Marc's Link to Rwanda, it's working !
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THE NEWS MEDIA PLAYED
A CRUCIAL ROLE IN THE 1994 RWANDA GENOCIDE: LOCAL MEDIA FUELLED THE KILLINGS, WHILE THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA EITHER IGNORED OR SERIOUSLY MISCONSTRUED WHAT WAS HAPPENING. This book is a startling record of the dangerous influence that the media can have, when used as a political tool or when news organisations and journalists fail to live up to their responsibilities. The authors put forward suggestions for the future by outlining how we can avoid censorship and propaganda, and by arguing for a new ethic in media reporting.
Tom's reporting, albeit short were dead on.
When CNN couldn't or in some cases wouldn't go outside the magic forcefield of the airport, they would rearrange the bodies and take new shots.
Thanks for the link !
Stan
Media and Government Reporting
Like I said I will read this book with great interest because as it is presented here it goes against everything I encountered then and since then. As stated above we talked this issue at USIP. Those reporters were all on the ground and they reported accurately without any spin control that I am aware of. I also believe that US government officials--especially Dave Rawson--were very very accurate in theri reports.
The spin came from above; prohibtions on using the word genocide in public statements and reporting cables were absurd and ultimately damning.
If I were to find fault with the media in Rwanda, it was later when there was a shift change reporters; the new folks tended to come in without any grounding and took events out of context. But this was not a media-only trait; you could tell who had been Rwanda for more than a day (I exaggerate) by the reaction to the Kibeho IDP camp disaster. Media, new military units, and individuals reacted with near hysteria. 2000+ dead was a startling event; compared to the genocide it was a blip of violence on a very large Rwandan chart. Some reporters who had been there took it in stride; the newbies did not.
Finally I would say what I said at the USIP conference in Aprill 2004: we--David Rawson and I--made the very real possibility of a larger war as clear as we possibly could. Bob Gribbin as David's successor did the same. our warnings went unheeded--or at least without significant reaction. More people died in the Congo War afterward than died in the Rwandan Civil War and genocide. Media and governments alike have largely ignored that fact.
Goma as Stan indicates was a different story; there the media stayed in their little compound and used bodies for stage props to make the scene look different. Here we played to the media--the classic being the "CNN airshow" directed out of the White House against our recommendations.
Again I look forward to seeing what Thompson has to say.
best
Tom
Rwanda genocide accusation causes an uproar
A French judge with political aspirations has been making waves over the assassinations of President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, widely seen as being the trigger event that set off the Rwandan genocide in 1994. This LATIMES article sums up the charges. Essentially the judge is accusing current Rwandan President Paul Kagame and the Rwanda Patriotic Front of killing the Presidents in an attempt to seize political power in Rwanda.
I was wondering what Tom or Stan or others here with experience in central Africa think of the charges.
Chacun à sa manière, Very Typical French
Hey Tequila !
Sorry, had to register in order to read the article :o
This is not the first time Magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere has been knee-deep in Sub-Sahara, only to later perform a total reversal. In 1993 during Zaire's worst military uprising, French ambassador Philippe Bernard was shot while observing a bank robbery across the street from his embassy.
Magistrate Bruguiere stated the murder took place in an attack on the French embassy. One week later, he nearly apologized to the Zairian government and stated that the French Ambassador to Zaire was killed by a stray bullet.
The building was sprayed with .50 rounds, so I guess a stray bullet could be in fact correct :confused:
I wonder if the magistrate will get into facts surrounding Operation Turquoise and probable evidence of French involvement (or lack thereof) by allowing former military and Interahamwe to continue the genocide.
On the other hand, Rwanda's Government won't be getting anywhere fast:
http://www.gov.rw/government/rwandalaunch.html
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The lack of an adequate number of prosecutors, judges, and lawyers to try cases exacerbates the already bad situation. At the present rate, it would take over 200 years if Rwanda was to rely on the conventional court system to deliver justice.
Begs the question. Fact or Fiction ?
Hey Tom !
Although we covered this in today's correspondences, I thought I would share it with our folks herein, so that it is clear, that the reader must also decide for themselves what is fact from fiction.
I think Barouski would have been better served to have just copied your book and replaced the cover :wry: . He used all your work to generate his blog, and then couldn't get the facts right.
