A RECONSIDERATION of Christophe GARGOT's documentary "D'ARUSHA à ARUSHA" - by Mick Collins, CM/P@TheMovies
[Here’s one for the CM/P Seminar: Movies & The (un)Making-of History. Except that “D’Arusha à Arusha” is a documentary and the Seminar has always stayed away from documentaries because that genre of film is intended to write or rewrite History, and its techniques for subverting Expectations and recontorting the Obvious are more overt and less suggestive. Yet no one can deny the artistry of, say, “Darwin’s Nightmare” in advertising itself as an environmental testament to the misapplication of scientific fish-farming, while actually presenting a severe geopolitical indictment of the First World for its criminal (militaristic) wastage of Central African reproduction.
What makes Christophe GARGOT’s 2009 documentary, “D’Arusha à Arusha,” unique is that it seems to present a very convincing, however tangential, prima facie argument for a version of History that is completely contrary to the version it is advocating. In presenting the ICTR as an independent instrument of International Justice—and a force against impunity and for the rights of victims—the film begins by telling us that of the 78 defendants tried, all have been Hutus connected to the former Habyarimana government or the Interim government that succeeded it. Then questions are raised: questions about the number and ethnic origins of the genocide victims, questions as to the role of ethnic (tribal) conflict and the ‘Hate Speech’ it spawned, questions as to the real independence of the Tribunal, questions as to the Tribunals authority in pursuing the assassins of two African heads of state, even questions on the legal veracity of the genocide, itself—all these highly pertinent questions are posed, but none is answered to anyone’s satisfaction. Yet even a moderately informed viewer cannot help but feel the overwhelming weight of the evidence presented in this film falls on the side of the Defense—and that this Tribunal, like its Yugoslav twin in The Hague, is really a continuation of the war in Rwanda, even an extension of the Rwandan genocide, through the maintenance of a false history in the interests of Western (NATO/AFRICOM) militarism. It certainly presents a massive obstruction to peace and reconciliation in the country.
In email correspondence, the filmmaker has assured me that his only goal was to strike a balance between the two sides in the Rwandan troubles: the Hutu and the Tutsi, or Habyarimana’s persecuted, displaced and assassinated government and Kagame’s militarily dictatorial, murderously repressive and criminally expansionist government, or the US/UK/Israel and the people of Central Africa. This is the sort of Existentialist experiment in equivocation that even the Nazi ‘guest worker’ J-P Sartre couldn’t pull off: though the universal inevitability of death may give the (Fascist) assassin and his (Communist) victim a certain existential equivalence, certainly no one in good conscience could strike any kind of moral parity between mass murderers and their victims. Anti-communists (or Fascists, as we like to distinguish them) have used this ploy for more than 60 years to expiate the horrendous crimes in their attempted destruction of popular democracies throughout the USSR and People’s China—most famously by Hannah Arendt (‘Heidegger’s ‘ho’’) when she equated Soviet and Chinese Communism with German, Italian and Japanese Fascism, lumping them all together into one big, evil authoritarianism. But this neutralization of the dialectical tension between Communism (anti-Fascism) and Fascism (anti-Communism) serves only to relieve Fascism of its responsibility for the primal Crimes Against the Peace it committed in its unprovoked military aggressions against the Popular Governments of Europe and Asia.
And I suppose it is the very impossibility of his intentions, to deal even-handedly with the génocidaires and the génocidées, that makes GARGOT’s documentary so important, not only to the History of Central Africa, but also to the History of International Criminal Justice. Unable to lay hands on a DVD, I was forced to view the film in three screening here in Paris, and during my third viewing I took notes (by the light of my iPhone) so as to sketch out a ROUGH scenario on which to add CM/P’s ALTERNATIVE NARRATION.
We use CAPS {perhaps TOO often} to give a Sid Fields smell to the script, and EDITORIAL comments are contained within one or more sets of {[brackets]}.
As with many such endeavors, “D’Arusha à Arusha”—the title is an allusion to “De Nuremberg à Nuremberg,” though no serious parallels between the two US-sponsored War Crimes Tribunals are drawn, and any comparisons of the Rwandan Genocide to The Holocaust of European Jews are properly dismissed—is defined more by what it does not say than by what it does say. The Situationist Anxiety over this unknown absence is never greater than at the end of the film when Col. BAGOSORA’s conviction and life sentence are announced. Mr. GARGO & Co. make no mention of the monumental judicial decision to acquit all the Defendants in the Military I Trial of Planning Genocide or Conspiring to Commit Genocide. This ruling calls the genocide, itself, into question. [When I mentioned this omission to Mr. GARGOT, he seemed to be completely unaware of this DETAIL .]
So, without endorsing the film, let this RECONSIDERATION of “D’Arusha à Arusha” serve as a positive recommendation of its ‘Negative Capability’ (see Keats’ aesthetic of character and genius) in presenting what is surely a most informative (un)Making-Of History. Bon film! –mc]
***************
D’Arusha à Arusha
a documentary by Christophe GARGOT
(Notes from the 27 February 2010 screening at the Cinéma L’Entrepot in Paris, 15e)
UP ON: title: ATOPIC
CUT TO:
EXT. MURAMBI—DAY
A lot of people walking to the MURAMBI MEMORIAL. There is AMBIENT SOUND, but we are struck by how SILENT the PEOPLE are.
HEAVY SILENCE
CUT TO:
INT. MEMORIAL—DAY
The BLEACHED REMAINS of dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands of VICTIMS. The VISITORS, all AFRICANS, look on, not just in SILENCE, but WITHOUT DISCERNABLE EXPRESSION.
[One has to wonder if this is the way the remains of loved ones, parents and grand-parents and little kids, should be displayed if the purpose is remembrance. Like the Khmer Rouges’ bleached skulls, one gets the idea the purpose here is to instill terror in the viewers.]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR COURTROOM—DAY
MILITARY I Trial IN SESSION—JUDGE MOSE PRESIDING.
ON: Me Raphael CONSTANT, MILITARY I Defendant Colonel Théoneste BAGOSORA’s attorney.
He explains that 78 INDIVIDUALS have been tried before the ICTR, and EXCEPT FOR ONE BELGIAN [Georges RUGGIU, to appear later], ALL 78 have been HUTU. He says this is INTERESTING considering the Tribunal is supposed to adjudicate ALL MAJOR CRIMES including GENOCIDE committed in RWANDA between 1 January and 31 December 1994.
[Prof. Peter ERLINDER can be seen behind CONSTANT playing Donkey Kong on his computer—one of a couple silent bits Prof Erlinder pulls off very well—actually, he makes the picture!]
CUT TO:
EXT. RWANDA—DAY
A LITTLE HOUSE WITH A COUPLE TREES AROUND IT
This is the HOUSE OF JEAN DE DIEU [JdD].
CUT TO:
INT. JEAN DE DIEU’S HOUSE—DAY
ON: JdD sitting in a chair watching something OC Right.
He’s very calm, serene even. He admits to taking part in the genocide, but says he was following the orders of the Rwandan (Habyarimana/MRND) government authorities. He was a functionary in the Education Ministry, I think, and at first he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. But then religion and prison convinced him he was a genocidaire—that he had, as he puts it, committed some ‘betises’—[a French way of saying ‘minor fuck ups.’]
JdD says he’d not heard the word ‘genocide’ before 1994.
CUT TO:
EXT. RWANDA—DAY
OUTSIDE A PRISON
ON: Loading lots of CONVICTS into a truck.
[Convict labor? All very Parchman Farm.]
INT. (back stage) ICTR —DAY
ON: A lot of tech stuff: empty chairs with robes draped on them, computers and headsets—NO PEOPLE.
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—MILITARY I TRIAL IN SESSION
ON: Colonel Théoneste BAGOSORA on the WITNESS STAND.
Me Raphael CONSTANT asks him if TUTSIS were killed BECAUSE THEY WERE TUTSIS?
BAGOSORA says ‘YES.’
PRESIDING JUDGE MOSE asks when that started?
BLACK JUDGE asks how many were killed? And were the majority TUTSIS?
BAGOSORA breaks down the numbers:
* 500k was the US intelligence estimate.
* 1.5 million [AVEGA & IBUKA estimates embraced by current Kigali regime] is false
* And he explains how, according to the 1991 census the Rwandan population of
8.5 million was 10% Tutsis. So if the popular body count of 800k were applied
that would leave few if any Tutsis in Rwanda. [All Stam and Davenport stuff.]
[[[A SAMPLE OF THE REAL NUMBERS GAME[1]:
In the book they co-edited, “N'épargnez pas les enfants! Mémoire d'un génocide de proximité,” R. BOUHLAL (President of MRAX) and P. KALISA (President of BUKA), both militant anti-racists, work the numbers of Tutsi victims to shock and play to the emotions of the reader.
In the Introduction to the book, they state a number of victims:
“More than one million Tutsis were exterminated by the Rwandan ‘Hutu Power’
regime.”
This example shows the willful exaggeration that runs throughout the book.
Why maximize the number of victims? In 1991, the general census of the population by household conducted by the Rwandan government, in cooperation with the UNDP and UNFPA, estimated the population of Rwanda at 7,164,994, made up of 6,527,309 Hutu (91.1%), 601,859 Tutsi (8.4%), 29,660 Twa (0.4%), and 7,165 Others (0.1%).
