CAMPAIGN AGAINST IMPUNITY IN THE DEMOCRATIC
REPUBLIC OF CONGO:
THE CASE AGAINST THE TUTSI ARMIES FROM RWANDA, UGANDA AND
BURUNDI WHO HAVE PERPETRATED A GENOCIDE OF 5 MILLION PEOPLE IN CONGO SINCE 1998 AND THE SILENCE OF
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
Antoine Roger Lokongo, a London-based Congolese journalist investigates on the strategy of the Tutsi in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and in the Democratic Republic of Congo to strike, kill, massacre, rape and loot first, and then play the violin to an "international community" which has virtually become either their most trusted ally or which has been hold to ransom and taken for a ride for a very long time now!
I. INTRODUCTION
Barely had Rwandan troops arrived in Sudan's Darfur region as the first contingent of an African Union peacekeeping force after much squabbling among officers over pay, when Burundian rebels slaughtered at least 160 Congolese Tutsi refugees in Gatumba camp in Burundi.
In Darfur, Arab militiamen called the Janjaweed are said to be driving non-Arab villagers off their land. The UN estimates that over 50,000 people have died. To many, the Darfur killings are a genocide. And the Rwandan troops sent to Darfur know something about genocide and they like to be paid in dollars (going to Darfur means being paid in dollars). Others see a ploy by western multinationals to put a hand on Darfur's massive oil reserves (Sudan's oil is wholly exported to China, which is not seen in a good eye by the West) as Iraqi oil now comes at a high cost. Therefore the need for alternative sources of oil.
Tutsi soldiers who fought in the rebellion that brought the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) to power in 1994 still largely dominate Rwanda's present army. The RPF, a Tutsi movement, came to power in the wake of a genocide in which 800,000 Rwandan Tutsi and moderate Hutus were killed. The Hutu regime that the RPF overthrew is widely accused of having orchestrated the genocide.
On 10 January 2004, the UN General Assembly declared the 7th of April of each year an "International Day of Remembrance of the victims of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda", so that what happened in April 1994 does not happen again in Rwanda or anywhere else in the world.
Yes, on 7 April 1994, began one of the worst genocides in African history. It took place in the "the country of a thousands hills" as Rwanda is otherwise known. In a few weeks, 800,000 Tutsis, moderate Hutus from the south of the country, political opposition leaders and intellectuals were massacred; and two millions more fled from their country.
The fact that the genocide took place in a strikingly deafening silence on the part of the most powerful countries of this world beggar belief, especially when it has now been established that they were all aware of the plot that was being hatched by its would-be perpetrators. The detailed preparation of the crime, the assassination that triggered the genocide; the shooting-down on 6 April 1994 of the plane that was carrying the then president of Rwanda Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu and his Burundian counterpart Cyprien Ntwagiramira, also a Hutu; the helplessness of the Blue Helmets. nothing of all these moved the world to intervene and stop the genocide from happening.
It is only when millions of refugees crossed into eastern Congo (killers and civilians alike) and the controversial French intervention code named "Opération Turquoise" took place, that the international opinion woke up from its slumber and started asking questions. Now that we know what happened, it is important also to know why it happened, since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda foreshadowed the war of aggression to which the Democratic Republic of Congo has been subjected since 2 August 1998, the massacre of more than 5 million Congolese (4.7 millions according to latest report by the American Human Rights organisation, International Rescue Committee) and the looting of Congo's natural and mineral resources by the invading troops from Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, backed by well-known superpowers and western multinationals and the complicity of the so-called Congolese rebels.
II. WHY DID THE 1994 GENOCIDE IN RWANDA TAKE PLACE?
Although the Hutu regime that the RPF overthrew is widely accused of having orchestrated the genocide,the reason why the genocide in Rwanda took place can be explained in one sentence: it was a kind of "retour des vaincus de l'histoire", "the return of the defeated".
Since 1959, the history of Rwanda has been perceived by the Hutu as the history of the "Hutu majority" oppressed by the "feudal Tutsi minority". That is why the struggle for independence and the establishment of the Republic under the leadership of the Hutus had been presented as a "legitimate revenge by yesterday's oppressed, the Hutus that is". In the eyes of the Tutsis on the other hand, the last decades constitute the history of an unprecedented marginalisation that they have been subjected to, the 1994 genocide being its culminating point. Some Rwandan Tutsi groups in the Diaspora interpreted the history of Rwanda as a "history of power lost".
That is why after joining the army in Uganda and helping Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Movement (NRM) to come to power, as well as Frelimo in Mozambique, young Tutsis under the leadership of Fred Rugyema (he died in mysterious circumstances) and General Paul Kagame (trained in America and who became president in 2000) formed the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) that would take power from the Hutus with the backing of Uganda - after the Somali debacle, American troops gifted all the weapons to Uganda but with a reason. There is nothing for nothing - albeit on the wake of a genocide.
Charles Onana, a Paris-based Cameroonian investigative journalist and author provoked a big storm in 2001 when he revealed in his book, "Les Sécrèts du Génocide Rwandais - Enquête sur les Mystères d'un Président", meaning "The Secrets of the Rwandan Genocide, Investigations on the Mysteries of a President", that, the actual president of Rwanda, General Paul Kagame was the key instigator in the shooting down of the plane that was carrying the then president of Rwanda Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu and his Burundian counterpart Cyprien Ntwagiramira, thus unleashing the killing spree which has carefully been planned following the advance of the RPF from Uganda considered by the then Hutu regime as an invasion.
A report by the French special anti-terrorist police division led by Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière confirmed it on 30 January 2004. The UN kept the black box. 200,000 Tutsi were thereafter massacred in cold blood. The RPF asked the UN to leave, arguing that it would have the situation under control. Belgium withdrew its Blue Helmets (after 10 were killed) with the tacit agreement of the Americans. Because of this RPF's calculation, 600,000 more Tutsi and Hutu moderate were killed in the countryside where the genocidists were still in charge. Onana told how the RPF signed the Arusha peace accord with Habyarimana's government just in order to buy time. The RPF wanted to take power by force no matter how many people would die as a result because it was not sure it would win the elections, the Tutsis being the minority. Kagame who sacrificed so many Tutsis to take power, sued Onana for defamation on 6 March 2002 but lost the case a the French High Court.
And now, Colette Braeckman, a Belgian journalist for the daily Le Soir and Congo expert in an article published in the Spring of 2002 by "Nouveaux Mondes N0 10" revealed that Kagame Museveni and Buyoya are collaborating with the same Interahamwe in the exploitations of Congo's mineral resources.
"President Kagame," she wrote, "always stresses that his troops are in Congo to disarm the Interahamwe, but at the same time observers are concerned that the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), occupying the eastern Congolese provinces on north Kivu and south Kivu for five years now, have not really engaged in any serious fighting with those militias. Contrary to all belief, the RPA is collaborating with some of them for exploiting coltan and other rare minerals in Congo."
III. HOW THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FAILED THE PEOPLE OF RWANDA
The genocide took place under the nose of the UN peace-keeping troops deployed under the UN Mission known by its French acronym as MINUAR (Mission des Nations Unies pour l'Assistance au Rwanda), charged to monitor the implementation of the Arusha peace process. It was led by Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, a bruised and tormented man ever since. In October 2003, the Canadian General who was forced into retirement "for health reasons", but who believes that it was because "he would not stop telling the truth about the tragedy in Rwanda", published a book titled "J'ai serré la main du diable", meaning, "Shake hands with the devil".
