More…

• Is Hillary Clinton An All-Star Secretary of State?
• Moscow’s Marines Head for Syria — as If Things Weren’t Bad Enough
• China’s Economy Is No. 1 – at Cooking the Books
• Egypt’s Train Wreck Isn’t Slow Motion Anymore

I am disappointed in Foreign Policy.  This should be a much better piece. Some of these links to sources are extremely suspect (SF Bay View really isn’t a source that should ever appear in FP) and the article about the US giving immunity to Kagame in civil cases was in reference to the easily debunked conspiracy that Kagame shot down Habyarimana’s plane and was really the mastermind behind the genocide, not his crimes in the DRC . The 6.9 million deaths as a credible source? Unlikely, Kristoff loves to exaggerate, he is a journalist and a sensationalist and I would not cite him on that number. In fact there has been research being done to try and nail down how many people have died as a result of the conflict from preventable conditions (not just happen to die in Eastern Congo at the time) and generally the number has found to be less.

In terms of US protection of Rwanda, yes they delayed the addendum. However, if you believe almost every report that has come out since, the State Dept and US officials were planning on allowing its release the entire time. Susan Rice seemed to be the lone hold out, her influence is obviously huge within the administration but it sounds like she was pressured by pretty much everyone else to finally cave. I do think the US could put more pressure on Rwandan considering the M23 rebellion is still alive and kicking (apparently currently threatening Goma) but the actual delay of the report’s release was only days and the title of “covering for warmongering” is an exaggeration.

Also, this goes much deeper than minerals and to not even make mention the ethnic and historical causes cheapens this entire analysis. Rwanda blames anti-Tutsi sentiment and the continuing the presence of the FDLR for the rebellion (even if they don’t admit to supporting it). M23  recruits were told they would be fighting to annex the Kivus from the DRC so to protect ethnic Tutsis/ Banyamulenge there. The FDLR is  armed, dangerous and still wants to overthrow the Rwandan gov’t and therefore is a pretext for Rwandan policy vis-a-vis the DRC.

The support for armed groups operating in the DRC by the Rwandans must stop immediately, but if the Congolese want peace I think someone has to figure out how to secure Eastern Congo stop becoming the dumping ground for foreign insurgencies (FNL, FDLR, ADF, LRA ect. ect.)

Dismantlement of the International Law as a New Strategy of Global Elite

Alexander MEZYAEV | 06.04.2011

While the war against Libya is raging, another aggression possibly marking a new phase in the history of the international law is beginning to unfold. On April 5, the French forces launched an offensive supposed to lead to the seizure of Ivory Coast’s legitimate president Laurent Gbagbo. According to some reports, encircled Gbagbo is negotiating the terms for his surrender, according to others – he brushed off as disinformation the claim that the power hand-over to his opponent Alassane Ouattara is on the horizon and continues to assert that he won the last Ivory Coast elections.

Notably,in the Ivory Coast – for the first time since 1961, the year Belgian troops under the UN flag killed Patrice Lumumba in Congo – the UN “peacekeepers” openly took a role in toppling a legitimate leader of a sovereign country.

The Western media echoed by Russian peers shower the audiences with allegations that Gbagbo lost the 2010 elections and should therefore step down. Their key argument – the head of the elections commission declared Ouattara the winner – ignores the fact that in the Ivory Coast it is up to the Constitutional Council, not the elections commission to decide who prevailed in the race over presidency in case the outcome of the vote is called into question1. As for the Constitutional Council, it gave victory to Gbagbo, meaning that as of today he is the legitimate president of the Ivory Coast and that the offensive meant to dislodge him is an outright aggression.

Africaseems to have become the proving ground for suspicious novelties in the sphere of the international law. The investigative activities of the International Criminal Court established in 2003, for example, have so far been entirely confined to the continent. One gets an impression that the new scenario – the elections fully controlled by the UN and, of course, producing predictable results – will be tested in Africa before being put to work elsewhere. In contrast to a number of past elections, the UN involvement will not be limited to supervision – rather, in the emerging framework the UN will provide funding for the elections and maintain full grip on all aspects of the process. In the Ivory Coast, the UN-controlled elections simply failed to enthrone the preferred candidate as Ouattara, a senior figure in the IMF in 1968-1988, was outpaced by Gbagbo. The rage over the botched experiment largely explains the international community’s harshness in the Ivory Coast. At the moment the country is the scene of ferocious fighting with numerous fatalities among Gbagbo’s loyalists and opponents alike.

