Free Republic

Alleged Rwandan war criminal Leon Mugesera played Canada's ponderously slow judicial and immigration systems like a concert violinist, but now he is finally where he should have been more than a decade ago. And that's in Rwanda, and a jail cell in Kigali. We trust his accommodations are suitable. Rwanda, in turn, has promised Canada that Mugesera would get a fair trial on charges that he incited the 1993-94 genocide of millions of the Tutsi minority by marauding Hutu militiamen. Canada, in turn, should promise Canadians to speed up the system to that no alleged war criminal can ever again...

Léon Mugesera hospitalized after losing appeal of deportation order. The United Nations Committee against Torture has asked Canada to delay the deportation of alleged Rwandan war criminal Léon Mugesera. Defence lawyers for the former Rwandan Hutu politician have successfully lobbied the UN commission to investigate their claims Mugesera faces torture or death if he is sent back to his native country. It's not clear whether Canada considers the UN commission's request to be legally binding. The UN's intervention comes at the 11th hour of Mugesera's anticipated Thursday deportation. Justice Michel Shore denied Mugesera's appeal for a delay on his deportation...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized the humanitarian rationale for the U.S. military intervention in Libya, recalling instances from recent history when a lack of U.S. intervention had left hundreds of thousands dead. In an interview with ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper on “This Week,” Clinton said that the United Nations-backed military intervention in Libya “is a watershed moment in international decision making. We learned a lot in the 1990s. We saw what happened in Rwanda. It took a long time in the Balkans, in Kosovo to deal with a tyrant. But I think in what has...

Malaria-carrying mosquitoes are disappearing in some parts of Africa, but scientists are unsure as to why. Figures indicate controls such as anti-mosquito bed nets are having a significant impact on the incidence of malaria in some sub-Saharan countries. But in Malaria Journal, researchers say mosquitoes are also disappearing from areas with few controls. They are uncertain if mosquitoes are being eradicated or whether they will return with renewed vigour. Data from countries such as Tanzania, Eritrea, Rwanda, Kenya and Zambia all indicate that the incidence of malaria is dropping fast. Researchers believe this is due to effective implementation of control...

This is a reprint from the Peoria Chronicle’s web site. It was posted by CJ, the sites owner and written by Paul Wilkinson. Paul is the President of the Altamont Park Neighborhood Association. I know Paul and he is the most straight forward person I’ve met. He has no need to embellish or to lie. That means this is true and it’s an outrage. I hope Mr. Jackson of the local NAACP reads this and responds. That will be interesting. This is nothing more than hate and race war against whites. Here is the posted letter: Tonight, around 11 p.m.,...

The armed conflict in Darfur, Sudan, intensified throughout the year, resulting in tens of thousands of newly displaced people, some of whom crossed into neighbouring Chad. Civilians were directly targeted in some attacks by armed groups and by government forces. Parts of Darfur remained inaccessible to humanitarian organizations and the joint UN-African Union (AU) mission in Darfur (UNAMID). Humanitarian workers and UNAMID staff were frequently abducted in Darfur, following a pattern similar to that seen in eastern Chad in recent years. Various mediation efforts during the year produced no tangible results. Repression by the Sudanese authorities continued in Darfur, with...

Although it is not in the form of binding resolution, the American push for U.N. action has helped win over a handful of new countries to the cause. A resolution could be brought to a vote later this year. The issue of gay rights has polarized nations at the U.N. for years. And despite growing acceptance for homosexuality in Western nations and parts of Latin America, lawyers say there is still a gap in human rights treaties for the protection of gays against discrimination and mistreatment. "We are very concerned that individuals continue to be killed, arrested and harassed around...

  Rachel Nyirahabiyambere and one of her grandchildren. WASHINGTON, D.C., March 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Rwandan immigrant woman and survivor of the horrors of the 1994 genocide who had her feeding tube removed because a U.S. Catholic-affiliated hospital deemed her care too expensive, apparently will not die of starvation and dehydration thanks to a court order and the efforts of her children. Rachel Nyirahabiyambere, a 58-year-old grandmother and refugee from war-torn Rwanda, had been denied food and water since Feb. 19 after her feeding tube was removed by order of her court-appointed guardian. Now 21 days later and still...

