Author: Emil Lazarian

MINISTER OSKANIAN IN BRUSSELS FOR COOPERATION COUNCIL MEETING
Panorama.am
12:46 14/11/06
Minister Oskanian is in Brussels to participate in the 7th session
of the Armenia-EU Cooperation Council.
Together with the foreign ministers of Georgia and Azerbaijan,
Minister Oskanian met with the EU leadership — the Foreign Minister
of Finland, which holds the EU Presidency, the Secretary of State of
Germany which will hold the Presidency in the first half of 2007 as
well as EU High Representative, Javier Solana, and External Relations
Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
During the first day’s dinner meeting, the participants discussed
developments in the region, including Caucasus states’ relations
with neighbors, and also prospects for regional cooperation. Regional
conflicts, especially Nagorno Karabakh, were the focus of much of the
discussion, particularly in light of the upcoming meeting between the
foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The dinner meeting was
followed by a press conference, during which Minister Oskanian thanked
the EU for its persistence in concluding the Action Plan process.
He also noted that “this year’s meeting of the Cooperation Council
will be particularly memorable because it represents the beginning of
a new chapter – for each of us individually, for our relations with
the EU, and for the EU itself.” The meeting was followed by a Press
Conference. On November 14, during the formal Council meeting the
European Neighborhood Policy Action Plan will be adopted. Press and
information department of Ministry of foreign affairs of the Republic
of Armenia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA RATIFIES THE HAGUE CONVENTION ON INTER-COUNTRY ADOPTION
Panorama.am
13:13 14/11/06
President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan signed today the Hague
Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect
of Inter-Country Adoption.
According to UNICEF Armenia Office, the Convention was ratified by
the National Assembly on 23 October 2006.
The Hague Convention establishes a set of internationally agreed
minimum requirements and procedures to govern inter-country adoptions
in which a child moves from one country that has signed the Convention
to another signatory country.
“Armenia’s ratification of this treaty highlights the country’s
commitment to ensure that essential safeguards and procedures are
in place regulating the inter-country adoption of children from
Armenia,” says Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative in Armenia. “With
its ratification, Armenia joins a partnership of some 70 countries
working together to ensure that the best interests of each individual
child are respected when inter-country adoption is being considered.”
The Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Armenia is a
signatory, clearly states that every child has the right to be cared
for by his or her own parents, whenever possible. UNICEF believes
that families needing support to care for their children should
receive it, and that alternative means for caring for a child should
only be considered when, despite this assistance, a child’s family is
unavailable, unable or unwilling to care for him or her. Inter-country
adoption is one of a range of care options for a child who cannot be
placed in a family setting in his or her country of origin. However,
the best interests of each individual child must always be the
guiding principle.
Over the past years, the number of families from rich countries wanting
to adopt children from other countries has grown substantially. This,
coupled with insufficient regulation and oversight, risks creating an
environment where motives and activities that may not be in the best
interests of the child can take centre stage. The Convention seeks to
establish a cooperative framework between the countries of origin of
children being placed for adoption and their receiving countries to
ensure that the child’s best interests are safeguarded and to prevent
abuses such as exploitation and trafficking in children.
“Armenia has embarked on the path of child welfare reforms by
adopting a new Family Code, amending key legislation related to
children and establishing child protection bodies at the central and
local level. The country’s accession to this Convention once again
demonstrates the Government’s strong commitment to create a protective
environment for children in Armenia,” the UNICEF Representative
said. “It is now important to ensure that relevant mechanisms are in
place for the effective and full implementation of the Convention.”
The Hague Convention includes provisions to ensure that adoption is
authorized by competent national authorities and that inter-country
adoption does not result in improper financial gain for those involved
in it. These provisions are meant first and foremost to protect
children but also have the positive effect of providing assurance
to prospective adoptive parents that their child had not been the
subject of illegal and detrimental practices.
UNICEF established its presence in Armenia in 1994.
UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate
for the protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic
needs and to expand their opportunities to meet their full potential.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

DIVISIONS OF THE ARMENIAN ARMED FORCES ONCE AGAIN BROKE CEASEFIRE REGIME
Author: Sh.Jaliloglu
TREND, Azerbaijan
Nov 14 2006
On 13 November, the divisions of the Armenian Armed Forces once
again broke the ceasefire regime on the front line, Trend Regional
Correspondent reports.
Yesterday, on November 13, the divisions of the Armenian Armed Forces
located in the occupied Bash Gervend village of Agdam district shot
at the opposite positions of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces from 08:35.
In addition, on 14 November, the divisions of the Armenian Armed
Forces located in the occupied Mehtili and Laltepe villages of
Jabrail district shot at the opposite positions of the Azerbaijani
Armed Forces. The enemy was made silent with response fire.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TUSIAB SAYS NO COOPERATION WITH ARMENIA
Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Nov 14 2006
Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’ Association -TUSIAD-, based in
Istanbul, which cooperates with Armenian businessmen, has no relations
to the Union of Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen-TUSIAB,” TUSIAB
issued a statement to make clear the article “TUSIAD establishes new
union to expand business relations with Armenia” spread by APA news
agency quoting Turkish Daily News.
TUSIAB said the news misled public and was misunderstood.
“TUSIAB condemns and is against any political, cultural social or
commercial relations with aggressor-Armenia until the territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan is restored,” the Union stated, adding there
is no connection between TUSIAD and TUSIAB.
The previous news said the TUSİAD-led Union of Black Sea and
Caspian Confederation of Enterprises (UBCCE) will hold its first
general assembly on Nov. 27 to which executives from the Armenian
Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association have been invited,
APA reports quoting Turkish Daily News.
The union was established with the aim of developing economic and
commercial relations among neighboring Black Sea and Caspian countries.
TUSİAD President Omer Sabanci initiated the establishment of the
union with the aim of developing economic and commercial relations
among neighboring Black Sea and Caspian countries. A decision was
made at preparatory meetings in May and June of this year to locate
the headquarters of the 12-member UBCCE in Istanbul.
The union was formed with the participation of several TUSİAD
counterparts from member countries. Armenia became a member of the
union with the Armenian Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association.
The UBCCE general assembly will be held at Istanbul’s Sail Halim
Paşa Yalisi on Nov. 27, at which Armenia will be represented by
Arsen Gazeryan, head of the Armenian Industrialists and Businessmen’s
Association and also co-chairman of the Turkish-Armenian Business
Council.
TUSİAD’s Brussels representative, Bahadir Kaleagasi, said the
UBCCE was formed after intensive studies around the Black Sea and
Caspian region. The preparatory meetings of the confederation have
been completed. Armenia is a member of the union, and they have been
invited, he said.
Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council deputy head Noyan Soyak
said TUSİAD and the Turkish-Armenian Business Council had been
exchanging views since 2000. Gazeryan served as a bridge between the
business worlds of the two countries, both in his capacity as head of
the Armenian association and as co-chairman of the council, he noted,
adding that Gazeryan and TUSİAD were in constant contact with
each other.
“Armenian businessmen are informed of every development in
TUSİAD. When Sabanci was elected president, Armenian businessmen
congratulated him. We, as the council, also organize meetings where
Turkish and Armenian businesspeople come together,” he said.
The meeting in November aims to develop Turkey’s relations with its
neighbors, Soyak said.
“Armenia is invited within this context. We see this as the
continuation of previous meetings. In the upcoming meeting, the
launching of bilateral talks between the two countries may come up,”
he said.
Turkish business circles said nay commercial or economic cooperation
with Armenia doesn’t serve the interests of Turkey and those
cooperating with Armenian businessmen are Jews and Armenians by
origin.