He was also a witness at the International Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzania. In his account, detailed both in his book and in his deposition, General Dallaire told how he was almost driven to suicide for failing to stop what he called the "most appalling, heartbreaking tragedy he has ever helplessly witnessed in his life and that the world has ever known since the holocaust" from taking place.
He explained that the genocide took place because there was no political will to act, neither on the part of the superpopwers and the UN system (brief the international community), nor the government of Rwanda at the time and the RPF rebel movement. He spared no one.
"The Rwandan army led by its chief of staff, Colonel Theoneste Bagosora," he said, "armed and trained thousands of militiamen, those squadrons of death,otherwise known as the "Interahamwe" (those who kill together) during the months that preceded the genocide. The training of "those capable of killing a thousand Tutsis every twenty minutes", took place in a military camp reserved for the training of the para-military troops under the supervision of the late president Juvenal Habyarima's special presidential guards.
Roméo Dallaire said that he received death threats from Colonel Bagosora whom he met 25-30 times after President Habyarimana's death and the assassination by government soldiers of prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimina 'for meddling in Rwanda's internal affairs'"
General Dallaire castigated his hierarchical superiors at the UN, where the department for peace-keeping operations was led by the current UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. He confirmed that Kofi Annan responded negatively to his request that he formulated for his attention in January 1994, to dismantle all arms and munitions dumps disseminated all over the country. Annan argued that that was not part of MINUAR's mission. At the same time the killing machine was put to work, meticulously spearheaded by its organisers.
"We wasted two and half months for nothing," said Dallaire.
"I implored the UN a thousands of times to send me more troops, equipement and a go-ahead for preventing et stopping the massacres from happening. I called, I sent faxes and dispatches to Kofi Annan to inform the international community of nations of the extensiveness of the tragedy and to stir up a jump. In vain! That is why I categorically refused to leave Rwanda, when the UN, at the hey days of the genocide, decided to dissolve my mission!"
"The RPF rebel movement, now in power," he said, "did not have the well-being of the people as its first priority, but a long-time hatched plan that would allow the Tutsis to return from exile and control power."
"I could see that the RPF wanted to take control of the whole country, and was not necessarily ready to establish an ethnically balanced government."
Indeed to what extent some RPF elements took part in the atrocities? There will be no true peace in the Great Lake Region of Central Africa if we do not answer that question, because there is no peace without justice.
In August 2003, Carla del Ponte, was removed from her post as prosecutor for the Rwanda genocide court. The Swiss judge blamed her dismissal on the country's president, Paul Kagame. She also revealed that - in a last-ditch effort to remain in the job - she had offered to step down from the trial of the former Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, Ms Del Ponte also criticised Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, describing his position on the matter as "inflexible". She was quoted as saying that she had fallen foul of President Kagame because she insisted on tackling not only the 1994 genocide but also the alleged war crimes and massacres (of Hutus in Byumba, northern Rwanda), by his followers in the former rebel army before they put end to the actual genocide. In her first detailed account of events leading up to her dismissal, Ms Del Ponte described a showdown last year in which, she said, Mr Kagame screamed at her "as if he was giving me an order", telling her that it was up to the government to investigate the military and up to her to investigate the genocide.
"This work of yours is creating political problems for me," she quoted him as saying. "You are going to destabilise the country this way."
Speaking in Kigali, Ms Del Ponte, said: "Probably, if I had given in - if I had accepted his orders - I would still be here."
The UN Security Council voted unanimously to relieve the Swiss- born lawyer of her duties in Africa while giving her a second four-year term as chief prosecutor at the Hague-based tribunal investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The decision was taken despite a personal appeal by Ms Del Ponte at the end of July. She told La Repubblica she had set off to New York "furious" over leaks that had begun to undermine her authority.
"I had grasped what the Rwandans were up to, but I wanted to explain to the secretary general that it was not the right moment to split the two tribunals. I had no doubt that Kofi Annan would back me as he had done on other occasions - spurring me ahead. Instead, everything had already been decided."
She said the head of the secretary general's legal office told her a majority of security council members wanted to divide the two posts.
"Annan dug in behind that attitude and I realised that there was no room for negotiation," said Ms Del Ponte. She asked him if she could choose between the Hague and Kigali. "The secretary general was inflexible. [He said:] 'No. The trial against Milosevic is too important to be left in the hands of someone else'."
General Roméo Dallaire reserved the most stinging criticism to the United States, Britain, France and Belgium (Rwanda's former colonial power), because they had all the power and means to stop the genocide from happening, but they let it happen. That is the accusation that General Roméo Dallaire levelled against them.
In an interview with the French daily, Le Monde, published 10 December 2003, General Dallaire said: "The mission failed. We failed the people of Rwanda. Instead of peace, a war took place. There were massacres, there was a genocide. And the world never lifted a finger to prevent the horror that could be foreseen. Worse, this world, led by the United States of America, The United Kingdom and France, facilitated and encouraged the genocide. Never will these countries be able to wash off the blood of Rwandans that still sully their hands."
"America, traumatised by its experience in 1993 in Somalia failed to understand the gravity of the situation. The UN left me with just a hundred or so troops to face a genocide that could have been prevented. But at the end of the day, the UN can do nothing. The UN has no troops. The UN was under the yoke of the US and France, who, for diverse reasons, did everything to torpedo my mission and ended up helping the "génocidaires" [that is the perpetrators of the genocide]."
With a tone of anger in his voice, General Dallaire added: "Genocide, that terrible word! Why did it take so long for the world to use it in the case of Rwanda? And why all these contortions, all this arm-twisting on the part of the Clinton Administration to make sure the word is avoided in reports and coverage, or for delaying its use? How many people have to die before a tragedy deserves the description of a genocide?"
IV. SO, WHY ARE THE CONGOLESE PAYING A PRICE FOR A CRIME THEY DID NOT COMMIT?
Rwanda sent its troops into the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1996 to support the Congolese rebellion that rose against the brutal and dictatorial regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, and led by Laurent Désiré Kabila(assassinated on 16 January 2001), the father of the current Président of Congo, Joseph Kabila. While accompanying the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL), Tutsi soldiers in a gust of revenge, massacred million of Hutu refugees in camps in eastern Congo. Madame Emma Bonino, then the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was silenced by his hierarchy when he commenced to denounce those massacres.
In fact, Nick Gordon, a BBC reporter investigated and reported that the Kigali regime has built crematorium at Bugasira, Ruhengeri, Byumba, Kibungo, Inyungwe and other locations where thousands of Hutus and Congolese deportees are killed daily and their bodies are incinerated under the program called "MANPOWER DUTIES" while US officials are looking the other way. The Tutsi regime is conducting genocide in Rwanda to reduce the Hutu population to a "manageable level".
"At Gabiro, one of those Auschwitz-like crematorium," Gordon reported, "between 1,000 and 2,000 Hutus and Congolese deportees are incinerated daily and their ashes spread in the fields by a tractor."
American troops having established a base adjacent to the crematorium at Bugasira, Gordon wondered: "It is impossible for American Generals not to hear the daily loud and groaning coming from across the fence; neither can they fail to smell the stench of burning flesh."
