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[AfricaRealities.com] UN Appoints Rwandan General as Head of Darfur Peacekeeping Despite His Senior Rank During Rwandan-Backed Rebellion in Congo | Foreign Policy Journal
UN Appoints Rwandan General as Head of Darfur Peacekeeping Despite His Senior Rank During Rwandan-Backed Rebellion in Congo
by Judi Rever December 19, 2015 2 Comments This is not the first dubious appointment of Rwandan generals to major UN peacekeeping operations.
Army chief of staff Major General Frank Mushyo Kamanzi lays a foundation stone for a health center in Mubare, Rwanda (Rwanda Government) The United Nations has hired a Rwandan general to head a peacekeeping force in Darfur, despite his previous role as army chief of staff at the height of a deadly, Rwandan-backed insurgency in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). On Monday the United Nations and the African Union jointly announced that Rwandan Lieutenant General Frank Mushyo Kamanzi had been appointed force commander of UNAMID, a hybrid mission that provides security and humanitarian assistance in war torn Sudan. The decision was taken despite General Kamanzi having served as one of the most senior military figures in Rwanda when the country supplied troops and weapons to a brutal militia in eastern Congo. General Kamanzi was named army chief of staff in July 2012, just as Rwanda stepped up efforts to recruit soldiers, including children, and provide arms, ammunition and fighters for the M23, which was eventually routed by a UN intervention brigade.
Kamanzi was responsible for 'command, control and management' of Rwandan army services when M23 militia members were accused of the worst atrocities. At the time, M23 members slaughtered and raped Congolese civilians, and pillaged a string of communities in the DRC, according to Human Rights Watch and UN staff. One of the militia's warlords, Bosco Ntaganda, is now facing war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court. In November 2012, the UN's Group of Experts concluded that "Rwandan officials exercised overall command and strategic planning for M23." Their report said Rwanda clearly violated the arms embargo and sanctions regime. Despite these findings and General Kamanzi's senior position during that period, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) said Friday he was properly screened and the UN did not have any specific information on him breaking international or humanitarian law. "In line with the 2012 policy on Human Rights screening of UN personnel for senior appointments, the UN screened Lt Gen Mushyo Frank Kamanzi, the recommended candidate for the post of Force Commander for UNAMID, against available information from throughout the UN system" a UN peacekeeping official said. "In the absence of specific information on Lt Gen Kamanzi's involvement in violations of international human rights or humanitarian law, DPKO recommended the candidate for appointment. As per standard practice, if anyone has further information, we ask them to share it with the UN," the official added. DPKO relies in part on the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to conduct its screening for candidates. Requests for a comment from the OHCHR this week went unanswered. This is not the first dubious appointment of Rwandan generals to major UN peacekeeping operations. From 2009 until 2013, Rwandan General Patrick Nyamvumba served as UNAMID force commander, despite evidence gathered at a UN tribunal that he headed a death squad targeting Hutu civilians during the genocide. "Nyamvumba should have been charged with war crimes," a former investigator with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) told this journalist. "Many people gave testimony against him. We had enough evidence to indict him 25 times over." "We were told to stop our investigations," he said. "The United Nations and the ICTR were all about politics," he lamented. Nyamvumba ran the notorious Training Wing during the genocide and reported directly to Paul Kagame, head of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPA) and now president. The ICTR investigator called Kagame's army 'highly disciplined.' "Nothing was done by the RPA or by any soldier that was not approved by 'number 1,'" he said, referring to the president. "Kagame is ready to kill any Hutu. But anyone else who gets in his way or bothers him will disappear," said the former investigator, who worked on major ICTR cases prosecuting Hutu génocidaires and for the Special Investigations Unit that probed RPA crimes. Another Rwandan general hired to head a UN force in Mali, has also been linked to war crimes committed against civilians. Former colleagues said Major General Jean Bosco Kazura, who served as force commander of the UN stabilization mission MINUSMA until December 2014, was deputy commander of Nyamvumba's death squad that operated