Rwanda: un documentaire de la BBC fait polémique

Réactions au documentaire de la BBC « Rwanda’s untold
story » de John Conroy et Jane Corbin diffusé le 01/10/2014
1. Le documentaire sur le site de la BBC :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04kk03t

Pour le voir sur le web : http://vimeo.com/107867605
Quelques éléments complémentaires :

Stam & Davenport : « What really happened in Rwanda” :
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/what-really-happened-in-rwanda-3432/

Colloque du 1er Avril 2014 au Sénat « Le drame rwandais : la vérité des acteurs » :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWNv3PjaW9YtT1bpSVaCRCw/videos
2. Réactions en France :
RFI : http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20141005-rwanda-documentaire-bbc-legenocide-fait-polemique/
Rwanda: un documentaire de la BBC fait
polémique
Au Rwanda, l’association de rescapés du génocide Ibuka, proche du pouvoir, s’est dite
« indignée » par un documentaire de la BBC diffusé cette semaine et intitulé Rwanda’s
untold story, « L’histoire du Rwanda jamais contée ». Un documentaire à charge contre le
président rwandais Paul Kagame, l’accusant de crimes de guerre pendant le génocide,
de massacres au Congo, d’assassinat politique et d’être responsable de l’attaque contre
l’avion du président Habyarimana.
Dans une lettre adressée au directeur général de la BBC, Ibuka estime que le
documentaire nie la réalité du génocide de 1994 et demande à la BBC d’arrêter la
diffusion du documentaire. « Nous, rescapés du génocide contre les Tutsis au Rwanda,
sommes indignés par le déni flagrant du génocide contre les Tutsis véhiculé par votre
documentaire… », commence ainsi la lettre.
Pour Ibuka, le documentaire a donné une plateforme à des intervenants qui « politisent
le génocide » et nient la réalité et le caractère systématique et planifié des massacres.
Parmi les principales personnalités interviewées, deux anciens proches du président
Kagame, devenus de fervents critiques.
L'ancien chef d'Etat major, Kayumba Nyamwasa, accuse son ancien patron d’être non
seulement le commanditaire de l’attentat contre l’avion de l’ex-président rwandais
Juvénal Habyarimana, mais de l’avoir fait en sachant que des massacres contre les
Tutsis auraient lieu.
Chiffres revus
Plus grave pour l'association de rescapés, les scientifiques interrogés dans le
documentaire affirment que le nombre de morts tutsis a été surévalué, que sur le million
de victimes dont parle le gouvernement, la majorité serait hutu. « La négation du
génocide est considérée comme l’étape finale du génocide » et se produit lorsqu’il y a
des tentatives de nier l’événement et en minimiser l’ampleur ou le nombre de morts,
dénonce Ibuka.
Ce documentaire met aussi en cause l'ancien Premier ministre britannique Tony Blair et
l'administration américaine, les accusant d'avoir protégé le président de toute poursuites
judiciaires. Sur les ondes de la BBC, l’ambassadeur rwandais en Grande-Bretagne,
Williams Nkurunziza, a déclaré que ce documentaire était « extrêmement biaisé ».
→ Voir le documentaire (en anglais)
Michel Robardey : http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/michelrobardey/021014/rwanda-la-verite-serait-elle-anglo-saxonne
Rwanda : la vérité serait-elle anglo-saxonne ?
02 OCTOBRE 2014 | PAR MICHEL ROBARDEY
Rwanda : la vérité serait-elle anglo-saxonne ?
Jeudi 1 octobre à 22 h, BBC Two diffusait un documentaire du réalisateur anglais John
Conroy : « Rwanda’s the untold story ,»qui déconstruit méthodiquement les terribles
mensonges sur les tragédies qui dévastent la région des Grands Lacs depuis 1990, mensonges
diffusés, en particulier, dans des médias français fort complaisants à l’égard de Kigali.
Et un coupable est désigné, preuves à l’appui, Paul Kagamé :
er
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04kk03t
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11133986/This-WorldRwandas-Untold-Story-BBC-Two-review-intense.html
ou encore plus simple sur http://www.congosynthese.com/video_reader.aspx?Id=5812
Tout y passe : les massacres pour prendre le pouvoir, sa responsabilité dans la destruction de
l’avion des présidents rwandais et burundais, les massacres voire les crimes contre l’humanité
contre les rwandais au Rwanda avant 90 et en 94 (Kibeho par exemple) puis dans les camps
de l’est du Zaïre, la terreur qu’il fait régner dans son pays depuis qu’il gouverne,
l’emprisonnement de ses opposants dont Victoire Ingabire, les assassinats politiques de
certains de ses opposants, souvent ex - partenaires qui veulent parler et dénoncer ses crimes.
Le support des gouvernements anglais et des américains est vivement dénoncé et messieurs
Clinton et Blair sévèrement pointés du doigt pour leur soutien sans faille au dictateur
criminel. La France n’est absolument pas mise en cause.
Des témoins qui ont occupé de hautes fonctions ou qui sont de grands spécialistes défilent : F.
Reytjens, Luc Marchal, F. Kayumba, Stam & Davenport, J. Lyons, Carla Del Ponte,
Théogéne Rudasingwa, etc.. On ne peut que se réjouir en voyant que ce sont quasiment les
mêmes qui témoignaient lors du colloque qui s’est tenu en France le 1 Avril dernier au
Sénat et qui, curieusement, a été boudé par les médias français (à l’exception de
RFI). https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWNv3PjaW9YtT1bpSVaCRCw/feed
er
( Visionner également dans un domaine collatéral:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMtgHzXZnIg).
Le documentaire de John Conroy est encore visible sur le site de la BBC pendant 6 jours et
nous vous incitons vivement à le regarder pour prendre conscience du gouffre qui existe entre
la vision extrêmement complaisante diffusée en France sur le régime criminel dirigé par Paul
Kagamé, l’impasse quasi totale faite sur ses crimes contre l’humanité (voire crimes de
génocide), les mensonges et manipulations pour tenter de camoufler sa responsabilité dans
l’attentat contre l’avion des deux présidents rwandais et burundais.
Alors « vérité au-delà du Channel, mensonge et manipulation en deçà » ?
Certains se sont crus obligés depuis près de 20 ans d’accuser de crimes gravissimes voire
d’insulter la France afin de mieux disculper celui que Filip Reytjens considère comme "le plus
grand criminel de guerre vivant ",
Certains ont même cru devoir écrire : « Le déshonneur de la France ». Ce documentaire,
remarquablement argumenté et réalisé ne porte aucune accusation contre la France : il va donc
bientôt être temps d’écrire le « Déshonneur de x , y et, z… » car nombreux sont les blancs –
menteurs qui se sont faits les défenseurs acharnés de Kagame. Sinon, nous serons obligés de
constater que nous en sommes restés aux procès de Moscou et que Vichynski a trouvé de
nombreux disciples dans les médias français.
Et à l’heure où on réclame à grands cris que soient déclassifiés les documents secret-défense
français concernant le Rwanda, alors qu’ils ont déjà été largement mis sur la place publique
lors de la tenue de la commission parlementaire, ne vaudrait-il pas mieux , si on cherche
vraiment la vérité , demander à Washington et à Londres de faire ce travail de transparence ?
Mais est-ce bien la vérité que recherchent ceux qui accusent la France ? Les Anglais de la
BBC ont répondu.
RFI : http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20141009-rwanda-controverse-paulkagame-propos-documentaire-bbc-kigali/
Publié le 09-10-2014 Modifié le 09-10-2014 à 03:00
Rwanda: la controverse continue à propos
du documentaire de la BBC
Par Sonia Rolley
La chaîne britannique BBC dément toute accusation qualifiant son documentaire de
négationniste. La BBC a diffusé le 1er octobre 2014 un programme intitulé Rwanda’s untold
story, L’histoire du Rwanda jamais contée, impliquant le président Paul Kagame dans une
série de crimes : attentat contre l'avion du président Habyarimana en 1994, massacres au
Congo et assassinats politiques de dissidents. Un documentaire critiqué par l'association de
rescapés Ibuka, mais salué par plusieurs partis d'opposition et organisations de la société
civile en exil. Les détracteurs du régime rwandais estiment que ce film permet l'ouverture d'un
dialogue sur l'histoire du Rwanda.
« La communauté rwandaise en Angleterre, représentée dans ses différentes composantes,
partis politiques, associations de rescapés, militants des droits de l'homme, remercie la BBC
pour avoir ouvert le débat sur ce qui s'est passé durant le génocide et dans les vingt ans qui
ont suivi. » C'est ce qu'on peut lire sur le site de l'organisation Global Campaign for Rwandan
Human Rights (GCRHR), dirigé par l'activiste René Mugenzi, l'un des trois Rwandais en exil
qui, en 2011, a reçu la visite de Scotland Yard. La célèbre police londonienne lui avait
annoncé, et l'avait confirmé par écrit, que sa vie et celles de deux autres activistes rwandais
étaient menacés par leur gouvernement. Ces accusations avaient été démenties par
l'ambassadeur du Rwanda en Grande-Bretagne. A l'époque, Londres était resté silencieux.
Les accusations d'assassinats politiques
Après la diffusion du 1er octobre, plusieurs partis d'oppositions et organisations de la société
civile, parmi lesquels l'organisation de René Mugenzi, ont décidé à l'image d'Ibuka d'écrire à
la chaîne britannique.
Parmi les signataires de cette lettre ouverte, le Congrès national du Rwanda (RNC) de Patrick
Karegeya, l'ancien chef des renseignements rwandais retrouvé assassiné dans un hôtel en
Afrique du Sud le 1er janvier dernier. Cet assassinat d'une des figures de l'opposition en exil
avait suscité la préoccupation d'abord des Etats-Unis, puis de la Grande-Bretagne et
d'organisations des droits de l'homme qui y ont vu une possible motivation politique.
Le général Kayumba Nyamwasa, une autre figure de ce parti - le RNC - accusé par le Rwanda
d'être une organisation, est l'un des personnages du documentaire. Il a été condamné par
Kigali à vingt-quatre ans de prison pour « troubles à l’ordre public, atteinte à la sécurité de
l’Etat, injures et diffamation, sectarisme et association de malfaiteurs ».
Lui-même a été victime de trois tentatives d'assassinat en Afrique du Sud. Trois Rwandais et
un Tanzanien ont été condamné pour l'une de ces tentatives, celle de 2010, qualifié par la cour
de crime politique, d'un complot d'un groupe émanant du Rwanda.
En mars 2014, la dernière tentative a entraîné l'expulsion par Pretoria de quatre diplomates,
trois Rwandais et Burundais. Le ministre des Affaires étrangères du Rwanda a accusé
l'Afrique du Sud d'abriter des terroristes responsables d'attaques à la grenade contre les civils
dans le pays.
L'attentat contre l'avion d'Habyarimana
Dans le documentaire de la BBC, comme il y a un an sur les antennes de RFI, Kayumba
Nyamwasa accuse Paul Kagame, à l'époque chef rebelle, d'avoir abattu l'avion du président
Habyarimana le 6 avril 1994. Pour seule preuve, l'ancien chef des renseignements militaires
de la rébellion FPR dit qu'il était en position de savoir.
« L'enquête du juge français Marc Trévidic n'est même pas mentionnée dans ce
documentaire », s'énerve un officiel rwandais sur Twitter. Le magistrat français avait ordonné
une expertise balistique qui, sans exclure la piste du Front patriotique rwandais (FPR), place
le point d'origine des missiles dans les environs du camp de la garde présidentielle. Ce qui a
relancé la thèse d'extrémistes hutus. Depuis 2012, l'Etat rwandais, partie civile, tente d'obtenir
un non-lieu dans cette affaire.
Le prédécesseur du juge Marc Trévidic, Jean-Louis Bruguière, avait lancé des mandats d'arrêt
contre neuf proches de Paul Kagame, dont le général Kayumba Nyamwasa. Cet ancien proche
du chef de l'Etat rwandais a récemment envoyé une lettre à la justice française demandant son
audition. Pretoria, jusque-là sourd aux demandes de la justice française, avait finalement dit
en septembre dernier « examiner la requête du juge français d'entendre Kayumba
Nyamwasa » sur le sol sud-africain.
Les massacres au Congo
Parmi les autres signataires de cette lettre des détracteurs du régime rwandais à la BBC,
figurent les Forces démocratiques unifiées (FDU) de Victoire Ingabire, l'opposante
emprisonnée au Rwanda suite à une condamnation pour négationnisme et conspiration contre
les autorités par le terrorisme et la guerre. La présidente des FDU dénonçait entre autres les
massacres de Hutus imputés à l'Armée patriotique rwandaise (APR) du président Paul
Kagame.
Victoire Ingabire fait aussi partie des personnages de ce documentaire de la BBC qui insiste
sur les massacres survenus au Congo, à travers le témoignage d'une femme, une rescapée de
ces tueries. Ces massacres ont été documentés depuis de nombreuses années, notamment par
l'ONU. Rwanda, l'histoire passée sous silence a été diffusé le jour anniversaire, le 1er octobre,
de la publication du rapport Mapping, une enquête réalisée par le Haut commissariat de
l'ONU aux droits de l'homme et publiée en 2010. L'OHCHR, basée à Genève, demandait des
poursuites pour mettre fin à l'impunité. Quatre ans après, il n'y a aucune poursuite, ni pour les
crimes imputés à l'armée rwandaise, ni pour ceux des autres armées ou groupes armés
congolais ou étrangers.
Ce qui gêne un militant des droits de l'homme rwandais aujourd'hui en exil, c'est que le
général Kayumba Nyamwasa ait sous-entendu que ces massacres aient été des initiatives
individuelles, des actes de vengeance isolés. « C'est bien d'avoir reconnu que des crimes
étaient commis, mais il ment. Le nombre de morts, la nature des massacres, le fait d'avoir
cherché à dissimuler les corps montre que c'était plus que ça », assure-t-il, insistant sur la
nécessité pour les anciens du régime de dire toute la vérité.
Le TPIR ferme ses portes
Le Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda (TPIR) fermera ses portes en décembre
prochain sans avoir instruit aucun des crimes de guerre ou violations des droits de l'homme
dont est soupçonné le FPR de Paul Kagame, notamment l'attentat contre l'avion du président
Habyarimana.
C'est sur cette piste que travaillait le TPIR, selon l'un des anciens responsables des enquêtes
de ce tribunal interrogé de ce documentaire de la BBC. Notamment, sur la foi du témoignage
d'un autre ancien proche de Paul Kagame, lui aussi condamné au Rwanda, l'ancien
ambassadeur à Washington Théogène Rudasingwa, aujourd'hui coordinateur du RNC, la
journaliste Jane Corbin accuse les Etats-Unis d'avoir protégé le chef de l'Etat rwandais.
« C'est une manipulation politique », crient les proches du régime sur Twitter. Et pourtant,
cette version des faits est confirmée par Carla Del Ponte. L'ancienne procureure du TPIR
raconte comment elle a été écartée par l'ONU et les Etats-Unis - rongés par la culpabilité de
ne pas être intervenu en 1994 pour empêcher le génocide - et n'a pas pu poursuivre les
enquêtes concernant les crimes de guerre dont est soupçonné le FPR. Ce témoignage avait été
projeté au Sénat français en avril dernier lors d'un colloque qualifié par la ministre rwandaise
des Affaires étrangères, Louise Mushikiwabo, de négationniste.
Les réactions à Kigali
La lettre des détracteurs de Paul Kagame répondait à une autre lettre, celle d'Ibuka qui
regroupe des associations de rescapés. Cette organisation proche du gouvernement accuse la
BBC d'avoir fait un documentaire révisionniste et de ne pas avoir donné la parole aux
rescapés.
Révisionniste pour avoir laissé deux chercheurs américains affirmer que durant le génocide,
200 000 Tutsis seulement et 800 000 Hutus sont morts. Le génocide de 1994 a fait un million
de morts selon Kigali, 800 000 parmi les Tutsis et les Hutus modérés selon les Nations unies.
Les Américains Christian Davenport et Allan C. Stam disent avoir enquêté au Rwanda et
avoir tiré ces chiffres d'après des calculs statistiques. Ils affirment également que les
massacres étaient globalement terminés dans la plupart des régions du pays avant l'arrivée de
la rébellion de Paul Kagame.
Sur le site Open Democracy, Andrew Wallis, auteur d'un livre intitulé Silence complice :
l'histoire passée sous silence de la France dans le génocide rwandais, accuse la BBC d'avoir
choisi deux chercheurs peu crédibles et d'avoir ignoré les travaux d'autres plus connus comme
Alison Des Forges de Human Rights Watch (HRW) ou le français Gérard Prunier. Pour ce qui
est des autres points abordés par le documentaire, l'auteur de cet article estime simplement
que la BBC n'a fait que parler des détracteurs de longue date du président Kagame.
L'ambassadeur du Rwanda en Grande-Bretagne a parlé sur les ondes de la BBC d'un
documentaire « biaisé ». D'autres officiels rwandais insistent, eux aussi, sur Twitter sur le fait
que seuls des opposants sont interrogés. La journaliste de la BBC, Jane Corbin, dit dans son
commentaire avoir sollicité, en vain, des réactions de toutes les personnes mises en cause par
ce documentaire et notamment le président rwandais Paul Kagame et l'ancien Premier
ministre britannique Tony Blair accusé de le défendre malgré des violations des droits de
l'homme documentées.
La BBC mise en cause
La BBC réfute que son documentaire soit négationniste. Selon l'un de ses porte-parole, la
chaîne britannique a reçu la lettre d'Ibuka et y répondra en temps voulu. « Tout le long du
documentaire, les auteurs disent que toute personne qui remet en cause l'histoire officielle est
accusée d'être négationniste », s'amuse le militant rwandais des droits de l'homme en exil.
Dans un message adressé à la radio pro-gouvernementale Contact FM, la BBC a souligné les
multiples références dans son documentaire au génocide de 1994 et rappelé que le directeur
du mémorial du génocide de Murambi, un rescapé, était interviewé. « Le film examine des
preuves de chercheurs respectés et fait état de témoignages qui mettent en question l'histoire
communément acceptée sur ce qui s'est passé avant et après 1994 et en particulier le rôle du
FPR et de Paul Kagame », a expliqué l'une des porte-paroles de la chaîne britannique à la
radio rwandaise ajoutant que pour la BBC, ce documentaire est une « contribution précieuse à
l'histoire tragique de ce pays, de la région et de la gestion des affaires politiques au Rwanda
ces 20 dernières années ».
« C'est quand même un film événement pour une chaîne de télévision qui n'avait que très peu
abordé ce genre de sujets auparavant », explique, quant à lui, le spécialiste du Rwanda,
André Guichaoua. Cette année, la BBC avait tout de même diffusé, en mars 2014, un
reportage de Gabriel Gatehouse dans son programme Newsnight, qui, lui aussi, avait fait parlé
de lui. Il revenait sur l'assassinat de l'opposant rwandais Patrick Karegeya et les tentatives
d'assassinat contre son compatriote, Kayumba Nyamwasa.
A la sortie en avril dernier du documentaire de la BBC, Un homme bon au Rwanda, évoquant
la vie et l'action du capitaine sénégalais Mbaye Diagne, le professeur André Guichaoua s'était
insurgé : « Les auteurs de ce documentaire avaient explicitement choisi de ne pas mentionner
le communiqué de la Minuar attribuant au FPR la mort du casque bleu », a-t-il déclaré,
dénonçant une réécriture de l'histoire. Le capitaine Diagne avait été tué alors qu'il se trouvait
sur un poste de contrôle des FAR, les Forces armées rwandaises de 1994. Dans un échange
d'emails avec le chercheur français, Mark Doyle, l'auteur d'Un homme bon au Rwanda, s'était
défendu en affirmant que ce n'était pas délibéré, qu'il avait préféré se concentrer sur la
bravoure du casque bleu.
Lors des dernières commémorations, l'ONU avait décidé de faire de Mbaye Diagne, un héros
des Nations unies sur initiative de l'actuel gouvernement rwandais.
L'épouse du casque bleu sénégalais, Yacine Mar Diop, avait récemment dénoncé sur RFI le
fait que l'ONU ne l'avait pas assisté au cours des vingt dernières années. Elle était présente à
Kigali lors des dernières commémorations du génocide.
« La BBC semble avoir voulu rééquilibrer son approche, commente encore André Guichaoua,
mais n'a pas forcément échappé à d'autres approximations ou contre-vérités, surtout en ce
qui concerne le bilan du génocide. »
3. Dans le monde francophone
Kagame et la mort de Habyarimana: les British s’y mettent
Posted on October 3, 2014by nkbnkb
Vingt ans après les faits, la BBC se met sur la piste du responsable de l’attentat qui a coûté
la vie au président Juvénal Habyarimana, à son homologue burundais Cyprien Ntaryamira,
leurs suites respectives et les français de l’équipage de l’avion de marque Falcon.
Directement après l’attentat, les Hutus décrits comme extrémistes ont accusé sans enquête,
les rebelles du Front patriotique mais comme ils ont directement entamé une campagne
d’extermination systématique des Tutsis et des Hutus modérés et associés on ne les a pas cru.
Le raisonnement était qu’ils avaient éliminé leur chef qui n’était pas assez extrémiste à leur
goût – il avait accepté d’intégrer les Tutsis du FPR dans son gouvernement – pour permettre
le génocide.
Paul Kagame et Kayumba Nyamwasa avant la rupture, il y a 10 ans.
La BBC service domestique a diffusé un document-enquête le 1er octobre dans lequel elle a
donné la parole à quelques transfuges du FPR dont le plus important d’entre eux à savoir le
lieutenant général Kayumba Nyamwasa. D’après celui-ci, les radicaux hutus avaient
effectivement préparé l’élimination des Tutsis du Rwanda mais de son côté le général-major
Paul Kagame avait son propre plan qui comprenait l’assassinat de Habyarimana et donc
nécessairement l’accélération du génocide programmé par l’autre camp.
L’image que Kayumba a utilé, c’est celle d’une allumette en saison sèche. Si vous la craquez, il
faut s’attendre à ce que l’herbe s’enflamme.
Kayumba ne dit pas qu’il a pris part aux réunions de préparation de l’attentat mais il
explique à Jane Corbin, la journaliste de la BBC, que sa position (chef des renseignements
militaires) lui permettait de savoir ce qui se tramait, et que Kagame sait qu’il sait ce qui s’est
passé.
En 2000, le quotidien canadien National Post avait aussi relayé la thèse de la responsabilité
du nouvau régime rwandais dans l’assassinat de Habyarimana. Une vague de défections
de cadres du FPR avait apporté de l’eau au moulin de la piste du FPR.
En 2004-2005, c’était au tour d’Abdoul Ruzibiza (Venuste Ruzibiza de son vrai nom devenu
ensuite Joshua Ruzibiza) d’alimenter le dossier à charge contre le pouvoir du FPR. Il est le
témoin-clé du juge d’instruction français Jean-Louis Bruguière.
Dans la foulée le Camerounais Charles Onana et le Rwandais Déo Mushayidi publieront « Les
secrets du génocide rwandais, les mystère d’un président».
Fin 2006, le super-juge anti-terroriste français Bruguière émet des mandats d’arrêt
internationaux contre les présumés responsables de l’attentat en question. Le président
Kagame est épargné par ces documents parce qu’il est chef de l’Etat en exercice depuis 2000.
Celui-ci rompra toutes les relations avec la France pour protester contre les inculpations de
ces proches collaborateurs. A l’époque la France n’est pas crédible dans ce dossier parce
qu’elle était l’alliée fidèle du régime Habyarimana et qu’elle est suspectée de vouloir se
disculper de sa présumée implication dans la tragédie rwandaise.
Ces mandats seront sacrifiés sur l’autel de la réconciliation franco-rwandaise pilotée par le
ministre français Bernard Kouchner. Une nouvelle enquête française sera initiée.
Le dernier rebondissement de cette affaire, nous vient du monde anglo-saxon indulgent
jusqu’ici pour le régime de Kigali. Les transfuges du FPR sont exilés pour la plupart en
Afrique du Sud et aux États-Unis et ce n’est pas du menu fretin comme auparavant. Ils sont
pris au sérieux quand ils disent connaître les secrets de l’homme fort de Kigali.
Et les tentatives d’assassinats sur Kayumba Nyamwasa et l’assassinat de Patrick Karegeya ne
font que renforcer la très forte impression qu’on veut absolument les faire taire parce qu’ils
sont extrêmement dangereux – judiciairement parlant – pour Kagame et son entourage de
fidèles présumés impliqués dans l’attentat du 6 avril 1994 vers 20h30.
Si les Français – et les Belges – en savent beaucoup sur ce qui s’est réellement au Rwanda il y
a 20 ans, les alliés anglo-saxons du régime de Kigali ne sont certainement pas parmi les plus
ignorants et avec le recul de 20 ans, il est peut être temps de déclassifier le Dossier Rwanda …
d’où peut-être cet intérêt actuel en anglophonie pour un Kagame non idéalisé par des
légendes héroïques et des miracles économiques.
Au Rwanda, on dira qu’on veut lui faire payer son indépendance politique et sa réussite
économique parce que les Bazungus veulent nous maintenir au niveau de leurs bottes.
Quoi qu’il en soit plus de vérité sur notre histoire ne sera pas nuisible à l’ensemble des
Rwandais et à nos voisins dans les grands lacs. Et même au reste de l’humanité.
NKB 03/10/2014
http://www.adiac-congo.com/content/attentat-contre-lavion-dejuvenal-habyarimana-paul-kagame-accuse-par-ses-proches-21200
Attentat contre l’avion de Juvénal
Habyarimana : Paul Kagamé accusé par ses
proches
Samedi 4 Octobre 2014 - 20:00
En attendant les conclusions d’une nouvelle enquête avant la fin de cette année, le
Lieutenant-général Kayumba Nyamwasa, ancien chef d’Etat-major du Rwanda et un ancien
garde du corps de Paul Kagamé, Aloys Ruyenzi, qui vit maintenant dans la clandestinité en
France, ont réitéré les allégations selon lesquelles l’actuel président rwandais est à
l’origine de l’attentat qui avait coûté la vie à son prédécesseur, Juvénal Habyarimana.
Dans une interview accordée au programme This World de la BBC, Kayumba Nyamwasa a
affirmé que les fonctions qu’il occupait à l’époque lui permettaient de savoir qui avait
effectivement perpétré l’attentat contre l’avion du défunt président rwandais.
L’ancien chef d’Etat-major rwandais a insisté que la responsabilité du président rwandais
concernant cet attentat ne fait aucun doute. « C’est Paul Kagame, c’est sûr et certain à cent
pour cent, j’étais bien placé pour le savoir et il le sait. Les extrémistes hutus avaient prévu
d’exterminer les Tutsis. Mais Paul Kagame doit aussi avouer qu’il avait ses propres plans qui
ont contribué au génocide. Parce qu’en saison sèche, si vous allumer un feu vous ne devez
pas être étonné que l’herbe brûle », a-t-il souligné.
De son côté le lieutenant Aloys Ruyenzi est du même avis. Il a affirmé avoir assisté à une
réunion avec son patron une semaine avant que l’avion ne soit abattu. « Le président
Kagamé a présidé une réunion au cours de laquelle le colonel Lizinde lui a apporté une carte
montrant d’où l’avion pourrait être abattu. Le Président a approuvé le plan et il a ordonné
qu’il soit mis en œuvre.», a-t-il expliqué. Aloys Ruyenzi a indiqué que le FPR (Front
patriotique rwandais) avait à cette époque introduit des missiles anti-aériens dans la capitale
et qu’il était personnellement avec le président Kagamé quand celui-ci a appris que l’avion
avait été abattu.« Paul Kagame était content. Les autres commandants étaient aussi
contents. C’est à partir de ce moment que nous nous sommes mis en mouvement», a-t-il
poursuivi.
Depuis l’assassinat de Juvénal Habyarimana, qui est considéré comme le déclencheur du
génocide de 1994 au Rwanda, Paul Kagamé a toujours nié les accusations portées contre sa
personne dans cette affaire. Il a toujours maintenu que l’avion avait été abattu par des
extrémistes hutus révoltés par la volonté de son prédécesseur de partager le pouvoir avec la
minorité Tutsi. « Si le FPR était responsable de l’attentat, il l’aurait assumé. Franchement,
c’est le dernier de mes soucis. La France le dit. Je m’enfous ! », a déclaré le président Paul
Kagamé.
Notons que dans leur rapport publié deux ans après l’assassinat de l’ancien président
rwandais, les Nations-unies avaient mis en cause le FPR concernant le crash de l’avion
Juvénal Habyarimana. Ce rapport avait en effet abouti à la conclusion similaire à celle d’un
juge français en 2004 qui enquêtait sur cet attentat au nom des familles des membres de
l’équipage français qui avaient aussi perdu la vie le 6 avril 1994. Dès ce jour même de
l’attentat, les rebelles tutsis du FPR menés par Paul Kagamé ont lancé une offensive de
grande envergure. De leurs côté, les milices extrémistes hutues et des éléments de l’armée
rwandaise se sont ensuite livrés à des massacres systématiques des Tutsis qui ont débouché
sur le génocide rwandais qui avait fait plus de 800 000 morts, principalement des Tutsis,
mais aussi des Hutus modérés et d’autres personnes opposées au massacre.
Nestor N'Gampoula
http://www.jambonews.net/actualites/20141005-rwandathe-untold-story-le-temoignage-qui-eveille-les-consciences/
Jambonews :
Rwanda : The untold story – Le témoignage qui éveille les consciences
Publié : le 5 octobre 2014 à 23:05 | Par Aloys Twagirayezu | Catégorie: Analyses de l'actualité, Opinion
Article d’opinion soumis par Aloys Twagirayezu
Alors que les débats vont bon train sur les réseaux sociaux,
spécialement sur le réseau social Twitter, suite à la diffusion par la
chaîne britannique BBC Two du documentaire Rwanda : The
Untold story, ce 1er octobre, 24 ans, jour pour jour, après l’attaque
du Rwanda par le Front Patriotique Rwandais (FPR) en provenance
de l’Ouganda, un témoignage interpelle particulièrement.
Cadavres de réfugiés Hutus
En effet, entre les déclarations, les affirmations et les allégations par les différents intervenants mettant en cause
la version officielle propagée par le régime de Kigali sur la vérité de ce qui s’est passé en 1994 au Rwanda, un
témoignage semble susciter aucune remise en cause. Il est même sciemment évité lorsque soulevé dans les
débats sur le documentaire.
Ce témoignage est celui de Marie, jeune belgo-rwandaise, rescapée des massacres commis contre les réfugiés
rwandais, en majorité hutus, en République Démocratique du Congo de 1996 à 1998, et contre le peuple
congolais, par l’Armée Patriotique Rwandaise(APR) et son chef, l’actuel président du Rwanda, Paul Kagame.
Petit retour dans l’histoire, les camps qui abritaient plus de deux millions de réfugiés rwandais à l’Est de la
République Démocratique du Congo furent attaqués par l’APR dès le mois d’octobre 1996 marquant le début de
la guerre au Congo. C’est cette guerre, qui allait causer la mort de plus de 5 millions de Rwandais et Congolais et
le déplacement de centaines de milliers d’autres.
Pour revenir à Marie, elle était jeune mineure à l’époque et a été témoin privilégié de la barbarie dont ont fait
preuve les soldats de l’APR et leurs alliés dans leur projet d’exterminer les réfugiés rwandais hutus.
« Il fallait tuer le plus grand nombre possible de réfugiés hutus …et on les
tuait parce qu’ils étaient nombreux. »
Marie Bamutese dans le documentaire de BBC Two The untold story
« Je ne peux pas expliquer de voir des enfants mourir comme des mouches. Un jour, je me suis assise à côté de
deux enfants morts. Je me sentais rien. Je me sentais morte avec eux dans la forêt. » déclare-t-elle.
Plus loin elle dit encore « On tuait partout les réfugiés et on les tuait systématiquement…. » Et ajoute, « il fallait
tuer le plus grand nombre possible de réfugiés hutus …et on les tuait parce qu’ils étaient nombreux. »
Le documentaire « Kisangani Diary » ainsi que le Mapping report du Haut-Commissariat pour les droits de
l’Homme des Nations Unies parlent sans équivoque de ces atrocités. Le mapping report publié le 01 octobre
2010, parle de plusieurs attaques généralisées et systématiques contre des populations civiles. Attaques qui
pourraient être qualifiées de crimes contre l’humanité voire de génocide par un tribunal compétent selon les
enquêteurs onusiens.
La question qui surgit est celle de savoir comment il est possible que la Communauté Internationale, au su de ce
rapport, n’a jamais demandé plus d’éclaircissements et d’investigations par rapports à ces crimes ? Et même
lorsque les réfugiés de retour au Rwanda sont massacrés à Kibeho sous le nez des forces des Nations-Unies,
personne ne s’interroge.
C’est avec des larmes aux yeux que Marie dit tristement : « C’était l’apocalypse. C’était la fin du monde. Un jour
je me suis demandée : si la Communauté Internationale existe, pourquoi sommes-nous en train de mourir comme
ça sans aucune aide ? »
(…) aucune place n’a été accordée, par les médias ni les politiques d’ailleurs,
aux victimes des atrocités commises par l’APR.
Au vu ces éléments, il est légitime de se poser les questions suivantes : serait-il possible qu’un complot général
envers les réfugiés rwandais ait été organisé empêchant toute personne de dénoncer l’impardonnable ? Quel
rôle ont joué les médias dans la diffusion de l’information et la création de l’opinion publique quant à cette
situation ?
Durant ces vingt dernières années, plusieurs interviews des rescapés du génocide des Tutsis ont paru. Aussi il y
a eu plusieurs reportages ainsi que des œuvres filmographiques réalisés par certains journalistes et réalisateurs
soucieux de faire connaître, les souffrances de ces victimes. Malheureusement, il y a également certains médias,
journalistes qui sont allés trop loin, en épousant carrément la stratégie du régime en place pour étouffer
l’existence d’autres victimes.
Force est de constater que jusqu’au jour du 1er octobre 2014, aucune place n’a été accordée, par les médias ni
les politiques d’ailleurs, aux victimes des atrocités commises par l’APR. Cette guerre du Congo n’a jamais reçu
un traitement adéquat dans les médias. Au vu de l’ampleur de la catastrophe – certaines sources évoquant
même plus de 10 millions de victimes directes et indirectes de cette guerre et celles qui l’ont suivi jusqu’à ce jour
– il n’est pas dénoué de sens de penser que dans l’absolu cette catastrophe aurait pu et dû avoir une couverture
médiatique au moins équivalente à celle de la crise du Darfour ou à l’actuelle guerre en Syrie.
Commémoration 26 avril 2014 par Jambo asbl
Et pourtant, les rescapés de ces actes ne manquent pas. Plusieurs pays partout dans le monde les ont accueillis.
Certains d’entre eux ont même essayé d’élever la voix, soit par le biais de livres biographiques, soit à l’occasion
de commémorations organisées par certaines associations à l’instar de Jambo asbl qui a rappelé lors de sa
commémoration du 26 avril 2014 l’importance de la reconnaissance de toutes les victimes du conflit rwandais
dans le processus de réconciliation et le danger de l’utilisation de la souffrance des victimes du génocide des
Tutsi à des fins politiques par le régime actuel.
Un triste schéma ne cesse de se produire qui veut que la seule vérité soit celle prônée par les vainqueurs.
Pourtant, il est communément accepté qu’il y a toujours deux faces dans chaque histoire et un bon journaliste ou
toute autre personne voulant réellement contribuer durablement doit garder ça en tête et entreprendre sa
démarche dans cette optique pour arriver à faire une synthèse, la plus complète possible, pouvant aider pour des
pistes de réflexion. Or, il y a comme l’impression que certains préfèrent regarder à côté lorsqu’il s’agit de l’autre
version de la tragique histoire rwandaise.
Le documentaire de la BBC a tenté de mettre en lumière cette deuxième face de l’histoire du Rwanda et malgré
les reproches, fondés ou non, des partisans du régime de Kigali, personne ne pourra prétendre que le
témoignage de Marie est faux.
C’est de cette vérité indéniable qu’il est question de mettre en avant dans cet article d’opinion et c’est à partir de
cette vérité même que justice doit être demandée et rendue. Les responsables de ces crimes commis envers les
réfugiés rwandais hutus et les Congolais depuis 1996 doivent répondre de leurs actes.
L’heure au véritable processus de réconciliation de tous les Rwandais devrait sonner. Le moment d’écouter les
souffrances des uns et des autres est vraisemblablement arrivé. Vingt-quatre ans après l’attaque du Rwanda par
le FPR, vingt ans après le génocide des Tutsi et dix-huit ans après la destruction des camps des réfugiés
rwandais au Congo et la chasse à l’homme dans les forêts congolaises.
Les Rwandais ont plus que jamais besoin de panser les blessures et d’aller véritablement de l’avant ensemble
comme un seul peuple.
Aloys
Jambonews.net
Twagirayezu
The Rwandan :
http://www.therwandan.com/fr/france-rwanda-attentat-du-641994affaire-judiciaire-ou-affaire-diplomatique/
?
Attentat du 6/4/1994 : Affaire judiciaire ou affaire
diplomatique
Le juge anti-terroriste français Marc Trévidic qui avait repris à son compatriote Jean-Louis
Bruguière l’enquête sur l’attentat du 6 avril 1994 dans lequel ont péri les chefs d’Etats rwandais
et burundais ainsi que trois citoyens français, a annoncé avoir bouclé le dossier et s’apprête à
rendre publiques ses conclusions.
Pour rappel, l’on se souviendra que cette affaire avait connu des rebondissements politico
médiatiques dès l’émission de mandats d’arrêt par le juge Bruguière contre neuf proches du
président rwandais Paul Kagame en 2006.
Kigali avait alors brutalement rompu les relations diplomatiques avec Paris. Le régime du FPR
avait, dans la foulée, produit un rapport sur l’attentat du 6 avril 1994 (alors que jusque là il avait
toujours déclaré que cette enquête n’était pas dans ses priorités) connu sous l’appellation de
« Rapport Mutsinzi » qui, après des mensonges et des manipulations dont le ridicule se dispute à
la naïveté, avait conclu que « l’avion avait été abattu par les proches du président Habyarimana »
sans toutefois en donner l’identification précise. Parallèlement,comme pour faire chanter Paris, le
régime du FPR de Paul Kagame a produit un autre rapport dit « Rapport Mucyo » dans lequel il
accusait nommément des hauts responsables politiques français ainsi que plusieurs officiers des
Armées Françaises « d’avoir pris part au génocide », pas moins !
Entre-temps, en 2007, la droite avait accédé au pouvoir à Paris avec l’élection de Nicolas Sarkozy
qui choisit comme ministre des Affaires Etrangères un des amis et soutiens de longue date du
dictateur rwandais Paul Kagame, un certain Bernard Kouchner.
C’est alors que la magie de la diplomatie va s’opérer pour essayer d’évacuer un dossier judiciaire
encombrant. Sur conseil de Bernard Koutchner, comme il l’a lui-même reconnu ultérieurement,
une des inculpés, le Major Rose Kabuye, va venir se faire arrêter en Allemagne et se faire
déporter à Paris. Le but était de permettre aux puissants et coûteux avocats mandatés par Paul
Kagame d’avoir accès au dossier, ce qui va leur permettre de lancer une contre-offensive tous
azimut. Un nouveau juge d’instruction avait déjà été désigné en la personne de Marc Trévidic
secondé par Nathalie Poux. Les relations diplomatiques entre Kigali et Paris furent, comme par
enchantement rétablies et, cerise sur le gâteaux, le président de la République Française luimême effectua une visite au Rwanda en compagnie de Bernard Kouchner et au cours de laquelle
il a reconnu en le regrettant « un certain aveuglément de la France » pour avoir à un moment de
l’histoire, soutenu le régime hutu.
La route ayant ainsi été balisée, la feuille de route tracée par l’autorité politique, il ne restait
qu’au juge d’instruction d’accomplir les formalités administratives et procédurales nécessaires
pour qu’il évacue ce dossier gênant pour les relations entre la France et le Rwanda de Paul
Kagame que certains politiciens français croit incontournable dans la région et donc que le fait de
l’amadouer vaut le coup de sacrifier quelques principes comme celui de poursuivre partout tout
terroriste qui s’en est pris à la vie des officiers français. Or Paul Kagame en a au moins six à son
actif qu’il a tués entre le 6 et le 8 avril 1994, et la France officielle en est au courant. Marc
Trévidic et Nathalie Poux se rendront donc au Rwanda accompagnés d’experts en balistique et
des géomètres. Dès leur retour en France, ils se rendront compte que les seules expertises
balistiques et géomètres ne suffiraient pas à offrir une fenêtre de sortie à travers laquelle le FPR
de Paul Kagame pourrait échapper. C’est alors qu’ils ont eu recours à un « acousticien » qui,
après une retraite dans un domaine militaire au centre de la France, produisit « un rapport
d’expertise » qui enfin pouvait servir de base pour disculper le FPR de Paul Kagame. En effet
notre « magicien-accousticien » affirmait que d’après le bruit qu’il avait perçu lors des
simulations, il pouvait affirmer que les missiles qui ont descendu l’avion présidentiel avaient été
tirés à partir du domaine militaire de Kanombe et non de la colline de Masaka.
Les juges Trévidic et Poux approuvèrent ces conclusions et l’expertise de l’acousticien qui a été
recruté sur le tard et en catimini et qui a effectué ses simulations au centre de la France
supplanta ceux des balisticiens et géomètres qui eux s’étaient rendus au Rwanda. Il n’en fallait
pas plus que la presse du monde entier ameutée par les lobbys de Paul Kagame crie victoire et
assène derechef que le Falcon 50 avait bel et bien été abattu par les extrémistes hutu de
l’entourage du président Habyarimana.
C’est à la suite de cette euphorie que le juge Trévidic a annoncé triomphalement qu’il venait de
boucler l’enquête et qu’il allait bientôt donner ses conclusions définitives. Par la voix des avocats
de Paul Kagame, on saura que sans aucun doute le Juge Trévidic s’apprêtait à annoncer « un
non-lieu » et que les proches de Paul Kagame seront entièrement blanchis dans ce dossier qui
sera ensuite classé sans suite au grand soulagement d’une certaine classe politique et de la
diplomatie française.
Seulement voilà : on dirait que le mauvais sort s’acharne sur le juge Trévidic. Avant même qu’il
n’annonce son non-lieu attendu, la BBC Two vient de diffuser un documentaire qui donne, avec
force détails, les preuves de la responsabilité de Kagame dans cet attentat. Même parmi les
personnes inculpées et contre qui les mandats d’arrêt avaient été lancés, certains affirment savoir
que c’est le FPR de Paul Kagame qui a commandité l’attentat. Curieusement, le juge, qui les
connaissait et qui savait comment il pouvait les toucher n’a pas cherché à les entendre mais s’est
empressé de déclarer que le dossier était clos. C’est le cas du général Kayumba Nyamwasa, une
des personnalités qui avaient été inculpées par le juge Bruguière et qui vit en Afrique du Sud
d’où il déclare à qui veut l’entendre qu’il est prêt à témoigner et montrer comment c’est Paul
Kagame qui a commandité l’attentat, mais que personne ne veut venir l’entendre ou ne veut le
convoquer ! En clôturant le dossier, le juge Trévidic osera prétendre qu’il ne connaissait pas un
potentiel témoin au nom de Kayumba Nyamwasa ?
Quels sont les intérêts en jeu pour que ces énormités soient tolérées ?
Dans le cas d’espèce, il est évident que le régime du FPR de Paul Kagame tire sa légitimité du
mensonge qui consiste à dire qu’il est venu pour arrêter le génocide ! Il serait alors
catastrophique pour lui s’il était admis qu’en réalité c’est lui qui a déclenché le génocide en
assassinant l’homme qui constituait « une digue » qui retenait les passions et la haine ethniques
latentes exacerbées par la guerre initiée par le même FPR de Paul Kagame en 1990 .
En ce qui concerne la France, la visibilité est moins évidente. Les intérêts de certaines
corporations locales viennent se greffer à ceux des lobbies mondialistes pour qui l’honneur ou la
voix de la France sont le dernier de leurs soucis pour offrir ce spectacle incompréhensible quand il
s’agit de la position de la France en ce qui concerne le Rwanda depuis 1994.
Emmanuel Neretse
07/10/2014
Documentaire-choc sur le Rwanda
La BBC confirme la macabre supercherie
La propagande des médias menteurs complètement démolie
Bernard DESGAGNÉ
Chronique de Bernard Desgagné
mercredi 8 octobre
296 visites
Le mur du mensonge vient de se lézarder sérieusement. Pour la première fois en 20 ans, un média de masse
réécrit l’histoire du génocide rwandais telle qu’elle aurait toujours dû être racontée. Le 1er octobre 2014,
dans le cadre de son émission Panorama, la BBC a diffusé « Rwanda’s Untold Story », un documentaire
d’une heure réalisé par la journaliste vedette Jane Corbin. Ceux qui connaissent bien le dossier du Rwanda
n’ont rien appris, car la plupart des informations que contient le documentaire circulent depuis longtemps.
Certaines étaient même dans Ça ne s’est pas passé comme ça à Kigali, le livre de Robin Philpot. Candidat
du PQ en 2007, ce courageux auteur a été trainé dans la boue par Radio-Canada et La Presse pour avoir
écrit en 2003 ce que la BBC a fini par comprendre en 2014.
Pour ma part, j’ai déjà diffusé l’information contenue dans le documentaire au fil de nombreux articles à
propos du Rwanda publiés depuis 2008. On les retrouve sur Vigile, dans le site du Québécois, dans le
Huffington Post et dans plusieurs autres médias. J’ai également communiqué cette information à des
dizaines de journalistes de Radio-Canada ainsi qu’à des centaines de députés et de sénateurs du Parlement
d’Ottawa et de l’Assemblée nationale à Québec, sans qu’aucun d’entre eux n’y donne suite autrement que
de manière symbolique. Finiront-ils par écouter maintenant que c’est la BBC qui parle ?
Le dictateur et tueur en série Paul Kagame est un grand ami du gouvernement d’Ottawa, comme le
démontre cette photo où la souriante Michaëlle Jean, envoyée par Stephen Harper en 2010, lui transmet
les respectueuses salutations du gouvernement conservateur. Cette amitié transcende les partis politiques
fédéraux, puisque Kagame peut compter aussi, parmi les néodémocrates et les libéraux, sur de grands
défenseurs de la mythologie officielle, par exemple, Paul Dewar et Irwin Cotler.
Stam, Davenport et les autres experts interdits à Radio-Canada
« Ce que le monde croit et ce qui s’est vraiment passé sont deux choses très différentes », nous dit Allan
Stam dans le documentaire, qui défait un à un quelques-uns des principaux mythes sur le génocide
rwandais. Premier constat : si l’on tient compte uniquement de l’année 1994 et si l’on se fie aux données
fournies par l’ONU et le gouvernement de Kigali eux-mêmes, le nombre de Hutus tués est quatre fois plus
élevé que le nombre de Tutsis. Et si l’on calcule le nombre de personnes qui, entre 1990 et aujourd’hui, sur
une période de 24 ans, ont été massacrées par les exterminateurs aux ordres de Paul Kagame ou qui sont
mortes de faim ou de maladie en tentant de fuir, on arrive à un bilan similaire à celui de l’Holocauste, où
l’immense majorité des victimes sont des Hutus ou d’autres populations bantoues. Les morts tutsis ne
constituent même pas 5 % du total.
Pourtant, les Tutsis exerçant aujourd’hui sans partage le pouvoir à Kigali sont les seuls qui ont le droit de
pleurer leurs morts, selon Kagame et ses parrains occidentaux chaque année faussement contrits pour la
galerie. Autour du 7 avril dernier encore, Radio-Canada nous a asséné des dizaines de fois que « les Hutus
ont tué les Tutsis au Rwanda ». Ses journalistes grassement rémunérés avec notre argent s’en sont donné à
coeur joie dans le copier-coller des litanies habituelles et dans les entrevues avec des survivants spécialistes
du parjure et de la comédie. Jamais ces sinistres carriéristes n’ont mentionné en ondes les noms d’Allan
Stam ou de son collègue Christian Davenport, que je leur ai pourtant indiqués à maintes reprises, depuis des
années. Une courageuse journaliste de la BBC vient d’interrompre leur bal costumé.
On pourrait réaliser un documentaire de 100 heures s’il fallait faire entendre tous les témoignages étayés de
preuves photographiques et d’autres preuves matérielles que Radio-Canada occulte systématiquement au
profit des caisses de résonance de Kagame. C’est pareil dans les autres grands médias québécois, à
quelques rares exceptions près, dont celle du critique littéraire du Devoir Louis Cornellier, qui fait bande à
part et dont je salue l’intégrité. Mais, tandis que les journalistes de TVA ont l’excuse de ne pas être capables
de situer le Rwanda sur une carte de l’Afrique, ceux de Radio-Canada mentent souvent en toute
connaissance de cause, surtout les grands « spécialistes » comme les mythomanes François Brousseau et
Léo Kalinda, un sympathisant du FPR qui en aurait même été membre, à ce qu’on dit.
Bien que ce ne soit pas le coeur du propos, le documentaire de la BBC parle, au début, d’un
« rétablissement remarquable » et de la prospérité retrouvée du Rwanda. Là-dessus, Jane Corbin aurait dû
pousser son enquête un peu plus loin. Peut-on vraiment parler d’une réussite économique ?
En fait, Kigali n’est qu’une façade. Dans les campagnes, la population crève. La moitié du budget de l’État
vient de l’aide étrangère. Et le PIB était de 633 $ par habitant en 2013. Le Rwanda est non seulement l’un
des pays les plus pauvres au monde ; c’est aussi l’un des plus pauvres d’Afrique. Kagame est un dictateur
impitoyable qui ne peut même pas prétendre avoir fait faire des gains matériels à son peuple. Il se contente
d’emprisonner et de tuer ceux qui ne lui obéissent pas, tout en permettant à une petite clique de vivre dans
l’opulence.
Les anciens du FPR traqués par Kagame parlent à la caméra
En plus de Stam et Davenport, Jane Corbin nous fait entendre plusieurs acteurs du drame rwandais dont le
public de Radio-Canada, les yeux rivés sur les mensonges dont il est abreuvé tous les jours, ne connait
même pas l’existence. Qui d’autre parait dans le documentaire de la BBC ? La journaliste Corbin fait appel
notamment à deux témoins de taille, Théogène Rudasingwa et Kayumba Nyamwasa, respectivement ancien
chef de cabinet de Kagame et ancien chef d’état-major de l’Armée patriotique rwandaise, qui ont tous les
deux vu de l’intérieur les crimes de masse orchestrés par leur patron.
Nyamwasa ne mâche pas ses mots : « Kagame n’a jamais eu l’intention d’arrêter le génocide. Jamais. Son
intention était de gagner la guerre pour accéder au pouvoir. Que des gens meurent dans le génocide ou se
fassent tuer était le cadet de ses soucis. […] Paul Kagame est sans l’ombre d’un doute [celui qui a fait
abattre l’avion transportant les présidents du Rwanda et du Burundi, le 6 avril 1994]. Je suis bien placé
pour le savoir, et il sait que je le suis. »
Kayumba Nyamwasa, qui est sous haute protection en Afrique du Sud, a fait l’objet de trois tentatives
d’assassinat récentes, toutes commises par des hommes de main de Kagame. Son ami Patrick Karegeya, un
autre ancien militaire du FPR ayant fait défection, n’a pas été aussi chanceux que lui. Il a été tué dans la
nuit du 31 décembre 2013 au 1er janvier 2014.
Nyamwasa a lui-même participé au complot pour commettre l’attentat du 6 avril 1994 et a dirigé les
troupes de Kagame pendant qu’elles commettaient d’immenses massacres. Il est parfaitement au courant. Il
affirme que Paul Kagame était pleinement conscient des conséquences aussi inéluctables que dramatiques
qui devaient résulter de l’attentat : « Si nous sommes en pleine saison sèche et que vous jetez une allumette
dans l’herbe, vous viendra-t-il à l’idée de penser que l’herbe ne brûlera pas ? »
Pas de planification du génocide
M. Nyamwasa dit par ailleurs être convaincu que le pouvoir hutu avait un plan d’extermination, mais s’il
fait cette affirmation, c’est peut-être pour se dédouaner lui-même de l’horrible traque des Hutus à Goma et
ailleurs en République démocratique du Congo, au cours des années 1996 et 1997. Le prétexte de cette
traque était d’éliminer les « génocidaires ». N’en déplaise à M. Nyamwasa, le Tribunal pénal international
pour le Rwanda (TPIR) n’a jamais retrouvé l’ombre d’une preuve de planification du génocide, même
après s’être acharné sur l’ancien pouvoir hutu pendant 19 ans, avec un budget annuel qui, par exemple, était
de 227 millions de dollars en 2010-2011. Une partie de cet argent a été puisé dans les poches des
contribuables canadiens.
L’historien Bernard Lugan a bien démontré l’absence de planification dans son ouvrage Rwanda — Un
génocide en question (Éditions du Rocher, 2014), où il s’appuie sur un bilan exhaustif des travaux du TPIR.
Les massacres de Tutsis ont été spontanés et se sont terminés bien avant que le FPR ne s’empare du
territoire, comme le précise Allan Stam. La fureur a été déclenchée par l’attentat, véritable allumette que
Kagame a jetée non pas dans de l’herbe sèche, mais plutôt dans une grosse poudrière créée par trois années
et demie de souffrances infligées aux Hutus, qui avaient de très bonnes raisons pour être révoltés contre le
FPR et ses partisans, essentiellement des Tutsis.
Comme l’explique le documentaire, la guerre et l’occupation du territoire par les tueurs de Kagame, à partir
de septembre 1990, avaient donné lieu à des massacres de masse de la population civile hutue. Un million
de réfugiés essentiellement hutus, chassés de leurs terres, s’étaient agglutinés autour de Kigali, dans des
camps de la mort d’où l’on sortait une centaine de cadavres par jour, à cause des maladies et de la faim. De
plus, un grand nombre de réfugiés en provenance du Burundi avaient afflué au Rwanda en 1993 pour fuir
les massacres dont étaient victimes les Hutus dans ce pays, aux mains de l’armée et de civils tutsis. Voir
leurs frères burundais ainsi persécutés ne fit rien pour rassurer les Hutus du Rwanda devant l’armée tutsie
du FPR et le sadique Paul Kagame.
Lorsque l’avion transportant les deux présidents hutus fut abattu, les Hutus, déjà martyrisés, en vinrent à la
conclusion que le FPR et ses partisans ne voudraient jamais de la démocratie, ce que confirment d’ailleurs
le documentaire de la BBC ainsi que beaucoup de témoignages et de faits avérés. Pour Kagame, le pouvoir
a toujours été au bout du fusil, et non dans les urnes. Certains Hutus, désespérés et fous de rage, prirent des
machettes et décidèrent de tuer ceux qu’ils percevaient comme les responsables de leurs souffrances. Qu’on
le qualifie de génocide ou non, le massacre des Tutsis, en avril 1994, n’était pas le résultat d’un plan
diabolique du pouvoir hutu. Il a sans doute été horrible, mais il a duré quelques jours seulement et était
essentiellement terminé à la fin d’avril. Par comparaison, les massacres de Hutus et d’opposants politiques,
eux, sont systématiques et bien organisés par le FPR. Ils se sont étirés sur 24 ans, jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Ils se
poursuivent encore, sous le regard indifférent ou complice des thuriféraires de Kagame et du public berné
par eux.
Par ailleurs, en supposant qu’il y aurait eu malgré tout planification du génocide des Tutsis, il faudrait
plutôt regarder du côté du FPR, surtout quand on sait que le chef de la milice Interahamwe était un Tutsi,
Robert Kajuga, et qu’il était un agent du FPR selon Aloys Ruyenzi, un ancien membre de la garde
rapprochée de Paul Kagame qui apparaît également dans le documentaire de la BBC. Il est possible qu’une
minorité de jeunes Hutus révoltés aient été poussés à tuer des Tutsis par des manipulateurs à la solde de
Kagame qui voulaient justement lui fabriquer un alibi en vue des massacres de Hutus qui allaient venir.
Cette hypothèse reste à vérifier, mais elle est plausible.