The Anglo-American press also ignored Cameroonian-born journalist Charles Onana's victory over Kagame in the French High Court after he published a book that clearly demonstrated that it was the Tutsi who started the genocide in Rwanda.
In 1998 at Kabalo airport, eastern Congo, 89 bodies of Tutsi soldiers who were killed by the Congolese army were found headless. Kagame had ordered his generals to cut off the head of every Tutsi soldier who get killed in the battle and bring it back to Rwanda. What was he doing with all these heads? Add them to skulls of the victims of the 1994 genocide and tell the whole world that they all perished during the 1994 genocide?
Since Laurent Désiré Kabila proved to be "not another Mobutu", that is he refused to be used as a puppet by his former backers, multinationals and well-known superpowers for the spoliation, exploitation and looting of his country's natural and mineral resources and told Tutsi soldiers to stop massacring innocent, unarmed Hutu civilians, women, children and the elderly on the Congolese soil, they turned against him and launched what they called "a war of correction". And this, under the pretext that Laurent Désiré Kabila failed to impose effective control over Congo and stop Rwandan, Ugandan, and later Burundian rebels being based there from attacking their countries, including the Interahamwe militia, allegedly responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. It was a pretext because Rwandan and Ugandan occupation troops started fighting several turf wars against each other, and their elements turned into rapacious looters, rapists and genocidists.
The whole history of Congo for the past 120 years has been so tragic. The Congolese people, except for brief periods, have faced either constant exploitation or war and when they tried to forge an independent path, have faced fiercest external aggression, all because of the wealth that is their country.
Laurent Désiré Kabila said: "More than 40 years of African Independence have offered to the world a sad spectacle of a continent looted and humiliated with the complicity of its own sons and daughters. But we wish to live in the 21st century and beyond, totally free and independent of foreign interference and the political and economic struggle for that independence and sovereignty is fought in the interests of long-time impoverished, subdued and humiliated Congolese and African masses at large."
It doesn't make sense for Rwanda to fly troops more than 1,500 kilometres away in Darfur "to avert a genocide", when Rwanda together with Uganda and Burundi are responsible for a genocide of about 5 million Congolese since 2 August 1998. Can one genocide be condemned (the 1994 genocide allegedly perpetrated by Hutu extremists known as Interahamwe, meaning those who kill together, as well as the allegedly taking place now in Darfur) and another condoned (perpetrated by a Rwandan-Ugandan-Burundian coalition after occupying half of the Congo)?
V. RWANDA, UGANDA AND BURUNDI ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN CONGO
Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi are responsible for crimes against humanity in Congo, not only for the looting, but also because of a genocide that Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundian troops - given means beyond their capability by well-known superpowers - have committed against the innocent Congolese people. Often Congolese people are buried alive, shot dead or chopped with machetes, their bodies thrown into rivers or forced down the latrines. Women are raped, their sexual organs mutilated or shot at by Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundian troops who are all HIV positive. 60% of the women are now infected with HIV in eastern Congo.
5 millions killed ! The toll is certainly higher and worse than what happened in Kosovo and Rwanda itself. Isn't it? If it goes unreported, it is because stakeholders have managed to suppress the story and to protect the perpetrators from accountability. 5 millions is like the whole Irish, Malawi or Palestinian population wiped out. Could the holocaust have happened without anybody knowing about it? Most likely. The silent genocide in Congo has proved it. The most atrocious incident took place on 15-22 November 1999 in Mwenga district, in the localities of Bulunzi, Bogombe and Ngando, where 15 women, suspected of supporting the Mai-Mai, that is Congolese combatants resisting against occupation, were buried alive by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) soldiers, after their bodies were smeared with hot pepper. Mary Robinson, the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights promised an investigation which was never conducted.
On Sunday 24 august 1998, another massacre took place in Kasika, still in Mwenga district. Rwandan troops came in, encircled a Catholic Church while the priest was celebrating mass. They entered the church and massacred everybody, the priest, nuns and all the attendants. They burnt some people alive, cut off their throats, threw the bodies into pit latrines or threw them away in a nearby bush. As for the local chief, François Mubeza, they chopped his body and that of his wife to pieces and littered them around the local palace. More than a thousand people were killed with machetes and knives. They repeated the same scenario in Makobola (847 people were killed), in Burhinyi (124 people killed), Katana (27 people killed), Bunyakiri (several dozens killed), Mushinga (100 people killed), Burhale, Kaniola, Katogota (127 people killed), Kamituga (more than 201 people killed). Funerals were forbidden as well as investigations to be conducted. Parents were forbidden to mourn their children or else they would be killed and follow them to the grave.
Three times and under the nose of the UN peace keepers, the armies of Rwanda and Uganda have fought each other over diamond in the city of Kisangani, leaving 3,000 Congolese dead, the city destroyed, and this at 1,500 km away from their borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo which they claim to be securing from rebel incursions! Also, more than 500 people were either decapitated, disembowelled and thrown into the Congo river or buried in mass graves by Rwandan troops and their Congolese RCD rebel allies following a carefully stage-managed and faked mutiny against the Rwandan presence in Kisangani, in 2002.
In the north-eastern part, Ugandan-masterminded ethnic clashes between the Hema (pastoralists) and the Lendu(hunters and cultivators) and their respective rebel allies have claimed 600,000 lives as a result of mass murder, rape, and villages raised to the ground since last year in the area of Bunia alone. It is a pretext used by Uganda to prolong its presence in this area rich in rare minerals and the recently discovered oil in Lake Albert. Tony Buckingham's Oil Heritage is ready to put its hand on these massive oil reserves. Hence the link with Uganda and the ethnic cleansing going on. Somalian, Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Sudanese thugs (including John Garang's men) are used for the dirty job. The French "Opération Artemis" in Bunia did not make so much a difference and all the weapons were given to Museveni when the French troops left.
Jean Pierre Bemba's MLC rebel movement (masterminded by Uganda) as also responsible for acts of cannibalism and rape against the Bambuti or the Pygmies of Ituri last year. Those militia believe that by eating the flesh of a pygmy or raping a pygmy woman, they would acquire extra-terrestrial powers. Jean Pierre Bemba is Mobutu's son-in-law. The case is now a high profile one at the Hague.
VI. WE DON'T HAVE THE CULTURE OF GENOCIDE IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO. RWANDANS, UGANDANS AND BURUNDIANS ARE EXPORTING IT THERE
There are 400 ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo and we are not hacking each other to death like the Tutsi do against the Hutu, vice versa, in Rwanda or Burundi. We reject the culture of blood in Congo. When invaded by armed Tutsi soldiers, we must defend ourselves, our sovereignty and the territorial integrity of our country. But when we do so, we are accused of wanting to perpetrate another genocide against the Tutsi by the latter's friends in high places in London and Washington who have slept with Tutsi women.
THE STRATEGY OF THE TUTSI IN RWANDA, UGANDA, BURUNDI AND THE CONGOLESE TUTSI OF RWANDAN ORIGIN ALSO KNOWN AS THE BANYAMULENGE IS TO STRIKE, KILL, MASSACRE, RAPE AND LOOT FIRST, THEN PLAY THE VIOLIN TO AN "INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY" WHICH HAS VIRTUALLY BECOME EITHER THEIR MOST TRUSTED ALLY OR WHICH HAS BEEN HOLD TO RANSOM AND TAKEN FOR A RIDE FOR A VERY LONG TIME NOW.
