On behalf of Hutu refugees who were abandoned by the international community to their own fate, I would like to express my deep disappointment with the EastAfrican online Newspaper which was posted on August 8th, 2016; especially its article entitled “Rwandan rebels kill seven in troubled east DR Congo”.
What is clear from the lines of this article is that the author does not understand the real implications of potential geopolitics of Great Lakes regions which is built on tarnishing the image of FDLR in order to create chaos in the Great Lakers region thereby hunting Hutu refugees down. It seems like people do not take cognizance of the fact that the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF), from time to time, crosses the border to loot, pillage and kill Hutu refugees as well as the Congolese people.
When Kagame’s army crossed the border to bomb refugees in their refugee camps in 1996, the international community knew what was going to happen. It was a long plan to establish Hima-Tutsi Empire, initiated in 1990 and which is built on mere propaganda that Hutu have planned and executed genocide against Tutsi. The establishment of the Empire of Hima-Tutsi is a brainchild of Museveni, Kagame and Buyoya, which is supported by superpower countries like USA, UK, Canada and Israel; countries which also benefit from looting the DRC’s natural resources. This establishment of the empire of Hima-Tutsi is being blessed by the superpower countries and that’s why three Hutu presidents were assassinated and the international community decided not to investigate these terrorist acts. Again, the international community decided to watch Rwanda plunging into a civil war which culminated in the genocide. The Rwandan Tutsi refugees were trained and armed by the said countries. Since the invasion of Rwanda by these Tutsi coming from Uganda in 1990, the Great Lakes region has known no peace and stability. Rwanda invades its neighbours with impunity.
In addition to Rwanda’s invasions and its meddling in its neighbouring countries’ politics, Rwandan citizens continue to disappear if not arbitrary arrested, tortured and killed. Rwandan citizens are also dying from hunger, disease, and starvation due to widespread poverty.
Tutsi genocide has been used as a licence to oppress, suppress and kill citizens from Hutu backgrounds. This is an obvious injustice that no country dares to condemn. The fundamental question is: Is it is only Hutus who are criminally accountable for the 1990-1994 war crimes and crimes against humanity?
This question had been answered by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
The findings of the ICTR, based on various reports, reveal that genocide in Rwanda claimed the lives of victims from all ethnics and cannot be said as being limited to Tutsi only. Even though the ICTR did not object to the occurrence of the genocide, it concluded that the planning of the genocide against Tutsi was brainless, since there was no master plan made by hutus. There was no evidence that the Rwandan genocide was planned by the former president Habyarimana’s regime. The burden of establishing proof in a complaint of genocide against Tutsi was on the Kagame’s Tutsi minority regime and his powerful allies who established the ICTR. Irrespective of the resources invested in the ICTR by the superpowers to ensure that genocide against Tutsi is confirmed, the ICTR found that the RPF played a major role in the Rwandan genocide. It has planned genocide against Hutus. Kagame and his RPF had a long plan to destroy Hutus in order to create a free territory for theTutsis or to eliminate all Hutu elites in order to be able to maintain the power of the Tutsi minority to the majority hutu. Indeed, minority cannot rule majority without suppressing them.
In the light of the above, it is very surprising that the author disregarded the ICTR’s findings and thus continued to state that: “Some older members of the FDLR are accused of taking part in the massacres of about 800,000 people in neighbouring Rwanda, mainly from the Tutsi minority, over three months in 1994 before they were routed by the rebel army of current President Paul Kagame.” The author has meticulously chosen the verb “to be routed” as if the former Rwandan army were a rebel group, not a state army. This must be denounced in the strongest terms because they seek to tarnish the Hutus who are members of the FDLR. Any article that seeks to propagate the same narrative, holding that all Hutus are perpetrators and that Tutsi are victims – instead of addressing the deeper systemic ethnic conflict and governance issues that Rwanda faces, must be denounced. I take this opportunity to remind the author of the said article that no leader of the FDLR is on the list of fugitives. The arrest warrants issues for leaders of the FDLR are politically motivated and judicially biased. The FDLR are the true defenders of freedom and democracy in Rwanda. Even if the USA can classify these heroes and heroines as terrorists, they may do as they have done with Nelson Mandela. He was once a terrorist.
