How do you work behind the scenes to prevent people from dragging their neighbours out into the street and hacking them to death with machetes?

How do you utilize 'soft power' to prevent the wholesale butchery of villages that have sought refuge in a church, only to be systematically raped and murdered, one after another, by people drunk on power and fueled by alchohol?

I think the regrettable truth is that in such a situation direct intervention is a moral obligation. The damning truth is that those in power in the West knew what was going on, and the hutu power zealots knew we would do nothing to stop them. And no, that doesn't mean I think we should have dropped depleted uranium on Hutu villages, but a government capable of doing this to their own people no longer has the right to govern, and the Tutsis were utterly incapable of defending themselves.

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When is interventionism justified?

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Dallaire argues forcibly in the movie for an established UN peacekeeping force that does not rely entirely on donations of soldiers from different countries. He also argues against the method of making decisions on intervention (i.e. the veto power of one nation or individual) I'm not much of a military fan, but he makes some very good arguments with some very gory facts.

Gourevitch is a journalist who went to Rwanada about a year after and stayed for a couple of years talking to survivors.

I've read a lot of academic stuff on Rwanda and this book made many things clear. Gourevitch does a bit of moralising though.

Also, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has written some pretty good analysis.

Homer-Dixon wrote something on Rwanda to prove his environment/security link, but this is rubbish. H-D's analysis doesn't fit.

Essentially, the place was pretty messed up, being a poor country whose people have been treated so shabbily (to say the least) and then mix in personal ambition, machetes, and the very cynical foreign policies of the US and France...

You can blame the UN, but that's silly because really it has no independent power. The UN is an amalgomation of power interests, somewhat moderated by institutions that promote dialogue and some transperancy. Simply, it wasn't in either France or US' interest to do much. And Britain, Russia, and China don't tend ot interfere in what is informally the US' and France's jurisdiction. (much like the US wont do squat about Tibet and recently didn't do squat about Central Asia. Until 9-11, when they were able to eat further into Russia's terrian.)

Also, while I believe in the idea of the UN, I don't think the UN should be given troops to control since it has little acountability to people.

[ 03 February 2004: Message edited by: FPTP ]

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And no, that doesn't mean I think we should have dropped depleted uranium on Hutu villages, but a government capable of doing this to their own people no longer has the right to govern, and the Tutsis were utterly incapable of defending themselves.

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How could you be certain that the Americans wouldn't drop depleted uranium on Hutu villages?
Then again, maybe that's the only way we could have stopped the genocide after it got started.

*it should be noted that I don't necessarily agree with the above statement, I am simply being the Devil’s advocate*

[ 03 February 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

The horrors of Rwanda circa 1994 have been used to make the case of "humanitarian intervention" again and again - yet few people really study the details of the case.

- The assumption that the US was "too indifferent" to intervene is not borne out by facts. The US, in fact, was intervening.Only they were doing so covertly by backing the Rwandan Patriotic Front. Paul Kagame, leader of the RPF and now President of Rwanda, was trained at Fort Leavenworth and led invasion forces into Rwanda from Uganda. Publicly the US backed the Arusha Accords and the UN Forces who were there to enforce them. Behind the scenes, they were financing an army that was in the process of violating them. If the US had beefed up its commitment to the UN forces they would have been acting against the regional warlord who they hoped to install.

- The assumption that what occurred in Rwanda was, in fact, an ethnic genocide and not a gruesome civil war is not proven. The above link shows that there is considerable debate on this fact. Defense lawyers at the Tribunal have been forced to strike in hopes of getting a fair trial for their clients who are presumed guilty. And Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte was eventually forced to quit the Tribunal because she was considering indictments for members of Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Army. Evidence indicates that the killings had far more to do with political partisanship than ethnicity.

Regardless of how you view the events of Rwanda in 1994 a few troubling things are clear.

First, the US has succesfully, and deliberately, obscured their role in the events and subsequently used the horrifying events as justification for invasions of other nations.

Second, that the rhetoric of the genocide tribunal has given the Rwandan dictator Kagame carte-blanche to rape pillage and plunder Eastern Congo in the name of national justice and security.

Finally, that anyone who is actually interested in human rights, peace, and democracy should never never assume that an imperial power like the US will ever act as an impartial broker. They will only intervene (or not intervene) to serve their own national interest. Anyone who backs a US-led incursion should understand this and double check their facts.

[ 09 February 2004: Message edited by: Holy Holy Holy ]

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The assumption that the US was "too indifferent" to intervene is not borne out by facts. The US, in fact, was intervening.Only they were doing so covertly by backing the Rwandan Patriotic Front. Paul Kagame, leader of the RPF and now President of Rwanda, was trained at Fort Leavenworth and led invasion forces into Rwanda from Uganda. Publicly the US backed the Arusha Accords and the UN Forces who were there to enforce them. Behind the scenes, they were financing an army that was in the process of violating them. If the US had beefed up its commitment to the UN forces they would have been acting against the regional warlord who they hoped to install.

