|
|
Rwanda: What Went Wrong With Cynthia McKinney-Ibuka Love?
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
OPINION
21 March 2008
Posted to the web 21 March 2008
Kigali
On April 7 1999, former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney spearhead a bi-partisan VIGIL to honor the victims of the Rwanda Genocide. That was after she had concluded a House Hearing on Rwanda. She is now in the spotlight amid accusations of negationism from survivors association IBUKA, RNA reports.
IBUKA Head Simburudali Theodore said on Wednesday that the outspoken US politician-turned-campaigner has been working with Genocide fugitives and political opponents of the Rwandan government to undermine the Tutsi massacres.
Mr. Simburudali was reacting to a conference due in Canada on Friday next week where individuals accused of negating the Genocide will speak. One of the people invited is Spanish lawyer Mr. Jordi Palou-Loverdos - who is part of the indictment team for Rwandan officers.
The fire from IBUKA is based on the fact that Ms. McKinney is closely associated to the same indictments by Spanish Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles against 40 senior army officers. President Paul Kagame is subject to the controversial case but is protected by presidential immunity.
When the investigation into the case was opened in Spain in February 2003, Congresswoman McKinney was the notable speaker.
"Spain took a bold step forward when they decided to prosecute Pinochet. And the entire world was looking at Spain and all human rights activists all over the world celebrated Spain.
So Spain has set a precedent. I can guarantee you that when Spain undertakes and supports such an action all eyes of the World, particularly Africans and those of African descent all over the world, our eyes will be trained on Spain, " Ms. McKinney, the first African American Congresswoman from State of Georgia, told an audience of journalists and campaigners in Barcelona on February 16, 2003.
VIGIL
In December 1999, the Congresswoman was up in arms after former US Secretary of State Mrs. Madeleine Albright and Ms. Susan Rice refused to testify at Hearing by US lawmakers probing US policy on Rwanda before and during the Genocide.
Mrs. Albright was the U.S. Ambassador to the UN during the Genocide and was believed to be in possession of key information about high-level decisions that led the U.S. to call on the UN Security Council to dramatically reduce the number of UN peacekeepers in Rwanda shortly after the killing began in earnest in April.
Ms. Susan Rice was the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa at the time of the Genocide.
Following the refusal to testify, Cynthia McKinney, a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a member of the House international relations committee (HIRC), wrote to then President Bill Clinton, demanding that he order the two women and other key members of his administration to co-operate with the inquiry.
Recalling that members of the State Department also failed to appear at the 1996 HIRC hearing into the genocide, according to an article by the National Post (Dec. 6 1999) she wrote to the President: "Once again, the State Department is attempting to hide from public scrutiny of its handling of the Rwandan Genocide.
"If the State Department should continue to stonewall and refuse to assist the critical examination of the United Nations' handling of the Rwandan genocide, then I may have to seriously reconsider the role the HIRC will play in discovering what the administration knew and when it knew it."
In 2003, Ms. McKinney was Ranking Member of the International Operations and Human Rights Subcommittee of the US Congress when she organized the VIGIL in remembrance of those that perished in Genocide. Recently appointed Information Minister - and Genocide survivor herself Louise Mushikiwabo was part of the organizing team.
DR Congo minerals
The hard-spitting former lawmaker did not stop her push at the Clinton era on his officials but has also accused the President himself of fueling the wars that ravaged DR Congo between 1996 and 2000.
In May last year, Ms. McKinney told the close-door Spanish investigation she had helped launch that the US government maintained the conflicts in this region for mining concessions in the vast mineral-rich country.
Ms. McKinney - sent to Africa in 1996 to carry out President Clinton's policy in the Great Lakes region, told Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia that: "I accused his (Clinton) Administration of having acted as accomplices in the war crimes in (DR) Congo and instigating a Genocide."
"What my government wanted," Ms. McKinney explained, "wasn't in the best interest of the Congolese people: (President Bill) Clinton kept me there because he wanted an African-American whom Kabila trusted. Even though Mobutu was, technically, the President of Congo, it was Kabila who was in charge of granting the mining concessions."
During the same period, Rwandan forces were in Congo following the invasion to pursue extremist rebels - who still remain in the country's jungles. Critics say Rwanda, like Uganda, and the other countries that were in Congo, were there for its minerals - claims denied outrightly in Kigali.
The allegations against the Rwandan officers go that they commanded murderous campaigns in camps housing Rwandan refugees where thousands were deliberately killed along with nine Spanish nuns.
|
IBUKA has characterized the indictments as another move by Genocide fugitives and opponents of government to haunt the same soldiers who stopped the 100-day mass murder in Rwanda. Critics of the indictments have also described the Judge himself as revisionist because most of his evidence was from testimony of already-known Genocide fugitives.
The outburst from the IBUKA President prompted a participant on a discussion forum to retort: "What went wrong? Friends of yesterday turned today's enemies? What went wrong?".
Did IBUKA change its stance against Ms. McKinney when she shifted her campaign weapon onto the government that has put millions of Francs into supporting Genocide survivors, some commentators are wondering?
Actually , nothing went wrong with Cynthia, but something went certainly wrong with the Rwanda Patriotic Front war machine. Those in RPF had hard to live in refugee camps for more than 30 years, so they had no mercy when they took the weapons agant their motherland,felloww brothers and sisters,..parents and foreigners who were living in the country.
Let us be brave and read Dallaire (2005) , pages 358;360-361;515 and 522.Let us Shake the Hands with the Devil like Romeo Dallaire did.
Dallaire reports:
" An american officer felt no shame as he informed me that the lives of... [Read Full Text]
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