Ottawa complice comme Londres
Le documentaire de la BBC traite bien entendu des accointances britanniques de Kagame, notamment Tony
Blair, qui, comme son copain de Kigali, a refusé de donner son point de vue à Jane Corbin. Comment
pourrait-il justifier l’injustifiable devant la caméra, de toute manière ? En avouant qu’il est un
psychopathe ? Or, Ottawa est, comme Londres, un repaire de gens affairés à consolider le pouvoir tutsi
absolutiste de Kigali. Le documentaire nomme une Canadienne, Louise Arbour, ancienne juge de la Cour
suprême du Canada et ancienne procureure du TPIR. Mme Arbour n’a pas daigné rappeler la journaliste
Corbin, elle non plus. Mieux vaut répondre aux questions uniquement quand elles sont posées par des
journalistes à gages obéissants.
L’icône canadienne Arbour, présentée par les médias comme une grande philanthrope, a ordonné la fin des
enquêtes sur l’attentat du 6 avril 1994 lorsque ses enquêteurs lui ont dit que toutes les pistes menaient au
FPR et à Paul Kagame. Jim Lyons, qui était enquêteur à l’époque, en témoigne dans le documentaire de la
BBC. Symbole de la relativité de la justice d’Ottawa, Louise Arbour est, de toute l’histoire du Canada, la
seule juge de la Cour suprême à avoir démissionné de son poste avant la fin de son mandat. Rien de plus
normal après avoir commis une faute d’une extrême gravité : corrompre une procédure judiciaire pour
protéger le plus grand meurtrier de masse que la terre ait porté depuis Hitler. Jamais plus Mme Arbour ne
réintègrera la magistrature, ni même le Barreau. On lui a trouvé une petite job peinarde à l’International
Crisis Group, où elle se spécialise dans la propagande de guerre déguisée en travail humanitaire.
Évidemment, comment parler des relations d’Ottawa avec Kagame sans mentionner saint Dallaire, l’exsénateur aux neuf pilules et chouchou des émissions d’infodivertissement de Radio-Canada ? Il n’est pas
question de lui dans le documentaire, car Jane Corbin lui a préféré un militaire plus crédible, le colonel Luc
Marchal, qui n’est pas programmé pour raconter l’histoire convenue et qui déplait donc souverainement à
Radio-Canada et à Hollywood.
De son propre aveu, Roméo Dallaire est encore aujourd’hui un habitué de Kigali. Il fréquente assidument le
FPR et n’hésite pas à se livrer à toutes les contorsions imaginables pour justifier en public les horreurs du
régime de Kagame. Roméo Dallaire aime les vrais hommes qui savent résoudre les problèmes avec une
mitraillette. N’appelle-t-il pas encore constamment le gouvernement du Canada à déployer des troupes pour
« éviter les génocides » ?
Au Mali, en Centrafrique et en Irak, l’ex-général voit partout des génocidaires qui méritent une sévère
correction. Quand il était au Rwanda, Roméo Dallaire aidait le FPR et son ami Kagame à stocker des armes
et à préparer la prise du pouvoir à l’abri des regards indiscrets de la communauté internationale. Les armes
rentraient à la tonne, y compris les missiles sol-air qui allaient servir à abattre l’avion de Juvénal
Habyarimana. C’est que, voyez-vous, il fallait être équipé pour mâter ceux qui allaient devenir des
génocidaires, conformément au scénario écrit d’avance. Pour de plus amples renseignements sur ce grand
héros canadien, j’invite les habitués de la propagande médiatique à lire « Saint Dallaire », la série de 6
articles que j’ai publiée en juin dans le Huffington Post.
Le comportement pro-Kagame d’Ottawa n’est pas seulement l’oeuvre de quelques vedettes du génocide et
de politiciens trop heureux de se draper dans la vertu en épousant publiquement la cause des détenteurs
exclusifs du droit de pleurer ses morts. Ottawa recèle également des juges profondément marqués par les
fictions cinématographiques, des procureurs dévorés par leur ambition de devenir les nouveaux justiciers de
Nuremberg ainsi que des fonctionnaires bien dressés par leurs collègues infiltrés du FPR, qui sont
positionnés stratégiquement dans certains ministères canadiens. Tous ces gens généreusement rétribués
déploient constamment des efforts considérables pour traquer les Hutus ciblés par Kigali. Ils leur font des
simulacres de procès avec des faux témoignages secrets, comme le procès de Désiré Munyaneza. Ils
envoient en pâture à Kagame des innocents comme Léon Mugesera, qui croupit aujourd’hui dans une geôle
de Kigali, après avoir dû abandonner au Québec sa femme et ses enfants. Nombreux sont les Hutus qui ont
été harcelés par Ottawa ou qui le sont encore, sur la foi des mensonges propagés par le FPR à l’aide de ses
syndicats de délateurs affabulateurs.
Mais, au-delà de toutes ces magouilles des serviteurs empressés de Kagame, une forfaiture nous montre que
l’hypocrite gouvernement d’Ottawa ne s’intéresse que superficiellement aux droits de la personne, à la
justice, aux victimes de crime et à la sécurité des citoyens canadiens : son mutisme absolu concernant les
assassinats, par le FPR, des prêtres québécois Claude Simard et Guy Pinard, en 1994 et 1997. Ottawa n’a
jamais levé le petit doigt pour que les responsables soient traduits devant la justice. Tout pour plaire à
Kagame, conformément, bien sûr, aux ordres qui viennent de Washington.
À l’instar des Hutus traqués et accusés collectivement d’être des génocidaires par une bande de menteurs et
d’assassins, les familles des pères Simard et Pinard n’ont pas le droit de faire entièrement leur deuil. Elles
n’ont pas le droit à la justice. Elles doivent comprendre que les assassins de Claude Simard et Guy Pinard
sont les protégés d’Ottawa, donc qu’ils ont la permission de continuer de tuer en toute liberté.
Si je vivais au Rwanda, le présent article me vaudrait soit d’être exécuté sommairement, soit d’être
emprisonné pendant 8 ou 15 ans, comme l’opposante Victoire Ingabire, peut-être même pendant plus
longtemps. Pourquoi ? Parce que je serais coupable d’avoir contesté les vérités officielles. Je serais
coupable du délit de refus de se prosterner devant le chantage des supposés survivants qui s’arrogent
l’exclusivité des larmes de la communauté internationale, sous prétexte qu’ils ont subi le crime suprême de
génocide. Ce crime devrait effacer tous les autres, qui ne méritent même pas qu’on s’y arrête. Sa seule
évocation devrait suffire pour nous rendre sourds, muets et aveugles et même pour nous faire perdre tout
esprit critique et tout sens moral.
Rwanda’s Untold Story Documentary from RDI-Rwanda Rwiza on Vimeo.
« Rwanda’s Untold Story », le documentaire de la BBC qui dit la vérité pour la première fois dans les
médias de masse, après plus de 20 ans de mensonges. Une réalisation de Jane Corbin diffusée seulement
au Royaume-Uni le 1er octobre 2014, à l’émission Panorama, puis rediffusée le 2 octobre à l’émission
This World. À voir absolument.
Agoravox : http://www.agoravox.fr/tribune-libre/article/rwandagenocide-il-faudra-reecrire-157880
Rwanda – Génocide : Il faudra réécrire l’histoire du génocide
rwandais
MUSAVULI
vendredi 10 octobre 2014
par
L’histoire du génocide rwandais, telle qu’elle est présentée par Paul Kagame, est sûrement
au point de s’effondrer. Pour la première fois depuis 20 ans, un grand média, la BBC, a
diffusé un documentaire qui remet profondément en cause la version officielle de la
tragédie rwandaise. Tout au long du documentaire, il est rappelé que toute personne qui
ose contester l’histoire du génocide rwandais, telle qu’elle est présentée par Kagame et
les médias dominants, fait l’objet de menace, de chantage ; est trainé dans la boue, traité
de négationniste, de révisionniste, voire d’antisémite et de génocidaire, comme cela est
rappelé dans un autre documentaire, de julien Teil intitulé « Rwanda, 20 ans après
l'histoire truquée ». Un climat malsain, entretenu depuis deux décennies, et qui a fini par
rendre impossible tout débat contradictoire sur cette affaire et la possibilité d’examiner
sereinement des preuves, des témoignages et des faits qui, dès le début, contredisaient la
version officielle.
ADVERTISEMENT
Dans le documentaire de Jane Corbin,« Rwanda’s Untold Story »[1], la journaliste britannique
prend la précaution de tendre le micro à plusieurs personnalités qu’on ne saurait soupçonner de
sympathie avec des « Hutus génocidaires ». La magistrate suisse Carla del Ponte, ancienne
Procureure du Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda et pour l’ex-Yougoslavie ; le général
tutsi en exil Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, ancien compagnon d’armes de Kagame et ancien chef
d’Etat-major de l’armée rwandaise ; le docteur Théogène Rudasingwa, ancien chef de cabinet de
Paul Kagame et ancien ambassadeur du Rwanda aux Etats-Unis ; l’éminent professeur belge
Filip Reyntjens. La journaliste britannique assure que le président Paul Kagame et son parrain
Tony Blair, ancien Premier ministre britannique, ont été sollicités mais qu’ils ont décliné la
demande de participer au documentaire.
Trois vérités au moins
Au moins trois vérités capitales se dégagent des deux documentaires. Première vérité : Paul
Kagame est l’homme qui a commandité l’attentat du 6 avril 1994 contre l’avion du président
Juvénal Habyarimana. Deuxième vérité : il y a eu, dans le conflit rwandais, plus de Hutus
massacrés par les hommes de Kagame que de Tutsis massacrés par les Interahamwe.
Troisième vérité : la guerre du Rwanda n’avait pas pour enjeu le Rwanda. L’enjeu de la guerre du
Rwanda c’était le Zaïre de Mobutu et ses immenses gisements miniers. Américains et
Britanniques devaient s’emparer militairement des régions minières du Zaïre (l’actuelle
République Démocratique du Congo), en se dissimulant derrière l’armée tutsie de Kagame. Une
mission qui devait passer par la diabolisation des Français et l’éjection de la France de cette
région que convoitaient les puissances anglo-saxonnes opérant sous couvert de Kagame.
Sur l’attentat du 6 avril, les témoignages de Faustin Kayumba et de Théogène Rudasingwa, deux
anciens proches de Kagame et, aujourd’hui, deux grandes figures de l’opposition rwandaise,
devraient suffire à enlever les derniers doutes de nos esprits pour au moins deux raisons. La
première est que personne au monde n’a jamais été plus proche de Kagame, en ces moments
décisifs de l’histoire du Rwanda que Kayumba et Rudasingwa. C’étaient ses confidents. Pour
pouvoir contester leurs accusations contre Kagame, il faut avoir été beaucoup plus proche qu’ils
ne l’étaient. Impossible. La deuxième raison est que ces deux leaders tutsis, étant des figures de
l’opposition rwandaise[2], ils incarnent ce que sera la vérité officielle du Rwanda après le règne
de Kagame, qui n’est pas éternel. Il est donc tout à fait responsable de commencer à anticiper ce
que sera l’histoire officielle du Rwanda de demain, à savoir que c’est Paul Kagame qui avait
commandité l’attentat du 6 avril 1994, acte considéré par l’ONU comme le facteur déclenchant du
génocide.
Le responsable du génocide
Ce qui, mécaniquement, amène à la question de savoir qui est le responsable du génocide
rwandais. Carla del Ponte avait prévenu après sa nomination en tant que Procureure du Tribunal
d’Arusha[3] que s’il s’avérait un jour que ce sont les rebelles tutsis qui ont abattu l’avion du
président Habyarimana, toute l’histoire du génocide rwandais devra être réécrite. Nous y
sommes. En d’autres termes, à la responsabilité des Interahamwe, qui avaient usé de machettes,
il faudra ajouter la responsabilité de celui qui ordonna de lancer les missiles. Faustin Kayumba
résume l’histoire à venir du Rwanda par cette sagesse, parlant de Kagame, de l’attentat et des
massacres :« Si nous sommes en pleine saison sèche et que vous jetez une allumette dans
l’herbe, vous viendra-t-il à l’idée de penser que l’herbe ne brûlera pas ? »
Il faut rappeler dans quel climat explosif était le Rwanda en avril 1994. Le documentaire en fait
mention et Bernard Desgagné en donne un résumé exhaustif. « La guerre et l’occupation du
territoire par les tueurs de Kagame, à partir de septembre 1990, avaient donné lieu à des
massacres de masse de la population civile hutue. Un million de réfugiés essentiellement hutus,
chassés de leurs terres, s’étaient agglutinés autour de Kigali, dans des camps de la mort d’où
l’on sortait une centaine de cadavres par jour, à cause des maladies et de la faim. De plus, un
grand nombre de réfugiés en provenance du Burundi avaient afflué au Rwanda en 1993 pour fuir
les massacres dont étaient victimes les Hutus dans ce pays, aux mains de l’armée et de civils
tutsis. Voir leurs frères burundais ainsi persécutés ne fit rien pour rassurer les Hutus du
Rwanda »[4]devant l’armée tutsie de Kagame.
« Lorsque l’avion transportant les deux présidents hutus fut abattu, les Hutus, déjà martyrisés, en
vinrent à la conclusion que le FPR et ses partisans ne voudraient jamais de la démocratie »[5],
ce que confirment d’ailleurs le documentaire de la BBC ainsi que de nombreux témoignages et
des faits avérés. « Pour Kagame, le pouvoir a toujours été au bout du fusil, et non dans les urnes.
Certains Hutus, désespérés et fous de rage, prirent des machettes et décidèrent de tuer ceux
qu’ils percevaient comme les responsables de leurs souffrances. Qu’on le qualifie de génocide ou
non, le massacre des Tutsis, en avril 1994, n’était pas le résultat d’un plan diabolique du pouvoir
hutu. (…) Il a duré quelques jours seulement et était essentiellement terminé à la fin d’avril. Par
comparaison, les massacres de Hutus et d’opposants politiques, eux, sont systématiques et bien
organisés par le FPR. Ils se sont étirés sur 24 ans, jusqu’à aujourd’hui »[6]. Dans un précédent
article[7] au sujet des corps flottants récemment découverts sur le lac Rweru, nous avons fait
remarquer que, vingt ans après le génocide, les populations hutues continuaient d’être
massacrées au Rwanda, sous nos yeux indifférents et avec la complicité des grandes
démocraties européennes et américaines, qui financent et parrainent Paul Kagame tout au long
de ses interminables massacres.
Les victimes invisibles
La deuxième vérité du génocide rwandais est que la majorité des victimes furent des Hutus et
non des Tutsis. Dans le documentaire, les chercheurs Christian Davenport et Allan Stam posent
une question arithmétique et mettent les chiffres sur la table. Il vivait au Rwanda environ 500.000
Tutsis avant le génocide. Selon l’association Ibuka, proche de Kagame, 300.000 Tutsis ont
survécu au génocide, ce qui revient à dire que 200.000 Tutsis ont péri dans le génocide. Or le
génocide rwandais avait coûté la vie à 800.000 personnes, selon l’ONU, 1.000.000 selon le
régime de Kagame. D’où cette question : qui étaient les 600.000 à 800.000 autres victimes ? Une
question embarrassante. Les deux chercheurs américains y répondent par cette formule
simple : « entre ce que l’opinion a été amenée à croire et la réalité des faits, il y a une énorme
différence ». Dans un remarquable ouvrage du Canadien Robin Philpot, intitulé « Ca ne s'est pas
passé comme ça à Kigali », et qui lui a attiré les foudres des médias occidentaux pro-Kagame,
dont Radio Canada, l’auteur, dès 2005, remettait déjà en questions les chiffres officiels et le
discours convenu des médias dominants sur le drame rwandais. Il ne sera pas le seul à être
réhabilité lorsque la version actuelle du génocide rwandais sera définitivement battue en
brèche[8].
Enfin, la troisième vérité : les vrais enjeux de la guerre du Rwanda. On ne comprend pas
comment Kagame a réussi à mettre dans sa poche nos grands médias, nos dirigeants politiques,
nos grands universitaires, voire nos universités qui continuent d’enseigner l’histoire mensongère
du génocide rwandais ; nos associations, nos ONG, voire de respectables institutions
internationales comme l’Union européenne, toujours docile devant ce dictateur africain. On ne
comprend pas comment le monde entier s’est mis à suivre de façon moutonnière un quelconque
maquisard africain, à peine instruit, et à la tête d’un tout petit pays enclavé au cœur de l’Afrique,
pauvre et dépourvu d’enjeux stratégiques. On ne comprend pas comment Kagame et ses
parrains ont réussi à berner le monde entier si on ne regarde pas la frontière ouest du Rwanda
où s’étend l’ancien Zaïre de Mobutu avec ses immenses gisements miniers.
Taisez-vous et Kagame vous rendra riche !
Nous sommes au début des années 1990. Les gens ne le savent pas encore, mais il va y avoir
des centaines de milliards de dollars à gagner dans un secteur dont le marché n’est que
balbutiant. En Europe, on utilise encore des cabines téléphoniques pour appeler nos proches, le
minitel pour traiter les données et des gros téléviseurs cathodiques qui pèsent comme des
parpaings. Mais l’humanité va effectuer un grand bond dans le temps, et à moins cher. Les
nouvelles technologies de l’information ! Les Américains, les Britanniques, les Israéliens et les
Canadiens ont repéré un pays en Afrique, le Zaïre de Mobutu. Dans son sous-sol gisent les plus
importantes réserves mondiales d’au moins quatre minerais indispensables à la fabrication d’une
foule d’appareils qu’on appellera téléphones portables, écrans plats, consoles de jeux,
smartphone, tablettes[9],… Le colombo-tantalite, aussi connu sous le nom de coltan. C’est le
minerai dont est extrait le tantale, indispensable à la fabrication des condensateurs, ce qui
permettra de miniaturiser les appareils électroniques tout en améliorant leur performance. Mais
aussi la cassitérite[10] ; le wolframite[11], le cobalt, l’or, le diamant, l’uranium, le chrome,…
Internet, dont personne ne sait vraiment ce que ça veut dire en 1990, va transformer la vie des
milliards de gens sur la planète. Mais pour contrôler ce marché extrêmement juteux, il faut
contrôler les gisements miniers, et surtout ne rien révéler aux populations locales et ne rien payer
à l’Etat zaïrois.
Tout comme George Bush entreprendra de renverser Saddam Hussein pour s’emparer du
pétrole irakien, Bill Clinton entreprit de renverser Mobutu pour prendre possession des gisements
miniers du Zaïre. Mais Clinton s’y prend autrement. Il ne doit surtout pas utiliser directement la
brutalité de l’armée américaine contre des populations africaines, les Congolais. Il se servira d’un
Africain pour massacrer d’autres Africains. L’opération sera menée par Paul Kagame et son ami
ougandais Yoweri Museveni. Kagame obtiendra tout ce qu’aucun dictateur africain n’a jamais eu :
une complaisante couverture médiatique en Europe et en Amérique, des instructeurs militaires
américains, canadiens, israéliens et britanniques, des renseignements, des armes,… et, plus
important : la totale impunité, quel que soit le nombre des gens qu’il voudra tuer. La Cour pénale
internationale devra se taire comme une tombe. Les chantres de la démocratie et des droits de
l’homme en Europe et en Amérique, devront faire semblant de ne pas voir les crimes de Kagame.
L’appel pour la création d’un Tribunal pénal international pour le Congo devra rester lettre
morte, malgré des millions de morts. Les journalistes occidentaux devront se montrer
complaisants avec le plus effrayant massacreur de la planète devenu, par magie, « le chouchou
des grandes démocraties ». Marché conclu !
Le problème, pour la crédibilité de nos démocraties, et même pour la conscience de ceux qui
profitent du confort des appareils électroniques, grâce à l’occupation brutale et le pillage du
Congo par les hommes de Kagame, c’est que l’homme n’arrive pas à se fixer des limites.
Kagame continuera à tuer au-delà de « sa mission », et sans compter. Le rapport Mapping de
2010 ouvre juste une lorgnette sur les crimes du dictateur rwandais. A force de tuer sans
compter, il a fini par créer la panique et l’effroi jusque dans les rangs de ses proches. Faustin
Kayumba le décrit comme« un homme qui aime tuer ». La journaliste belge Colette Braeckman le
décrit à peu près dans les mêmes termes[12]. Filip Reyntjens qui intervient dans le film de Jane
Corbin le décrit comme le plus grand criminel du monde encore en fonction. Bref, une sorte de
massacreur pathologique, devenu un problème pour tout le monde à la fois.
La mainmise de Kagame sur le Congo, qui se poursuit, sera responsable de la mort de plus de
six millions de Congolais et des centaines de milliers de femmes violées. On n’oublie surtout pas
que plus de 300.000 réfugiés hutus rwandais furent massacrés dès les premier mois de
l’occupation du Congo par les hommes de Kagame avec l’appui des Etats-Unis, du Canada et du
Royaume-Uni. Le massacre s’est poursuivi au Congo et au Rwanda. Même des rescapés du
génocide préfèrent s’exiler et fuir le Rwanda, leur propre pays qu’ils avaient cru devenir un havre
de paix après les atrocités qu’ils avaient subi. Exil où le dictateur sait aussi atteindre ses victimes.
Dernière victime en date, Patrick Karegeya, son ancien compagnon d’armes et ancien chef des
renseignements rwandais, assassiné en Afrique du Sud le 1 er janvier 2014.
Où sont passées nos valeurs ?
Nous en sommes donc là avec l’histoire de ce petit pays dont la paisible population n’avait rien
demandé à personne mais que nos grandes démocraties décidèrent un jour d’utiliser pour gagner
de l’argent. Mais aussi pour se discréditer et se ridiculiser pour longtemps aux yeux des Africains.
Pour s’emparer des gisements miniers, toutes les valeurs de la civilisation occidentale furent
enterrées dans les collines du Rwanda et les zones minières de l’Est du Congo. Les experts de
l’ONU ont publié plusieurs rapports dans lesquels apparaissent nos multinationales impliquées
dans le pillage, en marge des aventures militaires de Paul Kagame au Congo. Patrick Mbeko a
établi la liste de ces multinationales et leurs ramifications. Elles sont liées à une foule de
décideurs politiques américains, canadiens, britanniques, israéliens et européens de premier
plan. Mais aussi aux patrons des grands médias occidentaux et aux personnalités qui façonnent
notre manière de penser[13]. Une véritable maffia au cœur de nos démocraties. Kagamé devait
être solidement protégé, jusque dans les coulisses des médias. D’où la loi du silence dans les
grands médias sur la plus grande campagne d’extermination des populations depuis la Seconde
guerre mondiale. Une boucherie financée à 100% par les contribuables européens et
américains[14].
Il faut espérer que, dans un proche avenir, de courageux journalistes emboîteront le pas à leur
consœur Jane Corbin pour éclairer l’opinion internationale sur ce qui s’est passé au Rwanda et
au Congo ces vingt dernières années. Une démarche qui contribuera énormément à aider les
Rwandais à se réconcilier. Le peuple rwandais ne méritait pas ce que l’Occident lui a fait subir.
Surtout pas pour des enjeux miniers dont son sous-sol est dépourvu. Si les Congolais savent
pourquoi ils sont massacrés, les Rwandais, eux, ont été massacrés pour rien !
Boniface MUSAVULI
[1] www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04kk03t
[2] A côté des opposants tutsis au régime de Kagame, il faut ajouter l’opposante hutue Victoire
Ingabire emprisonnée au Rwanda pour avoir réclamé que la mémoire de toutes les victimes
rwandaises soit reconnue. La reconnaissance de la mémoire des Hutus massacrés au Rwanda
et au Congo par les hommes de Kagame reviendrait à une profonde réécriture de l’histoire
officielle du Rwanda de ces 20 dernières années. Pour Ingabire, c’est le seul moyen de
réconcilier les Rwandais.
[3] Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda (TPIR), appelé aussi Tribunal d’Arusha en
référence à la ville tanzanienne où il siège.
[4] B. Desgagné, « La BBC confirme la macabre supercherie - La propagande des médias
menteurs complètement démolie », vigile.net, 8 octobre 2014.
[5] Ibidem
[6] Ibidem
[7] B. Musavuli, « Que se passe-t-il au Rwanda ? », agoravox.fr, 29 septembre 2014.
[8] Le journaliste français Pierre Péan a été poursuivi suite à son ouvrage « Noirs fureurs, Blancs
menteurs » qui contestait la version officielle du génocide rwandais. De nombreux chercheurs et
auteurs ont été dénigrés, vilipendés voire traînés en justice pour avoir contesté l’histoire officielle
du génocide rwandais : Charles Onana, Peter Erlinder, Bernard Lugan, Patrick Mbeko,… pour ne
citer que ceux-là.
[9] Les quatre minerais congolais ont finalement été indirectement reconnus comme étant
responsables des agressions du Congo par les hommes de Kagame dans la loi dite Dodd-Frank
du 12 juillet 2010.
[10] Minerai dont est extrait l'étain.
[11] Minerai dont est extrait le tungstène.
[12] « J’avoue que c’est au Congo, au vu du comportement des hommes de Kagame, que j’ai
pris la mesure des accusations de crime de guerre qui pesaient sur le FPR pour son
comportement durant le génocide – et même durant les années précédentes. C’est au vu de la
violence déployée hors des frontières, de ce mépris manifesté à l’égard des Congolais, dont la
mort ou la vie ne pesaient d’aucun poids, que s’est dissipé le crédit accordé au FPR rwandais
(…). Les dramatiques événements du Congo, où l’exportation de la violence a de loin dépassé la
nécessaire sécurisation des 260 kilomètres de frontière commune, m’ont obligée à prendre du
recul, incité à me rappeler les origines du mouvement et la trajectoire personnelle de ses
principaux membres ». C. Braeckman, Les nouveaux prédateurs, Ed. Aden Belgique, 2009, p.
265.
[13] Patrick Mbeko fournit d’intéressants détails sur les liens entre certaines de ces
multinationales et les principaux décideurs politiques américains, canadiens et britanniques. Cf.
P. Mbeko, Le Canada dans les Guerres en Afrique centrale, Le Nègre éditeur, 2012, pp. 269-342.
[14] Le Rwanda, dépourvu de ressources stratégiques, a besoin de l’aide extérieure pour couvrir
la moitié de son budget national de 2.146.000.000 $us. Les guerres de Kagame auront été
financées par les pays occidentaux dans l’intérêt de leurs multinationales.
http://www.camer.be/36445/11:1/rwanda-documentaire-bbc-sur-le-genocide-rwandais-negationnisme-ou-verite-pudique.html
RWANDA::ACTUALITES
RWANDA,DOCUMENTAIRE BBC SUR LE GÉNOCIDE RWANDAIS : NÉGATIONNISME OU
VÉRITÉ PUDIQUE ? :: RWANDA
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Par suite de la publication, mercredi 1er octobre par la
chaîne BBC, d’un documentaire sur le génocide rwandais, est-ce le tour de Londres de subir les foudres de
l’homme fort de Kigali ? Jusque-là, on n’y est pas. Mais la question mérite d’être posée, vu
l’hypersensibilité du président Kagamé à tout ce qui touche au drame humanitaire dont son pays a été
victime en 1994.
Paris en sait quelque chose, lui qui n’a jamais accepté de porter la camisole de la culpabilité que Kigali
tente de lui mettre. En représailles donc à ce refus, le Rwanda a rompu ses relations diplomatiques avec la
France en 2006 et abandonné, depuis, la langue de Molière pour celle de Shakespeare.
L’écrivain français Pierre Péan, auteur de «Noires fureurs, Blancs menteurs», un livre paru en 2005 et
évoquant la part de responsabilité de Paul Kagamé dans cette tragédie, a été accusé aussi bien au «Pays des
mille collines» que dans bien d’autres milieux de racisme antitutsi et de révisionnisme.
Il en a été de même pour cet autre Français, le célèbre juge antiterroriste Jean-Louis Bruguière, dont les
enquêtes ont, elles aussi, mis en cause les hommes de Kagamé dans l’attentat contre l’avion du président
Habyarimana le 6 avril 1994. Acte qui a déclenché ce qui se révèle être, en terme d’intensité, l’une des
pires hécatombes de l’histoire contemporaine : entre 800 000 et un millions de tués entre avril et juillet.
Frissonnant.
Ce qui vient d’être diffusé en début octobre sur les bords de la Tamise fera l’effet d’un tremblement de
terre sous les pieds de bien de bonnes gens, et ne manquera pas de faire vaciller bien des certitudes.
En effet dans son documentaire intitulé «Rwanda’s untold story» (1), la célèbre chaîne audiovisuelle
britannique diffuse des témoignages impliquant Paul Kagamé dans l’attaque contre l’avion de son
prédécesseur, les massacres au Congo et l’assassinat de nombreux opposants rwandais.
Et comme il fallait s’y attendre, le scoop de la BBC a été diversement apprécié.
Du côté d’organisations de défense des droits de l’homme, comme Global Campaign for Rwandan Human
Rights (GCRHR), d’opposants au régime de Kigali et de nombreux Rwandais en exil, les révélations de la
British Broadcasting Corporation sont une occasion «d’ouvrir le débat sur ce qui s’est passé».
Mais du côté du cercle du pouvoir à Kigali, à l’instar de l‘association des rescapés IBUKA, ce
documentaire n’est ni plus ni moins qu’une hérésie, un révisionnisme.
Alors, ce documentaire, qui fait couler tant d’encre et de salive, a-t-il été réalisé sous le sceau du
négationnisme ou procède-t-il plutôt d’une véritable enquête journalistique visant à révéler la face cachée
d’un drame ? En d’autres termes, l’œuvre de la BBC est-elle une déconstruction de la version officielle
véhiculée jusque-là ?
Dans la tragédie rwandaise comme dans bien d’autres, les thèses officielles sont rarement innocentes.
D’autant plus qu’elles sont généralement l’œuvre des plus forts du moment et donc au service d’une cause.
Quand le terrorisme intellectuel, la dictature de l’émotion et le manichéisme béat encadrent la pensée,
comme c’est le cas en l’espèce, c’est la vérité historique qui en pâtit. Mais l’Histoire, la vraie, finit, tôt ou
tard, par s’imposer. Et celle sur le génocide rwandais ne fera pas exception à la règle.
(1) « L’histoire du Rwanda jamais contée»
http://www.penseesnoires.info/2014/10/13/rwanda-et-congoquand-bbc-diffuse-enfin-la-verite-sur-paul-kagame/
13/10/2014 par Jean-David N'Da pour Pensées Noires
Rwanda et Congo : quand BBC diffuse (enfin !) la vérité sur Paul
Kagame
Qui est Paul Kagame ?
Selon l’information mainstream, la diplomatie occidentale, le cinéma hollywoodien
(ex: Hôtel Rwanda) ou encore l’intelligentsia anglo-saxonne de référence (ex: le
Prix Nobel américain Elie Wiesel), l’homme fort du Rwanda est le sauveur Tutsi
qui, en 1994, a su contenir la terreur Hutu et mettre fin à une guerre meurtrière d’un
million de ses compatriotes.
Cette version de l’histoire rwandaise, particulièrement vulgarisée dans le monde
anglophone, est également la version la plus connue dans les pays d’Afrique dite
francophone, où le rôle joué par l’État français dans les crises sociopolitiques des
ex-colonies (?) telles que la Côte d’Ivoire laisse parfois croire aux “patriotes”
africains qu’un leader noir, assez courageux pour dénoncer les manigances
tropicales françaises – Kagame accuse depuis toujours la France d’être le vrai
responsable du génocide – ne peut être qu’un “digne fils d’Afrique”.
Malheureusement, les réalités géopolitiques sont généralement plus complexes
qu’elles ne paraissent. C’est ainsi que, plus de vingt ans après les faits, les peu-dits
sur le rôle joué par Kagame dans les génocides rwandais et congolais s’extirpent
des analyses trop peu vulgarisées des réseaux intellectuels indépendants pour
atterrir là on les attendait le moins : sur les antennes de BBC.
La lutte patiente…
Le film-documentaire Rwanda’s Untold Story– dont il faut espérer une traduction en langue française le plus vite
possible – a forcément bénéficier de l’effort critique de toutes les personnes qui ont décidés, aux lendemains de
la crise rwandaise, de réfuter les explications officielles du génocide et d’interroger plutôt les faits.
Qu’il s’agisse des écrits du journaliste franco-camerounais Charles Onana – notamment son livre-enquête Les
Secrets Du Génocide Rwandais qui lui a valu d’être poursuivi en justice par le gouvernement Kagame -, des
reportages de l’association Survie – globalement axés sur le seul rôle de la France et insuffisamment
dénonciateurs des actions du régime de Kagame, mais qui ont tout de même le mérite d’exister – ou des appels
d’organisations indépendantes telles queFriends of the Congo, il est fort à parier que la conjugaison, dans le
temps, de toutes ces actions apparemment anodines, ait influencée le regard occidental sur la politique
rwandaise. C’est probablement ce qui a permis à un journaliste d’investigation apparemment crédible comme
Jane Corbin – c’est-à-dire un journaliste n’ayant aucune affiliation politique ou personnelle, aucun intérêt
pécuniaire et aucune volonté autre que celle de présenter les faits – de mener son enquête et d’en exposer les
résultats.
Il aura donc fallu vingt longues années pour qu’éclate enfin la vérité rwandaise sur une télévision mainstream.
Cela ne garantie en rien que Kagame sera jugé pour ses nombreux crimes de guerre sous peu, mais c’est tout de
même une petite victoire qui souligne encore une fois l’importance pour les Africains engagés d’inclure la
patience dans leur lutte contre le mensonge politique institutionnalisé.
En Côte d’Ivoire, par exemple, ceux qui croient pouvoir corriger, en un temps record, la falsification médiatique
au sujet de la crise ivoirienne – qui a fait des rebelles d’hier les sauveurs d’aujourd’hui – ou qui espèrent des
retournements politiques majeurs sans actions d’information, d’éducation et de contestations organisées
préalables, sont simplement ignorants du fonctionnement médiatique dominant. Patience et éducation les
aideraient grandement.
Ainsi, le 1er octobre 2014, le filmRwanda’s Untold Story, présenté par la
journaliste anglaise Jane Corbin, a été diffusé en prime time sur BBC 2 dans le
cadre de son programme documentaireThis World. Le reportage est certainement le
tout premier jamais diffusé sur un média dominant qui prend le contre-pied de la
version officielle de la crise rwandaise. À la fois remarquablement détaillé et
synthétisé, le film permet enfin au grand public international d’entendre ce qu’on
lui refusait depuis une double décennie : la vérité sur Paul Kagame.
L’homme est probablement la tête de file de ces autocrates nègres soutenus par les
puissances impérialistes anglo-saxonnes qui prétendent représenter l’Afrique
renaissante en faisant semblant de combattre le néocolonialisme français mais qui,
en réalité, sont de véritables imposteurs. Si l’ex-responsable du fameux hôtel Mille
Collines de Kigali, Paul Rusesabagina – dont l’histoire somme toute héroïque a
inspiré le film Hôtel Rwanda -, l’appelait encore en avril 2014, sur la télévision
publique américaine, « le plus grand tueur du 20è siècle », c’est bien parce que les
preuves accablantes contre Paul Kagame et son Front Patriotique Rwandais
(FPR) font légion. Et c’est cette pléthore de témoignages concordants,
d’investigations élaborées, d’enregistrements audios et vidéos inédits et d’autres
types de documents aussi dommageables les uns que les autres pour le régime de
Kigali qui, à travers ce film, peignent un tableau particulièrement froid du dictateur
rwandais.
On note, par exemple :
– l’opinion du procureur italien Carla del Ponte, recruté par les Nations Unies au
sujet du dossier rwandais, qui raconte comment Kagame s’est offusqué de sa
volonté d’entamer la phase FPR de son enquête en lui promettant la fin de sa
mission. Conséquence : sous l’influence de Washington, son mandat de procureur
ne lui a pas été renouvelé ;
– les révélations des politologues américains Christian Davenport et Allan Stam
qui, après des enquêtes minutieuses à Kigali, attestent qu’il est impossible que la
majorité du million de morts officiellement enregistrés soient issus de l’ethnie Tutsi
(celle de Kagame) à cause du nombre de Tutsis vivant au Rwanda au moment des
massacres ; ils défendent également qu’il se pourrait bien que la majorité des
victimes soit plutôt Hutu, contrairement au récit officiel sur la guerre ;
– les aveux d’anciens officiers militaires du régime FPR comme le général
Kayumba Nyamwasa – ex-patron des forces armées de Kagame en exil depuis
2010, qui vit sous haute surveillance en Afrique du Sud parce qu’ayant déjà subi
quatre tentatives d’assassinat – qui confirment les conclusions des enquêtes
onusiennes selon lesquelles c’est bien Kagame qui a donné l’ordre d’abattre l’avion
de l’ancien président rwandais Juvénal Habyarimana le 6 avril 1994 ;
– les explications de Theogene Rudasingwa, ancien porte-parole de Kagame et
ancien ambassadeur du Rwanda aux États-Unis qui, depuis son exil à Washington
en 2004, atteste de l’existence d’un mécanisme de protection étatsunien spécifique
au cas Kagame.
Ces informations ne font que confirmer ce que les plus avertis savaient déjà du
président rwandais. En effet, au-delà de ses assertions pseudo-humanistes dans les
colonnes de Jeune Afrique – « Quand un pouvoir tue son propre peuple, cela nous
concerne tous » - et de son baratin faussement révolutionnaire sur
les médias colonstels que RFI – « Le monde aujourd’hui est à un stade où les
puissants n’ont pas forcément raison comme se fut le cas à une époque » -, Kagame
est bel et bien été le principal responsable, avec ses alliés américains, britanniques
et africains – dont le dictateur ougandais Yoweri Museveni -, de la déstabilisation
du Rwanda et du Congo voisin. Hormis le million de morts de 1994, les drames
humanitaires suivants portent sa griffe : environ 300 000 victimes Hutus
enregistrées après le génocide et surtout, au Congo, environ 6 millions de morts
depuis 1998, ce qui constitue le plus grand génocide depuis la Seconde Guerre
mondiale et qui fait dire au constitutionnaliste belge Filip Reyntjens que Kagame «
est le plus grand criminel de guerre au pouvoir aujourd’hui ».
Il est donc clair que les relations diplomatiques entre Kigali et Paris – tantôt tièdes,
tantôt glaciales – sont plus que trompeuses. Là où elles ont, à la rigueur, le mérite
de dénoncer le rôle effectivement lâche et coupable d’une France proche du régime
Hutu – et donc complice active ou passive du génocide initial contre les Tutsis -,
elles rendent invisibles les vrais soutiens politiques et économiques qui garantissent
à l’homme fort du Rwanda une immunité quasi inédite sur la carte géopolitique
mondiale, vu l’ampleur des crimes qui lui sont attribués. C’est que les soutiens au
régime de Kigali ne se sont jamais trouvés à l’Élysée mais plutôt à la MaisonBlanche et à Downing Street, là où, depuis 1994, l’action de Kagame a toujours été
défendue par l’ex-Premier ministre britannique Tony Blair et l’ex-Président
américain Bill Clinton – deux chefs d’État en poste au moment du génocide – puis,
éventuellement, par leurs successeurs. En outre, il n’y a pas si longtemps encore, le
Rwanda de Kagame continuait de recevoir une enveloppe d’aide estimée à 417
millions de dollars par an, confirmant au moins le fait que l’homme soit un “ami”
de l’Occident.
Il ne devrait donc surprendre personne que Kagame puisse se permettre, lors des
cérémonies officielles de commémoration du vingtième anniversaire du génocide
rwandais en avril 2014, de condamner l’action française et belge sans craindre de
représailles diplomatiques majeures. De même, en avril 2011, au sujet de la crise
ivoirienne, Kagame avait affirmé que « le rôle de la France [dans l’arrestation de
l'ancien président ivoirien Laurent Gbagbo] pose problème » sans craindre de
choquer Nicolas Sarkozy. Non, ce n’est pas le révolutionnaire en qui certains
veulent croire qui parlait de cette façon ; c’est bien le dictateur soutenu par de
puissants réseaux politiques mafieux qui jouait un rôle qu’il ne cesse de pratiquer
depuis deux décennies. Sa position, on s’en souvient, avait pourtant réjouit les
“résistants” ivoiriens qui voyaient dans le président rwandais un allié contre les
machinations néocolonisatrices françaises et ce, d’autant plus que Gbagbo
entretenait des relations étroites avec Kigali, apparemment sans que le vrai visage
de Kagame ne semble le gêner outre mesure (est-il vraisemblable de penser que
Gbagbo, l’historien africain, ait tout ignoré du véritable Kagame ?).
Cette grande prestidigitation faussement panafricaniste mais savamment orchestrée
par Kigali depuis 1994 – qui se trouve par ailleurs être soutenue, aussi incroyable
que cela puisse paraître, par un Thabo Mbeki, ex-président sud-africain censé être
un “défenseur de l’Afrique digne”, inconfortablement assis aux côtés de Kagame
lors des cérémonies du vingtième aniversaire du génocide – n’a fait que jouer en
faveur du storytelling des médias mainstream au sujet du Rwanda. On le sait, leur
aptitude à inverser les rôles et renverser la vérité, faisant de la victime le bourreau
et du bourreau le libérateur, est quintessentielle au bon fonctionnement du système
impérialiste caché sous des tenues “mondialistes”. D’où la vulgarisation, jusqu’à ce
jour, dans la plupart des canaux médiatiques dominants, de l’image du leadersauveur-bâtisseur rwandais, responsable, à en croire lesDoing Business annuels, de
l’activité économique croissante de son pays.
Pourquoi donc la chaîne BBC se permet-elle, aujourd’hui, de faire sienne la
controverse autour de Paul Kagame et de diffuser une critique cinglante contre son
régime, elle qui s’est historiquement révélée n’être qu’une caisse de résonance de la
propagande gouvernementale des pays du Nord ?
La réponse se trouve dans l’évolution des relations entre Kagame et ses soutiens
politiques occidentaux. Vu le nombre croissant de preuves accablantes contre le
pouvoir de Kigali émanant d’organisations humanitaires de tous types et vu les
scandales diplomatiques récents entre le Rwanda et un pays africain influent
comme l’Afrique du Sud – où Patrick Karegeya, ancien chef des renseignements de
Kagame vivant en exil à partir 2007, a été froidement assassiné le 29 décembre
2013, ce qui a entraîné l’expulsion de plusieurs diplomates rwandais de
Johannesburg -, les leaders politiques “partenaires” de la dictature rwandaise
tentent de se démarquer progressivement de leur “pion local”, sans pour autant se
défaire totalement de lui. C’est le cas, par exemple, de Susan Rice, conseillère à la
sécurité nationale de Barack Obama et ex-Secrétaire d’État adjoint pour l’Afrique
de Bill Clinton, dont la volonté de servir de pare-feu aux actions des milices
proches de Kagame au Congo – notamment le mouvement rebelle M23 – l’a
contrainte, en décembre 2012, à renoncer à son ambition de remplacer Hillary
Clinton au poste de Secrétaire d’État américain, après avoir été critiquée par The
New York Times pour sa proximité avec le dictateur rwandais.
Sans donc totalement isoler l’homme et sans ouvertement condamner son régime,
un net repli diplomatique s’est progressivement mis en place en Occident et se
manifeste clairement par l’annulation, en 2012, de l’aide bilatérale octroyée au
Rwanda par les États-Unis d’Obama, l’Angleterre de Cameron et l’Allemagne de
Merkel (entre autres pays). Conséquemment, les grands médias ne font que prendre
le relais de cette nouvelle donne géostratégique, selon une logique historiquement
vérifiée, comme nous l’expliquions déjà dans Médias colons et mondialisation :
« […] Il existe un phénomène fréquent au
sein du média-système qui se met en branle dès lors que se présente l’urgence
géopolitique de protéger les fameux intérêts occidentaux. Ce phénomène, connu
dans le jargon médiatique sous le nom de rupture narrative, consiste à changer
brusquement de ligne éditoriale ou d’opinion vis-à-vis d’un sujet sans crier gare.
Ce mécanisme est celui qui permet de couvrir d’honneurs les partenaires d’un jour
[puis] de les livrer à la vindicte populaire dès lors qu’ils ne servent plus à grandchose. La rupture narrative est souvent prémonitoire d’un retournement politique.
Il est de notoriété publique que Hussein, Bokassa, Ben Laden, Kadhafi, Mobutu,
Ben Ali, Moubarak, les Talibans et même Hitler ont tous été partenaires de
l’Europe et/ou des États-Unis à un moment donné ou à un autre, tant que la misère
– réelle ou fictive – qu’ils étaient accusés de faire subir à leurs peuples ne nuisait
en rien au business occidental dans leurs pays. Dès l’instant, cependant, où leurs
régimes politiques ont voulu rompre les termes du contrat ou que l’Occident les a
jugés trop encombrants, le monde entier a appris, via les médias dominants, que
ces personnes devaient être considérées dorénavant comme des démons. »
Le “démon” rwandais est donc en train de connaître le début de son exorcisation
médiatique grand format par le truchement de BBC. C’est une étape cruciale à
franchir pour rétablir la vérité historique en Afrique. Tous ceux donc qui refusent
de s’interroger sur les réalités politiques de leurs pays, qui doutent constamment
des faits et témoignages qui leur sont présentés ou qui s’offusquent des
“conspirations” tendant à décrédibiliser les chefs d’État africains qu’ils estiment
être “exemplaires” – simplement parce que ceux-ci, approuvés par la MaisonBlanche, sont invités à prendre des photos avec le couple Obama lors des sommets
États-Unis/Afrique – peuvent simplement s’approprier ce documentaire qui sonne,
il faut l’espérer, l’arrivée officielle d’une rupture narrative généralement
annonciatrice d’un retournement. Vingt ans plus tard, il en est grand temps.

Jean-David N’Da est entrepreneur, communicateur, financier, lobbyiste et
écrivain. Il a publié Le nouvel ordre ivoirien en janvier 2012 et Médias colons
et mondialisation : le cas de la Côte d’Ivoire en mars 2013 aux éditions
L’Harmattan. Ses autres contributions sur Pensées Noires sont disponibles
ici.
BBC « Rwanda’s Untold Story » : Le
« mythe Kagame » serait-il en train de
s’écrouler ?
16 OCTOBRE 2014 11 H 47 MIN 0 COMMENTAIRES
Auteur:
Jane Mugeni
Mots-clés:
alain gauthierAndrew MwendaAndrew Wallis BBcattentat avion président HabyarimanaBarbara Mulvaney BBCBBC " Rwanda’s Untold
Story"génocide rwandaisIbukaJacques Morel BBCLinda Melvern BBcPatrick de Saint ExupéryPaul KagameRoméo Dallaire Avion
PrésidentielRwanda/Marc Trévédic
Paul Kagame/photo rfi
A peine quelques jours après la diffusion par la BBC d’un documentaire titré :« Rwanda : The Untold
Story », le régime de Paul Kagame , ses sponsors et ses obligés déploient leur artillerie lourde sur le
terrain médiatique où leurs positions risquent de tomber une à une. Signe que le documentaire de la
BBC a fait mouche !
- Il y eu d’abord la fameuse association « IBUKA » qui, forte de sa jouissance de « non contestabilité »,
a appelé à une manifestation devant le siège de la BBC à Londres. Une trentaine de militants se sont
donc retrouvés samedi le 10 octobre devant l’immeuble de la BBC en brandissant des pancartes
chantant les louanges à Paul Kagame et accusant la BBC de « négationniste ».
- Il y eu ensuite cette lettre de protestation du 12 octobre adressée au Directeur de la BBC et signée par
une trentaine de soi-disant « professeurs, chercheurs, journalistes, historiens… ». Comme nous le
verrons plus loin, les signataires sont pour la plupart des complices de Paul Kagame dans les crimes
qu’il a commis ou sont ses obligés car travaillant pour lui d’une façon ou d’une autre.
- Il y eu aussi la sortie de Paul Kagame le 14 octobre lors de l’installation de son cousin Bernard
Makuza comme président du Sénat et donc officiellement n°2 du régime. Il a pratiquement mis le pays
en état d’alerte en prétendant qu’il s’apprête à donner une leçon de comment faire la guerre à ceux qui
vont l’attaquer ! Dans son discours, il voit donc en la diffusion du documentaire de la BBC une
déclaration de guerre et n’a pas manqué de souligner que c’est trop tard car depuis vingt ans il aurait
accumulé des moyens de guerre « invincibles » (si jamais il en existe comme il le croit!).
-Il y eu encore la sortie d’un article sur le blog pro-Kagame par un certain Alain Gauthier le 15 octobre.
Cet enseignant retraité reconverti sur le tard dans le showbiz a fait fortune dans le commerce du
génocide rwandais en France de sorte qu’il est actuellement une star médiatique et un « people », rien
qu’en vendant le génocide rwandais en France. C’est donc de bonne guerre qu’il soit parmi les plus
acharnés à défendre son gagne-pain qui s’évanouira avec la chute du régime dictatorial de Paul
Kagame. Donc, il fait tout pour repousser l’échéance le plus loin possible dans le temps.
- Il y a enfin cette sortie du journaliste ougandais Andrew Mwenda dans le quotidien du FPR « The
NewTimes » de ce 15 octobre. Ce journaliste d’origine ougandaise, qui fait partie du fameux panel des
conseillers étrangers de Paul Kagame et chargé spécialement de la communication en Afrique de l’Est,
défend son « boss » en fustigeant la BBC et au passage dévoile la haine qu’il nourrit envers tous ceux
qu’il perçoit comme hutu. Il conclut en effet son article en prétendant que même s’il s’avérait que Paul
Kagame aurait tué le hutu Habyarimana, il serait dans son droit car le président hutu était son ennemi
naturel !
Des constantes
Tous ces défenseurs de la dictature de Paul Kagame qui intentent à la BBC un procès d’intention se
rejoignent sur certains points essentiels. Pour eux :
1. Il faut cultiver et maintenir l’amalgame entre la critique légitime de la dictature de Paul Kagame en
l’assimilant à une « négation du génocide ». Le documentaire de la BBC, qui en aucun moment ne nie
le génocide,est qualifié de « négationniste » parce qu’il a osé évoquer timidement les crimes commis
par le dictateur Kagame tout au long de sa conquête militaire du Rwanda. C’est sous ce prétexte que les
témoignages des acteurs de premier plan dans les événements qui ont secoué le Rwanda entre 1990 et
1994, sont, selon eux, à disqualifier dès qu’ils proviennent des opposants politiques à Paul Kagame
même quand ils sont des témoins oculaires des faits. Aux yeux des milieux qui portent la dictature à
bras le corps, seuls les aveux de Paul Kagame lui-même et de ses sujets, aveux qui ne viendront
certainement jamais, constituent des preuves tangibles de sa culpabilité. Rien n’est plus naïf !
2. Les faits qui contredisent les thèses du régime, surtout les mythes qui fondent sa légitimité, doivent
systématiquement être occultés, quitte à se contredire ou à nier ses anciennes déclarations. Ainsi, pour
asseoir le « dogme » comme quoi Paul Kagame aurait arrêté le génocide, ses admirateurs oublient ou
ne veulent pas réentendre qu’en avril 1994, il avait refusé l’intervention des troupes de l’ONU quand il
a envoyé une délégation au Conseil de Sécurité des Nations Unies qui débattait de la question. La
délégation, qui était composée de Claude Dusaidi et de Charles Muligande, a dissuadé l’ONU
d’intervenir. Mais les lobbies de Paul Kagame occultent ce fait et continuent de clamer qu’il aurait
arrêté le génocide alors que lui-même s’en est défendu.
Ceux qui sont commis pour blanchir Kagame en arrivent à désinformer l’opinion, à mentir et même
jusqu’à faire dire aux magistrats ce qu’ils n’ont jamais ou encore dit. L’affaire de l’attentat du 6 avril
1994 en donne une illustration caricaturale. Selon Ibuka, le groupe des professeurs chercheurs,
journalistes, historiens dont on a parlé et Alain Gauthier, le juge anti-terroriste français Marc Trévidic
aurait déjà innocenté Kagame et prononcé un non lieu général ! Ce qui est faux car la décision du juge
n’est pas encore connue. Ces enfumeurs de l’opinion ajoutent qu’il aurait conclu que le départ des
missiles qui ont abattu l’avion ont été tirés à partir du camp Kanombe qui était gardé par la Garde
présidentielle. Ce qui est encore faux, car même l’expertise du « deus ex-machina d’acousticien »
appelé à la rescousse et qui a fait ses simulations dans un domaine militaire du centre de la France, n’a
pas parlé du camp Kanombe mais du « domaine militaire » de Kanombe, une zone plus large et non
habitée. Son intervention a été sollicitée après la visite, sur le terrain au Rwanda, des balisticiens et
géomètres mais dont le rapport concluait pas dans le sens disculpant Kagame. L’expertise qu’on
voudrait présenter comme décisive, ne désigne même pas de façon formelle l’endroit du départ des
tirs. Il indique seulement que le domaine militaire de Kanombe est l’un des sites possibles mais parmi
les six autres hypothèses, dont la colline de Masaka. Enfin, ils se gardent de dire que l’expertise
acoustique contestable n’est pas le seul élément et encore le plus déterminant pour fonder la
conviction du juge. Mais dans leurs manœuvres de désinformation et de faire pression, ils tentent de
convaincre le monde et surtout influencer le juge qu’il en est ainsi. Il faut encore préciser que que
même le camp Kanombe n’était pas sous le contrôle de la Garde présidentielle qui avait ses quartiers à
Kimihurura en face de l’immeuble du Parlement où avaient été admis des milliers de combattants du
FPR.
La lettre des 37 intellectuels au Directeur Général de la BBC
La lettre reprend le même credo que doivent répéter les défenseurs du dictateur Kagame en reprenant
les mêmes arguments : critiquer Kagame c’est nier le génocide ; les opposants sont des génocidaires ;
l’histoire du Rwanda doit se réduire aux thèses du parti au pouvoir, le FPR de Paul Kagame,…
Mais le plus frappant est le panel des signataires. La liste est constituées de ceux-là même qui ont
accompagné Paul Kagame dans sa conquête du Rwanda ou qui ont participé ( ou participent encore) à
la promotion de son image dans les médias. A ces inconditionnels, il faut ajouter des opportunistes
devenus ses obligés et pudiquement appelés des consultants ou des « spécialistes du Rwanda » le
temps de produire un article ou de publier un livre commandé et financé par le dictateur.
Un bref aperçu de cette liste permet de distinguer des catégories parmi les signataires.
On n’y trouve d’abord les traumatisées, les déçus à qui on avait donné des missions qui les dépassaient
mais qui aujourd’hui doivent accompagner le FPR dans sa chute. C’est le cas du général Dallaire qui a
commandé les forces de la mission des Nations Unies pour l’Assistance au Rwanda (MINUAR) de 1993
à 1994. Cet officiel canadien a débarqué au Rwanda avec un mauvais entendement de sa mission. Il
croyait venir aider le FPR de Paul Kagame à prendre le pouvoir et il s’en est employé corps et âme ,
mais par après, comme il ne peut se prévaloir ouvertement de cette action (avoir installer Paul Kagame
au pouvoir au Rwanda), dans sa frustration, il est obligé de défendre mordicus le dictateur pour qui il
a tout fait afin qu’il accède au pouvoir alors que l’ONU lui avait « officiellement » envoyé pour aider à
la mise en place d’une solution négociée entre belligérants. Il en sera marqué à jamais. C’est dans la
même catégorie qu’il faudrait classer Mme Barabara Mulvaney, qui fut procureur dans le procès phare
dit « Bagosora et al. ». Et où il était prévu qu’il serait spectaculaire car les preuves de planification du
génocide allaient éclater mais qui a fini en queue de poisson avec l’acquittement de tous les accusés du
chef « d’entente en vue de commettre le génocide ». Elle se mord les doigts et en est aussi marquée à
jamais.
On distingue ensuite des individus opportunistes qui avaient découvert qu’ils pouvaient se rendre
célèbres (et riches) en renversant les rôles de la France, surprise de se faire évincer de la région par
des puissances anglo-saxonnes qui, après une longue préparation, venaient de se rendre maître de la
région. Ils ont alors publiés des thèses fantaisistes mais très prisées par le régime de Paul Kagame, et
par les puissances qui venaient de l’installer. Dans cette catégorie, on trouve Linda Melvern, celle-là
même qui n’avait pas hésité à produire de grossiers faux documents pour accréditer la thèse que
l’avion de Habyarimana avait été abattu par des éléments de sa propre armée épaulés par la France. Il
y a encore l’aventurier Andrew Wallis qui a publié « Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France’s
Role in the Rwandan Genocide »
Sur cette liste des signataires figurent aussi des Français qui ont voulu se rendre célèbres (et riches) en
surfant sur la vague de la réputation des « Français contestataires contre leurs institutions » où
n’importe quel quidam qui défie l’ordre établi est perçu comme un héros. Ceux-ci n’ont pas hésité à
salir l’honneur des armées françaises par des mensonges et des calomnies dans le seul but de s’attirer
les sympathies du nouveau régime installé au Rwanda par les puissances anglo-saxonnes et en même
temps apparaître en France comme des « mousquetaires, héros »…qui osent dénoncer la politique
française en Afrique. C’est dans cette catégorie qu’on peut ranger un Patrick de Saint Expéry ou un
Jacques Morel.
