The Kagame-Power Lobby’s Dishonest Attack on the BBC 2’s Documentary on Rwanda
By Edward S. Herman and David Peterson | Monthly Review Zine | November 1, 2014
On October 1, 2014, a remarkable event occurred in Britain. The British Broadcasting Corporation’s BBC 2’s This World telecast Rwanda’s Untold Story, a documentary produced by Jane Corbin and John Conroy that offered a critical view of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and of his and the British and U.S. roles in the 1994 mass killings in Rwanda and beyond.1 Although the documentary adheres to some key longstanding falsehoods of the Anglo-American propaganda system’s treatment of the “Rwandan genocide,” above all the claim that in 1994 leaders of the country’s Hutu majority conspired to commit genocide against its Tutsi minority,2 nevertheless, we believe that the telecast of Rwanda’s Untold Story constituted a first of its kind in the reinterpretation of what really happened in Rwanda in 1994. And this is true not only for the BBC, but also for the rest of the establishment English-language television news media in Britain, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere.
The BBC 2’s reinterpretation works largely by providing airtime to well-informed figures conventionally marginalized within the establishment media. Accordingly, Rwanda’s Untold Story is the story that they tell and that they would have been telling for many years had they and their views not been systematically suppressed and even ridiculed and smeared by the establishment media, historians, and assorted political hacks from within the Kagame-Power Lobby.
Among these newly admitted storytellers are Theogene Rudasingwa and Kayumba Nyamwasa, former high-ranking Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) associates of Paul Kagame now forced to live in exile for opposing his rule and seeking his downfall. “The price of being able to express a view that is even mildly critical or dissenting in Rwanda, the price is very high,” Rudasingwa, Kagame’s former chief-of-staff, tells Corbin. “Those who tried, journalists, have been killed, and others imprisoned or simply banished into exile” (51:19). When Corbin asks Nyamwasa, a former top-ranking general under Kagame, whether he was “surprised there wasn’t more protests from the international community over what was happening in the Congo and Rwanda’s part in it,” Nyamwasa replies: “No. I wasn’t surprised. He’s got very powerful people who protect him” (45:50).
Another critic here given a voice is Aloys Ruyenzi, a former member of Kagame’s personal guard. Ruyenzi recounts what he heard at a meeting between Kagame and his closest staff during which Kagame gave the order to shoot down Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana’s Falcon 50 jet. Ruyenzi also states that he was in Kagame’s company when, on April 6, 1994, the news of the shoot-down arrived at the RPF’s headquarters in Mulindi, in the far north of the country. “Kagame was happy,” Ruyenzi tells Corbin. “The other commanders were happy too. From that moment, we started to move” (15:15).
Yet another critic is Carla Del Ponte, a former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) as well as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, who recounts how she was relieved of her job at the ICTR in 2003 for having opened investigations into RPF crimes and then rebuffed overtures from the United States and Britain to terminate them. “[T]he U.S. didn’t back me up,” she says, “the U.K. followed suit, as always, and my mandate was not renewed” (38:28).
Still another new voice is former FBI counter-terrorism agent James Lyons, who was Commander of Investigations at the ICTR. Lyons tells Corbin that in 1996-1997 his and the late Michael Hourigan’s National Team had found three solid sources claiming knowledge that Kagame was responsible for the Habyarimana assassination. When in early 1997 Hourigan and Lyons presented ICTR Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour with a memorandum outlining what they had learned, Arbour ordered the investigation terminated and confiscated the memorandum. “Louise Arbour just did a 180-degrees turnaround,” Lyons says, referring to Arbour’s reaction when she learned that his group had evidence implicating Kagame. “Someone above her was telling her this was not a good idea to be investigating Paul Kagame” (39:30).
Among the other BBC 2 guests was the Belgian scholar Filip Reyntjens, a specialist in the history of the Great Lakes region of central Africa; Reyntjens states frankly on camera that he regards Kagame as the “most important war criminal in office today” (48:31). Also the Belgian Colonel Luc Marchal, a former high-ranking member of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) with responsibility for the capital city, Kigali. Marchal describes the overwhelming tension that pervaded Kigali during the months before Habyarimana’s assassination: “Every night in Kigali the background noise was of weapons and shooting and of grenades exploding” (10:16). “In my opinion,” Marchal adds, “the attack on the president’s plane was the trigger to begin the military operation and the armed takeover by the RPF” (15:53).
Perhaps most important of all, the BBC 2 devotes a substantial segment of its documentary to the work of two American professors now at the University of Michigan, Allan Stam and Christian Davenport, who from 1998 on carried out important field research in Rwanda, and who have gone on to develop many powerful and provocative interpretations about what really happened in Rwanda in 1994.3 “What the world believes, and what really happened, are quite different,” a clip from Corbin’s interview with Stam appears twice in the documentary (0:21 and 31:19). (We return to Davenport and Stam’s work below.)
In sum, although we take issue with the BBC 2 documentary’s very loose and inexact use of the term “genocide” when referring to the events in Rwanda in 1994, Jane Corbin and John Conroy’s Rwanda’s Untold Story marks an important, informative, and decisive break from the now-more-than 20 years of false and propagandistic storytelling in the Anglo-American world that has buried the real history of the period. Both the BBC 2’s This World and the documentary’s production staff deserve their audience’s gratitude — not condemnation.
How Dare the BBC 2’s This World Break Ranks with the Rest of the Respectable Media and Bring All of These Ugly, Unmentionable Truths to Light?
Just as it was a remarkable event for Rwanda’s Untold Story to be telecast over the BBC 2 on October 1, so it was entirely predictable that on October 12, a response in the form of an open letter signed by 38 “scholars, scientists, researchers, journalists and historians” was sent to the BBC’s Director-General Tony Hall, taking issue with the documentary in the strongest terms possible. And, as is the conventional practice among members of this group, their open letter features the smear that the documentary engages in “genocide denial,” a derogatory charge that in one form or another (e.g., “genocide deniers,” “deniers”) appears no fewer than 13 times in a letter only 1,266 words long.4
“Genocide denial” and the dissemination of “genocide ideology and sectarianism” are the preferred negative-attack weapons of the Kagame dictatorship, on the basis of which it has denounced, intimidated, imprisoned, driven into exile, and even assassinated many Rwandans as well as foreign nationals over the past 20 years.5 Kagame’s legal system used such charges to arrest the Hutu political figure and chair of the opposition Forces Democratiques Unifiées (FDU)-Inkingi coalition, Victoire Ingabire, in April 2010, removing her from competing against Kagame in the August presidential election, which Kagame won with an incredible 93 percent of the rigged vote. “[I]ngabire asked why there were no memorials to the Hutus who died,” Corbin reports in the documentary. “She got eight years in prison for ‘genocide ideology’” (51:09). To this day, Ingabire languishes in one of Kagame’s prisons, her sentence now bumped up to 15 years; recently her attorney filed a petition with the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, asking it to demand a fair and open retrial for his client. 6 The 38 letter-signers claim to recognize the BBC’s right to “reflect on the contemporary political situation in Rwanda,” which the documentary does at length, but nowhere in their rebuttal do they themselves undertake such reflections. Doesn’t the 38’s silence on the totalitarian nature of Kagame Power, clearly a major political issue for Rwandans both at home and living in exile, make them dictatorship defenders?
When the 38 use the word “genocide” — a term they use no fewer than 27 times in their letter — they refer to one thing specifically: the alleged planned extermination and killing of Rwanda’s minority Tutsi population by its majority Hutu conspirators. But another, much larger area of massacres lies to the west of Rwanda in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where, from September 1996 on, many more people have been killed than in Rwanda in 1994. These killings were carried out as an almost immediate extension of the RPF’s 46-month war in Rwanda, and in the case of the DRC there is a wide consensus among specialists that Paul Kagame and forces allied with him (especially the Ugandan People’s Defense Force and locally organized militias) have been the principal killing agents. As Deogratias Bugera, at one time a soldier in Kagame’s RPF during its war in Rwanda, and one of the founders in October 1996 of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL), a “rebel” front-organization for the RPF in its wars in Zaire-DRC, once told Jason Stearns: “As soon as the RPF conquered Rwanda, they set their sights on invading Zaire, much sooner than most people realize.” 7 As the 38 completely ignore Kagame’s 18-year-long wars and genocide in the DRC, doesn’t their exclusive focus on Rwanda 1994 and the alleged Hutu conspiracy to exterminate the Tutsi make them apologists for the larger follow-up genocide? To the BBC 2’s credit — and in stark contrast to the silence of the 38 who attacked the BBC — the documentary raises precisely this issue. In fact, in a voiceover, Corbin reports: “The UN surveyed 600 alleged massacre sites [in the DRC]. … The UN report concluded: The apparent systematic and widespread attacks on Hutu civilians, if proven, could be characterized as crimes of genocide” (44:48). 8 But the 38 aren’t interested.
Who Shot Down President Habyarimana’s Falcon 50 Jet?
Turning to the mass killings in Rwanda in 1994, the 38 cite three “untenable claims” made in the BBC 2 documentary. The first is a “lie about the true nature of the Hutu power militia.” The second is an “attempt to minimize the number of Tutsi murdered in the genocide.” And the third is an “effort to place the blame for shooting down President Habyarimana’s plane on April 6, 1994 on the Rwandan Patriotic Front.”