In his book, “Rwanda - Contre-enquête sur le génocide,” (Editions Privat, Feb. 2007), Bernard LUGAN, in referring to data from “Counting the victims of the genocide: an analysis of the results, Kigali, Republic of Rwanda, March 2001,” notes: “The authorities in Kigali came to different conclusions. For them, there were 1.1 million victims during the genocide, 1,074,017 to be exact. . . . But 93.7% of them were Tutsi, meaning 1.006,353 Tutsi were killed. This is DEMOGRAPHICALLY impossible.”]]]
{{{{And this is the point BAGOSORA is trying to make in his testimony here.}}}}
CUT TO:
INT. JdD’s HOUSE—DAY
ON: JdD sitting, referring to a screen—he’s watching the ICTR with BAGOSORA in the box.
He says: ‘Who is that anyway?’ [Like he doesn’t recognize the ‘brains of the genocide’]
The interviewer tells him who it is, and JdD laughs about its being BAGOSORA.
[What does this laughter mean?]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
[Though we are not told, this is 4 Feb 2002—The OTP v. Elizaphan and (his son) Gerard NTAKIRUTIMANA—IN SESSION]
VO: JUDGE MOSE mispronounces [Faustin] TWAGIRAMUNGU’s name in presenting the witness. The WITNESS corrects him.
[As this is a particularly important sequence of the documentary, where TWAGIRAMUNGU explains the significance of race and ethnicity—or lack thereof—in pre-genocide Rwanda, I was surprised when the filmmaker, in a brief conversation we had after the screening, didn’t seem to know that TWAGIRAMUNGU was the first PRIME MINISTER in the RPF government formed in July 1994. As founder of the MDR and in opposition to the HABYARIMANA/MRND government, TWAGIRAMUNGU was considered for the PM’s job in the broad-based transitional government set out in the Arusha Accords, but had to wait until {as the ever-objective Wikipedia puts it} the fall of the ’Hutu Power’ extremists. Yet here he is testifying for the Defense in the trial of a 78 year old Rwandan pastor and his Doctor son, who'd been snatched in Texas--probably what got them the able offices of Me Clark--and brought to Tanzania for trial on genocide charges.]
ON: PRIME MINISTER FAUSTIN TWAGIRAMUNGU in the box.
CUT BETWEEN:
ON: Me RAMSEY CLARK, leading the direct examination of TWAGIRAMUNGU for the Defense.
Me CLARK asks the PM why he is before the Tribunal.
TWAGIRAMUNGU says he is there to tell the truth so that justice can be done.
Me CLARK asks about the animosity or antagonism or tension between HUTU & TUTSI.
TWAGIRAMUNGU speaks of how the terms, used primarily by foreigners, have been weaponized for use by those who seek political domination. He says in 1991 his kids asked him if they were HUTU or TUTSI? He says there were NO ‘RACES’ in Rwanda.
ON: Prosecutor Mr. Charles Adeogun-PHILLIPS cross-examining TWAGIRAMUNGU.
[This kid-prosecutor seems threatened by the old man. He’s edgy and aggressive and generally acting like an asshole—Mose has to cool him off at one point. Not a great intro for the OTP.]
Prosecutor PHILLIPS asks if TWAGIRAMUNGU was aware of distinctions between HUTU AND TUTSI.
TWAGIRAMUNGU tries to answer, but PHILLIPS won’t let him.
[Pissing contest over terminology ensues.]
PHILLIPS bucks right on with a question about ID cards for HUTU/TUTSI being REQUIRED.
TWAGIRAMUNGU shoots back that IDs were NOT REQUIRED.
[Phillips is even more beaked by this.]
PHILLIPS jabs “Would you identify yourself as a Hutu?”—No answer.
[Don’t really know what he’s going for here.]
PHILLIPS asks if TWAGIRAMUNGU was THREATENED.
[One has to assume just who is doing the ‘threatening’ of whom here.]
TWAGIRAMUNGU closes the exchange with ‘Yeah, I was threatened BECAUSE I WAS IN THE OPPOSITION.’
[His party, the MDR, was in opposition to the Habyarimana/MRND government, but its leaders were also targeted for assassination by the RPF; so what threats is Phillips referring to? And the film never goes into TWAGIRAMUNGU’S history of serving, then fleeing the RPF, and going into exile in Belgium.]
CUT TO:
EXT. MEMORIAL—DAY
THEN CUT TO:
INT. JdD’s HOUSE—DAY
ON: JdD talking of the distinction between HUTU and TUTSI. He’s a HUTU married to a TUTSI, but considers himself BETWEEN HUTU & TUTSI.
[Remember he worked in the HUTU (majority) government and a lot of his colleagues in the civil service got tagged as HUTU genocidaires, however tall or aquiline-featured they may have been. To me, JdD looks like a Tutsi.]
CUT BACK TO:
EXT. PRISON—DAY
[This prison is becoming a STOCK SHOT for TODAY’s RWANDA]
THEN CUT TO:
INT. RWANDAN HOUSE—DAY
ON: JdD’s WIFE—[nice looking woman one would guess to be a Tutsi—she’s big.]
VO: Asks Mrs. JdD if she understands her husband’s arrest.
SHE speaks in KINYARWANDA and says she was surprised that he copped to being a genocidaire in front of a Gacaca.
[But Mrs JdD is A GACACA JUDGE!!—so, I guess, my first take on her being TUTSI was right.]
CUT TO:
EXT. KIGALI—VARIOUS ESTABLISHING SHOTS—DAY
ON: Kids playing FOOTBALL.
VO: GEORGES RUGGIU on RTLM quotes Machiavelli: [essentially: It’s easier to control people if they’re scared to death of being punished.]
[Or, TERROR WORKS! JUST ASK NATO or the MOSSAD.]
CUT TO:
EXT. ARUSHA STREETS—DAY
SFX: SIRENS
as we TRACK A UN MOTORCADE TO THE ICTR.
EXT. STOCK SHOTS OF ICTR—DAY
ON: SECURITY GUARDS checking with mirrors under the MOTORCADE for BOMBS.
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR COURTROOM—DAY
[RUGGIU TRIAL IN SESSION]
ON: Me Jean Louis GILISSEN, RUGGIU’s Defense lawyer. He explains what this WHITE BELGIAN KID—
[He’s actually in his 50s now, and in 2009 got a kick-out from some Italian joint within three months of finishing his 12 year bid, but in the movie bidness everybody’s a ‘kid’.]
—with a goofy Mennonite beard and a penchant for Muslim clobber, is doing working for RTLM. [HUTU-TU-TU-TU Hate Radio-yo-yo-yo!!]
GILISSEN talks about how young RUGGIU fell in with some very militant HUTUS from the north of Rwanda—this is HABYARIMANA’s region, and folks from up north are unusually political, according to Me GILISSEN’s story.
He fills in a little history of the troubles, . . .
[Though he lost me when he mentioned that in 1994 the RPF seized political power by force in a ‘CIVIL WAR’—again the Tribunal (and this film) avoid recognizing the PRIMAL CRIME AGAINST THE PEACE (according to the Nuremberg Principle—remember De Nuremberg à Nuremberg?), the crime that leads to all other war crimes, crimes against Humanity and even genocide: in the present case, the 1 October 1990 RPF invasion from Uganda (which the ICTR continues to refer to as a ‘TRESPASS’), prepared, supplied, supported and guided by the Anglo-Saxon powers and Israel, with the open, even brazen, connivance of the UN, against the current sado/maso peg-boy préféré, La France. Just when you thought Sarkozy could no further humiliate himself and his country, he visits Kigali and in the towering presence of the MASTER GENOCIDAIRE, President/General Paul Kagame, apologizes for ‘French errors’ during the Rwandan tragedy—hawking the last pitiful examples of Gallic military heroism for the rough caresses of his NATO overlords. –And the next day, the French arrest Mme HABYARIMANA, the martyred President’s widow, on a GENOCIDE WARRANT from KIGALI.—But then all of this is OUTSIDE the MANDATE or AUTHORITY of the ICTR, right?]
Me GILISSEN’s final anecdote is winning, however: HABYARIMANA’s motorcade is stopped by the sight of this WHITE BOY, RUGGIU, standing beside the road. The soon-to-be-late President invites the WHITE BOY into his car and so charms him that RUGGIU becomes totally committed . . .
[. . . to the NATIONAL CIVIL DEFENSE OF RWANDA AGAINST THE FOREIGN INVADERS—or to Extremist Hutu Hate Power Radio, depending on which side of history you favor: the true or the false.]
CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON—RAINY DAY
ON: A bunch of GUYS IN JAIL-WHITES WAITING IN THE RAIN.
[Are we being shown the sort of place the little white Belgian RTLM DJ can expect to inhabit for a long spell?]
CUT TO:
INT. JdD’S HOUSE—DAY
ON: JdD, talking about the code used by RTLM: “cockroaches,” “cut down the tall trees”: it was all about killing . . . the enemy.
[But who is the ENEMY? Is it the TUTSI because they are TUTSI? Or is it the foreign invaders who have maintained a four-year reign of terror on the country and now threaten to end the RWANDAN REVOLUTION—or REPUBLIC—once and for all? The film does not mention that AGITATION FOR WAR was the normal fare on all the RADIO STATIONS, with the RPF’s Radio MUHABURA well in the LEAD.—But then, the ICTR is NOT ABOUT THE RPF, is it.]
