On Obote-Odora: There was no genocide conspiracy in Rwanda

Dear Editor,

I have read Pambazuka with increasing amazement as Mr. Alex Obote-Odora has tried to deny the factual record established at the UN International Criminal Tribunal (ICTR). Four trial chambers and the Appeal Chamber acquitted the entire national political and military leadership of the Habyarimana government of conspiracy and planning to commit genocide, or any other crimes, before April 7, 1994 the day after the assassination of the President.

The Appeal Chamber Judgement in Prosecutor v. Bagosora et al was entered on December 11, 2011 and was reported in the International Justice Tribune as "The Brainless Genocide" because no long-planned conspiracy was found by the ICTR.[1]

But Obote-Odora goes further by also denying the contents of "Madame Prosecutor," the 2009 memoir of Carla Del Ponte, the Chief ICTR Prosecutor and his OTP superior. She reveals she was removed from her ICTR office on 15 May 2003 by the U.S. Ambassador Pierre Prosper at a State Department meeting because she insisted on prosecuting Paul Kagame for the assassination of President Habyarimana and the RPF for massive war crimes.

OBOTE-ODORA’S DENIAL OF ASSASSINATION IS CONTRADICTED BY EVIDENCE...AND HIS OWN OTP BOSS DEL PONTE

Somehow Mr. Obote-Odora was working in the OTP office and missed both these significant events. However, both are recounted my book ‘The Accidental Genocide’, which also has copies of the sworn statements in evidence at the ICTR from Queens Prosecutor Michael Hourigan and a reference to UN Gen. Dallaire's Military Intelligence Officer Capt. Amadou Deme that they gave evidence of Kagame's complicity to Del Ponte's predecessor Louise Arbour in January 1997. She ordered them to destroy their notes and disbanded the investigation. FBI Agent James Lyons' sworn statement confirmed the same facts and is copied in the book. [2]

As a member of the OTP, Mr. Obote-Odora has also read the ICTR testimony of RPF Lt. Abdul Joshua Ruzibiza in March 2005 when he explained he was ordered to locate the site for the missiles on 1 April 1994 by the commander at the CND, which he did in the Masaka Hills. April 5 was the date when the shoot down was originally scheduled, but a timing error required putting off the launch for a day.

Another former RPF officer in exile confirmed the details and the names of the crew are all in the ICTR record. On the night of the missile launch, former RPF officer testified that he was in Mulindi with Kagame when he got the news during the Africa Cup match in a room of 200 compatriots. Maj. Gen. Kagame gave the order for the final assault to seize power within half an hour after the plane was brought down.

All of this testimony from former RPF officers in exile was subject to the cross-examination of his colleagues in the OTP to challenge the credibility of the witnesses, as Mr. Obote-Odora knows well. He also knows the Kagame/RPF responsibility for the assassination has been admitted by former RPF Gen. Nyamwasa and Chief of Staff Theogene Rudesingwa, former ambassador to the U.S.[3]

The evidence of the responsibility for the assassination of Habyarimana by Kagame is in that evidentiary record and Obote-Odora’s former boss, Ms. Del Ponte has already confirmed these facts too.

OBOTE-ODORA "CONSPIRACY REASONING" DISTORTS THE SIMPLE POINT : "THE LONG-PLANNED GENOCIDE" ACCUSATIONS WERE NOT PROVED BY RPF/OTP

Mr. Obote-Odora knows that four Trial Chambers in "national cases" (Military I and II and Government I and II) and the Appeal Chamber in the Hague unanimously concluded that until after the assassination of President Habyarimana, there was insufficient evidence from the RPF government, Mr. Obote-Odora's OTP, U.S. Justice Dept. or other sources to support the story of a long-planned genocide against Rwandan Tutsis.

The cases Mr. Obote-Odora cites to confuse the issue for Pambazuka readers involve local leaders or private actors in which the words "conspiracy" and "genocide" are used, but in a completely different factual context, all of which allege crimes that occurred after 7 April, 1994, which was not "the long-planned conspiracy to commit genocide against the Tutsi" with which the national leaders had been charged. Mr. Obote-Odora knows this.[4]

The reason ICTR Chambers rejected the long-planned conspiracy theory, as Mr. Obote-Odora knows, was because U.S. State Dept documents from 1990 through 1994 reported a completely different reality about the Habyarimana government with apparently serious attempts at reconciliation, democratization and, as late as March 28, 1994 the Papal Nuncio, the U.S., front line states, all parties MDR, PL, etc. issued a public statement that the RPF was blocking a peaceful settlement.[5]

The U.S. State Dept. documents in ICTR evidence show that the assassination of the President of Burundi by the Tutsi military and the genocide of Hutu civilians in Burundi in October 1993 caused U.S. diplomats to warn both Habyarimana and Kagame that if either broke the ceasefire, mass violence would break out in Rwanda, too.

The cause of the "Rwanda genocide" w as a predictable consequence of the "Burundi Genocide" of Hutus that had already occurred in Oct/Nov 1993, according to the U.S. State Dept analysis in the April 6, 1994 Code Cable from Washington D.C. to Kigali that Mr. Obote-Odora knows full well, too.[6]

These documents are in the ICTR evidentiary record, and some are reproduced in the ‘Accidental Genocide’. The facts in U.S. government and U.N. documents that were put into the record in the Military-I case, as well as the testimony of the U.S. Ambassador to Rwandan during 1990-93 confirmed that there was no conspiracy to kill Tutsis that was known to the U.S. or other western intelligence, which was the factual evidence that caused the Trial Chambers to acquit the national leaders as they did.[7]

Prof. Peter Erlinder (Ill. Bar 3124291)
Wm. Mitchell College of Law, MN (ret)
Director, Int'l. Humanitarian Law Inst.
325 Cedar St. Ste. 308
St. Paul, MN 55101 USA
651-340-1272/651-340-0357 fax
cell 651-271-4616/ w
ww.ihli.org
Military-I Lead Defense Counsel
Major Aloys Ntabakuze
Author: ‘The Accidental Genocide’ (Int'l. Humanitarian Law Inst, St. Paul, 2013)www. amazon.com

END NOTES

[1] Thierry Cruvalier, International Justice Tribune, December 2011.
[2] See generally, Erlinder, The Accidental Genocide, (2013)
[3] Public Statement of Dr. Theogen Rudesingwa October 1, 2011. Reproduced in Erlinder, The Accidental Genocide.
[4] Thierry Cruvalier, International Justice Tribune, December 2011.
[5] See, May 28, 1994 document, reproduced in Erlinder, the Accidental Genocide (2013)
[6] See Code Cable of April 6, 1994, reproduced in, Erlinder, the Accidental Genocide (2013)
[7] Thierry Cruvalier, "The Brainless Genocide," International Justice Tribune, December 2011.

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