in the prefectures of Byumba and Kibungo during the genocide in areas cleared of former Rwandan Hutu army forces. Under their supervision, thousands of Hutu men, women and children were rounded up and murdered, some dumped in mass graves and others brought to Akagera National Park where they were burned and incinerated, according to testimony from former Tutsi officers. The officers said that after the genocide, Generals Nyamvumba and Kazura also oversaw the transport of Hutu male recruits from all areas of Rwanda to killing grounds near the Gabiro training barracks and in other areas of Akagera Park, which were off limits to NGOs and UN personnel. In 2008, UN peacekeeping came under fire for renewing the contract of Lieutenant General Emmanuel Karenzi Karake as deputy commander of UNAMID, months after he'd been indicted by Spain in a case of universal jurisdiction. The Spanish court charged Karake with war crimes and genocide committed in Rwanda and the DRC when he headed Kagame's Directorate of Military Intelligence from 1994 until 1997. Rwanda, Paul Kagame, Congo, UN
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En l'espace de quelques heures, en moins de 24 heures, je viens de lire 3 postings différents, provenant d'autant de membres différents, qui pointent vers la défaillance du système d'éducation au Rwanda. Certains surnomment ironiquement les diplômes générés par ce système "Merci Kagame"! Rares sont les écoles, fussent-elles du tiers-monde, où les étudiants à la fin de leurs études seraient incapables de fonctionner dans d'autres écoles à l'étranger. Pourtant c'est la triste réalité actuelle au Rwanda. Pour ceux qui connaissent le fonctionnement des Nations-Unies, il est grand temps de dépêcher sur place un rapporteur spécial... L'UNESCO peut-être! Sibomana Jean Bosco. *DHR* BBC: Iyumvire uburyo Kagame na FPR bazambije uburezi mu Rwanda kuburyo ababyeyi bifite bahitamo kohereza abana babo hanze Libellés : Forums Peter Rwagasabo - 29 janv. à rwagasabo, (bcc:Democrac...
http://www.veritasinfo.fr/m/article-122363461.html Itangazo ry'inama yahuje amashyaka i Buruseli kuwa 01/02/2014 Nk'uko byari biteganyijwe, kuri uyu wa gatandatu tariki ya 01/02/2014, i Buruseli mu Bubiligi hateraniye inama y'amashyaka atavuga rumwe n'ubutegetsi bwa Perezida Paul Kagame. Ku mashyaka icumi yari yatumiwe, ayabonetse mu nama ni atandatu (60%), ari yo : 1. Forces Démocratiques Unifiées (FDU-Inkingi) ; 2. Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) ; 3. Pacte Démocratique du Peuple (PDP-Imanzi) ; 4. Parti pour la Démocratie au Rwanda (PDR-Ihumure) ; 5. Parti Social (PS-Imberakuri) ; 6. Rwandan Dream Initiative (RDI-Rwanda Rwiza). Ihuriro FCLR - Ubumwe naryo ryari rihagarariwe muri iyo nama. Mu gutangira inama, abayijemo batoye umuyobozi wayo. Bamaze gusuzuma no kwemeza umurongo w'ibyigwa, bemeje ko muri iki gihe, ubufatanye bw'amashyaka ya opposition ari ngombwa cyane ...
The FDLR Myth: How Rwanda Weaponises a Diminished Threat to Justify Occupation Investigation Exposes Contradictions in Rwanda's Security Narrative For over a decade, Rwanda has justified its military presence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo by citing threats from the FDLR, a Hutu militia group linked to the 1994 genocide. But an investigation into FDLR's actual capabilities, Rwanda's military operations, and patterns of violence reveals a narrative that does not match reality. The FDLR threat, whilst real, has been systematically exaggerated and manipulated to justify objectives that have nothing to do with the militia group. Introduction The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) occupies a central position in Rwanda's justification for military intervention in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. For more than two decades, Rwandan authorities have portrayed the militia group as an existential threat requiring sustaine...
Kigali wants Washington to punish Congo too. But a ceasefire that leaves the occupier in place is not peace; it is occupation without noise. African lives are not worth less. African deaths are not normal. Western interests must never become a licence to kill African people. Introduction: A Familiar Complaint On 29 June 2026, Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Olivier Nduhungirehe, sat before the cameras of France 24 and declared that his country was “disappointed by the increasingly biased US mediation” in the conflict with the Democratic Republic of Congo. He asked why sanctions had targeted only Rwanda. He called the measures unfair, one-sided and counterproductive. Weeks earlier, President Paul Kagame had told Jeune Afrique that sanctions and threats were insults thrown at Rwanda, and accused Washington of exerting heavy pressure on Rwanda while treating the DRC more delicately. The grievance sounds reasonable until you remember where you have heard it before. Since 2022, the Kr...