Kigali, Rwanda — Rwanda is like a black Switzerland. Its nickname is “The Land of a Thousand Hills.” This is a gross understatement. Beyond the runway at the airport here in the nation’s capital, one struggles to stay on flat ground for long. In every imaginable direction, hills roll, small mountains dwarf tea plantations, and dramatic, volcanic peaks vanish into the clouds. Curvaceous bends on narrow byways penetrate lush valleys and craggy canyons. On twisted roads, a modest miscalculation could trigger a treacherous and likely fatal tumble into oblivion. Given the terrain that they have been dealt, Rwandans farm everything...

A recent online article posted on NY Times Live tells a great medical success story in Rwanda. The author describes the opening of a "Harvard quality" hospital in Butaro, Rwanda where they had previously had no medical facilities at all. The 150-bed Butaro hospital was built in only two years at a cost of R40-million. (The cost of a comparable hospital in the U.S. would be 225-300 million USD). The physical structure itself is designed to scrub the air twelve times per hour to reduce risk of airborne infection. Here, that requires multi-million dollar machines. The Butaro hospital has...

The United States has signed a deal with Bhutan giving US citizens in the country immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the State Department said Tuesday. The deal with Bhutan brings to 34 the number of countries with which the United States has signed so-called "Article 98" agreements exempting US citizens from the court's jurisdiction, said Lynn Cassel, a department spokesman. Bhutan and Bosnia-Herzegovina both agreed to the pacts on May 16 but the deal with Thimphu was not announced until Tuesday. Washington refuses to support the ICC, arguing that it could become a forum for politically...

Kigali, Rwanda — It must puzzle Rwandans to watch the loud squabbling between and within America’s political parties over keeping old tax cuts for just two more years. President Obama on Tuesday defended his tax-cut deal with Republican lawmakers by calling them “hostage takers.” Obama’s fellow Democrat, New York congressman Anthony Weiner, complained that the president “seems to go from zero to compromise in 3.5 seconds.” The Washington Wrestling Federation is a world away in style and substance from today’s Rwanda. During a four-day visit here, I found that the enthusiastic consensus for pursuing the free-market path out of poverty...

TURNER: Or don't have any money. One thing they can do is pick up trash. That's what I do. We're in New York now and yesterday I walked around the block and I picked up trash and put it in the garbage -- AMANPOUR: I don't believe you. TURNER: I swear to God. Absolutely. I pick up trash in Atlanta. AMANPOUR: Why? TURNER: Because I want to set a good example. President Kagame of Rwanda has passed a rule that on the third Saturday of each month, the entire country has to go out from 8 - 11 and pick...

Top 10 Reasons I Hate the UN10. UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural OrganizationMay 28, 2009:I’d think that seriously advocating book burning at any time would disqualify you, since presumably there are equally qualified candidates for the UN’s cultural heritage agency who’ve never advocated destroying cultural heritage. But Israeli society is toxic anyway – especially compared to the glory that is the contemporary Egyptian public sphere – so no loss:Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, a candidate for the top job at the United Nations culture agency UNESCO, apologised on Wednesday for calling for Israeli books to be burnt… Hosni...

A diplomatic row is raging over a draft of a UN report, leaked to the press late last month, that accuses Rwandan President Paul Kagame's troops of massacring Hutu refugees who had fled to neighbouring Zaire, now Congo, after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda of Tutsis and moderate Hutus that left 800,000 dead. The intervention of Kagame's forces has been credited with ending the 1994 killings. The Rwandan government reacted furiously to the UN draft last week, calling it "outrageous" and describing its claims as "immoral". The government is now threatening to pull troops out of UN peacekeeping duties in...