[[[Here’s as good a place as any to INSERT a bit of history on the BOOGY MAN of HATE RADIO, RTLM (Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines): This station was established in August 1993 (coincidental with the signing of the Arusha Accords) and broadcast on the FM band, reaching most of Kigali with a signal radius of less than 25km. It was created especially to react to the broadcasts of the RPF’s Radio MUHABURA, which, since 1990, used a short-wave signal emanating from the Army headquarters in the Burundian capital of Bujumbura to reach everywhere in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and the RDC. It ceaselessly aired lies and hateful messages through the plays of Idris BIZIRAGUTEBA, whose real name is Sillas MBONIMANA, and the songs of Cécile KAYIREBWA; this REAL HATE was directed at the HUTU, in general, and President HABYARIMANA, in particular.[2] ]]]
LONG HOLD ON: JdD, looking sad but still tranquil. We hear the RAIN FALLING hard outside.
AFTER SEVERAL LONG BEATS: JdD says, “It’s raining.”
CONTINUE HOLDING ON HIM FOR UNCOMFORTABLY LONG TIME.
CUT TO:
CLOSE ON: CUTE RWANDAN KID (4 yrs old) out in the rain. His face is covered with rainwater, but is as sad and tranquil as JdD’s.
BLACK OUT
VO: RTLM tells us it’s EASTER TIME and that ‘EXTREMIST HUTUS’ have infiltrated the RPF and are planning for SOMETHING BIG to happen around the 7-8 of April (1994).
[Here the film, once again, tips its supposedly objective hand revealing all its cards to be in favor of the RPF version of the 1994 events: HABYARIMANA WAS ASSASSINATED BY (infiltrated) HUTU POWER EXTREMISTs—even if it LOOKS LIKE the RPF did it!]
FADE IN:
EXT. HILLTOP OUTSIDE KIGALI—TWILIGHT
SFX: An aircraft flying over.
CUT TO:
INT. ROOM—DAY
ON: AFRICAN GUY WITH WHITE HAIR watching TV image of TWAGIRAMUNGU testifying as to how he told PM Agathe UWILINGIYIMANA about the President’s being killed.
[NO MENTION is made in the FILM of the sad facts that (a) the next day {7 April 1994} PM Agathe was, herself, murdered while in UN CUSTODY; and (b) at the END of MIL I, Colonel BAGOSORA would be convicted by the ICTR of her murder (called an ACT OF GENOCIDE based on an ORDER from the APPEALS CHAMBER in The Hague to ‘take JUDICIAL NOTICE’ of the genocide—i.e., to ACCEPT IT as A GIVEN without any need of legal VERIFICATION.), while being ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES OF PLANNING OR INTENT TO COMMIT GENOCIDE.]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
ON: TWAGIRAMUNGU testifying about the downing of the President’s plane. He says whoever shot down HABYARIMANA’s plane JUST WANTED TO TAKE POWER. But whoever shot it down MUST BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.
[The film makes no attempt to place TWAGIRAMUNGU’s testimony in any distinct time-relation to the MILITARY I (BAGOSORA) trial. One comes away with the impression TWAGIRAMUNGU is talking about the 6 April 1994 terrorist attack DURING the MILITARY I trial in Defense of BAGOSORA et alia.]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—RUGGIU TRIAL IN SESSION
ON: RUGGIU being questioned about the SHOOT DOWN, which was reported on RTLM.
He’s also questioned about LISTS kept at the RTLM studio. RUGGIU describes a blackboard with two columns of names: ONE for THOSE IN DANGER; the OTHER for the DEAD.
[The CHARGE OF GENOCIDE seems to depend very heavily on the EXISTENCE OF LISTS.]
MOSE asks RUGGIU what the purpose of the LISTS was. RUGGIU uses TWAGIRAMUNGU as an example of list ONE: someone who’s been THREATENED; and PM Agathe UWILINGIYIMANA as an example of list TWO: someone who’s been KILLED.
When asked why the two LISTS were necessary, RUGGIU says that it was necessary to DOUBLE CHECK reports because there was a great deal of bad information, rumors and disinformation.
[The impression was that this was another feckless attempt by MOSE and the TRIBUNAL to establish the existence of ‘GENOCIDE LISTS’—but RUGGIU held his mud.]
[[[MORE ON GENOCIDE LISTS—real and imagined: Another RPF mouthpiece and a contributor to “N'épargnez pas les enfants! Mémoire d'un génocide de proximité,” Alain VERHAAGEN, writes about the massacres of the Tutsi by the Interahamwe:
--“In setting up their hellish machine . . . lists of thousands of names of people to be
executed were compiled and used to complete their project.”--
No one has ever seen these lists. Could VERHAAGEN produce them? On the other hand, there IS a list of 213 HUTU linked to the MRND, compiled by the RPF in 1993. After they had seized power in July 1994, this list was updated and made official by a presidential decree in November 1996, then again in February 2001. It was also extended to include more than 2000 people. There are other lists as well: the Rwandan report on Human Rights submitted to the Human Rights Committee in Geneva on 17 March 2009, speaks of 1,056,606 Gacaca dossiers; there is also a list of 93 names filed with Interpol; finally, one of 130,000 people being held in prisons or other places of incarceration. These lists are constantly updated and used by the ICTR to track ‘alleged HUTU criminals.’ Western governments also refer to these lists as criteria for refusing political asylum to HUTU refugees. Generally, there is no ‘PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE’ for anyone whose name appears on these lists.[3] ]]]
CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON—DAY
VO: RTLM broadcast dated MARCH 1994: HOW PM AGATHE (from the MDR) HAD TO GO.
CUT TO:
INT. ROOM—DAY
ON: WHITE-HAIRED AFRICAN GUY. He talks about how SHOOTING DOWN THE PRESIDENT’s PLANE and MURDERING PM AGATHE were all about STOPPING THE TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS FROM BEING PUT IN PLACE.
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
ON: MOSE is musing about whether the SHOOTING DOWN OF THE PRESIDENT’s PLANE falls within the MANDATE OF THE TRIBUNAL. He asks a member of the PROSECUTION to address the question of THE DOUBLE PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATION vs. THE MANDATE OF THE ICTR.
ON: LONG-HAIRED PROSECUTOR: Seems to be saying that WHETHER THE CRIME FALLS WITHIN THE MANDATE OF THE TRIBUNAL is NOT AS RELEVANT to the issue of BRINGING A PROSECUTION AGAINST THOSE RESPONSIBLE as is THE UNLIKELIHOOD OF THE PROSECUTION’S GAINING A CONVICTION. And he posits that with 8 COMPETING THEORIES AS TO WHO DONE IT, there is NOT A GREAT LIKELIHOOD of getting a case to stick to ANYONE.
ON: Me CONSTANT: HE GOES OFF on the idea of !?!8 COMPETING THEORIES!?! of the SHOOT DOWN.
He moves on to cite a case in which the Defense asked for discovery of all the evidence the Prosecution had on the SHOOT DOWN. But all the OTP could come up with was the Hourigan Report—which finds that the RPF and its leader, Paul Kagame, are RESPONSIBLE for this ACT OF TERRORISM.
Then Me CONSTANT continues by citing ALISON DES FORGES to establish the universally accepted tenet that the RWANDAN GENOCIDE was TRIGGERED by the SHOOTING DOWN OF THE PRESIDENT’s PLANE.
[[[Re: EIGHT THEORIES ON THE SHOOT DOWN: As far as I know, there are just two principal theories, with various snap-on parts—and only one has any evidentiary credibility:
1. Per the MUTSINZI REPORT {thoroughly debunked on the CM/P blog}: The Extremist Hutu-Power HABYARIMANA inner-circle and some disgruntled FAR officers got rid of their own leader, their Army Chief of Staff, and another duly-elected Hutu president, so they could get on with a genocide they’d been cooking up for anywhere from 4 to 34 years; or
2. Per the BRUGUIÈRE REPORT (with serious back-up from the Spanish court of Judge FERNANDO ANDREU MERELLES): The RPF invaders decapitated the Rwandan government, in a BRAZEN TERRORIST VIOLATION of the Internationally sanctioned ARUSHA ACCORDS to which they were signatory, to signal the renewal of hostilities in a final military push to take Kigali and SEIZE STATE POWER BY FORCE OF ARMS—the ONLY WAY they could have ascended to power with the miniscule popular support they had—and to avoid the democratic elections ordered by the Arusha Peace Process.
–If you put MUTSINZI and BRUGUIÈRE in a pit, after five minutes, the latter would walk out with the entrails of the former dripping from his jaws.]]]
VO: MOSE says something like, “Massacres started around 13-14 April, right? But HOUSES were being BURNED and there were KILLINGS before that.”
ON: MOSE to BAGOSORA: “How do you explain all the killing of TUTSIS?”
ON: BAGOSORA: These were more like ‘TARGETED KILLINGS’ than ‘SYSTEMATIC MASSACRES.’
CUT TO:
EXT. RWANDA—DAY
THEN ON: Mrs. JdD: In KINYARWANDA she describes how her FAMILY WAS KILLED.
THEN ON: JdD:
VO: “Did anyone ask you to KILL YOUR [Tutsi] WIFE?”
JdD: “No. But I was LUCKY.”
[Scene with LONG RTLM VO omitted]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
MILITARY I TRIAL IN SESSION
ON: Me CONSTANT to BAGOSORA: “Did you ever ORDER the KILLING of ANYONE?”
BAGOSORA: “No.”
Me CONSTANT: “What do you CONSIDER to be the DIFFERENCE between GENOCIDE and EXCESSIVE KILLING?”
BAGOSORA: “There was no PLANNING, NO SYSTEMATIC KILLING. . . . And right after the SHOOT DOWN, there were only TARGETED KILLINGS.”
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
NTAKIRUTIMANA TRIAL IN SESSION
ON: Me RAMSEY CLARK to PM TWAGIRAMUNGU: “Did the MRND or anyone in the Rwandan government PLAN A GENOCIDE?”
