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Is Victoire Ingabire Connected To FDLR?

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.

March 10, 2010   No Comments

Strange Times in Kigali

Source: Christopher Vourlias – March 4, 2010.

I returned to Kigali this week with the hopes of enjoying some downtime before heading to eastern Congo. Sadly, this was not to be the case. As I recently reported, things in everyone�s favorite central African autocracy have taken a turn for the dysfunctional of late, even by this region�s strange standards. Grenade attacks, coup rumors, renegade generals on the run. If it weren�t for the fact that there�s not a beach in sight, I would�ve sworn I was back in Bujumbura.

Happier times for Presidents Museveni and Kagame, seen here in 2008, before renegade, coup-plotting generals fled into Uganda and threatened to strain relations between the two countries

Front and center has been the bizarre case of Lieutenant-General Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former army chief of staff who � after rumored sightings in Uganda � has apparently resurfaced in South Africa after fleeing the country last week. Kayumba, who was until recently serving as Rwanda�s ambassador to India, has had a strained relationship with the RPF leadership, after he was allegedly linked to a failed coup attempt in 2003. The diplomatic posting seems to reflect the conventional wisdom in Kigali, which is to keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your failed-coup leaders in India. Uganda�s Sunday Vision reported on Kayumba�s contentious relationship with the government, citing local reports linking him to the troubled Green Party, as well as rumors that �no government official or even fellow soldiers attended the funeral of [Kayumba's] mother recently,� which is a dark tiding indeed for a Rwandan political figure.

Yesterday, a clearly peeved PK gave a press conference here in Kigali, at which he dispelled any rumors that the fleeing general � as well as another former army officer, Patrick Karegeya � had been plotting a coup against him, according to South Africa�s Independent.

�Nobody, absolutely nobody, not even Kayumba, can carry out a coup here. Think about it and you�ll come to the conclusion no one can carry out a coup� in Rwanda, the president said.

�People can only dream about it, wish for it; I believe what I�m telling you,� Kagame said.

Kagame went on to add: �Never ever ever ever ever. Never. Ever.�

Kagame, who at a recent press conference ‘double-dog dared’ opponents to overthrow him

The press conference comes on the heels of an announcement by the Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga, who told reporters with a straight face on Tuesday that the Kigali grenade attacks of last month have now been linked to none other than Lt. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa and Patrick Karegyeya. This comes after officials stated just hours after the attacks that two suspects had been apprehended, and that, in the definitive words of police spokesman Eric Kayiranga, �they belong to the Interahamwe militia.�

The Rwanda News Agency comments on the sudden about-face.

When three grenades exploded in Kigali two weeks ago and another in Huye district a week before, Police Spokesman Superintendent Eric Kayiranga quickly said investigations showed that Rwandan FDLR rebels were behind them.

The link has not been raised again. On Tuesday, the National Prosecuting Authority suddenly claimed that Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa and Col. Patrick Karegeya were behind the grenade attacks. On Wednesday, President Kagame said the link between these two scenarios might be possible.

Why would former RPF stalwarts now be canoodling with the Interahamwe? Exactly how many FDLR Hutus do you think are on Lt. Gen. Faustin Kayumba�s Christmas-card list?

Undeterred by the hilarity of their accusations, the RPF today released photographic evidence that Messrs. Kayumba and Karegeya are, indeed, plotting with Interahamwe militia. �We finally have our smoking gun,� said Kagame.

Interahamwe militia and rogue RPF elements plotting at a sidewalk cafe in eastern Congo, according to an investigative report by Rwanda’s New Times

The Kayumba saga comes against a backdrop of increasing intimidation and harassment of opposition politicians, as I�ve reported before. These have included threats most foul against at least three prominent opposition figures � Victoire Ingabire, of the FDU-Inkingi Party; Bernard Ntaganda, of the Parti Social-IMBERAKURI; and Frank Habineza, of the Democratic Green Party � and have (predictably) drawn outraged cries from the international community.

President Kagame, of course, has repeatedly defended his actions, citing the ever-present threat of Hutu rebels to the east and fifth columnists within. In an op-ed for The Guardian, Stephen Kinzer sums up the Kagame position.

