ICTR Defense Counsels propagating “double genocide” theory

All along the government of Rwanda has been arguing that most lead counsel defenders for suspected genocidaire at ICTR are propagating the dangerous idea of double genocide, but the latest revelations needs international community attention and scrutiny. The recent UNHCHR report alleging acts of genocide committed by RPA soldiers in the DRC, was influenced by some ICTR lead counsel defenders, who have all along been hatching plans to incriminate RPF in order to justify their allegations of “double genocide” of Tutsis and Hutus; so as to cleanse their clients with whom they share the US dollars. In the recent article, written by Mr. Christopher Black with the title ‘Who was Behind the Rwandan Genocide? The Rwandan Patriotic Front’s Bloody Record, the History of UN Cover-Ups’, Mr. Christopher Black serves as Lead Counsel for the former Chief of Staff, Rwanda Gendarmerie, General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, in Military II trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The article contains several fabricated “leaked” correspondences all intended to mudsling Rwanda’s leadership. There is need to scrutinize this so called leaking of UN files especially on developing countries. UN is a body that encompasses all the countries whether poor or rich, but it risks to be high jacked by the powerful countries who want to determine the fate of poor countries by the use and manipulation of unsubstantiated political reports. Another article was written by Judi Rever (AFP) with the title; “Congo butchery resembled Rwanda genocide” by UN lawyer Luc Cote who is a war crimes prosecutor from Montreal. Mr. Luc Cote is quoted by AFP saying that “Rwandan Tutsi troops and their rebel allies targeted, chased, hacked, shot and burned Hutus in the DRC, from 1996 to 1997, after the outbreak of a cross-border Central African war”. He doubles up as one of the authors of the UNHCHR mapping report on DRC. The article disqualifies LUC Cote as a lead expert in the mapping excise report. Mr. Luc Cote needs to be reminded that Rwandan soldiers are not recruited on ethnicity basis. Therefore, referring of “Rwandan troops as Tutsi’s” is a deliberate lie. On the allegations that Rwandan troops killed Hutus in the DRC, what is correct is that the Rwandan soldiers saved millions of innocent refugees in the Zaire camps who had been held hostage by Interahamwe and ex-Far since 1994. Over 2 million returned to Rwanda and have since been settled. The alarming assertion by Luc Cote that Rwandan troops killed Hutus in DRC is a political statement intended to serve interests best known to him. From a historical perspective, the refugee camps established in 1994 in Zaire that were placed along the border with Rwanda was habited by over 2 million Rwandans, most of them Hutus. These were not normal camps, but were extensions of hutu power extremists hide outs in exile. Among the ordinary refugees were members of the Interahamwe - the killers responsible for the genocide who had fled over the borders to avoid the advancing RPF. The Interhamwe and ex-FAR in the camps established brutal control and everyone in the international community agreed that they needed to be identified and separated from the other refugees, but neither Zaire nor any international force was willing to undertake this task. The problem delayed the return of the refugees to Rwanda, where the RPF government was otherwise eager to receive them. When the refugees finally began to stream back, after the camps were removed by force in late 1996, some of the thugs of the Interahamwe were still among them, but the more notorious killers, unable to return, stayed in Zaire - where they continued to arm and train for violent attacks across the border. For the benefit of our dear readers who need to refresh their memory on the background of Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, it dates way back in 1935 when identity cards were issued to Rwandans making a distinction between different social groups of Rwandans. The Belgian attitude, setting in the distinction between the two groups and favouring one of them against the other, prepared the ground for future genocide. In earlier times ethnic based massacres had never occurred between Hutus and Tutsis. No where in the history of Rwanda whether written or oral was there any conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis, yet Rwanda had existed as a nation state for centuries. The first massacres of the Tutsi in Rwanda took place in 1959. Thereafter, almost in a regular pattern, killings of the Tutsi became a common practice. Throughout the 1960s, the extremist government launched vicious attacks on Rwanda’s Tutsi population, resulting in a mass exodus into neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Congo. For the first time in Rwanda’s six century long history, a large portion of the people of Rwanda became stateless, and was denied the right to live in their motherland. It was also the first time in Rwanda’s history, that the Rwandan leadership preached a message of division, hate, and violence, resulting in repeated cycles of genocide. In December 1963 after an aborted attack on Kigali by Tutsi guerrillas, this prompted the government to declare a state of emergency, emphasizing the need to ‘clear the bush’ of subversive elements (Inyenzi) cockroaches.Within days some 14,000 Tutsis were massacred in the southern province of Gikongoro, in a coordinated campaign described by historians as ‘the most horrible and systematic massacre’ since the Holocaust. Genocide re-occurred in 1973 and 1979. In 1990, after the launch of the struggle by the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) to liberate Rwanda, the government launched yet another cycle of genocide. Between 1990 and 1994, the Bagogwe people of Northern Rwanda were targeted by the Habyarimana regime, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. There were similar attacks orchestrated against people of Kibuye, Butare and elsewhere in Rwanda.The violence that occurred in Bugesera is indicated by several sources as the dark turning-point in the anti-reform strategy of Habyarimana’s supporters. “The 1992 Bugesera massacre marked an important turning point in the development of the methods of killings, because of the central role played by extremist propaganda. For four months before the killing started, extremist politicians and ideologues had been active in the area, inciting the Hutu populace” (African Rights, 1994). Rwambuka, the mayor of Kanzenze who belonged to the central committee of the MRND, was the driving force behind the terror. From such brief history of Rwanda genocide, it is quite absurd to compare the political events in Zaire to the 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda. The 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda is unique on its own and it is very inhuman to make comparisons with imagined “genocide” in Ends