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Thank you for the information. I know Jack about the African continent. It's sad really.

Does the fact that it was a politically motivated mass slaughter make it somehow less horrible?

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Finally, that anyone who is actually interested in human rights, peace, and democracy should never never assume that an imperial power like the US will ever act as an impartial broker. They will only intervene (or not intervene) to serve their own national interest. Anyone who backs a US-led incursion should understand this and double check their facts.

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[ 10 February 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

Whether it was war or genocide the events were truly terrible. Genocide tends to be percieved as a greater crime. Furthermore, a "genocide" implies that one group, with power, systematically murders another group, without power, on the basis of race or ethnicity. What seem to have happened in Rwanda is that two armies, and people allied with them, killed each other, and continue to do so.

What could have stopped the slaughter? The answer you ask me not to give (an end to imperialism) is tempting and accurate. The events certainly were a consequence of American intervention in the region. But let's look at other options. If more UN troops had been dispensed that might have helped but we have to understand WHY UN troops did not recieve help. The fact is powerful nations with a veto at the UN wanted this war to happen. If Mandela, for example, had intervened (and he couldn't have but let's pretend) that may have concievably stalled things but ultimately not for very long. Mandela's political strength has been derived in no small part by being very political in his challenges to global power. If he had ever challenged US and French interests in such a direct way he may very well not be where he is today. He'd wind up perhaps dead or at least discredited. Not to mention the fact that African leaders who involve themselves in other nation's affairs are invariably accused of imperial designs. When Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe sent troops to support the Congolese government of Laurent Kabila the accusations flew fast and furious. It was the beginning of the end for Mugabe.

The real question is how do we stop this from happening again? To a large extent it's the African people who must decide these things. The one thing we can do is stop our government from intervening in support of wannabe dictators and other thugs. And the be very wary of any calls for "humanitarian intervention".

[ 10 February 2004: Message edited by: Holy Holy Holy ]

It makes more sense if you've read a bit on Rwanda. But it speaks to the needs of realpolitik. Again, I would strongly recommend "We wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Die".

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Genocide as defined by the United Nations is the direct physical destruction of another racial or national group.
Oxford English Dictionary

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If more UN troops had been dispensed that might have helped but we have to understand WHY UN troops did not recieve help.

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Kofi Annan headed up UN peacekeeping at the time. When Romeo Dallaire sent the cable to the UN, warning of an imminent genocide, the UN reaction was, "oh no, another Somalia". They didn't recognize the unique nature of the situation in Rwanda. They dithered. They would not intervene in what they saw as a non-escallating civil war. They basically ignored Dallaire's informant, ignored Dallaire's opinion of the informant's reliability. Basically, Annan and his under secretary didn't believe the information about the impending genocide, and did nothing to prevent it.

By the time President Habyarimana's plane went down, it was too late. Almost immediately after his death was announced, the genocide began.

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When Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe sent troops to support the Congolese government of Laurent Kabila the accusations flew fast and furious. It was the beginning of the end for Mugabe.

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The real question is how do we stop this from happening again? To a large extent it's the African people who must decide these things. The one thing we can do is stop our government from intervening in support of wannabe dictators and other thugs. And the be very wary of any calls for "humanitarian intervention".

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The US has been fucking with Africa for decades, supporting this dictator against that Marxist insurrectionist, with little concept of the blundering stupidity their "interventions" represent. All over the world, they play one group off another, always with an eye to the client government, always with an eye to economic imperialism. They, in their greed, have a talent for making everything horrifically worse.

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Originally posted by Holy Holy Holy:
What do you mean by realpolitik?

Kagame's real need to conquer Congo and harvest it's resources? Or the real need to kill millions in refugee camps in Eastern Congo in the name of stopping further killing?

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First of all, just a brief reminder of the definition of genocide which was touched on in this morning's first presentation. But just to remind ourselves, according to Article Two of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, 9 September 1948, 'genocide' means: any of the following 'acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group' as such. Then it goes on to list five acts: 1. Killing members of the group; 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births in the group; and 5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Genocide is defined as a crime against humanity and whether it is committed in a time of peace or a time of war it constitutes a crime under international law. Importantly, in relation to this debate, genocide is defined in international law not just as killing on a massive scale but as killing, or a number of other acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

It is my belief that the events in Rwanda between April and July 1994 do clearly conform to this definition.

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My understanding of the Rwandan situation (if it is possible to 'understand' such things) derives from the powerful NFB film, Chronicle of a Genocide Foretold.
and the very moving and informative We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, mentioned by FPTP.

