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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Oct 12 2010 - 15:04:22 EDT
No International Justice for Congo. UN Coverup of War Crimes
by Ann Garrison
Global Research <http://www.globalresearch.ca> , October 12, 2010
Human rights activists around the world have called for international
justice and an end to impunity in the wake of the UN Mapping Report on Human
Rights Abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The report, which covers the period from 1993 to 2003, was released on
October 1st, by the Office of the United Nations High Commission for Human
Rights. UN High Commissioner for
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ4tvOXsxCw> Human Rights Navi Pillay says
that, though it covers a time period ending in 2003, these crimes continue
because the perpetrators have never been prosecuted.
Defense lawyers for the International
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_Rwanda>
Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda say, however, that there is no reason to expect
justice from an international criminal tribunal.
The UN report suggests a mode of transitional justice in Congolese courts,
but much of the international community has reacted skeptically, because the
Congolese judicial system is barely functioning. A coalition of Africa
advocates, including Friends of the Congo, Africa Faith and Justice Network,
and many others, also say that justice is not possible in Congo because
Rwanda and Uganda are occupying eastern Congo, and plundering its natural
resource wealth, with Congolese President Joseph Kabila's collaboration.
They will focus
<http://sfbayview.com/2010/coalition-says-u-n-congo-report-is-last-straw/>
instead on pressuring President Barack Obama to end the U.S.A.'s
longstanding military and diplomatic support for Rwandan President Paul
Kagame, whose army is most controversially implicated in the report, in war
crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against Rwandan Hutu refugees
and Congolese Hutus in Congo.
Ugandan President Yoweri <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoweri_Museveni>
Museveni and his army are implicated in the same crimes, and both reacted
angrily to the report. This week Kagame, also said, at the swearing-in
ceremony for his Cabinet ministers, that he will not respond to foreign
donors pressuring him to create political space for the opposition in
Rwanda.
On Saturday morning, October 9th, Victoire Ingabire
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoire_Ingabire_Umuhoza> Umuhoza, leader of
the FDU-Inkingi <http://www.fdu-rwanda.org/> , Rwanda's broadbased
opposition coalition of parties, confirmed that the security operatives
always outside her home have been replaced by police with firearms, a least
six of whom were visible from inside. She also said that expanding the
mandate of the International Criminal
Tribunal on Rwanda, to include the crimes of the Rwandan army and others in
Congo, was the best hope for international justice.
But International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda defense lawyers Christopher
Black <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Black> and Peter Erlinder
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Erlinder> say that the power of the
U.S., the UK and their allies so distorts international justice tribunals
that international justice is not possible.
ICTR defense lawyer Christopher Black, who recently published, "The Rwandan
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/black120910.html> Patriotic Front's
Bloody Record and the History of UN Cover-Ups," in Monthly Review Zine, says
that the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda will never charge
officers of Kagame's army because, if charged, they will implicate their
U.S. and European allies:
"They're never going to charge the RPF, because it would be too dangerous.
If you start charging the RPF, RPF officers, to save their necks, are going
to start talking about others. And then you're going to get up to the
Americans and the British and the Canadians and the Belgians. The whole
thing would fall apart. They don't dare do that."
Peter Erlinder says that the U.S. controls the decisions of the Security
Council, and/or ignores them, as it did, with impunity in Iraq, and that it
will therefore control any attempt to expand the mandate of the
International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda.
"If the United States wants something to happen, in terms of punishing these
criminals, there's a way to do it. If the U.S. doesn't want it to happen, it
won't happen, tribunals or no. Because the United States controls the ICTR;
because the United States controls the I.C.C.; because the United States
controls the Security Council. So extending the mandate of the ICTR has no
effect unless the policy of the United States changes to allow the
prosecution of the RPF and Kagame for the crimes that are already known,
that they've committed, and those crimes have been known for 15 years."
Erlinder agrees with the coalition now focused on Obama's response to the
report. He says that the goal should be changing U.S. policy in East/Central
Africa, which has been shaped by the determination to control geostrategic
resources, most of all, those of resource rich Congo.
An excerpt of the UN Mapping Report on Human Rights Abuse in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, 1993-2003, is available at Monthly Review
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/congo091010.html> Zine, and the
entire report is available on the website
<http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/AfricaRegion/Pages/RDCProjetMapping.aspx>
of the UN High Commission on Human Rights.
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