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“Kagame is an example of an American supported leader whose crimes go unpunished because he is useful to them and because they are party to his crimes.
The Prosecutors of the ICTR have wasted 17 years protecting Kagame from his responsibility for the crimes he and his forces committed in Rwanda in 1994.” – Christopher Black, international criminal lawyer, counsel to complainants to the ICC Prosecutor regarding alleged crimes by Paul Kagame. [1]
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On April 6 1994, the Presidents of Burundi and Rwanda were slain in a rocket attack on their plane. This incident triggered the 100 day killing spree now referred to as the Rwandan genocide. [2]
Twenty five years later, on Sunday April 7th , President Paul Kagame, in the presence of dignitaries from around the world, laid a wreath at the Gisozi genocide memorial site in Kigali at which over a quarter of a million victims of the massacre were buried. [3]
In his speech to the crowd, Kagame vowed his country would never repeat the mistakes of the past that led to the genocide:
“This history will not repeat. That is our firm commitment.” [4]
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, present at the same ceremony, expressed similar sentiments:
“It is our generational duty to never forget what humankind is capable of. It is only by remembering that we can build a brighter future together.”[5]
In light of the violence that has ensued in Africa and around the world since those horrible months a quarter of a century ago, these pledges come across as no more binding and sincere than those taken by Al Pacino’s character Michael Corleone during the infamous Baptism scene from the 1972 movie The Godfather.
Significantly, a body of analysis and eyewitness testimony suggests that the standard account of the Rwandan genocide, painting the Hutu majority as the principal villains and the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) as the saviours who ended the genocide, is a distortion of the truth. While not absolving the Hutu extremists of their crimes, an alternative interpretation holds that the RPF forces are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands themselves, including the two African presidents killed on April 6th. This is apart from the millions the RPF has had a role in killing in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the time since the genocide.
As this year’s Rwandan Week of Mourning comes to an official close, we take a look at some of the facts contradicting the official Rwanda narrative, and why it matters 25 years later.
Our first guest, Phil Taylor, worked as an investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. In a 20 minute conversation, Taylor talks about why he believes the UN instituted body failed to prosecute Kagame and the RPF forces he led as credibly accused war criminals.
In our second half hour, Canadian journalist Judi Rever elaborates on the theme of her 2018 book, which encapsulates 20 years of dogged research. In an exclusive 30 minute interview, Rever outlines the crimes of the Tutsi-dominated rebel force, replies to critics like Gerald Kaplan who have challenged her claims, explains the resiliency of the established Rwanda narrative, and talks about the threats to the lives of Kagame critics, herself included, who attempt to expose the truth. She also points to some of the powerful interests abroad whose complicity in these two decade old horrors goes far beyond merely ‘standing idly by.’
Phil Taylor is host of the Taylor Report airing on CIUT 89.5 FM every Monday at 5pm Eastern Time. A long time social activist and journalist, Taylor formerly worked as an investigator for defence lawyers involved in the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda.
Judi Rever is a Montreal based freelance print and broadcast journalist. Her reporting on Rwanda has been featured in seven front-page stories in the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s leading national newspapers. Her 2018 book In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, published by Random House Canada, was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-Fiction.
(Global Research News Hour Episode 256)
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Notes:
- https://www.globalresearch.ca/kagames-mass-atrocities-in-rwanda-and-the-congo/5346739
- Clement Uwiringiyimana (April 7, 2019), ‘Rwanda honors those killed in genocide 25 years ago’, Reuters; https://www.reuters.com/article/us-rwanda-genocide/rwanda-honors-those-killed-in-genocide-25-years-ago-idUSKCN1RJ04Y
- ibid
- https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/kwibuka25-president-paul-kagames-full-address
- http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-19-2028_en.htm
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