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Linda Melvern Defending RPF Countergenocide Congo December 1997


Saturday, May 25, 2013

Linda Melvern Defending RPF Countergenocide Congo December 1997

After the Arusha agreements in 1993 (between the Rwandan government and the Ugandan supported RPF revolutionaries): 
 'Claude Dusaidi was appointed the RPF's North American representative and sent to New York to lobby the international community'.
In Linda Melvern's december 1997 obituary of Claude Dusaidi, RPF organiser in North America before the genocide and political counselor to VP Paul Kagame after the genocide, we read:
There was little Dusaidi could do and he later suffered the indignity of seeing a representative of the genocidal "interim government" address the council. As terrible for him was the subsequent global outpouring of sympathy for the Hutus who fled the country, many of whom had helped carry out genocide.'
A chilling defense of RPF countergenocide on Rwandan refugees which was reported in the UN report of july 1997:
'A United Nations report (july 12 1997) into the massacres of Rwandan refugees in Congo during the rebellion stated they were so massive and systematic that they can be considered crimes against humanity and possibly genocide. Investigators, who have been hampered in their investigation efforts by Kabila's government, said they received reports on 134 alleged massacres committed by Kabila's ADFL and Banyamulenge militias.'
Linda Melvern recently helped the RPF attack credibility of the UN Group of Experts on Congo.

Still, from this obituary, we can learn a lot about RPF propaganda:

'In the weeks before the genocide began, Dusaidi, a former schoolteacher who became a political activist, was lobbying at the United Nations in New York, trying to alert ambassadors that the Rwandan peace agreement which UN peacekeepers were monitoring was about to unravel'
How did he know?
'Dusaidi said later that he believed the Security Council failed to grasp the principle involved - that a tyranny ruled Rwanda and the fragile peace which the peacekeepers were to monitor was Rwanda's last chance to create democracy.'
'The RPF was created by exile Rwandans from communities in Africa, Europe and North America and was dedicated to the return of up to one million Tutsi exiles to Rwanda and the creation of a democratic state.'
RPF claimed to fight for democracy and against tyranny (but has made sure no opposition exists in Rwanda to this day).

Linda Melvern adds another interesting fact, Claude Dusaidi: 
'was the first person to use the word 'genocide' in relation to Rwanda in an official document, in an RPF press release on 12 April 1994.'
Two weeks later (april 30 1994) Claude Dusaidi, a member of the RPF political bureau, opposed UN intervention: 
'Consequently, the Rwandese Patriotic Front hereby declares that it is categorically opposed to the proposed U.N. intervention force and will not under any circumstances cooperate in its setting up and operation. In view of the forgoing [sic] the Rwandese Patriotic Front:

Calls upon the U.N. Security Council not to authorize the deployment of the proposed force as U.N. intervention at this stage can no longer serve any useful purpose as far as stopping the massacres is concerned.'
May 17 1994 the New York Times publishes the article 'U.N. Backs Troops But Terms Bar Any Action Soon': 
'The United States forced the United Nations Monday (may 16th 1994) to scale down its plans and put off sending 5,500 African troops to Rwanda in an effort to end the violence there.'
'Rwanda's Foreign Minister, Jerome Bicamumpaka, a member of the Hutu ethnic group which dominates the Government, said he is ready for a cease-fire. In a lengthy address to the Council, he vehemently denounced the rival Tutsi ethnic group, accusing them and their backers in Uganda of launching a genocidal war against his people.

Claude Dusaidi, representing the predominately Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front, said his party "will neither accept nor be bound by any Security Council resolution voted for by representatives of the so-called interim Government" of Rwanda and demanded the withdrawal of the resident United Nations mediator, Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh.'
Jerome Bicamumpaka was accused of genocide, arrested in 1999, but:
'On 30 September 2011, Jerome Bicamumpaka was acquitted of all charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He was immediately released from custody and reunited with his family.'
November 1996 the Rwanda Patriotic Front, which invaded Congo october 1996, opposed UN military intervention in Congo as well:
'Rwandan Foreign Minister Anastase Gasana said Tuesday Rwanda would strongly oppose any international military intervention in eastern Zaire to aid more than a million refugees fleeing from fighting there.


"If there were a decision for such an intervention ... it would be opposed by the sub-region by all means, not only political," he told a news conference at the Rwandan embassy in Brussels'
Foreign Affairs minister Jean-Marie Ndagijimana, now a prolific Rwandan blogger in France, fled Rwanda in october 1994 and was promptly accused by this same Claude Dusaidi of stealing money:
"You are aware of the pressures that the international community has been putting on our government to become broader and bring in elements who come from groups responsible for the genocide of our people. . . . We entrusted him (Ndagijimana) with responsibility, despite the fact that he was a high member of the former regime that was responsible for genocide."
 

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