He believes western human rights activists underestimate the prospects for a new outbreak of ethnic violence in Rwanda, as well as the danger of allowing ethnically charged speech. �We�ve lived this life,� he said angrily at a news conference. �We�ve lived the consequences. So we understand it better than anyone from anywhere else.�

The levels of intrigue here are�intriguing. Kagame is a master manipulator, who has repeatedly used the genocide as a pretext for bullying the international community and cracking down on internal dissent. The refrain of �we understand it better than anyone from anywhere else� has, in some form or other, become the de facto position of the Kagame administration. It is part of its us-against-the-world mentality, which has always included, as a lingering subtext, a reminder of how the West failed Rwanda during its darkest hour.

On a scale of one to 10, this man is not to be fucked with.

The president is a grand strategist, as PR-savvy as any American exec, and observers in this country are always forced to consider how a given event � whether it be grenade attacks in Kigali, or the return of a rabble-rousing exile � is being manipulated by the man upstairs. However damaging or threatening the latest news might seem, you know it is being redacted in His Excellency PK�s enigmatic noggin, before being regurgitated in a way that, ultimately, casts the Kagame regime in an ever more righteous light. Ingabire, for example, has been given a relatively free hand (by Rwandan standards) to state her case to the foreign press. But is Kagame simply holding back because the international spotlight is on her? Or is he playing a more patient hand, perhaps giving Ingabire enough rope to (metaphorically, of course) hang herself?

(The same laissez-faire attitude, unfortunately, has not been extended toward her erstwhile assistant, Joseph Ntawangundi, who just three days after being attacked alongside Ingabire, was promptly arrested and locked up on an outstanding warrant for crimes committed during the genocide.)

I�m not entirely sure what to make of these opposition leaders. Frank Habineza, President of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, for example, clumsily played the genocide card while appealing to the West to put pressure on Kagame for his repressive political tactics.

�We do not want the international community to wait, like it waited in 1994,� said Habineza, drawing a parallel that was unlikely to win him many fans. (You can hear more from Habineza here.)

Ingabire has not exactly shied away from the limelight.

And then there�s Ingabire. I�ve already written a bit about her political aspirations, after spending nearly 16 years in exile in Europe. The would-be president quickly stirred controversy by making some politically charged comments about Hutu victims at the genocide memorial. This more or less occurred while she still had crumbs from the in-flight meal on her chin.

Given such blatantly ethnic posturing � as well as some of the questionable figures looming in her background � it is hard to accept her intentions at face value. Likewise, the clumsy, stage-managed episode involving her supposed asylum request at the UK High Commission makes you wonder whether Ingabire isn�t as much a cool calculator as the man she hopes to dethrone. And you have to ask why someone so deeply concerned with the future of her country waited this long to return, anyway.

Recently Ingabire claimed that if the election were to be held tomorrow, the people would surely vote FDU into power, �because they know who we are.�

I don�t want to take anything away from the average man-on-the-collines here in Rwanda. I would like to give Rwandans � particularly the rural poor, who make up the bulk of this country�s population � the benefit of the doubt, and assume that, come August, they can and will calmly file to the polls with a selfless democratic spirit and full of only the highest of high-minded aspirations.

Unfortunately, that goes against everything I know about electoral politics in this region. Given the amount of time she has had to �campaign� in the country, I suspect most voters don�t know all that much about who Ingabire is. They simply know that she is a Hutu, and in a country where that group still holds a roughly 85 percent majority, she could very well be banking on the fact that that�s all they need to know. You can hardly blame the president, then, for being a bit concerned at the rumblings from below. And you have to wonder just what steps he might take in the next few months to suppress them.

March 7, 2010   No Comments

Victoire Ingabire Confirms That Joseph Ntawangundi Lied About His CV

Joseph Ntawangundi Arrested

Joseph Ntawangundi arrested

This must be an embarrassing situation for Mrs Victoire Ingabire, Chair of FDU-Inkingi, who is forced to confirm what The Rwandan authorities and their mouthpiece New Times has been claiming about her Assistant Joseph Ntawangundi.

