Sunday, 3 Feb, 2008


Dear JR,

Thank you for your contribution to the debate!

THE TITLE OF THIS RESPONSE SHOULD BE: NATO PEACEKEEPERS INFINITELY PREFERABLE TO UN PEACEKEEPING FORCES, UN AN AMERICAN TOOL...AND SO IT IS.

As we have said, it remains to be seen whether Kenyan military personnel will be as impartial as you believe. We have also suggested that Kenyans press for NATO peacekeepers. We are very willing to concede that NATO peacekeepers are preferable to UN peacekeepers (see why below).

That said, we are not certain as to why Odinga is demanding AU peacekeepers (see the next post in this thread) as opposed to NATO peacekeepers. Still we tend to think that this may nonetheless be preferable to the Kenyan military.

According to NPR, even journalists are beginning to have a difficult time staying objective since members of their families are also being targeted. How can you be confident that this would not also be the case with Kenyan military personnel?

Whatever peacekeeping force is deployed should, in our estimation, not include troops from either Uganda, Rwanda, or Tanzania.

The Tanzanian government, we have discovered, is anti-Luo. It has, in fact, denied refugee status to the group of Luos whose plight we discussed in our Refugee Report, a subject that we will return to again in the near future. How does the Tanzanian government justify its actions? According to the Tanzanian government, Luos' lives are not at risk in Kenya. To the Tanzanian government, Luo refugees do not, at this point, even exist! Never mind that more than half of the 850 plus people who have been killed in the post-election violence have been supporters of the opposition and not Kikuyus...

Aside from Kibaki, Museveni's government is, without a doubt, the least impartial regime in the world on the matter of the Kenyan election...

As for Rwanda, its forces must not be involved because they are reported to be responsible for much of the bloodshed in the Congo, which truly is the world's worst humanitarian disaster.  The carnage that has taken place in the Congo easily makes it the worst place on earth to live in today.  (Note that the Tanzanian government has plans to close its camps for Congolese refugees.  We are waiting to see whether it will ensure the safety of these people or simply deport them back to a war-torn nation as it is so fond of doing.) 

Also, Kagame's role in the Rwandan genocide, heroic or not, is a matter of great controversy...as is Kofi Annan's, the person who has been entrusted with preventing genocide in Kenya. Annan received the Nobel Prize in spite of, not because of, his actions (or, rather, lack of action) on the Rwandan genocide (see footnotes).

If it did not include troops from Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda, however, then we believe that the vast majority of Kenyans, regardless of ethnicity, would benefit from the swift deployment of a peacekeeping force.

As to what Kibaki is or is not willing to negotiate, we believe that the destiny of Kenya is not in Kibaki's or even in the United States' hands, but in the hands of the Kenyan people.  That said, the evidence is not on Kibaki's side and neither, we believe, is public opinion.

 Kalonzo Musyoka is not coming to the United States for prayer and tea-time with the expats.  He is coming to press his paymasters' cause. 


 This is the real reason that Kalonzo will be here--to defend  Kibaki's theft of the presidency. It is up to Kenyans to make their voices heard.  As we have said, it is not what Kibaki, Kalonzo, or Raila think or want that matters. It is about what the people of Kenya want. None of these people will be able to lead without the will of the Kenyan people behind them.

As always, we welcome your input as well as that of others. Please continue to send us your thoughts on this or any other matter. Our position, however, is that TOO MANY LIVES HAVE ALREADY BEEN LOST AND THAT A PEACEKEEPING FORCE, PREFERABLY NATO, IS NEEDED IN KENYA IMMEDIATELY.

Regards,
Jaluo Press

NOTES: Speaking of Annan...  Between you and me, the Nobel Prize really isn't all that noble.  Even James Watson got the Nobel Prize!  Aside from being a sexist scientist who literally stole the work of his truly brilliant female colleague, Rosalind Franklin, Watson made headlines when he stated that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really."  In his spare time, Watson is also vocally homophobic.  Annan certainly deserved the prize more than this life-long bigot ever did. Whether Annan actually deserved the Nobel Prize, however, is debatable...

On Annan: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/714025.stm

On Watson:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/07/
AR2007110702609.html

On Kagame: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/2120653.stm
NOTABLE QUOTE/ LESSONS FOR KENYA:

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has rejected calls to withdraw Rwandan troops from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Mr Kagame said Rwandan forces would remain in the DRC until Rwanda's security concerns were met.

