Solari Action Network

[Catherine]

This was posted at Sanders Research. The site appears to be down so I am reprinting here a copy accessed from a search engine cache.



Letter from Rwanda
By Paul Rusesabagina
Jul/23/2007

The following letter is a condemnation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda written by Paul Rusesabagina -- the hero of the film Hotel Rwanda. It was Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in Rwanda, who secretly used his position and intelligence to shelter over a thousand refugees during the genocide crisis ten years ago. In his letter to the UN Secretary Genergal Ban Ki-Moon, he speaks out against the selective prosecution which Hans Koechler in his book Global Justice or Global Revenge cited as "selective justice on an enormous scale".


Paul Rusesabagina
July 5, 2007
124 Avenue Baron Albert d'Huart
1950 Kraainem, Belgique

His Excellency Ban Ki-moon
UN Secretary General, ROOM 3800
United Nations Headquarters
New York, NW 10017

Subject: RWANDA: Recent "Hearsay" statement by ICTR Prosecutor deeply troubling

Dear Mr. Secretary-General:

On June 29, 2007, Le Monde newspaper reported that current ICTR chief prosecutor, Hassan Bubacar Jallow, has declared that criminal accusations against the RPF as detailed in a formal complaint I filed with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) last November "amount to hearsay and are of no value in our work". If true, this statement is very bad news and certainly very deeply troubling for me personally, and for millions of Rwandans who have been brutally widowed, orphaned or simply exterminated by the RPF as a rebel group and as a government. That is why I would like to submit to your wise appreciation the following elements of deep concern to me:

1. Unless we have been royally fooled, millions of Rwandans and myself have been led to believe that the role of the chief prosecutor at the ICTR - or the role of any prosecutor at any court for that matter - is to interpret the existing law and prosecute crime to the fullest extent of that law, in order to redress any wrong and provide comfort to the victims that justice has been done. In that respect, Mr. Hassan Jallow's "hearsay" statement is highly irresponsible and heartless, and achieves only one thing: it spits in the face of victims and makes a mockery of them. I know without a doubt that members of my immediate family were killed by the RPF, and Mr. Jallow has the insensitivity to conclude that I am basing my accusations on rumors! This is an outrage and an insult to me and to my departed beloved ones, and it is very hurtful. I am fully aware that we, Rwandans, were not consulted for the appointment of Mr. Jallow as ICTR chief prosecutor, and we certainly won't be for his removal, but we can offer our candid assessment of his performance: he is a marginal prosecutor who lacks any empathy with the victims, and that's a major failing for a law professional.

2. In his statement, Mr. Jallow also is reported as having said that the ICTR is "conducting investigations into crimes allegedly committed by members of the Rwandan Patriotic Army in 1994, and in due time a decision will be made in light of findings from these investigations." Mr. Secretary-General, the ICTR was established on November 8, 1994 through UN Resolution 955. That's 13 years ago. Is the ICTR truly investigating RPA crimes, or is it lying to the world? How do we believe and trust that the ICTR can do in one remaining year and a half (until its mandate expires on December 31, 2008) what it has failed to do in 13 years? This is the same ICTR that has shown zero interest in talking and listening to the many witnesses I referred to in my formal complaint filed last November. These witnesses can even provide the names of the RPA suspects, as we have withheld their full identities merely because we did not want to interfere with the Tribunal's investigative work. This is the same ICTR that so far has chosen to overlook the mountains of available evidence (Abdul Ruzibiza, Marcel and Gloria Gérin with their overwhelming testimony about the butchery of innocent civilians in Eastern Rwanda in 1994 by hordes of the RPA, and many others) incriminating the leaders of the RPF now in power in Rwanda. Mr. Bubacar Jallow was appointed ICTR prosecutor in September 2003, and waited 3 years and 2 months until November 2006 (right after the f iling of my complaint) for his 3-member investigations team to resume their work. Not only has this 3-member team been reduced to 2 people, with the third officer assigned to the Rafik Hariri investigation, their work has been halted again. When you know that to date not a single RPA suspected criminal has been apprehended by the ICTR for no lack of evidence, would it be a harsh pronouncement to say that prosecutor Hassan Jallow and his entire ICTR team are incompetent for their assigned jobs?

3. When Mr. Hassan Bubacar Jallow declares that the ICTR is "conducting investigations into crimes allegedly committed by members of the Rwandan Patriotic Army in 1994, and in due time a decision will be made in light of findings from these investigations", he is essentially admitting that members of the RPF and RPA in power in Rwanda are suspected criminals. So when he proposes to transfer loads of pending ICTR cases to Kigali, he is in fact allowing suspected criminals to sit in judgment of other suspected criminals. This is a terrible error of judgment and an unmistakable display of incompetence by this prosecutor. Mr. Jallow will not be able to deliver the kind of justice that will bring genuine reconciliation to Rwanda.

