesome political manipulation of History and the degradation of International Justice.

This is exactly the record that a constitutional scholar like President-elect Obama should be made to listen to—and should insist his so-far thoroughly reactionary foreign policy team (especially where Africa is concerned) rigorously study and learn to dance to.

Let the Obama team's master class begin here. —mc]

********************************

JURIST Commentary, December 23, 2008:
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2008/12/rwanda-no-conspiracy-no-genocide.php

Rwanda: No Conspiracy, No Genocide Planning ... No Genocide?

*****************************

JURIST Guest Columnist Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law and a Lead Defense Counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), says that if - as the ICTR recently ruled in the "Military I" trial - alleged "masterminds" Colonel Theoneste Bagosora and fellow top Rwandan military officers engaged in no conspiracy and no planning to kill ethnic civilians, the tragedy that engulfed Rwanda in 1994 may not properly be called a "genocide" at all...

*****************************

The media reports of the December 18 judgment of Chamber-1 at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda focused primarily on the convictions of three of four former top military leaders, who were the supposed “masterminds” of the Rwandan genocide. But, as those who have followed the ICTR closely know, convictions of members of the former Rwandan government and military are scarcely newsworthy.

Ever since former ICTR Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and ICTR Chief Investigative Prosecutor Michael Hourigan went public in 2007-8 exposing US-UK manipulations to grant de facto impunity to current Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his henchmen, between 1997 and the present, convictions of the vanquished in the Rwanda war are a given.

The real news was that ALL of the top Rwandan military officers, including the supposedly infamous Colonel Bagosora, were found not guilty of conspiracy or planning to commit genocide. And Gen. Gratien Kabiligi, a senior member of the general staff was acquitted of all charges! The others were found guilty of specific acts committed by subordinates, in specific places, at specific times - not an overall conspiracy to kill civilians, much less Rwandan-Tutsi civilians.

This raises the more profound question: If there was no conspiracy and no planning to kill ethnic (i.e., Tutsi) civilians, can the tragedy that engulfed Rwanda properly be called “a genocide” at all? Or, was it closer to a case of civilians being caught up in war-time violence, like the Eastern Front in WWII, rather than the planned behind-the-lines killings in Nazi death camps? The ICTR judgment found the former.

The Court specifically found that the actions of Rwandan military leaders, both before and after the April 6, 1994, assassination of former-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarima ('sic'--he was the seated head of state at the time of his murder--nb), were consistent with war-time conditions and the massive chaos brought about by the four-year war of invasion from Uganda by Gen. Paul Kagame's RPF army, which seized power in July 1994.

Although the Chamber did not specifically mention more recent events, it is worth noting that this is the same government that was named in a UN Security Council-commissioned report on December 12, 2008, as having invaded (with Uganda) the eastern Congo in 1996 and again in 1998 and having occupied an area 15-times the size of Rwanda since then. Similar UN Security Council reports in 2001, 2002 and 2003, make clear that Rwanda and Uganda's economic rape of the eastern Congo, and the resulting 6 million-plus civilian deaths, have long been an “open secret".

As Lead Defense Counsel for Major Aloys Ntabakuze, who was convicted of three specific crimes committed by troops without evidence they were acting under his authority, I would say the judgment was actually a victory. Our defense was based on previously suppressed contemporaneous UN and declassified US documents that showed Kagame's RPF to be the war-time aggressor responsible for the assassination of the former (sic) President and for preventing military intervention to end the predicted civilian massacres.

The ICTR oral judgment specifically refers to this “alternative” explanation of the tragic events in Rwanda as being a basis for rejecting the conspiracy and planning charges against the former military leaders. But the documents show more.

As early as May 17, 1994, UNHCR was receiving reports of massive civilian killings by Kagame's RPF in the 1/3 of Rwanda they had occupied since April 22. Other documents from August, September and October 1994, describe a conscious attempt by UN and US government officials to “cover-up” reports of RPF killings, including memos to Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Apparently, US policy to create “impunity” for Kagame began nearly as soon as he took power.

Had the US “impunity policy” not been in place, Kagame might well have been prosecuted along with Military-1 defendants Bagosora and Nsengiumva, as ICTR Prosecutor Michael Hourigan recommended in early 1997. Kagame's responsibility for the assassination of Habyarimana has been known to the ICTR Prosecutor since at least that time, if not early.

Had the US “impunity policy” not been in place, Kagame might well have spent the last decade awaiting trial at the ICTR, rather than getting rich from the resources of the Congo, and the blood of millions of Africans.

***************

Peter Erlinder is a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, MN. He is a past-President of the National Lawyers Guild, a Lead Defense Counsel-UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the President of the ICTR-ADAD (Association des Avocats de la Defense).

E-mail peter.erlinder@wmitchell.edu

Dites au Président Obama : Rwanda : Que cherche-t-on à nous cacher ? - par Colonel Luc Marchal

2008-11-16T23:41:00.000+01:00

Dites au Président Obama : Rwanda : Que cherche-t-on à nous cacher ? - par Colonel Luc Marchal

[Après l'interpellation en Allemagne de Col. Rose Kabuye, chef de protocole à Président Paul Kagamé et une ancienne chef des unités FPR stationnés sur le CND à Kigali en 1994, après un mandat de juge français Jean-Louis Bruguière et chargé de complicité dans l'attentat contre l'avion du Président Juvénal Habyarimana du Rwanda dont il est notoire d'avoir déclenché le génocide de l'été 1994, il est plus important que jamais de rechercher les vrais rôles et responsabilités de tous les acteurs dans ce drame. Et surtout avec le nouveau Président des États-Unis qui a des origines africaines, c'est difficile d'imaginer que l'histoire récente d'Afrique Central va continuer dans un telle nuage de mensonges. Voici encore le témoignage significatif de mon Colonel Luc Marchal pour éclairer les choses presque 15 ans après le fait. –mc]

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http://www.musabyimana.be/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=261&Itemid=1

Rwanda : Que cherche-t-on à nous cacher ?
par Colonel Luc Marchal

Le 22 septembre dernier, la chambre du Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda (TPIR) devant laquelle sont jugés, entre autres, les anciens chefs d'état-major des Forces armées et de la Gendarmerie rwandaises, a rendu un arrêt pour le moins critique à l'égard de l'actuel procureur du TPIR, le Gambien Hassan Bubacar Jallow. Des termes aussi peu équivoques que "niveau d'intégrité" et "défaut de diligence" rappellent au procureur son devoir d'aider la chambre à découvrir la vérité concernant les allégations contenues dans l'acte d'accusation et à rendre justice à la communauté internationale, aux victimes et aux accusés.

De quoi s'agit-il ? Le règlement du TPIR impose au procureur l'obligation de communiquer aux avocats des inculpés tout élément pouvant être utile à leur défense. Or, dans le procès dit "Militaires II", il s'avère que, depuis 1997 déjà, des témoignages en faveur des inculpés ont été retenus à dessein par le procureur. Implicitement, l'arrêt de cette chambre du TPIR ne met pas uniquement en cause l'actuel procureur, mais l'ensemble du personnel de son administration ainsi que les trois procureurs précédents. Soyons très clair, il n'est pas seulement question de négligence ou de lenteur dans la transmission de certains témoignages utiles à la défense des inculpés, mais bien d'une volonté délibérée de les escamoter ni plus ni moins. En effet, ces témoignages, qui aujourd'hui sont en possession des équipes de défense, ont tout simplement été retirés de la circulation, comme s'ils n'avaient jamais existés.

Voilà pas mal d'années que, de façon répétitive, des reproches de partialité sont formulés à l'égard du TPIR, accusé de n'être rien moins qu'un tribunal des vaincus. Dans le cas présent, l'arrêt concerné officialise bel et bien ce genre d'accusation. Mais au-delà de cette constatation au premier degré, une question fondamentale se pose : dans combien de procès, à présent terminés, pareil déni de justice s'est-il déjà produit ? Combien d'inculpés ont-ils été condamnés suite à de faux témoignages qui n'ont pu être neutralisés faute d'avoir pu disposer des éléments à décharge existant ? Espérons que ceux qui ont la responsabilité de se pencher sur ce genre de question auront la volonté d'y apporter une réponse dans un délai raisonnable. Dans le cas qui nous occupe, il n'est, heureusement, pas trop tard. Il s'en est fallu, cependant, d'un fifrelin, puisque la présentation des témoins de la défense devait être terminée fin novembre 2008. De facto le procès est relancé et, pour ne citer que le seul dossier du général Augustin Ndindiliyimana, l'ancien chef d'état-major de la Gendarmerie rwandaise, l'équipe de défense est autorisée d'appeler pas moins de 18 nouveaux témoins à la barre. En outre, elle peut également rappeler six témoins du procureur dont les affirmations sont contredites par les documents non communiqués.

Il s'avère aussi que parmi les témoignages manquants, la responsabilité directe du Front patriotique rwandais (FPR) est mise en cause, entre autres dans l'assassinat de la Première ministre, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, dans celui des dix casques bleus belges, ainsi que dans des massacres de civils perpétrés dès le 7 avril 1994. Tout ceci n'est pas neuf mais souligne, si besoin en est, l'impérieuse nécessité que tout soit mis en œuvre pour que Justice et Vérité triomphent enfin de ceux qui n'ont d'autre objectif que de les maintenir dans l'obscurité la plus opaque. En vue de permettre une vision plus globale des choses, un rappel des événements qui ont suivi l'attentat sur l'avion du président Habyarimana, le 6 avril 1994, me paraît utile. Cette mise en perspective devrait faciliter un meilleur cadrage des réalités d'aujourd'hui.

Tout d’abord, quand je me suis retrouvé à la réunion du comité de crise qui s’est tenue à l’état-major des Forces armées rwandaises (FAR), de suite après l’attentat, j’ai pu constater qu’aucun des officiers présents autour de la table n’avait quelque chose à voir avec ce qui venait de se passer. Pourtant, parmi eux se trouvaient certains officiers réputés ne pas être des plus fanatiques à l'égard des accords d’Arusha. Le souvenir que je garde de ce moment historique est toujours très précis dans ma mémoire. Je sais que je me suis retrouvé en compagnie d’hommes profondément bouleversés et désemparés par ce qui venait de se passer et non face à des conspirateurs. Leur démarche n'avait d'autre but que d’évaluer les conséquences de la disparition du chef de l’État et du chef d’état-major de l’armée afin d’éviter que ce vide du pouvoir ne débouche sur l’anarchie. Sans la moindre ambiguïté possible ils ont fait appel à la MINUAR pour les aider à gérer cette crise issue de l’attentat et aussi pour répercuter vers le Conseil de Sécurité l’expression de leur volonté de voir les institutions de transition se mettre en place le plus rapidement possible, conformément au processus de paix en cours. Si des organisateurs de l’attentat s’étaient trouvés à ce moment-là autour de la table, cette réunion se serait déroulée de manière bien différente et qui plus est, dans pareille éventualité, j’ai de sérieux doutes que le Général Dallaire et moi-même aurions été conviés à y participer. D’autre part, au plan technique, un coup d’État est quelque chose qui répond à des critères universels. Si l’on veut garantir le succès de l’opération on ne prend aucun risque. Tous les éléments militaires et paramilitaires sur lesquels les organisateurs peuvent s’appuyer sont d’emblée injectés dans le scénario, de façon à exclure tout risque de surprise et mettre le pays devant un fait accompli. Ce n’est, mais alors pas du tout, la situation qui prévalait à Kigali dans les heures qui ont suivi l’attentat. Nombre de témoins directs ont déclaré que la nuit du 6 au 7 avril 1994 avait été particulièrement calme. Moi-même j’ai traversé, sans la moindre escorte armée, une partie de la ville vers 2 heures du matin et j’ai pu constater de visu l’absence de tout dispositif militaire ressemblant de près ou de loin à un état de siège. Non, décidément, ce contexte ne correspondait en rien à un coup d’État que les durs du régime auraient organisé.

À ce manque de prise en main immédiate du pouvoir, par l’une ou l’autre faction connue pour son opposition au processus de paix, correspond par contre le démarrage immédiat d’une offensive militaire d’envergure du FPR. Cette offensive se terminera trois mois plus tard par une conquête sans partage du pouvoir. En tant que militaire, la simultanéité entre l’attentat et le déclenchement de cette offensive militaire m’amène à formuler les considérations suivantes.

Primo, il est impossible de profiter d’une opportunité, telle que la disparition du président Habyarimana et du général Nsabimana (chef d'état-major des FAR), pour improviser une offensive générale mettant en œuvre de nombreuses unités aux missions totalement différentes. Bien au contraire, pareil engagement ne peut qu’être le résultat d’un processus majeur de préparation comportant la conception de la manœuvre sur le plan stratégique, la diffusion des ordres jusqu’aux plus petits échelons et la mise en place de milliers d’hommes, dans les positions de départ, prêts à réagir à l’ordre d’exécution. Tout cela ne s’organise pas au claquement de doigts, mais exige au contraire des délais importants et incompressibles. Il ne faut pas être un grand stratège pour le comprendre, c’est une question de bon sens élémentaire.

Deuxième considération. Le FPR n’aurait pas été en mesure d’assurer le punch et la continuité de son offensive sans la constitution préalable de stocks importants de munitions, d’armements, d’équipements et de matériels divers. Bref, une logistique à l’échelle des moyens humains mis en œuvre durant plus de trois mois d’opérations. Il n’y a aucun miracle en la matière, pas d’opérations militaires sans logistique adaptée. Or, c’est exactement la crainte que le général Nsabimana m’avait exprimée quelques jours plus tôt. Au cours d’une entrevue, le 30 mars exactement, soit sept jours à peine avant l’attentat, il me confiait son intime conviction que le FPR allait reprendre la guerre dans les jours suivants. Il fondait, précisément, cette conviction sur les stocks logistiques importants constitués depuis des semaines par le FPR le long de la frontière en Ouganda. À ma réplique que le FPR ne pouvait se permettre pareille aventure sous le regard direct de la communauté internationale, il me répondit mot pour mot ceci : le FPR n’a que faire de telles considérations ; l’erreur que vous, Minuar, commettez est de lui prêter le même raisonnement que le vôtre, mais la réalité est bien différente ; le FPR est un mouvement révolutionnaire et c’est en tant que tel qu’il raisonne et définit ses propres objectifs ; contre des révolutionnaires, conclut-il, si vous n’adoptez pas les mêmes méthodes vous serez toujours perdants. Point n’est besoin, je crois, d’expliquer que cette conversation m’interpella au plus au point, non seulement au moment même, mais surtout des semaines plus tard quand je me suis remémoré ces paroles et que je les ai confrontées à la réalité des événements.

Troisième considération sur les conditions de cette offensive militaire et plus particulièrement sur ses objectifs avoués ou inavoués. Lorsque le FPR reprit les hostilités à Kigali, le 7 avril 1994 vers 16h30, il justifia sa décision unilatérale par la nécessité de mettre un terme aux massacres des Tutsis. Or, le 12 avril, soit au 5e jour de son offensive générale, il a déjà infiltré, à ma connaissance, trois bataillons supplémentaires à Kigali. Je dis « à ma connaissance » car il s’agit d’une constatation personnelle. Cela n’exclut nullement, comme d’aucuns l’affirment, que le FPR disposait de beaucoup plus de moyens à Kigali. Quoi qu’il en soit, avec ces trois bataillons infiltrés et celui qui se trouvait déjà sur place, le Front possède une force capable d’agir contre les massacres qui prennent de plus en plus d’ampleur dans la capitale. Qui plus est, ce même 12 avril, dix officiers supérieurs des FAR signent un manifeste que l’on peut qualifier, dans les circonstances du moment, de très courageux. Dans ce document ils font directement appel au FPR en vue de conclure un cessez-le-feu et de conjuguer leurs efforts pour « éviter de continuer à verser inutilement le sang des innocents ». Cet appel solennel ne suscita de sa part aucun écho, avec pour conséquence directe l’amplification des tueries. À aucun moment je n’ai pu constater que d’une manière ou d’une autre le FPR tentait de s’opposer aux massacres des Tutsis à Kigali. Pourtant les forces dont il disposait sur place étaient parfaitement en mesure de sécuriser certains quartiers situés à proximité des zones qu’il contrôlait militairement et créer ainsi des zones refuge. De toute évidence le sort réservé à ces lointains parents de l’intérieur ne faisait pas partie de leurs priorités. Qui plus est, la pugnacité avec laquelle ces mêmes autorités du FPR ont exigé le départ des troupes étrangères venues évacuer les expatriés, plutôt que de requérir leur collaboration pour stopper net le carnage, est éminemment suspecte ; comme si le FPR craignait de se voir contrer, par la communauté internationale, dans ses plans de conquête du pouvoir. C’est ce qui fait dire au général Dallaire dans les conclusions de son livre « J’ai serré la main du diable » : Mais les morts rwandais peuvent aussi être attribués à Paul Kagame, ce génie militaire qui n’a pas accéléré sa campagne quand l’envergure du génocide fut manifeste et qui, en quelques occasions, m’a même entretenu avec candeur du prix que ses camarades tutsis auraient peut-être à payer pour la cause.

Non seulement à aucun moment le FPR n'a sollicité l'appui de la MINUAR pour juguler le chaos qui s'installait, mais au contraire il l'alimenta. Le 9 avril, il lança un ultimatum à la MINUAR, lui signifiant que si le bataillon ghanéen déployé dans la zone démilitarisée n'avait pas quitté ses positions dans le 24 heures, il serait pris sous ses tirs d'artillerie. Dieu sait si un cessez-le-feu aurait permis de mettre un terme au martyre de la population. Je ne peux que témoigner que toutes les demandes de cessez-le-feu exprimées par le général Dallaire ou par les FAR essuyèrent une fin de non recevoir du FPR. Ceci n'est pas une interprétation tendancieuse de la réalité, c'est un fait. Le général Nsabimana ne s'était pas trompé : le FPR menait sa guerre conformément à ses seuls objectifs, sans se soucier le moins du monde du sort des populations locales ou de l'opinion de la communauté internationale.

J’aurais encore bien d’autres considérations à formuler sur l’aspect militaire de ces événements. Je pense cependant que la relation de ce qui précède est suffisamment explicite pour réaliser que la version des faits que certains voudraient faire admettre comme vérité historique est pour le moins sujette à caution. La communauté internationale qui, il est vrai, a fait preuve d'une immense lâcheté au moment du génocide n'a aucune raison de continuer à se laisser intoxiquer par le discours de celui qui prétend, urbi et orbi, avoir mis un terme au génocide, alors que tout laisse penser qu'il en est le principal artisan. Il est inadmissible que la justice internationale refuse de s'investir dans la poursuite de tous ceux qui sont responsables de l'holocauste (6 à 8 millions de personnes) perpétré, depuis 1994, dans la région des Grands Lacs. Ce faisant, cette justice internationale renonce sans grandeur au défi historique qui était le sien.

