Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies
Sent: Friday, April 5, 2019 2:18:06 PM
To: usa
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - UN Resolution 9291 of 22 June 1994 feeds the Rwandan genocide
thanks gloria, for the reflection. i do appreciate your point.
you might say, if napoleon reinstated slavery, he reinstated the slavery that the french had also abolished prior to him.
or i would say, there's the good side and the bad side....
right? the french also abolished the slave trade in 1815? and slavery itself 20 years later. i suppose we could say, better late than never, considering it took the brazilians till 1885 or so to get to abolition. and cuba same, more or less.
as for rwanda, when the tutsis came down in 1990, trying to return and to overturn the habyarimana govt, the french allied themselves with habyarimana. after the plane was shot down (disputes over who did it; i lean to accepting it was the extremists of hutu power, but nothing is really definitive there), the french along with the belgians pushed to limit the un peacekeepers, and prevailed on clinton to go along. that was a crime of historical proportions. as the genocide proceeded, it was no longer an affair of outsiders generating the genocide, but rather the impedence of un peacekeepers, whose numbers were reduced to only those guarding a standium. kofi annan went along with this crime.
in years since, lots of crocodile tears, from clinton, annan. etc. but the bodies piled up were too dead to hear these apologies. and my ears are blocked as well.
mitterand sent in his troops, operation torquoise, who came expecting to find hutu being slaughtered by tutsis, but in fact, found the opposite. kagame's troops commited excesses up north, but they were not the actions of rpf's policies, and there were trials of some responsible for the war crimes.
it's a long story, and doesn't stop there, but that's my understanding of the french role. they backed away after habyarimana was killed, at some point. i suppose prunier's account of that, in his second draft, gives the details for anyone interested.
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
Sent: Thursday, April 4, 2019 11:50:29 AM
To: usa
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - UN Resolution 9291 of 22 June 1994 feeds the Rwandan genocide
Sent: Tuesday, April 2, 2019 9:14 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - UN Resolution 9291 of 22 June 1994 feeds the Rwandan genocide
i do not know steve brown, but this posting is quite misleading. if you read french, go ahead and read the link to rfi. it does not really say much like what the posting states. to keep it brief: the posting implies operation torquoise was secretly working to rearm the genocidaires. in fact, it created a corridor to allow fleeing hutus to flow into zaire. it alludes to a possible arming of hutu forces, but doesn't state when. in fact, there was no secret about french support for habyarimana's regime. the earliest writing about the genocide by prunier show all that business. this is like scandalmongering to accuse the french of arming hutus committing genocide by linking this to operation torquoise.
it is true the french went into rwanda expecting to find the tutsis were actually committing genocide, and finding to their surprise it was the other way around. whatever we can say about operation torquoise, and challenge its role of allowing all hutus, including the genocidaires to flee, it was not an operation that supported the continuing genocide of tutsis in july. even if the french surreptituously were shipping arms to the hutu regime, that's not what operation torquoise was about, it was about ending the fighting in the southeast and creating a corridor of flight.
my interest in rwanda stems from my role as country specialist for amnesty international for rwanda and burundi, and i've been in that position since 1993. i have no partisan feelings about this, but am opposed to abuses of human rights and of human beings that included not only the genocide of april-june 1994 of primarily tutsis, totalling 800,000 people; but also the 5-6 million who died in zaire from 1996 on, a consequence of the warfare in east congo for which kagame bears an important responsibility. he went on to create essentially an authoritanian police state.
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
Sent: Monday, April 1, 2019 6:51:07 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - UN Resolution 9291 of 22 June 1994 feeds the Rwandan genocide
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