Gen. Bosco Ntaganda and Ambassador Johnnie Carson
FIRST READ:
Are we seeing the end of M23 and the creation of another militia in DRC by the USA in conjunction with Rwanda?? Wanted Ntaganda surrenders, asks to be taken to ICC: M23 rebels run out of ammunition, flee to Rwanda
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2013/03/are-we-seeing-end-of-m23-and-creation.htmlOh! God when will you avenge this: Congolese abandoned by international community
When will President Obama weep for Congolese Children ???
In
this impressive book, Edward S. Herman and David Peterson examine the uses and
abuses of the word “genocide.” They argue persuasively that the label is highly
politicized and that in the United States it
is used by the government, journalists, and academics to brand as evil those
nations and political movements that in one way or another interfere with the
imperial interests of U.S. capitalism. Thus the word “genocide” is seldom applied when the
perpetrators are U.S. allies
(or even the United States
itself), while it is used almost
indiscriminately when murders are committed or are alleged to have been
committed by enemies of the United States
and U.S.
business interests. One set of rules applies to cases such as U.S. aggression
in Vietnam, Israeli oppression of Palestinians, Indonesian slaughter of
so-called communists and the people of East Timor, U.S. bombings in Serbia and
Kosovo, the U.S. war of “liberation” in Iraq, and mass murders committed by
U.S. allies in Rwanda and the Republic of Congo. Another set applies to cases
such as Serbian aggression in Kosovo and Bosnia,
killings carried out by U.S.
enemies in Rwanda and
Darfur, Saddam Hussein, any and all actions by Iran, and a host of others.
US implies Rwanda hasn't assured warlord's passage
Posted on Wednesday, 03.20.13
By JASON STRAZIUSO and MELANIE GOUBY
Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya -- The United States appears to be worried that Rwanda won't allow a warlord from Congo now camped out in the U.S. Embassy safe passage to the airport to be flown to the International Criminal Court for prosecution.The U.S. hopes Rwanda will help facilitate the transfer of Congolese rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda from the U.S. Embassy in Kigali to the airport for a flight to the ICC in the Netherlands, the top U.S. State Department official on Africa, Johnnie Carson, said Wednesday.
Corporate thieving in the DR Congo, Banro Gold fields
"We hope that the Rwandan government will do its part," Carson said in a telephone press conference from Washington. "It is a small but significant part to ensure that Bosco Ntaganda is able to move freely from the American embassy compound to the airport where he will board a plane and go to The Hague."
Carson said it's important that Ntaganda's movement from the embassy to the airport "in no way be inhibited."
Carson also indicated that Rwanda hasn't yet assured cooperation with ICC officials en route to Rwanda. He noted that Rwanda, like the United States, is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that created the ICC and is not bound by international obligations to hand Ntaganda to the ICC.
Rwanda's foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, implicitly criticized the ICC on Twitter on Sunday that "Rwanda believes in justice, not judicial colonialism," in response to a question from the head of Human Rights Watch on whether Rwanda would commit to sending Ntaganda to the court's headquarters in The Hague.
FILE- In this June 30, 2010 file photo, Bosco Ntaganda, a former
warlord then integrated into Congo's national army, attends the 50th
anniversary celebration of Congo's independence in Goma, eastern Congo.
The government of Rwanda said Monday, March 18, 2013,
A spokesman for the ICC, Fadi El Abdallah, said the ICC is "contacting authorities in Rwanda and the Americans in order to check how we can get him as soon as possible." He wouldn't elaborate on the nature of the contacts.
Ntaganda's reputation for ruthless methods in the battlefield acquired him the nickname "The Terminator," and his ICC arrest warrant describes how Ntaganda would not hesitate to shell villages with heavy artillery before launching an attack in which his men would kill people with machetes, knifes and rifles.
Those who recently fought alongside him say Ntaganda fled Congo over the weekend after his men lost a key battle against fighters who split off last month from his M23 rebel movement.
"Ntaganda's self-surrender at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali was a surprising end to a saga of conflict, human rights abuses, and blatant disregard for his ICC arrest warrant by (Congolese) officials for many years. It is very significant in terms of a victory for individual rights," said Laura Seay, a Congo expert at Morehouse University in Atlanta.
