Just A Point of Clarification

I haven’t been blogging for a while now, possibly going on two months. And I’m not sure that I will be getting much time in the near future to blog as I normally did. I appreciate all of those who continue to check back, and continue to read what I write. I also appreciate those who comment, regularly or semi-regularly and help keep the blog somewhat alive.

Although I haven’t posted much, I’ve been somewhat involved in the comment discussion in what seems to be the most active post on this blog. What’s most fascinating about the comments in that blog seem to be that the commentators simply want to distract the blog and shift the focus from the topic being discussed.

Although distracting, they occasionally raise interesting points regarding the Rwandan conflict. What I find most telling is not their sympathy for Kagame and the RPF, but instead, the lousy excuses they provide for why he is justified in the killings he committed. These people have the gall not only to affirm that he did commit various acts of murder, but they have the audacity to suggest that it was justified. And unfortunately, they meet little or no resistance or challenge from the world at large.

Their comments often suggest that the purpose of this blog is misunderstood. Unless, I am right, and they are actually more concerned with deflecting than actually learning and discussing. I of course recommend that anyone confused about this blog’s purpose read the about section, as well as the other pages including “Stop Denying Genocide”. Perhaps then a conversation can be had that doesn’t revolve around Kagame sympathizers arguing none sense like he dines with google and starbucks therefore he is innocent of war crimes.

For the sake of those reading, I will say this, the information currently available in mainstream media in the west is filled with propaganda and misinformation regarding the Rwandan conflict. And this blog is primarily dedicated to providing information and sources to help those interested in learning more about the injustice that’s been done to Rwandans, and Africans in general. It is an open blog, and discussion is welcome. There is a lot of information out there, and it takes time to go through it all, however, I welcome anyone with knowledge on the subject at hand, because I think it’s important that more people learn and become educated on this subject.

Also, I encourage people to send in links to interesting information they may have regarding the subject matter. I’ve received some (thanks to those who provided), but I haven’t unfortunately managed to review them adequately.

Anyway, I will be back with more topics that will hopefully inspire more discussion.

Since I’m Not Posting Much

This thread seems to be getting a lot of attention and discussion so everyone is encouraged to read it and respond if they feel like it.

A Letter to Certain White Women - Tim Wise

Here I go again, reposting other people’s work. But this article raises very interesting points regarding this election and certain white feminists’ plans to withhold their votes from Obama to punish both him and the Democratic party because he won the nomination. Written by Tim Wise, and can be found published also on his webisite, TIMWISE.ORG.

Your Whiteness is Showing:
An Open Letter to Certain White Women
Who are Threatening to Withhold Support From Barack Obama in November

By Tim Wise

June 5, 2008

This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.

I know that it’s probably a bad time for this. Your disappointment at the electoral defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton is fresh, the sting is new, and the anger that animates many of you–who rightly point out that the media was often sexist in its treatment of the Senator–is raw, pure and justified.

That said, and despite the awkward timing, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit of solidarity with which they are genuinely intended. But before the questions, a statement if you don’t mind, or indeed, even if (as I suspect), you will mind it quite a bit.

First, for those of you threatening to actually vote for John McCain and to oppose Senator Obama, or to stay home in November and thereby increase the likelihood of McCain winning and Obama losing (despite the fact that the latter’s policy platform is virtually identical to Clinton’s while the former’s clearly is not), all the while claiming to be standing up for women…

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and increase the odds of his winning (despite the fact that he once called his wife the c-word in public and is a staunch opponent of reproductive freedom and gender equity initiatives, such as comparable worth legislation), all the while claiming to be standing up for women…

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama’s defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama’s sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women…

Your whiteness is showing.

When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your opposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point–the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny–you couldn’t be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation–the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity–you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what’s worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque.

If it were gender solidarity you sought, you would by definition join with your black and brown sisters come November, and do what you know good and well they are going to do, in overwhelming numbers, which is vote for Barack Obama. But no. You are threatening to vote not like other women–you know, the ones who aren’t white like you and most of your friends–but rather, like white men! Needless to say it is high irony, bordering on the outright farcical, to believe that electorally bonding with white men, so as to elect McCain, is a rational strategy for promoting feminism and challenging patriarchy. You are not thinking and acting as women, but as white people. So here’s the first question: What the hell is that about?