4. The mission of the ICTR statute as adopted by UN Security Council Resolution S/RES/955 (1994) of November 8, 1994 is very clear: "the prosecution of persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda, between January 1, 1994 and December 31, 1994. It may also deal with the prosecution of Rwandan citizens responsible for genocide and other such violations of international law committed in the territory of neighboring States during the same period". Also very clear are the findings of the Experts Commission Report set up by the UN Secretary General: "Individuals from both sides of the armed conflict perpetrated serious breaches of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity" (The United Nations and Rwanda, 1993-1996, p.64). It does not take rocket science to see that the time occurrence of the airplane terrorist attack that killed Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi on April 6, 1994 is crystal-clearly included in the ICTR mandate time frame. Are Rwandans ever going to know officially who killed their president and triggered the genocide?

Mr. Secretary-General, on June 20, 2007, I sent you a letter explaining why a majority of Rwandans and myself strongly feel that the ICTR's mandate should be extended beyond its December 31, 2008 deadline. I sincerely hope that you will take to heart the concerns expressed not only in that letter, but also in this one. I insistently make this urgent appeal to you, to all members of the UN Security Council, and to all peace-loving people and institutions of the world, to clean up the mess at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, and deliver justice to Rwandans. Peace and reconciliation, not only in Rwanda but also in the entire Great Lakes region of Africa, highly depend on it.

Very Respectfully,

Paul Rusesabagina

CC: UN Security Council Members (all)

His Excellency John Kufuor, African Union President Her Excellency Angela Merkel, European Union President Mr. Guy Verhofstadt, Prime Minister of Belgium Mr. Dennys Byron, President of the ICTR Mr. Hassan Jallow, General Prosecutor of the ICTR Mr. Adama Dieng, ICTR Registrar His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI His Excellency Nelson Mandela The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Madam Speaker of US Congress Amnesty International Human Rights Watch

[daybrown]

I dont think "crime & punishment" is the appropriate mindframe regarding Rwanda and most of Africa. They are psychologically different.

When the Nazis were murdering Jews, they discovered that the SS troops doing it suffered from what we now call PTSD as a result of murdering women and kids. And so they invented the gas chambers so that nobody would have to watch.

Now in Rwanda, the killing went on, not at a distance with automatic weapons fire, but up close where you can look in the eyes of the victims while you hack them apart with machetes. Hello? Most people you know cant even do that to chickens.

What we are talking about here is mass insanity. Now, if the action was not bloody, nobody got hurt, and was simply for personal gain, we'd all say it was criminal, and let it go at that. But if behavior is clearly insane, then one of the reasons we accept is that there is a genetic factor, and something in the environment triggered the syndrome.

Well, there *is* a genetic factor. It exists in all gene pools, but is somewhat more common in African DNA code. And that *fat* has had an enormous effect on the way Africa developed, or failed to.

This is not basically a legal issue, its a matter of better case management. Some of the "perpetrators" could, with better case management, make some contribution to better the lives of survivors and help us to understand the mental pathology to prevent it from repeating.

Clearly 'punishment' has not worked given that its been tried for millennia and been so ineffective. But if some cases look like they will pose an ongoing threat to the welfare of others, I dont have a problem with euthanasia. I know I could not live knowing I done some of what I read about, and would not want to subject another to that fate.

The Fins did FMRI brain scans on their most violent prisoners, and found a constricted neural pathway from the Corpus Collosum (limbic system) to the prefrontal lobes. When emotionally excited, the brain scans show a dramatic drop in prefrontal activity.

There are not many Fins like this. There are lots more in the Semetic gene pools, which Alexander the Great knew damn well. He taught his hoplites to taunt the Persians in their own language about how they were going to fuck their mothers, wives, and daughters, deliberately trying to piss off the Persian troops.

It worked. The Persians were pissed, not thinking clearly, and the Greek Phalanx went thru their ranks like a weed eater. It didnt work for shit against the Germans and Celts, and Alexander, from the few contests he had with them knew he had to go the other way.

It always worked marvelously in Africa as well; get a population wound up, they cant think straight, and then you can manipulate the fuck out of them. its not pretty. My language is deliberately crude to make that point.

Seratonin supplements would help, especially during childhood. But appeals for justice like the above post have been going on forever, and its time to rethink this whole thing. Not that anyone cares what we think here.
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Pan has risen.