The U.N. IN CONGO : WATCHDOG OF THE GREAT MINING INTERESTS
by Juan Carrero
Nov 2009
Article de Juan Carrero, Président de la Fundació S'Olivar, paru début novembre 2009 dans plusieurs journaux espagnols
Complicity and Cover-Up in the Most Serious Crimes since the U.N. founding
On February 6, 2008 judge Fernando Andreu Merelles issued an indictment against 40 top officials of the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) which has ruled Rwanda in a totalitarian way since 1994. For a period of many years, and within the framework of the complaint filed by the International Forum for Truth and Justice in the African Region of the Great Lakes, the judge of the 4th Court of the Audiencia Nacional, Spain’s National Court, centered his investigation on finding those responsible for the death of millions of Rwandan and Congolese people as well as for the murder of 9 Spanish missionaries and volunteers who had been inconvenient witnesses of some of the massacres perpetrated by the RPF. In early 2009, however, the judge went a step further and turned his attention on the pillage of natural resources taking place in Congo. The magistrate asked U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for the evidence on which the U.N. itself had based its three reports that attributed responsibility for the pillage primarily to Rwandan president Paul Kagame, a group of mining multinational companies linked to him as well as three other major co-defendants.
Months have gone by since that request but the judge has not heard a single word from the U.N. Rather, it has been our Foundation, which filed the lawsuit, who has gotten a response: the U.N. Secretary General has set up a panel of experts to carry out an investigation about the funding of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR), the guerrilla group still operating in Eastern Congo and which, according to the RPF and its powerful godfathers, is made up –of course! –of mass murderers. The institutions funding our small Foundation have just received a letter signed by Dinesh Mahtani, the coordinator of the above-mentioned Panel of Experts which was established pursuant to Resolution 1857 (2009). The letter demands that these institutions turn over all documents concerning their funding to us since “the Group has obtained reliable information from several independent sources implying that [our organization] could have provided help to the armed group mentioned above.”
A few months ago, James Kabarebe, the omnipotent Rwandan Chief of Staff who tops the list of 40 officials indicted by the Audiencia Nacional, was arrested In South Africa. Informed of the arrest, the Spanish judge immediately initiated extradition procedures. But barely 24 hours after Kabarebe was arrested, this large-scale murderer guilty of the death of hundreds of thousands, was set free again thanks to the influence of who knows what accomplices in top-level international politics. Ever since then we had been expecting them to counter-attack. We presumed that once RPF leaders started to realize that this is a serious matter, they would react in one way or another. During his trip to Rwanda a few days ago, Spain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Angel Lossada, listened to Rwandan authorities vigorously protest these arrest warrants. They claimed the indictments “represent a serious problem for the Rwandan government” that is hindering those 40 ‘servants” of the people from carrying out their duties in a normal way. The trip dealt exclusively with issues concerning the lawsuit.
We have long known that the leaders of RPF are extremely worried about the Spanish lawsuit. But we deem it regrettable that the U.N. goes along with this corrupt game, serving as its watchdog. This comes as no surprise to us, though. Since its founding, the U.N. has been doing this in Central Africa, following guidelines from the United States. The U.N.’s serious culpability as instrument in the hands of this big power and of some of its Anglo-Saxon or Belgian allies has long been documented and proven with regard to the murder of Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba and the coup d'état which brought Mobutu to power. Yet nothing has been done since then. Due precisely to the scope and import of what the U.N. stands for, the impunity this institution enjoys represents by far the most scandalous in our day and age. History is repeating itself. The U.N.’s impunity in the trail of those crimes has now allowed it to reoffend, practicing impunity once again.
For years the U.N. and especially Kofi Annan, both Nobel Peace laureates in 2001, have been covering up reports such as the Gersony report which proves that the genocide of the Hutu ethnic group indeed took place. Or other reports as well – such as the Hourigan report which proved that Paul Kagame, the strongman of the Anglo-Saxon powers operating in that region, was responsible for the serious terrorist attack on April 6, 1994 which claimed the lives of the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi and of ten other passengers on board the presidential Falcon 50 plane, then setting off the genocide of the Tutsi. Decades after the assassination of Lumumba, the U.N. serves once again as instrument in the hands of the United States and of the big multinational corporations for the pillage of Congo, a pillage that has killed millions of people, a pillage about which the U.N. has, once again, classified and filed away reports like it did with the Garreton report, a pillage for which there is documentary evidence that the U.N. now refuses to hand over to Spain’s Audiencia Nacional.
The U.N.’s attempt to accuse a small Mallorcan NGO with no resources of its own, of financing the FDLR guerrilla, is preposterous. The fact that this large organization, which has such serious wrongdoing to account for, spends time persecuting ordinary citizens who are not willing to remain passive and silent about these huge crimes merely goes to show the extent of its own decay. The fact that it has become the watchdog doing dirty work for these RPF criminals and their mighty international godfathers, is pitiful. Indeed, the U.N. has chosen the most effective way to try to discredit us and cut our access to funding: it is instilling fear in the public institutions that have been financing the Intra-Rwandan Dialogue as well as the lawsuit that ultimately led to those arrest warrants which are increasingly annoying these major criminals. The U.N. is also trying to intimidate us – but won’t get away with this as easily as with damaging our reputation.
During the press conference held jointly with Mr. Lossada, Rwandan Foreign Minister Rosemary Museminali announced that when, accepting an invitation by Lossada, Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama visits Spain, he will clearly demonstrate how the indictments ordered by ‘Mirelles’ (sic) are politically motivated. Will he come to Spain already bringing the report by the U.N. panel of experts accusing us plaintiffs of now not only being politically- motivated, but of even financing the guerrilla? At any rate, I believe Ban Ki-moon and his powerful godfathers have made the wrong move. They have ignored once again history’s most powerful forces: truth, compassion, dignity… The ghost of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and of the presidents assassinated in more recent times – Ndadaye, Habyarimana, Ntaryamira and Kabila – as well as of the millions of victims those honchos have betrayed, will haunt and hunt them down all the way to their deathbed.
HIGHLIGHTS
As long as the U.N. keeps covering up major criminals in Rwanda and Congo, there will only be pillage, death and devastation there.
Its attempt to intimidate ordinary citizens gives us the privileged opportunity to denounce them.
Juan Carrero, président de la Fundació S'Olivar