NAIROBI (AFP) – A Rwandan journalist who accused the regime of attempting to assassinate a dissident general in Johannesburg was gunned down in Kigali, police said Friday, fuelling tensions ahead of August elections. Jean-Leonard Rugambage's colleagues and media watchdog Reporters Without Borders alleged Thursday's killing was linked to reports alleging the involvement of President Paul Kagame's services in the assassination bid. "He was killed in front of his house when he was going home at 10 pm last night," police spokesman Eric Kayiranga told AFP by telephone, adding that the "unknown gunman" responsible for the attack had fled. Rugambage ran...

She is determined that the people of this genocide-scarred country are not forgotten EXPORT, PA - Australian Darlene Zschech is acclaimed all over the world as a singer, songwriter, worship leader and speaker, most notably for her involvement in the music from Hillsong Church, Sydney, over many years. Although she has achieved numerous gold albums and her songs are sung in many nations of the world, her success simply stands as a testimony to her life's passion to serve God and people with all her heart. As a songwriter, Darlene is perhaps most famous for the chorus "Shout to the...

MAYANGE, Rwanda — The maternity ward in the Mayange district health center is nothing fancy. It has no running water, and the delivery room is little more than a pair of padded benches with stirrups. But the blue paint on the walls is fairly fresh, and the labor room beds have mosquito nets. Inside, three generations of the Yankulije family are relaxing on one bed: Rachel, 53, her daughter Chantal Mujawimana, 22, and Chantal’s baby boy, too recently arrived in this world to have a name yet. The little prince is the first in his line to be delivered in...

KIGALI, Rwanda — A Rwandan judge has charged a U.S. lawyer with denying Rwanda's 1994 genocide and publishing articles that threaten the country's security. Peter Erlinder pleaded not guilty to the charges during a five-hour court hearing late Friday in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. "It is the first time I have come to know that my obscure publications back in America were that bad and could amount to genocide denial," Erlinder told the court. He suggested it may be a case of misinterpretation or misunderstanding. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison. Erlinder was upset when the...

The Nile supplies almost all of Egypt’s fresh water and three quarters of Sudan’s. Both countries claim historic rights over it but neither controls its sources. For thousands of years Egypt has jealously defended its right to use the Nile’s waters as it pleases. Now, amid warnings of conflict and crop failure, the balance of power is starting to change as other countries make new claims on the water. Last month most of the countries that occupy the Nile’s headwaters signed an agreement granting themselves greater control of the river and removing a colonial-era veto, held by Egypt for more...

Few combinations are more poisonous than race and politics. That combination has torn whole nations apart and led to the slaughters of millions in countries around the world. You might think we would have learned a lesson from that and stay away from injecting race into political issues. Yet playing the race card has become an increasingly common response to growing public anger at the policies of the Obama administration and the way those policies have been imposed. When the triumphant Democrats made their widely televised walk up Capitol Hill after passing the health care bill, led by a smirking...

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "Bout and American-born pal Richard Chichakli were accused of creating a new business, Samar Airlines, which they thought was clean of any connection to their own bloody dealings. Starting in the summer of 2007, Samar Airlines started making deals for airplanes and crews to ferry contraband between the United States and Tajikistan, the indictment said." SNIPPET: "The Russian-born Bout is accused of wiring $1.7 million from bank accounts in Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Russia through banks in New York City and Salt Lake City to finance the scheme." SNIPPET: "Bout, who is accused of supplying weapons to real...

The BBC has apologised after complaints about an online debate which asked: "Should homosexuals face execution?" in response to proposed anti-gay legislation in Uganda. Critics flooded the British broadcaster's website after it launched the provocative debate ahead of a World Service Africa Have Your Say feature. The headline question asking if gays should face execution was later changed to: "Should Uganda debate gay laws?" and the BBC World Service admitted the original version overstepped the mark. "The original headline on our website was, in hindsight, too stark. We apologise for any offence it caused," the director of BBC World Service,...

