This is not the first time this has happened. The Israeli "NGO Monitor" raises a legitimate question.
Since its founding as Helsinki Watch in 1978, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has greatly expanded its scope. While continuing its core mission in promoting human rights in closed regimes such as China, HRW devotes a large portion of its resources to issues related to international law in armed conflicts, asymmetric warfare, and responses to terrorism. In this process, HRW relies on its "halo effect" and the perception of expertise, morality, and objectivity as a non-governmental organization (NGO) to become an influential political and ideological actor.Its impact is particularly pronounced in the Arab-Israeli conflict: HRW exerts major influence on the UN and on the policies of governments through condemnations of Israel for alleged violations and demands for "independent investigations." These allegations then become amplified through the media.
Certainly, in this instance, HRW's unproven accusations against Rwanda have been amplified through the media.
HRW seems strident and determined to deny Rwanda the rotating African seat on the Security Council that is up for a vote this week. In February, the African Union selected Rwanda to replace South Africa on the Security Council for a two-year term starting Jan. 1. Since Rwanda is the only candidate for the seat, its election by the U.N. General Assembly in September is guaranteed, but HRW has inserted itself into the process.
Human Rights Watch criticized Rwanda's virtual guarantee of a seat on the U.N. Security Council next year, saying Monday it shouldn't be on the U.N.'s most powerful body when it is protecting a Congolese ex-warlord (Bosco Ntaganda) indicted by the International Criminal Court.
HRW is continually beating the tedious drum of the whereabouts of Bosco Ntaganda. Why they are holding Rwanda accountable for his arrest when he is an officer in the Congolese army is a question that points to bias on the part of HRW. The GoE interim report suggests that Ntaganda is under the watchful eye of the Congolese army.
Kagame lost his patience completely with HRW in his press conference last week.
"You are holding (Ntaganda) accountable and turning the whole of the eastern Congo population upside down and messing it up and opening up the old wounds."
He referred to Human Rights Watch as "rubbish" for having released the report accusing Rwanda of involvement supporting Ntaganda's rebellion in DRC.
In her press conference at the UN on Monday, Mushikiwabo had a chilling warning about the consequences of false accusations and subsequent demonizations of minorities, in this case Rwandan-speaking residents of DRC, Uganda, and Tanzania. Check the 40:56 mark in her comments. The Foreign Minister recounts the horrific days of the 1994 genocide, when the Tutsi minority was targeted in hate speech as "cockroaches." (my term) Today, she says there are calls on web sites to once again begin elimination of Tutsis.
En attendant, la RDC doit à �duquer son peuple dans le sens de dà �velopper la haine collective contre les Tutsi et d -opter pour la thà �orie du Parabellum. Celle-ci implique que la RDC doit, non seulement prà �parer ses hommes d -Armà �e - une guerre contre le Rwanda, mais surtout, - doter le peuple congolais d -un arsenal nuclà �aire, dissuasion et persuasion obligent. Translation: Mutiny in the Kivus: the Foreign Minister of the DRC on a visit to Luanda (Congo Tribune / Magloire Muleka) June 17, 2012 Meanwhile, the DRC must educate its people in the direction of developing the collective hatred against Tutsis and opt for the theory of Parabellum. This implies that the DRC must not only prepare his men for an army to war against Rwanda, but above all, to give the Congolese people with nuclear weapons, deterrence and persuasion force.
Mushikiwabo tells the storyof a group of Rwandan farmers who were arrested and brutalized by individuals in DRC last week because they spoke Kinyarwanda. They were dumped at the border and hospitalized in the Rwandan border town of Gisenyi.
Janine Jackson of media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting discusses how US media cover Africa and black people in general. This excerpt is taken from Harambetv.com
She asks an important question. Whom do we want to write the narrative of DRC? Where are the African reporters and why doesn't the international press employ them?
There are millions upon millions in the Great Lakes region of central Africa who have suffered beyond any ability of poets, writers, journalists or saints to explain the complicated layers of this narrative.
Truth will reveal herself if we are open to hearing what she has to say. A narrative seen through biased western white eyes, and leaks from a United Nations staffer that are inciting hate speech will not suffice.
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