A Candle For Remembering
May this memorial candle lights up the historical past of our beloved Country: Rwanda, We love U so much. If Tears could build a stairway. And memories were a lane. I would walk right up to heaven. To bring you home again. No farewell words were spoken. No time to say goodbye. You were gone before I knew it And. Only Paul Kagame knows why. My heart still aches with sadness. And secret tears still flow. What It meant to lose you. No one will ever know.
Why did Kagame this to me?
Can't forget. He murdered my mother. What should be my reaction? FYI: the number of orphans in Rwanda has skyrocketed since the 1990's Kagame's invasion. Much higher numbers of orphans had and have no other option but joining FDLR fighters who are identified as children that have Lost their Parents in Kagame's Wars inside and outside of Rwanda.If someone killed your child/spouse/parent(s) would you seek justice or revenge? Deep insight: What would you do to the person who snuffed the life of someone I love beyond reason? Forgiving would bring me no solace. If you take what really matters to me, I will show you what really matters. NITUTIRWANAHO TUZASHIRA. IGIHE KIRAGEZE.If democracy is to sell one's motherland(Africa), for some zionits support, then I prefer the person who is ready to give all his live for his motherland. Viva President Putin!!!
RPF committed the unspeakable
The perverted RPF committed the UNSPEAKABLE.Two orphans, both against the Nazi world. Point is the fact that their parents' murder Kagame & his RPF held no shock in the Western world. Up to now, the Rwandan Hitler Kagame and his death squads still enjoy impunity inside and outside of Rwanda. What goes through someone's mind as they know RPF murdered their parents? A delayed punishment is actually an encouragement to crime, In Praise of the ongoing Bloodshed in Rwanda. “I always think I am a pro-peace person but if someone harmed someone near and dear to me, I don't think I could be so peaceful. I would like to believe that to seek justice could save millions of people living the African Great Lakes Region - I would devote myself to bringing the 'perp' along to a non-happy ending but would that be enough? You'd have to be in the situation I suppose before you could actually know how you would feel or what you would do”. Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana, Libre Penseur
Hutu Children & their Mums
Look at them ! How they are scared to death. Many Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi, Foreign human rights advocates, jounalists and and lawyers are now on Death Row Waiting to be murdered by Kagame and his RPF death squads. Be the last to know.
Almighty God :Justice for US
Hutu children's daily bread: Intimidation, Slavery, Sex abuses led by RPF criminals and Kagame, DMI: Every single day, there are more assassinations, imprisonment, brainwashing & disappearances. Do they have any chance to end this awful life?
Killing Hutus on daily basis
RPF targeted killings, very often in public areas. Killing Hutus on daily basis by Kagame's murderers and the RPF infamous death squads known as the "UNKNOWN WRONGDOERS"
RPF Trade Mark: Akandoya
Rape, torture and assassination and unslaving of hutu women. Genderside: Rape has always been used by kagame's RPF as a Weapon of War, the killings of Hutu women with the help of Local Defense Forces, DMI and the RPF military
The Torture in Rwanda flourishes
How torture flourishes across Rwanda despite extensive global monitoring
Fighting For Our Freedom?
We need Freedom, Liberation of our fatherland, Human rights respect, Mutual respect between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority
Showing posts with label Release Prof. Erlinder. Peter Erlinder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Release Prof. Erlinder. Peter Erlinder. Show all posts
Monday, November 28, 2011
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying reality : the Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination with an iron fist, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus), mass-arrests and mass-murder by the RPF criminal organization.
So long as justice and accountability for RPF past and current crimes are ignored and delayed, Peace and Stability will remain illusive and impossible in Rwanda=>ASIF]
Related articles:
William Mitchell College of Law will webcast a conference featuring a high-ranking member of the Rwanda government from 4 to 6 pm Monday, Nov. 28.
“Rwanda Truth and Reconciliation: The Process Begins” will focus on steps Rwanda needs to take to fully recover from the Rwanda Genocide that killed hundreds of thousands of Rwandan people in 1994.
It is being organized by William Mitchell Professor Peter Erlinder, director of the International Humanitarian Law Institute, international criminal defense attorney, and former defense attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Associated Press - June 20, 2010 10:54 AM ET
A lawyer representing Erlinder, Kennedy Ogeto, said security guards at the airport in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, checked his and Erlinder's travel bags twice before allowing them into the gate area to depart.