In an attempt to bring the experiment staged in the Ivory Coast to completion, the International Criminal Court opened a genocide probe targeting Gbagbo. On top of that, on March 30, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1975 slapping sanctions on the regime in the Ivory Coast and – unprecedentedly for the international law – declaring the incumbent leader’s presidency illegitimate without citing any grounds for the assessment.

It is a clear breach of the UN neutrality commitment that the UN forces overstepped their mandate and are assisting in the hunt for the Ivory Coast’s president. Strictly speaking, the neutrality of the UN mission in the Ivory Coast degenerated into a total myth ages ago and, moreover, the UN peacekeeping missions are an invention which, though habitually counted as normal across the world, is not authorized by the UN Charter. The UN Security Council created the mission in the Ivory Coast by the February, 2004 Resolution with a broad reference to Chapter VII of the UN Charter without pointing to any specific article or paragraph therein. This is the same as handing out a sentence in court based on the entire criminal code without linking the charges to violations of individual laws. In other words, there was no legal backing whatsoever behind instituting the UN peacekeeping mission in the Ivory Coast. The only reason why, since the notorious 1961 crime in Congo, the dubious legal character of the UN peacekeeping missions largely went unchallenged is that until recently they used to land in sovereign countries following the requests from their governments or at least with the local governments’ consent. In the Ivory Coast, the government actually demanded to withdraw the mission, but the UN Secretary-General chose to solve the problem by denying Gbagbo’s legitimacy.

The international reaction to Gbagbo’s efforts aimed at defusing the crisis peacefully showed to what extent those who organized the experiment in the Ivory Coast were unprepared to tolerate alternatives to their blueprint. Gbagbo’s offer of ballot recount drew an angry statement from the UN Secretary-General, likely because he had no illusions as to the rivals’ actual scores. From the outset, Ouattara was the only accepted candidate.

What makes the current developments in the Ivory Coast a completely new phenomenon is that while in the past foreign-assisted coups were perceived as violations of the international law and the aggressor could not count on the UN Security Council’s support, these days the international law is being invoked to justify aggression. The trend is taking shape right now: the aggression against Libya was approved by the UN and in almost no time the aggression against the Ivory Coast was launched by the UN. The international law no longer serves to stabilize international relations. Over the past six decades since the end of World War II the term “the international law” has had a positive connotation and – while we almost stopped to realize this – in fact the situation has amounted to a radical departure from the colonial epoch to which the world is currently reverting. In the colonial epoch, the international law routinely enabled territorial gains and sanctioned aggressions (as in the law of war and peace by Hugo Grotius and the XIX century colonial international legislations).

The conflict in the Ivory Coast reflects a pivotal point in the XXI century history. For the first time since 1945, the year when mankind’s triumph over fascism opened the epoch of progressive international law, the evolution appears to be reversed. The offensive in the Ivory Coat is a carefully planned operation meant to dismantle the fundamentals of the international law and world order. What is being encountered is not a breach of law but a radical shift towards flattening the global order. We are witnessing the dawn of a sinister new era threatening to dismantle the system of the  international law as a whole.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2011/04/06/dismantlement-international-law-strategy-global-elite.html

President Obama, secretary Clinton, you are bund by the constitution to uphold US Law.

Apply the PL and stop suffering of innocent our tx payer money has better to do than supporting dictTors who araroeo wreaking havoc in an entire region.

And secretary  Clinton how can you champion the cause of raped woman in drc and support the very rgime esponsible of all this chaos . how decent is it ?

@Obama @Paul_kagame  @hclinton @state_gov

The Forgotten Tribunal, or the Myth of Rwandan “Genocide”

Viewed against the background of a thorough media coverage of the activities of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, those of another international court, also created by the UN Security Council in 1994, the International Criminal tribunal on Rwanda(ITR), have remained almost unseen.

