{"id":168652,"date":"2020-09-14T12:00:36","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=168652"},"modified":"2025-10-06T14:26:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T13:26:44","slug":"its-time-to-acknowledge-hutu-genocide-and-rwandan-occupation-of-dr-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/09\/its-time-to-acknowledge-hutu-genocide-and-rwandan-occupation-of-dr-congo\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Time to Acknowledge Hutu Genocide and Rwandan Occupation of DR Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

In April 1995, Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Army massacred 8,000 Hutus sheltering in an internal refugee camp in Kibeho, Rwanda. Photograph by Paul Lowe.<\/p><\/div>\n

9 Sep 2020 – Global power elites are silent about Hutu genocide and Rwanda\u2019s ongoing occupation of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) because it has served their interests for many years.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth would embarrass them.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My first contribution to Black Agenda Report was \u201cMadame President? No, Madame Prisoner<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0\u00a0a profile of Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza published in January 2014. Late Black Agenda Report Editor Bruce A. Dixon had asked me to write it after following my conversations with Victoire and other Rwandan dissidents for some years. Those conversations began in January 2010, when I looked into why no viable challengers to incumbent Rwandan President Paul Kagame were being allowed into that year\u2019s presidential election. Victoire had just returned from Netherlands to Rwanda to stand as a candidate, but she had almost immediately been placed under house arrest. Why? Because upon arriving in Rwanda\u2019s capital, where she was met by Rwandan press and fellow dissidents, she went straight to the genocide memorial and made this statement:<\/p>\n

“We totally agree and are conscious that there has been a genocide against Tutsis and we seriously and continuously advocate that all those who were responsible be brought before the courts of justice. We also agree that there have been other serious crimes against humanity and war crimes [against Hutus]; those who committed them have to bear the legal consequences. We must all the time remember those tragedies, make sure they don\u2019t get ever repeated. We also need to ensure that people\u2019s lives are effectively and strongly protected by laws.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I quoted Victoire in \u201cRwanda\u2019s 1994 Genocide and 2010 Election <\/a>,\u201d one of the first essays I wrote about what I was beginning to understand, and soon heard from International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) defense attorneys and scholars including the late Edward S. Herman, co-author, with David Peterson, of \u201cThe Politics of Genocide <\/a>,\u201d and \u201cEnduring Lies: Rwanda and the Propaganda System, 20 Years On <\/a>.\u201d I spoke to Ed Herman six years later for \u201cRwanda, Burundi and Wars \u2018To Stop the Next Rwanda <\/a>,\u2019\u201d a\u00a0Project Censored broadcast on KPFA and other Pacifica Radio stations.<\/p>\n

Rwanda 2010 and beyond<\/strong><\/p>\n

Victoire went to prison for eight years, beginning in 2010, for \u201cgenocide ideology,\u201d which means voicing a more complex genocide history than that legally codified in Rwanda. The legally codified history is that ethnic Hutus massacred up to a million or more Tutsis during the 100 days beginning on April 7, 1994, which ended when General Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) \u201cstopped the genocide.\u201d While in prison Victoire wrote \u201cBetween\u00a0 <\/a>Four <\/a>\u00a0 <\/a>W <\/a>alls of the 1930 prison: Memoirs of a Rwandan Prisoner of Conscience <\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernard Ntaganda <\/a>, a Rwandan lawyer who also attempted to run against Kagame in 2010, went to prison for four years. Frank Habineza, the 2010 candidate of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, fled to Sweden after the party\u2019s vice president was\u00a0found dead <\/a>by the banks of a river, with his head cut off but still in possession of his wallet and the keys to his car, which remained nearby. (Habineza later returned and became a member of Rwanda\u2019s parliament.) Rwandan journalists went to prison, were shot dead, or fled the country and the continent.<\/p>\n

In July 2010, prominent Tanzanian law professor and ICTR defense attorney\u00a0 <\/a>Jwami Mwaikusa <\/a>\u00a0was assassinated in Dar Es Salaam, and ICTR defense attorney Peter Erlinder was arrested and charged with \u201cgenocide ideology\u201d from mid-May to mid-June 2010, while in Rwanda to defend Victoire in court.<\/p>\n

(Erlinder was released after international outcry motivated then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to secure his\u00a0\u201cunconditional medical release.\u201d\u00a0She did not respond to his legal arguments at the ICTR or in defense of Victoire, or to his criticism of war crimes committed by Kagame, a longstanding Clinton ally.)<\/p>\n