Historically, the Banyamulenge fled recurring infighting and massacres between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, in 1976 and settled in eastern Congo. Our people welcomed them and allowed them to settle in a hilly area of Eastern Congo, called Mulenge. Hence, they have ever since been referred too as Banyamulenge. The Belgian colonial power also needed some Tutsi and Hutu from Rwanda to work in mines and plantations. That why they settled in Congo after the Belgians asked local chiefs to give them lands.
Rwandan troops used Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin as a pretext to invade Congo, in order to rescue them, because, allegedly they faced a threat of genocide coming from Congolese natives per se. Mobutu indiscriminately gave some of them a blanket nationality, when one of them Bisengimana was director of his cabinet. But when Kabila came to power, he decided that this being a sensitive matter, it should only be decided by people in a referendum and enshrined in a constitution. Now they don't want to go to Rwanda after discovering that the current government in Rwanda used them for its own purposes. Fierce fighting went on between Banyamulenge and Rwandan troops who want to suppress a mutiny of Masunzu, a Munyamulenge commander who defected from the RCD rebel movement, causing many deaths. Some say the fighting is carefully stage-managed by Rwandan occupation troops to justify their presence in eastern Congo. However, Banyamulenge feel that their future is compromised because Congolese will no longer accept them after they have been used against the Congolese population and they don't want to go back to Rwanda. But some of them crossed into Rwanda last year, just to go and vote for Kagame and came back to Congo. And now they want, enshrined in law, a quota of 20% for Banyamulenge in parliament and a Munyamulenge vice-president guaranteed for them in very government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, whether they are elected or not. This is a divine right that will set them up above all other Congolese, if they are Congolese. Colette Braeckman, a Belgian journalist for the daily Le Soir and Congo expert also wrote in her book, Les Nouveaux Prédateurs that "whites farmers chased away from Zimbabwe, even some Israeli wanting to quit the much violence prone Middle East are eyeing eastern Congo for settlement. And for that native Congolese through this war of aggression have to be wiped out!"
VII. ON THE RECENT MASSACRE OF THE CONGOLESE TUTSI OF RWANDAN ORIGIN ALSO KNOWN AS THE BANYAMULENGE IN GATUMBA REFUGEE CAMP IN BURUNDI
On 15 July 2004, a report by the UN Group of Experts on the Congo, concluded that Rwanda still maintained its troops in Congo and had supported, both directly and indirectly, the June attack on Bukavu by two Banyamulenge dissident army officers Jules Mutebusi and Laurent Nkunda (who should be tried by a court martial for mutiny) under the pretext that Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin faced another genocide by Congolese autochtones. That proved to be a lie as the same UN report established.
Mutebutsi is a long-time criminal used by Rwanda to kill his own brothers and sisters Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin otherwise known as the Banyamulenge in Minembwe in 2002. He was twice chased away by Général Patrick Masunzu, a patriot and also a Munyamulenge himself, who refused to be used by Kagame for the same purpose. As a consequence Paul Kagame sent 8,000 Rwanda Patriotic Army troops to fight Masunzu. They used the latest war machines you can buy on the market, as well as napalm to neutralise Masunzu and his men in the hills of Minembwe, but they lost one battle after the other and withdrew after 6 months, leaving thousands of people dead. Masunzu has now confirmed having seen Rwandan army trucks crossing into Congo, and denied that any genocide of the Banyamulenge was taking place in Congo at the moment. The same Mutebutsi was given a mission by his chiefs within the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD) rebel movement to assassinate his superior General Nabiolwa and thus provoke chaos, ethic conflicts "à la Ituri" and thus jeopardise the peace process, prevent the people of Congo from going to the polls next year and compromise the reunification of the whole country.
RCD is now part the transitional government where Azarias Ruberwa its leader, a Munyamulenge himself, is one of the vice-presidents and another Munyamulenge Bizima Karaha, former foreign affairs minister under Kabila father is now a MP in the transitional National Assembly as well as Enock Ruberangabo another deputy in the same transitional assembly who said that "Banyamulenge did not need protection from criminals". He called on Azarias Ruberwa to resign if he did not condemn the invasion in clear terms.
So there is not some sort of "anti-semitism" against the Banyamulenge in Congo as Claire Short, the former British Secretary of State for International Development, and the Economist magazine seemed to suggest not so long ago. In its 21 August 2004, the Economist called the Tutsi the "Jews of Africa". The RCD rebel movement was founded in 1998 by Paul Kagame, the actual Tutsi President of Rwanda who came to power after sacrificing his own brothers and sisters in the 1994 genocide there as we said above. Since then Kagame has always masterminded and used RCD as a front for the Rwandan occupation of Congo.
Laurent Nkunda is a Munyarwanda of Rutshuru and not a Munyamulenge himself. He is already responsible for the massacres of May 2002 in Kisangani and was involved in the assassination of President Laurent Désiré Kabila. Nkunda has an international arrest warrant hanging over his head as a criminal for having slaughtered many people like chicken in Kisangani in 2002, disembowelling them, putting stones in their bellies so they could sink into the Congo river. Some of his close friends affirm that his criminal agitation stems from the psychological problems he has had in his childhood.
But the June attack and the recapture of the cities of Bukavu and Minova by Congolese armed forces forced many Congolese to flee into Burundi, including some 300 Banyamulenge. Against its own rules, the UNHCR settled them in Gatumba, in Burundi, a camp only 4 km (instead of 200 km according to UN regulations) from the Congolese border. The UNHCR said it had asked the Burundian government to settle the Congolese refugees 200km from the border but it failed to act. Gatumba or Katumba by its real Congolese name, by the way, was part of Congo until 1976, when it was occupied by Burundian troops and remains occupied up to this day(the Burundians changed the name into Gatumba). The occupation is reinforced by two Burundian military bases there. It is now referred to as part of Burundi.
VIII. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN GATUMBA?
On the night of 13 and 14 August 2004, the Gatumba Refugees Camp under the jurisdiction of the Burundian government was attacked by armed elements. The toll was, according to the French organisation, Médécins Sans Frontières, as high as 160 people killed and another 143 wounded, mainly among the Banyamulenge or Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin. The attack was first condemned by President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo who called for international inquiry so that those responsible for it are punished. Later he met his Burundian counterpart in Tanzania and reiterated his call for an international commission of inquiry that will determine the terrorists responsible for the attack in order to severely punish them.
The Congolese transitional government, the International Committee charged to accompany the transitional government, the UN Security Council, the Vatican, the US, Britain, Belgium and and France, brief, the whole international community condemned the attack and called for an inquiry to determine those who were repsonsible for it to be punished. What is mysterious to explain though is the fact that the camp is situated between two Burundian military bases, one for the gendarmerie and the other for the infantry. So how could the insurgents get into the camp, operate for four good hours, killing refugees with machetes, grenades or burning some of them alive using petrol without arousing the attention of the Burundian gendarmes and soldiers in those two bases? Why did the nearby other camps, uniquely occupied by Congolese and Burundians and not by Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin, not undergo the same fate? Moreover, the UN troops inspecting the camp after the massacre found identity cards belonging to Rwandan army officers.
