Kagame’s “Big Lie”:
Rwanda Accuses French Leaders of Complicity in Genocide
Prof. Peter Erlinder[1]
ARUSHA, TZ – August 7 – On August 5 the Kagame Government of Rwanda issued a 500-page report accusing dozens of French officials with complicity in the 1994 massacres of civilians in Rwanda, including former Foreign Minister Villepin and President Mitterand. The “French Genocide Report” is a perfect example of Hitlerian “Big Lie” strategy.…designed to shift world attention away from the growing body of evidence that Rwandan President Kagame, himself, is a war criminal who is primarily responsible for the tragedy that has come to be commonly known as the “Rwanda genocide.” Most press coverage of the “French Report” failed to note that Kagame, and much of the Rwandan leadership, is already under indictment for War Crimes and Genocide in both France and Spain, and that the “French Report” is a response to existing indictments of Rwanda’s leaders.
Growing Evidence of Kagame’s Responsibility
for War Crimes and Genocide
Rwanda’s “French Report” admits that the investigation of French involvement only began in 2006, apparently only days after French Judge Bruguiere indicted members of Kagame’s Government for War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide. Bruguiere also requested through Kofi Annan that the UN Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) prosecute Kagame for the assassination of the previous President of Rwanda, and for initiating the violence that led to the massive civilian killings in 1994. But, it is not only France that is seeking the arrest and prosecution of Kagame and his followers.
In February 2008, Spanish Judge Andreu issued a second 180-page indictment that details War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide committed by Kagame and his military in 1994 and after. INTERPOL warrants for the Rwandan leadership have been issued worldwide and are making it impossible for Rwandan leaders to travel to EU countries, without fear of arrest. The indictments have also led to the call to remove Rwandan officers from their well-paid positions with UN peace-keeping mission in Darfur, and elsewhere in Africa.
On June 4, 2008, the ICTR Prosecutor also publicly announced to the Security Council that Kagame’s forces assassinated the entire Catholic leadership of Rwanda in 1994. In September 2007 and March 2008, former Chief ICTR Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte revealed that the evidence to prosecute members of Kagame’s regime has existed since at least 2003, and that she was ordered NOT to prosecute Kagame by the U.S. State Department, and was removed from office when she refused U.S. instructions.[2]
In January 2007 the former ICTR Chief Investigator, Australian Barrister Michael Hourigan provided sworn ICTR testimony describing Kagame’s responsibility for the assassination of the both previous Rwandan President and the President of Burundi…which were the crimes that precipitated the 90-days of mass violence now known as the “genocide.” Hourigan also ordered swore under oath that he was ordered NOT to prosecute Kagame and by Del Ponte’s predecessor, Louise Arbour, now UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and to turn over his notes of the investigation. However, he kept copies and they are now in evidence at the ICTR. [3]
ICTR Evidence Exposes Kagame’s Crimes
This is no surprise for those who have been closely following events at the ICTR, because evidence has been mounting for more than two years that the one-sided story of responsibility for crimes committed during the Rwanda War, which completely absolves Kagame and his forces of responsibility for crimes, is simply not true. Sworn witness testimony and original documents, have shown there no “plan” to kill civilians by the former Rwandan Government and military, and that Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Army carries a heavy burden of responsibility for crimes that have been charged to their war-time enemies.
