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Rwandan Ex-Minister and Ex-Ambassador Flees To Burundi

Al Hajj Andre Habib Bumaya

Al Hajj Andre Habib Bumaya

Kigali – Following years of speculation after he lost his job, ex-Foreign Affairs Minister Al Hajj Andre Habib Bumaya may have finally left the country, and the party leader and colleagues in the Ideal Democratic Party (PDI) say it is his right to leave.

Considered the star entrant in President Paul Kagame�s first government 10 years ago, Mr. Bumaya was just a government employ before the Genocide. The latter government posted him to Libya as ambassador and later held to two cabinet positions � only to be kicked out and followed with brutal criticism from the President.

The ex-diplomat�s political time-table in the country seems to have come to an end in February.

Mr. Bumaya supposedly left the country on Feb. 22 headed for Burundi. A week later on Feb 27, the politician who rode to fame on the Muslim ticket, emailed PDI boss and current Internal Security Minister Sheikh Musa Fazil Harelimana.

The announcement

The news about Mr. Bumaya�s exile was communicated behind closed-doors by Sheikh Harelimana to party members from across the country at a party conference on Saturday. As the cameras and microphones were on, Mr. Harelimana reaffirmed the party�s support for President Kagame�s candidacy in the August poll.

Mr. Harelimana said he is barely even a-tenth of the person of President Kagame. After the ceremonial speeches and the journalists were not in the room, Mr. Harelimana broke the news nobody was expecting.

Andr� Bumaya is no longer a member of PDI, revealed Mr. Harelimana, according to different delegates who attended the conference. Bumaya wrote to him an email saying he had to leave the country for �personal reasons� and that he will communicate his political stand in the coming days.

For that matter, Mr. Harelimana continued, we shall consider him not a member.

Mr. Bumaya was among the 20 ministers in President Kagame�s first cabinet in 2000 when he replaced ex-leader Pasteur Bizimungu. Mr. Bumaya was named Foreign Affairs Minister, a post he lost two years later to Dr. Charles Murigande.

The soft-spoken, but arrogant Mr. Bumaya, who often rode to the top on the fact that he was head of the PDI party – considered to be for Muslims, was moved to the Ministry of Public Service. Prior to the 2003 Constitution which outlawed religious links for parties, the �I� was �Islamic�, but was changed to �Ideal�.

President Kagame again sacked Mr. Bumaya from cabinet in March 2006 amid continued criticism from Parliament, media and trade unions blaming him for the woos that had grappled the Ministry of Labour and Public Service.

In the same period up until recently, government came under immense pressure from donors to reform the public service. Thousands of government employees lost their jobs. Bitter complaints however emerged from CESTRAR � the national trade union umbrella about the way the retrenchment program had been handled.

In 2005, a Parliamentary probe was instituted to look into the complaints. A damning report accused Mr. Bumaya of implementing the massive retrenchment prior to the creation of the Constitutional Public Service Commission; failing to create a national labour policy; and malpractices in the hiring and firing processes.

As indication that he had clearly fallen out of favour with the appointing authority, Mr. Bumaya was finally thrown out of government in March 2006, but not without fierce criticism from the President.

President Kagame had openly attacked Mr. Bumaya in a closed-door government retreat a month earlier. In a clear reference to Mr. Bumaya, President Kagame gave him as an example of Cabinet ministers, who he said go around complaining that they don’t posses recruitment powers. The President castigated such ill-complaints saying they were only bent on taking the country back to the old corrupt regimes.

Enters Sheikh Musa Fazil Harelimana

PDI insiders who have watched the political drama unfold in the small party which has risen to glory on the strength of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) say the career of Mr. Bumaya started to get in trouble following the 2003 presidential poll.

Mr. Kagame was overwhelmingly elected with Sheikh Musa Fazil Harelimana serving as the vice president of the electoral commission. Mr. Harelimana was eventually appointed Governor of the trouble-ridden Western Province.

In the March 2006 cabinet changes, Mr. Harelimana was brought into government as Internal Security Minister � coincidentally as party rival Mr. Bumaya was thrown out.