Artisenal
child miners show off copper ore in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"Artisenal" means they dig the ore with whatever primitive tools they
can get hold of and sell it to Glencore International, a Swiss-based
multinational mining company and the world's largest commodities broker. And
other companies. but Glencore is the largest. Neighboring Zambia, which shares the Katanga Copper Belt with Congo's Katanga Province,
has a state strong enough to prevent this much at least. Congo does not.
Photo: Fair phone. Ann Garrison
Having Ntaganda on the stand, though, could pose problems for Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Seay said. Kagame won't want Ntaganda, who was born in Rwanda, to reveal the details of security arrangements and illicit mineral extraction deals between Congo and Rwanda, she said.
Congo has been wracked by warfare for years, and Carson noted that some experts indicate 5 million people have died in violence. Women suffer from mass rapes and children are forced to become soldiers.
But even with Ntaganda out of the picture, peace in eastern Congo remains a long way off. The victorious M23 faction of Gen. Sultani Makenga has lost little strength in the fighting with Ntaganda's faction, and troop morale is high after defeating one of the most feared warlords in Africa. Makenga himself does not have an international arrest warrant against him, but is under United Nations sanctions and has a track record of similar crimes to those committed by Ntaganda.
"It is an interesting development for peace in eastern Congo," said Marc-André Lagrange, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. "A warlord is leaving, but it doesn't mean that he won't be replaced. Makenga has exactly the same connections in minerals trafficking and so on. A warlord is merely being replaced by another."
Carson said the next 48 hours are critical for Ntaganda's situation. Carson said Ntaganda moved across the border from eastern Congo to Rwanda late on March 14 or early on March 15 with 500 to 700 of his fighters.
"We then found Mr. Ntaganda coming to our embassy. We did not encourage him, we did not know his whereabouts," Carson said. "I suspect he may have come because he knows we are a symbol of fairness and justice and integrity in these kinds of processes but I can't tell you because I don't know and can't read his mind."
Carson said the situation with Ntaganda is an opportunity for progress to be made in the battle against impunity for atrocities and crimes against humanity.
ICC sends officials to collect Congo warlord – US
http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/640885-icc-sends-officials-to-collect-congo-warlord-us.html
International Criminal Court officials are travelling to Rwanda to collect Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda, who is holed up in the US embassy there, a top American diplomat said Wednesday.
Ntaganda surprised US embassy staff in Kigali on Monday when he walked in off the street and asked for help in reaching the ICC in The Hague, where he is wanted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"Officials from the ICC are, as we speak, en route to Kigali," the top US diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, told reporters on Wednesday.
"The timeline is uncertain but the need for rapid and quick action is clear," Carson added, speaking on a conference call from Washington.
"The next 48 hours or so will be critical in all this," he added.
Carson, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, said that Ntaganda "voluntarily walked in" to the embassy, but had no clear answer as to why he chose a United States diplomatic mission for his surrender.
"I suspect that he may have come because he knows that we are a symbol of fairness and justice and integrity in this kind of process... but I don't know and can't read his mind," he added.
Carson also appealed to Rwanda to allow Ntaganda free passage to the airport in Kigali on his way to trial "without interference".
Carson said there had been "very open and good contact" with Rwandan officials, who have given assurances they will allow Ntaganda to go to The Hague. But he also said the "realities in practical terms" of how Ntaganda would travel to the airport were still to be ironed out.
Ntaganda was allegedly involved in the brutal murder of at least 800 people in villages in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, using child soldiers in his rebel army and keeping women as sex slaves between September 2002 and September 2003.
Carson said bringing Ntaganda to The Hague would send a "clear signal" to other rebel leaders and be a step towards improving the situation in DR Congo's volatile east.
"It will take off the battlefield one of the most notorious rebel leaders, a man dubbed by the media 'The Terminator'," Carson said. AFP
Publish Date: Mar 21, 2013
which other player is missing???? The USA of course
Officials from the ICC ‘coming for Ntaganda’
Officials from the International Criminal Court (ICC) are on
their way to Kigali in order to pick DR Congo’s
war crimes suspect Bosco Ntaganda, a senior US official has said.
