Kill, Burn & Loot (2/7)

The second in a seven part series examining the activities of former Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root

From Martial Law, Inc. KBR: A Halliburton Subsidiary

By Andrew G. Marshall

KBR and the Rwandan Genocide:

In 1990, the first invasion of Rwanda took place by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a militant organization from Uganda, overseen by a man by the name of Paul Kagame. The aim of this Tutsi rebel organization was the overthrow of Rwanda’s then-Hutu President Habyarimana, who was at the time, using World Bank loans to import enormous numbers of machetes under World Bank surveillance of Rwanda’s expenditure. (Chossudovsky, p. 114) This was the offset of the Rwandan civil war, which lasted until 1993, when a peace agreement was being brokered between Rwanda’s president and other neighboring leaders, including the President of Burundi. When the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were flying back to Rwanda during the time of peace settlements, in 1994, their plane, also carrying on board many French officials, was shot down. This is the event that triggered the Rwandan genocide.

The first invasion of Rwanda by the RPF in 1990 “had the military backing of the first Bush administration [1989-1993], including Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.” (Madsen, p. 2) In 1992, “then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney commissioned Brown & Root to produce a classified report examining the benefits of greatly expanding logistics privatization. The report led the Pentagon to solicit bids from thirty-seven firms for an unprecedented five-year contract to provide the bulk of the Army’s overseas logistics needs. Later that year, the Defense Department chose Brown & Root as the first such umbrella logistics contractor.”

In 1993, newly elected President Bill Clinton continued this policy of supporting the RPF. His trusted allies in the United Nations, Madeline Albright, then US Ambassador to the United Nations and Kofi Annan, then head of the UN’s peacekeeping operations, ensured that the relationship would be concealed from the public. Wayne Madsen reported that both Albright and Annan, “conveniently chose to ignore evidence that a US-trained and supplied guerrilla force – the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) – was responsible for the fateful April 6, 1994 terrorist missile attack on the aircraft carrying the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi home from a peace summit in Tanzania.” (Madsen, p. 2)

Paul Kagame, leader of the RPF, had been trained at US military bases in the United States in guerilla warfare tactics, and had very close ties to the Pentagon, the US State Department and the CIA. (Madsen, p. 2-3) It also turns out that the US supplied the RPF with the missiles used to shoot down the plane carrying the two presidents, and that a UN investigation revealed that the warehouse which was used in assembling the missile launchers was leased to a company linked to none other than the CIA. Albright and Annan also ensured that information did not reach the public. (Madsen, p. 12)

Madsen revealed that a French investigation in 2004 about the shooting down of the plane, carried out on behalf of the French citizens who were killed on the plane, revealed that there was a startling connection to an organization that goes by the name of the, “International Strategic and Tactical Organization” [ISTO], which represents powerful political and corporate interests, including Armitage and Associates LC, a firm founded by George W. Bush’s first Deputy Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, and KBR, or Kellogg Brown & Root, then a subsidiary of Halliburton. (Madsen, p. 6-12) In 1994, KBR was in Rwanda under a $6.3 million contract called “Operation Support Hope.” (Briody, p. 186)

As a result of the Rwandan genocide, many of the key players got handsomely rewarded with promotions. Paul Kagame became President of Rwanda, Kofi Annan became Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Madeline Albright became Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State. A year later, in 1995, Dick Cheney went to become the CEO of Halliburton until the year 2000.