La révélation des témoignages cachés du TPIR amène à la conclusion que, de toute évidence, le camp de ceux qui n'ont aucun intérêt à la manifestation de la vérité est toujours en position de force. Qui est derrière tout cela ? Qui tire les ficelles ? Qui sont, in fine, les véritables responsables de cet abominable gâchis ? La réponse n'est pas bien compliquée à trouver. Il suffit de se poser simplement la question suivante : Qui, dans notre monde dit "civilisé", est suffisamment puissant pour empêcher, depuis plus de quatorze années, que toute la clarté soit faite sur l'attentat du 6 avril 1994 ? QUI ? Poser la question, c'est en quelque sorte y répondre.

Luc Marchal
ancien commandant
Secteur Kigali-MINUAR
novembre 2008

PIERRE PÉAN ACQUITTÉ par Tribunal parisien! -- de La Presse Canadienne

2008-11-09T22:19:00.000+01:00

PIERRE PÉAN ACQUITTÉ par Tribunal parisien! -- de La Presse Canadienne

[7 Novembre 2008 devant le Tribunal Pénal de Paris, l'écrivain Pierre Péan dont le livre sur Rwanda est un sort de vaccin contre l'intoxication d'histoire de région de l'Afrique Centrale, qui a subi depuis 1er octobre 1990 et l'invasion de Rwanda par les forces ougandaises sous tutelle des EU et GB, des millions de victimes d'un vrai génocide, mais d'une magnitude et origine complètement différent de celui qu'est décrit par la plupart des medias, était acquitté des accusations de racisme et provocations de la haine. C'est un petit morceau de justice et ce s’avance la promesse de Péan de mettre au point les vraies génocidaires britanniques et amis requins dans son prochain livre. CM/P félicite cet ami de la vérité et la justice, et le souhaite un bon courage et un bon travail. mc]

de LA PRESSE CANADIENNE de 7 novembre 2008

Pierre Péan relaxé des poursuites pour "complicité de diffamation raciale"

PARIS "Une victoire pour la liberté d'expression." La défense de Pierre Péan a salué vendredi la décision du tribunal correctionnel de Paris, relaxant l'écrivain des poursuites engagées par SOS-Racisme. L'association avait porté plainte pour "complicité de diffamation raciale" et "complicité de provocation à la discrimination raciale" à la suite de la publication en 2005 du livre "Noires Fureurs, Blancs Menteurs" sur le génocide rwandais. L'éditeur Fayard a également été relaxé.

L'avocat de l'association, Me Lef Forster, a immédiatement fait savoir qu'il allait faire appel de ce jugement. "Le tribunal avec une certaine honnêteté a jugé que les propos étaient déplacés, mais a eu une lecture modérée de ces propos, une lecture que SOS-Racisme ne partage pas", a souligné Me Forster, faisant part de sa "grande tristesse".

SOS Racisme avait déposé une plainte en octobre 2006, reprochant à Pierre Péan d'avoir écrit que les Tutsis avaient recours au mensonge et à la dissimulation ou étaient des professionnels de la manipulation, l'écrivain citant parfois d'autres auteurs dans les pages poursuivies.

Le tribunal a rappelé que Pierre Péan avait fait référence au mot rwandais "ubwenge" que l'écrivain a sommairement traduit par "culture du mensonge et de la dissimulation" alors qu'il s'agit selon plusieurs témoins entendus au procès d'un concept "perçu dans cette culture comme valorisant une qualité intellectuelle et un mode de comportement".

"Replacée dans son contexte, la formulation (...) aussi brutale qu'elle puisse apparaître, spécialement pour les victimes d'un génocide, ne peut être considérée comme l'imputation d'un fait précis visant à jeter le discrédit sur l'ensemble des Tutsis", a souligné le tribunal notant que l'auteur prête aussi "ce particularisme culturel aux Hutus et plus généralement aux Rwandais".

Le tribunal retient également le caractère engagé de l'écrivain de 70 ans qui, "sans jamais nier ni banaliser l'existence du génocide dont ont été victimes les Tutsis, entend contrer une vérité officielle sur le drame rwandais et dénoncer les stratégies de désinformation, de manipulation et d'instrumentalisation de l'opinion publique par le régime de Paul Kagamé et ses partisans".

Quant à la "provocation à la discrimination raciale", les juges ont souligné que la formulation employée par Pierre Péan, une fois replacée dans le contexte, ne contient "aucun appel ni aucune exhortation à la discrimination, à la haine ou à la violence susceptible de provoquer chez le lecteur un rejet ou une réaction à l'encontre des Tutsis".

"L'objet de ce livre est un véritable combat politique qui consiste à dénoncer un régime dictatorial", a insisté Me Florence Bourg, l'avocate de Pierre Péan. "Pour nous, c'est une vraie victoire, la victoire de la liberté d'expression et du débat d'idées sur un sujet très sensible", a ajouté l'avocate, dénonçant le "terrorisme intellectuel" autour de ce "livre politique de 600 pages".

Le tribunal a en revanche débouté Pierre Péan et son éditeur qui réclamaient la condamnation de SOS-Racisme pour "poursuites abusives". Il a également estimé que les propos tenus par un témoin au procès, comparant le livre à "Mein Kampf" et M. Péan au négationniste Robert Faurisson, "ne sauraient être regardé(s) comme étranger(s) à un procès pour diffamation raciale", excluant des poursuites.

LA PRESSE CANADIENNE 7 novembre 2008

Organized Crime in Central Africa! - Pierre Péan's statement before the Court of Paris - 23 September 2008

2008-11-09T22:15:00.000+01:00

Organized Crime in Central Africa! - Pierre Péan's statement before the Court of Paris - 23 September 2008

[Here is the CM/P translation of French journalist Pierre Péan’s statement to the Court of Paris in his trial for incitation to racial hatred (Hate Speech?) and racial defamation.

I devoured Péan’s book on Rwanda, ‘Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs’ [Black Fury, White Liars], and wish I could have translated and posted the whole thing here. It describes in the most vivid detail not just who killed how many of whom, by what means, where and why, but how world opinion was shaped so as to make those foreigners who aggressed Rwanda on 1 October 1990, the bloodthirsty Ugandan NRA personnel who still make up the Rwandan Patriotic Front (the putatively Tutsi-RPF), which in four terror-filled years thoroughly decimated the population of that small, tightly-packed nation—and are currently continuing a similar ten-year+ plan of ‘population control for resource rip-off’ in eastern Congo—to turn this Western proxy liquifactionist force into the VICTIMS of the most publicized genocide since WWII; while the Rwandan nation, with its socialist revolution, was brutally penetrated, terrorized and slaughtered—with those whom the RPF couldn’t kill sent fleeing into neighboring states—and these refugees, men, women and children from every ethnic and tribal background are still being decried as ‘genocidaire’, as risks to Rwanda’s vaunted national security, and are today being hunted down in the millions—like Alaskan game caught in the floods of Sarah Palin’s helicopters, but by a factor of 100K.

So much of the information that is essential to an understanding of the geopolitics and history of Central Africa is written in French, that, since I’ve started translating some of these texts, I’ve been overcome with anxiety over just how best to let my friends back in Babble-ON know what’s up. If you watched the last presidential debate, even at 3 am—when it tipped off here in Paris—it was impossible not to get the screaming mimis over how poorly informed the two candidates were—and what that says about the level of politico-historical awareness of the general public in the US.

Not surprisingly, Africa was not discussed Tuesday evening. But to hear both McCain and Obama talk about the Russian (‘imperialist’?) ‘invasion and illegal occupation’ a plucky wannabe democracy like Georgia on the same day that the NYTimes posted an article describing Georgia’s continuing deadly attacks on the 'break-away region' of South Ossetia and the further killing of Russian peacekeepers in the UN sanctioned mission to that autonomous republic, just sorta tightened the unReality bolt in my neck, like dropping a couple extra tabs of Owsley’s right in the middle of an already very creepily bad trip.

And Péan’s trial, which will hear the Court’s judgment on 7 November (so, you know, it won’t influence the American vote, uh-huh.), is a similar shaky gondola ride down the canals of Uranus: a writer whose whole life has been spent in searching out truth and seeking justice for Africa, in opposing French colonialism and the corruption of his nation’s information system, is dragged before the national bar by some of his own putatively anti-racist and anti-imperialist sponsees. His crime, it seems, is that, once again, he has disagreed with the dominant opinion. But what is most chilling about his statement here below--at least for those of us who work the genocide beat—is that this time—because when these charges of racism were first brought against him, the nearly 70 year old Péan threw a serious heart lock—this time the promiscuous purveyors of false history, that MTD (Media-Transmitted Disease), as they did with Slobodan Milosevic's hypertension and appear to be on the verge of doing with a hunger-striking Dr. Vojslav Seselj at The Hague Tribunal for Yugoslavia, seem to be prepared to neutralize those who question their orthodoxy with the extremest of extreme prejudice. –mc]

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Organized Crime in Central Africa!
Statement by Pierre Péan before the Court of Paris
23 September 2008

Your Honor,

I have experienced being charged with incitation of racial hatred and racial defamation as a marking. A branding more profound than that of my ancestor who was condemned for dealing in contraband salt and died two years later in prison in Brest. He had only sold some salt in Mayenne that he’d bought in Bretagne, for the sole purpose of feeding his family. What I’m charged with is much more serious than to have tried to avoid customs officers collecting unjust taxes. If criminal law considers the incitation to racial hatred to be a violation, then, as far as I’m concerned, it is a crime. It always leads to the spilling of blood.

For almost three years, I have been dragged through the mud by the various media—I’m thinking here especially of Charlie-Hebdo, which hews the contours of freedom of expression with its very own hands; in the best stories, I am depicted as a racist, but also as an anti-Semite, a revisionist, even a negationist, as was the case in Le Point under the byline of Mr. Bernard-Henri Lévy.

This is just simply unbearable. Besides which, my heart cannot stand any more of these monstrous and unjustified attacks. If you went along with the charges made by SOS Racisme, which is carrying water for Ibuka, itself an agent of the government in Kigali, you would nullify my whole life, all my struggles, all my commitments in this one fell swoop.

This affair has caused me to look back and ask myself many questions. I am not going to burden the court with all the details of a half-century of my very full life, but I think it is imperative that you know the important role played by all my commitments against colonialism, against racism and for the development of what we have come to call the Third World. After having militated against France in Algeria, taken part in the large demonstrations in Paris, especially the one in Charonne in 1962, I left for Africa at the end of that year, with a contract from Gabon—not France—to serve as an attaché to the cabinet of the Minsiter of Finance in Gabon. I was, and have remained for a long time, what is called a Third Worldist. I lived in Gabon until the end of 1964, where I worked diligently against French neo-colonialism. Such diligence forced me to leave Gabon more quickly than I had planned.

Since that time, I have maintained constant contact with Africa and Africans. I have had to travel nearly a hundred times to the continent; I wrote several books on French-African relations, including one which brought me a great deal of public attention, ‘Affaires africaines’ [African Affairs], in 1983, but also, ‘L’Argent noir’ [Black Money], ‘L’Homme de l’ombre’ [The Shadow Man], ‘Manipulations africaines’ [African Manipulations], and ‘Main basse sur Alger’ [Ripping Off Algeria].

I have struck up and maintained close relations with many Africans. I was a patron of SOS Racisme, took part with Christophe Nick in the creation of Stop La Violence. Africa was such a presence in my home that, as soon as she had finished her studies, my daughter moved to Africa. She still lives there with her three children. My wife, whom I got to know in Africa, is the godmother to a Congolese girl. My sister is married to a Cameroonian, is also godmother to a little Congolese girl, and, in the African community of Sablé, she is affectionately known as ‘the Blacks’ Mama’.

Despite this history, in 2005, at the age of 67, I suddenly and brutally threw all my convictions overboard, and was seized by an irrational hatred of Tutsis, I suddenly put all my energies into harming them? This, obviously, makes no sense. I respect the Tutsis as I respect all the citizens of the world, whatever their origins, their color or their religion, and I even feel a very great compassion for them, when bearing in mind the genocide that was directed against them in 1994.

At the beginning of this trial, and in order to appreciate the words being held against me from pages 41 to 44 of my book, Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs [Black Fury, White Liars], it is important that the court understand what brought me to write this book.

Like everybody else, I was totally shocked by the images of slaughter-by-machete aired on every TV channel in April and May of 1994, massacres that later came to be described as the ‘genocide of the Tutsis and moderate Hutus’. I was later confronted on a very personal level by the consequences of one of first murders that followed the attack on the plane carrying the two [Hutu] presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, and in which, on 6 April 1994, President [Juvénal] Habyarimana had his life taken: it was the killing of Agathe Uwilingiyimana, the sitting Hutu Prime Minsiter [of Rwanda]. I, in fact, played a part in saving her five children. I followed with astonishment the violent attacks against France when Operation Turquoise was put together. At the time, I was finishing my book, Une jeunesse française [A French Childhood], I was privileged to be taken into François Mitterand’s confidence on the Rwandan drama. On 1 July 1994, just before he was to meet with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, I saw important French policy-makers on Africa weeping openly in the halls of the Élysée Palace because they couldn’t understand why France was being so violently attacked. But in 1996 I was confided in by a former pan-African militant close to one of the members of the RPF’s ‘Commando Network’, which mounted the attack on the presidential plane 6 April 1994. An attack intended to seize power for the rebels of the RPF, a large majority of whom were Tutsis. An attack, the world now concurs, that triggered the genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

After that, I attracted much general attention with all that I said and wrote about the Rwandan drama. With Jean-François Bizot, I wrote my first article on the subject in L’Almanach d’Actuel in 1997. An article in which the essential was already stated: that Paul Kagame, head of Ugandan Military Intelligence, left Uganda in 1994 at the head of a band of Tutsi exiles armed by that country to seize power in Kigali by military force. We were also saying that Paul Kagame had finished his conquest by shooting down the plane carrying the Rwandan president, and that he knew very well that by acting thus he would unleash the anger of the Hutus against the Tutsis of Rwanda, considered the allies of the RPF rebels. This is not very elegant to say, but I believe, in this situation, it is important. In Actuel we specifically wrote these sentences: ‘Put yourself into the head of Paul Kagame at the moment he decided to ‘neutralize’ the two Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. He knew he was going to bring on chaos, to set off the genocide of his own people, the Tutsis. At the age of 2, he had to flee the first genocide [and allusion to the exactions of 1959, the moment of independence, that sent thousands of Tutsis into exile]. He saw no other way to bring the Tutsis to insurrection. And being a good revolutionary, he figured the ends justified the means. History is not made by the faint hearted. . . .’ I have to say that this very long article remains without a response from that period. No one took it up, not even to contest it, not then and not later.

The following year, 1998, after the media attacks launched against France, carried by various groups—Survie out in front of them—and by fierce supporters of the new power in Kigali, a parliamentary commission of inquiry sought to find out if French politicians and military officers had behaved badly in Rwanda. The Quilès report, which concluded that France had perhaps committed some errors in Rwanda, but, in no way, was complicit in the genocide, did not satisfy Kigali, or its French supporters, who, on the contrary, did not thereafter cease to ratchet up the intensity of their attacks. Omitting, of course, any mention of the responsibility of the ‘Commando Network’ in the 6 April 1994 attack.

After that, Kigali’s version of things was imposed as the official version of the Rwandan drama. A version that had the advantage of being simple—I would say even simplistic. It reduced the effect of the Rwandan story to a confrontation between Good and Evil, the Bad Guys and the Good Guys, the evil Hutus and the righteous Tutsis. If one is to believe the popular media notion of how things happened, for good measure, the Hutus were led by a ‘Tropical Nazi’, and aided by a ‘Hitleresque’ Mitterand and his Waffen-SS.

In 2000, more and more exasperated by the spread of these manifest falsehoods, I tried to unmask them by starting a new investigation into those who ordered the 6 April attack, convinced that the revelation of Paul Kagame’s personal involvement in this attack, and then of his personal responsibility in the genocide, would, at least, cause those of good faith to reflect on these events. I published the results of this inquiry in the journal Le Nouveau Papier. The essence of the conclusions drawn by Judge [Jean-Louis] Bruguière, on which he based the international arrest warrants he ordered in December 2006, is found in this piece. But this was another futile gesture. No one dared to discuss the results of my inquiry. TV, like the rest of the main media, continued to gobble up the lies of the Rwandan Head of State, who, some, like the Belgian professor [Filip] Reyntjens, consider to be ‘the greatest living war criminal’. As we saw in the past with the Soviet Union, the media continued to give air time to the ‘useful idiots’, as we used to call them at that time, the ‘fellow travelers’, and the militants passing themselves off as independent witnesses. I’m not talking here about the sincere stories of survivors who lost their entire families in the massacres—I respect their suffering and their desire to testify. As with all witnesses, they have a part of the story. But history, if it includes them, goes well beyond them, especially when it is still in the making. And there are those who would exploit their suffering.

Watching this spectacle, my irritation grew into anger: because the violent installation of Paul Kagame in Kigali did not slake his thirst for power. He continued his war beyond the frontiers of Rwanda, spilling largely (and that is an understatement) into the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. RPF troops, aided by Ugandans and protected by American Special Forces, under the pretext of tracking down the genocidaires, went on to kill hundreds of thousands of Rwandans and Congolese; they destabilized Zaire, going all the way to Kinshasa in 1997 to install as president their puppet, Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The mass crimes of the Rwandan invaders were coupled with a pillaging of the country’s vast riches. The following year, under the pretext that their puppet was not executing their decisions with sufficient enthusiasm, the RPF troops renewed their military adventures in the ex-Zaire. Because Paul Kagame succeeded in making himself the principal representative of the victims of the Rwandan genocide, the International Community did not react to the mass crimes he ordered and was fully responsible for, and which were declared to be genocide by a Spanish Judge.

The heart of Africa has bled for 18 years now! I have, first off, tried to convince politicians and journalists to act, to examine the whole situation, and to denounce the lies of Paul Kagame.