Sur la liste des signataires, on y trouve aussi, hélas !, des « journalistes du ventre » comme il en est le
cas dans de telles situations. Aucun pays n’a le monopole de produire des « journalistes du ventre ». Ils
sont partout. Dans le cas qui nous concerne, les sénégalais Mehdi Bâ et Boubacar Boris Diop, côtoient
allègrement le français Jean-François Dupaquier. Ce denier n’hésite pas à se prévaloir des spécialités
selon les circonstances. Il devient « journaliste d’investigation » quand il doit déposer devant le TPIR,
mais se réclame de la qualité d’historien pour pouvoir déposer des faux documents ou des documents
falsifiés. Devant la Cour d’Assises de Paris, il se présente comme anthropologue pour obtenir l’occasion
d’affirmer que « selon ses recherches, les jeunes hutu subiraient un rite initiatique avant d’être admis
dans le monde des adultes et qui consisterait à violer des jeunes filles tutsi » ! Plus scandaleux, tu
meurs !
Il y a enfin le cas des personnes sous influence qui se doivent de suivre aveuglément leurs maîtres.
C’est le cas de Hélène Dumas qui vient de recevoir un doctorat de l’Ecole de Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales (EHEES) de Paris. L’un de ses maîtres n’est autre que José Kagabo, un membre éminent du
FPR, professeur à l’EHSS mais aussi …Sénateur au Parlement de Kigali ! Hélène Dumas se devait donc
de signer la pétition dénonçant la BBC faire cause commune avec son maître.
In fine, nous conclurons en abondant dans l’idée du Dr Rudasingwa qui, dans sa lettre adressée au
Directeur Général de la BBC termine en proposant que la même BBC organise un débat contradictoire
sur le même thème qui opposerait les représentants du gouvernement rwandais, les personnalités de
l’opposition et de la société civile, les chercheurs et spécialistes du Rwanda de tous bords. Ceci
enlèverait au régime de Paul Kagame le prétexte que le documentaire n’avait reproduit que les avis de
l’opposition, donc des négationnistes, mais aussi permettrait à la BBC de réfuter, preuves à l’appui, que
sa recherche de vérité ne doit pas être assimilée au négationnisme. Au cas où le FPR refuserait ce
débat, qu’il se taise pour toujours et que ses sbires cessent d’intimider ceux qui, comme la BBC,
cherchent à percer les secrets qui ont été à la base de l’installation, contre toute logique, de la dictature
de Paul Kagame au Rwanda
Jane Mugeni
16/10/2014
La BBC chassée du Rwanda pour “idéologie génocidaire”
Posted on October 16, 2014by nkbnkb
Il y a quelques années le service kinyarwanda-kirundi de la BBC avait été interdit de
diffusion avait été interdit au Rwanda pendant plusieurs mois parce qu’il avait diffusé
une émission qui avait fortement déplu les autorités.
L’émission en question Imvo n’Imvano avait donné la parole à quelques opposants
dont l’ancien premier ministre rwandais (1994-1995) Faustin Twagiramungu et un
activiste aussi original que polyvalent Boniface Rutayisire.
Le premier avait notamment déclaré en substance qu’il ne s’agenouillerait jamais
devant un Tutsi pour s’excuser de crimes qu’il n’a pas commis étant lui-même une
victime rescapée des massacres de 1994. Le second avait alors expliqué que les
cadavres repêchés dans le lac Victoria côté ougandais en 1994 et réinhumés dans la
dignité 15 ans après n’étaient pas des victimes tutsies du génocide mais des Hutus
massacrés et jetés dans divers cours d’eau par les rebelles du Front patriotique
rwandais.
C’en était trop pour Kigali, BBC-Gahumiryango (littéralement: qui unit les familles) a
vu la diffusion de ses programmes (et ceux des autres langues) suspendus
indéfiniment. Il fallut de longues négociations entre la BBC et le gouvernement de
Kigali pour que Gahuzamiryango soit de nouveau disponible en fréquence modulée.
Aujourd’hui, l’affaire qui oppose Kigali à la BBC va bien au delà d’une obscure (en
dehors de l’Afrique des Grands lacs) émission en kinyarwanda entre quelques
Banyarwanda plus ou moins représentatifs.
Les autorités politiques et celles de la société civile se succèdent depuis quelques
jours pour condamner unanimement le documentaire “Rwanda’s Untold Story”
(notre traduction: L’histoire escamotée du Rwanda) diffusée le 1er octobre et
disponible depuis sur les sites de partages de vidéos et ce concert de dénonciations a
été crescendo jusqu’à ce le chef de l’État, particulièrement visé par le documentaire,
s’exprime de manière claire mardi: négation du génocide des Tutsi ! Pour ce crime,
les juges rwandais de la BBC n’ont pas encore prononcé de sentence mais elle ne
devrait pas tarder… si les autorités rwandaises vont jusqu’au bout de leur logique en
réaffirmant leur vision de leur rôle dans le génocide des Tutsis au Rwanda.
NKB 16/10/2014
La BBC suspendue (Human Rights Watch 29/04/2009)
http://murengerantwari.unblog.fr/2014/10/18/kagame-le-temps-delabandonnisme-c-kami/
Kagame : le temps de l’abandonnisme. (C.Kami)
Imitunu mu malineti iramugaragaza uko ari: Un
bandit fatigué!
Pour la toute première fois de sa carrière d’homme d’état, il a parlé vrai.
Sans faux-fuyants. Sans les rébarbatives vociférations nationalistes
auxquelles il avait habitué ceux qui l’écoutent. Et même lorsqu’il a voulu
reprendre sa verve impétueuse, le faciès a trahi l’homme. Disons-le net et
appelons un chat un chat : le dictateur est fatigué. On sent Kagame épuisé,
complètement vidé. Mais est-ce là la raison de cette lucidité soudaine ? De
cet aveu de désillusion par rapport à ses thuriféraires d’hier ? La peur que
ses discours ont toujours inspiré, Kagame l’a inopinément transformée en
pitié, car il était vraiment à plaindre ce soir-là. Et malgré qu’on le sait
toujours en avance d’un plan B, le ton utilisé en ce jour d’octobre où il
adoubait son cousin A. Makuza confirme parfaitement bien le fait que
quelque chose de profond, de grave, voire d’irréversible est en train de se
passer au sein du clan au pouvoir au Rwanda.
Jusqu’ici, emprisonner quelqu’un au Rwanda faisait
partie des « bonnes manières » du régime ; il y en a même pour décrire le
pays comme une « prison à ciel ouvert » tellement le très grand nombre
des maisons d’arrêt n’est connu que de l’officine en charge de la terreur, la
DMI. Pour un oui ou pour un non, l’on est envoyé derrière les barreaux,
avec une prédilection pour les opposants (réels ou supposés) au
gouvernement Kagame. Le néologisme mabuso(du swahili « mahabusu » :
prison) fait aujourd’hui partie du langage courant des Rwandais. Loin
cependant d’héberger que les « ennemis » de l’Etat, les mabuso de Kagame
accueillent de plus en plus de personnes du premier cercle du pouvoir
afande. Que cache en effet la mise aux arrêts du colonel Tom
Byabagamba et du général retraité Frank Rusagara ? Le chanteurcompositeur Kizito Mihigo est, lui, en train d’être oublié dans les geôles de
ses anciens bienfaiteurs… On ne nous a pas tout dit, comme dirait l’autre…
Des proches emprisonnés.
Ce qui est manifeste c’est qu’il y a une fièvre étrange au sein des forces qui
côtoient le plus le président Kagame : sa garde personnelle. Après le
lieutenant Mutabazi enlevé en Ouganda et condamné à perpétuité, c’est le
tour du colonel Byabagamba, un des fidèles parmi les fidèles du régime. At-on voulu lui faire payer la liberté d’opinion de son frère David Himbara (exproche de Kagame, aujourd’hui en exil) comme d’aucuns l’ont suggéré ? At-il été impliqué dans une tentative de coup d’état qui aurait été déjoué ? At-il par contre, lui-même déjoué une tentative d’assassinat contre sa
personne ? L’histoire nous le dira un jour. En attendant, les augures ne
peuvent être favorables pour le pays avec un ex-président sans
considérations, un ex-premier ministre qui a fui, un ex-chef d’état-major en
exil lui aussi, un ex-chef des renseignements étranglé et maintenant, un exchef de la garde rapprochée du président emprisonné… Vous avez dit
fièvre ?
Pour ne rien arranger à ce tableau qui s’assombrit
au jour le jour, voici que des corps viennent d’être découverts à la frontière
du pays avec le Burundi. Magistrats et enquêteurs de ce dernier sont
formels : ils n’ont perdu aucun compatriote dans ce drame, donc… A part
quelques journalistes pressés, la propagande du régime semble n’avoir pas
encore trouvé d’explication à fournir à la curiosité des média. Exactement
comme pour la vague d’incendies qui a ravagé le pays il y a tout juste
Des cadavres qui flottent.
quelques mois. C’est à se demander si, de l’intérieur, personne (ou un
groupe de personnes) n’est pas en train de saboter le big boss pour
précipiter sa chute. Du temps du président Habyarimana, qui ne se
souvient pas des atrocités commises à l’endroit des Bagogwe ? Au sommet
de l’Etat, l’irritation était à son comble car les responsables étaient
curieusement insaisissables. Ce n’est qu’aujourd’hui que les transfuges du
Fpr identifient les escadrons de leur armée qui s’étaient chargés de la sale
besogne… Les temps sont durs pour le général Kagame, le pouvoir est en
train de lui échapper.
« Ils vous caressent dans le sens du poil, vous
chantent des louanges et, le lendemain, ils vous traitent en criminel ! »
Voilà la phrase-choc de toute l’allocution de Kagame devant son parlement.
Juste parce que la BBC a révélé au monde une supercherie vieille de vingt
ans ? Non, Stephen Sackur de la même BBC avait fait quasi la même
chose en 2006 ! Il y a donc forcément autre chose. Il y a le chef d’état le
plus pourri (gâté) d’Afrique qui vient de découvrir que l’on s’est servi de lui,
lui qui croyait détenir une créance sur le monde entier. C’est ça la
déception du moment (si ce n’est l’état de santé très critique du général
Jack Nziza). Du coup, le dictateur doit faire face à l’abandonnisme ; vous
savez, cet état psychologique de sentiment d’insécurité lié à une peur
irrationnelle d’être abandonné. Par son discours, Kagame était
pratiquement en demande d’affection pour combler cette séparation
traumatisante d’avec un Occident qu’il sent s’éloigner de lui.
La duplicité des partenaires.
A quelque chose malheur est bon, dit-on. Ce désarroi présidentiel que tout
le monde avait prédit (cfr antécédents Mobutu, Mengistu, Kadaffi, Savimbi,
etc.) peut, si l’intéressé va au bout de sa réflexion, être salutaire pour tout le
pays. « Continuer à servir les intérêts étrangers porte, disait Kagame, des
conséquences sur le pays dont l’appauvrissement et la zizanie entre
nationaux ». Il est donc temps que lui-même prêche par l’exemple en
arrêtant de traiter ses concitoyens comme les sujets d’une féodalité qui leur
est étrangère. Ils t’ont déroulé le tapis rouge, mais là, ils s’apprêtent à te
« noriegiser[1] ». Jette donc par-dessus l’enclos le bâton qui a servi à
frapper ta rivale…
Cecil Kami
http://www.bbc.co.uk/afrique/region/2014/10/141022_rwanda_bbc
_untold
Le Rwanda veut interdire la BBC

22 octobre 2014
Partager
Le génocide de 1994 a couté la vie à près de 800.000
Tutsi et Hutu modérés selon l'ONU.
Le Parlement rwandais a voté en faveur de l'interdiction de la BBC dans le pays, suite à un
documentaire sur le génocide de 1994.
Le programme, Rwanda, The Untold Story (Rwanda: le non-dit) qui a été diffusé au début moi, met en
cause la version officielle des évènements qui ont conduit au génocide.
Les députés ont recommandé au gouvernement d’engager des poursuites contre le journaliste et le
producteur du documentaire.
Plutôt dans la journée,des associations de rescapés ont organisé des manifestations devant le bureau de la
BBC à Kigali et devant le Parlement.
Dans une interview accordée à la BBC, Jean de Dieu Mirindi, président de l’Association des Etudiants
rescapés du Génocide (AERG) a indiqué qu'ils étaient venus demander au parlement de voter une loi
suspendant la diffusion des émissions de la BBC au Rwanda.
"Nous demandons au directeur général de la BBC, Tony Hall d'ordonner l'arrêt de la diffusion de ce
documentaire qui, à nos yeux, prône la négation du génocide des Tutsi", a ajouté M Mirindi.
La BBC a toujours défendu avoir fait le documentaire dans un souci de contribuer à une meilleure
compréhension du drame rwandais, ajoutant que le gouvernement a été approché, mais qu'il a refusé d'y
participer.
Le génocide de 1994 a coûté la vie à près de 800.000 Tutsi et Hutu modérés selon l'ONU.
http://cameroonvoice.com/news/article-news-16649.htm
Génocide du Rwanda Les médiasmensonges politiques sont enfin démasqués
l
La longue enquête menée par la BBC, média dominant s’il en est, a fait l’effet d’une bombe médiatique
exceptée en France, révélée par la voix de la journaliste Jane Corbin qui confirme en tous points que les
massacres qui auraient été perpétrés par les Hutus sur les Tutsis étaient et sont une vaste imposture dans la
présentation des faits.
reseauinternational.net
Du baume au cœur pour le Colonel Jacques Hogard et le Capitaine Paul Barril
Il est des nouvelles qui passent inaperçues ou sont volontairement passées à la trappe voire
censurées, tellement elles dérangent la conscience de ceux qui ont pêché par manque d’analyse, de
réflexion ou de discernement, à moins que ceux-ci ne faisaient que répondre à une stratégie émanant
directement d’un certain Protocole de Toronto.
La longue
enquête
menée
par
la
BBC,
média
dominant
s’il
en
est,
a
fait
l’effet
d’une bombe médiatique exceptée en France, révélée par la voix de la journaliste Jane Corbin qui
confirme en tous points que les massacres qui auraient été perpétrés par les Hutus sur les Tutsis
étaient et sont une vaste imposture dans la présentation des faits, et pour reprendre le titre du
canadien Bernard Desgagné, «
La propagande des médias menteurs est complètement
démolie », (dont l’article ci-joint).
http://www.vigile.net/La-BBC-confirme-la-macabre
Dans cette fuite en avant pour cacher la vérité, Paul Kagamé a ‘’fait suicider’’ ou liquider nombres de
témoins gênant de son entourage proche, cependant quelques uns avaient in extremis eu le temps de
témoigner avant leur mort, mais ici les preuves à charge sont apportées en complément par des
anciens du FPR traqués par le tyrannicide Kagamé.
L’union sacrée en 1996 entre le Président Paul KAGAMÉ et Binyamin NETANYAHU à Yad Vaschem
Cette minutieuse quête pour qu’enfin la vérité voit le jour, fait suite à plus de vingt années de
mensonges et de calomnies, taxant les Hutus d’actes de génocide, ainsi que des défoulements
diffamatoires à l’encontre de l’Armée Française, propos qui avaient déshonoré tout particulièrement le
Colonel Jacques Hogard et le Capitaine Paul Barril qui ont été salis et accusés à tort des pires
ignominies voire de complicité de génocide.
Dès les événements de 1994, en tant qu’ancien propriétaire du magazine Africa International, selon
les faits et nos informations de l’époque, rapportés entre autres par notre spécialiste de la région des
Grands Lacs, Jerzy Bednarek, faits et informations qui n’ont fait que suivre notre ligne éditoriale, nous
avons toujours dénoncé l’affabulation et les mensonges du « Tutsi-Power » de Paul Kagamé,
mensonges repris et suivis en boucle par la presque totalité de la Presse, et j’insiste à nouveau
lourdement ici, ‘’mensonges relayés par la quasi intégralité de la Presse sur la couverture des faits et
massacres au Rwanda’’ dont la diabolique rhétorique perdure encore aujourd’hui, alors que celle-ci
est un règlement de compte dont les Hutus furent et sont encore les victimes et non l’inverse, d’un
génocide qui deux décennies plus tard perdure encore et toujours.
Aujourd’hui, vingt ans après le déclenchement du drame, les massacres ont fait plus de six millions
de morts, le génocide continue et Paul Kagamé égal à lui-même est invariablement au pouvoir, à qui
profite le crime, cherchez l’erreur…?
Je me suis permis de joindre en annexe un texte que j’avais rédigé l’année dernière lorsque j’ai appris
que le capitaine Paul Barril était poursuivi et accusé de complicité de génocide; or, le connaissant très
bien, je n’avais pas pu laisser passer sans réagir ces propos diffamatoires dont il était affublé.
http://www.armee-media.com/2013/07/21/lhonneur-du-capitaine-barril-ne-doit-pas-etre-bafouepar-christian-sebenne/
Mon texte avait été repris sur le site de madame Nicole Guihaumé, celle-ci avait retrouvé un additif
que j’avais rédigé en 2010 de mon exil Canadien faisant état d’une décision des enquêteurs de
l’ONU qui déjà à cette époque remettait les pendules à l’heure et aurait dû mettre un terme au calvaire
vécu entre autres par le Colonel Jacques Hogard et le capitaine Paul Barril, c’était sans compter avec
le lobby des faussaires.
http://www.les-attentats-du-11-septembre-vus-par-une-conspirationniste.com/article-lecapitaine-barril-accuse-de-complicite-de-genocide-video-de-l-accident-d-avion-d-habyarimana119165230.html
Aujourd’hui, à la lumière des révélations de la BBC, celles-ci sont une réhabilitation pour ceux qui ont
été injustement salis et dont la vie a été brisée par la tournure de tous ces mensonges et fausses
accusations dont la planche de salut pour nombre de survivants aura été l’exil, sans oublier les
familles endeuillées de l’équipage de l’avion présidentiel du Falcon 50, dont le cas n’a apparemment
pas ému grand monde.
Alors que tant de journalistes d’investigations, pour ne citer que Jerzy Bednarek, Bernard Lugan,
Pierre Péan ou les travaux de Robin Philpot avaient depuis longtemps apporté tous les éléments de
preuve de la falsification des faits dans la responsabilité chronologique de ce génocide, il est choquant
de constater que ceux qui ont œuvré pour que la vérité puisse voir le jour aient été trainés dans la
boue et soient taxés de révisionnistes voire de négationnistes, ces faits ont d’étranges similitudes
avec une certaine coloration que Paul Kagamé a revendiqué, d’un business démontré, et démonté
pièce par pièce par Norman Finkelstein de l’exploitation des souffrances que l’on veut à tout prix
faire rentrer de force dans le mental des peuples au grand dam de la vérité, car dans cette course aux
génocides… les falsificateurs de l’histoire auront livré ignominieusement en pâture les sacrifiés
Jacques Hogard et Paul Barril.
Dans cette réécriture de ce drame, les spécialistes de l’investigation exposeront leurs masses de
preuves, mais la justice devra statuer sur le pourquoi et les raisons qui ont poussé le président Nicolas
Sarkozy à s’octroyer le droit d’interférer dans ce dossier et à démettre le juge Jean-Louis Brugière
dont le travail avait été remarquable. Plus que jamais se pose le grave problème de la dissociation
des pouvoirs pour une justice indépendante, honnête et libérée des réseaux et loges, comme en ont
fait foi de récentes affaires où des jugements iniques et anticonstitutionnels ont été rendus par le
Conseil d’Etat. Faut-il avoir été soi-même victime de dénis de justice pour comprendre l’effroyable
gravité de ces situations pour nos libertés, qui chaque jour passant font craindre le pire pour nos droits
de « sans dents » et l’avenir de la République.
En conclusion, il est affligeant que la somme de ces preuves flagrantes ait été dévoyée de la sorte, la
tournure de prestidigitation donnée à cette funeste tragédie par le juge Marc Trévidic sur ce dossier
devait semble t-il cadrer au mieux des intérêts supérieurs des Protocoles de la caste de ce Nouvel
Ordre Mondial. La BBC a parlé !
« Blessent mon cœur d’une langueur monotone ». Paul Verlaine
Christian Sébenne
http://lesmoutonsenrages.fr/2014/10/20/genocide-du-rwanda-les-medias-mensonges-politiquessont-enfin-demasques/#more-71687
Christian Sébenne
http://fr.rsf.org/rwanda-la-bbc-interdite-au-rwanda-24-102014,47149.html
ACCUEIL - AFRIQUE - RWANDA
SUSPENSION DES ÉMISSIONS EN KINYARWANDA DE LA
BBC
PUBLIÉ LE VENDREDI 24 OCTOBRE 2014. MIS À JOUR LE MARDI 28 OCTOBRE 2014.
Imprimer
envoyer
English
Samedi 25 octobre, l’Autorité rwandaise de régulation des médias (Rwanda Utilities
Regulatory Authority - RURA) a ordonné la suspension des émissions radiophoniques en
kinyarwanda de laBBC pour une durée indéterminée, le temps que l’autorité de régulation
enquête sur les accusations de « négation de génocide » dont fait l’objet la chaîne
britannique.
La Commission rwandaise des médias (Rwanda Media Commission - RMC) a jugé cette
décision illégale dans la mesure où la RURA n’a pas respecté son obligation de concertation
avec la RMC.
« Le fait que la RURA - une agence technique également chargée de l’assainissement, du
transport ou du service postal - s’érige en arbitre de la liberté de l’information montre bien la
dimension politique de cette interdiction, déclare Cléa Kahn-Sriber, responsable du bureau
Afrique de Reporters sans frontières. Faute de pouvoir instrumentaliser la RMC, le
gouvernement se rabat sur une agence plus docile. Cette mesure est disproportionnée et
dépourvue de fondement : pourquoi suspendre les émissions radiophoniques de la BBC en
kinyarwanda alors que c’est un documentaire en anglais et diffusé sur la chaîne de télévision
qui a provoqué l’ire du gouvernement ?
« Il faut rappeler que la BBC est l’un des seuls médias indépendants à diffuser dans la langue
locale. Couper les programmes en kinyarwanda, c’est entraver l’accès d’une grande partie de
la population à l’information. Nous demandons que la diffusion de la BBC en kinyarwanda soit
immédiatement rétablie afin de garantir l’accès à une information indépendante et
diversifiée ».
24.10.2014 - La BBC interdite au Rwanda ?
Le Parlement rwandais a voté le 22 octobre 2014 en faveur de l’interdiction de la
BBC dans le pays après que la chaîne a diffusé début octobre un documentaire
controversé sur le génocide de 1994, intitulé "Rwanda, The Untold Story (Rwanda :
le non-dit)".
Le 22 octobre, les parlementaires rwandais ont voté pour l’interdiction de la BBC au Rwanda
et recommandé au gouvernement d’engager des poursuites contre le journaliste et le
producteur du documentaire "Rwanda, The Untold Story (Rwanda : le non-dit)". Quelques
jours plus tôt, l’actuel chef d’Etat avait lui-même accusé la BBC de “négation du génocide” des
Tutsi.
"Ce vote n’est pas surprenant dans la mesure où l’opposition politique au régime du président
Kagame n’a pas l’espace d’exister au Rwanda, déclare Cléa Kahn-Sriber, responsable du
bureau Afrique chez Reporters sans frontières. Il est extrêmement préoccupant que la BBC,
l’un des seuls médias indépendants qui arrive à pénétrer le pays, soit en passe d’être
interdite. Nous demandons à Kigali d’appliquer les discours démocratiques volontiers proférés
aux tribunes internationales et de laisser les médias s’exprimer librement."
Plus tôt dans la journée, des associations d’étudiants, majoritairement composées de
rescapés du génocide avaient organisé des manifestations devant le bureau de la BBC à Kigali
et devant le Parlement auquel ils ont remis un mémorandum demandant au gouvernement
rwandais d’annuler la licence de diffusion de la chaîne dans le pays. Ils ont également exigé
que la BBC présente ses excuses officielles au peuple rwandais et au monde entier.
Diffusé en début de mois, ce documentaire avait fait polémique, en donnant la parole à des
universitaires américains qui ont établi une cartographie les amenant à conclure que les
tueries au Rwanda entre avril et juillet 1994 n’avaient pas concerné seulement les Tutsi.
Approché par laBBC pour participer au documentaire, le gouvernement rwandais avait refusé.
Selon les Nations unies, le génocide de 1994 a coûté la vie à près de 800 000 Tutsi et Hutu
modérés. Le Rwanda est connu pour refuser tout commentaire sur sa situation des droits de
l’homme et pour imposer une extrême censure concernant la liberté de l’information. En
2014, au moins, cinq journalistes ont dû fuir le pays, victimes de persécutions. Plusieurs ont
été arrêtés et menacés par la police à l’approche et après les commémorations des 20 ans du
génocide en avril. L’émission interactive de grande écoute Good Morning Rwanda sur Flash
FM a été interdite en juin 2014. Ces faits ont été condamnés par le département d’Etat
américain. La dénégation officielle du gouvernement rwandais, publiée sur son site n’est
actuellement plus accessible en ligne. En 2009, Kigali avait également suspendu les émissions
radiophoniques de la BBC en Kynyarwanda, pour un programme diffusé sur le génocide,
qualifié, lui aussi à l’époque de révisionniste.
Au Rwanda, classé 162e sur 180 pays dans l’édition 2014 du Classement de la liberté de la
presse établi par Reporters sas frontières, toute mention de l’ethnie dans un discours officiel
est passible d’emprisonnement pour "divisionnisme". Au fil des années, le terme "génocide
rwandais" a progressivement été remplacé par celui de "génocide des Tutsi", évitant ainsi que
l’Histoire officielle puisse être questionnée.
Plus d’information sur la liberté de l’information au Rwanda
DANS LE MÊME PAYS » RWANDA

La rwandaise Agnès Uwimana Nkusi, héroïne de l’information, enfin libérée - 18 juin


Un vent d’intimidation sur les médias à Kigali - 28 avril 2014
Un directeur de radio disparaît au soir des commémorations du génocide des Tutsis au
Rwanda- 9 avril 2014
Chasse sans merci à l’information indépendante, au delà des frontières - 19 mars 2014
La journaliste Saidat Mukakibibi libérée au terme de sa peine - 25 juin 2013


2014
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2806775/BBC-accusedgenocide-denial-Rwanda-documentary-claims-Tutsis-blame-startingmassacre-killed-thousands-Hutus.html
Impossible à copier - coller
4. Dans le monde anglo – saxon :
GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR RWANDANS' HUMAN RIGHTS :
http://rwandansrights.org/bbc-documentary-rwandas-untold-story-rwandan-community-in-ukreacts-with-gratefulness/
BBC Documentary : Rwanda’s Untold Story – Rwandan community in UK reacts with
gratefulness
OCTOBER 6, 2014 7:47 AM
The Rwandan community in UK represented by diverse community groups, survivors associations,
human rights organisations and political organisations expressed gratefulness to BBC for having
produced and broadcasted a programme that enrich open debate on what happened in Rwanda during
the Genocide and during the last 20 years.
The letter from those organisations addressed to the BBC Director General can be found here
Lire la lettre adressée au Directeur de la BBC à l’adresse :
http://rwandansrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Rwandan-Community-letter-to-BBC-BBCDocumentary-Rwanda-The-Untold-Story.pdf
The Telegraph :
This World: Rwanda's Untold Story, BBC Two, review –
'intense'
This World: Rwanda's Untold Story attempted to overturn the consensus view about
the 1994 genocide, says Gerard O'Donovan
Rwandan president Paul Kagame in the latest instalment of 'This World' Photo: BBC
By Gerard O'Donovan
10:01PM BST 01 Oct 2014
107 Comments
The horrifying results of mob violence at its most extreme were revisited by reporter Jane Corbin
in This World: Rwanda’s Untold Story (BBC Two). This intense documentary set out to entirely
up-end what the world understands happened during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when a
million people were slaughtered in a bloodbath lasting 100 days.
Corbin began by looking at how, 20 years on, Rwanda’s is one of Africa’s fastest growing
economies and the country’s president, Paul Kagame, enjoys the support of the international
community. There followed an account of the tensions between the minority Tutsi and majority
Hutu populations that led to the genocide, and how Kagame – through the intervention of his
rebel force, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, came to be seen as the hero who stopped the killing.
That was the last time in the film that anything generally accepted wasn’t called into question.
Interviewing academics, survivors and former henchmen of Kagame, Corbin embarked on a
forensic deconstruction of the official history of the genocide (which puts the blame entirely on the
Hutus). Studies by two American researchers suggested that hundreds of thousands of Hutus
could have been killed too, possibly by RPF forces. A UN report expressing similar concerns had
allegedly been suppressed. Belgian historian Prof Filip Reyntjens suggested that Kagame could
be one of the “most important war criminals still in office today”.
The allegations kept coming: of rigged elections and political oppression, of pressure put on
official investigations into the genocide, assassination attempts on Kagame’s exiled excolleagues, and Rwanda’s role in the deaths of five million people in the wider conflict in the
Congo region. The numbers were mind boggling, the answers few, the claim that the UK is the
largest contributor to the near £500 million annual foreign aid that helps keep Kagame in power,
deeply concerning.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/afrique/region/2014/10/141003_rwanda_paul_kag
ame
Kagame accusé par ses proches

3 octobre 2014
Partager
Selon, Nyamwasa, la responsabilité dans l'attentat
contre l'avion ne fait aucun doute.
L'ancien chef d'Etat-major de l'armée rwandaise, le Lieutenant-général Kayumba Nyamwasa a
réitéré les allégations selon lesquelles le Président rwandais Paul Kagame est à à l'origine de
l'attentat contre l'avion de l’ancien président Juvénal Habyarimana.
C'est Paul Kagame, c'est sûr et certain à cent pour cent, j'étais bien palcé pour le savoir et il
le sait. Les extrémistes hutus avaient prévu d'exterminer les Tutsis.
Le Lieutenant-Général Kayumba Nyamwasa
Dans une interview au programme This World de la BBC, M. Nyamwasa affirme qu’il occupait à l‘époque
une fonction qui lui permettait de le savoir.
Le Président Kagame a toujours nié les précédentes accusations liées à son éventuelle responsabilité dans
cet attentat, considéré comme le déclencheur du génocide de 1994 au Rwanda
Dès le 6 Avril 1994, les rebelles tutsis du FPR menés par Paul Kagame ont lancé une offensive de grande
envergure.
Les milices extrémistes hutues et des éléments de l'armée rwandaise se sont ensuite livrés à des massacres
systématiques des Tutsis.
Mais, le Président Kagame a toujours maintenu que l'avion a été abattu par des extrémistes hutus revoltés
par la volonté du Président Habyarimana de partager le pouvoir avec la minorité Tutsi.
Mais aujourd'hui, deux hommes qui étaient proches de Paul Kagame à l'époque donnent une version très
différente des faits.
Selon, Nyamwasa, la responsabilité dans l'attentat contre l'avion ne fait aucun doute.
"C'est Paul Kagame, c'est sûr et certain à cent pour cent, j'étais bien palcé pour le savoir et il le sait. Les
extrémistes hutus avaient prévu d'exterminer les Tutsis. Mais Paul Kagame doit aussi avouer qu'il avait ses
propres plans qui ont contribué au génocide. Parce qu’en saison sèche, si vous allumer un feu vous ne
devez pas être étonné que l'herbe brûle"
Le lieutenant Aloys Ruyenzi, un ancien garde du corps de Paul Kagame vit maintenant dans la clandestinité
en France est du même avis.
Il affirme qu'il a assisté à une réunion avec son patron une semaine avant que l'avion ne soit abattu.
Si le FPR était responsable de l'attentat, il l'aurait aurait assumé. Franchement, c'est le
dernier de mes soucis. La France le dit. Je m'en fou !
Le Président Paul Kagame
"Le président Kagame a présidé une réunion au cours de laquelle le colonel Lizinde lui a apporté une carte
montrant d'où l'avion pourrait être abattu. Le Président a approuvé le plan et il a ordonné qu'il soit mis en
œuvre.».
Ruyenzi a aussi expliqué que le FPR a introduit des missiles anti-aériens dans la capitale et il était avec
Kagame quand il a appris que l'avion avait été abattu.
« Kagame était content. Les autres commandants étaient aussi contents. C'est à partir de ce moment que
nous nous sommes mis en mouvement», ajoute-il.
Le FPR a déjà été mis en cause dans le crash de l'avion notamment dans un rapport de l'ONU publié deux
ans après l'accident.
Il avait abouti à la conclusion similaire à celle d' un juge français en 2004 qui enquêtait sur cet attentat au
nom des familles des membres de l'équipage français qui ont aussi perdu la vie le 6 avril 1994.
Contacté par la BBC, le président Kagame a décliné la proposition de participer à ce documentaire, mais
par le passé il a rejeté de manière catégorique cette accusation.
"Si le FPR était responsable de l'attentat, il l'aurait aurait assumé. Franchement, c'est le dernier de mes
soucis. La France le dit. Je m'en fou !", avait-il déclaré à l'émission "Hard Talk" de la BBC.
Les conclusions d'une nouvelle enquête sont attendues avant la fin de l'année.
Jonathan Cook :
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2014-10-04/why-is-the-truth-about-rwanda-so-elusive/
Why is the truth about Rwanda so elusive?
4 OCTOBER 2014
It’s not often I praise the BBC for producing real journalism. Further, it is with some disbelief
that I find myself applauding Jane Corbin, who I will struggle till my dying day to forgive for
her despicable piece of Israeli propaganda parading as reportage a few years back on the
Israeli navy’s attack on the Mavi Marmara aid ship to Gaza.
Nonetheless, Corbin has now fronted a truly disturbing revisionist documentary on Rwanda,
called Rwanda’s Untold Story. The programme’s argument is that the official story about a
straightforward genocide by the Hutu majority of Rwanda’s Tutsis 20 years ago is highly
selective and entirely misleading. One scholar suggests that the narrative we have been
fed is the equivalent of reducing the Second World War to the Holocaust and claiming
nothing else of significance happened.
What the documentary demonstrates forcefully is that Paul Kagame, the hero of the official
story of Rwanda’s genocide, was almost certainly the biggest war criminal to have emerged
from those horrifying events. Kagame led the Tutsis’ main militia, the RPF. He almost
certainly ordered the shooting down of the Rwandan president’s plane, the trigger for a civil
war that quickly escalated into a genocide; on the best estimates, his RPF was responsible
for killing 80% of the 1 million who died inside Rwanda, making the Hutus, not the Tutsis, the
chief victims; and his subsequent decision to extend the civil war into neighbouring Congo,
where many Hutu civilians had fled to escape the RPF, led to the deaths of up to 5 million
more.
Not surprising then that Kagame is championed by Britain’s own biggest war criminal, Tony
Blair. But the rot has spread much further. Rwanda, now praised as a model democracy
under Kagame, is in truth a police state, where the president kills or locks up all opponents,
fixes the elections, and has made any questioning of the official story he created – that the
Tutsis were the exclusive victims of the genocide – a crime.
The BBC has not had to dig up any new information to make this programme. It’s all been
available for years. But no one apart from a few experts – academics, UN military personnel
who were there, UN investigators, and Kagame’s former, and disillusioned, inner circle –
have dared to speak out.
The real criminals, as ever, it seems, have been the western powers and the UN. They have
happily paraded their remorse at failing to intervene at the time of the genocide
(presumably because their self-confessed error helped to justify the subsequent wave of
bogus “humanitarian interventions” in the Middle East). But what the documentary makes
clear is that Blair, Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan and many others have helped to whitewash
Kagame’s crimes against humanity and provide a veneer of legitimacy to his current
oppressive rule. Anyone who has threatened to blow the lid, like Carla del Ponte, the chief
prosecutor at the UN’s international tribunal on Rwanda, has been forced out.
But as I watched the programme, one thing struck me forcefully in particular, though it was
not referred to by Corbin: what were the journalists who crawled all over the Rwanda story
for years doing? How were Blair, Clinton and Annan allowed to forge the myth of a simple
Hutu genocide of Tutsis without serious challenge from serious reporters working for serious
newspapers that were supposed to be making sense of these events for us?
From my own experience covering Israel-Palestine, I can guess what happened. The
reporters on the ground feared straying too far from the consensus in their newsrooms.
Rather than telling their editors what the story was (the model of news production most
people assume to be the case), the editors were creating the framework of the story for the
reporters, based on the official narrative being promoted in political and diplomatic circles.
Correspondents who cared about their careers dared not challenge the party line too
strongly, even when they knew it to be a lie.
Rwanda also offers a telling example of how such group-think works, and how a non-expert
far from real events but schooled in a kind of London or Washington consensus on foreign
affairs ends up policing the limits of possible thought in a way that strips us, his readers, of
the right to hear a counter-narrative.
The guilty party in this case was George Monbiot, often seen as one of the most radical and
original thinkers publishing in the British mainstream liberal media. Two years ago he wrote
an ugly attack, entitled “Naming the Genocide Deniers“, on two scholars, one of them the
renowned Ed Herman. Monbiot eventually dragged in a host of other thinkers, including
Noam Chomsky, accusing them of being “genocide belittlers” for not turning on the pair at
his instigation.
The crime committed by this tiny group was that they had raised the possibility that the
official story of the genocide in Rwanda – as well as of some of the massacres in the Balkans
– might not be entirely historically accurate, and that the accounts might have been
distorted for political advantage. Monbiot, uninterested in assessing their claims or
addressing the facts, abused them for straying from the official narrative. Monbiot might like
to reconsider his behaviour, for which I and others criticised him at the time, and issue a
long-overdue apology.
That aside, Monbiot’s disgraceful accusations are a useful illustration of how powerful is the
emotional, imaginative and possibly financial grip of the mainstream media on journalists,
even those feted for their independence.
It is with that context in mind too that one should tip one’s hat to the BBC and, reluctantly,
to Jane Corbin for doing their jobs for once. Rwanda’s Untold Story reminds us how rarely
journalists actually engage in the myth-busting, truth-telling work they claim to be bedrock
of their craft.
Sadly, the Youtube link I watched this on was quickly removed, on copyright grounds. Those
in the UK should be able to watch it on iPlayer for a while longer. Others will need to keep
their eyes open online or hope it is shown on BBC World.
UPDATE:
For the time being, this link to the video seems to work:
Tagged as: BBC, media criticism
- See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2014-10-04/why-is-the-truth-about-rwanda-so-elusive/#sthash.LkTxMIiG.dpuf
Anthony C. Black (Global research) : http://www.globalresearch.ca/whowas-behind-the-1994-rwanda-genocide/5406344
Who was Behind the 1994 Rwanda Genocide?
By Antony C. Black
Global Research, October 05, 2014
Region: sub-Saharan Africa
Theme: Intelligence, Media Disinformation
On the evening of April 6th 1994 a plane carrying the Hutu leaders of both Rwanda and Burundi
was shot down as it approached Kanombe airport. The assassins had little trouble targeting the
flight as only one of the two runways was open, the other having been closed two months earlier
on the orders of Canadian General Romeo Dallaire. Simultaneous to the shootdown, that is on the
eve of April 6th, a 30,000 RPF (Tutsi) army based in Uganda invaded from the north. At the same
time, hundreds of covert armed RPF cells came to life in and around Kigali and began attacking
Rwandan government forces (FAR). The population, roughly 85% Hutu, and encompassing at
least a million refugees in and around Kigali displaced by previous RPF incursions from Uganda,
began to panic. A genocide was about to begin.
But it was a genocide neither against, nor by, the actors cited in the ‘official’ narrative. Indeed,
Rwanda circa 1994, is, in all likelihood, if not the, then certainly one of the greatest propaganda
swindles of all time. This is the story of that swindle and of the scandalous truth that lies buried
beneath it.
Historical Context
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Rwanda was a feudal kingdom ruled by a Tutsi minority over a
Hutu majority. Following the Berlin Conference of 1885 Rwanda came under the suzerainty of
Germany which was, itself, replaced as colonial overlord following WW1, by Belgium. Rwanda’s
feudal order remained intact, however, until 1956 when the Belgians finally organized elections.
Then, in November 1959, the Hutu majority overthrew the Tutsi monarchy. Many Tutsis fled, the
majority ending up, significantly, in Uganda. It was from this perch in Uganda that the exiled
Tutsi aristocracy launched, between 1960 and 1973, a series of violent attacks against the
Rwandan regime. These were repulsed and for the next decade and a half Rwanda enjoyed a
period of relative peace.
It is worth noting at this juncture that, though much of the Tutsi aristocracy fled in 1960, those
Tutsis who remained were well integrated into Rwandan society and body politic. Thus, both the
government and army contained significant numbers of Tutsi personnel even through the height of
the crisis in April 1994. In fact, the Rwandan Army (FAR) continued as a multi-ethnic
organization even as it was forced to retreat into the forests of the Congo in July of 1994; this
after having run out of ammunition due to a Western embargo on arms supplies – an embargo not
applied to the RPF.
Up until 1990 there was no further interference in Rwanda from Uganda. Nevertheless, by then
the Tutsis exiles living there had become one of the main elements of the Ugandan Army. As
such, when Museveni came to power – having been handpicked by the US and Britain to oust the
socialist, Milton Obote – a third or more of his army consisted of Tutsis. Many of these held high
office, including Paul Kagame.Kagame had been (and remains) an erstwhile client of Washington
from well before he claimed to have ‘saved Rwanda from further genocide’ in 1994. Not only had
he served as director of Ugandan military intelligence in the 1980s, but he had also received
training at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and had been the beneficiary of constant US material and
diplomatic support from the moment he assumed control of the RPF.Upon the collapse of the
USSR in 1989/90 the US and the UK began a general militarist expansion which included the
targeting of Yugoslavia and Rwanda; Yugoslavia as it was the last real bastion of working
socialism in Europe, and Rwanda as it was a working model of socialist development in Africa. In
addition, the US had turned against Mobutu (of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the
Congo) as he was beginning to ally himself politically with China. The Rwandan president,
Habyarimana, was subsequently approached by Washington to allow his country to be used as a
staging ground for an attack on Zaire (to this day, a cornucopia of precious resources prized by the
West). His refusal caused the US to look to other agents in furthering its strategic interests. They
found the Tutsis in Uganda, ever thirsting for restoration of their hegemony in Rwanda.
Furthermore, Museveni had begun to feel uneasy about the numbers of Tutsis in his ranks and was
looking to be rid of them. The opportunity to satisfy these disparate desires soon came.
On October 1, 1990 the self-styled Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched a surprise attack from
Uganda. Though calling themselves a force of ‘liberation’ the offensive was a thinly disguised
invasion by Uganda itself. Initially, the justification for the invasion put out by the RPF was that
of attaining the right of return of Tutsi refugees. This claim, however, was belied by the fact that
Rwanda had, under UN auspices, already agreed a few weeks earlier to the return of all Tutsis
who wished to do so. That accord required Tutsi representatives to travel to Kigali to determine
both the logistics of that population movement and their subsequent accommodation within
Rwanda. The delegation was expected at the end of September, 1990. They never arrived.
The attack killed tens of thousands of Rwandan civilians. These crimes, though well documented,
have never been accounted for, nor did the UN or ‘international community’ ever seek to account
for them. Indeed, there was not even a shred of condemnation of the Ugandan/RPF invasion, this
despite the clamour raised only two months earlier with regard to the advance of Iraqi forces into
Kuwait. In point of fact, the US and its allies supported the aggression against Rwanda and US
Special Forces operated alongside the RPF from the beginning. This support notwithstanding, the
small Rwandan army (with some help from a Congolese battalion) was eventually able to repel
the invading forces.
Following this attempt using a proxy force to overthrow the state, the United States brought
political and economic pressure to bear upon Rwanda’s one-party socialist state (MRND). The
President, Juvenal Habyarimana, instead of resisting, agreed to alter the constitution and in 1991
Rwanda became a multi-party democracy. Though the Rwandan government effected this as an
offer of peace, what followed was anything but peace. Thus, rather than work towards
reconciliation, the RPF turned from the tactics of open warfare to those of guerrilla terrorism.
In 1992, and whilst RPF forces were busy planting mines, assassinating politicians and blaming it
on the MRND, a coalition government was formed with the front parties of the RPF. These
agents, with US backing, quickly seized control of key ministries and succeeded in appointing the
Prime Minister. They also gained control of the intelligence services which they then began to
dismantle. In essence, the ‘power sharing’ arrangement had largely given over control of the
country to the very forces long bent on its destruction.
The RPF itself, meanwhile, engaged in a ‘talk and fight’ strategy; always agreeing to a ceasefire,
pressing for more power, then launching new attacks on the civilian population. The most
egregious of these assaults was their breaking of the ceasefire and the launching of a major
offensive in February of 1993. Seizing the town of Ruhengeri, RPF forces murdered some 40,000,
mostly Hutu, civilians. Once again, the ‘international community’ remained dutifully silent.
The Rwandan army, though hamstrung by the civilian ministries, managed to repulse the RPF
attack. Finally, in August of 1993, the Arusha Accords were signed under pressure from the
United States and its allies, and from which the RPF obtained major concessions. The Accords
dictated the formation of a broad-based transition government to be followed by general elections.
But for the RPF – as for the United States – there was a fatal fly in the electoral ointment. To wit,
the RPF knew that they could not win such elections; this not only because they were unpopular
with the majority (85%) Hutu population, but also because they had precious little support
amongst many of Rwanda’s internal Tutsis whose lives and businesses they had destroyed. Rather
than prepare for elections, the RPF prepared for something different.
UN reports document the massive build-up of men and weapons coming in from Uganda during
this period. In fact, the UN force (UNAMIR) supposedly deployed to ensure a peaceful transition
acted, instead, as a cover for the US and its allies, i.e. Britain, Belgium, Canada, to assist the
illegal build-up. General Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general in charge of the UN force, hid this
build-up not only from the Rwandan Army and the President, but also from his immediate
superiors, Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh and UN Secretary General Boutros Ghali. These
machinations were accompanied by death threats against Habyarimana, threats made all the more
significant by the murder of the first Hutu president of neighbouring Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye,
by Tutsi officers in October 1993.
The result of the 1993 RPF offensive was the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of Hutus
from northern Rwanda towards Kigali so that by April, 1994 over a million refugees were
encamped close to the capital and hundreds of thousands more in camps to the south. The RPF,
meanwhile, did all it could to paralyze the functioning of the government, to exacerbate racial
tensions, and to prepare for war.
Who Killed Habyarimana
The triggering event in the ‘Rwandan genocide’ of 1994 is generally agreed to be the shooting
down, on April 6, 1994, of the plane carrying Juvenal Habyarimana, the Hutu president of
Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the Hutu president of Burundi. The official story has it that
unidentified ‘Hutu rebels’ were the villains who targeted their own countrymen in some vague
attempt to gain power. No evidence was ever adduced in support of this threadbare thesis, but in
any case, even if so, the official villains failed spectacularly in their objectives as the country
quickly fell to invading Tutsi forces leaving a small minority (Tutsi) population to rise like the
Phoenix to its former position of national privilege and oligarchical control. No one in the
Western mainstream media has ever commented on the exceeding peculiarity of this bizarre turn
of events, never witnessed before, in which the supposed victims of a genocide end up as the
victors of the conflict.
The paradox is soon resolved, however, if we countenance the much more likely scenario that the
decapitation of the state leadership was the first stage in a final offensive of a war started four
years earlier. That the assassination was part of an RPF coup d’etat is given further support by the
fact that a 30,000 man RPF force was already marching against Kigali hours before the plane was
destroyed, and that RPF forces inside Kigali were attacking government positions within hours of
the shootdown. The Western audience, naturally, was, and has never since, been informed of these
rather pertinent contextual facts surrounding the events of April 6, 1994. To boot, the official
response to Habyarimana’s assassination was and has remained one of determined indifference; a
strange thing given that it involved the highest official in the land. Even stranger given that, and
according to virtually every independent expert on the subject, the ‘genocide of 1994’ simply
would not have happened had Habyarimana not been assassinated. Nevertheless, though all the
circumstantial evidence points towards the assassination being part and parcel of a US-backed
RPF coup d’etat against the government of Rwanda, it would yet be helpful if there was direct
evidence implicating RPF forces in the murder. There is.
As in one of those classic ‘B movie’ plot twists where the bad guys inadvertently hire a good guy
who turns the table on his benefactors, so too did the lead official of the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) hire an investigator into the crash who turned out to be an honest
man. Reporting back to Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour in 1996/97, Australian lawyer, Michael
Hourigan, found evidence directly linking the RPF (and the CIA) to the assassination. Far from
pleasing Arbour, however, Hourigan’s diligence was rewarded with censure. According to
Hourigan, Arbour became “aggressive” and “hostile” when informed of his findings. What
Hourigan didn’t know at the time is that Arbour, after having launched the investigation, had been
directed by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (who had handpicked her for the job) to
quash the inquiry. And so she did. Arbour would later (again under the aegis of Albright) be
promoted to Canadian Supreme Court Justice and thence as UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights.
Hourigan’s report, though suppressed at the time, would, nevertheless, surface many years later in
the hands of one of the defense teams at the ICTR. The report would also have its findings later
corroborated by numerous sources. Thus, the French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere,
having been called in to investigate the deaths of three French nationals who were aboard
Habyarimana’s doomed flight, launched an exhaustive eight-year investigation. He concluded that
the plane had indeed been destroyed by the RPF and that the assassination was part and parcel of
Kagame et al’s plan to take over Rwanda by force. Bruguiere went on to issue nine warrants for
the arrest of high-ranking members of the RPF whilst also requesting that the ICTR take up
Kagame’s prosecution.
What’s more, not only have other French – and Spanish – legal officials since confirmed
Bruguiere’s findings, but many highly placed members of the RPF have stepped forward publicly
to implicate Kagame and the RPF in the assassination. All have suffered the same fate of official
international silence and suppression, and some of the latter have suffered assassination
themselves.
This culture of suppression and official silence has also plagued the ICTR from its inception. In
particular, it became the explicit policy of the ICTR to forcibly limit its mandate solely to the
investigation of ‘genocidal intent’ by Hutu government figures, i.e. without any reference
whatsoever either to the political context of the conflict or to the mounting evidence implicating
the RPF as invaders and genocidaires. In short, the ICTR, much like its sister tribunal, the
International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), proved itself from the outset to
be little more than a Washington-sponsored kangaroo court.
This transparently politicized policy has continued apace throughout the trials. When, for
instance, the more independently-minded Carla Del Ponte replaced the pliable Louise Arbour, she
was quickly terminated as Chief Prosecutor after calling for a ‘Special Investigation’ into the
actions of the RPF; this despite making a case for such an investigation with then UN SecretaryGeneral Kofi Anan. Of course, Anan’s refusal to look into the crimes of the RPF should come as
no surprise as it was he who, a) was head of the peacekeeping operations in 1994, and is thus
implicated in the events, and b) was handpicked by the US to replace his predecessor, BoutrosGhali.
Boutros-Ghali, It might be remembered, had come uncomfortably close to scuttling the entire
US/RPF invasion scenario when, in May of 1994, he acceded to a request by the Rwandan
government to send 5500 UN troops to Rwanda to reinforce the 2500 already stationed there; this
so as to stabilize the country at a time when reports of growing ‘chaos’ were issuing forth daily in
the world press. These efforts were, however, categorically thwarted by the Clinton regime which
used its influence to remove the proposal from the UN agenda. Instead, the UN troops already
stationed there, far from being reinforced, were withdrawn. Later, Boutros-Ghali, in conversation
with Rwandan expert Robin Philpot, would expand on these matters declaring that, “The genocide
in Rwanda was 100% the responsibility of the Americans!” Hardly any wonder, then, that in 1996
US Ambassador to the UN, the ubiquitous Madeleine Albright, would veto his re-election making
Boutros-Ghali the only UN Secretary General in history not to be granted a second term in office.
Inconvenient Truths
On August 26, 2010 the French newspaper Le Monde revealed the existence of a draft UN report
detailing the most serious human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo over an
eleven year period (1993 – 2003). The report described how, following the RPF’s takeover of
Rwanda in 1994, it proceeded to carry out “systematic and widespread attacks” against Hutu
refugees who had fled to neighbouring DRC. These attacks it stated, “could be classified as
crimes of genocide.”
Save for it having been leaked to Le Monde, it is clear that the report was well on its way to being
buried alive, its cover-up a near certainty. But this was hardly the first instance of a cover-up of a
UN report vis a vis Rwanda. As early as October 11, 1994, Robert Gersony, an employee of the
US Agency for International Development (USAID), then attached to the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees, made an oral presentation to the UN Commission of Experts on Rwanda. Gersony
had been dispatched to survey the situation inside Rwanda to determine if conditions were right
for return of the Hutu refugees who had fled the RPF. Instead, he found that the RPF had been
committing massacres of the Hutu population in Rwanda starting in April 1994 through the date
of his presentation. On page 4 of the UN record of Gersony’s presentation (a record which
surfaced in the defense proceedings at the ICTR), we read,
“Significant areas…have been the scene of systematic and sustained [emphasis added] killing and
persecution of the civilian Hutu population by the Rwandan Patriotic Front…..These actions were
consistently reported to be conducted in areas where opposition forces of any kind – armed or
unarmed, or resistance of any kind….were absent. Large scale indiscriminate killings of men,
women and children, including the sick and elderly were consistently reported.”
Now, I remind the reader that the killings detailed here were being perpetrated not, as in the
official narrative, i.e. by Rwandan government troops, but by the supposed saviours of the
country, i.e. the RPF.
Though much evidence surfaced early on that the official genocide narrative was in sharp
disagreement with reality, all later independent reports have continued to corroborate this finding.
In a 2004 paper, for instance (and reinforced in a more recent 2009 report), US academics
Christian Davenport and Allan Stam concluded that, of the many hundreds of thousands of deaths
(possibly as high as two million) that occurred in Rwanda from April through July of 1994, the
“majority of victims [at least two thirds] were likely Hutu and not Tutsi”. Noteworthy is the fact
that Davenport and Stam were initially sponsored by the ICTR – that is until their findings
contradicted the official narrative whence they were sent packing.
Still, Davenport and Stam have refrained from taking the implication of their own research to its
logical conclusion, i.e. that Kagame’s forces were the only agents responsible for committing
“systematic” killings in the areas they overran, or that such systemic violence was part of a preexisting plan by the US-backed RPF to invade and overthrow the legitimate government, the latter
in order to install a formerly privileged minority – and Western comprador elite – to power within
Rwanda.
If the academics have been content to sit on the fence, not so one of the more famous lay figures
of the Rwandan debacle. It is ironic in the extreme that Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life hero of
the movie Hotel Rwanda – a film unashamedly promoting the official narrative – has himself, in
numerous interviews, completely gainsaid that narrative. He has, thus, repeatedly denounced the
RPF as the real genocidaires, and has called a Kagame a “war criminal” and “dictator” who is
responsible for mass killings not only during the takeover of Rwanda in July 1994, but ever since
both in Rwanda and in his US-backed incursions into the Congo. Indeed, so fervent have the
denunciations been that Rusesabagina is now officially listed as a ‘terrorist’ and ‘genocide denier’
(a prisonable offence in Rwanda) by the Kagame regime.
No matter, the movie continues to circulate, sans critique; Rusesabagina’s views and
denunciations, do not.
Whose Genocide(s)?
It is something of an embarrassment to the US architects of the ICTR that the tribunal, though
explicitly tasked with indicting only members of the Hutu government, have failed singularly in
successfully prosecuting any of them. Not only have the most senior members of the Rwandan
government – through the spirited efforts of the various defense teams – been acquitted, but the
mass of evidence so assembled has stood the entire official narrative on its head, and has
implicated, au contraire, the RPF – and its foreign accomplices – in the genocide.
