“In war, the first victim is the truth”

On 9 November 2024, the Paris Court of Appeal punished a deserving researcher and author with Cameroonian roots, ignoring important facts. For years, his well-researched non-fiction books have been documenting the fact that the Rwandan Tutsi minority under the iron-fisted regime of Paul Kagame is doing everything it can to whitewash the true story of the Rwandan catastrophe of 1994, its causes and its consequences. Despite obvious democratic deficiencies, the government in Kigali presents itself as a saviour that, by taking power at the last moment, put an end to the massacres. However, the reality was not as noble as is written in their primers and memorials.

The days of the trial as well as the verdict were followed with great interest in Africa, too. The accused and now convicted Charles Onana is well known there for his meticulously researched books. In recent years, he has repeatedly published well-founded accounts of the ongoing crisis in eastern Congo. In more recent books, he has been able to document his doubts about Rwanda’s official historical narrative even better, having access to previously inaccessible archive documents. Now he has been hit by Kagame’s long arm. Kagame-affiliated “woke culture” French circles with their dazzling concept of racism have successfully filed a lawsuit against Onana and his publisher. They claim that in his book “Rwanda, la vérité sur l’Opération turquoise”¹ (“Rwanda, the truth about the Operation Turquoise”, published in 2019, he “denies” the Rwandan genocide, relativises it and thus hurts the feelings of the victims’ families. The Court of Appeal upheld the prosecution on all counts and fined the author heavily. Anyone who has read even only one of Onana’s books will appreciate the absurdity of this verdict.

Onana is no ‘negationist’

Onana does not negate the fact that massacres took place at the time and that hundreds of thousands fell victim to them. However, based on thorough research, he insists on three unshakeable facts.
  In the “Rwandan genocide” of 1994, always portrayed in Western accounts exclusively as a Tutsi massacre committed by the Hutu, there were also many Hutus among the victims, murdered by Tutsi groups. Then Kagame’s troops themselves committed similar massacres against the Hutus before, after and during the “100 days of Rwanda”. And finally, according to Onana, it is a criminal neglect of the true causes of the catastrophe of that time to describe it exclusively as a consequence of “racism” and to define that term in as woolly a way as the French organisations representing the prosecution stereotypically do when referring to this subject. For these reasons, the informed, critical African public indignantly speaks of an embarrassing judgment. Mr. Onana, now vehemently attacked by the major media in the West, immediately declared that he would appeal against the verdict.

It is all about
coveted natural resources

As is true for all warlike excesses of violence, the prehistory holds the key to understanding also in this instance. In the spring, the EU signed a beneficiary pact with Rwanda, which, if you somewhat decipher the legalese, is mainly concerned with guaranteeing EU-Europe a long-term supply of “critical” raw materials. In this case, it is primarily about the rare tantarum, which is extracted from the mineral tantalite. Tantarum is in great demand all over the world. Without tantarum, the modern arms industry is nothing but scrap metal. Due to its extreme conductivity and heat resistance, tantalite is excellent for the manufacture of computer technology devices, not only cell phones, but above all powerful computers (including computer game consoles), as well as drones, remote-controlled weapons and space technology – and it is also indispensable for the protective shells of nuclear reactors. Tantarum is rare worldwide. It is most commonly found as a mineral compound known as “coltan” (columbite-tantalite) and must then be extracted from this.

Rwanda is the
world market leader in tantalite –
without a single mine of its own

Admittedly, Rwanda does not have a single mine that is worth mining. Nevertheless, the dwarf state is now the global market leader for coltan. On the other hand, the eastern Congo, especially North Kivu, is dotted with coltan mines from which tantalite is extracted. Coltan is often extracted in open-cast mining, and child labour is standard almost everywhere. It is the only meagre source of income for many of those inhabitants of who have not yet been displaced from this war zone of almost thirty years. Many of these improvised mining sites have been occupied by anonymous mercenary groups for decades. They call themselves “rebel groups” in deliberate deception; in reality they are mainly foreign mercenaries in the service of international commodity consortia, many of them under American direction. The largest of these groups is the M23. All critical experts agree that it is equipped and deployed by Rwanda. In this context, many speak of “Rwanda’s extended arm in the eastern Congo”.

The misfortune of having strategically
mportant substances in your subsoil

According to Human Rights Watch, the war for “strategic resources” in eastern Congo, which has been going on uninterrupted for 28 years, has claimed around 10 million human victims, the majority of whom are civilians, many of them women and children. In the words of Charles Onana, it has become a permanent war between the fully armed dwarf Rwanda with its strong army of 120,000 soldiers and its neighbour, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  The Congolese army has little chance against its permanent occupation by Rwanda-controlled phantom armies. Alarming reports from eastern Congo in recent months have revolved around attacks by the “M23” mercenary gang towards Goma. Wherever they appear, the M23 causes panic and wild refugee movements. So unspeakable refugee suffering was this autumn also reported from the Goma region, concentrated on the neighbouring town of Sake. What is this advance aimed at? It has given the “M23” control of the largest coltan mine in the Congo, the Rubaya mine. This is located in the coltan-rich hills between Goma and Sake, where rocket and artillery fire has been going on for weeks, its targets mainly civilian. These hills are now deserted. The tantalite mined in the huge Rubaya mining area pours a monthly profit of 300,000 dollars into the coffers of the occupiers and therefore, more recently, into those of Rwanda. According to Radio France inter, Ribaya alone accounts for 15 % of the world’s tantalite production. Women and children continue to transport the heavy sacks on their backs to the next collection point over rough, steep mountain paths that are soaked when it rains. Under Congolese conditions, an adult miner was paid 1 US dollar for 14 hours of hard work in the mines, and he bore the risk of the frequent tunnel breakages alone. Have these conditions improved under Rwandan patronage? The atrocities of the “rebel” groups are committed daily, the plight of refugees remains a constant. You do not speak about this suffering in eastern Congo. When it becomes obvious, people quickly look the other way. It is what the mafia “families” characterise by the Italian term “Omertà”: You have heard nothing, you have seen nothing, you say nothing – or else …

The ‘code of silence’
favours crimes against humanity

For years, courageous analysts, historians and political scientists have been exposing the Rwandan-American-European construct of lies, among them Africans undaunted by death. Charles Onana clearly belongs to this legion of honour in this economic war. His book, now “ostracised” by the Paris court ruling, is another important work contributing to the laborious restoration of reality.
  Current Concerns has previously reported in detail on the subject of the Rwandan blood spring of 1994 and its consequences.² Onana in no way denies the facts of the massacres committed in Rwanda in 1994. But he shows and substantiates with facts and documents that not only members of the Tutsi population were killed in the 1994 massacres in Rwanda, but also Hutu and Twa.
  Onana comes to the conclusion that the massacres were mutual and that, if one considers all the victims on the Hutu side, they equalled or even outnumbered those of the Tutsi. Kagame’s civil war troops had systematically committed horrific crimes against the Hutu civilian population in the war they waged against their own countrymen from 1990-1994. The men of the reconquered settlements, mainly inhabited by Hutus, were often executed en masse, while women and children were taken prisoner. Onana testifies to this in others of his analyses and it is also attested to by renowned other authors, including in the so-called “Mapping Report” compiled by the UN, which makes names, data and facts available on the internet to anyone interested (Mapping Report A/HRC/25/53, English and French).
  The Swiss chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Carla de Ponte, had in her hand evidence at process maturity level of ten serious crimes against humanity, committed by high-ranking officers of the Tutsi civil war army. She was forbidden to press the relevant charges, following the American president’s sovereign intervention. When she objected, her mandate was not renewed (see box). And on top of everything, the FPR had not put a stop to the killings during the “Hundred Days” in Rwanda from 6 April to 12 July 1994 after its assumption of power, as Kagame claimed at every opportunity. His troops had been surrounding the capital Kigali for weeks, but let the carnage run its course for many weeks.
  The fact that Kagame is only now taking legal action against Onana, and against this particular book as no other, is not because he wants justice for the Tutsi victims. Rather, it is an attempt to silence a voice that names and documents the terrible history and the exact circumstances of the 1994 catastrophe. Onana has uncovered the responsibility of the Rwandan government in numerous studies.
  The fact that Rwanda is now using the 2019 book in particular as a pretext to tarnish his reputation has purely tactical reasons. In Onana’s latest book, Holocauste au Congo (2023, ISBN 9782810011452), he shows over 480 pages that there is a holocaust against the eastern Congolese civilian population going on to the present day, for which mercenaries controlled by Rwanda and their anonymous suppliers in the West bear heavy responsibility, but so does the EU Commission, being blind here, entering in bloody agreements with this government as well as knowing but disregarding everything that is not said. •

¹ Onana, Charles. La Vérité sur l’Opération Turquoise. Quand les archives parlent, L’Artilleur, 2019, ISBN 2810009171 (The truth about the Operation Turquoise. When archives speak.) French edition available at Fnac Schweiz
² “The ‘post-Mobutist’ Congo: The USA is betting on Rwanda – Congo – kleptocracy with no end in sight? (part  4)”, in: Current Concerns No 3 of 8 February 2018; “The permanent war in eastern Congo is based on a construct of lies”, in: Current Concerns No 9 of 7 May 2024