The publication in 2004 by Le Monde of a part of the investigation by Judge [Jean-Louis] Bruguière, ironically, inspired a new combative spirit in Kigali and its sycophants to promote its lying version of the history of the Rwandan drama, and to accuse and insult France, through its political and military leaders. So I decided once again to do battle against this disinformation—with the only weapon I know: investigative reporting. A deep investigation, reported in a 544-page book, which opened a route to the truth. An investigation aimed at exposing just how such a rewriting of history was achieved, and how Paul Kagame was relieved of any responsibilities in the attack of 6 April 1994. Because the event that triggered the genocide, I repeat, was most certainly this attack, and many knowledgeable writers on the Rwandan case now share this view.

I have been an investigative journalist for almost 40 years, and specialized in sensitive investigations for 30 years. To approach the Rwanda drama, I used my usual methods, questioning a great many people, but paying special attention to written materials. However, I decided not to go to Rwanda, because I figured that questioning witnesses under a bloody dictatorship that allows thousands to rot in prisons, that has everywhere set up people’s courts, and eliminated whomever it saw fit, made little sense. Calling it a ‘bloody dictatorship’ is not meant as a provocation: this term has been used by many observers and NGOs, but also and especially by the Spanish judiciary acting on a complaint from the International Forum for Truth and Justice in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, headed by Juan Carreero, over the assassination of 9 Spanish nationals (2 missionaries, 4 Marist monks and 3 members of Spanish Doctors of the World) in Rwanda and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

I believe that it is very important for the clarity of the discussion that will follow here to bear in mind the true nature of the regime led by Paul Kagame. And I will limit myself for now to reading you the beginning of the Spanish court order that came out last February calling for 40 arrest warrants against the political/military power structure in Kigali:

“Today reasonable and well-founded evidence is presented according to which, beginning in the month of October 1990, a politico-military group, well armed and organized, initiated from Uganda a series of actions of a criminal nature on the territory of Rwanda.

“Over the next four years, there took place different organized and systematic activities the purpose of which was to eliminate the civilian population, as much by instigating military hostilities against the Rwandan army as by the perpetration of terrorist acts of varying intensity and range, executed on the territory of Rwanda, principally in the northern and central regions, all of which actions were carried out under a stable and structured command, based on strategic as well as organizational plans.

“Once this group had seized power through military violence, it used the same methods to install a reign of terror and a criminal structure parallel to the legal state, through the use of planned and premeditated imprisonment, the rape of women and young girls, the perpetration of terrorist acts (sometimes carried out in such a way as to make them appear to have been committed by their enemies), the jailing of thousands of citizens without the least judicial authorization, the carrying out of targeted assassinations, the systematic destruction and elimination of dead bodies by burying them without any identification in mass graves, incineration on a massive scale or throwing the bodies into lakes and rivers, as well as indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population based on a predetermined ethnicity, with the purpose of eliminating the ethnic majority, and also the commission of violent acts in Rwanda and in its neighbor, Zaire (today the DRC), perpetrating indiscriminate and systematic massacres of the refugee population, as well as acts of large-scale looting in order to finance these criminal activities and enrich the leaders.”

The regime in Kigali has for some time understood the importance of ‘communication’ to its survival, and knows how to push the right buttons. Were they approaching a Soviet-era reality with their USSR-style interrogations of this or that person well-known to the authorities? Obviously not. It was the defectors and dissidents who had succeeded in revealing the true nature of the Stalinist regime. But there were enough people driven out of Rwanda, including some close to Kagame, to avoid this problem.

After having deepened my knowledge about the attack of 6 April 1994, I dove into an imposing mass of material that I was able to pull together on the Rwandan drama: notably the Quilès report, documents from the Élysée Palace, newspaper articles, and, most surprising, a great number of documents put out by the Hutus but that had, since 1994, simply been censored for no other reason than that they were from the Hutus, all of whom were considered categorically to be genocidaires.

Just as quickly, I experienced a weird feeling that I had never encountered in any of my previous investigations. And God knows I had often met people of questionable repute, gotten inside some seamy worlds, and had, on many occasions, been confronted with disinformation and lies. Here, I was struck by the systematic quality of what I would call an almost industrial treachery, with false witnesses who served to create from whole cloth what would come appear to almost everyone as the truth. Struck by the manipulations of history used by the victors and by the hijacking of certain terms, like ‘victims’, which could refer only to Tutsis. Even the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) didn’t seem to me to be above suspicion, as it refused to prosecute those who took part in massacres committed by the RPF. As Montaigne wrote, unlike the truth, the lie has more than just one face. ‘Because we take as certain the opposite of what the liar says. But the opposite of the truth has a hundred thousand faces, and an indefinite field,’ is how he put it.

My book had to examine Rwandan lies and to unmask the liars who are intent on imposing a falsified version of History on the world. ‘Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs’ is first of all a book about the lies of the power in place in Kigali.

As I wrote on page 44 of my book, ‘the army often used tricks—planes, tanks, and trucks made out of cardboard or wood—to make the enemy think an attack was imminent, or make them waste their ammunition on these false targets. The Tutsi rebels have done much better. They have succeeded until the present day to completely falsify the reality of Rwanda by imputing their own crimes and terrorist acts to others, and demonizing their enemies. To investigate Rwanda proved to be an impossible task, with the victors raising lies and secrecy to the level of high art. (This sentence, which figures in SOS Racisme’s complaint, like all the others, I take full responsibility for.) What one sees here has nothing in common with reality, but instead reflects the sham created by Paul Kagame and his strategists. The masks are everywhere. Kagame and his Tutsi collaborators have until now succeeded in convincing international public opinion that they can stand outside in the rain and not get wet.’

Considering such an observation drawn from many months of investigation, I felt the need to go beyond the factual parameters that described the war set off on 1 October 1990, the date on which the Tutsi rebels most recently penetrated Rwanda. The sophistication of the war of disinformation conducted by the RPF forced me to better understand the culture of Rwandan. After reading a few of his books, I actually met Antoine Nyetera. A Tutsi descendant of King Kigeri III, he has an excellent knowledge of Rwandan history and of its principal actors. He is considered an ‘impartial observer of events, better placed than any other witness to clarify the problems that a foreign expert would not be able to grasp,’ as I stated in a document submitted to the ICTR. He has testified several times before prestigious gatherings like, most notably, the European Parliament. The ICTR called him, and he came to Arusha in February and July 2002, and September 2006. His testimony was entitled ‘The Tutsi Myth and its Influence on the Culture of the Lie and Violence in Rwanda.’

In approaching this chapter, I wanted to contextualize the disinformation that the RPF used, between 1990 and 1994, as a weapon of war to cover their strategy for the military conquest of political power within Rwanda’s long history, a history marked by the use of what I called ‘the lie’, in Kinyarwandan specifically called the ‘Ubengwe’. . . .

The passages that are being used against me are in this first chapter, which merely lays out the ‘rudiments of Rwandan history and geography’, and which I wrote to make clear that, while I do not pretend to be a historian, the French reader should have some idea of the history of the country. And it was essential to add ‘a brief’ description of the characteristics of Rwandan society, especially the ‘culture of the lie’ that is a particular form of civility, and that is not at all extraordinary and has been well-known for a long time. I don’t believe I worked any differently from specialists in Near- or Middle-Eastern terrorism, who, in presenting their analyses, call on the ‘takya’ which is practiced in those regions: the right to lie to defend one’s convictions.

The existence of a ‘culture of the lie’ in Rwanda, which so shocks the president of SOS Racisme, is an obvious fact not only to Antoine Nyetera, but to all Rwandans, an undeniable cultural fact on which several scientists have made studies. I said it’s all about ‘ubgenge’ or ‘ubwenge’, because the Rwandan language uses specifically these terms to name it. In French [or English] there is no word that perfectly expresses it: it could be translated as ‘mensonge’ [lie], ‘ruse’ [cunning], ‘dissimulation’ [duplicity], ‘réserve’ [secrecy], etc. Some witnesses at this hearing will explain ‘ubwenge’ better than I can. I will limit myself here to citing professor Pierre Erny, who, in a study published in No. 40 of the Cahiers de sociologie économique and culturelle (INIST/CNRS), in 2003, entitled ‘Ubgenge: intélligence and ruse à la manière Rwanda et Rundi. He writes: ‘In a society where “the truth is not a dominant element on the scale of values”, where not only is everyone likely to hide the truth, but where the ‘lie’ is considered one of the beaux-arts and mind games are considered among the most exciting, no one is fooled, everyone knows where he stands and how he should react. To put it another way, only outsiders are victimized.’

This is all I’m saying. But, in the case of Rwanda, woe is he who has even the slightest question about the official story. And, furthermore, it does no good these days to cast doubt on the official version of things. And since we’re talking about genocide here, even a double genocide, we should seek to bring all these various massacres together into one great crime, like the destruction of the European Jews during WWII. I was well aware of this trap. I wrote on page 22 of my book: ‘In order to make their narrative indelible, Kagame’s unconditional defenders set up a fearsome ‘communications strategy’: make out all those who question their thesis to be historical revisionists of the sort that deny the reality of the gaz chambers or the number of victims of the Shoah. To disqualify all those who questioned the morality of the current Rwandan president, the head of the association Survie did not hesitate to talk of ‘negrophobia’.

‘So little by little there was developed a fierce rhetoric using the vocabulary and the body of criticism engendered by the Shoah. Overall, since there was a genocide in Rwanda, there had to have been Nazis and torturers—and, as a consequence, a bunch of historical revisionists. Whoever put out doubts about the ‘Kagamean vision’ of events, exposed himself to being, in his turn, ranked among the neo-Faurissonien campers.’

This is what happened to me, but I have to say that I am not alone in this case. I am joined by some eminently respectable people. I’m think particularly of the journalist Stephen Smith, who testified before you on Thursday, but also of Judge [Jean-Louis] Bruguière, who, after having ordered arrest warrants against Paul Kagame’s entourage, was called a revisionist, and even a negationist, by Kigali; and also Spanish Judge [Fernando Andreu] Merelles, who, after having ordered 40 arrest warrants against Kagame’s principal collaborators, suffered the same accusations and calumnies. The two judges, moreover, were made the subjects of judicial attacks from the powers in Kigali.

I have for some time now been asking myself why the president of SOS Racisme got involved in this debate on the side of François-Xavier Ngarambe, who, as president of Ibuka, was ordered by the government in Kigali in the beginning of 2006 to file law suits against me. Why, when, in October 2006, at the press conference to announce the complaint filed against my publisher and me, he would speak of my book as ‘a blatant swindle’ and let the lawyer Bernard Maingain speak of my intention as being ‘a return to a fascination with a certain Pétainism’.

Last spring, while reading a book entitled Rwanda: Pour un dialogue des mémoires [For a dialogue of memories], published in April 2007 by Les Éditions Albin Michel and the French Union of Jewish Students, with a preface by Bernard Kouchner, I finally got it. In this book, written by ‘the children of deported Jews and the descendants of Black slaves’, to borrow from Bernard Kouchner’s description, after a one-week trip to Rwanda in February 2006, that allowed them to meet the survivors of the genocide, Dominique Sopo, as a ‘descendant of a Black slave’, developed his own vision of the Rwandan drama. His contribution seemed to me to fold his un-nuanced repetition of the Kigali dictatorship’s official version of things into his own vision of world history, and that he did not hesitate to compare the genocide of the Tutsis and moderate Hutus with the Shoah.

For Doninique Sopo, what happened in Rwanda is merely the product of racism and Western colonialism. According to him, the Rwandan genocide is the ‘last link in a long chain’ (page 58) which he describes as having its source in Greek philosophy, where he sees the genesis of racism: ‘By identifying the Beautiful with the Good, does it not encourage searching for signs of Evil in the physical as well?’ (page 58). Sopo can’t help using the same Manichean criteria to analyze the world and its history: on one side are the good guys, on the other the bad guys. Subscribing to this basic dialectic, he presents Africa as a paradise lost since the arrival of the Whites. And under his pen, the Rwandan drama does not escape this rudimentary analysis.

From there, Dominique Sopo cobbles together an entire history in which the Hutus are the Nazis who carry within themselves the ideology of the genocidaire that inevitably leads to the tragedy of 1994. He describes the Manifeste des Bahutu [the Bahutu Manifesto], published in 1957 by Hutu intellectuals demanding that lands be shared and participation in the territorial administration, which, until then, had been in the hands of the Tutsis, as the Rwandan Mien Kampf: ‘This manifesto,’ writes Dominique Sopo, ‘lays the ideological foundations for the future’ (pages 62 & 63). The president of SOS Racisme assigns the final historical responsibility for the Rwandan genocide to Whites, because they instilled in the Hutus their own colonial vision of Rwandan society. Along the same lines, he explains how the Tutsis, as ‘members of a social category’ and ‘residents of a multi-secular Rwanda’, found themselves ‘racialized’ by the colonists, and, thereby, ‘exteriorized’. I quote him: ‘We will, furthermore, end up calling them “the Jews of Africa”, which, everyone must admit, does not bode well for their future’ (page 61).

Before writing a sentence like this, militant anti-racist that he is, Sopo should have worked a little more deeply on this dossier. To have worked on it, in any case, beyond the single week he spent in Rwanda in February 2006, where he only heard the potted histories of the ultra-Tutsis running the dictatorship in Kigali. He would have discovered that the expression, ‘Jews of Africa’, was used designedly by the Tutsis, themselves, in their propaganda. And it was the newspaper, Impuruza[1], that first used it in 1983: ‘A nation in exile, a people without leadership, the “Jews of Africa”, a nation without a State, all these expressions would make marvelous titles to describe the saga of our people.’ Though more mundane, it would have been enough for Dominique Sopo to meet some Rwandans who did not belong to the RPF, or who did not currently live in Rwanda, to become aware that his vision of Rwanda was totally ideological, that if the Tutsis and the Hutus feel themselves to be different, their differences are not of an economic nature, but ethnic, because the former dominated the latter until the end of the 1950s: this is the reality that the colonial administration previously calculated and crystallized. Some Rwandan historians and Rwandan nationals can explain this subject to you with a vision completely different from Sopo’s.

In his text, and despite a formal introduction critical of comparisons of the Tutsis with the Jews, Sopo constantly returns to the similarities between the Tutsis and the Jews, and, consequently, of the Hutus and the Nazis. The president of SOS Racisme seems not to recognize that to confuse the Shoah and the genocide of the Tutsis is a historical aberration and, moreover, in certain regards, an insult to the memory of the victims and those who survived the Shoah. It even verges on anti-Semitism: in 1933 as in 1939, it was certainly not a gang of Jews who took up arms and invaded Germany. Who would dare support such idiocy? But, it assuredly was the ultra-Tutsis of the RPF who, almost exclusively, took up arms against what was then called ‘Hutu Power’. And it was these same Tutsis who won the civil war and seized state power.

In just a few pages, Dominique Sopo almost perfectly dictates a version of this history that is radically opposed to the one in my book. The history he reports is the official, potted version that is disseminated by Kigali, and retold by those I call the ‘blancs menteurs’ [White liars].

Dogmatically locked into his personal theories of racism, Dominique Sopo, always meanly questioning the intentions of those French—politicians, military people, intellectuals and journalists—who don’t think as he does, and who, like me, speak of a ‘double genocide’, and of ‘accomplices in the on-going genocides and those that will occur in the future’ (page 71).

The president of SOS Racisme certainly has the right to think what he wants about the Rwandan drama, to think in terms of a fundamentalist dialectic of Good v Evil as the driving spirit of History, but I challenge him absolutely when he charges me with racism solely because I don’t think as he does! In my book, I was only trying to search out the truth.

Your Honor’s judgment will answer the question posed by Hervé Deguine, of Reporters Sans Frontières, in an article published in Médias: ‘Can one still write freely about Rwanda?’

I have confidence that the Justice system in my country will absolve me of the terrible charge that SOS Racisme has, outside all legitimacy and disdaining the truth, leveled against me.

Note:

[1] Impuruza was the first newspaper of the Rwandan diaspora. Founded by Alexandre Kamenyi in the US, the title was well chosen to describe the spirit of retaking by force of arms that political power which was lost. Impuruza is the traditional drum used before colonial times by the Tutsis as a call to war.

Crimes organisés en Afrique Centrale ! - Déclaration de Pierre Péan au tribunal de Paris - 23 septembre 2008

2008-11-09T22:09:00.000+01:00

Crimes organisés en Afrique Centrale ! - Déclaration de Pierre Péan au tribunal de Paris - 23 septembre 2008

[Le procès Pierre Péan, dont un jugement va arriver le 7 novembre, nous intéresse beaucoup parce que l'accusé Péan pour la plupart de son carrier se visait d'exploser la culture de mensonges et désinformation, et de contredire la théorie dont la haine est la pulsion primaire à l'histoire, par exposant la vraie histoire torturée de Rwanda, et ses effets sur la tuerie en Congo actuel.

Mais Péan n'est pas le seul d'être attaqué des charges d’instiguer la haine (raciste) contre ses ennemis. À La Haye, Dr. Vojalsav Seselj subi la même charge dans le contexte de guerre qui a détruit Yougoslavie. Bien que Dr Seselj tentât d'établir une défense civile à son pays contre l'agression occidentale d’EU/UK/UE, pour mieux attaque la Russie, M. Péan luttait principalement pour la cause de vérité et justice en écriant l'histoire d'Afrique, continent le plus martyrisé de toutes. Voici la déclaration d'auteur du livre formidable sur Rwanda, Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs, dont il a présenté devant le Tribunal de Paris le 23 Septembre 2008. —mc]

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Crimes organisés en Afrique Centrale !
Déclaration de Pierre Péan au tribunal de Paris
23 septembre 2008

Monsieur le Président,

Je vis ma mise en examen pour incitation à la haine raciale et diffamation raciale comme une flétrissure. Une flétrissure plus grave que la marque au fer rouge de mon ancêtre condamné pour faux-saunage et mort deux ans plus tard au bagne de Brest. Lui n'avait fait que vendre en Mayenne du sel acheté en Bretagne aux seules fins de nourrir sa famille... Ce qui m'est imputé est bien plus grave que d'avoir tenté d'éviter les gabelous pour ne pas payer une taxe inique. Si le droit pénal qualifie l'incitation à la haine raciale de délit, je la considère, quant à moi, comme un crime. Elle aboutit en effet toujours à l'effusion de sang...

Depuis presque trois ans, je suis traîné dans la boue par de nombreux médias – je pense notamment à Charlie-Hebdo qui cisèle les contours d'une liberté d'expression à sa main ; dans le meilleur des cas, j'y suis présenté comme un raciste, mais aussi comme un antisémite, un révisionniste, voire un négationniste, comme ce fut aussi le cas dans Le Point sous la plume de M. Bernard-Henri Lévy.