[ 10 February 2004: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

FPTP - Not trying to be dismissive. I did read it and read more of the same old Kagame spin. I'm not sure what you mean by realpolitick.

Rebecca - Many of the "facts" as established have been proven untrue or at least suspect. There was obviously racism on both sides of the conflict but racialization is an inevitable part of any conflcit from World War Two to the latest Gulf War. What the frustrated attorneys of the Arusha Tribunal are finding is that there is no evidence to indicate that there was a deliberate plan to eliminate people based on their race.

Rebecca - The "official story" is that the UN chose to dither. I find it unbelievable that the UN and the US had no idea what was about to happen. I think the latter simply didn't care and hamstrung the former to prevent action.

Rebecca - The West's infatuation with Mugabe's "evil" can be traced to two events, in my opinion. The takeover of white farms and his decision to "meddle" in the events in the Congo.

While having a court system is admirable, it may be an inadequate way to administer justcie in the case of genocice.

Proving a coherent chain of command, without any reasonable doubt, is difficult to do, and that's the main problem.

There's tons of evidence, but it's all indirect. This is because we're charing those who didn't do the killing, but organised it and planned it.

Anyway, I've read tons on Rwanda and I'm just confused. I don't think it's the West's role to judge anyway, our governments are not innocent and we can't possibly know what's really going on in full.

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The West's infatuation with Mugabe's "evil" can be traced to two events, in my opinion. The takeover of white farms and his decision to "meddle" in the events in the Congo.

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Rwanda: the UN didn't just sit by. The UN position was instructed by the cynical policies of the US and France. Read any thing about the Rwandan conflict, especially what has been recomended above.

Zimbabwe: We heard nothing of Mugabe while he was following along with the IMF "advised" reforms AND oppressing opposition. But when the IMF project proved to be a brutal failure (much like most of their neo-liberal projects) and the Zimbabwe economy went into a tailspin, and all the people in Harare were cursing the name "IMF", and the (white) farmers refused to sell food to the people (oh, those poor wealthy farmers! hahaha), and a desperate Mugabe became blackpower again, then we heard about Big Bad Bob.

I'm no defender of Comrade Bob, but they way wealthy landowners were portrayed as victims really sickened me.

Certainly, Robert Mugabe maintains his support because of suppression, but the average citizen is also aware of the strong political power of the farmers, and trust them less. Cought between a rock and a hard place, you may say.

Again, we like to demonize, but we don't like to pay attention. Zimbabwe didn't come into existence in 2000 (the time of the land siezures), discuss 1999 or earlier first.

But don't mistake the concern about his "tyrany" - constantly expressed within the mainstream press - as having anything to do with a respect for democracy. Far worse things are happening in Rwanda - but you'll never hear a peep about Kagame's dictatorial rule. Mugabe has pissed off the world elites by:

- Taking the side of Laurent Kabila in the civil war in the Congo. Kabila was installed by the US and promptly thumbed his nose at them. Then Rwanda and Uganda invaded to slap him into line. Zimbabwe backed Kabila and sent troops.

- Kicking whites off their land. The farmers that Mugabe has disposessed have powerful links to the motherland - Britania.

- Being bad. Mugabe has made friends with every anti-US bad boy on the planet. From Qadafi in Libya to Fidel Castro. Like the Kings of old nothing angers the US then someone who thumbs their nose at them. Challenging the US in any way is usually enough to get labelled in the mainstream press.

Remember - the US doesn't hate Chavez because he's socialist. That's incidental. They hate him because he's not willing to act in their interests. If a nominal socialist (like Lagos in Chile) toes the line then the US has no problems. And even the biggest US lackey will fall out of favor if they stop obeying orders (witness Saddam Hussein and Mobutu Sese Seko)

EDITED TO ADD: Falling out of line with the IMF is another reason for Mugabe's new status as "global villain"

[ 10 February 2004: Message edited by: Holy Holy Holy ]

Perhaps Mugabe's mistake was to provide general amnesty to the wealthy land owners who fought against democratic rule, and only taking the land of absentee land owners.

This isn't an unpopular view down there.

Or the granting of amnesty to the land owners who waged a war to stop him? (while at the same time cracking down on the Ndbele leadership)

I'd say he, like any good old Machiavellian dicator, worked the crowd both ways. Love and fear.

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the US doesn't hate Chavez because he's socialist. That's incidental. They hate him because he's not willing to act in their interests. If a nominal socialist (like Lagos in Chile) toes the line then the US has no problems.

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Is Lagos a advocate of the "third way?"

[ 10 February 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Originally posted by Holy Holy Holy:
Yes.

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I've been trying to find this ruling but I simply can't so I'll post this link. It's about the attempt to deport a Rwandan man to be tried at the genocide tribunal. The Canadian court found that there was little substance to the case and that, in fact, individuals trying to make the case for genocide were deliberately distorting the truth.

