In 1971 Frederick Forsyth’s thriller English Novel depicts a professional assassin  who is contracted  by the Organization of the Secret Army  (OAS)a French terrorist group of the early 1960s, to kill Charles de Gaulle, the President of France.

The OAS used armed struggle in an attempt to prevent Algeria’s secession from French governance. Its motto was L’Algérie est française et le restera (“Algeria is French and will remain so”). Indeed, after the independence of Algeria in 1962, the above organization targeted the French President at the time Charles de Gaulle. However, the attempt on his life failed the conspirators were caught and their leader Col. Bastien- Thirrly(Jean Sorel) was executed for treason. As the day of the Jackal, so the day of   the two former dictators of Argentina Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, respectively were handed heavy prison sentences for overseeing the systematic kidnapping of babies from leftist activists killed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. Jorge Videla, 86, was de facto president of Argentina from 1976 to 1981. He was already serving a life sentence for human rights abuses that occurred under his rule. Videla was found guilty by a criminal court of the “theft and kidnapping” of 20 babies.

Reynaldo Bignone, 84, Argentina’s last dictator before the country’s return to democracy in 1983, was sentenced to 15 years for the same offence.

 

Although these former leaders of Argentina had manipulated the constitution to protect themselves from future prosecution under the terms of Argentina’s transition to civilian rule, that immunity was revoked, to pave way for prosecution and trial.  It’s tragic for the regime to use or involve  the national army to serve its selfish interests , in Argentina many soldiers were involved in massacres , disappearances of innocent people, torture and other violations of human rights,  like Jack Nziza the notorious killing machine of the Kagame regime the 58-year-old former  Argentina captain was accused of having played a key role in the military regime’s massive effort to clandestinely eliminate left-leaning opponents, a grim campaign known as the Dirty War. Astiz infiltrated human rights groups before their members were secretly rounded up.

 

It is estimated that, nearly 9,000 people “disappeared” during the dictatorship both Argentina dictators; while human rights groups say the number is closed to 30,000. About 1,000 military officials took part in the murders. It is unfortunate that in Rwanda the number of the people who have been killed or disappeared is not officially known, but there is no doubt that, the number has so far surpassed the Argentina death row, and the killing machine is still hunting its perceived political opponents on a daily basis.

As the Argentina Military regime exterminated its political opponents, so is the Kigali regime, recently the daughter of the former external spy chief Patrick Karegeya was denied her rights by stripping off her Rwandan passport and when she obtained another travel document from the government of Uganda, she was not allowed to go to South Africa on what the Ugandan immigration termed as the protest note from the Rwandan government.

Again, the government of Rwanda is now incarcerating the brother of the former army chief Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa not for the crime he has committed but for the reason of being a brother to the man who has different political views with Kagame. All the political parties which are not   underdogs of the Kigali regime are subjected to both psychological and physical torture, the Vice- Leader of the FDU Inkingi  with his family is now under surveillance by both military and police.

 

General Augusto Pinochet  like the Argentina former leaders, he was the head of the military dictatorship that ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. He was indicted for human rights violations committed in his native Chile by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón on 10 October 1998. He was arrested in London six days later and finally released by the British government in March 2000. Authorized to freely return to Chile, Pinochet was stripped off immunity he had granted himself before stepping down and was indicted by Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, and charged with a number of crimes, before dying on 10 December 2006, unfortunately without having been convicted in any case.

 

His arrest in London made the front-page of newspapers worldwide as it was the first time that several European judges applied the principle of universal jurisdiction, declaring themselves competent to judge crimes committed by former heads of state, despite local amnesty laws.

As the Kagame regime has and is suppressing his political opponents within Rwanda and abroad with assassinations, so was the Pinochet regime in Argentina since he came to power in a violent 11 September 1973 coup which deposed Socialist President Salvador Allende. His 17-year regime was responsible for numerous human rights violations, a number of which committed as part of Operation Condor, an illegal effort to suppress political opponents in Chile and abroad in coordination with foreign intelligence agencies. The Kgame regime is also spending huge sums of money for these ugly operations, we have lost our fellow countrymen, like Seth Sendashonga, Col. Theoneste Lizinde, Asiel Kabera, Andrew Kagwa, Leonard Lugambage,  Ingabire Charles and just recently an attempt on the life of the former Rwandan Army Chief, Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa, just to mention a few.

It is absurd to note that, most of the above mentioned repressive dictators were friends of the champion of human rights and democratic values, the United States of America. Tyrants, torturers, killers, and sundry dictators and corrupt puppet-presidents have been aided, supported, and rewarded handsomely for their loyalty to US interests. As already mentioned above, unfortunately these are America’s allies, strange and undemocratic as they may be but when the Day of Judgment comes, there is no place to hide, and this is the day of the Jackal.

 

Jacquline Umurungi

 

Brussels..