curbing genocide ideology in schools
The New Times (Kigali) EDITORIAL
Rwanda: Use All Diplomatic Means to Curb Genocide Ideology
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The news that members of the Chamber of Deputies have summoned Education minister Jeanne d'Arc Mujawamariya and Local Government minister Protais Musoni to explain to them the measures the two ministers have put in place to curb genocide ideology in schools, is welcome. This follows a report showing alarming levels of the ideology in some selected secondary schools, where it is apparent it is openly abounding.
However, the summon should be taken with a pinch of salt.
The huge numbers involved of people who subscribe to the killer mentality is the one that is worrying, and the objective is to whittle it down by luring people out of that mindset.
...like the Holocaust and the Nazi adherents. Even when the Nazi flame did not die down in the German hearts completely, the Jew-hate ideology was controlled as the appalling results of the original supporters of Nazism were reviled publicly, and the young taught tolerance and unity.
Rwanda: French Author in Court for His Book
Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne), 4 January 2008 (Media for Peace and Human Dignity)
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Paris
French writer-journalist Pierre Pean has been charged in court for complicity to racial slandering and racial provocation and hatred following the publication in November 2005 of his book on the Rwandan genocide - "Noires Fureurs, Blancs Menteurs (Black Furies, White Liars)".
A hearing to plan the trial is scheduled for 5 February 2008 before the 17th chamber of the correctional tribunal of Paris, according to Hirondelle sources.
The association SOS Racisme had filed a complaint in October 2006, describing Mr Pean book on the genocide in Rwanda as "negationist".
In Kigali, Rwandan capital, François Xavier Ngarambe, former President of Ibuka, said his intention was "to mobilize the Rwandan community living in Europe but also to support the national media, within the limits of means, to follow the trial".
A score of passages of the books are targeted for racial defamation and provocation to discrimination, violence and racial hatred. Pean writes, in particular, that "the culture of the lie and dissimulation dominates all the others in the Tutsis or that the Tutsi rebels "succeeded until now in completely falsifying Rwandan reality, to allot to others their own crimes and acts of terrorism, to demonize their enemies".
Claude Durand, editor of Mr. Pean's book, is also charged in the court.
List of 6,945 suspects in DR Congo; Genocidaires or not?
Rwanda: 6900 Genocide Suspects in Congo, More to Come - Says Government
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As part of the November 2007 agreement between Kigali and Kinshasa to flash out Rwandan extremist rebels - the FDLR - from the eastern DRC - dubbed the 'Nairobi Communiqué', Rwanda was to compile a list of Genocide criminals among the rebel ranks. In return DRC would have them handed over to face justice - which Kigali says is basis for lasting regional stability.
"We have compiled a list of 6945 individuals but cannot give it to you because it was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that asked us to do that", Ms. Domitilla Mukantagazwa, Executive Secretary of the Gacaca Courts told RNA on Wednesday. "You can contact them (Foreign Affairs) for any more details you need".
However, Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Charles Murigande first refuted any suggestion that his office was in possession of the list.
"The Information (you have) is false because we have not got the list", he said but later changed his tone when RNA insisted. "We are still waiting for the 'full list' from a number of sources because we are not the ones doing it anyway".
The issue of whether all the people among the rebel ranks of the FDLR are Genocide suspects remains of contention depending on who you talk to.
Outspoken Human Right Watch Africa Expert Ms. Alison Deforge at some pointed late last year doubted if there were more than five Genocide suspects among the rebels because as she put it, Kigali has not provided the list.
Much more at the link
EDIT: The Rwandan government's current list of Category One genocide suspects can be viewed here on the government's home page.
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a) Persons whose criminal acts or whose acts of criminal participation place them among the planners, organizers, instigators, supervisors and leaders of the crime of genocide or of a crime against humanity;
b) Persons who acted in positions of authority at the national, Prefectorial, Communal, Sector or Cell level, or in a political party, the army, religious organizations or in a militia and who perpetrated or fostered such crimes;
c) Notorious murderers who by virtue of the zeal or excessive malice with which they committed atrocities, distinguished themselves in their areas of residence or where they passed;
d) Persons who committed acts of sexual torture or violence.
