Coordination of the Bages
Manresa (Catalonia)
01.25.97
We har about Rwanda again, newspapers, radio, Tv... have brought to the front page other images of the painful reality that people experience in this part of Africa. Flors, known by many of us, has unfortunately been the protagonist of one of these front page for two days. Everibody got together to remind us of her figure and her work. With her death everybody has felt a thorn in their flesh. The Rwanda, Burundi and Zaire conflict should still have a wider space in the press, because it continues to be up to date. We would have lived Flors herself to tell us in her own words. Now her death is the clearest testimony.
Newspapers don't say so, but in the territory of Zaire there are still thousands of unattended refugees; many of them alive, but also many dead ones. Thet are not able to go back to Rwanda because they are afraid. Even trough newspapers do not tell us, Rwanda is living under a terror strategy which is threatening the most basic human rights: freedom to gather, freedom to walk freely, freedom to travel to another village without asking the major of the corresponding military authorities for permission (because never before had Rwanda been so burdened with soldiers, or under such a rigorous surveillance)... People are starring, they suffer discases, but above all they are suffing the government's military pressure: silence is the casiest way to go on living or to die. People know that, and so do the cooperators and everibody who wants to know about it.
Whether we like it or not, we have a responsability, at least for our consciences. In no way can we agree that the mass media turn into an objective piece of news what in fact are all the official and infiltrated versions of the Rwanda regime. What guarantees of honesty does this regime offer? A government that in 1990 started a war without saving up any civil victims, what has continued up to now; a government that is asking the ONGs to leave them alone, so that they can go on with their "manipulations" without being disturbed by the international observants; a government, which very probabily, hides behind Flors' and her mates' death, just because they want a free way to control under the terror all the population, in the same way as it has been done in Burundi for many years. This a very American technique and also inspired by the American (who haved supported in everything the FPR, the Tutsi army which holds the power in Rwanda, with a very special interest to control politically and economically the central area in Africa). This technique consists in attacking humanitarian objectives, and the accusing the opposed sides creating false witnesses, who should be able to account for the fals without fearing for their lives or their people's lives, also disappear under mysterious circumstances. It looks like a no way out.
Now then, are the occidental governments so ingenuous to believe all this story? We believe they are accomplice-players in this game. In some cases even heavy players: the U.S.A. and France, there is no need to look further.
We believe we heave to shout loud at the governments we have near us and demand justice, for Flors' death and for the thousands and thousands of dead that the only empire of the world has been sowing mainly all over Africa, but also in other parts of the world. We have to fight, now and for ever, because we have an unscrupulous beast against us.
The Coordinadora d'Acció Solidària amb els Refugiats Rwandesos started its task last November, our main action being the lighting of candles at the stairs of Crist Rei. In the beginning of December, we changed our strategy and continued to work on other projects, at short and long term: dossier for schools, a workshop for "Campi qui jugui". Messages written on card-posters and the Book of Indignation in the Passeig...
At present, two of our mates from Mallorca are on a hunger strike since Tuesday, January 14th. They are on this hunger strike outside the European Parliament in Brussels, supported by many of our organisations here, with a constant accusation outside the U.S.A. Consulate in Barcelona. The main objectives that we try to reach are: That help is sent immediately to the thousands of refugees and displaced who are in the interior of Zaire, that the number of international observants is increased in Burundi and Rwanda and that particular measures are taken to get to a global political solution and to the stable peace in the area of the Big Lakes (these measures demanded with insistence since long ago by the European Commisary Emma Bonino and the High Commisary for the Human Rights in the UNO, José Ayala Lasso).
With these same objectives and at the same time to ask the public opinion to apply pressure to our governants, this Saturday we are calling agin the act of lighting candles at the stairs of Crist Rei. To denounce hipocresy, to ask for solutions, to claim for fair peace, to demand a dignified life, in Rwanda, in Burundi, in Zaire, all over the world.