Stop au négationisme...!

                                                                

RE: A When women become killers, letter by Chantal Mudahogora, Oct. 19; A woman's work, ' by Peter Landesman, Sept. 28; A Misplaced blame, by Michelle Landsberg, Sept. 28, The Magazine. The real problem with these two articles and letter you published recently on the Rwandan tragedy is precisely, as the headline on Landsberg's article suggests, that they all have misplaced the blame. 

Rwanda gained its independence in the early 1960s after the majority Hutus (85% of the population) struggled for liberation from Belgian colonial domination and from the Tutsi minority (15% of the population) that Belgium had kept in power as its local elite.

After independence, much of the Tutsi elite emigrated to live in Uganda. In 1994, the USA under then-President Bill Clinton organized and financed an army of Tutsi exiles in Uganda (called the Rwandan Patriotic Front or RPF) to launch an attack on the legitimate government of Rwanda.

The US did so because it sought to replace the French as the power broker in eastern Africa and to establish a loyal client state in Rwanda to threaten the fabulously wealthy resources of the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. Anyone with half a brain could foresee that launching an attack by the former ruling Tutsi elite against the 30-year-old mainly Hutu government of Rwanda would lead to a bloody civil war.

And that's exactly what happened. But because the rebels managed to shoot down the Rwandan president's plane and had international support to place a force of RPF troops inside the Rwandan capital, the legitimate Rwandan government collapsed. Canadian General Romeo Dallaire was in the capital, Kigali, with a small force of UN troops at the time. He appealed for more troops to prevent widespread bloodshed. However, Clinton blocked his request. In the slaughter that followed, both Hutus and Tutsis killed each other in large numbers.

How large were the numbers?

Nobody really knows: However, claims that up to a million Tutsis were killed are, in my view, ridiculously inflated because the Tutsis only formed about a million of the Rwandan population of nine million. If they were all killed, it would have been impossible for the RPF to have set up and run the Tutsi police state that exists today in Rwanda. If there were crimes against humanity committed in the Rwandan tragedy, I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the USA and Clinton and not on the ministers of the legitimate government of Rwanda for whom the situation simply got out of hand.

However, in an attempt to deflect the blame for its own aggression, the USA was able to demand and pay for a so-called War Crimes Tribunal for Rwanda, which sits in neighboring Tanzania.

In this kangaroo court, where the normal rules of due process for the defendants (the former ministers of the legitimate government of Rwanda) are conveniently ignored, the defence is not allowed to question the role of the USA in hatching the whole invasion, the assassination of the Rwandan president and other key facts. The tribunal in Tanzania is identical in purpose to that in The Hague, where the legitimate former rulers of Yugoslavia are fighting for their freedom, while the authors of the aggression against and dismemberment of the sovereign republic of Yugoslavia live it up in Washington and Berlin.

What irony !

At the tribunal in Tanzania, a litany of salacious fabrications against Pauline Nyiramasuhuko and other defendants has been debunked by the defence team, who are mainly lawyers from Canada. The prosecution witnesses have been caught over and over again contradicting and perjuring themselves, and admitting to being paid and set up by the new government of Rwanda to be witnesses against such defendants as Nyiramasuhuko.

Regrettably, the Canadian media choose to parrot the official US line on this tribunal rather than to interview the Canadian lawyer who could tell them the truth about this travesty of justice. The Tutsi government, put in place after 1994 by US funds and support, imprisoned over 100, 000 Hutus in deplorable conditions and executed many of them.

Afterward, the new Rwandan government joined in a war to overthrow the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in which it participates to this day, all at the bidding of the USA. Michelle Landsbert, Peter Landsman and Chantal Mudahogora all need to be more circumspect about the information they receive and disseminate about who is to blame for the Rwandan tragedy.

Most of all they need to remember the admonition AHe who is without sin should cast the first stone.

