Professor Peter Erlinder, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, was arrested early today in Rwanda on charges of "genocide ideology." He had traveled to Rwanda's capital, Kigali, on May 23, to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Erlinder is reportedly being interrogated at the Rwandan Police Force's Kacyiru headquarters. Since his arrival in Kigali, the state-sponsored Rwandan media has been highly critical of Erlinder.
The Rwandan Parliament adopted the "Law Relating to the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Ideology" (Genocide Ideology Law), on July 23, 2008. It defines genocide ideology broadly, requires no link to any genocidal act, and can be used to include a wide range of legitimate forms of expression, prohibiting speech protected by international conventions such as the Genocide Convention of 1948 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966.
Sarah Erlinder, an attorney in Arizona said, "My father has made a career defending unpopular people and unpopular speech--and is now being held because of his zealous representation and his analysis of an historical narrative that the Kagame regime considers inconvenient. We can help defend his rights now by drawing U.S. government and media attention to his situation and holding the Rwandan government accountable for his well-being."
"Professor Erlinder has been acting in the best tradition of the legal profession and has been a vigorous advocate in his representation of Umuhoza. There can be no justice for anyone if the state can silence lawyers for defendants whom it dislikes and a government that seeks to prevent lawyers from being vigorous advocates for their clients cannot be trusted. The entire National Lawyers Guild is honored by his membership and his courageous advocacy," said David Gespass, president of the National Lawyers Guild.
Before leaving for Brussels and then Kigali, Professor Erlinder notified the U.S. State Department, his Minnesota Congressional Representative Betty McCullom, Representative Keith Ellison, and Minnesota Senators Al Franken and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Professor Erlinder is a professor of law at the William Mitchell College of Law. He is a frequent litigator and consultant, often pro bono, in cases involving the death penalty, civil rights, claims of government and police misconduct, and criminal defense of political activists. He is also a frequent news commentator. Erlinder was president of the National Lawyers Guild from 1993-1997, and is a current board member of the NLG Foundation. He has been a defense attorney at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda since 2003.
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Depending on your response to the above questions, can you then explain what would happen to someone in Germany if they did the same as what Erlinder says about Rwanda? Would s/he be arrested there for denying the Genocide? Is there a difference in the Rwandan context?
Thanks in advance.
1. The Jews in Germany have never enslaved Germans and never claimed that they were superior and born to rule over the German masses. Some extremist Tutsis in Rwanda were an aristocratic minority that enslaved the Hutu peasant majority for over 400 years all the way until 1959. When the Hutu peasants asked for democracy the extremist Tutsis responded that the Hutu masses were inferior by birth and were born to be ruled by the superior Tutsi aristocrats.
2. The Jews in Germany have never started a war attacking Germany from a foreign country. Some extremist Tutsis in Rwanda attacked the country from Uganda on October 1st, 1990. This was more than 5 times since 1960 that the extremist Tutsis had attacked the country.
3. The Jews in Germany did not spend a 4 year war fighting to gain power and in the process killing innocent German civilians. Some extremist Tutsis in Rwanda fought since October 1990 until April 1994 fighting to gain power and in the process displaced 1 million civilians and killed thousands others, an example being on February 8, 1993 when the Tutsi extremists in the RPF killed 40 thousand unarmed civilians in Byumba and Ruhengeri.
5. The Jews in Germany did not follow the Germans into exile in neighboring countries and kill hundreds of thousands of them in forests like hunted animals. Some extremist Tutsis in Rwanda bombed refugee camps in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) and chased the survivors into the forests of the Congo (DRC) where they butchered hundreds of thousands of them.
Therefore, I really think it is completely wrong to compare Hitler's Germany to 1994 Rwanda.
Starting January 28, 1993, the extremist Tutsis in RPF started talking about "genocide" in all their documents, speeches and interviews.
Yet, eleven days later on February 8, 1993 these same extremist Tutsis in the RPF massacred 40,000 unarmed Hutu civilians in just one day in Ruhengeri and Byumba. It appears that they were in their final phase of provoking the Hutu extremists.
The period of January 1993 to April 1994 was marked by escalating attacks by extremist Tutsis in the RPF against the Hutu population, attacks that were clearly geared to incite revenge attacks. 14 months later, this would eventually lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of the "genocide" claimed by the extremist Tutsis in RPF back in January 1993.
The escalating attacks by Tutsi extremists in the RPF seem to have reached their desired goal on April 6, 1994 when the Tutsi extremists' killing of Hutu President Habyarimana and Hutu President Ntaryamira finally evoked the desired response of mass revenge killings by extremist Hutus against Tutsi civilians.
This begs the question of who actually planned these mass massacres of 1994? Is it really the extremist Hutus? Or is it the extremist Tutsis who started talking about them in January 1993 and since then took every imaginable action to provoke the extremist Hutus?
But this is just a sign of how dangerous and delicate the balance is: Peter is anything but an apologist for - much less a supporter of - genocide. Even if this is not an attempt to thwart the right to counsel, this kind of over-application of the law still illustrates how hard it is to avoid using the law as a tool of state control, unless it is crafted very carefully.