The 2012 St. Swithin's Day Massacre: In Syria as in Rwanda & Elsewhere

 Rwanda's Habyarimana then,

PLO's Arafat then,

Yugoslavia's Milosevic then,

Libya's Gaddafi then, and

Syria's Assad now.

[The 2012 St. Swithin's Day Massacre took place yesterday not in some Syrian village like Tremseh, where 200 people, in the words of NPR, 'MAY' have been killed (amazing unto nauseating how these 'Opposition' reports of Syrian government violence, from Opposition Observers in London or Paris, are never CONFIRMED yet brazenly reported nonetheless), but in the Geneva offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, where the ICRC, as has been its wont in precious cover-ups of counter-revolutionary aggressions, declared that the situation in Syria has officially become a CIVIL WAR (more oxymoronic than usual), and, as such, all belligerents must be held to International Humanitarian Law and are EQUALLY answerable for war crimes, crimes against Humanity and all other atrocities against civilians that have occurred since armed violence arrived in that Israeli-occupied* country in March of 2011. (*Remember the Golan Heights, the head-waters of the Jordan, and the pre-67 borders, which were such important, if unspoken, issues in the sub-text of last year's ‘Arab Spring’ discussion?)

The UN, following its own time-tested routine (and led by the same failed peacekeeper, Kofi Annan, who brought us ‘genocides for globalization’ in 1990s Rwanda and Yugoslavia), immediately co-signed the Red Cross’s call and, thereby, eliminated all considerations of blatant foreign intervention, instigation and financial and military support of this war for regime change aimed at bringing down the mass rule of the Syrian Ba’ath Socialist Party led by Bashar al-Assad. 

As with Iraq, Libya and Rwanda (whose leaders were brutally, even grotesquely, murdered to mark the end of their nations' revolutionary independence—a cautionary to President Assad), the mass-party that governs Syria is seldom if ever mentioned, most often referred to in the NYTs as a mere Alawite clique, and the civil war model is being forced over this imported counter-revolution with a vigorous and rigorous propagandizing of the general public (the so-called International Community) that promotes the pluralist cosmology that has Democracy being born of ancient sectarian struggles, religious or tribal wars, for control of a sort of neo-feudal State power.

Like its lexical side-kick, Genocide, the term Civil War serves two critical geo-strategic purposes:  It covers Nuremberg’s primal war crime of foreign military aggression by putting the Aggressor and the Aggressed on the same plane, morally and strategically:

—e.g., the civil war model in Yugoslavia made the JNA equal in authority to the various foreign fighters {e.g., bin Laden's boys and other anti-communist mujahadin imported to Bosnia from the Muslim world} and the many Private Military Contractors {e.g., MPRI, Dyncorps, Blackwater, in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia/Kosovo}; in Rwanda, the 1 October 1990 invasion by the RPF from Uganda was immediately declared by the Human Rights Community a ‘refugee rebellion’, a civil war between Hutu and Tutsi, in which the right of return of the Tutsi minority was being violated by the ruling Hutu majority, and the Internationally-brokered Arusha Peace Accords of August 1993 gave the invading RPF forces a major military foothold in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, a goal these foreign fighters {the vast majority of whom were either PMC mercenaries from other African countries or card-carrying agents of a foreign government and military, the Ugandan National Resistance Army—and therefore not entitled to be considered Rwandan refugees} had been unable to achieve even after three years of pitiless armed invasions and bloody assaults, until the UN and the International Community intervened to halt this ‘(un)civil war’ and promote a broad-based transition government to replace the single, mass-party, the MRND—a process which had already been initiated years before by Rwandan President Habyarimana, himself;

—and, secondly, it disenfranchises the population by replacing the democratic mandate of the single, mass-party with feuding sectarian interests and makes the eventual theft through privatization and foreign expropriation of public infrastructure and enterprises seem to be the democratic will of the newly ‘liberated’ population.