And you wonder why women of color have, for so long, thought (by and large) that white so-called feminists were phony as hell? Sister please…

Your threats are not about standing up for women. They are only about standing up for the feelings of white women, and more to the point, the aspirations of one white woman. So don’t kid yourself. If you wanted to make a statement about the importance of supporting a woman, you wouldn’t need to vote for John McCain, or stay home, thereby producing the same likely result–a defeat for Obama. You could always have said you were going to go out and vote for Cynthia McKinney. After all, she is a woman, running with the Green Party, and she’s progressive, and she’s a feminist. But that isn’t your threat is it? No. You’re not threatening to vote for the woman, or even the feminist woman. Rather, you are threatening to vote for the white man, and to reject not only the black man who you feel stole Clinton’s birthright, but even the black woman in the race. And I wonder why? Could it be…?

See, I told you your whiteness was showing.

And now for a third question, and this is the biggie, so please take your time with it: How is it that you have managed to hold your nose all these years, just like a lot of us on the left, and vote for Democrats who we knew were horribly inadequate–Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, right on down the uninspiring line–and yet, apparently can’t bring yourself to vote for Barack Obama? A man who, for all of his shortcomings (and there are several, as with all candidates put up by either of the two major corporate parties) is surely more progressive than any of those just mentioned. And how are we to understand that refusal–this sudden line in the proverbial sand–other than as a racist slap at a black man? You will vote for white men year after year after year–and are threatening to vote for another one just to make a point–but can’t bring yourself to vote for a black man, whose political views come much closer to your own, in all likelihood, than do the views of any of the white men you’ve supported before. How, other than as an act of racism, or perhaps as evidence of political insanity, is one to interpret such a thing?

See, black folks would have sucked it up, like they’ve had to do forever, and voted for Clinton had it come down to that. Indeed, they were on board the Hillary train early on, convinced that Obama had no chance to win and hoping for change, any change, from the reactionary agenda that has been so prevalent for so long in this culture. They would have supported the white woman–hell, for many black folks, before Obama showed his mettle they were downright excited to do so–but you won’t support the black man. And yet you have the audacity to insist that it is you who are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, and the one before whom Party leaders should bow down, and whose feet must be kissed?

Your whiteness is showing.

Look, I couldn’t care less about the Party personally. I left the Democrats twenty years ago when they told me that my activism in the Central America solidarity and South African anti-apartheid movements made me a security risk, and that I wouldn’t be able to get clearance to be in some parade with Governor Dukakis. Yeah, seriously. But for you to act as though you are the indispensible voters, the most important, the ones whose views should be pandered to, whose every whim should be the basis for Party policy, is not only absurd, it is also racist in that it, a) ignores and treats as irrelevant the much more loyal constituency of black folks, without whom no Democrat would have won anything in the past twenty years (and indeed the racial gap favoring the Democrats among blacks is about six times larger than the gender gap favoring them among white women, relative to white men); and b) demonstrates the mentality of entitlement and superiority that has been long ingrained in us as white folks–so that we believe we have the right to dictate the terms of political engagement, and to determine the outcome, and to get our way, simply because for so long we have done just that.

But that day is done, whether you like it or not, and you are now left with two, and only two choices, so consider them carefully: the first is to stand now in solidarity with your black brothers and sisters and welcome the new day, and help to push it in a truly progressive and feminist and antiracist direction, while the second is to team up with white men to try and block the new day from dawning. Feel free to choose the latter. But if you do, please don’t insult your own intelligence, or ours, by insisting that you’ve done so as a radical political act.

Good read!

Congratulations Are In Order

As most people in the world probably already know, BARACK OBAMA has secured the Democratic Party nomination for presidency making him the first person of African descent to lead a major political party in the United States. What was once thought of as a fairy tale has now become a reality, a task accomplished seemingly against all odds.

Congratulations Mr. Obama!!!

We know it wasn’t easy, and it most likely will not get any easier from now on. But at least now we know it’s possible. Unlike in 2006 when Democratic State Congressman Harold Ford Jr. ran for a senatorial seat in Tennessee and lost, who would have thought that Barack Obama would, in 2008 secure the presidential nomination for the DEMOCRATIC PARTY? It does have a surreal feel to it, and I’m kind of lost for words. It’s been one hell of a journey, but it’s not over yet.