Starting from 1994, April has viewed marking these

events as another anniversary of the Rwanda genocide. In April 2009 the leaders of the world’s biggest powers (except Russia) marked the 15th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda with presentations made by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the leaders of the leading EU countries – France, Germany and Britain. US President Barack Obama sent a special letter to the Rwandan president P.Kagame, expressing his “support of the brave men and women that survived the genocide, finding in them forces and the mercy to forgive those who had committed most terrible crimes against them”.

Russia’s “forgetfulness” of the proceedings of the International Tribunal for Rwanda can only be regretted. Africa and events taking place on that continent are unfortunately not analyzed, and at times are even disregarded. Too bad, as the continent has always been a major western target range, including testing operations that aim at conquering entire countries, resorting such tools as real genocide, mythical genocide and international tribunals organized to punish those allegedly at fault.

The very setting up and activities of the Tribunal for Rwanda are a graphic example of establishing a tribunal, on the one hand, for the “punishment” of the genocide myth, and on the other – for the vindication of real genocide.

Let’s take a closer look at the developments in Rwanda in 1994 and the follow-up activities of the International Tribunal for Rwanda (ITR). Even without following court procedures, an attentive viewer is bound to doubt the veracity of the official version of events that became the pretext for the creation of this tribunal. We all “know” (meaning we heard) that in 1994 the people of the Hutu ethnic group murdered about one million Tutsi people. The tribunal was set up with an eye at punishing those who were to blame for the genocide. For the last 15 years this version of developments has been repeated over and over again. For example, a recent UN press release says that in April 2009 the international community marked the 15th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. In April 1994 the Hutu units launched their campaign of destruction of the Tutsi and those Hutus who refused to be part of the massacre. 800,000 people were killed within the four coming months. And even though the world was aware of the massacre, nothing was done to stop it.

However, not everything fits in this version. For example, the official statistics has it that in 1993 Rwanda’s population amounted to 8 million, with 85% to 90% of Hutus and 4% to 8% of Tutsis. Simple maths indicates that by the time of what is now referred to as “the genocide” there were not more than 600,000 Tutsis in Rwanda.

In this way, according to the official version absolutely all the Tutsis were murdered in Rwanda in 1994, and some of them were killed twice. It is not accidental that later, after the ITR was set up, the figure “one million” was corrected in a very strange manner. First, it became 800,000, and second, it was supplemented by the words ”about one million Tutsi and moderate Hutu people.” Nevertheless, this supplement changed the entire picture! Now the events in Rwanda could not be qualified as genocide, given that “suddenly” it becomes known that murders were not done on the ethnic principle.

But how these words changed the entire picture! In the new conditions the events in Rwanda cannot be viewed as genocide, as it turns “suddenly” that murder was not done on the ethnic principle. It is clear that “moderateness” is is a political attribute, the one that is missing from the definition of the genocide in the 1948 Convention.

The Convention on genocide clearly states that the crime of genocide is characterised by such actions that were committed against a national, racial of religious group. So what we have here is that the killings in Rwanda were done on political, rather than ethnic grounds! Moreover, people were murdered not because of their national belonging (as defined by the Convention) but rather on the basis of their belonging to the regime that was the slave driver for the Hutu in their own country. But even this is not the main thing. Who killed whom is. Attempts to clarify the situation show things that do not absolutely fit in the official version, as it becomes evident that none but the Hutu suffered the greatest losses!

Immediately after the “genocide” of the Tutsi even stranger things begin to happen in Rwanda. After – according to the official version – the total destruction of all the Tutsi twice, none other than Tutsi got the power. General elections are held then and Tutsi win. And we are expected to believe in this absurdity!

More than that, the authorities launch introduction of the court-martial system, based on the assumption that the existing state Rwandan courts would have never been able to study the cases of millions of the defendants within the coming one thousand years. Given this, it has been decided to introduce a system of what is known as “gashasha” courts, with ordinary people acting as judges. According to Director of the Service for the Establishment of Rwanda’s Gashasha courts, by April 2009 1.1 million sentences were passed by the 12,000 Gashasha courts (170,000 judges). So after the total destruction of the Tutsi there are about 200,000 judges controlling the entire country, passing millions of sentences to Hutus!

