GENOCIDE DENIERS AND THEIR AGENTS [ANALYSIS]
By Tom Ndahiro
The New Times (Kigali)
April 4, 2010 Sunday
Rwanda
The moment the mass murder of 1994 ended, the killers, switched tactics
to killing the truth of what they had done and plotting their return
to power.
It is important to keep this in mind when assessing critiques of
democracy and governance in Rwanda today.
Genuine critics are important to the proper running of the country
but there are others who utilise critique as a strategy to bring the
genocidal program of Hutu Power back to legitimacy.
They assume the dress of democrats, hiding their blades and their
murderous intentions. Theirs is a strategy that was fashioned soon
after the genocide.
In an editorial of the infamous Kangura newspaper (Issue No 68 of
April 1995), Hassan Ngeze, the publisher and editor, who was to be
convicted of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda (ICTR), made the following argument about the Tutsis: "When
they call us criminals, do they believe that we have forgotten that
they exterminated the Hutus in the prefectures of Byumba, Ruhengeri
and Kibungo?
If we exterminated them-who is occupying the country and our houses?
Why don’t they show Hutu dead bodies? All dead bodies look alike. Must
we return to the country through negotiations or through war? The
community must be sensitized on the merits of a political dialogue
that must be privileged instead of war."
There is no more concise expression of the strategy that the killers
would undertake in the coming years. First, deny genocide had occurred,
or argue that it was Hutus who were killed by Tutsis, or that there
were two genocides, the first of the Tutsi and then the next one by
the Rwanda Patriotic Front against the Hutu.
On January 9, 2010 Victoire was hosted on a BBC programme Imvo
n’Imvano, and was reminded by the producer she was a member of an
organization the RDR created by "extremist Hutu" in the camp of
Mugunga in the former Zaire.
She denied it and instead said she was from Rally for Democracy in
Rwanda. Total hoax! On August 19, 2000 Victoire was elected President
of the Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy.
What is this RDR Victoire prefers to shun? The Republican Rally for
Democracy in Rwanda (RDR), initially known as Rally for the Return
of Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda was born on April 3, 1995.
Genocide denial and genocide ideology is its founding doctrine. In
the minutes of a meeting which decided to form the RDR there was a
resolution on what they called the "genocide issue".
Unambiguously, the founders of the RDR said that "there is no evidence
of the preparation of the genocide on the part of the Rwandan people
and their leaders." Rather, they emphasize-"it is true that massacres
occurred and that the RPF must mainly be held responsible for the
tragedy that befell Rwanda."
On May 22, 1998 Jean Kambanda, the Prime Minister of the 1994
genocidaire government, told ICTR investigators about the RDR and
its creation.
Kambanda related how at the end of March, 1995 he had met with Major
General Augustin Bizimungu and Brigadier Gratien Kabiligi, the leaders
of the genocidal Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR).
They discussed how Colonel Bagosora, while in the refugee camps in
Congo, had announced "the formation of a new political party…to
represent exclusively refugees."
Some of those who participated in the retreat to finalize the creation
of the RDR included Major-General Augustin BIZIMUNGU (Chairman),
Brigadier-General Gratien KABILIGI, Claver KANYARUSHOKI, Francois
NZABAHIMANA, Charles NDEREYEHE, Aloys NGENDAHIMANA, Aloys RUKEBESHA,
Colonel Joseph MURASAMONGO, Jean Marie Vianney BAGEZAHO, Lieutenant
Colonel Juvénal BAHUFITE, and Major Aloys NTABAKUZE who was their
rapporteur.
Bizimungu told the other participants that the FAR "was prepared to
face the RPF, but it was necessary to create a political organization
capable of mobilizing the means and ensuring unity among the population
for concerted action."
Furthermore, their "interlocutors in Europe" had proposed a "credible
political organization to represent the refugees."
Ngeze wrote of the RDR leadership: "Here are the Hutu who will ensure
our return to Rwanda." In a Kangura interview (No 69, May 1995),
RDR Vice-president Aloys
Ngendahimana argued that his movement was the only one capable of
representing, defending and uniting all Rwandan refugees. It was a
matter of promoting the unity of Rwandans in exile.
He presented the organisation as the right party to enter into
negotiations with the RPF.
This is the crux of the matter.The aim is to win back political
legitimacy for the genocidaires, to make their opposition to the
Rwandan government seem like normal political competition, when it
is in fact a continuation of genocidal politics by other means.
In Goma, August 4-6, 1995 there was a meeting of the FAR High Command
to evaluate their progress after the birth of the RDR. In his opening
speech, Bizimungu asserted: "We must mobilize the community of Rwandan
refugees through the RDR to collect the proofs of the responsibility
of the RPF in the Rwandan massacre, in order to conduct a campaign
of detoxification of international opinion in favour of our cause ."
He went on to say that the "RDR must bind the strength and the
cohesion of the refugees; achieve the unity, agreement and solidarity
of Rwandans." And that since "the Tutsis took thirty years to prepare
their return and the taking of power in Kigali.