Even former U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda, Robert Flaten, testified under oath that he specifically warned Kagame in late 1993 that massive civilian killings would result, if Kagame broke the cease-fire and returned to war.[4] The ICTR evidence shows that “returning to a war of aggression” is exactly what Kagame did by: (a) assassinating former Rwandan President Habyarimana in April 1994, and (b) preventing military forces from either side from stopping the civilian killings until Kagame’s forces had seized Kigali, the Rwandan capital, in July 1994. According to UN General Dallaire’s book and ICTR testimony, Kagame refused repeated offers of an unconditional ceasefire by the militarily weaker losing side for reasons of military strategy because, “he was winning…”
The Improbability of French Complicity
During the 14 years of the ICTR’s existence, neither the Rwanda Government nor the Office of the Prosecutor, nor the Defence, has produced any evidence of direct French involvement in the killings that resulted from Kagame’s invasion of Rwanda. In fact, had the French military not been withdrawn December 1993 and been replaced by the lightly-armed UNAMIR force in January 1994, it is highly unlikely that Kagame would have mounted his final assault for power in April 1994, at all, and the massive Rwandan tragedy could have been avoided. In February 1993, a small group of French soldiers had already prevented a military takeover by Kagame’s RPA army. However, the February assault turned one-sixth of the Rwandan population, more than a million people, into bitter, fearful, hungry, homeless, angry internal refugees[5]…and provided the motivation for Rwandan civilians to react with violence, when threatened by another assault following the assassination of the President in April 1994. [6]
The evidentiary record at the ICTR includes original UN and UN government documents from May –October 1994 that describe massive (so- far unprosecuted) atrocities in all of the areas of Rwanda controlled by Kagame’s forces. For example, on May 17, 1994, UN observers reported “20-30 bodies every 30 minutes” in the Akegara River in eastern Rwanda[7] and US State Department reports that Kagame’s forces were killing 10,000 a month in July and August 1994 in one small part of Rwanda.[8] In fall 1994, both Amnesty International[9] and Human Rights Watch[10] issued reports of massive killing and exclusion of reporters and human rights activists from areas of Rwanda controlled by Kagame’s forces. Documents in evidence at the ICTR also describe a systematic cover-up of these crimes with the assistance of the US Government and UN personnel, including Kofi Annan, beginning in August 1994 and continuing to the present.[11]
Kagame’s “Big Lie:” Politicized Human Rights in Africa
That a report accusing the French of crimes should be issued by Kagame’s Government now, following the revelation of a growing mountain of evidence of crimes for which he and his forces are responsible is not surprising. What IS surprising is how incredulously the well-meaning “human rights community” has swallowed the “Big Lie” wholesale, without understanding the nature of the Rwanda War or examining the factual record that exists at the ICTR, and original, contemporaneous reports from UN and U.S. Government agencies regarding what actually did happen in Rwanda in 1994.
It is particularly ironic that this flood of criticism of France, unleashed at Kagame’s behest, should so closely follow the massive criticism of Robert Mugabe’s manipulation of the Zimbabwe election. The reports of EU monitors following the 2003 Rwanda “election,” which Kagame won with 95% of the vote, read like a blueprint for Mugabe’s tactics in 2008:
· Opposing parties declared illegal and “divisionist”;
· A former President (Pasteur Bizimungu) jailed for presuming to run against Kagame;
· Opposition party members imprisoned and killed;
· Election dates moved-up 3 months to make opposition campaigning impossible; and,
· widespread violence and assassination of opposition supporters.[12]
Mugabe has been roundly (qnd justly) vilified for applying the same “election” tactics pioneered by Kagame five years ago, about which not a word of criticism has been heard. Perhaps the “believers” who appear to have taken the Rwandan Report seriously can also explain why Kagame has not been held to the same standard?
But the irony does not stop there. A 2003 UN Security Council report describes massive crimes committed by Kagame’s Rwanda army (now 70,000 troops versus 7,000, when France was assisting Rwanda in 1990) that invaded and occupied vast portions of the eastern Congo in 1996 and 1998. [13] The UN report also describes how the Kagame Regime is confiscating the Congo’s mineral resources and diverting the Congo’s riches to Rwanda. The Rwandan invasion of the Congo has led to a 12-year war in which more than 6 million have died, and is still going on today. Although little reported in the U.S. and Western press, more civilians die in the Congo every 4-months than the total killed in Darfur…..but it is Darfur that is labeled a “genocide.”
The “Big Lie”, the Rwanda Tribunal and the Search for Truth
The “Big Lie” is an old tactic and, so far, that has worked quite well for Kagame, his supporters and benefactors. But, by trying to shift blame for his own crimes to France, he and the Rwandan Government may have gone too far. The Security Council (on which both the U.S. and France have a veto) will meet in September to discuss the future of the ICTR. The U.S. has been pushing the Council to cut-off funding, which will make it impossible to investigate and prosecute the crimes of Kagame and his henchmen. But, Rwanda’s accusations of direct French complicity in genocide, “the crime of crimes,” changes the political dynamic in the Security Council. Now, it is imperative that the ICTR mandate be extended for along enough period of time to provide a forum to vindicate the honor of France; to avoid further accusation that France is being treated with impunity by a UN body, upon which France holds a permanent seat; and, to fully investigate and prosecute the crimes of Kagame and his regime that have recently come to light.