Taking this last item first: The 38 claim that a “detailed report published in January 2012 by a French magistrate Judge Marc Trévidic . . . contains evidence from French experts, including crash investigators, who proved scientifically that the missiles that shot down the plane came from the confines of the government-run barracks in Kanombe.”
This is a blatant case of the selective use of evidence, in addition to being misleading in its own narrow framework. First, two French investigative judges are involved in this inquiry, not one: Judge Nathalie Poux as well as Judge Trévidic. Second, no report, preliminary or final, has ever been issued by Trévidic and Poux. The January 2012 report to which the 38 refer, released by Trévidic and Poux, was not written by them but was compiled by five “experts” who had been hired by the investigating judges to analyze certain data from a ballistics and acoustics point of view. 9
Third, and most important, none of the contributors to this nearly 340 page report at any point claims to know the identities of who actually fired the missiles that brought down Habyarimana’s jet, and nowhere in this report does anyone conclude definitively that the “missiles that shot down the plane came from the confines of the government-run barracks in Kanombe,” or in any other government-controlled area. Instead, they calculate “probabilities” for the locus of origination of the missiles which in the aggregate covers such a large range of territory that, as of April 6, 1994, the missiles could have been fired from government-controlled territory on its western edge as well as from territory well outside of government control, in the vicinity of Masaka Hill, to the southeast of Kanombe camp and the airport’s runway, which is exactly where the former RPF figures who have testified on this matter in multiple venues over many years claim the missiles were fired from. 10 In short, the highly-touted findings of the January 2012 analysis are so inconclusive as to the sites from which the fatal missiles were fired and the identity of the shooters that they are surely not the last word on the matter. 11
Also interesting is the fact that the Trévidic-Poux investigation’s own records show that in June 2010 their investigation accepted the sworn testimony of Abdul Ruzibiza, a former lieutenant in the RPF then living in exile in Norway, and the author of the 2005 book Rwanda, L’histoire secrète. 12 Consistent with his earlier testimonies before the investigation led by the French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière (Trévidic’s immediate predecessor in the same office, from which Bruguière retired in June 2008), his published writings, and his testimonies in trials argued before the ICTR, Ruzibiza shared with Trévidic-Poux’s representatives in Norway his knowledge of the RPF’s reconnaissance of the best site from which to fire the missiles (i.e., the aforementioned Masaka Hill, outside the government-controlled area); who comprised the assassination team and carried out the actual shooting (Deputy-Lieutenant Frank Nziza and Corporal Eric Hakizimana are named); where the missiles that were used that night had come from (they were smuggled from Uganda, through RPF-controlled territory in northern Rwanda, and then to Kigali); where the RPF stored the missiles prior to their use (in the RPF-occupied Conseil National de Développement [CND — National Assembly] complex in Kigali, in violation of the Arusha Accords’ prohibition that weapons in Kigali were to be secured by UNAMIR); and that he was a member of the RPF’s so-called “Network,” a covert team that carried out sabotage, false-flag operations, and assassinations of political figures on all sides so as to sow distrust and heighten tensions. 13 We believe that all of this is very important because, as noted above, Trévidic’s predecessor, Judge Bruguière, also heard the same sworn testimony of Ruzibiza, as had trial chambers of the ICTR; the crucial difference here is that whereas the 2006 Bruguière report made use of Ruzibiza’s testimony, at the time of this writing, Trévidic-Poux have taken no public position on Ruzibiza’s testimony, much less have they attempted to identify who they believe the shooters were. 14
It is also important to note that the Trévidic-Poux investigation exists within a political context unique to France that is ignored by the 38. In May 2007, the right-wing Atlanticist candidate Nicolas Sarkozy succeeded the right-wing Gaullist Jacques Chirac as the new president of France. Chirac had served for 12 years (1995-2007), having succeeded the Socialist Party’s François Mitterrand (1981-1995) to the office. Sarkozy immediately set out to heighten France’s Atlanticist profile among the Western capitals, particularly Washington and London. In early 2010, Sarkozy visited Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame in Kigali, the first visit by a French president to Kigali since the 1980s. Within days of Sarkozy’s return to Paris, French police arrested Agathe Habyarimana, the widow of Rwanda’s late President’s Habyarimana, then living in exile in Paris; she was arrested on the basis of an arrest warrant drawn up in Kigali over her role in the events of 1994. Within weeks of this, Trévidic and Poux named the five ballistics and acoustics “experts” who were to re-examine the evidence that ultimately found its way into Bruguière’s 2006 report and the nine indictments of RPF figures. In other words, the origins of the Trévidic-Poux investigation took place within the context of President Sarkozy’s decision to mend fences with Kagame’s regime and align French with U.S. policy on Rwanda, and this political decision required something official to offset Bruguière’s findings against the RPF. But even now as late as November 2014, Trévidic and Poux have yet to publish a definitive conclusion, in contrast to Hourigan, Bruguière, and the Spanish National Court Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles’ February 2008 indictment of 40 members of the RPF for their alleged murder of hundreds of thousands of Rwandans after the war. 15
The 38 ignore the fact that the long and serious investigation of the shoot-down by Bruguière, which included the sworn testimonies of a number of participants in the planning for the shoot-down, concluded that it was Kagame who had given the orders for it. 16 Bruguière also made the important point that the shoot-down and military conquest of Rwanda were politically necessary for Kagame, as he and his RPF could never have won the free election called for by the 1993 Arusha Peace Accords, given an ethnic Tutsi voting block of some 10 percent of Rwanda’s population, versus an ethnic Hutu voting block closer to 90 percent. Under these circumstances, it would have been impossible for Kagame’s RPF to take power through Rwanda’s legal political channels at any time and in any way — except by military conquest. 17 As Filip Reyntjens tells Jane Corbin in the BBC 2 documentary: “[The RPF] felt they were not going to be able to take power through the ballot, and I think by the end of 1993, the RPF had decided it was going to take power by the bullet” (9:35).
The 38 also bypass the fact that the ICTR sponsored the original investigation of the shoot-down in 1996-1997, carried out by a 20-person, multinational investigative team headed by the late Australian lawyer, Michael Hourigan. The BBC 2 documentary returns to a discussion of this evidence more than once, in the person of James Lyons, Hourigan’s superior at the ICTR. A memo prepared by Hourigan for delivery to ICTR Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour, based on what his team regarded as three solid RPF sources with firsthand knowledge of the shoot-down, found Paul Kagame ultimately responsible for it. But as noted earlier, this memo was suppressed by Arbour, and no charges have ever been brought against Kagame by the ICTR. 18 Given that the ICTR has strictly observed the principle of “victor’s justice” throughout its 20 year existence, and has indicted, tried, and convicted Hutus alone with only one exception19, (the BBC 2 documentary reports 63 convictions to date [39:56]), this history of prosecutorial suppression at the ICTR strongly suggests that the evidence for a Kagame role in the shoot-down simply was too solid for the ICTR and its major U.S. and U.K. sponsors to permit any further investigation.
Here we should add that the lead signatory of the open letter to the BBC, Linda Melvern, has long claimed that there never was an investigation of the shoot-down by an international organization. Thus in one place, Melvern has referred to the “failure to conduct an international inquiry,” 20 and elsewhere she has alleged that “[t]he international court established by the Security Council . . . is silent on the assassination of Habyarimana.” 21 Although these are outright lies and suppress both actual investigations and the evidence they’ve accumulated, they are the kind of lies that conform well with the biases and deep-seated mendacity of Melvern and her 37 fellow “scholars” (etc).
Among the Many Untold Stories about Life in Paul Kagame’s Rwanda . . .
The list of former Kagame associates who eventually testified to Kagame’s responsibility for the shoot-down is impressively large; Peter Erlinder, the U.S. defense attorney and former lead defense counsel before the ICTR, estimates that the number “now exceeds eight,” 22 but we suspect the total is considerably higher. But any number is especially impressive, given that former members of Kagame’s inner circle who provide such testimony place themselves at great risk, as Kagame and some of his underlings have been regularly engaged in the permanent silencing of critics. (On this, see the treatment in Rwanda’s Untold Story of the December 31, 2013 assassination of Kagame’s former intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya, then living in exile in South Africa [51:40].) Estimates vary of the number of former allies who were later killed on orders from Kagame. Particularly vulnerable and at highest risk are figures who possess “knowledge of the regime’s darkest secrets and had themselves been involved in its crimes,” as Reyntjens puts it. Reyntjens quotes a former RPF member “exiled in Europe” who claims he was ordered to assassinate Kayumba Nyamwasa (who, in fact, has survived four assassination attempts) and could name 17 other former RPF officers “murdered on Kagame’s orders.” Anyone “considered a threat, Hutu and Tutsi alike, were physically eliminated.” Exiles from Kagame Power were eliminated either because they had knowledge of Kagame’s responsibility for the assassinations of the Rwandan and Burundian presidents in April 1994, or because Kagame suspected them of disloyalty and plotting against him, or of leaking sensitive information to the world outside his base of supporters. According to Reyntjens, Ruzibiza claimed the “physical elimination of over twenty military, in addition to several foreigners working in Rwanda who were suspected of having leaked information on RPF abuse. . . .” Kagame is also implicated in the January 2001 assassination of a third head of state, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Kagame’s handpicked successor to Mobutu after Rwanda and Uganda drove Mobutu from power in May 1997. 23 In 2010, many of the most prominent surviving exiles from Kagame Power went on to found the Rwanda National Congress and called for the end of the Kagame dictatorship, once and for all. But the establishment U.S. and U.K. media have rarely given Kagame’s regime of terror and assassination the attention that it deserves, paralleling the United States’ and Britain’s longtime support of Kagame, and, of course, the 38 slavishly follow the same apologetic silence on this matter.
The 38 attempt to support their belief in “Hutu Power” responsibility for the shoot-down by claiming that this “carefully planned genocide” was followed immediately by “roadblocks . . . all over Kigali” and a rapid targeting of Rwanda’s political opposition, which was allegedly opposed to Habyarimana because they feared power sharing with the RPF under the Arusha Accords.24 This is what we might call streaming lies. As we feature in our recently published book, Enduring Lies: The Rwandan Genocide in the Propaganda System, 20 Years Later, even the U.S.- and U.K.-vetted ICTR uniformly rejects the charge that Hutu political and military figures engaged in a “conspiracy to commit genocide” against the country’s minority Tutsi population prior to the April 6, 1994 shoot-down of the Habyarimana jet. 25 But this has never prevented Linda Melvern and the open letter’s co-signers Roméo Dallaire, Gregory Stanton, Gerald Caplan, Frank Chalk, George Monbiot, Andrew Wallis, et al., from repeatedly asserting that such a conspiracy was fairly adjudicated and determined to be real by the ICTR’s trial and appeals chambers, and this repetition of the “conspiracy to commit genocide” fraud feeds into the lie stream here.
While Melvern and the other 37 claim a readiness to spring into action by the alleged “Hutu Power” conspirators as of April 6, the fact of the matter is that the Hutu military and political leadership was completely unprepared for the post-assassination crisis, the Armed Forces of Rwanda (FAR) were in immediate retreat from the advances of the vastly militarily superior RPF, and were unable to prevent Rwanda from being conquered by the RPF in less than 100 days — let alone putting a stop to localized killing sprees. By contrast, Kagame’s RPF — including armed RPF cells in hiding across the country — was ready to initiate a military offensive at the moment that the shoot-down of Habyarimana’s jet was confirmed. The further lie by the 38 is that the Hutu conspirators carried out their nefarious plans because they feared power-sharing with the RPF and the loss of privileges this would have entailed. But as Bruguière and many others have pointed out, it was Kagame and his RPF that was confronted with losing everything via the free and fair elections scheduled by the Arusha Accords, given the ethnic voting blocks that had prevailed in Rwanda for decades.
The 38 contest the finding of University of Michigan academics Christian Davenport and Allan Stam that more Hutus than Tutsi were killed in Rwanda in 1994, but they refute it solely by mentioning “eye-witness testimony” and by listing the names of alleged research reports by Amnesty International, UNICEF, and others, while failing to cite any specific findings of estimated numbers killed and the ethnic composition of the deaths. The 38 also resort to the conventional accusatory tactic of charging Davenport and Stam with “attempts to minimize the number of Tutsi murdered, a typical tactic of genocide deniers” — when the going gets tough, sling mud.
Davenport and Stam use an aggregating methodology that we find logical and plausible in dealing with a very confusing environment — working from data estimating total pre-April 6, 1994 Tutsi and Hutu members of the population, and post-July 1994 numbers of Tutsi survivors. We use a similar method in Enduring Lies, taking Rwanda census data breakdowns of Tutsi and Hutu numbers as of August 1991, and post-July 1994 estimates of Tutsi survivors ranging from 300,000 to 400,000. Without going into too many details here, we found that, for example, on the assumption of 800,000 total deaths for the period April through July, 1994, plausible estimates of Hutu and Tutsi deaths ranged from between 100,000 and 200,000 Tutsi deaths, and between 600,000 and 700,000 Hutu deaths. 26 We also show, again relying on the logic of Davenport and Stam’s method, the crucial lesson that (quoting from our book) “the greater the total number of deaths, the greater the number of Hutu deaths overall, and the greater the percentage comprised of Hutu.”27
Hence, the following crucial exchange between Corbin and Stam (30:31):
Allan Stam: If a million people died in Rwanda in 1994 — and that’s certainly possible — there is no way that the majority of them could be Tutsi.
Jane Corbin: How do you know that?
Allan Stam: Because there weren’t enough Tutsi in the country.
Jane Corbin: The academics calculated there had been 500,000 Tutsis before the conflict in Rwanda; 300,000 survived. This led them to their final controversial conclusion.
Allan Stam: If a million Rwandans died, and 200,000 of them were Tutsi, that means 800,000 of them were Hutu.
Jane Corbin: That’s completely the opposite of what the world believes happened in the Rwandan genocide.
Allan Stam: What the world believes, and what actually happened, are quite different.
Notice the conditional “if” with which Stam begins his explanation. He could have stated “If 500,000 people died,” or “If 2 million people died,” and their method would have generated different results. It is also notable that the 38 dismiss Davenport and Stam simply as academics who “worked for a team of lawyers defending the génocidaires at the ICTR.” In fact, Davenport and Stam started work in Rwanda under the auspices of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and at one time Stam served in the U.S. Army Special Forces. And the defense counsels before the ICTR often were defending clients eventually found to be innocent of all charges, but here the same clients are found guilty in advance by the 38, who call all of them “génocidaires” and would presumably deny them the right to defend themselves.
The 38 are also pained by the BBC 2’s raising doubts over whether Paul Kagame’s RPF stopped the genocide. They quote Lieut.-General Roméo Dallaire, the Canadian force commander of UNAMIR, as the “authority on this subject.” “Dallaire is categorical,” the 38 write. “‘The genocide was stopped because the RPF won and stopped it’, he says.” 28 This is actually a bit ambiguous because the mass killings could have stopped because the powerful army then conquering Rwanda — the RPF — had won its war and could itself stop doing the killing. We have elsewhere cited the report by Robert Gersony to the United Nations claiming that in several of Rwanda’s southern prefectures he found an “unmistakable pattern” of “systematic and sustained killing and persecution of their civilian Hutu populations by the RPF,” with between 5,000 and 10,000 Hutu killed per month. 29 We should also note that Dallaire is hardly a neutral observer on the recent history of Rwanda, and, in fact, is one of the 38 signatories to the letter to the BBC which, as we are showing throughout, is error-laden and biased. We may also point out that there are not one but two Dallaires — one in his term as force commander of UNAMIR (1993-1994), and the other subsequently acting as a spokesperson for the standard model of the “Rwandan genocide” and an apologist for Kagame Power (1995-). In the earlier role, while biased in favor of the RPF, he at least could recognize and acknowledge the relative weakness and demoralization of the Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR, the then national army of Rwanda) and the military superiority and readiness of the RPF; about the RPF, Dallaire had reported to the United Nations as early as September 1993 that it “displayed the potential to easily defeat the [FAR].” 30
The 38 devote considerable space to charging the BBC 2 documentary’s producers and guests with “genocide denial,” which they describe as the “final stage” of genocide that “ensures that the crime continues. It incites new killing.” Recall that, after conquering Rwanda in 1994, Kagame invaded Zaire-DRC two years later, with estimated subsequent killings there running into the millions. This was not a result of any “genocide denial,” it was justified on the basis of the need to clean out the “génocidaires.” That is, the new killings were built on the claim of a Hutu genocide of Tutsis that required what turned out to be large-scale massacres of an allegedly genocidal Hutu population that had fled to Zaire-DRC. If the Hutus were the primary victims in 1994, and the April 6, 1994 assassination of President Habyarimana was attributable to Kagame, both of which we believe to be true, these extended killings in Zaire-DRC would be harder to rationalize. By misrepresenting the reality of that history, the 38 help justify this further and larger genocide.
Concluding Note: Many Untold Stories
So, in fact, the 38’s cry of the immorality of “genocide denial” provides a dishonest cover for Paul Kagame’s crimes in 1994 and for his even larger crimes in Zaire-DRC. The 38 thus belong to a sizable contingent of apologists for Kagame Power, who now and in years past have served as intellectual enforcers of an RPF and U.S.-U.K.-Canadian party line. We may note here the amazing claim by the 38 that the events of 1994 “should be treated by all concerned with the utmost intellectual honesty and rigour.” Their own violation of this appeal in their open letter is both systematic and comprehensive.
We have seen that the 38 have a penchant for slander as well as straightforward misrepresentation. It is for committing the grave intellectual and moral crime of providing an alternative but, we believe, entirely credible and evidence-based reinterpretations of what really happened in Rwanda in 1994 that the 38 would like Rwanda’s Untold Story expunged from the BBC archives and its production team sent to the woodshed.
- Jane Corbin and John Conroy, Rwanda’s Untold Story, BBC 2, October 1, 2014. Whenever we cite the time-stamp for something that we take from the documentary (e.g., 51:19), we are referring to the copy of the documentary as posted to the Vimeo website.
- In Rwanda’s Untold Story, the term “genocide” is used repeatedly but without hardly any definition or explanation as to what it means. By all appearances, however, the term refers to an alleged Hutu conspiracy to commit genocide against Rwanda’s Tutsi minority 2, as well as to the execution of this alleged conspiracy during the period from April through July 1994. Thus at one point Jane Corbin, the documentary’s presenter, describes “the genocide” as “the killing of a million people in three months” (13:59). And immediately thereafter, she adds that once the assassination of Habyarimana had occurred, “It quickly became part of the accepted story that extremist Hutus shot down the plane. They wanted to unleash a wave of ethnic killing and rid the country of its Tutsis” (14:09).
- For some of Christian Davenport and Allan Stam’s relevant work, see Rwandan Political Violence in Space and Time, unpublished manuscript, 2004, especially pp. 27-33. Also see their website, Understanding Rwandan Political Violence in 1994, GenoDynamics. And see their “What Really Happened in Rwanda?” Miller-McCune, October 6, 2009:
- Linda Melvern et al., “Rwanda’s Untold Story: Letter to the Director-General of the BBC October 12, 2014″
- Filip Reyntjens, Political Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), Ch. 5, “Dealing with the World and the Region,” pp. 124-162; especially the section “Dealing with Critical Voices,” pp. 127-134.
- “Jailed Rwanda Opposition Figure Lodges Complaint with African Court,” Agence France Presse, October 24, 2014. Also see Rwanda: Eight-Year Sentence for Opposition Leader, Human Rights Watch, October 30, 2012.
- Jason K. Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (New York: Public Affairs, 2011), p. 77.
- Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, August. 2010, esp. para. 500-522. Therein, we read that the RPF and its proxy forces had carried out “systematic and widespread … attacks, which targeted very large numbers of Rwandan Hutu refugees and members of the Hutu civilian population, resulting in their death.” Such attacks, the report continues, “reveal a number of damning elements that, if they were proven before a competent court, could be classified crimes of genocide” (para. 515).
- Claudine Oosterlinck et al, Rapport d’Expertise: Destruction en Vol du Falcon 50 — Kigali (Rwanda), Cour d’Appel de Paris, Tribunal de Grande Instance Paris, Instruction n. 2272/00/13&1314 — Parquet n. 9729523030, January 5, 2012.
- Google map of the Kilagi International Airport and the territory which surrounds it. Immediately south of the airport’s runway are the Kanombe military barracks; much farther to the southeast of the airport’s runway and the Kanombe barracks is the topographic representation of Masaka Hill. According to the analyses of the “experts” released by Trévidic and Poux in January, 2012, all of these locations fall within the range of possible firing sites for the missiles that shot-down the presidential jet on April 6, 1994.
- Barrie Collins, “Shooting Down the ‘Truth’ about Rwanda,” Spiked Online, April 16, 2012.
- Abdul Joshua Ruzibiza, Rwanda, L’histoire secrète (Paris: Editions du Panama, 2005).
- Audition sur Commission Rogatoire Internationale, Joshua Ruzibiza, Devant nous, le mardi 15 juin 2010. … Commissaire de Police Havard AALMO du Kripos, en exécution d’un demande d’entraide pénale de la France en date du 15 décembre 2009 (Numéro du dossier en Norvège: 8911179) a comparu: Joshua RUZIBIZA.
- See the statement titled “Testimony of Abdul Ruzibiza about How Mistakes by both the Rwandan Government and the RPF Led to the Rwandan Genocide of 1994,” as posted to the Hungry for Truth, Peace, and Justice blog on January 9, 2009, specifically the section titled “LAST PHASE: The Assassination of President Habyarimana on April 6, 1994,” para. 5.
- Al Goodman, “Spanish Judge Indicts 40 Rwandan Military Officers for Genocide,” CNN.com/Europe,February 6, 2008
- Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, Request for the Issuance of International Arrest Warrants, Tribunal de Grande Instance, Paris, France, November 21, 2006, p. 11. The nine RPF figures indicted by Bruguière were: James Kabarebe, Kayumba Nyamwasa, Charles Kayonga, Jack Nziza, Samuel Kanyemere, Rose Kabuye, Jacob Tumwine, Frank Nziza, and Eric Hakizamana (pp. 46-48). Paul Kagame, notably absent from this list of indictees, “enjoys the immunity granted in France to incumbent Heads of State and therefore cannot be prosecuted within the framework of this proceeding” (p. 46).
- Ibid., p. 12. As the Bruguière report puts it: “[D]ue to the numerical inferiority of the Tutsi electorate, the political balance of power did not allow [Kagame] to win elections on the basis of the political process set forth by the Arusha Agreements without the support of the opposition parties. … [I]n Paul Kagame’s mind, the physical elimination of President Habyarimana became imperative as early as October 1993 as the sole way of achieving his political aims.”
- For copies of documents related to Michael Hourigan’s experience as the head of the National Investigative Team on behalf of the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICTR, see Annexe 49 : Le rapport de Michaël Hourigan, enquêteur du TPIR, à la procureure Louise Arbour sur l’attentat du 6 avril 1994 (janvier 1997). This PDF reproduces partially redacted copies of Hourigan’s original 1997 memorandum to Louise Arbour (pp. 2-5); an August 1, 1997 confidential note in which Hourigan assesses his experiences as the head of the National Team (pp. 6-8); a February 7, 2007 report about Michael Hourigan written by Nick McKenzie for The Age (Australia) (pp. 9-13); and the November 27, 2006 Affidavit of Michael Andrew Hourigan used by defense attorneys before the ICTR (pp. 14-20).
- The one exception to the Hutu-only rule at the ICTR was the December 1998 indictment of Georges Henri Yvon Joseph Ruggiu, a Belgian national who had moved to Rwanda, and later became one of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines on-air personalities both before and during the RPF’s final offensive in 1994. Eventually, Ruggui pled guilty to “incitement” related charges. See Judge Navanethem Pillay et al., Judgment, The Prosecutor v. George Ruggui, Case No. ICTR-97-32-I, June 1, 2000
- Linda Melvern, “Expert Refutes Bruguiere Claims,” All Africa, November 27, 2006.
- Linda Melvern, “The Perfect Crime“, Prospect, January 31, 2008.
- Peter Erlinder, The Accidental . . . Genocide (St. Paul, MN: International Humanitarian Law Institute, 2013), n. 49, p. 25.
- Reyntjens, Political Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda, “The RPF Challenged from Within,” pp. 85-96
- Here we are referring to the Peace Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and the Rwandese Patriotic Front, signed at Arusha, Tanzania, on August 4, 1993, U.N. General Assembly (A/48/824-S/26915), December 23, 1993, specifically the two Protocols of Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and the Rwandese Patriotic Front on Power-Sharing within the Framework of a Broad-Based Transitional Government, October 30, 1992, and January 9, 1993, pp. 22-58.
- See Herman and Peterson, Enduring Lies, Sect. 7, “The Alleged Hutu ‘Conspiracy to Commit Genocide’ That Never Was,” pp. 43-46; and Appendix I, pp. 78-82.
- Ibid., Sect. 4, “The ‘Rwandan Genocide’ by the Numbers,” pp. 32-35.
- Ibid., p. 34. [↩]
- Here we note that this quote attributed to Roméo Dallaire by the 38 does not derive from the documentary.
- Robert Gersony, “Summary of UNHCR Presentation Before Commission of Experts,” October 11, 1994, pp. 4-8. Gersony had been dispatched to Rwanda on behalf of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ Emergency Repatriation Team, and he reported to the UN Commission of Experts in October 1994.
- Report of the Secretary-General on Rwanda (S/26488), September 24, 1993. Dallaire’s Reconnaissance Mission Report was circulated among members of the UN Security Council as an appendix to S/26488, but since it was classified for “UN Eyes Only,” it was not made publicly available at the time. For a copy of Dallaire’s Report, see Peter Erlinder, ed., Report of the UN Reconnaissance Mission to Rwanda — August 1993 (Saint Paul, MN: International Humanitarian Law Institute, 2011), here para. 67, p. 40.
Edward S. Herman is professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and has written extensively on economics, political economy, and the media. David Peterson is an independent journalist and researcher based in Chicago.
France puts pro-Palestinian campaigner on trial
Press TV – October 23, 2014
The French government has prosecuted a pro-Palestinian activist for disregarding the official ban on anti-Israel rallies during its recent offensive on the Gaza Strip, Press TV reports.
France has put the spokesperson of the New Anti-Capitalist Party on trial for his attempts to organize an “illegal demonstration” against the Israeli regime.
Meanwhile, several demonstrators held a rally on Wednesday to protest against the government’s prosecution of the pro-Palestinian campaigner.
“To incriminate the spokesman of a political party who is also a strong supporter of unions… is totally unjustified and unacceptable. We would like to know why the government singled him out,” said Patrick Picard, a member of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT).
France was heavily criticized by rights groups after it officially banned demonstrations against the Israeli regime’s deadly attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip in summer. Thousands of people defied the French government’s decision, saying it was a glaring breach of their constitutional basic right to demonstrate.
“This government made two decisions this summer: to support the extreme-right regime of Benjamin Netanyahu, which was in the process of massacring people in Gaza and then, … it tried to weaken the Palestinian solidarity movement here in France by claiming it was anti-Semitic and violent which we totally reject,” stated the national secretary of Left Front Party (PG), Eric Coquerel.
The French government has recently intensified the trend of prosecuting social activists who disagree with the unpopular policies of President Francois Hollande.
Less than half of Britons, French, Germans support EU’s involvement in Ukraine – poll
RT | October 10, 2014
Only a minority of British, French and German citizens think that the EU should be involved in the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, while most agreed that crimes against humanity should be investigated first, a new Rossiya Segodnya/ICM poll has found.
Less than a half – 46 percent – of respondents from the three member states support EU involvement in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, said the ICM poll commissioned by Russia’s Rossiya Segodnya, the state news agency reported Thursday. Altogether, 44 percent of respondents said they support non-involvement.
A majority of Germans – 58 percent – are against EU participation in the crisis, while 35 percent of French citizens are against it. In the United Kingdom, 40 percent are against the idea.
A majority of the British respondents – 54 percent – backed their government’s participation, with 48 percent of French citizens and 36 percent of Germans supporting involvement.
The poll suggests that it is mainly young people between the ages of 18 and 34 that support their government’s participation in the Ukrainian conflict. In Britain, the idea appeals to 62 percent of young respondents, while in France and Germany to 55 percent.
Seniors are most aware of the tragic events and hostilities that took place in Ukraine, the poll shows. In the UK, almost all respondents over 65 are keeping up with events in Ukraine, while 85 percent of young people from 25-34 who participated in the poll were unaware of developments there. In France, the figures for the same age groups are 93 percent and 67 percent, respectively.
The poll also revealed that a larger number of men from all three countries support direct involvement, while women are in the minority.
Most of the respondents said that the “EU should play its role in the regulation of the situation in Ukraine” mainly by “supplying humanitarian aid and a peacekeeping mission,” Rossiya Segodnya reported. Seventy-six percent of those questioned in France, Germany and UK are in favor of the aid, while 51 percent support the peacekeeping mission.
A few respondents backed the idea of financial aid in the form of loans to the Kiev authorities, while only 13 percent back the idea of sending military supplies to Ukraine, with Britain the most enthusiastic.
The EU should be involved in conducting investigations into war crimes during the Ukrainian conflict, most of those polled said. Seventy-six percent of Britons, 68 percent of the France and 54 percent of Germans backed the EU getting involved.
Those who supported the idea said that their governments should primarily look into crimes against humanity, with the UK almost unanimous on the issue.
People were sensitive on the issue of the abduction and murder of journalists, which was rated the second most outrageous crime in the conflict. A total of 79 percent of respondents said that the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash should be investigated.
The Ukrainian crisis began last year with the so-called Maidan protests in central Kiev, which was followed by a coup in February and a bloody war in eastern Ukraine from April onward. Since the military conflict began, more than 3,500 people have been killed and almost 8,200 injured, according to UN figures.
As Kerry visits Iraq, Sadr warns of cooperation with “occupiers”
Al-Akhbar | September 10, 2014
Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, head of a powerful movement in Iraq, said on Wednesday during a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry that Iraq should not cooperate with “occupiers.”
“We wish for Iraq to cooperate with the neighboring countries and its allies, but not with the occupiers,” said Sadr, whose opinions hold sway over tens of thousands of militants.
Kerry, who arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday in a bid to build a coalition against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, met Iraq’s new Prime Minister Haider Abadi and said he was impressed by the premier’s plans to rebuild the Iraqi military and push broad political reforms.
Speaking in front of reporters, Kerry told Abadi he was “encouraged” by the premier’s plans for the “reconstituting” of the military and “your commitment to broad reforms that are necessary in Iraq to bring every segment of Iraqi society to the table.”
Abadi called for the international community to help Iraq fight ISIS, urging them “to act immediately to stop the spread of this cancer.”
“Of course our role is to defend our country, but the international community is responsible for protecting Iraq and protecting Iraqis and the whole region,” Abadi said at the close of his meeting with Kerry.
Abadi said there was “a role for the international community, for the United Nations” in tackling the threat of ISIS in neighboring Syria.
During Kerry’s visit, three car bombs exploded in a neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, killing 19 people and wounding at least 52 others, officials said.
They said a suicide car bombing followed by a car bomb struck near a police checkpoint in a crowded area of eastern Baghdad.
Kerry due in Saudi Arabia “to battle extremism”
Kerry will meet with ministers from 10 Arab States and Turkey in Saudi Arabia on Thursday to hold talks on joint action against ISIS.
The talks coincide with an address from President Barack Obama at the White House, where he will outline the US’ strategy to confront ISIS and address criticism that he has been slow to respond to a wave of atrocities that has shocked the world.
Britain also announced on Tuesday that it will ship $2.6 million (two million euros) worth of weapons to Kurdish forces in Iraq, to help roll back the militants’ lightning advances.
Kerry’s arrival in the region on Wednesday comes as Washington hailed the formation of the new government in Baghdad.
Iraq’s campaign to claw back territory it lost in the north and west of Baghdad in June, and US efforts to engage neighboring governments in the fightback, have been complicated by regional politics.
Saudi Arabia and the five other Gulf Arab states have had deeply strained relations with the government in Baghdad, with each side blaming the other for the jihadists’ gains.
But their foreign ministers will be among those attending Thursday’s talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah, along with top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq itself.
They will address “terrorism in the region, extremist organizations behind it and means of fighting them,” Saudi state media said.
The Arab League, which has stopped short of explicitly backing ongoing US air strikes against ISIS, also drummed up regional support for the fight.
Ahead of his visit, Kerry vowed to build “the broadest possible coalition of partners around the globe to confront, degrade and ultimately defeat (ISIS).”
“Almost every single country has a role to play in eliminating the (ISIS) threat and the evil that it represents,” he said.
Notably absent from Jeddah will be Russia, the Syrian government – which has not been consulted over possible US airstrikes on its soil – and Iran.
ISIS has taken advantage of the conflict to seize a big chunk of northeastern Syria in fighting with government forces, rival rebel groups and Kurdish militia.
Damascus views itself as a bulwark against the militants, but Washington has ruled out any cooperation.
Washington launched airstrikes against jihadists in Iraq on August 8.
Obama is prepared to authorize air strikes in Syria against ISIS, The New York Times and the Washington Post reported late Tuesday.
An opinion poll published on Tuesday suggested Americans are hawkish towards ISIS, with nearly three-quarters favoring ongoing airstrikes against the group in Iraq while 65 percent would approve extending operations into Syria.
But critics opposed to US involvement in the conflict with ISIS have pointed out that Washington in partnership with its Gulf allies, including Saudi Arabia, played a role in the formation and expansion of extremist groups like ISIS by arming, financing and politically empowering armed opposition groups in Syria.
On Monday, a study by the London-based small-arms research organization Conflict Armament Research revealed that ISIS jihadists appear to be using US military issue arms and weapons supplied to the so-called moderate rebels in Syria by Saudi Arabia.
The report said the jihadists disposed of “significant quantities” of US-made small arms including M-16 assault rifles and included photos showing the markings “Property of US Govt.”
It also found that anti-tank rockets used by ISIS in Syria were “identical to M79 rockets transferred by Saudi Arabia to forces operating under the Free Syrian Army umbrella in 2013.”
The Pentagon said on Tuesday that more strikes had been carried out over the previous two days near western Iraq’s massive Haditha dam as part of operations against ISIS forces.
After months of wrangling, Iraq’s new Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi finally formed a government on Monday that Washington said had “the potential to unite all of Iraq’s diverse communities.”
Kerry described the new government as a “major milestone” after the divisive rule of Abadi’s predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki.
Iran – alongside the United States, the key outside power in Iraq – said it hoped the change of government in Baghdad would help turn the tide against ISIS.
“I hope that during your new mandate, complete calm will return to your country,” President Hassan Rouhani said.
In reality, the new government does not constitute quite the sea-change hailed by Washington, as the divisive Maliki becomes one of three vice presidents.
In other developments, French President Francois Hollande will visit Iraq on Friday ahead of hosting a conference in Paris on security in the country next Monday, his office said.
(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)
CrossTalk: Reinventing NATO?
RT | September 8, 2014
A military alliance in search of an identity: For over two decades NATO has had branding issues. To justify its existence, it absolutely needs an enemy. In the wake of the Ukraine crisis, Russia now fits that bill.
CrossTalking with Mark Sleboda, Alexander Mercouris and Brian Becker.
French President Hollande in Political Storm
teleSUR | September 6, 2014
A survey released on Thursday by TNS Sofres revealed that Francois Hollande had just 13 percent support among the French population, as turmoil in his government continues.
Since popularity polls were begun in 1978, no French president has had such low popularity. […]
Hollande has been implementing austerity reforms, even though he was elected with the motto, “I have only one enemy: the world of finance.”
Last week, the whole cabinet resigned because the economy minister, Arnaud Montebourg, from the left faction of the governing socialist party, criticized this approach. The controversial Emmanuel Macron, a former director of the Rotschild Bank, was then chosen to replace him. … Full article
‘Promoting peace and stability’: NATO warships enter Black Sea
RT | September 4, 2014
A US Navy destroyer and, reportedly, a French frigate have entered the Black Sea, as NATO builds up its presence in the region while tensions remain high in Ukraine. Another two warships are expected to arrive in the area by the end of the week.
The US Navy 6th Fleet official command has confirmed on its official Twitter account that the destroyer USS Ross, (DDG 71), an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, is now in the Black Sea.
“USS Ross enters Black Sea, promoting peace and stability while working with NATO allies and partners,” a statement said.