AND it takes the stench of blood, bile and decomposing flesh out of the hair of the real agents of this villainy:  Bill and Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Bill Cohen, Wes Clark, Roger Winter, Susan Rice, Joe Biden and Barack Obama.  These wars for global Business domination have been, after all, very much the pet projects of the Democratic Party and its craven class collaboration.

The First of July is celebrated by many Rwandans as Independence Day, the day, 50 years ago, when the world recognized the sublation of a monarchy by a duly-elected, majoritarian (republican) government—Tutsi King (mwami) Kigeli V was replaced by Hutu President Gregoire Kayibanda in a UN-sanctioned, popular, democratic regime change.  Yet today, along with English being made the official second language of Rwanda, the nation celebrates its independence on the same day as does its chief patron: the Fourth of July.

(The RPF actually took Kigali and ‘ended the war and stopped the fucking genocide’ around 14-16 July 1994.  But, given the French are still being held up as principal genocidaires—even by many of the French, themselves—, Bastille Day just wouldn’t do.)

Many prominent Rwandans, including the current sketch-ball president of the country, Paul Kagame, never miss an opportunity to correct their interlocutors that, rather than 1 July 1962 marking the arrival of  Independence to Rwanda, that date represents the beginning of the Tutsi Genocide.  In a meandering 100 minute press conference to be found on You Tube, a totally tweeked Kagame farcically adjusts the time-line of recent Rwandan history by correcting his choir of obviously terrified reporters (including Philip Gourevitch of The New Yorker and Paris Review, demurely astride the first-chair of the castrati section) as to the beginning of troubles with the UN (five decades ago instead of two) and Rwanda’s total ‘non-involvement’ with Eastern Congo dating back nearly five years.

We here at CM/P have been preoccupied with the Counter-Revolutions that were waged throughout the former 'non-aligned world' since the disappearance of the USSR—an event which, in itself, was a high expression of the same sort of neo-feudal revanchism that has characterized these latter days of Global Fascist Wastage.  But all talk of mass democracy as expressed through single-party political systems, like those in Resistance to Israeli occupation in Gaza (Hamas), in Lebanon and Syria (Hezbollah), and in the Territories (Arafat’s PLO); or in Cuba or North Korea or Khadaffi's Libya or in Syria with the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party; or today's ruling United Russia Party, a party that enjoys 80% electoral support in some regions but, in the West, is often reduced to Vladimir Putin’s personal claque; or even our chestnut-of-choice, Rwanda's National Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND) {renamed at the insistence of the French socialist president and wool-clad lupine, François Mitterand, the National Republican Movement for Development and Democracy (MRNDD—though it didn't last long enough for the second 'D' to stick in the monogram)}, of martyred  president Juvénal Habyarimana:  discussions of all these examples of mass democracy wind up being relegated to summer school graduate seminars in geopolitics.

So for your next term paper on . . . say, 'Pluralism as the Death of Democracy', or . . . Aviational Liquifaction as The Most Effective Management of Superfluous National Leaders in the Restructuring of the Global Business Community':  here are a few of the stratagems that were deployed in trying to rid Rwanda of it ‘Extremist Hutu’ leader, President Juvénal Habyarimana (who, along with the President of Burundi and the Rwandan Army Chief of Staff, and others of their entourages, along with the French civilian flight crew, we’ve been asked to believe, was actually done in by his ‘Extremist Hutu’ comrades in the MRND and his ‘Extremist Hutu’ First-Lady).  Note that what makes it so easy for the current RPF government in Rwanda to deny complicity in terrorist murders across Africa, from that of the two Chiefs of State and the others on that executive jet to the millions of refugees, regardless of tribal affiliation, in Congo and throughout the Great Lakes Region, is that the RPF has always served as a mere ‘stand-in’, and a pretty feckless one at that, for the murderous inclinations of the forces of Western Global Privatization.  All the exaltation and demonization of that fateful monster Paul Kagame that the various factions of the Genocide Lobby get so worked up behind seem quite infantile when one considers the real agents in play during the great tragedy that has come to define Central Africa.  For these (Business) agents are still using their licenses to kill throughout the world.