TWAGIRAMUNGU: Says he was well-connected, a made-guy in Rwandan politics, the leader of a major OPPOSITION PARTY, and he KNEW OF NO PLAN FOR GENOCIDE. He added that there had been MASS KILLINGS SINCE 1993.
NEW ANGLE ON: Prosecutor Charles PHILLIPS [still bloated with bad attitude] to TWAGIRAMUNGU:
INTERAHAMWE were prepared to HATE by KUNGURO & RTLM. Trained to KILL. He makes SOME HOLOCAUST ALLUSION.
NEW ON: TWAGIRAMUNGU:
He goes from his usual ENGLISH into FRENCH to dash PHILLIP’S comparisons of Rwanda to the SHOAH. He says, AND if the MASSACRES were PLANNED, they weren’t JUST AGAINST TUTSIS.
THIS forces Judge MOSE to CALL ANOTHER TIME OUT.
CUT TO:
INT. WHITE-HAIRED AFRICAN’s HOUSE—DAY
ON: Mr. WHITEHEAD—[I don’t know whether I like this guy or not.]
He tries to EXPLAIN how there could have BEEN PLANNING WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE OF PLANNING.
[Like I said—I dunno about this guy.]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—MIL I
ON: Me CONSTANT: He poses a couple HYPOTHETICALS:
1) After 6 April ALL KILLING WAS SPONTANEOUS?
2) Before 6 April ALL KILLING WAS PLANNED?
CUT BACK TO:
ON: WHITEHEAD: He says something like: There was NO PLANNING. But UNCONSCIOUS PLANNING explains the SCOPE OF THE KILLING.
[UNCONSCIOUS PLANNING? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?]
BLACK OUT
VO: Singing a song about EXTERMINATING INKOTANY. [La Cucaracha?]
CUT TO:
STOCK SHOT: Mt. Meron [After Teddy Meron, Chief of the Appeals Chamber?]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
ON: Me Ramsey CLARK questioning Faustin TWAGIRAMUNGU about when he GOT BACK to KIGALI.
ON: TWAGIRAMUNGU saying he returned on 14 July 1994. But when asked what HE SAW on returning, TWAGIRAMUNGU LOSES IT IN A DEEP SADNESS.
CUT TO:
EXT. MEMORIAL—DAY
A LARGE CROWD is gathered waiting for . . . ? A BAND is playing, DIGNITARIES are filing in, a lot of SOLDIERS loitering, but all are UNARMED.
CUT TO:
ANGLE ON: What the CROWD’S been waiting for—KAGAME ENTERS.
VARIOUS ANGLES ON: People looking STUPIFIED. All RISE, then sit back down QUIETLY.
[Obviously no RPF comic warmed up this audience. Everybody’s SERIOUS AND SEEMS SERIOUSLY SPACED OUT.]
ANGLE ON: KAGAME at the podium. He speaks.
It’s the 13th anniversary of the genocide—so, 2007 [Bruguière’s ARREST WARRANTS have been out for about 6 MONTHS]. And though they are never mentioned by name, you know Kagame is talking directly to the French and their ANTI-TERRORIST Judge Jean-Louis BRUGUIÈRE and his REPORT, which charges the Rwandan president with the murder of two SITTING African CHIEFS OF STATE and their entourages, including the three-man French flight crew of the presidential Falcon 50.
KAGAME: The genocide was CAUSED by FOREIGNERS [again the French are not named], so how dare THEY judge Rwanda? WHAT WAS SO IMPORTANT ON THAT PLANE that it could have caused the deaths of a million Rwandans? WHAT RIGHT DO THESE FOREIGNERS have to judge Rwanda and its government?
[It is difficult not to hear his speech as a kind of ‘Fuck you, France {and Spain}! So what if I shot down the plane? Nothing on it that our world can’t get along just fine without.”]
CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON—DAY
ON: PRISONERS making a HUGE KETTLE of some kind of SOUP or STEW. We spend a LONG TIME looking on at this NASTY CONCOCTION. The COOKS look especially DISGUSTED [But maybe it’s not about the GRUEL].
CUT TO:
INT. COURTROOM—DAY
VO: CARLA DEL PONTE speaking in French.
ON: CARLA DEL PONTE going on about the INDEPENDENCE OF THE ICTR PROSECUTOR.
She complains that the APPEALS CHAMBER kept her from pursuing [Jean-Bosco] BARIYAGWIZA. She said she couldn’t go to RWANDA after that and that the KIGALI government stopped her working, locked her out of her office.
[On first watching this scene, I was taken with how REASONABLE DEL PONTE seemed. As if she were talking about why she got FIRED FROM HER ICTR gig for GOING AFTER THE RPF. And how the RPF was denying her access to her office in Kigali and to evidence only they could furnish. It took finding out some details of the BARIYAGWIZA case to realize she was fronting for the RPF in complaining that the APPEALS CHAMBER had ruled FOR BARIYAGWIZA and AGAINST the RPF.]
CUT TO:
EXT. GACACA—DAY
JdD’s MISSUS is the smiling JUDGE.
VARIOUS SHOTS OF GACACA JUSTICE: their motto: ‘If you’re alive you’re a criminal.’
CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON—DAY
ON: Trucking PRISONERS [AGAIN to WORK?]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—RUGGIU TRIAL
BETWEEN: RUGGIU and the INDIAN WOMAN JUDGE
RUGGIU CHANGING his PLEA to GUILTY.
The JUDGE asks if he’s been COERCED OR TERRORIZED into changing his plea. Did THREATS have anything to do with his CHANGING HIS PLEA? [Duh!]
RUGGIU says: NO, the THREATS JUST CLEARED HIS MIND—and besides, HE was MISSING his FAMILY.
[He appears thoroughly demoralized and scared shitless. Being the only non-HUTU, non-African, might do that. The RPF scares everyone—until they kill them. Just ask Abdul RUZIBIZA, Deus KAGIRANEZA and Emmanuel RUZIGANA, recanting their testimony at KIGALI’s “REQUEST.”—or ask this filmmaker. It’s TOO LATE to ask Juvénal UWILINGIYIMANA: the RPF got to him using the current US Ambassador for War Crimes, Stephen Rapp—then they cut his hands off and dumped his body in the Charleroi Canal in Brussels. See http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/27/1523635.html]
CUT TO:
INT. JdD’s ROOM
ON: JdD listening in to the RUGGIU TRIAL on a COMPUTER.
[One gets the IMPRESSION JdD and RUGGIU are being COMPARED here: They seem a lot ALIKE in their DEHUMANIZATION.]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—VARIOUS SHOTS OF AN EMPTY TRIBUNAL
ON: RUGGIU’S ATTORNEY
He is PLEADING for a LENIENT SENTENCE for his CLIENT. [This is beyond PATHETIC: kinda ‘GENOCIDAIRES ARE PEOPLE TOO.’]
VARIOUS SHOTS OF EMPTY ICTR
ON: THE INDIAN WOMAN JUDGE PRONOUNCING RUGGIU’S SENTENCE.
Count 1—Genocide: 12 years. Count 2—Crimes against Humanity: 12 years.
[She runs them bow-legged—CC, you know, CONCURRENTLY. RUGGIU was sentence 1 June 2000. He did SEVEN of his DOZEN-YEARS in Arusha. On 28 February 2008, he was transferred to Italy where he stepped off the 17 months left of his time. He got a 3-month early kick-out in June 2009.]
CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON—DAWN [or SUNSET]
ON: PRISONERS hooking it up on WORK DETAIL.
CUT TO:
ON: JdD’s MISSUS talking about how hard it was to explain to the kids that DAD’S A GENOCIDAIRE.
CUT TO:
ON: JdD explaining the DIFFERENCE between BEING GUILTY OF and BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR genocide.
JdD’s OK with ALL THIS because he’s VISITED THE SURVIVORS, HAD A DRINK WITH THEM.
CUT TO:
EXT. JdD’s HOUSE—DAY
HOLD for SEVERAL BEATS. [We’re LEAVING RWANDA]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DOOR BEING CLOSED TO CAMERA
ON: Me CONSTANT’s FINAL ARGUMENT for BAGOSORA:
The QUESTION of WHETHER the GENOCIDE is TRUE or NOT has BEEN FORGOTTEN.
WHAT HAPPENED IN RWANDA IS STILL UNKNOWN.
Citing DEL PONTE, he says the TRIBUNAL CANNOT WRITE THE HISTORY OF RWANDA.
WE’RE LISTENING FROM OFF:
Me CONSTANT says that whether BAGOSORA is a NICE GUY OR NOT is not the POINT.
The TRIBUNAL has not proved that HE KILLED ANYONE.
FINALLY: CONSTANT says:
THIS IS NOT A TRIBUNAL OF THE VICTORS—THIS IS A TRIBUNAL OF THE VANQUISHED.
CUT TO:
EXT. RWANDA—DAY
ON: THE VERDICTS:
BAGOSORA gets LIFE JdD gets 30 YEARS.
[[[BUT WHERE IS ANY MENTION OF ALL OF THE AQUITTALS? OF THE ICTR’s COMPLETE FAILURE TO PROVE THE GENOCIDE!—Because, AFTER ALL, this FAILURE TO (un)MAKE HISTORY is what we’ve JUST WITNESSED.]]]