Genocide Witnesses and their defense
France stops genocide transfer
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'Invalid' warrants
France's Supreme Court has overruled a decision to hand over a Rwandan genocide suspect to an international tribunal in Tanzania...
Dominique Ntawukuriryayo is accused by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda of coordinating the killing of up to 25,000 Tutsis in April 1994.
His lawyer, Thierry Mausis, told the BBC an earlier ruling was overturned because of procedural violations.
Two other Rwandan suspects held last year in France were subsequently freed.
Former UN Deputy Commander to Testify for Ex-Rwandan Top Soldier
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Colonel Luc Marchal, former number two of the United Nations Forces in Rwanda, will Wednesday be the first witness to testify for General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, the former Chief of Staff of the Rwandan gendarmerie...
Colonel Marchal, currently retired, was the assistant of General Romeo Dallaire, who was the head of the United Nations force in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.
He has already testified in 2007 for genocide accused General Gratien Kabiligi, former official for the operations of the chief of staff of the army, in the Military I trial.
General Ndindiliyimana is defended by Christopher Black (Canada) and François Lurquin (Belgium).
Armenians Protest Genocide Revisionism in Brussels
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The Armenian community in Belgium says it is outraged at the aggression of a survivor of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda by a top government official who has not even been punished, RNA reports.
Belgium daily Le Soir reported that the Director of External Trade in the Brussels Regional government had used hate language against Mr. André an employee of the same local office.
The unnamed Brussels official according to witnesses said: "Should it be the person with a taller size and light colour, I will kill him...the Rwandan Genocide is not over yet!".
The Armenian community says the reaction of the regional government is also 'shocking' because instead of punishing the official, he was to be given a 3-month paid leave. The Armenians have described this as 'gratifying the guilty'.
A Spanish judge has indicted 40 current or former Rwandan military officers
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The judge issued international arrest warrants against the 40, including Gen. James Kabarebe, whom the judge said is believed to be the chief of staff of Rwanda's military; Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, whom the judge said is believed to be Rwanda's ambassador to India; and Lt. Col. Rugumya Gacinya, whom the judge said is believed to be a military attaches at Rwanda's embassy in Washington, according to court documents
more at the link
After my time but some thoughts
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Five of the Spanish victims were missionaries. The bodies of four of them were found in late 1996 after they were tortured, and shot or hacked to death with machetes, the documents said, while a fifth is still missing.
Three other Spaniards were shot to death in early 1997 while working for a non-profit medical group providing aid to Hutu refugees in Rwanda, the documents said.
The majority of the victims during the wave of terror, the documents said, were Hutu Rwandan refugees or Congolese civilians, mainly Hutus as well.
I departed Rwanda in March 96 so I missed this with the Spanish missionaries. But in late 1996 with the RPA's move on the camps in Zaire, the massive return of Hutu refeugees pushed the already simmering insurgency into high gear.
Bob Gribbin was the Ambassador at that time and he offers comments on RPA heavy handiness inside Rwanda--as well as the countermeasures Kagame took to bring the Army under firm control. Notably key RPA officers like Karake Karenzi were put in field commands along the Zairian/Congolese border plus former ex-FAR Hutu officers who had been integrated into the RPA in late 94 were commanding battalions in the RPA by that time. At the same time, the RPA/rebel push on Kinshasa and the Congolese War were ongoing. The court seems to have luumped all of that with the COIN effort inside Rwanda; they were connected but they were not the same.
As for the 22 witnesses who provided testimony, again we have the same thing that has gone on with the Hutu Power IO effort since the genocide and its aftermath. I have been personnally vilified by that effort as have others like Tony Marley and Rick Orth so I am not surprised by any of this.
Tom