The Rwandan president was speaking following UN-mediated talks with his Congolese counterpart Joseph Kabila in Durban, South Africa.

His comments came as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague said it could not order an immediate halt to Rwanda's military activities in the DRC.

However, the ruling is provisional and does not affect the overall case brought by the DR Congo, which accuses Rwanda of genocide.

" Rwanda has rendered itself guilty of the genocide of more than 3.5 million Congolese people"


Why NATO over the UN:

 http://www.greenleft.org.au/1998/318/21250
 
http://www.counterpunch.org/philpot05152004.html
NOTABLE QUOTE/ LESSONS FOR KENYA:

Boutros-Ghali, who told me in a 2002 interview that the Rwandan genocide was 100 percent American responsibility, also told the French daily Libération that one of the UN's problems in Rwanda was that "the Department of Peacekeeping Operations [headed by Kofi Annan at the time] was very much infiltrated by the American authorities. Since the we [the UN] lacked money, we recruited officers who were on their own government's payroll."

There's more...

Can Dallaire's intense--and unsuccessful--involvement in Rwandan politics and his pro-RPF stance be explained by the fact that he was receiving instructions directly from US or pro-US people in the UN's peacekeeping operations department? This is very plausible since we know that from the early 1990s the United States, along with Great Britain, was openly challenging France in French-speaking Africa, and particularly in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). The English-speaking Rwandan Patriotic Front, based as it was in Uganda, was perceived as a means to accomplish that end.

On the other hand, Boutros-Ghali, whom Madeleine Albright nicknamed "Frenchie", was perceived as an obstacle, as undoubtedly was the head of the UN mission in Rwanda, Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh. Soon after the Rwandan tragedy, the US unceremoniously dumped Boutros-Ghali--Albright vetoed renewal of his mandate--and installed Kofi Annan, thereby further advancing their strategy in French-speaking Africa.

Add to this the fact that Dallaire was chosen for the position in 1993 mainly because the United States demanded a French-speaking military commander, and ideally anti-French. Obviously that excluded a French national. Anybody who follows Canadian politics knows that that type of military person can be found in Ottawa, where distrust and dislike of France are at the heart of all foreign policy.

These links help explain both Kofi Annan's and Romeo Dallaire's silence regarding the shooting down of the plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi--both have persisted in calling that SAM missile attack an "accident" or a "crash", and Kofi Annan's reaction regarding the plane's Black Box following the Bruguière revelations was frankly insulting. All information, all research and all investigations, and especially Judge Bruguière's, now point to Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front. If and when France issues international arrest warrants for the perpetrators of that crime, Kofi Annan and Romeo Dallaire will have a lot of questions to answer.

Another example of Romeo Dallaire naysayers is Colonel Luc Marchal who led the UN troops in Kigali. Unlike Dallaire who tours the world to defend Paul Kagame and the RPF, Marchal is very critical of both. "I am personally very convinced in the RPF's implication in the Rwandan tragedy", writes Marchal in a 1998 letter, "because I too had been fooled by their smart propaganda during the Arusha negotiations [in 1993]. Once I was in Kigali, the gulf that separated what was said and what was really happening became obvious. In fact the RPF movement is totalitarian and it crushes absolutely everything in its way." He also pointed out in a 2003 interview that the shooting down of President Habyarimana's plane would have required months to plan and carry out, and that the rapid deployment of RPF troops in Kigali and in the North on April 7, 1994 would also have required months to prepare. Marchal leaves no doubt that he suspects the RPF of committing that crime and considers it to be crucial to understanding what happened after.

In a much more honest book about the Rwandan events published in 2001, Marchal also clearly implicates the United States in the 10-year cover-up of the April 6, 1994, terrorist attack that triggered the terrible massacres. "Who is powerful enough to have prevented a real international inquiry from casting light upon the events that occurred when President Habyarimana was flying home from a regional summit in Dar Es-Salaam?"


You should probably just read this entire article since it is incredibly enlightening and since there is not a lot of it that you have not already read. We could not resist posting most of it...

Lucia, thanks for the heads up on Kagame, Museveni, and the US-UN. You help make this site a place of real discourse and we are proud to say that we get as much from our readers as we hope that they get from us.

For Robin Philpot's story on Kagame's, Annan's, the UN's, and the US' interrelated roles in the Rwandan genocide, see: