A wave of revisionist history ranging from that old warhorse for
British Imperialism the BBC all the way to the alternative media has
taken to blaming African leaders for some of the worst crimes in
modern history.
It is infered that all of these massacres were black on black
violence, you know Africans slaughtering Africans, and god forbid,
don't blame the Europeans and Americans for any of this.
Case in point, what is known as the Rwandan Genocide committed in
1994. At the time I had been teaching a graduate level course in
African history and when the massacres started the network of well
informed activists that I was a part of immediately suspected the
involvement of the French in the bloodshed.
The French, along with Belgium, had a long, bloody history of
instigating and directing ethnic based massacres in both Rwanda and
Burundi going back to “independence” in the early 1960’s. We are
talking about upwards of 200,000 Africans massacred in a series of
ethnic bloodlettings that resulted in hundreds of thousands of mainly
Tutsi's fleeing for their lives. So it was highly likely that this was
another repeat of such atrocities.
Quickly evidence began to emerge that supported this view including
the fact that several thousand French soldiers were stationed in
Rwanda and despite desperate pleas by community leaders, both Tutsi
and Hutu, the French army refused to intervene to put a halt to the
massacres.
Then film footage emerged of French foreign ministry agents driving up
to the roadblocks manned by the Hutu death squads and turning over
computerized lists of those who needed to be “eliminated”, both Tutsi
and Hutu. This footage was later confirmed by first hand participants
in these death squads. This footage has been repeatedly broadcast on
African television programs and I have seen it several times here on
Eritrean television.
The evidence of French involvement was so great that the French
Parliament was forced to hold a predictably white wash “investigation”
into their role in this barbaric crime.
To mark the 10th Anniversary of the genocide in 2004 human rights
activists convened the Peoples Tribunal on the Rwandan Genocide in
France. The Peoples Tribunal produced reams of documentation and first
hand testimony of the primary role played by the French Foreign
Ministry in instigating and directing this major crime against
humanity.
The reason the French were so desperate as to instigate and direct
mass murder on such a scale was that a Ugandan based army of Tutsi
refugees had launched an invasion of Rwanda in an attempt to overthrow
the French backed Hutu dominated government.
The exiles, lead by one Paul Kagame, former head of Ugandan Military
Intelligence and a member of a Tutsi family that had been driven into
exile by a previous French instigated massacre, were anti-French and
had publicly announced they were determined to rid Rwanda once and for
all of any vestige of French domination.
Today all of this well documented history has been swept under the rug
and the revisionists now charge Paul Kagame, along with his mentor
President Musuveni of Uganda of instigating the massacre.
Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, instigated a massacre of mainly Tutsi’s, his own
people and power base?
Today’s President Kagame of Rwanda has been committing major crimes in
the Congo (see “Carnage in the Congo”) and certainly should face
justice for this but is just doesn't pass the smell test to say he
massacred his own power base in Rwanda, the Tutsi ethnic group.
For more on the French crimes in Africa you should see “French African
Connection” on Al Jazeera.
Blaming Africans is what its all about. The latest attempt is in South
Sudan, which is portrayed as tribal violence, you know, Hutus...I mean
Nuer vs Dinka, mindless slaughter of innocents by blood thirst black
men, isn't that how the story goes?
Reik Machar, the leader of the “rebellion” in South Sudan who caused
the war to break out at the beginning of 2014 when he attempted a coup
against President Salva Kiirs government, planned way back in 2006 on
assassinating Mr. Kiir and declaring himself President. (this bit of
gold we know thanks to Wikileaks).
The question still unasked by everyone from the BBC to the alternative
media is where does Reik Machar get his funding, the money needed to
pay salaries and all that waging warfare requires for tens of
thousands of rebel soldiers, over $100,000,000 and counting. Taking
into account the USA’s national interests requiring depriving China of
Africa’s energy resources, as in Sudanese oil, the most likely suspect
is the CIA, notorious for funding secret wars, especially in Africa.
What is no secret is that the USA wants regime change in South Sudan,
as in getting rid of Pres. Salva Kiir who keeps riling Pax Americana
by his refusal to shut down the Chinese oil fields in his country. So
the USA green lights Reik Machar’s coup attempt, war breaks out, the
oil fields are attacked and China is almost back to square one in
their only majority owned energy project in Africa. The only winner in
the war in South Sudan, the only one, is the USA.
Blaming Africans is what its all about, whether in revising the
history of the Rwandan genocide and absolving French crimes against
humanity to the ongoing conflict in South Sudan, to further its
national interests the USA or the French will provoke murder and
mayhem, tribal violence in all its horrifying stereotypes. The west
blaming Africans for western crimes is in vogue once again.
Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist living and reporting
from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached via twitter
_at_thomascmountain, on Facebook at thomascmountain or at thomascmountain
at g mail dot com
Received on Tue Sep 15 2015 - 03:33:29 EDT