Again this final week of August 2010 the ‘leaked’ UN report is at the centre of all news savvy seekers who are interested in the politics of the Greatlakes region, and particularly its strongman Paul Kagame of Rwanda.
Kambale Musavili, a Congolese activist, was among rare people to announce that he had already in hands a copy of the apparently leaked report “Democratic Republic of Congo, 1993–2003: Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003.”
As he reads through the pages, he momentously informed his contacts on what he was finding. After his reading he shared this comment about the report:
‘… the Garreton report documented the killings done by Kagame and his troops in Congo. 200,000 Rwandans, most of whom women and children, were massacred and buried in Congo. The mass graves still exist. Don’t tell me Kagame stopped the investigation. The United States government did. They blocked that report from being published. But it is available online. We have linked to it in many articles. This is not a new report, nor a leaked report! This is a report that the West decided not to publish or talk about to protect their African fall guy Paul Kagame!’
For those interested in the Garreton report, here is the link http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0811fcbd0b9f6bd58025667300306dea/8e3dbacbae51ce60802567460034073d?OpenDocument#IIB
Kambale concludes, ‘My concern is this. I understand the West is turning on Kagame. But let’s not be fooled once again. The central issue here is US and UK foreign policies in Africa supporting dictators in the name of profit. When Kagame is gone, we still have to deal with reconciliation within Rwanda.
Some in the West seem surprised as popular opinion in that part of the world was never really focused on the crimes going on in the Congo. They have always been distracted by American-led hype about Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia. Whereas more people have died in the Congo in the past 15 years than in all three of those conflicts put together.
This is many years after these crimes were committed, covered up for greedy interests which don’t value lives in their ways. There have been International Criminal Tribunals, one for Yugoslavia and another for Rwanda. Since there is now public massive evidence to stop impunity of the perpetrators, can the memory of the victims be honored by the creation of an International Criminal Tribunal for Democratic Republic of Congo?
Rising Continent 