Tag: Charles Onana

French Court finds Charles Onana Guilty of Downplaying the Rwanda Genocide

On By Dr. Y.In Great Moments, Great People2 Comments
“Rwanda, la Verite sur l’Operation Turquoise” de Charles Onana

On Monday, a French court found the Franco-Cameroonian journalist and author Charles Onana guilty of downplaying the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Onana has been condemned to pay 8400 Euros of penalty. His editor, Damien Serieyx has also been found guilty and condemned to pay 5000 Euros. They also have to further pay 11,000 Euros in compensation to human rights organisations that filed the suit. The book at the center of the controversy is, “Rwanda, la vérité sur l’opération Turquoise: quand les archives parlent.”

The court said that Onana’s book had “trivialised” and “contested” in “an outrageous manner” the genocide that occurred between April and July 1994.  Onana’s lawyer, Emmanuel Pire, insisted that Onana did not question that genocide took place, or that Tutsis were particularly targeted as per the BBC; but rather that many lost lives in the 1994 horrendous events including Tutsis, Hutus, and Twas. Onana invites all to read his book without pulling passages out of context, but reading the book in its entirety. Both Onana and his publisher have appealed against the verdict.

“Holocauste au Congo, L’Omerta de la Communaute Internationale” by Charles Onana

Could this be a vendetta against Onana for shedding light on the horrors happening in the East of the Democractic Republic of Congo (DRC), with his book “Holocaust in Congo: the International Community’s Omerta“? Until his book and a few by others like Patrick Mbeko, Michela Wrong, Pierre Pean, …, the international community had turned a blind eye on the atrocities committed in the DRC. With over 10 million dead, 7 million internally displaced, 500 000 woman raped, the story should have been in the front pages of news outlets around the world, yet it is a total blackout. Why? Because of the Geological Scandal that is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), The New Scramble for Africa with Congo as the centerpiece, and the special first rate place played by that country ‘wrongfully’ dubbed by some as the Switzerland of Africa.

For more, check out the article by Colette Braeckman, The Looting of the Congo, BBC – DR Congo: Cursed by its natural wealth and the extensive articles written by a fellow blogger at WiPoKuli Schluter. All Support to Charles Onana. Check out the recent interview of Idriss Aberkane with Michela Wrong.

All Support to Charles Onana as Trial against Him begins

On By Dr. Y.In Great Moments, Great People2 Comments
Kigali Genocide Memorial, Kigali, Rwanda

The trial against Charles Onana opened up yesterday, Oct. 7th, in Paris, France, and he is being accused of complicity in contesting the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Under French law, it is an offence to deny or “minimize” the fact of any genocide that is officially recognized by France. Mr Onana’s trial will be “historic, since there is not yet any case law strictly speaking related to Rwanda” on questions of Holocaust denial, as Camille Lesaffre, campaign manager for NGO Survie, one of the organizations which brought the case forward, told AFP.

Charles Onana

Friends, please rise in support of the Franco-Cameroonian author and journalist Charles Onana. Onana has been among those who have questioned the narrative of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 (NOT whether it happened or not) and by extension the Congolese genocide which has been ongoing for almost 3 decades and been swept under the rug. Thanks to his constant hammering, and his books, many now know that there is an ongoing genocide in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and more importantly that, these massacres have been going on for the past 30 years, and above all that Congo’s destabilization is coming from Rwanda, which serves as a pawn for foreign powers who want a part in the enormous resources of the DRC.

“Rwanda, la Verite sur l’Operation Turquoise” de Charles Onana

I have listened to Onana on several occasions and have read several of his books: nowhere does he question the Rwanda genocide or its happening; he is not a negationist. As his lawyer, Emmanuel Pire, told the AFP news agency, his book published 5 years ago, was  “the work of a political scientist based on 10 years of research to understand the mechanisms of the genocide before, during and after”. Over the past 25 years, Onana has meticulously documented and questioned first the narrative about the place of France in the Rwandan genocide via its Operation Turquoise (Rwanda, la vérité sur l’opération Turquoise : Quand les archives parlent enfin). On April 6, 1994, the airplane transporting 2 sitting presidents, presidents Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi was shot in mid-air; to date, it has not brought an uproar as to how or why the plane of 2 presidents had been shot down. This is what really triggered Onana’s interest in the region: if it were anywhere in the world, this would have produced an uproar and multitudes of investigations, but somehow, in the case of Africa, it has been total silence. In 2006, a French investigation concluded that Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, was responsible for the killing, to which Kagame responded that the French were only trying to cover up their part in the genocide. We know that since Sarkozy, France has been playing the kissing game with Rwanda.