The humiliation seemed to have been overwhelming that Mr. Bumaya moved out of the country � prompting the rumour-mill to take its toll that he had fled. It later emerged that he was in the United States doing a masters in international relations.

Mr. Harelimana�s rise up the party ladder was not about to stop. In 2007, he was elected to lead the small party, on the strong backing of the head of the Islamic faith in the country Sheikh Habimana Swaleh. This seems to have sealed the political relevance of Mr. Bumaya.

Though Mr. Bumaya became the spokesman of PDI, observers believed he was no longer politically relevant anymore. His appearance at the high-table was no more, as the profile of the Internal Security Minister got more entrenched.

Party �owner�?

The fall from grace for Mr. Bumaya was clearly over, for a man who appeared from the blue to be named ambassador to Libya by the post Genocide government.

Established in 1991 as the Islamic Democratic Party (Parti d�mocratique islamique), it came up at the time ex-president Habyarimana Juvenal was opening up political space to multiparty politics.

PDI joined forces with the RPF in the 2003 legislative election and won two seats in the Chamber of Deputes. Its leader was Mr. Bumaya.

In the current Lower Chamber, there are two Deputes representing PDI.

ARI-RNA rnanews.com

2 comments

1 James Kalisa { 05.18.10 at 1:32 pm }

Politique:Reaction aux info de l’ARI sur Bumaya
�crit le: 03-11-2010 11:51:12 (-0500 GMT)

Article par: Mac3

L’Ambassadeur Bumaya A. Habib a toujours ete integre dans l’execution de ses fonctions jusqu’a son depart du gouvernemtnt et recemment du pays