It is not the first time that USA calls a freedom fighter a terrorist, however, the Hutus’ struggle to restore peace and stability in the region has to be welcomed without condemnation. It is not the first time that Hutu sons and daughters who were born and bred in the forest receive bombs and bullets in their refugee camps and have been subjected to cold-blooded mass killings. The FDLR has repeatedly declared that it is a peaceful movement which object to repression, coercion and mass murder on which Kagame regime is founded and maintained. Kagame has formed proxies to kill hutus and plunder the natural resources in the DRC, including CNDP, M23, Mai-Mai Sheka Mai-Mai Kifuafua, Mai-Mai Gédéon, Mai-Mai Mazembe, Mai-Mai Simba, or Mai-Mai Yakutumba.
Millions of Hutu are being killed mercilessly: Who cares?
The UN Mapping Report has implicated the RDF in mass killings of Hutu refugees in the DRC and Congolese people. The world is silent on the matter.
The UN report by a group of experts demonstrated substantial evidence attesting that Rwandan officials have been supporting armed groups operating in the eastern DRC, including shipping weapons and money to these groups. These reports documented a systematic pattern of military and political support provided to rebel groups with the sole aim to attack Hutu refugees and to destabilise the Great Lakes region. Kagame supports the Congolese rebel group with four folded mission: (i) To pursue and kill Hutu refugees in the hope of suppress them, (ii) to ensure that all young promising Hutu leaders are killed and (iii) to establish and expand their long term objective of creation of the empire of Tutsi and (iv) to continue to loot the DRC’s natural resources. The complicity in the media to hide the evil of Kagame regime is evident in the fact that the international community keeps silence when Kagame authorises the RDF to cross border to carry out massacres against unarmed Hutu civilians. The FDLR is a sole group whose devotion is to protect Hutu refugees who are estimated to be 250 000. No humanitarian organisation has been providing them with essential necessities of life since 1996 to date. The author of the said article is saying nothing about this cruelty perpetrated by the international community against Hutu refugees. They are hungry, depressed, oppressed and desperate. Does the author care about this intolerable situation? No
What the author cares about is to portray the Tutsi as good guys who have the right to decide when a life of Hutu can be taken away. This is really chocking.
Members of the FDLR are much disciplined. There is no member of the FDLR who has involved in the torching of 150 houses in the spate of attacks. Neither did FDLR engage in attacking the Nande civilians in the town of Lubero. These are blatant and baseless fabrications. Rather the Hutu refugees had been attacked as from February by the Congolese forces and the FDLR have been doing its best to protect humanity, including women, babies and infants, children, injured, infirm and elderly.
It is self-evident that Hutu refugees in the DRC are faced with the authoritarian world order which does no longer give regard to humanity. The Hutu refugees are being killed in the presence of the UN’s blue helmet: MONUSCO. It is silent about the mass killings of Hutus as if Hutus deserve to die.
Since July 2016, Hutu refugees are being raped and killed in the dense forest of DRC by forces of Mai-Mai Gédéon and Mai Mai Mazembe. These rebel groups are shelling the villages of Lubero, heading to Rutshuru and Masisi. The main objective of these attacks is to force Hutu refugees to return home where they will be suppressed under a total control of Kagame’s despotic regime.
It is truly my wish that this influential newspaper could reflect on the nature of Hutu-Tutsi conflict and thus desists from side-lining with the oppressor; rather speak on the behalf of voiceless who are in greatest need of peace, security and democracy. It’s just a shame that the international community and its media do not share the same willingness to reach a peace agreement between Hutus and Tutsis, but promotes hate and worldwide anti-Hutu propaganda which the EastAfrican support
Kind regards,
A concerned leader of the EastAfrica,
Goma
Criminal Paul Kagame