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At UN's Rwanda Genocide Commemoration,
Questions of FDLR, Darfur and UNDP's Mbarushimana
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
April 7 -- While the 14th anniversary of
the start of the
genocide in Rwanda was commemorated Monday at UN headquarters, the
issues
raised are not over. In Eastern Congo, the ex-FAR Interahamwe FDLRs are
being
encouraged by the UN to disarm and return to Rwanda. At Monday's UN
event,
Inner City Press asked Rwanda's Ambassador to the UN Joseph Nsengimana
what
will happen with the FDLR fighters who return. They must come back
without
arms, he said. Then they will be treated like any Rwandan citizen. Does
this
mean that a form of amnesty is being granted, even to those who
participated in
the genocide?
Tanzania's Ambassador Augustine Mahiga spoke at the
event, on behalf of
the African Union, and said that in Liberia, too, he had seen
"massacres
go unpunished and uninvestigated." He spoke of seeing Rwandan genocidaires never separated out in the
refugee camps in Bukavu in what he called, even Monday night, "eastern
Zaire." By that stage, humanitarian and justice-seeking imperatives
were
deemed to be in conflict, needing to paralysis.
The UN's role in Rwanda
in 1994
is not only one of inaction. UN Development Program staffer Callixte Mbarushimana "lent vehicles and
satellite telephones of the UNDP to military officers, that he also
used the
UNDP vehicles to facilitate his own contribution to the killings," as
stated in an article on the UN's own DR Congo
website. Another UN
documents recites
his role in "the death of UNDP’s National Personnel Officer, Ms.
Florence Ngirumpatse, and a number of refugees in the residence where
they had taken refuge."
After the
100 days
of killing, Mbarushimana
was allowed to continue working for the UN for seven more years, for
example (as recited
in the course of the UN's process leading to an additional payment of
$35,000 to Mbarushimana) "from
December 1996 to December 1999, he was with UNDP-Luanda, Angola." As
noted in a more
detailed account, Mbarushimana
wan't even language-qualified for this UNDP post. We hope to have
more on this.
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
meets, Mbarushimana
not shown
Inner
City Press asked Rwandan Ambassador Nsengimana about Mbarushimana's
case.
"The UN's awareness came very late," he said. In fact, the UN has yet
to answer when it knew what it came to know about Mbarushimana, and
what
actions if any it took on what it knew. Now
after repeated extradition requests from
Rwanda, Mbarushimana is under investigation in France.
There
did not appear to be an French representation at Monday's Rwanda
genocide
memorial, held in the two-storied Delegates' Entrance lobby. Sudan's
Ambassador
was present, and took umbrage when the final speaker linked Rwanda's
genocide
with more recent events in Darfur. Afterwards, he told Inner City
Press,
Rwandan Ambassador Nsengimana apologized to him for the comments. Never
again?
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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Tel: 212-963-1439
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718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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