File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1996/96-11-06.061, message 26


Date: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 21:59:26 +0100 (MET)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: M-G: Voie Prolétarienne on Rwanda, July '94


Voie Prolétarienne on Rwanda, July '94 [Posted: 03.11.96]

There has been some discussion on this list concerning the
sale of arms by South Africa to one of the groups involved
in the fighting in Rwanda and neighbouring countries. I don't
know enough about the situation to tell whether this should
be opposed or not, or even supported. (I've been
concentrating on other matters and have not followed the
events in that region closely.)

One declaration on the situation in Rwanda which reached
me in August 1994 I judged, on the basis of the meagre
knowledge I had then, to be good. I translated it from the
French and disseminated it in both languages together with
one of my leaflets of the time (IFBL No. 24 Eng).

That declaration was by the Voie Prolétarienne, France, an
organization which states its adherence to the line of Marx,
Lenin and Mao Zedong. It publishes the monthly "Partisan"
and has the address:

Voie Prolétarienne
BP n=BA 48
93802 Epinay/Seine cedex
France

Here's their declaration, which I post for information:


Declaration by Voie Prolétarienne, France
(Translation from the French by RM, Aug =9294)


French Troops out of Rwanda.

=94To protect the population against the massacres=94 was the
reason put forward by the Balladur/Mitterand government for
intervening militarily in Rwanda. Made up of very well-equipped
elite troops, the French army today occupies a fifth of the
territory of Rwanda and a part of Zaire.

These pretensions perhaps might have appeared credible if the
French state had not unceasingly during more than 20 years
economically and militarily supported the racist and
bloodstained dictatorship of the regime of Habyarimana.

It was the same French (and Belgian) paratroopers that saved
that regime from a first defeat to the offensive of the Rwandan
Patriotical Front (RPF) in 1990. It is the French state that has
formed and trained the army and the militias of the dictatorship.
It was the French state that organized the protection and the
evacuation of those close to the assassinated dictator, that let
the radio station of the =94Thousand Hills=94, which incited to crime,
be evacuated. It is also the French state that today protects the
officials of the fallen regime and the bloodstained militiamen in
the so-called security zone.

In last April, this fascist dictatorship made black lists of
opponents, called for murders and armed its militias. At the same
time, the French forces and those of the UN left Rwanda and
evacuated their staff, leaving the way open for the massacring of
the opponents and for one of the largest genocides of the 20th
century.

When the crime had been perpetrated almost completely, the French
state sent its troops in order not to allow a total and quick
victory by the RPF. This increased the tragedy of the Rwandian
people, inciting the population frightened by the radio stations
of the old regime to go into the so-called =94security zone=94. A
concentration of millions of people in an unsuitable environment
could not but cause epidemics in a population already weakened
by the war, by the famine and by AIDS (between 10 and 20% HIV
positive).

This is not a =94humanitarian cathastrophy=94, it is a cathastrophy
premeditated and organized by French imperialism and by the
former regime.

Because of its reasons and because of its enormous consequences,
we cannot but condemn the French intervention and fight for its
being withdrawn. This intervention has three objectives:

1) - to diminish the extent of the political and military defeat
of an =94allied=94, openly fascist and pro-imperialist, government.
In fact this defeat cannot but encourage the African peoples,
downtrodden by the IMF, the devaluation of the CFA Franc,
liberalism etc.., to revolt.

2) - to reassure its other allies in Africa, first of all Mobutu
in Zaire
or Bongo in Gabon, by showing that the French state is always
ready to intervene in case of trouble. In view of the decomposition
of several African states, such a message is of importance for the
near future.

3) - to reinforce French presence in a zone with long-time Belgian
influence, in the face of growing ambitions of the United States in
this part of Africa. All the more since it is a question of a
strategical country in the vicinity of  large mining countries
(Zaire, Uganda) and of the zone of anglophone influence (Tanzania,
Uganda, ...).

We support the struggle of all democratic forces, to the extent that
they prove themselves and openly declare themselves to be non-
tribal, anti-racist and anti-imperialist. It is with such a critical
eye that we observe the rather timid politics of the RPF.

After Bosnia and Somalia, we denounce once more international
imperialism=92s =94humanitarian=94 strategy, which aims at suppressing
the struggles of the dominated peoples in order to keep them
within the framework of the =94new world order=94.

					           Paris, July =9294

[So far the declaration by the Voie Prolétarienne]






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