THE END
******************
Notes:
[1] Extracted from: The critique by Martine SYOEN, President of "SOS Rwanda-Burundi asbl", of certains writings from the book, "N'épargnez pas les enfants ! Mémoire d'un génocide de proximité". [http://www.musabyimana.be/lire/article/critiques-au-livre-nepargnez-pas-les-enfants-memoire-dun-genocide-de-proximite/index.html#_edn6]
[2] This is again excerpted from the piece by Martine SYOEN cited above.
[3] Ibid.
What makes Christophe GARGOT’s 2009 documentary, “D’Arusha à Arusha,” unique is that it seems to present a very convincing, however tangential, prima facie argument for a version of History that is completely contrary to the version it is advocating. In presenting the ICTR as an independent instrument of International Justice—and a force against impunity and for the rights of victims—the film begins by telling us that of the 78 defendants tried, all have been Hutus connected to the former Habyarimana government or the Interim government that succeeded it. Then questions are raised: questions about the number and ethnic origins of the genocide victims, questions as to the role of ethnic (tribal) conflict and the ‘Hate Speech’ it spawned, questions as to the real independence of the Tribunal, questions as to the Tribunals authority in pursuing the assassins of two African heads of state, even questions on the legal veracity of the genocide, itself—all these highly pertinent questions are posed, but none is answered to anyone’s satisfaction. Yet even a moderately informed viewer cannot help but feel the overwhelming weight of the evidence presented in this film falls on the side of the Defense—and that this Tribunal, like its Yugoslav twin in The Hague, is really a continuation of the war in Rwanda, even an extension of the Rwandan genocide, through the maintenance of a false history in the interests of Western (NATO/AFRICOM) militarism. It certainly presents a massive obstruction to peace and reconciliation in the country.
In email correspondence, the filmmaker has assured me that his only goal was to strike a balance between the two sides in the Rwandan troubles: the Hutu and the Tutsi, or Habyarimana’s persecuted, displaced and assassinated government and Kagame’s militarily dictatorial, murderously repressive and criminally expansionist government, or the US/UK/Israel and the people of Central Africa. This is the sort of Existentialist experiment in equivocation that even the Nazi ‘guest worker’ J-P Sartre couldn’t pull off: though the universal inevitability of death may give the (Fascist) assassin and his (Communist) victim a certain existential equivalence, certainly no one in good conscience could strike any kind of moral parity between mass murderers and their victims. Anti-communists (or Fascists, as we like to distinguish them) have used this ploy for more than 60 years to expiate the horrendous crimes in their attempted destruction of popular democracies throughout the USSR and People’s China—most famously by Hannah Arendt (‘Heidegger’s ‘ho’’) when she equated Soviet and Chinese Communism with German, Italian and Japanese Fascism, lumping them all together into one big, evil authoritarianism. But this neutralization of the dialectical tension between Communism (anti-Fascism) and Fascism (anti-Communism) serves only to relieve Fascism of its responsibility for the primal Crimes Against the Peace it committed in its unprovoked military aggressions against the Popular Governments of Europe and Asia.
And I suppose it is the very impossibility of his intentions, to deal even-handedly with the génocidaires and the génocidées, that makes GARGOT’s documentary so important, not only to the History of Central Africa, but also to the History of International Criminal Justice. Unable to lay hands on a DVD, I was forced to view the film in three screening here in Paris, and during my third viewing I took notes (by the light of my iPhone) so as to sketch out a ROUGH scenario on which to add CM/P’s ALTERNATIVE NARRATION.
We use CAPS {perhaps TOO often} to give a Sid Fields smell to the script, and EDITORIAL comments are contained within one or more sets of {[brackets]}.
As with many such endeavors, “D’Arusha à Arusha”—the title is an allusion to “De Nuremberg à Nuremberg,” though no serious parallels between the two US-sponsored War Crimes Tribunals are drawn, and any comparisons of the Rwandan Genocide to The Holocaust of European Jews are properly dismissed—is defined more by what it does not say than by what it does say. The Situationist Anxiety over this unknown absence is never greater than at the end of the film when Col. BAGOSORA’s conviction and life sentence are announced. Mr. GARGO & Co. make no mention of the monumental judicial decision to acquit all the Defendants in the Military I Trial of Planning Genocide or Conspiring to Commit Genocide. This ruling calls the genocide, itself, into question. [When I mentioned this omission to Mr. GARGOT, he seemed to be completely unaware of this DETAIL .]
So, without endorsing the film, let this RECONSIDERATION of “D’Arusha à Arusha” serve as a positive recommendation of its ‘Negative Capability’ (see Keats’ aesthetic of character and genius) in presenting what is surely a most informative (un)Making-Of History. Bon film! –mc]
***************
D’Arusha à Arusha
a documentary by Christophe GARGOT
(Notes from the 27 February 2010 screening at the Cinéma L’Entrepot in Paris, 15e)
UP ON: title: ATOPIC
CUT TO:
EXT. MURAMBI—DAY
A lot of people walking to the MURAMBI MEMORIAL. There is AMBIENT SOUND, but we are struck by how SILENT the PEOPLE are.
HEAVY SILENCE
CUT TO:
INT. MEMORIAL—DAY
The BLEACHED REMAINS of dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands of VICTIMS. The VISITORS, all AFRICANS, look on, not just in SILENCE, but WITHOUT DISCERNABLE EXPRESSION.
[One has to wonder if this is the way the remains of loved ones, parents and grand-parents and little kids, should be displayed if the purpose is remembrance. Like the Khmer Rouges’ bleached skulls, one gets the idea the purpose here is to instill terror in the viewers.]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR COURTROOM—DAY
MILITARY I Trial IN SESSION—JUDGE MOSE PRESIDING.
ON: Me Raphael CONSTANT, MILITARY I Defendant Colonel Théoneste BAGOSORA’s attorney.
He explains that 78 INDIVIDUALS have been tried before the ICTR, and EXCEPT FOR ONE BELGIAN [Georges RUGGIU, to appear later], ALL 78 have been HUTU. He says this is INTERESTING considering the Tribunal is supposed to adjudicate ALL MAJOR CRIMES including GENOCIDE committed in RWANDA between 1 January and 31 December 1994.
[Prof. Peter ERLINDER can be seen behind CONSTANT playing Donkey Kong on his computer—one of a couple silent bits Prof Erlinder pulls off very well—actually, he makes the picture!]
CUT TO:
EXT. RWANDA—DAY
A LITTLE HOUSE WITH A COUPLE TREES AROUND IT
This is the HOUSE OF JEAN DE DIEU [JdD].
CUT TO:
INT. JEAN DE DIEU’S HOUSE—DAY
ON: JdD sitting in a chair watching something OC Right.
He’s very calm, serene even. He admits to taking part in the genocide, but says he was following the orders of the Rwandan (Habyarimana/MRND) government authorities. He was a functionary in the Education Ministry, I think, and at first he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. But then religion and prison convinced him he was a genocidaire—that he had, as he puts it, committed some ‘betises’—[a French way of saying ‘minor fuck ups.’]
JdD says he’d not heard the word ‘genocide’ before 1994.
CUT TO:
EXT. RWANDA—DAY
OUTSIDE A PRISON
ON: Loading lots of CONVICTS into a truck.
[Convict labor? All very Parchman Farm.]
INT. (back stage) ICTR —DAY
ON: A lot of tech stuff: empty chairs with robes draped on them, computers and headsets—NO PEOPLE.
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—MILITARY I TRIAL IN SESSION
ON: Colonel Théoneste BAGOSORA on the WITNESS STAND.
Me Raphael CONSTANT asks him if TUTSIS were killed BECAUSE THEY WERE TUTSIS?
BAGOSORA says ‘YES.’
PRESIDING JUDGE MOSE asks when that started?
BLACK JUDGE asks how many were killed? And were the majority TUTSIS?
BAGOSORA breaks down the numbers:
* 500k was the US intelligence estimate.
* 1.5 million [AVEGA & IBUKA estimates embraced by current Kigali regime] is false
* And he explains how, according to the 1991 census the Rwandan population of
8.5 million was 10% Tutsis. So if the popular body count of 800k were applied
that would leave few if any Tutsis in Rwanda. [All Stam and Davenport stuff.]
[[[A SAMPLE OF THE REAL NUMBERS GAME[1]:
In the book they co-edited, “N'épargnez pas les enfants! Mémoire d'un génocide de proximité,” R. BOUHLAL (President of MRAX) and P. KALISA (President of BUKA), both militant anti-racists, work the numbers of Tutsi victims to shock and play to the emotions of the reader.
In the Introduction to the book, they state a number of victims:
“More than one million Tutsis were exterminated by the Rwandan ‘Hutu Power’
regime.”
This example shows the willful exaggeration that runs throughout the book.
Why maximize the number of victims? In 1991, the general census of the population by household conducted by the Rwandan government, in cooperation with the UNDP and UNFPA, estimated the population of Rwanda at 7,164,994, made up of 6,527,309 Hutu (91.1%), 601,859 Tutsi (8.4%), 29,660 Twa (0.4%), and 7,165 Others (0.1%).
In his book, “Rwanda - Contre-enquête sur le génocide,” (Editions Privat, Feb. 2007), Bernard LUGAN, in referring to data from “Counting the victims of the genocide: an analysis of the results, Kigali, Republic of Rwanda, March 2001,” notes: “The authorities in Kigali came to different conclusions. For them, there were 1.1 million victims during the genocide, 1,074,017 to be exact. . . . But 93.7% of them were Tutsi, meaning 1.006,353 Tutsi were killed. This is DEMOGRAPHICALLY impossible.”]]]