Ntaganda turned himself in at the US Embassy in Kigali on Monday and asked to be transferred to The Hague-based tribunal.
Amb. Johnnie Carson, the United States Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs, was yesterday addressing journalists at the US Embassy in Kigali via a video link.
“Officials from the ICC are, as we speak, en route to Kigali,” he said. “We believe that it is important to accommodate Bosco Ntaganda’s request to be transferred to the ICC.”
The US, like Rwanda, is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the court.
Carson said; “The timeline (of Ntaganda’s transfer to the ICC) is uncertain but the need for rapid and quick action is clear, we have been told that officials from the ICC are, as we speak, en route to Kigali. We hope that when these officials arrive, they would be admitted into the country, that they would be allowed to proceed to the Embassy and accorded appropriate diplomatic passage and to move Ntaganda out of Kigali into the arms of the ICC.”
Rwanda has indicated that it would not interfere with the transfer of Ntaganda to the ICC.
Foreign Affairs minister Louise Mushikiwabo said on Tuesday, “It is a matter for the US, who are holding the suspect, the DRC–the country whose nationality the suspect holds – and the ICC.”
The US diplomat noted that there had been ‘very open and good contact’ with Kigali, with assurances of cooperation.
Amb. Carson noted the next 48 hours or so will be critical could not explain why Ntaganda chose to surrender to the US.
“I suspect that he may have come because he knows that we are a symbol of fairness and justice and integrity in this kind of process...but I don’t know and can’t read his mind,” he added.
On the likely implication of sending Ntaganda to the ICC, Carson said this would send a ‘clear signal’ to other rebel leaders and would be one step towards improving situation in the volatile eastern DR Congo.
“It will take off the battlefield one of the most notorious rebel leaders,” Carson said.
Ntaganda fell out with President Joseph Kabila early last year after the latter seemed to bow to international pressure to arrest him after joining the government under a March 2009 peace deal.
Since then, Ntaganda kept a low profile despite repeatedly being linked with the M23 rebellion in eastern DR Congo, which broke out around the same time he deserted from the army.
But in the days leading up to his surrender, a split within M23 saw its military commander, Col. Sultan Makenga, dismiss Bishop Jean Runiga, who was believed to be in favour of a hard-line stance in the ongoing peace talks with Kinshasa and working closely with Ntaganda.
Runiga, along with an estimated 700 loyalist fighters crossed into Rwanda on Saturday after they were uprooted by rival M23 fighters, sparking speculation that Ntaganda moved deep into DRC jungles without protection.
Ntaganda Surrenders: Protecting Kagame And Museveni Is Crime Against Humanity
http://www.blackstarnews.com/global-politics/africa/ntaganda-surrenders-protecting-kagame-and-museveni-is-crime-against-humanity
News that Rwanda-backed war crimes suspect Bosco Ntaganda who's responsible for the massacre of Congo civilians and mass rapes including of children has surrendered in the U.S. embassy in Kigali is welcome.Hopefully, he will remain healthy and he'll be transferred to the Hague to face trial at the International Criminal Court, where the proceedings could reveal more about Rwanda's and Uganda's role in the genocidal wars of aggression against Congo.
Ntaganda could also implicate many Western companies and even some officials.
Rwanda's and Uganda's most recent invasion of Congo was late last year, with the use of M23 --which Rwanda claimed was a Congo rebel army but the U.N. found otherwise-- as their Trojan Horse. A United Nations Group of Experts in a damning report showed conclusively how M23's ultimate commander was actually Rwanda's minister of defense James Kabarebe.
The U.N. report also showed how both Rwanda and Uganda recruited, trained, and armed the fighters and how Sultan Makenga and Jean Marie Runiga --handpicked by Rwanda's Kabarebe according to the UN report-- were mere nominal leaders with the real decision and command coming from leaders of Rwanda and Uganda.
The invasion of Congo effectively ended after a high profile intervention in which U.S. President Barack Obama personally called President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and urged him to pull out his warriors. Congo's integrity, sovereignty, national unity, and resources, must be preserved.