The US Navy has stressed that “the Ross’ presence in the Black Sea serves to demonstrate the United States’ commitment to strengthening the collective security of NATO allies and partners in the region.”
“The US Navy maintains an enduring commitment to forward-presence throughout the region in order to have ready-forces available if a crisis were to occur,” the statement said.
Another NATO warship, France’s Commandant Birot, also arrived in Black Sea waters on Wednesday night, according to a military diplomatic source cited by the Itar-Tass news agency.
“Both ships have passed through the Bosphorus and entered the Black Sea between 21:00 and 22:00 Moscow time,” the source was quoted as saying.
Commandant Birot has joined another French warship, the Dupuy le Lome, a surveillance ship designed to collect signals and communications from beyond enemy lines. Up until September 4, the Dupuy le Lome was the only NATO ship in the region. The vessel is scheduled to leave the area on September 5.
A total of four NATO warships are expected to enter the Black Sea before September 7. The USS Ross and Commandant Birot will be joined by Canada’s HMCS Toronto, a Halifax-class frigate, and a Spanish frigate, the Almirante Juan de Borbon.
Under the Montreux Convention of 1936, warships of non-Black Sea states can stay in the Black Sea for no more than 21 days. It also stipulates that the maximum deadweight of a non-regional warship in the area should not exceed 45,000 tons.
NATO warships have been operating in the area since this spring, when tensions started escalating between Kiev forces and rebels in southeastern Ukraine.
Despite the three-week limit, the alliance has managed to secure its presence in the area by constantly rotating warships there.
Deployed to the region in mid-May, the Dupuy le Lome was preceded by the destroyer USS Donald Cook, sent to the Black Sea in early April.
In July this year, NATO deployed a total of nine vessels, setting a record for the post-Soviet period.
On August 7, the US missile cruiser Vella Gulf entered the Black Sea and left the region at the end of the month.
NATO has been discussing its “more visible” presence in Eastern Europe, referring to the three Baltic States – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – as there has been little progress in resolving the conflict in Ukraine. The issue is now being discussed in Wales, where the military alliance is meeting on Thursday and Friday.
The US and the international community have accused Russia of supporting opposition forces in southeastern Ukraine, accusations that have been denied by Moscow.
Russia has condemned NATO’s activities in the Black Sea and branded them a provocation that hinders the normalization of the situation in Ukraine.
France says it cannot deliver Mistral warship to Russia over Ukraine
RT | September 3, 2014
France has suspended delivery of the first of two Mistral helicopter carrier ships to Russia, due to events in eastern Ukraine.
“The situation is serious. Russia’s recent actions in the east of Ukraine contravene the fundamental principles of European security,” said a statement from the office of President Francois Hollande.
“The president of the Republic has concluded that despite the prospect of ceasefire, which has yet to be confirmed and put in place, the conditions under which France could authorise the delivery of the first helicopter carrier are not in place.”
The office informed AFP that the suspension would be next reviewed before November.
“Legally, nothing has changed and the contract is still in force, and the first vessel is still due for delivery on November 1. But a political decision has been taken. The President is saying that if nothing changes, he cannot allow the delivery to go through,” one of Hollande’s representatives told Russia’s RIA news agency.
As the rift over Ukraine has widened, Russian officials have repeatedly said that they would accept the French government’s failure to deliver the ships, as long as it paid the penalty for breaking the contract, which, could potentially exceed the cost of the ships themselves.
“This is not a tragedy, though of course the news is unpleasant. It will not affect our armament plans. We will act in accordance with international laws and the statutes of the contract,” said Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov, in a statement.
The two ships were commissioned by Russia in 2011 at a cost of $1.6 billion. The first of these, the Vladivostok, was due to come into service at the end of this year, with the second, the Sevastopol, due to be completed in 2015.
France’s suspension does not fall under the sectoral sanctions the EU and the US imposed upon Russia for purported meddling in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, introduced last month. That raft of sanctions did not cover deals signed before their imposition.
But it could be covered under new sanctions sanctions the EU is expected to introduce this week, which may earn France a temporary reprieve from compensation under the terms of the contract.
While Moscow officials earlier admitted that in terms of efficiency and versatility the cutting-edge Mistral has no equivalent in the Russian Navy, the deal was always considered controversial, as France was a Cold War adversary, and is a founding member of NATO.
Indeed, there had been speculation of NATO taking over the Mistral order from Russia, following a proposal from a group of US congressmen back in May. Earlier this week, the Alliance chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen did not rule out the possibility, but said that it “remains a national decision, not for NATO to interfere.” In the aftermath of the announcement from Hollande, NATO maintained that it wasn’t forcing France to suspend the sale.
Previously US President Barack Obama said France should “press the pause button” on the deal, while fighting in Ukraine is in progress.
Previously, French officials resisted, citing concerns over reputational damage, and saying that the financial penalties might hurt Paris more than Moscow. Even if France does now decide to sell the ships to someone else, it will have to refit them, as every aspect, from the helicopter pads to hull alloys is custom-made to Russian specifications.
Kerry’s Poor Record for Veracity
Secretary of State Kerry has earned an unenviable reputation for bombastic exaggeration at times when diplomatic caution is needed, a pattern that he has demonstrated again in rushing to judgment over the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
By Ray McGovern | Consortium News | July 22, 2014
The last time a major war loomed on the near horizon, Secretary of State John Kerry played fast and loose with the facts. In a speech on Aug. 30, 2013, he solemnly claimed, no fewer than 35 times, “we know” that the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad was responsible for chemical attacks outside Damascus on Aug. 21.
Just a few days later it became abundantly clear that Kerry did not know. There was instead a great deal of uncertainty within the U.S. intelligence community. And, to their credit, my former colleagues in CIA and in the Defense Intelligence Agency stood their ground by refusing to say “we know.”
Indeed, the dog-not-barking moment in the Syria-sarin case was the absence of U.S. intelligence officials sitting behind Kerry when he testified about his supposed knowledge to the U.S. Congress. Unlike the tableau in 2003 when CIA Director George Tenet positioned himself behind Secretary of State Colin Powell to give silent endorsement to Powell’s false allegations about Iraqi WMD to the United Nations Security Council, Kerry had no such support when he made his case against Syria’s government, although the clueless U.S. mainstream news media failed to notice this significant absence.
We Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) tried to alert President Barack Obama to this lack of consensus among our former colleagues in a Memorandum for the President on Sept. 6. Determined to avoid a redux of the fraudulent intelligence performance on Iraqi WMD, our former colleagues refused to “fix the intelligence around the policy” – again. The opposition was so strong that not even the malleable CIA Director John Brennan could give Kerry the usual “Intelligence Assessment” he wanted. So the best the Obama administration could cook up was something called a “Government Assessment” bereft of verifiable evidence and shorn of the normal dissents that intelligence analysts file with traditional estimates.
The reason for this internal intelligence community resistance was that, from the start, it made little sense that Assad would have launched a sarin attack right outside Damascus just as UN inspectors were unpacking at their Damascus hotel, having arrived in Syria to examine another chemical incident that Assad was blaming on the rebels. Further, the evidence quickly began to accumulate that the Syrian rebels had sarin and that they may well have been the ones who released it on Aug. 21 in a scheme to push Obama across his “red line” against the use of chemical weapons and induce the U.S. military to join the civil war on the rebel side.
At the time, the rebels were increasingly desperate. They had suffered a string of setbacks earlier last summer. The Turks, who had been aiding the rebels, also were growing convinced that only open U.S. military involvement could avert a looming defeat. So they set out, with apparent support of hawks in the U.S. State Department, to mousetrap President Obama into “retaliating” against Syria for crossing the “red line.”
Kerry’s performance on Aug. 30 – with all his “we knows” – was a clarion call for attacking Syria and might have prevailed, were it not for the fact that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey intervened and talked sense to the President. Less than 24 hours after Kerry spoke, Obama surprised virtually everyone in Official Washington by announcing that he had decided not to attack Syria immediately as expected, but rather would go to Congress for authorization.
How close the world came to another U.S. war was underscored by the fact that after Obama’s decision, France, which had been eager to attack, had to be told to decrease the alert status of the fighter-bombers it had on the tarmac. Israel had to be told it could relax the highest-alert posture of its defenses.
On Sept. 1, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham angrily confirmed that Dempsey’s intervention had put the kibosh on their clearly expressed desire to attack Syria post-haste.
Kerry: Giving It the College Try
But an attack on Syria was still in play and Kerry gave a bravura performance in his Sept. 3 testimony to a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee whose leaders showed by their own remarks the degree to which they, too, were lusting for an attack on Syria. Kerry’s testimony on Syria included a transparent attempt to play down the effectiveness of al-Qaeda affiliates in gaining control of the armed opposition to Assad.
Kerry’s testimony drew a highly unusual personal criticism from Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a televised meeting of the Russian Presidential Human Rights Council on Sept. 4, Putin said, “He [Kerry] is lying, and he knows he is lying. It is sad.”
But Kerry continued to dissemble. Still arguing for war on Syria, Kerry was asked at the end of a Sept. 9 press conference in London whether there was anything Assad could do to prevent a U.S. attack. Kerry answered (quite dismissively, in view of subsequent events) that Assad could give up every one of his chemical weapons, but “he isn’t about to do that; it can’t be done.”