{{{{And this is the point BAGOSORA is trying to make in his testimony here.}}}}
CUT TO:
INT. JdD’s HOUSE—DAY
ON: JdD sitting, referring to a screen—he’s watching the ICTR with BAGOSORA in the box.
He says: ‘Who is that anyway?’ [Like he doesn’t recognize the ‘brains of the genocide’]
The interviewer tells him who it is, and JdD laughs about its being BAGOSORA.
[What does this laughter mean?]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
[Though we are not told, this is 4 Feb 2002—The OTP v. Elizaphan and (his son) Gerard NTAKIRUTIMANA—IN SESSION]
VO: JUDGE MOSE mispronounces [Faustin] TWAGIRAMUNGU’s name in presenting the witness. The WITNESS corrects him.
[As this is a particularly important sequence of the documentary, where TWAGIRAMUNGU explains the significance of race and ethnicity—or lack thereof—in pre-genocide Rwanda, I was surprised when the filmmaker, in a brief conversation we had after the screening, didn’t seem to know that TWAGIRAMUNGU was the first PRIME MINISTER in the RPF government formed in July 1994. As founder of the MDR and in opposition to the HABYARIMANA/MRND government, TWAGIRAMUNGU was considered for the PM’s job in the broad-based transitional government set out in the Arusha Accords, but had to wait until {as the ever-objective Wikipedia puts it} the fall of the ’Hutu Power’ extremists. Yet here he is testifying for the Defense in the trial of a 78 year old Rwandan pastor and his Doctor son, who'd been snatched in Texas--probably what got them the able offices of Me Clark--and brought to Tanzania for trial on genocide charges.]
ON: PRIME MINISTER FAUSTIN TWAGIRAMUNGU in the box.
CUT BETWEEN:
ON: Me RAMSEY CLARK, leading the direct examination of TWAGIRAMUNGU for the Defense.
Me CLARK asks the PM why he is before the Tribunal.
TWAGIRAMUNGU says he is there to tell the truth so that justice can be done.
Me CLARK asks about the animosity or antagonism or tension between HUTU & TUTSI.
TWAGIRAMUNGU speaks of how the terms, used primarily by foreigners, have been weaponized for use by those who seek political domination. He says in 1991 his kids asked him if they were HUTU or TUTSI? He says there were NO ‘RACES’ in Rwanda.
ON: Prosecutor Mr. Charles Adeogun-PHILLIPS cross-examining TWAGIRAMUNGU.
[This kid-prosecutor seems threatened by the old man. He’s edgy and aggressive and generally acting like an asshole—Mose has to cool him off at one point. Not a great intro for the OTP.]
Prosecutor PHILLIPS asks if TWAGIRAMUNGU was aware of distinctions between HUTU AND TUTSI.
TWAGIRAMUNGU tries to answer, but PHILLIPS won’t let him.
[Pissing contest over terminology ensues.]
PHILLIPS bucks right on with a question about ID cards for HUTU/TUTSI being REQUIRED.
TWAGIRAMUNGU shoots back that IDs were NOT REQUIRED.
[Phillips is even more beaked by this.]
PHILLIPS jabs “Would you identify yourself as a Hutu?”—No answer.
[Don’t really know what he’s going for here.]
PHILLIPS asks if TWAGIRAMUNGU was THREATENED.
[One has to assume just who is doing the ‘threatening’ of whom here.]
TWAGIRAMUNGU closes the exchange with ‘Yeah, I was threatened BECAUSE I WAS IN THE OPPOSITION.’
[His party, the MDR, was in opposition to the Habyarimana/MRND government, but its leaders were also targeted for assassination by the RPF; so what threats is Phillips referring to? And the film never goes into TWAGIRAMUNGU’S history of serving, then fleeing the RPF, and going into exile in Belgium.]
CUT TO:
EXT. MEMORIAL—DAY
THEN CUT TO:
INT. JdD’s HOUSE—DAY
ON: JdD talking of the distinction between HUTU and TUTSI. He’s a HUTU married to a TUTSI, but considers himself BETWEEN HUTU & TUTSI.
[Remember he worked in the HUTU (majority) government and a lot of his colleagues in the civil service got tagged as HUTU genocidaires, however tall or aquiline-featured they may have been. To me, JdD looks like a Tutsi.]
CUT BACK TO:
EXT. PRISON—DAY
[This prison is becoming a STOCK SHOT for TODAY’s RWANDA]
THEN CUT TO:
INT. RWANDAN HOUSE—DAY
ON: JdD’s WIFE—[nice looking woman one would guess to be a Tutsi—she’s big.]
VO: Asks Mrs. JdD if she understands her husband’s arrest.
SHE speaks in KINYARWANDA and says she was surprised that he copped to being a genocidaire in front of a Gacaca.
[But Mrs JdD is A GACACA JUDGE!!—so, I guess, my first take on her being TUTSI was right.]
CUT TO:
EXT. KIGALI—VARIOUS ESTABLISHING SHOTS—DAY
ON: Kids playing FOOTBALL.
VO: GEORGES RUGGIU on RTLM quotes Machiavelli: [essentially: It’s easier to control people if they’re scared to death of being punished.]
[Or, TERROR WORKS! JUST ASK NATO or the MOSSAD.]
CUT TO:
EXT. ARUSHA STREETS—DAY
SFX: SIRENS
as we TRACK A UN MOTORCADE TO THE ICTR.
EXT. STOCK SHOTS OF ICTR—DAY
ON: SECURITY GUARDS checking with mirrors under the MOTORCADE for BOMBS.
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR COURTROOM—DAY
[RUGGIU TRIAL IN SESSION]
ON: Me Jean Louis GILISSEN, RUGGIU’s Defense lawyer. He explains what this WHITE BELGIAN KID—
[He’s actually in his 50s now, and in 2009 got a kick-out from some Italian joint within three months of finishing his 12 year bid, but in the movie bidness everybody’s a ‘kid’.]
—with a goofy Mennonite beard and a penchant for Muslim clobber, is doing working for RTLM. [HUTU-TU-TU-TU Hate Radio-yo-yo-yo!!]
GILISSEN talks about how young RUGGIU fell in with some very militant HUTUS from the north of Rwanda—this is HABYARIMANA’s region, and folks from up north are unusually political, according to Me GILISSEN’s story.
He fills in a little history of the troubles, . . .
[Though he lost me when he mentioned that in 1994 the RPF seized political power by force in a ‘CIVIL WAR’—again the Tribunal (and this film) avoid recognizing the PRIMAL CRIME AGAINST THE PEACE (according to the Nuremberg Principle—remember De Nuremberg à Nuremberg?), the crime that leads to all other war crimes, crimes against Humanity and even genocide: in the present case, the 1 October 1990 RPF invasion from Uganda (which the ICTR continues to refer to as a ‘TRESPASS’), prepared, supplied, supported and guided by the Anglo-Saxon powers and Israel, with the open, even brazen, connivance of the UN, against the current sado/maso peg-boy préféré, La France. Just when you thought Sarkozy could no further humiliate himself and his country, he visits Kigali and in the towering presence of the MASTER GENOCIDAIRE, President/General Paul Kagame, apologizes for ‘French errors’ during the Rwandan tragedy—hawking the last pitiful examples of Gallic military heroism for the rough caresses of his NATO overlords. –And the next day, the French arrest Mme HABYARIMANA, the martyred President’s widow, on a GENOCIDE WARRANT from KIGALI.—But then all of this is OUTSIDE the MANDATE or AUTHORITY of the ICTR, right?]
Me GILISSEN’s final anecdote is winning, however: HABYARIMANA’s motorcade is stopped by the sight of this WHITE BOY, RUGGIU, standing beside the road. The soon-to-be-late President invites the WHITE BOY into his car and so charms him that RUGGIU becomes totally committed . . .
[. . . to the NATIONAL CIVIL DEFENSE OF RWANDA AGAINST THE FOREIGN INVADERS—or to Extremist Hutu Hate Power Radio, depending on which side of history you favor: the true or the false.]
CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON—RAINY DAY
ON: A bunch of GUYS IN JAIL-WHITES WAITING IN THE RAIN.
[Are we being shown the sort of place the little white Belgian RTLM DJ can expect to inhabit for a long spell?]
CUT TO:
INT. JdD’S HOUSE—DAY
ON: JdD, talking about the code used by RTLM: “cockroaches,” “cut down the tall trees”: it was all about killing . . . the enemy.
[But who is the ENEMY? Is it the TUTSI because they are TUTSI? Or is it the foreign invaders who have maintained a four-year reign of terror on the country and now threaten to end the RWANDAN REVOLUTION—or REPUBLIC—once and for all? The film does not mention that AGITATION FOR WAR was the normal fare on all the RADIO STATIONS, with the RPF’s Radio MUHABURA well in the LEAD.—But then, the ICTR is NOT ABOUT THE RPF, is it.]
[[[Here’s as good a place as any to INSERT a bit of history on the BOOGY MAN of HATE RADIO, RTLM (Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines): This station was established in August 1993 (coincidental with the signing of the Arusha Accords) and broadcast on the FM band, reaching most of Kigali with a signal radius of less than 25km. It was created especially to react to the broadcasts of the RPF’s Radio MUHABURA, which, since 1990, used a short-wave signal emanating from the Army headquarters in the Burundian capital of Bujumbura to reach everywhere in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and the RDC. It ceaselessly aired lies and hateful messages through the plays of Idris BIZIRAGUTEBA, whose real name is Sillas MBONIMANA, and the songs of Cécile KAYIREBWA; this REAL HATE was directed at the HUTU, in general, and President HABYARIMANA, in particular.[2] ]]]
LONG HOLD ON: JdD, looking sad but still tranquil. We hear the RAIN FALLING hard outside.
