Body of genocide witness found in river

Body of genocide witness found in river

· Accused former Rwanda minister feared for his life
· War crimes tribunal would have heard key evidence

Jeevan Vasagar in Nairobi
Saturday December 24, 2005
The Guardian


A former Rwandan government minister accused of participating in the 1994 genocide has been found dead in mysterious circumstances in Brussels, it was confirmed yesterday.

The naked and decomposing body of Juvenal Uwilingiyimana was pulled from a canal, more than three weeks after he disappeared from home on November 21.

DNA tests have confirmed his identity but the cause of death has not yet been established because the body appears to have been mangled by passing boats. Mr Uwilingiyimana's hands were severed and his wedding ring is missing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/rwanda/story/0,14451,1673715,00.html

And wet.

With his body found like that I doubt they will find the perpetrators. I know I shouldn't be pleased at this, but wait, the guy was a butcher. No wonder.

Sounds like more than one perp.There IS NO place to hide .

...sponsors of the mass killing. IMHO.

...from the diplomatic mission in Uganda furnished weapons and funds for the Rwandan killers including the agricultural funds used to purchase huge amounts of machetes. The purpose was to obtain undisputed control of rich mining areas in central Africa. Bushista involvement alleged.

This is based upon memory. Of course, Madsen is not always right. He testified about this before a congressional committee and submitted a written report. The French aren't too happy about it because they have their own economic projects there as well.

Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to suspect this guy didn't die of liver failure.

"French" sources have about as much credibility as militant Hutu sources.

You know what... I'm not even going to waste time answering these baseless bullshit allegations. Madsen can GO FUCK HIMSELF.

...testimony before the Subcommittee.

Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, .17 May 2001

Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca, 24 November 2001


STATEMENT OF WAYNE MADSEN

Author: “Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999”, Investigative journalist

Mr. MADSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very appreciative of the Committee's interest and support, particularly Congresswoman McKinney's interest and support, in holding these hearings on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Excerpt from Prepared statement:



As U.S. troops and intelligence agents were pouring into Africa to help the RPF and AFDL-CZ forces in their 1996 campaign against Mobutu, Vincent Kern, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs, told the House International Operations and Human Rights Subcommittee on December 4, 1996 that U.S. military training for the RPF was being conducted under a program called Enhanced International Military Education and Training (E-IMET). Kathi Austin, a Human Rights Watch specialist on arms transfers in Africa, told the Subcommittee on May 5, 1998 that one senior U.S. embassy official in Kigali described the U.S. Special Forces training program for the RPF as “killers . . . training killers.”<9>

By December 1996, U.S. military forces were also operating in Bukavu amid throngs of Hutus, less numerous Twa refugees, Mai Mai guerrillas, advancing Rwandan troops, and AFDL-CZ rebels. A French military intelligence officer said he detected some 100 armed U.S. troops in the eastern Zaire conflict zone.<11>Moreover, the DGSE reported the Americans had knowledge of the extermination of Hutu refugees by Tutsis in both Rwanda and eastern Zaire and were doing nothing about it. More ominously, there was reason to believe that some U.S. forces, either Special Forces or mercenaries, may have actually participated in the extermination of Hutu refugees. The killings reportedly took place at a camp on the banks of the Oso River near Goma.<12> Roman Catholic reports claim that the executed included a number of Hutu Catholic priests. At least for those who were executed, death was far quicker than it was for those who escaped deep into the jungle. There, many died from tropical diseases or were attacked and eaten by wild animals.<13>

Jacques Isnard, the Paris based defense correspondent for Le Monde supported the contention of U.S. military knowledge of the Oso River massacre but went further. He quoted French intelligence sources that believed that between thirty and sixty American mercenary “advisers” participated with the RPF in the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees around Goma. Although his number of Hutu dead was more conservative than the French estimates, the U.N.’s Chilean investigator, Roberto Garreton, reported the Kagame and Kabila forces had committed “crimes against humanity” in killing thousands of Hutu refugees.<14>

By 1998, the Kabila regime had become an irritant to the United States, North American mining interests, and Kabila’s Ugandan and Rwandan patrons. As a result, Rwanda and Uganda launched a second invasion of the DRC to get rid of Kabila and replace him with someone more servile. The Pentagon was forced to admit on August 6, 1998 that a twenty man U.S. Army Rwanda Interagency Assessment Team (RIAT) was in the Rwanda at the time of the second RPF invasion of Congo. The camouflaged unit was deployed from the U.S. European Command in Germany.<22> It was later revealed that the team in question was a JCET unit that was sent to Rwanda to help the Rwandans “defeat ex FAR (Rwandan Armed Forces) and Interhamwe” units. U.S. Special Forces JCET team began training Rwandan units on July 15, 1998. It was the second such training exercise held that year. The RIAT team was sent to Rwanda in the weeks just leading up to the outbreak of hostilities in Congo.<23> The RIAT, specializing in counter insurgency operations, traveled to Gisenyi on the Congolese border just prior to the Rwandan invasion.<24> One of the assessments of the team recommended that the United States establish a new and broader military relationship with Rwanda. National Security Council spokesman P. J. Crowley, said of the RIAT’s presence in Rwanda: “I think it’s a coincidence that they were there at the same time the fighting began.”<25>


http://www.allthingspass.com/journalism.php?jid=23

Wayne Madsen is an investigative journalist who has written for The Village Voice, The Progressive, CAQ, and the Intelligence Newsletter. He is the author of Genocide and Covert Activities in Africa 1993-1999 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1999), an expose of U.S. and French intelligence activities in Africa's recent civil wars and ethnic rebellions. He served as an on-air East Africa analyst for ABC News in the aftermath of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Mr. Madsen has appeared on 60 Minutes, World News Tonight, Nightline, 20/20, MS-NBC, and NBC Nightly News, among others. He has been frequently quoted by the Associated Press, foreign wire services, and many national and international newspapers.

Mr. Madsen is also the author of a motion picture screen play treatment about the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion. He is a former U.S. Naval Officer and worked for the National Security Agency and U.S. Naval Telecommunications Command.

that's pathetic - a 1-3 page document for an unmade film?

"Mr Uwilingiyimana's hands were severed and his wedding ring is missing."

ehm, could his wedding ring have been on one of his severed hands?

Why is this statement about the wedding ring even in the story???? hmmmmm.....

...whomever wrote this story values the 'golden' wedding ring .... not the hands, not the man.

(I suppose the writer thought that an 'honest' murderer/mutilator would put the ring back in Mr. Uwilingiyimana's pocket before they cut off his hands :eyes:. At least the 'heirs' could at least claim it then!

That's so sick, sarcastic and repugnant, I know.....but it's the only reason I could think of as to why it was mentioned. (Unfortunately, I actually know some people who would think like that - and they are d*mn scary!