Agnes van Ardenne - what planet are you on?!

Agnes van Ardenne: Thought that Agathon Rwasa was just a loveable rogue until August last year.

Speaking after August 2004's Gatumba massacre by Agathon Rwasa's FNL, Dutch Development Minister Agnes van Ardenne said:

"What they did now is totally different from all the attacks in the past. In Gatumba women, children, babies were murdered in a most cruel way, with machetes, guns, and some were burnt alive. They didn't do that before. They attacked the Burundian armed forces until now, and are still doing, but they don't attack vulnerable people - women, children etc., so it's totally new."

Has the talented Mrs Ardenne never read any of the reports produced by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International over the last decade? Did she think that the 21 civilian victims of the December 2000 "Titanic Express" massacre, (and the countless others murdered by the FNL on the roads around Bujumbura) ambushed, robbed, and brutally murdered themselves?

Prior to the Gatumba massacre, the Dutch government had been the Hutu extremist's best friend in Europe. Now that the world has forgotten about Gatumba, and despite Mrs Ardenne's forthright condemnation of the attack, they are again. Are these people really fit to decide the direction of European Union policy in Centre Africa?

Burundi, human rights, Current Affairs, Politics, Africa, Netherlands
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