The letter is written by foreign intellectuals except one I guess:
Professor Josias Semujanga (2); Professeur titulaire, Département
des littératures de langue française, Université de Montréal,
Quebec. Intellectuals, historians, journalists and researchers, they
may be; they may not well understand our history, as we Rwandese do;
and especially we who were there when the genocide happened from 1990.

As an educated Rwandan citizen and a survivor of genocide (3) who was
in Rwanda when the genocide happened, I intend in this article, to
analyze this protest letter, the more objectively as possible. I will
highlight the main points of protest, ask some questions and draw
conclusion.

The protesters said: “We accept and support that it is legitimate to
investigate, with due diligence and respect for factual evidence, any
crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and to reflect
on the contemporary political situation in Rwanda.”

For this I give credit to the protesters. At least, now they accept
and support the legitimacy to investigate any crimes committed by the
RPF. I wish they have said that loudly since 1994. Maybe their voices
would have convinced Americans and ICC to bring on trial the RPF
members who committed crimes against humanity and genocide.

Ten, twenty years back, the whole world blamed the Rwandan genocide on
one part only, the Hutu part. Now it is becoming evident that the
Tutsi also committed genocide. That is one of the truths the BBC is
bringing out and it needs to be congratulated and applauded for this.

The protesters said: “However, attempts to examine these issues
should not distort the reality of the 1994 genocide. It is not
legitimate to use current events to either negate or to diminish the
genocide. Nor is it legitimate to promote genocide denial.”

The protesters claim that BBC distorts and denies the 1994 genocide.
Here is what the spokesperson of the BBC has to say as reported by the
newspaper Inyenyeri news (4):
“The BBC strongly refutes the suggestion that any part of the
programme constitutes a ‘denial of the genocide against the
Tutsi’. There are repeated references to the mass killings of Tutsis
by Hutus in 1994 and that this constituted genocide. The programme
also includes an interview with the Director of the Genocide Museum at
Murambi, a Tutsi and genocide survivor, and a convicted Hutu
genocidaire who spoke of his part in the killing of thousands of
Tutsis.

“The BBC has a duty to investigate difficult and challenging
subjects and we believe the programme is a valuable contribution to
the understanding of the tragic history of the country and the region,
and of the governance of Rwanda over the last 20 years.”

The protesters said: “The parts of the film which concern the 1994
genocide, far from providing viewers with an ‘Untold Story’ as the
title promises, are old claims. For years similar material using
similar language has been distributed far and wide as part of an
on-going ‘Hutu Power’ campaign of genocide denial.”

There is a truth in what the protesters are saying: far from providing
viewers with untold story as the title promises, are old claims. This
is true; there is nothing new the BBC is telling that has not been
said since 1990. In fact, since 1990, honest intellectuals, academics,
scholars, lawyers, researchers and journalists have been all the time
saying that RPF committed crimes against humanity and genocide. There
was always a claim that Kagame ordered the shooting down of President
Habyarimana’s airplan.

What is new is that these old claims as the protesters call it, they
are now being told by respected, international well known world leader
news broadcasting, the BBC. With regard to the shooting down of the
Presidential airplane; what is new is the story being told openly on
the camera, by the only then very close Kagame’s collaborators:
General Kayumba Nyamwasa and Dr. Rudasingwa.

An important question here need to be asked: The very close
collaborators of Kagame at the time of the shooting down of President
Habyarima’s airplane are testifying and are ready to do so before a
court of law. They ascertain that Kagame organized and ordered the
shooting of President Habyarimana’s airplane. Who are the protesters
or what credibility can they have to contradict what General Kayumba
Nyamwasa and Dr. Rudasingwa are saying? Who should we believe? The
protestors?

The protesters said: “for years similar material using similar
language has been distributed far as wide as part of an on-going
‘Hutu Power’ campaign of genocide denial.”