In a press release issued today, Mrs Victoire Ingabire states:

UPDATE ON JOSEPH NTAWANGUNDI�S CASE

Since the arrest of Joseph Ntawangundi on 05th February 2010 and the subsequent incommunicado detention, UDF-INKINGI is conducting its own investigations. At this stage, troubling details about his curriculum vitae raise a certain amount of questions on the information he volunteered before the arrest. This has resulted in regrettable errors in our press release dated 05th February 2010.

Therefore we dissociate ourselves explicitly from the earlier records of his occupational environment, and call on serious investigations.
His lawyer is still trying in vain to obtain a copy of the infamous 2007 in absentia trial. Until proven otherwise, Joseph Ntawangundi is presumed innocent. We call on the government to ensure that he is granted a fair, prompt and public trial.

Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza
Chair UDF-INKINGI

Source: fdu-rwanda.org.

March 5, 2010   1 Comment

Premier Makuza Warns Opposition Leader Victoire Ingabire

Premier Bernard Makuza

Premier Bernard Makuza

KIGALI – Prime Minister Bernard Makuza has lashed out at Victoire Ingabire, the leader of the yet-to-be-registered political party � FDU-Inkingi, for what he said is an attempt to disrespect Rwandans and the country�s laws.

The Prime Minister said that Ingabire�s rhetoric showed utter disrespect for Rwandans and what they have worked hard to achieve over the past 16 years.

�Wanting to disrespect Rwandans [saying] that they live in fear, or belittling what they have achieved, like Gacaca which Rwandans created on their own, as well as other policies meant to bring about unity and reconciliation, is something Rwandans cannot accept,� Makuza said.

He accused Ingabire of trying to instil fear in people, strongly warning her against this path, especially the attempt to use ethnic card.

�Rwandans have long since done away with such fear and they cannot allow anyone to lead them into the politics of anarchy that takes them back while destroying what they have built�.

The PM made the remarks yesterday while briefing reporters outside his offices in Kimihurura, shortly after holding separate closed bilateral discussions with the new Ambassadors of DRC and Burundi.

He downplayed Ingabire�s recent summoning to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), saying that it was normal procedure.

The Premier stressed that with respect to the law, what was important was whether the people or institutions interrogating anyone have the legal authority to do so and are doing it within the confines of the country�s laws.

�I think that the institutions like the police have that right. If at all they did not do that, even Rwandans would question why those institutions do not carry out their duties yet they have that responsibility�.

Makuza stressed that Ingabire, or any other Rwandan, has the right to aspire to be a presidential candidate or any other post, but must not contravene the law.

�Rwanda is not a jungle where people do whatever they want. That is why there are laws � if you don�t respect the law, the law takes you to task,� the PM warned.

Victoire Ingabire

Victoire Ingabire

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza who returned to the country last month after 16 years in the Netherlands and who is the presidential candidate of the FDU-Inkingi for the upcoming presidential elections, has been an outspoken critic of the RPF government. She has angered Paul Kagame�s regime when she declared that Hutu who have been killed during the genocide should also be remembered and their killers brought to justice. Rwandan authorities consider her declarations as �divisive and revisionist� and espousing the double genocide theory.

Source: newtimes.co.rw.

February 12, 2010   No Comments

London Manifestation of Rwandans For Cessation of RPF Harassment in Rwanda

Some banners at London Manifestation

Some banners at London Manifestation

LONDON – On Wednesday 10th February 2010, a group of Rwandans and Congolese from DRC convened from 2.00 pm at the High Commission of Rwanda in UK to protest against the regime of Kigali for harassing Rwandan political opponents.
The manifestation took place in front of the Rwanda House located at 120 � 122 Seymour Place, London W1H.
Slogans on the displayed banners included the following messages: �Democracy for Rwanda Now, Stop Harassing Opposition, Free Joseph Ntawangundi Now.� On some of the banners were pictures showing Joseph�s scars after the beating by RPF militia in Kigali on 3rd February 2010.
The protesters find that people have been patient enough about the crimes and abuses of human rights by the RPF regime against Rwandans.
They are very much inspired by the courageous determination of Mrs Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, Chair of United Democratic Forces UDF-Inkingi, to politically and pacifically challenge the Kagame regime in Rwanda. They told news reporters that what Victoire Ingabire has started won�t stop until Rwandans have democracy, justice and respect of the basic human rights they have been denied for the last 20 years because of RPF. They expect the world to know more about their suffering and help them make pressure on Paul Kagame to change his policies towards the Rwandan population.
Congolese who joined the protest are fed up by the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Great Lakes region where occur recurring wars sponsored by international interests in the mineral resources of DRC. All recognize that RPF is the source of all the tragedies in the whole region and agree that re-instauring democracy in Rwanda will greatly ease the suffering of so many millions in the region.

