[Marxism] Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide

["David Quarter" <davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From:                   Jim Yarker
http://www.counterpunch.org/philpot05152004.html
                  15 / 16, 2004
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan GenocideThat Halo Over Romeo Dallaire's 
Head Has More Than One Hole in
It!
By ROBIN PHILPOT
When International Criminal Tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte
learned from a Canadian newspaper in 2000 that the Rwandan
Patriotic Front and its leader Paul Kagame were prime suspects in
the April 6, 1994, assassination of the presidents of Rwanda and
Burundi, she reportedly said: "If it is the RPF that shot down the
plane, the history of genocide must be rewritten".
Hopefully others will be as candid as Ms Del Ponte as more and
more information surfaces on events in Rwanda in the early 90s.
First on that list should be retired Canadian general and former UN
peacekeeper in Rwanda Romeo Dallaire. However, Dallaire may
find it hard to swallow his pride after enjoying such a massive PR
campaign organized for him ever since his 600-page book appeared
in October 2003 (Shake Hands with the Devil, The failure of
Humanity in Rwanda, Random House Canada).
Dallaire toured Canada, parts of the US, Belgium, France,
Tanzania, where he witnessed for the prosecution at the ICTR, and
Rwanda, where he joined Paul Kagame for commemorations in
Kigali. He appeared on all the right programs, with the right people,
and his verge-of-tears attitude protected him from the tough
questions that reporters should have been asking him. One of his
Canadian government handlers justified the enormous security for
Dallaire in Tanzania by describing him as Canada's "national
treasure". He is now being touted as the future Governor General of
Canada.
The saintly halo carefully placed over his head has also prompted
Michael Ignatieff to invite him to be a fellow of Harvard's Carr Center
for Human Rights Policy, where paradoxically he will specialize in
"conflict resolution". Ignatieff probably sees the appointment as a
way to cover his own conflict-inflicting support of the US invasion
and occupation of Iraq.
Romeo Dallaire supposedly told all in his book. However, since so
many people in influential positions have been bluntly contradicting
Dallaire, it's time he and his ghostwriters sat down and rewrote the
book. These include former the Chief of the 1994 United Nations
Mission in Rwanda the Cameroonian diplomat Jacques-Roger Booh-
Booh--Dallaire was only in charge of the military component ­, UN
Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the French anti-terrorist
judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, Colonel Luc Marchal, the Belgian
commander of UN troops in Kigali who worked under Dallaire and
many more. If we accept as true half what these people have said,
either most of the information in Dallaire's book can no longer be
taken seriously or the book as whole should be rejected as base
propaganda.
Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh was the UN Secretary General's
Special Representative in Rwanda, and therefore in charge of the
mission in Rwanda.
An experienced diplomat having served as Cameroon's
Ambassador to France and to the former USSR, Booh-Booh was
also very familiar with African politics, unlike Dallaire who admits
not knowing that Rwanda was in Africa when he was appointed in
1993. Since the Rwandan tragedy, Booh-Booh has remained silent
and respected the neutrality that comes with his position. (Dallaire
of course never respected the obligation of neutrality). Booh-Booh
broke that silence in April in an interview with the French-language
monthly Africa International.
When asked to react to criticisms leveled by Dallaire, Booh-Booh
replied that General Dallaire never accepted the fact that he was
only a military officer reporting to the civilian authority appointed by
the UN Secretary General, and that he has been inconsolable ever
since because he never obtained Booh-Booh's job though he tried
very hard. In the field, according to Booh-Booh, Dallaire abandoned
his military responsibilities to do politics, though that was not his
job, and he violated the principle of neutrality by becoming the
objective ally of the RPF. Moreover, Dallaire's "duplicity" was
widely known in UN mission circles. Booh-Booh adds that "from a
strictly military standpoint, UNAMIR controlled absolutely nothing
under Dallaire's command", citing as an example his total failure to
rid Kigali of arms and militias.
Booh-Booh's comments about Dallaire's political involvement in
Rwanda raise important questions, especially in light of Boutros-
Ghali's statements during the 10th anniversary commemorations.
