Africa in Crisis- The Merged Superthread

[time expired]

In one of the books that I read about Rwanda, I'm damned if I can remember
which one,sorry,I read about the aftermath of the shooting down of the
Presidents aircraft.The UN staff attempted to get to the crash site but were
stopped by a group of white men with short haircuts carrying French weapons.
The aircraft was reportedly shot down by 2 light SAMs(as in shoulderfired)
weapons that the Rwandan army did not have in service.Another point that
could indicate Frances desire to cover something up at the time,was the fast
deployment of French troops to guard the refugee camps where most of the
perpetrators of the massacres ended up after the Tutsi army had gained the
upper hand in Rwanda.
After the Rainbow Warrior incident in New Zealand I would take any French
denials with a large grain of salt.
                                  Regards

 

[time expired]

Something I failed to mention in my last was the fact that the Hutu
were French speakers and the Tutsi  mainly English speakers and
the French had always supported the Hutu.
                                      Regards

 

[aesop081]

But you can blame the division between Hutus and Tutsis on the Belgians.

There's plenty of blame to go around.

 

[geo]

Umm... the division was already there - two tribes occupying +/- the same piece of land.
The trouble was the Belgians befriended the Hutus and used them as their administrators and plantation managers.  When the Belgians decided to call colonialism quits, they handed everything over to Hutu control - the smaller of the two tribes.

 

[aesop081]

The trouble was the Belgians befriended the Hutus and used them as their administrators and plantation managers.  When the Belgians decided to call colonialism quits, they handed everything over to Hutu control - the smaller of the two tribes.

I'm aware of that and that is what i meant.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Umm... the division was already there - two tribes occupying +/- the same piece of land.
The trouble was the Belgians befriended the Hutus and used them as their administrators and plantation managers.  When the Belgians decided to call colonialism quits, they handed everything over to Hutu control - the smaller of the two tribes.

A few misconceptions there.  Hutus are in the majority; Tutsis are the minority, but dating before German colonization were the traditional ruling class of the area and the existing societal structure was maintained by the Germans and continued by the Belgians when they accepted the League of Nations Mandate to govern Ruanda-Urundi following WW1.  As Pan-Africanism swept across the continent following WW2, the Tutsis (still making up the ruling and better educated class) lead the movement for independence (or at least were the first most vocal about it).  There were some moves from Belgian authorities to dilute the influence of the Tutsis and this resulted in a growing power base for Hutus.  When the referendum for independence voted (with the support of the Belgians) to abolish the Tutsi monarchy and establish a republic, the first president was a Hutu. 

Something I failed to mention in my last was the fact that the Hutu were French speakers and the Tutsi  mainly English speakers and the French had always supported the Hutu.

I don't think that the divide was ever along linguistic lines.  Most Rwandans speak Kinyarwanda as their primary tongue, though French and English are also official languages.  French was most assuredly the language of government administration and business during the Belgian colonial period and this continued immediately following independence.  Educated Rwandans would have used French in school and perhaps many learned English there.  This thread gives some indication about the adoption of English in Rwanda.  From my recollection of looking at a few Rwandan National Identity Cards back in 1994, the info was in a bilingual format, Kinyarwanda and French. (edited to add - link to image of Rwandan ID Card)

 

[time expired]

There seems to be a completely difference in the background of these
two peoples.The Hutu appear to be typical central African in appearance
while the Tutsi look east African,almost Ethiopian.I understand that during
the struggle for Independence many of the Tutsis fled to a neighbouring country
that was an exBrit colony,hence the widespread use of English.
I am sure Blackadder 1916 would be able to clear these questions up.
                                                    Regards

 

[Blackadder1916]

There seems to be a completely difference in the background of these two peoples.  . . .

There is no simple explanation.  During our pre-deployment briefings back in 1994 reference was made to physical differences between the two groups that it was made to seem that you would be able to tell the person's "tribe" simply by looking at them.  While sometimes there were certain characteristics of appearance among members of the RPA that made you assume they were Tutsi, it was not always so.  There has been a lot of study of the differences between Hutu and Tutsi since 1994 and some of the preconceptions have been broken.

