Nkunda Fatiques

Once upon a time,
taking up arms to protect your people
against state-inspired genocide
was considered legitimate.

NKUNDA SHOULD BE HERO

In Africa where elections are meaningless,
and UN peace-keepers are deployed to maintain the status quo,
why should Gen. Nkunda be a war criminal for trying to save his people,
just as Oyite Ojok, Museveni, Kagame, Zenawi and Garang did?

Why should Gen. Nkunda be a war criminal in Africa?
by Sam Akaki, The Kampala Monitor, Mar 8, 2008

Gen Laurent Mahoro Batware Nkunda is off the headlines and safe from arrest, for now, thanks to Africa’s latest bloodbath in Kenya, which took all the attention. According to a peace accord signed in Goma in January, he may be forgiven for rebellion, but arrested for crimes against humanity. Earlier, a screaming headline in the influential The Economist magazine said Gen Nkunda had "turned down an offer of $2.5 million and a (luxurious) life of exile in South Africa, ("Congo. Only just staying in one piece", The Economist, July 26, 2007). Gen Nkunda must be an idiot to Ugandan MPs who sold their souls and country for a mere Sh5 million, or just under $3,000 in return for voting to remove Article 105 (2) of the Constitution in July 2005.

So what does Gen Nkunda value more than $2.5 million? Once upon a time, taking up arms to protect your people against state-inspired genocide was considered legitimate.

That was how General Garang, General Museveni, General Kagame, General Meles Zenawi, General Isaias Aferwerki, General Oyite Ojok and (Armchair Field Marshall) Milton Obote, became local heroes and then international statesmen. But, if the Rome Statute, which set up the UN International Criminal Court (ICC) had been signed in 1981 and not 2001, John Garang would probably be alive, but in prison in The Hague, along with his colleagues as convicted international war criminals. In the event, the Government of Southern Sudan and the Republic of Eritrea would be non-existing. Moreover, General Juvenal Habyarimana, Colonel Haile Mengistu Mariam and General Bazilo Okello would be in power in Rwanda, Ethiopia and Uganda, respectively. And if the Rome Statute had been signed in February 1971, David Oyite Ojok and Dr Milton Obote might have died in The Hague, also convicted war criminals. And in the event, it is Field Marshall Idi Amin who would have hosted his old friend the British Queen in November 2007. Why?

Claiming that Idi Amin was exterminating their Acholi and Langi kinsmen, David Oyite Ojok and Milton Obote first invaded Uganda from Tanzania in 1972 and, assisted by the Tanzanian People’s Defence Forces (TPDF), succeeded in toppling Idi Amin on April 1979. In 1975, Mr Meles Zenawi claimed that Colonel Mengistu Mariam’s Amharic ethnic kinsmen were committing genocide against his minority Tigray people. He formed the Tigray People’s Liberation Front which drove Colonel Mengistu out of power in 1992. Having lost elections in 1980, Yoweri Museveni took up arms to fight 'Abadokolo-dominated' Uganda National Liberation Army, which he claimed was committing genocide against the people from the south. After blowing up civilian passenger buses, robbing commercial banks and hospitals, and even hijacking a passenger aeroplane, he took power in 1986. In 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Garang deserted the Sudan People’s Armed Forces (SPAF) and formed the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which fought a 20-year long war against the Sudanese government which he claimed had oppressed, raped and massacred millions of black Christian southerners. In 1987, Isaias Afewerki took control of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, which created the present Republic of Eritrea. And in 1994, Paul Kagame led the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) against the Hutu-dominated government, which he said had been committing slow genocide against his Tusti people since 1958. He took power, but not before one million Tustis and moderate Hutus had been murdered.

These "resistance" wars which were considered "necessary" and sometimes assisted by western governments to save a people from state-inspired genocide raise many burning questions about the threat to treat General Nkunda as a war criminal. Isn't he also entitled to protect from genocide his Congolese Tutsi people who were denied citizenship under former president Mobutu Sese Sseko, and have been left to the mercy of the Interahamwe since 1998?

Will the UN defend these endangered Tutsis, given the organisation's appalling record of failure in peace-keeping operations across Africa? What security have the Congolese enjoyed under the 2000 UN Resolution 1291, which set up the United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monuc)? Haven’t four million people been killed in eastern Congo since 2000, according Human Rights Watch?

Where is the Africa Union Mission for Somalia (Amisom) created under UN Resolution 1744 to send 8,000 soldiers to "protect civilians who have been facing death and humanitarian disaster since 1991"? Aren’t the killings spreading; hence last week’s US cruise missile attack on a "known al-Qaeda target" in Mogadishu? And aren’t civilians still being massacred in Darfur despite the UN Resolution 1769 which authorised the deployment of 26,000 UN troops to "ensure the free movement of humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack”?

In Africa where elections are meaningless, and UN peace-keepers deployed to maintain the status quo, why should Gen. Nkunda be a war criminal for trying to save his people, just as Oyite Ojok, Museveni, Kagame, Zenawi and Garang did?

KNOW NKUNDA CONGO and UN PEACEKEEPING NOT KEEPINGPEACE

16.Ministry of Truth (Lies) and WORLD MISLED BY PROSTITUTE WRITERS

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

email: orwelltoday@gmail.com
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