JUSTICE ARMAND ARABIAN RECEIVES 2006 FERNANDO AWARD
By TINA BAY, Staff Writer
Metropolitan News-Enterprise, CA
Nov 15 2006
Former California Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian has been named
recipient of the 2006 Fernando Award, given annually to a San Fernando
Valley resident for volunteer efforts on behalf of the community.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Arabian’s selection
at the 48th Annual Fernando Award Finalists’ Recognition Dinner last
Friday, after secret ballots cast by members of the Fernando Award
Foundation placed him above four other finalists.
Arabian, 71, told The MetNews yesterday receiving the recognition was a
“very touching experience.”
He explained:
“You do things from the heart and most of the time there’s no
acknowledgement of it, and it’s not expected. This [honor] is very
meaningful to me because most of my adult life has been centered
around the Van Nuys Civic Center.”
Upon his admission to the State Bar in 1962, he worked for a year
as a deputy district attorney in Van Nuys and then entered private
practice in that city until then-Gov. Ronald Reagan appointed him to
the Municipal Court there in 1972. He was later elevated by Reagan to
the Superior Court and remained in Van Nuys for 10 years, including
service as supervising judge before then-Gov. George Dukemejian
appointed him to the Second District Court of Appeal in 1983.
After six years as an associate justice on the Supreme Court from
1990 to1996, Arabian set up an office across from the Van Nuys Civic
Center, where he works as a private judge for ADR Services, Inc.
In keeping with Fernando Award tradition, Arabian will have his name
inscribed on two statues commemorating the honor, a decades-old bronze
monument located in the Valley Civic Center in Van Nuys and another,
installed in 1996, that stands at Warner Park in Woodland Hills.
A formal celebration dinner will be held sometime in February, the
justice said.
The award does not include a cash prize, but award foundation president
Brad Rosenheim said Arabian will be asked to designate a high school
in the San Fernando Valley to which the foundation will award a $2,000
scholarship for one of its graduating students.
The annual Fernando Award honors an individual from the San Fernando
Valley who, “through a life of volunteerism encompassing personal
commitment and involvement, has worked to improve the quality of life
in the San Fernando Valley.”
Fourteen individuals were nominated this year by community
organizations and leaders. A screening committee narrowed the field
to five finalists.
At the award ceremony Friday, Arabian was recognized for being a
national leader in the reform of rape laws, specifically for his work
in bringing about recognition of the sexual assault counselor-victim
privilege.
The justice said his work in rape reform sparked his desire to be
involved in the community:
“I was somewhat isolated in my 24 years of service on the court, but
the work that I did in rape reform which was outside my judicial duties
took me into a world of seeing pain and need,” he said. “After I left
the court, I’ve been gone for 10 years, I’ve become far more involved.”
He is involved in the presentation of various awards and scholarships
that encourage community service, such as the “Armand Arabian Leaders
in Public Service” awards and scholarships presented annually by the
Encino Chamber of Commerce.
In 1999, he donated funds to create Lawyers Resource Centers in the
Van Nuys and San Fernando superior courthouses.
Last December, the Justice Armand Arabian Reception Hall was dedicated
in his honor at the Chatsworth Superior Courthouse.
A New York native and the son of Armenian immigrants who survived the
Turkish Genocide, Arabian graduated from Boston University and Boston
University School of Law. He also holds a master of laws degree from
the University of Southern California.
He said his legacy is demonstrating that “there’s always something
to be done if you have the heart and soul to accomplish it.”
“There is no such thing as ‘I didn’t know where to put myself,'”
he said. “I always summarize it by the phrase, ‘Make a difference.’
Everyone can make a difference if they choose to.”
ab111406.htm
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NKR PRESIDENT URGED DIASPORA TO ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE IN THE TV MARATHON TARGETED AT FUND RAISING FOR KARABAKH
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Nov 14 2006
As it has already been reported, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
President Arkady Ghoukassian is in the U. S. in connection with the
preparation of a TV marathon to be held November 23. The marathon
is targeted at fund raising for the Nagorno-Karabakh’s further
development. In the course of a solemn measure conducted in the U. S.
Arkady Ghoukassian urged those present to actively participate in the
TV marathon, thus promoting Artsakh’s Revival program’s implementation.