C'est tout simplement insupportable. D'ailleurs, mon cœur n'a pas supporté ces attaques monstrueuses et injustes. Si vous deviez suivre l'accusation de SOS Racisme, relayant l'association Ibuka, elle-même courroie de transmission du gouvernement de Kigali, c'est toute ma vie, tous mes combats, tous mes engagements que vous rayeriez d'un trait.

Cette affaire m'a amené à regarder en arrière et à me poser beaucoup de questions. Je ne vais pas imposer au Tribunal la relation détaillée d'un demi-siècle d'une vie bien remplie, mais je crois indispensable qu'il sache le rôle important qu'ont joué dans mon parcours mes engagements contre le colonialisme, contre le racisme et pour le développement de ce qu'on appelait alors le tiers-monde. Après avoir milité contre l'Algérie française, participé aux grandes manifestations parisiennes, notamment, celle de Charonne en 1962, je suis parti en Afrique, à la fin de l'année 1962, avec un contrat gabonais - et non français - comme attaché de cabinet du ministre des Finances du Gabon. J'étais et je suis resté longtemps ce qu'on appelait un tiers-mondiste. J'ai vécu au Gabon jusqu'à la fin de l'année 1964, où j'ai milité contre le néo-colonialisme français. Tellement milité que j'ai été contraint de quitter le Gabon plus vite que prévu...

Depuis cette époque, j'ai maintenu des liens constants avec l'Afrique et les Africains. J'ai dû aller pas loin d'une centaine de fois sur le continent ; j'ai écrit plusieurs livres sur les relations entre la France et l'Afrique, dont celui qui m'a révélé au grand public, Affaires africaines, en 1983, mais aussi L'Argent noir, L'Homme de l'ombre, Manipulations africaines, Main basse sur Alger...

J'ai noué et gardé des relations étroites avec de nombreux Africains. J'ai été parrain de SOS Racisme, ai participé avec Christophe Nick à la création de Stop La Violence... L'Afrique était tellement présente à la maison que, dès qu'elle a fini ses études, ma fille s'est installée en Afrique. Elle y vit toujours avec ses trois enfants. Ma femme, que j'ai connue en Afrique, a une filleule congolaise. Ma sœur a épousé un Camerounais, est marraine d'une petite Congolaise, et, dans la communauté africaine de Sablé, elle est affectueusement surnommée "la maman des blacks"...

Malgré ce contexte, j'aurais donc, en 2005, à 67 ans, subitement et brutalement envoyé toutes mes convictions par-dessus bord, et été saisi d'une haine irraisonnée contre les Tutsis, j'aurais soudain mis toute mon énergie à leur faire du mal... Cela n'a évidemment pas de sens. Je respecte les Tutsis comme je respecte tous les citoyens du monde, quelle que soit leur origine, leur couleur ou leur religion, et j'éprouve même à leur égard une très grande compassion, en ayant toujours en tête le génocide qui les a visés en 1994.

Au début de ce procès, et pour apprécier les phrases qui me sont reprochées dans les pages 41 à 44 de mon livre Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs, il est important que le Tribunal comprenne la démarche qui m'a conduit à écrire ce livre.

Comme tout le monde, j'avais été très choqué par les images des massacres à la machette diffusées par toutes les chaînes en avril-mai 1994, massacres qualifiés quelques semaines plus tard de "génocide des Tutsis et des Hutus modérés ". J'ai d'ailleurs été confronté personnellement aux conséquences d'un des premiers meurtres qui ont suivi l'attentat contre l'avion qui transportait les deux présidents rwandais et burundais, dans lequel a péri, le 6 avril 1994, le président Habyarimana : l'assassinat d'Agathe Uwilingiyimana, la Première ministre hutue en exercice. J'ai en effet participé au sauvetage de ses cinq enfants... J'ai suivi avec étonnement les attaques violentes contre la France quand a été décidée l'opération Turquoise ; alors que je terminais mon livre, Une jeunesse française, j'ai eu le privilège de recevoir les confidences de François Mitterrand sur le drame rwandais, le 1er juillet 1994, juste avant qu'il ne reçoive Yoweri Museveni, le président de l'Ouganda ; j'ai vu pleurer dans les couloirs de l'Élysée des responsables français de la politique africaine qui ne comprenaient pas pourquoi la France était si violemment attaquée... Mais j'ai surtout, en 1996, reçu les confidences d'un ancien militant panafricain proche d'un des membres FPR du Network Commando qui a monté l'attentat du 6 avril 1994 contre l'avion présidentiel. Attentat qui avait pour objectif la prise de pouvoir par les rebelles du FPR, Tutsis dans leur très grande majorité. Attentat dont tout le monde s'accorde à dire qu'il a été le facteur déclenchant du génocide des Tutsis et des Hutus modérés.

À partir de là, j'ai évidemment porté une attention plus grande à tout ce qui se disait et s'écrivait sur le drame rwandais. J'ai écrit avec Jean-François Bizot mon premier article sur ce sujet dans L'Almanach d'Actuel de 1997. Article dans lequel était déjà dit l'essentiel, à savoir que Paul Kagame, patron du renseignement militaire d'Ouganda, était parti d'Ouganda à la tête d'exilés tutsis armés par ce pays pour prendre le pouvoir à Kigali par la force, en 1994. Nous disions aussi que Paul Kagame avait terminé sa conquête en abattant l'avion dans lequel se trouvait le président du Rwanda, et qu'il savait pertinemment qu'en agissant ainsi il déchaînerait la colère des Hutus contre les Tutsis du Rwanda, considérés par eux comme des partisans des rebelles du FPR. Ce n'est pas très élégant de se citer, mais, en la circonstance, je crois que c'est important. Dans Actuel, nous avions notamment écrit ces quelques phrases : "Mettez-vous dans la tête de Kagame au moment où il décide de "dessouder" les deux présidents hutus du Rwanda et du Burundi. Il sait qu'il va précipiter le chaos, enclencher le génocide de son propre peuple, les Tutsis. À deux ans, il a dû fuir le premier génocide [allusion aux exactions de 1959, à l'heure de l'indépendance, qui vit des milliers de Tutsis s'exiler]. Il ne voit pas d'autre solution pour contraindre les Tutsis à l'insurrection. En bon révolutionnaire, il se dit que la fin justifie les moyens. On n'écrit pas l'histoire avec un poignard en caoutchouc..." Je dois dire que ce très long article resta à l'époque sans échos... Personne ne le reprit, pas même pour le contester, ni alors, ni ultérieurement.

L'année d'après, en 1998, à la suite des attaques médiatiques lancées contre la France, relayées par quelques associations - Survie en tête - et par des supporters acharnés du nouveau pouvoir de Kigali, une mission parlementaire d'information a cherché à savoir si politiques et militaires français s'étaient mal comportés au Rwanda. Le rapport Quilès, qui concluait que la France avait peut-être commis des erreurs au Rwanda, mais qu'en aucun cas elle n'avait été complice du génocide, ne calma ni Kigali, ni ses supporters français qui, au contraire, ne cessèrent, après coup, d'élever le niveau de leurs attaques. En omettant bien entendu d'évoquer la responsabilité du Network Commando dans l'attentat du 6 avril 1994...

Dès cette époque, la version de Kigali s'était pratiquement imposée comme la version officielle du drame rwandais. Version qui présente l'avantage d'être simple, je dirai même simpliste. Elle réduit en effet le drame rwandais à une confrontation entre le Mal et le Bien, les Méchants et les Bons, les méchants Hutus et les bons Tutsis... À en croire la vulgate médiatique, et pour faire bonne mesure, les Hutus auraient été dirigés par un " nazi tropical ", aidé par Mitterrand-Hitler et ses Waffen-SS...

En 2000, de plus en plus exaspéré par la propagation de ces contrevérités manifestes, je tentai de les démasquer en initiant une nouvelle enquête sur les commanditaires de l'attentat du 6 avril, convaincu que la révélation de l'implication de Paul Kagame lui-même dans cet attentat, et donc de sa responsabilité personnelle dans le génocide, pouvait au moins faire réfléchir les gens de bonne foi... Je publiai le résultat de cette enquête dans Le Nouveau Papier journal. L'essentiel des conclusions du juge Bruguière, qui devaient fonder ses mandats d'arrêt internationaux lancés en décembre 2006, s'y trouvait.... Mais ce fut un nouveau coup d'épée dans l'eau. Personne n'osa se faire l'écho des résultats de mon enquête. Les télévisions, comme les principaux médias, continuaient d'avaliser les mensonges du chef d'État rwandais que d'aucuns, comme le professeur belge Reyntjens, qui témoignera devant vous, considèrent comme le " plus grand criminel de guerre vivant ". Comme on le vit faire jadis en Union soviétique, les médias continuèrent à donner la parole exclusivement à des " idiots utiles ", comme on les appelait du temps des " compagnons de route ", et à des militants déguisés en témoins. Je ne parle pas ici des récits sincères de survivants qui perdirent toute leur famille dans les massacres, je respecte leur souffrance et leur désir de témoigner ; comme tous les témoins, ils détiennent, eux, un fragment de l'histoire. Mais l'histoire, si elle les englobe, les dépasse grandement, surtout quand elle est encore en train de se faire et que certains instrumentalisent leur souffrance.

Devant ce spectacle, mon irritation a progressivement laissé place à de la colère : car l'installation par la force de Paul Kagame à Kigali n'a pas étanché sa soif de pouvoir. Il a poursuivi la guerre au-delà des frontières du Rwanda, débordant largement (et c'est peu dire) sur l'est de la République démocratique du Congo... Les soldats du FPR, aidés des Ougandais et protégés par les forces spéciales américaines, sous prétexte de traquer les génocidaires vont tuer des centaines de milliers de Rwandais et de Congolais ; ils déstabilisent le Zaïre, allant finalement jusqu'à Kinshasa pour placer Laurent-Désiré Kabila, leur marionnette, au pouvoir en 1997. Les crimes de masse rwandais ont été accompagnés d'un pillage massif de richesses. L'année suivante, sous prétexte que leur marionnette n'exécute pas leurs décisions au doigt et à l'œil, les soldats du FPR rééditent leurs exploits militaires dans l'ex-Zaïre. Parce que Paul Kagame a réussi à s'imposer comme le représentant des victimes du génocide rwandais, la Communauté internationale ne réagit pas aux crimes de masse, qualifiés de crime de génocide par un juge espagnol, commis par son ordre et sous sa responsabilité.

Le cœur de l'Afrique saigne depuis maintenant 18 années ! J'ai, dans un premier temps, tenté de convaincre des hommes politiques et des journalistes de réagir, d'examiner la situation globale, de dénoncer les mensonges de Paul Kagame...

La publication par Le Monde, en mars 2004, d'une partie de l'enquête du juge Bruguière a paradoxalement insufflé à Kigali et à ses thuriféraires un nouvel élan de combativité pour propager leur version mensongère de l'histoire du drame rwandais, pour accuser et insulter la France, ses personnels politiques et militaires.. . Je décidai donc de me battre à nouveau contre cette désinformation. Et la seule arme que je connaisse, c'est l'enquête. Une enquête approfondie, rapportée dans un livre de 544 pages, qui permette de faire un bout de chemin vers la vérité. Enquête qui visait à exposer comment la réécriture de l'histoire s'était faite, dédouanant de ses responsabilités Paul Kagame dans l'attentat du 6 avril 1994. Car le facteur déclenchant du génocide, je le répète, a bel et bien été cet attentat, et ce point de vue est désormais partagé par de nombreux autres connaisseurs de ce dossier.

Je mène des enquêtes depuis bientôt 40 ans et me suis spécialisé dans les enquêtes sensibles depuis une trentaine d'années. Pour approcher le drame rwandais, j'ai utilisé les mêmes méthodes que d'habitude, interrogeant beaucoup de monde, mais privilégiant au maximum les sources écrites. Toutefois, j'ai décidé de ne pas me rendre au Rwanda, car j'estimais qu'interroger des témoins sous une dictature sanguinaire qui laisse croupir des dizaines de milliers de gens en prison, qui a installé partout des tribunaux populaires, et élimine qui bon lui semble, n'avait aucun sens. La qualification de " dictature sanguinaire " ne relève pas ici d'une provocation : ce diagnostic a été porté par de nombreux observateurs et ONG, mais aussi et surtout par la justice espagnole, agissant à la suite d'une plainte du Forum international pour la vérité et la justice en Afrique des Grands Lacs, présidé par Juan Carrero, pour l'assassinat de neuf Espagnols (deux missionnaires, quatre frères maristes et trois membres de Médecins du Monde Espagne) au Rwanda et en RDC.

Je crois en effet qu'il est important pour la clarté des débats qui vont suivre d'avoir constamment à l'esprit la nature du régime dirigé par Paul Kagame. Et je me limiterai pour l'instant à vous lire le début de l'ordonnance espagnole qui a abouti en février dernier au lancement de 40 mandats d'arrêt contre l'appareil politico-militaire du pouvoir en place à Kigali :

"À ce jour se détachent des indices rationnels et fondés selon lesquels, à partir du mois d'octobre 1990, un groupe politico-militaire fortement armé et organisé a déclenché une série d'actions à caractère criminel sur le territoire rwandais à partir de l'Ouganda.

"Au cours des quatre premières années, on a assisté à différentes actions organisées et systématiques dont le but était l'élimination de la population civile, tant par l'ouverture d'hostilités belliqueuses contre l'armée rwandaise que par la perpétration d'actes terroristes d'amplitude et d'intensité diverses, exécutés sur le territoire rwandais, principalement dans les zones septentrionale et centrale, toute cette action étant déployée sous un commandement stable et structuré, sur les plans tant stratégique qu'organisationnel.

"Une fois le pouvoir arraché par la violence, [ce groupe] a instauré avec les mêmes méthodes un régime de terreur et une structure criminelle parallèle à l'état de droit, ayant pour fin planifiée et préméditée la séquestration, le viol de femmes et de fillettes, la perpétration d'actes terroristes (parfois conduits dans le but de simuler qu'ils avaient été commis par leurs ennemis), l'incarcération de milliers de citoyens sans la moindre instruction judiciaire, l'assassinat sélectif de personnes, la destruction et l'élimination systématique des cadavres par leur entassement dans des fosses communes sans identification aucune, l'incinération massive des corps ou leur précipitation dans les lacs et rivières, ainsi que les attaques non sélectives contre la population civile sur la base d'une présélection ethnique, dans le but d'éliminer l'ethnie majoritaire, et incluant aussi la commission d'actes à caractère belliqueux tant au Rwanda que dans le pays voisin, le Zaïre (actuellement République Démocratique du Congo), y perpétrant des massacres indiscriminés et systématiques de la population réfugiée, ainsi que des actes de pillage sur grande échelle dans le but de pourvoir à l'autofinancement de ces activités criminelles en sus de l'enrichissement illicite des responsables."

Le régime de Kigali a depuis longtemps compris l'importance de la "communication" pour sa survie et sait en tirer les ficelles. A-t-on naguère approché la réalité soviétique par des enquêtes menées en URSS, en interrogeant telles ou telles personnes au vu et au su des autorités ? Évidemment pas. Ce sont les défecteurs et les dissidents qui ont réussi à lever le voile sur la vraie nature du régime stalinien. Mais il existe suffisamment d'exilés chassés du Rwanda, y compris d'anciens proches de Kagame, pour contourner cette difficulté...

Après avoir approfondi ce que je savais déjà de l'attentat du 6 avril 1994, je me suis plongé dans une imposante masse de matériaux que j'ai pu réunir sur le drame rwandais : notamment le rapport Quilès, des documents de l'Élysée, la revue de presse et, plus surprenant, de très nombreux documents rédigés par des Hutus mais qui, depuis 1994, sont littéralement frappés d'interdit pour le simple motif qu'ils sont Hutus, donc supposés tous et comme génétiquement génocidaires.

Assez rapidement, j'ai éprouvé une bizarre sensation que je n'avais jamais ressentie dans mes enquêtes précédentes. Et Dieu sait que j'ai souvent approché des gens peu recommandables, pénétré dans des univers glauques, été à de multiples reprises confronté à la désinformation et aux mensonges... Là, j'ai été frappé par l'aspect systématique, je dirais presque industriel des trucages, des faux témoignages, qui servaient à créer de toutes pièces ce qui devait apparaître à presque tous comme des vérités. Frappé par les manipulations de l'histoire opérées par les vainqueurs et par le détournement de certains mots comme celui de "victimes", qui ne peuvent être que tutsies. Même le TPIR ne me semblait pas au-dessus de tout soupçon, puisqu'il refusait de poursuivre les responsables des massacres commis par le FPR. Comme l'a écrit Montaigne, le mensonge n'a pas, comme la vérité, un seul visage. "Car nous prendrions pour certain l'opposé de ce que dirait le menteur. Mais le revers de la vérité a cent mille figures, et un champ indéfini", écrit-il.

Mon livre se devait de scruter les mensonges rwandais et de démasquer les menteurs qui entendaient imposer au monde une version falsifiée de l'Histoire. Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs est d'abord un livre sur les mensonges du pouvoir en place à Kigali.

Comme je l'ai écrit à la page 44 de mon livre, "les militaires utilisent souvent des leurres - avions, tanks, camions en carton ou en bois - pour que l'ennemi croie à une attaque imminente, ou gaspille ses munitions sur de fausses cibles... Les rebelles tutsis ont fait beaucoup mieux. Ils ont réussi jusqu'à présent à falsifier complètement la réalité rwandaise en imputant à d'autres leurs propres crimes et actes de terrorisme, et en diabolisant leurs ennemis. Enquêter sur le Rwanda relève du pari impossible, tant le mensonge et la dissimulation ont été élevés par les vainqueurs au rang des arts majeurs. (Cette phrase, qui figure dans la plainte de SOS Racisme, je l'assume comme toutes les autres.) Ce qu'on y voit n'a rien de commun avec la réalité, mais avec les faux-semblants créés par Paul Kagame et ses stratèges. Les masques sont partout. Kagame et ses collaborateurs tutsis ont jusqu'à présent réussi à ce que l'opinion publique internationale prenne des vessies pour des lanternes..."