Should the Security Council vote to end the mandate of the ICTR by 2008 at the U.S. has demanded, the world will be forever left with the impression that Kagame’s “Big Lie,” implicating France in genocide, may be true. And, the U.S.-supported Kagame Regime will have effectively been granted impunity for the massive crimes for which evidence has already been produced at the ICTR, and admitted by numerous members of the ICTR Prosecutor’s office.
The Tainted ICTR May Yet Be Vindicated
If the Security Council extends the life of the ICTR, and the Tribunal is permitted to follow the evidence of Rwandan, and the alleged French , as well as U.S. involvement involvement with Kagame’sRPF are fully investigated and prosecuted, it is possible that the ICTR can rise above political manipulations that have, so far, resulted in the most blatant sort of “victor’s justice” since the Tokyo Tribunal failed to prosecute the U.S. firebomibing of civilian Tokyo and the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagaski.[14] To become a legitimate juridical institution based in law, rather than big-power politics, the ICTR must hold accountable all who are responsible for the Rwanda tragedy …including the super-power United States that pays most of the bills at the ICTR, as well as its ally in the war for influence and control in Central Africa….Kagame’ s regime in Rwanda.
At the end of the day, the accusations leveled against France by the Kagame Government may yet prove be its own undoing.
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[1] Professor of Law, Wm Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, MN 55105, President ADAD (Association des Avocats de la Defence) Arusha, TZ, past-President, National Lawyers Guild, peter.erlinder@ wmitchell. edu. The references herein can be found in a paper presented by the author at the University of Paris, May 31, 2008 and several thousand additional contemporaneous UN documents and ICTR exhibits can be accessed on the author’s Rwanda Documents Project website: www.rwandadocuments project.net.
[2] Hartmann, Paix et chatiment les gueres de la politique (Flamarion, Paris September 27, 2007), p. 271-72:
[3] ICTR defence evidence in Military-I, Exhibit DNT 365. March 8.2007 Affidavit of QC Michael Hourigan (and supporting affidavit of Amadou Deme):
In late January or early February 1997 members of the National Team were approached by three (3) informants (either former or serving member of the RPF) claimed direct involvement in the 1994 fatal rocket attack on the President’s aircraft. Their evidence specifically implicated the direct involvement of President Paul Kagame, members of his administration and military. The informants also advised that the Kagame administration was actively involved in covert operations aimed at murdering high profile ex-patriot Rwandans – one such murder was the death of Seth Sendashonga in Nairobi.
[4] ICTR Military-I testimony of U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda 1990-1993, Robert Flaten, July 2006
[5] ICTR Military-I exhibit DNT 315. April 7, 1994 cable of Amb. Prudence Bushnell: “If, as it appears, both Presidents have been killed, there is a strong likelihood that widespread violence could break out either or both countries, particularly if it is confirmed that the plane was shot down.”
[6] ICTR Military-I exhibit DNT 315. April 7, 1994 cable of Amb. Prudence Bushnell: “If, as it appears, both Presidents have been killed, there is a strong likelihood that widespread violence could break out either or both countries, particularly if it is confirmed that the plane was shot down.”
[7] ICTR Military-I exhibit DNT 259. May 17, 1994 UNCHR Report of RPF killings at Rusomo Bridge to Tanzania, over Kagera River, in southeastern Rwanda.
[8] ICTR Military-1 Evidence, DNT 264.
[9] A ICTR Military-I defense Exhibit DNT 258:mnesty International, Rwanda: Reports of killings and abductions by the Rwandese Patriotic Army, April-August 1994, October 20, 1994:
[10] ICTR Military-I defense Exhibit DNT 261:
Human Rights Watch, Absence of Prosecution, Continued Killings, Sept. 1994.
[11] See, ICTR Military-I testimony of fmr. RPF Foreign Minister Jean-Marie Ndagiyimana, November 2006 and related documents.
[12] See generally, Waugh, Paul Kagame and Rwanda: Power, Genocide and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (MacFarland USA 2004)
[13] See, UN Panel of Experts Report on the Illegal Exploitation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, October 20, 2003.
[14] Former Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara has famously observed in the recent popular film, “The Fog of War” that he,r and others who planned the firebombing of Tokyo, would have been prosecuted as war criminals had the Japanese won the war in the Pacific.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a “time”, yet it cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