February 11, 2010   2 Comments

Victoire Ingabire summoned by Criminal Investigation Department

Victoire Ingabire

Victoire Ingabire

KIGALI – Victoire Ingabire, leader of the opposition party FDU-Inkingi was yesterday summoned and interviewed by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at the Police Headquarters in Kacyiru.
The details of the investigations have not been clarified by the Police.
Victoire Ingabire was questioned and was later allowed to return home.
The Rwanda News Agency quoted Kagame on Monday as charging that Ingabire was “making comments and doing all her activities illegally and as an ‘individual’ because her party has not been registered.”
Victoire Ingabire who was in the company of her lawyer Protais Mutembe during the questioning, declared afterwards to the BBC that the questioning was related to her views about genocide and crimes against humanity and her alleged relationship with the FDLR rebels.
Victoire Ingabire who returned to the country last month after 16 years in the Netherlands, has been an outspoken critic of the RPF government. She has angered Paul Kagame’s regime when she declared that Hutu who have been killed during the genocide should also be remembered and their killers brought to justice. They consider her declarations as �divisive and revisionist� and espousing the double genocide theory.
Last week, Ingabire and her assistant Joseph Ntawangundi were attacked by RPF militia at Kinyinya Sector.
Since then, Joseph Ntawangundi has been jailed as a 2007 Gacaca court convict for genocide crimes. Joseph protests his innocence and his party FDU-Inkingi claims he could not have committed such crimes as he was not in Rwanda in 1994.
These series of incidents are meant as intimidation tools meant to harass people, discourage any meaningful opposition and undermine the advent of democratic rule in Rwanda.

February 11, 2010   No Comments

Kigali – Case of Joseph Ntawangundi: Another Evidence of Gacaca Courts Farce in Rwanda.

Ingabire's Assistant beaten-up

Ingabire's Assistant beaten-up

After her assistant Joseph Ntawangundi was put in police custody following revelations by the New Times that he was a ‘Gacaca fugitive’ already sentenced to 19 years jail, the opposition leader Victoire Ingabire, chair of the UDF-Inkingi alias FDU-Inkingi issued a statement stressing that this is another shameful propaganda based on lies in the Gacaca system.
Here follows Ingabire�s press release:

NEW TIMES, A JUDGE AND JURY, EXPLOITING FORGED GACACA EVIDENCE, TO MAKE MORE VICTIMS.

We read with utmost concern, the New Times of Saturday, 6th February 2010. The fire spitting media has unveiled its true colors. The title on the front page �Ingabire�s assistant a Gacaca fugitive� alleging that Joseph Ntawangundi was sentenced to 19 years in absentia, is sheer lies.

Joseph Ntawangundi left Rwanda in 1986 for studies in Poland (Wroclaw), returned to Rwanda in 1992 and worked in Kigali (CESTRAR). In 1993, he left Rwanda for ICFTU – AFRO (international confederation for free trade unions, African Regional Organisation, NAIROBI, Kenya) as a Research and Training Officer until 2002. During the genocide, Mr. Joseph Ntawangundi was attending, on behalf of the ICFTU � AFRO, a 2-month training course in Sweden (GANGNEF) and returned to Kenya.

He never officiated in the education sector in Rwanda, in any capacity whatsoever. He has never been school director in Gitwe during the genocide, as claimed by the paper. Either the reporters have been mislead, or they deliberately want to mislead the readers for their own agenda.

Since Mrs. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza returned to Rwanda, this paper has been recklessly issuing fabricated stories without giving any chance of counter evidence, in total disregard of media ethics.

I challenge the paper to produce any evidence of its allegations, at least for the sake of the readers’ respect. Else, let it give a right of answer to Mr. Joseph Ntawangundi.