The ‘Hutu Power’ campaign does not exist. This is a pure invention
of the RPF regime, intended to criminalize and diabolize all Hutus.
People should not confuse the slogan the Party MDR used to use in
1993-1994 ‘MDR Power’ and the ‘Hutu Power’ campaign or
ideology. This is a pure invention of RPF. MDR Power can not be
equaled to Hutu Power. First because MDR did not represent all Hutus
in Rwanda, secondly the MDR Power slogan was just intended to
differentiate the two different wings or tendencies that emerged
within the MDR Party in 1993-1994 as to how the Party should deal with
the invasion of the RPF and its intention of ceasing the power in
Rwanda.

Today, I do not know any influential Rwandan politician in the
opposition who denies the genocide committed against Tutsi. All what I
know, is that all Rwandan politicians in the opposition are demanding
the genocide against the Hutu committed by the RPF to be recognized
too.

I challenge the protesters of the letter sent to BBC, to name the Hutu
politicians we know in the current Rwandan political arena who have
the ‘Hutu Power’ ideology. Be it FDLR, FDU-Inkingi, RDI, Amahoro,
PPR Imena, RNC, you name it; all Rwandan political parties agree on
one thing: Rwanda is for all Rwandese and we shall all, Hutus, Twa and
Tutsi alike live in the same country Rwanda. We are all Rwandese and
there is no such ‘Hutu Power’ campaign except in the mind of RPF
and foreigners such those signatories of the protest letter to BBC.
They just recycle what they hear from RPF without making a proper
intellectual critic and analysis.

The protesters said: “At the heart of this campaign are convicted
génocidaires, some of their defence lawyers from the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and their supporters and
collaborators.”

Who are you calling convicted génocidaires? General Nyamwasa? Dr.
Rudasingwa? Christian Davenport? Allan Stam? Carla Del Ponte? Luc
Marshal, and other many brave writers, professors, researchers and
journalists, human rights activists around the world who are telling
the world what really happened in Rwanda?

Convicted génocidaires, most of them are in jail and those who have
been released after they completed their sentence, do not only have
the means to campaign but also do not have the freedom to travel
wherever they want to.

How can you dare think that those convicted génocidaires are behind
or at the heart of this campaign…? Do you really think, that
convicted génocidaires or their defence lawyers from ICTR have the
power and the capacity to bribe or to influence a world leading
broadcasting Institution like BBC? Do you take a minute to ask
yourselves why it is so today and it couldn’t be like that 10 years
ago?

The truth is: interests are changing, truth is coming out and the
geopolitical situation in the Great Lac Region is going soon to be
redesigned. Freedom is coming tomorrow as used to sing those young
brave black South Africans during their liberation struggle.

The protesters said: “The BBC programme Rwanda’s Untold Story
recycles their (genocide deniers) arguments and provides them with
another platform to create doubt and confusion about what really
happened.”

Why do you want us Rwandese and the world to swallow the only RPF’s
version of the Rwandan genocide as a biblical doctrine, or as the only
truth? I think there is nothing wrong when another version of the
story creates a doubt. This could be rather for intellectuals,
researchers and historians you are, a motivation to deep further your
research in finding the truth or in questioning what you thought was
the only truth.

Three of the untenable claims the protesters mentioned:
1.      A lie about the true nature of the Hutu Power militia
2.      An attempt to minimize the number of Tutsi murdered in the
genocide
3.      An effort to place the blame for shooting down President
Habyarimana’s plane on April 6, 1994 on the Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF).

We will analyze those claims one by one.

1. A lie about the true nature of the Hutu Power militia

The protesters said: “the programme allows a witness to claim that
‘only ten percent of the Interahamwe (militia) were killers’. In
fact, the majority of Hutu Power militia forces – estimated to have
been 30,000 strong – were trained specifically to kill Tutsi at
speed, and indoctrinated in a racist ideology, part of genocide
planning. There is eyewitness testimony by several militia leaders who
cooperated with the ICTR.”