AFTER SEVERAL LONG BEATS: JdD says, “It’s raining.”
CONTINUE HOLDING ON HIM FOR UNCOMFORTABLY LONG TIME.
CUT TO:
CLOSE ON: CUTE RWANDAN KID (4 yrs old) out in the rain. His face is covered with rainwater, but is as sad and tranquil as JdD’s.
BLACK OUT
VO: RTLM tells us it’s EASTER TIME and that ‘EXTREMIST HUTUS’ have infiltrated the RPF and are planning for SOMETHING BIG to happen around the 7-8 of April (1994).
[Here the film, once again, tips its supposedly objective hand revealing all its cards to be in favor of the RPF version of the 1994 events: HABYARIMANA WAS ASSASSINATED BY (infiltrated) HUTU POWER EXTREMISTs—even if it LOOKS LIKE the RPF did it!]
FADE IN:
EXT. HILLTOP OUTSIDE KIGALI—TWILIGHT
SFX: An aircraft flying over.
CUT TO:
INT. ROOM—DAY
ON: AFRICAN GUY WITH WHITE HAIR watching TV image of TWAGIRAMUNGU testifying as to how he told PM Agathe UWILINGIYIMANA about the President’s being killed.
[NO MENTION is made in the FILM of the sad facts that (a) the next day {7 April 1994} PM Agathe was, herself, murdered while in UN CUSTODY; and (b) at the END of MIL I, Colonel BAGOSORA would be convicted by the ICTR of her murder (called an ACT OF GENOCIDE based on an ORDER from the APPEALS CHAMBER in The Hague to ‘take JUDICIAL NOTICE’ of the genocide—i.e., to ACCEPT IT as A GIVEN without any need of legal VERIFICATION.), while being ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES OF PLANNING OR INTENT TO COMMIT GENOCIDE.]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
ON: TWAGIRAMUNGU testifying about the downing of the President’s plane. He says whoever shot down HABYARIMANA’s plane JUST WANTED TO TAKE POWER. But whoever shot it down MUST BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.
[The film makes no attempt to place TWAGIRAMUNGU’s testimony in any distinct time-relation to the MILITARY I (BAGOSORA) trial. One comes away with the impression TWAGIRAMUNGU is talking about the 6 April 1994 terrorist attack DURING the MILITARY I trial in Defense of BAGOSORA et alia.]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—RUGGIU TRIAL IN SESSION
ON: RUGGIU being questioned about the SHOOT DOWN, which was reported on RTLM.
He’s also questioned about LISTS kept at the RTLM studio. RUGGIU describes a blackboard with two columns of names: ONE for THOSE IN DANGER; the OTHER for the DEAD.
[The CHARGE OF GENOCIDE seems to depend very heavily on the EXISTENCE OF LISTS.]
MOSE asks RUGGIU what the purpose of the LISTS was. RUGGIU uses TWAGIRAMUNGU as an example of list ONE: someone who’s been THREATENED; and PM Agathe UWILINGIYIMANA as an example of list TWO: someone who’s been KILLED.
When asked why the two LISTS were necessary, RUGGIU says that it was necessary to DOUBLE CHECK reports because there was a great deal of bad information, rumors and disinformation.
[The impression was that this was another feckless attempt by MOSE and the TRIBUNAL to establish the existence of ‘GENOCIDE LISTS’—but RUGGIU held his mud.]
[[[MORE ON GENOCIDE LISTS—real and imagined: Another RPF mouthpiece and a contributor to “N'épargnez pas les enfants! Mémoire d'un génocide de proximité,” Alain VERHAAGEN, writes about the massacres of the Tutsi by the Interahamwe:
--“In setting up their hellish machine . . . lists of thousands of names of people to be
executed were compiled and used to complete their project.”--
No one has ever seen these lists. Could VERHAAGEN produce them? On the other hand, there IS a list of 213 HUTU linked to the MRND, compiled by the RPF in 1993. After they had seized power in July 1994, this list was updated and made official by a presidential decree in November 1996, then again in February 2001. It was also extended to include more than 2000 people. There are other lists as well: the Rwandan report on Human Rights submitted to the Human Rights Committee in Geneva on 17 March 2009, speaks of 1,056,606 Gacaca dossiers; there is also a list of 93 names filed with Interpol; finally, one of 130,000 people being held in prisons or other places of incarceration. These lists are constantly updated and used by the ICTR to track ‘alleged HUTU criminals.’ Western governments also refer to these lists as criteria for refusing political asylum to HUTU refugees. Generally, there is no ‘PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE’ for anyone whose name appears on these lists.[3] ]]]
CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON—DAY
VO: RTLM broadcast dated MARCH 1994: HOW PM AGATHE (from the MDR) HAD TO GO.
CUT TO:
INT. ROOM—DAY
ON: WHITE-HAIRED AFRICAN GUY. He talks about how SHOOTING DOWN THE PRESIDENT’s PLANE and MURDERING PM AGATHE were all about STOPPING THE TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS FROM BEING PUT IN PLACE.
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
ON: MOSE is musing about whether the SHOOTING DOWN OF THE PRESIDENT’s PLANE falls within the MANDATE OF THE TRIBUNAL. He asks a member of the PROSECUTION to address the question of THE DOUBLE PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATION vs. THE MANDATE OF THE ICTR.
ON: LONG-HAIRED PROSECUTOR: Seems to be saying that WHETHER THE CRIME FALLS WITHIN THE MANDATE OF THE TRIBUNAL is NOT AS RELEVANT to the issue of BRINGING A PROSECUTION AGAINST THOSE RESPONSIBLE as is THE UNLIKELIHOOD OF THE PROSECUTION’S GAINING A CONVICTION. And he posits that with 8 COMPETING THEORIES AS TO WHO DONE IT, there is NOT A GREAT LIKELIHOOD of getting a case to stick to ANYONE.
ON: Me CONSTANT: HE GOES OFF on the idea of !?!8 COMPETING THEORIES!?! of the SHOOT DOWN.
He moves on to cite a case in which the Defense asked for discovery of all the evidence the Prosecution had on the SHOOT DOWN. But all the OTP could come up with was the Hourigan Report—which finds that the RPF and its leader, Paul Kagame, are RESPONSIBLE for this ACT OF TERRORISM.
Then Me CONSTANT continues by citing ALISON DES FORGES to establish the universally accepted tenet that the RWANDAN GENOCIDE was TRIGGERED by the SHOOTING DOWN OF THE PRESIDENT’s PLANE.
[[[Re: EIGHT THEORIES ON THE SHOOT DOWN: As far as I know, there are just two principal theories, with various snap-on parts—and only one has any evidentiary credibility:
1. Per the MUTSINZI REPORT {thoroughly debunked on the CM/P blog}: The Extremist Hutu-Power HABYARIMANA inner-circle and some disgruntled FAR officers got rid of their own leader, their Army Chief of Staff, and another duly-elected Hutu president, so they could get on with a genocide they’d been cooking up for anywhere from 4 to 34 years; or
2. Per the BRUGUIÈRE REPORT (with serious back-up from the Spanish court of Judge FERNANDO ANDREU MERELLES): The RPF invaders decapitated the Rwandan government, in a BRAZEN TERRORIST VIOLATION of the Internationally sanctioned ARUSHA ACCORDS to which they were signatory, to signal the renewal of hostilities in a final military push to take Kigali and SEIZE STATE POWER BY FORCE OF ARMS—the ONLY WAY they could have ascended to power with the miniscule popular support they had—and to avoid the democratic elections ordered by the Arusha Peace Process.
–If you put MUTSINZI and BRUGUIÈRE in a pit, after five minutes, the latter would walk out with the entrails of the former dripping from his jaws.]]]
VO: MOSE says something like, “Massacres started around 13-14 April, right? But HOUSES were being BURNED and there were KILLINGS before that.”
ON: MOSE to BAGOSORA: “How do you explain all the killing of TUTSIS?”
ON: BAGOSORA: These were more like ‘TARGETED KILLINGS’ than ‘SYSTEMATIC MASSACRES.’
CUT TO:
EXT. RWANDA—DAY
THEN ON: Mrs. JdD: In KINYARWANDA she describes how her FAMILY WAS KILLED.
THEN ON: JdD:
VO: “Did anyone ask you to KILL YOUR [Tutsi] WIFE?”
JdD: “No. But I was LUCKY.”
[Scene with LONG RTLM VO omitted]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
MILITARY I TRIAL IN SESSION
ON: Me CONSTANT to BAGOSORA: “Did you ever ORDER the KILLING of ANYONE?”
BAGOSORA: “No.”
Me CONSTANT: “What do you CONSIDER to be the DIFFERENCE between GENOCIDE and EXCESSIVE KILLING?”
BAGOSORA: “There was no PLANNING, NO SYSTEMATIC KILLING. . . . And right after the SHOOT DOWN, there were only TARGETED KILLINGS.”
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
NTAKIRUTIMANA TRIAL IN SESSION
ON: Me RAMSEY CLARK to PM TWAGIRAMUNGU: “Did the MRND or anyone in the Rwandan government PLAN A GENOCIDE?”
TWAGIRAMUNGU: Says he was well-connected, a made-guy in Rwandan politics, the leader of a major OPPOSITION PARTY, and he KNEW OF NO PLAN FOR GENOCIDE. He added that there had been MASS KILLINGS SINCE 1993.