Ogeto did not offer more details about Erlinder's travel plans.
Erlinder's brother, Scott, said he expected him to fly from Kenya to Tanzania and Amsterdam before arriving in New York. Scott Erlinder said he thought his brother would have a news conference Tuesday in New York.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - A U.S. lawyer released from a Rwandan prison on medical grounds says the U.S. Embassy did not help him secure food or medicine while he was in prison.
Peter Erlinder spoke to the media in Kenya on Sunday for the first time since his May 28 arrest.
The 62-year-old Minnesota law professor credited Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for winning him medical bail after Clinton said Rwanda shouldn't act against lawyers.
Rwandan authorities detained Erlinder on suspicion of minimizing the country's genocide but haven't yet charged him. The 1994 genocide killed more than 500,000 Rwandans, mostly ethnic Tutsis. Erlinder said Sunday there was a genocide against Tutsis but added that evidence may show even more Hutus died.
© The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Friday, June 18, 2010
Justice Shouldn’t Be The Loser in the Erlinder - Ingabire Trial vs Kagame Junta
Rwandans want Democracy, Reconciliation, lasting peace and development and the end of RPF bloodsheds.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freepetererlinder/
According to Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune writer Jeremy Herb in a story just posted to the newspaper’s staff blog: “The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the United Nations court that has tried Rwanda’s genocide crimes — and where St. Paul attorney Peter Erlinder is head of the defense attorney association — has called for Erlinder’s immediate release.
“The tribunal, in a two-page letter to Erlinder’s Rwandan prosecutor and the Rwandan minister of foreign affairs, wrote that Erlinder should not be prosecuted because the case against the William Mitchell College of Law professor involves his work as a defense attorney in the tribunal, where his clients were Rwandans accused of genocide
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Wife of Professor Peter Erlinder appeals to U.N. Security Council members for his freedom
Saint Paul, Minnesota – Masako Usui, the wife of the U.S. professor and attorney Peter Erlinder, is traveling to New York City this week on a mission to visit United Nations Security Council members. Her husband, Peter Erlinder, was arrested by Rwanda police in Kigali on May 28. She plans to ask for their assistance in urging Rwanda to free Professor Erlinder and drop all charges.
Professor Erlinder is a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law, lead defense attorney for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and president of the ICTR defense lawyers association. The ICTR was set up by the United Nations Security Council in 1994 to prosecute war criminals for events that happened in 1994.
Erlinder faces charges of genocidal ideology and threatening Rwandan national security. These charges are directly related to the vigorous defense of his clients. According to the Rwanda prosecutor and court, the basis for the charges against him are that he:
• Successfully proved to the ICTR that the genocide had not been planned or executed by the person he represented, Aloys Ntabakuze.
• Publicly wrote, outside of Rwanda, in defense of his clients through articles, press releases and open letters to public officials calling for a deeper examination of the events that happened in 1994 and suggested that there could be a different narrative based on factual evidence.
• Filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Paul Kagame in the Oklahoma federal court under the Alien Tort Claims Act on behalf of his client, Agathe Habyarimana, the widow of the former Rwandan president.
Erlinder continues to be held, now in Kigali Central Prison, after he received a judgment on Monday, June 7, 2010, denying him bail or any type of release.
The spokesman for the “United Nations-backed tribunal for Rwanda,” Roland Amoussouga, stated, “ICTR will not allow anyone to be prosecuted for the work that it has done for it,” according to a June 13 New York Times story, “American Lawyer Denied Bail in Rwanda” by Josh Kron.
The same New York Times article also reported, “Despite assurances from Rwanda that Mr. Erlinder was not arrested for his work at the tribunal, officials at the tribunal say they also believe there is a connection. They have asked Rwanda for clarification and may bring the case in front of the United Nations Security Council.”
Among many human rights and legal organizations that have called for Erlinder’s release, the American Bar Association points to the U.N. Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, which states that lawyers “shall not be identified with their clients or their client’s causes as a result of discharging their functions” and that “governments shall ensure that lawyers are able to perform all of their functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper influence.”
These principals also provided that “lawyers like other citizens are entitled to freedom of expression, belief, association and assembly.”
