“If it turns out that the RPF committed the attack, the history of the genocide must be rewritten (…), it will cast the RPF under a completely different light, because so far the RPF has been considered in the West both as the victims and saviours who stopped the genocide”
This sentence, uttered by Carla DEL PONTE on 17 April 2000 during her interview with the Danish newspaper “Aktuelt”, perfectly summarises the real issue at stake.
However, for more than twenty years, there has been more than enough «compelling evidence of guilt », that in all cases converges towards the RPF. From the 1997 investigation conducted by Michael Hourigan on behalf of the ICTR , through the French inquiry by judge Buguière that started from 1998, the 2003 ICTR « special » investigation, as well as the Spanish arrest warrants issued by judge Merelles in 2008, all these tracks led to Paul KAGAME as the mastermind of the attack.
Who, then, is powerful enough to ensure that the truth about that attack is concealed?
For 26 years, Paul KAGAME’s and RPF’s international sponsors, including politicians, media, scholars and numerous NGO’s, have, tirelessly, resorted to luring and blackmailing strategies meant to lur any understanding of the matter. In the same way, they hindered certain investigations that could lead to their protégé ending up in the court of law.
On the occasion of this sad anniversary of the attack against President Habyarimana’s airplane, which is considered as the trigger for the genocide and conflagration of the whole Great Lakes Region, we are suggesting a series of 25 questions that prove the obvious existence of only one serious hypothesis in this case.
This year in July, the Paris Court of Appeal will issue judgement on the validity of a dismissal that will put an end to two decades of inquiry into the attack.
If the dismissal is validated by the French Justice, Paul Kagame and the RPF will escape prosecution and will not have to answer for the attack before a French court.
If the dismissal is revoked, relatives of the French and Rwandan nationals who were killed in that attack will still have a reason for hope. Justice will perhaps prevail in one of the most scandalous cases in political history of mankind: the only double assassination of two Presidents in office !
Question n° 1: Why has Paul Kagame always vehemently opposed any investigation by the UN, the OAU, the ICAO, whereas he claims to have proof that the extremists close to Habyarimana are guilty? (see for example Mutsinzi report)?
Question n° 2: Why has Paul Kagame always opposed any ICTR inquiry, while he has had full control over the ICTR since the forced exit of Carla Del Ponte, bluntly dismissed by Anglo-Saxons when she wanted to investigate the RPF crimes?
Question n° 3: Why did Paul Kagame, in December 2002, humiliatingly discontinue the legal proceedings he had initiated against journalist and scholar Charles Onana who was holding him accountable for the attack? Paul Kagame stepped aside as soon as Charles Onana produced the evidence in his possession.
Question n° 4: Why has the Rwandan Government never reacted to the request for mutual international judicial assistance made by judge Bruguière during his investigation? In fact, contrary to the statements made by the French poodles of the Kigali regime, judge Bruguière had, according to Ms. Del Ponte’s book « La traque, les criminels de guerre et moi » (pages 387 – 388), requested a mutual legal assistance from the Kigali Government. His request was never answered.
Question n° 5: Why did Kagame order the killing or kidnapping of the self-described witnesses of the planning phase of the attack against President Habyarimana’s plane?
The list is long: Théoneste Lizinde (assassinated), Augustin Cyiza ( abducted and certainly killed), Leandre Ndayire (abducted and probably killed), Patrick Karegeya (assassinated), Kayumba Nyamwasa (victim of three assassination attempts), Emile Gafirita (abducted and probably killed), Chrysostome Ntirugiribambe ( abducted and probably killed), etc.
Finally, it is worth pointing out that James Munyandinda told the French justice that, when he was in Mulindi, he had guarded the missiles used by the RPF for the attack ; in 2017 he also appeared three times as a witness before judge Herbaut in the investigation related to the attack. For two years, he has been a target of repeated death threats of which the French justice has been notified on several occasions.
Question n° 6 : How to explain that, once the news about the crash of President Habyarimana’s airplane was announced on 6 April 1994, while both parties were involved in peace negotiations, the RPF immediately launched a general offensive, which normally requires very significant logistics and cannot in any case be improvised ?
The co-occurrence of the attack on the President’s plane and the launching of a general offensive proves, suggests, at least, that the RPF was aware of the attack (see Colonel Luc Marchal’s testimony before the Senate on 1 April 2014).
Question n° 7: How does one explain that, until the mid-2000s and despite the arrest warrants issued by judge Bruguière in December 2006, the perpetrators of the attack -RPF members-were still praised as heroes within the RPF ranks?
Question n° 8 : Why did Jack Nziza and James Kabarebe, who claim that they are innocent, refuse to appear before the Paris Courts of Law on 14 and 15 December 2017 to be confronted with witness James Munyandinda, who asserts that when he was in Mulindi, he guarded the missiles used for the attack ?
Question n° 9: Why have Paul KAGAME’s lawyers, Mr Forster and Mr Maingain, never lodged a complaint on grounds of « conspiracy to defraud the sentencing » as they have been triumphatically announcing since January 2012 ?
Question n° 10: What happened at the France-Rwanda relations level that would help one understand Paul Kagame’s shift in attitude? See Pierre Péan’s article in « Un » n° 140: « Récit d’une manipulation » ,revelations which have been ignored by almost the whole of the Francophone press?
