Rwanda Human Rights Observer

Thursday, December 23 02:51 pm Kenyan lawmakers have passed a motion urging the government to withdraw from the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court. The move by parliament is an attempt to block proceedings against six prominent Kenyans who were named by the ICC last week and face charges of crimes against humanity over 2007-8 post-election violence. "This house resolves that... the government takes appropriate action to withdraw from the Rome Statute," read the motion, which was overwhelmingly approved by acclamation late Wednesday. The motion came exactly a week after the world court's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, revealed the names of the six for whom he requested summonses over their role in the violence that tore Kenya apart three years ago. Among them are key political figures such as Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, who is also a deputy prime minister and the son of the country's founding president. If ICC judges accept Ocampo'...

In the wake of the discovery of three mass graves in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in late 2005, the United Nations first announced its intention to send a human rights team to conduct a mapping exercise in DRC in a June 2006 report to the Security Council. In May 2007, the UN Secretary-General approved the terms of reference of the mapping exercise following a series of consultations among relevant UN agencies and partners and with the Congolese government The mapping exercise, led by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had three objectives: • Conduct a mapping exercise of the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003. • Assess the existing capacities within the national justice system to deal appropriately with such human rights violations that may be uncovered. • Formulate a series of options aimed at assisting the G...

UN MAPPING REPORT ON CONGO Posted on October 1, 2010 by Admin | Comments Off Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame, planed and funded for systematic murder of a group of people in Congo The AFDL/APR troops indiscriminately killed men, women and children. Most of the victims were Hutu Banyarwanda, but many Nande were also massacred at Buhimba. According to several survivors, the AFDL/APR soldiers killed several children by dashing their heads against walls or tree trunks. In all, 334 victims were recorded. 341 The vast majority of incidents listed in this report could, if investigated and proven in a judicial process, point to the commission of prohibited acts such as murder, wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health, rape, intentional attacks on the civilian population, pillage, and unlawful and arbitrary destruction of civilian goods, including some which were essential to the survival of the civilian population. The vast majority of these acts were comm...

Kagame is losing a grip on the country BY Robert Mukombozi (an investigative Rwandan journalist exile in Australia. He is currently studying a Masters of Journalism and Mass communication at Griffith University. )   http://www.newslineea.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=278:kagame-is-losing-a-grip-on-the-country-&catid=74:robert-mukombozi-&Itemid=73 This year 2010 has gone down not generally well on the global political arena. The United States especially has had a very turbulent wind up of its politics as a result of the wikiLeaks revelations.Of course Rwanda and US relations were not an exception among other governments whose relations with Washington was shaken by the leaking of secret diplomatic cables. The American embassy in Kigali moved fast to calm the worries, praising Rwanda in the area of fighting HIV/AIDS and increasing agricultural production but actually it was a very diversionary diplomatic gesture. As a result of the cables, Mr Paul K...

Génocide rwandais: Six dirigeants mis en examen par des juges français Mis à jour le 16.12.10 à 09h53 Six militaires et officiels rwandais ont été mis en examen par deux juges français pour leur responsabilité supposée dans l'attentat qui fut le point de départ du génocide de 1994, a-t-on appris jeudi de source judiciaire. Ces personnes sont poursuivies pour «complicité d'assassinat en relation avec une entreprise terroriste», dans le dossier visant l'attentat contre un avion à Kigali, en avril 1994. Le président rwandais Juvénal Habyarimana y avait trouvé la mort. Cet événement toujours mystérieux a précédé l'un des plus grands génocides du XXe siècle, le massacre de 800.000 personnes, pour la plupart des Tutsi, par des extrémistes Hutus. Des mandats d'arrêt devraient être levés La procédure menée par les juges d'instruction Marc Trévidic et Nathalie Poux s'est déroulée ces derniers jours au Burundi, après un accord entre les autorités judiciaires fran...