Face à un tel constat, dressé au terme de plusieurs mois d'enquête, j'ai éprouvé le besoin d'aller au-delà de l'enchaînement des faits décrivant la guerre déclenchée en octobre 1990, date à laquelle les rebelles tutsis pénétrèrent au Rwanda. La sophistication de la guerre de désinformation menée par le FPR m'a obligé à tenter de mieux comprendre l'histoire et la culture du Rwanda. Au-delà de la lecture de quelques livres, j'ai ainsi rencontré Antoine Nyetera. Tutsi, descendant du roi Kigeri III, il a une excellente connaissance de l'histoire rwandaise et de ses principaux acteurs. Il est considéré comme un "observateur impartial des événements, mieux placé qu'aucun autre témoin pour clarifier certains problèmes qu'un expert étranger ne peut appréhender", dis-je pour reprendre un document émanent du TPIR. Il a témoigné à plusieurs reprises devant de prestigieuses assemblées, notamment devant le Parlement européen. Le Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda (TPIR) a fait appel à lui : il s'est rendu à Arusha en février, juillet 2002 et septembre 2006. Son témoignage était intitulé Le Mythe tutsi et son influence sur la culture du mensonge et de la violence au Rwanda.

Abordant ce chapitre, j'ai voulu replacer la désinformation, utilisée comme une arme de guerre par le FPR pour masquer sa stratégie de conquête militaire du pouvoir entre 1990 et 1994, dans la longue histoire rwandaise marquée par l'usage de ce que j'ai appelé le "mensonge", qui porte un nom spécifique en kinyarwanda : l'ubengwe...

Les passages qui me sont reprochés figurent dans un premier chapitre qui ne fait que poser des jalons, " rudiments d'histoire et de géographie ", ai-je écrit (pour bien préciser que je n'ai pas la prétention de faire œuvre d'historien, mais qu'il faut bien fournir au lecteur français de quoi se faire une idée de l'histoire du pays) ; il était aussi indispensable d'adjoindre une " brève " présentation des spécificités de la société rwandaise, notamment de cette " culture du mensonge " qui est une manière de civilité très particulière, qui n'a d'ailleurs rien d'extraordinaire et est connue de longue date. Je crois n'avoir pas procéder différemment des spécialistes du terrorisme proche- et moyen-oriental qui, avant d'exposer leurs analyses, évoquent la " takya " qui est pratiquée dans ces régions : un droit de mentir pour défendre ses convictions.

L'existence d'une "culture du mensonge" au Rwanda, qui choque tant le président de SOS Racisme, est une évidence non seulement pour Antoine Nyetera, mais pour tous les Rwandais, un fait culturel indéniable que plusieurs scientifiques se sont attachés à étudier. Il s'agit, je l'ai dit, de l'ubgenge ou ubwenge, puisque la langue rwandaise possède ce terme spécifique pour le nommer. En langue française, aucun mot ne saurait le restituer parfaitement : on peut le traduire approximativement par mensonge, ruse, dissimulation, réserve, etc. Des témoins vous parleront mieux que moi de l'ubwenge. Je me limiterai ici à citer le professeur Pierre Erny qui, dans une étude publiée dans le numéro 40 des Cahiers de sociologie économique et culturelle (INIST/CNRS) , en 2003, intitulée Ubgenge : intelligence et ruse à la manière Rwanda et Rundi. Il écrit : "Dans une société où "la vérité n'est pas un élément dominant dans l'échelle des valeurs", où non seulement tout le monde est susceptible de dissimuler la vérité, mais où le "mensonge" est classé parmi les beaux-arts et les jeux de l'esprit parmi les plus excitants, personne n'est dupe, tout le monde sait à quoi s'en tenir, et comment adapter sa conduite. Autrement dit, seuls ceux du dehors se font avoir."

Je ne dis rien d'autre. Mais, dans le cas du Rwanda, malheur à ceux qui contestent le moins du monde la version officielle. Il ne fait d'ailleurs pas bon, aujourd'hui, mettre en doute les versions officielles. Et comme il s'agit ici d'un génocide, voire d'un double génocide, on se complaît à ramener tous ces types de massacres à un seul, celui de la destruction des Juifs d'Europe pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. J'étais bien conscient de ce piège. J'ai écrit page 22 de mon livre : "Pour rendre leur thèse inexpugnable, les défenseurs inconditionnels de Kagame ont déployé un "plan com" redoutable : assimiler ceux qui contestaient leurs thèses aux révisionnistes qui nient la réalité des chambres à gaz ou le nombre des victimes de la Shoah. Pour disqualifier ceux qui doutent de la moralité de l'actuel Président rwandais, le président de Survie n'a pas hésité à parler de "négrophobie".

"Ainsi s'est peu à peu développé un redoutable usage rhétorique du vocabulaire et du corpus d'analyses engendrés par la Shoah. En somme, puisqu'il y a eu génocide au Rwanda, il y avait forcément des nazis, des tortionnaires. .. et, dans la foulée, un lot de révisionnistes. Quiconque émettait quelques doutes sur la vision "kagamiste" des événements s'exposait à être à son tour rangé dans le camp des néo-faurissoniens."

C'est ce qui m'arrive, mais je dois dire que je ne suis pas seul dans ce cas ; y figurent aussi des gens éminemment respectables. Je pense notamment au journaliste Stephen Smith, qui témoignera jeudi devant vous, mais aussi au juge Bruguière qui, après avoir lancé ses mandats d'arrêt contre l'entourage de Paul Kagame, a été traité à Kigali de révisionniste, et même de négationniste ; mais aussi le juge espagnol Merelles qui, après avoir lancé 40 mandats d'arrêt contre les principaux collaborateurs de Kagame, essuie à son tour les mêmes accusations et calomnies. Les deux juges font d'ailleurs l'objet d'attaques en justice intentées par le pouvoir de Kigali...

Je me suis longtemps demandé pourquoi le président de SOS Racisme intervenait dans ce débat aux côtés de François-Xavier Ngarambe qui, en tant que président d'Ibuka, a été chargé, début 2006, par le pouvoir de Kigali, d'engager des poursuites judiciaires contre moi. Pourquoi, lors de la conférence de presse annonçant en octobre 2006 la plainte déposée contre moi et mon éditeur, il parla d'"escroquerie manifeste" à propos de mon livre et laissa l'avocat Bernard Maingain parler à mon propos de "retour à la fascination d'un certain pétainisme".

Au printemps dernier, en lisant le livre intitulé Rwanda. Pour un dialogue des mémoires, publié en avril 2007 par les éditions Albin Michel et l'Union des Étudiants Juifs de France avec une préface de Bernard Kouchner, j'ai enfin compris. Dans cet ouvrage qui a été écrit par "des enfants de déportés juifs et des descendants d'esclaves noirs", pour reprendre la formule de Bernard Kouchner, après un voyage d'une semaine au Rwanda, en février 2006, qui leur permit de rencontrer des rescapés du génocide, Dominique Sopo, en tant que "descendant d'esclave noir", développe sa propre vision du drame rwandais. Sa contribution m'a permis de constater qu'il reprenait sans nuances la version officielle de la dictature en place à Kigali en l'intégrant à sa propre vision de l'histoire du monde, et qu'il n'hésite pas à son tour à assimiler le génocide des Tutsis et des Hutus modérés à la Shoah...

Pour Dominique Sopo, ce qui s'est passé au Rwanda n'est que le produit du racisme et du colonialisme occidentaux. Le génocide rwandais est, selon lui, le "dernier maillon d'une longue chaîne" (page 58) qu'il décrit comme prenant sa source dans la philosophie grecque, dans laquelle il voit les prémisses du racisme : "En identifiant le beau et le bien, n'incitait-elle pas à chercher les signes du mal dans l'aspect physique ?" (page 58) Ce qui n'empêche pas Sopo d'utiliser lui aussi les mêmes critères manichéens pour analyser le monde et l'histoire : d'un côté les bons, de l'autre les méchants. Souscrivant à cette dialectique primaire, il présente l'Afrique comme un paradis perdu depuis l'arrivée des Blancs... Le drame rwandais n'échappe pas, sous sa plume, à cette analyse rudimentaire.

Reprenant la thèse de l'école burundo-franç aise animée par Jean-Pierre Chrétien, Dominique Sopo explique que c'est l'administration coloniale du Rwanda (allemande, puis belge, je me permets de le rappeler) qui transforma deux catégories sociales, les éleveurs et les paysans, en deux races distinctes, les Tutsis et les Hutus. Le président de SOS Racisme ajoute une touche personnelle à la diabolisation des Hutus en en parlant comme " une race par ailleurs colonisatrice " (page 61). (Comment Sopo peut-il parler de race alors que les Hutus n'étaient - selon lui - qu'une catégorie sociale avant l'arrivée des colons ? Ce gros mot lui aura probablement échappé !) Si les Hutus sont ce qu'ils sont, c'est-à-dire des génocidaires, c'est, selon le président de SOS Racisme, parce qu'ils ont intégrés "La vision coloniale de la société rwandaise " (page 62). Autrement dit, si les Hutus sont apparemment noirs, ils sont en réalité Blancs à l'intérieur, donc mauvais. Du texte de Dominique Sopo il ressort que les Tutsis, eux, n'ont pas intégré la " vision coloniale ", qu'ils ont perdu le pouvoir parce qu'ils avaient des "prétentions indépendantistes", et qu'ils sont donc restés, eux, authentiquement noirs.

À partir de là, Dominique Sopo construit toute une histoire dans laquelle les Hutus sont décrits comme des nazis portant en eux l'idéologie génocidaire qui ne pouvait que déboucher sur le drame de 1994. Il fait du Manifeste des Bahutu, publié en 1957 par des intellectuels hutus qui réclamaient le partage des terres et la participation des Hutus à l'administration territoriale alors entre les mains des Tutsis, le Mein Kampf du Rwanda : "Ce manifeste, écrit Dominique Sopo, jetait les bases idéologiques à venir " (pages 62 et 63). Le président de SOS Racisme impute in fine la responsabilité historique du génocide rwandais aux Blancs pour avoir imprégné les Hutus de leur vision coloniale de la société rwandaise. Dans la même logique, il explique que les Tutsis " membres d'une catégorie sociale " et " résidents multiséculaires du Rwanda", se trouvèrent "racialisés" par les colons, et par là "extériorisés". Je le cite : "On finira d'ailleurs par les surnommer les "Juifs d'Afrique", ce qui, chacun en conviendra, n'était pas de très bon augure" (page 61).

Avant d'écrire une telle phrase, le militant antiraciste qu'il est aurait dû travailler un peu plus son dossier. Le travailler, en tout cas, au-delà de la semaine qu'il passa au Rwanda en février 2006, où il n'écouta que la version fabriquée par les Tutsis ultras, à la tête de la dictature installée à Kigali. Il aurait ainsi découvert que l'expression "Juifs d'Afrique" fut utilisée à dessein par les Tutsis eux-mêmes dans leur propagande. Ainsi, c'est le journal Impuruza[1] qui en use pour la première fois en 1983 : "Une nation en exil, un peuple sans leadership, les "Juifs d'Afrique", une nation sans Etat, toutes ces expressions pourraient faire des titres merveilleux pour décrire la saga de notre peuple..." Plus prosaïquement, il aurait suffi à Dominique Sopo de rencontrer des Rwandais n'appartenant pas au FPR et ne résidant pas actuellement au Rwanda pour se rendre compte que sa vision du Rwanda est totalement idéologique, que si les Tutsis et les Hutus se sentent différents, leurs différences ne sont pas de nature économique, mais ethnique, parce que les premiers ont dominé les seconds jusqu'à la fin des années 1950 : c'est cette réalité que l'administration coloniale a jadis prise en compte et cristallisée. Des historiens du Rwanda et des Rwandais vous exposeront à ce propos une vision toute différente de celle de Sopo.

Dans son texte, et malgré une critique liminaire formelle de l'assimilation des Tutsis aux Juifs, Sopo revient constamment sur la similitude de destin des Juifs et des Tutsis, et par contrecoup des Hutus avec les nazis. Le président de SOS Racisme semble méconnaître que confondre la Shoah et le génocide des Tutsis est une aberration historique et, de surcroît, à certains égards, une insulte à la mémoire des victimes et au sort des rescapés de la Shoah ; elle confine même à l'antisémitisme : en 1933 comme en 1939, ce n'est assurément pas une bande de Juifs qui prit les armes pour agresser l'Allemagne à ses frontières. Qui oserait soutenir pareille imbécillité ? Or, ce sont bien des Tutsis ultras du FPR qui presqu'exclusivement prirent les armes contre le pouvoir dit " des Hutus ". Et ce sont ces mêmes Tutsis qui gagnèrent la guerre civile et prirent le pouvoir...

En quelques pages, Dominique Sopo résume parfaitement une version de l'histoire que je conteste radicalement dans mon livre. L'histoire qu'il rapporte est celle, officielle, fabriquée et diffusée par Kigali, et relayée par ceux que j'ai appelés les "blancs menteurs".

Enfermé dogmatiquement dans sa théorisation personnelle du racisme, Dominique Sopo, fort peu avare de procès d'intention, fait de ceux - hommes politiques, militaires, intellectuels et journalistes français - qui ne pensent pas comme lui, et qui, comme moi, parle de "double génocide", des "complices des génocides en cours et de ceux qui adviendront dans le futur" (page 71).

Le président de SOS Racisme a certes le droit de penser ce qu'il veut sur le drame rwandais, de penser selon une dialectique intégriste du Bien et du Mal comme ressort de l'Histoire, mais je lui conteste absolument celui de m'accuser de racisme sous prétexte que je ne pense pas comme lui. Dans mon livre, je n'ai cherché qu'à tenter d'approcher la vérité.

Votre jugement répondra à la question posée par Hervé Deguine, de Reporters Sans Frontières, dans un article publié dans Médias : "Peut-on encore écrire librement sur le Rwanda ?"

J'ai confiance que la Justice de mon pays me lavera de la terrible accusation que SOS Racisme, hors de toute légitimité et de toute vérité, fait peser sur moi.

Note :

[1] Impuruza a été le premier journal de la diaspora rwandaise. Fondé par Alexandre Kamenyi aux Etats-Unis, le choix du titre indiquait bien l'esprit de reconquête par la force du pouvoir perdu. Impuruza désigne un tambour traditionnel utilisé avant la colonisation par les Tutsi pour les appeler à la guerre.

Disinformation: The 'Concrete Rwandan Case' - by Col Jacques Hogard

2008-09-28T12:26:00.000+02:00

Disinformation: The 'Concrete Rwandan Case' - by Col Jacques Hogard

[I got to know Col. Jacques Hogard, former French Legionnaire who now runs his own security consulting firm (I don’t really know if he likes that ‘Legionnaire’ jacket—or when I call him ‘Mon Colonel’, which I must admit is somewhat weenie on my part, in as much as I am an old draft-dodger who got out of the Vietnam War by claiming to be a fag—but I find all my military affectations way cool, so I hope he’ll forgive me.), long before I actually met him, when, during one of my Rwanda-reading binges I picked up his little book on Operation Turquoise, Les larmes de l’honneur, at FNAC. As with mon Général Ndindiliyimana’s, I was intrigued with Col. Hogard’s latter-day (post heroic?) tale of heroism—how the French military saved thousands, even hundreds of thousands unto millions, of Rwandan lives from the rampaging RPF ‘rebels’ in the Summer of 1994—the sort of heroism which the irrationality of categorical anti-imperialists (those who equate Western and Eastern Imperialisms, NATO with the Warsaw Pact) has effectively made impossible. And to be able now to sit down in his office off the Place de l'Étoile and talk with this intelligent, thoroughly informed, squared-away yet compassionate French military officer about our deep mutual concerns with the case of France and Rwanda, is both a great pleasure and an enormous privilege. In fact, it reminds me of back in the day when I’d sit and shoot the shit with Richard Brooks or Sam Peckinpah about the politics of Hollywood labor.

But the irrationality of Waste Capitalism—on a global scale—is now quickly approaching critical mass. With the current US financial meltdown, the inevitable result of the supersedure of use-value by exchange-value, where the ultimate commodity, long since become purely virtual and immaterial, a mere fantasy, or like cocaine, creates nothing with its use except a renewed demand for itself (hence the overwhelming predominance of war production), and certainly creates no human(e) value, other than the various commissions, transaction fees, back-end points on distributor’s gross, and usurious interest slides, but merely continues and intensifies the criminal transfers of public assets to the gangrenous gangsters of the unregenerate financial elites: today’s calls for Truth and Justice, though seemingly more bootless than ever, are becoming more frequent and more concentrated on certain subjects. Rwanda and the recent history of the carnage begun with its invasion by US/UK/Israeli-backed Ugandan forces on 1 October 1990 are chief among these subjects. And most fascinating of all are the interrelations between all the current events, like the covert and overt wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, even against certain Latin American countries like Bolivia and Venezuela, and the global ‘war on terrorism’, and how they are all of a piece with the struggle of classic, minoritarian (corporate neo-feudal or fascist) socio-political formations against majoritarian, popular (revolutionary socialist or communist) governmental models, as manifest in the century-long, pitiless wars against the USSR (now Russia) and Communist China.

In the West, one is not led to believe that Africans have a social or political history outside colonialism and neo-colonialism. Yet, in the 1930s, the Arch-Bishop of Kigali warned that solidarity with the majority Hutu movement for liberation from the Tutsi monarchy would be an encouragement to the spread of Communism in Africa. After its social revolution of 1959-61 and until the break-up of the USSR, Rwanda was a one-party state (the MRND's constitution being loosely based on that of the North Korean Communist Party) with close cultural and political ties to the Communist world—many of its professions were trained at Patrice Lamumba University in Moscow.

On the encouragement of French Socialist president François Mitterand, at the France-Africa conference held in the Atlantic coastal city of La Baule, 19-21 June 1990, Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana opened his country’s political system to multiple (opposition) parties, began forming plans through the UNHCR for the repatriation of Rwandan (Tutsis) ‘refugees’, and then, while on the verge of a real rapprochement between these historical and political (class) rivals, Rwanda was invaded by 6,000 heavily-armed troops of the Ugandan National Resistance Army, led by card-carrying Ugandan NRA officers, including the Ugandan Defense Minister Fred Gisa Rwigema and the head of Ugandan military intelligence (and current president of Rwanda) Paul Kagame. In the month of October 1990 alone, 30,000 Rwandan civilians were killed as a result of this unprovoked foreign aggression, this crime against peace. And it was France, along with Mobutu's Zaire, that came to the aid of the badly out-gunned Rwandan military and helped push back the invading Western-backed Ugandan forces.

But this was just the beginning of a four-year reign of terror that claimed the lives of tens, even hundreds of thousands, and displaced perhaps a million more, and culminated in the double assassination of the democratically elected (Hutu*) presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on 6 April 1994, which, it is universally agreed, then triggered the so-called Rwanda genocide of 100 days (6 April to 16 July 1994), and eventuated led to the Rwandan/Ugandan invasions of eastern Zaire (now Congo) that, to date, have cost upward of 8 million African souls.

