December 5th, 2008
“At approximately 20:30, Habyarimana and President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi were killed in a plane that was shot down near Kanombe International Airport All people aboard died.”
Nobody Can Call It a “Plane Crash” (Philipot)
More important facts that have been carefully pointed out during the VRT reconstruction, facts that TOTALLY differ of the official story about the Rwanda genocide. It deserves to be studied carefully.
Retired Colonel Rose Kabuye was recently arrested in Germany, and extradited to France, where she was charged with for complicity in murder in relation to a terrorist enterprise, for her alleged participation in the 1994 shooting down of Juvénal Habyarimana’s presidential plane, and released on bail. She is the first member of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s inner circle to be charged in connection to what is arguably history’s least-investigated political assassination and terrorist attack.
That attack was surely one of the worst terrorist acts of the 1990s. Think about it! Two African heads of state were killed–President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi was also in the plane , the fragile peace based on the Arusha accords of 1993 was shattered, war resumed, and masses of people were massacred.
Retired Colonel Rose Kabuye was recently arrested in Germany, and extradited to France, where she was charged with for complicity in murder in relation to a terrorist enterprise, for her alleged participation in the 1994 shooting down of Juvénal Habyarimana’s presidential plane, and released on bail. She is the first member of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s inner circle to be charged in connection to what is arguably history’s least-investigated political assassination and terrorist attack.The shooting down of the plane carrying Presidents Habyarimana of Rwanda and Ntaryamira of Burundi triggered the large-scale massacres that followed. The role of this attack on the nightmare that unfolded is obvious, yet over the years, and with the exception of judge Bruguière’s investigation, efforts to elucidate this crime have been frustrated almost every step of the way. 1st Episode: Why the death of Belgian peacekeeping
An investigation was requested on numerous occasions, by numerous parties; significantly, by the Security Council, almost immediately, whose reminders to the Secretary-General to investigate the circumstances of the attack were not followed; by the Rwandan Government, after the plane was shot down; by the African Union; and following the UN resolution establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities adopted resolution 1994/1 entitled “Situation in Rwanda”, calling the attention of the Commission of Experts, established by the Security Council, to the need to inquire into the circumstances of the shooting down of the plane.
of the Belgian peacekeeping forces
In 1997, the ICTR Prosecutor’s representative responded:
In 1997, the ICTR Prosecutor’s representative responded:
“Our responsibility and mandate is not to investigate plane crashes. That’s not really our function. Therefore, I would categorically answer this question by saying that, first, we don’t have any such investigation. We have not made any such investigation and we don’t have any reports. And, secondly, it is not our function, it is not our mandate, to investigate plane crashes or presidents, vice-presidents, or whoever it is. And, therefore, this is really a matter not within our province.”
We have since learned from Michael Hourigan, Australian lawyer and one of former Prosecutor Louise Arbour’s lead investigators, that investigations had in fact been carried out (and at the material period when this fact had been denied), but had been shut down by Prosecutor Arbour personally once Hourigan informed her that he had credible evidence that a “network commando” of the RPF had shot down the plane.
3nd Episode:Rumors rumors crop up again that Beligian UN
peacekeeping are responsible for the death of the terrorist attack
peacekeeping are responsible for the death of the terrorist attack
The efforts to undermine this investigation over the years are significant, and the testimonies come from different sources confirm the total responsability and involvement of the RPF leader Paul Kagame.
Diplomacy’s Pale Underbelly:
Bernard Kouchner ironically said: “I do not know who ordered the April 6th, 1994 attack against President Habyarimana’s plane. But I do not believe, as does the excellent judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, that Paul Kagame knowingly decided to spark the fire that roared over his country. I cannot accept this simplistic and slanderous vision that would have Tutsis be responsible for what happened to them, no more than I can stand to hear certain people claim that there was a double genocide, against both Hutus and Tutsis.”
One can only hope that geo-political concerns will not yet again stand in the way of learning the truth about the circumstances in which President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down by two surface to air missiles in 1994, even if the truth to be discovered, and justice to be done as a result, leads us to indict those who’ve become some of the West’s strongest allies, and who continue, it seems, to wage a path of destruction through Eastern Congo, with complete immunity. Indeed, if the RPF shot down President Habyarimana’s plane, Kagame can no longer be deemed a heroic military genius who stopped a genocide and should be forever protected and flattered no matter how many crimes he commits.
He becomes one of the (main) reasons the massacres unfolded: he could not have failed to know that the assassination of two Hutu presidents, and the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Armed Forces, during a volatile political transition and in the course of a fragile ceasefire (violated on several occasions by the RPF, as it happens), would unleash violence.
He becomes one of the (main) reasons the massacres unfolded: he could not have failed to know that the assassination of two Hutu presidents, and the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Armed Forces, during a volatile political transition and in the course of a fragile ceasefire (violated on several occasions by the RPF, as it happens), would unleash violence.
All crimes must be punished, all criminals must face justice. We are confronted with an impunity gap. Justice must be seen to be done.
If the RPF shot down the plane, they are co-responsible, and this substantially changes the cartoonishly uni-dimensional narrative necessary to provide Kagame with total impunity, and buttress a Western foreign policy on intervention that helped make the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia possible politically.
While Bernard Kouchner may not want to believe the results of a careful investigation carried out by France’s most celebrated anti-terrorism judge, and while Judge Bruguière’s witness, Mr. Ruzibiza, may suddenly see fit to recant a testimony given under oath before a UN institution, the fact remains that there are many other witnesses relied upon in the French investigation.
And this most under-investigated of political assassinations, one which sparked a hundred-day massacre, the latter justifying continued war and misery in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and authoritarian rule in Rwanda, must be elucidated, and not quashed yet again, for the sake of geopolitical interests that would impede discovery of truth, and delay justice beyond what can decently be tolerated. ==>Tiphaine Dickson
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
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