According to the information DE FACTO got at the Main Department of
Information under the NKR President, a distinguished American lawyer
of the Armenian origin Marc Kirakos, who had participated in the event,
appealed to the present to contribute to the NKR’s development.
RA Ambassador to the U. S. Tatul Margarian, RA representative
to the U. N. Armen Martirosian, the U. S. Diaspora’s influential
representatives and Armenian religious figures were present at the
reception.
Within his visit’s frames the NKR President also met with the Eurasia
Group consulting company’s leadership, the Armenian Assembly of
America (AAA) governing council members Edil Hovnanian and Van
Krikorian. During the talk Arkady Ghoukassian familiarized the
meetings’ participants with the perspectives of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict settlement, the process of state construction in the NKR
and the development of democracy in the Republic. The NKR President
expressed his gratitude to the AAA for the efficient work with the
U. S. Congress on the lobbying of the Nagorno-Karabakh’s interests.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS TO VISIT NAGORNO-KARABAKH REGION IN NOVEMBER
Author: E.Huseynov
Today, Azerbaijan
Nov 15 2006
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry informed Trend that the OSCE
Minsk Group Co-chairs on the resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh will be visiting the region from 21 –
23 November 2006.
A relevant agreement has been recently reached in Brussels at a meeting
of the Azerbaijan and Armenian Foreign Ministers, Elmar Mammadyarov
and Vardan Oskanian, as well as Minsk Group co-chairs.
The mediators are keen to visit Yerevan and Baku and hold talks with
the leadership of these countries to discuss the final initiative to
be taken to settle the problem.
Within the visit it is planned that the organization will arrange
the next meeting in the near future of the Presidents of Armenia
and Azerbaijan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A NEW STEP FORWARD IN DEMOCRATIZATION OF NAGORNO KARABAGH REPUBLIC
Yerkir, Armenia
Nov 13 2006
On November 1 the National Assembly of the Nagorno Karabagh Republic
approved the decision of holding a referendum on the draft constitution
of Nagorno Karabagh Republic.
Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s Artsakh organization has repeatedly
stressed the importance of adopting the Constitution of Nagorno
Karabagh Republic considering it one of the most urgent issues to
be addressed.
ARF has always had its representatives in the committees dealing with
adoption of the constitution. In the end of 1990’s ARF even developed
its draft of the constitution. Both ARF’s Artsakh organization and
the Deputy Group “ARF-Movement 88” participated actively in the
elaboration of the draft constitution.
We voted for putting this draft of the constitution for a referendum
because in addition to adoption of more than three dozens of proposals
we stress the importance of stating in the constitution a provision
on the territories, clear separation of power, limitation of the
president’s and government’s competencies and strengthening the role of
the National Assembly, introducing the main changes in the judiciary,
establishing the institute of the ombudsperson, etc.
All this derives from ARF’s strategic interests that are stated
in ARF’s Programme and the election platform of the ARF-Movement
88 deputy group. ARF’s Programme states, “Democracy is anchored on
respect for human and civil rights and liberties.
It protects pluralism, multi-party system and fundamental freedoms
of speech, conscience, media, and work. Democracy is characterized
by the individual’s right for free and equal vote and equality of
free citizens in front of the law.
It ensures free and unrestricted expression of the people’s will
and people’s full participation in political, social, economic
and cultural life through various organizations and representative
institutions thus making the interaction between the state and the
people efficient. Democracy is characterized by separation and balance
of legislative, judicial and executive powers”.
The electoral platform of ARF-Movement 88 Deputy Group states,
“ARF-Movement 88 Deputy Group believes the consolidation of the public
administration and judicial systems must be anchored on the following
principles. Adoption of Nagorno Karabagh Republic’s constitution
through wide discussion among the population and the political forces
and finally a referendum is of crucial importance.
It will ensure separation of legislative, executive and judicial power
clearly defining their functions and the mechanisms for mutual checks
and balances.
– In order to further promote democracy it is necessary to limit the
competencies of the president strengthening the National Assembly
instead.