The image that will stay with me forever is that of Juvénal Habyarimana, in the last hours of his life, pacing in front of Zairean President Mobutu and pleading with his friend to intervene with the Americans and Belgians to stop the mass killing that would surely ensue with a renewed RPF offensive, an offensive that President Habyarimana knew all too well would be signaled by his long-predicted murder, not at the hands of the fey nut-job Paul Kagame, but by those same Anglo-Saxons who had offered Habyarimana political asylum and unlimited accommodations at Disneyland if he would step down.  In the evening of 6 April 1994, as his Falcon-50 approached Kayibanda airport (Kanombe) and the lights of his presidential residence were coming into view, and his family was rushing out into the yard to watch his plane come in, if there was any fear in Habyarimana’s heart, I am sure it was not for himself or whatever his personal fate might be, but for the horrors that awaited his people at the hands of their Western Military/Commercial vanquishers.

The 'Plots' below are from a wonderful book by the former-commander of Habyarimana’s Presidential Guard, the late Protais Mpiranya, Rwanda: Le Paradis perdu.  This book—this Rwandan Paradise Lost—was a gift from my dear friend Faustin Ntilikina, whom I miss terribly and whose own depiction of the last days of the Rwandan Revolution, La Prise de Kigali . . . (The Taking of Kigali), like Mpiranya’s, remains locked away in that lush prison of the French language.  And no matter how hard we here have tried with so many of these important works, bringing the Real History of the New Counter Revolutionary Era into the cool and (stress-)accented rhythms of English seems more and more daunting—unto impossible. –mc]

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Plot #1

The attack on the town of Byumba by the RPF-Inkotanyi in June 1992 took place at the opening of negotiations in Arusha [Tanzania] between the Rwandan Government and the RPF.  Byumba being under seige gave a great advantage in the negotiations to its attackers, the RPF.  A preliminary agreement regarding a ceasefire was signed in Arusha in July 1992.  After a period of relative calm, a new RPF offensive was stopped at the gates of Kigali in February 1993.  The two sides were separated and pulled back a few kilometers to create a demilitarized zone that came to be known as the “zone tampon” [buffer zone].  These hostilities led to the displacement of a million people, and thousands were slaughtered, tortured or disappeared by the RPF-Inkotanyi.

In May 1993, a first meeting between President Juvénal Habyarimana and the President of the RPF-Inkotanyi, Colonel Alexis Kanyarengwe, was to be held in Kinihira, in the ‘zone tampon’, in the prefecture of Byumba.  The GOMN (Groupe d’Observateurs Militaires Neutres), created in September 1991 by the African Union and charged with monitoring activity on the border between Rwanda and Uganda, was supposed to supervise the preparations for this meeting and to make sure it went smoothly.  It was also supposed to furnish security for the authorities who were to take part in the meeting.  The Tanzanian, General Hashim Mbita, was the group’s commander.  Among this group of neutral military observers was Col. Marcel Gatsinzi—on the Rwandan Government’s side—and Major Karenzi Karake on the side of the rebel RPF.

I was coming to the end of my second year within the Presidential Guard.  I had already had a good deal of the experience necessary for handling security, especially where preparations were concerned, because the golden rule of security is prevention.  In the application of this rule during the preparations of this security mission, no detail was taken for granted.  On this occasion I was assigned to head the security for the Chief of State during this meeting in Kinihira.  As such, I had to take part in all the meeting regarding security for this particular meeting.

On this matter, the commander of the GOMN asked to meet with the head of presidential security to inform him of the security measures being taken by his people for the Chief of State on his trip from Kigali to Kinihira and back home.

As the designated head of security in this case, I had to respond to this invitation on behalf of my superior officer.  At the appointed time I was in the office of the GOMN commander.  He was with his collaborators, Col. Marcel Gatsinzi for the government and Major Karenzi Karake for the RPF.