For example, a speech made at a rally was found to have been deliberately mistranslated to have racist overtones and to make a call for murder that was not there. The judge notes:

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I cannot but express my bewilderment not only at the ease with which Mr. Mugesera’s speech was altered for partisan reasons by the International Commission of Inquiry, but especially at the ease and confidence with which the alterations of the text were subsequently accepted

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Her attitude throughouther testimony disclosed a clear bias against Mr. Mugesera and an implacabledetermination to defend the conclusions arrived at the by ICI and to have Mr.Mugesera’s head.

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...was so weak, once the evidence and testimony which it was patently unreasonable to consider was set aside, that the final conclusion was unavoidable...

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Be that as it may, these facts cannot be used to suggest that there was, in fact, no genocide. It took place. The fact that Rwanda had been engaged in civil war before that makes no difference. The civil conflict is context, not the substance of what occurred.

When the UN arrived in Rwanda in the fall of 1993, it was to enforce a peace agreement between the Hutu dictatorship under Habyarimana, and the Tutsi insurrectionists (composed mostly of Tutsis who were displaced by the Hutu regime and were refugees in neighbouring countries) under Kagame. Neither side was particularly interested in maintaining the peace agreement (consisting of various democratic reforms, a multi-party system, etc.), as each side wanted complete control. Violence on both sides continued well into 1994.

While Habyarimana wasn't interested in democracy, wasn't a moderate (he was a dictator) he wasn't an extremist. He wasn't interested in sharing power with the Tutsi minority, so he didn't reign in the extremists, but I don't believe he actively participated in the planning of the genocide in any way.

When the massacres began, they were fundamentally different from the violence that had been ongoing since Kagame's refugee forces invaded, and since the peace agreement had been reached. That difference was what the UN missed (or didn't give credence). That fundamental difference is what you, HHH, don't seem to understand.

What differentiated the massacres from the civil violence was not numbers alone, was not the targeting of Tutsis alone.

What made the genocide a genocide, and not a massacre committed within a civil conflict, was who the Hutu mass murderers targeted. They killed not only those who posed a political threat, they killed not only the adult men and women who might pose a physical threat of some kind, they killed everyone. They killed the elderly, the ill, children. They were instructed to disembowel pregnant women, to ensure that nothing of the Tutsi bloodline continued.

That's genocide. Period.

Back to the Mugabe thing,

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I'm no defender of Comrade Bob, but they way wealthy landowners were portrayed as victims really sickened me.

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[ 11 February 2004: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

I don't think anyone is disputing the fact that women, men and children died in horrific ways. The question is whether this was part of a deliberate campaign to exterminate a population. Women, men and children were slaughtered, terrorized and raped by US troops during the Vietnam War and the Viet Cong often retaliated with similar brutality but this is not considered genocide.

If we are going to class the killing of innocents in Rwanda 1994 as "genocide" then we, at the very least, have to do the same for the millions of innocent men, women, and children subsequently massacred in Eastern Congo simply because they were Hutu who had fled Rwanda. Those murders meet the same criteria you have laid out above.

I'm pretty sure that will never happen - at least while Kagame maintains friendly relations with the US. Efforts by individuals at the Tribunal to have these crimes (or ANY crimes by the RPF) investigated have been totally and utterly stonewalled.

[ 11 February 2004: Message edited by: Holy Holy Holy ]

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I've read a lot of the accounts, almost all of which have been filtered through people who weren't there at the time, and many of which, as in the case I mentioned above, have later been proven to be deliberately misleading and false.

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I don't think anyone is disputing the fact that women, men and children died in horrific ways. The question is whether this was part of a deliberate campaign to exterminate a population. Women, men and children were slaughtered, terrorized and raped by US troops during the Vietnam War and the Viet Cong often retaliated with similar brutality but this is not considered genocide.

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You still want to question the Rwandan holocaust?

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If we are going to class the killing of innocents in Rwanda 1994 as "genocide" then we, at the very least, have to do the same for the millions of innocent men, women, and children subsequently massacred in Eastern Congo simply because they were Hutu who had fled Rwanda. Those murders meet the same criteria you have laid out above.

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Fears of genocide in countries neighbouring Rwanda have been surfacing with horrifying regularity since 1994 - Tutsis in Burundi have been murdered by Hutus (and vice versa). In northeastern Congo, the Hema (supported by the Ugandan army) has been slaughtering systematically slaughtering Lendu farmers and their families. Interethnic violence is everywhere in central Africa, whipped up and exploited by political opportunism.

The difference between these situations and what occured in Rwanda, is that the violence against civilians hasn't escallated to the point where the systematic wiping out of one tribe or ethnic group has actually begun.

