that my aside on Rwanda is
>one which has no currency whatsoever outside of the horizons of what
>was _Living Marxism_ . The notion that
>"American imperialists" gave even the slightest thought to what happened in
>Rwanda, much less trained the RPF forces which finally put a stop to the
>genocide, ventures into the realm of some pretty creative historical fiction.
>
One U.S. official interviewed by the Washington Post contended that "the United States is focusing disproportionate military assistance on Rwanda as part of the creation of a 'zone of influence' in East Africa...." "U.S. officials ... discussed options with Kagame, including air strikes to hit at extremist bases.... Information about the camps was exchanged...." (Lynne Duke, "U.S. Military Role in Rwanda Greater Than Disclosed," Washington Post, Aug. 16, 1997.)
Leo writes
>I have made it a minor interest of mine to read up on the Rwandan situation,
But his reading does not extend far beyond the popular account by journalist Philip Gourevitch. How about this, from Covert Action Quarterly?
"the U.S. was deeply involved in both Uganda and Rwanda, and very close to Paul Kagame. In 1990, Kagame, a Rwandan exile serving as a colonel in the Ugandan army,10 was training at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, when he dropped out of the program and rushed back to Uganda to take command of the rebel army that invaded Rwanda." (U.S. Military and Corporate Recolonization of the Congo by Ellen Ray)
(A Zimbabwean friend tells me the following story of US involvement in the Rwandan-Congolese war. After Kabila's forces broke with their Rwandan backers, they turned on the overextended Rwandan army occupying the Congo, forcing them to retreat. The Congolese, with Zimbabwean backing had pinned down the Rwandans to a valley, where they expected to make short work of their foe. To their surprise, just as they closed in US military troop carriers turned up in force to evacuate the entire Rwandan force before they could attack.)
Leo continues
> the Rwandan genocide shows just how incredibly
>irrational and even fantastical 'racial' categories can be.
Yes, indeed. But ought one then ignore the fact that Paul Kagame's government is entirely drawn from one racial group, Tutsis, who make up a minority of the country (around 15 per cent), and its security forces are overwhelmingly Tutsi, whilst the vast majority of the disenfranchised population is Hutu. Furthermore, only Hutus are tried for ethnic killings, but the many massacres perpetrated by the RPF are not investigated or tried. It seems very convenient to develop a blindness over racial categories when the country has become an ethnic dictatorship.
>And yes, it is one of the greatest failings of the Clinton presidency that
>the US did nothing in face of this genocide.
But this is not so. Fort Leavenworth trained US agent Paul Kagame played a key role in the genocide:
"when an airplane carrying Rwanda's Hutu president, Juvenal Habyarimana, was shot down, with all aboard, including President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, killed. A still secret 1997 U.N. investigation implicates Kagame in the assassinations." (U.S. Military and Corporate Recolonization of the Congo by Ellen Ray)
The U.N. investigation revealed "that Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, had ordered the shooting down of the ... plane" Barbara Crossette, ("Rwanda: Kagame Implicated," New York Times, World Briefing, Mar. 24, 2000)
Does Leo's extensive reading on the subject not include this vital fact? The assassination of Habyarimana was the event that triggered the slaughter in Rwanda, just as panic rose over the invasion by the RPF. -- James Heartfield
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