By Ken Stone, Hamilton

Hamilton Spectator, M4 / Saturday, November 16, 2002

Au-dessus de toute la respnsabilté des femmes et des mères qu'on sait, "mal reconnus, avouons-le sans fausse modestie, par la large majorité de la fierté mâle", Chantal Mudahogora est une femme et une mère comme toutes les autres, en plus de son travail à temps plein. Cependant, vue en Zoom-In tel que vous allez le découvrir vous-même dans sa réplique qui suit, elle est différente. Elle est parmi les rares femmes dont on voit, de temps en autre, une réaction ou un numéro complet sur des forums connus comme "Ibuka_L. Beaucoup de mâles fiers de l'être, vous diront souvent qu'ils n'ont ni le temps ni l'envie ni rien, de dire à haute voix ce qu'ils préfèrent papauter des heures durant, dans des salons ou par téléphone. Ba ntirumve ko...! 

Pourtant, cet esprit de partage de l'information et cette forme de prise de position devant certaines affirmations gratuites, est la seule façon d'endiguer l'avancée de tout véhicule chargé de propos toxiques, déplacés ou diffamatoires, conscient qu'ils sont toujous succeptibles de faire d'énormes dégâts à long ou à court terme. À vos yeux, ce ne sera peut-être pas grand-chose, pourtant c'est tout ce que ça prend, et ça peut même changer le monde, en tout cas mieux que des ogives nucléaires. Merci Chantal pour ton courage et pour ta détermination, tiens bon.

A. Rurangwa 

De la part de Chantal, je vous invite à lire ce qui suit :

Comment oses-t-elle encore se laisser appeller "MAMAN", par cet homme !

Michele Landsberg Torstar News Service Hundreds of wars: Peru, Colombia, Liberia, Congo, East Timor, Chechnya, Bosnia, Algeria, to cite only a handful. Millions of girls and women raped in the course of war -- a sick, bloody tide of ruined lives and butchered bodies. The butchers, the mutilators, the rapists and the commanders who ordered the rapes as acts of war, must number in the tens of thousands. But who is the only one, the sole individual singled out from all this multitude of murder-rapists, to feature as a unique monster on the cover of the powerful New York Times Magazine? It's a woman, of course.

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, former minister for women in Rwanda and now the first woman ever to stand trial for genocide. Why am I not surprised? I've been well trained by North American media -- from the Fatal Attraction-type Hollywood movies to the reporters and commentators who slaver with indignation and outrage over mean schoolgirls, girl bullies, girl gangs and female criminal accomplices like Karla Homolka. Ever since the feminist breakthroughs of the mid-20th century, when male violence against females (from sexual harassment to rape, wife battering, incest and sex-trade trafficking) was finally exposed, named and labelled as criminal, the media have never been more relieved and satisfied than when they can point to a woman who is "just as bad" or "even worse." A recent New York Times Magazine story focuses narrowly on Nyiramasuhuko (who is referred to in the Times article as Pauline), even depicting her in an admittedly "subtly manipulated" portrait that accentuates her sinister implacability. * Read an excerpt of the New York Times Magazine article about Pauline Nyiramasuhuko on pages 4 and 5 of today's Magazine Certainly Nyiramasuhuko, if she is found guilty, must be acknowledged as a hideously evil criminal.

The original magazine article, however, as enormously lengthy as it was, fails to offer much insight into the context of the genocide and the extra sufferings inflicted on the women. The horror in Rwanda, in which half a million to a million Tutsis were brutally slaughtered and about a quarter of a million women serially raped, sexually tortured and mutilated by their compatriots, was an orchestrated genocide. An official investigation later concluded that many abetted the Hutu government. Among those guilty of knowing in advance and doing nothing, or of actively colluding, or of remaining silent and passive throughout the mass murder were the United States, the UN Security Council, the Secretariat, France, Belgium, and the Catholic and Anglican churches of Rwanda. An even more meaningful context: Nyiramasuhuko did not invent, plan or initiate the mass rapes alone. The Hutu government, of which she was a fanatically loyal servant, did that. Long before the killing began, Hutu propagandists fomented tribal hatred and jealous rage against the supposedly "more beautiful" Tutsi women, in order to set them up as targets for extermination. In fact, Nyiramasuhuko would not be the first to be found guilty of these precise crimes. A Rwandan mayor, Jean-Paul Akayesu, was convicted in 1998 of genocide, crimes against humanity and rape. The New York Times Magazine didn't do a cover story on that conviction. It just wasn't as piquant, somehow. In truth, the whole sexist, patriarchal culture of Rwanda should be on the stand. The Times article goes on about rape being horrific because women are a "symbol of family purity."

Pardon me, but what was horrific, aside from the physical torture and the profound violation of each woman's human rights, was that Rwandan women were seen solely as sexual and reproductive objects (by their friends as well as foes) and were thus a perfect instrument for the terrorizing and extermination of a people. It seems equally horrible to me that the Rwandan rape survivors continue to suffer agonizing loneliness and despair because their own people, their own villages, ostracize and revile them as "soiled." Yes, it's shocking and criminal when women behave brutally against other women, but it's nothing new. In every culture where men are dominant and where patriarchal values hold sway over minds and hearts, many women help perpetuate unspeakable cruelties against vulnerable girls and young women. Female genital mutilation, dowry burnings, honour killings -- women play their roles in all these crimes, not only because they are powerless and have no choice, but because they have drunk deeply of patriarchy's poisons and thoroughly digested them.

A woman like Nyiramasuhuko rightly revolts us but to single her out as uniquely culpable -- the cover line in the Times article misleadingly asks "How could a woman incite Rwanda's sex-crime genocide?" as though she were the prime instigator -- is frighteningly irresponsible. I'm waiting for the day when the New York Times Magazine exposes the horrors of male dominance and all the ugly harm it spawns in our world. I won't hold my breath. Michele Landsberg's column appears in The Toronto Star. You can contact her at mlandsb@thestar.ca. Illustration(s): Suzanne Bukabangwa was forced to be a sex slave during the Rwandan genocide when girls and women were raped as an act of war against Tutsis. Category: Miscellaneous Uniform subject(s): Armed conflicts; Murder and manslaughter; National Defense and armed forces; Serial killings and mass murder Story type(s): News Edition: Final Length: Long, 709 words © 2002

The Hamilton Spectator. All rights reserved. Doc.: 20020928HS620396 This material is copyrighted. All rights reserved. © 2001 CEDROM-Sni

Hamilton's Chantal Mudahogora writes this letter in response to the Sept. 28 Magazine story about a former Rwandan government minister accused of inciting rape, murder and mutilation during the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi ethnic minority group.

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko headed the national Ministry of Family, Gender and Social Affairs, and is the first woman on trial in an international court for sex-crime genocide. She has consistently denied all the charges against her and has said that it was the Tutsis who massacred the Hutu ethnic group. Accompanying the story about Nyiramasuhuko, Torstar's Michelle Landsberg wrote a column criticizing the western media for placing the blame for the Rwandan genocide on one woman when many male government ministers backed the atrocities against the Tutsi ethnic minority.

Chantal is herself a survivor and a former senior manager with the Rwanda Ministry of Family, Gender and Social Affairs from 1994-1996. From 1997-98, she assisted groups at-risk and survivors of the genocide while working for Campagne d'Action Pour La Paix. She came to Canada in December 1998 and now works as a medical secretary at Francophone Community Health Centre on Main Street East.

I personally thank The Spectator and all the media that continue to inform and mobilize the world about the atrocities that marked this last decade and killed more than one million Tutsis during three months in 1998. It is very important for all of us to be more conscious of what happened in Rwanda in 1994, and then be involved in eradicating the causes of genocide and managing its consequences. The killing of Tutsis was planned and put into action before the very eyes of the world; this generation has been witness to the Rwandan genocide.

It was a crime against humanity; it was not a natural disaster such as a flood or earthquake. Therefore, every single person who contributed, directly or indirectly, from far or near, men, women and children - everyone implicated should assume their responsibility. And they should therefore accept the consequences.

I am responding to Michelle Landsberg's column, which was written as a reaction to Peter Landesman's article on Pauline Nyiramasuhuko. On one hand, I agree with Landsberg that, for the purpose of eradicating the causes of genocide and other crimes against humanity, the media should focus and point the finger to each and every individual who plays any role in anysuch crime, not just one woman. In the case of the genocide of the Tutsis, some western media make excuses or think that Rwanda is too far away to both with. But the world is getting smaller because of communications technology, and I think it is very important to be informed and then make resolutions for a better life and world. It is also very important to focus on each and every one of the perpetrators of genocide, regardless of gender, colour, age or any other factor.

Where I disagree with Landsberg is that I believe it is very important to focus on Nyiramasuhuko in particular, not only because of her alleged active participation in genocide and her crucial position in the government, but also and above all because she is a mother, with all the social criteria and expectations that entails, and because as minister of family, gender and social affairs, she had a special responsibility to protect families and women.

The Tutsi refugees who gathered in the province of Butare in 1994 were considered "dirt" by the Hutu. During the period that Tutsis were being raped and killed, Nyiramasuhuko was a minister of the national government, from April 1992 to July 1994. She was also an active member of the Mouvement révolutionnaire national pour le développement (MRND), the party of former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana. Nyiramasuhuko was among the country's powerful women. She became infamous due to the implication of her and her son, Arsène Shalom Ntahobari, in the genocide. Some of the indictments against her and her son allege that they set up a road block close to her home in Butare to identify and kill all Tutsis of the region and others who came to seek refuge in that area.

The charges allege that Nyiramasuhuko gave orders to all the male Interahamwe, thuggish Hutu marauders whose name means "those who attack together," to rape all females - old, young and even babies - before killing most of them. As I said, Nyiramasuhuko was a government minister and politician, but first of all she was the mother of a family. It was a huge shock to all of us who survived the atrocities to see educated women who were supposed to save lives but who instead became involved in the genocide, and on the top of it, in some cases forced their own male children to rape and kill other children and parents.

It is unbelievable.

No one expected Nyiramasuhuko to save or hide any of the Tutsi victims. But she did have the option of staying quiet in her house instead of travelling around the area with a megaphone and giving orders. In 1995, the African Rights Organization wrote a 255-page book, including testimonies of survivors and discussion of the role of women in the genocide. The book is called "Not So Innocent". When Women Become Killers, and it named numerous women who are implicated in the genocide. "A substantial number of women and even girls,"the book says," were involved in the slaughter in countless ways, inflicting extraordinary cruelty on other women, as well is children and men."Women of every social category took part in the killings.

Government administrators, journalists, doctors, nurses, academics, school teachers and inspectors, students, housewives, domestic servants, traders, nuns, the staff of local NGOs and employees of international agencies were involved in the slaughter. "But the burden of responsibility lies with the educated women who took part. They use their education,experience and standing in the community to urge less fortunate women to commit genocide.

Some women killed with their own hands. "On the hilltop of Kabuye, commune Ndora in Butare, a pregnant former gendarme shot at thousands of unarmed people and threw grenades at them. One elderly grandmother in Gitarama is accused of murdering dozens Tutsi baby boys." In conclusion, I would like to emphasize the importance of documenting, exposing and punishing those who participated in the killings, making no exceptions among the men and women, the old and young.

Failure to do this reinforces the impunity that is enjoyed up to today by the men and women responsible for the death of a million Tutsis in Rwanda. Eight years after the genocide, some of the guilty parties think that they didn't finish their plan. If it were up to them, there would be no survivors.

Chantal Mudahogora
Hamilton, Canada
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