Archive for the ‘Rwanda’ Category

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NYTIMES: WHAT’S IN THAT OCTOBER REPORT ON RWANDA?

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

U.N. Congo Report Offers New View on Genocide

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

A forthcoming United Nations report on 10 years of extraordinary violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo bluntly challenges the conventional history of events there after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, charging that invading troops from Rwanda and their rebel allies killed tens of thousands of members of the Hutu ethnic group, including many civilians.

Roger Lemoyne/Liaison, via Getty Images

Rwandan refugees passed a body in a refugee camp in Congo in 1997. United Nations-administered camps housed roughly one million Hutu who had fled the genocide in Rwanda.

Killings in Congo and Rwanda have led to long inquiries.

The 545-page report on 600 of the country’s most serious reported atrocities raises the question of whether Rwanda could be found guilty of genocide against Hutu during the war in neighboring Congo, but says international courts would need to rule on individual cases.

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AP: Germany charges ex-Rwandan mayor with genocide

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

(AP) – Aug 18, 2010

BERLIN — A former Rwandan mayor living in Germany has been charged for allegedly organizing massacres and inciting killings during the African country’s 1994 genocide, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The 53-year-old, identified only as Onesphore R., was charged with genocide and murder as well as inciting those crimes, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

The man was the mayor of a district in northern Rwanda at the time of the killings, the prosecutors said, without identifying the district.

At least 500,000 members of the Tutsi ethnic minority and moderates from the Hutu majority were slaughtered during the Rwandan genocide.

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REUTERS: Kagame’s former allies warn of Rwanda violence

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

(Reuters) – A group of exiled Rwandans has warned that the central African nation could descend into conflict unless Tutsi President Paul Kagame shares more power with the majority ethnic Hutu.

Four erstwhile Kagame allies called on the international community to exert pressure to end impunity for gross human rights violations and help avert conflict which they said is inevitable if he continues to marginalize the Hutu population.

“Rwanda is a one-party authoritarian state, controlled by President Kagame through a small clique of Tutsi military officers and civilian cadres of the (ruling party),” the group said in a 60-page document seen by Reuters on Thursday.

“The consolidation of authoritarian rule enhances prospects for violent conflict instead of consolidating peace and stability,” the four former Kagame allies said.

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BBC: Ban urges Rwanda not to withdraw UN peacekeepers

Thursday, September 9th, 2010
Ban Ki-moon shakes hands with Paul Kagame (8 September 2010) Ban Ki-moon interrupted a European trip to visit Rwanda for talks with Paul Kagame

The UN’s secretary general has urged Rwanda not to withdraw its peacekeepers from Sudan over a leaked report saying its troops may have committed genocide.

Ban Ki-moon said he was “disappointed” the draft had been released, after he held talks with President Paul Kagame in Kigali in a bid to ease tensions.

The report accuses Rwandan soldiers of massacring civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1990s.

Rwanda says the document is “malicious” and “ridiculous” and wants it amended.

The UN last week delayed publication of the document until 1 October, to give countries more time to comment on its contents.

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Posted in AFRICA, Congo, Darfur, Rwanda, War Crimes | No Comments »

RNI: Rwandan cabinet reviews genocide ideology law

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Tharcisse Karugarama

S Maupas/RFI

By RFI

As Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame heads for election victory, the government is reviewing its genocide ideology law. Rights groups have accused it of limiting freedom of speech but, Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama, insists that the changes are the cabinet’s own idea.

Kagame, who is certain to secure a second seven-year mandate when full provisional results are released late Wednesday, has been criticised for gagging the opposition through the use of Rwanda’s Law Relating to the punishment of the Crime of Genocide Ideology.

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Guardian UK: Wary Rwandans choose strongman Paul Kagame – and peace – over democracy

Thursday, September 9th, 2010
  • Matteo Fagotto
  • The Observer, Sunday 1 August 2010
  • Stability and an economic boom have made the president the overwhelming favourite to be re-elected next week, but the opposition has been brutally silenced

kagame

The campaign rallies of President Paul Kagame, such as this one in Nyaruguru district, have become increasingly triumphal. Photograph: Tadej Znidarcic for the Observer

It’s a hot afternoon in the southern rural district of Nyaruguru. On a dusty clearing overlooked by a hill already swarming with people, tens of thousands of supporters have been gathering since early morning to get a glimpse of their hero. Among them are peasants, pregnant women and toddlers, all wearing the red-white-and-blue T-shirts of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and dancing to the rhythm of a famous local singer, Masamba Intore. Suddenly a convoy of black cars appears in the distance. The crowd explodes in cheers of joy when a tall, slender figure slowly makes his way to the podium. Ready for another mass celebration of his uncontested rule of this small African country, the president of Rwanda and former liberation fighter, Paul Kagame, finally appears, greeting his supporters.