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I've read a lot of the accounts, almost all of which have been filtered through people who weren't there at the time, and many of which, as in the case I mentioned above, have later been proven to be deliberately misleading and false.

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As a journalist in the 90s, I covered the events in Rwanda from Toronto, and I dislike to revisit them, so while I have a copy of the book at my disposal, I am reluctant to begin it. The material is very distressing, so much so that my friend, who worked with Dallaire on his book and went to Rwanda to research and talk to survivors, did a dry dive off the Bloor Viaduct in June 2002.

There is an abundance of material on the subject: Annan, his Chief of Staff when he was head of Peacekeeping in 93/94, Madeleine Albright, Dallaire, and numerous Hutu and Tutsi survivors all have particular perspectives on the events. But there are common threads and there are facts that aren't in dispute.

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If no one can be absolutely certain of their facts, how in the name of Hades can we debate this issue?

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What I find troubling about the mainstream discourse on the events of 1994 is that it sets everything within a paradigm of absolute good and evil. Tutsis are "good" and Hutus are "evil". In real world terms this means that:

- Anything Kagame does is presnted as "good" since he is the Leader of the Tutsis. The world largely ignores the fact that he is a dictator - and a fairly brutal one at that.

- When millions of Hutu refugees are slaughtered in Eastern Congo it's justified simply by pointing out that they're Hutu from Rwanda and therefore "evil".

- The fact that the RPF invaded Rwanda and took it over is almost entirely ignored - despite the fact that this was an act of aggression and thus a "war crime" - because the RPF are "good" and the people who lost control are "evil"

Thus, the fact that US proxies invaded a sovereign country and is ignored, the fact that those same proxies have launched a subsequent war against Congo which has a body in the millions is ignored, and the issue that many on the North American Left have taken on is "How do we get the US to commit itself to foreign intervention?" which is, in fact, the source of most of these problems.

[ 12 February 2004: Message edited by: Holy Holy Holy ]

I think some of the reluctance to rule firmly in such cases is due to a certain sensitivity around issues of cultural and political sovereignry that has less to due with respect for difference and more to do with fear of encroachment and the repurcussions. State bodies are everso fearful of interference in other state bodies' affairs, for fear they may at some point be at the receiving end of such interference and have no real defense.

Also, the failure to be properly informed of the context of such events (incompetence?) is offered as an excuse for laxity in applying a moral/legal standard, when the lack of contextual understanding is deliberate.

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Guarding the horror

Rory Carroll meets a Rwandan genocide survivor who is determined that the savage events he witnessed will not be glossed over

Friday February 13, 2004

Emmanuel Murangira has a hole the size of a small grape in his left temple. The bullet saved his life, in a way, since he fell unconscious and was covered in blood, apparently dead.
He awoke beneath a pile of bodies, climbed out and fled, scampering through hills and glades to the nearby border with Burundi, one of a handful of Tutsis to escape slaughter in Murambi, a district in southern Rwanda.

That was 10 years ago. Today Mr Murangira is back in Murambi and working at the massacre site, a school campus, as an oral historian, or tour guide, for visitors.

When words fail he just points. Stacked on desks in classrooms are hundreds of skeletons. At first sight it could be Pompeii but then you see the remains have been preserved with lime.

Fragments of individuality endure. A small child with tattered red shorts. An adult with an orange shirt. Tufts of hair from an otherwise smooth skull. Some final moments you can imagine: arms shielding faces, others with palms pressed together, in prayer or pleading, perhaps both.

Hundreds of massacre sites dot Rwanda but Murambi is unique in displaying preserved remains. Most of the 40,000 estimated to have died here are buried in mass graves but enough are in the 24 classrooms to give a sense of the horror.

As the 10th anniversary of the genocide approaches, the site is due to change. A new centre, which will house a permanent exhibition, will keep the skeletons on shelves, still visible but behind glass.

It is part of an ambitious plan to erect proper memorials across the country on sites which have been barely touched since Tutsi-led rebels ousted the extremist Hutu government that incited the murder of 800,000 Tutsis and sympathetic Hutus.

There is fraught debate about whether to bury all remains out of dignity or to leave some displayed as a warning. Mr Murangira, 48, favours the latter, which is why every day for almost a decade, unpaid, he has guarded the classrooms.

"Most people say genocide never took place in this country. That's why we keep the bodies here. So they can see what happened."

In fact, very few deny the genocide, but there is a desire, not just by perpetrators, to gloss over its scale and impact.

Mr Murangira welcomes the idea of moving the bodies to the adjacent Murambi Genocide Prevention Centre, where they should remain safe and visible.

The centre is the initiative of the Aegis Trust, a British charity, African Rights, a human rights watchdog and Rwanda's culture ministry. "You should have seen the relief on Emmanuel's face when we told him we would build a centre," said James Smith, of Aegis.