However the FNL-Palipehutu, a Burundian Hutu rebel movement led by Rwasa Agathon, seconded by Pasteur Habimana. and which never takes part in peace negotiations in Burundi, claimed responsibility for the massacre. The UN Security Council has now officially excluded them from any talks. An international arrest warrant is issued against them, but they still operate inside Burundi. Habimana issued a communiqué in which he denied that the FNL targetted the refugees. He said the camp was turned into a military headquarters of the Banyamulenge.
"You don't need to find arms and explosives in a refugee camp," he said, adding that "his men found 18 AK 47, 8 automatic riffles used by the Rwandan army, many bullets, 10 jerrycans of petrol and a map of the nearby town of Uvira in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Armed men should not be called refugees," he said. What about women and children who were killed? Doesn't he regret it?
"Well, we first attacked the Burundian troops in their bases. They could not hold in front of our fire power and so fled to the refugees camp where they sought reinforcement from the Banyamulenge. But we cornered them right there. They say that 150 refugees were killed. Right? What about the millions [of Hutus] who have been killed in Bujumbura Rural over the last 10 years? And in Congo, how many have the Tutsi hegemonists killed over the last six years? About 5 millions. Who mourn all these people. Are the 150 Banyamulenge more valuable human beings than those 5 millions?"
VIIII. THE POLITICISATION OF THE MASSACRE OF GATUMBA BY THE TUTSI LEADERS IN UGANDA, RWANDA, BURUNDI AND THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
We have already noted that the strategy of the Tutsi in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and of Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin, also known as the Banyamulenge, is to strike, kill, massacre, rape and loot first, then play the violin to an "international community" which has either become their virtual ally or which has been hold to ransom or taken for a ride for a very long time now. A highly politicised funeral was therefore organised in precipitation and 50 coffins which bore no names were buried in one mass grave in Burundi (to be reburied in Congo later).
Fifty youth demonstrated against the Hutu and the Congolese holding banners in which one could read: "The genocide of the Tutsi is now a reality". Later , stones were hurled at the Congolese embassy in the Burundian capital Bujumbura, the Congolese flag publicly put on fire by Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin (so, are they Congolese?) after one of the survivor said that "the attackers that night were speaking Lingala and Kifulero, two languages spoken in Congo, therefore the attackers came from Congo".
And the UNHCR has not repatriated Congolese Tutsi survivors back to Congo their country of origin, but set up another camp for them far inside Burundi. What does that imply? That they were not safe in Congo? That the attackers came from Congo? Let us wait and see what conclusions the international commission of inquiry will reach. Nothing should be anticipated, but the Tutsi survivor and their leaders in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Congo have already anticipated a lot of things if you consider the statements they have already made. They have preempted the investigation and therefore they must know something about it and if they know something about it, they must take responsibility.
Obsac.com, a pro-Tutsi web site based in Canada quoted a "Munyamulenge leader in the camp" who said that "the attack was perpetrated by Congolese troops of General Mbudja Mabe [who kicked out the Banyamulenge dissidents Mutebusi and Nkunda from the Congolese city of Bukavu in June], in alliance with the Mai-Mai, that is Congolese local combatants fighting against Rwandan occupation and the Interahamwe who allegedly committed the genocide in Rwanda in 1994", adding that, "some people in the entourage of the Congolese President Joseph Kabila hate the Banyamulenge and would well like that the Banyamulenge remain in Burundi where they fled". But why did they flee in the first place? Is it not because some of their own, Nkunda and Mutebusi attacked Bukavu and the Congolese army riposted?
As for the Congolese languages spoken, well, anybody can speak those languages in Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi as they are Congo's neighbouring countries. So that was not a valid justification to incriminate the Congolese. The Congolese government was represented at the burial by Azarias Ruberwa, a Munyamulenge and now one of the vice-presidents in the Congolese transitional government, as well as by all the MPs Banyamulenge and the Congolese Minister of Home Affairs Théophile Mbemba.
So, hoping to sell this massacre and draw massive political and moral gains as he did with the 1994 genocide, the Rwandan Tutsi President Paul Kagame threw the first salvo, accusing Congo of still harbouring the killers in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Kagame said on national radio in his native Kinyarwanda on the margin of the departure of Rwandan troops for Darfur: "It is clear from the methods used that the Interahamwe [who allegedly committed the 1994 genocide in Rwanda] were involved. They are in Congo in Bukavu and Uvira and have been integrated into the Congolese armed forces. We have always said for a long time now that there are incidents that the international community and the UN are now pretending not to see, and people are being killed. It is up to the international community to put an end to this situation, or else the Rwandan government will act to put an end to it [re-invade Congo that is]. It is clear that the UN is doing nothing to restore peace in the Great Lakes Region, the most destabilised region in the world. We can't stand there and do nothing. We are going to look for other ways to solve this problem, may be on the level of the African Union."
African Union, right? As a reminder Kagame met President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, now the Chairman of the African Union in Pointe Noire, Congo-Brazzaville prior to his broadcast. What is surprising is the fact that Kagame should threaten Congo, when the massacre took place, not in his country Rwanda, but in Burundi, another country. Did he know anything about it?
The massacre of Gatumba reminds one of the another massacre which took place in the Rwandan Refugee Camp of Mudende, near Gisenyi, on 28.08.1997, and in which many Tutsi Congolese of Rwandan origin were killed while the Rwandan army which had a base just a few metres from there never intervened. Kagame then told visiting American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that "the genocide of the Tutsi was still a reality". That is exactly what he told Obasanjo in Pointe Noire. Same strategy at work here: strike, kill, massacre, rape and loot first, then play the violin to the "international community".
The Hutu Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and his vice-president Alfonse-Marie Kadege, a Tutsi, also accused the Congolese troops of General Mbudja Mabe [who kicked out the Banyamulenge dissidents Mutebusi and Nkunda from the Congolese city of Bukavu in June] of genocide, in alliance with the Mai-Mai, that is Congolese local combatants fighting against Rwandan occupation and the Interahamwe who committed genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
The head of the Burundian army "à majorité Tutsi", General Germain Niyoyankana, said the military was prepared to move into the Democratic Republic of Congo if the Kinshasa government failed to disarm the force.
"We must avoid a new attack from Congo, so the Burundi army does not rule out an offensive in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Everything depends on the Congolese government."
That prompted a swift response from the Congolese government. The Minister of Information Mova Shakanyi told the French news agency AFP that "the Democratic Republic of Congo would defend itself from any attack launched on its territory by foreign armies. We have an army and it is not there for doing nothing. A new adventure by foreign armies on our territory risks not to enjoy the glories of the past".
However, the International Crisis Group (ICG), a leading think-tank warned that world leaders must act quickly to rescue the peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Peace efforts in the DRC could be derailed by recent fighting in the east of the country," ICG president, Gareth Evans, said, adding that "without the strong support of the international community, the peace process in the DRC is at risk of failure."
The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called upon the UN Security Council on 17.08.2004 to increase the number of the troops of the UN Mission in Congo, known by its French acronym as MONUC, from 10,500 men to 23,9000, considering that that force will be more important and mobile to help Congo prepare elections next year. While France supported it, Stuart Halliday, a special American Envoy rejected Annan's proposal and said that what mattered was "efficiency and quality, not quantity". But the Congolese people have not forgotten that the Congolese Tutsi dissidents took Bukavu in June with the tacit support of Monuc troops, some of whom have been raping girls as young as 14 in Congo.
