Rwandan Genocide
The Websites of War Criminals
Published October 30, 2009 @ 08:00AM PT
What's a misunderstood war criminal to do when he feels the world is unjustly against him? Create a website, of course.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, currently wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, recently launched a website complete with a dove, olive branch, and upbeat headlines about the supposedly-peace-loving dictator's latest activities. Interestingly, as Bec Hamilton notes, the website is in English as well as Arabic: "It's not the regular Sudanese voter he's pitching to."
Bashir is not the first to use a glossy and misleading website for an international PR campaign, of course. According to Laura at the Enough Project and Jason at Congo Siasa, the diaspora leaders of the FDLR, the Congo-based militia led by former Rwandan genocidaires, have thus-far resisted attempts to shut down their website by simply changing hosts. According to Jason, the site is currently hosted in the US -- which means that we need to figure out who it is, and harass the bejeezus out of them. (Instead of E-cards for Dictators, maybe E-cards for the Morally Depraved?)
Not to be left out of all the fun, Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) has its own multi-language propaganda site, which conveniently leaves out headlines about its use of child soldiers, among other less-than-upstanding activities.
So when will this unsavory cast of characters discover the magic of Twitter?
Carl Wilkens: A True "Changemaker"
Published October 02, 2009 @ 03:07PM PT
Change.org launched its Changemakers Network this week, and is allowing you to nominate and vote for leading activists in the various causes represented on the site. Perhaps it's poor form to publicly pick favorites, but one of my personal heroes is on the list -- he is familiar to many activists deeply-entrenched in anti-genocide work, but might not be as widely recognized as he deserves. So here it goes.
As the genocide picked up speed in Rwanda in April 1994, all Americans were evacuated from the country, save one. Carl Wilkens, who had lived in the country for several years with his family working for Adventist Development and Relief Agency International, chose to remain in Kigali. As militia began to surround the orphanage where he was providing assistance, he made the bold decision to (long story short) approach the prime minister and convinced him to spare the 400 people inside the building:
I put my hand out and I said, "Mr. Prime Minister, I'm Carl Wilkins, the director of ADRA." He stops and he looks at me, and then he takes my hand and shakes it and said, "Yes, I've heard about you and your work. How is it?" I said, "Well, honestly, sir, it's not very good right now. The orphans at Gisimba are surrounded, and I think there's going to be a massacre, if there hasn't been already." He turns around, talks to some of his aides or whatever, [and he turns back to me and] he says, "We're aware of the situation, and those orphans are going to be safe. I'll see to it."
I've heard Carl speak several times -- his message, conveyed with the passion and humility of a true humanitarian, focuses on the connections between ourselves and those around us, on the misperception of difference and the destructive force of hatred, and the transformative power of human good will. He is an "upstander," if there ever was one.
So vote for Carl in the Changemakers Network. He and his wife Teresa are currently touring the country via bicycle -- watch his website for updates on his speaking tour.
A Few Good Extraditions
Published September 20, 2009 @ 05:56PM PT
A brief check-in on the slowly-but-surely turning wheels of post-genocide justice:
In another round of "well if you won't, we will," the world renowned, universal jurisdiction-lovin' Spanish judicial system indicted a Michigan resident on charges of accessory to genocide. Judge Ismael Moreno issued an arrest warrant for Johann Leprich, who is believed to have worked as a guard at the Nazi's Mauthausen concentration camp.
Leprich was stripped of his American citizenship in 1987 when his Nazi past was revealed, and he eluded arrest and deportation for another 16 years. Once caught, though, he was released back into the wilds of the Detroit suburbs (albeit, with an ankle bracelet) when no other country would take him, due to a US Supreme Court ruling placing a six month limit on detention for those awaiting deportation.
I can only hope that someone is working to close the legal loophole with an "except if you're an accused war criminal" clause -- but in the meantime, it looks like the Spaniards have our backs.