The Rwandans, with all their live forces in exile, must have the
courage and take the time needed to return to Rwanda, weapons in
hand in need be. We will not lack outside support either. If we,
the FAR and the people, constitute a united front "
This strategy has continued to unfold. A few years after the genocide,
as the genocidaires were being sought by international and Rwandan
prosecutors, and the ICTR, the RDR told the media (Press Release
No.13/2001, August 1, 2001) that there were no fugitives from justice
among the refugees, condemning such claims as "false and dangerous."
The refugees, according to the RDR, were simply people who ran away
from a country "ruled by the machine gun and the jail keys." They are
"political opponents" who need a political dialogue, but "cannot return
to their homeland while the evil political system, which forced them
to exile, is still in place."
It is against this background that some of the recent critiques on
elections in Rwanda occur.
On March 21, 2010 one Kris Berwouts wrote a 16-page report on Rwanda
entitled "Cracks in the Mirror as Rwanda prepares for elections." The
author is a Director of EurAc, an umbrella organization of European
NGOs.
Unfortunately, a number of its members have been furthering the
cause of the genocidaires and their organizations since 1994. EurAc’s
website, for instance, displays links to known genocide deniers.
One of the more interesting ones is to an article entitled: "Kagame
must reconcile with Rwandans" by Nkwazi Mhango, purportedly a Tanzanian
based in Canada.
This article was published by The African Executive in Nairobi, on the
same day as Berwouts’s piece appeared. In it, Nkwazi accuses President
Paul Kagame of "banking on genocide" as a pretext to thwart people with
different ideas; and of "using genocide to threaten anybody, including
the international community whom he blames for not preventing it."
Berwouts admits he doesn’t know much about Rwanda, noting that he
often passes through the country, but only "in transit to Goma,
Bukavu or Bujumbura."
Yet he claims to know enough to observe that "I noticed that the
people felt fear, but that had long been the case. I saw a closing
up of the political space but this had often been experienced before."
He lamented "The demonization of Victoire Ingabire the candidate of
the opposition party, FDU-Inkingi," and that in Rwanda all those who
oppose the government are labelled genocide deniers.
Such is also the view of Victoire Ingabire, who was quoted by Tim
Whewell of BBC Newsnight on March 31, 2010 saying that "The genocide
has become a kind of blackmail to be used against everyone. After 16
years it is high time for democracy."
Carina Tertsakian of Human Rights Watch echoes this view, and blames
the British government for providing aid that is "serving to prop up
a government that is routinely violating the rights of its citizens."
Tertsakian protests that "the genocide and the events that surrounded
it can be used as an excuse to suppress criticism and dissent."
The assault on the present government in Rwanda continues with
Berwouts, who writes that "Since 1994, the country has been managed
in a psychological climate of winners of the war versus its losers,
the victims of the crimes against their executioners, in which,
for example, a whole system has been put in place through the Gacaca
courts to deal with crimes of genocide against Tutsis while at the
same time there is a complete taboo regarding crimes committed by
the FPR since the start of the war. Gacaca has become a strategy for
consolidating the winners/victims versus losers/criminals scenario."
Berwouts would have you believe that today’s Rwandan government seeks
only to oppress the Hutu. Human Rights Watch analysts would have you
believe that it is nothing but a dictatorship which that cynically
and cruelly uses genocide to further its interests.
Imagine if this kind of thing were written about the government that
took over Germany in 1945 after Hitler’s rule.
If it were, it would have to be done in secret, since Europe has not
hesitated to proscribe those would deny the Holocaust.
For instance, Swiss law punishes "Whoever… Publicly through
utterances, writings, gestures, assaults or in any other form injures
the honour of a person or group of persons for reason of their race
or their belonging to an ethnic or religious group or for one of
these reasons defames the memory of deceased persons, or, for the
same reason, grossly minimises or seeks to dispute genocide or other
crimes against humanity…"
In Austria, it is an offence "If in print, over the radio or through
another medium or otherwise in a public manner accessible to many
people" a person "denies, grossly trivialises, approves or seeks to
justify the national socialist genocide or other national socialist
crimes against humanity."
Many countries in Europe have similarly tough laws on genocide denial,
but often these laws apply only to denial of the Holocaust, and not
to denial of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Yet it is important to recall that 1994 happened because of the denial
of the hate ideology and "massacres" of Tutsis in the late 1950s
and early 1960s (which Bertrand Russell described at the time as the
"most horrible and systematic massacre" since the Holocaust).
Just as Hitler’s real crimes did not begin in 1939, but years earlier
since his ideology called for the destruction of certain segments of
the population. When this was ignored and denied-with him managing
to paint himself as just a politician – then the holocaust clock
started ticking.
Genuine criticism is proper and useful to Rwanda. But Berwouts and
Tertsakian should be careful not to further the aims of a genocidaire
campaign in the name of democracy and fairness.
Professor Henry Theriault, a descendant of Armenian genocide survivors,
astutely observed that "Deniers operate as agents of the original
perpetrators (of the genocide), pursuing and hounding victims
through time.
Through these agents, the perpetrators reach once again into the
lives of the victims long after their escape from the perpetrators’
physical grasp."
These are the high stakes at play in this back and forth in which
genocidaires attempt to make common cause with media outlets and even
human rights defenders.