These extracts are from Wikipedia. (yes I know, but it does condense some of the current theories very well and saves me from a lot of writing and adding multiple links)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutsi#Origins

The ideas surrounding real and supposed ethnic groups in Rwanda have a very long and complicated history. The definitions of "Hutu" and "Tutsi" may have changed through time and location. Societal structures were not identical throughout Rwanda. There was clearly a Tutsi aristocracy that was distinguished from Tutsi commoners, and wealthy Hutu were often indistinguishable from upper class Tutsi. When the Belgian colonists conducted their censuses, they desired to classify the people throughout Rwanda-Urundi with a single classification scheme. They merely defined "Tutsi" as anyone with more than ten cows or a long nose. The "European-like" noses of some Rwandans, invoked historical and racial theories to explain how some Africans acquired such noses. According to these early twentieth-century Europeans such organization and such noses could only be explained by European descent, transmitted by way of Ethiopia.) Modern day genetic studies on the y-chromosome show the Tutsi to be 100% indigenous African (80% e3a, 4% e3, 1% e3b and 15%B) with little to no East African genetic influence. [1] In fact, the Tutsis are most genetically similar to the Hutu. There is currently no mtDNA data available for the Tutsi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutu#Competing_theories_about_origins

. . .  Several theories exist to explain the Tutsi and their differences (if any) from the Hutu. One is that the Tutsi were a Bantu language people who migrated south from what is now Ethiopia, conquering the Hutu kingdoms and establishing dominance over the Hutu and Twa between the 15th and 18th centuries.[6] However, an alternate theory, that the Hutu and Tutsi were originally one people, but were artificially divided by German and then Belgian colonists so the Tutsi minority could serve as local overseers for Berlin and Brussels, has received support among those supporting Rwandan national unity, but may be an attempt at historical revisionism.[7][8] Still others suggest that the two groups are related but not identical, and that the differences between the two were exacerbated by Europeans[9] or by a gradual, natural split as those who owned cattle became known as Tutsi and those who did not became Hutu.[5] Mahmood Mamdani states that the Belgian colonial power designated people as Tutsi or Hutu on the basis of cattle ownership, physical measurements and church records.[10]

It has been a few years since I was last in Rwanda, but not many people self-identify themselves by tribe.  Most simply want to be known as Rwandans.

 

[time expired]

Thanks,Blackadder,that answers my question.Sorry I missed your
reference to Rwanda in your previous post.Were you there at the
time of the Presidents crash or do you know more about the circumstances
surrounding it?.
                  Regards

 

[Blackadder1916]

. . .  Were you there at the time of the Presidents crash or do you know more about the circumstances surrounding it?.

No, I was first there in the aftermath of the genocide and was back there since my retirement from the military.  My knowledge of the crash is like most others, limited to what was reported.  I suppose that I may pay more attention when Rwanda pops up in the media because of my slim connection to the place.

 

[Blackadder1916]

France rejects Rwanda's genocide accusations
Rwandan investigators issued a report Wednesday that implicates French soldiers – and top French officials – in the 1994 genocide.

By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the August 07, 2008 edition -

PARIS
Official French reaction to the Rwandan accusation that French leaders, diplomats, and soldiers were complicit in the epic 1994 genocide in Rwanda was muted and curt.

"Unacceptable," said both former French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé, and a diplomatic spokesman here during a sleepy week when most of Paris has decamped for vacation. Yet some French nongovernmental organizations, media, and intellectuals treated accusations that France aided and abetted Hutu government forces in the 100-day killing spree, which left more than 800,000 dead, as at least a subject for further inquiry.

"There is something not clear in France's responsibility in Rwanda," argued a column in the Paris-based daily, Libération, though it noted that the report, by a Rwandan presidential commission, does not carry the significance of a body like the United Nations' Rwanda war crimes tribunal – set up at the same time as the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Le Monde hit the subject slightly harder in a headline reading, "Rwanda's genocide: a duty to tell the truth."

Tit-for-tat accusations

Rwandan president Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, launched an inquiry that led to a 500-page document naming 33 senior French officials – including former President François Mitterrand and former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin – in 2006, immediately after a famous French antiterrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, in 2006 said Mr. Kagame had masterminded the downing of an aircraft carrying former Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu.

The downed plane question is extremely sensitive in Rwanda – "something like a 9/11 event in the US," says Thomas Cargill, a specialist at Chatham House, a think tank in London – since it is regarded as the trigger for bloodshed between Hutus and Tutsis.