– In the unity of democratic principles and the interests of the nation
state we must follow the principle that democracy is the foundation
for establishment of political institutions of the Armenian nation,
and is the main guarantee for recognition of Artsakh’s right to
self-determination.
It should be stated that some proposals made by ARF-Movement 88
Deputy Group were not accepted, among them, the proposal to make
the posts of heads of administrations elected, the proposals to
prohibit those engaged in the law enforcement system to engage in
political activities, invalidate the Law on the President, make the
provisions for protection of heads of communities more clear-cut,
establishment of a professional parliament starting in 2010. However,
we will have an opportunity to pursue some of these proposals in the
future through our legislative activities (for instance the issue of
professional parliament, or the protection of heads of communities).
By voting for the draft constitution of Nagorno Karabagh Republic
we will make another step forward on the way of state building and
consolidation in Nagorno Karabagh.
“Aparazh” (“Rock”), Stepanakert
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE ARABS
By Robert Satloff
Newsweek (International Edition)
Nov 12 2006
Even for the most empathetic Arabs, the Holocaust is still a faraway
event-Europeans killing their own-for which they paid a price.
Nov. 20, 2006 issue – A moroccan cartoonist recently took top honors,
worth $12,000, in a contest lampooning the Holocaust, sponsored by
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Instead of echoing the crass
anti-Semitism that nowadays issues from Tehran, Moroccans and other
Arabs might better have cited their rich history with Jews and the
Holocaust to put Ahmadinejad in his place.
In North Africa and the Middle East, discussion of the Holocaust has
tended to take one of three forms. One is outright denial, favored
by demagogues ranging from secular nationalists like Egypt’s Gamal
Abdul Nasser, who 40 years ago said that “no person takes seriously
the lie of the six million Jews that were murdered,” to religious
radicals like Hizbullah’s Hassan Nasrallah, who once proclaimed that
“Jews invented the legend of the Holocaust.” At the opposite end
of the spectrum are what I call Holocaust glorifiers. These Hitler
cheerleaders are best exemplified by the editorial writers at Egypt’s
state-owned al-Akhbar newspaper, who have praised the Final Solution
and only lamented the fact that the Nazis didn’t finish the job.
Most Arabs settle between these extremes in a sort of “Holocaust
relativism.” They admit that Jews suffered during World War II but
dispute both the numbers and the unique depravity of the Final
Solution. “In war, bad things happen,” they tend to say, citing
mass killings of Armenians, Kurds or Cambodians to suggest that the
Jewish experience was nothing special. Thus Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad told U.S. TV host Charlie Rose earlier this year that
he doesn’t have “any clue how [Jews] were killed or how many were
killed,” while moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas authored
a Soviet-era doctoral dissertation that questioned the number of Jews
killed. Even for the most empathetic Arabs, the Holocaust is still
a faraway event-Europeans killing their own-for which, they say,
the Palestinians have paid a price in the creation of Israel.
Five years ago, shortly after September 11, my family and I moved to
Rabat to begin a research project that I hoped would change the way
Arabs think about the Holocaust. My man-bites-dog idea was simple.
Not a single Arab is among the more than 20,000 non-Jews recognized by
Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the Holocaust, for rescuing
Jews from the threat of death. This didn’t make sense to me, given
that North Africa, with more than a half-million Jews, was such a
critical front of the war. If I could find even a single story of
an Arab who saved a Jew, I thought, perhaps it could serve as a tool
for transforming the Holocaust into a source of pride for the region,
rather than a target of denial.
I soon learned that the Holocaust, while overwhelmingly a European
story, was an Arab story, too. From June 1940 to May 1943, the Nazis
and their allies controlled North Africa and exported across the
Mediterranean many elements of the Final Solution, from slave labor
camps to the Yellow Star. Arabs responded remarkably like Europeans:
most were indifferent to the fate of the Jews, a sizable percentage
willingly collaborated in the persecution of Jews, and a small but
symbolically important group of Arabs helped and even saved Jews.