A coalition of human rights groups is condemning a proposed amendment to Rwanda's criminal law that would criminalize homosexual behavior and advocacy. Meanwhile, Rwanda's northern neighbor, Uganda, is receiving heat for a "draconian" anti-gay bill being debated in its legislature. The coalition Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders says the draft language to criminalize homosexuality could be voted on in the Rwandan lower house of parliament by Friday.  The draft code would then pass to the Rwandan senate for approval. The amended language for Article 217 acquired by the group would give offenders - those who "practice," "encourage,"...

Filmed with students during a video production course at the Orphans of Rwanda school in Kigali, Rwanda.

LONGMONT — One of the founders of the Anglican Mission in the Americas is in Colorado this week to encourage people to turn to Christ. Rwandan Archbishop Emman-uel Kolini, who is staying with a Longmont family this week, will deliver a sermon Sunday morning in Broomfield. The service is open to the public. “He’s seen as our spiritual father in terms of the formation of this church,” said the Rev. Gerry Schnackenberg, senior pastor of Epiphany Anglican Fellowship, which has worship sites in Longmont, Broomfield, Lakewood and north Boulder. “He really had the vision and courage to go against the...

Conservatives are used to hearing liberals gloat about how the island paradise that is Cuba provides free health care to its fortunate denizens. Apparently there's now yet another country that we have to look up to: Rwanda. On her MSNBC show this afternoon, Dr. Nancy Snyderman proclaimed herself "jealous" of Rwanda, which reportedly provides health insurance coverage to 90% of its citizens. Snyderman's guest was Mary Robinson. The former President of Ireland is now in charge of "the Ethical Globalization Initiative" at the hoity-toity Aspen Institute. Snyderman seemed intent on drawing her guest into making invidious comparisons between the US...

ACCRA, Ghana, Sep 23, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Monday urged Africans to team up to fight poverty, saying boundary-less cooperation means boundless economic potential. "Through cooperation and collaborative efforts, termites have been able to pull down strong edifices," Clinton said. "Bees have been able to build houses for humans to tap heir honey from." Clinton, who is in Africa to promote efforts to fight AIDS and encourage economic development, was speaking to an assemblage of government ministers, traditional rulers and academics at the launch of Ghana President John Kufuor's Foundation for...

Foreign policy is no longer restricted to "a few elites," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in an interview with The Guardian. "You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken," he said. The interview with the embattled prime minister, which covered a number of areas, is to be published this weekend. Brown talked of how Twitter and other ways of communicating electronically have been used in Iran this week, subverting the government's efforts...

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. Arrest of Kenyan Exposes Massive Global Arms Trade The East African Africa News February 25, 2002 Monday Kenya L AST WEEKEND'S arrest of Kenyan-born Sanjivan Ruprah, who is alleged to be a part of a major arms smuggling operation to Africa, has brought into the open the extent of the multi-million dollar illegal business. The whereabouts of Bout remain unknown. Some media reports say he is in Moscow, while others say he is in the Congo or the United Arab Emirates. An international ...

The Russian parliament and media refer to him merely as a “Russian businessman.” But to much of the rest of the world, Viktor Bout is known as the “Merchant of Death,” the most notorious member of the dark fraternity of global weapons traffickers who arm terrorist organizations, as well as the tyrannical regimes and brutal warlords and militias responsible for horrendous genocidal slaughters over the past two decades. Since his March 2008 arrest in Bangkok, Thailand, in an elaborate U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sting, Viktor Bout has been in Bangkok’s Klong Prem Special Prison awaiting trial. The U.S. Department of...

Four men accused of planning to kidnap two Roanoke County women and hold them for ransom were indicted Thursday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. Joshua Kasongo, 19, of Roanoke; Mohammed Hussein Guhad, 19, of Roanoke; Luke Musa Elbino, 19, of Vinton; and Anthony Eugene Muse, 18, of Roanoke are each charged with conspiring to kidnap and attempted kidnapping. Guhad and Muse are students at Patrick Henry High School. Elbino is a student at Virginia Western Community College.

