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Thread: Rwanda (catch all)

  1. #21
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default Marc's Link to Rwanda, it's working !

    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

  2. #22
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default 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

  3. #23
    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    Default 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.

  4. #24
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default Typical

    Typical French reaction; France's role in all of this is pretty clear, one of complicity before and after the genocide. This latest thing came about because Rwanda tossed their embassy out a couple of months ago.

    I have commented on this elsewhere on SWJ. More comments later as I am on the wife's PC

    Dallaire's book also has some excellent points on this subject.

    Best

    Tom

  5. #25
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default Chacun à sa manière, Very Typical French

    Hey Tequila !
    Sorry, had to register in order to read the article

    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

    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

    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.

  6. #26
    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    Default

    Thanks for the perspective, guys. I agree, especially since evidence seems to indicate that the Rwanda genocide was long pre-planned by Hutu Power elements and not just a spur-of-the-moment reaction.

  7. #27
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    Default

    While I in no way understand the issues to the extent that others do, there is still "enough" evidence to implicate any number of individuals or groups to include French mercenaries, Kagame/RPF, Habyarimana's extended family, Bagasora, etc. Whether Kagame is directly responsible is impossible to tell with the available evidence; however, one must ask, as Dallaire does in his book, "why did Kagame take so long to advance on Kigali or attempt to facilitate the end of the general genocide during his operations in April-July 1994?"
    While simply my opinion, I do not think Kagame is responsible for the shooting-down of Habyarimana's plane; however, I fail to appreciate his motivations for allowing so many of his potential supporters (moderate Hutu and Tutsi) to fall victim to the Interhamwhe and Impuzamugambi militias. In the end, I have to assume that winning the war was more important than ending the genocide to Kagame, and that he would defend himself by saying that the allies in WWII understood that the best way to end the Holocaust was to win the war.

  8. #28
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default Genocide

    I fail to appreciate his motivations for allowing so many of his potential supporters (moderate Hutu and Tutsi) to fall victim to the Interhamwhe and Impuzamugambi militias. In the end, I have to assume that winning the war was more important than ending the genocide to Kagame
    I agree with you there, and also assume the war was more important.
    I don't know of anyone ever asking President Kagame what his priorities were between April and July of 94. If anyone did, it would have been Tom.

    I don't want to take sides, but in terms of sheer numbers of those involved in the genocide, it would be fairly difficult to stop the killings, which were taking place all over the country as well as in Zaire. In a sense, winning the war and the subsequent retreat of Rwandan military into Zaire did bring most of the genocide to a halt.

    The Rwandan government's website describes genocide as if one had a bad smoking habit. It's that, or very poorly translated into English.

    The first massacres in Rwanda took place in 1959. Thereafter, almost in a regular manner, killings of the Batutsi became a habit. In the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s massacres of Batutsi were common. Between April and July 1994, over 1 million Rwandese people, mainly Batutsi and some Bahutu opposition were killed by the genocidal regime. So many people were involved in the killings. Those who planned and organised the genocide include the late President, Major General Juvenal Habyarimana, top government officials, including members of the so-called Provisional Government, the presidential Guard, the National Gendarmerie, the Rwanda Government Forces (FAR), the MRND-CDR militia (Interahamwe), local officials, and many Bahutu in the general population.

    Preparation to carry out genocide by these groups involved the training of the militia, the arming of both the militia and some sections of the population, the establishment and widespread use of a hate radio called Radio television Libre de Mille Collines (RTLM), and the distribution of lists of those who were to be targeted.

  9. #29
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default

    Adam,

    good question and i believe you have the answer already--ending the war was the best way to end the genocide.

    Dallaire has a point but also misses the point: the RPA very often used manuever to unhinge the ex-FAR's defenses and then would allow them to bug out rather than slug it out. The single exception to this was Kigali and even there the RPA did use the indirect approach when possible. Remember that one of the key chips on the bargaining table to exchange civilians was when the RPA started rounding up Hutus--the exchanges then began.

    As for motivations in the shoot down, I still point to Prunier's analysis as the best and most concise.

    Best

    Tom

  10. #30
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Cool Apparently I am Infamous

    I have no ample words to introduce this, so I will let the reader decide for themselves after reading this devastating chronology of U.S. complicity in one of the darkest times of contemporary history. Just how knowingly complicit some main characters were is a burning question that remains, but the timeline I put together is deeply disturbing....
    See African News Analysis Blogspot for Conspiracy Theory on Rwanda

    Best

    Tom
    Last edited by SWCAdmin; 03-13-2007 at 04:05 PM. Reason: fixed link of infamy

  11. #31
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default 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 . 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

    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.

    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 !

