UN has always been unfair to Rwanda

The UNHCHR mapping report that was “leaked” to the public is among the many dirty tactics that have been used against Rwandans over the last two decades or so. It is common knowledge that the RPF single handed stopped the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda after the UN deserted the people of Rwanda at the hour of need. On October 5, 1993, the UN Security Council established United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR). The peace keeping mission was ill-equipped, had no mandate to protect victims who were hunted, and in only three months — from 7th April 1994 to 4th July 1994, over one million people had been killed. This failure by the UN to stop the Genocide in Rwanda will always haunt it. The perpetrators of the Genocide were given safe exit to DRC using Zone Turquoise and these criminals continued their extermination mission of Tutsi survivors unabated. As if that was not bad enough, the perpetrators camped along the border of the former Zaire and Rwanda with the approval of Zaire government and UNHCR. This distinctively contrasts the UN theoretical principal of harbouring refugees no less than 150 miles from the border with their mother country. Innocent Rwandan civilians were held hostages by ex-FAR and interahamwe and some were forced to join the militia groups. This had an economic impact on Rwanda because most of the productive youth had deserted the country and this affected the economy back in Rwanda. Since agriculture fields had been abandoned, food scarcity was on the increase and the Rwandan economy stagnated. Most of the refugees died at the expense of their captives (Interahamwe/ex-FAR) and theUN did nothing to separate the innocent civilians from the armed Interahamwe militias and ex-FAR. The 28 July 1951 convention relating to the Status of Refugees, is very clear on refugees: Once a refugee is armed he/she ceases to be one, but in those camps of the then Zaire, UNHCR was feeding armed Interahamwe/ ex-FAR contravening the UN convention against refugees. The ex-FAR/ Interahamwe kept attacking Rwanda on several occasions killing innocent people and destroying property, but not even a press release from the UN Security Council was issued condemning such cross-border attacks. The population in the Western Province can bear witness. The Interahamwe/ ex-FAR were militarily equipped using finances from exploited DRC minerals and extortions forcibly imposed on the Congolese. There were also some foreign countries that provided logistics to these genocidaire forces thus contravening UN arms embargo against negative forces in DRC as contained in UN Security Council resolution 1493(2003). After the militarised camps were destroyed, the refugees were repatriated and they settled peacefully in Rwanda. What is strange is that, the support given to the returnees was minimal compared to what was given out in Zairian camps. From 1994 onwards, the UNHCR was busy airlifting Rwandans to European capitals even when some were implicated in the Genocide, instead of repatriating them to Rwanda to face justice. This is another way UN has created foreign opposition against Rwanda and denying justice to the survivors of the Genocide. After the Genocide, the UN Security Council decided to establish the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to try perpetrators of that Genocide, but what was puzzling was that the ICTR HQS were established in Arusha in Tanzania instead of establishing the UN tribunal close to the scene of crime, that is in Rwanda. Establishing the tribunal in Arusha where witnesses’ security is not guaranteed and most Rwandans are not aware of what takes place in Arusha in terms of justice dispensation, is one of the grave mistakes UN committed against Rwandans. Up to now I have failed to understand why ICTR HQS are based in Arusha instead of Rwanda. With its huge budget, since its establishment, the ICTR has so far finished 52 trials in the last 16 years and another 22 trials are in progress. Ten accused are at large including the notorious Felician Kabuga. There is a lot to be desired from this judicial pace delivered by the ICTR and many Rwandans would wish to see it close its doors soon and Rwandan courts taking over the pending cases. The UN has been responsible for spreading rumours all intended to tarnish the image of Rwanda. On June 28, 1994, Paul Barril, a former police officer in France, reassured the public that he surly possessed the black box of President Juvenal Habyarimana Falcon 50 that had been shot down three months ago. On July 8, 1994, the French newspaper “Le Monde” alleged that the black box presented by Paul Barril was “not the black box.” In 2004, the chief UN spokesman, Fred Eckhard, confirmed a recorder that could have come from the aircraft had been found in a drawer in the Air Safety Unit of the UN, in a building across the road from its New York headquarters. He further admitted it had apparently never been opened, nor its tapes analysed. It was alleged that it was a black box of the plane that crashed carrying Habyarimana on 6th April 1994 from Arusha. When that box was examined, the voices were in Arabic. That rumour was leaked by reporters of the French Le Monde newspaper as usual. There are several reports that were sponsored by unfriendly countries that always falsely accused the Government of Rwanda of exploiting DRC minerals. Rwanda is rich in mineral deposits and there is no need of illegal exploitation of minerals in other countries. There are even ongoing studies to ascertain the presence of oil in Rwanda. Western countries have been involved in the exploitation of DRC minerals because they have the technical capacity to exploit the minerals, yet Rwanda has been innocently accused. The UN commissioned an independent inquiry in 1999 to establish the UN role in the 1994 Genocide, among the recommendations was paying particular attention to the special needs of the Genocide survivors. Up to now nothing promising has come to the rescue of these survivors instead a lot of money is spent on ICTR defence counsel who share the proceeds with the perpetrators of the Genocide. When the former UN SG Mr. Kofi Annan came to Rwanda in 1998, he apologized on behalf of the UN for not stopping the Genocide against the Tutsi, but if he was to be taken seriously, he should have pushed for support of the Genocide survivors, disarmament of the ex- FAR in DRC and delivering real and quick justice to the survivors. The only legacy he left behind is to sponsor the mapping exercise report to confuse international community that there was also “Genocide of Hutus” in the DRC. This mapping report exercise has added injury to the wound because the Genocide perpetrators are nowadays calling themselves “Genocide survivors” as recently witnessed in a letter written by Lieutenant-Colonel Marcel Byamungu of FOCA/ FDLR/ Interahamwe to President Kabila and copying to various world leaders. This mapping exercise report serves to trivialize the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, and Rwandans, as they have done before, should be ready to fight the revisionists working under the cover of the UNHCHR. The current UN SG should leave a legacy where he will be remembered for helping people in need and distancing himself from being implicated into political reports that serve no purpose other than genuine revisionism; a popular ideology by the enemies of humanity and Rwandans in particular. It is a high time the international system, and UN in particular, ceases to undermine its well intended theories for a better world order in the new millennium. Ends

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UN has always been unfair to Rwanda