The International Criminal Defense Attorneys Association (ICDAA) denounced and condemned Peter Erlinder’s continued detention in the strongest possible terms and urged all concerned to demand his immediate release.
In a joint statement to the court and the U.N. Security Council, many defense lawyers have demanded Erlinder’s immediate release: “We hereby resolve to postpone all activities, other than those which strictly conserve the interests of our mandates, until such time as the minimum conditions of the normal exercise of our missions have been restored by the removal of threats,” the statement says.
This continued detention has prompted other defense lawyers at the ICTR to refuse to participate in proceedings. Five defense teams before the ICTR have filed motions saying it was too dangerous to represent an accused. ICTR responded by launching contempt proceedings against another American defense lawyer, Peter Robinson, when Robinson stated his intention to withdraw from the case due to Erlinder’s detention.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Friday, June 11, 2010
Questions about Congolese human rights defender's murder
"The real scandal is that human rights defenders, journalists and honest civil servants are killed routinely, and the United Nations and western governments issue some pathetic statement proclaiming their disappointment and concerns about the 'deteriorating' human rights climate, when it is in a permanent state of basic survival and injustice against all odds."
All three of Rwanda's embattled opposition parties, the FDU-Inkngi Party headed by Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda headed by Frank Habineza, and the dissident wing of the Parti Social-Imberakuri Party headed by Bernard Ntaganda, have called on the Rwandan government to release Professor Erlinder and drop all charges, and to drop all charges against FDU-Inking presidential candidate Ingabire, who, like the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, remains unable to register her party to contest the 2010 election.
Mr. Chebeya, the founder of “Voix des Sans Voix” (Voice of the Voiceless
General Kagame must be held accountable for the instabilty in that region, war crimes, crimes against Humanity and other crimes |
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Thursday, June 10, 2010
111TH CONGRESS IV
2D SESSION
H. RES. 1426
Urging the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and President Paul
Kagame to immediately release human rights lawyer Professor Peter
Erlinder from jail and allow him to return to the United States.
**
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUNE 8, 2010
Ms. MCCOLLUM (for herself and Mr. ELLISON) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
RESOLUTION
Urging the Government of the Republic of Rwanda andCongresswoman Betty McCollum represents Professor Peter Erlinder in Minnesota's 4th District.
President Paul Kagame to immediately release humanWhereas the Constitution of Rwanda, adopted on May 26,
rights lawyer Professor Peter Erlinder from jail and
allow him to return to the United States.
2003, states that Rwanda is ‘‘Resolved to build a State
governed by the rule of law, based on respect for fundamental
human rights, pluralistic democracy, equitable
power sharing, tolerance and resolution of issues through
dialogue’’
Whereas there is an increasing pattern of restrictions of free
expression in Rwanda ahead of the August presidentialWhereas the United States Government has provided over
elections, including the denial of a work visa to a senior
Human Rights Watch researcher and the crackdown of
opposition members and journalists;
Congressman Keith Ellison, D-MN, represents Minnesota's 5th District and is a personal friend of Professor Peter Erlinder
$1,034,000,000 billion in United States taxpayer-fundedWhereas Peter Erlinder is a law professor at William Mitchell
foreign assistance to Rwanda since 2000, and an additional
$240,200,000 is proposed in the President’s fiscal
year 2011 budget;
College of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and has servedWhereas Peter Erlinder was arrested on May 28, 2010, in
as a lead defense attorney for the United Nationals International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania;
Kigali, Rwanda, and is currently being detained at
Kicukiro Prison on charges of ‘‘genocide ideology’’ based
in part upon legal arguments made during his work as
a defense attorney at the United Nations International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and
Whereas United States Department of State Spokesman P.J.
Crowley announced on June 3, 2010, that the United1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives urges
States Government was pressing the Government of
Rwanda to ‘‘resolve this case quickly’’ and that the Department
of State hoped for Peter Erlinder’s release on
‘‘compassionate grounds’’: Now, therefore, be it
2 the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and President
3 Paul Kagame to immediately release Professor Peter
4 Erlinder from jail and allow him to return to the United
5 States.
•HRES 1426 IH
©olored OpinionsRelated Article:
McCollum Introduces Legislation Urging Rwandan
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
***
We MUST stand with courageous lawyers! Vigorous legal defense is NOT a crime! FREE PETER ERLINDER NOW!
