Inyenyerinews continues to receive conflicting versions of complains in regards to Dr.Kambanda’s statement last week. we will continue to share every ones idea in regards to the above matter.

Dr Kambanda

In the Article that appeared in the Inyenyeri News written by Dr Kambanda on 17/ 05/ 2014, he argues that the Genocide against Tutsis in 1994 was not Genocide. According to him it’s a massacre”I am one of the people who are convinced that the massacres in Rwanda should not be referred to as genocide. It is true that the Tutsi were a major target for some Hutu interahamwe. However, it is equally true that the Hutu were the major target for some Tutsi killers under RPA/F”
Whereas it’s true Dr Kambanda could hide his political ambitions under the academic freedom. He has however, joined the club of genocide deniers under the cover of academic right of immunity from scrutiny.

The international legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. Article II describes two elements of the crime of genocide:

1) the mental element, meaning the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”, and

2) the physical element which includes five acts described in sections a, b, c, d and e. A crime must include both elements to be called “genocide.”

Article III described five punishable forms of the crime of genocide: genocide; conspiracy, incitement, attempt and complicity.  Without going into details of the factual findings which some writers have already made on the reactions on the Kambanda story which I concur in its entirety, I will base my argument on the legal point of view and possibly on the case of similar people of likes of Dr. Kambanda. It is a crime to plan or incite genocide, even before killing starts, and to aid or abet genocide: Criminal acts include conspiracy, direct and public incitement, attempts to commit genocide, and complicity in genocide. Can Dr Kambanda convince his admirers that the above acts were not part of the plan of the government of the day to exterminate a section of the part of the Rwandan population?

If Dr Kambanda had argued that the death of Habyarimana caused a vacuum of authority and the lawlessness caused the death of people or a militias were uncontrolled by the government of the day after Habyarimana, in the same way lawlessness is prevailing in Central African Republic, Libya or Egypt to certain extent, that would hold some water in his argument. But the fact that the government that preceded the death of Habyarimana went wild on the Radio inciting, abetting and providing both logistical and military support waters all the arguments of Dr. Kambanda.

Genocide denial is not peculiar to Rwanda, some European countries have banned Holocaust denial, and presently sixteen countries have enacted laws that either directly criminalize Holocaust denial or can be used to prosecute individuals who deny the Holocaust.  Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Switzerland have instituted such laws.   In addition, the courts in The Netherlands often consider Holocaust denial a form of spreading hatred, which is a punishable offense.  France has gone a further stride in pursuing those who might use the so called freedom speech to deny the holocaust.

 The French, Gayssot Act was passed in France on July 13, 1990.  The Act criminalizes questioning the existence of crimes of humanity as defined in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which was used at Nuremberg in 1945 to 1946 to convict Nazi leaders.   Robert Faurisson, an infamous Holocaust denier, challenged the Act but the Human Rights Commission upheld it as a necessary means to counter possible anti-Semitism.  In 2005 the former President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a controversial speech in which he called the Jewish Holocaust a myth and a European Jewry. “They have created a myth today that they call the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets,” he said. On live TV, he called for Europe or North America – even Alaska – to host a Jewish state, not the Middle East. In response the Israel state denounced the president’s comments. “We hope these extremist comments… will make the international community open its eyes and abandon any illusions about this regime,” foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev told AFP news agency.  The international community condemned the remarks of the Iranian President; indeed, the International Community should give the same scales of condemnation of all genocide denial including Rwandan genocide against the Tutsis,

It is therefore, incorrect to compare the killings of RPF and Kagame where he kills everybody who disagrees with him to the systematic killings of innocent Tutsis, babies, women and those Hutus who refused, protected, and fought alongside other gallant Rwandans to stop the killers from carrying on the madness of wiping off from the Rwandan map the Tutsis. A sociologist William I. Robinson, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, in a 2009 sent an e-mail to his students that compared Israel’s Gaza incursion to the Holocaust. His comments constituted genocide denial despite his claims that his comments are protected under the academic freedom. It is imperative to disassociate Kagame from genocide or the killings or genocide political exploitation by Kagame.  It is an open secret that Kagame killed and is still killing innocent Rwandans both without discrimination; however, this cannot be equated to the systematic killings with machetes, throwing of babies in latrines, radio incitements to exterminate what they were calling cockroaches by the notorious radio RTLM to the killings by Kagame which are regrettable.

The argument therefore that some Tutsis employed by the government of the time of genocide who were used to kill fellow Tutsis would exonerate the people who committed genocide is not only misleading but does not also hold any legal merit. During the Holocaust some Jews were used to kill Jews, even some masqueraded as Nazis, this did not in anyway distort the Holocaust against the Jewish people, in the same way Kagame is using Rucagu, Bamporiki or Rwarakabije, this will not exonerate the Kagame regime from the crimes committed against any section of the Rwandan people.

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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