Kenya MPs urge withdrawal from war crimes court

Thursday, December 23 02:51 pm

Kenyan lawmakers have passed a motion urging the government to withdraw from the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court.

The move by parliament is an attempt to block proceedings against six prominent Kenyans who were named by the ICC last week and face charges of crimes against humanity over 2007-8 post-election violence.

"This house resolves that... the government takes appropriate action to withdraw from the Rome Statute," read the motion, which was overwhelmingly approved by acclamation late Wednesday.

The motion came exactly a week after the world court's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, revealed the names of the six for whom he requested summonses over their role in the violence that tore Kenya apart three years ago.

Among them are key political figures such as Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, who is also a deputy prime minister and the son of the country's founding president.

If ICC judges accept Ocampo's evidence against the six as sufficient, they can issue summonses.

If the suspects do not voluntarily present themselves in The Hague, arrest warrants can then be issued. As a signatory of the Rome Statute establishing the court, Kenya would be under the obligation to arrest them.

Several leading members of parliament rose to defend the motion on Wednesday, arguing that the ICC case was a manifestation of Western imperialism.

"It is only Africans from former colonies who are being tried at the ICC. No American or British will be tried at the ICC and we should not willingly allow ourselves to return to colonialism," Energy Minister Kiraitu Murungi said.

The motion argued that the new constitution adopted by Kenya in August obviated the need for the masterminds of the post-election violence to be tried by a foreign court.

It demanded "that any criminal investigations or prosecutions arising out of the post-election violence of 2007-8 be undertaken under the framework of the new constitution."

Around 1,500 people were killed in the aftermath of the disputed December 2007 presidential poll and hundreds of thousands were displaced.

Trade Minister Chirau Mwakwere urged other African nations to withdraw from the Rome Statute and said he felt ashamed to have been among the officials who signed it in 2005, when he was foreign minister.

All suspects in the ICC's five ongoing cases are Africans

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20101223/tpl-kenya-mps-urge-withdrawal-from-war-c-383fe17.html

DRC: Mapping human rights violations 1993-2003

In the wake of the discovery of three mass graves in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in late 2005, the United Nations first announced its intention to send a human rights team to conduct a mapping exercise in DRC in a June 2006 report to the Security Council.

In May 2007, the UN Secretary-General approved the terms of reference of the mapping exercise following a series of consultations among relevant UN agencies and partners and with the Congolese government

The mapping exercise, led by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had three objectives:

• Conduct a mapping exercise of the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003.

• Assess the existing capacities within the national justice system to deal appropriately with such human rights violations that may be uncovered.

• Formulate a series of options aimed at assisting the Government of the DRC in identifying appropriate transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the legacy of these violations, in terms of truth, justice, reparation and reform, taking into account ongoing efforts by the DRC authorities, as well as the support of the international community.

The mapping exercise began in July 2008. Between October 2008 and May 2009, a total of 33 staff worked on the project in the DRC (including Congolese and international human rights experts). Of these, some 20 human rights officers were deployed across the country, operating out of five field offices, to gather documents and information from witnesses to meet the three objectives defined in the terms of reference. The report was submitted to the High Commissioner for Human Rights in June 2009 for review, comments and finalisation.

The mapping team's 550-page report contains descriptions of 617 alleged violent incidents occurring in the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003. Each of these incidents points to the possible commission of gross violations of human rights and/or international humanitarian law. Each of the incidents listed is backed up by at least two independent sources identified in the report. As serious as they may be, uncorroborated incidents claimed by one single source are not included. Over 1,500 documents relating to human rights violations committed during this period were gathered and analysed with a view to establishing an initial chronology by region of the main violent incidents reported. Only incidents meeting a 'gravity threshold' set out in the methodology were considered. Field mapping teams met with over 1,280 witnesses to corroborate or invalidate the violations listed in the chronology. Information was also collected on previously undocumented crimes.

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/AfricaRegion/Pages/RDCProjetMapping.aspx

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/ZR/DRC_MAPPING_REPORT_FINAL_EN.pdf

UN MAPPING REPORT ON CONGO

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Admin| Comments Off

Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame, planed and funded for systematic murder of a group of people in Congo

The AFDL/APR troops indiscriminately killed men, women and children. Most of the victims were Hutu Banyarwanda, but many Nande were also massacred at Buhimba. According to several survivors, the AFDL/APR soldiers killed several children by dashing their heads against walls or tree trunks. In all, 334 victims were recorded. 341

The vast majority of incidents listed in this report could, if investigated and proven in a judicial process, point to the commission of prohibited acts such as murder, wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health, rape, intentional attacks on the civilian population, pillage, and unlawful and arbitrary destruction of civilian goods, including some which were essential to the survival of the civilian population.
The vast majority of these acts were committed against protected persons, as defined in the Geneva Conventions, primarily people who did not take part in the hostilities, particularly civilian populations and those put out of combat.
This report shows that the vast majority of incidents listed, if investigated and proven in a judicial process, fall within the scope of widespread or systematic attacks, depicting multiple acts of large-scale violence, apparently carried out in an organised fashion and resulting in numerous victims. Most of these attacks were directed against non-combatant civilian populations consisting primarily of women and children. As a consequence, the vast majority of acts of violence perpetrated during these years, which formed part of various waves of reprisals and campaigns of persecution and pursuit of refugees, became collectively, a series of widespread and systematic attacks against civilian populations and could be found by a competent court to constitute crimes against humanity.