And all this bloody chaos is justified as a defense against and punishment of ‘genocide’: which perfectly demonstrates the ‘disinforming trope’ of a Western military aggression being blamed on its victims by recontorting desperate efforts on the part of the aggressed at self-defense, at national defense into that very ‘genocide’. And this, in turn, is an example of the toxic irrationality (e.g., celebrating, during UN Peace Week in NYC, the blood-drenched, admitted terrorist and war criminal Paul Kagame, while protesting the much-maligned, much misinterpreted, but singularly unwarlike Mahmoud Ahmadenijad) that is fundamental to the criminal insanity that currently grips our world

Throughout the Rwandan drama, France assisted its Francophone partner. Until the terrible victory of Paul Kagame's RPF 'rebels' successfully tore that small, densely populated and strategically located nation from the French ‘Pré Carré’ (the Square Meadow) and forced it into the Anglo-Saxon Commonwealth, France supported the majoritarian interests of its Rwandan client against the minoritarian terrorism of its aggressors. This is what has earned France the—all too often self-applied—handle of ‘genocidaire’.

So, today, when the truth about this sordid, bloody and duplicitous Western imperialist adventure into ‘the heart of darkness’, this malignant mass investment of Western militarism into a defenseless Africa, is more and more being discovered through judicial inquiries, as with many of the cases before the ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania, or the investigations of Spanish judge Fernando Andreu Merelles or French anti-terrorist magistrate, Jean-Louis Bruguière, or even the current public defamation and incitement to racial hatred trial in Paris of French journalist Pierre Péan (His expansive 'Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs' is one of my faves on Rwanda, and I had floor-seats yesterday (23/9/08) for opening day of this trial—more on that anon), the real villains, the marauding waste-makers, who have banked so heavily on the military liquidation of Central Africa for easier access to the riches of Congo, have now recourse only to disinformation, to irrelevant and immaterial accusations against the French nation, its government and military, in their fey and feckless attempt to divert a demented public's sclerotic and skittish attention from the craven and venal crimes they have committed in service of the anti-Culture of Western financial Philistinism.

While including the work of another dear, departed friend and fellow 'theatre fag', Vladimir Volkoff, whom I got to know while working for Louis Dalmas over at Balkans Infos, Col. Hogard presents a clear and cogent description of how disinformation has been used—and continues to be used—in the heightening and intensification of the irrationality that seems to be threatening a worldwide psychotic break with Reality. And at this end-stage of human history (but maybe it just seems that way to me because of my advanced age), who knows what horrors this latest bull-goose lunacy will bring. —mc

*We often use the tribal names ‘Hutu’ and ‘Tutsi’ to stand for the socio-political concepts of ‘majoritarian’ and ‘minoritarian’, respectively.—nb ]

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DISINFORMATION: THE ‘CONCRETE RWANDAN CASE’

By Jacques Hogard, Colonel in the French Foreign Legion (retired), former commander of the southern group of Operation Turquoise in Rwanda (1994), CEO of E.P.E.E. (www.epee.fr), author of ‘Les larmes de l’honneur’ (Tears of Honor’), his eye-witness account of Operation Turquoise (editions Hugo&Cie, Paris, 2005)

‘What is important is not the reality of life but what people believe.’ Roger Mucchielli

As an officer in The Legion during the summer of 1994, I was a commander in the southern group of Operation Turquoise (21 June – 21 August 1994), set up in the southwest of Rwanda with the authorization of the UN (resolution 924) in order to establish a Humanitarian Security Zone for a limited period of 2 months . . .
I had never before served in Rwanda, neither under the auspices of military cooperation (under the military cooperation agreements signed by France and Rwanda in 1975), nor under the auspices of any of the military operations launched by France between October 1990 and December 1993 (dates marking the beginning and end of Operation Noroît), then in April 1994 (for the evacuation of French nationals and foreigners from Kigali at the onset of the massacres which would become the genocide of 1994).

Right away, this operation struck me as singular and, at the very least, sensitive and ‘controversial’. . .
In fact, just after arriving in Rwanda, I remember immediately being interviewed by the Anglo-American media, and being taken aback by the question, which seemed to me disingenuously posed, asking if I wasn’t ashamed to come to Rwanda ‘after what France had done or had let happen here!’

Since then, with all the charges that have been made against our country and its army, throughout the world, but also here in France, and this includes even in the major media, I have come to believe that the dramatic events in Rwanda have become the objects of a campaign of disinformation, perfectly executed and highly successful up to the present day . . .

If one can believe an expert, Vladimir Volkoff , disinformation is the ‘manipulation of public opinion, for political ends, with information treated in an indirect way’.
Volkoff says that ‘generally, when disinformation is presented simply using lies, eventually it will be discovered, without its discovery necessarily changing the effect of the campaign’! To support this idea he cites a few examples from recent history:

- ‘the mass grave at Timisoara was, in reality, a morgue, but Ceaucescu was still overthrown’;
- ‘the weapons of mass destruction used as a pretext for the Allied invasion of Iraq did not exist, but Saddam Hussein was still overthrown’;
- ‘the 100,000 dead Albanians in Kosovo were, in reality, ‘only’ less than 4,000, but Serbia was still driven out of its southern province’. . .
- etc.,

One could also add:

- ‘France had nothing to do with the outbreak of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, but its position as an influence in Africa is today lower than ever’!

It is, in fact, very interesting to analyze the campaign of disinformation about Rwanda, because it has had two conjoined effects, indisputable and impossible to discount:

Because of its self-proclaimed guilt in the Rwanda genocide,
- France has, in the last 14 years, lost its essential influence in Africa, to the point of today being little more than a spectator to the struggle between the Chinese and the Americans for strategic control of the ‘Dark Continent’ and for its hugely important reserves of raw materials; this includes Francophone Africa;
- Because of this situation, France has developed a terrible sense of guilt, unto remorse, about no longer having an Africa policy worthy of the name, and seems unprepared to develop any such clear and determined policy. The example of Ivory Coast is significant here.

The Volkoff Approach

According to Volkoff, a disinformation campaign always presents itself as an information campaign, but four characteristics allow us to make distinctions and become more aware of the reality of things.

Thus it seems very interesting to me to apply this ‘set of symptoms’ to the case of Rwanda:

1. ‘Everybody says the same thing. But it seldom occurs in human nature that people think the same thing.’

In the Rwandan case, read the international and French press, listen to the radio and watch TV: everybody (or almost) is completely convinced of the same truth: ‘there was a terrible genocide in Rwanda in 1994’ (which is true) ‘and France, whether it recognizes it or not, bears a large part of the responsibility for the development of this tragedy’ (which is false).

2. ‘Public opinion is over-loaded with information on one aspect of the question, to the detriment of other aspects.’ And, ‘poor is the man who’s read but one book’ or ‘you have to listen to the tolling of all the bells’. If we think we’ve read all there is to read, and if we think we’ve heard all the bells, and that all this has led us to only one view of the problem, it is because this is what someone has wanted us to think and we have, thus, been tricked’ . . .

The entirety of the media, all the book that are published—with very few exceptions, which are very quickly made suspect and demonized (one must remember the example of the work of journalist Pierre Péan [Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs: Rwanda 1990-1994 – Mille et une nuits, Paris, 2005 {Black Fury, White Liars}], first praised, then written off as being that of ‘a racist, negationist, trickster in the service of the French Army and the memory of his friend François Mitterand)—have signed on to the narrative of the genocide of the Tutsis (and, let’s not forget the innumerable moderate Hutus!) being solely the responsibility of the Hutu majority (which is true, though incomplete without much further explanation), tirelessly supported by France (which is false).

3. ‘All the good guys are on one side, all the bad guys on the other. But, the real situation is rarely so Manichean. Doubtlessly, there are just causes and unjust causes, but it never happens that all the do-rights are on one side, and all the bastards on the other. Any information that is presented to make us believe in something so unnatural is suspect because it is based on the ideology of the Cowboy Western, where the color of your Stetson—white or black—tells us whether you’re the hero or the villain. These simplistic extremes are pleasing to our inner-child, and we are always ready to kid ourselves in this way, as much from mental laziness as from innocence.’

The good-guys: these are obviously the victims, the martyrs of the genocide: the Tutsis (one willfully forgets the Hutus who were exterminated by their fellow Hutus, or, either earlier or later, by the Tutsis!), but also their liberators: The RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front), Uganda, and world opinion, the best friend of the Tutsis and the RPF, and this includes Bernard Kouchner, as well as, today, such organizations as the Reseau Voltaire, Golias, Survie, Ibuka, and all those that willy-nilly denounce ‘colonialism’, ‘The Church’, ‘François Mitterand’, ‘FrançAfrica’, ‘The French Army’. . .
The bad-guys: the Hutus and France, which unflinchingly aided them (but not without conditions: like a forced democratization of the regime!) from 1990 to 1993 . . .

Clearly, all Hutus are bastards, as is the government of France, and all the Tutsis are unassailable because they are martyrs.

4. ‘The acquiescence of public opinion develops into a mass psychosis. This is the objective of all campaigns of disinformation. The information consumer must ask for more, must abandon his critical sense, and must demand a permanent confirmation of the disinformation which is administered to him as dope to a junkie who always begs for more, until he succumbs to the ‘vampirism’ of disinformation: all who are bitten become biters, all who are disinformed become disinformers’.

As an example, one need only look at the film ‘Operation Turquoise’, directed by Alain Tasma and Gilles Taurand, and shown on Canal+ in November 2007, to understand the relevance of these four symptoms. All the clichés are found here, the accusations, latent or not, against French policies in Rwanda, the more or less direct allusions to the partiality of the French military’s comportment in this tragedy. . . . Thus, Tasma and Taurand, they, themselves, disinformed, take their turn at disinforming others, all in good faith, of course. . . .

The Tofflers’ interpretation

According to the American researchers Alvin and Heidi Toffler , cited by Volkoff, a campaign of disinformation is characterized by the use of:

1. The accusation of atrocities

This is much easier with Rwanda where there were innumerable atrocities, notably constitutive of a genocide. But they are not obviously charged to or chargeable to only the Hutus and to those who armed them, that is, the French. In any case, the Tutsi ‘rebels’ were reputed to have been possessed of an ironclad discipline—though there are numerous reports, and important ones at that, available today, on large-scale massacres perpetrated against Hutu peasants by the RPF in the course of the four years before the genocide, and even after that, in the years following the Front’s seizure of power (see the Human Rights Watch report on the massacres of hundreds of thousands of Hutus committed in 1994, 1995 and 1996, by the Tutsi army in exercise of its ‘right of pursuit of genocidaires’ into neighboring Zaire, see also the testimony of Abdul Ruzibiza, ‘Rwanda, l’histsoire secrète’ {‘Rwanda, the secret history} put out by Editons Panama in 2005).

2. The extreme exaggeration of the stakes

In the case of Rwanda, if one fuzzes out the hundreds of thousands of dead before and after the genocide, most of whom were Hutus, one falls upon the generally recognized figure of 1,200,000 victims, understood all to be Tutsis, while only the research into the truth that tends more toward precision and moderation in this macabre accounting comes up with a figure closer to 800,000 dead. As if it had to reach, or even better!, to exceed this fateful figure of one million dead, in order to better shock the minds of the public and convince them of the abomination of this ‘New Holocaust’. Because, here again, it is vital to make the parallel between the genocides of the Tutsis and that of the Jews. . . . As if they were one and the same thing . . .
Forget not only the respective representations of the Tutsi and Hutu communities in this tragedy, but also their real responsibilities.

3. The demonization or dehumanization of the enemy

The regime of the late president Juvénal Habyarimana (assassinated 6 April 1994), more authoritarian and paternalistic than totalitarian (unlike that of his successor), was converted in 1990 by François Mitterand from a single party state into a multiparty system with inter-communitarian dialogue, and ended with his death. But today it is described, without the slightest hint of the ridiculous, as being a sort of ‘Tropical Naziism’. Might always makes right, as La Fontaine would say.
Today it is just one people, the Hutu (80% of the Rwandan population) who have been black-listed by the entire world. It’s not good to be a Hutu today, even if you are a saint! Demonization played, and continues to play, its full role in allowing the regime of President Paul Kagame all its excesses and Human Rights violations without anyone anywhere in the international community raising a voice against it.

4. Polarization

This consists in suppressing all nuance. It is necessary that disinformation be total. If you are not today a partisan of Kagame and his regime, then you must—obviously—have been an accomplice in the genocide! If you give any credence to the conclusions drawn by anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière (who, in closing-out his investigation on the assassination of President Habyarimana on 6 April 1994, issued, in the name of the French judiciary, 9 international arrest warrants against individuals close to Kagame), then you are guilty of complicity in the genocide and crimes against humanity!

5. Calling upon the Devine for sanction

Even if we live in a secular world, calling upon The Devine for sanction—even if not explicitly—gives us a sense of being morally interesting:
If the Hutus are in Rwanda today (that is, if they currently suffer under the boot of the Kagame regime), it is because they deserve it. Get outta here, the mass is over!

6. Mega-propaganda, or the art of discrediting information coming from your enemy by treating it as ‘propaganda’, a subtle but effective method.

Accusations of ‘revisionism’, of ‘negationsim’, against academics, researchers, journalists, writers, witnesses whose opinions diverge from, or are only different from the consensus thinking, point up this evidence. The imposed version of history, where ‘the genocide was the work of the Hutus supported by the French’, is information. While the fact of placing this genocide in its historical context, that is, in the context of a civil war begun four years earlier, marked by horrible massacres on a massive scale (particularly those in which hundreds of thousands of Hutu were slaughtered by the Tutsi army in the forests of eastern Zaire in the winter of 1995-96), immediately hangs a revisionist or negationist jacket on you. Talk about double standards! Mega-propaganda has had its effect.

So the test of the Rwandan affair against the writings of the Tofflers or Vladimir Volkoff, is, as we have just seen, especially rich in reflection and very educational. There is no doubt that Rwanda is a wonderful lesson in disinformation.

It is not, however, a disinformation campaign without a strategic motive and a direct instigator with a keen interest in its success.

Considering Rwanda and Central Africa, it is important to remember that this little country today plays an essential role at the heart of the Great Lakes region of Africa, center stage, with an importance that is disproportionate to its slight demographic, its area or its natural assets. It would be appropriate in this regard to read the latest work of the British novelist and former MI6 agent, John Le Carré, ‘The Mission Song’. Here you will learn about all the important long-term strategies that have brought the Great Powers into this part of the Congo (the eastern provinces of the ex-Zaire, Kivu and Katanga, that are often described as a ‘geological scandal’!) in order to control the extraordinary variety of rare mineral resources, especially Coltan. The Rwanda of Paul Kagame, the ex-chief of the Tutsi ‘rebels’, trained at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, who was also head of the Ugandan Special Services, is a faithful allie of the US. The country is a ‘product’ of the labors of Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda. He is the biggest player today in the game of military expropriation of the fabulous riches of the region.

Yes, the campaign of disinformation led against France for its role in Rwanda should not be minimized. Yes, it has achieved its objectives, on the one hand tactical: to take France out of the Great Lakes region; and strategic on the other: greatly and lastingly to weaken France’s influence, not just in the region, but in all of Africa. The results are there.

Paris 15 May 2008

TELL OBAMA series: Congo-Rwanda: The Difficult Search for the Truth (part I) - by Col. Luc Marchal - And why CM/P is endorsing OBAMA/BIDEN for Prexy/V

2008-09-28T12:21:00.000+02:00

TELL OBAMA series: Congo-Rwanda: The Difficult Search for the Truth (part I) - by Col. Luc Marchal - And why CM/P is endorsing OBAMA/BIDEN for Prexy/Veep of the USA

[Here is our translation of the first part of the Luc Marchal article on Rwanda and Congo.

What seems to us important here is to note the seamless segue from the war against Soviet and Chinese Communism (long-since inseminated with its mutant offspring of the global War on Terrorism) into the militaristic and propagandistic campaigns to surround the world’s greatest repositories of natural treasure (esp Human and Energy resources), Russia (including its near abroad), China and Central Africa (esp. Congo), with bloody, militarized chaos accounting, just in the latter, for upward of 9 million victims throughout the region, including Sudan and the Horn of Africa, just since 1990.

These aggressions, which were all carried out against civilian populations—whether one considers the RPF’s unprovoked invasion of Rwanda from Uganda on 1 October 1990, or its subsequent second unprovoked, peacetime aggression, launched from its bases in Mulindi, inside northern Rwanda, after it had assassinated the two duly-elected (Hutu) presidents of Rwanda (Juvénal Habyarimana) and Burundi (Cyprien Ntaryamira) on 6 April 1994; or the EU/US/UK mercenary invasion of Yugoslavia at Borovo Selo, on the outskirts of Vukovar, in late 1991(to kick-off what is, perhaps, the first fully-privatized war); or the US/NATO/Israeli escalation of its long-running war in the Middle East with its internationally shunned and factually unjustified ‘shock and awe’ of Iraq in March 2003; or the Western-sponsored riots in Lhasa (western China) that saw ‘non-violent’ Tibetan monks staving in the heads of several young bicyclists, as well as cremating many other innocent bystanders, in the name of ‘Stopping the Chinese Communist Cultural (i.e., Neo-feudalist nostalgic) Genocide' of a would-be ‘Free Tibet’; or the US/NATO/Israeli-backed (even, perhaps, the McCain campaign-instigated) assault by its Georgian proxy, fresh from a truncated tour as the third largest national contingent in Iraq, on opening day of the Chinese Olympics (8/8/08—so much for Chinese good fortune cookies or the traditional Olympic truce) against the autonomous (but Russo-symp) region of South Ossetia, an area that has, according to my research, NEVER legally been a part of Georgia, killing 16 UN-authorized Russian peacekeepers and destroying much of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali (and then, in keeping with the new media-militarism’s reverse-victimating mechanism, quickly miscaptioning images of this Ossetian destruction to describe Russian aggression against Georgia-proper): all these military aggressions were naked acts of terrorism again innocent women, children, men and the agèd, coming, as they did, in times of mutually-negotiated peace, and were all propagandistically inverted to blame the victim’s, usually, as with Marchal's Rwanda, by trivializing the real responsibility for these invasions.

The mass-media mantra was 'Regardless of who started it'--meaning 'let's not look at who the real aggressors were. Even our mainest candidate, Barack Obama, was heard to say on CNN with regard to the situation in Georgia, ‘No matter who started this . . . .’