X. THE RCD-GOMA, A PAIN IN THE NECK FOR CONGOLESE PEOPLE
RCD-Goma is Congo's largest former rebel group, made up mainly of Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin and former Mobutuits. The Leader of RCD-Goma is no other than Azarias Ruberwa, a Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin who came to Congo as a political refugee in 1976 but benefited from Mobutu's decision to grant all Banyamulenge Congolese nationality, which later he withdrew but the confusion has already been created. RCD-Goma has been a front for Rwanda, Ugandan and Burundian occupation of Congo since 1998 and the so-called Congolese Tutsi in it are just like a Trojan Horse within the Congolese society acting for the interests of their country of origin: Rwanda. If they were Congolese and loved Congo, they would not be killing, raping and looting Congo's natural and mineral resources for foreign powers and partners. Reference to all these crimes against humanity we have just evoked above. What is also true is the fact that the Tutsi do not hesitate to sacrifice their own for the sake of political power and political hegemony.
So, it happened that right after the massacre of Gatumba and before even an international commission of inquiry has been set up, Azarias Ruberwa, one of the vice-presidents in the Congolese transitional government and himself in charge of the defense and security portfolio, was the first to accuse - moreover from Burundi, another country - the Congolese government and the Congolese army of having been involved in the massacre, the same government he is part of and subsequently withdrew from it. This is very difficult to understand! President Joseph Kabila called the decision "very strange and very ridiculous!" "It is a joke!", he said.
At the burial in Burundi, Ruberwa condemned what he called "a genocide of the Tutsi Banyamulenge perpetrated by an 'axis of evil' [paraphrasing American President George Bush so as to buy American sympathy], made up of Congolese Mai-Mai anti-Tutsi, Hutu Rwandans or Interahamwe and Hutu Burundians of the FNL".
Ruberwa went on: "The event that has united us here today is called 'genocide'. And we must call it 'a genocide'. In fact every genocide has a name. In this case, it is the genocide of the Banyamulenge, simply because they are Tutsis. It is therefore a genocide of Congolese Tutsi. It is clear that this genocide will not leave the peace process in Congo unperturbed otherwise it will leave a big prejudice behind. The peace process is broken. We negotiated, and now we realise that we fooled ourselves. The Congolese actors of the peace process must sit together and calmly analyse the situation with regard to the failure of reconciliation, cohabitation, the crimes committed and the security. When a genocide is committed in the middle of a peace process, the situation must be re-evaluated and appropriate remedies found."
Ruberwa then moved to Goma, North Kivu (now a bastion of Rwandan army?), which has been the headquarters of the RCD-Goma rebel movement (now a political party?) of which he is the leader and announced 7 days of mourning during which the RCD-Goma flag, not the Congolese flag, was hoisted at half-mast. He invited all the RCD-Goma dignitaries within the power-sharing government to join him in Goma. He even had the audacity to invite President Joseph Kabila there. Will Ruberwa be tried for acts of secession and treason?
Laurent Nkunda said that "he had nothing in common with a government and a national army that was systematically and ethnically cleansing and slaughtering its own citizens", clearly accusing President Joseph Kabila of being behind the massacre of Gatumba.
For Nkunda, the massacre was perpetrated by Congolese Armed Forces who, after expelling the Banyamulenge from Congo, pursued them up to Burundi to finish them. He cited General Mbudja Mabe who ousted him out of Bukavu and Minova, as having ordered the attack. He said that "history had then exonerated him because he took arms in June essentially to prevent this kind of genocide. But he and Mutebusi were treated a thugs and as dissidents who deserved to be tried by court martial law, including by Azarias Ruberwa, our leader". However, even Gatumba cannot wash Nkunda of his crimes!
It is from Goma that Ruberwa unilaterally announced his RCD-Goma's withdrawal and suspension from the power-sharing government and requested that the agreement be re-negotiated under the mediation of South Africa. Ruberwa even already sent a delegation to South Africa for that purpose, but the rest of the government did not bite. What is more humiliating, all the RCD-Goma dignitaries who remained behind in the capital Kinshasa refused to follow him in Goma or pull out of a transitional government that represented the unique solution to the democratic process in Congo and that must lead to elections next year. They invited him to come back to his senses and rejoin Kinshasa as soon as possible and present his concerns within the government, not outside the government. Ruberwa did not even consult them before he took that decision.
Ruberwa's masks have now fallen. His double and hidden agenda has been unmasked. He has proved that he is not a Congolese. He is not a free man. He is a spy acting as a Trojan Horse in Congo for the interests of foreign powers, especially for Rwanda wanting to annex eastern Congo to its territory. His heart is in Rwanda and Burundi from where he receives his orders. How can you explain that a Congolese vice-president cannot hesitate to call for the suspension of the peace process because they did the same thing in Burundi? Congo is not Burundi and the Congolese government does not function in the same way as the Burundian government. So, now, we have heard it from the horse's own mouth!
In fact, Ruberwa orchestrated a witch hunt in Kisangani but students rose up and burnt down the headquarters of RCD-Goma there. They were angry that Ruberwa did not take into account the genocide of all the Congolese, 5 millions of whom have been massacred, and they have witnessed it themselves in Kisangani, the "martyr city". In Goma two Congolese intelligence officers were assassinated by Ruberwa's men. Congolese refugees in Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi were targeted. Why are all these Congolese targeted and the Mai-Mai (that is Congolese combatants resisting against Rwandan occupation of eastern Congo), when the attack has been vindicated the FNL, a Burundian rebel movement?
The Mai-Mai said that they had nothing to do with it. In a communiqué released in Kinshasa on 15.08.2004, the spokesman of Mai-Mai MPs, Kanyengere Lwaboshi, condemned the Gatumba attack and rejected the accusations levelled against them by Azarias Ruberwa.
The communiqué red: "The Mai-Mai are a sure armour against all tentative by the Tutsi to annex eastern Congo to Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, the defenders of Congo's territorial integrity. We assure our Congolese compatriots that we have never been criminals. We have our base in Uvira and there you find many Banyamulenge. We defend Congo's territorial integrity together with Patrick Masunzu, a Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin himself, now a general in the Congolese army. So how would the Mai-Mai go all the way to Burundi to massacre the Banyamulenge while they live with the Banyamulenge in Uvira? We don't have a culture of genocide in Congo, let the Rwandans, Ugandans and Burundians not export it into Congo. There are only three ways to reach Gatumba from Congo: (1) through the road that goes from the sugar cane factory of Kiliba, which is under the strict surveillance of the Burundian army; (2) through the road that goes from Kavimvira, which is under the strict surveillance of the troops of the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC); and finally (3) through Lake Tanganyika, which is under the strict surveillance of the troops of MONUC and Burundian Naval Forces. So how could the Mai-Mai have crossed into Burundi unperceived? The Congolese Armed Forces now based in Uvira are made up of the Mai-Mai, the remnant of the RCD-Goma rebel movement and the Banyamulenge brigade commanded by Patrick Masunzu, a Tutsi Congolese Munyamulenge of Rwanda origin. The Mai-Mai could not have concocted such a plot without arousing the suspicion of other elements. The Mai-Mai do not speak Lingala, although it is a Congolese language, but Congolese languages are commonly spoken in Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. We therefore severely condemn this attack and call for an international commission of inquiry to establish the responsibility of the perpetrators. But because it has pre-empted the inquiry, we ask the international community not to be naïve and be fooled by the Rwandan Tutsi regime's lies and violin playing as it did after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. We denounce the current redeployment of Rwandan troops on the Congolese territory using the Gatumba massacre as a pretext."