This we are also expected to believe.

To cut the story short, the official version of the Tutsi genocide adopted in the West has nothing to do with reality.

It would appear appropriate for the ITR to set things right about this situation. Nothing of the sort! The tribunal’s top officials support the official version of the Rwanda government and the USA… However their support has not been seriously vindicated by legal procedures. On the one hand, most absurd evidence of the prosecutor’s office are believed to be true, and on the other, evidence of the defendants’ side are totally ignored. In the ITR’s 15 years no convincing evidence has ever been presented at any of the processes of not only the guilt of the defendants, but of the very fact of the genocide against the Tutsi.

The other way around, there are more than enough convincing facts of the genocide against the Hutu. Don’t you think that the situation so closely reminds one of some time when we also stumbled upon such monstrous lies? Was it not at another international tribunal that keeps on trying to persuade the world that it was not Serbs who became the object of a genocide on the hands of Croatians and Bosnians, but the other way around, that Croatians and Bosnians were the martyrs of the Serbian genocide.

Not accidentally, at the start of the ITR work quite an interesting show was performed: the Tribunal stated that the genocide against the Tutsi was “a generally-known fact” that needs no court verification! Interestingly, the ruling of the ITR Appellation Chamber sort of lashed back on one of the courts that failed to include in the list of well-known facts not requiring judicial evidence the very “fact” of genocide against the Tutsi. The Appellation Chamber qualified the ruling of that particular trial chamber as a “mistake”! Let us mention in passing that the ITR Appellation Chamber is the very Appellation Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia!)

After all is said and done the message of the recent statement made by the Tribunal’s top-level officials becomes clear.

Chief Prosecutor of the International Tribunal for Rwanda H.Jallo (taking this job after Carla del Ponte) said that “the genocide in Rwanda is an indisputable fact.” It sounded strange at the time of the 15th anniversary of “events so known by all.” But Prosecutor General must be right! The statement saying that genocide in Rwanda “did happen” should be reiterated and rammed into people’s heads, as it is impossible to prove it in the court!

The former Prosecutor General of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Carla del Ponte (who also acted as Prosecutor General of the International Tribunal for Rwanda) tries to pretend she was a naive lady, stating she “did not know why it was decided to combine the duties of Prosecutor General of both the ITFYu and the ITR.” Del Ponte lies. If there’s anyone on Earth knows it that is her. That would be hard to understand to us who get our information from Euronews and the CNN… Well, how different the tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia can be! Their Prosecutors General had totally different investigations under their control on totally different continents! However such a difference between the tribunals is false, so the one and only Prosecutor is needed. The thing is the ITR is the twin of the ITFYu, probably more sinister than the latter.

The International Tribunal for Rwanda is just a part of the system of the “new world order” following the same goals as the tribunal for Yugoslavia pursued. Both are required to appeal to international law to write present-day history concealing the role of the West in the destruction of the states, the overthrowing of legal governments disobedient to the West, blaming the victims of their crime as their perpetuators.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2009/05/07/6185.html

Our Rwanda-Burundi-Congo policy has always been a joke.  The image of the Tutsis as nothing but innocent victims when, in reality, they had been a repressive overlord caste–some intermarriage with the Hutus notwithstanding–has been a pathetic joke.

Once the Tutsis became the “official” victims of the Western narrative, the whole thing became set in stone, and no one wants to admit that the reality was always much more complex than “Hotel Rwanda” make-believe nonsense. Also, Tutsi-controlled Rwanda is a useful strategic ally of the US, so, like Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia, we ignore their ethnocentric oppressions at home and depredations in the DRC.

I would like to see some analysis of the larger Nilotic vs Bantu issue in Central Africa that plagues Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, and, to some extent, Kenya.

It is hard to see any meaningful change that Obama’s presidency has brought on the continent of Africa. Not that I expected much from him, but I thought that he would at least attempt to match his rhetoric. As it seems, its all business as usual. The continent is being betrayed again and left to the mercy of “big men”, the very people Obama had promised hell. In fact, it is difficult to single out a country in the great lakes region that is moving towards democracy.