So Col Marchal’s contribution to our series, Tell Obama, has much to teach us about the forces that are currently driving our cultures—have driven us all to the very edge of the abyss, and are seriously promising to push us over into the putrid swamp of perdition. We, here at CM/P, believe that as dim and as reeking of the residual bad faith of American party politics as his campaign within the Democratic machine might be, Barack Hussein Obama offers the last best hope for a whip-lashing change of course for our terminally intoxicated nation, a sharp virage toward a truer history and a clearer, cleaner, and saner sense of ourselves.

I strongly urge all my fellow ex-pats, especially those whom the comforts of exile may have lulled into a false sense of remove from the maraudings of Waste Capitalism that are currently threatening to extinguish all human life on the planet (even what we laughingly like to call ‘lower Republican life forms’), to take part in the coming elections and to vote, as stomach-wrenching as that may seem, for the Obama/Biden ticket.

Because not to vote—and to encourage others not to vote—is really not an effective way of criticizing or refusing dignity to this exercise in fausse-democracy. It is merely a self-deluded collaboration with the forces of those ancient war criminals and mystified cultish perverts who front for the murderous and self-devouring financial speculations that are currently doing the laddling at America's quadrennial Kool-Aid orgy. –mc]

******************

Congo-Rwanda: The Difficult Search for the Truth

At the very beginning of the 1990s, the US was facing an existential question that it had not had to confront since the end of WWII: What is the nature of the threat? In fact, following the implosion of the USSR, the global chessboard was fundamentally changed. The East-West confrontation had become a situation from which the strategies of all sides could take comfort.

Sunday 25 May 2008

The enemy had been precisely identified, its possibilities were known, as were its zones of interest and influence. Within such a well-defined geostrategic context, it was not very difficult to develop a global strategy.

On the other hand, the disappearance of the USSR, at this time, called for a fresh deck and a new strategic analysis. This new evaluation was developed, as predicted, at the very beginning of the 1990s. Altogether, the conclusion of this analysis was that until 2017 the US had nothing to fear from any rival anywhere on the globe. The logical outcome of this conclusion was that several vital zones were identified as indispensable to the maintenance of American hegemony. The Great Lakes region of Africa, with the immeasurable potential of its underground assets (as well as its geographic position in the center of the continent), took a prominent place on the Americans’ shopping list of strategic real estate. This reality became the starting point for the long and grueling trek this region of the world would embark on in the early 1990s.

This April 6 (2008) marks the 14th anniversary of the attack that claimed the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, as well as several of their entourage and the flight crew of the presidential jet. While this attack was the spark that ignited the by-now well-known apocalypse, many have noted that not a single international organization (UN, OAU, even the EU) has yet seen fit to set up a process by which to identify those who ordered this terrorist act. Even though this double-assassination, and the succession of event issuing from it, have cost the lives of several million people (from 6 to 8 million, according to estimates). This attack also knocked the Great Lakes region from the French sphere of influence, where it had resided for almost a century, into the Anglo-Saxon sphere of influence. In further comparison, it is notable that merely a month and a half after the February 2005 attack in Beirut that killed the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, along with about 20 others, the UN Security Council authorized the establishment of an international investigative commission to gather evidence as to who was responsible for this killing. But for Rwanda and Burundi nothing has yet been done—and in the case of Burundi, this was the second democratically elected president to be assassinated in 6 months!

A veritable omerta, a code of silence, seems to have descended over the attack of 6 April 1994. And such an attitude is even less justifiable considering that no one today denies that it was the most important factor in triggering a long period of wars, massacres, of grief and suffering for the peoples of Rwanda and of the provinces of eastern Congo.

This enforced silence is also de rigueur in our own country. However, Belgium paid a heavy price after this attack. Ten Belgian [UN] Blue-Helmets were murdered in a most cowardly fashion, as were a dozen other of our compatriots in Rwanda. If the circumstances surrounding the killings of our nationals are not well known by all, the same cannot be said about our UN troops. If, in fact, the army thugs present at Camp Kigali rushed on our men to lynch them, it was because a Rwandan soldier, well known since 1994, fingered them as being responsible for the death of President Habyarimana. The terrorist attack of 6 April 1994 is thus the direct cause for the murders of our countrymen. Curiously, no Belgian politician has as yet proposed any kind of action that would demand answers to these two basic questions: Who ordered these killings, and who carried them out? Last year’s conviction and sentencing of Major Bernard Ntuyahaga to 20 years in prison by a Belgian jury has not answered any of the real questions about who was behind this attack.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) should not be expected to break this silence. Though it possesses all the elements needed to shed light on these questions. In 1997 the head of a team of investigators for the ICTR working in Kigali, Michael Hourigan, put together a file that clearly laid the blame for the assassinations of presidents Habyarimana and Ntaryamira on the current Rwandan government. It is interesting to note that in reality the initial aim of his investigation was to implicate Hutu extremists in this attack, but all the evidence Hourigan collected put the responsibility on the RPF. The ICTR Prosecutor at the time, Canadian Louise Arbour, put the ‘Hourigan Dossier’ into a drawer, but not before ordering Hourigan to cease immediately, and until further notice, his investigation and to destroy all documentation he had compiled, including his notes. A few years later, the Swiss jurist, Carla Del Ponte, who had succeeded Arbour as ICTR Prosecutor, took a look at the dossier (after a good deal of stalling, it is true) and expressed her intention to follow-up on it. She would live to regret this declaration, because the Kagame regime did not stop pressuring the UN and the Tribunal until finally in 2003, with the strong support of the US, it got Carla Del Ponte quite simply canned from her ICTR Prosecutor’s job and replaced by the Gambian, Hassan Bubacar Jallow, whose position with regard to the code of silence is doubtlessly more in conformity with Kigali’s than even Kagame could have hoped. Yet a number of international experts connected to the ICTR (Alison Des Forges, Filip Reyntjens, André Guichaoua, Elmut Strizek, Bernard Lugan, Robin Philpot) have persisted in their beliefs that the unilateral approach of the Tribunal is totally out of touch with the current state of knowledge. Their repeated appeals for more objectivity and justice remain unrequited, but for the constant response of the Prosecutor: We’re studying the question!

At present, things seem to be understood. The days of the Rwandan Tribunal are numbered, and at the end of this year [2008] all the trials currently in progress must be concluded [The UN has extended this deadline until the end of 2009—nb]. The purpose of this is clear: the ICTR will not have to take any action against the members of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). This International Tribunal has always limited its proceedings to just one of the two sides in the 1994 conflict, and done so despite the growing body of evidence on the very significant role played by the RPF in the tragedy that struck (an continues to afflict) Rwanda and the provinces of eastern Congo. The ICTR was totally incapable of dealing with the challenge it was given. Carla Del Ponte, herself, has expressed some of this incapacity. In a book soon to be released, she directly accuses the US of reluctance to allow the legal pursuit of the RPF in power in Rwanda today. Another reaction to this failure of the ICTR is the research being done into the very spirit of the Tribunal. Its raison d’être is neither to render justice nor to work toward the discovery of the truth. It has been all about permitting the International Community, which permitted the horrors of 1994 to take place, to suave its bad conscience by condemning the losers as the only ones responsible for all the evil that took place in the armed conflict that led to Paul Kagame’s seizure of power in July 1994, despite his being a signatory to the Arusha Peace Accords of 1993.

The lack of a will to know on the part of the International Community is a further sad confirmation of the continuing degradation of the public mind through a system of enforced consensus dictated by those who have no interest in the truth’s being known. Yet, over the years, and like pieces of a puzzle, the testimonies of real boots-on-the-ground players have allowed us to gain a much more focused view of events, not only on the attack of 6 April 1994, but also on the war crimes, massacres and other exactions committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) since 1990. Let’s take a look at, among others, the testimonies of officers of the RPA like Jean-Pierre Mugabe, Aloys Ruyenzi and Abdul Ruzibiza. Let’s talk about those many Hutus and Tutsis who, for a certain period of time, believed that the RPF could represent the future of Rwanda, who, like good citizens, used their skills in the service of their country and who, due to their being disappointed (or, more exactly, sickened, revolted and threatened), had to flee into exile. All this exists and cannot be explained away by the cynical reasoning that they are renegades or deserters and, thus, men of low credibility. Anyway, that would be a pretty weak and slick invalidation of their testimonies

Let’s call it a conspiracy of silence. In this context, what would you think of the current legal proceedings against certain leaders of the RPF? Like those of French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière and his Spanish counterpart Fernando Andreu Merelles? Without getting into the details of these actions, for which there already exists an abundance of documentation, let’s look specifically at their findings, and at the reactions they have brought about. And let’s pay particular attention, at the onset, to the fact that Spain and France are states ruled by laws, where an independent judiciary can be considered a reality. Consequently, you must conclude that the findings of these courts resulted from criteria which conformed to the judicial ethics of these countries, members, like Belgium, of the European Union.

The findings of Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière

The investigation began in 1998 after a complaint against an unnamed party was filed by the daughter of one of the flight crew of the presidential Falcon 50, a complaint that other members of the victims’ families later joined. At the end of November 2006, Judge Bruguière, Chief Justice of the Appellate Court in Paris in charge of Anti-Terrorism, issued an order for 9 international arrest warrants in the names of close associates of Paul Kagame’s. As for the current president of Rwanda, himself, who is, of course, protected by executive immunity as a sitting head of state, he turned to the Secretary General of the UN demanding that the ICTR take over the execution of these warrants. This investigation went on over a period of eight years. No one could say that this was a rush to judgment. The Rwandan governmental authorities were well aware of what was going on with the case and reacted to it long before the warrants were ordered. In 2005 they threatened several times to pursue France legally for complicity in the genocide. Rwandan survivors filed complaints to this effect in Paris against the French Army. Then, in April 2006, a commission was set up to look into ‘the role of France before, during and after the genocide.’

Extending to nearly 70 pages, Judge Bruguière’s order is somewhat unusual in that it was not all about just issuing the international arrest warrants. The essential moment of the investigation in this case allowed him to merge his inquest with those being carried out by the National Anti-Terrorist Division (DNAT). And his conclusion is categorical: Paul Kagame was directly involved in the attack of 6 April 1994.

The reactions from Kigali were diverse, describing the report as being made up of ‘totally unfounded allegations’, being based on ‘gossip and rumors’, and reproaching French justice for being ‘politically, more than judicially, motivated in this case.’ Other reactions bordered on the surreal, as those of certain officials who contended that President Habyarimana and General Nsabimana, the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Army [who also perished in the attack—nb], were legitimate targets in the context of an armed conflict. Forgetting, obviously, that the RPF had signed a peace agreement, and that the President of Burundi and other officials from both countries found themselves on board the Falcon 50. More concretely, Rwanda also broke off diplomatic relations with France, and, in March 2007, two Rwandan generals, charged by Judge Bruguière, filed complaints against him in the Belgian courts, which is the same as filing charges against the Belgian state. And last but not least, three months earlier, Judge Erik Møse, President of the ICTR at the time, and presiding judge in the ‘Military I’ trial, accepted the demand of defense attorneys to allow the Bruguière report, in its entirety, to be entered into the record as evidence for the four Rwandan officers charged in that case.

The findings of Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles

It was from a complaint from the International Forum for Truth and Justice in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, a complaint filed in February 2005, and to which different people and institutions were later joined, that Judge Merelles of the National Court of Madrid, the main criminal jurisdiction in Spain, began his investigation. It looked primarily into the murders of nine Spanish citizens committed in Rwanda between 1994 and 2000. These included six Catholic missionaries, a nurse, a doctor and a journalist. Based on the law of universal competence, the Spanish judge declared his authority to investigate these crimes. He also specified that if it turned out that these crimes were committed in a larger context (e.g., genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity), he would include these facts and their appropriate descriptions in his investigation. Remember that it was on the basis of this same universal competence that, in 1998, Spanish Judge Balthasar Garzon obtained the arrest in London of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

On 6 February 2008, the Spanish Judge issued 40 international arrest warrants for officers of the RPA. In the 181-page order, Merelles charges that the persons named in these warrants committed acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and acts of terrorism on orders from President Paul Kagame. Because of his immunity from prosecution as a sitting head of state, Kagame, himself, was not the subject of a warrant.

In his conclusions, Judge Merelles charges the RPF with having put in place a veritable criminal system of government. He said that since it took power in Kigali in July 1994, the party has instituted an virtual reign of terror, not only by the structures of its dictatorial regime, but especially by the establishment of parallel structures responsible for committing heinous crimes against the civilian population, both Rwandans and foreigners. He went on to state that the goal of this policy was (and continues to be) the invasion and conquest of Congo, carried out under the cover of national security concerns, and permitting the RPF, among other things, to pillage the precious natural resources of its neighbor and, thus, maintain itself in power and enable itself to exercise a geopolitical domination over the whole region. Furthermore, Judge Merelles found that the crimes committed in 1994 were within the authority of the ICTR.

In reaction, the Rwandan government described these accusations as ‘ridiculous’. The Members of Parliament demanded that the government file a complaint against the Spanish judge for ‘genocide denial’. This time President Kagame, himself, leapt to the defense. He knows, for a fact, that the Spanish investigation is much more dangerous to him than the French one. Unlike France, Spain is not politically involved in the Rwandan situation. It would, thus, be much more difficult to discredit its judicial action. And what is more, eight of the murdered Spanish nationals were clergymen and humanitarians. None could be taken for a ‘legitimate target’! In various speeches, Paul Kagame has denounced the ‘arrogance’ of the Spanish judge, condemned the idea that anyone in the West ‘could try and play God’, and insisted that the Rwandan people would never accept ‘being trampled on’ and that those being accused ‘are the very ones who put a stop to the genocide’.

The judicial actions with regard to the responsibility of the RPA for war crimes and crimes against humanity are likely to continue. The families of two Canadian clergymen, Fathers Claude Simard and Guy Pinard, murdered in Rwanda in 1994 and 1997, have demanded that legal authorities in their country establish the means to search for those who killed their loved ones. On this subject, one can only be confounded by the large number of clergymen and women (Rwandan and foreign) murdered by the RPA after the beginning of the war in 1994. Recall, among others, the deliberate killings of four bishops and more than ten priests and nuns in Gakurazo (the diocese of Kabgayi) on 5 June 1994.

Conclusions

If the reality of the events had conformed to the official version we were given fourteen years ago, it would be reasonable to think that, despite the unusual dimensions of the events that shook the Great Lakes region after 1990, the situation would, after all this time, have stabilized. It is obvious that this is far from being the case. So, rather than continuing in this iniquitous uncertainty, would it not be more responsible to try and answer all these many and persistent questions? That someone wants to know what really happened is no reason automatically to label him or her a revisionist or negationist. It is not about trying to exonerate those who took part in the genocide of 1994, at whatever level. It is, however, appropriate to admit that we find ourselves in a situation that is, to say the least, paradoxical. On the one hand, for more than ten years the ICTR has been in session and despite the millions of dollars spent on trying to demonstrate that there was planning for the genocide, one can not help but notice (whether one agrees or not) that the Tribunal in Arusha has not been able to produce any evidence of such planning. It is not a matter here of mere point of view or of some gratuitous affirmation, but of an undeniable fact.

On the other hand, a passel of convergent testimony from every corner of the earth casts serious doubt on the actual role of those who pretend to have stopped the genocide. So, isn’t it time to take a closer look at these things? Just imagine the height of a pile of 6 to 8 million corpses. Isn’t it time finally to deliver justice for these millions of victims of the thirst for power in some and the reprehensible indifference in many others? Isn’t it time that those who plunged the African Great Lakes and their populations into chaos (and also those who keep them in it) finally answered for their acts directly to their victims, but also to History? How much longer will we tolerate those who assume the right to teach the whole world, while everything demonstrates (until proven otherwise) that they are among the most responsible for this holocaust that has degraded all of humanity?

[by Luc MARCHAL is a Colonel in the Belgian Army and a former Commander in the UN Peacekeeping Forces in Rwanda (UNAMIR)

Luc Marchal
Former Commander
Kigali Sector-UNAMIR
April 2008

[source: www.musabyimana.be]

Congo-Rwanda : la difficile recherche de la vérité. (partie I) - par Col Luc Marchal

2008-09-13T10:55:00.000+02:00

Congo-Rwanda : la difficile recherche de la vérité. (partie I) - par Col Luc Marchal

[Voici le premier volet de l'article par le Col. Luc Marchal, ancien commandant de la force de maintien de la paix au Rwanda (Minuar). Ce que m'étonne ici c'est comment un grand nombre des intellos franco-belges continuent d'éviter les faits criants d'une histoire que leur impliqués plus en plus dans une occultation d’un crime la plus énorme d'histoire moderne—l’extermination de presque 9 millions d’âmes. Surtout le camp libéral anti-impérialiste (‘Arrêtez la putain génocide’) se brise le dos en portant le fardeau des mensonges dictés par leurs propres ennemis les impérialistes eux-mêmes. Pourquoi le Réseau Voltaire de Thierry Meyssan, ou Survie de Jean Carbonare puis François-Xavier Verschave, ou la taupe de FPR dans le CNRS Jean-Pierre Chrétien, ou l'Atlas alternatif de Frédéric Delorca, ou même mon très cher ami belge Michel Collon persistent de faire semblant d'être totalement ignorant de cet ouragan d’information innocentant le gouvernement Habyarimana et inculpant dans ces meurtres le FPR de Paul Kagamé—car négliger cette vraie histoire convertie toute leur analyse sur l'Afrique Centrale en désinformation. Et leurs services deviennent directement pour les intérêts géopolitiques des EU (le sujet du prochain livre de Pierre Péan) –mc]

Congo-Rwanda : la difficile recherche de la vérité.

Tout début des années 90, les États-Unis sont confrontés à une question existentielle qu'ils n'avaient plus eu l'occasion de se poser depuis la fin de la II GM : quelle est la nature de la menace ? En effet, suite à l'implosion de l'ex-URSS, l'échiquier mondial se trouve fondamentalement modifié. La confrontation Est-Ouest constituait pour les stratèges de tous bords une situation finalement confortable.

Le dimanche 25 mai 2008

L'ennemi était parfaitement identifié, ses possibilités étaient connues, il en était de même pour ses zones d'intérêt et d'influence. Dès lors, à partir d'un contexte géostratégique assez bien défini, il n'y avait guère de difficulté de développer une stratégie globale.

Par contre l'effacement de l'ex-URSS, à l'époque, brouillait les cartes et nécessitait une nouvelle évaluation stratégique. Celle-ci se déroula, comme signalé, au tout début des années '90. En synthèse, la conclusion de cette évaluation fut que jusqu'en 2017, les USA n'avaient à craindre aucune rivalité à la surface du globe. Conséquence logique de cette conclusion, plusieurs zones à caractère vital furent identifiées comme indispensables pour assurer le maintien de cette hégémonie américaine. La région des Grands Lacs, avec les potentialités inestimables de son sous-sol (mais aussi vu sa position centrale sur le continent africain), figurait en bonne place dans la shopping list des stratèges américains. Cette réalité constitue le point de départ du long calvaire que connaît cette région du globe depuis le début des années 90.