There was, however, one highly publicized piece of evidence proffered at the tribunal by
prosecutors as they sought to prove a ‘planned genocide’ by the Rwandan government. This was
the so-called ‘genocide fax’ allegedly sent to the New York UN headquarters on the night of
January 10th, 1994. That this was the only piece of documentary evidence claiming direct
planning of a genocide put forward in the trial is, itself, telling. Had there actually been such a
plan, the logistics would have left a paper and/or electronic trail a mile wide. Instead, there are no
orders, minutes of meetings, notes, cables, faxes, radio intercepts or any other type of
documentation indicating that such a plan ever existed. And then, of course, there are the actual
events on the ground which, as we have seen (and shall see further), suggest nothing of the sort.
Nonetheless, there is the lone sepulchre of the ‘genocide fax’. What to make of it?
To make a long story short, the fax is a forgery. There was a fax sent to the UN headquarters on
January 10th, 1994 (a copy of a cable sent by Romeo Dallaire to another Canadian, General
Baril), but this was not the fax that was entered into evidence in the Military II trial (ICTR vs
Ndindiliyimana) in October, 2005. Ndindiliyimana’s defense counsel was able to definitively
establish that the original fax dealt only with ‘weapons caches and seeking protection for an
informant’, whereas the fax subsequently entered as evidence, having first had time stamps, dates
and paragraphs altered, had mysteriously sprouted an addendum about government plans to kill
Tutsis and Belgian soldiers. Conflicting testimony both between Dallaire’s earlier and later
statements, and between statements made by Dallaire and Lt. Col. Claeys (a Belgian officer who
claims to be one of the authors of the original cable), further proved the document’s
inauthenticity. Such was only reinforced when Dallaire’s immediate superior, Jacques Roger
Booh-Booh, stated that he had never seen nor heard of the fax or any of its alleged inflammatory
contents. Eventually, the ‘genocide fax’ was simply withdrawn as evidence by the court. Puff!
One might wonder, then, why tens of thousands of MRND personnel are today still in prison, this
whilst not one RPF figure has even been indicted. But so it is.
If documents supporting a pre-meditated plan by the Rwandan government have failed to
materialize, not so it turns out when it comes to the RPF. In the same trial that saw the outing of
the fraudulent ‘genocide fax’, evidence was presented suggesting nothing other than a master plan
by Kagame and “our Belgian, British and American collaborators” for the taking not only of
Rwanda, but of Zaire. In a letter from Kagame to fellow Tutsi, Jean-Baptiste Bagaza of Burundi,
dated August 10, 1994, Kagame thanks Bagaza for his help in “taking Kigali”. He then relates his
communications with “our big brother Yoweri Museveni” and talks of “some modifications of the
plan” noting that:
“We have found that the presence of large numbers of Rwandan refugees at Goma, and the
international community, can cause our plan for Zaire [emphasis added] to fail. We cannot occupy
ourselves with Zaire until after the return of these Hutus….In any case, our external intelligence
services continue to crisscross the east of Zaire, and our Belgian, British and American
collaborators [emphasis added] the rest of Zaire. The action reports are expected in the next few
days.”
Now, what this letter seems to indicate is that the attack on Rwanda (from 1990 onward) was not
the prime objective of Kagame and crew after all, but was, rather, merely the gateway to an attack
on Zaire/Congo. The significance of the
latter became apparent when, on November 1, 1996, the aforementioned Goma was, in fact,
attacked and taken by the RPA (the re-named RPF) along with Burundian and Ugandan forces.
This assault was heavily backed by the United States and eyewitness accounts tell of large
American cargo planes filled with arms landing in Kigali in the last two weeks of October, 1996.
The taking of Goma was, it is pertinent to note, the prelude to the ensuing genocidal carnage that
has overtaken the Democratic Republic of the Congo ever since. To properly understand this last
statement we need to backtrack a bit to April 6, 1994, and look at the events that unfolded
immediately following the assassination of Habyarimana.
***
Once the plane had been shot down, an RPF army, as noted earlier, invaded from the north whilst
armed RPF cells began attacks inside Kigali itself. These cells represented some 15,000 or so
troops that the RPF had illegally secreted into Kigali under Dallaire’s watch [As the UNAMIR
force commander he was charged with the responsibility of allowing, under the Arusha Accords,
no more than 600 RPF into the city]. In the sector of Kigali known as Remera the RPF killed
everyone on the night of the 6th and 7th, wiped out the gendarme camp there, wiped out the
military police camp at Kami and launched major attacks against Camp Kanombe, Camp Kigali,
and the main gendarme camp at Kacyriu.
The Rwandan government and army called for a ceasefire that same night and the next day. The
RPF rejected the call. The Rwandan government then asked for UN help to control the situation.
Instead, the US arranged that the main UN force be pulled out whilst flying in men and supplies to
the RPF using C130 Hercules aircraft. The Rwandan Army, short of ammunition and unable to
contain the RPF advances offered an unconditional surrender on April 12th. The RPF rejected this
offer and began shelling the Nyacyonga refugee camp, where the one million Hutu refugees were
located, so provoking their flight into the capital.
The effect of one million people flooding into a small city that itself was under bombardment
caused mayhem and panic. To make matters worse, the RPF used this flood of people to infiltrate
its men behind FAR lines. This heightened to fever pitch the panic amongst the Hutu population
who then began killing anyone they did not recognize. The late Dr. Alison Des Forges (a noted
expert on Rwanda), in her testimony before the Military II trial at the ICTR in 2006 stated that the
RPF claim that they attacked to stop a ‘genocide’ was a myth; just propaganda to justify their
attempt to seize power by force of arms. She also testified that the Rwandan government did not
plan and execute genocide. This accords with the (early) testimony of Romeo Dallaire who
confirmed the same thing. In addition, the deputy head of Belgian Army intelligence, Col.
Vincent, similarly testified that the idea of a government-backed genocide was a complete
fantasy.
The fighting in Kigali was intense. UN officers – confirming testimony made by FAR and RPF
officers before the ICTR – state that the RPF was launching hundreds of Katyusha rockets every
hour around the clock whilst the Rwandan
Army ran out of grenades in the first few days and were reduced to fighting with hand-made
explosives. Nevertheless, the siege of Kigali lasted three months and only ended when the
Rwandan Army literally ran out of all ammunition and thence ordered a general retreat into the
forests of the Congo.
RPF officers testifying before the ICTR have stated that the RPF killed up to two million Hutus in
those 12 weeks in a deliberate campaign to eliminate the Hutu population. The Akager River, the
length of which was under RPF control throughout, ran red with the blood of Hutu victims
massacred on its banks. It is here that Robert Gersony’s report, filed as an exhibit before the
ICTR, lends support to this testimony and to the fact of a systematic and planned RPF massacre of
the Hutu population.
As the Rwandan Army (including its Tutsi officers) retreated into the Congo forest, the Hutu
population, in fear for their lives, fled with them in their millions. Meanwhile, in local villages,
Hutu neighbours attacked Tutsis either in revenge for the murder of Hutus or fearing death at their
hands. Tutsis also attacked Hutus. It was total war, though a war clearly fuelled and instigated by
the US-backed RPF invasion.
The RPF later pursued the Hutus through the Congo forest and, between 1996 and 1998, killed
hundreds of thousands and possibly millions. All the while the RPF was assisted by the United
States. Thus, the US cynically thwarted plans (in November 1996) devised by the French and the
European Union to send a 10,000 man UN force to assist and guarantee the safe return of the
refugees; a plan which if it had been effected would likely have forestalled the ensuing multimillion death toll in the Congo. Moreover, the UN Rwanda Emergency office in Nairobi was, in
fact, manned by US Army officers and acted as the operational headquarters of the RPF. Finally,
not only did US Special Forces fight alongside the RPF during this period, but intercepted radio
messages from Kagame to his forces in the field suggest that both Belgian and Canadian forces
were involved as well.
Operating, then, under the Orwellian pretext of ‘hunting for genocidaires’, Kagame & Co.
conducted a decade long invasion/occupation of Zaire/Congo. The overall strategic thrust of this
assault was threefold. First, it was an attack on French interests in Africa, interests that were
immediately taken over by the United States. Second, the assault was part and parcel of the
overthrow of Mobutu (toppled in May of 1997). Ultimately, however, the capture of the Congo
was about booty. As such, this single treasure chest contains not only large deposits of diamonds,
gold, copper, uranium and tantalum (used in computers and cell phones), but also much of the
world’s reserves of chrome, platinum and cobalt.
To the question then, ‘Whose genocides were they?’, the answer yet resounds through the din of
propaganda, ‘They were ours’.
Shaking Hands With The Devil
In assessing responsibility for the tragedy of Rwanda – and the ensuing events in Zaire/Congo –
we must not stop at those already indicted in this essay. For none of this could have happened
without the overt complicity of numerous ‘humanitarian’ NGOs including especially, Human
Rights Watch, which, in the early days prior to the RPF’s final solution, headed up a totally
bogus, unsubstantiated report (issued March 6, 1993) condemning (and so de-legitimizing in
advance) the Rwandan government for a ‘genocide’ that, in fact, had yet to take place – and which
would, in the event, be committed by the very agents it conspired to defend, i.e. the RPF. And,
naturally, none of this could have happened without the willing complicity of the Western mass
media who swallowed hook, line and sinker every piece of propaganda issued by the Clinton
Administration.
As Canadians we are more than ordinarily complicit as it was the Canadian government (under
Jean Chretien) that worked hand-in-glove with the Americans throughout this period. In
particular, of course, three Canadians, Louise Arbour, General Maurice Baril and General Romeo
Dallaire played leading roles in the ‘affair’. For services rendered they were, all three,
handsomely rewarded: Arbour, as already mentioned, with promotion as Supreme Court Justice
and thence as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Baril with promotion to Chief of Staff
of the Canadian Armed Forces (in Sept. 1997), and Dallaire with appointment as Canadian
Senator for life.
Of the three, however, Dallaire’s role is particularly noteworthy, for it is he who has, ever since,
been portrayed, and portrayed himself, as a hero in the Rwandan tragedy; and who has, as such,
been pre-eminently involved in spreading and maintaining the Big Lie with respect to it.
Dallaire’s 2003 epic, Shake Hands With the Devil, an ironically named Faustian tract, fails
spectacularly to elucidate the author’s otherwise well documented actions during the events.
It is well established, for instance, that Dallaire knew of – and, effectively, facilitated – the buildup of RPF forces inside Kigali prior to Habyarimana’s assassination. It is well established that
Dallaire, rather than reporting to and receiving orders from the UN, as was his mandate, was,
instead, reporting and receiving instructions from American military commanders. It is also a fact
that Dallaire, only two months prior to the assassination of Habyarimana, closed down one of the
only two runways into Kigali airport – upon request of the RPF. It is also the case that Dallaire
covered up the massacre by the RPF of MRND people elected in by-elections in the north of
Rwanda in November, 1993. Evidence presented at the ICTR further implicates Dallaire in
supplying intelligence to Kagame and the RPF forces throughout the period leading up to April 6,
1994.
Whenever Dallaire has faced formal questioning regarding his actions in Rwanda his testimony
has been strictly managed and censored. Attempts by independent journalists and investigators to
interview and question him have met with refusal and/or silence. And those questions are many
and serious. Apart from the items already listed, they include:
How did the lady prime minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, come to be murdered at the UN
development compound (the morning after Habyarimana had been assassinated) just a short time
after he, Dallaire, arrived there? Why did he do nothing to save the lives of the Belgian UN
soldiers – suspected of being the team that shot down Habyarimana’s plane – who were
subsequently killed at Camp Kigali?
Why, and under whose command, did Belgian army units in certain strategic positions in Kigali
abandon them and all their weapons to the RPF?
Why did UN army units attack FAR army units, but never the RPF? Why did he fail to report that
US forces, using Hercules C-130 aircraft, were supplying men and weapons to the RPF?
Why, when Dallaire had his headquarters at Amahoro stadium in Kigali after April 6 through the
rest of the month, did he allow RPF forces to enter and subsequently murder Hutu refugees who
had fled there for safety? And, of course, why did he lie about the ‘genocide fax’ of January 11,
1994?
Still, all in all, Dallaire was merely a bit player in a much larger drama, a drama written and
produced in Washington, D.C.
Of Credibility and Credulity
In the two decades that have elapsed since the overthrow of the Rwandan government – and the
subsequent killing of millions of it’s peoples, and those millions more killed in the Congo – the
Big Lie has flourished virtually unabated. Though the likes of Robin Philpot (‘Rwanda and the
New Scramble for Africa’), and Ed Herman and David Peters (‘The Politics of Genocide’) have,
of late, lent this revised narrative a slightly higher profile, more generally – and notably amongst
the Left – the ‘official’ narrative of Rwanda circa 1994 continues to hold sway. So much so that
Rwanda has become, in Philpot’s resonant phrasing, “a useful imperial fiction”, i.e. a shining
example of the ‘need for intervention’ that is deployed whenever and wherever ‘humanitarian
imperialism’ seeks to invade and destroy nations opposed to it.
It need not be so. At the very least amongst the Left, it should never have been so. In the early
days of the Rwandan debacle, one anomalous event stands out like the proverbial sore thumb
transparently pointing the way to what was really ‘going down’ in the beleaguered nation. That
event was the majority withdrawal in May of 1994 of the UN troops stationed in Rwanda, i.e.
essentially clearing the way for the unobstructed overthrow of the government. This one item
alone, irrespective of the fact that the corporate media habitually lies about virtually all matters of
significant political import, should have tipped off observers of the Great Game to the idea that
something rotten was taking place in the state of Rwanda. But it didn’t. And that, given what
subsequently transpired in Yugoslavia and later Libya – where again, significant sectors of the
Left bought into the official narrative – and given what is today transpiring in Syria and Ukraine,
is problematic.
If there is one lesson, then, that we can take from the tragic events adumbrated herein – and,
though hardly new, is a notion that bears vigorously reinforcing – it is that whatever information
is fed us by the state and by the corporate mass media with regard to fundamental global strategic
happenings, the only historically consistent and logical stance to take is to assume that the truth
lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction. This should be our default position, until proof is
rendered otherwise, in every instance.
In the meantime, to bear witness to the truth of what really happened in Rwanda falls to you. As
Noam Chomsky once wrote with regard to an earlier suite of imperial crimes, ‘For yours is an
historic mission, and one you should not soon forget.’
Antony Black [email protected]
Peter Erlinder (Global Reasearch : http://www.globalresearch.ca/rwandasuntold-story-who-was-behind-the-genocide/5406921)
Rwanda’s Untold Story: Who Was Behind the
Genocide?
BBC Documentary offers compelling case of Kagame as a War Criminal
By Prof Peter Erlinder
Global Research, October 08, 2014
Black Star News
Region: sub-Saharan Africa
Theme: Crimes against Humanity
Early reviews and reactions on social media, indicate that the BBC documentary “Rwanda’s
Untold Story” is changing the long-established “Rwanda genocide narrative” carefully crafted
by the victors in the 4-year war for power in Rwanda, with assistance from U.S. and UK allies.
As the U.K. Daily Telegraph’s critic Gerard O’Donovan observed in his four-out-of-five stars
review: “Interviewing academics, survivors and former henchmen of Kagame, Corbin embarked
on a forensic deconstruction of the official history of the genocide (which puts the blame entirely
on the Hutus). Studies by two American researchers suggested that hundreds of thousands of
Hutus could have been killed too, possibly by RPF forces. A UN report expressing similar
concerns had allegedly been suppressed. Belgian historian Prof Filip Reyntjens suggested that
Kagame could be one of the ‘most important war criminals still in office today’”.
Reporter Jane Corbin and Producer John Conroy reveal, through documentary evidence and firsthand accounts, that the Clinton and Blair administrations began covering-up Rwanda President
Paul Kagame’s role in the April 6, 1994 presidential assassinations of Juvenal Habyarimana and
Cyprien Ntayarmira that triggered Rwanda’s Genocide, almost immediately.
This U.S. and UK-sponsored impunity for Kagame’s and the RPF’s crimes in Rwanda and Congo
from 1993 to the present, for “genocides in plain sight,” reported in UN and State Department
documents, have cost more than 5 million lives. In Rwanda, a brutal dictatorship reigns at
gunpoint.
In the BBC documentary, “Rwanda’s Untold Story”, interviews with the former UN officials;
former RPF officials; and contemporaneous documents make out a compelling case that the
evidence of Kagame’s culpability for the assassination of Habyarimana and Ntayarmira has long
been in the hands of the UN Prosecutor:
·
Former Chief Prosecutor del Ponte in this documentary confirms she had the evidence to
prosecute Paul Kagame and his RPF military for the assassinations and war crimes as early as
2002, but was removed from her UN office by the U.S. and UK in 2003 when she tried;
·
Former FBI Special Agent James Lyons explained that he was a member of the elite UN
investigative team in early 1997 that recommended then-Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour
prosecute Kagame for the assassinations and other war crimes, Arbour fired the investigative team
including Lyons;
·
Col. Marchal, second-in-command to Gen. Dallaire in the UN Mission to Rwanda,
explained how the assassination of President Habyarimana was part of the military strategy of the
aggressive and militarily superior RPF army to de-stabilize the defending Habyarimana forces;
and,
·
RPF Lt. Ruyenzi, formerly of Kagame’s personal Headquarters detail now in exile,
explained Kagame’s elated reactions with other military leaders on the night of the assassination,
when the orders for the final assault for power were given.
·
The September 1994 Memo to President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Warren
Christopher confirms the Clinton Whitehouse was informed of mass RPF crimes two months
before the U.S. voted to establish the UN Tribunal for Rwanda.
·
Former Chief of Staff Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, another former Chief of Staff admitted to
his role in the conspiracy to assassinate Habyarimana, as described in Indictments issued by
French and Spanish Judges.
·
Another former Chief of Staff, Dr. Theogene Rudesingwa admitted to his role in the coverup in a voice-over while the visual showed his meetings with President Clinton during
Rudesingwa’s term as Rwandan Ambassador to the U.S.
The one-hour documentary: “Rwanda’s Untold Story,” that aired on Oct. 1, 2014 is the first
mainstream media telling of the narrative that was revealed in documentary evidence at the UN
International Tribunal for Rwanda as early as 2007, and in public statements to the UN Security
Council by Carla del Ponte in 2002 before she was removed from office.
The narrative heard by the UN Tribunal, supported by UN and USG documentary evidence,
describes the RPF as the military aggressor that intentionally triggered mass violence as a military
strategy, using the same scenario that occurred after Burundi’s President was assassinated in
October 1993 when some 200,000 Hutu peasants were massacred by the Burundian army which
was Tutsi-controlled.
The evidence before the UN Tribunal for Rwanda resulted in the entire military-political
leadership of the defeated government of Juvenal Habyarimana being acquitted of long-term
planning or conspiracy to commit genocide, or other war crimes, against civilian Tutsis prior to
mass violence breaking out in reaction to the assassinations of the two presidents on April 6,
1994.
The narrative of “Rwanda’s Untold Story” reflects the central facts of “the Rwanda genocide”
narrative first described, in court, as the “alternative description of the mass violence that swept
Rwanda” in the November 2007 Ntabakuze Defense ICTR Trial Brief. The alternative narrative
resulted in the acquittals of the Military-1 defendants on all charges of “conspiracy and planning
to commit genocide” in December 2008.
Thiery Cruvalier, writing in The International Justice Tribune in December 2011, when the UN
Appeal Chamber agreed that the supposed “architect of Rwanda’s genocide” Col. Theoneste
Bagosora and his three co-defendants, committed no crimes before Habyarimana’s plane was shot
down, said the Rwanda genocide was “Brainless” because there was no evidence it was planned,
or the result of a conspiracy.
By December 2013, the Appeal Chamber had upheld these acquittals as did the Trial Chambers in
the Military-2 and Government-1 and 2 trials.
This is also the point of my 2013 book, “The Accidental Genocide,” which relies on original UN
and United States Government (USG) documents, to describe the “logic” of the four-years of war
given the imbalance of forces created by the RPF becoming the major military power in the region
between January 1991 and January 1993 while in the Virunga Mountains in Uganda.
The RPF grew by ten-fold in the number of troops under arms and was transformed from a
defeated conventional army of “NRA Ugandan-Rwandan deserters” to a highly effective light
infantry capable of seizing power, according to Gen. Dallaire in his Reconn. Report to the UN
Security Council in September 1993. This rapid transformation in two years on Ugandan territory
required nation-state sponsorship. Then as now, the UK is Uganda’s largest donor and its Ministry
of Defense (MOD) a major supplier.
In “Rwanda’s Untold Story,” interviews with U.S. academics, Dr. Allan Stam and Dr. Christian
Davenport of the U. of Michigan and former ICTR Prosecution experts shed light on the RPF
government’s claims that 300,000 Tutsi remained in Rwanda after the genocide. Census and UN
figures show 500,000 were present before the genocide. If, there were “1,000,000 victims” as the
world has been told in the popular account, the vast majority of those killed must have been
Hutus, or the size of the tragedy must have been more in keeping with the “Burundi genocide” of
October 1993 in which some 200,000 to 300,000 Hutu peasants were killed by the Burundian
Tutsi-controlled and dominated military. In any case, a very large number of Hutu-victims must
be included in “the victims of the genocide” as these experts and the documentary show.
However, in Rwanda such a suggestion is a crime that resulted in 2010 Rwandan Presidential
candidate Victoire Ingabire being sentenced to 17 years in prison for asking where can “the
memorials to Hutu victims” be found? The “Rwanda genocide” is now called the “Genocide
against the Tutsi” and all Hutu are required to accept their collective guilt for crimes committed
against the Tutsi, when in fact all could not have been involved. All of which give lie to the claim
by the RPF government that “there are no ethnicities in Rwanda, anymore.” Ethnic discrimination
is hardwired into Rwandan society through the mechanism of collective guilt and punishment.
Some commentators have expressed amazement that, despite the shocking nature of these
revelations there is very little that is “new” in the BBC documentary. Most of the sources and
documentary evidence has been available for years and has been hiding in plain sight.
Much of it can be found in the records of the UN Tribunal for Rwanda, although this database has
been made virtually impenetrable for the untrained.
The BBC has “broken the spell” of organized denial regarding the role of Paul Kagame and his
U.S. and UK allies in sponsoring and covering-up their own role in the Rwanda genocide, and the
resulting 20-years of massive human misery in central Africa.
It’s time for other mainstream media to experience a similar awakening from quiescent slumber
that permits monstrous crimes of U.S.-supported criminals to continue unchecked by public
opinion, much less the rule of law.
Erlinder is Director, International Humanitarian Law Institute, St. Paul, MN; past-President of
the National Lawyers Guild, NY, NY; past-President of UN-ICTR Association des Avocats de la
Defense, Arusha, Tanzania; Professor of Law (ret.) Wm. Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, MN.
Veritas info news : http://www.veritasinfo.fr/2014/10/bbc-to-express-ourgratitude-on-behalf-of-rwandan-young-people.html
BBC: TO EXPRESS OUR GRATITUDE ON BEHALF OF
RWANDAN YOUNG PEOPLE
Publié le 8 octobre 2014 par veritas
Jane Corbin
October 7, 2014
Dear Jane Corbin of the BBC This World,
Allow us to sincerely thank you for the effort, time and wisdom you invested in the work you
have done and revealed it to the world regarding the Untold Stories of Rwanda. We know it has
not been an easy walk for you and your production team. But, whatever the pain and
humiliation you might have gone to seek the truth for us, The Rwandan Youth know that it has
set us free.
It is not that easy to reveal such astonishing facts about our history, which has been marred by
the world’s highest well-kept secret and conspiracy. Numerous people who have wanted to tell
the same truths are few, you joined them by going ahead sacrificed everything just for us to
tell our story. It requires a strong and courageous heart and soul to stand up for the voiceless.
It calls for the love of humanity and determination to bring justice to the Rwandan victims,
Hutus, Twa and Tutsis, as well in order to build a new Rwandan order built on truth. Once
again 80% of Rwandan youth scattered all over the world both within and without Rwanda, we
say” THANK YOU.”
YOUR WORK ON RWANDA’S UNTOLD STORY IS A REMINDER
As we sat in our thatched houses with a dim light on top of one the thousand hills of Rwanda
we watched in disbelief that there is still someone out there who does not want to swallow the
truth and chew the lies from Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, and the “Greatest” Mega-evangelist
Pastor Rick Warren. These powerful men go around saying that all is well in Rwanda and yet we
Rwandans we know very well that this is a lie. They carry out media campaigns and pay heavily
to the best Public Relations firms from both New York and London to construct lies and send
them around the world saying that Kagame stopped the Rwandan genocide, brought
reconciliation in Rwanda, and built skyscrapers on Mt Jali in Kigali. However, they never bother
to ask Rwandans themselves, especially those who were 5 or 10 years old when Kagame
launched an assault on Kigali. They never read about how intimidated and fearful we look when
the name Kagame is uttered.
They never ask us about the last time we had a meal and yet we only live 20 Km away from the
fancy buildings in Kigali. Nevertheless, you defied all the Rwandan odds and soldered on to find
the truth. Not only did you find the truth and keep it to yourself as millions of Westerners do,
you went ahead and put both your life and work on the line because you believed it was the
right thing to tell the world “The Rwanda’s Untold Story” of oppression and fear. As the youth
of Rwanda, we are not allowed to walk on the streets of Kigali with either barefoot or in
sandles locally known as “Kambambili.” This is because Kigali wants to look clean at the
expense of poor Rwandans. When we are told that we opt to stay at home and languish of
hunger because we cannot be allowed to access the marketplace least we encounter the
famous local defence forces. We then end up either beaten to death or in thrown in River
Nyabugogo and are then collected by the Burundian fishermen, but if we are lucky we will be
thrown behind the bars.
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY CONSPIRACY AND THE RWANDAN REFUGEES
We, the Rwandan Youth living inside and outside of Rwanda, have seen a lot. We witnessed our
parents being butchered by the RPF and the Ugandan army in Byumba, Ruhengeri, and Kigali.
The international community stood at a distance as long as their man Paul Kagame was
winning. We became orphans and no one cared for us. In 20 years, Jane Corbin is the only
journalist from popular international media house such as BBC, has ever bothered to know what
happened to our parents between 1990 and 1994. We grew up by our own. Those who survived
the Kagame’s RPF onslaught simply because we were Hutus gathered in Nyacyonga refugee
camp until 1994 when the RPF came to clean what had been left. Those who survived went all
the way to Kibeho.
UN Peacekeepers from UK, Canada, and Australia were present when we were shelled at close
range as hunted as pigs. We died in thousands but UN, US, UK, and UNHCR were the first to
minimize the number from over 6000 Rwandan Hutu Refugees’ bodies to a mere 2000 just to
convince the world that their preferred man Paul Kagame did not do anything wrong. All of the
international media conspired to say that those who were killed in a refugee camp of Kibeho
were interahamwe but we all know that our parents formed a refugee camp within Rwanda
because they were tired. The majority of them were pregnant women who couldn’t run any
further. Others were our elderly grandparents who, because of their advanced age, had
reached the end and surrendered to a force they knew was not going to spare their lives
regardless whether they were a Septuagenarian or Nonagenarian as long as you were a Hutu
you deserved a bullet on your head. Kofi Annan was watching and cheering as our throats were
being slit systematically. Twenty years on, only Jane Corbin has ever dared to tell the world
what happened to our beloved ones.
WHEN OUR MOTHERS’ BODIES BECAME A NEW BRIDGE TO CROSS RIVER LUBUTU IN MANIEMA
Those who survived the Kibeho massacre as
children between 4 to 11 years old we moved on to Eastern DRC. Kagame had not had enough
of us. He said on the radio that he would follow us across the border and butcher us. He was
right. Bill Clinton was still his president and Tony Blair was eyeing for a new job opportunity in
Rwanda, as the phone companies wanted their own share from DR Congo’s natural resources so
that the world can have iPhone. It did not take long before the RPF, Uganda, and Burundi
military were given a green light to come and exterminate all Rwandan Hutu refugees living in
DR Congo regardless of their age, gender, and criminal record. We, the Rwandan Youth,
remember vividly as it was just yesterday when Kagame’s men descended into Kibumba,
Katale, Nyangezi, and other refugee camps shooting at any living creature. Hundreds of
thousands lost their lives there but some of us ran for our life. We entered into the dense
forests of Congo and walked over 2000 Km on foot until Tingi Tingi. The UN, USA, UK were not
happy to see the Rwandan Hutu refugees still alive. They continued their smear campaigns in
their media that only Interahamwe have refused to go back to Rwanda.
More than 300 people are writing to you in this letter now and we are now in our late twenties.
How could we have become Interahamwe even before we could know how to say that word? I
am sure Mr. Kofi Anan, Bill Clinton, Pastor Rick Warren, Tony Blair and Louise Arbour have
answers for you. They wanted all of us dead so that their heinous actions in Rwandan and
Congolese affairs will never come to light but thank God that even after 20 years there are still
people who are yarning for to seek the truth of what really happened in Rwanda.
Thank God that today both Hutus and some Tutsis can come together and tell the world what
really happened in Rwanda. Twenty Five years on, the children of all Rwandans regardless of
their tribal affiliation still support people like Jane Corbin who stand up for the truth and
nothing but the truth regardless of political implications. We the Rwandan youth represent
more than 80% of all Rwandans youth from inside Rwanda and outside of Rwanda in the
following countries:
US, UK, FRANCE, CANADA, NETHERLAND, BRAZIL, SOUTH AFRICA, ZAMBIA, DRC, KENYA,
AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, JAPAN, CHINA, INDIA, UGANDA, TANZANIA, MALAWI, ZIMBABWE,
THE REPUBLIC OF CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE), CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, BENIN, SENEGAL, and
other countries not mentioned here.
We strongly support the brave BBC this world Rwanda’s untold story documentary yourself and
your production team has brought to light. We want to let you know we the Rwandan Youth
and our fallen parents love the journalist Jane Corbin for her incredible work she has done to
expose the long held conspiracy and give Rwandans the truth they deserve.
Habimana Rukundo
Rwandan Youth for Change
Uwamahoro Vestine
Kakuma Refugees Camp in Kenya
Bimenyimana Albert
RDI-Rwanda Rwiza Youth of Rwanda
Bayizere Christine
Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi
Habimana Gerard
Rwandan Youth Refugees in Republic of the Congo
TO SUPPORT AND TELL JANE CORBIN THANK YOU;
Ahishakiye Sebahungu
Amani Alphonse
Bigilimana Adam
Bizimana Albert
Bizimungu Laurent
Dusenge Kamaliza
Dusengimana Eric
Habimana Joseph
Habiyaremye Bosco
Hakizimana Gasana
Harerimana Jean Paul
Hirwa Jean Pierre
Irakuze Alexis
Iyaremwe Mupenzi
Maniraho Antony
Manishimwe Karisa
Mushimiyimana Paul
Mvuyekure Elisa
Ndagijimana Gilbert
Ndayambaje Hubert
Ndayambaje Safari
Ngirurukundo Alice
Niwemugabo Jean paul
Nkurunziza Martin
Nsabayesu Jean Paul
Nsanzimana Issac
Nsengimana Minani
Nsengiyumva Samuel
Ntakirutimana Innocent
Ntawumenya Charity
Nzabonimpe Alphonse
Nzarora Patrick
Nzengiyumva Alexis
Sindikubwabo Timothy
Singirankabo Gregory
Tuyishime Bernard
Tuyishime Felicien
Uwimana Alice
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/Rwanda/Opinion/BBC-Rwandadocumentary-tells-us-that-taboos-have-a-lifespan-//1433246/2482208/-/121vm8l/-/index.html
OPINION
BBC’s Rwanda documentary tells us
that taboos have a lifespan
Frank Kagabo
By FRANK KAGABO
Posted Friday, October 10 2014 at 19:24
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In the aftermath of the recently aired BBC documentary about Rwanda, the 1994 Genocide against the
Tutsi as well as the leadership of President Paul Kagame, it is obvious that Rwandans not aligned to the
different tendencies in the struggle for power will find engaging in a debate about the country’s recent
history complicated.
Not that they lack the necessary abilities to do so but the real trouble is, being misunderstood and what that
may portend. Some things have for a long time been regarded as taboo. You don’t go there. But now, not
for everyone any longer.
Rwanda’s Untold Story by veteran journalist and documentary filmmaker Jane Corbin has received the
expected negative reaction from Kigali and its supporters.
Although Corbin lowers her commitment to the allegations made against the ruling party, the Rwanda
Patriotic Front (RPF), and its leadership by its known opponents, that has not prevented some critics from
lumping her work into the basket of genocide denial.
A number of assertions made by some of the sources quoted in the documentary can, perhaps, only be
believed if corroborated by independent sources.
But, by refusing to participate in this important piece of journalism, Kigali probably missed an opportunity
to dismantle some of the allegations.
For example, the population figures of the country in 1994 would have been used to give a clearer picture
of how many people may have died, as well as their ethnicity. At least for this story.
Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky, eminent scholars at University of Pennsylvania, put forward and
have over the years argued for the Propaganda Model as a framework for understanding behaviour of
mainstream media.
In their book, Manufacturing Consent, they argue that in countries with no overt censorship, where media
freedom is said to be obvious, mainstream media serves the interests of the elite both in politics and the
corporate world.
The BBC documentary is either an example of how irrelevant that model can be or the fact that the interests
of the British elite in regard to a subject, Rwanda, could be shifting.
If we are to go by what people like Carla Del Ponte say, that the United Nations Security Council —
specifically its veto-wielding members the United States and the United Kingdom — blocked
investigations into war crimes, allegedly committed by RPF, we can say that British elite interests have for
the past 20 years been aligned with those of the Kigali administration.
Certainly, there has been strong support for Kigali from the elite in both Labour and Conservative. They
have even earned themselves the label “groupies” from former Kagame aide Dr David Himbara.
In a diatribe against Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa, Job Jabiro, then a prolific writer, once claimed that
Rwandans do not spend time stargazing their rulers. Not so for some British elite when in Kigali — for
they are allegedly Kagame’s “groupies.”
Implicit is that they are all in love with Kagame, want to be around him, want a piece of him. He is the star.
The hero. And, in some aspects, and for some Rwandans, he certainly is.
If Kigali, from the examples above, is a darling of the British elite, how come the BBC, another bastion of
public school, Oxbridge-educated media executives, members of the elite of class-conscious Britain, would
not abide by that elite interest in British relations with Rwanda?
http://www.anngarrison.com/audio/2014/10/11/530/bbc-askswhat-really-happened-in-rwanda
KPFA Weekend News, 10.11.2014
A new BBC documentary challenges the world's most basic beliefs about the
Rwandan Genocide.
Opening scene of Rwanda, the Untold Story
Transcript:
KPFA Weekend News Anchor Sharon Sobotta: Last week, a new BBC
documentary titled "Rwanda: The Untold Story" upended the world’s basic beliefs
about what really happened during the
Rwandan
Most of the world
knows the Rwandan Genocide as the story told in the Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda.
The new BBC documentary tells a radically different story.war and genocide of the
1990s..
The history that the documentary challenges is not legally enforced in the United
States, as it is in Rwanda, but it is ideologically central to U.S. foreign policy. The
bombing of both Libya and Syria were prefaced by U.S. officials’ urgent warnings
that we must - quote unquote - "stop the next Rwanda." KPFA’s Ann Garrison filed
this report.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: With “Rwanda: The Untold Story,” the BBC became the first
media outlet of its size and influence to radically challenge the received history of the
Rwandan Genocide, which has become such a centerpiece of US and NATO
interventionist policies.
The documentary opens with the question it attempts to answer.
BBC Host Jane Corbin: Rwanda, a country dominated by its dark history. The
senseless barbarity of the genocide still shocks us. We think we know the story., but
do we?
Alan Stam: What the world believes and what actually happened are quite different.
BBC: Rwanda's ruled by President Kagame, regarded by many as the savior of his
country. But what kind of man is Paul Kagame?
Kayumba Nyamwasa: We have a dictator. We have a man who is a serial killer,
who enjoys killing his citizens.
BBC: He's a man with powerful friends.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair: The President of Rwanda is someone
I've got a lot of respect for, a lot of time for, and I think he has got a vision for the
country.
Filip Reyntjens: Their closeness is a closeness with what I call the most important
war criminal in office today.
BBC:: Twenty years on from the genocide, what is the truth about Rwanda?
KPFA: University of Michigan Professor Alan Stam, who did ten years of research in
Rwanda with Notre Dame Professor Christian Davenport, contradicts the most basic
statistics recounted in the Wikipedia
University of Michigan Professor Allan Stam on the BBCand parroted by journalists
for the past 20 years.
Alan Stam: If a million people died in Rwanda, in 1994, and that’s certainly
possible, there’s no way that the majority of them could be Tutsi.
BBC: How do you know that?
Stam: Because there weren’t enough Tutsi in the country.
BBC: The academics calculated there had been 500,000 Tutsis before the conflict in
Rwanda. Three hundred thousand survived. This led them to their final, controversial
conclusion.
Stam: If a million Rwandans died, and 200,000 of them were Tutsi, that means
800,000 of them were Hutu.
BBC: That’s completely the opposite of what the world believes happened in the
Rwandan Genocide.
Stam: What the world believes and what actually happened are quite different.
BBC: Estimates of the number of Tutsis and Hutus killed during the genocide vary
greatly. The Rwandan government asserts there were far more Tutsi in the country
to begin with, and that nearly all of those who died were Tutsis. When Stam and
Davenport presented their findings, they were told to leave Rwanda, accused of
being genocide deniers.
Stam: We have never denied that a genocide happened.. We don’t deny a genocide
happened. But that’s only part of the story.
KPFA: The BBC documentary only hints at US and UK complicity in what happened,
and in the cover-up, by reporting that Rwandan President Paul Kagame has very
powerful friends, including Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. And by noting that the US
military trained General Paul Kagame, just before he led the 1990 invasion of
Rwanda from Uganda, because they noted, quote unquote “his military potential.”
For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.
The BBC video is available at http://vimeo.com/107867605.
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-BBC-and-the-Rwandan-Genocide-201410110029.html
The BBC and the Rwandan
Genocide
Hutu and other Rwandan children (wikicommons)
Published 11 October 2014
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The untold story is that of the crimes committed by the winners in the
Rwandan civil war, and especially the crimes committed by the
biggest winner who took all, Kagame, Rwanda's president for the past
20 years.
At the beginning of October 2014, the BBC aired a documentary called Rwanda: The Untold
Story. The outlet, the BBC, and the producer and presenter, Jane Corbin, don't just possess
impeccable mainstream credentials - they define the mainstream in the West. The one hour
documentary is intended for a British audience, and Britain is a bigger supporter of Rwanda and
its ruler, Paul Kagame, than even the US. Up until now, in Western media, scholarship, and
commentary, the Hutus as a community have been held solely responsible for the Rwandan
genocide of 1994, and Kagame held up as Rwanda's savior. The titular untold story is that of the
crimes committed by the winners in the Rwandan civil war, and especially the crimes committed
by the biggest winner who took all, Kagame, Rwanda's president for the past 20 years.
In the documentary, Corbin talks to Rwandan dissidents who were once close to Kagame, but are
now exiled and hunted - Kagame's former army chief of staff, Kayumba Nyamwasa, has survived
four assassination attempts so far. Kagame's former intelligence chief, Patrick Karageya, was not
so lucky, and was strangled in a hotel room in South Africa in January of this year. The
documentary shows Kagame at a prayer meeting after Karageya's assassination telling the crowd
that anyone who crosses Rwanda will pay the price, and that "it's a matter of time." Details of
assassination plots are provided by another exile, who fled the country rather than carry out a
killing of these dissidents for Kagame.
Corbin also talks to a Hutu survivor, Marie, who was a school girl, whose family sheltered Tutsi
children from the anti-Tutsi genocide in 1994, and who then fled and was hunted in the jungles of
the Congo, along with hundreds of thousands of others, when Kagame's forces invaded the DR
Congo in 1996, and who can't go back to Rwanda. Marie estimates that 10% of organized Hutu
forces participated in the genocide - but all Hutus were hunted, indiscriminately, by Kagame's
forces in the Congo. Marie's conclusions are similar to those reached by Robert Gersony, the
author of a report on the Hutu refugees who were being killed in large numbers by Kagame's
forces. The report was suppressed, as the BBC documentary notes - in order to protect Kagame
from criticism.
The Gersony report was not the only suppression of evidence which international institutions
engaged in to protect Kagame. When Carla Del Ponte, the prosecutor for the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) began investigations into crimes by Kagame's forces, Del
Ponte tells Corbin in the documentary, she was told by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General,
that the ICTR was political, and that there would be no tolerance for investigations into crimes
committed by the winners in the war, only by the losers. When former FBI investigators were
looking into the shooting down of the plane of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi in 1994, an
event that helped set the genocide in motion, they told Corbin, they were told to stop by Louise
Arbour, then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and well known Canadian human rights
advocate. Successive, well-documented UN reports on the exploitation of natural resources in the
Congo and of human rights violations there, all of which attribute primary responsibility to Rwanda
and Kagame, have been filed and ignored.
The BBC report also talks to academic experts who rarely get a hearing despite being among the
most knowledgeable people on Rwanda: political scientists Christian Davenport and Allan Stam,
and political scientist Fillip Reyntjens. Anyone who studies Central Africa knows Reyntjens for his
role in compiling the annual L'Afrique des grands lacs journal, as well as his articles and books.
Davenport and Stam are known for compiling all of the numbers and data sources on deaths in
the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Unlike Reyntjens, they are not experts on the region, but have
worked to come to solid conclusions based on solid methodology and the available evidence.
Good scholars, their academic publications show all of their data and the process by which they
arrived at their conclusions, so that readers can come to their own conclusions.
What are their conclusions? In other words, what is this untold story that is so shocking, 20 years
later? To look into it requires some careful study of the death counts, which, while simultaneously
gruesome and dehumanizing, is politically important. One scholar, Gerard Prunier, who wrote one
of the standard accounts of the Rwandan genocide, and who was at the time very sympathetic to
Kagame and the RPF (more recently, like others close to Kagame, he has had experiences that
drove him out of sympathy), reasoned as follows based on the 1991 Rwandan census and a
growth rate of 3.2%. The Rwandan government said Tutsis were 9% of the population, 700,000
people, but Prunier bumps this up to 12%, 930,000 people. Based on figures of Tutsi survivors
after the genocide, of 130,000 in refugee camps, Prunier estimated roughly 800,000 Tutsi deaths
in the genocide.
Davenport and Stam, by contrast, encoded all of the massacres described in all of the human
rights reports, including Alison Des Forges's field study for Human Rights Watch, a definitive
report from African Rights, and government and other scholarly sources. Where the records
showed a range of casualties, Davenport and Stam included the range in their analysis. Using
this method, they produced a wide casualty range for the genocide and settled on a mean value
of 1,063,336 deaths. This is very close to Filip Reyntjens's estimates, which are based on tallies
made in refugee camps in the three years after the genocide. These estimates are between
1,069,643-1,143,225 deaths. Most of Davenport and Stam's 1,063,336 deaths, 891,295, were in
areas under Rwandan government control. A much smaller, but substantial number, 77,043, were
in areas under RPF control. Analyzing the available figures for Tutsi who survived the genocide,
between 130,000-300,000, the range of Hutu victims is as low as 28,573, but as high as 958,573.
Their best estimate, they tell Corbin, is of about one million killed in the genocide, 800,000 of
which were Hutu, and 200,000 of which were Tutsi. Thus in Davenport and Stam's estimation,
Hutus were the majority killed.
In Reyntjens's calculations, Tutsi were 10% of the population, or about 800,000 before the
genocide, and 600,000 Tutsi were killed. This means, according to Reyntjens, 500,000 Hutu were
killed. While not the majority, it is still nearly half of the victims.
How, if the Rwandan government set out to organize people to kill Tutsis in organized massacres,
could so many of their victims have been Hutus? For several reasons. The main reason cited by
Davenport is that the civil war and the massacres were creating massive displacement, of nearly
the entire population. Even though local organizations were responsible for the killing, and locally,
the killers could distinguish Hutu from Tutsi, in a situation where nearly everyone was fleeing from
somewhere, and in a situation where admitting to being Tutsi was certain death, killers would
have faced potential victims who were claiming to be Hutu, and killed them anyway. Many of the
people who were killed as Tutsi, were Hutu.
Hutus were the demographic majority, so if there was a random element as well as a systematic
element to the killing, this random element would led to many more random Hutu victims than
Tutsi. I would also add a third possibility: that many Hutu were killed trying to protect Tutsi. The
idea that the killers in the genocide were everyday Hutu neighbours of the Tutsi is quite
pervasive, but it is also likely that many of these Hutu neighbours tried to protect the Tutsi
members of their community and died doing so.
Davenport and Stam concluded from their analysis of the timing of the massacres that they
occurred in government-held areas just before the arrival of RPF troops. The pace of the killing
was set by the pace of the RPF advance. The Rwandan government turned away from its military
enemy and instead committed genocide against its own population.
This was, as the BBC documentary shows, a matter of complete indifference to Kagame. His
RPF rejected a peace deal with the Rwandan government because in his assessment, total
victory was within his grasp. The BBC documentary argues that Kagame did not stop the
genocide at all. Instead, it was actually the victims of the genocide who paid the price of the
RPF's victory. Contemporary footage, shown in the BBC documentary, shows Kagame telling the
camera that the killing is slowing down as the RPF advances, not because of the advance, but
because most of those who were to be killed had been killed.
I should note here that I disagree with writers Ed Herman and David Peterson on the
interpretation of this evidence. Herman and Peterson conclude that it was Kagame's RPF who did
the majority of the killings. In their book The Politics of Genocide, they suggest that “DavenportStam shy away from asserting the most important lesson of their work: not only that the majority
of killings took place in those theaters where the RPF “surged,” but also that the RPF was the
only well-organized killing force within Rwanda in 1994, and the only one that planned a major
military offensive.”
I disagree with Herman and Peterson because the RPF was not "the only well-organized killing
force within Rwanda in 1994". The RPF was fighting a "well-organized killing force", in the
Rwandan army and its militias, who turned primarily on the civilian population instead of fighting
Kagame's RPF forces.
The BBC documentary also does not accuse Kagame's RPF of primary responsibility in the
Rwandan genocide of 1994. The truth of Kagame's acts is bad enough without adding this crime:
Kagame's invasion and the civil war set the context for the genocide; Kagame's massacres of
Hutus in areas under RPF control were smaller in scale but were also crimes against humanity
and were also genocidal like the Rwandan government's massacres; Kagame's massacres, proxy
warfare, and occupation of the Congo have led to the deaths of, by best estimates, millions of
people; Kagame's suppression of human rights and freedom in Rwanda have created a brutal
dictatorship that has somehow been sold to the world as a developmental miracle.
Up until now, these discussions were impossible to have in the West, even on the left. One did
not have to argue, as Herman and Peterson do (incorrectly in my opinion) that Kagame
conducted the Rwandan genocide, to be labeled a genocide denier. Indeed, anyone who
suggested that Kagame's forces committed crimes against Hutu civilians in Rwanda and
Congolese civilians in the Congo was eventually labeled some kind of genocide denier, or a
proponent of something called double genocide theory. Rather than coming to some kind of
shared understanding of events in Rwanda, as Davenport and Stam tried to do, or as scholars
like Reyntjens and Rene Lemarchand have tried to do, proponents of Kagame's government
have smeared those who seek to understand the full magnitude of crimes and criminals in Central
Africa in the 1990s as genocide deniers. In doing so, they have of course participated in their own
kind of genocide denial, but worse than that, they have helped prevent any actual reckoning with
the past, any end to impunity, that might help prevent the repetition of genocides in the future,
including in the region. As Reyntjens said in the BBC documentary, there might presently be a lid
on the volcano there, but it may erupt again.
The BBC documentary is not perfect. It shows Tony Blair smiling all over the place next to
Kagame, and even a shot of Clinton, but a whole other hour could be spent with the evidence on
economic interests unearthed by the UN investigations into the exploitation of natural resources
in the Congo, the parallel genocides and wars in Burundi, the Western interventions that set all
these horrors in motion in the 1960s, and the disgraceful role of most Western media and
scholarship in covering it all up. But for one hour, on the BBC, it is a remarkable opening to think
about Central Africa and the West's role. It remains to be seen whether the BBC and Jane Corbin
will now be accused of genocide denial, or whether this documentary can help Westerners begin
to understand what they are actually supporting in Africa, in Reyntjens's words, "the most
important war criminal in office today”.
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page
71619?oid=745029&sn=Marketingweb+detail
Rwandans infuriated by BBC's genocide revisionism
Trevor Grundy
12 October 2014
Trevor Grundy writes on the fall-out in the UK from the documentary by journalist Jane Corbin called "This World:
Rwanda Untold"
Rwandans furious following BBC documentary that questions official line on genocide
London, England ( October 12) - - -Rwandans living in the UK have sent a petition to the BBC demanding that it
withdraws a documentary which they say gives a one-sided and completely wrong interpretation of the official
version of the 1994 genocide which led to the death of over one million people.
Rwandans say that they will continue demonstrating outside the BBC's Broadcasting House in central London
after insisting that the programme undermines Rwanda's unity and makes mockery of the BBC's reputation for
integrity and fairness.
On October 1, BBC Two screened a one-hour long documentary presented by the investigative journalist Jane
Corbin called "This World: Rwanda Untold."
th
Watched by millions on the 20 anniversary of one of the worst and most widely ignored (at the time) slaughters
in modern African history, the programme carried interviews with military and political enemies of President Paul
Kagame, men with prices on their heads and who live in day to day fear of assassination.
Viewers heard their claims that Kagame, the Tutsi head of state, is not only a ‘dictator' and ‘serial killer' but also
the brain behind the destruction of a plane that was carrying two African presidents. It was brought down close to
State House in Kigali on April 6, 1994.
One of the men was the President of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana and the other was the President of Burundi,
Cyprien Ntayyamira.
That crash sparked of the genocide that shook the world.
The killings went on for 100 days and the slaughter eventually made its way to Hollywood in the form of ‘Hotel
Rwanda' which was the story of how Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, housed a thousand Tutsi refugees
during their struggle against the Hutu militia.
Two excellent books followed - ‘We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families' by Philip
Gourevitch (Picador 1998) and ‘A People Betrayed" Linda Melvern ( NAEP, Cape Town / ZED Books, London
2000).
Kagame and his Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) claim that they stopped the massacres and that they went on to
re-build the former UN trust territory administered by Belgium after the First World War and which today is a
member of the Commonwealth.
Over the years, the tall, bespectacled Kagame has become one of the ‘darlings' of Western investors. He is close
to Tony Blair who advises him -free of charge, we are told - on political, economic and security issues.
Speaking from a safe house in Johannesburg, Rwanda's most wanted man (there is $1 million on his head) exRwanda Army Commander General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, told Corbin that his former boss is "a dictator
and serial killer."
Professor Filip Reyntjens of the University of Antwerp, described Kagame as "the most important war criminal in
office today" and Dr Theogene Rudasingwa, the Rwandan Government's former Chief of Staff (he presently lives
in exile in USA) said that the only people who survive under Kagame's stern rule are those who " simply keep
quiet."
Two American academics from the University of Michigan, Dr Allan Stam and Dr Christian Davenport, told the
BBC that they went to Rwanda in 1998 to investigate the massacres.
They said that everyone they met told them the same official line story - that one million died, 800,000 were Tutsis
and Kagame is a national hero and savior of Rwanda.
Stam and Davenport said after their investigations they found the exact opposite was the truth.
Said Stam: "As we looked more closely, a totally new understanding became clear. If one million people died in
Rwanda in 1994 - and that's certainly possible - there is no way that the majority of them could be Tutsis. There
weren't enough Tutsis in the country in 1994."
Both academics claimed that twenty years ago, the Tutsis in Rwanda numbered 500,000 and that after the
massacres there were 300,000 of them.
Stam said: "If a million Rwandans died and 200,000 were Tutsis then that means 800,000 of them were Hutus. It's
the exact opposite of the official story line. What the world believes and what actually happened are quite
different."
When they offered their finding to the Rwandan Government they were given deportation notices and branded as
‘genocide deniers.'
In Rwanda it is a crime to deny the official version of events - one million died, 800,000 were Tutsis. Stam said
that Kagame's version of what happened two decades ago is the foundation stone upon which he stands and
wins elections.
Said Reyntjens: "Someone criticizing the RPF for its human rights record is immediately accused of being a
genocide denier. Rwanda has been benefitting from what I call genocide credit. The RPF has such moral high
ground, it's unchallengeable."
"Untold Story" also carried interviews with Victoire Ingobire who, four years ago, was head of an opposition
coalition. In 2010 she challenged Kagame for the presidency but she never made the polls and is today in prison
after being handed out a sentence of eight years behind bars for genocide denial.
The BC programme revealed how, on the day Kagame was getting ready to fly off and attend Mandela's memorial
service in Johannesburg in December 2013, he increased her sentence from eight years to thirteen years.
Ingobire was shown several times wearing an orange prison uniform, her hair closely cropped, her eyes fixed on a
distant point, unblinking. This today is the fate of an opposition leader in a room full of Hutu war criminals who sat
still and silent listening to a prison officer read out a long list of their 1994 crimes.
These powerful and terrifying images have infuriated the Rwandan government its officials in London.
Speaking to "Great Lake Voices" on October 10, Dr Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, President of IBUKA
(Remember in English) said that there would be demonstrations outside the BBC's Broadcasting House in central
London.
He said: "This is to demonstrate our concern to the management of the BBC, sending messages that their
documentary was undermining Rwanda's unity and reconciliation achieved over twenty years."
He said that the genocide was committed against Tutsis but that the BBC documentary was trying to distort this
fact which it descried as "highly unfortunate."
Reacting to these complaints, a BBC spokesperson said: "The BBC strongly refutes the suggestion that any part
of the programme constitutes a denial of the genocide against the Tutsi. There are repeated referenced to the
mass killings of Tutsis by Hutus in 1994 and that this constituted genocide. The programme also includes an
interview with the director of the Genocide Museum at Murambi, a Tutsi and genocide survivor and a convicted
Hutu genocidaire who spoke of his part in the killing or thousands of Tutsis. The BBC has a duty to investigate
difficult and challenging subjects and we believe the programme is a valuable contribution to the understanding of
the tragic history of the country and the region and of the governance of Rwanda over the last twenty years."
http://www.agenceecofin.com/audiovisuel/1410-23500-lapolemique-enfle-autour-du-documentaire-de-la-bbc-sur-le-genociderwandais
La polémique enfle autour du documentaire de la
BBC sur le génocide rwandais
(Agence Ecofin) - « L’histoire du Rwanda jamais contée », voilà traduit le titre du documentaire intitulé
« Rwanda’s untold story ». Il a été réalisé puis diffusé le 1er octobre 2014 par la BBC, la chaîne de
télévision britannique. Depuis, la polémique ne cesse d’enfler, même si le gouvernement rwandais n’a
pas encore réagi officiellement.
Mais déjà ses relais ont pris les devants. Il s’agit d’un documentaire « extrêmement biaisé », pense
l’ambassadeur rwandais en Grande-Bretagne, Williams Nkurunziza, à qui la BBC a donné la parole. Il
y a également la sortie de Ibuka, un regroupement d’associations de rescapés du génocide de 1994,
proches du régime de Kigali. Une lettre a été adressée à la BBC qui est appelée à arrêter la diffusion
d’un documentaire qui nie la réalité du génocide.
Pourtant, un autre son de cloche se fait entendre : celui des partis politiques rwandais d'opposition,
des organisations de la société civile et des Rwandais de l’étranger. Une lettre a également été
adressée à la chaîne britannique. Parmi les signataires, il y a le Congrès national du Rwanda (RNC)
de Patrick Karegeya, l'ex-chef des renseignements rwandais retrouvé assassiné dans un hôtel en
Afrique du Sud le 1er janvier 2014. « La communauté rwandaise en Angleterre, représentée dans ses
différentes composantes, partis politiques, associations de rescapés, militants des droits de l'homme,
remercie la BBC pour avoir ouvert le débat sur ce qui s'est passé durant le génocide et dans les vingt
ans qui ont suivi »,lit-on sur le site de l'organisation Global Campaign for Rwandan Human Rights
(GCRHR), dirigée par l'activiste René Mugenzi, en exil.
Les détracteurs du documentaire reprochent à cette production de donner la parole uniquement à
ceux qui imputent la responsabilité du génocide à l’actuel président rwandais, Paul Kagame. L'ancien
chef d'Etat major de ce dernier, Kayumba Nyamwasa, affirme carrément que son ex-patron fut le
commanditaire de l’attentat contre l’avion du défunt président Juvénal Habyarimana, un crime commis
en connaissance des conséquences qui allaient suivre. La journaliste de la BBC, Jane Corbin, qui a
posé sa voix dans le documentaire, explique que toutes les personnes mises en cause, dont Paul
Kagame, ont été sollicitées pour réagir, en vain.