The mode of conducting military affairs is universal:  I arrived as I was order to do.  Without wasting any time, General Mbita informed me of the decision made by the representatives of the two warring factions here at the GOMN offices regarding the travel plans for the Rwandan Chief of State and his security while at the ceremonies in Kinihira.

·      While in Kinihira, no personnel of the Presidential Guard can be present.

·      The intinerary of the Chief of State will be Kigali-Base-Cyohoha-Kinihira, both going to meeting and coming back.

·      The Chief of State shall be accompanied by his security escort only on the Kigali-Base leg of the trip.  From there the security detail of the GOMN will take over guarding the Chief of State for the trip through the ‘zone tampon’ to Kinihira.

·      The presidential guard escort will wait in Base (at the junction of the roads to Kinihira and to Ruhengeri) to take him back to Kigali.

Col. Gatsinzi here offered the following:

 

“These are also the recommenations made by the RPF and there are no other alternatives.  There is nothing to worry about, we must trust the GOMN and I, myself, will accompany the President of the Republic.”

He insisted on his participation to convince me when he noticed my expression of disapproval at this decision.

He knew, however, that the zone between Base and Kinihira was permanently occupied by heavily-armed RPF troops disguised as civilians.  The so-called ‘demilitarized zone’ had long-since been taken over by the RPA.  I was personally very surprised by this reaction from a high-ranking representative of the Rwandan Government within the GOMN.  Even a total naif on matters of security would recognize what was being hidden behind this plan.

This was my only response:  “I was not sent here to follow the orders of the RPF or to ask for my duties in the protection of the President of the Republic from the GOMN.  I came to organize with you the security of my Chief of State.  If his safety is not assured, as I see it is not in this plan, surely an alternative plan can be found.  If necessary, this meeting will be cancelled to protect the life of the President who can in no eventuality be exposed to this sort of situation.”  I excused myself for not having the authority to make on this point.  I communicated that the authorities present would take full responsibility for the implementation of this plan.

Without delay, and so as to remain relevant, I wrote a report to my superior.  The dangers were predictable, the plot had already been hatched to take the Chief of State hostage once in Kinihira or, if necessary, to let him fall into an RPF ambush within the 25 kms of the ‘zone tampon’.  This GOMN plan, which did not follow any of the basic rules of security, was not initiated by GOMN and worried the governmental authorities.  It was obviously a plan put together by the leaders of the RPF-Inkotanyi, whose commander was Paul Kagame, and intended to do away with President Juvénal Habyarimana.

This move coincided with information furnished before by the intelligence services, about the RPF plan to take the President alive and hold him hostage until he relinquished power.

. . .

The day of the meeting in Kinihira, of course the President was there, but getting him there, his itinerary was not divulged to anyone other than those directly associated with the security of the Chief of State.  It was unavoidable, elements of the Presidential Guard batallion had to be present in Kinihira two hours before the arrival of the President.  The zone tampon had to be offically violated for a time to allow those troops assigned to furnish security to the President and to the delegations before taking part in the meeting.

The RPF-Inkotanyi took advantages of this opportunity to unmask its troops living secretly in the demilitarized zone under the pretext of being a mission to mark out the route unilaterally ordered by the RPF-Inkotanyi.  How could one explain this deployment solely of elements of the RPF in a supposedly neutral zone and in a situation that involved the two parties?  It was these same troops who awaited the passage of President Juvénal Habyarimana.  In any case, it was not in their mission plan to lavish Habyiarimana with honors or to help him have a calm and safe trip.

Fortunately, another solution had already been found.  For the first time, for the purposes of security,  the Chief of State would leave Kigali aboard a helicopter escorted by a second chopper and only after it was sure that elements of the Presidential Guard had arrived on site to protect him.

