A hyena that sued for Justice

A story is told in Kinyarwanda folklore, of a hyena that wanted to eat a lamb, that went to drink water at noon at the village well every day. The hyena used a stick to disturb the water, making it murky. 

Saturday, May 22, 2010

A story is told in Kinyarwanda folklore, of a hyena that wanted to eat a lamb, that went to drink water at noon at the village well every day. The hyena used a stick to disturb the water, making it murky. 

When the lamb came to the well to drink, the hyena was walking to and fro at the edge of the well feigning annoyance and when he saw the former, he accused her of being responsible for making him suffer with thirst in the afternoon heat, by disturbing the water in the village well.

"Today, I will punish you for making me fail to drink water by making the water murky” said the hyena. "But I was not even near here” pleaded the lamb. "If it is not you, it is one of your relatives and for that I will punish them by eating you”, said the hyena. "None of my relatives has been here!

Because I am a lamb, I came early, none of my relatives has been here before me!” pleaded the lamb. "I feel very thirsty and must punish someone and it must be you that I punish.” said the hyena before eating the hapless Lamb.

Thereafter, the hyena went to the king of the jungle, Mr. Lion to report how the lamb had made him to fail to drink water at the village well and had punished her by eating her.

The lion was angry and said the hyena had used excessive punishment and called a meeting of all animals. He told the animals that the hyena had acted unjustly, and had to be punished but just then Fox, Coyote, Dingo and others reminded the Lion that that he (Lion) once in a while ate other animals’ young ones and punishing hyena was setting a bad precedent after all hyena was a senior member of the ‘Animals Meeting’. "What should I do then” said Lion.

"It is Ewe who did not care for her lamb, punish her”, said Jackal. The meeting therefore, concluded that Ewe was responsible for the death of her lamb when she allowed her to stir the water making hyena very thirsty.

It was reported that on April 30, 2010, in Edmond, Oklahoma, USA, as President Kagame  graced Oklahoma Christian University’s celebration of  the first 10 Rwandan graduates in the school’s Rwanda Presidential Scholars program , a  group of lawyers purportedly working on the orders of Agatha Habyarimana and Sylvana Ntaryamira,  tried  to serve  him a lawsuit with eight counts: wrongful death and murder; crimes against humanity; violation of the rights of life, liberty, and security; assault and battery; intentional infliction of emotional distress; violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act; torture; and continuing conspiracy in furtherance thereof.

How could the hyena that devoured Rwandan children turn around and ask for justice in events she planned and partly executed?

How could a hyena, whose elder brother Protais Zigiranyirazo was convicted and sentenced to prison for genocide only to be released on technicalities, could accuse others of genocide.

One would be astounded by the perversion of justice that Agatha Kanziga, widow of Habyarimana the leader of the so-called Hutu Power extremist group, a wanted suspected criminal that planned and executed the genocide in Rwanda, would accuse the one who led the army that stopped it, of perpetuating it until one examined the people behind the law suit, and their version of criminals and events leading to the Genocide against the Tutsi.

The suit was filed by a group of American Attorneys Prof. Peter Erlinder and Kurt P. Kerns, with a known record of denying facts of and reality of the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and have been involved in a campaign to rewrite the history of the country, in much the same way Rwandan genocide criminals and their sponsors have in the past and are doing today.

Prof. Peter Erlinder the self-styled  ‘ICTR Lead Defense Counsel’ , is the failed defense Counsel for Major Aloysius Ntabakuze the commander of the Para-commando unit of the Army who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on 18th December 2008 for Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity (Extermination), Crimes Against Humanity (Murder), Crimes Against Humanity (Persecution), Crimes Against Humanity (Other Inhumane Acts) and Serious Violations of Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II (Violence to Life).

Troops under the command of Ntabakuze moved house to house in Kabeza and other places in Kigali killing Tutsi.

At IAMSEA in Remera, they separated a number of the Tutsi from the Hutu at a school and killed them, at Sonatube junction, Kicukiro they stopped and herded more than 2000 Tutsi abandoned by Belgian peacekeepers, and marched them to their death at Nyanza, at Mudende University and Nyundo Parish, Ntabakuza oversaw the massacre of ethnic Tutsi, and commanded his troops to participate in an operation to kill starving and barely surviving Tutsi refugees in Bisesero.

The trial chamber at ICTR, Arusha observed that, "The gravity and brutality of these crimes are worthy of the highest condemnation”.  In the closing stages of the trial of Ntabakuze in May 2007, Erlinder had argued that convicting his killer client would be "an offence to common sense”. According to Peter Erlinder, there were "two genocides” in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994.

On 23-12-2008, Erlinder wrote in the JURIST that, "there was no conspiracy and no planning to kill ethnic civilians, can the tragedy that engulfed Rwanda properly be called "a genocide” at all?

Or, was it closer to a case of civilians being caught up in war-time violence, like the Eastern Front in WWII, rather than the planned behind-the-lines killings in Nazi death camps?

The ICTR judgment found the former...As Lead Defense Counsel for Major Aloys Ntabakuze, who was convicted of three specific crimes committed by troops acting under his authority; I would say the judgment was actually a victory”. That is one of the people who sued the Head of State.

Kurt P. Kerns, is another failed Defense Council who unsuccessfully represented Croatian Army Commander Vinko Martinovic at the Hague War Crimes Tribunal and is defending Rwanda genocide suspect Lazare Kobagaya against deportation from the USA, for lying to immigration officials during his entry into the USA  and indictment  to face charges.

Vinko Martinovic aka Stela, was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment by International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Kobagaya, a Burundian who ordered the massacres of the Tutsi in Nyakizu, Southern Province and other places in 1994 is a naturalized American! According to Kerns the case he estimates has surpassed $1 million in expenses for both sides combined.

What is clear from the outgoing is that the Lawyers who brought up the lawsuit are known genocide deniers and apologists, who have for years worked for criminals facing genocide charges. They enjoy the label of "international lawyers” and "lead Defense Attorney” in the USA; though they are losers who have never won an international case.

The accusations are copies of the February 2008 indictments by Spaniard Fernando Andreu Merelles which were themselves copies of the discredited November 2006 indictments by French Jean-Louis Bruguière written for him by the The General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), France’s external intelligence agency.

In a nutshell, the Lawsuit attributed to the hyena in Oklahoma involves many beasts whose record of devouring lambs is not new. 

Ends