General Paul Kagame,
President of the Republic of Rwanda
B.P.15 Kigali - RWANDA.
22^nd August 2010

Dear Sir,

I greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In direct reference to your published article "Rwanda's democracy is still the model for Africa" of 19^th August 2010, I beg to disagree with you as  your close friends the Americans also reminded you through their White House statement of Friday 13^th August 2010 Mr. President that, "Democracy is about more than holding elections."

Unfortunately, August 09^th 2010 was yet another missed chance for the people of Rwanda to take a step forward towards peace and reconciliation. It was a missed opportunity for all...
[whole article]

Like Gerald Caplan's hostile "review" of our book, The Politics of Genocide, Adam Jones's aggressive attack on our response to Caplan can be explained in significant part by Jones's deep commitment to an establishment narrative on the Rwandan genocide that we believe to be false -- one that misallocates the main responsibility for that still ongoing disaster, but dominates by virtue of political interests and intellectual conformity.¹  Caplan devoted perhaps 5 percent of his "review" to our book, and the remaining 95 percent to an attack on us for our treatment of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  But Jones went Caplan one better, ignoring our book altogether (which at the time of his writing Jones did not appear to ha...
[whole article]

In his June 17 "review" of our book The Politics of Genocide, for Pambazuka News,¹ Gerald Caplan, a Canadian writer who Kigali's New Times described as a "leading authority on Genocide and its prevention,"² focuses almost exclusively on the section we devote to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.³  Caplan s

Like Gerald Caplan's hostile "review" of our book, The Politics of Genocide, Adam Jones's aggressive attack on our response to Caplan can be explained in significant part by Jones's deep commitment to an establishment narrative on the Rwandan genocide that we believe to be false -- one that misal...
[whole article]

With the tragedy that has struck Fort Hood, with the swirling talk of ethnicity, religion, and the mission of defending democracy and freedom it might be an opportune time to consider a new more appropriate name for the fort.

In 1942, in the midst of a war with the avowedly racist Hitler regime, the American government set up a new military base in Texas and named it Fort Hood after an avowed racist and a military failure. His ideology was reactionary and he was no strategic thinker, so you have to believe some pretty dull bulbs made the decision. General John Bell Hood of the Confederate Army lost an arm (Gettysburgh) and a leg (Chickamauga) fighting against the American government of Abraham Lincoln. Gen. Hood wrote a letter to U.S. General Sherman that ended: "...you mak...
[whole article]

In Gaza the people voted in a free and fair election for Hamas. And how did the American heartland of freedom and democracy react? It snorted contempt and refused both the electoral outcome and recognition of the Hamas organization.

Of course there was also an election in the backyard, that is to say Haiti. Aristide was an overwhelming winner. The U.S. administration glared and complained and then with able assistance of Canada removed Aristide from power and from his country...after offering him the option of being executed.

And yet the media, the sound system of a deeply paranoid and violent U.S. state, is all atwitter that the people of Iran have been robbed in an election. Evidence. "We don't need no stinking evidence", we (big NATO brother and us) know,...
[whole article]