Rwanda Information Portal

Bad news for Kagame

by Ambrose Nzeyimana.
For once I can agree with Louise Mushikiwabo where she says that Victoire is bad news.
Of course Victoire Ingabire is bad news for Kagame and his RPF because she has made their lies get out. They cannot hide themselves behind them anymore.
The world is now seeing the truth hiden behind their lies.
Let’s keep up the pressure so that for the sake of those among our beloved compatriots who died, were imprisoned, tortured, are threatened and continuously intimidated, we work for a better Rwanda where people are equal and each person’s security is built on others’ security.

– If you want to receive per email, articles published on Rwandinfo in English, click here.
– If you want to receive Rwandinfo articles in English through your RSS Reader, click here.

August 8, 2010   1 Comment

The Woman Who Dared To Take On Paul Kagame

ingabire_blue

Victoire Ingabire had expected to spend this weekend campaigning.
Instead, she will spend it under house arrest in Kigali, preparing her defence for a trial that could end with a life sentence.

Victoire Ingabire had expected to spend this weekend campaigning.

Instead, she will spend it under house arrest in Kigali, preparing her defence for a trial that could end with a life sentence. Ms Ingabire returned to Rwanda in February to contest Monday’s presidential election. She had not expected to win against Paul Kagame, the soldier who has run Rwanda since 1994, but she did think she would at least be able to stand against him.

“When I came back the plan was to register my party and participate,” she told The Independent in a telephone interview from the Rwandan capital.

But the authorities have stopped that from happening. “I have no freedom, the police follow me wherever I go. I cannot leave Kigali, they have taken away my passport,” she said.

As Rwanda goes to the polls on Monday the international community is being asked to look again at a country f�ted for its miraculous recovery from a genocide remembered as one of humanity’s great collective failures. Sixteen years ago, the world stood by while 800,000 people were butchered in 100 days in what the United Nations says was a planned extermination campaign of one ethnic group, the Tutsis, by ethnic Hutu extremists.

Mr Kagame’s Tutsi-led Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) has controlled the country since it invaded and ended the genocide. It has missed few opportunities to remind the rest of the world of their failure to act in 1994.

Ms Ingabire and other dissidents are now warning that the international community is in danger of failing Rwanda once again, with its unquestioning support of a president she says has become a dictator. “I don’t understand the attitude of Rwanda’s allies and donors,” said Ms Ingabire.

“They see the growing tension and they do nothing. We have a big crisis brewing inside the country and this sham election won’t resolve it.”

The election campaign has been marred by murders, kidnappings, media closures, unexplained grenade attacks and a series of assassinations of Rwandan dissidents and their supporters abroad. Opposition parties without links to the ruling RPF party have been refused registration, their members have been harassed, intimidated and, in several cases, jailed.

There is little doubt Mr Kagame, who has spent �2m during a one-sided campaign, will win by a landslide. The only candidates standing against him are ruling party “stooges”, according to critics. Foreign donors � who provide more than half of Rwanda’s budget � have been wrongfooted by the apparently sudden instability in what is held up as an African model.

In a region hobbled by endemic graft, Rwanda is the exception. It has far less corruption than its neighbours, according to the recent East Africa corruption index from Transparency International. Its gross domestic product has doubled since 1994 and the president is hailed by outsiders for his “vision” and “dynamism”.

However, a report by independent experts on Rwanda’s bid to join the Commonwealth said that Mr Kagame had become an expert at manipulating Western guilt over the genocide and was running “an army with a state”.

“People say there’s stability in Rwanda but this stability is based on repression,” said Ms Ingabire. “We need stability based on freedom.

“I don’t understand how democratic countries can remain friends with a government that doesn’t allow democracy. The democratic UK is supporting a dictatorship.”

The President’s would-be rival has been charged with genocide denial under a law criminalising those who spread genocide ideology. The law has been condemned by independent experts as a tool for silencing anyone who disagrees with the official account of what happened 16 years ago.