    Zairian DAO Thomas Odom
    You never told me you were a Zairois Did you report this on your DD398 ?

    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.

    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 ?

    Ltc. Odom, Rawson’s DAO (and a DIA agent
    I like that one the best !

    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

    You are indeed famous !
    Regards, Stan

  12. #32
    Council Member Van's Avatar
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    Default

    Pet peeve: These sensationalist clowns act like people should be shocked about the Defense Attache/DIA thing. Like the staff of a Russian embassy is just there to hand out medical supplies and lollipops?

    Given that the first move in the Peloponnesian War (431 BCE) was for the Tyrant of Athens to lock down the Spartan embassy to deny the Spartans intelligence on Athenian war preparations, noone has any business suggesting that the connection between intel and diplomacy is new, unexpected, or even particularly sinister.
    Last edited by Van; 03-14-2007 at 03:23 PM. Reason: Cleaned up my own fat-finger typing

  13. #33
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default

    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.
    No problems, Stan

    I just found it amusing...I wonder however just how much travel in the DRC and Rwanda this guy did. Some of his sources--the Kathi Austin testimony to Congress for instance--were BS fabrications. You know that drill--you drum up a "fact" and cement it as reality by going before a committee and saying it is true. As quoted in the blog here is Austin's "testimony":


    I have been traveling to Rwanda since August 1994, and have had considerable contact with U.S. military personnel on the ground from 1994 and to the present day. I first learned of U.S. counter-insurgency training in early 1996, when U.S. military personnel distinctly told me that they were providing counter-insurgency training, and that they were also assisting our training in how to launch surgical strikes—those were the exact words—into Eastern Congo. I have not been able to independently verify that other than the information provided me by U.S. military personnel in the region. I have observed full-dress military personnel in Western Rwanda since early 1995, and, again, these were the areas where the counter-insurgency training was said to have taken place; and that sort of mitigated against my belief that it was classroom training that was being conducted. It was very clearly military exercises taking place on the ground in Western Rwanda in the border regions as early as the beginning of 1996.”
    The US military training in early 1995 was under my supervision and it was strictly demining related. When you read this "testimony" you rapidly see that it does not attest to anything beyond unsourced commments and assumptions. And by the way I knew Austin and introduced her to the RPA senior leaders.

    I had a WP reporter in South Africa call me in Florida in 1997 while I was recovering from 3 surgeries asking if we had trained the RPA to get them ready for the Congo. I laughed and told her that the RPA was more than qualified to take on whatever the Congo could field.

    I sent this all to Ambassadors Rawson and Gribbin yesterday. Bob Gribbin said he found it most curious that this individual would use his book--which states there were no US forces involved in the Rwandan move on the Congo--to argue that US forces were there.

    I too liked the "DIA agent" as well...

    Best

    Tom

  14. #34
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default 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.

    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.

  15. #35
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default

    To force a strong and immediate diversion of the media That radical engagement of that Elysée section is not of the same opinion. In the message of February 26 to the president, Pierre Joxe, the defense minister, worried about the French position and believes that sending two further sets of troops would not be “the best way”. Around François Mitterrand, in the safe palace, we want to defend and justify, at whatever cost, the French politics.

    On March 3, to complete their missions, the general Quesnot propose to the president to incriminate the rebellion by imposing “A strong and immediate re-orientation of the information of the French media on our politics in Rwanda by reminding as well the severe attacks on human rights of RPA: systematic massacres of civilians, ethnic cleansing, displacement of population….” On March 7, 1993, an agreement is finally reached between the two parties in conflict.
    Despite the poor translation, it is an interesting read. The above extract highlights France's long-standing policy to preserve whatever the cost Francophone Africa. Whole and partial conspiracies revolve around the thesis that the Rwandan Patriotic Front was the lead engine of an Ango-Saxon ploy to seize Africa.

    Tom

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    Default Rpf

    Gentlemen,
    Doing a piece on RPA's success as irregular force from October war 1990 to establishment of RPF government in Kigali. All data maps or general suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Bob

  17. #37
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Wanda, Fish C. View Post
    Gentlemen,
    Doing a piece on RPA's success as irregular force from October war 1990 to establishment of RPF government in Kigali. All data maps or general suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Bob
    Bob,

    Read my book and look at the articles on Rwanda on here in SWJ Magazine.

    Tom

  18. #38
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default 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."

    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."

  19. #39
    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default 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.

    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.
    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."

  20. #40
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    Default Double Whammy

    Rwanda, like the nazi genocide against the Jews, needs to nag and haunt nations for generations to come. So many stood by idle as the butchery by machete went unchecked and so few who tried to help are left with the horror of witnessing it and horror of knowing so much of it could have been stopped.

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