Mr Murangira looks forward to no longer being a lonely sentinel but, with all 49 relatives dead, including his wife and three children, he is not sure what he will do. "I'm old, I'm not educated," he shrugs.

One task which awaits him is testifying next month at a traditional court, known as gacaca, against some of the alleged killers, a belated exercise in justice which has stoked tension.

Just an hour's drive from Murambi, three witnesses were recently killed, reportedly by genocide suspects who wanted to stop their testimony. Other witnesses have been intimidated, said Ibuka, an umbrella group for survivors.

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Originally posted by swallow:
I don't have much to add, Rebecca having said it all so well already. However, on the Mugesera judgment: the fact that it was made by judges who know a fraction of what Allison Des Forges know, does not make it true. The judges had no idea what they were talking about with that speech, which those who have studied the context understand was a clear incitement to the genocide that happened.

This is an interesting analysis of the speech.

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1 - The court, having heard witnesses on both sides, found that the interpretation of the speech used in this article was not accurate.

2 - The judges heard DesForges and they heard witnesses who challenged what DesForges said and they believed the latter not the former.

3 - The judges found that DesForge's contextualizing was biased and misleading after hearing witnesses from the other side of the issue.

Now one can argue that these judges were duped but I don't see any evidence that they headed into this trial with any bias or prejudice. It's possible that the defense got lucky and they convinced the judges that their witnesses were credible even though they were all lying. I'm inclined, however, to support the judges ruling: that Mugesera was reacting to a brutal invasion of his country and gave a rallying speech urging everyone to fight against the invaders and anyone who supported them.

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I'm inclined, however, to support the judges ruling: that Mugesera was reacting to a brutal invasion of his country and gave a rallying speech urging everyone to fight against the invaders and anyone who supported them.

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I find this surprising. According to this page, although Congo (then Zaire) produced 45% of the world's cobalt in 1985, by 1996 the figure was down to 7% -- with US imports from Africa having decreased since 1991.

The page claims that imports from Finland, Norway and Russia have increased since that time. Cobalt is also produced in Canada and Australia.

The US interest in the region is hardly anything new. The CIA was actively involved in the overthrow of Lumumba and provided support to Mobutu throughout the 70s and 80s. One would assume that the US is just as interested in having "friendly" governments in Rwanda, Uganda and Congo for the same reasons they have always been.

And, again, Rufus, a Canadian Court has been persuaded that the translation you're reading is deliberately inaccurate. Read the link I posted above.

Edited to add the judge's quote I posted above:

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I cannot but express my bewilderment not only at the ease with which Mr. Mugesera’s speech was altered for partisan reasons by the International Commission of Inquiry, but especially at the ease and confidence with which the alterations of the text were subsequently accepted

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[ 13 February 2004: Message edited by: Holy Holy Holy ]

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In 1996 Eastern Congo, where most of the cobalt in Congo is mined, was in the midst of a brutal war (death toll in the millions) which, to say the least, had an impact on industry.

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This page says the civil war began in October 1996.

In any case, if the US strategy was to arm proxies in order to secure or increase cobalt supplies, it was evidently counterproductive. Again: I find it hard to believe anyone would want to depend on supplies from such an unstable region when they're readily available elsewhere.

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One would assume that the US is just as interested in having "friendly" governments in Rwanda, Uganda and Congo for the same reasons they have always been.

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Originally posted by Holy Holy Holy:
I'm inclined, however, to support the judges ruling: that Mugesera was reacting to a brutal invasion of his country and gave a rallying speech urging everyone to fight against the invaders and anyone who supported them.

I'm inclined, at the very least, not to rule it out as a possibility.

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But of course you're inclined that way. It backs up the point you want to make. My point is that the fact that the court ruled Mugesera was not inciting genocide does not make it true. A court in this country also ruled recently that Roma are not Gypsies.

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People who refused to support Gulf war two are using USian arguments to justify a direct intervention in Rwanda. When he was trying to drum up support for his invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, Bush said that the Iraqis could not defend themselves against Saddam. He stated that the UN was corrupt and ineffectual.
I thought the majority of babblers believed that intervention was a bad thing. I guess I was wrong.

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A UN humanitarian intervention is not something which would always be wrong. Intervention should be contemplated only for extreme situations, but sometimes extreme situations do occur.

When someone like Bush starts to talk about humanitarian intervention, we have to listen carefully, and decide whether this is one of those rare times when more will be achieved than by not intervening.

In the case of Iraq, US objections to the quality of his rule were obviously not principled ones, since the worst abuses occurred during the period in which he was a de facto ally of the US.

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What would have happened if the U.S. had intervened directly?

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What would have happened if the U.S. had intervened directly?

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Well, I generally find it futile, and uninteresting, to speculate on would-have-beens or might-have-beens.

