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Published on Wednesday, December 24, 2008 by Jurist
Rwanda: No Conspiracy, No Genocide Planning ... No Genocide?
by Peter Erlinder
The media reports of the December 18 judgment of Chamber-1 at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda focused primarily on the convictions of three of four former top military leaders, who were the supposed “masterminds” of the Rwandan genocide. But, as those who have followed the ICTR closely know, convictions of members of the former Rwandan government and military are scarcely newsworthy.

Ever since former ICTR Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and ICTR Chief Investigative Prosecutor Michael Hourigan went public in 2007-8 exposing US-UK manipulations to grant de facto impunity to current Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his henchmen, between 1997 and the present, convictions of the vanquished in the Rwanda war are a given.

The real news was that ALL of the top Rwandan military officers, including the supposedly infamous Colonel Bagosora, were found not guilty of conspiracy or planning to commit genocide. And Gen. Gratien Kabiligi, a senior member of the general staff was acquitted of all charges! The others were found guilty of specific acts committed by subordinates, in specific places, at specific times - not an overall conspiracy to kill civilians, much less Rwandan-Tutsi civilians.

This raises the more profound question: if there was no conspiracy and no planning to kill ethnic civilians, can the tragedy that engulfed Rwanda properly be called “a genocide” at all? Or, was it closer to a case of civilians being caught up in war-time violence, like the Eastern Front in WWII, rather than the planned behind-the-lines killings in Nazi death camps? The ICTR judgment found the former.

The Court specifically found that the actions of Rwandan military leaders, both before any after the April 6, 1994 assassination of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarima, were consistent with war-time conditions and the massive chaos brought about by the four-year war of invasion from Uganda by Gen. Paul Kagame’s RPF army, which seized power in July 1994.

Although the Chamber did not specifically mention more recent events, it is worth noting that this is the same government that was named in a UN Security Council commissioned report on December 12, 2008 as having invaded the eastern Congo (with Uganda) in 1996 and again in 1998 and have occupied an area 15-times the size of Rwanda since that time. Similar UN Security Council reports in 2001, 2002 and 2003, make clear that Rwanda and Uganda’s economic rape of the eastern Congo, and the resulting 6 million-plus civilian deaths, have long been an “open secret.”

As Lead Defense Counsel for Major Aloys Ntabakuze, who was convicted of three specific crimes committed by troops without evidence they were acting under his authority, I would say the judgment was actually a victory. Our defense was based on previously suppressed contemporaneous UN and declassified US documents that showed Kagame’s RPF as the war-time aggressor, which was responsible for the assassination of the former President and for preventing military intervention to end the predicted civilian massacres.

The ICTR oral judgment specifically refers to this “alternative” explanation of the tragic events in Rwanda, as being a basis for rejecting the conspiracy and planning charges against the former military leaders. But the documents show more.

As early as May 17, 1994, UNHCR was receiving reports of massive civilian killings by Kagame’s RPF in the 1/3 of Rwanda they had occupied since April 22. Other documents from August, September and October 1994 describe a conscious attempt by UN and US government officials to “cover-up” reports of RPF killings, including memos to Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Apparently, US policy to create “impunity” for Kagame began nearly as soon as he took power.

Had the US “impunity policy” not been in place, Kagame might well have been prosecuted along with Military-1 defendants Bagosora and Nsengiumva, as ICTR Prosecutor Michael Hourigan recommended in early 1997. Kagame’s responsibility for the assassination of Habyarimana has been known to the ICTR Prosecutor since at least that time, if not early.

Had the US “impunity policy” not been in place, Kagame might well have spent the last decade awaiting trial at the ICTR, rather than getting rich from the resources of the Congo, and the blood of millions of Africans.
Peter Erlinder is a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, MN. He is a past-President of the National Lawyers Guild, a Lead Defense Counsel-UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the President of the ICTR-ADAD (Association des Avocats de la Defense). E-mail peter.erlinder@wmitchell.edu
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Posted in Equality/Justice, genocide, international law, Rwanda
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bligh4 December 25th, 2008 7:22 pm
bligh4

What an excremental article. Does the author really think that the REAL story of the Rwandan genocide was the killing of Hutus by Tutsi's.

Some moderate Hutus were killed by the government militias, but EVERY SINGLE TUTSI that could be found- men, women and children- were killed by the government militias. All the while government spokesmen were on the radio ordering the killing of the "cockroaches".

If this was not genocide then genocide does not exist. The author should be ashamed of himself.

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VAGreen December 25th, 2008 1:38 pm
It's not surprising that a defense attorney for the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide would engage in genocide denial. It is very surprising and even more disappointing that Common Dreams would publish this sort of garbage. What's next? Bringing in a representative of the Turkish government to deny the Armenian genocide? Japanese "revisionist" historians who want to deny Japan's
mass rapes and murders in China in 1938?

There is nothing progressive about genocide denial, even if it does criticize U.S. foreign policy.

Are all of the media who reported on the Rwandan genocide part of the Evil U.S. Imperialist Conspiracy? Is Human Rights Watch part of the conspiracy too? Is this report all forgeries except for the part about Tutsi atrocities?

http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1999/rwanda/

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Usama2 December 24th, 2008 11:50 pm
This matter is about America seeing a strategic interest in the Congo Central Africa region and using the "crisis" as an opportunity. Kagame and the RPF military was the proxy to make that 'opportunity' possible. And Kagame was trained at an army officer training program in America.

So if American military program is tied to Kagame, and American corporate interests have benefitted from Rwandan military activity in the Congo region, and American political leaders are complicit, if not directly accountable, who and what will bring justice to this matter?

Forget the International Criminal Court. The ICC is an instrument of European political interests.

American ties to the massacres and proxy militarism and warmongering has to be faced by the American people. The American people have to bring their own people to justice otherwise the injustices and criminality will continue generation after generation.

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rubyinthedust December 24th, 2008 10:16 pm
"even a dead fish can go with the flow"

If this is true, the USA + the UN officials that granted "impunity" should be in the dock at the International Court.

This would of course include Bill Clinton, Warren Christopherat the very least.

This should also squash any hopes of exprez Clinton holding any position at the
United Nations.

Perhaps Hilary Clinton should resign her recent appointment, as she repeatedly claimed "experience gained" at the White House when her partner ran the show, did she endorse this travesty of justice, inhumanity and abuse of power?

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ezeflyer December 24th, 2008 3:05 pm
Wealth/power concentration + overpopulation/resource depletion = genocidal war

or

Unfettered Capitalism + Organized Religion = Death

Nature is indifferent to cruelty, suffering and blood.

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