Perpetrators ranged from Arab guards who tortured Jews in Vichy
“punishment camps” in Algeria and Morocco to Arab interpreters in
Tunisia who went house to house with SS officers pointing out Jews.
These ordinary Arabs are best represented by a Tunisian named Hassen
Ferjani, convicted by a Free French tribunal in 1943 for a conspiracy
that led to the deportation to Germany-and subsequent execution-of
three Jewish men, a father and his two sons.
The heroes have names, too. They include men such as Si Ali Sakkat,
a former mayor of Tunis who opened his mountainside farm to 60 Jews
escaping from a labor camp, and the dashing Khaled Abdelwahhab, son
of a celebrated Tunisian author, who spirited several Jewish families
from their hostel in the middle of the night to protect one of them-a
beautiful blond, blue-eyed Jewish woman-from being raped by a German
officer. I also found tales of many Arabs whose names we don’t know:
the Arab wet nurse who took in Jewish children when milk was scarce;
the Arab baker who squirreled away extra bread for Jewish families when
Vichy rations penalized Jews most of all; the Arab shepherds who opened
their modest homes to Jewish families fleeing bombed-out villages.
These stories of villains and heroes constitute the real-life Arab
experience of the Holocaust. Arabs don’t have to take a lesson from
the president of Iran. In fact, they could teach him a few things.
Satloff, director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is
the author of ‘Among the Righteous: Lost Stories From the Holocaust’s
Long Reach Into Arab Lands’
week/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS
by Andrew Wallis
Reviewed By Rw Johnson
The Sunday Times, UK
Nov 12 2006
SILENT ACCOMPLICE: The Untold Story of France’s Role in the Rwandan Genocide
France has recently infuriated Turkey by making it illegal to deny
the Turkish massacre of the Armenians in 1915. But if Turkey is in
denial, so is France, which bears a central responsibility for the 1994
genocide of 937,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. On occasion, as he tells this
terrible story, Andrew Wallis’s indignation gets the better of him,
causing him to lapse into heavy-handed infelicities. These do not,
however, weaken the power of what he has to say.
For those unfamiliar with French policy in Africa, it may seem
almost incredible how far it is still driven by imperial rivalry with
Britain and a sort of bitter fury at the triumph of les Anglo-Saxons,
producing a defensive rallying of Francafrique, and roping into it
Rwanda and Zaire, abandoned by the Belgians. Such attitudes are by
no means confined to Gaullists – it was Francois Mitterrand who,
as minister of justice in 1957, explained French problems with its
West African colonies: “It is British agents who have made all our
difficulties.” So while Charles de Gaulle first welcomed Rwanda into
Franc-afrique, blithely ignoring the massacre of Tutsis carried out
by President Gregoire Kayibanda in 1963, so Mitterrand as president
adopted exactly the same attitude to President Juvenal Habyarimana,
who had deposed (and killed) Kayibanda in 1973. Habyarimana became his
personal friend, and Habyarimana’s wife, Agathe, a sort of African
Imelda Marcos, became a constant visitor to his household and close
friend of the first lady, Danielle. Agathe is the founder of the
extremist Hutu society, Akazu, whose network (le clan de madame)
is credited with much of the responsibility for the genocide. Its
power is still greatly feared today.
After the earlier massacres, many Tutsis had fled into Uganda where,
under Paul Kagame, they fought alongside Yoweri Museveni against
Idi Amin and Milton Obote. When Museveni won, Kagame led the Rwandan
Patriotic Front (RPF) back into Rwanda in 1990. It was immediately
clear that the RPF was fully a match for the Rwandan army (FAR),
and French troops were promptly dispatched to prop up Habyarimana –
for Kagame was Anglophone and American-educated. The French insisted
that Kagame was a CIA agent, that the RPF was really just the Ugandan
army, and that the plan was to evict France’s client and instal an
Anglophone regime instead. Their opposition to such an outcome was such
that they were willing to encourage their Hutu proteges to do anything,
including genocide, to stop it. Two Frenchmen in succession were put
in as the effective heads of FAR and, blithely ignoring EU directives
about “ethical” arms sales, they arranged huge supplies of arms for
the Hutu regime, much of it routed through Egypt with the help of
their ally in the Cairo foreign office, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. It
was an even greater coup when, in 1991, Mitterrand was able to push
in Boutros-Ghali as UN secretary-general.