***
We MUST stand with courageous lawyers! Vigorous legal defense is NOT a crime! FREE PETER ERLINDER NOW!
***
- Supporters of detained U.S. Attorney Peter Erlinder marched for him on Tuesday in hopes of freeing him from the Rwandan prison.
■ He’s accused of revisionism, revising history. Peter Erlinder years before found mountains of documentation at the UN about Rwanda’s history. He read them and discovered that the history of Rwanda is the history that’s told in the documents.
■ He actually found that there was a civil war going on there for 4 years preceding the last 3 months when the alleged genocide took place.
■ The civil war was the causation of the genocide. By doing this work, he encountered the wrath of the Rwandan government.
■ He was trying to help the defense of an opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who was arrested for “denying the genocide” and when Peter Erlinder arrived in Rwanda, he was arrested on the same charge.
■ Rwanda President Paul Kagame has discredited presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.
■ We don’t know in the US, what’s really going on in Rwanda. The US is supporting Kagame’s war in the East Congo, the war is being fought over minerals and rights to minerals.
■ Those minerals are used in cell phones.
■ Help Peter Erlinder: Contact the US State Department and urge them to take an active role.
■ Rwanda President Paul Kagame put 7 people on a list of those he would like to see assassinated, Peter Erlinder was on that list.
"He mean the whole world to me because of how much he cared what happened to me because he protected my constitutional rights," said Mayard.
Appearing weak in court on Monday, a Rwandan judge denied bail for Erlinder who is charged with denying Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. Erlinder was in the country helping with the legal defense of an opposition leader, who wants to run for president.
Bruce Nestor of the National Lawyers Guild says Erlinder's prosecution threatens the ability of all attorneys to defend their clients.
"I’m afraid it looks like this is not something that's going to be over in the near term but is going to require our long term work and effort to bring peter back here to the twin cities," said Nestor.
In Minnesota, Senator Amy Klobuchar says they are working hard to bring him home.
"We have been pushing to have an expedited hearing so that he can at least be out on bail and at best be able to go home to his family. His wife and daughter and that's what we've been working on," said Klobuchar.
In the run up to the national election, the administration of Rwandan president Paul Kagame has engaged in increasing repressive tactics including shutting down independent media and jailing opposition candidates and their supporters under a vague charge of “genocide ideology”the same charge Professor Erlinder is now accused of.
The “Genocide Ideology Law” is vaguely worded, requires no link to any genocidal act, and can be used to criminalize a wide range of legitimate forms of expression. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the U.S. State Department have denounced it as a tool of political repression. The Kagame administration has used it widely to target political opponents.The Obama administration has done little to address Professor Erlinder’s situation. The state department and US embassy have referred to this incident as “a local matter.” This is because the US backs the Kagame regime.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Saturday, June 5, 2010
05-06-2010
Filed under: Africa, Human Rights/Free Speech
On Friday, American lawyer and law professor Peter Erlinder was arrested in Rwanda. His alleged crime is “genocide denial”, one of a set of offenses prosecutable in Rwanda under the 2008 “Law Relating to the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Ideology”. That law has been used to subject Erlinder’s client, opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire, to house arrest since shortly after her return to Rwanda from the Netherlands. Erlinder knew that he was risking arrest in coming to Rwanda – he has been a fierce critic of President Kagame’s administration, is representing accused genocidaire Major Aloys Ntabakuze at the international tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, and warned the US State Department and the Minnesota congressional delegation before making the trip. Rwanda is a fascinating and divisive place for people concerned with the future of Africa. For some, the country is a model of stability, economic growth and the empowerment of women. Michael Fairbanks, economic advisor to the Kagame government and influential management consultant, offers a passionate defense for the direction of the country in a recent column… so passionate that it appears to accuse of racism anyone who disagrees with his interpretation.
On the other hand, human rights and press freedom organizations have expressed concerns for years that Rwanda has been functioning as a one party state, putting insurmountable obstacles in the path of opposition parties and silencing independent media. This pressure appears to be increasing in the lead up to August presidential elections – in recent months, Rwanda has suspended two independent newspapers, forced a Human Rights Watch researcher out of the country, arrested an opposition leader and prevented two opposition parties from registering from participating in the election. These recent actions led US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson to comment earlier this week on the “worrying actions” taken by the Rwandan government.