As much as I hate to reproduce people’s full works on my blog, I am sharing this one from TheRoot.com. I encourage anyone reading to take a look at that website for more great commentary. But here is what Jack White had to say:

Obama Wins, Pigs Fly

June 4, 2008 — Lawd have mercy!

They said pigs would fly, fish would whistle and lost souls would be shivering in hell before a major political party anointed a presidential standard bearer who is not only black but actually dances like one.

Well, those wonders may not have occurred, but I’ve been sweeping up shards from the glass ceiling that Barack Obama broke through last night. As the Illinois Senator proclaimed to a huge throng of supporters in St. Paul, Minnesota, “Tonight, we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another — a journey that will bring a new and better day to America. Because of you, tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee.”

Can I get a hallelujah? Can I get an amen? Can I get a splash of cold water thrown in my face?

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s put Obama’s triumph into perspective. For one thing, he must still reach an accommodation with Hillary Clinton, who may be trying to pressure him into choosing her as his running mate. Beyond that, he faces a tough battle against a formidable Republican foe in John McCain.

But this is a day for reflection and wallowing in history, not mundane political prognostication. And, if we look back far enough, we can see that this day has been coming. For all its glass-ceiling-busting, stereotype-shattering, expectation-exceeding glory, Obama’s nomination is the culmination of a series of black political breakthroughs that have occurred with almost metronomic regularity every 20 years since the 1960s. Without those earlier building blocks, Obama’s astonishing achievement would be as unimaginable as those proverbial flying pigs.

Start with what I call conception: the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, which made it possible for massive numbers of African Americans, especially in the South, to become full citizens. The result was a political revolution as thousands of blacks won elected offices everywhere from backwaters in Alabama and Mississippi to the city halls in almost every big city in the nation and the halls of Congress.

Those pioneering forays were followed a generation later by what might be called the quickening: Jesse Jackson’s two runs for the presidency in 1984 and 1988. Jackson’s campaigns awakened an urgent, new sense of political possibility among African Americans by registering hordes of new voters, encouraging a new generation of black candidates, and concretizing blacks’ demand for a share of the leadership of the Democratic Party, which had often seemed to take their unwavering support for granted. The system of proportional delegates that Obama so skillfully exploited this year was shaped by Jackson’s demands.

Now, after a 40-year-gestation period, we’re on the brink of delivery. If Obama goes on to win the White House, America will have come a step closer to what an earlier politician from Illinois described as a “new birth of Freedom,” as a man who claims kinship with the descendents of both slaves and slave owners becomes the leader of all the people.

This day has been coming, with an irresistible historical logic, since some long forgotten bondsman first noticed the contradiction between his or her own condition and the stirring words of the Declaration of Independence. Since then, it has been our task to perfect our nation’s democracy by holding up a mirror to America and contrasting what the country promised to what it delivered.

That, in part, was what Obama was alluding to last night when he asserted that , “beyond all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington, Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again.’

It is not a racial appeal, but it is rooted in the knowledge that blacks, whether they knew it or not, have been leading whites, who certainly never realized they were being led, in the direction of a more perfect union since long before the nation was founded. White women (including those who helped to propel Clinton’s own precedent-setting campaign), other racial minorities, gays—every group that threw off discrimination and second-class citizenship has followed the pathway to freedom blazed by our struggle.

And what a remarkable vessel Obama is for the dreams we’ve poured into him. There is no need to dwell on his gifts as an orator, who sometimes seems to be channeling both JFK and MLK. His shrewdness is equally impressive. He, with his strategist David Axelrod and campaign manager David Plouffe, assembled a campaign apparatus powerful enough to defeat the former presumptive standard-bearer, Clinton, one of the most tenacious and talented candidates in history. Through mastery of the Internet, he has raised spectacular amounts largely from small contributors. He out-organized Clinton in caucus states and built up enough of a lead in delegates to outlast her victories in several states at the close of the primary season. He taps into a hunger for change that has aroused the political fervor of the young.

Running an effective campaign is not a complete test of whether a candidate would be a good President, but it reveals a great deal about the aspirants’ leadership and organizational abilities, and they way they respond to pressure and unpredictable events.

So far, Obama has passed every test with extraordinary aplomb. The challenge that remains is, on a way, more for the rest of us than it is for him. Is America ready to entrust its future to a President who is not only black but can dance like one? Or do we have to wait for the day when pigs actually take to the sky and fish can actually whistle?

Way to go Barack!

Rwanda To indoctrinate Children With Propaganda

There is a great post over at Claude Adams’ Blog titled The Pitfalls of “Official” History. The post raises some interesting points about the new Rwandan history and curriculum and the challenges and difficulties of re-writing history. Claude Adams writes,

Within the next few weeks or months, new history textbooks will be introduced in Rwanda’s schools. This is a vitally important event for the Central African country. After all, says Deo Byanafashe, the Rwandan professor largely responsible for the reclamation project, “history is where we find our identity.”

This should be cause for celebration. But is it? Will Rwandan schoolchildren be getting an authentic history text that honestly traces the roots of the ethnic violence that tore their society apart? Or will the New History be just another official mythology, a narrative born of political expediency, or political necessity?

The government, controlled by the minority Tutsis (who make up less than 15 per cent of Rwanda’s population), argues that an agreed-upon history is critical to reconciliation. Indeed, the slogan of the new history program is “Education for Reconciliation.” This offers a clue to the question of authenticity: Can history be “used” as a remedy for social disharmony? Aren’t we talking here about “designer history” as a form of therapy?

After a very compelling post, Adams reaches this conclusion regarding the Rwandan Government’s failings :

There [in Rwanda}, the government seems to be deliberately misrepresenting important events in its recent history, in an apparent effort to consolidate power, and to put a new, and unreal, face on Rwandan society. In so doing, it glosses over the terrible emotional complexity and confusion one still finds among survivors of the genocide. It ignores the fact that many Tutsis and Hutus still view one another with dread and suspicion–feelings that will not be expunged with a new, selective history.

Anyone who can should read it.

Personally, I think it’s a no brainer that Rwanda will continue to spread propaganda throughout the world and to children. I don’t doubt that this has the potential to cause harm in the long run, especially with this forced suppression of ethnic identities and such. I figure it’s going to manifest itself in other ways, which might be more harmful than letting people simply be who they are.

One major problem with what’s happened in Rwanda is that one whole group of people has been demonized that it’s almost beyond people to comprehend that there exists people within that group that aren’t actually evil nor killers, nor did they have anything to do with what happened. And also, that these people aren’t actually the exception, and no they are not “moderate” as Kagame would like us to believe. So this idea of trying to curb “genocide ideology” by suppressing people’s identities is exactly as Adams put it, it’s a means to consolidate power and remain in control. I really have a difficult time believing that Rwanda is acting with altruistic intentions when promoting the erasure of group identities.

So what do you think? How do you think propaganda will affect the children’s identities? Do you think it will be harmful or not? Will this be like how in America they don’t teach Black history in schools but Black people have to dig deep to actually find it? Is there anything that can be done at this point?

No She Didn’t

Maybe she didn’t. She didn’t mean to imply that she was staying in the race because she was waiting for Obama to be assassinated but that she was staying in the race because her husband won the nomination in June, but RFK was assassinated also in June after winning a big primary. But if her point was to say that she can still win in June, why even mention that Kennedy was assassinated? Clinton won and Kennedy was assassinated, yeah two great examples for presidential success in June? Does that even make sense? Also, if the Kennedys were on her mind, why is it that the moment that would be on her mind is one of the brothers’ assassination? And how selfish and self centered would she have to be that she would use a tragic moment in their lives to advance her own personal agenda; her justification for staying in the contest?

Here’s is what she said from the New York Post:

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

The article continues on:

Obama, the first African-American to advance so far in the race for the White House, has faced threats, sources have said.

Robert Kennedy, the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, was gunned down in 1968 after winning the California primary. He had been a hero on the left for his civil rights agenda and calls to end the war in Vietnam.

Barack Obama, who leads Clinton by nearly 200 delegates and has already secured a majority of pledged delegates, has been the subject of threats. Early in the campaign, the Secret Service gave him a security detail at the request of Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois).

