WRONG ROADS TAKEN BY ISRAEL AND RWANDA
Okello Oculi contends that Rwanda and Israel have left the road to humanising history
On 22 May, 2024, three European countries, namely: Norway, Spain and Ireland recognised Palestine as a sovereign State. This was symbolic political earthquake. The International Criminal Court (ICC) had indicted Israel’s prime minister, Netanyahu and his Defence Minister for committing crimes against humanity in conducting a war against Gaza.
The ICC had condoned crimes by President George Bush and Prime Minister Blair against people of Iraq. This was a dramatic departure.
The list is paradoxical. Spain, a Catholic country that had suffered colonial domination by Black-African Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt and subsequent conquest by Muslim Arabs and Berbers, conducted genocide against indigenous civilisations from Mexico, in the north, to Chile and Argentina, in South America.
A ‘’Papal Bull’’ allocated to Catholic Portugal was granted rule over a vast landmass that came to be known as ‘’BRAZIL’’. Till today, European immigrants slaughter native population driven by centuries of massacre to seek refuge inside forests around the Amazon River.
Israel has solid European models for using force to drive local populations out of Palestine. In Mexico only a stubborn African population defeated numerous Spanish troops sent to conquer and rule over them.
This legacy awaits a papal apology and call for REPARATION by Pope Francis. His religious and ethnic ancestors continue to commit economic and military genocide across South America.
Connor Cruise O’Brien (a representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in the Congo),in secessionist Katanga Province), wrote that as former victim of English colonial violence and economic exploitation, the people of Ireland have affinity with Africans. Millions of Irish people perished from famine following loss of fertile land to English land grabbers. They, therefore, have ancestral sympathy with Palestine.
Freedom from oppression does not, necessarily, translate into fighting for rights of others still standing in rains and hailstorms.
Norway also recognised the State of Palestine. Norwegians were once colonised by Denmark. During World War 2, Hitler’s racists came with the search for a ‘’superior race’’ of people with blonde hair and blue eyes. These waves of oppression were not translated into fraternity with indigenous peoples. In the present era oil companies are grabbing lands regarded as sacred ground by natives.
Norway’s record of genocide enjoys global silence. As a research scholar resident at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), we were told that low development and harsh winters had driven migration out of the country. There were more Norwegians living abroad, including those working for international organisations. That hardship fed bitter discrimination against native peoples. Israel probably looked to them for a possible model.
In 1967, radical students at the University of California, Berkeley campus, exposed organisations being funded by America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The list included the ‘’International Students Conference’’, created to build youth leaders in South America, Asia and Africa that would be hostile to the Soviet Union and Communism.
At its 1966 meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, a delegate from Uganda criticised the Israeli delegation for NOT EXPOSING the BARBARISM by Germans and other Europeans who conducted the ‘’Holocaust’’ against Jews. The horrendous details of the ‘’demonic’’ project were almost equal to 400 YEARS HOLOCAUST of capturing and selling fellow Africans into European and American slave trade and economic production.
The Zionists who founded the state of Israel could not turn against Britain, France, the United States and their allies who supported their legality in 1948. Israel was also criticised for extending their expulsion of Palestinians from their land into supporting similar European land-grabbing in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and Mozambique. They also offered military support to ‘’apartheid’’ in these lands. At the 1966 Student Conference, delegates from African countries were being asked to deny support to the delegation from Palestine.
The recognition by Norway, Ireland and Spain coincided with media reports of a failed military coup in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda’s influence came in view. Israel conducted intensive human trafficking by stealing talented scientists from the Soviet Union. Those scientists would feed a rare determination to use technological inventions to overcome a harsh environment and build economic power. That achievement would shame the hatred that fed Genocide and anti-Semitism.
Rwanda and Israel have left the road to humanizing history: seduced into giving primacy to revenge as tiny countries bordering vast territories. Rwanda has the vast rest of East African Community countries in all directions. It has the option of promoting the economic empowerment and integration within DRC those who conducted 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. israel is penetrating the vast African continent; and West Asian economies. GAZA may have killed it and poisoned the victim identity.
Rwanda’s promise of UBUNTU and creativity may be diverted into a military post for ensuring NATO’S access to Congo’s minerals.
Prof Oculi writes from Abuja