Once again the fabricated word ‘Hutu Power militia’. The MRND
Party, like the other Political Parties had youth wings. Interahamwe
used to be MRND’s youth wing that unfortunately radicalized
themselves to a militia as millions of refugees from RPF controlled
territory started to come in Kigali reporting atrocities and crimes
committed by RPF. Interahamwe were MRND youth wing and not Hutu
militia because all Hutu did not belong to Interahamwe. In Interahamwe
you would find Hutu as well as Tutsi. Surprisingly Interahamwe Chief
at the National lever was a Tutsi (Robert Kajuga). The majority of
Interahamwe were of course Hutu. That is normal as Hutu are majority
in Rwanda.

If the number of Interahamwe militia was estimated at 30 000 people.
And every body knows that the majority of Tutsi who were killed by
Interahamwe; why does the RPF vehicles this ideology that all Hutu are
génocidaires, and all Hutu must apologize? 30 000 Interahamwe militia
they do not even represent 0.5% of the population at the time of
genocide. In 1993 according to International Monetary Fund-2011 World
Economic Outlook (5), the population of Rwanda was 7 609 000.

No body has the truth as to what exact percentage of the 30 000
Interahamwe killed the Tutsi as no body made this census. Or what we
know is that not all Interahamwe killed the Tutsi.

Whatever number of Interahamwe killed the Tutsi, this could not be the
issue. The truth remains that Interahamwe killed the Tutsi and within
Interahamwe there were Tutsi. The only objection we strongly make is
to equal Interahamwe or those who killed the Tutsi to all Hutu or to
insinuate the existence of a so called ‘Hutu Power’ who wanted or
who wants to exterminate the Tutsi.

2. An attempt to minimize the number of Tutsi murdered in the
genocide

The protesters said: “the programme attempts to minimise the number
of Tutsi murdered, a typical tactic of genocide deniers. The false
figures cited are provided by two US academics who worked for a team
of lawyers defending the génocidaires at the ICTR. They even claim
that in 1994 more Hutu than Tutsi were murdered – an absurd
suggestion and contrary to all the widely available research reported
by Amnesty International, UNICEF, the UN Human Rights Commission,
Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, Africa Rights, a UN Security Council
mandated Commission of Experts and evidence submitted to the ICTR and
other European courts who have successfully put on trial several
perpetrators.”

Let us allow the figures and not sentiments speak by themselves.

In 1960 the population of Rwanda was estimated to 2.9 millions (6).
From the colonial time; at the time our parents and grand parents were
having what they used to call “amabuku” meaning the books -an old
identity cart in which the colonial time mentioned the ethnicity
identity of each Rwandese- Hutu were estimated at 85%, Tutsi at 14%
and Twa at 1%. This means that in 1960, the Hutu were 2 465 000, Tutsi
were 406.000 and Twa were 29 000. By 1965 an estimated number of 130
000 Tutsi (approximately one third of all Tutsi) are said to have fled
to the neighboring countries (8) leaving only 276 000 Tutsi in Rwanda
which represent 10% of the whole population.

In 1991 Tutsi were 596 387 as reported in a Table: “Rwanda’s
national population as of 1991, broken-down by its two largest ethnic
groups official Rwanda Census” (9).

In 1993 the population of Rwanda was estimated to 7 609 000 (7). Tutsi
being almost 9% in 1993 this represents 684 810. This number is not
far from 667 000 the number Gen. Dallaire reported himself to the
Security Council in 1993 as reported by Peter Erlinder in his article
: “The BBC must be congratulated in launching the scrutiny with
Rwanda Untold Story” (10)

From Rwanda Government sources, we are told that: “A systematic
count by the government of Rwanda in collaboration with genocide
survivor organizations established that 1,074,017 people were killed,
of whom 934,218 have been identified by name: 93.6% were killed
because they were Tutsis; the others either because they were Hutus
married to Tutsis, resembled Tutsis, had hidden their Tutsi neighbours
or were Hutus who opposed genocide.” (11) Those figures were
released by the Government of Rwanda in February 2002 as the result of
the census that aimed to establish the number of people who were
killed during the period 1990-1994.