In fact, Augustin Ntawogeza, FNL National Secretary for External Relations issued a press release from Brussels in which he vindicated the Gatumba attack. He accused Azarias Ruberwa and President Kagame of Rwanda of being behind the massacre, together with their right hand man Laurent Nkunda, assisted by Jules Mutebusi, the one who organised the attack of Bukavu in June. He revealed that these four men held a meeting in the middle of May during which they planned another war against the Democratic Republic of Congo. In fact Azarias Ruberwa's visit to Bujumbura, the Burundian capital, coincided with the massacre of Gatumba! His other visits in eastern Congo have always coincided with mutinies of some sorts by Banyamulenge officers, then he would ask the government in Kinshasa afterwards to negotiate with them. You don't negotiate with an officer that mutinies. You try him by court martial law. And Azarias Ruberwa, eminent lawyer as he is, must know that! In Bujumbura Ruberwa had a meeting with the Burundian minister of defense, the Burundian chief of staff and many Banyamulenge leaders. Ruberwa told the latter to move their wives and children to Rwanda where they will be safe. A military map, depicting the Congolese towns of Kalemie, Uvira and Bukavu was found on the body of a killed Munyamulenge fighter.
Ntawogeza called upon the UN Mission in Burundi (ONUB) in charge of the security of the airport in Bujumbura, not to allow the airport to become the channel through which arms would transit for the Tutsi to execute new wars against the people of Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He vowed that the FNL-Palipehutu will never accept that Burundi become a rear base from which attacks against neighbouring countries will be launched.
"Everybody is aware of Kagame and Museveni's aim s to concretise their dream of a "Hima-Tutsi Empire" in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa," he warned.
So the Hima-Tutsification of political and economic power in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa is a reality, according to Ntawogeza. Believe him or not, in Congo, we have to do something before it becomes too late!
In fact, the commander of South African (UN) troops in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo issued a scathing indictment of the political forces that hold sway in the region. Col Ben Greyling said the problem in Congo was more political than military, and described the situation as "sick".
"There is no political will to change here, and that extends to the authorities who control this area," said Greyling, referring to the RCD-Goma command of North Kivu. His comments came just as the United Nations (UN) Security Council decided to increase the number of peacekeepers in the country. Having built up significant power during the civil war, the ex-ANC (RCDGoma's military wing during the conflict) want more than they will get from the peace process," Greyling told Business Day at the South African contigent's compound in Goma, North Kivu's provincial capital.
Greyling said he believed foreign governments were still arming military groups in eastern Congo, further reducing any incentive for domestic belligerents to adhere to the peace process.
"We know the arms embargo is not working. Neighbouring countries particularly Rwanda are continuing to destabilise this area, because of its rich (mineral and metal) deposits, including gold, uranium, diamonds and casserite.
"If you look at what Rwanda possesses, relative to what it can produce internally, there is absolutely no correlation. Our information is that there will be a further 6000 UN troops for the country as a whole. We have asked for more than this. But until people here change their minds and their hearts, there will be no real progress," he said.
XI. UN WAS "WRONG" OVER GATUMBA MASSACRE, SAYS HRW
A preliminary report by the United Nations said that Congolese-based groups were involved in the Gatumba attack. But now, Human Rights Watch, a US-based pressure group says this massacre at a refugee camp in Burundi in which 160 people died was carried out by a Burundian rebel movement. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the UN conclusion had helped threaten a renewed outbreak of war in the region. It warned the UN to be "incredibly careful" in the volatile region.
The HRW report said National Liberation Forces (FNL) rebels entered the Gatumba camp at night on 13 August and raked the refugee tents with gunfire. They also threw incendiary grenades burning dozens of refugees to death. HRW said the FNL rebels targeted tents occupied by the Banyamulenge - Congolese Tutsis of Rwandan origin - and left untouched nearby tents of Burundian Hutus. The organisation said the Banyamulenge had been housed in white tents while the Burundian refugees occupied green tents.
Despite all this evidence, the massacre led to threats of retaliation and even war against the Democratic Republic of Congo from the governments of both Burundi and neighbouring Rwanda - and despite the FNL claiming responsibility for the attack. The report's author is no other than Alison Des Forges, a respected expert on central African affairs, who said that the massacre was a war crime and should be dealt with by bringing the perpetrators to justice, not by more violence. Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, supported by Britain and America, western multinationals and the complicity of the so-called Congolese rebels, have invaded DR Congo since 1998, under the pretext of searching for the Hutu rebels blamed for killing thousands of Tutsis in the last decade.
XII. CONCLUSION:
To wind up, it is up to Congolese themselves to get their country out of this mess with the support of the international community of course, but which international community? So we need to organise ourselves.
1. By re-reading our history: Since the Berlin Conference, we did not know that Western powers agreed to leave our country as a "free exchange zone area" where each will go and help themselves. We must fight for our total independence and sovereignty. However 37 years of Mobutu's corrupt rule make reforms and change of mentalities within Congo itself very difficult. The masses must be involved in the running up of the country backed by a strong army. We have to rebuild our military capacity to protect our borders and resources. We wish to leave in peace with our neighbours and we are ready for a mature and equitable cooperation with all other nations under the sun, not just with the US, or the EU (Belgium, Germany or France).
Our country is not just a heap of mineral but a living space granted to us by God since the time of our ancestors.
2. End of impunity: There are serious crimes against humanity being committed in Congo by a Rwandan-Ugandan-Burundian coalition. They must not go unpunished. If the USA and Britain punished Irak, Japan and Germany for invading other countries, why not Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi who are doing exactly the same in the Democratic Republic of Congo? These powers and the international community as a whole, which they influence so much, must do away with selective morality. Justice for the people of Congo now! Nuremberg in Congo now! How can Britain and America be fighting global terrorism in Afghanistan and at the same time sponsoring it in Congo? In fact these two superpowers are backing a vicious project of the new "Republic of Oriental Congo", or "The Republic of the Volcans" whose capital will be Kisangani and a Congolese of Rwanda offshoot to be its first President. Over our dead body!
3. Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi must unconditionally withdraw their troops from Congo - now posing as Congolese soldiers belonging to the RCD rebel movement - in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions. Only then can Congolese talk freely among themselves, looking at the past and deciding on the future of their country in the kight of the present situation and in the framework of the inter-Congolese dialogue stipulated by the Lusaka peace accord, without any external pressure, or any sword of Damocles hanging above their heads.
4. The international community must set up an international criminal tribunal to try and punish those responsible for crimes against humanity since 2 August 1998 in Congo, as well as convene an international conference on the lasting peace in the Great Lakes region of central Africa. As long as there is no democracy in Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi - now led by a small Tutsi clique in power - there will be no peace in that region and these countries will continue to export their problems into Congo. The people of Congo are not responsible for the 1994 genocide which took place in Rwanda where Rwandans killed each other. Why must they pay a heavy price for it and for their hospitality?
