25 Jul The Honeymoon is Over for Paul Kagame
Although clearly a step up from its genocidal predecessor, Kagame’s government in Rwanda is anything but progressive. According to the State Department, the government is responsible for — inter alia — illegal detention, torture, enforced disappearance, attempted assassinations of political opponents, restrictions on the freedom of speech and press, violence toward journalists and human rights advocates, discrimination against women/children/gays and lesbians, trafficking in persons, restrictions on labor rights, and use of child labor. The West has nevertheless generally preferred to ignore Kagame’s horrible human rights record, focusing instead on Rwanda’s supposed “economic miracle” since he took power (which, not coincidentally, has involved unprecedented friendliness toward Western multinationals.)
That said, I think the honeymoon is finally over. As the Guardian reports, Kagame’s longstanding — and remarkably flagrant — support for Bosco Ntaganda’s M23 rebel group in the Congo seems to have caught up with him:
The head of the US war crimes office has warned Rwanda‘s leaders, including President Paul Kagame, that they could face prosecution at the international criminal court for arming groups responsible for atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Stephen Rapp, who leads the US Office of Global Criminal Justice, told the Guardian the Rwandan leadership may be open to charges of “aiding and abetting” crimes against humanity in a neighbouring country – actions similar to those for which the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, was jailed for 50 years by an international court in May.
Rapp’s warning follows a damning United Nations report on recent Rwandan military support for M23, an insurgent group that has driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes since April as it has seized territory in the eastern DRC.
The group is led by Bosco Ntaganda, known as the Terminator, who was indicted by the international criminal court six years ago for war crimes including the forced recruitment of child soldiers. The UN report accuses Rwanda of shielding Ntaganda from justice.
On Saturday, Washington said it would halt some military aid to Rwanda after the UN report.
The aid freeze and Rapp’s public intervention mark a significant shift away from once-solid US support for Kagame, which was rooted in lingering guilt over international inaction during the 1994 genocide of Rwandan Tutsis.
Rapp, who previously served as chief prosecutor at the Rwanda genocide tribunal and later initiated the prosecution of Taylor over his crimes as president of Liberia in supporting rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone, said Rwandan support for M23 and other armed groups “has to stop” because it “maintains the lawlessness and at the end of the day enables the ongoing commission of atrocities”.
“There is a line that one can cross under international law where you can be held responsible for aiding a group in a way that makes possible their commission of atrocities,” he said.
“Charles Taylor never set foot in Sierra Leone, and aided and abetted, and was convicted of aiding and abetting, the Revolutionary United Front with assistance that was substantial and, the judges said, without which the RUF could not have committed the atrocities to the extent they did commit them. Because of that evidence, Charles Taylor was convicted and sentenced to 50 years.”
Rapp said the evidence by the UN group of experts of Rwandan government support for M23 and other armed groups, including sending weapons and troops into the DRC, exposed Kagame and other senior officials to investigation for war crimes.
“At this stage, I’m not sure if we are there in terms of criminal conduct,” he said. “But if this kind of thing continued and groups that were being armed were committing crimes … then I think you would have a situation where individuals who were aiding them from across the border could be held criminally responsible.”
The UN report, by a group of experts appointed by the security council, said it had “found substantial evidence attesting to support from Rwandan officials to armed groups operating in the eastern DRC”, including shipping weapons and money to M23 in breach of a UN arms embargo and other sanctions.
“Since the earliest stages of its inception, the group documented a systematic pattern of military and political support provided to the M23 rebellion by Rwandan authorities,” it said.
The report said the Rwandan government gave “direct assistance in the creation of M23 through the transport of weapons and soldiers through Rwandan territory”, and recruited Rwandan youths, demobilised ex-combatants and Congolese refugees as M23 fighters.
It also offers evidence of “direct Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) interventions into Congolese territory to reinforce M23” and “support to several other armed groups”.
“RDF operational units are periodically reinforcing the M23 on the battlefield against the Congolese army,” it said.
Many M23 members formerly served in another Rwandan-backed militia, the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), which was responsible along with other militias for widespread atrocities over several years, including ethnic killings and mass rape. Ntaganda was the CNDP’s military chief.
The experts accuse Rwanda of shielding Ntaganda from prosecution by the ICC for war crimes.
“Rwandan officials have insisted on impunity for their armed group and mutineer allies, including ex-CNDP General Bosco Ntaganda,” they said.
Rapp’s very strong statement is important in a number of respects. First, and most obviously, it marks a dramatic change in US policy toward Rwanda. As this Guardian article explains at great length, the US initially did everything it could to prevent the report that Rapp cites from being publicly released. Now the report is the centerpiece of the US’s case against Kagame. Second, the statement is yet another signal of the growing partnership between the US and the ICC. As has been clear for some time, the US is now more than happy to work closely with the ICC when the interests of the two align (Darfur, Libya, Uganda, Congo). Third, the statement is a potent reminder of the ICTR’s failure — all too deliberate, as Lars Waldorf has explained — to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) during the conflict that ended the genocide and brought Kagame to power. The crimes that Kagame’s government is aiding and abetting in Congo are not within the jurisdiction of the ICTR, but they are in many ways the continuation of the RPF’s crimes in 1994. Had the ICTR taken those earlier crimes more seriously, it is reasonable to assume that Kagame would feel less free to support M23 now.
Thank you for being honest !!! since Mobutu…until Savimbi people should think on their actions however, they used to forget when having power.
Gady
It appears the European and Western powers that be have found yet another vehicle to assert their moral and cultural superiority over the African people. Most of the ICC cases are war crimes committed in Africa. The message seems loud and clear! Only savage Africans commit war crimes and are convicted for it.
Atrocious western war criminals are yet to get a Hague conviction! The Slobodan Miloševićs, the Radovan Karadzics, The Tony Blairs, The Walker Bushs should rest easy. The ICC campaign against war crimes is still focused and encamped on the real serious war crime: The breed that is only found in the African continent.
The Milosevics and Karadzics should rest easy? After one died in prison and the other will likely spend the rest of his life there? Okay then.
Wow Mr. Rapp! The same was pointed out to you during your time at the ICTR, you chose to look the other way. Now its ‘convenient’ to bash Kigali, you throw down the gauntlet. I guess its true what they say – dont bite the hand that feeds you!
A question to Selemani and others – the idea that the US has other axes to grind with the Kagame regime is certainly credible. After all, this is hardly the first damning UN report on crimes in DRC with inconvenient connections to Kigali:
http://terra0nullius.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/regional-advocacy-on-the-un-human-rights-mapping-exercise-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo/
However, if Kagame has bitten the hand that feeds him, it would be interesting to know exactly how. Are there other signs that the relationship has been souring? Is the real issue somewhere else? After all, its not just Rwanda; there seems to be a high level of tolerance for neo-patrimonial national leaders throughout the Great Lakes region and East Africa. Given that the others tend to exercise a bit more restraint, focusing their energies on domestic repression, is it completely out of the question that the US may have simply (if belatedly) been swayed by overwhelming evidence of complicity in indefensible acts?
Certainly withholding 200,000$ in military aid is only symbolic considering the massive amount of annual US ODA to Rwanda.
But I do recall that the last time Rwanda was in the same situation and the UK threatened their ODA, Rwanda arranged for Nkunda to be arrested/turn himself in, very quickly.
Maybe the US could take other actions which would affect Kagame directly — like sending home his son from the Military Academy at West Point before he graduates.