Le documentaire va plus loin en interviewant deux chercheurs américains, Christian Davenport et
Allan C. Stam, qui trouvent exagéré le million de morts avancé par le gouvernement rwandais. Et s’il y
a eu tant de victimes, celles-ci seraient en majorité des Hutus (800 000) et non l’inverse, tel que
retenu officiellement, ajoutent-ils. Hors du Rwanda, l’ancien Premier ministre britannique, Tony Blair,
l’Onu et les Etats-Unis sont accusés d’avoir protégé jusqu’ici les véritables coupables du génocide.
La voix de la BBC est arrivée par le biais d’un de ses porte-paroles qui réfute l’idée selon laquelle le
documentaire serait négationniste. Il précise que la chaîne de télé se réserve le droit de répondre à
Ibuka. Un militant rwandais des droits de l'Homme ironise en ces termes : « Tout le long du
documentaire, les auteurs disent que toute personne qui remet en cause l'histoire officielle est
accusée d'être négationniste. »
http://www.theproxylake.com/2014/10/the-truth-will-set-you-freebut-first-it-will-piss-you-off/
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off”
by Jenn Ella • 14/10/2014
By Jennifer Fierberg
Recently, BBC Two in London produced a compelling documentary which featured prominent
leaders from the Rwandan opposition, scholars, genocide survivors and former RPF members
who all testified to their knowledge of what happened in 1994 during the Rwandan Genocide as
well as how President Paul Kagame rules his country today.
The goal of this program was clear in its title, “Rwanda: The Untold Story.” Reporter Jane Corbin
set out on a fact finding mission and showed great courage in telling a side of Rwandan history
that the current government wants to hide. Her bravery has found her answering questions that, I
am certain, she can handle without stress. However, President Paul Kagame’s lobby in London
has decided to write a letter of complaint against her and the BBC Two demanding an apology
and retraction. The signatories on this letter come from different professions who all state they
are genocide experts on Rwanda. Interestingly not one signatory is a Rwandan. All of these
individuals are paid by President Kagame and if his funds were cut off I have no doubt these
signatories would find a new gainful cause to rally for.
In an effort to support Jane Corbin many Rwandans and friends of Rwanda are writinng to the
BBC on behalf of Ms. Corbin in support of her journalistic efforts to tell a story that has many
sides. Below is the letter written by one of the participants in the film, Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa.
His letter to the BBC is published in full below:
MY PERSONAL AND OPEN LETTER TO BBC’S TONY HALL
Mr. Tony Hall,
Director-General of the BBC,
Broadcasting House, Portland Place
London. W1A 1AA
October 14, 2014.
Dear Mr. Hall,
I am writing to express my deep gratitude to BBC for the courageous undertaking to produce and
and broadcast the documentary, Rwanda’s Untold Story. As you have witnessed in the last few
days since the broadcast, the documentary has provoked strong passions on either side of the
Rwanda debate, thus confirming that BBC’s endeavor has responded to an un-met need for
dialogue and debate in contemporary Rwandan society. Despite relentless noise from President
Paul Kagame’s brutal dictatorship, both open and disguised, BBC should be proud that it has
made a contribution to Rwanda’s search for the whole truth upon which a safe and shared future
for all Rwandans must be built.
Allow me to take liberty to use this thank you note to express utter dismay and grave concern
about the content in a letter that a group of people calling themselves scholars, scientists,
researchers, journalists and historians wrote to you on October 12, 2014. While I do not doubt
their credentials, their attempt to silence the BBC and Rwandans, in defense of the Kigali regime,
should be strongly condemned by all truth-loving peoples.
I cannot claim to be a distinguished scholar, scientist, researcher, journalist or historian. However,
in my own country Rwanda, and about Rwandans, I do make a claim that I am a good student
who has knowledge about our shared history, our present, and struggles for a secure future for
all.
I am a Tutsi. My father was killed during an earlier round of violence (the Hutu Revolution of
1959) when I was a baby. Three quarters of my life I have been a refugee, first from a “Hutu”
regime, and now from a “Tutsi” one. During the civil war of 1990-1994, I was an emissary of the
now ruling Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), knocking on the doors of uncaring and insensitive
governments, and personalities, some of whom co-signed the shameful letter to you. I was RPF’s
Secretary General during the 1994 genocide, in which many of my relatives, and friends perished.
I have served Rwanda as its Ambassador to the United States, and as President Paul Kagame’s
Chief of Staff. I was a vigorous architect and defender of the realm as defined by the RPF in post1994 Rwanda. In short, I know what I am talking about. I am not the kind of person to deny,
minimize, or revise genocide.
Since 2010, I have served Rwandans as a leader of one of the opposition groups in exile, the
Rwanda National Congress (RNC). It is in this latter capacity that I have crossed the dangerously
cruel ethnic divide to appreciate the immense suffering and fear that feed both the violence and
dictatorship in Rwanda.
I am not therefore surprised that President Kagame’s regime would react violently against BBC’s
Rwanda’s Untold Story. The regime has methodically and persistently assassinated or jailed
those who have sought to tell the truth. Deceptions and denials are the heart of undemocratic
regimes, both ancient and modern. What I am yet to understand fully is what motivated the
“scholars, scientists, researchers, journalists and historians” to become such forceful yet absurd
apologetics of a regime that exhibits genocidal characteristics as the BBC documentary attempts
to highlight. Is it ignorance? Surely not, for these are learned fellows. Is it money that the regime
habitually dishes out to its apologetics? Probably not all of them, since some are honorable
people. Is it ego that causes people to get mired deeper into falsehoods that have become part of
a seductive industry rather than confront the truth? Only time will tell.
First, the “scholars, scientists, researchers, journalists and historians” say,
“We accept and support that it is legitimate to investigate, with due diligence and respect for
factual evidence, any crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and to reflect on
the contemporary political situation in Rwanda”
This is precisely what the BBC story tries to tell. It tells the story of the shooting down of President
Habyarimana’s plane that triggered the genocide and massacres; the Robert Gersony report that
was shelved in a conspiratorial manner; the Kibeho massacres; the horrendous human rights
abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo; the incarceration of political leaders who call for
accountability; the assassination and assassination attempts on political opponents whom the
regime believes have a credible story to tell; the protection of the Kagame regime from
accountability by the U.K. and U.S. governments; the marginalization or silencing of international
prosecutors who would have investigated the regime’s crimes; and, the scandalous towing of the
Kigali regime’s narrative that is all too obvious in the international system.
The authors of the letter should tell us if they, individually or collectively, ever investigated the
crimes committed by the Kagame RPF regime. They conveniently picked what they could
brandish against those who call for the whole truth, in an effort to intimidate them into silence. By
calling them supporters and collaborators of convicted genocidaires, or apologetics of “Hutu
Power”, the authors of the letter are recycling an old intimidation method of the regime that has
worked for the last twenty years but which inevitably draws close to expiry.
Second, on the question of numbers of Tutsi who were killed during the genocide I am not
persuaded to agree with the figure of 200, 000 given by the American Professors. At the same
time, post-1994 history was written by the victorious Tutsi RPF, which had an obvious interest in
giving its own version of the high number of victims, (800,000-1 million), which the guilty
international community was compelled to accept as gospel truth. Notably, the authors do not
even talk about Hutu who were killed before, during and after the genocide. Do the authors
subscribe to the Kagame regime view that all Hutu are genocidaires collectively, for whom there
should be no sympathy and no justice? The American Professors in the BBC story give a number
of 800,000. This is not cast in stone, and is debatable like the number of Tutsi deaths. Nobody
should minimize the Tutsi deaths or the Hutu deaths.
Rwandans will decisively and finally put these matters to rest as a society when we seek the truth
freely, candidly, and without the obstruction by vested interests of a state held hostage by small
cliques. The whole truth should enable all Rwandans to build an authentic and sustainable unity
and reconciliation, not based on cyclical retribution, but all embracing justice. Otherwise, the
competition as to who died more (Hutu or Tutsi) is a meaningless race to mutually assured
destruction.
Third, on the question of the numbers of the Interahamwe militia who participated in the killings, I
wonder how this can be relevant. For Rwandans who went through the horrors of 1994, both Hutu
and Tutsi, the agonizing remembrance of the unimaginable violence unleashed by hordes of
militia is substantive proof that this was lethal power. The BBC documentary, in its opening
moments captures the agony of the victims, as they are hacked to death by this militia. So what if
they were 5,000, 10, 1000, 30,000? For the American Professors, and the authors of the letter
trading polemics on this matter, I would say this is not time well spent. The militia had to be
defeated militarily. I am glad they did. Unfortunately, the military victors of 1994 went on a killing
spree in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo that is yet to be accounted for. That
should be a subject of urgent interest rather than counting the number of militia that were involved
in the genocidal madness.
Fourth, it is on the shooting down of the Habyarimana plane that the authors of the letter to you
show their true bias in favor of the Kagame regime. Citing Judge Marc Trevidic, the authors
pretend that the investigation has been concluded, and that it exonerated Paul Kagame from the
responsibility for the epic act that triggered the genocide. That is a shameful lie. For us who know
the facts about the matter, we have testified and others will testify in the investigation. Ultimately,
nothing Kagame and his apologetics will say can erase the fact that Kagame ordered the
shooting down of the plane in which two sitting African Heads of State and all their entourage
died. His utter disregard for Tutsi and Hutu lives and his push for getting to power by any means
possible should not minimize those who took advantage of the situation to commit the crime of
genocide. The whole truth may finally be revealed in a post-Kagame era since he has invested
substantial resources to obstruct accountability, and has mobilized powerful friends in the
international system to protect him. Paul Kagame is a factor in the Tutsi genocide. He is the main
culprit in the terrorist act in the shooting down of the plane.
Finally, the authors of the letter have betrayed their professions by insulting the BBC that by
“broadcasting this documentary the BBC has been recklessly irresponsible” and that “the
programme has “fuelled genocide denial” “emboldened the génocidaires, all their supporters and
those who collaborate with them.” This is a language that does not befit scholars, scientist,
diplomats, journalist and historians. Such noble professions have throughout history risked on the
side of freedom, justice, innovation, and the rule of law against what often was conventional
wisdom. Many did perish rather than compromise with the deceptions of the status quo. The
authors have chosen a safer route with a rotten and dying regime. They have deliberately
decided to demonize Jane Corbin, John Conroy, and the BBC just as perpetrators of genocide
do. Where is the patience and tolerance for different opinions? Where is the intellectual rigor,
honesty, and sense of duty on matters that touch the millions of Rwandans, both Hutu and Tutsi?
It is, in fact, the authors of this letter that are encouraging the Kagame regime to run faster in its
trajectory to human rights abuses, war, and possibility of genocide: its denials, targeting groups,
dehumanizing groups of people, polarization of the population, organizing killers, and persecution
of victims. In the past its victims were predominantly Hutu. Now, paradoxically, the regime has
descended on those Tutsi it claims to have saved in 1994.
In conclusion, allow me to quote a famous American scholar, John Rawls, on the price and
requirements of truth and justice:
“Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however
elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions
no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each
person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole
cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by
a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are
outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the
liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to
political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests.”
― John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
BBC has done a great service to all Rwandans by provoking a debate that cannot take place
within Rwanda’s repressive state, and which Rwandans in diaspora can only participate in at the
risk of death. The authors of the arrogant protest note to BBC have a luxury that most Rwandans
are yet to gain as their right. Rwanda’s Untold Story has once again proved that BBC’s reputation
as a credible partner in the search for truth and justice is an enduring one.
I challenge those making loud noise against BBC to an international debate on Rwanda. Invited
to such an international conference will be BBC journalists, international experts on Rwanda, the
Government of Rwanda, its supporters and collaborators, as well as Rwandans of all walks of life.
Perhaps, through that Rwandans and partners can begin to have a civil and constructive dialogue
to own a difficult past and present, even as they shape a common future, one step at a time.
Short of that, Rwanda now moves to a period of rapid escalation. And, judging from Rwanda’s
history, that is bad news.
Sincerely,
Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa
Washington D.C.
USA
Email: [email protected]
NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR DEMOCRATIC CHANGE
CONSEIL NATIONAL POUR LE CHANGEMENT DEMOCRATIQUE
Les attaques de Paul Kagame contre la BBC sont le résultat de sa
longue et impardonnable impunité
La diffusion, le 1er octobre 2014 sur la BBC, du documentaire intitulé « Rwanda’s
untold story, L’histoire du Rwanda jamais contée » qui montre enfin la face cachée
de l’histoire récente du Rwanda avant et après 1994 et en particulier la responsabilité
de l’APR/ FPR et de Paul Kagame dans le déclenchement et dans l’exécution du
génocide rwandais est un tournant, au-delà d’être une contribution précieuse à la
compréhension de l'histoire tragique du Rwanda lui-même et par ricochet de celle de
la région des Grands Lacs durant ces vingt dernières années.
Les attaques de Paul Kagame contre la BBC sont le résultat logique de la longue
impunité dont il continue de jouir au point d’en abuser et d’attaquer tous ceux qui
lèvent le voile sur les nombreux et graves crimes dont il est pénalement ou
politiquement responsable.
Grâce à un travail basé sur des témoignages de spécialistes, d’anciens
collaborateurs de Paul Kagame et sur un examen de preuves fournies par des
chercheurs qui refusent le manichéisme simplificateur du «bon rebelle Tutsi» et du
«méchant milicien Hutu », ce documentaire démonte le crédo du régime au sujet du
génocide rwandais par une mise en lumière de la responsabilité politique et/ou
criminelle de Paul Kagame dans ces tragiques événements.
Conscients des conséquences politiques et juridiques de cette vérité longtemps
dissimulée, Paul Kagame et ses suppôts ont directement lancé leur machine
habituelle : l’intimidation, en accusant la BBC, la journaliste Jane Corbin et les
personnes interviewées de négation du génocide, pire de « génocidaires », pour
certaines d’entre elles.
Le CNCD estime que montrer le rôle du président Paul Kagame dans le génocide
rwandais et dans une série d’autres crimes : attentat contre l'avion du président
Habyarimana en 1994, massacres de Kibeho, assassinat des Evêques à Gakurazo,
extermination de centaines de milliers de réfugiés hutu en RDC largement
documentés par le Rapport Mapping, assassinats politiques de dissidents…, n’est
en rien une négation du génocide des Tutsi au Rwanda.
Le CNCD salue le professionnalisme de l’équipe de production et de reportage de la
BBC et espère que le chantage et les pressions multiples mis en marche par les
responsables des crimes qu’elle a mis en lumière n’entameront pas cette nouvelle
orientation et ne la dévieront pas de sa contribution à la recherche et à la diffusion de
la vérité sur la tragédie du Rwanda et de la région des Grands Lacs.
En particulier, le CNCD appelle la BBC ainsi que les médias revendiquant
professionnalisme et objectivité à poursuivre ce travail d’information objective et
impartiale en mettant également en lumière les événements tragiques qui ont conduit
à l’extermination de centaines de milliers de réfugiés hutu en RDC ainsi qu’aux
conditions horribles auxquels les survivants sont soumis depuis des décennies, dans
l’abandon total de la ‘Communauté Internationale.
Le CNCD rappelle la Communauté internationale à ses responsabilités d’instruire et
de punir les crimes de génocide, les crimes contre l’humanité, les crimes de guerre et
autres graves violations du droit humanitaire international documentés par le Rapport
Mapping et pour lesquels la responsabilité de Paul Kagame et de l’armée patriotique
rwandaise (rebaptisée : Forces Rwandaises de Défense) est aujourd’hui établie.
Martigny, le 15 octobre 2014
Mr. Tony Hall,
Director-General of the BBC,
Broadcasting House,
Portland Place, London, W1A 1AA
15th October 2014
Re: Thanking BBC for the documentary “Rwanda’s Untold Stories” aired on Wednesday,
1st October 2014.
Dear Sir,
As an ordinary person whose family members were massacred by the Rwandan Patriotic
Front (RPF-Inkotanyi), allow me to convey my gratitude to the BBC for the production
and broadcast of the documentary ''Rwanda's Untold Stories". Lovers of peace and
justice all over the World, Human right activists and survivors of the genocide against
the Hutu in Rwanda and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have saluted the
production by the BBC of this documentary which is an invaluable contribution to telling
the World the truth of what really happened in Rwanda in and around 1994, although
the current Government of Rwanda has always tried at all costs to intimidate everybody
daring to contest the official (biased) narrative of Rwanda’s history.
I am very grateful to all the actors of that documentary. My special thanks are addressed
to BBC host Jane Corbin for all her efforts in making the documentary. Thanks to her
investigation into the 1994 Rwandan tragedy, BBC has brought forth a valuable
contribution to all those seeking to understand what really happened in Rwanda to
better prevent any recurrence of such atrocities both in Rwanda and anywhere in the
world.
Indeed, it is very surprising how the world has been “forced” (by the current Rwandan
Government) to believe the narrative that the “genocide against the Tutsi killed nearly
or more than one million Tutsi. According to the same narrative, the Kigali Genocide
Memorial Site is now home to more than 250,000 genocide victims (Tutsi). Yet, it is a
historical fact that in and around 1994, Kigali City was inhabited by around 300,000
people since, according to the Rwanda's national population census of 1991, the total
population of the city was 221,806 including all the three ethnic groups. Thus, saying
that the Kigali genocide memorial has more than 250,000 Tutsi victims, is simply
confirming the research done across Rwanda by Christian Davenport and Allan Stam
that proves that the statistics put forward by the Government are contrary to the facts.
For two decades the world media have been dominated by the big lies and distractions
manufactured by Kagame‘s RPF making of him the “hero” and closed eyes to the crimes
committed by Kagame and his clique. One thing I do not doubt is that this documentary
will play an important role to remove the clouds of big lies and propaganda behind the
great tragedy caused by the RPF since 1990 in the African Great Lakes Region. Thank
you very much BBC for your invaluable contribution to the fight for the truth.
Enough is enough, the International community should not be intimidated by Kagame
who has been enjoying the suffering of Rwandans both Hutu and Tutsi using the socalled “genocide ideology” weapon to silence everybody with different opinions on how
things should work in the country. Kagame has been constantly accused of terrorism
crimes. He ordered the shooting down of the plane of President Habyarimana of
Rwanda and President Cyprien NTARYAMIRA of Burundi on April 6, 199 1,2. After this
terrorism act the RPF-Inkotanyi and Kagame were able to take the power in 1994 in a
bloodshed that took lives of millions of innocent Hutu and Tutsi. Indeed, after grabbing
power, the mass killings of the RPF did not stop but they were extended beyond
Rwandan borders into the Democratic Republic of the Congo where Kagame's army
massacred millions of innocent Hutu refugees and Congolese citizens3. Kagame is also
accused of murdering two other presidents of the region namely Melchior Ndadaye (of
Burundi), and Laurent Désiré Kabira (of DRC).
1 Testimonies of former RPF’ soldiers in Michael Hourigan Report in 1996-1997 in ICTR,
2 Abdul Ruzibiza (RPF), Aloys Ruyenzi (RPF) Testimonies, International Lawyer Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles, Jean- Louis de Bruguière, Prof. Peter Erlinder,
3 The UN mapping report on the most serious violations of human rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo over
1993-2003
I recall that for two decades, Kagame and his clique of RPF extremists have been accused
in several UN reports of committing atrocities in the Great Lakes Region including
backing numerous rebellion groups such as the former M23 movement in the DR-Congo.
However, to-date, no single case has been bought before any justice system.
Reflecting on the reaction of IBUKA survivors organization, I deplore the recent bizarre
statements formulated by some Tutsi survivors’ organization called IBUKA, describing
the documentary as ''genocide denial''. This is not a "denial film" as said in a letter to BBC
and BBC should not stop airing the documentary because it was said by some thirty
Tutsi survivors who protested in front of BBC headquarters on Saturday October 11,
2014. BBC has not denied the Genocide that happened in Rwanda therefore the reasons
of protesters were empty and baseless. This a sign in fact, that the RPF is pushing IBUKA
survivors to demonstrate and it is a clear evidence of the nonexistence of political space
in Rwanda and of how the Kigali government does not tolerate any opposition ideas.
The Kagame's Government strategy to eliminate all political opponents consists in
putting all the Hutu in the same bag of ''genocidaires'' while any Tutsi with opposing
political opinions is charged of corruption.
The truth must be said! Kagame and the RPF, use the so called ''Tutsi genocide'' as a
mass destruction weapon against all the Hutu population, particularly intellectual Hutu.
Almost the Hutu who are serving in RPF and Kagame's Government are known as Hutu
of services and are used to give false testimonies. From my own experience in September
2010 before I fled to Germany, I was approached personally by Gen Jack Nziza, one of
the RPF serial killers. It was before the publication of the UN Mapping report in which
the RPF/INKOTANYI-led government was accused by the UN of having committed
(against HUTU Refugees in the DRC) crimes which, if confirmed by a competent court,
should be called genocide. Gen Nziza himself told me that the RPF/INKOTANYI
wanted to use my personality as an influential person in the HUTU community to
contradict the “United Nations’ Mapping Report documenting the most serious
violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the
territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003”.
Gen Nziza asked me that, in order to save the RPF, upon the official publication of the
Mapping Report, I was to give interviews to the government media especially on
Rwandan Television (RTV) to give false testimonies against the findings contained in the
UN mapping Report. He told me that anyone in Rwandan or international community
who would hear my testimonies would be convinced because I would be speaking as an
educated HUTU person who have lived in the refugee camps in DRC. Gen Jack Nziza
promised me that I would be given the post of Governor of one of the Provinces in
Rwanda after the false testimonies. I who had personally lost 18 family members
including my mother, sisters, brothers, nephews and close friends, could I accept such an
evil plan of the RPF ?
Fortunately on the 1st October 2010, the United Nations published the report and I had
already managed to leave the country. I recall that in this report the U.N. High
Commissioner for Human Rights investigators and experts said "tens of thousands" of
Hutu civilians were slaughtered with knives, bludgeoned with hammers and burned
alive as the RDF (Rwandan Defense Forces) and the ADF (Allied Democratic Liberation
Forces) swept across the DRC. Like millions of other Rwandans, I have seen with my
own eyes the RPF/INKOTANYI killing people and the vast majority of victims were
women and children. I could better testify this should an opportunity arise!
To date, Hutu refugees are still being hunted like animals in the jungle and in the rivers
of the DR-Congo. In order to avoid another tragedy such as the one the World watched
in 1994, the world’s media should keep on unveiling the truth until the current
Government of Rwanda accept to seat with its opponents including the FDLR as well as
other Rwandan political organizations in exile. The FDLR as a whole should not be
regarded as a genocidal movement since it was founded after the genocide and the
majority of the FDLR fighters are young people who, in 1994, had between one and 15
years.
On my behalf as well as on behalf of many thousands of voiceless Hutu survivors,
accept, the assurance of my highest gratitude and respect.
Jean Marie Vianney MINANI
Survivor of the genocide against the Hutu refugees in the DR-Congo
Germany
Contacts: [email protected], Tel:004915216127584
CC: The Public
http://glpost.com/rwandas-untold-story-susan-thomsons-letter-bbc/
RWANDA’S UNTOLD STORY – Susan Thomson’s letter to BBC
Dear Mr Bagnall, dear Mr Hall,
I am writing to share my support for the BBC documentary “Rwanda: The Untold Story,”
presented and co-produced by Jane Corbin. In addition to my work as an assistant
professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University (USA), I am also a practicing
human rights lawyer, having worked in Rwanda as a United Nations human rights monitor
(1997- 1998) and a faculty member at the Faculty of Law at the National University of
Rwanda (1998-2001). I am the author of the book Whispering Truth to Power: Everyday
Resistance to Reconciliation in Postgenocide Rwanda, as well as numerous academic articles
and book chapters on Rwanda. I have also authored more than a dozen opinion-editorials
on the country, with the most recent appearing in The New York Times, to ask the question
“Why are Rwandans Disappearing?” (Available here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/opinion/why-are-rwandans-disappearing.html?_r=0).
The backlash that the film has provoked from individuals and organisations loyal to or
allied with the Kagame regime is both expected and predictable to scholars of Rwanda.
Centralized, authoritarian governments such as that in Rwanda gain legitimacy from
international audiences through a vocal and often aggressive group of loyalists who defend
the government. The current vitriol around “The Untold Story” comes largely from those
loyal to the current government, or those who believe its partial version of how the genocide
happened, and the role of the RPF in starting the 1994 genocide. To be sure, parts of the
documentary are troubling, notably the research of Davenport and Stam as their work is
rooted in inaccurate figures about the number of Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. But it would be
unwise to throw the baby out with the bathwater for the documentary is not revisionist, nor
does it deny that Tutsi are victims of the 1994 genocide. The documentary also raises
important questions about Rwanda’s history.
Since taking office in July 1994, the ruling RPF has put forth a particular set of root causes
for the genocide (viz., deep-seated ethnic hatred of Hutu for Tutsi, set in place by Belgian
colonizers). It has also painted itself as the heroes of the genocide, claiming that the RPF
single-handedly stopped it and have successfully remade Rwanda into the economic
development model that it is today. Such a narrow and simplistic rendering washes away the
role of the RPF in creating the conditions for the 1994 genocide, including negotiating in bad
faith during the Arusha peace negotiations. It further overlooks the scholarly consensus that
current president Kagame gave the order to down the presidential plane—the event that
launched the genocide. This official government version of who did what to whom in 1994
wipes clean the now widely documented human rights abuses its army committed against
Rwandans of all ethnicities before, during and after the genocide. The calls of denialism that
the BBC is now experiencing are rooted in this narrow, and official version of how the
genocide happened, and the presumed role of the RPF in stopping it.
The RPF government maintains a tight rein on political expression and, in 2003, banned any
public manifestation of “ethnic divisionism”(between Tutsi and Hutu), “promoting genocide
ideology” (against Tutsi), or “preaching genocide negationism” (that is, questioning claims
that only Tutsi died in 1994). These laws are vaguely worded and arbitrarily applied to
anyone who makes public statements that the government perceives as critical. It is in this
context that the government, and its loyalists/allies, have deemed “The Untold Story” as
revisionist.
I hope the BBC will stand behind the work of Jane Corbin, and stand up for the principle of
free speech that the documentary represents. Should you wish to research the claims, I’ve
made in this letter, please ask. I will share peer-reviewed academic sources with you.
Yours truly,
Susan Thomson
Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies
Colgate University
13 Oak Drive
Hamilton, NY 13346 USA
Office: +1-315-228-6068
Skype: susanmthom
Twitter: @susanmthomson
http://therisingcontinent.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/bbc-rwandauntold-story-a-chance-to-reveal-the-whole-truth/
BBC Rwanda Untold Story: a chance to reveal the whole truth
Posted on October 17, 2014 | Leave a comment
Former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana
Some years ago, at the conclusion of some of the major trials of the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda [ICTR] including Military-I, Peter Erlinder, defense lawyer at that court, explained that if
mainstream media had been around to report on the judgements, the narrative of the Rwandan tragedy
would have changed immediately.
It is only now that this is happening with the airing of the documentary of BBC TWO – Rwanda Untold
Story. What is however surprising are the shields raised by scholars and other formally intelligent people
who are Kagame’s apologetics. Their response would’ve received more support from their readers if they
had come out with substantiated facts to accompany their case.
As many who have been following closely the Rwandan recent history confirm, the BBC documentary
does not bring into the general public any new evidence about what was already known. The only
difference is the global status of that media structure which brought the news to the audience; and that is
what is most upsetting for the supporters of Kagame’s side, since that broadcaster had been all these years
very friendly towards the Rwandan official narrative.
Whatever the reactions from either side, the airing of the documentary should be an opportunity for the
defence lawyers at the ICTR or anybody else with some expert knowledge on the Rwandan tragedy to bring
out more evidence that the film did not consider and that should be known by anyone interested.
In order to add more to the body of knowledge of what happened, and which has not been widely shared,
let me refer you to the following submissions from Dr Charles Kambanda, Peter Erlinder, Dr Christopher
Black and Susan Thompson they published in support of the BBC documentary.
I however disagree with Thompson on the inaccuracy of the statistics about Tutsis in the Rwanda of 1994
as researchers Davenport and Stam refer to them in the film. She points out that“… parts of the
documentary are troubling, notably the research of Davenport and Stam as their work is rooted in
inaccurate figures about the number of Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994.” In her letter to the director of BBC,
though she contests the figures, she does not provide hers with accurate and verifiable sources.
Here are the links to the letters by the people mentioned above:
Peter ERLINDER, The BBC Must Be Congratulated For Launching Scrutiny With “Rwanda’s Untold
Story”
Dr Charles Kambanda, My analysis of Ms Melvern, the thirty eight researchers and journalists’ rebuttal of
the BBC Rwanda’s Untold Story BBC documentary
Dr Christopher Black, BBC’s Rwanda’s Untold Story: Why Does Kagame And His Supporters Fear
Debating His Documented Role In Assassination Of President Habyarimana?
Susan Thompson, letter to BBC
Publié par La Tribune Franco-Rwandaise
Ambassador Jean-Marie Ndagijimana congratulates
the BBC for its impartiality and the professionalism in
the documentary "Rwanda's untold story"
Sent on October 14th, 2014
From Ambassador Jean-Marie NDAGIJIMANA, former Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister
To:
- Tony Hall, Director-General
- Sam Bagnall, Executive Producer, This World, BBC
Dear Sir,
Let me begin by introducing myself. My name is Jean-Marie Ndagijimana. I am a lawyer,
and a human rights activist. I come from mixed ethnicity, Hutu and Tutsi; my mother is a
Tutsi and my father a Hutu. During the Tutsi genocide, I lost several members of my tutsi
family killed by the Hutu militias and after Paul Kagame took power, several members of
my hutu family were massacred by the RPF Tutsi rebels in Rwanda and Zaïre, now the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Before 1994, I served as Rwandan Ambassador in Addis-Ababa from January 1986 to
October 1990, and in Paris from October 1990 to April 1994. I fell apart with the interim
government formed at the beginning of the genocide. I joined the first government of
national unity established after the genocide where I served as foreign affairs minister
from July 1994 to October 1994. I resigned and forced to go into exile in October1994
after I denounced and condemned the massacres of thousands of innocent Hutus
committed by the new national army, namely the RPA/RPF. I am now the Spokesman of
the Committee for Unity, Peace and Reconciliation in Rwanda (Inteko y’ubwiyunge mu
Rwanda). I live in France.
My stance on the genocide of 1994 is as follows. Yes, some Hutus committed acts of
genocide against their Tutsi neighbours, there was certainly genocide against the Tutsis
between April and July 1994. I spoke out publicly on that matter in the middle of April
1994 when many of those who today pretend to be defending my fellow Rwandans,
murdered Tutsi and Hutu. However, all the Hutus did not participate in the massacre of
the Tutsis, nor are the Hutus a genocidal people as some people seem to assert. That is
confirmed by intelligence reports.
On the other hand, Hutus were victims of mass killings which could be described as
genocide, though it has not as yet been recognized by the International Community.
Thousands of Hutus were selectively and systematically massacred by extremist Tutsis
of the RPF from October 1990 to 1994. Many more were massacred after April 1994. My
position is that Kagame’s RPF committed acts of genocide against Hutus in the areas
they controlled during the war 1990-94. The ethnic cleansing of the Hutus was carried
out after Paul Kagame took power in Rwanda and reached its climax in the forests of
Zaire when about 400,000 Hutu refugees were killed by RPF between 1996 and
1998. The evidence abounds. The testimony of many RPF soldiers directly implicated in
these massacres sends chills up your back. Investigative reports by international judges
and human rights organizations have been published on that subject (Mapping
Report),but without budging anything. Everything happened as if the brutality, the cruelty
and the bestiality of the genocide of Tutsis hunted down and slaughtered like animals in
front of TV cameras anesthetized the global consciousness that no longer wants to hear
about Rwanda and millions of the dead. Out of sight, out of mind!
“After all,” some say, “the massacres committed by the RPF were aimed only at the
majority of the country.” The reason, “The Hutus were numerous enough to survive
genocide.”
As one of the specialists of the Great Lakes and Rwanda in particular, I participated in
several conferences on the Rwandan genocide, the recently took place in The Hague
from June 1 to 3, 2014 to consider the failure of the international community to prevent or
effectively respond to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and to explore whether and how the
tragedy might have been averted.
I do confirm that at that conference, various responsibilities of Paul Kagame and the RPA
in the genocide were recognized and underlined by many eye witnesses, including the
former UNAMIR commander who was in Kigali during the Tutsi genocide.
At that conference, I exposed my point of view on that matter, and made it clear thatPaul
Kagame/RPF/RPA sacrificed the Tutsi on one hand, and committed genocide
against the Hutu on the other hand. I expected the rwandan government’s delegation
at the conference, to react, but they never contradicted me on that matter.
On my part, I wrote a book How Paul Kagame sacrificed Tutsi, in which I testify the
responsibilities of the Rwanda Patriotic Front. I take this opportunity to send you
confidentially the file of the manuscript of my book proving that the contents of the
documentary "Rwanda’s untold story" are just a drop in the ocean, taking into account
that one cannot tell, in one hour, all the crimes committed by Paul Kagame's Rwanda
Patriotic Front.
I do congratulate the BBC for its impartiality and the professionalism in that documentary.
Those who try to frighten BBC by spreading and broadcasting motions and public
protests against the documentary "Rwanda's untold story" are fighting a rear-guard to
mask the truth and protect Paul Kagame and his accomplices.
I have attached here with the complete file of my book.
Hoping that this communication will help you understand better the complex history of
the Rwandan genocide.
Yours sincerely,
Ambassador Jean-Marie NDAGIJIMANA
Spokesman of the Committee for Unity, Peace and Reconciliation in Rwanda (CUPR)
October 16, 2014 19:17 Opinion
TO: Mr. Tony Hall,
Director of BBCBroad Casting House, London, UK
FROM: Charles KM Kambanda, PhD.
Attorney and Counsel-at-law, New York, US
http://www.globalresearch.ca/open-letter-to-the-bbc-on-rwanda-theuntold-story/5410378
Open Letter to the BBC on Rwanda: The Untold
Story
By Charles Kambanda
Global Research, October 28, 2014
Region: sub-Saharan Africa
Theme: Crimes against Humanity
TO: Mr. Tony Hall,
Director of BBC, Broadcasting House, London, UK
FROM: Charles KM Kambanda, PhD.
Attorney and Counsel-at-law,
New York, US
October, 15th, 2014
Introduction:
I am writing to you as a Rwandan researcher, human rights defender and an Officer of Court in
New York State; I am bound by the Constitutional Oath of Office. I taught at the National
University and other institutions of higher learning in Rwanda for over a decade after the 1994
massacres. I am writing from my firsthand and lived experience of the unfortunate Hutu/Tutsi
conflict. I am a Rwandan who was born to a Rwandan refugee family in Uganda. I supported
RPF before, during and after the 1990 war. Like many other Rwandans, I lost countless family
relations to the massacres in Rwanda. I am a Rwandan scholar – based in the United States of
America – who is interested in sustainable peace and co-existence between and/or among the
diverse people of Rwanda. I belong to no Rwandan political party. It is my submission that no
side to the insane Tutsi vs. Hutu conflict is exclusively for victims or perpetrators of the senseless
crimes that have characterized these two, generally, hostile groups. Both sides to the armed
conflict committed horrible massacres before, during and after the 1994 massacres.
Accept my heartfelt gratitude and respect for the BBC team that prepared the famous Rwanda’s
Untold Story documentary. The BBC team that worked on this documentary did a tremendous
job documenting the background and the intricate web of the crimes both sides allegedly
committed during, before and after the 1994 horrific massacres. What your team did is
investigative journalism; Descartes (the great French philosopher) called it the Methodical doubt.
In the Holy Scriptures, Jesus Christ says “the Truth will set us free”. The producer of the
documentary dug deep into the truth which different parties to the Rwandan conflict do not want
the world to know because that truth will set people free. The BBC, as an institution, deserves
credit for the great film. It is my submission that Ms. Melvern and her group’s “rebuttal” of the
BBC documentary should be treated with the contempt it deserves.
1. A. Inquiry into the causes, manner, perpetrators and victims of the long and bloody
Hutu vs. Tutsi conflict in Burundi and Rwanda before, during and after the 1994
massacres in Rwanda is not a closed chapter as Ms. Melvern’s missive appears to
suggest.
The 1994 massacres occurred within the context of a bloody ethnic civil war between the Hutu (a
Hutu dominated government) and Tutsi (Tutsi dominated rebels). There are well documented
ethnic based massacres between the Hutu and Tutsi before and after the 1994 massacres. The
well documented Tutsi/Hutu massacres include:
1. (i) The 1993 Burundian massacres where the Tutsi butchered the Hutu.
2. (ii) The Gersony, UNCHR sponsored report which detailed the insane massacred RPF /A
perpetrated against the Hutu under the then Tutsi rebels held territory.
3. (iii) RPF/A (predominantly Tutsi) slaughter of internally displaced Hutu refugees camp.
4. (iv) Some Tutsi and some Hutu militia on-slaughter of the Tutsi and the Hutu during the
1994 massacres.
5. (v) RPF/A slaughter of the Hutu in Congo (both native DRC Hutu and Rwandan Hutu
refugees as documented by the UN Mapping Report).
Investigating the similarities and differences between these reoccurring insane massacres between
the Hutu and Tutsi without favor is, in my opinion, not only necessary but also a noble cause. The
documentary does exactly that. Apparently, any objective inquiry into these crimes is what Ms.
Melvern and her group of journalists and researchers call “[using] current events to either negate
or to diminish the genocide… to promote genocide denial”. All the above well documented
crimes, committed by the same people against the same people in different places and time, create
an unequivocal need for social research. Social research is a continuum. Unfortunately, Ms.
Melvern and her group appear to suggest that their research finding on these complex social
political phenomena in the Hutu vs. Tutsi conflict is conclusive.
1. B. Ms. Melvern and her team resort to name calling instead of addressing the
substantive issues the interviewees, individually, and the entire documentary raised.
In most instances, Ms. Melvern and her group do not substantiate their generalized
attacks on the individual interviewees, the BBC and the documentary producers
Ms. Melvern and her group characterize the BBC documentary as “old claims […] similar
material using similar language [that is] part of an on-going Hutu power campaign of genocide
denial”. This is an absurd approach especially for social science researchers and journalists for
various reasons:
1. (i) The BBC documentary, as the title of the documentary suggests, was intended to
interview different people with rarely mentioned personal experience of what happened in
Rwanda during, before and after the 1994 massacres. Such statements must be as old as
the events the statements describe if those statements are proper representation of what
happened. Therefore, whether those statements are “old claims” is a tautology. How
would statements explaining what happened 20 or so years ago be “brand-new”
statements for every BBC viewer of the program?
2. (ii) Ms. Melvern and her group deliberately apply “Hutu power”, term with no known
definition to confuse their readers. What’s Hutu power? What is the composition of Hutu
power? Where is Hutu power? Research methodology and formal logic prohibit use of
unknown and undefined terms for any purpose, especially while addressing critical social
problems.
Ms. Melvern and her group of journalists and researchers claim that “the parts of the film which
concern the 1994 genocide, far from providing BBC viewers with an ‘Untold Story’ as the title
promises, are old claims”. This is a serious allegation against the BBC “on behalf of BBC
viewers”. This allegation implies that Ms. Melvern and her group met “BBC viewers” and Ms.
Melvern and her group are authorized agents of the “BBC viewers” to complain to the BBC on
behalf of what Ms. Melvern calls the BBC viewers. Is Ms. Melvern or any individual signatory to
their letter the “BBC viewers” and so the signatory are complaining to the BBC for having viewed
“old claims”? Are these researchers who signed the letter presenting their perception of the BBC
documentary as “old claims”? Is Ms. Melvern presenting “some” or “all” BBC viewers’
perception of documentary? Did Ms. Melvern and the researchers who signed the letter
purposively fail to distribute their term “BBC viewers” properly? Is Ms. Melvern unfamiliar with
the rules on distribution of terms? Why didn’t they distribute their term “BBC viewers” so that the
readers know, with substantial certainty, the scope of the “BBC viewers” these researchers are
referring to?
Ms. Melvern and her group argue that “at the heart of this [Hutu power] campaign are convicted
génocidaires, some of their defen[s]e lawyers from the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda (ICTR), and their supporters and collaborators … like the programme … The BBC
programme Rwanda’s Untold Story recycles their arguments and provides them with another
platform to create doubt and confusion about what really happened”. This is absurd ad
hominem because:
1. (i) A reasonable person would not confuse the person, ideas and research, of defense
counsel with the client’s real or alleged crimes. Ms. Melvern and her fellow researchers
appear to impute the ICTR “convicted genocidaire” some ICTR defense counsels.
2. (ii) Carl Del Ponte, the former ICTR prosecutor, Michael Hourigan who was an
investigator and prosecutor at ICTR, among others scholars wrote widely about the
ICTR’s cover up of the RPA/F crimes during the 1994 massacres.
3. (iii) Ms. Melvern and her group know or they should know for sure, that the BBC
documentary producer did not interview any ICTR convict. How do the distinguished
researchers, who signed the letter, relate the BBC documentary interviewees’ testimony
with ICTR “convicted genocidaires”?
4. (iv) Courtesy and common sense requires Ms. Melvern and her group to explain how the
ICTR “convicted genocidaires” exercised undue influence and pressure over the
documentary interviewees. Is it rational that the ICTR “convicted genocidaires”, as Ms.
Melvern and the group put it, would influence a significant number of society as to form
what Ms. Melvern appears to call a global campaign of supporters and collaborators to
create doubts and confusion about what happened?
5. (v) The documentary producer interviewed Rwandans and other nationals. Some of the
interviewees are Tutsi and former RPF/A members. How did the ICTR “convicted
genocidaires” recruit these Tutsi 1990/1994 war opponents into supporters and
collaborators? Aren’t Ms. Melvern and her group oversimplifying very complex issues
under cover over of their deliberate ad hominem?
6. (vi) The documentary features prominent non-Rwandan scholars and legal practitioners.
Ms. Melvern and her group conveniently dismiss all these prominent professionals’ views
under a terribly sweeping statement “all of those professionals are supporters and
collaborators of the ICTR convicted genocidaire”. Ordinarily, social researchers and
journalists avoid sweeping statements. How do the “convicted genocidaire” influence a
cross section of people – including prominent professionals like lawyers and academics
the documentary producers interviewed?
1. C. What Ms. Melvern and her group calls the three lies of the documentary are real
controversies among Rwandans and social science researchers. These contentious
issues are proper subject matter for social research and investigative journalism.
Ms. Melvern and her group cite what they call lies in the BBC Documentary as “[…] lie about the
true nature of the Hutu Power militia […] an attempt to minimize the number of Tutsi murdered
in the genocide, […] an effort to place the blame for shooting down President Habyarimana’s
plane on April 6, 1994 on the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)”. Each of the three accusations,
which Ms. Melvern and her group call “BBC Documentary lies”, deserves thorough analysis for
validity and truth.
1. 1. On the true nature of the Hutu power militia
Ms. Melvern and her groups argue that “the BBC documentary allows a witness to claim that
‘only ten percent of the Interahamwe (militia) were killers. In fact, the majority of Hutu Power
militia forces – estimated to have been 30,000 strong – were trained specifically to kill Tutsi at
speed, and indoctrinated in a racist ideology, part of genocide planning. There is eyewitness
testimony by several militia leaders who cooperated with the ICTR”.
First, it is absurd to discredit the entire documentary or issue therein because “one of the
interviewees made a mistake in [his] quantitative estimation” of the internahamwe who allegedly
perpetrated the massacres. Interestingly, Ms Melvern protests the BBC interviewee’s estimation
of the number of the Interahamwe by introducing her own estimation about the number of the
internahamwe. Why does Ms. Melvern want her readers to believe her estimates, not the BBC
interviewee’s estimations of the interahamwe numbers? Second, Ms. Melvern and her group miss
on some important facts about the militia, including the internahame, some of who committed the
horrible massacres.
1. (i) It is wrong to think that all interahamwe were Hutu. Some interahamwe were Tutsi.
Referring to all interahamwe as Hutu militia is a misstatement of fact. The interahamwe
boss in charge of recruitment and politics - Robert Kajuga – was Tutis and so were a
significant number of the interahamwe
2. (ii) When Rwanda embraced multiparty politics in 1991, each political party had its own
“Youth Wing to animate party meetings, organize and mobilize for the party. MRND (the
then ruling party’s Youth Wing was called Interahamwe. PSD (another political party)
had Abakombozi as its Youth Wing. MDR’s Youth Wing was called Inkuba. PL’s Youth
Wing was called Jeunes liberaux. As the war and party politics progressed, each Rwandan
community -including political parties and their youth wings – developed “radical
groups”.
3. (iii) There is overwhelming evidence that some members of each political youth
wing/militia participated in the 1994 massacres and that each political party militia was
hostile against others. Reducing these militia groups to “Hutu militia” is distortion of
facts.
4. (iv) There is proof of, and the type of war RPA/F was engaged in against the then
government dictate that, RPA/F cadres infiltrated all political parties’ militia as early as
1991. Probably, some of these RPA/F infiltrators engaged in the 1994 massacres.
5. (v) There is sufficient evidence that by the time of the 1994 massacres, all political parties
of that time, including RPF, had some ‘radicalized’ members and militia. Therefore,
simplifying the phenomenon of who killed who during such circumstance, like Ms.
Melvern appears to suggest, is inconsistent with qualitative research approach.
1. 2. Ms. Melvern and her group’s argument on Rwanda’s population statistics before the
1994 massacres is false and invalid. Ms. Melvern and her group use inadmissible
evidence to support their argument
Ms. Melvern and her group argue that “the programme [the BBC documentary] attempts to
minimize the number of Tutsi murdered, a typical tactic of genocide deniers. The false figures
cited are provided by two US academics who worked for a team of lawyers defending the
génocidaires at the ICTR. They even claim that in 1994 more Hutu than Tutsi were murdered – an
absurd suggestion and contrary to all the widely available research [reports]”.
Inconsistent statistics argument:
Ms. Melvern and her group know or should know that the entire post-independence Rwandan
population census reports indicated the ethnic and religious affiliation of each Rwandan. The last
population census before the 1994 massacres took place in 1991. The 1991 Rwanda population
census indicate that the total population was 6.2 million people; 14% Tutsi, 84% Hutu and 1%
Twa and others. No post-independence Rwandan population census report had bigger figures than
the 1991 population census report. However, after the 1994 massacres, the total number of the
people butchered is put at 1.3 million people – in any case, well above 1 million people were
brutality butchered. The number of Tutsi survivors of the massacres stood at around 350,000
people. The proper equation, for purposes of determining the number of the Tutsi who died during
the1994 massacres should be: 14% of the total population – (minus) the total number of Tutsi
survivors of the massacres.
For unknown reasons, Ms. Melvern wants her audience to rely on reports and/or stories,
made/told after the 1994 massacres, to ascertain the country’s population’s statistics before 1994.
The only proper authority when in issue is the population statistic of a country, is that country’s
population census. How does the world end up with over one million Tutsi dead and about
350,000 Tutsi survivors yet the Tutsi were only 14% of a population of 6.2 million people? Even
if all the 14% Tutsi had been killed, it was impossible to have the over 1 million human skulls
“Tutsi victims” that are paraded in genocide memorial centers. Is it possible that the Hutu set out
to exterminate the Tutsi but they ended up killing themselves more than they killed their “target”,
the Tutsi? Seeking for answers to such clear statistical inconsistences is called “genocide denial”
in Ms. Melvern and his fellow researchers’ world. Ms. Melvern and her group are determined to
push all these inconsistences down their readers’ throat because “some reports say so”. This, in
my considered view, is undermining human intelligibility.
Ms. Melvern and her group should inquire, from the government of Rwanda, about the 2004/2005
household-to-household nationwide survey of the Tutsi who died during the massacres. Why did
the government of Rwanda and donors invest so much money in a survey whose findings were
never made public? Who had interest in not publishing that survey? Wouldn’t have made a good
argument for Kagame, who has paraded human skulls for tourists throughout the country, to show
a breakdown of village by village Tutsi who died during the massacres? Interestingly, every apart
of Rwanda has skulls of the 1994 massacres victims. However, by April 1994 when the massacres
started, RPF had significant territory under their control. How did the “Hutu” penetrate RPA/F
held territory to massacre the “Tutsi”? Why there isn’t any District in Rwanda without the 1994
massacres victim skulls yet a significant chunk of Rwandan territory was under RPF control?
Inquiring into these and other critical questions is what Ms. Melvern calls “genocide denial” in
Ms. Melvern’s world. Ridiculous
1. 3. Ms. Melvern and her group twist facts about shooting down the plane of the then
Hutu president, which is widely believed to have triggered the 1994 massacres
Ms. Melvern and her group claim that the BBC film “argues that the shooting down of the plane
on April 6, 1994 was perpetrated by the RPF. This same story was promoted by Hutu Power
extremists within a few hours of the president’s assassination and promoted ever since by
génocidaires and a few ICTR defense lawyers. The film pays no heed to a detailed expert report
published in January 2012 by a French magistrate Judge Marc Trévidic. This contains evidence
from French experts, including crash investigators, who proved scientifically that the missiles that
shot down the plane came from the confines of the government-run barracks in Kanombe on the
airport’s perimeter – one of the most fortified places in the country, and where it would have been
impossible for the RPF, armed with a missile, to penetrate”. This argument is a deliberate set of
twisted facts and lies that the journalists and researchers cannot have appended their signature to
naked lies if their motive had been justice, fairness and good faith rebuttal of the BBC
documentary. The following are the nasty twisted facts and lies in Ms. Melvern’s argument
“shooting down the president’s plane”:
1. (i) Ms. Melvern and her group know or should know that shooting down President
Habyarimana’s plane is the legal and proximate cause of the 1994 massacres in Rwanda.
Shooting down of the plane has been investigated by two distinct and separate courts; the
French and Spanish courts. Both courts indicted and issued arrest warrants for Kagame
and his top RPF commanders for their alleged criminal responsibility for shooting down
the plane. Unfortunately, Ms. Melvern appears to argue that the ICTR “convicted
genocidaires” and some of the ICTR defense attorneys “influenced” both the French and
Spanish court to indict and issue arrest warrants for Kagame and his former bush war top
commanders. Really!
2. (ii) Ms. Melvern and her group do not inform their readers that the ICTR former
prosecutor carried out thorough investigations into Kagame and his then rebel leaders’
role in the massacres. The ICTR prosecutor was ready to prosecute Kagame and his
fighters who allegedly committed crimes under the ICTR jurisdiction; war crimes, crimes
against humanity and genocide. Shooting down the plane was part of the charges against
Kagame and his then rebel fighters. Instead of accepting to face justice at the ICTR,
Kagame rushed to President Bush for “rescue”. President Bush ordered the then ICTR
prosecutor – Carl Del Ponte – to desist prosecuting Kagame and his former rebel fighters
because Kagame is a USA ‘ally’. The prosecutor chose to resign than compromising our
professional ethnics because selective justice is not justice. These facts are well
documented.
3. (iii) The French court indicted, and/or issued arrest warrants for, Kagame and his top
rebel commanders for the shooting down of the plane. Ms. Melvern and her friends know
or should know that a court decision is not overturned by a mere report of experts. A court
decision is overturned by another superior court’s decision in form of an appeal or the
same court’s review of its decision. Ms. Melvern knows or should know that the French
Court indictments and/or arrest warrants for Kagame and his alleged partners-in-crime are
on file. It is absurd that Ms. Melvern and her group seek to abuse the purpose and
character of expert reports the way they use Judge Marc Trévidic report in their argument.
In any case, the French Court has not pronounced itself on the experts’ report Ms.
Melvern and her group uses for their argument. This is academic dishonesty of the highest
order.
4. (iv) Ms. Melvern and her group appear to ignore the fact that the BBC documentary
features some of Kagame’s former top rebel commanders who testify that Kagame
ordered the shooting of the plane. These former top rebel commanders’ testimony is
admissible evidence in courts of law; it is an “admission”. Some of the former RPA/F top
leaders who testified in the documentary are Tutsi and they incriminate themselves. Linda
and her fellow researchers should have analyzed these central facts before dismissing the
BBC Documentary as “lies”. It is true these former rebels’ testimony may be subject to
impeachment for bias. However, since we are not in court yet – and it is court’s exclusive
powers to conclude on whether or not a witness is biased against the accused – Ms.
Melvern and her group cannot sweep these former RPA/F top leaders’ testimony under
the carpet. In any case, Melvern and a significant number of the signatories to the letter
can also be impeached for bias in favor of Kagame because of their constant, sometimes
bordering with insanity, defense for Kagame at all costs, including telling lies for that
purpose. Whatever the case, the BBC is not reasonably expected to go into the intricate
law of evidence on impeachment of witnesses’ rules before selecting their interviewees.
1. D. Ms. Melvern and her group are determined to present evidence of “planning
genocide” to BBC yet; the ICTR prosecutor needed, but failed to get, sufficient
evidence to prove “planning” the 1994 massacres with intent to destroy the Tutsi in
whole or part.
Ms. Melvern and her group give an impression that they have, and are presenting, evidence of “
genocide planning” yet in the famous Military 1 and Military 11 which prosecuted all the top
military and national security officials found that all that evidence did not prove “ planning”
genocide. The ICTR indictments of all the accused in Military 1 and Military 11 alleged that the
accused had pre-made lists of the Tutsi to be killed, the accused had a well laid strategy to
exterminate the Tutsi and that the accused had trained and distributed militia to perpetrate the
Tutsi genocide. There was no evidence at the ICTR to prove these allegations and court acquitted
all the accused on genocide account. Unfortunately, Ms. Melvern recycles these allegations,
which the ICTR examined and found baseless, for her argument to attack the BBC documentary.
If Ms. Melvern had the evidence she claims to prove that the Hutu “planned” the genocide, why
didn’t Ms. Melvern take her evidence to the ICTR in the Military 1 and Military 11 which
examined ‘planning’ the genocide allegation?
Ms. Melvern and her team, fallaciously, argue that “Jane Corbin, who presented the programme,
even tries to raise doubts about whether or not the RPF stopped the genocide. The authority on
this subject is Lt.-General Roméo Dallaire … Dallaire is categorical. ‘The genocide was stopped
because the RPF won and stopped it’”. Ms. Melvern and her group ignore that the then very
powerful and one of the top RPA/F commander, General Nyamwasa Kayumba said that
“Kagame’s concern was not to stop the genocide. Kagame’s intention was to take power”.
Without efforts to reconcile these critical and diverse positions by different actors, Ms. Melvern
makes very disturbing conclusion, “RPF stopped genocide because Gen. Romeo Dakkaire said it”.
Is that academic honesty as she claims she is?
Ms. Melvern and her group agree that the BBC documentary lasted for less than an hour. The film
features some scholars and people with firsthand information about what happened. What Ms.
Melvern and the group blames the BBC documentary for is that the BBC documentary producer
did not feature the group’s favorite scholars, practitioners including Dallaire, Philippe Gaillard
and Dr. James Orbinski. In my considered view, Ms. Melvern and her group are probably
mistaken about how investigative journalism and social research operates. The purpose of the film
was to bring to light the “Untold story” about the massacres in Rwanda. It follows that the
“popular account of events” was not the subject matter of the documentary. What value would the
BBC add to its diverse viewers if the BBC was to avoid controversial social issues for “popular”
views? It is impossible to interview everybody for one single research project.
1. E. The 1994 massacres cannot be detached from Rwanda’s social political culture. A
researcher that seeks to close investigations and/or research into the culture that
gave birth to the 1994 horrible massacres is probably naive
The 1994 Rwandan massacres were a logical sequence of a complex unresolved social and
political dynamics. At the core of this insane conflict is each side’s failure to perceive the other
side as a legitimate group with equal rights. In this conflict, the “other group” has no legitimate
history, story and existence. Each group’s heroes are the other group’s evil men. Vengeance,
dehumanizing the ‘other group’ and exterminating “our” enemy is spontaneous characteristic of
an ordinary Hutu or Tutsi. “Secrets and lies” in “our” group against the “other” group are the
major features of the Hutu vs Tutsi troubled co-existence. Settling for one group or side’s
narrative, without critical thinking and reexamination of these two groups’ co-existence history
and crimes, is settling on a appallingly slippery cliff.
