Critics of the Rwandan government are denied the right to appear in court
By�Boniface Twagirimana,�Interim Vice-President
Mr. Sylvain Sibomana, Interim Secretary General of FDU-Inkingi and Mr. Dominic Shyirambere were battered�by the Police before being dumped in prison�for the simple reason that they had gone to attend the hearing in the appeal case of Mrs Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza at the Supreme Court.
May 15, 2013 No Comments
Students and Academics of Oxford University campaign for cancellation of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s visit
Unease has been expressed concerning a scheduled visit of Rwandan president Paul Kagame to the S�id Business School, in light of numerous allegations accusing him of human rights violations.
Mr Kagame is due to arrive in Oxford on Friday 18thMay, when he will deliver a keynote address in the Oxford Africa Business Conference as well as being awarded the inaugural Distinction of Honour for African Growth Award.
The decision to give Mr Kagame this award in light the recent allegations has been questioned by a number of academics and students, who have started a campaign calling for the S�id Business School to cancel their engagement with him.
The Oxford Africa Business Conference is a student led organization and the decision to award Kagame the honour was taken by students of the Business School.
Salvator Cusimano, an M.Sc candidate in Refugee studies and leader of the campaign against Mr Kagame�s visit, commented: �As it stands, the University will appear to condone Mr. Kagame�s actions at a time when even the governments of the United States and the UK � Rwanda�s staunchest allies � have distanced themselves from Mr. Kagame and his government.
�As members of the Oxford community, we have a responsibility to use our influence to reverse the Business School�s serious error of judgment.
�We have a unique opportunity to promote human rights and defend our University�s reputation, and we must act. �
The campaign has sent a letter to the Dean of the Business School, the Vice-Chancellor of the University as well as the head of the African Studies Centre detailing why the visit should be cancelled, and has started an e-petition which has received over 260 signatures in its first 24 hours.
The S�id Business School has commented �We prize open discussion and in line with the University�s Freedom of Speech policy the students have invited President Kagame to speak and there will be the opportunity for those present to challenge him as appropriate.
�We are aware that President Kagame is a controversial figure and his presence here implies no endorsement of his views or actions. We have taken the view that it�s appropriate to ask him to address any issues that are put to him from a platform in Oxford.�
The controversy surrounding Kagame stems from the accusation that he has silenced opposition politicians and journalists support for rebels in DMC including the paramilitary M23 movement, and illegal exploitation of Congolese resources.
Dominic Burridge, a DPhil Candidate from Oriel College, commented: �The proposal from the S�id Business School to give a Distinction of Honor for African Growth Award to Paul Kagame cannot fall under the criticism of endorsing human rights violations per se because it is making an economic assessment only.
�In this way, the decision errs on the side of a greater tragedy. It is a categorical statement that, in Africa, economics should matter more than society and ethics, and that those who have been accused of brutalising regions through natural resource greed should be decorated as economic leaders.�
The conference website has ignored the controversies surrounding Kagame, and instead focused on some of the successes of his presidency, including the reconciliation after the Rwandan genocide and relatively strong growth in GDP.
As a result they have feted that Kagame�s presidency has �set Rwanda on its current course towards reconciliation, nation building and socioeconomic development.�
A letter delivered to the S�id Business School the campaign has argued: �Mr. Kagame�s Rwanda bears several disturbing similarities to Rwanda under the genocidal government.
�Reconciliation appears superficial: despite a law prohibiting speech with ethnic content � known as genocide ideology � the ethnic tensions that fuelled genocide in 1994 seem alive beneath the surface.�
Amongst the supporters of the campaign are a number of academics and students.� One academic said that is �concerning� that the conference organisers� have invited Kagame to the S�id Business School given the ongoing dispute concerning his human rights record in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide.
Mr Kagame took office in 2000, after spending six years as Vice President in the years immediately after the Rwandan genocide, before winning democratic elections for the presidency in 2003 and 2010.
Source: The Oxdford Student Online
May 15, 2013 No Comments
Prosecutors seek Munyenyezi sentencing delay
By Tricia L. Nadolny
Federal prosecutors have asked to delay Beatrice Munyenyezi�s sentencing because the Boston-based attorneys have been heavily involved in the response to last month�s Boston Marathon bombings. But Munyenyezi�s lawyers say the Manchester woman, convicted in February of lying on immigration forms about her role in Rwanda�s 1994 genocide, shouldn�t have to wait.