Here is a golden opportunity for Obama to correct his wrongs. And as this piece argues, he wouldn’t have to do much. All he has to do is to turn off the spigot of aid to Rwanda. This will force Kagame to stop his aggressive wars in the DRC and will also foster democratic change within the country. At a time when despotic regimes are falling elsewhere around the globe, there is no reason to accommodate them in Africa. Enough is enough. Africans desire freedom as much!

Hillary is here because of gravity. Worthless.

But what if Rwanda is supporting the right side?  The Democratic Republic of Congo government is awful.  It is one of the worst in the world, right up there with North Korea.  So why assume the rebels are wrong?  Why not solve it by cutting off the government of Congo, and supporting Rwanda and the rebels?  We do in Syria, and we did in Libya.

You don’t even discuss the merits of the dispute.  If six million have died in that war and they are still fighting, then they are fighting about something that matters to them.  You might mention it.

MarkThomason

You sir, are a moron. The government of DRC is incompetent and incapable of ruling but it is nothing like the repressive regimes of North Korea or Syria. The very reason millions of people have died in DRC is because of meddling by Rwanda beginning in 1994. Rwandan essentially exported its ethnic conflict to North and South Kivu and has also been enjoying exploiting DRC’s mineral riches. Rwanda’s current support of the M23 movement has reignited ethnic tension and anger towards Congolese Tutsis. Perhaps Rwanda is hoping for pretext to send its own military into Congo to “save” their people. Once they have an even stronger foothold in Eastern DRC, it will be all the more easy for Kigali to benefit from the wealth of all that lovely gold and coltan.

@JanetInGoma @MarkThomason Actually both you and Marks Comments can be correct. The “right side” is completely relative what you think “right” is. Personally, I dont really care what happens in this war. Most likely what will happen is Congo will lose becuase it sucks and is wrong….LOL jk. Mostly likely, in the interest of the US, the war will stalemate for about 15 or so more years. The funds provided by the US to Rwanda are not just ‘aid’. The US is in a great position to hold this “aid” over Rwanda’s head during that time putting it in further debt to America. The US wants Kigali to win and get all the lovely gold and coltan, you know why? Cause he would then think he has the ability to pay back all the funding the US gave to him. Too bad that wont happen. Most likely he will be forced to export alot of these luxury goods to NATO trade circles at RIDICULOUSLY LOW and Profitless( For Rwanda ofc ) rates.

 MarkThomason I’m not saying your argument is flawed, but I just think you have very bad luck when it comes to thinking!

@MarkThomason AHH Mark Thomas and THERE IT IS!!! The reason the US has no interest in stopping conflict along the Rwanda-Congo border is because it has been calculated that Congo rebels will most likely be the victor in the outcome of this war. ( Especially if its aided by the US) And the article above is not only purposing ideas which would not benefit the US but it would also get more people killed (

@MarkThomason What many people dont realize today is that The US is still just a country. It has allies, interests, enemies, and armies. Many people that if you stop providing funds for war that bloodshed will slow. On the contrary, people goto war because of ideas , not simply because they have the money to do so. The rebels in Congo would just as soon throws sticks and stones at the DRC if they did not have proper funding, or they would simply begin to seek it somewhere else. We constantly forget previous events in history probably because no one truly believe thats the US controls the ideas of its population using media and propaganda just as much as any other country does. Relate this conflict to much less popular conflict oh about 30 or so years ago. Russia struggled to try control the oil production and better Afghan-Russia relations by helping Afghanistan take care of its “rebel problem”.

@MarkThomason This rebel problem better known as The Taliban was then supported by the US. ( Because the US doesnt really want Russia to have control of ANYTHING seeing as how they arent really allies) With funding and support the Taliban were hailed as heroes of the Middle East with Osama Bin Laden as the Freedom Fighter, ALSO it might be added that Taliban forces DID NOT have to resort to “terrorism” to further fund and bring support to their cause. Fast forward a few years and they are practically blowing themselves up ( oh wait they are doing that) in order to scare funds and support out of the government officals and the public.