Kenya: Safe Haven for Rwanda's Most Wanted
Published August 24, 2009 @ 05:44PM PT
What does it take to evade arrest for crimes of genocide? Cash.
And, perhaps, murder. (More of it, that is.)
Prosecutors with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) are a tad frustrated with the Kenyan government, which it accuses of thwarting attempts to arrest Rwanda's most wanted genocide fugitive. Felicien Kabuga is reportedly buying his safety in Kenya with large pay-offs to government officials, and a local informant working with US FBI agents on his case mysteriously turned up dead in 2003. Others have reported similar threats. It has all the makings of a bad mob movie.
The wealthy businessman bankrolled Rwanda's extremist ruling party and its enthusiastic militia, was close to its president, and is accused of being one of the main architects of the carefully-planned genocide in 1994. He is also behind the creation and direction of Rwanda's infamous hate-radio station, RTLM.
The case against him is, so to speak, fairly compelling. One would think that a government eager to make nice with the world after its own bout of mass violence would be a little more cooperative with international investigators. But, once again, greed conquers all.
Home-Grown Nazi Hunters
Published August 19, 2009 @ 09:26PM PT
Did you know that the US government has its own cadre of Nazi hunters?
More specifically, the Justice Department Office of Special Investigations (OSI) includes a team of investigators who made careers out of tracking down suspected Nazi war criminals who fled to the US after World War II. OSI's statement of principle is simple and straightforward: "Those who perpetrate serious human rights violations abroad, including genocide, torture, extrajudicial killing, and persecution, should not find refuge in the United States and should face accountability for their crimes."
Here here.
But the profession made famous by Simon Wiesenthal isn't dying off with the aging Nazi fugitives --- rather, as a fascinating WaPo article highlights, Nazi hunters are now turning their attention to the perpetrators of other mass atrocities.
A man was arrested in Kansas earlier this year, for example, for allegedly participating in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Technically, the arrest charges that he lied on his immigration forms --- for not listing "genocidaire" as his last profession, I wonder? (Minor detail.)
Care to through a little work towards our intrepid purveyors of justice? OSI's website includes instructions on how to report a suspected human rights violator.
Failing Our Peacekeepers
Published August 18, 2009 @ 08:56AM PT
How does it feel to be set up to fail? You might want to ask a peacekeeper. Commitment to peacekeeping seems to run rather shallow, as world leaders refuse to match their bold in-front-of-the-camera promises with adequate support and mandates for the missions they deploy.
A harrowing account from a journalist from Sarajevo, which glides back and forth between memories of the war and a mass burial of Srebrenica victims, speaks with disdain, or maybe more remiss, of the UN peacekeepers who left thousands of civilians to the devices armed belligerents with genocidal plans. The 160 Dutch peacekeepers, who faced harsh criticism after the incident, were fighting a losing battle, overwhelmed by thousands of Serb militia and without any reinforcements.
Commander Romeo Dallaire faced a similar challenge just a year before, as Operation Broken Silence reminds us in a recent post on the Responsibility to Protect. Dallaire sent a series of communiqués with UN headquarters in New York in 1994, which have now become symbolic of international complicity in the face of genocide, describing with fierce urgency the plans he'd uncovered, and his suggestions for how to stop them before they were put into motion. He was told this was outside of his mandate. Over 800,000 Rwandans lost their lives in a mere 100 days.
Echoes of Rwanda in Zimbabwe
Published August 17, 2009 @ 09:35PM PT
If history teaches us anything, it's that whatever Bobby Mugabe has up his sleeve, it is almost certainly not good for the majority of the people of Zimbabwe.
South African journalist and blogger Alex Matthews draws eerie comparisons between Zimbabwe and Rwanda in the early months of 1994: A ruling clique, known for past brutality, is forced into a farce of a unity government and begins stockpiling arms and training its own militias. That Zimbabwe's looming conflict is not ethnic in nature does not detract from the potential for large -scale bloodshed.
