Tuesday, May 24, 2011

PRESIDENT KAGAME, TOWARDS MOVEMENTS!!!!!


Paul Kagame (born October 23, 1957President of the Republic of Rwanda. He rose to prominence as the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), whose victory over the incumbent government in July 1994 effectively ended the Rwandan genocide. Under his leadership, Rwanda has been called Africa’s “biggest success story” and Kagame has become a public advocate of new models for foreign aid designed to help recipients become self-reliant. However, Paul Kagame's rule has been criticized for his domestic policies that have been described as authoritarian. Under the leadership of Paul Kagame, Rwanda invaded the Democratic Republic of the Congo twice and occupied it for five years. In the course of the war, the Rwandan army financed its invasion through the illegal trade in the Congo’s natural resources. The Congo Wars resulted in the deaths of over five million people, the most devastating war in human history since the Second World War. ‘

Kagame was born to a Tutsi family in Ruhango, Rwanda-Urundi in October 1957 to Deogratius and Asteria Rutagambwa. In November 1959, an increasingly restive Hutu population sparked a revolt, eventually resulting in the overthrow of Mwami Kigeri V Ndahindurwa in 1961. During the 1959 revolt and its aftermath, more than 150,000 people were killed in the fighting, with the Tutsis suffering the greatest losses. Several thousand moved to neighbouring countries including Burundi and Uganda. In all, some 20,000 Tutsis were killed. In 1960 Kagame left with his family at the age of two and moved to Uganda with many other Tutsis. In 1962 they settled in the Gahunge refugee camp, Toro, where Kagame spent the rest of his childhood years. He attended Ntare Secondary School in Uganda. During this time Kagame was a "motivated student" and bore an early fascination with revolutionaries like Che Guevara.
Military service
His military career started when he joined Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA) and spent years fighting as a guerrilla against the government of Milton Obote in what is commonly known in Uganda as the bush war. On July 27, 1985, Milton Obote was ousted in a military coup led by Tito Okello. In 1986 the NRA succeeded in overthrowing Okello and the NRA leader Yoweri Museveni became President of Uganda.This same year, Kagame as a Tutsi was instrumental in forming, along with his close friend Fred Rwigema, the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), which was composed mainly of expatriate Rwandan Tutsi soldiers that had also fought with the NRA; the RPF was also based in Uganda.
In 1986, Kagame became the head of military intelligence in the NRA, and was regarded as one of Museveni's closest allies. He also joined the official Ugandan military. During 1990, Kagame went to Fort Leavenworth where the U.S. Army gave him military training. When the RPF started an invasion of Rwanda and his close friend and RPF co-founder Fred Rwigema was killed, the U.S. arranged the return of Kagame to Uganda and thence to take the leadership of the invasion, thus signaling that the U.S. was siding with Uganda and the RPF against the incumbent Rwandan government. Broadening this connection, the U.S. and U.K. military provided further training and active logistical support to the RPF, which it used to take over power in Rwanda after 1994; and after coming to power, Kagame arranged for the RPF to receive further counterinsurgency and combat training from U.S. Special Forces, which was put to use in the 1996-1997 Rwandan-backed military campaign to overthrow the government of neighboring Zaire.
In October 1990, while Kagame was undergoing military training in the U.S., the RPF invaded Rwanda in the struggle for the interests of Rwanda's Tutsi minority ethnic group. Only two days into the invasion, Rwigema was murdered, making Kagame the military commander of the RPF. Despite initial successes, a force of French, Belgian, Rwandan, and Zairean soldiers forced the RPF to retreat. A renewed invasion was attempted in late 1991, but also had limited success.the invasion increased ethnic tension throughout the region, including in neighbouring Burundi where similar tensions existed. Peace talks between the RPF and the Rwandan government resulted in the Arusha accords, including political participation of the RPF in Rwanda. Despite the agreement, ethnic tensions still flared dangerously.
On 6 April 1994, a plane carrying both the Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down by a surface-to-air missile as it approached Kigali airport. All on board were killed. The deaths immediately sparked the Rwandan Genocide and an estimated 800,000 to 1,000,000 Rwandans were killed. Under the Arusha accords, the RPF had a small contingent of troops present in Kigali at the time. The outbreak of genocide ended what vestiges remained of the cease fire. The RPF, under the leadership of Kagame, proceeded to take control of the whole country. Kigali was captured July 4, 1994, bringing the downfall of the government of Jean Kambanda.
French indictment
Because three French citizens, crew members of the aircraft, died during the crash, an investigation was carried out by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who controversially concluded that the shooting of the plane was ordered by Kagame. In November 2006 Judge Bruguière signed international indictments against nine of President Kagame's senior aides, and accused Kagame of ordering the assassination of the two African presidents. Kagame could not be indicted under French law, since as a head-of-state he had immunity from prosecution. The indictments have failed to produce any arrests, due to non-cooperation from the Rwandan government, which accused the judge of partiality.
The Kagame government countered that the indictment was based upon declarations by fugitives and disgruntled former lower rank RPF members who testified that the RPF was the only organization with the type of missiles that were used in the assassination. It also pointed out that at the time of the shooting of the plane, the French military was in control of Kigali Airport; although that point, and the possible attempt to imply that the French shot down the plane, is irrelevant as the plane was shot down on approach to the airport and not from the zone controlled by French forces. The former chief prosecutor for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Judge Richard Goldstone, argued in the interview that political motivations were at play in the indictment, though this did not negate the potential veracity of the accusations leveled by Judge Bruguière. Judge Goldstone stated that: "Well I don't think that case has been made at all. It's a very political judgement and I don't believe that it's borne out by the evidence. Certainly the witnesses who spoke to Bruguiere allege that those were statements made by President Kagame himself. Whether he did or not obviously is a matter in dispute, in hot dispute, but the political judgement it seems to me is another matter."
The accusations against Kagame were corroborated by several witnesses including former intelligence RPF members, the most publicly known being Commando Lieutenant Abdul Ruzibiza. Ruzibiza published a book (Rwanda: L'histoire secrete) and released testimony pertaining to Kagame and the RPF's involvement in the plane downing and massacres; however, Ruzibiza subsequently retracted part of his testimony, especially as pertains to Kagame senior aide Rose Kabuye after she was arrested in Germany and extradited to France. The Association des Avocats de la Defence released a statement backing Judge Bruguière's allegations.[21][22] Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan of mixed Hutu and Tutsi origin whose feat saving 1,268 civilians has been the basis of the Academy Award nominated film Hotel Rwanda (2004), has supported the allegation that Kagame and the RPF were behind the plane downing, and stated that.
It defies logic why the UN Security Council has never mandated an investigation of this airplane missile attack to establish who was responsible, especially since everyone agrees it was the one incident that touched off the mass killings commonly referred to as the “Rwandan genocide of 1994”. In a political countereffort, Kagame broke diplomatic relations with France in November 2006 and ordered the formation of a commission of loyal Rwandans that was officially "charged with assembling proof of the involvement of France in the genocide". The political character of that investigation was further averred when the commission issued its report solely to Kagame in November 2007 and its head, Jean de Dieu Mucyo, stated that the commission would now "wait for President Kagame to declare whether the inquiry was valid."
In a 2007 interview with the BBC, Mr Kagame said he would co-operate with an impartial inquiry. The BBC concluded that "Whether any judge would want to take on such a task is quite another matter." As of 2009, a report commissioned by the Rwandan government concluded the RPF and Kagame were not responsible for the crash of the president's plane.

No comments:

Post a Comment