However, such a plan was already afoot, being pushed by Putin’s diplomats. Later that same day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Syrian counterpart announced that Syria had agreed to allow all its chemical weapons to be removed and destroyed. Cutting out Kerry, Obama had cut a deal directly with Putin. All Syria’s chemical weapons have now been destroyed.
So this is the backdrop against which to give credence, or not, to Kerry’s stacking up the evidence against Russia for the shoot-down of the Malaysian airliner on Thursday over Ukraine.
The Israel Lobby and French Politics
By Evan Jones | CounterPunch | July 9, 2014
Pascal Boniface is a specialist in what the French call ‘geopolitics’. His output has been prodigious, traversing a wide variety of subjects. His latest book was published in May, titled: La France malade du conflit israélo-palestinien. For his literary efforts in this arena, Boniface has moved from respected commentator to being persona non grata in the mainstream media.
This story begins in 2001. Boniface was an adviser to the Parti Socialiste, with the PS then in a cohabitation government under RPR President Jacques Chirac and PS Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. In April 2001, he wrote an opinion for PS officials. The Party’s approach to Israel is based on realpolitik rather than on ethical principles, and it was time for a reappraisal.
Boniface published an article to the same effect in Le Monde in August 2001, which led to a response and rebuke by the then Israeli ambassador. Boniface then became fair game for the Israel lobby (my term – Boniface assiduously avoids it). Boniface was accused, via selective quotation, of urging the PS to cynically cater to the French Arab/Muslim community, more numerous than the Jewish community, to gain electoral advantage. As recently as January 2014, Alain Finkielkraut (rabble-rouser on the ‘Islamist’ problem in France) denounced Boniface on the same grounds.
The 1300 word 2001 note is reproduced in Boniface’s latest book. In a prefatory note to the reproduction, Boniface notes: “How many times have I not heard that one can’t move on the Middle East because of the ‘Jewish vote’ (sic) which of course does not exist but which nevertheless is largely taken on board by the elected of all sides.” Again, “It is not because there are more Arabs than Jews that it is necessary to condemn the Israeli Occupation; it is rather because the Occupation is illegal and illegitimate, contrary to universal principles and to the right of peoples to govern themselves.”
In the note itself, Boniface opines: “The intellectual terrorism that consists of accusing of anti-Semitism those who don’t accept the politics of Israeli governments (as opposed to the state of Israel), profitable in the short term, will prove to be disastrous in the end.” Paraphrasing Boniface: ‘… it will act to reinforce and expand an irritation with the French Jewish community, and increasingly isolate it at the national level.’ Boniface concludes:
“It is better to lose an election than to lose one’s soul. But in putting on the same level the government of Israel and the Palestinians, one risks simply to lose both. Does the support of Sharon [then Prime Minister] warrant a loss in 2002? It is high time that the PS … faces the reality of a situation more and more abnormal, more and more perceived as such, and which besides does not serve … the interests in the medium and long term of the Israeli people and of the French Jewish community.”
As Boniface highlights in 2014, “This note, alas, retains its topicality.”
Then comes 9/11 in September. There is the second Intifada in Palestine. Boniface wanted an internal debate in the PS, but is accused of anti-Semitism. The glib denunciation of terrorism brings with it a prohibition against the questioning of its causes.
Not content to be silenced, Boniface wrote a book in 2003, titled Est-il permis de critique Israël ?. Boniface was rejected by seven publishing houses before finding a publisher. In 2011, Boniface published a book titled Les Intellectuels Faussaires (The Counterfeit Intellectuals). In that book he called to account eight prominent individuals, not for their views (virulently pro-Israel, Neo-cons, Islamophobes) but because he claims, with evidence, that they persistently bend the truth. Yet they all regularly appear on the French mainstream media as expert commentators. The point here is that the 2011 book was rejected by fourteen publishers; add those who Boniface knew would be a waste of time approaching. Belatedly, Boniface found a willing small-scale publisher for Faussaires, and it has sold well in spite of a blackout in outlets that Boniface had expected some coverage.
Boniface also notes that Michel Bôle-Richard, recognized journalist at Le Monde, experienced a rejection for his manuscript Israël, le nouvel apartheid by ten publishing houses before he found a small-scale publisher in 2013. Boniface’s La France malade was rejected by the house that published his 2003 book. By default, it has been published by a small-scale Catholic press, Éditions Salvator. As Boniface notes, ‘this is symptomatic of the climate in France and precisely why this book had to be written’. It’s noteworthy that much of the non-mainstream media, including Marianne, Le Canard Enchainé and Mediapart, steers clear of the issue.
Boniface’s book is not about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Rather, it is about the parlous influence of the domestic Israel lobby on French politics and French society more broadly. Boniface claims that one can criticize any government in the world (one can even mercilessly attack the reigning French President), but not that of Israel.
After 2001, the PS was pressured to excommunicate him. Two regional presses ceased to publish his articles. There were attempts to discredit his organization – the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques – and to have him removed. He has been slurred as an anti-Semite.
At the peak of French Jewish organizations is the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France. CRIF’s formal dominant concern is the combating of anti-Semitism. At its annual dinner, its President cites the yearly total of recorded anti-Semitic incidents, berating the assembled political elite (‘the turn up of Ministers rivals that of the 14th July’) who don’t dare to reply.
There are indeed recurring anti-Semitic events, and there was a noticeable surge for several years in the early 2000s. Prime Minister Jospin was blamed for not keeping a lid on troublemakers (read Arab/Muslim) from the banlieues. The Socialists were ousted in 2002 and CRIF became a vocal advocate for and supporter of the new Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy’s domestic hard-line against civil disorder.
But Jospin was ‘guilty’ of more. One of the PS’s most ardent supporters of Israel, Jospin visited Israel and the Occupied Territories in 1999. Experiencing the latter first hand, his government’s policy towards Sharon-led Israel becomes less ardent. For CRIF, France’s less than a 100% plus pro-Israel stance puts French Jews at greater risk, so CRIF maintains as its imperative to influence both foreign and domestic policy. After the Merah murders of (amongst others) three Jewish children and an adult at a Toulouse school in 2012, CRIF was still laying blame on Jospin. As Boniface notes, CRIF perennially attempts to influence France’s policies but refrains from attempting to influence Israel’s policies.
When the publisher of Boniface’s 2003 book rejected the latest proposal (originally planned as a revised edition of the earlier book), the excuse was that it was over-laden with statistics. Statistics there are (helped by French infatuation with surveys and polling), and they ground Boniface’s cause.
Boniface highlights a change in attitudes after the 1960s. Anti-Semitism was still observably prevalent in the 1960s (would you accept Jews as in-laws?, a Jewish President?, etc.) but has since been consistently in decline. At the same time, popular support for Israel has experienced consistent decline. Until 1967, support for Israel, as the ‘underdog’, in France was high. Gradually attitudes have changed. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 is a turning point. Increasingly the manifestations of conflict – the intifadas, the failures at Camp David and later of Oslo – are blamed on Israel. Increasingly, the sympathy is more in favor of the occupied rather than the occupier.
In 2003, a European-wide survey produced the result that the greatest percentage of those surveyed thought that, of all countries, Israel was a threat to world peace – ahead of the US, Iran and North Korea, and so on. If the facts are ugly then bury them. There has been no subsequent comparable survey.
With anti-Semitism down and dislike for Israeli government policies up, the main agenda of CRIF has been to become a ‘second ambassador’ for Israel under cover of the supposed omnipresent pall of anti-Semitism in France. Other organizations like the Bureau national de vigilance contre l’anti-sémitisme (BNVCA) and the Union des étudiants juifs de France (UEJF) are part of the Israel cheer squad.
Boniface cites CRIF President Roger Cukierman in 2005: “Teachers have a demanding task to teach our children … the art of living together, the history of religions, of slavery, of anti-Semitism. A labor of truth is also essential to inscribe Zionism, this movement of emancipation, amongst the great epics of human history, and not as a repulsive fantasy.” And CRIF President Richard Prasquier in 2011: “Today Jews are attacked for their support of Israel, for Israel has become the ‘Jew’ amongst nations.” After 2008, following the ascendancy of Prasquier to the CRIF presidency, CRIF institutionalizes the organization of trips to Israel by French opinion leaders, and the reception in France of Israeli personalities.
Boniface finds it odious that anti-Semitism should be ‘instrumentalized’ to protect Israeli governments regardless of their actions. There is the blanket attempt at censorship of all events and materials that open Israel’s policies to examination.
Representative is a planned gathering in January 2011 at the prestigious École normale supérieure of 300 people to debate the ‘boycott’ question. Among the participants were the Israeli militant peacenik Nurit Peled, who lost her daughter in a suicide bombing, and the formidable Stéphane Hessel. The ENS’s director cancelled the booking under direct pressure. The higher education Minister and bureaucracy were also lobbied, in turn putting pressure on the ENS.
In February 2010, Sarkozy’s Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie issued a directive criminalizing those calling for a boycott of Israeli products. The formal reason given was that such a boycott militates against the freedom of commerce. The directive imposes a jail sentence and a heavy fine, and the Justice Minister instructed prosecutors that it is to be vigorously applied. Even the magistrature has criticized the directive, noting that its claimed dependence on a 2004 anti-discrimination law is inadmissible, and that it involves ‘a juridical assault of rare violence’ against a historic means of combating crimes of state. The directive remains in force under the Hollande Presidency.