Earlier in January, there was another such incident:

In yet another reference to Democratic Party icon John F. Kennedy – we’ve heard several in recent days — Clinton supporter Francine Torge, a retired educator from Durham, mentioned his assassination in her introduction of the senator on Monday.

“If you look back, some people have been comparing one of the other candidates to JFK, and he was a wonderful leader,” she said. “He gave us a lot of hope. But he was assassinated, and Lyndon Baines Johnson actually did all of his work and got both the Republicans and Democrats to pass those measures.”

“Assassination” has been one of those eerie thoughts that’s loomed over Black people’s minds throughout this whole contest. Some Black people have simply decided NOT to give Barack their vote simply because they are so convinced he’s getting assassinated at any time. Most race conscious people know that Black people are targets just by being Black, and no this isn’t pulling the “race card” but a reality, ask Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo. But try being Black and “getting out of your place” like trying to be president? Don’t even think about it. It’s not paranoia, assassination is a reality for many many Black leaders in American and around the globe. But this isn’t about Black people.

When all the questions arise as to why Clinton steadfastly treads forward in a downward spiraling campaign and her response is that her husband won in June but another presidential hopeful was assassinated, it leaves one to conclude that maybe, maybe this (Obama’s assassination) is why she’s staying in the race. I’m trying to give here the benefit of the doubt here. What is it about RFK’s presidential campaign’s demise does she find inspiring enough to conjure up in attempts to justify why she’s staying in the race?

Keith Olberman breaks it down:

We have forgiven you your insistence that there have been widespread calls for you to end your campaign, when such calls had been few.

We have forgiven you your misspeaking about Martin Luther King’s relative importance to the Civil Rights movement.

We have forgiven you your misspeaking about your under-fire landing in Bosnia.

We have forgiven you your insisting Michigan’s vote wouldn’t count and then claiming those who would not count it were Un-Democratic.

We have forgiven you pledging to not campaign in Florida and thus disenfranchise voters there, and then claim those who stuck to those rules were as wrong as those who defended slavery or denied women the vote.

We have forgiven you the photos of Osama Bin Laden in an anti-Obama ad…

We have forgiven you fawning over the fairness of Fox News while they were still calling you a murderer.

We have forgiven you accepting Richard Mellon Scaife’s endorsement and then laughing as you described his “deathbed conversion.”

We have forgiven you quoting the electoral predictions of Boss Karl Rove.

We have forgiven you the 3 a.m. Phone Call commercial.

We have forgiven you President Clinton’s disparaging comparison of the Obama candidacy to Jesse Jackson’s.

We have forgiven you Geraldine Ferraro’s national radio interview suggesting Obama would not still be in the race had he been a white man.

We have forgiven you the dozen changing metrics and the endless self-contradictions of your insistence that your nomination is mathematically probable rather than a statistical impossibility.

We have forgiven you your declaration of some primary states as counting and some as not.

We have forgiven you exploiting Jeremiah Wright in front of the editorial board of the lunatic-fringe Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

We have forgiven you exploiting William Ayers in front of the debate on ABC.

We have forgiven you for boasting of your “support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans”

We have even forgiven you repeatedly praising Senator McCain at Senator Obama’s expense, and your own expense, and the Democratic ticket’s expense.

Finally he says this:

But Senator, we cannot forgive you this.

Because a senator…a politician…a person…who can let hang in mid-air the prospect that she might just be sticking around in part, just in case the other guy gets shot - has no business being, and no capacity to be, the President of the United States.

I think he’s a bit harsh in this piece here though, but maybe that’s what she needs to see the damage she’s causing with her “gaffes” in relation to Obama.

Fox news apparantly agrees with Hillary.

And now we have what uh…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osa…Osama. Umm… Uh…Obama…well both if we could *laughs*.

Seriously? You can sign a petition to have Liz Trotter fired here.

Disgusting behavior all around!!!

Still MIA

So I’ll probably still not be around for the remainder of May. I may pop in and out every once in a while for comments, or short posts and entries, but most likely won’t be doing much.