In addition to Ntaganda, Nkunda, Makeni and Runiga must also face trial at the Hague for taking part in the atrocities --massacres, mass rapes, other forms of torture-- against Congolese civilians.
Ntaganda is a small player. His predecessor, Laurent Nkunda, the previous warlord, who remains harbored in Rwanda as a guest of the government, was also a small player.
The puppet masters are Rwanda's Kagame and Uganda's ruler of 27 years Gen. Yoweri K. Museveni.
Between 1997 and 2013, following the numerous invasions of Congo by Rwanda and Uganda, accompanied by plundering of resources and ethnic cleansing in mineral rich regions to depopulate the areas, Congo has lost an estimated 8 million people.
Today Congo remains the most dangerous country in the world for women as rape --of women, men and children-- has become a weapon of war of epidemic measures.
After he unleashed violence and terror against the citizens of Sierra Leone, Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, was ultimately prosecuted by a Special International Tribunal.
Yet for unleashing even far worse crimes against the people of Congo Rwanda's Kagame and Uganda's Gen. Museveni still avoid prosecution because both are regarded as U.S. "allies."
Protection of unindicted war criminals, is the real crime against humanity.
U.S.
Supreme Court to decide whether Kagame has immunity in U.S. courts
March 16, 2013
The widows of the assassinated presidents of Rwanda and Burundi
have petitioned the Supreme Court in Habyarimana v.
Kagame to reject Obama administration claims of unreviewable executive
power to strip federal courts of jurisdiction for money damages for
“extra-judicial” murders and other violations of international law committed by
Paul Kagame, the current president of Rwanda.
The ‘imperial presidency’ is the real issue
The Obama administration issued a “suggestion of immunity” from federal court jurisdiction for Kagame, even though the assassinations of the two presidents occurred before the present government of Rwanda existed and before Kagame was an official in any government, much less head of state. The 10th Circuit and 4th Circuit ruled differently on whether a “suggestion of head-of-state immunity” must be obeyed by the Supreme Court and the other federal courts.
This is yet another facet of unreviewable executive
discretion of the “imperial presidency” that includes targeted assassinations
by predator drone and NDAA-authorized detention of U.S. citizens in military prisons
by presidential decree. Unlimited “suggestions of immunity” put the
jurisdiction of the federal courts under the control of the executive branch.
Unofficial acts not entitled to immunity: Supreme Court 2010
Presidential immunity from federal jurisdiction by decree is contrary to Samantar v. Yousuf, the Court’s 20101 ruling that held head-of-state immunity is “derivative of” the “sovereign immunity” of nations which Congress defined in FSIA (Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act of 1976) and limited to “official acts.” The president cannot create, or ignore, federal jurisdiction properly established and interpreted by the other branches.‘Suggesting immunity’ for Kagame aligns U.S. with known war criminals – why?
Whether now-President Kagame should be protected by Obama administration-invoked immunity from federal jurisdiction is a separate policy question that was widely discussed during the congressional vetting process of Susan Rice’ candidacy for Secretary of State in late 2012,2 in light of:- Rwanda’s responsibility for the mass violence perpetrated by M23 in the Congo, reported by U.N. Experts in November 2012;3
- Rwanda’s responsibility for the mass violence in Congo 1993-2003, including genocide and war crimes in yjr U.N. Mapping Report of Oct. 1, 2010;4
- Rwanda’s responsibility for resource rape of the Congo, reported by UNSC Experts 2001-08;5) and,
- Kagame’s responsibility for the assassination of the two presidents, which was well known within the ruling RPF party, according to the Oct. 1, 2011, confession of President Kagame’s former Chief of Staff Dr. Theogene Rudisingwa, MD;6
Professor Peter Erlinder, past president of the National Lawyers Guild, president of ADAD, the UN-ICTR defense lawyers associations, Arusha, Tanzania, a founding member of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms and the Minnesota Bill of Rights Defense Coalition, is director of the International Humanitarian Law Institute of St. Paul, Minn. He can be reached at proferlinder@gmail.com.