The most striking reflection of the wholesale censorship agenda of the Israel lobby is the abuse of Jewish critics of Israel.
April 2010, under the banner Jcall.edu, a group of respected European Jews criticize the Occupation in defense of a more secure Israel, urging ‘two peoples, two states’ – they are attacked. March 2012, Jacob Cohen, Jewish critic of Israel, is physically menaced by the Ligue de défense juive (LDJ) during the launch of his book. November 2012, the mayoralty of the 19th arrondisement is attacked by the BNVCA for supporting an exhibition on the Negev Bedouins. Its sponsors, the Union juive française pour la paix (UJFP), are characterized as fronts for Palestinian propaganda. December 2012, Israeli Michel Warschawski is awarded the ‘prix des droits de l’homme de la République française’ – he is demonized. Other prominent Jewish intellectuals – Franco-Israeli Charles Enderlin, Rony Brauman, Edgar Morin, Esther Benbassa, members of the UJPF – are demonized.
July 2014, three young Jewish Israelis have been murdered. Charles Enderlin reports from Israel. The television channel France 2 mis-edits Enderlin’s reportage of ‘three young Israelis’ as ‘young colonists’. Widely respected for his sober reporting, Enderlin has been subsequently subject to a volley of abuse – thus: ‘it’s time to organise a commando to bump off this schmuck’.
April 2012, at the first Congress of friends of Israel. Israeli Ofer Bronchtein, President of the Forum international pour la paix, arrives as an official invitee. The LDJ attack him; the organisers, including CRIF, ask him to leave. Bronchtein later noted:
“If I had been attacked by anti-Semites in the street, numerous Jewish organisations would have quickly called for a demonstration at the Bastille. When it is fascist Jewish organisations that attack me, everybody remains silent …”
February 2013, Stéphane Hessel dies. Hessel’s life is an exemplar of courage and moral integrity; in his advanced years, this life was brought to our attention with the publication of his Indignez-vous ! in 2010. Hessel, part Jewish, was a strong critic of the Occupation and of the 2008-09 Gaza massacre. His death is met with bile from the lobby. CRIF labelled him a flawed thinker from whom they had little to learn and a doddery naïf giving comfort to the evil of others. A blogger on JssNews ranted: ‘Hessel! The guy who stinks the most. Not only his armpits but his inquisitorial fingers regarding the Jews of Israel.’ The LDJ celebrated – ‘Hessel the anti-Semite is dead! Champagne! [with multiple exclamation marks].’
Peculiarly in France, there is the LDJ. Its counterparts banned in Israel and the US (albeit not in Canada), the LDJ represents the strong-arm end of the Israel lobby. CRIF looks the other way. Boniface notes that it has been treated leniently to date by the authorities; is it necessary to wait for a death to confront its menace? On the recent murder of the three young Israelis, an LDJ tweet proffers: ‘The murders are all committed by the apostles of Islam. No Arabs, no murders! LDJ will respond rapidly and forcefully.’
As a de facto ambassador for Israel, the lobby has long attempted to influence French foreign policy. Boniface notes that in 1953 the new Israeli ambassador was met by Jewish representatives with the claim that ‘we are French citizens and you are the envoy of a foreign state’. That was then.
At successive annual dinners, CRIF has called for France to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s ‘eternal’ capital, and to incorporate Israel as a member state in the Francophonie (with the associated financial benefits and cultural leverage). On those fronts, CRIF has been unsuccessful. But it has had success on the broader front.
The turning point comes with President Chirac’s refusal to sanction the coalition of the willing in its criminal rush to invade Iraq in March 2003. The lobby is not amused. Now why would that be? In whose interests did the invasion and occupation occur? Chirac’s reluctance is met with a concerted strategy of the French lobby in combination with the US Israel lobby and US government officials to undermine the French position. Thus the ‘French bashing’ campaign – not generated spontaneously by the offended American masses after all. In his 2008 book, then CRIF President Roger Cukierman notes his gratitude for the power of the US lobby, and its capacity to even pressure the French leadership over Iraq.
Boniface claims that Chirac falls into line as early as May 2003. There is the establishment of high level links between France and Israel. After that … Sharon is welcomed to France in July 2005. France denies acknowledgement of the Hamas electoral victory in January 2006. France demurs on Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006 (in spite of the historic ties between Beirut and Paris). France remains ‘prudent’ regarding Israel’s Operation Cast Lead against Gaza in late 2008 and the murderous assault on the Turkish-led flotilla in May 2010. France did vote ‘yes’ to a Palestinian state at the UN in November 2012, but in general French foreign policy has become captive to Israeli imperatives, thanks in particular to the domestic lobby.
* * *
In February 2006 a young Jew Ilam Halimi is tortured and murdered. The shocking event becomes a cause célèbre in the media. Halimi’s killer was an anti-Semite. The killer’s hapless gang members receive various sentences, but parts of the Jewish community complain of their inadequacy, want a retrial and lobby the Élysée. The Halimi murder has since been memorialized with a school prize for the guarding against anti-Semitism, and several films are being produced. At about the same time an auto worker had been murdered for money (as was Halimi). The latter murder received only a couple of lines in the press.
Boniface produces summary statistics that highlight the violent underbelly in French society. A shocking count of conjugal murders, large-scale infanticide and rampant child abuse. Tens of thousands of attacks on police and public sector workers. A string of shocking gang attacks with death threats against members of the Asian and Turkish communities – those presumed to keep much liquid cash in their homes. Boniface notes that the anti-Semitic attacks (some misinterpreted in their character) need to be put into perspective.
And then there’s the Arab/Muslim communities. A survey was desirably undertaken in schools to combat racism. A student innocently notes that any tendency to display anti-Semitism is met with a huge apparatus of condemnation. (The 2002 Lellouche Law raised the penalties for racism and explicitly for anti-Semitism.) On the other hand, noted the student, tendencies to racist discrimination against blacks or Arabs are ignored or treated lightly.
There is, as Boniface expresses it, deux poids, deux mesures – two weights, two measures. It is widely felt and widely resented. TWTM could be the motif of Boniface’s book.
Arabs and blacks often refrain from reporting abuse or assaults with the prospect that the authorities will not pursue the complaint. Women wearing the veil are perennially harassed and physically attacked. A young pregnant woman is punched in the stomach; she loses her child. There is perennial use of the term ‘dirty Arab’. Arabs and blacks are perennially harassed by police because of their appearance and presumed ethnicity. Islamophobia escalates, with implicit support from CRIF and from pro-Israel celebrities such as Alain Finkielkraut. (Finkielkraut was recently beamed up to the celestial Académie française; his detractors were labelled anti-Semites.)
Salutary is the perennial humiliation experienced by Mustapha Kessous, journalist for Le Monde. Boniface notes that Kessous ‘possesses a perfect mastery of social conventions and of the French language’. Not sufficient it appears. On a cycle or in a car he is stopped by police who ask of him if he has stolen it. He visits a hospital but is asked, ‘where is the journalist’? He attends court and is taken to be the defendant, and so on.
In 2005, a Franco-Palestinian Salah Hamouri was arrested at a checkpoint and eventually indicted on a trumped up charge of involvement in the murder of a rabbi. In 2008 he took a ‘plea bargain’ and was given 7 years in jail. He was released in 2011 in the group exchange with the release of French IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. In France, Shalit is treated with reverence, though a voluntary enrolee of an occupying force. Hamouri’s plight has been treated with indifference. TWTM.
In March 2010, Said Bourarach, an Arab security guard at a shop in Bobigny, is murdered by a group of young men, Jewish and known to the police. They get off, meanwhile alleging that the murdered guard had thrown anti-Semitic insults. In December 2013, young Jews beat up an Arab waiter for having posted a quenelle (an anti-authority hand gesture ridiculously claimed to be replicating a Nazi stance and thus anti-Semite) on a social network. The event received no coverage.
TWTM. The media is partly responsible. The authorities in their manifest partisanry are partly responsible. The lobby is heavily responsible.
Boniface is, rightly, obsessed with the promise of universalism formally rooted in Republican France. He objects to the undermining of this imperative by those who defend indefensible policies of Israeli governments and who divert and distort politics in France towards that end.
For his pains, Boniface is denigrated and marginalized. Evidently, he declines to accept defeat. Hence La France malade …
Evan Jones is a retired political economist from the University of Sydney. He can be reached at:evan.jones@sydney.edu.au
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Mossad ‘in contact from very beginning’ with killers of Italian PM, reporter reveals
By Kit Klarenberg and Wyatt Reed | The Grayzone | October 5, 2025
A roving reporter who covered Italy’s top politicians explains to The Grayzone how his country was reduced to a joint US-Israeli “aircraft carrier,” and raises troubling questions about an Israeli role in the killing of Prime Minister Aldo Moro.
For years, Israel’s Mossad monitored and secretly influenced a violent communist faction that carried out the March 16, 1978 kidnapping and murder of Italian statesman Aldo Moro, veteran investigative journalist Eric Salerno has documented.
Having worked closely alongside multiple Italian heads of state during his 30-year career as a correspondent, Salerno published an expose of their secret relationship with Israeli intelligence in 2010 called Mossad Base Italy. … continue
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