Rwanda: Documents Shed New Light on Genocide Planning

[Judi Lynn]

Rwanda: Documents Shed New Light on Genocide Plan
Monday, 10 April 2006, 9:08 pm
Press Release: Human Rights Watch
Rwanda: Documents Shed New Light on Genocide Planning
Use of Civilian ‘Self-Defense’ Militias Revealed on Anniversary of Massacres

(New York) – Organizers of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda used a “civilian self-defense system” to mobilize participants in the campaign to exterminate the Tutsi minority, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today.

The 17-page paper, “The Rwandan Genocide: How It Was Prepared,” draws on previously unpublished documents to lay out the way the extermination system was planned in the months before the genocide was launched, 12 years ago this week.

“Genocidal violence did not just break out as a result of fear or hatred of the Tutsi minority,” said Alison Des Forges, senior adviser to the Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “It was launched by military, administrative, and political authorities using the machinery of the state.”

The paper relates how officials and propagandists defined Tutsi civilians as the “enemy” to be targeted by “self-defense” efforts. It also summarizes the context of the genocide, which began in early April 1994, including poverty, land scarcity, colonial rule, the introduction of multi-party politics and the war.
(snip/...)

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0604/S00184.htm

[file83]

1. THIS is exactly why we should ALL be suspicious of our governments...

...every citizen of every nation, even the USA.

[StrafingMoose]

9. Agreed n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. Here's a link to the report.

http://hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/rwanda0406/

I haven't read it yet, but I'll post a summary in this thread when I'm finished.

[femmedem]

3. thanks for the link.

I was just about to go agoogling.

I do remember reading, earlier, that under Belgian rule, Tutsis were favored because they looked more European, with higher-bridged noses. In families where people had intermarried, people were given ethnic identity cards based on nose measurements.

But I'll be interested to learn why old resentments suddenly boiled over into genocide.

[NJCher]

5. resources

It's all about resources.




Cher

[femmedem]

6. Yup.

I've got two pet rabbits, sweet as could be, but they'll just about stick their heads down each other throats to steal a piece of kale.

More seriously, I get upset when people pull out the old "ancient tribal hatreds" excuse, or frame conflicts as religious wars when it's really about water/land/money.

[mom cat]

10. Thanks for the link. I just sent it to someone working in the Human

Rights field.

[Solly Mack]

4. Which is why they went after radio personalities in the trials

hate radio personalities used military fed intelligence to broadcast where people were hiding - "public service announcements" became "the cockroaches are here - kill them"

What happened in Rwanda obviously had to have the "machinery of the state" to take place
(just as it's obvious the "machinery of the state" is involved in torture in Afghanistan/Iraq/GTMO/renditions - the very ability to carry out the torture requires services and the means only the state can provide - planes, secret prison agreements with other nations,a legal military,contractors, secret agents,the ability to fly into another country's air space unchallenged, etc. - it's how you know torture is systemic - that it's government policy...for it has all the hallmarks of state protection)

And that should serve as a very sobering warning to all people under attack by corrupt forces using the "machinery of the state" - it can happen here.

[MrPrax]

7. Machinery of the State...

It has happened here:

Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi
Jordanian Painted As Foreign Threat To Iraq's Stability

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 10, 2006; A01

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040900890.html">WP subcriber...

Better headline from Reuters UK
US propaganda magnifies Zarqawi threat
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to overstate the threat to stability posed by the al Qaeda leader in Iraq, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

Reuters

[Solly Mack]

8. Prime example

The mind teeters....

[Judi Lynn]

12. Unbearable Washington Post article. Definitely worth saving.

Thanks for posting it.

[TexasLawyer]

11. Vilification of Liberals

When I listen to Rush Limbaugh and others on the radio, I'm reminded of the mantra of the radio announcers depicted in Hotel Rwanda.

Rush and others have repeated for years that liberals are "traitors" who "hate the troops" and "do not share our American values." This is not so terribly far away from calling liberals "cockroaches" that America can do without.

From the briefing paper:

Hutu military report used “Tutsi” as equivalent to enemy and it said that Tutsi were unified behind a single ideology: Tutsi hegemony.

http://hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/rwanda0406/4.htm