The end of predator organisations is nigh

After going through weeks of predictions of doom and gloom, we have been pleasantly surprised by a week that has been marked by good tidings. Experts, who had convinced us that thirty-three men could not be extracted from the furnace-like gut of the earth before Christmas, joined the jubilant families in celebration when the last man was delivered onto terra cognito safe and sound, yesterday at 0032 hours. The world joined the people of Chile in celebrating the courage of men who endured the longest underground ordeal in history. Let me hasten to add, however, that those experts did not include any of ‘my’ bêtes noires. And it was as well, because my bêtes noires (whom you know by now as experts on humanitarian work, human rights, freedom of speech and the litany) do not contribute to solving problems. They only apportion blame. They therefore would have screamed about the Chile government carrying out the genocide of a “subterranean ethnic group”! They are the same authors of the explosive “Mapping Report”, which has apparently blown up in their face. Why else are they not egging on their surrogates, the negative media enterprises, to call for the international community to act on the report, now that it has been published? They have seen that the report has exposed them for what they are. Question is, what are they? The first time I came in contact with these organisations was in 1995, when they were talking, strangely enough, about protecting what they called “our people”. That time the UN contingent and humanitarian organisations in the country and the government were tussling it out over the freeing of people from internally displaced persons’ camps. In camps, people were not being productive and depended on the organisations. There were elements of ex-FAR/Interahamwe who were still armed and making forays into parts of the country at night, and melting into the mass of civilians in the camps during the day. The government explained this and pleaded with the organisations to let the people join the productive populace if they were innocent, or appear in courts of law if they were guilty of crimes, to no avail. The organisations insisted that they could not be sure of the security of “our people”. Whatever bargain the government put forward, to show that its intention was to ensure security for every Rwandan, did not wash. In the end, the government decided to act. It forcefully dismantled the camps and reintegrated the displaced among their erstwhile ‘estranged’ fellow Rwandans. During the whole operation, there was resistance from the armed elements, and there were deaths. It was upon these deaths that a furore rose about another genocide in the country. Try as they could, however, the humanitarian and media organisations (call them ‘humedorgs’) could not show convincing evidence of large-scale murders, let alone genocide. It is then that they realised their designs might be discovered and made a beeline for Zaïre (D.R. Congo), where similar drama was playing out. Humanitarian and media glare similarly dried up in Rwanda and exploded on Zaïre, but with a difference.The difference being that in Zaire, ‘humedorgs’ were overseeing veritable garrisons in the refugee camps. Of course, they were careful to only show the face of humanitarian catastrophe to the outside world, yet watching as piles of arms grew with every consignment of humanitarian aid, as the ex-FAR/Interahamwe recruited, trained and attacked Rwanda and as the French delivered arms and drafted mercenaries. Keeping up the cadence of the media gaze, ‘humedorgs’ watched all this and cried out for more aid funds and made sure the genocide in Rwanda was a forgotten thing.One man was watching all this stage show, and if there is a man who can convince anybody that he is truly an expert on the Great Lakes Region (GLR), it’s him. Ambassador Aldo Ajello has been an envoy to this region longer than today’s Rwandan government has been in power, first working for the United Nations and then for the European Union. Regarding what the “Mapping Report” alleges to be possible “acts of genocide” by Rwanda, he says: “Using that term is a colossal mistake and also an unfairness, which amounts to support[ing] the double genocide theory….[and] removing credibility from the entire report.” He says no census was carried out “of the exact number of refugees who were in the camps” and notes: “The extremists who had taken control of the camps received food and aid on the basis of inflated numbers” and resold what they received to buy arms and prepare another war. It was clear, then, that ‘humedorgs’ were propping up “our people” (who excluded innocent refugees) and enabling them to maintain their hierarchy which had planned and executed the 1994 genocide. “People have talked about 200,000 refugees who disappeared but”, says Ajello, “as a matter of fact, many of them had not existed!” Ambassador Ajello also dwells on how the government asked the international community to free the refugees from the grip of the extremists who were holding them hostage in the camps of D.R. Congo without success, until it went in to free and repatriate them. “That is when we saw the return of that huge column of people….back home,” he says, “and this was obviously not an act of genocide.” The effort of ‘humedorgs’ is backfiring then, with the arrest of Callixte Mbarushimana, head of FDLR, and the re-examination of the case of Agatha Kanziga, widow of late President Habyarimana, in France. Everybody is rushing to hunt down the génoicidaires on their territory lest they are caught in the trap of these vain fund raisers masquerading as saviours of the persecuted. Looks like the mask of these predator organisations has been lifted. And that’s good tiding! pbutam@yahoo.com