Simple logic and simple mathematics oblige: If 1 074 017 people died
in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide and Ibuka (a Tutsi genocide
survivor organizations) and the Government of Rwanda estimate the
number of Tutsi who survived the genocide to 300 000; who are the
remaining 774 017? I leave the reader of this article to answer this
question him/herself.

There is no doubt about it, according to research results and the
statistics available at the moment, Tutsi who died during the 1994
genocide were about 380 00 and the Hutu were about approximately 690
000. In other words the number of Hutu who died during the 1994
genocide was almost the double the number of Tutsi who died.

Why is the number of Tutsi or Hutu who died so important?

Simple reason: If the real number of Hutu who died during the
1990-1994 genocide is to be known and more importantly is bigger than
the number of Tutsi who died, this would be enough element to prove
that RPF rebel forces killed Hutu because Interahamwe militia and or
the Rwanda Government Army could not have killed their own majority
ethnic group Hutu in a such big number.

No one, no academic, no historian, no researchers, no government will
ever know with certainty the exact number of Hutu and Tutsi who died
during the 1990-1994 genocide. All figures advanced will be
hypothetical and some people depending on the interest they want to
defend or the ideology they want to vehicle will always argue until
Jesus-Christ returns. However if all agree to accept the estimate,
based on my calculations, I estimate that Hutu died in much bigger
number than Tutsi.

But number of who died is not what matter most to us Rwandans. What
matter more to us is justice for all. What we know as Rwandese who
seek the truth and justice for all, is that genocide and crimes
against humanity has been committed by both sides as well as RPF rebel
army and the Interahamwe militia and some elements of the army and
other individuals who have been convicted and some others who got away
with.

It is therefore a sign of courage and some thing to support when a
world leading news broadcasting like BBC brings to the attention of
the world the crimes committed by President Kagame and the RPF.

3. An effort to place the blame for shooting down President
Habyarimana’s plane on April 6, 1994 on the Rwandan Patriotic
Front (RPF).

The protesters said: “the film argues that the shooting down of the
plane on April 6, 1994 was perpetrated by the RPF. This same story was
promoted by Hutu Power extremists within a few hours of the
president’s assassination and promoted ever since by génocidaires
and a few ICTR defence lawyers. ”

We discussed this issue earlier above. If the former very close
collaborators of Kagame, affirm and testify that Kagame planned and
ordered the shooting down of President Habyarimana’s airplan, who
are the protesters to claim the contrary?

The protesters continued saying: “The film pays no heed to a
detailed expert report published in January 2012 by a French
magistrate Judge Marc Trévidic. This contains evidence from French
experts, including crash investigators, who proved scientifically that
the missiles that shot down the plane came from the confines of the
government-run barracks in Kanombe on the airport’s perimeter –
one of the most fortified places in the country, and where it would
have been impossible for the RPF, armed with a missile, to
penetrate.”

The BBC film “Rwanda Untold Story” as the title indicates is
mainly meant to tell the untold story. The RPF version story and
expert’s stories that comfort RPF version is not the only story, BBC
wanted to tell the world the untold story. And it did it brilliantly!

We need also to mention that the Habyarimana regime and the
Gevernment’s Army were so infiltrated by RPF elements at high level
that one can not say that it would have been impossible for the RPF to
penetrate the Kanombe military camp with a missile. RPF was able to do
every thing including shooting the President Habyarimana’s airplane
whenever the shooting originated.

The protesters said: “Within hours of the president’s
assassination, in this carefully planned genocide…”

The genocide was not planned let alone mentioning it was carefully
planned. If that was so, no single Tutsi would have left in Rwanda.
The creation of Interahamwe militia was meant to defend civilians when
the arm forces were on the battle ground field. Unfortunately it
turned out that when the President airplane was shoot down, no
institution no leader no politician could not control Interahamwe. We
however recognize that there was very little effort or none on the
part of the Government to control Interahamwe.