Kagame denies involvement, but he has treated the nonbinding indictment as an insult – given widespread local views that French UN peacekeepers favored the Hutu government and did little to stop the killing.

Yet the report Kagame initiated goes further.

Along with charging that French forces trained Hutu military squads and aided in forcing hundreds of thousands of Tutsis out of their homes, it says that French support "was of a political, military, diplomatic, and logistical nature."

A French parliamentary investigation in 1998 found that "errors of judgment …were made," but denied that French peacekeepers helped the Hutu militants.

Kagame's justice minister called for the 33 French officials to be brought to justice by "competent authorities," without spelling out what that meant.

Paris writer and intellectual Jean Hatzfeld argues on the website of the French weekly news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur that French soldiers may have witnessed the slaughter, but were not any more culpable than they were in Bosnia, where they also served as peacekeepers during the Balkan wars. "The situation [in Rwanda] was very confusing. As in Bosnia ... France was on the ground during the massacre." He went on to say, "We can share responsibility without being guilty."

Battle to shape world opinion

Mr. Cargill, at Chatham House, argues that Rwanda and France are trying to have their own version of the horrific event accepted as truth.

"In France, Belgium, and among the Rwandan Hutu diaspora, there's a sizable group that feel angry at what they perceive as international sympathy for the Kagame government," says Cargill. "Rwanda and France should cooperate, but I don't see that happening quickly."

The Paris NGO Survie, which has tracked the Rwanda issue since 1992, asserts that France was unquestionably involved. "France was complicit with a regime that committed a genocide, and knew ahead of time what would happen," says Sharon Courtoux of Survie. "It's a nasty business, and most countries don't like to admit such things."

The French response is not surprising.  There had been some efforts on the part of France earlier this year to re-establish diplomatic ties with Rwanda;  I imagine that they are, now, less keen.

 

[cameron]

BOTH France and Belgium have a lot to answer for in Rwanda.  The horrifying actions of the Hutus were certainly inexcusable but the policy of ALL the colonial powers in Africa of sowing mistrust and resentment among various ethnic groups in order to maintain control has left a legacy that is still being manifested in Africa today.

 

[Kirkhill]

Cameron, I can't agree with your implicit assumption that without the "Colonials" Africa would be any different now than it is.

The "colonials" didn't have to "sow mistrust".  The mistrust predated them.

Africa is replete with tales of Black Empires, Black on Black Genocides and Black-Black slavery, not to mention Arab-Black, Ethiopian-Black and Nilotic-Black conflict.

Africa suffers from too long a history.

 

[time expired]

I suppose that is the popular opinion,that the earlier colonists
are responsible for everthing that goes wrong in Africa.But I
think that is an opinion that does not fit the historical facts,before
colonisation tribal warfare was part of the everyday life of Africans,
much like the Indians of North America,the colonists put a stop to
that.Admittedly they did use this warlike attitude whenever it suited
their purpose, they did not however, teach the African how to fight
and kill their neighbours, they had plenty of experience at doing that
and ,incidentally,selling their beaten neighbours to Arab traders as slaves.
 I feel that the African are just reverting to type,the situation is of
course made more complicated by the arbitrary borders drawn by the
colonists but I do not feel that everthing should be loaded on the
shoulders of the former colonial powers although of course this is
the PC opinion here in the West.
                                   Regards

 

[cameron]

While animosity among African ethnic groups predated the colonial period, the colonists certainly exacerbated it to suit their purposes and those arbitrary borders are a big part of the problem now.  Also the slavery which existed in pre-colonial Africa as in all ancient societies including European ones cannot be compared to that encouraged by European slave traders in Africa in terms of sheer scale and brutality.

 

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.  (Title is link to article.)

Canadian journalist possibly kidnapped in Somalia

Saturday, August 23, 2008 | 4:09 PM

A  Canadian woman is one of two journalists abducted near Mogadishu in Somalia by unidentified armed men.

CTV.ca News Staff

The journalists were on their way to visit a refugee camp on Saturday.

A hotel employee in Mogadishu said the two journalists went to Elasha, about 18 kilometres southwest of Mogadishu.

"They left this morning and their whereabouts are unknown," Ajos Mohamed Nor told The Associated Press.

Foreign affairs expert Eric Margolis said the kidnapping of foreigners is a grave problem in Somalia.