Unfortunately, the current government of Rwanda and its complex network of lobbyists consider
any critical reflection on RPA/F role in the horrific crimes “genocide denial”. This undesirable
Government of Rwanda position is clear in its draconic laws, including “genocide revisionism
laws”. Kigali government, its lobbyists and, surprisingly, some academics are inclined to refer to
the BBC documentary – a very critical inquiry into the different events during, before and after
the 1994 massacres – as “genocide denial”.
Conclusion
What happened during, before and after the 1994 massacres is extremely complex that any social
researcher who claims to have perfect and conclusive knowledge of the 1994 Rwandan massacres,
like Ms. Melvern and fellow researchers claim, must be treated with the contempt they deserve.
“Genocide denial” should not become a social-political tool to suppress critical thinking, human
intelligibility and human freedoms.
The BBC has a choice to make. Remain critical and investigative or become a morale booster for
those who hold power and lose the trust and confidence of the ordinary people who are yarning
for justice and fairness. The Hutu/Tutsi conflict has caused way too many horrible massacres in
Burundi, Rwanda and DRC. The victor vs. Vanquished narrative, like Ms. Melvern and her group
appear to suggest, should be discarded. For BBC’s credibility and very long history of service, a
critical approach to the Hutu/Tutsi conflict is the only sustainable and value adding way to go.
I would be happy to take on Ms. Melvern and her group in an open debate over all the issues they
raised in their letter.
Charles Kambanda is a Rwandan American law professor at St. John’s University in New York
City.
https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/staff/filip-reyntjens/mywebsite/
Rwanda's Untold Story. A reply to "38 scholars, scientists, researchers,
journalists and historians"
On 12 October, 38 signatories have sent a letter to the BBC’s Director-General to protest
against the contents of the documentary “Rwanda’s Untold Story” first broadcast by BBC 2
on October 1. The letter states that the BBC has been “recklessly irresponsible” in
broadcasting the film which has “fuelled genocide denial” and “further emboldened the
génocidaires”.
Only three of the signatories (Clark, Hintjens and Murison) are academics working on
Rwanda (Linda Melvern calls herself “Professor”, but she is not; she has merely been an
honorary professor at the University of Wales Aberystwyth). The others have either shown
interest in Rwanda in the past or played a role there, or have a sectoral expertise, e.g. in
genocide studies or international criminal law. Some are activists with a record of support for
the Rwandan government.
I will limit myself to a critical examination of the four claims in the documentary called
“untenable” by the signatories. Before doing so it is useful to point out that the documentary
is not challenged on other important points (such as the RPF’s human rights record and
democratic credentials), which allows to suppose that the signatories agree with much in the
programme.
First, the signatories are shocked by the fact that a witness in the programme is allowed to
state that “only ten percent of the Interahamwe (militia) were killers”. This claim was made
by a woman who was among the Hutu refugees massively slaughtered by the RPF in the
Congo. She was very young when going through this gruelling experience, and she certainly
did not conduct a scientific study of the number of militiamen actively involved in the killing
of Tutsi. Her assessment doesn’t carry much weight, and one could indeed wonder why this
was included in the programme at all. In addition, the notion of “Interahamwe” changed
dramatically during the genocide. Before, they were the youth wing of the former single party
MRND. A limited number of them (certainly much less than the 30,000 put forward in the
letter) received a paramilitary training. When the genocide started, these distinctions were no
longer made, as all those manning barriers and hunting down and killing Tutsi, including
those from other political parties, were referred to as “Interahamwe”. In other words, it would
simply be impossible to say how many of them were killers because it is unclear which entity
we are talking about. What we do know is that about 70 percent of all Hutu males who were
adult at the time of the genocide were convicted by Rwandan courts.
I do not need to dwell on the second claim considered untenable by the signatories. I agree
with them that the figures provided by Professors Stam and Davenport on Tutsi and Hutu
killed in 1994 do not appear to be based on solid research. At least the data they have
published (not in a scientific journal or book, but merely on their website
http://genodynamics.weebly.com) are insufficient to support their claim which flirts with
genocide minimisation or denial.
Third, the signatories wrongly state that only “Hutu Power extremists” and “génocidaires and
a few ICTR defence lawyers” argue that the shooting down of the presidential plane was
perpetrated by the RPF. Several others, including myself, not belonging to the above
categories believe that there are serious indications of the RPF’s guilt. The signatories go on
to claim that French judicial evidence shows that the RPF could not have committed the
attack, as the missiles “came from the confines of the government-run barracks”. First of all,
this is untrue: the report found that the missiles were fired from the limits of a military domain
that is over one hundred hectares large and far away from the barracks. Second, the findings
were based on the assumption that the plane followed a normal approach, something that is
not certain – as the report itself acknowledges. Third, the report is one of thousands of pieces
of evidence in the judicial file, and it is contradicted by other elements in the file. Had the
expert report, which became public in January 2012, been as convincing as the letter wants us
to believe, the judges would have dropped the charges against the Rwandan suspects ages
ago. Claiming as the writers do that the RPF cannot have downed the plane is reckless.
The fourth issue forcefully addressed by the signatories is that the documentary “even tries to
raise doubts about whether or not the RPF stopped the genocide”. Of course the genocide
stopped after the RPF’s military victory, but the real question is whether putting an end to
genocide was the RPF’s main objective. It is paradoxically one of the signatories, who
according to the letter is “the authority on the subject”, who earlier expressed serious doubts
about this, but General Dallaire’s memory now seems to fail him. I limit myself to offering
some quotes from Dallaire’s memoirs (Shake hands with the devil. The failure of humanity in
Rwanda, Toronto, Radom House Canada, 2003). These passages are self-explanatory and
need no commentary. They show that the RPF was interested in military victory rather than in
saving Tutsi. Dallaire asked Kagame “why he wasn’t going straight for the jugular in Kigali,
and he ignored the implication of my question. He knew full well that every day of fighting
on the periphery meant certain death for Tutsis still behind RGF lines” (p. 327). At the end of
April, when hundreds of thousands of Tutsi were still alive, Kagame told Dallaire: “Those
that were to die are already dead. If an intervention force is sent to Rwanda, we will fight it”
(p. 342). When Dallaire raised his worries about the fate of threatened Tutsi, Kagame had this
chilling reaction: “There will be many sacrifices in this war. If the (Tutsi) refugees have to be
killed for the cause, they will be considered as having been part of the sacrifice” (p. 358).
“Kagame wanted all of the country, not parts of it. I came to believe he didn’t want the
situation to stabilize until he had won” (p. 438). Finally, Dallaire had “dire thoughts as
whether the (RPF) campaign and the genocide had been orchestrated to clear the way for
Rwanda’s return to the pre-1959 status quo in which Tutsis had called all the shots. Had the
Hutu extremists been bigger dupes than I?” (p. 476).
I too do not agree with everything shown and said in the documentary. I too am concerned
about the use that is already being made and will be made of the film by those who deny the
genocide. But that is not a legitimate reason to unfairly attack the BBC and the programme’s
producers. One can only hope that the debate triggered by the film will contribute to
establishing a shared truth about the tragedy that has unfolded in Rwanda and the great lakes
region during the last quarter of a century.
Filip Reyntjens
20 October 2014
Kagame’s newspaper calls on the ICC to indict the BBC for ‘genocide
denial’
October 19, 2014
17
by Ann Garrison
KPFA Weekend News broadcast Oct. 18, 2014
Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s newspaper, The New Times of Rwanda, has called on the International
Criminal Court (ICC) to indict the BBC for “genocide denial” because of its documentary, “Rwanda: The Untold
Story.”
Transcript
International criminal defense attorney Peter Erlinder – in handcuffs for “genocide denial” – appears in a Kigali, Rwanda,
courtroom with Kenyan lawyer Kennedy Ogetto in May 2010.
KPFA Evening News Anchor Cameron Jones: The BBC documentary, “Rwanda: The Untold Story,” has
become the subject of fierce argument including many open letters to the BBC both applauding and attacking it.
Paul Kagame accused the BBC of “genocide denial” and his state newspaper, The New Times, even called on
the International Criminal Court to indict the network and/or its producers.
KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to international criminal defense attorney Peter Erlinder, who was arrested for
“genocide denial” and thrown in a Rwandan prison in 2010, until an international campaign for his release
prevailed.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: Peter Erlinder, “genocide denial” sounds like a pretty bad crime, just as any crime including
the word “genocide” does. Could you explain what it means in this context?
Peter Erlinder: Well, in the context of Rwanda, “genocide denial” is questioning the version of events that is told
by the Rwandan government, and the current Rwandan government (leaders) were the victors in a four year civil
war, so that any description of the four year civil war that differs from the Rwandan government’s description is
called genocide denial.
William Mitchell Law Professor Peter Erlinder
And the BBC’s description of what happened during the four years of the Rwandan Civil War and the 20 years
after, which include 5 million or more deaths in the Congo and in Rwanda, is called genocide denial by the
Rwandan government.
KPFA: Genocide denial is outside the mandate of the International Criminal Court, isn’t it? They’re mandated to
prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity?
Peter Erlinder: Yeah, the mandate of the International Criminal Court is to punish actions, not to punish thoughts.
And genocide denial, of course, is a thought crime. And the question of what genocide denial actually is is one
that is very difficult to sort out because it depends on one’s view of history, and in this case it’s the victors in the
war, in the Rwandan war, that are deciding what the genocide was and how it took place.
Victoire Ingabire, despite being in handcuffs for “genocide denial,” gives a thumbs up to her supporters outside a
Rwandan courtroom on April 17, 2012.
Certainly there was mass violence, but the way the mass violence took place was different than the way that it’s
described by those who won the war. And Robert McNamara, the United States’ secretary of state, in a
documentary called “The Fog of War,” made that point very clear, saying that leaders of the United States would
have been the war criminals had the Japanese won World War II.
KPFA: Doesn’t President Kagame’s newspaper seem a bit confused about the balance of institutional force in
suggesting that the ICC should indict the BBC?
Peter Erlinder: Well, it seems to me that it’s consistent with the policy of President Kagame and the RPF
(Rwandan Patriotic Front) government, which is to mount the maximum political attack against anyone who
disagrees with Mr. Kagame. Political opponents like Victoire Ingabire, who attempted to run against him in the
election in 2010. Victoire Ingabire is in prison now for at least 15 years.
There’s a long list of opponents who have been assassinated or forced into exile, and the idea that opponents of
Mr. Kagame’s view of history, or of politics, pay a high price is now being felt by the BBC. And to suggest that an
august journalistic institution like the BBC is engaged in “genocide denial” is almost laughable.
KPFA: And that was international criminal defense attorney Peter Erlinder on The New Times of Rwanda’s call for
the ICC to indict the BBC for “genocide denial.”
For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/08/george-monbiotmccarthy-of-the-left/
OCTOBER 08, 2014
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The Vilification of Chomsky, Herman and Peterson
George Monbiot, McCarthy of the
Left?
by JONATHAN COOK
Questioning someone’s integrity is not something I do lightly, especially when I share
much ideological common ground with them. But the unsavoury behaviour of George
Monbiot, a leading columnist for the Guardian and one of Britain’s most prominent
progressive intellectuals, is becoming ever harder to overlook – and forgive.
On a whole range of issues, such as corporate greed and threats to the planet posed by
climate change, I agree wholeheartedly with Monbiot. It is also entirely possible for
two people to disagree, even intensely, but still believe their opponent’s views are
legitimate and advanced in good faith. That is how I regard, for example, Monbiot’s
support for nuclear power as the least-bad option for dealing with mounting carbon
emissions. It’s not a position I share, but he has set out his reasoning clearly and
honestly.
But I can extend no such understanding to his campaign of vilification begun three
years ago against several leading figures on the progressive left.
It started with an article in 2011 in which he attacked two scholars for publishing a
book, the Politics of Genocide, in which they collected together their own and other
experts’ research into two supposedly well-documented genocides, in Rwanda and
the Balkans. After examining the evidence, they reached a controversial conclusion:
that the nature of events in both genocides had been distorted to fit western political
agendas.
They did not question that large numbers of people had been killed in either conflict.
They and their contributors argued instead that the term “genocide” had been used as
a way to draw a veil over the events, cementing an official narrative that could not be
questioned or re-assessed. Instead, they suggested, the official narrative might be
serving political ends rather than reflecting accurately who had been killed and why.
One of the two authors is Ed Herman, most famous for an influential book,
Manufacturing Consent, jointly written with Noam Chomsky, which argues that the
mainstream media are not the democratic and pluralistic institutions they claim to be
but rather corporations advancing official narratives designed to serve elite –
including, of course, their own – interests. Their thesis has only found more
adherents over time, particularly as the internet has provided dissident writers,
including Chomsky, with a rival platform from which to challenge the consensus
policed by the corporate media.
So it is hardly surprising, given their starting point about the media’s role in
manufacturing consent, that Herman and his collaborator David Peterson should be
suspicious of two of the strongest consensual narratives of recent times: the Rwanda
and Balkan genocides, which even had their own dedicated international tribunals
established to very publicly try the official bad guys.
It may also not be stretching credulity to suspect that Monbiot, a leftwing intellectual
who has thrown in his lot and reputation with the Guardian on the assumption that
Herman and Chomsky are wrong about the corporate media, might not look too
kindly on their thesis. If Manufacturing Consent is right, then Monbiot is not a
guardian of our moral consciences, as he likes to think, but a guardian of the outer
limits of a corporate-sanctioned consensus.
It is increasingly hard to shake such suspicions given his behaviour over the past
three years. Monbiot’s 2011 column denounced Herman and Peterson as genocide
deniers, probably the most serious accusation one can level against a fellow
intellectual. One might have assumed that Monbiot would marshal enormous
evidence before making such a serious allegation. Not a bit of it: in his column he
made a brief and sweeping condemnation of their thesis and their right to question
the official narrative.
A single ugly column by Monbiot might possibly have been excused as an unfortunate
lapse. But he then revisited the theme a year later in what can only be characterised
this time as an exercise in leftwing McCarthyism. Having no stronger argument than
before, Monbiot on this occasion recruited four academics to his cause of denouncing
Herman and Petersen as genocide deniers.
As someone who himself challenges orthodoxies – in my case Israeli ones – I know
precisely how weak this kind of resort to an argument from authority is. Were I to so
wish, I could easily seek to discredit the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe in similar fashion
for his argument – an entirely correct one – that Palestinians were ethnically
cleansed from their homeland by Israel in 1948. All I would need is find a handful of
respected historians and public intellectuals like Benny Morris, Anita Shapira and Ari
Shavit to support my case. But what would this prove? Only that the job of many, if
not most, “experts” in any field is to help construct and maintain official narratives.
That is, after all, why they are official narratives!
But not satisfied with tarring the reputations of Herman and Peterson, this time
Monbiot chose to drag in Chomsky too. On his website, he published a lengthy
correspondence between the two in which he tried first to cajole, then demand that
Chomsky join him in denouncing Herman as a genocide denier. Chomsky staunchly
refused, repeatedly providing Monbiot with his reasoning.
Monbiot’s performance here was as ugly as watching McCarthy in his heyday grilling
American intellectuals to expose their Communist sympathies. In full righteous
mode, Monbiot ended by flaunting like some diva his “depression” at the left’s
“idiocy”. He lamented how Chomsky, once his “hero”, had – by refusing to agree with
him – proven himself a fellow traveller with genocide deniers.
What underlies this argument, unexamined by Monbiot – presumably because he
lacks the self-awareness to understand it – is a serious divergence of views about
power.
Monbiot’s clash with Herman, Peterson and Chomsky is not really over the facts of a
genocide, but over who has a right to speak. Monbiot, embedded in the camp of the
corporate media, has adopted its ethos as his own. Those who are respected – that is,
those who stay within the limits of officially sanctioned thought – have the right to
advance their claims. Those outside the magic circle – those not credited by the
corporate guardians of legitimate thought – do not. Herman, Peterson and
Chomsky’s work implicitly exposes the vacuous and circular logic of Monbiot’s
assumptions.
That point becomes especially clear if one reads through Monbiot’s correspondence
with Chomsky. Chomsky struggles to hide his exasperation at Monbiot’s inability to
grasp the elementary arguments he is making, even though he is forced to make them
repeatedly. Monbiot, on the other hand, thinks he has cornered Chomsky in some
kind of intellectual hypocrisy. What he has revealed instead is how deeply embedded
he is in the corporate mindset, one that reserves for itself the right to determine the
limits of the thinkable.
Interestingly this month, however, Monbiot found his own assumptions exposed
from an unlikely quarter: the BBC. The corporation – one of the most powerful
enforcers of official narratives – made an unusually daring programme, Rwanda’s
Untold Story, questioning the consensus on the Rwandan genocide, all be it 20 years
after the events. The programme-makers’ conclusions echoed those of Herman and
Peterson: that census figures and death toll estimates do not support the accepted
narrative of a genocide in which the Tutsis were the main victims of the slaughter.
The data, in fact, indicate the exact opposite: more Hutus were killed than Tutsis,
possibly many times more.
This has ramifications beyond the historical. Paul Kagame, the leader of the Tutsi
militia the RPF, and therefore now potentially in the frame as the chief perpetrator of
a genocide against the Hutus, is today the much-respected leader of Rwanda, a man
feted by western leaders.
On my blog I suggested last week, given that even the hyper-cautious BBC appears
ready to concede that the Rwanda genocide needs a reassessment, it might be time
for Monbiot to apologise for his ugly accusations against Herman, Peterson, Chomsky
and others.
So far Monbiot has made no proper response, despite receiving similar demands for a
retraction from a number of people on social media. It would be nice to think that his
silence suggests he is engaged in soul-searching and formulating the necessary
response. But unfortunately the omens are not good.
Monbiot has not yet spoken himself but he has not remained entirely silent either. In
an indication that this may be more about his ego and self-appointed status as
guardian of a left righteousness, he retweeted aflippant dismissal of his critics,
including me, provided by a group called Mediocre Lens.
Sadly, that is very much of a piece with Monbiot’s behaviour on this issue. Mediocre
Lens is the poor cousin of what Monbiot has rightly exposed elsewhere as the
phenomenon of “fake persuaders”, usually corporate lobbyists hiding behind front
organisations that pose as “concerned ordinary citizens”. The point of the fake
persuaders is to create the impression of popular support for corporate policies that
harm our interests, such as destroying forests and polluting rivers. In short, the fake
persuaders are there to uphold official narratives that serve business interests.
Mediocre Lens does something similar, if rather more feebly. In its case it claims to
be a group of ordinary journalists with a “left perspective” who promote the idea that
the mainstream media is there to serve our interests. More precisely, its sole rationale
is to discredit Media Lens, an increasingly popular website whose editors – wait for it
– advance the thesis of Herman and Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent.
Monbiot’s promotion of a tweet from Mediocre Lens should make about as much
sense – if he were the independent thinker he claims to be – as Naomi Klein
retweeting approvingly an attack on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
by a climate change denial group.
But it makes rather more sense if we understand that Monbiot is no longer what he
claims to be or seems. Years of being embedded in the corporate media have eroded
his ability to remain truly independent or to appreciate those like Herman, Peterson
and Chomsky who demand the right to retain that privilege for themselves.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest
books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake
the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in
Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/23/rwanda-calls-bbcbanned-over-controversial-documentary
Rwanda calls for BBC to be banned
over controversial documentary
Rwanda’s Untold Story criticises Paul Kagame and claims RPF
carried out more war crimes than previously acknowledged



David Smith Africa correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 23 October 2014 17.16 BST
Paul Kagame said the BBC had chosen to 'tarnish Rwandans, dehumanise them'. Photograph:
Carl Court/AP
The Rwandan parliament has called for the BBC to be banned from the country’s airwaves in
retaliation for a controversial documentary that questioned official accounts of the 1994 genocide.
Rwanda’s Untold Story, broadcast earlier this month, highlighted growing criticism of president
Paul Kagame and claims that his Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was responsible for war crimes
and more deaths than previously acknowledged.
Kagame responded by telling parliament that the BBC had chosen to “tarnish Rwandans,
dehumanise them” and accused it of “genocide denial”. The corporation has emphatically rejected
the claims.
On Wednesday angry MPs approved a resolution calling on the government to charge the
documentary-makers with genocide denial and revoke the BBC’s licence to broadcast in the
country.
Senate president Bernard Makuza was quoted by the New Times newspaper as saying: “We
must stand and fight against these deniers. Among the decisions we should consider is taking a
legal action against the deniers, be it internally or externally.
“We should as well consider revising the agreements Rwanda has with BBC. This is an open
struggle that cannot be taken lightly and should be taken on by everyone collectively.”
Julienne Uwacu, another MP, was quoted as saying that Rwandans should “switch it off
completely”.
Students marched through the capital, Kigali, on an anti-BBC demonstration, and a letter signed
by a group of 38 academics, writers, diplomats and politicians was emailed on 12 October to the
BBC’s director-general Tony Hall.
The letter’s signatories included Senator Roméo Dallaire, who led the UN peacekeeping mission
in Rwanda‚ and it argues that the BBC has been “recklessly irresponsible” in broadcasting the film
which has “fuelled genocide denial” and “further emboldened the genocidaires”.
An estimated 800,000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, were killed in just 100 days in 1994.
The programme included interviews with American-based researchers who say most of those
killed may have been Hutus killed by members of the RPF. It also contained interviews with
former aides of Kagame, accusing him of being behind the April 1994 shooting down of a
presidential plane that sparked the genocide.
The president was asked about the programme during an appearance at the thinktank Chatham
House in London this week. “For me as a Rwandan and the leader of Rwanda, I just wish we
could concentrate on development of our country and being the best for our people,” he said.
“The BBC can say whatever they want to say. They don’t have to say or do, whatever they do or
say, because that is right. They say or do whatever they say and do because they can.”
The BBC has denied that any part of the programme constitutes a “denial of the genocide against
the Tutsi”. It said: “There are repeated references to the mass killings of Tutsis by Hutus in 1994
and that this constituted genocide. The programme also includes an interview with the director of
the Genocide Museum at Murambi, a Tutsi and genocide survivor, and a convicted Hutu
genocidaire who spoke of his part in the killing of thousands of Tutsis.
“The BBC has a duty to investigate difficult and challenging subjects and we believe the
programme is a valuable contribution to the understanding of the tragic history of the country and
the region, and of the governance of Rwanda over the last 20 years.”
The corporation also said there had been several attempts to ask the Rwandan government to
respond to the allegations but in vain.
Kagame is one of Africa’s most divisive figures. David Mepham of Human Rights Watch wrote
this week: ““These admirers – and others – seem to be willfully ignoring the darker side of
Kagame’s record in office. Rwanda under Kagame has no tolerance for dissent or political
opposition … Scores of Rwandan journalists have fled the country, unable to report freely and
fearful for their safety.
5. Réactions critiques voire très critiques
www.opendemocracy.net/andrew-wallis/rwanda-untold-story-questionsfor-bbc
"Rwanda: The Untold Story": questions for the BBC
ANDREW WALLIS 6 October 2014
About the author
Andrew Wallis is a researcher who specialises in central and east Africa. He is the author of Silent
Accomplice: The Untold Story of the Role of France in the Rwandan genocide (IB Tauris, 2006)
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Read On
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda(ICTR)
Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, 1954-94: History of a Genocide(C Hurst, 2nd edition, 1998)
Statecrime
Gerald Caplan, "The politics of denialism: the strange case of Rwanda" (Pambazuka News, 17 June
2010)
Encyclopedia of Mass Violence
International Network of Genocide Scholars(INOGS)
Kigali Wire
Impunity Watch
Andrew Wallis, Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of the Role of France in the Rwandan
genocide (IB Tauris, 2006)
A deeply flawed BBC documentary on Rwanda's genocide raises serious questions over the
corporation's ethics and standards.
"There is no reasonable basis for anyone to dispute that, during 1994, there was a campaign of mass
killing intended to destroy, in whole or at least in very large part, Rwanda’s Tutsi population… That
campaign was, to a terrible degree, successful; although exact numbers may never be known, the
great majority of Tutsis were murdered, and many others were raped or otherwise harmed."
[International Criminal Court for Rwanda, 16 June 2006]
It is not often a documentary comes along that totally reattributes the historical reality of a genocide in
a mere one hour. Indeed the BBC programme Rwanda: the Untold Story, broadcast at prime-time on 1
October 2014, managed this in a record ten-minute section of its airtime. Twenty years of scholarly
research by academics such as Gérard Prunier, Linda Melvern, Mahmood Mamdani,Howard
Adelman, Jean-François Dupaquier, Jean-Pierre Chrétien and Allan Thompson (to name just a few)
was pushed aside.
Thousands of witness interviews for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), archived
documents and judgements were made equally redundant. So were many official reports by the United
Nations Security Council in 1994 and 1999; the African Union; and human-rights groups - especially
the landmark work by Alison des Forges at Human Rights Watch and Rakiya Omarat African Rights.
Instead, the BBC entrusted the exposure of the "true" story of the genocide to two American
academics, Allan Stam and Christian Davenport, who had travelled to Rwanda in 1998
and found everyone they spoke to telling the same story about the genocide. This, they decided, was
not because people were recounting what had actually happened but because they had been
brainwashed or frightened into a massive cover-up.
Standing in front of a scientific-looking multi-coloured "results" map of Rwanda, they flashed up
impressively scientific-looking statistics of troop movements across Rwanda in 1994 to prove their
point. In essence, they alleged that instead of 800,000 Tutsi deaths there were only around 200,000.
Even more incredibly, they proposed at least 800,000 Hutus had been killed at the hands of the
Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), as they pushed the genocidal Rwandan army and Hutu militias from
the country. The accepted death-toll figures by researchers such as Gérard Prunier, Alison des
Forges and Marijke Verpooten’s forensic examination in 2005 are simply dismissed. As indeed are all
legal judgments from the ICTR where hundreds of investigators, scholars and acute legal minds have
worked for two decades.
Edward Herman and David Peterson were to use the "results" in their book The Politics of Genocide,
published in 2010. It was swiftly discredited by scholars who ridiculed both the methodology of the
research and its suspected underlying motivation. For example, Gerry Caplan, author of the African
Union report Rwanda: the preventable genocide, criticised Herman and Peterson as being part of an
ideologically driven core of genocide-deniers, genocide-revisers and opponents of the current
Rwandan government. The main aim of this small group, Caplan argued, was to shift the blame for the
tragedy to their bête noirPaul Kagame, the current Rwandan leader, who has become for them (and
some western media) a figure of intense, almost pathological, dislike. The BBC film certainly reflects
this view.
The constant thread throughout the hour-long film was the desire to denigrate Kagame, through a
cast-list of eight long-time enemies of the Rwandan leader. There was no balancing view, no attempt
to analyse in depth or understand the history that brought Rwanda to the events of 1994. Instead
viewers were treated to crushing tabloid accusations, pithy soundbites from the selected group of
carefully chosen interviewees, sly insinuations and slo-mo shots of the Rwandan leader looking
suitably diabolical. There was no new "untold" evidence to back up claims. Here was a chance for the
highly complex, emotionally-charged Rwandan story to be considered on prime-time television.
Instead it was reduced to a good vs evil parody that left anyone with knowledge of the country and its
history, who surely included many genocide survivors in Europe, with a feeling of frank disbelief and
anger.
What's untold
The event many see as the trigger for the genocide is the shooting down of the plane of President
Juvenal Habyarimana on 6 April 1994. The film's cursory "explanation" for what happened was based
on the claim by a single RPF defector, now in France, that he heard Kagame order the destruction of
the plane. The programme also cited the report by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, published in
2006. This report has long since been derided for relying on half a dozen Rwandan defectors, many of
whom swiftly went public to saythat their statements had been corrupted to meet Bruguière's
requirements, and that they had been promised French visas should they comply with his wishes.
Wikileaks subsequently showed Bruguière’s none-too-subtle political agenda. The judge is currently
under investigation for perjury, withholding evidence and obstruction of justice in other cases he
handled.
Unsurprisingly, there is no mention of the more recent independent and meticulous report in 2012 by
the investigating judge Marc Trévidic that showedclearly the missiles were fired from an area
controlled by extremist Hutu units of the presidential guard; nor of research in 2008 by the UK’s
Cranfield University that came to the same conclusion. Instead another academic is extensively cited:
the Belgian professor and vociferous opponent of Kagame, Filip Reyntjens. Again, no mention of the
fact that he was a long-term advisor to Habyarimana and has not been in Rwanda for twenty years. All
this is a mockery of supposed investigative journalism.
The two main beneficiaries of the film are high-profile RPF defectors: Theogene Rudasingwa and
General Kayumba Nyamwasa. Their views are unchallenged and taken, in effect, as gospel. No
attempt is made to explore their own backgrounds and current political ambitions. Nyamwasa
was head of Rwanda's army after the genocide, and was accused both of trying to build a separate
power-base within the military and of involvement in a series of corruption scams and illegal landgrabs while in office. Rudasingwa was said to be implicated in a lucrative financial scam while
employed in the office of the president. Rwanda’s zero tolerance of corruption,
as witnessed byTransparency International, makes it unsurprising that both fled the country rather
than face the charges against them. The two men, along with two other defectors (Patrick
Karegeya and Gerald Gahima), founded an opposition party in exile, the Rwanda National Congress
[RNC], in 2010 aimed at unseatingKagame.
Nyamwasa’s RNC is alleged to be allied to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda
[FDLR] in the borderlands of eastern DRC and Rwanda. The FDLR is made up of
many genocidaire who fled to the region after the RPF pushed them from Rwanda, and has become
synonymous with terrorising the local population over the past fifteen years, including the mass rape
and murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Its leader Sylvestre Mudacumura iswanted at
the ICC for gross human-rights violations. FDLR atrocities inside Rwanda in recent years have left
scores dead and injured from grenade attacks, with the RNC implicated in assisting funding and
supply of arms to the group. Both Nyamwasa and Rudasingwa were sentenced in their absence by
Rwandan courts - in Nyamwasa’s case not to life imprisonment (as the film affirms) but to twenty-four
years for corruption, misuse of office, and threatening state security. Rudasingwa was given the same
sentence in absentia.
The film features numerous such factual inaccuracies, misleading generalisations and omissions.
There is no mention of the genocidal pogroms that caused hundred of thousands of Tutsis to flee
between 1959 and 1972-73; nor of the fact that the RPF chose a military path back into Rwanda in
1990 precisely because Habyarimana had consistently blocked the peaceful return of the refugees to
their homeland; nor of the genocidal massacres of thousands of Tutsis in 1990-93 by Habyarimana’s
army and militia. The two terribleCongolese wars (1996-97, 1998-2003) are explained in a few short
sentences though the motivation of the belligerents involved the highly complex interplay of six
countries and dozens of militias, and originated in the border camps that were filled with genocidaire
as well as innocent Hutu refugees. Both United Nations and Amnesty International reports have
testified that these camps had become a launchpad for a planned re-invasion by the genocidal interim
government and its forces.
What next?
The ethics of the BBC programme makers are extremely questionable. There was no evident attempt
to talk to Tutsi survivors or survivor groups. The Rwandan organiser who assisted the film crew in
practical arrangements was told it was purely a film about the twentieth commemoration; months
afterwards he was called suddenly by the BBC producer, told the film was highly controversial, his life
could be in danger, and that he should flee. The very serious implication is that the documentary
makers were prepared to put his life, and that of his wife and children, in danger, without ever
mentioning this to him until too late.
The site director of the genocide memorial at Murambi, Gaspard Mukwiye - who tends the place and
the memories of its 50,000 Tutsi victims, and is himself a Tutsi survivor - was also persuaded into
taking part in a film that effectively denied his acute suffering and personal loss, still vividly etched on
his face. It should be noted the "repressive" regime the film portrayed gave the BBC complete open
access to its media archives and to film wherever and whatever it wanted.
The BBC has since 2006 many times reaffirmed its editorial guidelines, including that "we should do all
we can to ensure that controversial subjects are treated with due accuracy and impartiality in all
relevant output." Viewers can make up their own minds how accurate and impartial this programme is
and wonder if other genocides are next on the BBC revisionist menu, subsumed under its current
obsession to "break news" and controversies. That is the best-case interpretation. It can only be
hoped the corporation is not home to senior executives who actively hold malevolent views of
genocide denial which they are misusing public money and privilege to promote.
Jonathan R. Beloff : http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/hitlers-jewishbackground-and-other-lies/#
Lies We Encounter When Facing
Genocide Denial
JONATHAN R. BELOFF October 2, 2014, 9:26 pm 17
BLOGGER
Jonathan R. BeloffJonathan Beloff is a current PhD student at the School of Oriental and African Studies and is
performing his research … [More]
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Rwandan Peacekeepers in Gaza? Perhaps Not the Best Idea
Views from Rwanda of the current Middle East conflict
A Rwandan Solution to the Israel/Hamas Conflict
A Rwandan Solution to the Israel/Hamas Conflict
The Problem with ‘If’ Questions
Recently, BBC Two (in the UK) televised a special documentary,Rwanda’s Untold Story, which
seeks to challenge some of the norms and facts about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide (also known as
the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda). It was the hope of its creators to start a discussion
about the events that led to the horrific genocide that claimed more than one million lives.
However, instead of posing some interesting questions and really forcing viewers to challenge
what they know about Rwanda, they unfortunately reverted their documentary to simple
allegations that have been disproved: specifically, that Rwandan President (at that time
Commander of the Tutsi-dominated rebel group the Rwanda Patriotic Front –RPF-) Paul Kagame
ordered the shooting down of the plane of Rwanda’s Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana.
The allegation, which was started by the Hutu genocidal leaders, is that Kagame ordered the
shooting down of Habyarimana’s plane in order to justify the continuation reignite the Rwandan
Civil War (1990-1994) that had just ended with the Arusha Accord signings in the previous fall of
1993. The shooting down of the presidential plane was what ignited the genocide after decades of
Hutu-extremist propaganda against what they called an ethnic invasion by the RPF. Academic
Rene Lemarchand writes in his book, The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa, that the RPF
knew that once they had committed this act of terror, genocide would take place, which would
provide justification for the continuation of the civil war. Thus, the genocide is the fault of the
RPF and Kagame rather than the genocide government that organized, condoned and participated
in the massacres.
This theory has been disproved in courtrooms, scholarly debate and through the testimony of
genocide perpetrators, the RPF and leader of the United Nations peacekeepers, Romeo Dallaire.
Dallaire is important in debunking this theory, because he was responsible for physically
separating the RPF troops stationed in Kigali (the capital city of Rwanda) from the Habyarimana
government using his UN forces. (I will describe this more in detail in the next paragraph) Not
once has he hinted that the RPF could have been responsible for the attack; instead he blames the
leaders of the genocide.
But if we humor the revisionists and allow that the possibility of Kagame ordering Habyarimana’s
plane to be shot down is true, we encounter several facts that make it increasingly difficult to
uphold this belief. The first has to do with Dallaire and the UN’s role in Kigali. By the time of the
genocide, Kigali was divided into three sections. The smallest of the sections was Parliament,
which had a delegation of RPF political leaders who were slated to participate in the new
transitional government agreed upon in the Arusha Accord agreement. Now, these representatives
were supported by 600 highly trained RPF troops. However, the UN made it nearly impossible for
those troops to leave the Parliament compound.
The second area was the neighborhood of Kisimenti, which housed the UN headquarters and most
of its troops. The rest of Kigali was under Habyarimana’s and later on the genocide government’s
control. The presidential plane was shot down in government territory in the neighborhood of
Kanombe. (It is estimated by international researchers that the plane was shot down in Kanombe
at the government’s military barracks that was only around 200 meters from the presidential
palace.) This is not only ten kilometers from Parliament, but the UN territory was in-between. It
would be extremely difficult for the RPF to have sneaked around the UN, and go through
government territory with the equipment necessary to shoot down a plane. It is worth noting that
within an hour or so after the attack, genocide perpetrators known as the Interahmwewere seen
setting up roadblocks preparing to begin the slaughter.
Another major problem with the revisionist theory is the rationale for the attack. Why would the
RPF shoot down Habyarimana’s plane? It could not have been for political gains, because the
RPF received nearly all their political wishes from the Habyarimana government during the
Arusha peace talks. The RPF wanted to be a legal political party in Rwanda, which they received.
They wanted 40% of the Rwandan military to be composed of their soldiers, which was agreed
upon. They wanted the ability to form political coalitions, which could challenge the political
establishment and possible gain the Presidency; this too was granted.
Some of the RPF diplomats who participated in the peace talks have quietly mentioned to me that
they thought the agreement was too good to be true at the time. Now, with hindsight, they believe
that they were granted so much because the government had no intention of honoring the
agreement, and that it was in fact preparing to conduct the final anti-Tutsi pogrom in the form of
genocide, and thus wipe out all support for the RPF within the country.
Having secured an influential seat at the national political table in Rwanda through the Arusha
Accords – and here let’s discard the lessons learned in hindsight regarding the murderous intent of
the Hutu government – why would the RPF assassinate Habyarimana? For full and complete
political control? If that is true, the RPF would have also arrested or killed the moderate (and
predominantly Hutu) parties at the same time. In fact, it was the genocide government that
arrested and killed Hutu moderates. Those who stood to lose most from the Arusha Accords were
the Hutu extremists who were in political positions granted to them because of their relationship
to the Habyarimana family. Many would lose their position, lifestyle and ideology under the
agreement and in a new system promoting ethnic equality. These reasons and more are why this
conspiracy just cannot provide credible.
So, why is the flawed and revisionist BBC Two program important for those studying the
Holocaust? Consider the conspiracy to shift blame for the genocide from the real perpetrators to
the victims, and ultimately to those who put an end to the genocide. This is not too far removed in
essence from the belief held by Holocaust deniers that Adolf Hitler was Jewish. After the end of
the Holocaust in 1945 and the worldwide knowledge that Nazi Germany had butchered more than
six million Jews, former Nazis and their sympathizers created the lie of Hitler’s Jewish
Grandmother.
The intention was to justify the genocide of the Jews and shift responsibility away from the Nazi
perpetrators and onto their victims. Author Brigitte Hamann has performed extensive research and
published her findings in the book, Hitler’s Vienna: A Dictator’s Apprenticeship,which
completely disproves him having any Jewish family members. Even though the truth shows the lie
is little more than genocide denial, such denial still exists and thrives in anti-semitic parts of the
world.
Ultimately, forms of genocide denial like Hitler’s Jewish family and Kagame ordering
Habyarimana’s plane to be shot down are unsubstantiated hearsay, anecdotal, and speculative to
the wildest degree. The true reasons that people believe such myths and continually try to make
them credible can only be guessed at. It ranges from personal interest in advancing a specific
narrative of the story, to the inability to accept that sometimes it really is as simply as the fact that
some people can and want to commit genocide against their fellow human beings.
So genocide deniers need to come up with a conspiracy that removes blame from the perpetrators,
whose inhumanity they basically cannot cope with. The saddest and most irresponsible thing
about genocide denial is not only how it degrades the memory of victims and the experiences of
survivors, but that it puts more hardship on the people who are committed to remembering,
understanding and preventing future genocides.
Simply put, the people who spoke on the BBC Two program have disgraced the one million who
died, the survivors, and the RPF’s role in ultimately ending the genocide. The program may have
wanted to show the complexities of the genocide, but instead it fell into the trap of simplifying it
and blaming the liberators for what happened twenty years ago. Survivors and scholars of both
Jewish and Rwandan genocides need to unite to disprove these conspiracies of genocide denial
and teach people what really happened. Everyone knows the old saying that if we do not learn
from history it is doomed to repeat itself. Well, if we remember incorrect history, real history will
repeat itself.
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http://fr.igihe.com/economie/justice-28/droits-humains/rwanda-s-untold-story-l-histoire-durwanda-jamais.html
Rwanda’s untold story, « L’histoire du Rwanda
jamais contée » : vraiment ?
Publié le 13-10-2014 - à 17:20' par Alain Gauthier
La diffusion récente, par BBC 2, d’un documentaire sur le génocide des Tutsi au
Rwanda, a déjà provoqué de nombreuses réactions tout à fait légitimes, même si les
thèses développées dans ce film sont pour la plupart éculées et ne peuvent servir
qu’à jeter le trouble chez tous ceux qui ne connaissent pas trop le sujet et qu’à
nourrir le négationnisme si vivant, en particulier en France.
Accuser le président KAGAME d’avoir abattu l’avion du président HABYARIMANA, c’est
reprendre les conclusions du juge BRUGUIERE en oubliant qu’elles sont tombées aux
oubliettes de l’Histoire et qu’un nouveau juge antiterroriste, Marc TREVIDIC, a clairement
fait savoir que les tirs des missiles seraient partis du camp Kanombe aux mains de la Garde
présidentielle, ou d’un lieu proche, sans pour autant désigner les auteurs de l’attentat.
Ce même juge s’apprêterait, mais on le dit depuis si longtemps, à décréter un non-lieu à
propos des neuf hauts dignitaires rwandais poursuivis par le premier juge, dont monsieur
NYAMWASA lui-même ! En accusant le président KAGAME d’avoir abattu l’avion, on
n’oublie pas de l’accuser aussi d’avoir sciemment provoqué le génocide des Tutsi ! Qui
peut encore le croire ?
Le président KAGAME et le FPR n’auraient pas mis fin au génocide ! C’est pourtant bien
lorsque le FPR a finalement pu prendre le contrôle de la plus grande partie du pays début
juillet 1994 que le génocide a cessé. Quelle est donc cette « histoire du Rwanda jamais
contée » qu’on voudrait nous enseigner ?
Monsieur NYAMWASA, qui veut faire des révélations depuis quelques temps, lui qui a tout
vu, ne doit pas oublier qu’il pourrait lui aussi être rendu responsable de l’attentat et
poursuivi en justice !
Les intervenants, dans ce documentaire, ne sont pas des inconnus. Messieurs NYAMWASA et
RUDASINGWA, pour ne parler que d’eux, ont quitté le Rwanda pour des raisons qui ne sont
peut-être pas si honorables qu’on veut bien le dire.
Leurs ambitions, leurs sentiments de ne pas être reconnus à leur juste valeur les ont
décidés à quitter leur pays en « crachant dans la soupe » et en dénonçant le président
KAGAME dont ils ont été des proches collaborateurs. Le président KAGAME est devenu pour
eux l’homme à abattre, celui qui n’a pas permis à leurs ambitions démesurées de se
réaliser.
C’est peut-être de bonne guerre, mais tout de même un peu minable, d’autant qu’on
passe volontiers sous silence un certain nombre de malversations dont ils se seraient
rendus coupables.
Pour en revenir à l’attentat contre le président HABYARIMANA, prétendre que c’est
« l’élément déclencheur » du génocide, c’est oublier l’extermination des Tutsi depuis les
années soixante : le « petit génocide » de 1963 dans la préfecture de Gikongoro, les
tueries du début des années soixante-dix, le massacre des Bagogwe en 1991, celui du
Bugesera en 1993, sans oublier le discours de Léon Mugesera en 1992 à Kabaya en présence
de nombreux dignitaires du régime !
L’attentat contre l’avion doit être considéré comme le signal donné aux éléments les plus
extrémistes et aux Interahamwe de commencer le « travail ». On connaît la suite de
l’histoire.
Le documentaire donne aussi la parole à des « experts » du Rwanda, sorte de caution
scientifique. On connaît depuis longtemps les positions du professeur Filip REYNTJENS sans
qu’il soit besoin de les commenter. Le plus étonnant, ce sont les propos tenus par deux
« scientifiques » américains, les professeurs Allan STAM et Christian DAVENPORT qui, au
mépris le plus total des victimes et de leurs familles, en totale contradiction avec les
grandes organisations internationales et des experts reconnus, osent prétendre que seuls
200 000 Tutsi ont été tués, alors qu’on compterait 800 000 victimes hutu !
Ne voilà pas une façon étonnante de réécrire l’histoire ? Et ce, en s’appuyant sur le
nombre officiel des composantes sociales du Rwanda ! C’est oublier que le pouvoir
Habyarimana a toujours minimisé le nombre officiel des Tutsi pour justifier le quota de
10% qui leur était attribué dans les écoles et dans les administrations.
Etonnamment, enfin, alors que monsieur Tony BLAIR en prend pour son grade, les
responsables français de 1994 sont totalement épargnés. C’est aussi une façon de prendre
le contrepied de nombreuses études qui tendent à démontrer que la France et son armée
ont joué un rôle important au Rwanda entre 1990 et 1994. Des liens étroits unissaient les
deux pays, c’est connu.
Une simple anecdote : le chef d’état- major de la gendarmerie rwandaise, homme tout
puissant du régime HABYARIMANA, le colonel Pierre-Célestin RWAGAFILITA, n’aurait-il pas
été décoré de la Légion d’Honneur par les autorités françaises ! On pourrait en sourire s’il
ne s’agissait pas d’une compromission choquante dans ce contexte.
Inutile d’aller au-delà. Les réactions ont été nombreuses qui dénonçaient le parti pris de
ce documentaire. Outre une gifle donnée aux victimes et à leurs familles à l’occasion de la
vingtième commémoration du génocide des Tutsi, ce reportage encourage tous ceux qui
ont participé à ces événements tragiques à continuer leur travail de sape et à désinformer
la communauté internationale.
Le seul lien qui semble les unir est leur haine contre le président KAGAME dont ils refusent
de reconnaître le leadership, dont ils n’acceptent pas la façon de gouverner et qui le
considèrent, l’expression a été largement utilisée en d’autres temps et d’autres lieux,
comme le « pire des dictateurs ».
C’est vraiment mal connaître le Rwanda qui, alors qu’il a vécu des événements d’une telle
intensité dramatique, tente de se reconstruire. Autant qu’ailleurs, des problèmes existent.
Mais sa reconstruction ne pourra se faire qu’avec l’abnégation de responsables déterminés
à aller de l’avant, sans oublier le passé.
Au CPCR, nous avons l’habitude de répéter que seule la justice pourra réconcilier les
Rwandais, en particulier la justice envers ceux qui ont fui leur pays, et ce sans haine ni
vengeance.
Le documentaire de la BBC n’’honore probablement pas ses auteurs et ne permet pas de
comprendre ce qui s’est réellement passé au Rwanda depuis plus de vingt ans. C’est plus
un nouvel écran de fumée qui instille le doute et jette le trouble dans les consciences à
propos d’événements qui ne concernent pas le seul Rwanda, mais l’humanité entière.
« L’histoire du Rwanda jamais contée » : vraiment ?
http://www.izuba.info/info/rwanda-s-untold-story-scholars-letter-tobbc,946.html
BBC « Rwanda’s Untold Story » : letter to
Tony Hall

« We urge the BBC to apologise » 38 scholars, scientists,
researchers, journalists and historians
"Rwanda’s Untold Story tarnishes the BBC’s well-deserved reputation for
objective and balanced journalism.
We urge the BBC to apologise for the offence this programme has caused for
all victims and survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda."
Mr. Tony Hall,
Director-General of the BBC,
Broadcasting House, Portland Place,
London. W1A 1AA
Dear Sir,
We the undersigned, scholars, scientists, researchers, journalists and historians are
writing to you today to express our grave concern at the content of the
documentary Rwanda’s Untold Story(This World, BBC 2 Wednesday October 1),
specifically its coverage of the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi.
We accept and support that it is legitimate to investigate, with due diligence and
respect for factual evidence, any crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF), and to reflect on the contemporary political situation in Rwanda. However,
attempts to examine these issues should not distort the reality of the 1994 genocide.
It is not legitimate to use current events to either negate or to diminish the genocide.
Nor is it legitimate to promote genocide denial.
The parts of the film which concern the 1994 genocide, far from providing viewers
with an ‘Untold Story’ as the title promises, are old claims. For years similar material
using similar language has been distributed far and wide as part of an on-going ‘Hutu
Power’ campaign of genocide denial. At the heart of this campaign are convicted
génocidaires, some of their defence lawyers from the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda (ICTR), and their supporters and collaborators. These deniers continually
question the status of the genocide and try to prove – like the programme – that what
it calls the ‘official narrative’ of the 1994 genocide is wrong. The BBC programme
Rwanda’s Untold Story recycles their arguments and provides them with another
platform to create doubt and confusion about what really happened.
Three of the untenable claims made in the programme are of the utmost concern :
the first is a lie about the true nature of the Hutu Power militia. The second is an
attempt to minimize the number of Tutsi murdered in the genocide, and the third is an
effort to place the blame for shooting down President Habyarimana’s plane on April
6, 1994 on the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
First, the programme allows a witness to claim that ‘only ten percent of the
Interahamwe (militia) were killers’. In fact, the majority of Hutu Power militia forces –
estimated to have been 30,000 strong – were trained specifically to kill Tutsi at
speed, and indoctrinated in a racist ideology, part of genocide planning. There is
eyewitness testimony by several militia leaders who cooperated with the ICTR.
Second, the programme attempts to minimise the number of Tutsi murdered, a
typical tactic of genocide deniers.
The false figures cited are provided by two US academics who worked for a team of
lawyers defending the génocidaires at the ICTR. They even claim that in 1994 more
Hutu than Tutsi were murdered – an absurd suggestion and contrary to all the widely
available research reported by Amnesty International, UNICEF, the UN Human
Rights Commission, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, Africa Rights, a UN Security
Council mandated Commission of Experts and evidence submitted to the ICTR and
other European courts who have successfully put on trial several perpetrators.
Third, the film argues that the shooting down of the plane on April 6, 1994 was
perpetrated by the RPF. This same story was promoted by Hutu Power extremists
within a few hours of the president’s assassination and promoted ever since by
génocidaires and a few ICTR defence lawyers.
The film pays no heed to a detailed expert report published in January 2012 by a
French magistrate Judge Marc Trévidic. This contains evidence from French experts,
including crash investigators, who proved scientifically that the missiles that shot
down the plane came from the confines of the government-run barracks in Kanombe
on the airport’s perimeter – one of the most fortified places in the country, and where
it would have been impossible for the RPF, armed with a missile, to penetrate.
Within hours of the president’s assassination, in this carefully planned genocide,
roadblocks went up all over Kigali and the Presidential Guard started to target every
member of Rwanda’s political opposition. These momentous events are barely
mentioned. The members of the Hutu and Tutsi pro-democracy movements were
hunted down and killed, including Rwanda’s Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana,
and ten UN peacekeepers from Belgium who were protecting her.
These opposition politicians separately threatened the Habyarimana regime for
advocating power-sharing and paid for their courage with their lives. Ignored in this
film are the Hutu Power attempts to divide the internal political opposition along
ethnic lines. Political violence in the film is seen only in the context of a ‘civil war’
between the RPF and the Habyarimana government, a smoke screen, used then and
now, to hide the systematic killing of Tutsi carried out by the Hutu Power Interim
Government and its militia.
The film-maker, Jane Corbin, who presented the programme, even tries to raise
doubts about whether or not the RPF stopped the genocide. The authority on this
subject is Lt.-General Roméo Dallaire, the Force commander of the UN Assistance
Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), and present in Rwanda throughout the genocide.
Dallaire is categorical. ‘The genocide was stopped because the RPF won and
stopped it’, he says.
Corbin ignores the testimonies of direct witnesses to what happened in 1994 :
Dallaire and his volunteer UN peacekeepers, Philippe Gaillard and the medics at the
International Committee of the Red Cross, and Dr. James Orbinski of Médecins Sans
Frontières. Years of research and writing by academics and other experts along with
hours of films by journalists who work for the BBC – all of this eyewitness testimony
is dismissed as if fraudulent.
In broadcasting this documentary the BBC has been recklessly irresponsible. The
programme has fuelled genocide denial. It has further emboldened the génocidaires,
all their supporters and those who collaborate with them. It has provided them the
legitimacy of the BBC. Denial of genocide causes the gravest offence to survivors.
For them, the genocide is not a distant event from 20 years ago but a reality with
which they live every day.
The denial of genocide is now widely recognised as the final stage of the crime. One
of the world’s preeminent genocide scholars, the US Professor Greg H. Stanton,
describes ten stages in genocide : classification of the population ; symbolization of
those classifications ; discrimination against a targeted group ; dehumanisation of the
pariah group ; organisation of the killers ; polarisation of the population ; preparation
by the killers ; persecution of the victims ; extermination of the victims ; and denial
that the killing was genocide.
Denial, the final stage, ensures the crime continues.
It incites new killing. It denies the dignity of the deceased and mocks those who
survived. Denial of genocide is taken so seriously that in some European countries it
is criminalized. In 2008 the Council of the European Union called upon states to
criminalize genocide denial.
The 1994 genocide of the Tutsi should be treated by all concerned with the utmost
intellectual honesty and rigour. We would be willing – indeed see it as our duty – to
meet with journalists and to debate in a follow up programme the serious
inaccuracies in Rwanda’s Untold Story.
We hope that the BBC management will quickly realise the gravity of the genocide
denial in Rwanda’s Untold Story. We call upon the BBC to explain how the
programme came to be made and the editorial decision-making which allowed it to be
broadcast. In the course of any internal BBC enquiry we hope all relevant documents
from the This World archive and from senior editors involved in approving the
programme will be released for study.
Rwanda’s Untold Story tarnishes the BBC’s well-deserved reputation for objective
and balanced journalism.
We urge the BBC to apologise for the offence this programme has caused for all
victims and survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
October 12, 2014
Signed
Professor Linda Melvern
, Author, A People Betrayed : The Role of the West in
Rwanda’s Genocide ; Conspiracy to Murder
Senator Roméo Dallaire, Force Commander, UNAMIR
Professor Gregory H. Stanton, President, Genocide Watch
Mehdi Ba
, Journalist and Author
Bishop Ken Barham
Dr. Margaret Brearley, Independent Scholar
Dr. Gerald Caplan
, Author, The Preventable Genocide
Professor Frank Chalk, Professor of History/Director, Montreal Institute for Genocide
and
Human
Rights Studies, Concordia University, Co-author, ‘Mobilizing the Will to Intervene :
Leadership to Prevent Mass Atrocities’ (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010)
Dr. Phil Clark, Reader in Comparative and International Politics, SOAS, University of
London
Boubacar Boris Diop, Sénégal. Author, Murambi, the book of bones
Jean-Francois Dupaquier, Author and Expert
Hélène Dumas,
Diplômée de l’IEP d’Aix-en-Provence (2003), Docteur en histoire
de l’EHESS (2013)
Professor Margee Ensign
President, American University of Nigeria
Tim Gallimore, Independent genocide researcher
Peter Greaves
, Former UNICEF staff member
Fred Grünfeld, Emeritus professor in International Relations, Human Rights and the
Causes of Gross Human Rights Violations, Universities of Maastricht and Utrecht,
Netherlands. Author, The Failure to Prevent Genocide in Rwanda : The Role of
Bystanders, 2007
Dr. Helen Hintjens, Assistant Professor in Development and Social Justice,
International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) The Hague
Dr. Georgina Holmes, Lecturer International
Portsmouth/Royal Holloway, University of London
Relations,
University
of
Richard Johnson, Author, The Travesty of Human Rights Watch on Rwanda
Eric Joyce, MP
Ambassador Karel Kovanda (ret), Czech Representative on the UN Security
Council, 1994-95
Françoise Lemagnen
, Chief Executive, Survivors Fund (SURF)
Ambassador Stephen Lewis, Former Canadian Ambassador to the UN.
W. Alan McClue, Visiting Fellow, Bournemouth University/Cranfield University
Roland Moerland, Ph.D. Researcher and Lecturer in Supranational and
Organizational Criminology, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology Maastricht
University, The Netherlands
George Monbiot, Author and Journalist
Jacques Morel
, Author, La France au coeur du génocide des Tutsi(2010)
Barbara Mulvaney, International Law Consultant ; Former Senior Trial Attorney Bagosora et al., United Nations International Tribunal for Rwanda
Dr. Jude Murison, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh
Peter Raymont
, President, White Pine Pictures, Toronto, Canada
Professor Josias Semujanga, Professeur titulaire, Département des littératures de
langue française, Université de Montréal, Quebec
Jonathan Salt, Managing Director of Ojemba Education
Keith Somerville, Senior Research fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies,
University of London ; Lecturer in Communications and Humanitarianism, Centre for
Journalism, University of Kent
Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, Author and journalist
Dr James M. Smith, CBE CEO, Aegis Trust
Rafiki Ubaldo, Journalist
Andrew Wallis, Author, Silent Accomplice : The untold Story of the Role of France in
the Rwandan Genocide, I.B.Tauris, 2014
Lillian Wong, O.B.E.