The Protesters said: “The film-maker, Jane Corbin, who presented the
programme, even tries to raise doubts about whether or not the RPF
stopped the genocide. The authority on this subject is Lt.-General
Roméo Dallaire, the Force commander of the UN Assistance Mission for
Rwanda (UNAMIR), and present in Rwanda throughout the genocide.
Dallaire is categorical. ‘The genocide was stopped because the RPF won
and stopped it’ ”

Prominent members of the RPF said and continue to say that Kagame’s
main intention was not to stop the genocide against Tutsi but to cease
power, the whole power at whatever cost even the massacre of his own
ethnic group members, the Tutsi. Tutsi survivors survived because of
different raisons some of which are:
•       Tutsi who were in areas where Interahamwe did not go to kill;
•       Tutsi who were sheltered by Hutu neighbors or relatives by
inter-ethnic marriage
•       Tutsi who were protected by local administration authorities such
as ‘Bourgmestres des communes’
•       Tutsi who managed to flee into the area controlled by RPF
•       Tutsi who were in a French controlled area: ‘ Zone Turquoise’

Lt-General Roméo Dallaire opinion can not be considered as authority
on the subject of genocide in Rwanda. Dallaire’s opinion is one
among others and do not deserve the authority the protesters claim.
Should a proper investigation done in the way Lt-Roméo Dallaire
conducted his mission in Rwanda, we will not be surprised of his
complicity with the RPF rebels.

The protesters said: “In broadcasting this documentary the BBC has
been recklessly irresponsible. The programme has fuelled genocide
denial. It has further emboldened the génocidaires, all their
supporters and those who collaborate with them. It has provided them
the legitimacy of the BBC. Denial of genocide causes the gravest
offence to survivors. For them, the genocide is not a distant event
from 20 years ago but a reality with which they live every day.”

I will say the protesters’ accusation to BBC is false and baseless.
Throughout the document BBC has never denied the genocide that
happened in Rwanda, the BBC is telling what hasn’t been told in the
Rwanda genocide story. I am myself a genocide survivor, I don’t see
any offence to me, when a journalist or a researcher bring to the
open, other facts, other truth of what really happened in our genocide
history. They will be no reconciliation in Rwanda unless the truth and
the whole truth of what really happened during the genocide in Rwanda
is known and told and all perpetrators hutu and tutsi alike are
brought to justice or demand forgiveness. The BBC documentary is
contributing to that.

The protesters said: “The 1994 genocide of the Tutsi should be
treated by all concerned with the utmost intellectual honesty and
rigour. We would be willing – indeed see it as our duty – to meet with
journalists and to debate in a follow up programme the serious
inaccuracies in Rwanda’s Untold Story.”

When the protesters say “the 1994 genocide of Tutsi”; they say the
half truth and they are lacking intellectual honesty and rigour. The
whole truth is that the genocide that happened in Rwanda was not only
“the genocide of Tutsi” but the genocide of Hutu too. Without in
anyway denying the genocide committed against the Tutsi, the BBC
documentary has the credit to tell the world the other half of the
truth, the genocide committed by RPF against the Hutu.

I welcome the willingness of the protesters to meet with journalists
and to debate in a follow up programme the serious inaccuracies in
Rwanda’s Untold Story. It becomes a duty for the Rwandan
intellectual, political and civil society community to invite both
sides, the protester’s letter signatories and those who support the
BBC documentary, in an open intellectual debate.

The protesters conclude: “Rwanda’s Untold Story tarnishes the BBC’s
well-deserved reputation for objective and balanced journalism. We
urge the BBC to apologise for the offence this programme has caused
for all victims and survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.”