Boutros-Ghali, who told me in a 2002 interview that the Rwandan
genocide was 100 percent American responsibility, also told the
French daily Libération that one of the UN's problems in Rwanda
was that "the Department of Peacekeeping Operations [headed by
Kofi Annan at the time] was very much infiltrated by the American
authorities. Since the we [the UN] lacked money, we recruited
officers who were on their own government's payroll."
This statement should be considered together with Dallaire's
candid boasts in his book that he violated fundamental rules of a
peacekeeping mission by going over the head of the mission chief,
Booh-Booh, and communicating directly to the DPKO leaders Kofi
Annan and Maurice Baril at UN headquarters.
Can Dallaire's intense--and unsuccessful--involvement in Rwandan
politics and his pro-RPF stance be explained by the fact that he
was receiving instructions directly from US or pro-US people in the
UN's peacekeeping operations department? This is very plausible
since we know that from the early 1990s the United States, along
with Great Britain, was openly challenging France in French-
speaking Africa, and particularly in Zaire (now the Democratic
Republic of Congo). The English-speaking Rwandan Patriotic Front,
based as it was in Uganda, was perceived as a means to
accomplish that end.
On the other hand, Boutros-Ghali, whom Madeleine Albright
nicknamed "Frenchie", was perceived as an obstacle, as
undoubtedly was the head of the UN mission in Rwanda, Jacques-
Roger Booh-Booh. Soon after the Rwandan tragedy, the US
unceremoniously dumped Boutros-Ghali--Albright vetoed renewal of
his mandate--and installed Kofi Annan, thereby further advancing
their strategy in French-speaking Africa.
Add to this the fact that Dallaire was chosen for the position in
1993 mainly because the United States demanded a French-
speaking military commander, and ideally anti-French. Obviously
that excluded a French national. Anybody who follows Canadian
politics knows that that type of military person can be found in
Ottawa, where distrust and dislike of France are at the heart of all
foreign policy.
These links help explain both Kofi Annan's and Romeo Dallaire's
silence regarding the shooting down of the plane carrying the
presidents of Rwanda and Burundi--both have persisted in calling
that SAM missile attack an "accident" or a "crash", and Kofi
Annan's reaction regarding the plane's Black Box following the
Bruguière revelations was frankly insulting. All information, all
research and all investigations, and especially Judge Bruguière's,
now point to Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front. If and
when France issues international arrest warrants for the
perpetrators of that crime, Kofi Annan and Romeo Dallaire will have
a lot of questions to answer.
Another example of Romeo Dallaire naysayers is Colonel Luc
Marchal who led the UN troops in Kigali. Unlike Dallaire who tours
the world to defend Paul Kagame and the RPF, Marchal is very
critical of both. "I am personally very convinced in the RPF's
implication in the Rwandan tragedy", writes Marchal in a 1998
letter, "because I too had been fooled by their smart propaganda
during the Arusha negotiations [in 1993]. Once I was in Kigali, the
gulf that separated what was said and what was really happening
became obvious. In fact the RPF movement is totalitarian and it
crushes absolutely everything in its way." He also pointed out in a
2003 interview that the shooting down of President Habyarimana's
plane would have required months to plan and carry out, and that
the rapid deployment of RPF troops in Kigali and in the North on
April 7, 1994 would also have required months to prepare. Marchal
leaves no doubt that he suspects the RPF of committing that crime
and considers it to be crucial to understanding what happened after.
In a much more honest book about the Rwandan events published
in 2001, Marchal also clearly implicates the United States in the 10-
year cover-up of the April 6, 1994, terrorist attack that triggered the
terrible massacres. "Who is powerful enough to have prevented a
real international inquiry from casting light upon the events that
occurred when President Habyarimana was flying home from a
regional summit in Dar Es-Salaam?"
Robin Philpot is a Montreal writer. His book Ça ne s'est pas passé
comme ça à Kigali (That's not what happened in Rwanda) will soon
appear in English.



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