Question n° 11 : How are we to account for the fact that judges Trévidic and Poux were able to « freely » conduct investigations in Rwanda into a terrorist crime supposedly committed by people close to President Habyarimana, whereas two ICTR Prosecutors , namely Ms. L. Harbour and Ms. Carla del Ponte, even though they had supra-national powers backing, officially declared that they were never able to conduct investigations into the RPF crimes inside Rwanda ? Ms. del Ponte had gone so far as stating that she had been compelled to recall her investigators as she feared for their lives and her own.
Question n° 12: How can the Francophone media and Kigali’s friends put forth the thesis of the guilt of “extremists close to Habyarimana”, whereas four totally independent investigations unanimously hold Paul Kagame responsible? Those inquiries are:
- Hourigan investigation at the ICTR, obscured in 1997 upon Prosecutor Louise Harbour’s request,
- ICTR « Special » investigation dated 1 October 2003, first kept secret, but later revealed by Judi Rever and Marianne,
- French investigation conducted by judge Bruguière since 1998,
- Judge Merelles’s Spanish investigation that resulted into arrest warrants in 2008.
Question n° 13 : If, according to the assertion of most of the Francophone media by early 2019, the DGSE note issued on 22 September 1994, which held the FAR responsible for the attack had any evidentiary value, why did the investigation judges, who had it on their desks as early as 2015 (refer to its declassification), and who still needed arguments to “clear the name”of the RPF, put it aside ?
Question n° 14 : If the perpetrators of the attack were among those tried in Arusha, why were they continuously requiring an international investigation into the attack? Since when have we seen guilty people push for investigations into a crime that they would have personally committed?
Question n° 15: Why would hardliners close to Habyarimana resort to a sophisticated attack involving a surface -to- air missile, whereas they could physically eliminate him on the ground, either at his office or at his home? Why would they kill at the same time another Hutu President, i.e. the Burundian President?
Question n° 16: Is it plausible that hardliners close to Habyarimana would have been able to fire a missile that they had never bought and which they had never learnt to use?
Question n° 17: Why would hardliners close to Habyarimana have chosen to fire from a military camp in which both the command and troops were loyal to the President?
Question n° 18: Why would hardliners close to Habyarimana have let some of the highest-ranking military and political authorities of the country board the same plane they knew was going to be destroyed by a missile some hours later?
Question N° 19: Why did judges Trevidic and Poux refuse to hear the military commander of the camp from which the missiles would have been fired (see Charles Onana’book « La France dans la terreur rwandaise », page 310) ?
Question N° 20: Why did Kigali regime’s lawyers, Forster & Maingain, not apply for annulment of the court decision as regards the clearing of hardliners close to Habyarimana?
Question n° 21 : Would the Hutu extremists be so incompetent that they would launch an attack to overthrow the existing Government, without having planned out a process that would allow them to seize complete power immediately via a putsch, without sharing it?
Question n° 22 : How are we to account for the fact that, after the assassinations of the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Harriri and the Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in both cases, the UN set up an inquiry commission , whereas after the assassination of two Presidents – Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira – through a terrorist act, the UN refused to put in place an inquiry commission ?
Question n° 23: How could the UN justify the lack of budget for the inquiry into the 6 April 1994 terrorist attack, while we are fully aware of the amounts invested in the ICTR which was in function for about 20 years?
Question n° 24: Why has the ICTR refused to forward two investigation reports to the French judiciary, namely Mr. Hourigan’s report and the special investigation report dated 1 October 2003, whereas both of them show that Paul Kagame and the RPF are guilty of the 6 April 1994 attack ?Question n° 25 : Why has the UN failed to submit report about the discovery by the Monusco in the DRC, of a missile from the same batch as the ones used to attack President Habyarimana’s aircraft , since that report had to be submitted by the Summer of 2016 according to the editor’s request to the French judiciary ?
Jambonews
[3] https://www.marianne.net/monde/exclusif-rwanda-le-document-top-secret-qui-accuse-le-regime-de-kagame
[6]Leandre Ndayire, who wanted to testify before the French magistrates in charge of the investigation, disappeared in November 2017 after his visit to the French embassy in Kampala. Leandre Ndayire was an eyewitness of the attack : based on Judi Rever’s revelations in “In Praise of blood“, the missiles used for the attack would have been stored in Masaka in the house of his sister Belancile, and Leandre was present together with the team when the missiles were fired (source : “In Praise of blood, the crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front”, pages 188 through 192).
[7] http://bernardlugan.blogspot.com/2016/12/emile-gafirita-abandonne-des-assassins.html
[8] Chrysostome Ntirugiribambe, who hosted Emile Gafirita in Nairobi, was abducted on 23 June 2015 from Nairobi (Kenya).
[9] http://afrikarabia.com/wordpress/francerwanda-vers-une-nouvelle-rupture-des-relations-diplomatiques/
[12] https://le1hebdo.fr/journal/numero/140/rcit-d-une-manipulation-2051.html
http://jkanya.free.fr/Texte17/manipulation110217.pdf
[13] https://www.marianne.net/monde/exclusif-rwanda-le-document-top-secret-qui-accuse-le-regime-de-kagame
