Free Republic

Bruce Springsteen’s veteran E-Street band guitarist Steven Van Zandt issued a call to fans and supporters on social media Sunday to “Exterminate the (Republican) cockroaches.” His rallying cry to target GOP supporters, half of America, came during an expletive-laden exchange on Twitter. It began when the guitarist ventured forth by abusing what he called “Republican White Supremicist scumbag cowards and pussies that need guns to feel like real men” after TN representatives demanded gun controls. Van Zandt was then called out on Twitter by a follower for his abuse, which he quickly resumed.

PARIS - A 39-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a fire in the 15th century cathedral in the French city of Nantes that blew out stained glass windows and destroyed the grand organ, TV channel LCI reported on Sunday. The man, a Rwandan refugee, worked as a volunteer for the cathedral and had been in charge of locking up the building on Friday night, LCI said, citing prosecutor Pierre Sennes. Sennes said the man in custody was being held to clear up inconsistencies in his schedule. He said on Saturday that three fires had been started at the...

NAIROBI (AFP) – A Rwandan journalist who accused the regime of attempting to assassinate a dissident general in Johannesburg was gunned down in Kigali, police said Friday, fuelling tensions ahead of August elections. Jean-Leonard Rugambage's colleagues and media watchdog Reporters Without Borders alleged Thursday's killing was linked to reports alleging the involvement of President Paul Kagame's services in the assassination bid. "He was killed in front of his house when he was going home at 10 pm last night," police spokesman Eric Kayiranga told AFP by telephone, adding that the "unknown gunman" responsible for the attack had fled. Rugambage ran...

KIGALI, Rwanda — A Rwandan judge has charged a U.S. lawyer with denying Rwanda's 1994 genocide and publishing articles that threaten the country's security. Peter Erlinder pleaded not guilty to the charges during a five-hour court hearing late Friday in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. "It is the first time I have come to know that my obscure publications back in America were that bad and could amount to genocide denial," Erlinder told the court. He suggested it may be a case of misinterpretation or misunderstanding. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison. Erlinder was upset when the...

Four men accused of planning to kidnap two Roanoke County women and hold them for ransom were indicted Thursday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. Joshua Kasongo, 19, of Roanoke; Mohammed Hussein Guhad, 19, of Roanoke; Luke Musa Elbino, 19, of Vinton; and Anthony Eugene Muse, 18, of Roanoke are each charged with conspiring to kidnap and attempted kidnapping. Guhad and Muse are students at Patrick Henry High School. Elbino is a student at Virginia Western Community College.

KIGALI (AFP) – Former Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday praised genocide-scarred Rwanda as "an inspiration to the world," after talks with President Paul Kagame. "Rwanda has in a remarkably short period of time become a role model for Africa," said Blair, highlighting the small central African state's tourism industry just 15 years after a genocide that that left around 800,000 people massacred during a 100-day carnage. "A country that was once a no-go area attracted more than a million visitors in 2008," Blair stated. "It is one of the most stable countries in Africa," he added.

ARUSHA, Tanzania – A former Rwandan army colonel was convicted Thursday of genocide and crimes against humanity for masterminding the killings of more than half a million people in a 100-day slaughter in 1994. Survivors in Rwanda welcomed the watershed moment in a long search for justice. The U.N. courtroom in Tanzania was packed for the culmination of the trial of Theoneste Bagosora, the highest-ranking Rwandan official to be convicted in the genocide. Onlookers were silent as the 67-year-old was sentenced to life in prison.

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AFP) - A UN war crimes court increased a Roman Catholic priest's sentence to life imprisonment Wednesday after upholding his conviction for his part in the genocide of 800,000 fellow Rwandans. In April 1994, when pro-government Hutu militiamen were rounding up ethnic Tutsis for slaughter across Rwanda, some 1,500 of Father Athanase Seromba's parishioners took shelter in his church in the western town of Nyange. Rather than seeking to protect his flock, the ethnic Huti priest had the church levelled by bulldozers and ordered extremist gunmen to shoot any Tutsis who tried to flee the carnage, the court...

BWEYEYE, Rwanda (AFP) - In this remote corner of southern Rwanda, Twa pygmies are fighting a losing battle against the modern realities of environmentalism that are robbing them of their traditions. Sandwiched between the Burundian border and the edge of the dense Nyungwe rainforest, the village of Bweyeye is on the frontline of an increasingly divisive struggle between the diminutive Twa and the long arm of Rwandan law. Forced to abandon their centuries-old hunter-gatherer lifestyle by a ban on such activity in the maze of giant tropical trees, towering ferns and tiny orchids, many Twa have descended into crushing poverty...

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AFP) - A UN-backed tribunal convicted a former senior Rwandan army officer of playing a major role in the country's 1994 genocide and sentenced him to 25 years in prison, the court said. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found ex-colonel Aloys Simba guilty of genocide and extermination during the 100-day massacres in which some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, were slaughtered by Hutu extremists, it said. The former officer and member of parliament had initially faced four counts but was acquitted on charges and conspiracy to commit genocide and murder, the ICTR said in a statement....

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2005 – Airlift operations continue at a steady clip as the members of the 86th Aerospace Expeditionary Group work to rotate the first of two brigades of Rwandan troops into the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, the group commander told the American Forces Press Service today. Air Force Col. Scott Schafer, commander of the 86th AEG at Kigali International Airport, Rwanda, said the operation is proceeding "just as planned and on schedule." Schafer made his assessment as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Sudan today, said she found it "heartening" to see the U.S. airlift operation but...

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AP) - A U.N. tribunal sentenced a former local government official in western Rwanda to prison for the rest of his life for shooting to death and raping mostly Tutsi victims during the 1994 genocide. Judge Khalida Rashid Khan said the tribunal found beyond any reasonable doubt that Mika Muhimana, who was a councilor in the province of Kibuye, shot mostly Tutsi victims, raped several Tutsi women and encouraged other men to rape in the town of Gishyita. The sentence of imprisonment for the rest of one's life is the highest penalty under the rules of the International...

GOMA, Congo - U.N. observers encountered what they believed to be about 100 Rwandan troops in eastern Congo, a U.N. official said Wednesday, marking the first reported U.N. sightings since Rwanda threatened to send in its forces against Rwanda Hutu rebels sheltering here. The suspected Rwandan forces withdrew toward Rwanda after Tuesday's encounter, said M'hand Ladjouzi, head of the U.N. mission at Goma. He spoke at a news conference in Goma, the largest city of the east. A Rwandan diplomat denied Rwanda had invaded again, after a week of warnings that raised fears of a return to the six-nation war...