Internationally known Rwandan gospel singer Kizito Mihigo joined Victoire in prison from 2014 to 2018 for recording a gospel song in which he acknowledged the genocide of Hutus as well as Tutsis during the\u00a0Rwandan Civil War <\/a>\u00a0and its final 100 days. Like Victoire, he was released but forbidden to leave Rwanda, and in February 2020 he was arrested while trying to cross the country\u2019s southern border into Burundi. Kizito\u00a0died several days later in police custody<\/a>\u00a0and few believed the police report that he had committed suicide.<\/p>\n

In 2014, the BBC produced and aired the documentary \u201cRwanda\u2019s Untold Story <\/a>,\u201d which so infuriated the Rwandan President and his ruling Tutsi elite that they temporarily banned BBC Gahuza, the network\u2019s Kinyarwanda language radio broadcast in Rwanda, and organized a list of\u00a038 scholars and journalists <\/a>\u00a0to sign a statement condemning the documentary\u2019s \u201crevisionism.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Praise of Blood, Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2018, Judi Rever\u2019s groundbreaking book \u201cIn Praise of Blood: Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front <\/a>\u201d\u00a0chronicled and evidenced the crimes of Kagame\u2019s Rwandan Patriotic Army, which became the national Rwandan Defense Force (RDF), in both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kagame\u2019s main excuse for invading DRC has always been that he was compelled to hunt down Hutus who had killed Tutsis then fled to Congo and continued to threaten Rwanda, but\u00a0Rever\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0book,<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0UN Mapping Report on Human Rights Abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1993-2003 <\/a>, document the RDF\u2019s massacre of innocent civilians, both Rwandan refugees and Congolese.<\/p>\n

Rusesabagina in handcuffs, Dr. Mukwege under threat<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2010, Kagame accused Paul Rusesabagina, author of the book which became the movie \u201cHotel Rwanda,\u201d of \u201charboring the <\/a>\u00a0d <\/a>ouble <\/a>\u00a0g <\/a>enocide\u00a0 <\/a>t <\/a>heory <\/a>.\u201d Last week Rwandan authorities\u00a0seized Rusesabagina in the UAE <\/a>\u00a0and flew him to Kigali in handcuffs, where they paraded him before the press and charged him with terrorism.<\/p>\n

Dr. Denis Mukwege, the Nobel Prize winning gynecological surgeon who founded Panzi Hospital to treat victims of the sexual violence used as a weapon in DRC\u2019s resource wars, is receiving\u00a0death threats for identifying Rwanda<\/a>\u00a0as the primary occupier and aggressor in DRC and calling for an international tribunal to prosecute the crimes evidenced in the UN Mapping Report.<\/p>\n

Recognize Hutu Genocide<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is just a short list of moments in the ongoing struggle over the truth of the Rwandan Genocide, and the 25 years of hell that ensued when Kagame\u2019s army followed Rwandan refugees into the DRC and remained there to occupy and plunder. I compiled it in order to encourage BAR readers to visit the new \u201cHutu Genocide\u201d website at\u00a0hutugenocide.org <\/a>, which calls for recognition of genocide committed against Hutu populations in Rwanda and DRC. A good entry point there is the YouTube video \u201cA mapping of crimes in the book \u2018In Praise of Blood, the\u00a0 <\/a>C <\/a>rimes of the RPF by Judi Rever\u2019 <\/a>,\u201d which begins with the statement, \u201cThis video is not meant to deny, minimize, or conceal in any way the genocide against Tutsis that took place in Rwanda in 1994.\u201d Judi Rever says the same, as does Victoire Ingabire, and as do I.<\/p>\n

We also agree that neither Rwandans nor Congolese will see peace until the whole truth is told.<\/p>\n

Why the silence in the world\u2019s upper diplomatic, governmental, and global NGO circles, including the United Nations? Because Rwanda\u2019s violent occupation of DRC and its service as an\u00a0entrep\u00f4t for stolen Congolese resources has worked out well for powerful interests in the US and elsewhere in the industrialized world, and the truth would embarrass them.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She <\/em>attended Stanford University and is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. In 2014 she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize<\/em> for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at <\/em>@AnnGarrison<\/em> or <\/em>ann@kpfa.org<\/em> <\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 blackagendareport.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 Sep 2020 – Global power elites are silent about Hutu genocide and Rwanda\u2019s ongoing occupation of the Democratic Republic of Congo because it has served their interests for many years. \u201cThe truth would embarrass them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":168653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[237,1991,865,2155,1412],"class_list":["post-168652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-africa","tag-d-r-congo","tag-genocide","tag-hutus","tag-rwanda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304468,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168652\/revisions\/304468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}