(UPDATE) Help Save My Friend: a Tortured Orphan in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Help one person escape a needless death...

(SACRAMENTO, CA) - The following quote was received 27 Sept.:

"Dear Sir, I am writing to inform you that I am about to die. For two consecutive days I did not taste any food except a piece of cassava that I shared with a friend yesterday and do not to eat today. No one to help and to tell the truth, I am sick as I have been sleeping where a human being cannot spend his night. I am looking forward to hearing from you."

For several weeks, due to our frequent articles about Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the intense military actions of the rebel group M23, I have been in contact with a person whose entire family has been murdered.

Rwanda's Kagame during recent US visit, photo: Jenn Fierberg Salem-News.com

What are they to do... what am I to do? I am hoping to attract the attention of a safe and trustworthy organization or individual to help deliver this person to safety as their life hangs in the balance with the M23 forces every day.

The United States has backed Rwanda President Paul Kagame for many years, crediting him with ending the Rwanda Genocide, but our reports primarily through Jenn Fierberg, our primary Africa reporter, and two former Kagame aids who worked in close association with Kagame; Theogene Rudasingwa, M.D., and Noble Marara, who was a sergeant in the U.S. backed Rwanda Patriotic Front tell a very different story.

As this team of journalists have peeled back the mystery layer by layer, a story has emerged that is far from flattering for Kagame and in fact indicts him in one of the worst crimes the earth has ever seen.

The code phrase uttered over and over by a pro-Genocide Rwanda radio station, "cut down the tall trees," was a call for the Hutu to start killing the Tutsi. And they did, only there were no winners, people on all sides were slaughtered ruthlessly.

Located in London

Rwanda Pres. Juvenal Habyarimana Photo: indepthafrica.com

What the team at Salem-News.com has done is demonstrate that the current president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, was directly involved in the 1994 shooting down of a plane carrying his enemy, the president of Rwanda, whose name was President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda.

Both leaders; the RFP's Kagame and the French-backed Habyarimana, had just signed a long awaited peace treaty. Then while flying home from the meeting, the plane carrying Habyarimana was shot down immediately over the roof of his house, the pieces of the airplane and the bodies landing all over the property! One of our articles contained an interview with the fallen President's son who explains in no uncertain terms, how devastating act of terrorism by Paul Kagame was, it was far, far below the belt.

The plane carrying Rwanda President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down on April 6, 1994, their assassination sparking the Rwandan Genocide. - Photo: Jean Marc Boujou, AP

I write this so that people understand the back story. Kagame has clearly admitted on multiple occasions that he was directly involved in the aircraft downing.

In this twisted scenario of deceit and murder that preceded Genocide, Kagame emerged a winner as planned, and after allowing Rwandans to cut and hack each other to death by the million, he became the heroic resolver of this period.

That is like lighting a house fire that kills many, and then getting credit for turning a hose on the burning wreckage where everyone died.

So now, finally, (and don't think the revelation I just shared is not weighing in) Kagame is in trouble for utilizing M23 rebels (read 'terrorist') in the pillaging of the DRC and people know and they are sickened by it. This leads to my poor friend living from day to day while M23 kidnaps, rapes and murders the local populace. Kagame and Rwanda as it turns out, is funding the M23 as they rampage resource-rich DRC to fund and fuel landlocked Rwanda.

People flee their homes as fighting continued between FARDC and M23 rebels in the Rutshuru territory in July 2012. [S. Liechti/UN Photo]

The ICC (International Criminal Court) is pursuing the matter and have named Kagame as a suspect in the M23 activities and this is not good news for Kagame, who has been hailed as a hero by the last several U.S. presidents and other world leaders. He ran his game successfully for many years but now the jig is up and the news is out.

So what about my friend?

I am looking for good contacts who have solid information about the UNHRC (The UN Refugee Agency- I will email this article to them) and who we can appeal to and trust. Also, anyone who is associated with agencies directly involved in the DRC, please write to my email below.

In a word, my friend's story is one of the saddest I have ever heard, and as the news editor of Salem-News.com, readers can imagine that I do not make any statement like that lightly. My friend's entire family has been murdered; local women and girls are being raped and local men and boys are being forced into the ranks of the M23.

My friend is a valuable resource for information, I contacted the U.S. State Department about this last week and my friend has not heard a word from them. Of course the U.S. is a friend of Rwanda and that means once again, an ally of a state terrorism outlet and war crime country.

That is nothing new for America, which is a tragedy in and of itself. But what are we to do about my friend?

EVERYONE please contact UNHCR The UN Relief Agency and send the link to this story, let them have it, give them the understanding that they need to respond, at this point UNHCR is not returning our contact, let's make that course an impossible one for them to continue, when UNHCR reaches me I will provide them with a name, and contact information for my friend, who most recently wrote:

“

Dear Sir, I am still alive in spite of being dehumanized days after days. However dear Sir, I am happy about the comforting effort you are making about my case. I am getting thinner and thinner due to conditions of life that we are imposed to live in including spending most of our nights in the bush, hunger, fear to be caught, lack of potable water etc. For the rest I wish you good job and God bless you.

”

Please do not ignore this....

(A note to my regular detractors: I will approve no negative comments on this story, it is about a precious person and so please don't bother, we are looking for answers on this, not criticism)

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label 'terrorist' is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tens of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel's destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide. You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com. Visit Tim's Facebook page (facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)

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