I’ve temporarily opened up comments so that they can appear immediately without approval, but only for those posters who have posted comments in the past. This is because there will be times when I won’t be able to approve comments for a while. Beware, this means that there will most likely be some ignorance displayed in the comments.

However, If you’re leaving a comment for the first time, it will still need to be approved so it might not even show up for a few days. And you’re still encouraged to do leave one anyway.

PEACE!!

Quick Hits

Since I haven’t been blogging, I thought these links might be useful to people. They are not related in anyway, but they are links I’ve come across, or have been sent, and thought they were interesting and worth sharing. I can’t speak on the content of all of them (meaning I’m not really promoting them), and if you have any feedback on any of them, it’s most definitely welcome.

The Real McCain:

There’s no question John McCain is getting a free ride from the mainstream press. But with the power of YouTube and the blogosphere, we can provide an accurate portrayal of the so-called Maverick. We can put the brakes on his free ride!

Since we first released The Real McCain a year ago, our REAL McCain series has garnered close to 2 million views, with over 13,000 comments and tens of thousands more in petition signatures! Clearly, John McCain’s record is something the public wants to discuss, and yet the corporate media is doing NOTHING to present the truth. We feel obliged to continue countering the mainstream media’s love of McCain. And so we thought it was high time for a sequel: The Real McCain 2.

Rwandan Documents Project:

The Rwanda Documents Project was started by Professor Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota as a result of his work as a defense attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The goal of the Project is to collect and make available primary source materials from international and national agencies, governments, and courts that relate to the political and social history of Rwanda from 1990 to the present.

Explaining the Ultimate Escalation in Rwanda: How and Why Tutsi Rebels Provoked a Retaliatory Genocide:

The field of genocide studies has tended to focus on explaining the actions of the perpetrators and to ignore the role of victim groups and third parties. This paper, prepared for a meeting of the American Political Science Association, attempts to rectify the current bias by re-examining the roots of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. It highlights the strategic interaction of ethnic groups and the international community.

The stated intention is not to excuse or justify the Rwandan genocide, but to better understand its causes. A series of interviews with former Tutsi rebels backs up the claim that the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) threatened Rwanda’s Hutu regime to such an extent that it retaliated with genocide. The RPF’s actions were supported by the international community. Although the rebels received growing indications that Tutsi civilians would be targeted in mass killings, they continued with their military offensive. Moreover, they refused to make compromises in peace talks that could have avoided the killings. The evidence suggests that they expected their challenge to provoke genocidal retaliation, but viewed it as an acceptable cost of attaining power.

The paper traces the developments leading to the birth of the Ugandan-based RPF in 1987 and the unfolding of its military offensive in the early 1990s. The main evidence cited to support the premise that the RPF was aware of the possibility of genocide and did not try to avert it is that:

* Former senior rebels conceded that, even before the 1990 RPF invasion, they expected the Hutu government to respond with reprisals against Tutsi civilians.
* Prior to the offensive, there was no real threat to the Tutsi population of Rwanda or neighbouring countries. Thus it cannot be argued that the rebels expected Tutsi to suffer irrespective of military action.
* Earlier in the conflict, the rebels avoided massacres by scaling back their advance and demands for political power. But during and after peace talks, they did not make sufficient compromises to prevent genocide.
* The RPF pursued a strategy designed to produce the best military outcome, not to save lives. They also refused to accept cease-fire offers in the first two-and-a-half weeks after the killing started.
* The prolonged refugee experience of many in the RPF weakened their kinship with Rwandan Tutsi and created distrust. This could help explain why the rebels tolerated the killing.

The genocide was foreseeable and might have been avoided if the RPF had been put under greater pressure to compromise. Key policy lessons for the international community are that:

* It pressured the Hutu government to share power by threatening sanctions, and in doing so tacitly supported the rebels’ intransigence.
* The Arusha peace accords amounted to a transfer of political and military power to the rebels and their Rwandan political allies – unacceptable to Hutu government extremists.
* Replacing French military intervention by a United Nations presence in late 1993 may have left Hutu extremists feeling abandoned, and encouraged them to prepare for genocide.
* International actors miscalculated the danger and, through their actions, helped trigger the genocidal backlash. Once it started, they were powerless to stop it.
* To prevent reoccurrences, scholars and policymakers must appreciate the complex interplay of factors that can fuel genocide, and learn from the mistakes that were made in Rwanda.