I was last in Rwanda in 2002, helping Geekcorps set up a program to provide assistance to a Kigali-based technology firm which had been contracted to build a database to schedule and manage the Gacaca court system. What I remember most from visit was the way in which the genocide would creep into conversations at unexpected intervals. Coming into Kigali from Butare, my driver stopped at a shop on the outskirts of town, went inside and quickly returned with a frilly pink girl’s dress. I asked him how many children he had, and his response – “six – two of my own, and four of my brother’s who escaped the genocide” – quickly turned into a harrowing tale of searching for his nieces and nephews as they hid in the jungle. The genocide is still recent, raw history for everyone in the country, and it’s possible to understand why – given the role of the media in instigating violence – the Kagame government would seek to keep ethnic divisions out of media and politics.
There’s a fine line between preventing incitement to violence and silencing legitimate speech… and it’s not clear to me that the Kagame government has been on the right side of that line. In 2007, Michael Kavanagh reported for On The Media about a Rwandan radio soap opera – Musekeweya – which talks about the tensions between two villages, which are perpetually on the verge of mass violence. The parallels to Hutu/Tutsi conflict are apparent to everyone listening to the show (as much as 80% of the country), but the show stays out of trouble with the authorities by never explicitly mentioning Hutus or Tutsis.
More explicit dialog about what happened between Hutus and Tutsis in 1994 is now complicated by the 2008 Genocide Ideology Law, which is broad, vague and terrifies human rights and freedom of expression organizations. Article XIX released a detailed comment on the new law which reads, in part:
the definition of “genocide ideology” violates international law on genocide and “hate speech” in multiple ways. Furthermore, the system of penalties also breaches international human rights law, particularly with respect to children. We contend that the law is so contrary to international human rights law and humanitarian values that it is fundamentally flawed.
And this law now appears to be a useful tool for challenging political participation. When Victoire Ingabire returned to Rwanda, she visited the genocide memorial museum in Kigali and questioned why it didn’t commemorate any of the Hutus who died in the violence. This question led Kagame’s foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo to characterize Ingabire’s actions as “very deliberate, controversial ethnic politics, this woman really has a genocidal ideology”.
In interviews with US and UK media, Ingabire seems pretty far from expressing support for genocide – her issue appears to be the governments’ unwillingness to address violence against Hutu by Kagame’s conquering RFP army. In an interview today with the New York Times about the arrest of her lawyer, she said, “There was a genocide against the Tutsi, but there were also crimes against humanity, and Kagame doesn’t like to talk about that.”
I’ve been looking for information online today about Peter Erlinder, to get a sense for why the Rwandan government would risk a diplomatic conflict with the US over his arrest. In the process, I’ve been thinking a lot about a conversation I had yesterday with Jay Rosen about the role of explanatory journalism. Jay points out that, in a hyperlinked age, we can do ever so much better than providing a “nut graph”, a single paragraph designed to put a complex breaking story into context. Instead, we can link to careful, thoughtful background material designed to give deep explanation a story and create an appetite for more breaking news on said story. (Jay’s post on the idea of the National Explainer is very much worth reading.)
To understand Erlinder and his arrest, one needs deep explainers on the Rwandan genocide, the prosecution of instigators, the role of the UK, US and France and on alternative narratives for what happened in 1994 and immediately before and after. I’m not able to offer those deep explanations, but I’ll point to what I’ve found.
The William Mitchell College of Law offers strong support for their arrested faculty member and points out that, “Prof. Erlinder exemplifies the great tradition of lawyers who take on the representation of unpopular clients and causes.” The president of the National Lawyers Guild – which Erlinder presided over from 1993-97 – uses similar language to defend Erlinder as “a vigorous advocate in his representation of [Victoire Ingabire].”