They believe Munyenyezi has already been incarcerated four times longer than the maximum period allowed under 2003 sentencing guidelines, the ones in place when she is accused of lying about her past in Rwanda.
�We�re very sympathetic to the resources the marathon bombings is taking,� attorney Mark Howard said. �But we have a client�s interests to protect. And I don�t think anyone would want to sit in jail and wait just because the government is busy.�
Munyenyezi was convicted of immigration fraud during a two-week trial in February, a proceeding held only after a first one in her case ended in a mistrial in March 2012. During the second trial, prosecutors called nearly a dozen Rwandan witnesses to the stand, with each connecting Munyenyezi to the violence in some way.
Several placed her at a roadblock outside the hotel owned by her husband�s family where prosecutors say Munyenyezi checked identification cards and separated ethnic Tutsis, who would be killed or raped. Other witnesses described seeing Munyenyezi wear the colorful clothing of the MRND party, which organized the violence. Prosecutors called it evidence that Munyenyezi had lied when she told immigration officials she wasn�t politically affiliated.
The jury convicted Munyenyezi after about four hours of deliberation. The mother of three � who applied in 1995 to come to the United States as a refugee and was naturalized in 2003 � was immediately stripped of her citizenship by Judge Stephen McAuliffe.
Her lawyers say they will appeal the decision. They�ve also filed a motion asking McAuliffe to acquit Munyenyezi, arguing the evidence provided by prosecutors was insufficient and unreliable.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Capin and Aloke Chakravarty haven�t responded to that motion, and they�ve asked a judge for more time to do so. In the same request, they asked to push back the sentencing hearing, scheduled for June 3.
Both men are members of the Antiterrorism and National Security Unit of the Boston U.S. Attorney�s Office.
�Since the marathon bombings . . . Chakravarty has spent most of his waking hours stationed at the FBI�s investigative command center, overseeing legal aspects of the response to the bombings,� the prosecutors wrote in their request, filed Friday.
Under current sentencing guidelines, Munyenyezi could be ordered to serve up to 10 years in federal prison, after which she would face extradition. But the prosecutors argue in their motion that the evidence at trial could warrant a �significant upward departure from the applicable guideline sentencing range,� certainly one that would mean her incarceration well past the June sentencing.
The motion does not detail what sentence the prosecutors plan to ask for, and both Capin and Chakravarty declined to comment yesterday.
Defense attorney David Ruoff said he and Howard will likely ask that Munyenyezi, who is incarcerated at the Strafford County jail, be released immediately due to the time she�s already served.
Munyenyezi has been behind bars since her June 2010 arrest, except for the period between her two trials when a judge allowed her to be detained on home confinement. By Ruoff�s count, that totals about 23 months of pretrial confinement credit.
Under 2003 sentencing guidelines, in place when Munyenyezi is accused of lying on immigration forms, the punishment for her crimes ranged from probation to six months of incarceration, Ruoff said.
�We are opposed to (a continuation) because we believe that a proper calculation of the sentencing guidelines would suggest that she has already served four times more in jail than she would be sentenced to under the sentencing guidelines,� Howard said.
The defense attorneys have not filed an objection to the prosecutors request but Howard said they plan to do so soon.
In their motion for acquittal, the defense raises many of the same points they did at trial. Munyenyezi has claimed to be falsely accused, saying the witnesses who testified against her were led to lie either directly by the Rwandan government or indirectly by societal pressures that make Rwandans likely to conform to authority.
The jury rejected that theory.
But Munyenyezi�s lawyers are asking McAuliffe to weigh the possibility himself.
�Such a component is never present in a typical bank-robbery case. If the jury failed to understand the uncontested dynamic at play in current Rwanda, this court is nonetheless free to consider it,� they wrote in the motion.
The lawyers asked the judge to consider the unconventional nature of the trial � in which witnesses flown in from a foreign country spoke, through translators, about events nearly two decades prior � when deciding whether the evidence was believable.
Ruoff acknowledged yesterday that motions for acquittal are mostly, though not always, denied. He said if the request is not granted, he will appeal the case to 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
�We plan on fighting this until the very end,� he said.
Ruoff also said he�s received dozens of emails from around the world since the jury gave its verdict, most supporting his client. Several, he said, are from employees of governments who refuse to extradite individuals to Rwanda because they don�t believe they would receive fair treatment there.
�It�s very revealing,� Ruoff said. �It helps us have more faith in our theory of defense, which obviously the jury did not accept.�
Source: Concord Monitor
May 15, 2013 No Comments