Of double standards and two US based terrorist groups

In 2001, the U.S. government designated the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), the largest Muslim charity in the country, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) and froze their assets. After its unsuccessful challenge to its designation in a federal court, the government indicted HLF and seven individuals associated with it, charging them with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, Hamas.

The word terrorism means the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. That is exactly what the terror group, Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), the armed wing of MRCD under Paul Rusesabagina did when they carried out attacks on civilians between 2018 and 2019 where 14 civilians lost their lives and lots of properties were destroyed. 

As the HLF charity siphoned money to support terrorism, it told supporters that it sought to “implement practical solutions for human suffering through humanitarian programs that impact the lives of the disadvantaged, disinherited, and displaced peoples suffering from man-made and natural disasters.” Many in the academic, activist, even diplomatic communities believed them. The charity preyed on the gullible, but the evidence presented was overwhelming.

Like Holy Land Foundation, Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation (HRRF) spent more than 15 years fundraising millions of dollars saying that HRRF is engaged in helping the victims of Genocide in Rwanda and people believed Rusesabagina. However, the key witnesses who worked with Rusesabagina explained to the court how  funds raised  were used in supporting terror movements including the FDLR (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda) and FLN.

The key witness who worked with Rusesabagina, include Dr Michelle Martin, PhD, an associate Professor at the California State University, who told the court in a four-hour testimony on  March 24, the details of Rusesabagina's involvement with terrorism activities and plans to destabilize Rwanda. Her 70-page written testimony contained incriminating evidence including copies of emails and screenshots of text conversations.

Dr Michelle Martin, who once worked as a volunteer at HRRF, said that Rusesabagina conned the American benefactors to his foundation that he was fundraising for a good cause, but ended up using the money in subversive activities aimed at removing the Rwandan government by force of arms.  

“Within a few months of working with the foundation, both my student interns and I had come to believe, based on our observation that the foundation did not operate as a humanitarian organization,” said Dr Michelle. All the time they worked with the foundation, she said, they never witnessed any activity geared at supporting widows and orphans, who were the purported beneficiaries of Rusesabagina’s Foundation.

She gave an account of Rusesabagina’s political activities with PDR-Ihumure, a political outfit, and how its activities were fused in those of the foundation. Explaining how she met Rusesabagina, she said she was introduced to him by one Providence Rubingisa, a friend of Rusesabagina and a genocide denier, also based in the US. She said she found communication linking the two men and their colleagues to subversive activities linked to militia groups operating in the DRC like the FDLR.

Another key witness who told the court how Rusesabagina’s wealth was spent in criminal activities against Rwanda, is Lt Col Noel Habiyaremye a former rebel fighter with the FDLR in DRC. In his incriminating account, he told the court that he came to know and communicate with Rusesabagina through friends, some of them living in Lusaka,  in Zambia and Brussels, in Belgium.

Habiyaremye said that he knew Rusesabagina through Rubingisa, who had a similar idea and political interest in fighting the Rwandan government and through the discourse was told of Rusesabagina and his interests in the same line. “I asked for his (Rusesabagina) contacts and introduced myself and he told me that he needed support to drive his agenda, of which he had tried to contact FDLR but could not agree on some terms,” Habiyaremye said.

The witness said that he agreed to work with Rusesabagina but lost contact after returning to the jungles in DRC, due to lack of communication gadgets but also got sick for a while and had to go to Lusaka.  Habiyaremye informed the court that, on different occasions, Rusesabagina sent him more than $8,000 to use in recruiting militiamen. It is worth reminding that Rusesabagina’s name was found in the gadget of Ignace Murwanashyaka - the former FDLR president who was arrested and tried in Germany in 2008 - as one of his contacts.

Rusesabagina’s defenders (almost all of them) have never set foot in Rwanda. In America and elsewhere they have painted him as an innocent humanitarian and “political opponent to (President Paul) Kagame whose charges are politically motivated.”  The seriousness of the charges against him as well as the loss of innocent lives as a result of his militia’s alleged attacks on innocent Rwandans are watered down.

The FDLR and Hamas are both terror groups targeting the lives of innocent civilians in Rwanda and in Israel. When Americans condemn the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development which supports Hamas and support the Rusesabagina Foundation  with links to   FDLR, it shows that they do not  care about the lives of Rwandans.

There should be no double standards in dealing with terrorism globally irrespective of the geographical location.