British, Chargé d’Affairs in Rwanda 1994-1995
BBC’s hatchet job on Rwanda
MONDAY, 13 OCTOBER 2014 06:44 BY ANDREW M. MWENDA
How Britain’s leading institution has lent its services to the deniers of the genocide against the Tutsi
And so it was that after a couple of text messages I decided to spare an hour to watch a documentary by the BBC titled
“Rwanda: The Untold Story”. Everything the documentary claims to “reveal” in this “untold story” has been told before.
Critics of President Paul Kagame and the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) have made these allegations for years. What was
intriguing was the audacity of the BBC to give a platform to these allegations.
BBC is expected to be fair and balanced – or at least pretend to. Yet the documentary collects well-known genocide
deniers and fugitive former Rwanda government officials for its cast. There is Filip Reyntjens, a Belgian academic who
helped the Juvenal Habyarimana administration write its constitution. He is presented as the “world’s leading expert on
Rwanda.” He is a well-known critic of Kagame and has not been in Rwanda in 20 years.
Others in the cast include Kayumba Nyamwasa, a renegade general living in exile in South Africa; and his friend Theogene
Rudasingwa, a former director of cabinet in Kagame’s office. Kayumba even says Kagame “is a serial killer who enjoys
killing his citizens.” Never mind that this “serial killer” is the only president of a poor country that has given nearly all his
poor citizens medical insurance cover – oh, what a way to enjoy killing your citizens! I know how BBC works. It would never
allow such a sentence to pass its editorial eye. So why did BBC allow this to pass against Kagame?
Neither can BBC justify itself by saying that the woman who did the documentary is not their employee. It is BBC that
broadcast the documentary and bares full responsibility for all its accusations, lies and innuendoes. There is not a single
person – whether a genocide survivor, an official of the government of Rwanda, or the RPF who is interviewed. It is a onesided condemnation of Rwanda government, Kagame and the RPF.
The documentary sinks to the abyss when it presents two Americans it claims have done research on the genocide in
Rwanda. One of them claims that of the one million people killed by the interahamwe militias during the genocide, only
200,000 were Tutsi. The other 800,000, this expert insinuates, were Hutus killed by the RPF. In short, the BBC is saying
there were actually two genocides in Rwanda and the one against Hutus was the worst. The documentary does not ask this
so called expert the basis of this wild claim.
The documentary has a man with a laptop who claims to have recorded a “telephone conversation” with a “top Rwanda
government official” who offers him $1m to kill Kayumba. However, there is no effort to establish the voice on the phone
and link it to a “top government official in Rwanda”. Why should anyone believe this is a genuine telephone conversation?
Another man claiming to have been Kagame’s bodyguard alleges it is the RPF that shot down Habyarimana’s plane. He
claims to have been in the meeting where the decision was taken. But the documentary does nothing to show that he is
was actually part of Kagame’s bodyguard. His claims are taken on face value. Is this journalism? As expected, Kayumba
and Rudasingwa support this allegation but none of them presents a whit of evidence to support their position.
Everyone knows that Habyarimana had planned the genocide long before he died. Militias had been trained. Machetes had
been procured. A propaganda campaign mobilising the general population had been on radio and newspapers for years.
Lists of people to kill had been drawn. In January 1994, the UN Peace-keeping force commander in Rwanda, Gen. Romeo
Dellaire, had sent a cable to UN headquarters in New York seeking permission to attack and destroy ammunitions depots
that had been stocked with weapons to kill Tutsis. The beginning of genocide was a matter or time, not intent.
In that documentary, Kayumba and Rudasingwa represent the tragedy of African elites when they have fallen out of favour
with a government. They allege that it is the shooting of Habyarimana’s plane that sparked off the genocide. Therefore,
they conclude, RPF is fully or partly culpable for the genocide. First, even assuming (just for argument’s sake) that this
claim has merit, why did they serve in the RPF for over ten years if they knew it was responsible for one of the worst human
tragedies of the 20th century?
Although their opportunism is blinding, we should not miss what it reveals i.e. their political bankruptcy. Lacking a core
message to sell to Rwandans, they retreat to false and wild accusations to appease interests that are prejudiced against
Africa. Let us assume, again for argument’s sake, that RPF shot down Habyarimana’s plane: does that justify Hutu militants
taking revenge on innocent Tutsi civilians – including women and children?
Habyarimana’s government was at war with Kagame’s RPF. If he had a chance to kill Kagame would Habyarimana have let
it pass? In war, you are justified to kill your enemy. All too often, the leader of the enemy forces is the center of gravity and
therefore a legitimate military target. Take him out, and the resistance may collapse. That was the reasoning behind
President Barack Obama’s relentless pursuit of Osama Bin Laden. It is obvious therefore that RPF had a strong interest to
kill Habyarimana. Even if they killed him, it would neither justify Habyarimana’s state machinery massacring innocent Tutsis
nor make RPF responsible for the genocide.
The opportunistic claims of Kayumba and Rudasingwa thus amount to saying that Britain and France be held responsible
for the Jewish holocaust because it is their declaration of war against Germany that sparked off World War Two and led
Hitler to kill six million Jews. This tendency, to try and use the shooting down of Habyarimana’s plane to make RPF wholly
or partially responsible for the genocide, has been a recurrent theme of the sympathisers of the Hutu supremacist
government that massacred innocents.
Every mass murderer has been driven by some grievance – Hitler by the fear that Jews were taking over Germany. But you
cannot massacre a million people and then claim it was because someone else annoyed you and he or she should
therefore share your culpability. If we allowed this twisted logic, every criminal would claim someone else drove him/her to
commit a crime.
The documentary itself is neither shocking nor surprising. What is both shocking and surprising is that, it was broadcast by
the BBC. We need to know why BBC did this.
[email protected]
- See more at: http://www.independent.co.ug/the-last-word/the-lastword/9398#sthash.41oiN3Lg.dpuf
http://www.rtl.be/info/monde/international/1132837/rwanda-lepresident-kagame-accuse-la-bbc-de-negation-du-genocide-de-1994
Rwanda: le président Kagame accuse la BBC de
négation du génocide de 1994
Belga | 14 Octobre 2014 19h51
Le président Paul Kagame a accusé mardi la BBC de "négation du génocide" des Tutsi après la
diffusion d'un documentaire controversé sur les massacres de 1994 au Rwanda, très critique à l'égard
de l'actuel chef de l'Etat rwandais.
Le documentaire, diffusé début octobre avait déjà suscité les virulentes critiques d'une trentaine
d'universitaires, experts et diplomates qui ont adressé une lettre aux responsables du service public
audiovisuel britannique accusant la BBC d'être "dangereusement irresponsable" et de "promouvoir la
négation du génocide" rwandais. Mardi devant le Parlement rwandais, le président Kagame a accusé
la BBC d'avoir "choisi de salir les Rwandais, de les déshumaniser et de nier le génocide. Ils étaient
pourtant là quand ça s'est passé. Ils l'ont fait parce que nous sommes Africains et Rwandais". "Ils ne
peuvent pas faire un tel documentaire sur la Bosnie ou l'Holocauste, mais sur les Africains et les
Rwandais ils le font et ils appellent ça la liberté d'expression", a poursuivi le président rwandais. "La
liberté d'expression dont ils parlent est la même qui a permis à la Radio Mille Collines d'appeler les
gens à tuer" les Tutsi en 1994, a-t-il ajouté, en référence à la radio des extrémistes hutus qui relaya
les appels aux massacres durant le génocide. Selon la BBC, le documentaire -intitulé L'Histoire jamais
contée du Rwanda- "remet en cause la version officielle de l'un des plus horribles événements de la
fin du XXe siècle", notamment le rôle prêté à M. Kagame, à la tête de la rébellion du Front patriotique
rwandais (FPR), dans la fin du génocide. La chaîne de télévision estime que le documentaire apporte
une "contribution de valeur" à la compréhension d'un sujet difficile. (Belga)
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/10/the-rwandangenocide-story-that-the-bbc-didnt-tell/
The Rwandan genocide story that the BBC didn’t
tell
47 commentsJames Smith 17 October 2014 17:00
Displaced Tutsi Rwandans at a refugee camp, May 1994 (Photo: AFP/Getty)
On Saturday 200 UK-based Rwandans, including many genocide survivors, protested
outside the BBC offices in response to the documentary ‘Rwanda’s Untold Story’, which
aired earlier in October. The demonstration followed a letter of complaint sent to the
BBC’s director general, written by the survivors’ organisation Ibuka.
They point out that despite the BBC’s commitment to upholding truth and objectivity, the
programme contained factual inaccuracies and seemed intent on reopening wounds in
Rwanda. They expressed disbelief and disappointment that:
‘[A] few people who have their differences with the current government or the country
were given a platform to politicise the Genocide and deny the planned and systematic
killing of over one million people.’
My organisation, the Aegis Trust, manages the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda for
the government of Rwanda. From here, documentation about the genocide is preserved,
and peace and reconciliation programmes are run. For 12 years I have shied away from
commenting publicly on growing genocide revision, concerned I might be interpreted as
an apologist for the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the country’s ruling party.
Now that this tide of denial has swollen into the mainstream media, I break my silence. I
don’t argue with the BBC’s investigative role, nor do I defend the government of Rwanda
against any allegations. However, the beloved and trusted BBC owe licence-fee payers an
explanation as to how they could produce such specious content on the history of the
genocide.
The BBC also presented the notion that Paul Kagame’s RPF did not stop the genocide,
implying instead that the massacres against Tutsis were somehow all over by the time the
RPF liberated the country. No other explanation is offered by the BBC as to how the
genocide ended – perhaps because there is only one answer: the genocide ended when
the RPF defeated the Hutu Power government, which was intent on exterminating every
last Tutsi.
The programme also appears to blame Kagame for the death of Rwanda’s former
president, whose plane was shot down on the eve of the genocide. While there remains no
decisive evidence of who was responsible for the assassination, the BBC producers relied
on the thinly sourced 2006 Bruguière report that blamed Kagame, without mentioning
the more robust Trévidic report in 2012 that implicated Hutu extremists. Viewers are
owed an explanation as to why they were given such a biased, partial view of the
evidence.
The programme also puts the number of murdered Tutsi at 200,000, though most other
estimates put the Tutsi death toll at four times that. One would expect the BBC to secure
strong evidence before allowing such a divisive, inflammatory and offensive claim to be
made. Again, however, the programme relied on academics who have been deeply
criticised by other scholars for flawed calculations and extrapolations from unreliable
data.
It is hard to lecture countries like Rwanda to raise media standards when the BBC airs
documentaries with such shocking lack of balance. This week, as part of a group of
scholars, journalists and lawyers, I added my voice to the protest in this open letter.
James Smith is the CEO of Aegis Trust.
Ta
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/Printer/2014-10-18/182070/
The inhumane mask behind a BBC
journalist
By: LOUIS GAKUMBA
Her mouth is filled with lethal venom, a sting she uses through her camera lenses to
propagate her hate for President Kagame. Her name is Jane Corbin, the producer of
the BBC documentary “Rwanda, the Untold Story.”
Like I do for every movie or article, I watched the film with nervous anticipation. She
sets the tone of the movie upfront… “Hollywood dramatised the Rwandan genocide.”
The certitude, if not ignorance of her words made me shiver.
This documentary is not a provocation; it is a poke in the eye – Corbin is attacking all
Rwandans. In case you have not watched the film, she is testing the hypothesis that
Kagame ordered the shoot-down of the jet that was carrying President Habyarimana
in April 1994.
Corbin concludes that the plane crush was the trigger of the Genocide and for sixty
minutes she assaults President Kagame as the man who caused the Genocide. All her
references on Rwanda were based on political defectors, such as Kayumba
Nyamwasa, who lives in South Africa, and Théogene Rudasingwa in Washington DC.
The documentary also features devoted haters of the Rwandan government like
Phillip Reyntjens, famously known for his political love affair with Habyarimana’s
administration. Worse yet, Corbin supported her hypothesis with professor Allan
Stam from Michigan University, who insanely claims that only 200,000 Tutsi died in
the Genocide!
I have no shadow of doubt that Corbin is waging a war against Paul Kagame. But this
is a battle he should not fight alone – Rwandans in particular and those who value
humanity should spearhead this fight of moral betrayal.
The absurdity of this film is how the BBC went classic and used Corbin for “covering
for collectivism.” As was in early 1930’s Walter Duranty, reporting in Moscow was
used by the New York Times to report for political gains while denying the deaths of
over one million Ukrainians.
In the 21st Century you would not expect a powerhouse like the BBC to give a
platform to a one-sided and conspicuous fashion of reporting. At the very least you
would think the BBC, next door to Germany with the horrors of Jewish Holocaust,
would be considerate of the Genocide against the Tutsi for the sake and respect of
humanity.
During the walk to remember for the 20th commemoration, Jane Corbin walked
among the crowd, only if anyone knew a devil was lurking behind and ready to strike.
She is genetically coded to hate Paul Kagame. The absence of sympathy to
mummified bodies and silent bones defines her true character.
Although the BBC used Corbin to her satisfaction, this is no different from RTLM
propaganda. For Corbin this film it is a homerun – for the BBC I am not sure what to
say.
Tom Hammerschmidt once wrote: “Grief demands an answer but sometimes there
isn’t one.” Millions of Rwandans are left with questions unanswered. Genocide
survivors are slapped in the face and are expected to sleep a wink. The BBC is not
only undermining the human tragedy but also denying the progress Rwanda has
made in unifying the country.
This documentary exemplifies how western organisations prove too powerful beyond
borders to belittle foreign nations. Unfortunately, this western arrogance is a reality
small economies, especially Africa, have to deal with in a globalised world.
One of standing principles of International Relations holds; attack on one means
attack on all. If at all Africa is united, you would expect a reaction from member
states but, thus far, it has been very minimal.
Personally, I think when events like this go without a response prove that Africa is
twig every bird can land on.
http://fr.igihe.com/cinema/le-belge-brewaers-contre-ledocumentaire-rwanda.html
Le Belge Brewaers contre le documentaire
‘‘Rwanda : Untold Story’’ de la BBC
Publié le 17-10-2014 - à 09:16' par Karirima A. Ngarambe
Des chercheurs internationaux sur les crimes de guerre et de génocide des Tutsi de
1994, des analystes politiques et autres observateurs de la région des Grands Lacs se
sont levés pour critiquer le parti pris négatif et délibérément mensonger de la
réalisatrice du documentaire de la BBC : ‘‘Rwanda :Untold Story’’. Ce documentaire
qui semble politiquement motivé a été diffusé pour la première fois ce 1er Octobre
2014. Les analystes politiques vont plus loin et cherchent à savoir les tireurs de
ficelle dans l’ombre.
La réalisatrice Jane Corbin a pris soin de choisir ses personnages. Seules les personnalités
de l’opposition rwandaise de la diaspora sont interviewées. Il se comprend que la version
des événements émaillés dans la période du génocide des Tutsi de 1994 que reprend le
documentaire ne peuvent qu’être racontés d’une façon tendancieuse.
Tour à tour, les dissidents Kayumba Nyamwasa et Théogène Rudasingwa, fondateurs de
RNC (Rwanda National Congress), virulents contre le gouvernement rwandais, occupent
une place centrale dans le documentaire. D’autres comme le Prof. Filip Reyntjens, ancien
Conseiller juridique de Feu le Président Juvénal Habyarimana ou des chercheurs américains
Allan Stam ou Davenport ne sont pas oubliés. Ils racontent à leur façon les événements de
génocide des Tutsi en les habillant de haine qu’ils nourrissent contre l’actuel Régime
rwandais.
Philippe Brewaeys, journaliste d’investigation et auteur de ‘‘Noirs et Blancs Menteurs’’
dissèque le contenu de ce documentaire haineux pour trouver qu’il a été réalisé en violant
tous les critères d’une recherche rationnelle et équilibrée tendant vers l’impartialité.
Selon ce journaliste collaborateur à M Belgique, ce documentaire vient confirmer les
mensonges distillés par le juge anti terroriste français Jean Louis Bruguière à la retraite
qui, dans ses investigations pour connaître l’auteur de l’attentat de l’avion du Président
Juvénal Habyarimana, élément déclencheur du génocide des Tutsi de 1994 au Rwanda, a
ciblé et accusé les hauts dirigeants de la guérilla du FPR d’alors.
Ce journaliste montre également la supercherie de la réalisatrice qui passe sous silence les
recherches judiciaires menées techniquement et scientifiquement avec perfection par les
juges antiterroristes français, eux aussi, Marc Trévidic et Nathalie Poux qui ont conclu au
fait que le missile qui a frappé le Falcon 50 du président est venu du Camp Militaire de
Kanombe occupé alors par des extrêmistes hutus qui n’entendaient pas du tout un
quelconque partage de pouvoir avec les Tutsi du FPR.
Brewaers trouve que le dossier judiciaire sur l’explosion du Falcon 50 présidentiel devrait
s’instruire et être publié pour que les criminels soient traduits en justice, ce qui a pour
effet de couper court aux rumeurs, colportages, manipulations de l’information comme
arme privilégiés des propagandistes, traîtres et autres pourfendeurs du régime de Kigali
qui se cachent derrière la réalisation du « Rwanda : Untold Story ».
« Qui est le vrai criminel de l’explosion du Falcon 50 ? Qui garde les principaux indices du
crime dont la boîte noire dudit Falcon 17 ans durant ? Est-ce le FPR ou les Français ? »,
s’est-il posé la question pour montrer le caractère pernicieux de la réalisatrice du film,
Jane Corbin qui fait de longs voyages sud africains, parisiens, rwandais pour se faire
accorder des interviews des opposants qui accablent le régime rwandais de mensonges
plats sans toutefois, déontologie oblige, tout au long de son documentaire, donner la
parole ne fut-ce qu’ à un seul des témoins neutres ou impartiaux qui ne manquent pas.
http://www.rwandaises.com/2014/10/un-documentaire-de-la-bbcaux-relents-negationnistes/
Un documentaire de la BBC aux relents
négationnistes
Posted in RwandaNews | 0 comments
Un gâchis, un racolage de demi-vérités et de mensonges, une caracolade de suite d’événements
expliqués à sa façon, un escamotage d’autres événements qui infirment la thèse de l’auteur Jane Corbin
qui tente de faire endosser au régime rwandais actuel la responsabilité du génocide des Tutsi pour
« avoir descendu l’avion du président d’alors feu Juvénal Habyarimana (1973-1994) ».
Jane Corbin, l’auteure de Rwanda:Untold Story, chercher une célébrité par une délibérée malhonnêteté
intellectuelle
Rwanda Untold story pourrait être qualifié d’une réalisation pseudo scientifique malheureuse qui choisit
soigneusement ses acteurs. Seuls ceux qui accablent et accusent le régime de Kigali sont triés sur le volet, qu’ils
soient politiciens dissidents ou ceux de l’ancien régime ségrégationniste hutu, qu’ils soient criminels de génocide
ou des experts-chercheurs négationnistes allant jusqu’à dire que lors du génocide des Tutsi d’Avril-Juin 1994,
tout compte fait, seul 200.000 Tutsi ont été massacrés que le reste étaient des Hutus.
Voici une production de la BBC qui montre qu’elle est pilotée par des agents viscéralement négationnistes et
mauvais journalistes d’investigation car la dame productrice du brulot, Jane Corbin, y va à bouche-que-veux-tu et
trempe dans une logique accusatrice.
Elle cherche et trouve des poux dans le régime rwandais actuel ; ce baudet par qui « tout le mal rwandais, le
génocide des Tutsi de 1994, est arrivé, un mal qui s’est prolongé avec 5 millions de morts du coté de l’Est de la
RDC », tente-t-elle de mettre dans la conscience de celui qui visite son documentaire d’environ 60 minutes.
Pourtant, un autre angle plus rationnel et proche de la vérité aurait dû être adopté et donner un sens plus proche
de la vérité.
Fresque photographique montrant images des victimes tutsies du génocide de 1994
D’entrée de jeu, l’auteur montre un colonel belge Luc Marchall qui commandait les troupes belges de la MINUAR
en avril 1994. Lui aussi reconnaît qu’il ne fallait pas laisser les pauvres Tutsi aux mains des Interahamwe
génocidaires.
Au lieu d’assumer ses responsabilités, lui qui a ordonné de lever le QG de Kicukiro après que 10 de ses Casques
Bleus ont été fusillés par les Interahamwe de la Garde Républicaine, il reprend un refrain usagé, celui de
l’élément déclencheur du génocide qu’est l’explosion de l’Avion présidentiel, le Falcon 50. Et la logique du
documentaire emprunte la piste de l’auteur de ce crime : le FPR.
Déclarations de Nyamwasa, Occasion rêvée de la journaliste
Le documentaire se construit autour des déclarations du dissident rwandais, le général Kayumba Nyamwasa. La
journaliste le retrouvera avec peine et une interview est arrangée en Afrique du Sud. Le général reste un bon
militaire. Il ne sait pas trop mentir quoiqu’apparemment les questions suggestives de l’intervieweuse l’y poussent.
« Sans contredit, les extrêmistes hutus avaient planifié l’extermination des Tutsi. Il n’y a aucun doute là-dessus ».
Mais en tant qu’opposant… « Kagame devrait aussi accepter quand quand ce plan d’extermination était en
marche, il avait lui aussi ses propres plans qui ont contribué à ce qui a eu lieu… le génocide (des Tutsi) », confie
le général à la journaliste.
Tout au long de ce documentaire, il est question de noyer le chien avant de l’avoir accusé de rage. Or les
accusations sont mal étayées, peu convaincantes. En lieu et place,
« Il faut chercher une autre version des faits à part celle avancée par le régime en place à Kigali », intervient le
chercheur Christian Davenport de l’Université de Michigan convoqué par la réalisatrice du documentaire avec
l’incontournable universitaire belge Filip Reyntgens et le prof. Allam Stam.
Un discours négationniste nauséabond
« D’après nos recherches, le chiffre de 800.000 victimes tutsi du génocide est tout à fait déplacé. Ils ne sont que
200.000. Le reste, ce sont des Hutu », a avancé Allan Stam sans sourciller. Pour lui, comme contrairement au
génocide juif, il n’y a pas un consensus international pour punir les négationnistes du génocide des Tutsi du
Rwanda de 1994, il peut pousser à bout l’insulte et la démesure.
Le documentaire donne effectivement la parole à tout un tant de dissidents politiques rwandais. Le général
Kayumba Nyamwasa y occupe une place centrale suivi de près par le Major Théogène Rudasingwa et un autre
lieutenant Paul Ruyenzi. Ces deux derniers ne font que verser leur rage sur la façon dont ils ont été exclus du
régime. Des accusations sur le clash de l’avion de Habyarimana par le FPR ? Niet !
Le documentaire donne également la libre expression aux génocidaires dont un certain Grégoire Nyirimanzi que
la journaliste rencontre dans la Prison Centrale de Kigali dite 1930. A la question de savoir s’il n’est pas
injustement accusé de tuer les Tutsi, ce dernier lui lance sur le front avec tout un calme parfait :
« J’ai distribué des armes au commencement du génocide : des pangas et des fusils… Le pouvoir rend ivre tu
sais. J’étais fier de le faire car je sentais que j’allais être gratifié d’un haut poste à la fin du génocide… ».
Le documentaire montre la journaliste qui a une chair de poule en entendant ces paroles décrivant un crime de
génocide bien conçu et planifié de longue date qui devait nécessairement être consommé.
Un cheminement tendancieux
Le documentaire a tenté tout pour mobiliser les opinions diverses des négationnistes. Il y a réussi. Il a également
accusé indirectement ces négationnistes de brandir dans l’air la thèse de l’explosion de l’avion présidentiel
comme élément déclencheur du génocide des Tutsi de 1994.
Le documentaire montre un sursaut d’honnêteté intellectuel de la réalisatrice qui, par le biais du Col Luc Marshall,
montre que le génocide des Tutsi aurait été arrêté si la Belgique n’avait pas décidé de rapatrier son contingent de
Casques Bleus de la Minuar. Mais ce documentaire n’ose pas aller loin sur les motivations profondes de ce geste
criminel belge et de l’ONU en général qui a coûté la vie à plus d’un million de Tutsi.
Les deux chercheurs américains qui trempent sans aucune honte dans le négationnisme du génocide des tutsi
sont bousculés par certains média les alertant sur le fait qu’en avançant la thèse de double génocide avec
200.000 victimes Tutsi et 600.000 Hutus, ils glissent dangereusement dans une malhonnêteté intellectuelle qui
frise la démence au point que même les grands pourfendeurs du régime de Kigali dont le français Gérard Prunier,
l’américaine disparue Alison Desforges et autres Marijke Verpooten n’ont pas pu atteindre cette démesure.
« Il est surprenant de voir qu’aucune mention n’est faite dans le documentaire du très recent, indépendant et
méticuleux rapport d’investigation de 2012 du juge antiterrorist français Marc Trévidic qui a montré que le missile
qui a frappé le Falcon 50 de Feu le president Juvénal Habyarimana venait d’un espace strictement contrôlé par
des unités militaires d’extrémistes Hutus », écrit Wallis sur son blog opendemocracy.net du 6 octobre.
Cet auteur montre le dangereux côté tendancieux de la réalisatrice du documentaire. Celle-ci sait choisir son
monde scientifique pour absoudre son travail, ce qui n’est pas pour le rendre persuasif ou potable. Poursuivant sa
logique de montrer les errements de la réalisatrice qui n’a ni tenu en considération les travaux objectifs du juge
terroriste français Marc Trévidic, qui au contraire s’est acharnée à tirer les vers du nez de témoins dont Lt
Ruyenzi de l’autre juge antiterroriste Jean Louis Bruguière à la retraite,
la réalisatrice de Rwanda : Untold Story « n’a pas non plus donné un coin d’œil aux travaux de recherche
effectués en 2008 par l’Université britannique de Cranfield qui est également arrivée aux mêmes conclusions que
Trévidic.
Andrew Wallis sur son blog opendemocracy.net
Au contraire, elle donne libre champ à un autre chercheur belge, viscéral opposant de Paul Kagame, le Prof. Filip
Reyntjens. La réalisatrice passe sous silence le fait que ce dernier a été un conseiller de longue date du
Président Habyarimana », écrit Wallis avant de qualifier le travail de la journaliste :
« Ce travail est une moquerie d’un supposé journalisme d’investigation ».
http://fr.igihe.com/politique/rwanda-untold-story-un-documentaire-de-la-bbc-aux.html
Posté par rwandaises.com
http://www.newsofrwanda.com/block1/25118/le-documentaire-dela-bbc-na-aucune-credibilite-kagame/
Published On: Tue, Oct 14th, 2014
Block1-ibikorwa-Politics | By gahiji
« Le Documentaire De La BBC N’a Aucune Crédibilité…» – Kagame
SHARE THIS
Devant le parlement rwandais, le 14/10/14, après les élections du nouveau président du sénat, le
Président Paul Kagame a dans son discours fustigé le documentaire de la BBC « Rwanda’s Untold
Story » et ceux qui l’ont réalisé. Kagame expliquait aux autorités de l’Etat comment ils devraient
se comporter face à des situations pareilles. « Les gens qui ont réalisé ce documentaire, via BBC
qui couvre le monde entier ont choisi les autorités rwandaise et nié génocide », ajoutant qu’ils ont
sous-estimé le Chef de l’Etat et le Peuple Rwandais.
Kagame a fait savoir que ceux qui ont réalisé ce documentaire l’ont fait pour leurs intérêts mais
que BBC ne peut pas le faire aux autres pays. « BBC, soi-disant indépendant l’a fait pour le
Rwanda. Après ce sont gens qui reviennent pour apprendre la liberté d’expression, différente des
autres, comme celle de RLTM ».
Mais, selon Kagame « ce documentaire de la BBC n’a aucune crédibilité. Presque tous les
divisionnistes y compris les génocidaires ont témoigné dans ce documentaire de la BBC. On est
alors devenu des criminels, c’est une publicité. Toutes les personnes qui n’ont aucune crédibilité
dans l’histoire du Rwanda ont été interviewés et ont parlé de notre histoire ».
Heureusement que le Rwanda est habitué à des situations pareilles selon Kagame. « Ce n’est pas
la première fois, on voit ça tous les jours…pourquoi je dis ça ? Je le dis pour rappeler vous les
Rwandais, que vous devriez vous approprier de votre histoire, n’attendez pas les cyniques ! Je le
dis dans le contexte des leaders, nous ne devrions pas être des peuples ordinaires, c’est à propos
de notre vie, ce ne sont pas de simple critiques, c’est la destruction de tout ce que nous avons
construit. Et ces mêmes personnes reviennent pour vous apprendre ce que vous allez faire ».
Le premier crime dans l’administration dit Kagame, « c’est le mensonge envers ton peuple ». Il
ajoute que c’est une question de choix, de servir les intérêts des Rwandais. « Soit travailler pour
ton intérêt ou pour leurs intérêts et provoquer le désordre, le conflit. Et personne ne viendra vous
donner gratuitement ». Mais dit-il, « ils se trompent car ces pièges nous renforcent au lieu de
nous affaiblir, même si le corps est fatigué le cœur n’est jamais fatigué ».
Kagame propose deux moyens de faire face à ces problèmes
« Le premier moyen de faire face, est de les sous-estimer, et augmenter la vitesse dans notre
développement. Je lis ça tous les jours et je deviens plus fort que jamais, plus énergétique et
content », a suggéré Kagame aux leaders en particulier et aux Rwanda en général.
Le Rwanda, pays africain, n’est pas à l’ abri des problèmes intercontinentaux. Même si le Rwanda
n’est pas la cause, il doit contribuer à trouver les solutions. « Regarde ce qui se passe à travers le
monde, c’est le chaos, mais ça ne vient pas du Rwanda, même si nous partageons ça. C’est aussi
un rappel pour nos responsabilités de contribuer en cherchant les solutions, petite soit-elle, afin
d’avoir un monde meilleur. Le monde est interdépendant, ce qui affecte un voisin nous affecte
aussi », a-t-il déclaré en parlant de l’exemple d’Ebola qui ravage l’Afrique de l’Ouest. « Nous
devrons renforcer notre système, nos capacités chez nous au Rwanda et se joindre aux autres pour
y faire face en donnant notre contribution ».
Kagame a insisté sur ce que doivent faires les autorités pour le pays et pour le Rwanda. « Tous les
leaders réunis ici, nous devrions savoir d’où nous venons, où nous somme et où nous allons,… »,
a-t-il rappelé en revenant sur la lutte contre le terrorisme, Ebola, la sécurité alimentaire, la
promotion du commerce, etc.
Avant de terminer son discours accrochant avec des applaudissements, il a souligné le
comportement des autorités face aux problèmes. « Ce n’est pas par accident, nous ne devrions pas
fuir les problèmes du Rwanda, ceux qui vont fuir n’auront que la BBC comme soutien. Le Rwanda
existe, et je suis là, si vous voulez combattre, les Rwandais vous combattrons, si vous voulez la
paix ils vous la donneront ».
Pour clore son allocution, il a évoqué le terrorisme et les méfaits des FDLR : « Les 3 dernières
années il y avait le terrorisme ici avec l’appui de l’étranger, les grenades ont tué des vies humaines
ici. Les FDLR sont aussi associés à ceux qui ont tués plus d’un millions de Rwandais. Ils disent
qu’ils étaient jeunes…c’est une pure promotion des FDLR ».
http://fr.igihe.com/arts/la-societe-civile-contre-le-documentaire-dela.html
La Société civile contre le documentaire de la
BBC : ’’Rwanda ; Untold Story" , pour une loi
internationale sur le génocide des Tutsi
Publié le 18-10-2014 - à 21:36' par IGIHE
En date du 16 octobre 2014, la Société civile, par la voix de son Secrétaire Exécutif,
Edouard Munyamariza, a écrit une lettre de protestation à la BBC pour son
documentaire ’Rwanda:Untold Story’ ayant de forts relents négationnistes à l’égard
du Génocide des Tutsi de 1994 au Rwanda. Elle lui demande d’arrêter sa diffusion.
Dans cette lettre, la Société civile demande exhorte la BBC, auteur du documentaire, a
présenter ses excuses aux survivants dudit génocide qui ont été lourdement blessés par son
contenu insultant l’honneteté intellectuelle et la mémoire des disparus.
"Nous sommes peinés de voir que la BBC est devenu un forum des négationnistes alors que
c’est une institution livrant généralement une information impartiale et professionnelle", a
confié Munyamariza à la Presse.
Munyamariza dit qu’au delà de l’exigence que ce documentaire soit complètement banni
par l’auteur lui même, la Société civile rwandaise demande qu’une demande de pardon
soit écrite en bonne et due forme et adressée à la Communauté rwandaise des rescapés
tout en insistant sur les erreurs délibérément négationnistes contenues dans ce
documentaire comme le fait d’avancer que seuls 200.000 Tutsi ont été massacrés durant le
génocidde des Tutsi de 1994.
La Société civile rwandaise déclare que la BBC sera tenue de se plier à ses exigences qu’en
cas de refus, elle continuera sa lutte et frappera aux portes du Ministère de la
Gouvernance locale pour lui exiger de cesser toute collaboration avec cette BBC.
Enfin, cette Société civile demande à la Communauté internationale d’ériger une loi
réprimant le négationnisme du génocide des Tutsi du Rwanda de par le monde entier
autant qu’une telle loi envers le génocide des Juifs est en vigueur partout sur la planète
Terre.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/11164125/The-BBC-distorted-reality-of-theRwandan-genocide.html
Texte impossible à copier – coller
http://martinshaw.org/tag/rwandas-untold-story/
POSTS TAGGED ‘RWANDA’S UNTOLD
STORY’
BBC: You can’t indict Rwanda’s government by
denying the 1994 genocide
Posted: October 18, 2014 in Africa
Tags: BBC This World, RPF, Rwanda, Rwanda's Untold Story, Rwandan genocide, This World
3
The Rwandan genocide of 1994 is recognised by all who have studied it seriously as one of the largest-scale, most
concentrated episodes of mass murder in the last century. About 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis but also Hutus who opposed
the Hutu Power regime, were killed in a matter of weeks. Frequently compared to the Armenian genocide and the
extermination of the Jews, like them its ramifications have continued long after the events. It has increasingly been the focus
of sharp controversy, as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government led by Paul Kagame has used the genocide to justify
its own atrocities and authoritarianism, while those opposed to the RPF regime and Western support for it have often
minimised the 1994 genocide itself.
At the beginning of this month the BBC’s This World series waded into this highly charged context. Jane Corbin set out to
investigate the RPF’s crimes, which include massacres during the invasion of Rwanda that helped provoke the genocide in
1994, at the Kibeho camp where Hutus were held by the victorious RPF in 1995, and at various times in the Congo wars, in
massacres that were investigated (along with others by its opponents) by a UN commission of inquiry. These are indeed a
largely ‘untold story’, as the programme claimed, for Western publics.
However in the course of exposing the RPF, This World also publicised controversial arguments about the 1994 genocide,
provoking 38 academics and others, most of them Rwanda experts, to write in protest to the BBC. They claim the programme
whitewashed the Interahamwe militia, the trained killers of the genocide; grossly minimised the numbers of Tutsi murdered;
and supported the largely discredited theory that the RPF itself shot down the plane of President Juvenal Habarymana, the
event that was the signal for Hutu Power murderers to spring into action in April 1994.
The BBC strongly refutes ‘the suggestion that any part of the programme constitutes a “denial of the genocide against the
Tutsi”.’ It points out that ‘there are repeated references to the mass killings of Tutsis by Hutus in 1994 and that this
constituted genocide.’ However central to This World’s account were two US academics, Allan Stam and Christian
Davenport, who while acknowledging that many Tutsis were killed in 1994, claimed that even more Hutus died at the hands
of the RPF in that year. ‘Rwanda’s Untold Story’ apparently accepted this claim, but consulted none of the many who have
carried out more in-depth research into the 1994 events and regard it as wholly inaccurate.
Falsifying the identity of the majority of victims lifts the main blame for killing from the Hutu nationalist génocidaires, and
places it on the movement that opposed them. The RPF may have been responsible for serious – even genocidal – atrocities
on a smaller scale, but all the available evidence suggests that in 1994 it was the Hutu Power regime that perpetrated the
largest-scale mass murder anywhere in the post-Cold War era, primarily against Tutsis. Claims that shift the responsibility to
the RPF are as much genocide denial as claiming that no mass killing took place at all.
This World didn’t appear to recognise that while President Kagame’s ‘official narrative’, as the programme called it, of the
1994 genocide helps to keep his grip on power, many of his critics have dubious axes to grind. Rwandan Hutu nationalists
have now been joined by Western leftists who appear to believe that any genocide recognised by the West must be a myth.
Radicals like the Guardian’s George Monbiot who refuse to support this denialism are subjected to widespread online abuse.
The truth about genocide in Rwanda does not belong to the opponents of the RPF regime any more than to President
Kagame. Acknowledging the crimes of the RPF should not mean minimising or denying the Hutu Power genocide – or the
fact that Kagame’s victory ended it, whatever new horrors it led to in the Congo. The catastrophic 1994 events were certainly
the outcome of a political struggle in which the RPF was far from innocent, but that movement was not its perpetrator.
Nothing the RPF has done since can justify the journalistic revisionism that the BBC allowed out on October 1st.
See my fuller post on Left-wing Genocide Denial and also Once More on Left-wing Genocide Denial. I have also written
about the interactive regional pattern of genocide in the African Great Lakes in Genocide and International Relations, pp.
164-71.
http://fr.starafrica.com/actualites/des-milliers-de-rwandais-manifestent-contreun-documentaire-controverse-de-la-bbc.html
Des milliers de rwandais manifestent contre un documentaire controversé de
la BBC
par: APA publié le : 22/10/2014 à 16:37 UTC 194 vues Dans: Afrique
Copyright : APA
Au moins 2000 Rwandais ont pris part à une marche ce mercredi dans les rues de Kigali, la capitale du pays,
pour manifester contre le documentaire intitulé
« Rwanda’s Untold Story » (l’histoire jamais racontée du Rwanda) qui a été diffusée au début de ce mois par la
chaîne britannique BBC, soumettant une pétition au Parlement du Rwanda pour lui demander d’intervenir, a
constaté APA.
Alors qu’ils scandaient des slogans, les manifestants ont dénoncé « le mépris » de la BBC. Ils portaient
également des pancartes et des banderoles sur lesquels étaient inscrits des slogans divers tels que « BBC,
n’embrouillez pas le monde, pourquoi soutenir les génocidaires ? ».
Ce documentaire controversé a été publié par le journaliste de la BBC, Jane Corbin, qui a voyagé à travers
l’Europe, l’Afrique et les Amériques pour rencontrer des dissidents du Front Patriotique du Rwanda (FPR),
actuellement au pouvoir, des universitaires, des enquêteurs et d’autres personnes qui ont participé de différentes
façons aux événements avant, pendant et après le génocide contre les Tutsi de 1994.
Les manifestants ont soumis une pétition formelle à l’endroit du parlement rwandais en demandant qu’un acte
ferme soit posé contre la BBC qui a utilisé la liberté de la presse pour abuser du pays et l’ensemble de son
système de leadership.
S’expriment récemment sur ce documentaire controversé, le président rwandais, Paul Kagame, a remis en cause
l’attitude subjective de la BBC qui a voulu «discréditer certaines autorités du pays » à travers ce nouveau
documentaire publié par Jane Corbin.
Selon le président Kagame, tous ceux qui ont, de bonne foi, tenté d’analyser le contenu de ce documentaire,
pourraient facilement conclure que la BBC a tout simplement discrédité le peuple rwandais pour banaliser le
génocide de 1994.
“Rwanda’s untold story » est un documentaire controversé qui a été diffusé le 1er octobre 2014 sur la BBC, et
impliqué le président Paul Kagame dans une série de crimes, notamment l’attentat contre l’avion transportant le
Président Habyarimana en 1994, les massacres au Congo et les meurtres de dissidents.
“L’histoire ne doit pas oublier le sort de la tristement célèbre « Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines » ou
encore de la RTLM, lors du génocide (…). Toutes les personnes interviewées dans ce film sont des personnalités
discréditées au Rwanda», a déclaré le chef de l’Etat rwandais.
Signature : APA
Copyright : © APA
http://howardadelman.com/2014/10/21/the-bbc-documentary-pregenocide-rwanda/
The Rwandan Genocide Revisited: Part
I The Context of a Recent BBC Report
14byhowardadelman
Oct
The Rwandan Genocide Revisited: Part I The Context of a Recent BBC
Report
by
Howard Adelman
In 1995, I and a Norwegian colleague, Astri Suhrke from the Chr. Michelsen
Institute in Bergen, wrote an international report on the international
response to the Rwandan genocide. The research and report were
sponsored by a coalition of 19 international agencies and 18 governments.
The second of four parts of the investigation that we wrote was called “Early
Warning and Conflict Management re the Rwanda Genocide” and the whole
report was published in 1996. A copy of the synthesis of the whole report
can be found at: http://www.oecd.org/derec/50189495.pdf.
The report was cited in a number of articles and books, including our own
edited book, The Path of a Genocide. The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to
Zaire (London: Transaction Publishers) in which we published the infamous
cable by General Romeo Dallaire (11 January 1994) warning of an
impending mass slaughter, and in a much more recent 2009 article, “The
Rwandan Genocide: Why Early Warning Failed,” by Gregory Stanton in the
Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies 1:2, September (6-25).
There have been a number of academic disputes about the genocide, though
no scholarly denials that the genocide took place. One dispute is over the
numbers killed by an extremist Hutu group called the Akazu, and the makeup of those numbers, namely how many of the victims were Tutsi and how
many were Hutu. To what degree was Kagame, and his overwhelmingly
Tutsi fighting force, which had invaded Rwanda and was engaged in a civil
war with the regime, responsible, first, for not preventing many deaths and,
second, for committing atrocities on their own account? To what degree and
in what ways were external actors – the UN itself, the US, Belgium, France
– responsible for failing to prevent or mitigate the genocide?
This year on the twentieth anniversary of the genocide, the BBC, a highly
respected and very responsible player in the media world, published a
revisionist review of the Rwanda genocide
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-BBC-and-the-Rwandan-
Genocide-20141011-0029.html. The headline summary read: “The untold
story is that of the crimes committed by the winners in the Rwandan civil
war, and especially the crimes committed by the biggest winner who took
all, Kagame, Rwanda’s president for the past 20 years.” This immediately
made me suspicious, in spite of BBC’s renown for its objective journalism
and the reputation of Jane Corbin, the producer and presenter, who
individually possessed impeccable credentials as a journalist.
First, that story of Kagame and his troops performing atrocities, had not
been unreported, but, in fact, had been a constant charge from the time we
did our research until the contemporary period. If that was the main charge,
then the BBC story, whether accurate or not in the body of the piece, was
not accurate in entitling the narrative, “Rwanda: The Untold Story”. Our
book documented those charges of atrocities committed by Kagame; Astri
Suhrke and I found them to be true but very grossly exaggerated.
Further, the BBC Report said that, “Up until now, in Western media,
scholarship, and commentary, the Hutus as a community have been held
solely responsible for the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and Kagame held up
as Rwanda’s saviour.” Neither we, nor any of the scholars with which I was
associated, held that the Hutus as a community were responsible for the
genocide. Rather, we all insisted that it was an extremist group of Hutus
and definitely not the Hutu community as a whole. Further, Astri and I were
focused on disproving the charge that the Hutu extremists were solely
responsible. We documented the errors, failures and willful stubbornness
and mindblindness that made various international actors complicit in what
occurred. Third, we never – nor did any one of a number of first class
scholars involved in the study of the genocide – called Kagame Rwanda’s
saviour. Astri and I did say that Kagame and his troops brought the
Rwandan genocide within Rwanda to a stop with the victory in the civil war.
Whether Kagame back then or since was the saviour of Rwanda is a very
different claim and one which neither I nor most of my esteemed colleagues
ever made, though there were a plethora of disputes over his ruling style
and the consequences.
For example, the BBC documentary claims that many of Kagame’s allies
were subsequently driven out of the country by the regime and many were
assassinated. Though Kagame initially drove defectors from the regime into
exile, subsequent to that period, many assassinations have been
documented, though not by Astri and myself at that time or since. However,
we did deal in detail at the time with the charge that Kagame and his troops
killed 600,000 Hutus who had fled to the Congo following his victory in
July 1994 after Kagame invaded the Congo in 1996. The BBC report cites
with approval the charge of Marie, a Hutu survivor whose family she claims
sheltered Tutsis (possibly true), that Kagame and his forces indiscriminately
hunted her family and the hundreds of thousands of those Hutu civilians
who had not participated in the genocide in the jungles of the Congo.
In our report, we claimed that Kagame’s forces were focused, not on the
killing of civilians, but on uprooting and destroying the remnants of the
former Hutu Rwandan army and of the interhamwe militias which had also
fled to the Congo. In the process, they did indiscriminately kill troops in the
military that had not participated in the genocide. More importantly, they
did kill a large number of civilians, We concluded from our examination
that the number killed was 60,000, a very large number indeed, but not
comparable to the 600,000 that Kagame was charged with killing at the
time.
Perhaps our numbers were wrong. Perhaps our analysis had been wrong.
Perhaps evidence subsequently emerged that the numbers were, in fact,
higher. However, that requires research and evidence. Claiming that the tale
of civilian atrocities in Congo by the Kagame regime was an untold story
when, in fact, the charge of 600,000 deaths by the Kagame regime was the
dominant claim, especially by a large number of NGOs, at the time. Our
position was the minority one. The untold story was too frequently told
without adequate evidence, documentation or analysis.
The BBC documentary claimed that the Gersony Report on these atrocities
was suppressed. Certainly, it was never officially published. But if it was
suppressed, how did we come to read and criticize it? The report circulated
unofficially very widely. Working for the UNHCR, Robert Gersony, who
initially had been sympathetic to the Kagame rebellion, a position that
subsequently lent more credibility to his claims, in his draft report repeated
and endorsed claims by many NGOs that Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic
Front (the RPF) had been responsible for mass indiscriminate killings both
within post-genocide Rwanda and in the Congo after Kagame came to
power. The issue was whether the report was NOT officially published
because of repression of the findings or because the methodology and
results were found to be wanting.
We argued that large scale atrocities of women and children, the sick and
the elderly, did take place, but not nearly on the scale that NGOs
consistently reported. The claim was made that within Rwanda, local Hutu
residents and entire families were gathered in community meetings on one
pretense or other and then locked in, assaulted and killed in large numbers.
(The Report, 118-124) When the Gersony team visited 41 communes and 9
refugee camps, they concluded that within Rwanda in Kibungo, Butare and
Kigale, the regime had killed between 25,000 and 40,000 Hutu and Tutsi.
We examined in detail one of those assaults and we concluded that,
although a large number of civilians were killed when Kagame’s forces
repressed a rebellion during heavy rain, and that the control of the rebellion
had been poorly handled, the claims that 800 civilians had been killed in
that assault were grossly exaggerated.
Further, those stories eerily mirrored the tales of Hutu extremist atrocities
in the genocide. We could not find evidence that the round-ups of civilians
had taken place. Further, though we criticized some of the methods used in
the process of re-education and rehabilitation of returning Hutus from the
Congo, the conduct of these meetings and of the Rwandan community trials
– the gachacha courts – further belied most of the charges. The conclusions
of the Gersony Report of occurrences within Rwanda could possibly have
been true, but the evidence we examined undermined the credibility of
those conclusions and fit in too well with the Hutu revisionist claim that, on
the one hand, denied the genocide, and, on the other hand, claimed that it
was Kagame that had perpetuated a genocide.
We did find evidence that civilians had been killed in large numbers in the
Congo, but again, not nearly to the degree claimed and not in this manner.
The civilians were being “protected” by the ex-FAR and the former militias.
In assaults on the former Rwandan army and on the militias, Kagame’s
troops did not pay much attention to discriminating between civilians and
militants. Many civilians died and to the extent that discrimination was not
practiced between civilians and military, these deaths were indeed
indiscriminate. That is not the same as an indiscriminate attack that is
directed solely at civilians.
In my work on the numbers displaced and made homeless in Lebanon
following the Israeli invasion in 1982, I found the OXFAM claim that
600,000 had been made homeless to be preposterous. The number is
southern Lebanon, excluding Beirut, was 40,000, a number we established
by auditing twelve different collections of data. That number of 40,000 was
accepted by all sides. In many humanitarian crises we have found that
numbers are often grossly exaggerated. NGOs – with perhaps the exception
of the ICRC and Doctors Without Borders. Most NGOs do not have a record
of accurate demographic reporting. After all, demography is not their prime
mission and they have a strong interest in enhancing the numbers in
distress. This does not take away from the excellent work they do, but
skepticism needs to be brought into play about numbers generally released
by many humanitarian agencies.
Reports on numbers based solely on interviews with those affected reveal an
adequate way to determine numbers killed or displaced or the motives for
that killing and displacement. Victims, or those who feel themselves
victimized, are not the best source for objective information, though victims’
organizations often produce very accurate information when specifically set
up and tasked to do so – as was the case with the Palestinian teachers in
Lebanon gathering figures of the numbers made homeless in Lebanon in
1982. But all evidence from interviews must be corroborated by various
sources of objective evidence from number counts in graves to conducting
an actual census of survivors. Nevertheless, I do admit that colleagues,
whom I enormously respect – Alison des Forges and Gerard Prunier – lent
considerable credence to the findings of the Gersony Report at the time. But
it is not clear why the BBC twenty years later does, especially when virtually
no hard evidence has emerged to corroborate Robert Gersony’s initial
findings.
Since 1994, organizations, such as the BBC in 2014, claim to have
discovered, uncovered or unearthed the long repressed Gersony Report –
see for example ProxyLake in 2010 – “Unearthed ‘Gersony Report’ the UN
said never existed”. And it never did exist as a UN document. For Gersony
had not insisted as part of his contract that anything he wrote that he would
be free to publish as we had insisted given standing academic norms. The
UN could have distanced itself from the report and refused to publish it but
given Gersony permission to publish it independently and, therefore leave it
open to public criticism. By not permitting the Gersony Report to be
published at all, and while many actually read it and the report circulated
widely, this process merely lent the report a mythic quality to its findings
that I believe was totally undeserved.
Tomorrow, I will turn my attention to the BBC Report itself.
In 1995, I and a Norwegian colleague, Astri Suhrke from the Chr. Michelsen
Institute in Bergen, wrote an international report on the international
response to the Rwandan genocide. The research and report were
sponsored by a coalition of 19 international agencies and 18 governments.
The second of four parts of the investigation that we wrote was called “Early
Warning and Conflict Management re the Rwanda Genocide” and the whole
report was published in 1996. A copy of the synthesis of the whole report
can be found at: http://www.oecd.org/derec/50189495.pdf.
The report was cited in a number of articles and books, including our own
edited book, The Path of a Genocide. The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to
Zaire (London: Transaction Publishers) in which we published the infamous
cable by General Romeo Dallaire (11 January 2014) warning of an
impending mass slaughter, and in a much more recent 2009 article, “The
Rwandan Genocide: Why Early Warning Failed,” by Gregory Stanton in the
Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies 1:2, September (6-25).
There have been a number of academic disputes about the genocide, though
no scholarly denials that the genocide took place. One dispute is over the
numbers killed by an extremist Hutu group called the Akazu, and the makeup of those numbers, namely how many of the victims were Tutsi and how
many were Hutu. To what degree was Kagame, and his overwhelmingly
Tutsi fighting force, which had invaded Rwanda and was engaged in a civil
war with the regime, responsible, first, for not preventing many deaths and,
second, for committing atrocities on their own account? To what degree and
in what ways were external actors – the UN itself, the US, Belgium, France
– responsible for failing to prevent or mitigate the genocide?
This year on the twentieth anniversary of the genocide, the BBC, a highly
respected and very responsible player in the media world, published a
revisionist review of the Rwanda genocide
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-BBC-and-the-RwandanGenocide-20141011-0029.html. The headline summary read: “The untold
story is that of the crimes committed by the winners in the Rwandan civil
war, and especially the crimes committed by the biggest winner who took
all, Kagame, Rwanda’s president for the past 20 years.” This immediately
made me suspicious, in spite of BBC’s renown for its objective journalism
and the reputation of Jane Corbin, the producer and presenter, who
individually possessed impeccable credentials as a journalist.
First, that story of Kagame and his troops performing atrocities, had not
been unreported, but, in fact, had been a constant charge from the time we
did our research until the contemporary period. If that was the main charge,
then the BBC story, whether accurate or not in the body of the piece, was
not accurate in entitling the narrative, “Rwanda: The Untold Story”. Our
book documented those charges of atrocities committed by Kagame; Astri
Suhrke and I found them to be true but very grossly exaggerated.
Further, the BBC Report said that, “Up until now, in Western media,
scholarship, and commentary, the Hutus as a community have been held
solely responsible for the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and Kagame held up
as Rwanda’s savior.” Neither we, nor any of the scholars with which I was
associated, held that the Hutus as a community were responsible for the
genocide. Rather, we all insisted that it was an extremist group of Hutus
and definitely not the Hutu community as a whole. Further, Astri and I were
focused on disproving the charge that the Hutu extremists were solely
responsible. We documented the errors, failures and willful stubbornness
and mindblindness that made various international actors complicit in what
occurred. Third, we never – nor did any one of a number of first class
scholars involved in the study of the genocide – called Kagame Rwanda’s
savior. Astri and I did say that Kagame and his troops brought the Rwandan
genocide within Rwanda to a stop with the victory in the civil war. Whether
Kagame back then or since was the savior of Rwanda is a very different
claim and one which neither I nor most of my esteemed colleagues ever
made, though there were a plethora of disputes over his ruling style and the
consequences.
For example, the BBC documentary claims that many of Kagame’s allies
were subsequently driven out of the country by the regime and many were
assassinated. Though Kagame initially drove defectors from the regime into
exile, subsequent to that period, many assassinations have been
documented, though not by Astri and myself at that time or since. However,
we did deal in detail at the time with the charge that Kagame and his troops
killed 600,000 Hutus who had fled to the Congo following his victory in
July 1994 after Kagame invaded the Congo in 1996. The BBC report cites
with approval the charge of Marie, a Hutu survivor whose family she claims
sheltered Tutsis (possibly true), that Kagame and his forces indiscriminately
hunted her family and the hundreds of thousands of those Hutu civilians
who had not participated in the genocide in the jungles of the Congo.
In our report, we claimed that Kagame’s forces were focused, not on the
killing of civilians, but on uprooting and destroying the remnants of the
former Hutu Rwandan army and of the interhamwe militias which had also
fled to the Congo. In the process, they did indiscriminately kill troops in the
military that had not participated in the genocide. More importantly, they
did kill a large number of civilians. We concluded from our examination
that the number killed was 60,000, a very large number indeed, but not
comparable to the 600,000 that Kagame was charged with killing at the
time.
Perhaps our numbers were wrong. Perhaps our analysis had been wrong.
Perhaps evidence subsequently emerged that the numbers were, in fact,
higher. However, that requires research and evidence. Claiming that the tale
of civilian atrocities in Congo by the Kagame regime was an untold story
when, in fact, the charge of 600,000 deaths by the Kagame regime was the
dominant claim, especially by a large number of NGOs, at the time. Our
position was the minority one. The untold story was too frequently told
without adequate evidence, documentation or analysis.
The BBC documentary claimed that the Gersony Report on these atrocities
was suppressed. Certainly, it was never officially published. But if it was
suppressed, how did we come to read and criticize it? The report circulated
unofficially very widely. Working for the UNHCR, Robert Gersony, who
initially had been sympathetic to the Kagame rebellion, a position that
subsequently lent more credibility to his claims, in his draft report repeated
and endorsed claims by many NGOs that Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic
Front (the RPF) had been responsible for mass indiscriminate killings both
within post-genocide Rwanda and in the Congo after Kagame came to
power. The issue was whether the report was NOT officially published
because of repression of the findings or because the methodology and
results were found to be wanting.
We argued that large scale atrocities of women and children, the sick and
the elderly did take place, but not nearly on the scale that NGOs consistently
reported. The claim was made that within Rwanda, local Hutu residents and
entire families were gathered in community meetings on one pretense or
other and then locked in, assaulted and killed in large numbers. (The
Report, 118-124) When the Gersony team visited 41 communes and 9
refugee camps, they concluded that within Rwanda in Kibungo, Butare and
Kigale, the regime had killed between 25,000 and 40,000 Hutu and Tutsi.
We examined in detail one of those assaults and we concluded that,
although a large number of civilians were killed when Kagame’s forces
repressed a rebellion during heavy rain, and that the control of the rebellion
had been poorly handled, the claims that 800 civilians had been killed in
that assault were grossly exaggerated.