I felt some relief lookiing at his profile where Barouski admits to traveling the DRC and Rwanda. At least he can say he was there before getting all the facts ass-backwards :D
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International Military Education and Training (IMET) was the first U.S. training program instituted for the RPA. It began in 1994 before the Genocide officially began after the assassination of President Habyarimana.
I started the IMET program in Rwanda nearly two decades ago thank you very much. Barouski was still wearing pampers then.
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Ltc. Harvey also recommended reinstating the IMET program with Rwanda once the peace process was underway.
How could it be restarted if it only just began in 94 ? What a bonehead !
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Zairian DAO Thomas Odom
You never told me you were a Zairois :eek: Did you report this on your DD398 ?
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Operation Support Hope was run directly by the U.S. without any U.N. oversight.
I seem to recall tons of 'UN oversight' much like a toothache.
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General Jack Nix was in charge of JTF-Goma and he brought a 10 man counterintelligence and human intelligence (HUMINT) crew with him. The Department of Defense’s (DOD) HUMINT branch was run by General Jack Leide at the time.
10 man COIN and HUMINT were exactly in which tent ?
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Ltc. Odom, Rawson’s DAO (and a DIA agent
I like that one the best !
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It is noteworthy some reports of U.S. arms shipments and U.S. soldiers’ involvement in the war were provided by the French external intelligence agency Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE). The French supported their former African colonies and President Habyarimana’s government in the 1990s. Since the U.S. was actively evicting francophone influence from Africa during this time period, U.S. support of the RPA did not bode well with the French. The French had ample motive to spread false information to damage the U.S’s repuation.
And this would be Babbit :D
You are indeed famous !
Regards, Stan
What France knew before killings began
Rwanda's The New Times' webmaster has started a very intriguing two-part summation regarding French involvement in the Rwandan Genocide.
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Last week, a French newspaper, Le Monde, published a report indicating that l’Elysée – the office of the French president – was privy to the arrangements of Rwanda Genocide long before it struck. Given the significance of that information, The New Times, will today and tomorrow reproduce the article, which was translated from French to English. Following is the first part of the two-day series.
The Genocidal plot was launched on April 6, 1994. It is a matter of massacres, refugees and French soldiers on June 29,1994, in the conference room where a minister’s cabinet meeting takes place with (then French president) François Mitterrand. It is a matter of Rwanda, where France had just launched a humanitarian operation named as “Turquoise”.
“I had not been informed of the drama inside the country. Historically the situation has always been dangerous,” former French president François Mitterrand said, during the meeting before the assassination of then Rwandan president (Juvenal Habyarimana) on April 6. 1994.
War crimes and crimes against humanity in 1994
NAIROBI (Reuters) - "Amnesty International urged governments on Friday not to send anyone suspected of crimes during Rwanda's 1994 genocide to be tried in the country, saying it had serious concerns over the justice system."
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The central African country wants suspects in the 100-day slaughter of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus to be transferred to its custody.
But Amnesty said that despite improvements in the Rwandan justice system, it had serious concerns about Kigali's ability to investigate and prosecute genocide-related crimes fairly, impartially and in line with international standards.
"We recognize the importance of Rwandan national courts taking responsibility for investigating and prosecuting persons accused of the heinous crimes," Erwin van der Borght of Amnesty's Africa Program said in a statement.
"However, there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that the rights of both the accused and the victims will be fully respected and protected by these courts."
Rwandan official has testified that France was complicit in the 1994 genocide
More than a decade later, French involvement in the genocide may actually surface. In October of last year, reports of a Rwandan hearing claims of French complicity may come to a head.
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After nearly one and a half years of inquiry,
the Mucyo commission has finally handed over a 500-page report on France's alleged role in the 1994 Rwanda Genocide to President Paul Kagame and four other senior government leaders.
The commission president Jean de Dieu Mucyo submitted the report yesterday to Kagame, Senate President Dr Vincent Biruta, Prime Minister Bernard Makuza, Chief Justice Aloysia Cyanzayire and Vice Speaker Polisi Denis, who stood in for Speaker Alfred Alfred Mukezamfura.
However, the report's contents are yet to be made public as both Mucyo and Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama - who also attended the ceremony at Village Urugwiro - declined to give its details during a post handover press briefing.
According to a statement from the President's Office, the report covers a wide range of issues and is heavily laden with information previously unknown, indicating the depth and magnitude of involvement of key players in the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.
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Pressed on whether their report implicates France in the 100-day slaughter of at least one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus, Mucyo only said: "Yes there is (that) responsibility."