What Kind of Card is Race by Tim Wise, below is an excerpt:

Occasionally, white denial gets creative, and this it does by pretending to come wrapped in sympathy for those who allege racism in the modern era. In other words, while steadfastly rejecting what people of color say they experience–in effect suggesting that they lack the intelligence and/or sanity to accurately interpret their own lives–such commentators seek to assure others that whites really do care about racism, but simply refuse to pin the label on incidents where it doesn’t apply. In fact, they’ll argue, one of the reasons that whites have developed compassion fatigue on this issue is precisely because of the overuse of the concept, combined with what we view as unfair reactions to racism (such as affirmative action efforts which have, ostensibly, turned us into the victims of racial bias). If blacks would just stop playing the card where it doesn’t belong, and stop pushing for so-called preferential treatment, whites would revert back to our prior commitment to equal opportunity, and our heartfelt concern about the issue of racism.

Enjoy reading!!!

If Hil Can’t Win Neither Will Obama

At this time in the Democratic Party presidential primary contests, it’s apparent that Barack Obama will most likely win the nomination. As of now, Barack Obama is leading in overall pledged delegates, as well as in the popular vote, after his last night’s loss and victory in Indiana and North Carolina respectively.

There is a strong push for Hillary Clinton to pull out of the context and concede to Obama, however, I am not supporting those sentiments. I support Clinton’s desire and wishes to continue the race even though her chances of winning are very minimal at this point. But it’s her right, and if she feels that this is what she needs to do to leave the race with dignity and grace, then that’s what she is going to do, and I support that. Not because I support her at all, but just because she’s had her fair share of struggles in the race herself.

But while she continues to remain in the race, the question arises, will she continue a negative campaign or will she simply concentrate on her strengths positioning herself in a place where her policies and solutions appear superior to Obama’s? She hasn’t done this enough in my opinion, and has often relied on scaring white voters into voting for her instead of Obama. Fortunately it has backfired on her, at least so it seems and the contest isn’t over yet.

Although she continues to tread on, it appears the negativity from her campaign hasn’t stopped, and this is real cause for concern. Apparently, her campaign is pushing the call for electability PROVING more what I recently wrote about, the racism that’s inherent in posing Clinton as more electable since…well duh! White people are going to vote for her instead of Obama (with her help of course). This has been the central thesis of her campaign as it relates to Obama, especially with the insidious race baiting from herself and her surrogates, but now…NOW they’re saying it explicitly. In an article titled “Hillary Chief Strategist: North Carolina Loss Represented Progress Because We Won Among White Voters” writer Greg Sargent says this:

On the Hillary conference call, Hillary chief strategist Geoff Garin made the case for her electability in some of the most explicitly race-based terms I’ve heard yet.

Garin argued that the North Carolina contest, which Obama won by 14 points, represented “progress” for Hillary because she did better among white voters there than she did in Virginia.

“When we began in North Carolina,” Garin said, “our internal polling and much of the public polling [showed] we were running exactly even with white voters.”

Garin said that the Virginia electorate was the “closest white electorate in the country” to North Carolina, and added that Hillary “started even” among whites in North Carolina, and “ended up earning a significant win of 24 points.”

“We obviously did not do as well as we would want or needed to among African American voters,” Garin concluded.

Put in the context of the Hillary campaign’s chief argument that she’s the more electable Dem, Garin’s overall implication here is that her success among white voters in North Carolina yesterday is “progress” in the sense that it strengthens her case for electability.

In other words, it’s an explicit, and unabashed, linking of her claim of electability to her success among whites.

This is nothing more than an appeal to the super delegates, but it is completely out of line. Since the Clinton campaign likes to remind everyone that Barack Obama cannot carry the white working class votes (because duh, he’s an inexperienced, unqualified Black man), here is something that may be of interest to her campaign taken from here:

According to CNN’s 1996 exit poll, Bill Clinton lost the white vote (Dole 46%, Clinton 43%, Perot 9%). He lost the white male vote by an even larger margin (Dole 49%, Clinton 38%, Perot 11%). And he lost gun owners badly (Dole 51%, Clinton 38%, Perot 10%). However, Clinton won the popular vote overall 49%-41%-8%, and he won 70% of the electoral votes.