Ce 6 avril 2008 nous en étions au 14me anniversaire de l'attentat qui coûta la vie aux présidents du Rwanda et du Burundi, ainsi qu'à plusieurs de leurs collaborateurs et des membres de l'équipage de l'avion présidentiel. Alors que cet attentat fut l'étincelle qui déclencha l'apocalypse que nous connaissons, force nous est de constater qu'aucune instance internationale (ONU, OUA, voire UE) n'a jugé bon, depuis, de mettre en œuvre les moyens nécessaires afin de pouvoir identifier les commanditaires de cet acte terroriste. Celui-ci est cependant à l'origine d'une succession d'événements qui coûtèrent la vie à plusieurs millions de personnes (de 6 à 8 millions selon les estimations). Cet attentat a permis, aussi, de faire basculer la région des Grands Lacs dans la zone d'influence de pays anglo-saxons, alors que depuis pratiquement un siècle l'influence prédominante y était francophone. Par comparaison, remarquons qu'un mois et demi à peine après l'attentat de février 2005 qui coûta la vie à l'ex-Premier ministre libanais, Rafic Hariri, ainsi qu'à une vingtaine d'autres personnes, le Conseil de Sécurité de l'ONU autorisa la mise sur pied d'une commission d'enquête internationale afin de mettre en évidence les responsabilités en la matière. Pour le Rwanda et le Burundi toujours rien, alors que pour ce dernier pays ce n'était que le second président démocratiquement élu qui était assassiné en l'espace de 6 mois !

Une véritable omerta semble frapper l'attentat du 6 avril 1994. Pareille attitude est d'autant moins justifiable que plus personne ne nie aujourd'hui qu'il fut bien le facteur déclenchant d'une longue période de guerres, de massacres, de souffrances et de deuil pour les populations du Rwanda et des provinces orientales du Congo.

Cette loi du silence est également de rigueur dans notre pays. Pourtant la Belgique a payé un lourd tribut suite à cet attentat. Dix casques bleus belges furent lâchement assassinés, de même que douze compatriotes qui vivaient au Rwanda. Si les circonstances de l'assassinat de nos expatriés ne sont pas connues pour tous, il n'en va pas de même pour nos casques bleus. En effet, si la soldatesque présente au camp Kigali s'est précipitée sur eux pour les lyncher, c'est parce qu'un militaire rwandais, parfaitement identifié depuis 1994, les a désignés comme étant les responsables de la mort du président Habyarimana. L'attentat du 6 avril 1994 est donc bien la cause directe du massacre de nos compatriotes. Paradoxalement aucun responsable politique belge n'a initié, jusqu'à ce jour, une quelconque action afin d'exiger que réponse soit enfin donnée à ces deux questions élémentaires : quels sont les commanditaires et qui sont les exécuteurs ? Et ce n'est pas la condamnation, l'an dernier, du Major Bernard Ntuyahaga à vingt ans de réclusion par un jury populaire qui apporte le moindre élément de réponse aux véritables interrogations sur les rouages de cet attentat.

Ce n'est pas non plus le Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda (TPIR) qui va briser cette loi du silence. Pourtant il dispose de tous les éléments qui lui permettraient de faire la clarté sur la question. Dès 1997 le chef d'une équipe d'enquêteurs du TPIR travaillant à Kigali, Michael Hourigan, avait constitué un dossier dont les éléments mettaient l'actuel régime de Kigali en cause dans l'assassinat des présidents Habyarimana et Ntaryamira. Il est intéressant de savoir qu'en réalité son enquête visait à établir l'implication des extrémistes hutus dans cet attentat, mais que les éléments recueillis pointèrent la responsabilité du Front patriotique. Le "dossier Hourigan" fut mis dans un tiroir par la Procureur du TPIR, la canadienne Louise Arbour , non sans avoir au préalable intimé l'ordre à Michael Hourigan d'arrêter, sine die, ses investigations et de détruire tous les documents s'y rapportant. Quelques années plus tard, la suissesse Carla Del Ponte, nouvelle Procureur du TPIR, ressortit le dossier (après pas mal de tergiversations il est vrai) et exprima son intention d'y donner suite. Mal lui en pris car le régime du président Kagame ne cessa d'exercer des pressions, tant et si bien qu'il obtint en 2003, avec l'appui des USA, l'éviction pure et simple de Carla Del Ponte comme Procureur du TPIR et son remplacement par le gambien Hassan Bubacar Jallow dont la position par rapport à l'omerta est sans doute plus conforme à ce que certains souhaitent qu'elle soit. Pourtant de nombreux experts internationaux auprès du TPIR (Alison Des Forges, Filip Reyntjens , André Guichaoua , Elmut Strizek, Bernard Lugan , Robin Philpot ) expriment avec insistance leur sentiment que l'approche unilatérale du Tribunal est en total déphasage par rapport à l'état des connaissances actuelles. Leurs appels répétés à plus d'objectivité et de justice restent sans écho, si ce n'est l'invariable réponse du Procureur : nous étudions la question !

Les choses semblent, à présent, entendues. Les jours du TPIR sont comptés et fin de cette année les procès en première instance doivent être terminés. La conclusion est claire : le TPIR ne mènera aucune poursuite contre des membres du Front patriotique rwandais (FPR). Ce Tribunal international aura donc limité son action à une seule des deux parties impliquées dans le conflit de 1994 et ce, malgré la multiplication des indices concrets au sujet du rôle déterminant joué par le FPR dans la tragédie qui frappa (et frappe toujours du reste) le Rwanda et les provinces orientales du Congo. Le TPIR a bel et bien été incapable de relever le défi historique qui était le sien. Un élément de réponse à cette incapacité vient d'être donné par Carla Del Ponte, elle-même. Dans un livre qui doit paraître incessamment, elle met directement en cause les États-Unis pour leurs réticences à laisser poursuivre le FPR au pouvoir au Rwanda. Un autre élément de réponse à cet échec du TPIR est à rechercher dans l'esprit même de ce Tribunal. Sa raison d'être n'est ni de rendre la justice ni d'œuvrer pour la manifestation de la vérité. Il s'agit surtout de permettre à cette communauté internationale, qui a laissé se produire l'innommable en 1994, de se donner à présent moins mauvaise conscience en laissant condamner, comme seuls responsables de tous les maux, les vaincus du conflit armé par lequel Paul Kagame s'est emparé du pouvoir en juillet 1994 et ce, malgré les accords de paix d'Arusha auxquels il avait lui-même souscrit.

Cette absence de volonté de savoir de la communauté internationale n'est que la triste confirmation qu'elle se trouve toujours sous l'emprise d'un système de pensée unique que tentent d'imposer ceux qui n'ont aucun intérêt à ce que la vérité soit connue. Pourtant, au fil des années et tels les pièces d'un puzzle, les témoignages de nombreux acteurs de terrain nous ont permis d'acquérir une vision beaucoup plus pertinente, non seulement concernant l'attentat du 6 avril 1994, mais également sur les crimes de guerre, les massacres et autres exactions commises par l'armée patriotique rwandaise (APR) depuis 1990. Citons, entre autres, les témoignages faits par des militaires de l'APR tels que Jean-Pierre Mugabe, Aloys Ruyenzi et Abdul Ruzibiza. Mentionnons aussi ceux de nombreux Hutus et Tutsis qui ont cru pendant un certain temps que le FPR pouvait représenter un avenir pour le Rwanda, qui ont de façon citoyenne mis leurs aptitudes au service de leur pays et qui déçus (ou plus exactement : écoeurés, révoltés ou menacés) ont dû reprendre le chemin de l'exil. Tout ceci existe et ne peut pas être chassé d'un simple revers de la main sous prétexte qu'il s'agit de transfuges ou de déserteurs, donc par définition des gens peu crédibles. Un peu court quand même comme seule argumentation pour évacuer leurs témoignages.

Conspiration du silence, disions-nous. Que pensez, dans ce contexte, des procédures judiciaires en cours à l'égard de plusieurs responsables du FPR ? Celle du juge français Jean-Louis Bruguière et celle de son collègue espagnol Fernando Andreu Merelles.. Sans entrer dans le détail de ces deux procédures, au sujet desquelles il existe une abondante documentation, voyons succinctement leurs spécificités et les réactions qu'elles ont entraînées. Soulignons, en guise de remarque liminaire, que l'Espagne comme la France sont des États de droit dans lesquels l'indépendance des pouvoirs peut être considérée comme une réalité. Par conséquent on doit intellectuellement admettre que les instructions qui ont été menées l'ont été en fonction de critères conformes à l'éthique judiciaire de ces pays, membres comme la Belgique de l'Union Européenne.

L'instruction du juge Jean-Louis Bruguière

L'enquête fut initiée en 1998 suite à une plainte contre X déposée initialement par la fille d'un des membres de l'équipage du Falcon présidentiel, plainte à laquelle se sont jointes également d'autres membres des familles. Fin novembre 2006, le juge Bruguière, Premier vice-président du Tribunal de grande instance de Paris en charge de la coordination antiterroriste, rend une ordonnance par laquelle il demande que 9 mandats d'arrêt internationaux soient décernés à l'encontre de proches collaborateurs de Paul Kagame. Quant au président en exercice du Rwanda, couvert par son immunité de chef d'Etat, il se tourne vers le Secrétaire Général de l'ONU préconisant que le TPIR prenne le relais des poursuites. L'instruction couvre donc une période de huit ans. On peut, à tout le moins, reconnaître qu'il n'y a pas eu précipitation dans la méthode de travail. Les autorités gouvernementales rwandaises se rendirent parfaitement compte de la portée réelle de la procédure en cours et réagirent bien avant que l'ordonnance ne soit rendue. En 2005 elles menacèrent à différentes reprises la France de poursuites judiciaires pour complicité de génocide. Effectivement des plaintes furent déposées en ce sens à Paris, par des rescapés rwandais, contre l'armée française. Ensuite, en avril 2006, une commission fut mise sur pied pour enquêter sur "le rôle de la France avant, pendant et après le génocide".

Longue de près de 70 pages, l'ordonnance signée par le juge Bruguière est plutôt inhabituelle en ce sens qu'il n'était pas tenu de motiver l'émission de mandats d'arrêt internationaux. Mais ce moment essentiel dans l'instruction du dossier lui permet de faire une synthèse des investigations conduites avec la division nationale antiterroriste (DNAT). Sa conclusion est catégorique : l'implication de Paul Kagame dans l'attentat du 6 avril 1994 est directe.

Les réactions de Kigali vont en sens divers, qualifiant l'ordonnance "d'allégations totalement infondées", basée sur "des ragots et des rumeurs" et reprochant à la justice française d'être "plus motivée politiquement que judiciairement dans cette affaire". D'autres réactions frisent le surréalisme, certains officiels affirmant que le président Habyarimana et le général Nsabimana, le chef d'état-major des forces armées rwandaises, étaient des cibles légitimes dans le cadre d'un conflit armé. Oubliant sans doute que le FPR avait signé des accords de paix et que le président du Burundi et d'autres officiels des deux pays se trouvaient à bord du Falcon 50. Plus concrètement le Rwanda rompt également ses relations diplomatiques avec la France et en mars 2007 deux généraux rwandais, inculpés par le juge Bruguière, déposent plainte contre lui devant la justice belge, de même que contre l'Etat belge. Last but not least, trois mois auparavant le Juge Møse, président du TPIR à l'époque et président de la Chambre compétente dans le procès dit "Militaires I", accepte à la demande des avocats de la défense de verser l'ordonnance du juge Bruguière, dans son intégralité, comme pièce au dossier des quatre officiers rwandais inculpés dans ce procès.

L'instruction du juge Fernando Andreu Merelles. C'est sur plainte du Forum international pour la vérité et la justice dans l'Afrique des Grands Lacs, plainte déposée en février 2005 et à laquelle se sont jointes également diverses personnes et institutions, que le juge Merelles de l'Audience nationale de Madrid, la principale juridiction pénale espagnole, a débuté ses investigations. Celles-ci font suite, notamment, aux assassinats de neuf ressortissants espagnols perpétrés au Rwanda entre 1994 et 2000. Il s'agit de six missionnaires catholiques, d'une infirmière, d'un médecin et d'un journaliste. C'est sur base de la loi de compétence universelle que la justice espagnole s'est déclarée compétente pour enquêter sur ces crimes. Le juge précise aussi que s'il s'avère que ces crimes ont été commis dans un contexte plus large (génocide, crimes de guerre, crimes contre l'humanité) il englobera alors ces faits et la qualification appropriée dans son enquête. Rappelons que c'est sur base de cette même loi de compétence universelle que le juge espagnol Balthasar Garzon avait obtenu, en 1998, l 'arrestation à Londres de l'ancien dictateur chilien Augusto Pinochet.

Le 6 février de cette année, le juge espagnol délivre 40 mandats d'arrêt internationaux à l'encontre d'officiers de l'APR. Dans un arrêt circonstancié de 181 pages, il estime que les personnes visées ont commis des actes de génocide, crimes contre l'humanité, crimes de guerre et terrorisme sur ordre du président Kagame. Ce dernier bénéficie de l'immunité que lui confère sa fonction et n'est donc pas l'objet d'un mandat d'arrêt.

Dans ses conclusions, le juge accuse le FPR d'avoir mis en place une véritable méthode criminelle. Il estime que depuis sa prise du pouvoir à Kigali, en juillet 1994, le parti a créé un véritable règne de la terreur, non seulement par la structure même de son régime dictatorial, mais surtout par la mise en place de structures parallèles responsables de crimes odieux commis contre la population civile, tant nationale qu'étrangère. Le point culminant de cette politique, poursuit-il, est la politique d'invasion et de conquête du Congo qui, sous couvert de motif sécuritaire, devait permettre, entre autres, la réalisation du pillage des ressources naturelles précieuses, de sorte à se maintenir au pouvoir et exercer une domination géostratégique sur la région. Le juge relève par ailleurs que les crimes commis en 1994 sont du ressort du TPIR.

En réaction, le gouvernement rwandais qualifie de "ridicules" ces mises en accusation. Quant aux Députés ils demandent au gouvernement de poursuivre le juge espagnol en justice "pour négation du génocide". Cette fois le président Kagame en personne monte au créneau. En effet, il sait que l'enquête espagnole est beaucoup plus dangereuse pour lui que l'enquête française. A l'inverse de la France, l'Espagne n'est pas impliquée politiquement dans la problématique rwandaise. Il sera dès lors plus difficile de jeter le discrédit sur sa démarche. En outre, huit des ressortissants espagnols assassinés étaient des religieux et des humanitaires. Rien à voir avec des "cibles légitimes" ! A l'occasion de diverses interventions, Paul Kagame fustige "l'arrogance" du juge espagnol, stigmatise le fait que d'aucuns en Occident "se mettent à la place de Dieu", que le peuple rwandais n'acceptera jamais "d'être mis à terre et piétiné" et que ceux qui sont accusés "sont ceux-là même qui ont arrêté le génocide".

Les actions en justice à l'égard de responsables de l'APR, pour crime de guerre et crime contre l'humanité risquent de se poursuivre. Les familles de deux religieux canadiens, les pères Claude Simard et Guy Pinard, assassinés au Rwanda en 1994 et 1997, demandent à présent aussi aux autorités de leur pays de mettre en œuvre les moyens pour rechercher les auteurs du meurtre de leurs proches. A ce sujet, on ne peut qu'être interpellé par le nombre élevé de religieux (Rwandais et étrangers) assassinés par l'APR depuis le début de la guerre en 1994. Rappelons, entre autres, les assassinats délibérés de quatre évêques et de plus de dix prêtres et religieux à Gakurazo (diocèse de Kabgayi) le 5 juin 1994.

Conclusions

Si la réalité des choses avait été conforme à la version officielle qui nous est présentée depuis plus de quatorze années, il y a fort à penser que malgré la dimension hors normes des événements qui secouent la région des Grands Lacs depuis 1990, la situation se serait malgré tout stabilisée au fil du temps. Force nous est de constater que c'est loin d'être le cas. Alors plutôt que d'entretenir cette incertitude inique, ne serait-il pas plus responsable de tenter de répondre aux nombreuses interrogations qui persistent ? Ce n'est pas parce que l'on souhaite savoir ce qui s'est réellement passé que l'on doit être automatiquement taxé de révisionnisme ou de négationnisme. Il n'est pas question d'exonérer de leurs responsabilités ceux qui ont été les acteurs du génocide de 1994, à quelque niveau que ce soit. Il y a cependant lieu de pouvoir admettre que nous nous trouvons face à une situation pour le moins paradoxale. D'une part, depuis plus de dix ans que le TPIR fonctionne et malgré les millions de dollars dépensés pour tenter de démontrer qu'il y a bien eu planification du génocide, on ne peut que constater (que l'on soit d'accord ou pas) que le Tribunal d'Arusha n'a pas été en mesure de produire la moindre preuve de cette planification. Il ne s'agit pas ici d'un point de vue ou d'une affirmation gratuite, mais d'un fait incontestable.

D'autre part, un faisceau convergent de témoignages provenant de tous horizons jette un doute sérieux sur le véritable rôle de celui qui prétend avoir arrêté le génocide. Dès lors, ne serait-il pas temps de regarder les choses en face ? Imaginons seulement la hauteur d'un tas de 6 à 8 millions de cadavres. Ne serait-il pas temps de rendre enfin justice à ces millions de victimes de la soif de pouvoir de certains et de l'indifférence coupable de beaucoup d'autres ? Ne serait-il pas temps que ceux qui ont délibérément précipité l'Afrique des Grands Lacs et ses populations dans le chaos (et aussi ceux qui les y maintiennent) répondent enfin de leurs actes vis-à-vis de leurs victimes, mais aussi vis-à-vis de l'Histoire ? Jusques à quand va-t-on tolérer que d'aucuns s'arrogent le droit de faire la leçon au monde entier alors que tout démontre (jusqu'à preuve du contraire) qu'ils sont parmi les principaux responsables de cet holocauste qui jette le discrédit sur l'ensemble de l'humanité ?

(Par Luc MARCHAL, Colonel des forces armées belges, ancien commandant de la force de maintien de la paix au Rwanda (Minuar))
Luc Marchal
Ancien commandant
Secteur Kigali-MINUAR
Avril 2008
(source :www.musabyimana.be)