MASS KILLINGS OF HUTU BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER 1994 IN RWANDA, DRC AND UGANDA INTRODUCTION TO PART 2 Part 1 established the assassination of President Habyarimana, the Bruguière and Spanish investigations, Kagame's responsibility for starting the war, the Kigali massacres, challenges to the "genocide against the Tutsi only" narrative, and the need for UN framework revision. Part 2 documents specific mass killings of Hutu populations that have been systematically erased from history: the Kibeho massacre of 1995, the Byumba Stadium massacre of 1994, the hunting and slaughter of Hutu refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1996 to 1997, killings in Uganda, and the pattern of political assassinations and property seizures. 2. THE KIBEHO MASSACRE (22 APRIL 1995) 2.1 The Camp and Its Population By April 1995, the Kibeho internally displaced persons camp in Gikongoro prefecture southwestern Rwanda held between 80,000 and 100,000...
Le 30 juin 2026, pour la première fois en cinquante-six ans d'existence de l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, les candidats au poste de Secrétaire général ont été auditionnés publiquement devant les ministres des Affaires étrangères des 53 États membres de plein droit, réunis en Conférence ministérielle extraordinaire à Paris. Parmi les quatre prétendants au mandat 2027-2030, qui sera attribué par les chefs d'État au XXe Sommet de la Francophonie à Phnom Penh les 15 et 16 novembre 2026, figure un profil inédit : Dacian Cioloș, ancien Premier ministre de Roumanie, ancien commissaire européen à l'Agriculture et ancien président du groupe Renew au Parlement européen, seul candidat non africain de la course. Cet article, premier d'une série de cinq consacrée aux auditions, analyse la prestation de M. Cioloș sur huit axes : la vision, l'innovation, le développement des communautés locales, la promotion de la langue française, les conflits et la s...
How Paul Kagame Uses Diplomats' "Bury Your Head in the Sand" Strategy as a Green Light to Continue Rwanda's War in the DRC Africa Realities Media | 17 July 2026 The purpose of this article is to expose a deliberate and systematic strategy: Paul Kagame's years-long practice of creating events — diplomatic dinners, RPF party meetings, genocide commemorations, international business forums and RPF Bureau Politique addresses — to which he invites foreign ambassadors and the world's business and political elite for one purpose: to explain, justify, and defend Rwanda's military invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Everybody who follows this region knows the strategy now. The same narrative. The same arguments. The same defiance. At one event he tells the Trump Administration to go to hell. At the next he says those sanctioning him will leave power and he will remain. At the RPF Bureau Politique of 17 July 2026, he tells ambassadors that the on...
http://www.victoire-ingabire.com/Eng/victoires-quotes/ Victoire Ingabire's Speech and Quotes I agree that there was a genocide by Hutu extremists against the Tutsis, that is the reality. The people who did this need to face justice. But there were also other crimes against humanity, including the killing of Hutus. I don't believe in violence and war is not the solution to the problems that face this country. People say there's stability in Rwanda but this stability is based on repression … We need stability based on freedom. I don't understand how democratic countries can remain friends with a government that doesn't allow democracy. The democratic UK is supporting a dictatorship. Shall I die or live, be detained or released what we have achieved will not go back. This movement is stronger than me. Remanding me in captivity or silencing my voice can only postpone the revolution. It cannot stop the movement. Unity and Reconciliation Speech at Gisozi Genocide Memori...
La francophonie utile à l'épreuve des projets concrets Conseillère à la présidence mauritanienne, forte d'une longue expérience auprès de cinq chefs d'État successifs de son pays, Coumba Bâ porte la candidature de la Mauritanie au poste de Secrétaire général de la Francophonie, dont le titulaire du mandat 2027-2030 sera désigné par les chefs d'État au XXe Sommet de la Francophonie, prévu à Phnom Penh les 15 et 16 novembre 2026. Son audition publique du 30 juin 2026 à Paris, devant les ministres des Affaires étrangères des 53 États membres de plein droit, reposait sur un positionnement singulier : celui d'un pays carrefour, à la fois africain, arabe et sahélien, présenté comme un pont possible vers les États qui ont quitté l'organisation. Cet article, quatrième d'une série de cinq consacrée aux auditions, analyse sa prestation sur huit axes : la vision, l'innovation, le développement des communautés locales, la promotion de la langue française, les confli...
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