General Kagame, a schizophrenic who murdered 3,5 millions of Rwandans mainly Hutus is getting rehabilitated from genocidaire to peace-maker.

[No word has been uttered about Kagame’s bloody past nor is it likely to gnaw on the conscience of Blair who bolstered Rwanda with foreign aid even as he was killing, torturing and executing his internal enemies].

What Kagame doesn’t know about genocide is not worth mentioning. The rehabilitation of Paul Kagame from genocidaire to peace-maker and receiver of honorary doctorates from universities in the West has been achieved by the international media and G8 governments sweeping his crimes under the carpet.

This event became the catalyst for the Rwanda’s civil war which led to a million people being killed. Kagame did this knowing full well what the consequences would be and to secure control of power for himself. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported that from April to August in 1994, the rebel RPF headed by Paul Kagame systematically killed between 25,00 and 45,000 Hutus and others as it made its way to the capital city of Kigali.

After fighting off the Ugandan army in June 2000, the Rwandan forces managed “to funnel all the diamonds in Kisangani [in eastern DRC] through the Congo Desk”. Local diamond traders were forced to sell to the contractor nominated by the Rwandan army, and at prices set by the desk. The Rwandans appear to have been stealing about $2 million worth of diamonds a month. (Monbiot C.)

The army also managed to capture most of eastern Congo’s public funds, seizing its revenues for water electricity, airports and roads. By 1999 the ‘Congo desk’ was generating 80% of the Rwandan army’s budget, some $320 million a year.

The Rwandan elites new found wealth and prosperity is fruit borne from the Congo’s fields of blood. This is the reason why Rwanda has made progress since its civil war, the Congolese have been paying tribute to Kagame. And this is the dark underbelly of neo-liberalism which avaricious Blair admires.

Horrifyingly, the displacements caused by the people fleeing the army who burned and razed to the ground Congolese villages led to more people dying than were killed by the Interhamwe in Rwanda. From the invasion in 1999 to when the Rwandan army pulled out in 2002, the UN suggests that over 3.5 million deaths in excess of previous levels of mortality “occurred from the beginning of the war up to September 2002. These deaths are a direct result of the occupation by Rwanda and Uganda.” The figure today stands at 5 million.

That’s 45,000 people a month since the troubles began in the region. This barely raises a flicker of interest in the international press.

The war in DRC might have officially ended but the plundering carries on. The Rwandan Patriotic Army soldiers at the ‘Congo Desk’ exchanged their uniforms for civilian clothing and the plunder continued under close management by the army in Kigali. Rwanda continues to use the excuse of rebel soldiers to invade and to arm rebel Tutsi forces that have been fighting to annex eastern Congo.

Kagame’s soothing comment, “I tend to believe that the Kenyan army is professional and has been stable,” should be viewed with extreme suspicion. It is widely known that Kenya’s army harbours the same ethnic rivalry tearing the country apart.

Many of those in the army are sympathetic to Odinga who is aware that there is a danger the army could split along ethnic lines.
It is Odinga who has poured cold water on using Kenyan troops to contain the violence that is ripping Kenya apart while Kibaki will not dare involve the army.

Which then leaves only outside military intervention by the AU or UN. If the AU or UN take this route what would that look like? Which countries would send troops and given the behaviour of Ugandan troops in Nyanza who killed Luos indiscriminately, would Kenyans welcome them? Would the army stay in their barracks if that happened? Proof of how destabilising this will be to Kenya can be seen in neighbouring Sudan and if you have the courage to look, Congo.

So-called humanitarian missions such as United Nations Observer Mission in Congo (MONUC) are merely cloaks for the theft at gun-point of DRC’s wealth. MONUC members sit on the boards of many of the corporations that have interests in DRC. This reflects the growing trend to privatise humanitarian missions.