Darfur AU-UN force deputy chief arrives in Sudan
September 16, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — The deputy commander of the AU-UN force arrived on Friday 14 September in Khartoum to meet a number of Sudanese officials to explore means of coordination with the government to execute his duties.
The deputy commander of the hybrid force, General Karenzi Karake, arrived in Khartoum to hold talks with Sudanese officials to know each other and pave the way for him to assume his duties in the country.
Karake is expected to hold a number of meetings with officials.
General Kerenzi Karake was named on August 14 as the second-in-command for a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeepers, but has since been accused of abuse of power involving detained extremists of the country’s Hutu ethnic group.
A Brussels-based Rwandan exile group has accused General Karenzi Karake of supervising extra-judicial killings of civilians before and after Tutsi-led rebels took power in Rwanda following the country’s 1994 genocide.
The Rwandan government denied the charge. While the United Nations has asked international human rights groups to submit any information they have on Karake, 46, to discover whether there is any basis to the allegations.
The Hybrid Operation in Sudan aims to protect civilians in Darfur, where more than 2.5 million people have lost their homes and an estimated 200,000 have died in the past four years.
Rwanda fields some 2,000 of 7,000 AU troops now in Darfur, and is proud of its peacekeeping role.
(ST)
Dr Jean-Baptiste Mbera
Darfur AU-UN force deputy chief arrives in Sudan
Inkingi
Forces Démocratiques Unifiées
United Democratic Forces
++31 623075674 ++32 473 170 820 [email protected] http://www.fdu-udf.org
Postbus 3124 2280 GC Rijswijk Netherlands
PRESS RELEASE
RWANDA-UN : THE UN HAS FAILED AGAIN RWANDANS BY THE APPOINTMENT OF WAR CRIMES SUSPECT MAJOR GENERAL KARENZI KARAKE TO LEAD THE DARFUR FORCE.
The Rwandan government blackmail standoff against the UN Security Council has borne fruits with the appointment and subsequent deployment of Major General Karenzi Karake. Despite critical concerns over the General’s notorious responsibility in war crimes, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial executions and assassinations, the UN has soldiered ahead with his nomination as Deputy Commander of UN-AU hybrid Darfur force. It’s a mockery of justice and lives of millions of Rwandans and Congolese that poured under the fire of this warmonger and the like.
After the UN failures to prevent or stop the 1994 genocide, the 1995 massacre of thousands of KIBEHO IDPs by RPF soldiers, the 1996-97 massacres of hundreds thousands of Rwandan refugees in the DR Congo, the UN has last week rewarded one of the infamous military commanders responsible of the butchery, namely Karenzi Karake. This is clearly another very negative signal sent to Rwandans by the UN, seen as a new blessing to the RPF government’s license to kill and impunity.
Following UDF-Inkingi warning that Karenzi Karake’s appointment is a shame for the whole Humanity, an insult to Africa, to Sudan and to his victims, the RPF government threatened the UN to withdraw all Rwanda Defense Forces deployed in the ill-torn Darfur should Karenzi Karake’s nomination be dropped. The UN machinery under intensive pressure of some lobbies gave up. This surrender proves that the use of force prevails on justice and that international humanitarian law can be massively violated with the consent of those in charge of the task of ensuring that it’s not. Leave alone the RDF contingent and Maj. Gen. Karenzi Karake as its Deputy Commander; the Darfur force will have no moral authority to achieve its mandate. Therefore, what occurred to Rwandans both in Rwanda and in the DRC is likely to happen to the Sudanese people.
This timing of the UN decision on Karenzi Karake coincides with grave and serious accusations from Florence Hartmann, former assistant to International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, that the UN has consistently been under a US administration pressure to ensure that no RPF leader involved in crimes under its mandate is brought to book till the tribunal closes its doors next year.
In conclusion, the UDF-Inkingi shall take all appropriate measures to endorse the Rwandan people’s right to self defense. The UN, the AU are accountable of the consequences of their shameful failures, omissions and decisions.
Brussels, 17 September 2007
Dr Jean-Baptiste MBERABAHIZI
Secretary General
(signed)