“Holocauste au Congo, L’Omerta de la Communaute Internationale” by Charles Onana

In his works, Charles Onana simply demonstrates that since 1994, the world has been witnessing the masked invasion of Congo by militias and troops of Paul Kagame, sponsored by the West. His latest book, “Holocaust in Congo, the International Community’s Omerta” is a true gem. Onana has even brought a case, on October 4, against the president of Rwanda, after receiving death threats.

Over the years, Onana has detailed and stood for the Congolese, and now, thanks to his work, and those of others, people now know that there is a silent genocide in the east of Congo which has been going on for almost 3 decades and whose victims approximate over 10 millions deaths, 500,000 raped women, and yet the world has been silent, even though some like Dr. Denis Mukwege, Nobel Peace Laureate, are being recognized for their work helping the victims of those attacks.

The questions should be: why is there a silence on the genocide of the Congolese people? Why is there a silence on the aggression of troops supported by Rwanda on Congo? How can there be a systematic killing of millions of people in a country, and total silence? Who benefits from this? Then people will talk of the international community as a group which represents the world… NO… the international community only serves the interests of the few who benefit from Congo, the geological scandal that it is, being brought to its knees. Let’s all come out in support of Charles Onana.

Africa: Think Ahead, Strategize!

On By Dr. Y.In Great Literature, Great MomentsLeave a comment
Charles Onana

A few years ago, after the horrors of the electoral crisis in Cote d’Ivoire and the bombing of its presidential palace with the capture of President Laurent Gbagbo and First Lady Simone Gbagbo, I watched a video interview of the Franco-Cameroonian journalist Charles Onana who was talking about his book “Côte d’Ivoire : le coup d’État, Duboiris, 2011 (with a preface by Thabo Mbeki).” At the end of the interview, Onana stated, “… Quand vous avez un pays riche qui est convoité par des multinationales, par des groupes mafieux, par des états, etc, vous devez décupler votre intelligence pour défendre votre pays. … En face vous avez des équipes de think-tanks qui sont là pour penser comment destabiliser le pays, donc les Africains ne peuvent pas faire l’économie d’un travail acharné, d’un travail surhumain pour s’en sortir … Pendant que la crise se calme ou s’apaise, les autres continuent de travailler pour vous destabiliser, ils refléchissent à d’autres stratégies, mais il faut que [les Africains] apprennent à refléchir à differentes stratégies de manière à ce que le Président de la République ne se retrouve pas toujours seul à penser à tout, seul à reflechir à tout, …” [When you are a rich country that is coveted by multinationals, by mafia groups, by states, etc, you must increase your intelligence tenfold to defend your country. …  On the other side, you have think-tank teams that are thinking ways to destabilize the country, so Africans cannot avoid hard work, superhuman work to be free … When the crisis calms down or subsides, others continue to work to destabilize you, they think other strategies, but Africans too need to think different strategies so that the President of the Republic does not always find himself thinking not the only one think all by himself, …]

The New Scramble for Africa (Source: Source: Dr Jack & Curtis for City Press, National Institute African Studies (NIAS))

With the New Scramble for Africa, African countries should have think-tanks, the enemy has think-tanks strategizing over decades, how come we, Africans, do not? Even in times of peace, we should be strategizing… as we heard the French general, it is clear that they are already planning the defeat of Africa, and the return of Africans into their fold in 10 years… how come? When Sekou Toure said NO to the General De Gaulle and Guinea gained independence, not only were the French busy destabilizing his regime politically, militarily, arming his local opponents, but they even flooded his economy with fake currency to destroy his own free Guinean Franc (as he had said NO to the slave currency that is FCFA); the attacks were non stop for several decades, and honestly, are still going on. Thus, Africans, we need to gain our independence, and for our independence to be complete, we need to have strategies for the immediate day-to-day events, but also long-term, over 20-50 or even 100 years. It took China 100 years to get back Hong-Kong and Macau from Great Britain and Portugal… that happened because of a clear vision and strategy of defense against the enemy and reclaiming of lands.