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Ms Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza has been asked the following question related to his alleged connection to the rebels organisation FDLR. Here follows the question and the answer she gave:
Question:
There is this allegation that FDU-Inkingi is connected to FDLR which has been labelled a terrorist organisation by the US, tell us this is true?

Answer:
These are fabrications aimed at tarnishing my image and delaying the registration of my party. Of late, government lobbies have been going around, brandishing a UN experts report as evidence. This UN report which by the way was heavily criticised by Tanzania and Burundi, is so biased that it went to the extent of saying that the commander in chief of FDLR is my brother! This is rubbish.

The report further alleges that I am connected with FDLR because I attended a meeting with FDLR members in Barcelona. The so called Barcelona meeting took place under the auspices of a Spanish NGO and was attended by Rwandan of all ethnic groups, including RPF well known individuals from Rwanda. This can be cross-checked from the minutes of the meeting. The agenda of the meeting was to see ways and means of organising an inter Rwanda dialogue. How came these RPF members who attended the meeting are not labelled FDLR supporters?

The truth of the story is that the government does not want a true dialogue and want to demonise any dialogue initiative that is not under it iron fist. Had the Barcelona meeting been a conspiracy meeting, the organisers would have not invited delegates from Rwanda including staunch supporters of the ruling party.

From interview by Eleneus Akanga – ellyakanga.wordpress.com.

In his article titled “The politics of genocide in Rwanda”, Geoffrey York reports on the spirit prevailing today at the Rwandan political scene. He writes:

With an election looming in a few months, Rwanda�s authoritarian government has made an astounding claim:democracy leads directly to genocide.

The claim is made in an article this week by Jean Paul Kimonyo, an advisor in the office of Rwandan President Paul Kagame. He argues that Rwanda has only had �plural politics� for two brief periods in its history, and both times it �led to mass killings.�

He also makes the sweeping statement that �political parties and independent media� were a big reason for the killings. All parties and all media, in his view, are just as dangerous as the hate-spewing radio stations and politicians that fuelled the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

His conclusion, apparently, is that Rwanda needs to suppress its political parties, restrict its independent media and tightly control its elections, even though it�s been 16 years since the genocide. Democracy � or �confrontational politics,� as he prefers to call it � would �almost certainly lead to renewed violence.�

This is a very convenient argument for those who are currently in power. But what about everyone else? Opposition political parties are already finding it almost impossible to get registered for the August election. Independent journalists are harassed and threatened.

Read full article of Geoffrey York.

I have been to Rwanda and to Congo. I have seen the suffering Rwanda has inflicted on the Congolese people in order to STEAL Congo’s minerals. I know they use the excuse of hunting down Hutu Militias but the folly of that theory was exposed when Uganda and Rwanda fought in Kisangani.

I am also familiar with the fact that there are dozens of Rwandan officials who fled when they resigned including the latest Kayumba Nyamwasa.

It’s also true that some former Hutu militias or military leaders from the genocidaire government are part of the Rwandan government. One high profile one is General Gatsinzi.

I have seen starving Rwandans in rural Rwanda. I always wondered if Kigali and the rest of the country are in the same nation.

I have met survivors who escaped the genocidaires and survivors who survived the current Rwandan government killings. They all have had their families wiped out. It is hard for me to minimize anyone’s loss of life. The minute by minute stories are very real.

You may also want to look at the Common Wealth Human Rights report or Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International if you think hearing from the survivors/victims themself is not enough.

Hutu and Tutsis existed long before the Germans (initial colonial masters) and Belgians. Ethnic issues existed even within the ruling Tutsi dynasties. Anyone who perpetrates the myth that it was the Belgians who created the issue will lie to you that a Tutsi is a Camel.

by Kpete – http://www.theglobeandmail.com/community/?userid=60554107&plckUserId=60554107

An oppressive dictator, regardless of his former “glory” should not be praised. When he is killing people in front of your eyes, it’s no use to anyone for you to say, “oh but he saved people in the past.” Yes, that was in the past. What about now? What about the people he killed in the past?

Rwanda’s history is complicated, but there is nothing complicated about the fact that Kagame is oppressive, and that it’s about time for him to change.
By changeispossible – http://www.theglobeandmail.com/community/?userid=60566407&plckUserId=60566407.

In his article “The politics of genocide in Rwanda”,� The Globe and Mail’s Africa correspondent Geoffrey York describes how difficult it is for independant media to operate in Rwanda. He writes:

In Kigali recently, I had an interesting chat with Didas Gasana, editor-in-chief of an independent weekly newspaper called Umuseso � one of the few sources of independent information in Rwanda.

Mr. Gasana (pictured below) has been a target of the authorities for years. Twice he has been prosecuted for �criminal defamation� for his investigative articles about corruption and wrongdoing. He was forced into exile for a year in 2005 after police warned that he could be killed for what he was reporting in his newspaper. A government media council has recommended the banning of his newspaper. Even now he gets anonymous calls from people accusing him of working for �negative forces� � code words for the armed rebels in neighbouring Congo, and a veiled threat that he could be killed.

Didas Gasana, editor in chief of Umuseso, the main independent newspaper in Rwanda, on the street outside his office in Kigali.

Any independent newspaper would struggle for survival in such an environment, but the government has further squeezed Mr. Gasana by prohibiting public agencies from advertising in his newspaper. Only one private company � along with some foreign embassies and organizations � is daring to advertise in the weekly. He estimates that his total advertising revenue is barely $300 a month.

�It�s part of a broader pattern of intimidating us, silencing us and suffocating us financially,� he says. �I try to shrug it off. But the situation is getting more tense as the election approaches.�

In the last election in 2003, President Kagame claimed to have captured the election with nearly 95 per cent of the vote. This year the election will be even more lopsided, Mr. Gasana says. �People are afraid to make themselves heard. We are far from having a free election.�

People like Mr. Gasana are crucial to the country�s future if Rwandans want to learn the truth about the shadowy events that drive the political agenda here. In recent weeks, Rwanda has been shaken by a series of mysterious grenade blasts and the equally mysterious defection of a former army commander who fled to South Africa. The government was quick to blame the defector for the grenade blasts. But the reporting by Mr. Gasana suggests another possible explanation.

Mr. Gasana was at the scene of the first grenade blast within minutes of the explosion. An eyewitness told him that a man on a motorcycle had flung a grenade and raced on. The witness also noticed a police car parked nearby. Instead of following the motorcycle, the police car drove off in a different direction, the witness told Mr. Gasana.

Although he cannot prove it, he believes there is a possibility that the grenade attacks were orchestrated by state intelligence agencies to justify a crackdown on electoral politics. It�s an uncomfortable question, but without the independent media in Rwanda there would be nobody to raise such questions.

Read full article of Geoffrey York

So what exactly entails revisionism? And how is it quantifiable when a lot of facts on Rwanda happen to be hearsay.

I am a Rwandan and refuse to be fed by a fabricated truth–no matter how internationally acclaimed it is.

I explain why:

1. The RPF did not start the war to stop genocide. There is no evidence to support this view. Rwanda was relatively a peaceful country albeit a Hutu dictatorship.

2. Kagame did not end the genocide. He won the war. But the killings continued, in Rwanda and beyond. Evidence of RPF’s killings in Kibeho for instance, suggest that Kagame’s interest was always to replace Hutu power by Tutsi power.

3. The war in eastern Congo has largely targeted Hutu refugees and the Hutu Diaspora. Tutsi 1994 heroes like Laurent Nkunda and Bosco Ntaganda have turned out to be the Hitters of Africa.

4. The RPF is extremely PR savvy. It uses psychological tactics and always playing the victim card. For instance, the killings of millions of Congolese are blamed on the unwillingness of the then Zaire to hand over the alleged genocidaires.

5. It is very inaccurate that 1,000,000 Tutsi were killed during the Rwanda genocide. If the Tutsi comprised 10% of the population, it is not difficult to see how suspecting the data is.

6. President Paul Kagame might be a Tutsi liberator (this is arguable) yet, he is seen by many Hutu and Congolese as a mass murder. There is evidence to support these claims.

7. Like any conflict in Africa, there are western interests fueling the conflict. This has been obscured. Rather than blaming the colonialist, let’s focus on the French who funded the Ex-FAR and the Americans/Britons who supported the RPF.

8. The world did not abandon Rwanda. Neither did it fail to intervene. Foreign powers intervened the wrong way, resulting in unexpected calamity.

The people of Rwanda deserve the chance to define their own destiny. They deserve democracy and the world needs to STOP its support of an unpopular dictatorship.

by Mutesi – http://www.theglobeandmail.com/community/?userid=60566512&plckUserId=60566512.