A Hutu, Ms Ingabire lived outside the country for 16 years and worked as an accountant in The Netherlands, where she set up the United Democratic Forces party. She is accused of channelling funds during that time to the FDLR, an armed Hutu group operating in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She is said to have met FDLR officials in Spain in 2006.

She doesn’t deny this, but says the meeting was attended by many groups from the Rwandan diaspora, including officials from the governing RPF.

“This doesn’t mean that we collaborate with the FDLR,” she said. She’s also accused of twice meeting Hutu genocidaires in the DRC capital � this she does deny, insisting she was in Kinshasa to meet government officials.

The Rwandan government has cited a UN report last year that found diaspora members of Ms Ingabire’s party had been in phone contact with FDLR military leaders. But it didn’t specify the nature of this contact or suggest she herself had made contact.

“I don’t have any links to the FDLR,” she insisted. “I don’t believe in violence and war is not the solution to the problems that face this country.”

Her first speeches upon her return were controversial because she asked for an investigation into Tutsi reprisal killings during and after the genocide.

“I agree that there was a genocide by Hutu extremists against the Tutsis, that is the reality. The people who did this need to be jailed. But there were also other crimes against humanity, including the killing of Hutus.” The mother of three does not expect a fair trial. A US attorney who came to Kigali to lead her defence was also jailed briefly and accused of genocide denial. She has appealed for an international inquiry into the murder of a journalist critical of the government and the assassination of the deputy leader of Rwanda’s Green Party � killings the government now says were carried out by disaffected members of the diaspora. “Rwanda’s history is a cycle of violence,” said Ms Ingabire. “I understand the [Tutsis’] fear of the Hutus but not all Hutus were killers.

“We have to stop fear among Rwandan people, to make sure no one can lose their life because of their ethnicity or their political beliefs.”

[The Independent]

– If you want to receive per email, articles published on Rwandinfo in English, click here.
– If you want to receive Rwandinfo articles in English through your RSS Reader, click here.

August 8, 2010   No Comments

Ingabire is bad news for Rwanda says Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Mushikiwabo

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, Chair FDU.

Victoire Ingabire.
“She seems to be a concern everywhere but not in Rwanda. I don’t see too many of our citizens worrying about her rights.” says Rwandan governement spokesperson Louise Mushikiwabo.

Kigali – The elections will be happening on Monday as Foreign Affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo continues a diplomatic and media offensive in London � with her latest target being opposition politician Ingabire Victoire.

With British firm Racepoint PR working out all the details on which media she will talk to and what she could say there, Louise Mushikiwabo this time was blunt when answering The Independent about Ingabire’s allegations this week. Ingabire has called the elections a sham.

“She is a criminal”, said Ms Mushikiwabo. “She is bad news, she is connected to the FDLR and terrorist groups and she has a criminal history. She is not under house arrest, she has only been told not to leave the country.”

Ms Mushikiwabo, in London ahead of Monday’s poll, accused the international media of “hype” about the plight of politicians and journalists critical of the government. The government has denied any involvement in the recent murders of figures critical of the government and Ms Mushikiwabo said there was a “deliberate attempt” to depict Rwanda in a negative light.

The President Paul Kagame enjoyed immense popularity but “certain people have an axe to grind” with him. “He is very demanding and very strict and some cannot stand the scrutiny and level of accountability that he demands,” she said.

She accused Ms Ingabire of being an “opportunist” who had lived outside of Rwanda for 16 years and still wanted to conduct a politics based on ethnic differences, which was “unacceptable”. “She seems to be a concern everywhere but not in Rwanda. I don’t see too many of our citizens worrying about her rights.”

Asked about the crackdown on the press, the Foreign Minister, who herself spent 20 years in the US before returning to Rwanda, insisted that Mr Kagame was committed to democracy. “But democracy is a culture, it is not something that comes overnight”.

[ARI-RNA]

– If you want to receive per email, articles published on Rwandinfo in English, click here.
– If you want to receive Rwandinfo articles in English through your RSS Reader, click here.

August 8, 2010   3 Comments