But no-one -- at least, no-one on the ground in Rwanda -- was actually asking the US to intervene directly, at least not by sending their own troops unilaterally.

According to this review of Dallaire's book:

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A few weeks into the genocide General Dallaire formulated a plan to stop the killing which involved the protection and feeding of Tutsis and moderate Hutus at football stadiums and other defendable sites across Rwanda.

It seemed workable at the time, and he had troop offers from various African countries - Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, Nigeria and others - to implement it.

What he needed from the US, Britain or France was airlift to take the African soldiers to Rwanda and some military equipment to kit them out. But the west, led by the US and backed by Britain, prevaricated, suggesting that UN soldiers should go to the borders of Rwanda to deal with refugees.

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[ 14 February 2004: Message edited by: 'lance ]

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Originally posted by 'lance:

[ 14 February 2004: Message edited by: 'lance ]

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What if Fidel Castro had gone to America to play baseball...
what if the Mongols had invaded Western Europe...
what if Abraham Lincoln hadn't been shot...

Great stuff...

wasn't there a civil war in Burundi two?

[ 14 February 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 14 February 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Originally posted by jeff house:
But when a million or so unarmed people are literally being hacked to death, and the corpses piling high on the street, I think stopping the slaughter is necessary. National boundaries mean a lot, but they shouldn't guarantee utter impunity to commit mass murder.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
Well? would it have made things worse? Better?

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Originally posted by Coyote:
Holy, Holy, Holy:

Fine. Critique American empire all you like, I am all for it. Now, if we wake up tomorrow and find out that the government of X is rounding up all members of the Yian population and hacking them to death at a rate of over 1,000 people a day . . .what is the progressive, anti-imperialist response?

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Your reasoning emotionally...
however, I would like to see Holy answer the question.

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Again, I refer to my original point which is that the US never intended to intervene. That the US would have intervened, or encouraged the UN to intervene, but was simply too distracted and indifferent is a myth - and one that should be put down right now.

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I didn't ask about how realistic the idea of an American intervention was, or how ruthless American imperialists can be, I simply asked you to pretend for a moment that the great Satan did in fact care for the people of Rwanda and did intervene directly. What would have happened.

[ 16 February 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[Edited to remove Coyote's original screen name]

[ 06 September 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

I simply asked you to pretend for a moment that the great Satan did in fact care for the people of Rwanda and did intervene directly. What would have happened.

[ 16 February 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Well, if the US "cared" (holding back our resistance to doing silly things like giving states human emotions) billions of people around the world would die of shock.

If the US didn't interfere? If? If? As has been posted ad nausium: the US did interfere. And we saw what happened.

We need to ask ourselves: what guides US foreign policy in Africa and how do we change the undesirable bits?

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Originally posted by Coyote:
Holy, Holy, Holy:

Fine. Critique American empire all you like, I am all for it. Now, if we wake up tomorrow and find out that the government of X is rounding up all members of the Yian population and hacking them to death at a rate of over 1,000 people a day . . .what is the progressive, anti-imperialist response?

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What might happen is that you might wake up tommorrow and "learn" that the Yian population is being murdered and you might be informed that your government is going to overtake the area for the good of the population. But to pretend that the US just "woke up" one morning and "for no reason" Hutus were killing Tutsis is offensive and silly.

You will hear about it when it's convenient for you to hear about it and not a moment sooner. When was the last time you heard about the millions of Hutus killed in Congo? Or the human-rights situation in Congo-Brazzaville? Most people haven't and they won't hear about it either.

If there was overwhelming evidence that something the US was about to do was in the interest of humanity I'd back it, of course - for what it's worth. If I'd been alive I'd have said that the US entry into World War Two was a good thing but I'd also have no illusions that they were doing it to save Jews or Gays from death camps.

What's troubling to me is that in spite of, in fact BECAUSE of, the United States' clear role in causing the deaths of millions of Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda and Congo, progressives are now arguing that we have to push the US to be MORE imperialist. Let's be clear: the hue and cry for "humanitarian intervention" is leading us back to colonialism. The white man's burden is now to "teach human rights" instead of "civilize the heathen" but it's the same crap.

And CMOT, I'm not answering your question because I can't think of anything to say. What if the US really was a great big powerful force for good? Well, then that would be great. But one may as well ask: What if Hitler had conquered Poland to improve labour conditions?

[ 16 February 2004: Message edited by: Holy Holy Holy ]

[Edited to remove Coyote's original screen name]

[ 06 September 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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If you want to play alternative universe foreign policy simulation, you should start another thread. Preferably in Free Dominion.

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And CMOT, I'm not answering your question because I can't think of anything to say. What if the US really was a great big powerful force for good? Well, then that would be great. But one may as well ask: What if Hitler had conquered Poland to improve labour conditions?