This conclusion is the protesters’ opinion. It is not the only one
opinion. The other opinion, including mine; is that: Rwanda’s Untold
Story is a courageous journalistic act of investigation that poses
critical questions in what the conqueror (RPF) and its allies want the
world to swallow as the only truth without the right of questioning
all the cover up in the Rwandese tragedy.

The BBC documentary may have caused offence to some victims and
survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda for what they believe to have
happened. The protesters letter need to know that for what we believe
and know happened in the 1994 genocide, to some other victims and
survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, including myself, the BBC
documentary has not caused any offence, on the contrary. Therefore,
the BBC should not apologize to any one for its journalistic work.
Simply put, for various reasons, the BBC documentary Rwanda’s Untold
Story, some like it and others do not like it. None of those who like
or who do not like has the right nor the authority to dictate to BBC
how to carry out his job.

Defending the undefendable

War crimes, mass killing, crimes against humanity committed by RPF or
commissioned by President Kagame are reported by different sources,
individuals and organizations such as Human rights Organizations and
United Nations just to name a few. Why are eminent intellectuals,
professors, academics, journalists, such as: Prof. Linda Melvern,
Senator Roméo Dallaire, Prof. Gregory H. Stanton, Mehdi Ba, Bishop
Ken Bahram, Dr. Margaret Braerly, Dr. Gerald Caplan, Prof. Frank
Chalk, Dr. Phil Clark, Boubacar Moris Diop, Jean François Dupaquier,
Hélène Dumas, Prof. Margee Ensign, Tim Gallimore, Peter Greaves,
Fred Grunfeld, Dr. Helen Hintjens, Dr. Geogina Holmes, Richard
Johnson, Eric Joyce, Amb. Karel Kovanda, Françoise Lemagnen, Amb.
Stephen Lewis, W. Alan McClue, Roland Moerland, George Monibio,
Jacques Morel, Barbara Mulvaney, Dr. Jude Murison, Peter Raymont,
Prof. Josias, Semujanga, Jonathan Salt, Keith Somerville, Patrick de
Saint-Exupéry, Dr. James M. Smith, Rafiki Ubaldo, Andrew Wallis and
Lillian Wong ; are defending the undefendable ?

I will ask the protesters few questions :
1.      Did the RPF and Uganda invaded a sovereign State in 1990?
2.      Did the RPF commit war crimes and crimes against humanity during
the 1990-1994 war and after?
3.      Did the RPF and Kagame regime mass murder thousands of refugees
protected by UN forces in the Kibeho camps in Rwanda?
4.      Did the RPF and Kagame regime mass murder thousands of refugees
protected by UNHCR in the Democratic Republic of Congo Refugee Camps?
5.      Did the RPF and Kagame regime proxy launched wars in DR Congo that
killed millions of civilians?

If your answers to all the five questions are Yes, You have a A+. But
if you have answered No to any of above questions, you have an
intellectual disability and you need an academic treatment.

Conclusion

The recent debate (12) and controversy on the BBC Documentary Rwanda
Untold Story, is a healthy debate that should motivate intellectual,
journalists, historians and researchers to revisit their previous
hypothesis in search of further facts and truth.

Be ready, more chocking revelations will be soon coming out as to who
shoot the President Habyarimana’s airplan. We still want to know why
a country like Burundi 20 years after, never investigated or failed to
bring to justice people who killed their President Cyprien Ntanryamira
who was assassinated together with President Habyarimana on April 6,
1994. We still want to know why, the UN Security Council and countries
who claim to be the champion of democracy and human rights like UK and
USA are protecting the President some regard today as the worst
criminal on power the world has ever known after Hitler.

We support encourage and call upon serious news broadcasting
Organizations like BBC to help us answer those questions. By so doing,
you are contributing to the real reconciliation of all Rwandese People
what will happen only through telling the truth, only the truth and
the whole truth.

Jotham Rwamiheto
Montreal, Canada

A freedom fighter: My gun is my pen, my ammunitions are my ideas.