It’s not quite that simple. Erlinder isn’t just defending an opposition politician – he’s been a critic of the history of the 1994 conflict and an advocate for an explanation of the Rwandan genocide that puts a great deal of the blame on the shoulders of Paul Kagame. In a commentary in Jurist, a website from University of Pittsburgh’s School of Law, Erlinder argues that Kagame was responsible for triggering the genocide by arranging the assassination of Rwanda’s president Juvénal Habyarimana and that Kagame’s troops killed tens of thousands of Hutu civilians in eastern Rwanda as they entered the country. He further asserts that a US/UK coverup has surpressed evidence about Kagame’s role in Habyarimana’s death, in part because the US wanted Kagame to take over the country and supported his rise to power. Some of what Erlinder asserts is consonant with an emerging understanding of what occurred in 1994 – human rights activist Alison Des Forges, who wrote what is considered the definitive account of the Rwandan genocide before her untimely death, had also criticized Kagame’s RPF for massacres of civilians in 1994 and for subsequent attacks on civilians and refugees in DRCongo… she had been banned from entering the country by the Kagame government. Other of Erlinder’s assertions – the US/UK coverup, notably – are strongly disputed. Erlinder attributes some of what he asserts about the coverup to Clinton administration official J. Brian Atwood, who strongly disputes Erlinder’s account of events.
Erlinder’s case relies on documents he had access to as a defense attorney at the international tribunal, on the unpublished Gersony Report, which (allegedly – the report has never been released and the author refuses to discuss the contents) reported attacks by Kagame’s RPF on civilians, and on statements from Carla Del Ponte, the outspoken ICTR prosecutor who raised questions about Kagame’s role in the 1994 genocide before complaints from the Kagame government led to her replacement. (The Rwandan government complained that prosecution of perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide was too important to be a part time job for a European prosecutor also tasked with prosecuting Yugoslav war criminals. Del Ponte believed that she was removed from the post when she announced her intention to prosecute Kagame.) The Rwanda Documents Project, an online archive of legal documents and opinion pieces from Professor Erlinder, offers an introduction to Erlinder’s arguments and supporting documents.
When I refer to Erlinder’s “case”, I mean that literally. Erlinder and other lawyers attempted to serve President Kagame with a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the widows of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira when Kagame gave the commencement address at Oklahoma Christian University.
In other words, Erlinder had to know he’d be arrested when he came to Rwanda. The open question was whether his arrest would a) cause a diplomatic rift between the US and Rwanda, b) draw attention to Rwanda’s repressive speech and political environment and c) open discussion about the “received history” of the Rwanda genocide. So far, only b) seems to be coming into play. The Wall Street Journal wrote a helpful, if dismissive, editorial about Erlinder’s arrest, which advocates for his release while noting that: “Mr. Erlinder’s views seem foolish, offensive, and ultimately unhelpful to the cause of liberty he claims to champion. But therein lies the test of the free society: Tolerance of the foolish, the offensive, and even the unhelpful.” In other words, they’re putting Erlinder in the same bin as John Yettaw. (As of today, the US State Department has stated that they’re aware of Erlinder’s arrest, but said nothing beyond that statement.)
An “explainer” that puts Erlinder’s actions and motivations in context is no easy thing to provide. It needs to address the current elections, Rwanda’s political and speech environment, the conduct of the RPF in taking over the country in 1994, and, ultimately, the controversy over Habyarimana’s assassination. For a sense for just how fraught that last topic is, it’s instructive to look at this section on Wikipedia – it offers links to the three major theories offered for the assassination, which blame Hutu extremists, Kagame and the RPF and the French government. Each theory has its supporters, and the RPF/Kagame theory that Erlinder supports has the backing of French anti-terrorist magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, who has issued arrest warrants for senior Kagame officials so they can be questioned about he case. (Needless to say, the Rwandan government and others cite reports that contradict Bruguière’s findings.)
Is Erlinder an unhelpful fool, as the WSJ asserts? A conspiracy theorist, as the Rwandan government alleges? A brave activist committed to uncovering the truth and righting an important historical wrong? Perhaps this is where we have to accept the limits of journalism and wait for the verdict of historians. BBC journalist Marc Doyle suggests that determining who assassinated Habyarimana could be “one of the great mysteries of the late 20th Century.” But if we’re going to understand Erlinder’s arrest, we need someone to explain, at minimum, the controversy and what Rwanda’s – and eventually, the US’s – reaction means.
© Source
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
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SurViVors SPEAK OUT - Rights of Victims Seeking Justice and Compensation for the RPF Genocide. This is an Exciting Collaborative Project launched by The AS International Founder Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana, Economist and Human Rights Activist. Join US and Be the First to know about the Mastermind of the Rwandan Genocide Still At large and enjoing Impunity.