Posted in AFRICA, Civil Rights, Democracy, Human Rights Abuses, POLITICS, Rwanda | No Comments »

AP: UN to release Congo ‘genocide’ report in October

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

By FRANK JORDANS (AP) – Sep 2, 2010

GENEVA — A report detailing hundreds of gruesome attacks against civilians in Congo over a 10-year period won’t be released until October, the U.N.’s top human rights official said Thursday, after Rwanda angrily protested the findings in a draft version.

Drafts of the report — circulated to governments earlier this year and leaked to the media last week — accused Rwandan troops and rebel allies tied to the current Congolese president of slaughtering tens of thousands of Hutus in Congo in the 1990s.

Rwanda has reacted angrily to the claim that this may have constituted genocide or crimes against humanity, and threatened to pull its troops from U.N. peacekeeping missions if the report was published unchanged, claiming the five-year study was “fatally flawed” and “incredibly irresponsible.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement that the report will now be published Oct. 1 in order to allow affected governments time to publish their comments alongside the final version.

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Posted in AFRICA, Congo, GENOCIDE, Rwanda, United Nations | No Comments »

Leaked UN Report Levels Serious Accusations Against Rwanda

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

Penelope Chester – August 27, 2010 – 11:37 am

Following a year-long investigation, and just weeks prior to its official release, a 600 page report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) was leaked. The report, which seeks to shed light on war crimes committed between 1993 and 2003 in the the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), suggests that the Rwandan army (RPA) and Congolese AFDL rebels carried out attacks against Hutus in the DRC which “could be classified as crimes of genocide.”

These allegations, if they are kept in the final version of the UN report, have serious political implications for the newly re-elected president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, who was heading up the Rwandan army at the time these crimes were committed. That Hutus were massacred in the DRC in the years following the Rwandan genocide has always been suspected; it is the allegation that these massacres could potentially constitute a crime of genocide which is particularly damning.

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LATimes: Nerves on edge as election nears in Rwanda

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

An opponent and a reporter have been slain and newspapers have been suspended as the Rwandan Patriotic Front and its accomplished leader, Paul Kagame, prepare for victory.

Rwanda campaign

Supporters of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, cheer at a campaign rally in Kigali, the capital, two days before the presidential election. Opposition parties say they have been frozen out of the election. (Charles Shoemaker / EPA / August 6, 2010)
By Nick Wadhams, Los Angeles Times August 8, 2010

la-fg-rwanda-elections-20100808

 

 

Reporting from Butare, Rwanda —

The New Sombrero bar, with its plastic chairs, pastel blue walls and dark corners, used to buzz with students in this university town in southern Rwanda. But the place has been nearly empty since its owner was killed last month.

The problem isn’t that people feel uneasy visiting a bar belonging to a dead man. It’s that Andre Kagwa Rwisereka was the vice president of the opposition Democratic Green Party, and people worry that coming to the New Sombrero would be seen as a sign of support for the party.

Posted in AFRICA, POLITICS, Rwanda | No Comments »

AOL: As Many as 200 Women, Babies Gang-Raped in Congo

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Dana Kennedy ContributorAOL News
(Aug. 23) — As many as 200 women were systematically gang-raped by Rwandan and Congolese rebels over a four-day period last month less than 20 miles from a U.N. peacekeeping base in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations and aid groups reported.

The Associated Press reported that four baby boys were also raped in the attacks that began in a key mining district on July 30. U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters today the rebels blocked a key road during the raping and looting spree.

The eastern Congo is known as the “rape capital of the world” where savage mobs use sexual violence to subdue the population and vie for control of the “conflict minerals” used to make cell phones and laptops around the world.

Posted in AFRICA, Congo, Corporate (ir)responsibility, GENDER HATE, GENOCIDE, Genocide Denial, Hate Crimes, Human Rights Abuses, Human Trafficking, Rwanda, Terrorisim, United Nations, War Crimes | No Comments »

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