Alex Obote-Odora, a former Chief of Appeals and Legal Advisory Division at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), must take the readers of Pambazuka News as extremely gullible. In what purports to be ‘A reply to Herman and Peterson,’[1] Obote-Odora barely touches on what we’ve published on Rwanda, whether at Pambazuka News or elsewhere,[2] and instead takes off in entirely different directions. For the record, we have engaged in no ‘legal analysis’ per se of the ICTR’s jurisprudence, contrary to what Obote-Odora asserts, and have committed no ‘errors of law’ with respect to the same. On the other hand, we have criticised the ICTR as an institution dedicated to enforcing ‘victor’s justice’ upon the conquered Hutu population of Rwanda (though in this respect, even the ICTR pales in comparison to what the Gacaca system has institutionalised[3]), we have criticised the ICTR for protecting the real culture of Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) impunity, and we have documented many reasons for reaching these conclusions.[4]

As with his first response to us on November 28, Obote-Odora continued here to be highly deceitful. He writes that he finds the ‘advocacy style adopted by the two authors inappropriate and strange’. This is droll coming from a former member of the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICTR, whose business then and now is advocacy on behalf of the politically powerful. On the contrary, the two main focuses of our work have been on what really happened in Rwanda in 1994, and how the real history of the events has been distorted in the English-language world in such a way as to serve the interests of the United States, Britain, and, of course, Kagame-Power. So why accuse us of making an argument that is ‘not truly a legal analysis’? To muddy the waters, clearly, on the assumption that Pambazuka’s readers will never check.

We have covered most of the questions raised by Obote-Odora in our earlier reply to his criticisms of our work, so we will not repeat them here, but strongly urge Pambazuka’s readers to look back at our January 16 reply and, even more important, to consult our book, Enduring Lies.

We will, however, discuss again one of Obote-Odora’s most remarkable lie-sequences, regarding the shooting down of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana’s jet on April 6, 1994. Recall that in his original November 28 response to us, Obote-Odora had argued that Habyarimana’s jet was a ‘legitimate military target’, so that the shoot-down was a legitimate ‘act of war’, that ‘no crimes within the ICTR Statute were committed’ by it, and that the ICTR has always been right not to investigate responsibility for the act.[5]

But as the August, 1993 Arusha Accords were still in effect, the shoot-down violated the terms of the ceasefire and was thus an opening act of war—it cannot be defended as a war-time action. And as the ICTR’s original Chief Prosecutor Richard Goldstone once told the Danish newspaper, Berlingske Tidende, the shoot-down was ‘clearly related to the genocide’, indeed, was the ‘trigger that started the genocide’, and it remains ‘very, very important from a justice point of view, from victims’ point of view, to find out’ which party, ultimately, was responsible for the crime.[6]

But while trying with this puny effort to legitimise the assassination of a president of Rwanda, Obote-Odora also feels obliged to deny the evidence that Paul Kagame ordered it, and that his Rwandan Patriotic Front carried it out. For Obote-Odora, there is ‘no evidence that the RPF’ shot down the jet. Case closed.

Anyone who would pass off misrepresentations such as these discredits himself completely and does not deserve to be taken seriously. That there really is no point in arguing with Alex Obote-Odora ought to be clear.

END NOTES

[1] Alex Obote-Odora, ‘The Rwandan genocide: A reply to Herman and Peterson,’ Pambazuka News (Issue 711), January 28, 2015. http://tinyurl.com/kf3qxyl >
[2] See, e.g., Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, Enduring Lies: The Rwandan Genocide in the Propaganda System, 20 Years Later (Baltimore, MD: The Real News Books, 2014). Also see our ‘The Kagame-Power Lobby’s dishonest attack on BBC documentary on Rwanda,’ Pambazuka News (Issue 702), November 12, 2014. http://tinyurl.com/k5q6v95 > And our ‘Alex Obote-Odora’s dishonest response to Peterson and Herman on the ICTR and BBC,’ One Voyce of the World, January 16, 2015. http://tinyurl.com/kw5h2qg >
[3] On the Gacaca system, see Phillip Reyntjens, Political Governance in Post Genocide Rwanda (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), ‘Gacaca,’ pp. 222-236.
[4] We encourage readers to see our treatment of the ICTR in Herman and Peterson, Enduring Lies, Sect. 6, ‘The ICTR delivers victor’s justice, pp. 38-43; Sect. 7, ‘The alleged Hutu ‘conspiracy to commit genocide’ that never was,’ pp. 43-46; and Appendix I, ‘More on the alleged Hutu ‘conspiracy to commit genocide’ that never was,’ pp. 78-82.
[5] Alex Obote-Odora, ‘The Kagame-Power Lobby’s dishonest attack on BBC documentary on Rwanda: A rejoinder,’ Pambazuka News (Issue 704), November 28, 2014. http://tinyurl.com/m6oq6lt >
[6] ‘Rwanda: April 6th 1994 Attack Fits the ICTR's Mandate – Goldstone,’ All Africa, December 12, 2006. http://tinyurl.com/nw95d6u >

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