The Hutu refugees must be reintegrated into society there. The Congolese government rounded up 2,000 Hutu fighters roaming about the hills of eastern Congo, presented them to the UN Secretary General Koffi Annan when he last visited Congo. The fighters expressed their wish to go back home to a "democratically and ethnically-inclusive Rwanda, following an inter-Rwandan dialogue". But up now Kigali does not want to know about them. Instead of deploying its troops and observers inside Congo, the UN must rather deploy them along the borders of Congo with Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, create a buffer zone so that all the parties in the conflict may feel secure, an idea Kigali strangely and vehemently opposes.
5. Congo must be compensated for plunder by Uganda, and Rwanda. According to the East African newspaper, The Democratic Republic of Congo is reportedly demanding a paltry $16 billion from Uganda and Rwanda in reparations for the killing of its people and plunder of mineral wealth between 1998 and 2002 despite the recent thawing of relations between the three countries (President Kabila said he was unaware of such demand but he knows Rwanda and Uganda to be very poor to substensially compensate Congo). According to this report, Uganda has been asked to pay $6 billion for the plunder committed by the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) during the war in which they fought alongside Congolese rebels, leading to the ousting of the late President Mobutu Sese Seko.
Rwanda, which also fought alongside the rebels, has been asked to pay $10 billion in compensation for similar war crimes, Rwanda having looted and plundered more Congolese resources than Uganda. The paper concluded that the demand note to Uganda is almost equivalent to its gross domestic product, which currently stands at just over $6 billion and, if settled, would worsen the country's current foreign debt of $4.3 billion.
The demand note from Kinshasa came as Uganda was preparing to reopen its embassy in Congo, according to the paper.Two years ago, Congolese President Joseph Kabila took the two countries to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. However, Uganda managed to persuade the DRC to officially withdraw the case from the court to allow for an out-of-court settlement. In spite of the fact that Uganda and Rwanda went to Congo as allies, their troops clashed on more than two occasions in Kisangani, during which several Congolese nationals and troops from the two rival armies lost their lives and extensive damage was inflicted on state and private property. The two national armies were at one point supporting rival Congolese rebel and militia groups.
At the height of armed conflict in Congo, Laurent Desiré Kabila also invited Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe to send troops to his country as allies. The UN accused Congolese rebels assisted by Rwandan and Ugandan troops of committing massacres and excessive human-rights violations in Congo. The UN body appointed a commission to inquire into the looting of Congolese resources by Ugandan and Rwandan troops. The International Court of Justice also carried out investigations to verify accusations made by Congo against its two neighbours. The UN panel of experts found that indeed some Ugandan senior army officers participated in the plunder of minerals.
6. Finally, Western foreign policies in general and American foreign policies in particular, vis-à-vis Congo must change; a wish expressed by President Joseph Kabila in an interview with The Guardian. He said, and I quote:
"Irrespective of their advance in technology, their intelligence services, you get the impression that they are not as well informed as they should be. That is why their foreign policies are always in a tangle, in contradiction with their people on the ground."
XIII. APPENDIX:
USA: Kagame links with Al-Qaeda probed by USA
By AfroAmerica Network, Washington, DC. USA. August 10, 2002.
Reliable sources tell AfroAmerica Network that Kagame, his cronies, and the Rwandan Government's links with Al-Qaeda organization are being probed by USA Intelligence services and the Justice Department. These links may date from the guerrilla war era against Habyalimana's regime and may have intensified with the illegal exploitation of natural resources in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the fuelling of invasion of the Congo.In this web of international terrorism, arms trafficking, illegal mineral trade, invasion and civil wars, Paul Kagame himself remains the central piece around which the following key figures and organizations gravitate.
Colonel Patrick Karegeya, Kagame's right hand man and Director of the infamous External Intelligence Office (ESO) which is accused of assassinating Rwandan refugees, including Seth Sendashonga and Theonest Lizinde. Colonel Patrick Karegeya is said to have been working with Victor Bout (or Butt), Sanjivan Ruprah, and Faustin Mbundu all known arms dealers with close contacts with Al-Qeada. Sources say Victor Bout and Sanjivan Ruprah, who is married to a Congolese-Rwandan, may have bought weapons from
Al-Qaeda cells from Pakistan, Kuweit and UAE, and Lebanon and supply the weapons to Kagame. They also say that using money from Al-Qaeda companies working with the Rwandan Patriotic Army in the Congo, these arms traffickers may have supplied sophisticated weapons, communications equipments and others war materials to Al_Qaeda itself. Faustin Mbundu, an elusive Rwandan business man who lives in Uganda serves as an agent between Sanjivan Ruprah and Victor.But on one side and General Kagame on the other.
Al-QAEDA cells through these contracts of arm sales, have trained Rwandan troops in Pakistan, Afganistan, Somalia, and Erythrea, just until September 11, 2001. Training of Rwandan troops in Somalia, Pakistan, and Erythrea may still be going on. Colonel Jack Nziza, another Kagame's henchman is the Director of the notorious Directorate of Military Intelligence. He is believed to be responsible for contracts with Al-Qaeda linked companies that exploit minerals and other resources in Congo.
These companies, mostly from Pakistan, Lebanon, India and elsewhere, use Hutu prisoners from Rwandan jails, accused of genocide. The product of the exploitation is used to pay for arms supplied by Victor Butt and Sanjivan Ruprah and for training of Rwandan troops by Al-Qaeda. Colonel Jack Nziza's deputy in Congo is Colonel Dan Munyuzwa who oversees Hutu Prisoners, Al-Qaeda linked companies and other similar contracts in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. He also makes sure the minerals and timber are exported and the companies use the planes owned by General Kabarebe, the Rwandan Army Chief of Staff. Some of the Al-Qaeda cells in Somalia and Erythrea still train Rwanda troops but other engage in combats in Congo and Burundi on the Rwandan behalf. The USAEmbassy in Ethiopia, also known as "Mogadisciu" for a large number of Somalis going in and out of the Embassy on a daily basis, is believed to issue Rwandan passports to Somalis, Yemenis, and Erythreans and to channel money to their families back home. AfroAmerica Network has learned that the USA intelligence may be concerned that the passports, issued to the fighters to allow them to easily move to Rwanda, Burundi and Congo, may be used by Al-Qaeda members among these troops to travel to the United States and commit crimes there.
To facilitate the transfer and laundering of money to Al-Qaeda, a Rwandan bank may have been used extensively. The Rwandan bank, using an American bank, has created fake accounts to legitimize transactions. Businessmen from Somalia, Ethiopia, and elsewhere, working with Al-Barakaat may also have used the bank in Rwanda to transfer money to Al-Qaeda cells.Other people who are mentioned are:
- Mugunga, a brother-in-law of Paul Kagame. While Colonel Dan Munyuza is in minerals and timber, Mugunga is believed to handle coffee and tea businesses with Al-Qaeda.
- Andre Bumaya, the Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of Islamic Democratic Party. He manages the Rwandan Embassy in Ethiopia contacts with Somalis, Erythreans, and muslims and may be giving these party memberships cards once in Rwanda.
- Hadj Harelimana, the Representative of Muslims in Rwanda. Provides legal papers to Somalis, Erythreans, Yemenis, Ethiopians, Eastern and Northern African muslims to make them members of the Rwandan Muslim community. Hadj Harelimana is on the record for supporting September 11, 2001 attacks against the USA, during a BBC interview.
- Major Karasira, Ernest Habimana, Emmanuel Kamanzi, Gakwere, Alfred Kalisa, and other names are also mentioned. AfroAmerica Network is still working to find out about the allegations against these individuals.
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