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International-UN-NGOs
More Claims about UN Complicity in Rwanda Genocide
2004-03-12
BBC hides the impact of this by titling it "UN probes Rwanda ’crash’ recorder"
The UN has revealed that it received a flight recorder soon after the downing of a plane in 1994 which triggered the genocide in Rwanda. A newspaper earlier published details of a French police report into the missile attack on the plane. The report concludes that the UN received the downed plane’s recorder and blocked an inquiry into the crash. The UN said there was no indication the recorder belonged to the downed plane, but would pass it to investigators.
now that so much time has passed & no one can be easily held accountable
Both Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira were killed in the attack. UN chief spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters that UN officials had found the flight recorder in a locked filing cabinet in the organisation’s Air Safety Unit.
fancy that - wonder how this got here?
The "paper trail" which led to the discovery of the flight recorder, he said, indicated that UN officials at the time had apparently concluded that the flight recorder was not from the downed plane because it was in "pristine condition".
"Jean-Pierre, look at this flight recorder from the wreckage. It looks new!"
"Bah, that cannot be. It can't be from the crash."
"So, should we analyze the data from the recorder?"
"Why bother? We already know what the final report will say!"
Mr Eckhard said an internal investigation would be conducted as to why this was not reported to senior peacekeeping officials at the time. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday that he was unaware the French investigation had been obstructed.
uh huh
Ever get the idea that Kofi doesn't know a whole lot about what's going on anywhere?
The French police report reproduced by Le Monde concludes that Rwanda’s current President, Paul Kagame, gave direct orders for the rocket attack on Mr Habyarimana’s plane. Mr Kagame was head of the mainly-Tutsi rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) at the time. The death of Mr Habyarimana, a Hutu, triggered the mass killings in which some 800,000 people died, most of them Tutsis.
Didn't think that one through very well, did he?
Rwanda has rejected the French report, describing it as "fantasy". A former RPF officer, Captain Josue Abdul Ruzibiza, has told the BBC that he was ordered to provide security as missiles were fired at the plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. Capt Ruzibiza said two missiles had been brought from Parliament House, where his battalion was being housed, and were fired as the plane carrying the two presidents came in to land. The two men who actually fired the missiles, he added, are now senior officers in the Rwandan presidential guard and military intelligence. Asked why he had kept quite so long, Captain Ruzibiza - now in exile - said he had lived in fear of his life.
I’ll bet!
Clearly did his 'security' job well.
I haven’t a clue if this box is the real recorder from that crash. But it annoys the hell out of me that it was suppressed.
Posted by:rkb

#4  "Must be some OTHER flight recorder - the jungles around there are lousy with the things, y'know..."

Uh-huh...
Posted by: mojo   2004-3-12 12:11:37 PM  

#3  "I'm inclined, on first blush, to believe Kofi over the French on this"...

LH: is that like prefering the wreak of rancid milk to the stench of rotting piles of garbage?
Posted by: Hyper   2004-3-12 10:47:24 AM  

#2  France is on the side of the French-speaking Hutus. The flight recorder could have been planted by French agents. Regardless of the veracity of French claims, this is a classic blame-the-victim move. The Tutsis were rebels against the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government. There is nothing in the realm of human morality, let alone Rwandan law, that excuses the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents in reprisal for the death of a country's president. This is like attaching responsibility for the Holocaust to the Jewish guerrillas who assassinated German officers during WWII.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2004-3-12 10:33:20 AM  

#1  the French supported the genocidaires in '94, not the UN. Im inclined, on first blush, to believe Kofi over the French on this.
Posted by: Liberalhawk   2004-3-12 10:26:03 AM  

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