"Somalia has got to be the most dangerous and probably lawless place that I can think of," he told CTVNewsnet. "It's been in chaos for over a decade."

Margolis said the situation has dissolved into civil war with fighting between local clans and tribes, making Somalia, and particularly Mogadishu, "extremely dangerous."

"Even foreign aid workers who've come in to try and help have become victims or have been kidnapped or killed and now these two journalists (are) the latest victims of the waves of kidnapping and killing that have been going on for so long," he said.

Somalia's economy has "completely broken down" said Margolis. Kidnapping, piracy and the smuggling of the narcotic shrub known as khat have become the main sources of income.

Canada sent one of its warships to patrol off the coast of Somalia and international flotillas are keeping watch, but it's not the solution, he said.

The last form of stable government in South Somalia was a group of moderate Islamists called the Islamic Court Union, said Margolis. But the U.S., worried that it was an extremist government, aided Somalia's neighbour Ethiopia in invading the country.

"So on top of chaos clan and tribal warfare you have this Ethiopian invasion which is being violently resisted by the Somalis and has caused huge numbers of refugees and many deaths," he said.

Some observers have called the situation worse than Darfur, he said.

Margolis said the U.S. and the rest of the Western world will not succeed in bringing stability to the region.

"There has to be a massive influx of some neutral foreign military force."

He gave the Egyptian and Turkish militaries as examples. However, he is not optimistic they would tackle the problem. 

"No one wants to get involved in this absolute disaster area of a country."

With files from The Associated Press


[Note Highlighted statement.]

 

[OldSolduer]

We could straighten them out, IF the world gives us a chance and the time.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

We could straighten them out, IF the world gives us a chance and the time.

Just the simple fact that we don't have the resources to fight on two fronts at the moment, comes to mind why we can't for starters. And secondly, why should we? It's hard enough dealing with people that want our help. Never mind those that don't. Let's get out of this mindset of moralistic superiority where we have to run off to be the world savior everytime there's a blip in some third world shit hole.

 

[The Bread Guy]

We could straighten them out, IF the world gives us a chance...

Oh, I'm sure a lot of people WANT us to do more in Africa....

...and the time.

...but it would be the politicians and pundits who would want things solved fast (think one election cycle).

Just the simple fact that we don't have the resources to fight on two fronts at the moment, comes to mind why we can't for starters. And secondly, why should we? It's hard enough dealing with people that want our help. Never mind those that don't. Let's get out of this mindset of moralistic superiority where we have to run off to be the world savior everytime there's a blip in some third world shit hole.

Plus what recceguy said....

 

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.  (Title is link to article.)

Gunmen holding Canadian reporter hostage: union

Sunday, August 24, 2008 | 11:56 AM

Gunmen holding Canadian reporter hostage: union

CTV.ca News Staff

Somalia's journalists' union believes that a Canadian and another reporter are being held hostage by gunmen in Mogadishu, one of the world's most lawless places.

"No formal claim of responsibility has been made and the motive for the kidnapping remains unknown. As well, there have been no demands," the National Union of Somali Journalists said Sunday in a statement.

The NUSOJ identified the two as Amanda Lindhout, 26 -- originally from Red Deer, Alta. -- and Nigel Brennan, 27, from Australia.

A local translator and driver were also seized in Saturday's incident.

"It is not clear whether they are being held for political purposes, (as) bargaining chips or for financial purposes. But journalists who spoke on condition of anonymity for their security said the abduction seemed to be a pre-planned attack," the union said.

The two journalists were on a visit to a camp for people who had fled the chaos of Mogadishu when the attack occurred.

We are appalled by this cruel abduction of journalists and call for the immediate release of our colleagues," NUSOJ Secretary General Omar Faruk Osman said in the statement.

"They were simply doing their job of reporting the story and presenting the plight of Somali people to the world."

On Saturday, Lindhout's mother, Lorinda, told CTV Edmonton that her daughter was there because she felt to be a good journalist, she had to be on the frontlines to tell peoples' stories.

"And the humanitarian side of everything was, is, huge for Amanda, to bring that to the light, so that people can help," she said.

Canada's nearest diplomatic mission is in Kenya. Foreign Affairs Canada said officials there are in contact with Somalia's government.

Kidnappings for ransom are relatively common in Somalia. But domestic journalists have also been deliberately murdered.

With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press