Further, those stories eerily mirrored the tales of Hutu extremist atrocities
in the genocide. We could not find evidence that the round-ups of civilians
had taken place. Further, though we criticized some of the methods used in
the process of re-education and rehabilitation of returning Hutus from the
Congo, the conduct of these meetings and of the Rwandan community trials
– the gachacha courts – further belied most of the charges. The conclusions
of the Gersony Report of occurrences within Rwanda could possibly have
been true, but the evidence we examined undermined the credibility of
those conclusions and fit in too well with the Hutu revisionist claim that, on
the one hand, denied the genocide, and, on the other hand, claimed that it
was Kagame that had perpetuated a genocide.
We did find evidence that civilians had been killed in large numbers in the
Congo, but again, not nearly to the degree claimed and not in this manner.
The civilians were being “protected” by the ex-FAR and the former militias.
In assaults on the former Rwandan army and on the militias, Kagame’s
troops did not pay much attention to discriminating between civilians and
militants. Many civilians died and to the extent that discrimination was not
practiced between civilians and military, these deaths were indeed
indiscriminate. That is not the same as an indiscriminate attack that is
directed solely at civilians.
In my work on the numbers displaced and made homeless in Lebanon
following the Israeli invasion in 1982, I found the OXFAM claim that
600,000 had been made homeless to be preposterous. The number in
southern Lebanon, excluding Beirut, was 40,000, a number we established
by auditing twelve different collections of data. That number of 40,000 was
accepted by all sides. In many humanitarian crises we have found that
numbers are often grossly exaggerated by NGOs – with perhaps the
exception of the ICRC and Doctors Without Borders. Most NGOs do not
have a record of accurate demographic reporting. After all, demography is
not their prime mission and they have a strong interest in enhancing the
numbers in distress. This does not take away from the excellent work they
do, but skepticism needs to be brought into play about numbers generally
released by many humanitarian agencies.
Reports on numbers based solely on interviews with those affected reveal an
adequate way to determine numbers killed or displaced or the motives for
that killing and displacement. Victims, or those who feel themselves
victimized, are not the best source for objective information, though victims’
organizations often produce very accurate information when specifically set
up and tasked to do so – as was the case with the Palestinian teachers in
Lebanon gathering figures of the numbers made homeless in Lebanon in
1982. But all evidence from interviews must be corroborated by various
sources of objective evidence from number counts in graves to conducting
an actual census of survivors. Nevertheless, I do admit that colleagues,
whom I enormously respect – Alison des Forges and Gerard Prunier – lent
considerable credence to the findings of the Gersony Report at the time. But
it is not clear why the BBC twenty years later does, especially when virtually
no hard evidence has emerged to corroborate Robert Gersony’s initial
findings.
Since 1994, organizations, such as the BBC in 2014, claim to have
discovered, uncovered or unearthed the long repressed Gersony Report –
see for example ProxyLake in 2010 – “Unearthed ‘Gersony Report’ the UN
said never existed”. And it never did exist as a UN document. For Gersony
had not insisted as part of his contract that anything he wrote that he would
be free to publish as we had insisted given standing academic norms. The
UN could have distanced itself from the report and refused to publish it but
given Gersony permission to publish it independently and, therefore leave it
open to public criticism. By not permitting the Gersony Report to be
published at all, and while many actually read it and the report circulated
widely, this process merely lent the report a mythic quality to its findings
that I believe was totally undeserved.
The BBC Documentary; PreGenocide Rwanda
21by howardadelman
Oct
The Rwanda Genocide Revisited: Part II – The BBC
Documentary; Pre-Genocide Rwanda
by
Howard Adelman
I know it is hard to read this material. Not because of the subject matter –
horrific as it is. But because this is an exercise in historical knit-picking. The
vast majority of my readers simply will not. I totally understand and
sympathize. However, it I much harder to write precisely because of the
subject matter. Revisiting means literally that – going back to visit the
horrors and re-experience them once again. Yet I am compelled. I simply
cannot accept distortions about this genocide – especially when the
distortion is the result of the techniques of academia or is packaged in the
form of skillful journalistic persuasion.
Yesterday was about advertising. This morning it is about the content of
that advertising. The 2014 BBC documentary narrated and produced by
Jane Corbin on the Rwanda genocide was publicized as a never before
revelation about Paul Kagame, the current President of Rwanda for the last
nineteen years, and the commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)
before, during and after the Rwanda genocide. Yesterday, I argued that the
claim about the account offered was totally incorrect. The insistence that the
documentary constituted “Rwanda’s Untold Story” was belied by the large
number of stories of the same ilk that preceded the BBC narrative.
That same story has been repeated time and again since the Rwanda
genocide in 1994. One additional example only! Barry Collins wrote an
article on 13 August 2008 entitled, “Rwanda: Obscuring the Truth About
the Genocide,” which, along with this BBC documentary and many other
writings before it, sums up a thesis that argues that previously the truth had
been deliberately repressed in the past; for the first time, the author of this
explosive revelation is telling the truth which is precisely opposite to the one
that has been handed down, a version that has brainwashed almost
everyone.
“We think we know the story,” Jane intones. “But do we?” Then her
favourite academic cited in the story says on the screen: “What the world
believes and what actually happened are quite different.” Then a Hollywood
film on Hotel Mille Collines (Hotel Rwanda) is cited as evidence, even
though the film made no great pronouncements one way or the other on any
of the contrary positions that Jane puts forth. The implication is that this
film suggests that Paul Kagame stopped the genocide when it did no such
thing. The film was an excellent Hollywood tear-jerker that arouses our
horror and anger, and even contains its own distortions about General
Dallaire. But Jane Corbin says nothing about Dallaire. The film itself, in any
case and like most movies, is not about truth. It is certainly not about the
large issues of historical veracity that Jane Corbin raises.
However, choosing to cite the film as an illustration is significant. There
have been a plethora of articles, books, documentaries and films on the
Rwanda genocide. Shere Razack argues that many of these, like Hotel
Rwanda, are emotional roller-coasters intended to invoke horror in the
viewer at the tale of the genocide, noting that we did nothing to stop it. (CF.
her 2007 article “Stealing the Pain of Others: Reflections on Canadian
Humanitarian Responses,” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural
Studies: 29:4) Viewers or readers are, as a result, resolved to never forget
and to never allow it to happen again. But we do forget. We do allow it to
happen again. Razack argues that this is because the film is a form of
emotional consumption, an exercise in horror consumption and not a
transformative experience.
It should be no surprise that Jane Corbin starts her documentary with a
ceremony in Rwanda re-enacting the Rwanda genocide in front of an
audience of Rwandans and foreign dignitaries. That ceremony is intended
to reinforce the lesson – “Never again”. Whether or not he had Israel in
mind, Paul Kagame offers a tale of death and resurrection about Rwanda.
Jane Corbin does not challenge the resurrection portion of the narrative,
but argues that the same man who invokes the image of resurrection in
2014 is the one who lit the match originally. Corbin shifts the focus of
outrage from the genocide to Kagame. The reality is that, although she
clothes her documentary in the formal dress of a quest for the truth, she is
even less concerned with truth than Hotel Rwanda.
The vast majority of the world has no opinion about the genocide. They
barely know any version of the story except perhaps that a large atrocity
took place. The cause of the genocide is of little or no interest. So it is easy to
offer, indeed repeat, a claim of originality in the face of alleged conventional
wisdom and to further suggest that she is the goddess that has delivered this
new resurrection. Jane simply offers a different tale of death and
resurrection, as contrived and ritualistic as the one performed in the Kigali
arena. Jane Corbin wants to bury what she argues is an erroneous tale of
death and substitute her own. The claim is made to establish this interpreter
of the Rwanda genocide as an outsider to established thought. It is the
modern day version of the Protestant Reformation with many claimants to
the throne as the original protestor. Not only is it an old story repackaged as
a new revelation, but the documentary uses the same techniques as all those
other repetitions of the narrators of the converse tale. It interviews and
presents only the evidence that it claims supports its thesis and omits any
experts who would challenge its contentions.
Another technique common to these narratives is to make the argument
an ad hominemaccount focused on Kagame personally as the villain of the
tale. Further, the case usually argues guilt by association and makes Tony
Blair and Bill Clinton guilty for befriending and supporting Kagame and
Kagame guilty because he is supported by powerful people. It is the fallacy
of being bad – in this case in two directions – because of the bad company
you keep. There is a third dimension to this fallacy of association. Kagame
may, in fact, be, as Filip Reyntjens, author of Political Government in PostGenocide Rwanda, declares, the worst war criminal in office today – I think
he is not the worst (look at Assad in Syria, the religious leaders in Iran, the
military junta in Burma) – but even if he is the worst, one cannot establish
Kagame’s guilt in the past because of his current guilt, though admittedly
conduct in the present may suggest equivalent ruthlessness in the past. In
fact, Reytjens’ book argues that Kagame and the ruling party’s authoritarian
streak has evolved since the RPF took power. Kagame has increasingly
perpetuated human rights abuses, rigged elections, repressed the
opposition, engaged in wide scale retributive justice and even employed
terrorism as distinct from Kagame’s and the party’s original puritanism.
Today I want to begin to examine the substantive claims made in the BBC
documentary and not the spin about it, and put the position of the other
side alongside the claims of the documentary. This is not the place nor is
there space to also cite the lode of evidence. In doing so, I want to be clear
that I am not accusing Jane of genocide denial. Her documentary makes
clear that she accepts the reality of the genocide and that Hutu extremists
were the main perpetrators. Nor is she even guilty of claiming that there
was a double genocide, one committed by Kagame as well. But she does
indict Kagame on a number of other charges as a prosecutor without
allowing time for a defence attorney.
The BBC video is available at http://vimeo.com/107867605
The BBC documentary, as would be expected, has been expertly produced
and narrated by Corbin. It is well worth watching, not only for its
techniques, but for the position it puts forth as indicated above. Not the
validity of the position, but the arguments for it should be considered,
however repetitive, tiring (and painful) that may be, and however many
times one has to refute its position.
The documentary, though far from original in its thesis, nevertheless, true
to the corporation that produced such blockbusters as Sherlock or Planet
Earth, offers a powerful indictment of Kagame’s dictatorial rule in Rwanda
in spite of the economic success of Rwanda and the relative stability
Kagame brought to the country. Jane Corbin endorses the truth of both of
these latter two assessments.
To reinforce Corbin’s indictment of Kagame, however, there has been
considerable evidence that Kagame has fallen out with a number of his
former inner circle.
General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former Chief of Staff of the
Rwandan army, a former intelligence chief and a former ambassador to
India, joined Colonel Patrick Karegeya, a former spy chief, Dr Theogene
Rudasingwa, a former chief of staff to Kagame and ambassador to the USA,
and Dr Gerald Gahima, a former prosecutor general in Rwanda, to form the
Rwanda National Congress (RNC) in opposition to Kagame’s rule. General
Nyamwasa is Jane’s star witness.
Nowhere does Jane report the failure of the RNC to hold a significant
founding congress (perhaps because of money shortages, fear of reprisals,
including assassination ordered by Kagame, political pressure from the
African National Congress in South Africa, and inadequate political support
from Rwandans). Nor does Carbin probe the widespread rumours, following
the failure of the RNC congress, that Nyamwasa has since appealed to
Kagame to allow his return and offered a public ereapology if he were
allowed to come home, promising to retract the accusations he leveled at
Kagame. (There are no rumours that I know of that Dr Theogene
Rudasingwa, another star witness in the documentary, tried to make a deal
with Paul Kagame to allow him to return home.) There have been at least
two assassination attempts on Nyamwasa’s life. About a dozen dissidents
in exile have been assassinated or disappeared in the last twelve years,
including Col. Patrick Karegeya who was murdered at the end of December
2013. (Cf. the 16 March 2014 BBC Report, “Patrick Karegeya: Mysterious
death of a Rwandan exile”.) Most finger pointing is directed at Kagame.
I have not undertaken the research to offer my version of Kagame’s rule
over the last decade and a half. I will focus my criticisms of the documentary
on the following substantive stated or implied claims:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Kagame was chosen by America and backed by Uganda;
Kagame led the Rwandan invasion from Uganda.
By 1993, Kagame threatened to capture Kigali, the capital
Paul Kagame was insincere in signing the Accords and was simply
using the year between the signing and the outbreak of the genocide
to prepare to seize power.
Tomorrow I will deal with the period of the genocide itself and the
following:
1. The charge that Paul Kagame personally ordered and was
responsible for the shooting down of President Habyarimana’s plane
that instigated the genocide;
2. The claim that most of those killed within Rwanda were Hutu and not
Tutsi;
3. The claim that Kagame did not stop the genocide.
4. The charge that the Kagame regime slaughtered thousands of Hutu
civilians at the Kibeho Internally Displaced Persons camp in Rwanda
in 1995.
1. Misrepresentations of the situation prior to the RPF invasion
Corbin makes two claims that are part of established lore and not part of
this genre of critical accounts. She argues that the RPF was an offshoot of
Museveni and that Museveni supported the invasion of Rwanda by the RPF
in 1990. In our study, we argued that the overwhelming evidence suggested
that Museveni knew about the impending invasion and did not try to stop it
because, as advocates taking Corbin’s position have argued, that initiative
rid Museveni of the Tutsi refugee problem within Uganda after he had been
unsuccessful in getting Parliament to grant them citizenship. But we could
not find evidence that the invasion was part of Museveni’s expansionist
foreign policy and that the RPF was an extension of Museveni’s military
apparatus. Corbin makes that claim without presenting any evidence to
back it up and without mentioning a possible alternative narrative.
Second, Corbin suggests that the US picked Kagame for military training in
the US because they spotted his potential, presumably as a future leader of
Rwanda and possible satrap. Again there is no evidence offered. Paul
Kagame certainly went to obtain advanced military training in the USA but
as part of America’s agreement with Uganda to upgrade its officers. There is
no indication or evidence that I know of that, in doing so, America did so
because it had major future plans for Paul Kagame. In fact I find the
suggestion that the United State was so far-sighted to be incredible.
1. Historical Omissions re the invasion of Rwanda
Corbin omits to say that Kagame opposed invading Rwanda in 1990, was
not in Africa when the RPF invasion took place. He was only called back
from America to lead the RPF when the invasion had been repulsed and
when the two RPF commanders were killed by President Habyarimana’s
RPA — with assistance from the French military and some rear guard
support by the Belgian military.
1. The RPF threat to Kigali
By 1993, under Kagame’s leadership, the RPF was only 15 miles from the
capital and since the RPF had the RPA on the run, questions have been
raised about why Kagame stopped his army from taking the capital and why
he agreed to the power sharing agreement with Habyarimana’s government,
though that agreement was on very favourable terms for the RPF. The
suggestion by Corbin is that this was a ruse until Kagame was in a better
military position.
However, Kagame was in an excellent military position to advance at the
time. Corbin does not mention let alone take Kagame’s own position into
account. Further, Corbin makes a common error in insisting that the RPF
was only Tutsi, whereas the RPF at the time consisted of some Hutu
representation even though the military force was predominantly Tutsi.
Finally, Filip Reyntjens, one of Corbin’s star witnesses against Kagame,
describes how Kagame was not always as bad a guy as he came to be.
Reyntjens argues that the RPF only decided it would have to rely on its
military rather than on diplomacy near the end of 1993 and only when it
became clear that the extremists within Rwanda would not allow a peaceful
resolution. The fact that one of her star witnesses refutes her contention of
consistent and high level evil is omitted.
Instead, Corbin interviews Marie, a twelve year old Hutu at the time, who
says that her family, and Hutus in general, regarded the RPF, not as
militant returning Rwandan refugees, but as foreign enemies. Hutus feared
what the RPF would do to the Hutu population. There is no suggestion in
the documentary that this was the party line of the Habyarimana
government and one hysterically reinforced by extremist Hutus. The
population indeed was indoctrinated to believe precisely that. Instead, the
tale is told as if this was a fact. The RPF was the repository of evil. There is
no mention of the Akazu, the small extremist Hutu faction that perpetrated
the genocide. There is no explanation of why Hutus accepted that belief.
There is only the implication that the belief was valid.
The documentary also explicitly states that President Habyarimana only
signed the Arusha Accords because he was pressured to do by the West, the
precise line that Collins took in 2008. There is no examination or even
presentation of the preponderant scholarly opinion that Habyarimana
signed the accords because there was by then a multi-party government
committed to democracy. Domestic pressure combined with his own weak
military position induced Habyarimana to sign.
Finally, Corbin suggests that it was the overthrow of the government in
Burundi and the persecution of Hutus there that instigated the widespread
fear and set the country on a course of genocide. Certainly the Burundi coup
served as a catalyst to the impending resumption of the war and the
genocide, but it was not the sole or even major cause of Hutu extremism. It
was a late-comer. Hutu extremism was formalized after the invasion of
Rwanda by the refugee Tutsi ex-pats and their Hutu allies. The extremists
practiced Tutsi extermination long before the Burundi coup. Plans were
developed much earlier. The Akazu was founded in 1991 and had been
training small groups of Hutu to enable them to commit genocide since that
time.
These omissions, distortions and misrepresentations during the pregenocide period are relatively minor compared to her claims about Rwanda
and the instigation and progress of the genocide itself.
The BBC Report: Genocide Denial – A
27
Oct
The Rwandan Genocide Revisited:
Part IV: The BBC Report – Genocide Denial – A
by
Howard Adelman
The BBC video is available at http://vimeo.com/107867605.
In a rare joint sitting of Rwanda’s two houses of parliament this past Thursday (23 October
2014), the legislators condemned the BBC for broadcasting the documentary accusing
Kagame of both being a major cause of the Rwanda genocide and for being responsible for
downing President Juvenal Habyarimana’s aircraft on 6 April 1994 when he was returning
from the Tanzanian peace talks with the Tutsi RPF rebels. There, Habyarimana had finally
agreed to implement the Arusha Peace Accords.
Parliament banned the BBC from Rwanda and accused the documentary makers of genocide
denial, a charge which BBC, as expected, denied. Interestingly, Paul Kagame in an interview,
at Chatham House after the BBC program was broadcast, did not at first appear to call for
censorship of the BBC for its broadcast. Kagame said, “The BBC can say whatever they want
to say. They don’t have to say or do, whatever they do or say, because that is right. They say
or do whatever they say and do because they can.” Though to some he appeared to be
defending BBC’s right to broadcast, he was actually asserting that what BBC broadcast was
not right and the BBC only broadcast what it did because it could get away with it – with the
implication that such behaviuor would not have been permitted in Rwanda.
While I am very critical of the documentary and see it as a very well-made piece of schlock
with some very interesting interview segments, the producer and director are not guilty of
genocide denial. But they come very close. A genuine case can be made that they crossed the
line. It is not because of the accusations leveled against Paul Kagame. It is because of the way
the program played with numbers.
Those killed in the genocide are generally believed to have been mostly members of the
minority ethnic Tutsi group, though the slaughter included the killing of moderate Hutus as
well as random killings for an assortment of reasons. The documentary, The Untold Story,
interviews and endorses the views of a pair of US academics, Dr. Allan Stam, currently Dean
at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, and Dr.
Christian Davenport of the University of Michigan. (See their web
site:http://genodynamics.weebly.com/) Stam was previously Director and a Professor at the
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Both are reputable and
widely recognized as scholars.
That does not mean that all their work is excellent, though some certainly has been highly
regarded. I met Allan Stam at the International Studies Association meeting in 2004 when he
was awarded the Karl Deutsch Award for his scholarly contributions to that date on the
origins of war and on democracies at war. The body of work did not include his research with
Davenport on the Rwandan genocide, though his work had begun before that date and the
year before he had received a National Science Foundation Grant to undertake research on
“Mass Killing and Oases of Humanity: Understanding Rwandan Genocide and Resistance”.
Thus far, none of the results have been published in either an academic journal or as a book,
though publication in the near future has been promised. Given the sensation aroused by the
BBC documentary, such a book could garner high sales as a trade rather than an academic
publication.
Though not yet published, the data gathered and a number of relevant references, including
criticisms of their work for the BBC and on the BBC documentary, have been included on
their web site. They offer three reasons for their failure to publish after 14 years of work on
the topic: 1) Their attempt to be as accurate as possible; 2) criticisms they encountered
surprised them and set them back; 3) the fact that, nevertheless, they have posted their
research online and in a transparent way. They should be congratulated for the latter; it makes
it much easier to offer a critique. They include a very useful list of a large number of
commentaries on the BBC broadcast. They do not offer the explanation offered by Filip
Reyntjens (who is also used in the BBC documentary) that the research was too inadequate to
be worthy of scholarly publication.
As far as the killers, Stam and Davenport reiterate that the murderers “were a group of
extremist Hutu members of the Rwandan Armed Forces [the FAR], the Presidential Guard,
national police, the ‘Zero Network death squads’ as well as affiliated militias: the
Interahamwe and Impuzamuga.” Because I and most other scholars contend that the militias
were primarily responsible for most of the actual killing, I use the simpler designation, the
FAR and the Interahamwe militias whereas they refer to FAR+. The killers targeted Tutsi to
exterminate them.
In the BBC documentary, and in their research, the controversy is about those killed not about
the killers. The pair claimed that most of those killed were not Tutsi but Hutu. “(O)ur best
estimate of who died during the 1994 massacre was, really, an educated guess based on an
estimate of the number of Tutsi in the country at the outset of the war and the number who
survived the war. Using a simple method —subtracting the survivors from the number of
Tutsi residents at the outset of the violence — we arrived at an estimated total of somewhere
between 300,000 and 500,000 Tutsi victims. If we believe the estimate of close to 1 million
total civilian deaths in the war and genocide, we are then left with between 500,000 and
700,000 Hutu deaths, and a best guess that the majority of victims were in fact Hutu, not
Tutsi.”
If the hundreds of thousands of Hutu allegedly slaughtered by Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic
Front (RPF) which won the civil war both in Rwanda and, after the war, in the Congo, the
implication is that the Akazu, the party intent on the extermination of the Tutsi, were but a
pinprick in their slaughter of Tutsis compared to the massacres of Hutu committed by both the
extremist Hutu Akazu and the predominantly Tutsi RPF. As Stam and Davenport claim.
“there was clearly a genocidal campaign, directed to some degree by the Hutu government,
resulting directly on the deaths of some 100,000 or more Tutsi.” (my italics)
The number of Tutsi was first said to be 300,000 to 500,000, then reduced to 300,000, and
then to 200,000. Then the number of those deliberately killed by the Akazu was reduced to a
guess of approximately 100,000. The last figure was offered without explanation, without an
examination of the mass graves, without an examination of all the evidence that countered
such a claim. This may not be genocide denial, but it is on the same plain as those who whittle
the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust down to 1,000,000 to 1,200,000.
This is when the scholarship could be accused of crossing the line into denial. Over 460
graves with more than 20 in each grave does not support a thesis that 90% of those killed
were not products of genocide. Stam and Davenport insist that the correct comparison is not
the Holocaust but the civil wars in England, Greece, China and Russia where civil order broke
down and ethnic-based violence took place combined with random rather than intentional
slaughter. However, unlike those civil wars, and characteristic of Rwandan society in general,
and in spite of the presence of extremism, civil order did not break down, even in the refugee
camps.
The authors make numerous errors in their account, some of which I will enumerate at greater
length tomorrow and the next day. As a single example of error, they are just incorrect that
Romeo Dallaire claimed that the plan to exterminate the Tutsis had been hatched in 1988. No
source is cited for such a claim. For good reason. Dallaire claimed that the genocide was
planned two years before the actual mass slaughters occurred in 1994 and not two years
before the invasion began in 1990. Trial runs of mass killings averaging 300 Tutsi took place
over that two-year period. There is no evidence presented that the planning started six years
before or that Dallaire made such a claim.
While Stam and Davenport may be stars in the quantitative world of current American
political science, they are terribly inaccurate in their specific citations. Further, for those who
claim that their research is “evidence-based”, where is the evidence that approximately
100,000 Tutsi were killed for genocidal reasons. That is not even a best or an educated guess.
It is speculation based on whimsy. I cannot find a reasonable basis for such a calculation after
several reviews of their documentation on their site.
Even Filip Reyntjens, who defended the BBC program in which he appeared and criticized its
critics, wrote, “I do not need to dwell on the second claim considered untenable by the
signatories (in a letter written by many experts criticizing the program). I agree with them that
the figures provided by Professors Stam and Davenport on Tutsi and Hutu killed in 1994 do
not appear to be based on solid research. At least the data they have published (not in a
scientific journal or book, but merely on their websitehttp://genodynamics.weebly.com) are
insufficient to support their claim, which flirts with genocide minimisation or denial.”
However, let’s first examine the case they make. I will save the systematic rebuttal for two
subsequent blogs. Stam and Davenport followed the lead of Alan Kuperman (now at the
University of Texas in Austin who first gave his provocative paper as a young scholar at the
1998 or 1999 International Studies Association conference). Kuperman made a name for
himself by attacking the position that the intervention of a peace force could have stopped the
genocide. He did so by tracking the battles and showing that Tutsis were mostly slaughtered
just before the RPF made significant advances. (See Alan Kuperman (2000) “Rwanda in
Retrospect,” Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb.) As he wrote, “even a massive Western intervention
could have saved only a quarter (around 125,000) of the Tutsi lives lost in the massacres.”
Note that he had concluded that 500,000 Tutsi had been killed in the genocide. But, as he
argued, “Intervention may be better late than never, but it requires military effort on a scale
and for a length of time that will make most developed countries’ military staffs and
politicians blanch.” (See Alan Kuperman’s book published in 2001, Genocide in Rwanda;
another scholar, Jeffrey Herbst in his essay “The Unanswered Question: Attempting to
Explain the Rwandan Genocide,” used the same figure of 500,000 as the number of Tutsi
killed by the genocidaires.)
Countering the claim that 5,000 U.N. troops could have halted the Rwandan genocide in its
tracks is one thing. Alison Des Forges vigorously attacked Kuperman for his thesis in a
subsequent issue of Foreign Affairs. She also challenged Kuperman’s claim that Clinton not
only did not know of the genocide until two weeks later, but that he could not have known, a
nonsensical claim as Des Forges made very clear. Such a mistake is common among
academics. However, the Stam/Davenport claim that only about 100,000 Tutsi were targeted
and killed for genocidal reasons is another order of error altogether.
The two American scholars do not use the usual tactic that the numbers slaughtered totaled far
less. Even Alison Des Forges, one of the very early and extremely reputable scholars who
documented the genocide, had insisted that the total number was 540,000 of whom an
estimated 500,000 were Tutsi. However, at a meeting in Geneva attended by a number of
scholars on the genocide, we reviewed the various figures and the evidence for them. We
agreed at that time to use a figure of 800,000 as the most reasonable estimate of those killed.
We did not distinguish between Tutsi and Hutu killed, but presumed from all our studies that
the vast majority were Tutsi, the product of mixed marriages or moderate Hutu. The
American scholars insisted that the overall number killed was slightly over a million, not
800,000. Further, and this is the controversial part, the vast majority were Hutu. Only 200,000
(at most 300,000, though at another point they said at most 500,000) of the one million death
toll in Rwanda had been Tutsi and only half of that 200,000 had been killed in genocidal
motivated slaughters.
The vast majority of Stam and Davenport’s statistical work was used to aggregate the total of
one million and not disaggregate that total. The Rwandan government, as well as myself,
agree with Stam and Davenport with the revision of the total upward. Subsequent to the
Geneva meeting, Astri Suhrke and I reviewed our figures. Our estimates were based on mass
grave sites and sample reviews of three sites and a very detailed counting at one site, the
technical school in Butare where all those gathered at the school to flee the massacres were
gathered, then slaughtered over a 3-4 day period. Over 17,000 killed were buried in one mass
grave which had been dug by a contractor three weeks before the genocide commenced on 6
April 1994. The bodies were unearthed from that one mass grave not long before we visited
the site and were laid out on the benches and tables of the school.
The most searing experience I had in conducting our study of the involvement of nonRwandans in the killing was confirming the count. Because the bodies had been packed
together so densely, they still had most of their flesh. The smell was overwhelming. A halfcrazed woman wandered around the site, but at that time it was only managed by one person.
An observer could even see how some were killed, especially women; long wooden spears
had been stuck up their vaginas to penetrate their hearts.
I, for one, audited the official count of the bodies unearthed in that one grave by counting the
bodies in four different school buildings. The official figures provided were accurate. When
we audited two other killing sites, we came to concur with the government figure that over a
million had been killed and began to use the figure of 800,000 to 1,000,000 as the number that
were slaughtered. Fearing accusations of exaggeration, given the agreement we had made in
Geneva, we did not simply use the one million figure. Further, we had never properly audited
the total. But I was convinced that the revised government figure of over a million was the
accurate one. The two Americans scholars agree. So I am pleased that Stam and Davenport
concur that the total figure of those killed was over one million.
However, I am not pleased or at all persuaded by their disaggregation of that figure. Stam and
Davenport claim that, “Essentially, research on the topic of Rwandan casualties has relied
upon eye-witness testimony via survey, census and interviews.” What about the data from the
mass grave counts? Even in the documentary, Jane Corbin uses the figure of 15,000 killed in
the massacres at the school Murambi though official figures are much higher with estimates
of 40,000 to 65,000. Wikipedia uses the highest figure. “On April 16, 1994, some 65,000
Tutsis ran to the school. After the victims were told to gather there, water was cut off and no
food was available, so that the people were too weak to resist. After defending themselves for
a few days using stones, the Tutsi were overrun on April 21. The French soldiers disappeared
and the school was attacked by Hutu Interahamwe militiamen. Some 45,000 Tutsi were
murdered at the school, and almost all of those who managed to escape were killed the next
day when they tried to hide in a nearby church.”
It is not very important that Stam and Davenport ignore our scholarship since Astri and I were
far more focused on the role of external actors. However, American anthropologists
specializing on Rwanda, numerous historians and political scientists, particularly European
ones, who are recognized authorities on Rwanda, are never cited and not even listed in their
bibliography. But even if one simply adds up a few mass graves, the total easily far exceed a
figure of 100,000 Tutsi killed through genocidal actions. Adding them all up leads to a figure
of at least 500,000-700,000 Tutsi killed.
The Americans argued that large numbers of Hutu killed had been murdered for six different
reasons. First, many members of the killing militias were non-locals who could not
distinguish in many cases between a Hutu and a Tutsi, even if in his own district he could
identify who was either a Tutsi, a Hutu, or, for that matter, a Twa, the tiny minority descended
from the original inhabitants of the area. Secondly, the cover of war was used systematically
using the mass killing to settle political, economic and personal scores. “(T)here was a large
degree of random political violence taking place or what is referred to as ‘wilding’ (Fujii;
Hatzfield). In this situation, ordinary/non-government affiliated Rwandans (both Hutu and
Tutsi) squared off against other Rwandans (both Hutu and Tutsi) in an attempt to exact
revenge for personal wrongs, financial gain or collective hatred – some ethnic, some political
and some idiosyncratic in nature.” Third, many Hutu were killed who tried to protect or hide
neighbours. In one case that I personally investigated, the body of a Tutsi killed by the
militias had lain in the middle of the road for several days. A neighbour of the individual
killed eventually went out to cover the body with an old coat. A member of the Interahamwe
militia spotted him. That Hutu, appalled at the indignity of his neighbour left to rot in the
middle of the road, was instantly killed. Fourth, many Hutu were simply killed in the fog of
war. Fifth, moderate Hutus who were charged with supporting the RPF (and hence Tutsi rule
according to the extremist ideology) were deliberately killed. Finally, the American scholars
charged the RPF with killing large numbers of Hutu after they conquered a territory to impose
their rule. This does not even include the number of Hutu killed in the Congo in the war that
broke out there in 1996. Those estimates vary from 20,000 to 60,000.
I do not think that anyone disagrees with the classification of the reasons for those killed, but
simply the distribution of the total numbers among those classes. The distribution Stam and
Davenport arrived at just does not fit with what we observed, what we counted and what the
vast majority of scholars have concluded who have studied the genocide. Their failure to
question their own calculations adequately, their consistent insistence that is blind to their
own fundamental errors, their seemingly unshakable belief that, through their quantitative
analysis, they were correcting the errors of previous scholars, ended up producing results that
were derided as genocide denial. Though that derision may be undeserved, it is
understandable given the falsifications of the record resulting from their quantitative studies,
about the disaggregation of those totals arrived at through inference, illogic and very
questionable assumptions.
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in EthicsTagged BBC, Davenport, genocide, Hutu, Numbers,population, Rwanda, Stam, Tutsi
Part III The BBC Report – The Downing
of Habyarimana’s Plane
23
Oct
The Rwandan Genocide Revisited:
Part III The BBC Report – The Downing of Habyarimana’s Plane
by
Howard Adelman
The BBC video is available at http://vimeo.com/107867605.
One of the most important parts of the BBC documentary is its account of the shooting down
of President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane that triggered the genocide and massacres. The
most outrageous claim that Jane Corbin makes in her BBC documentary on the Rwanda
genocide is that President Paul Kagame of Rwanda was guilty of ordering the plane of
President Habyarimana shot down on 6 April 1994 when the plane was returning to Kigali
and on a flight path to land at the international airport. The plane was downed by two surfaceto-air missiles. Since the downing of the plane triggered the killing of at least 800,000
moderate Hutus and Tutsis, therefore Kagame has to assume a good part of the responsibility
for the genocide according to Kagame’s critics, who accuse him of responsibility for ordering
the firing of the surface-to-air missiles. Even if Kagame did shoot down the plane, it is a very
large and questionable leap to conclude that he shares a major responsibility for the genocide.
I will deal with this extension of the accountability issue after I examine Jane Corbin’s
evidence for and the evidence against her thesis that Kagame shot the plane down.
The claim is outrageous, not because it has not been made many times before, but, after all
this time, the charges are repeated with precisely the same kind of slim evidence relying
almost entirely on the testimony of dissident Rwandans, more recently by those who were
once prominent in Kagame’s entourage and carry considerably more credibility. They
include: key former high officials from Rwanda: General Déogratias Nsabimana, Chief of
Staff of the Rwandan Defence Forces (the FAR), the head of the President’s personal security,
Major Thaddée Bagaragaza, the key adviser to the President’s military cabinet, Colonel Elie
Sagatwa, and the foreign affairs advisor to the President, Juvénal Renaho.
Further, the charge is made without any consideration of the overwhelming evidence
supporting the predominant hypothesis that the plane was shot down by missiles launched by
the Rwandan Presidential Guard under the control of Hutu extremists.
There is consensus on some items:
1. The plane was shot down at about 8:30 p.m. by two surface-to -air missiles that hit the wing
and tail of the French Dassault Falcon and the plane crashed into the garden of the
Presidential Palace;
2. The RPF, to UNAMIR’s knowledge, did not have surface-to-air missiles;
3. The Rwandan army did have surface-to-air missiles of the type believed to have downed the
plane, but no definitive proof has been found to equate the missile fragments with those
missiles, particularly since the crash site was scoured by the Presidential Guard;
4. Radio Mille Collines, the propaganda radio outlet for the extremist Akazu, stopped
broadcasting its program as soon as the announcer reported the plane was coming in for a
landing, and before it was hit by missiles; the radio station started to broadcast classical
music;
5. No sooner had the plane crashed than a bugle sounded mustering the Rwandan army
soldiers to battle dress;
6. Within minutes of the downing of the plane, military roadblocks went up all over Kigali, many
if not most, manned by Interahamwe militias;
7. About an hour after the crash, gunfire and explosions were heard at the Rwandan army
military camp, but neither the source nor the target of the explosions were identified,
though the soldiers generally believed that they were being attacked by RPF troops stationed
in Kigali; no evidence has been found of an attack at that time;
8. It was not clear and understood by the vast majority of residents of Kigali until about an hour
after the crash that the President and the military chief of staff had been killed;
9. When the officers met to consider a successor to the Chief of Staff, instead of selecting from
the order of command, a relatively junior officer, Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, was found by
General Dallaire already to be in charge;
In addition to the items above, the BBC documentary omits the following vital information:
1. President Habyarimana in Tanzania had finally agreed to a process for implementing the
August 1993 Arusha Accords that would bring about a coalition government on very
favourable terms to the RPF;
2. The Akazu, or the extremist racist Hutu Power faction in the dominant ruling MRND party,
adamantly opposed implementing the Arusha Accords as the Accords would entirely deprive
the faction of power since the Akazu faction had not been allocated any cabinet positions
and had sworn it would take any measures needed to prevent the RPF from sharing political
power in Rwanda;
3. No mention was made of the 11 January 1994 cable in which General Romeo Dallaire, head
of the UNAMIR peacekeeping force, warned that a massive slaughter by extremist Hutu
elements had been planned, and that there were secret weapons caches to be made
available to extremist militias, the infamou;
4. Luc Marchal, commander of the Belgian battalion in UNAMIR, and interviewed in the
documentary, was not asked in that documentary about the refusal of Rwandan soldiers to
allow him to recover the flight recorder; the flight recorder was never recovered and made
available to any independent body;
5. Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, though an opponent of the RPF but not part of the
Akazu, as well as almost all the other moderate Hutus in the cabinet, were slaughtered
overnight in their homes after the downing of the plane;
6. Ten Belgian peacekeepers guarding her were also killed;
7. The right wing Hutu members of the cabinet could not be located on the evening of the crash
by Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana who was trying to call an emergency cabinet
meeting; nor could they be located during the night but only emerged unharmed the next
day;
8. When General Dallaire later that evening sought to meet with the military heads about the
Belgian soldiers who had been arrested by the Presidential Guard to discuss the crisis, he
found Col. Théoneste Bagosora, the director of the office of the Minister of Defence, and well
known as an extremist, in charge.
9. Several witnesses, including a Belgian military officer, identified the approximate origin of
the two missiles as a government military base;
All this lead to initial and continuing suspicion that the Hutu extremists had downed the
plane. After all, only the extremists seemed prepared to respond to the news and seemed to
have known what happened instantly, while the government was caught by surprise and
responded initially in a totally confused way. In Jane Corbin’s indictment of Paul Kagame as
responsible for the downing of the plane, she claimed that the RPF had smuggled the surfaceto-air missiles into their military camp in Kigali, but offers no evidence for this, no hypothesis
of how they could accomplish that given the weight of the missiles and the security on all
roads leading to the capital. Nor does Jane Corbin ever say that the proposition that the RPF
had downed the plane has been around since very soon after 6 April 1994. Nor does she report
that all the American agencies – the CIA, military intelligence, etc. – all put the blame on the
extremists and dismissed the RPF hypothesis as far-fetched.
The extremists had a motive. The RPF did not. The timing of events, following the downing
of the plane, supports the contention that a plan was simply unfolding. On the other hand,
definitive evidence is unavailable to support blaming the catastrophe on Hutu extremists.
When a French magistrate, Jean-Louis Brugière, in 2004 conducted his own investigation, he
argued that the RPF had been behind the assassinations, basing his conclusion, as the BBC
did, on dissident military officers who had fled Rwanda. The magistrate used the testimony of
a lieutenant who claimed he was part of the team ordered to fire the missile. Former senior
military officers claim in the documentary that they were in the room when Paume gave his
orders.
The rumours of RPF responsibility could possibly be true – after all, Paul Resesabanga, the
manager of Hotel Milles Collines and the hero of the Hollywood film, Hotel Rwanda,
believes that it was Kagame who was responsible. Kagame could, in some way, have
smuggled his missiles into the RPF camp, but someone would have to explain how the
location of the site of the missile launch was pinpointed as Camp Kanobe, a camp controlled
by the FAR and the home base of the Presidential Guard. According to most eye-witness
testimony, the launch location was nowhere near the RPF military compound, and the RPF
soldiers were confined in Kigali to their quarters.
Red Cross officials did, however, testify that RPF forces were on alert and in motion very
soon after the plane went down. But RPF intelligence had expected a possible extremist
putsch and knew the precarious position of the battalion. Plans had been prepared well in
advance to respond quickly to any scenario that indicated a right wing attempt to seize power.
Given the dangerous position to the battalion in Kigali surrounded by enemies, why would
Kagame have not insured the safety of the battalion earlier if he planned and gave the order to
shoot down the plane?
In spite of the overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the extremists thesis, and though
any defence attorney could punch huge holes in the hypothesis blaming Paul Kagame,
nevertheless a reputable broadcaster, without a fair examination of all the evidence, endorses
a thesis that shifts blame for the genocide away from the genocidaires to Paul Kagame.
Dissenters who escaped Rwanda were the ones who fingered Kagame. They had every reason
to blacken his name, including doing so to help insure their own safety because Kagame
would then be embarrassed to have them assassinated. Further, almost all the other soldiers
and officers who pointed an accusatory finger at Kagame subsequently offered sworn
testimony that retracted their charges. Why did they make those charges? Why were the
charges subsequently retracted? Why was the hard evidence for the hypothesis so meagre?
Given any reasonable weighing of the evidence, why do people give the Kagame guilt thesis
credence, including, in this case, Jane Corbin, an experienced journalist?
The assassination of President Habyarimana by means of the missile attack upon his plane set
off a round of killing of opposition political figures by elements of Habyarimana’s
Presidential Guard. Why does Corbin claim that killings of members of the former ruling
party were carried out by the RPF? ALL the evidence is to the contrary. Corbin offers no
evidence to support her assertion. Massacres of Hutu moderates and Tutsi civilians by Hutu
militias soon followed in Kigali, and then spread across the country.
Every attempt to initiate a new investigation has been shot down by responsible parties
because the basis for opening an investigation was so flimsy. That is the typical logic of
conspiracy theorists. Jane Corbin never even entertains the possibility that all of these bodies
in weighing the evidence, found the case against Kagame to be very slim and the case for the
other hypothesis to be overwhelming, though none of these official bodies ever came down on
one side or the other. All the bodies adamantly refused to open an inquiry into Kagame’s
involvement.
What about the charge that Paul Kagame is a factor in the Tutsi genocide if indeed he is the
main culprit in shooting down the plane? When Herschel Grynszpan assassinated Ernst vom
Rath, a Nazi diplomat, in Paris on 7 November 1938, a murder which was used by Hitler to
instigate Kristallnacht and the Holocaust, was Grynszpan largely to blame for the Holocaust
or even the night of the breaking glass when Jewish synagogues, community centres,
businesses and even cemeteries, were vandalized? The illogic of such a claim astounds one.
Why would the BBC not catch such outlandish propositional reasoning, especially since logic
of the argument undercuts the Jane Corbin thesis so deeply?
But what do conspiracy theorists know of logic, let alone a balanced weighing of evidence!
http://howardadelman.com/2014/10/
The BBC Documentary –
Genocide Denial
29
Oct
The Rwandan Genocide Revisited:
Part V The BBC Documentary – Genocide Denial B
by
Howard Adelman
The BBC video is available at http://vimeo.com/107867605
Since genocide means the intention to wipe out and exterminate a specific
group, if a very low calculation of the number of Tutsi who lived in Rwanda
before the genocide is used as a base line, if only 40% of those were
murdered, if only half or about 100,000 had been targeted specifically
because they were Tutsi, if the killers themselves were motivated by
retribution or pre-emptive actions to prevent their own slaughter, and if a
far larger number of Hutu had been killed, especially if the numbers killed
in the Congo are folded into the calculation, what justification can there be
for labeling the slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda as genocide? This is the
implication behind the calculation used in the documentary, even if no
explicit denial of genocide was ever made by either the makers of the BBC
documentary or the American academics. In fact, both affirmed that a
genocide took place. But with such a low proportion of those killed were
targeted Tutsi by executioners with extermination intent, if the killers
targeted the significantly reduced numbers for other reasons than to engage
in exterminating them all, what justification can there be for labeling the
slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda as genocide? What rationale can there be for
the concentrated attention the Rwanda genocide has received?
The BBC defended itself against the charge of genocide denial, not by any
review of the evidence used in the documentary or any of the explicit and
implicit argumentation, but by an insistence that the broadcaster had a duty
and mandate “to investigate difficult and challenging subjects”. Their
program, they argued, “was a valuable contribution to the understanding of
the tragic history of the country and the region”.
I argue it was not a valuable contribution, if only because the investigation
left out any of the evidence and arguments that could falsify its major thesis.
As Karl Popper had argued, a proper investigation entails the appropriate
effort to falsify one’s own proposition and not the singular advocacy of one
interpretation. The program was an exercise in disinformation and a
contribution to misunderstanding. Using the difficulty of the subject matter
as a cover for a terribly flawed process is no excuse. Freedom of inquiry
does not account for terribly sloppy research. The presentation was a
travesty against objectivity. But did it constitute genocide-denial?
What are the characteristics of a genocide denier? I suggest at least the
following two clear categories. There are those who deny the genocide took
place at all, for example, the supporters of the Hutu extremists and their
johnny-come-lately partners who argue that the genocide is a myth
perpetrated by Paul Kagame and his acolytes in search of international
sympathy to cover up their own crimes against humanity, and/or to solidify
the power of and to acquire wealth for the RPF. There is a second category.
Genocide deniers also include those who agree that Tutsi were targeted for
killing, but argue so were Hutu, and many more of them; further the Tutsi
who were killed were not murdered because of an intention to eliminate all
Tutsi, but because those Tutsi were believed to be supporters of the enemy
invading Tutsi-led fighting force at war with their own government and as a
pre-emptive measure in the belief that, if the RPF won, they themselves
would be slaughtered. Further, RPF troops were targeting Hutu and
systematically slaughtering them.
Genocide deniers usually undercut their case by a number of conspiracy
theories and blame the war in Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo as a plot of
the American CIA in partnership with big capital like Barrick Gold and
specific Israeli billionaires using America’s ally, President Yoweri Museveni
in Uganda and his satrap, the Tutsi RPF, to gain control of the vast mineral
wealth of the Congo. (See Robin Philpot’s book, Rwanda 94: Colonialism
Dies Hard). Whatever the ills attributed to the so called genocidaires – such
as calling the Tutsi inyenzi (cockroaches) – these are all libels and are really
the creation of the Tutsi-led RPF.
One example of genocide denial in Toronto is allegedly the broadcast
Rwanda 94 by the University of Toronto student radio station in April of
2013 of an interview with Robin Philpot. (Philpot was a graduate in English
and History from the university.) Robin’s brother John Philpot, a Montreal
lawyer, defended Jean-Paul Akayesu who had been accused of the crime of
genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda based in
Arusha, Tanzania. When Robin Philpot ran for the Parti Québécois in the
2007 federal election, he was quoted in Le Devoir as saying, “In none of my
writings have I denied that there were mass killings, some even of an ethnic
character. However, I categorically reject the abusive use of the expression
‘genocide’.”
What about the category of those who concur that a significant number of
those murdered, but still a very small minority, were Tutsi, and those Tutsi
were deliberately targeted for murder because they were Tutsi, but the
number killed was relatively small compared to the number of Hutu killed.
This is the position of Robin Philpot. It happens also to be the position of
the producer and director of the BBC documentary and the two American
academics used in the program, Allan Stam and Christian Davenport. They
affirm that a genocide took place. If they make such an affirmation, how can
they be classified as deniers? It appears illogical. However, both the BBC
director and host, as well as Stam and Davenport, minimize the numbers of
Tutsi killed, especially in comparison to the very large numbers of Hutu
killed by the Tutsi-led RPF and the current government of Rwanda.
The BBC broadcasters and American academics do not appear to be
genocide deniers, but they are, at the very least, genocide minimalizers. And
they put their position forth by using many of the same arguments, the
same type of evidence, the same approach and the same illogic of the
deniers. Like Philip Taylor who hosted Robin Philpot on his weekly
University of Toronto radio show on CUIT, overwhelmingly, only people
who support the denial thesis were used. In the Toronto case, direct
witnesses, easily available in Toronto, were NOT interviewed, including
General Romeo Dallaire, Major Brent Beardsley and Dr. James Orbinski.
Nor were many others who were on the scene at the time or very soon after.
Scholars – the vast majority critical of the BBC/Stam/Davenport thesis –
were not interviewed in the BBC production, or, if interviewed, were
excluded from the final product.
Even some of those interviewed, who are very critical of Paul Kagame and
were recognized authorities on Rwanda, were not asked questions that
could have queried the major thesis, or, if asked, their answers were not
included in the broadcast. But Stam, and presumably Davenport, alluded to
a prominent thesis of genocide deniers. Behind the war in Rwanda and then
in the Congo is to be found the partnership of American and British
imperial interests. The story of the genocide of a large number of Tutsi dead
was a result of a cover-up that had been plotted by the Americans, allied
with Uganda and Rwanda, in the determination to replace the French
culture and French economic domination with an English-speaking
American influenced culture. According to some genocide-deniers, General
Romeo Dallaire was a CIA operative.
However, overlaps with deniers, revisionism, very questionable research
and non-detached journalism does not constitute genocide denial. Nor are
personal associations with figures accused of genocide denial. Stam and
Davenport worked with Peter Erlinder (The Accidental Genocide, 2013),
Director of the International Humanitarian Law Institute, who had been
arrested and charged with genocide denial in Kigali. Erlinder was the
defence attorney for a client accused of genocide. Erlinder’s help was used
by Stam and Davenport to obtain maps showing the RPF and FAR positions
during the war. With Erlinder’s aid, the American academics also obtained
12,000 witness statements. From that information they concluded that the
FAR (presumably with the help of the Interahamwe) was responsible for
most of those killed. “Our research showed the vast majority of the 1994
killing had been conducted by the FAR, the Interahamwe and their
associates.” Could these be the words of a genocide denier?
However, they minimize the numbers of Tutsi killed for genocidal motives
and maximize the numbers killed by the RPF. The evidence may be weak.
The arguments may be illogical and fallacious. The presumptions may be
false. And they may overlap with many of the propositions of deniers in
arguing that the RPF played a significant “role” in the mass murders. But
does that make them deniers?
Before I examine in detail the propositions, inferences, interpretations and
evidence Stam and Davenport put forth for their case, I want to first
examine the arguments for and against their being genocide deniers.
Neither Allan Stam nor Christian Davenport fit the general profile of a
denier. They are not academic pretenders, but significant fixtures in the
academic establishment. They are not zealots. They are much more careful
than a Holocaust denier such as David Irving in their use of figures and use
of words. They are certainly much more personable. Nor is there a record of
either of them having associations with racists, anti-Semites or others guilty
of group hatred. They have no known associations with extreme right-wing
groups. They do not deny that a large number of Rwandans were killed or
even that Tutsi were targeted in that killing. In fact, their research proves
that the total numbers of those killed were larger than the original estimate
of 800,000. They simply argue that most, indeed, the vast majority, of those
murdered in Rwanda were Hutu. They have never been convicted of
defaming the memory of the dead in Rwanda as David Irving, the most high
profile Holocaust denier, was by Germany.
However, David Irving has been pronounced a Holocaust denier even
though he is on record as saying, “I am absolutely without doubt that the
Holocaust took place.” Similarly, Stam and Davenport are both adamant
that a genocide took place in Rwanda, that is, that Tutsi were systematically
slaughtered by extremist elements in Rwanda simply because they were
Tutsi in an effort to exterminate all Tutsi in Rwanda, though that number is
significantly reduced by subtracting the large number of Tutsi killed for
other motives and fades into obscurity and significance relative to the large
number of Hutu deaths. However, unlike David Irving who was barred from
entering Australia, Austria, Canada and Germany, Stam and Davenport
have only been barred from entry into Rwanda.
Tomorrow, I will deal with the question of whether Stam and Davenport are
as guilty as David Irving was found to be by a British court, that is, of
egregious inaccuracies, omissions, distortions and manipulating and
misrepresenting historical and statistical data. But, for now, it is worthy to
note that, in spite of significant differences, there are parallels between
David Irving and the far more sophisticated, astute and persuasive
American academics. David Irving, for example, pointed to an alliance of
Winston Churchill and Chaim Weizmann in helping create the myth of the
six million dead to cover up British crimes in places like Dresden and
Zionist crimes in Palestine. The BBC documentary highlighted the
friendship between British ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Paul Kagame.
Allan Stam implies that Samantha Power, Obama’s ambassador to the UN,
and Susan Rice, his top security advisor in the current administration, were
apologists for the RPF. Kagame was hailed by them as “the man who ended
the Rwandan Genocide.”
In that revisionist version, President Bill Clinton did not send American
troops to Rwanda to stop the genocide either because of a direct request or
because of a threat to attack American peacekeepers if he did. Since our
research, and that of many other scholars, dealt specifically with the
motives for America’s wariness about intervening in Rwanda, I find this
charge to be particularly offensive, not simply because it lies well outside of
the overwhelming concentration of Stam/Davenport on the numbers killed
in Rwanda and the way they were killed, but because they ignore all the
arguments and evidence to the contrary that Astri Suhrke and I originally
revealed. There is absolutely no indication that they even read that research.
Stam and Davenport claim they went into their research with the
conventional wisdom that there was a genocide in which the majority of
those killed in Rwanda were Tutsi who were targeted in a genocidal
operation. They claim that the evidence they collected forced that shift.
However, the shift is suspect on other grounds. David Irving was never a
diehard Holocaust denier until 1988. His position also evolved. The real
issue is whether the evidence collected forced the shift or whether the way
they collected and analyzed the evidence was determined by a prior
conviction. Certainly, like David Irving, they do present their case more as
advocates for a particular position rather than as detached examiners of all
the evidence, but that may be because presentations at such conferences
require both terseness and comprehensiveness. (See the presentation Allan
Stam gave entitled, “Coming to a New Understanding of the Rwanda
Genocide,” at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of
Michigan, 18 February
(2009http://www.fordschool.umich.edu/news/evets/?event_id=154))
What surprised me most other than the sparse attendance was for his
lecture – he is a marvelous presenter – is that no scholars were invited who
could challenge his position, except perhaps Filip Reyntjens. But Reyntjens
was invited to slam Paul Kagame and not to offer a critique of the
Stam/Davenport thesis of which Reyntjens is very critical. Otherwise, other
presenters, widely considered by many to be Rwanda genocide deniers
without similar academic credentials, were invited to offer presentations.
I referred above to David Irving’s evolution into an absolute Holocaust
denier in 1988. Irving then testified that only about 100,000 Jews had been
killed as a result of genocidal action at the Ernst Zundel trial in Canada for
disseminating neo-Nazi and Holocaust denial materials. Irving previously
speculated in an interview in Australia just two years earlier that the
number of Jewish victims could have been in the millions or just in the
hundreds of thousands. So Stam and Davenport have, over the years,
consistently revised their figures downward from 300,000-500,000 Tutsi
killed in the Rwanda genocide, to 300,000, and then to 200,0000 of which
only one hundred thousand or more (the same phrase Irving used) were
killed as a result of genocidal targeted murders.
Just as David Irving made wide use of the totally discredited Leuchter
Report, Stam and Davenport made use of the Gersony Report that they
claim was suppressed by the UN (though very widely available) which the
UN refused to allow to be formally published let alone with its stamp of
approval. Again, like David Irving in his charges against Zionists and Jews,
Stam and Davenport join with genocide deniers in the conviction that the
myth of the 800,000 Tutsi killed along with moderate Hutu in the Rwanda
genocide has been the result of a very well financed and brilliantly executed
public relations campaign by the Kagame regime, even though Paul Kagame
was only Vice-President of Rwanda when the very large team of which I was
a member did our research. Stam and Davenport not only ignore all that
research, but make assertions that are precisely contrary, libeling all of us,
in the process, as lackeys of the Kagame publicity machine.
Further, just as David Irving argues that the courts after WWII represented
victor’s justice rather than the detached and unbiased dispensation of
international criminal law, the justice delivered by both the International
Tribunal at Arusha in Tanzania and in the Gacaca courts within Rwanda
stank of victor’s justice rather than impartial hearings of all those accused of
war crimes and crimes against humanity. In this narrative, the courts are
simply the instruments of the dominant new powers in the area, America
and Britain. These powers in concert with the government of Rwanda
sought to perpetuate the myth of Paul Kagame as the country’s and the
Tutsi’s savior. Kagame, in this narrative, was the one who finally stopped
the genocide.
Some would argue that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks
like a duck, it must be a duck. However, in spite of the large number of
similarities with the best-known Holocaust denier, there are too many
significant differences. An adjudication as to whether Stam and Davenport
are genocide deniers must await my analysis of the conceptions, analogies,
misrepresentation of the recent history of Rwanda and misuse of the data
on the Rwandan genocide to allow us to better assess whether Allan Stam
and Christian Davenport are genocide deniers or simply genocide
minimizers.