NEW ANGLE ON: Prosecutor Charles PHILLIPS [still bloated with bad attitude] to TWAGIRAMUNGU:
INTERAHAMWE were prepared to HATE by KUNGURO & RTLM. Trained to KILL. He makes SOME HOLOCAUST ALLUSION.
NEW ON: TWAGIRAMUNGU:
He goes from his usual ENGLISH into FRENCH to dash PHILLIP’S comparisons of Rwanda to the SHOAH. He says, AND if the MASSACRES were PLANNED, they weren’t JUST AGAINST TUTSIS.
THIS forces Judge MOSE to CALL ANOTHER TIME OUT.
CUT TO:
INT. WHITE-HAIRED AFRICAN’s HOUSE—DAY
ON: Mr. WHITEHEAD—[I don’t know whether I like this guy or not.]
He tries to EXPLAIN how there could have BEEN PLANNING WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE OF PLANNING.
[Like I said—I dunno about this guy.]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—MIL I
ON: Me CONSTANT: He poses a couple HYPOTHETICALS:
1) After 6 April ALL KILLING WAS SPONTANEOUS?
2) Before 6 April ALL KILLING WAS PLANNED?
CUT BACK TO:
ON: WHITEHEAD: He says something like: There was NO PLANNING. But UNCONSCIOUS PLANNING explains the SCOPE OF THE KILLING.
[UNCONSCIOUS PLANNING? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?]
BLACK OUT
VO: Singing a song about EXTERMINATING INKOTANY. [La Cucaracha?]
CUT TO:
STOCK SHOT: Mt. Meron [After Teddy Meron, Chief of the Appeals Chamber?]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DAY
ON: Me Ramsey CLARK questioning Faustin TWAGIRAMUNGU about when he GOT BACK to KIGALI.
ON: TWAGIRAMUNGU saying he returned on 14 July 1994. But when asked what HE SAW on returning, TWAGIRAMUNGU LOSES IT IN A DEEP SADNESS.
CUT TO:
EXT. MEMORIAL—DAY
A LARGE CROWD is gathered waiting for . . . ? A BAND is playing, DIGNITARIES are filing in, a lot of SOLDIERS loitering, but all are UNARMED.
CUT TO:
ANGLE ON: What the CROWD’S been waiting for—KAGAME ENTERS.
VARIOUS ANGLES ON: People looking STUPIFIED. All RISE, then sit back down QUIETLY.
[Obviously no RPF comic warmed up this audience. Everybody’s SERIOUS AND SEEMS SERIOUSLY SPACED OUT.]
ANGLE ON: KAGAME at the podium. He speaks.
It’s the 13th anniversary of the genocide—so, 2007 [Bruguière’s ARREST WARRANTS have been out for about 6 MONTHS]. And though they are never mentioned by name, you know Kagame is talking directly to the French and their ANTI-TERRORIST Judge Jean-Louis BRUGUIÈRE and his REPORT, which charges the Rwandan president with the murder of two SITTING African CHIEFS OF STATE and their entourages, including the three-man French flight crew of the presidential Falcon 50.
KAGAME: The genocide was CAUSED by FOREIGNERS [again the French are not named], so how dare THEY judge Rwanda? WHAT WAS SO IMPORTANT ON THAT PLANE that it could have caused the deaths of a million Rwandans? WHAT RIGHT DO THESE FOREIGNERS have to judge Rwanda and its government?
[It is difficult not to hear his speech as a kind of ‘Fuck you, France {and Spain}! So what if I shot down the plane? Nothing on it that our world can’t get along just fine without.”]
CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON—DAY
ON: PRISONERS making a HUGE KETTLE of some kind of SOUP or STEW. We spend a LONG TIME looking on at this NASTY CONCOCTION. The COOKS look especially DISGUSTED [But maybe it’s not about the GRUEL].
CUT TO:
INT. COURTROOM—DAY
VO: CARLA DEL PONTE speaking in French.
ON: CARLA DEL PONTE going on about the INDEPENDENCE OF THE ICTR PROSECUTOR.
She complains that the APPEALS CHAMBER kept her from pursuing [Jean-Bosco] BARIYAGWIZA. She said she couldn’t go to RWANDA after that and that the KIGALI government stopped her working, locked her out of her office.
[On first watching this scene, I was taken with how REASONABLE DEL PONTE seemed. As if she were talking about why she got FIRED FROM HER ICTR gig for GOING AFTER THE RPF. And how the RPF was denying her access to her office in Kigali and to evidence only they could furnish. It took finding out some details of the BARIYAGWIZA case to realize she was fronting for the RPF in complaining that the APPEALS CHAMBER had ruled FOR BARIYAGWIZA and AGAINST the RPF.]
CUT TO:
EXT. GACACA—DAY
JdD’s MISSUS is the smiling JUDGE.
VARIOUS SHOTS OF GACACA JUSTICE: their motto: ‘If you’re alive you’re a criminal.’
CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON—DAY
ON: Trucking PRISONERS [AGAIN to WORK?]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—RUGGIU TRIAL
BETWEEN: RUGGIU and the INDIAN WOMAN JUDGE
RUGGIU CHANGING his PLEA to GUILTY.
The JUDGE asks if he’s been COERCED OR TERRORIZED into changing his plea. Did THREATS have anything to do with his CHANGING HIS PLEA? [Duh!]
RUGGIU says: NO, the THREATS JUST CLEARED HIS MIND—and besides, HE was MISSING his FAMILY.
[He appears thoroughly demoralized and scared shitless. Being the only non-HUTU, non-African, might do that. The RPF scares everyone—until they kill them. Just ask Abdul RUZIBIZA, Deus KAGIRANEZA and Emmanuel RUZIGANA, recanting their testimony at KIGALI’s “REQUEST.”—or ask this filmmaker. It’s TOO LATE to ask Juvénal UWILINGIYIMANA: the RPF got to him using the current US Ambassador for War Crimes, Stephen Rapp—then they cut his hands off and dumped his body in the Charleroi Canal in Brussels. See http://cirqueminime.blogcollective.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/27/1523635.html]
CUT TO:
INT. JdD’s ROOM
ON: JdD listening in to the RUGGIU TRIAL on a COMPUTER.
[One gets the IMPRESSION JdD and RUGGIU are being COMPARED here: They seem a lot ALIKE in their DEHUMANIZATION.]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—VARIOUS SHOTS OF AN EMPTY TRIBUNAL
ON: RUGGIU’S ATTORNEY
He is PLEADING for a LENIENT SENTENCE for his CLIENT. [This is beyond PATHETIC: kinda ‘GENOCIDAIRES ARE PEOPLE TOO.’]
VARIOUS SHOTS OF EMPTY ICTR
ON: THE INDIAN WOMAN JUDGE PRONOUNCING RUGGIU’S SENTENCE.
Count 1—Genocide: 12 years. Count 2—Crimes against Humanity: 12 years.
[She runs them bow-legged—CC, you know, CONCURRENTLY. RUGGIU was sentence 1 June 2000. He did SEVEN of his DOZEN-YEARS in Arusha. On 28 February 2008, he was transferred to Italy where he stepped off the 17 months left of his time. He got a 3-month early kick-out in June 2009.]
CUT TO:
EXT. PRISON—DAWN [or SUNSET]
ON: PRISONERS hooking it up on WORK DETAIL.
CUT TO:
ON: JdD’s MISSUS talking about how hard it was to explain to the kids that DAD’S A GENOCIDAIRE.
CUT TO:
ON: JdD explaining the DIFFERENCE between BEING GUILTY OF and BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR genocide.
JdD’s OK with ALL THIS because he’s VISITED THE SURVIVORS, HAD A DRINK WITH THEM.
CUT TO:
EXT. JdD’s HOUSE—DAY
HOLD for SEVERAL BEATS. [We’re LEAVING RWANDA]
CUT TO:
INT. ICTR—DOOR BEING CLOSED TO CAMERA
ON: Me CONSTANT’s FINAL ARGUMENT for BAGOSORA:
The QUESTION of WHETHER the GENOCIDE is TRUE or NOT has BEEN FORGOTTEN.
WHAT HAPPENED IN RWANDA IS STILL UNKNOWN.
Citing DEL PONTE, he says the TRIBUNAL CANNOT WRITE THE HISTORY OF RWANDA.
WE’RE LISTENING FROM OFF:
Me CONSTANT says that whether BAGOSORA is a NICE GUY OR NOT is not the POINT.
The TRIBUNAL has not proved that HE KILLED ANYONE.
FINALLY: CONSTANT says:
THIS IS NOT A TRIBUNAL OF THE VICTORS—THIS IS A TRIBUNAL OF THE VANQUISHED.
CUT TO:
EXT. RWANDA—DAY
ON: THE VERDICTS:
BAGOSORA gets LIFE JdD gets 30 YEARS.
[[[BUT WHERE IS ANY MENTION OF ALL OF THE AQUITTALS? OF THE ICTR’s COMPLETE FAILURE TO PROVE THE GENOCIDE!—Because, AFTER ALL, this FAILURE TO (un)MAKE HISTORY is what we’ve JUST WITNESSED.]]]
THE END
******************
Notes:
[1] Extracted from: The critique by Martine SYOEN, President of "SOS Rwanda-Burundi asbl", of certains writings from the book, "N'épargnez pas les enfants ! Mémoire d'un génocide de proximité". [http://www.musabyimana.be/lire/article/critiques-au-livre-nepargnez-pas-les-enfants-memoire-dun-genocide-de-proximite/index.html#_edn6]
[2] This is again excerpted from the piece by Martine SYOEN cited above.
[3] Ibid.
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