posted November 11, 2006 10:33 AM            

So, the principle of UN promotion seems to be...assist a genocide and get promoted to Sec General of the UN.

Not to be forgotten is that Kofi Annan was Commander Corruption's...aka Bill Clinton's personal choice to head the UN as Secretary General...after the genocide in Rwanda was well known and common knowledge. Nor was it any secret just WHO was head of Peacekeeping forces at the UN. In the real world Kofi Annan would have been booted from his cushy job and possibly face prosecution but the UN exists in their own little bubble where the real world is never permitted to intrude.

Later, both Commander Corruption and Kofi Annan apologized for the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi by the Hutu tribe. Their excuse? They didn't realized the scope or size of the genocide.

One must wonder exactly what level the scope or size of a genocide must rise to before Commander Corruption and Kofi Annan would think it necessary for the UN to intervene and do one of the jobs UN Peacekeeping forces were organized to do.

The ongoing genocide in Sudan is a rerun that carries a familiar stench of UN inaction while a solution is endlessly talked to death...in lieu of ANY UN action. Further, one of the parties to the genocide...the government of Sudan is also a party to the endless talks. It's similar to a negotiation where a murderer negotiates with the government over whether or not the government should prevent the murderer from murdering again.

Against that backdrop, the genocide in Sudan continues unabated...not to mention, the rape of Sudanese women and girls by UN Peacekeeping forces, sex for UN food and the exchange of UN food for sex by UN Peacekeeping forces in Liberia.

November 10, 2006
Rwandan nun guilty of helping genocide
By Times Online and agencies in Kigali

A Roman Catholic nun has been sentenced to serve 30 years in a Rwandan jail for her part in the 1994 genocide.

Sister Theophister Mukakibibi was found guilty of helping Hutu militiamen kill hundreds of Tutsi who were sheltering at the hospital in Butare where she worked.

In a year-long trial before one of Rwanda's traditional gacaca courts, more than 20 witnesses testified against her, saying that she led Hutu fighters to their victims, denied food to the Tutsis and dumped a baby in a latrine.

"She would select Tutsi, throw them out of the hospital for the militia to kill. She did not even spare pregnant mothers," said Jean Baptiste Ndahumba, president of the gacaca court in Butare where she was sentenced today. "She used to hold meetings with militiamen and had an army officer as her escort during the killings," he added.

Rwandan accounts of the trial reported that Sister Mukarubibi denied all the charges against her, but that the court heard tape recordings in which she acknowledged her ties with Hutu militiamen.

Witnesses said that she would take identity papers of those who came to Butare University Hospital and later point out Tutsi patients to Hutu killers.

Sister Mukakibibi is the first nun to be sentenced by a Rwandan court for contributing to the genocide 12 years ago. Around 800,000 people, nearly all members of the Tutsi tribe, have lost their lives in a 100-day series of massacres by gangs of Hutu fighters.

Members of the Rwandan Roman Catholic Church have long been suspected of assisting the genocide. The church had close links with the hardline Hutu leadership accused of organising the killings.

In 2001, two nuns were convicted of helping massacres by a Belgian court and a priest, Athanase Seromba, is currently on trial before the UN war crimes tribunal in Tanzania, where he is accused of ordering the killing of 2,000 people who sought shelter in his church.

posted November 11, 2006 11:19 AM              

We had a Rwandan youth theatre group called Mashirika bring their show "Rwanda, My Hope" to the arts centre where I work this week.

The performance was made up of true stories told by the performers, traditional music and dances. It was incredibly moving and very powerful.

I think the most extraordinary thing they revealed in the performance was the fact that forgiveness has had to become the attitude for people to adopt in Rwanda.

They told us of how almost everyone without exception had murdered someone in the conflict. Almost everyone was guilty of some kind of attrocity. And so what were they to do about it? They couldn't all be tried and imprisoned as that would empty nearly every home and they simply hadn't the resources to try and imprison that many people. And so they now have the very odd and extremely challenging situation of having to forgive one another for what happened. Neighbours living side by side who had murdered each other's families have had to apologise to each other and try to forgive. They've found they can do nothing else. Life goes on and they've concluded that that's the only way for them to continue.

Most of us would have a difficult time understanding that I think. We are so used to being able to punish the guilty and see them imprisoned or even executed in some societies that we are often unable to comprehend the concept of having to rise to the most difficult of all the challenges that face us as human beings: to forgive. It was a huge lesson they've had to learn and by bringing that story to us, we learned an awful lot as well. What an amazing country.