At the scene of the ceremonies, among numerous uniformed troops who were unfamiliar to me, I assumed the awesome responsibility of calling in when the situation was calm to give the green light for the take off of the two heliocopters bringing the Chief of State.  It was a perilous mission, but, fortunately, it went off without a major incident.  We registered only a few injuring to soldiers from both sides.  After two years of exchanging intense gunfire, this was more like heated name calling.  After take-off, I watched as the helicopters disappeared over the horizon toward Kigali after over-flying the center of Kinihira.  Nerves unwound and sighs of relief were emitted on seeing them disappear in the skies on the way to the capital.  But for me there was still on more tough bit to swallow, that of having to get across that Red Zone between Kinihira and the center of Base on the way home.

Our opposite numbers on the other side were still waiting for the last vehicles in our column to go by.  Anti-tank mines, ambushes, stone throwing and name calling awaited us just as had the unfriendly and insulting words that had greeted us on the morning of that first day.  But the safe departure of the Chief of State gave us the courage to be able to overcome the obstacles of the day.  A little before sunset, the whole cortege reached the government-controlled zone and at normal speed we got to Kigali without incident.

Plot #2

Between July and September 1993, the International Community was playing a grand role in the plots aimed at eliminating President Juvénal Habyarimana.  Presided over by Ugandan Chief of State Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, a gathering of the plotters was organized at the State House in Kampala with the RPF-Inkotanyi in attendance.  Also taking part in this meeting were:

• Madame Prudence Bushnell, former U.S. Under-Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
• Madame Arlene Render, former Director of the Central African desk at State House;  U.S. State Dept., and former U.S. ambassador to Gambia from 1990 to 1993
• Madame Patricia Irving, former U.S. Under-Secretary of Defense for Human and Refugee Rights

In that same year, Lt.-Col. Charles Vuckovic, former U.S. Military Attache in Cameroon was sent to Kigali to gather precise tactical information and calcuations on the human and materiel means of the Forces Armées Rwandaises [FAR] to aid the RPF and advise them on what strategy to take.[1]

Plot #3

In the evening of 21 February 1994, the RPF organized a meeting at the Meridian Hotel Umubano to decide on what had to be done with Habyarimana.  The pro-RPF parties in the Opposition were also invited to this meeting.  Minister Félicien Gatabazi, Executive-Secretary of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), refused to support the plan presented by the RPF to kill Habyarimana.  After this meeting had concluded, Gatabazi was murdered at the entrance to his home by an RPF commando that had been waiting in front of his house.  The RPF feared he would reveal their secret plan[2] to Habyarimana.

Plot #4

On 7 March 1993, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda, in league with Paul Kagame, organized a meeting purportedly to bring about a reconciliation between President Habyarimana and Col. Alexis Kanyarengwe, president of the RPF-Inkotanyi.

The day after this meeting, a summit of Chiefs of State was scheduled in Arusha on the problem of the negotiations for a peace agreement.  Paul Kagame had decided long-before to bring down President Habyarimana’s plane on the occasion of one of these trips by the Rwandan president.  That day’s plans, fortunately, did not come off.  The intelligence services and the presidential security forces were informed of a plan to trap the plane at Entebbe airport.  All those responsible for security, including the head of the Presidential Guard, had to show up on the scene to monitor the situation at close range.  Preventative security measures were taken to protect the presidential plane at Entebbe.  The pilots, who also had been informed of this threat, were told never to leave the aircraft.  A detachment to guard the plane was on duty the whole time it was on the ground.

The RPF's plan was for the presidential plane to be rigged with a sort of time bomb set to explode a few minutes after take-off so as to make it seem like a mechanical malfunction.  The unit that was supposed to carry out this hit could not find an opportunity to act because of the vigilance of the security men.  The attempts to run off the security agents guarding the presidential plane were unsuccessful because of the ferocious determination of the team assigned to this mission.

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[1] Cf: The Clinton Administration, responsible for the Rwandan tragedy.  A statement of intent by the new White House team in Washington, D.C.; Bampoliki Innocent, Cyangugu 7 January 2001.

[2] Testimony of Jean-Pierre Mugabe on the assassination of President Habyarimana, Washington, D.C., 21 April 2000