In 2000 — when Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes — he lost white males to Bush by a whopping 60%-36%, according to CNN’s exit poll. He lost men overall 53%-42%. He lost whites overall 54%-42%. He lost gun owners 61%-36%. He lost small-town voters 59%-38% and rural voters 59%-37%. He lost the Midwest overall 49%-48%.

Clinton is reaching at this point, and desperately trying to appeal to the super delegates. But I keep wondering why she won’t sell herself as having the best policies and best solutions as opposed to scaring people out of voting for Barack Obama. This is unfortunately one of the downer side to having her stay in the race. She is still causing damage to Obama’s campaign when she should be at least trying to part ways amicably.

I really still can’t believe that she would continue down this path. Because part of me was still trying to give her the benefit of the doubt earlier during the primaries that while I don’t like it and will probably harshly criticize it, her campaign wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary, I mean this is what “they” do, but at this point, what is she hoping to gain? It’s almost as if she is sending the message that if she can’t win, neither will any other democrat, especially Obama.

Rwandans in Exile Beware!

There are groups seemingly to be mostly concentrated in the U.K. who have it in for Rwandans in exile who do not share Kagame’s ideology and who do not support his genocidal acts against Hutus and Tutsi who are critical of his regime, and other innocent Congolese citizens. The most recent perpetrator among these organizations, African Rights published a report accusing a Rwandan student of genocide crimes, and informs him and others that he has been sentenced with 30 years in prison in absentia by highly revered “Gacaca Courts” with less than an ounce of international credibility. After they finished shaking up the U.K. as published in The Asylum of Extreme Exclusion, they are now on track to shake up Rwandans in the USA, specifically in Dayton, Ohio.

The first step to framing these Rwandans in exile is to start smear campaigns with these incredibly heinous accusations of having taken part in the genocide, by providing false witnesses and testimonies against them. These tactics are also meant to scare the exiled Rwandas, and on some level to make an example out of a few in the respective Rwandan communities, in order to teach all others a lesson in either speaking out against Kagame, or protesting the falsified propaganda spread by the RPF. It is utterly outrageous.

When I looked up the “African Rights” organization to get a sense of what the organization purports to stand by, I came up empty handed. The website africanrights.org is expectedly not working. And the only information I could garner was from another website which stated that African Rights “is an organization dedicated to working on issues [of] grave human rights abuses, conflict, famine and civil reconstruction in Africa” and that the organization’s director is named Rakya Omaar. I’m not sure if any of this information is correct, since I had no other way of immediately verifying the information.

But if the information is true, African Rights (based in London by the way), could not find anything else to do other than publish a report about a supposed genocidaire attending a University in the U.S.A.? I mean really, of all the human rights abuses happening, especially in Rwanda itself, committed by the ruling regime, they are going to fabricate information, more propaganda, and fear monger within the Rwandan communities, people who are rehabilitating and in the process of rebuilding their lives? It’s insanity and borderline desperation.

According to various sources, African Rights believes that there are at least 7 dozen perpetrators of genocide living in Dayton, Ohio. Supposedly U.S. officials have been warned of some of these people’s genocide perpatrator status, even though they are not being accused or being indicted by the ICTR. Who, other than Kagame sympathizers, whose sole intention is to continue the suppression of information and the accusation and persecution of innocent people actually takes the “Gacaca Courts” seriously? I suppose anyone who has bought into the propaganda does too, which happens to be a lot of people, unfortunately, and these fabrication of information, and falsification of accusations will serve to alienate these Rwandans in their communities, making it even harder for them to continue their rehabilitation.

I know what you’re probably thinking. “But these people committed genocide!” But actually, many of them didn’t and are being falsely accused, and their lives are being ruined due to propaganda. And if they did commit crimes, they are being disproportionately accused, tried and convicted of war crimes while the RPF antagonist continue their lives with impunity. It’s disgusting, and it’s a shame that anyone can call this justice.

So once again, Rwandans in the U.S.A. beware. They are coming after you. And anyone with enough sense needs to aggressively oppose this blatant disregard for justice.