KIGALI (AFP) – Former Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday praised genocide-scarred Rwanda as "an inspiration to the world," after talks with President Paul Kagame. "Rwanda has in a remarkably short period of time become a role model for Africa," said Blair, highlighting the small central African state's tourism industry just 15 years after a genocide that that left around 800,000 people massacred during a 100-day carnage. "A country that was once a no-go area attracted more than a million visitors in 2008," Blair stated. "It is one of the most stable countries in Africa," he added.

A Burundian national suspected to have participated in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi has been arrested in the United States. Lazare Kobagaya, 82, is a naturalised US citizen who was arrested in the State of Kansas after it was found that he had misinformed the authorities there when he applied for citizenship in 2005. Kobagaya, according to an indictment issued by the US Department of Justice, is accused of having spearheaded killings in the former Nyakizu Commune in the Southern Province. Besides having had a role in the Genocide, the Burundian who resided in the former Butare Prefecture during...

We were so far out in the desert that boundaries didn't matter anymore. Were we in Tunisia? Libya? Algeria? It didn't matter, our guide Massoud told us, pouring mint tea into my battered metal cup under a Saharan sky filled with stars. Didn't matter?! Libya supported the bombing of airplanes, and Algerians were killing tourists. "No countries matter out here," Massoud explained in French that was almost as mangled as his teeth. "We are all Sahara." It had been pure stupidity to come to the Sahara in the middle of August. During the day the temperatures rose above 120 degrees,...

A former chaplain in Rwanda's armed forces was sentenced today to 25 years for the abduction, murder and sexual assault of Tutsi civilians by the United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the mass killings that engulfed the tiny African country in 1994. Emmanuel Rukundo was found guilty of genocide, murder as a crime against humanity and extermination as a crime, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said in a press statement issued from its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. In mid-April 1994, according to the Tribunal, Mr. Rukundo, with soldiers of the Rwandan army, abducted and killed a...

Apparition in Africa: Our Lady of Sorrows by Mary Jo Anderson    1/29/09   Twelve years before the genocide in Rwanda that would claim the lives of a million people, the "Mother of the Word" appeared to a pious 16-year-old girl, Alphonsine Mumreke, in the remote village of Kibeho. The Virgin's first appearance was in late 1981 at a school administered by religious sisters whose students were predominantly Catholic, though some were Protestant and Muslim.   Jeers met Alphonisne's report of the heavenly visitation. School officials and students refused to believe the girl's claim unless another person saw and...

KINSHASA, Congo – More than 1,500 Rwandan troops crossed the border into eastern Congo on Tuesday to join Congolese forces in an effort to oust Hutu rebels who participated in Rwanda's genocide and have long been at the heart of the region's conflict, officials said.

France has long claimed Rwanda as part of its francophone fold even though there is only one language common to all citizens of the tiny central African nation — the indigenous Kinyarwanda — and only a minority of the population speak passable French. But now Paris will not even be able to make that claim after the Rwandan government announced an ambitious plan to switch the entire education system to English and effectively purge the country of French as it is forced out of the workings of government.

Donat Kubwimana escaped Rwanda in a van filled with fellow Catholic monks, all fleeing the genocide that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of their countrymen.  Fifteen years later, the 44-year-old is working on his master's degree in French at Queens College in Flushing. On Thursday, he became a U.S. citizen. "I'm so lucky," Kubwimana said after being sworn in. Kubwimana's harrowing tale of survival and achievement has become an inspiration to his Flushing community. "Just his story could have an impact," Brother David Turmel, 60, said of Kubwimana's journey from a Catholic compound in Rwanda to Queens.Kubwimana left...

ARUSHA, Tanzania – A former Rwandan army colonel was convicted Thursday of genocide and crimes against humanity for masterminding the killings of more than half a million people in a 100-day slaughter in 1994. Survivors in Rwanda welcomed the watershed moment in a long search for justice. The U.N. courtroom in Tanzania was packed for the culmination of the trial of Theoneste Bagosora, the highest-ranking Rwandan official to be convicted in the genocide. Onlookers were silent as the 67-year-old was sentenced to life in prison.