By this time, the first massacres of Tutsis had begun, and a furious
Kagame flew to Paris where Paul Dijoud, African affairs director
at the Quai d’Orsay, seems to have threatened that, if he did not
withdraw the RPF, “you will not see your brothers and your family
again, because they will all have been massacred”. In fact, Wallis
produces plentiful evidence that some French officers were training the
Hutus how to capture and tie up prisoners, how to slit their bellies
so that their bodies wouldn’t float and in general preaching that
“if you let them (Tutsis) carry on producing children . . . you’ll
never be done with them”. And it seems there are many eyewitnesses of
French troops assisting at torture sessions and catching Tutsis and
handing them over to Hutus who hacked them to death before their eyes.
These early massacres were as nothing compared to the all-out
genocide launched upon Habyarimana’s death in April 1994. The new
government, with key genocidaires, was, it appears, formed by the
French ambassador at a meeting in the French embassy. The man the
French had put in charge, Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, apparently made
no secret of his plans: “I have come back to declare the apocalypse,”
he said. The French, well aware of what was about to happen,
then got out. The calculation was that any peace deal would mean a
power-sharing agreement with Kagame – which was anathema. Better let
the Hutus continue the genocide to completion if that allowed them
to stay in power, but in that case France, having armed, trained and
encouraged its proteges towards such an outcome, had to get clear of
the carnage. As the evidence of the holocaust thus unleashed became
overwhelming Bruno Delaye, the Elysee’s Africa boss, is reputed to
have said that “that’s the way Africans are”. When asked how he could
have entertained genocidaires in his office, he seems to have replied
that he’d had 400 assassins and 2,000 drug dealers through his doors:
“You can’t deal with Africa without getting your hands dirty.”
Mitterrand shrugged off the killings with “Dans ces pays-la, un
genocide ce n’est pas trop important” and cynically concocted the
notion of a “double genocide”, ie that the Tutsis were just as guilty,
which was rather like saying the Jews and the Nazis were as bad as one
another. When the surrounding states tried to hold an emergency meeting
on the situation in Tanzania, Paris angrily torpedoed it: “We can’t
let Anglophone countries decide on the future of a Francophone one.”
And so it continued to its dreadful end. Ultimately, Kagame and the
RPF won and the French sent troops in to get their Hutu proteges into
Zaire where they could reform and rearm for a fight that has thus far
cost 4m lives. Mitterrand angrily refused to invite Kagame’s Rwanda
to his last Francafrique summit and made sure the genocide was not
even discussed. Several genocidaires still live happily in France
where a parliamentary inquiry, headed by one of Mitterrand’s former
ministers, is accused of whitewashing the whole operation. Jacques
Chirac and Dominique de Villepin have wholly backed this all up,
for the French elite are as one in wishing to continue to celebrate
France as the home of democracy and human rights.
It is only in the past few years that French responsibility for
the deportation of 100,000 Jews in the second world war has been
acknowledged, and nobody yet admits that French eagerness to damage
Anglophone Nigeria by lending surreptitious support to Biafra cost
many hundreds of thousands of lives. But all this is dwarfed by the
enormity of what happened in Rwanda – an enormity so great that neither
Britain nor any of France’s partners seem keen to broach the matter.
This book (and the news that France is to declassify some documents
relating to the genocide) are at least a start. The leading
presidential contender, Nicolas Sarkozy, is fond of talking of the
need for a frank “rupture” with the past. There is no part of the
French past that needs honesty and a clean break more than this.
Read on…
websites: Human Rights Watch on Rwanda
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress