Questioning the role of the NGO handling the Hutu refugees in Zaire- Part 2

Refugee camps became training camps in full knowledge of the entire international community, UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs included. These same NGOs who do not hesitate to say today that there were just a handful ex-FAR of soldiers, in a vain attempt to give some credibility to the famous Mapping report! The demand for political negotiations from the umbrella RDR, the forerunner of the current FDU-Inkingi and the FDLR, had a favourable response from these players pulling the strings behind the scene. They vigorously supported RDR’s related media campaign while food stamps were used as currency exchanges against weapons. And this charade went on as long as these camps existed! UN Systems, through the UNDP, organized few conferences in Geneva with active NGOs to rebuild Rwanda promising millions of dollars. These sums actually went largely to cover the “needs” in these camps, actually feeding a chain of the NGOs and indirectly feeding ex-FAR war chest. Two years after establishment of the military camps or refugees (it depends), sure enough of the secured support and resources accumulated, and de facto controlling the borders of Kivu with Rwanda and Burundi, the new masters of the place began to test the waters, trying commando attacks on Rwandan territory. Their messages could not be clearer than that they intended to return to finish the “work”, get rid of the RPF and exterminate the few Tutsi survivors. The preparation of attacks to finish the work was well shielded and guaranteed by the principle of the inviolability of borders! NGOs and the UN remain silent despite knowledge of preparations for the impending invasion and future atrocities that weighed on the people within Rwanda. But they did not take into consideration the consolidation of power by RPF, who, sensing the threat to its very existence, sent its army for preventive attack on these military garrisons disguised as refugee camps. And the disastrous experimentation ended as quickly as it had started, with no alternative for the mass murderers who could not return in Rwanda. Again, the rest is history, with the undeniable success of the greatest hostage rescue operation in recent history: One million and a half hostages rescued, released and reintegrated into their villages in Rwanda in less than two weeks. But, also with the hardliners well encouraged and uncompromising, numerous refugees taken hostages were pushed unfortunately and inexorably westward into the increasingly dense Congolese forests. This is how the sad saga of Masisi, Walikale, Tingi-Tingi, Kisangani, Mbandaka camps started with enormous misery that the last UN report on Congo came out to acknowledge somehow. This report is stating that all the armed forces of the time participated in serious civilian massacres, and explicitly suggesting that Rwanda could have committed Genocide against the Hutus in Zaire at the time. The final act in a play put on for 16 years was written and published! The real authors of the play could not resist the temptation to rewrite history, as to protect themselves and their agents for obvious reasons. Actually, the theory of double genocide was not invented with this report. As early as 1995, this theory was aired to trivialize the Genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda and articles and books got published by biased ‘specialists’ and researchers when Rwandans were busy trying to rebuild their society from ashes. Let us seize this moment to reflect and raise some questions left unanswered by this latest UN report, notably: 1. How and by what magic could the Hutu refugees enter into Zaire without any reaction or at least some debate in its political institutions? What were the terms, limits and duration of these agreements still held secret and who are the signatories? The Civil society in Zaire shouted in vain and its voice stifled without difficulty because the forces and the powers behind this transaction were very strong. There is no doubt that the likes of Honoré N’Gwanda who, was in command of all security services at the time and participated in the decision making to open borders to military “refugees” equipped with clearly visible light and heavy weapons. Clever enough, he invented with his sponsors, the theory of an Anglo-Saxon conspiracy willing to dump thousands of refugees on Congo and then to cause the death of millions of Congolese. No kidding! While everything was done and organized to destroy the RPF and give the ex-FAR their revenge and the Tutsi equation resolved once and for all by extermination! This absurd thesis that convinces only the naive and limited minds, is surprisingly relayed through an eclectic alliance of losers including Ndagijimana, Rusesabagina, Onana, Mbelu, Black, Erlinder and McKinney. Unfortunately no one has challenged this absurdity implying these deaths would allow control of the mineral resources by the West, now recycled as historical truth. The fundamental question of who negotiated and made possible this flood of self-deported refugees in Zaire is simply ignored until this very day and the report did not even attempt to enlighten the historical context. What did these NGOs do to change these suicidal decisions with lasting consequences and toll on people and their minds, economy, environment and stability throughout the region? 2. Some 30,000 Hutu refugees were direct victims of the cholera epidemic in the early days already of the Mugunga camp according to news reports and archives. Who will be responsible for all these deaths, already forgotten? Why doesn’t anyone ask that question as if these Hutus did not count and quickly accounted as losses. It is high time that someone answered for these acts that have seen so many Rwandans, forced to leave their lives and their land and go die in total anonymity and indignity? Are the 30,000 deaths included in the 200,000 missing in the famous report? If not, it is clear that nobody wants to talk about them! Who would be prosecuted in this case, who should answer? How long can we stay silent? 3. What about the cultural genocide of Rwanda with children’s deprived of school and education and witnessing war preparations and all the moral transgressions with the promiscuity in the sheetings? We can see the attraction of the example and the propensity for extreme violence and rape in the new FDLR recruits who were young in those camps. How could UNICEF and NGOs operating in the field of Child Protection tolerate this for so long without raising the voice? And worse, who is responsible for the pain and fate of refugees taken hostage in the forced march towards the forests in the Congo? For what did they stand for? Actually and quite to the contrary, these NGOs blithely followed these groups of refugees with so many vulnerable without blinking and constantly demanding additional resources. go further into dense forests. For that alone, they are indirect accomplices in the deaths of thousands of people through fatigue, hunger, wild animals and tropical diseases in this large scale morbid experiment? Were they seeking to test the chance of survival of individuals in these conditions? Were they seeking to provide practical exercises and develop the CVs of their agents who were so excited by poverty, deprivation and human suffering? In a recent testimony, General Rwarakabije, who commanded several units during of the ex-FAR campaign in Zaire, has indicated that at the edge of dense forests, he refused to cross the last bridge of a river into the unknown terrain- terra incognita - imploring people to stop this nonsense, madness and to return home. Those who returned with him were welcomed, resettled and even reintegrated into the national army. This is called courage, responsibility and sound judgment. But NGOs continued to assist and therefore encouraged large groups in their trek westward. Who knew that assistance and food will be provided at Tingi-Tingi station by NGOs! And indeed, this was the case and some food and shelter were offloaded by parachute into a surreal setting, where the only tarmac road was turned into hazardous airfields. 4. Remember the makeshift camps erected around Kisangani in mid-April 1997: fatigue compounded with outbreak of cholera and other tropical diseases after a forced march of 300 miles, food warehouses were looted by starving Zairian, riots by Zairians already targeted by ex-FAR who had infiltrated and organized these camps, and finally, the problem of obvious logistical nightmare to organize camps in perpetual motion. The humanitarian workers continued to treat the situation as normal and only airlifted to Rwanda those who consent formally. Can you imagine this scene? So where are the boundaries of responsibility of UNHCR and NGOs involved in this predictable tragedy? Obviously they had to follow internal regulations but they were indeed more interested to mount these camps rather than to repatriate vulnerable refugees who had no ability to grasp the dynamics of the situations around, amid the hostility expressed by the Congolese-Zairean, and the enormous challenges? But, Kisangani was said to be unbreakable and NGOs involved in this extensive operation could not think or act otherwise than their masters who had even brought mercenaries. To be continued...