This past summer, from evangelical churches nationwide, more than one million of the faithful departed for the mission field, taking up Jesus' "Great Commission" to "go and make disciples of all nations." The churchgoers hoped to convert souls, establish churches and meet other human needs. But they did not intend to serve for years or whole lifetimes, like such pioneers as Jim Elliott, who was killed in Ecuador in 1956 evangelizing to native people; or Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission; or even the awful fictional caricatures of African missionaries in Barbara Kingsolver's novel "The Poisonwood Bible."...

Women won at least 44 out of 80 seats in Rwanda's legislative elections, making the central African country the first in the world where men are outnumbered in the national assembly, the electoral commission said Thursday. According to provisional results, women won 20 of the 53 seats attributed in direct elections. In Rwanda's unique voting system, another 24 seats are reserved for women in an indirect vote. According to an official close to the youth council, a woman may also have won one of the two seats reserved for Rwandan youth. With 44 guaranteed seats, women would account for at...

Is the defendant's dock at the International Criminal Court reserved for leaders of small and poor countries that defy the West? Not if Rwanda has its way. It wants to charge some of France's most celebrated leaders of the 1990s as collaborators in genocide. Last week the government of Rwanda issued a damning 500-page report documenting France's participation in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. This marks a remarkable turnaround in the deeply politicized world of human rights reporting. Usually, such reporting takes the form of governments or human rights groups based in the West condemning poor countries for having political or...

France labeled as unacceptable a Rwandan report accusing French leaders of being involved in the 1994 genocide in which as many as 800,000 Rwandans died. The 500-page report released by the Rwandan Justice Ministry accused 13 senior French politicians, including President Francois Mitterrand and former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, of supporting the preparation and execution of the genocide, The New York Times reported Thursday. The report, issued Tuesday, said French soldiers in Rwanda joined in with genocidal forces in the systematic killing and rape of minority Tutsi refugees by the Hutu majority. France supported the Hutu government in a...

Rwanda said top French politicians should "answer for their actions" as it named them in a report accusing France of arming and advising extremists in the 1994 genocide. The two-year investigation said France helped the extremists who carried out the genocide and even took part in some of the killings. It named François Mitterand, France's late former president, and former prime minister Dominique de Villepin among 33 military and political leaders.

KIGALI (AFP) — France played an active role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a report unveiled Tuesday by the Rwandan government said, naming French political and military officials it says should be prosecuted. The indicting report accused a raft of top French politicians of involvement in the massacres, threatening to further mar relations between the two countries, which severed diplomatic ties in November 2006.

In a session that lasted more than 45 minutes, Clinton described his role in the 2008 campaign as "a privilege, an honor," and said, "I loved it," but he declined to discuss any of his own possible mistakes, describing them as a distraction. "Next year, you and I and everybody else will be freer and have more space to say what we believe to be the truth" about the primaries, he said. Clinton volunteered very little praise of Obama, beyond describing him as "smart" and "a good politician" when asked about him toward the end of the interview. He did,...

KIGALI, Rwanda, Aug. 2 - There will be no Clinton restoration -- not this year, at least. But the rehabilitation of Bill Clinton has begun. The former president in many ways ended the Democratic primary campaign more isolated than his wife, with his own friends and allies unhappy with his flashes of anger and ill-chosen words and blaming him in part for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's defeat. With a negligible relationship with Sen. Barack Obama -- he has spoken to him just once since the primaries -- Clinton has been shut out of the Obama campaign almost entirely and does...

Forty Days of Purpose, a discipleship and evangelism program, has been featured in thousands of North American churches. It's tied to Warren's global best-seller, The Purpose Driven Life. There have been city-wide campaigns before, but this is the first time a nation, including its president and other top leaders, has taken part in the program. In 2005 Warren announced his global PEACE plan, which in its current formulation stands for: Promoting reconciliation, Equipping servant leaders, Assisting the poor, Caring for the sick, and Educating the next generation. The Forty Days of Purpose program is to correspond with church-based PEACE-plan projects...