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Thank you. You answered my question and I find the answer extremely chilling.

[ 16 February 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

Thank you. You answered my question and I find the answer extremely chilling.

[ 16 February 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Why chilling? And, oddly enough, isn't this the reason why Russia invaded?

No offense was taken, CMOT. I was taking a swipe at Free Dominion people (they of the alterior universe).

"What if" questions can be useful, but only when they are reasonable. I mean, let's not change the entire nature of the universe or give states human characteristics.

But what if, say, the US did want to do something progressive in Rwanda for PR purposes.

Or what should have Canada said at the UN once the government found out about what was happening in Rwanda (assuming they found out about it when Dellair issued the warning)?

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Why chilling? And, oddly enough, isn't this the reason why Russia invaded?

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Because now I have a clear and somewhat grisly picture in my head of the results of a direct "humanitarian" intervention, and I've come to decision, it wouldn't have helped.

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What's troubling to me is that in spite of, in fact BECAUSE of, the United States' clear role in causing the deaths of millions of Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda and Congo, progressives are now arguing that we have to push the US to be MORE imperialist.

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What progressives are arguing that?

There are some people who want the US to be more imperialist, but they are hardly progressive.

Then there are those who want to look at ways in which humanitarian intervention might be done that are in fact humanitarian, and are not reinforcements of the American empire. Some good work was being done in thinking about these questions, until Bush came along and took a sledge hammer to the whole concept.

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What if" questions can be useful, but only when they are reasonable. I mean, let's not change the entire nature of the universe or give states human characteristics.

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His plane was likely shot down by the RPF but there is a popular theory that it was shot down by his wife and others in the government. The latter theory is popular since it fits in so well with the Hutu-evil Tutsi-good storyline but there is no evidence to support it - and in fact the overwhelming evidence implicates the RPF. Of course, the Arusha Tribunal has refused to investigate.

[ 18 February 2004: Message edited by: Holy Holy Holy ]

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all those ethnic hatreds existed long before we showed up to colonize Africa.

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Even after the reality of genocide in Rwanda had become irrefutable, when bodies were shown choking the Kagera River on the nightly news, the brute fact of the slaughter failed to influence U.S. policy except in a negative way. American officials, for a variety of reasons, shunned the use of what became known as "the g-word." They felt that using it would have obliged the United States to act, under the terms of the 1948 Genocide Convention. They also believed, understandably, that it would harm U.S. credibility to name the crime and then do nothing to stop it. A discussion paper on Rwanda, prepared by an official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and dated May 1, testifies to the nature of official thinking. Regarding issues that might be brought up at the next interagency working group, it stated,
1. Genocide Investigation: Language that calls for an international investigation of human rights abuses and possible violations of the genocide convention. Be Careful. Legal at State was worried about this yesterday—Genocide finding could commit [the U.S. government] to actually "do something." [Emphasis added.]

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They could have publicly and frequently denounced the slaughter. They could have branded the crimes "genocide" at a far earlier stage. They could have called for the expulsion of the Rwandan delegation from the Security Council. On the telephone, at the UN, and on the Voice of America they could have threatened to prosecute those complicit in the genocide, naming names when possible. They could have deployed Pentagon assets to jam—even temporarily—the crucial, deadly radio broadcasts.

Instead of demanding a UN withdrawal, quibbling over costs, and coming forward (belatedly) with a plan better suited to caring for refugees than to stopping massacres, U.S. officials could have worked to make UNAMIR a force to contend with. They could have urged their Belgian allies to stay and protect Rwandan civilians. If the Belgians insisted on withdrawing, the White House could have done everything within its power to make sure that Dallaire was immediately reinforced. Senior officials could have spent U.S. political capital rallying troops from other nations and could have supplied strategic airlift and logistic support to a coalition that it had helped to create. In short, the United States could have led the world.

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[ 25 February 2004: Message edited by: thebabblerformerlyknownas'larry' ]

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
Question: did we (the West) cause the genocide in Rwanda? Or would the Hutus and tutsis have slaughtered each other without the help of Western imperialists? After all those ethnic hatreds existed long before we showed up to colonize Africa.

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That being said, the West doesn't cause anything. They just exacerbate problems for their own purposes.

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The Islam party line is Allah is the only God and Mahumad is his Prophet. Muslem nations did have it better while they were a strong economic, military and especially academic power. But, then they lost Alhambra, and things went downhill.

[ 25 February 2004: Message edited by: FPTP ]

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No, by invading we made it worse. (and don't give me the but "we gave them X" line because they would have probably thought of X if we didn't steal their most valuable resources).

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Originally posted by FPTP:
Why are you confused. I never said you did. I said not to say it. It was a pre-emptive strike. People often excuse colonialism with the "benefits" we gave them. Glad to know you can see through such terrible logic.

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