READ FULL UN MAPPING REPORT ON CONGO CRIMES

Kagame is losing a grip on the country

Kagame is losing a grip on the country

BY Robert Mukombozi (an investigative Rwandan journalist exile in Australia. He is currently studying a Masters of Journalism and Mass communication at Griffith University. )
 

http://www.newslineea.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=278:kagame-is-losing-a-grip-on-the-country-&catid=74:robert-mukombozi-&Itemid=73

This year 2010 has gone down not generally well on the global political arena. The United States especially has had a very turbulent wind up of its politics as a result of the wikiLeaks revelations.Of course Rwanda and US relations were not an exception among other governments whose relations with Washington was shaken by the leaking of secret diplomatic cables. The American embassy in Kigali moved fast to calm the worries, praising Rwanda in the area of fighting HIV/AIDS and increasing agricultural production but actually it was a very diversionary diplomatic gesture.
As a result of the cables, Mr Paul Kagame has now become extremely paranoid. He is aware that details of Rwanda’s arms acquisitions, sales and transfer of strategic materials such as uranium is being monitored.
This explains why the Kigali establishment rushed to place the blame of improper acquisition of arms to militias in eastern DR Congo, claiming the rebel groups are stuck with stocks of uranium as a diversion and they expected everyone to take this concoction.
And the only thing some elite Rwandans can do is to encourage fellow Rwandans who have lived in exile for years to paint the country a magnificent image, which they have never been given a chance to see for themselves.
It is painful that those young Rwandans encouraged to be the country’s ambassador have never been to the country and these are the people being lured into campaigning for the country in the outside world. How can they start defending a country that is sending spies to foreign countries to bribe and silence critics?
How can they fit into the shoes of the diplomats when actually the Ambasadors themselves have failed to cover for the country’s roaming network of secret agents and wielders of the black budget?  
The RPF has established a political system that maintains a false appearance of multi-party democracy.
The country has reached a break even point due to a deepening political crisis fuelled by divisions within the military. First, it was a case involving the humiliation of Generals Frank Rusagara, Sam Kanyemera Kaka and Kayumba Nyamwasa.
Then the hammer took on Col. Patrick Karegeya, Maj Gen Karenzi Karake, Lt Gen. Charles Muhire, Brig Gen. Steven Karyango and Lt Col Marc Sebaganji, Col Deogene Mudenge, Maj. Ben Karenzi and Gen. Nyamwasa’s brother, Col. Rugigana Ngabo.
The power rift within the army is very serious to the extent that each of the officers in the high command has become another’s spy. It is not only a fight for loyalty towards Kagame by a section of RDF officers but a struggle for survival.
This has dramatically played against the RPF’s overall popularity. The army, the politicians and the common man in Rwanda has no respect for the President now. He is simply holding the country hostage, playing at his best the ticket of fear.
Mr Kagame has realized that gambling on the tactic of fear and divisionism would be very short-lived, he has decided to lobby military backing from Ethiopia and Libya after being thrown out by South Africa.
The Rwandan leader has also asked Defense Minister, Gen. James Kabarebe to put top military officers of the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF), military attachés and the Reserve Force on red alert citing increasing threats against his leadership.
Gen. Kabarebe has been tasked to emphasise Mr Kagame’s call for vigilance at this time when rifts within the RDF and the dramatic rise of the opposition within and outside the country threatens his leadership. 
It is time to feel the weight and destruction of the hammer that he once promised. 
With Mr Kagame’s lack of trust and respect for institutions coupled with his deaf ear on democratic values and human rights, all clues now point to the fact that he is preparing to go down in a military struggle without caring how much Rwandans will shed more blood.
This careless wastage of human life is the last thing Rwandans would want to experience again. He is taking every desperate measure to have a grip on the country but it has become very slippery. 

1. 
   Robert Mukombozi is an investigative Rwandan journalist exile in Australia. He is currently studying a Masters of Journalism and Mass communication at Griffith University.  
     RMukombozi@gmail.com

Génocide rwandais: Six dirigeants mis en examen par des juges français

Génocide rwandais: Six dirigeants mis en examen par des juges français Mis à jour le 16.12.10 à 09h53 Six militaires et officiels rwandais ont été mis en examen par deux juges français pour leur responsabilité supposée dans l'attentat qui fut le point de départ du génocide de 1994, a-t-on appris jeudi de source judiciaire. Ces personnes sont poursuivies pour «complicité d'assassinat en relation avec une entreprise terroriste», dans le dossier visant l'attentat contre un avion à Kigali, en avril 1994. Le président rwandais Juvénal Habyarimana y avait trouvé la mort. Cet événement toujours mystérieux a précédé l'un des plus grands génocides du XXe siècle, le massacre de 800.000 personnes, pour la plupart des Tutsi, par des extrémistes Hutus. Des mandats d'arrêt devraient être levés La procédure menée par les juges d'instruction Marc Trévidic et Nathalie Poux s'est déroulée ces derniers jours au Burundi, après un accord entre les autorités judiciaires françaises et le régime rwandais du président Paul Kagame. En contrepartie, les mandats d'arrêt délivrés en 2006 par la France et qui avaient provoqué la rupture des relations diplomatiques entre Paris et Kigali devraient être levés, précise-t-on. http://www.20minutes.fr/ledirect/640219/monde-genocide-rwandais-six-dirigeants-mis-examen-juges-francais