![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/A-man-stands-by-the-rows-of-human-skulls-and-bones-that-form-a-memorial-to-those-who-died-in-the-red-brick-church-that-was-the-scene-of-a-massacre-during-the-1994-Rwandan-genocide.-300x168.jpg\" "\\"Rwanda")
<\/a>A man stands by the rows of human skulls and bones that form a memorial to those who died in the red-brick church that was the scene of a massacre during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n
Something like this myth is in the minds of those who shout for attacks on Libya or Syria or the Ukraine under the banner of “Not another Rwanda!”\u00a0 The thinking would be hopelessly sloppy even if based on facts.\u00a0 The idea that SOMETHING was needed in Rwanda morphs into the idea that heavy bombing was needed in Rwanda which slides effortlessly into the idea that heavy bombing is needed in Libya.\u00a0 The result is the destruction of Libya.\u00a0 But the argument is not for those who pay attention to what was happening in and around Rwanda before or since 1994.\u00a0 It’s a momentary argument meant to apply only to a moment.\u00a0 Never mind why Gadaffi was transformed from a Western ally into a Western enemy, and never mind what the war left behind.\u00a0 Pay no attention to how World War I was ended and how many wise observers predicted World War II at that time.\u00a0 The point is that a Rwanda was going to happen in Libya (unless you look at the facts too closely) and it did not happen.\u00a0 Case closed.\u00a0 Next victim.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nEdward Herman highly recommends a book by Robin Philpot called Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa: From Tragedy to Useful Imperial Fiction, and so do I.\u00a0 Philpot opens with UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s comment that “the genocide in Rwanda was one hundred percent the responsibility of the Americans!”\u00a0 How could that be?\u00a0 Americans are not to blame for how things are in backward parts of the world prior to their “interventions.”\u00a0 Surely Mr. double Boutros has got his chronology wrong.\u00a0 Too much time spent in those UN offices with foreign bureaucrats no doubt.\u00a0 And yet, the facts — not disputed claims but universally agreed upon facts that are simply deemphasized by many — say otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nThe United States backed an invasion of Rwanda on October 1, 1990, by a Ugandan army led by US-trained killers, and supported their attack on Rwanda for three-and-a-half years.\u00a0 The Rwandan government, in response, did not follow the model of the US internment of Japanese during World War II, or of US treatment of Muslims for the past 12 years.\u00a0 Nor did it fabricate the idea of traitors in its midst, as the invading army in fact had 36 active cells of collaborators in Rwanda.\u00a0 But the Rwandan government did arrest 8,000 people and hold them for a few days to six-months.\u00a0 Africa Watch (later Human Rights Watch\/Africa) declared this a serious violation of human rights, but had nothing to say about the invasion and war.\u00a0 Alison Des Forges of Africa Watch explained that good human rights groups “do not examine the issue of who makes war.\u00a0 We see war as an evil and we try to prevent the existence of war from being an excuse for massive human rights violations.”<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nThe war killed many people, whether or not those killings qualified as human rights violations.\u00a0 People fled the invaders, creating a huge refugee crisis, ruined agriculture, wrecked economy, and shattered society.\u00a0 The United States and the West armed the warmakers and applied additional pressure through the World Bank, IMF, and USAID.\u00a0 And among the results of the war was increased hostility between Hutus and Tutsis.\u00a0 Eventually the government would topple.\u00a0 First would come the mass slaughter known as the Rwandan Genocide.\u00a0 And before that would come the murder of two presidents.\u00a0 At that point, in April 1994, Rwanda was in chaos almost on the level of post-liberation Iraq or Libya.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nOne way to have prevented the slaughter would have been to not support the war.\u00a0 Another way to have prevented the slaughter would have been to not support the assassination of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6, 1994.\u00a0 The evidence points strongly to the US-backed and US-trained war-maker Paul Kagame — now president of Rwanda — as the guilty party.\u00a0 While there is no dispute that the presidents’ plane was shot down, human rights groups and international bodies have simply referred in passing to a “plane crash” and refused to investigate.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nA third way to have prevented the slaughter, which began immediately upon news of the presidents’ assassinations, might have been to send in UN peacekeepers (not the same thing as Hellfire missiles, be it noted), but that was not what Washington wanted, and the US government worked against it.\u00a0 What the Clinton administration was after was putting Kagame in power.\u00a0 Thus the resistance to calling the slaughter a “genocide” (and sending in the UN) until blaming that crime on the Hutu-dominated government became seen as useful.\u00a0 The evidence assembled by Philpot suggests that the “genocide” was not so much planned as erupted following the shooting down of the plane, was politically motivated rather than simply ethnic, and was not nearly as one-sided as generally assumed.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nMoreover, the killing of civilians in Rwanda has continued ever since, although the killing has been much more heavy in neighboring Congo, where Kagame’s government took the war — with US aid and weapons and troops — and bombed refugee camps killing some million people.\u00a0 The excuse for going into the Congo has been the hunt for Rwandan war criminals.\u00a0 The real motivation has been Western control and profits.\u00a0 War in the Congo has continued to this day, leaving some 6 million dead — the worst killing since the 70 million of WWII.\u00a0 And yet nobody ever says “We must prevent another Congo!”<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nDavid Swanson<\/strong> is an American activist, blogger and author. He served for a year as media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association. In May 2005, Swanson helped make the Downing Street memo known in the United States and discussed in Congress. He co-founded After Downing Street<\/em> and led an ongoing campaign to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Swanson continues to work closely with the peace movement and often leads campaigns to end the Iraq War and punish those involved in launching that war. His Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie<\/em>. He blogs at http:\/\/davidswanson.org and http:\/\/warisacrime.org <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n\n
Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"War in the Congo has continued to this day, leaving some 6 million dead — the worst killing since the 70 million of WWII. And yet nobody ever says “We must prevent another Congo!” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-syria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93979"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94141,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93979\/revisions\/94141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/A-man-stands-by-the-rows-of-human-skulls-and-bones-that-form-a-memorial-to-those-who-died-in-the-red-brick-church-that-was-the-scene-of-a-massacre-during-the-1994-Rwandan-genocide..jpg\" "\\"Rwanda")
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