L�Ambassadeur Bumaya a d�missionn� du Parti PDI, dont il fut cofondateur en 1991 et qu�il dirigea depuis jusqu�en Avril 2006, suite aux d�saccords profonds avec les leaders actuels du Parti concernant les actions et orientations politiques du parti. Pour lui par exemple, il �tait temps que les relations de collaboration du PDI et le FPR soient revisit�es en tenant compte des int�r�ts du parti et de ses membres. Ce qui n�est �videmment pas du go�t des leaders actuels du parti.
Par ailleurs, le PDI n�a jamais �t�, a ma connaissance, exclusif aux musulmans (si tel fut le cas, il n�aurait jamais �t� officiellement agr�e comme formation politique au Rwanda) et, tous les musulmans n�en sont pas membres. C�est ainsi que le Mufti Habimana Swaleh et, m�me la quasi totalit� des leaders religieux musulmans, sont membres du FPR au pouvoir.
La nomination de Mr.Bumaya au poste d�Ambassadeur en Libye en 1994 ne fut pas motiv�e par de bonnes dispositions sentimentales ou morales du FPR. Au contraire, elle s�inscrivait dans la strat�gie du FPR d��liminer le plus grand nombre possible de leaders politiques, ayant activement �uvr� dans le pays avant le g�nocide, capable de d�jouer et faire �chec � leurs plans.
La Libye, sous embargo international, �tait bien indiqu� pour l’isolement de ce leader, qu��tait Mr. Buamaya, identifi� par les analystes politiques du FPR comme dangereux pour avoir hiss� une petite formation politique sans envergure dans la cour des grands opposants au r�gime de Habyarimana. L�Ambassadeur Bumaya a toujours �t� consid�r�e par le r�gime actuel comme un opposant latent.
Kagame, Makuza ainsi que les caciques du FPR savent pertinemment bien que l�Ambassadeur Bumaya n�a jamais �t� demis de ses fonctions comme l�a pr�tendu l�article de l�Agence Rwandaise d�Information relatif � ce sujet.
L�Ambassadeur Bumaya a lui-m�me sollicit� son d�part du Minist�re des Affaires �trang�res, qu�il a obtenu en faisant valoir sa volont� de s�occuper de l�organisation de son parti en vue des �ch�ances �lectorales annonc�es, apr�s avoir d�couvert un plan concoct� par certains caciques du pouvoir qui en voulaient a sa t�te a tout prix, en faisant usage de tous les moyens pour le nuire, afin de s�accaparer de ce poste qu�ils convoitaient tant.
L�Ambassadeur Bumaya a aussi voulu partir de ce poste parce qu�il n��tait plus d�accord avec la gestion de la guerre en RDC surtout apr�s qu�il s�av�ra que la s�curit� du Rwanda n��tait plus le seul motif de la pr�sence de l�arm�e patriotique rwandaise (ou son implication) dans ce pays.
L�Ambassadeur Bumaya a aussi sollicit�, lui-m�me, et obtenu son d�part du gouvernement (Minist�re de la fonction publique et du travail) pr�textant sa volont� de poursuivre et parachever ses �tudes doctorales, a la suite de son d�saccord avec les caciques du pouvoir FPR relatif a la marche a suivre par rapport a la reforme de la fonction publique. Les gens du FPR proposaient une table rase de la fonction publique afin de proc�der a une nouvelle embauche des agents de l��tat a laquelle s�oppos�rent l�Ambassadeur Bumaya et les agents du Minist�re de la Fonction publique qui, en fin de compte, eurent gain de cause pour avoir prouv� que cela d�stabiliserait presque irr�m�diablement l�administration. Ceci exacerba la col�re de ses protagonistes du FPR qui s�en prirent personnellement a lui et mirent imm�diatement en marche une campagne de sa d�stabilisation politique sans m�nager tous les membres de sa famille. Des journaux comme The New Times, les deux chambres de l�Assembl�e Nationale, les services de renseignement, et des m�thodes d�intimidations vari�es furent utilis�s � son encontre.
En plus, l�Ambassadeur Bumaya s�en �tait rendu au point o� il ne pouvait plus continuer � s�inscrire continuellement en faux au r�gime, qu�il servait, dont les vell�it�s autoritaires et dictatoriales se manifestaient davantage. Cette contradiction pesait de plus en plus lourd sur sa conscience.
Les d�clarations de Paul Kagame, � l�ouverture de retraite 2006 a Kagera, ont �t� faites apr�s qu�il ait pris connaissance et accept� en principe la proposition du d�part de l�Ambassadeur Bumaya de son gouvernement.
Inform�s, ses collaborateurs du FPR n�ont �t� d�accord avec lui a condition de rouler et tra�ner l�Ambassadeur Bumaya dans la boue avant qu�il ne soit permis de partir car, pour eux, le contraire aurait pu �tre pr�judiciable aux int�r�ts politiques du FPR. Cela d�autant plus que l�Ambassadeur Bumaya venait de d�clarer a l�hebdomadaire Umuseso qu�il ne fut jamais membre du FPR et qu�il ne le sera jamais. Kagame a fini a c�der � ces sollicitations et c�est dans ce contexte qu�intervinrent ses d�clarations de Kagera concernant l�Ambassadeur Bumaya qui continua, malheureusement � en subir les cons�quences m�me longtemps apr�s son d�part du gouvernement.
L�Ambassadeur Bumaya vient de quitter le Rwanda suite aux menaces et atteintes multiples a sa s�curit� a cause de sa fin de non recevoir qu�il r�serva a la proposition de certains caciques proches de Kagame de t�moigner, dans une juridiction Gacaca comp�tente en la mati�re, contre l�un des ministres encore en poste moyennant un retour assur� aux affaires gouvernementales.
L�ambassadeur Bumaya se trouverait actuellement au Burundi ou aux �tats-unis ou r�sident sa famille depuis 2005.

Source:Iwacu1.com

2 AMIDA MWASSA QUEEN { 11.25.10 at 7:53 am }

Que Monsieur Paul KAGAME soit calme. il est jusque l� l’homme le plus fort de l’Afrique Centrale. Et cela est t�moign� par le d�veloppement constat� dans son pays. Toute fois ANDRE HABIB BUMAYA n’est pas un monsieur a rejet�. Il a aussi beaucoup contribu� pour la politique du RWANDA.

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