Even if our position about GACACA has not changed, we hope that it has not fallen this low to condemn an innocent who was not even in Rwanda during the genocide, and for crimes committed in a place he has never been to.

Meanwhile, we’ve just learnt that Mr Joseph Ntawangundi has been picked up by the police and is currently held at Remera police station. This shows the kind of relationship between New Times and security forces which rely on libels from this paper.

We would like to recall that Mr Joseph Ntawangundi is still recovering from injuries sustained on 3rd February 2010, following attacks in government premises in Kinyinya sector. He is expecting justice, not mob justice.

UDF INKINGI
Mrs. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza
Chairperson

February 8, 2010   1 Comment

Lies and Gacaca As Main Weapon Against Political Opposition in Rwanda

The New Times newspaper of spreading false propaganda about her aide, Joseph Ntawangundi.

A few days after Victoire Ingabire and her assistant Joseph Ntawangundi were nearly lynched by a rowdy group of local militia in the administration offices, the New Times newspaper – mouthpiece of the ruling RPF party of President Paul Kagame – reported that Ntawangundi was a fugitive long wanted by the Gacaca court on charges related to the 1994 genocide.

Here is what The New Times (http://www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?issue=14163&article=25610) publishes in an article titled:

Ingabire�s assistant a Gacaca fugitive:
� Handed 19 yrs in absentia

KIGALI – Victoire Ingabire�s assistant, Joseph Ntawangundi, the man who came to the limelight in the saga at Kinyinya Sector, is a wanted Genocide fugitive who, in 2007, was sentenced in absentia to 19 years in prison by a Gacaca Court.

Ntawangundi was found guilty by the Gacaca court in Rusenyi cell, Gitwe sector in the former Kibungo Province, present day Ngoma, for killing two young people only identified as Nsabimana and Hategeka.

The two were students of IAVE Gitwe Secondary School in Kibungo where he was a director at the time. He was also found guilty of conspiring with militias to murder eight other people.

According to Beline Uwineza, the coordinator of Gacaca in the Eastern Province, Ntawangundi fled in 1994 to Benaco Refugee Camp in Tanzania before finding his way to Europe.

�His file and arrest warrant have been around. His case was a category two type. We were surprised when we saw his pictures in the news media after all these years,� she said.
�The arrest warrant is still valid of course. The next step will be to make sure he serves his jail term. Gacaca will do everything within its means to bring him to book�.

Witnesses testified that Ntawangundi being the director of the school, many students ran to him for protection during the Genocide, but that he kept turning them away and they would then be killed by militias lurking outside.

The two children he killed had also run to him for protection.

He is one of the thousands of people whom Gacaca has sentenced in absentia.

This is the second time that someone connected to the presidential aspirant is discovered to have links to the killings of innocent people during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.

Ingabire�s own mother, Therese Dusabe, had also been found guilty earlier on two separate occasions and sentenced to 30 years and life respectively.

According to FDU-Inkingi’s chair Victoire Ingabire, this Gacaca story is a pure lie as Joseph Ntawangundi had left Rwanda in 1993! Read Victoire Ingabire’s press release explaining why in the article: Kigali � Case of Joseph Ntawangundi: Another Evidence of Gacaca Courts Farce in Rwanda.
This is again another proof that the Kagame regime would continue to recourse to any sort of of lies and character assassination propaganda, in order to bar the opposition from fairly challenging him in the upcoming presidential elections.

February 8, 2010   No Comments

Kigali-Rwanda: Calendar Of Upcoming Presidential Elections Released

KIGALI – The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has released an updated calendar of the upcoming presidential elections detailing dates for the series of events that will lead to the August 9 Presidential Polls.

The electoral code that is currently in parliament is expected to be promulgated soon and published in the official Gazette.

Here are the key dates for the events that will lead to the August 9 Presidential Polls:
- Between June 24 and July 02: Nomination of presidential candidates
- July 07: Declaration of the final list of candidates approved by NEC.
- July 20: Nominated candidates will start campaigning
- August 08: End of electoral campaign
- August 09: Presidential polls.
- No later than August 17: Final declaration of presidential election results and announcement of the winner.

Note that one newcomer in the Rwandan politics, Mrs Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, has already been designated by her still-to-be-registered FDU-Inkingi party as their presidential candidate and is already in Rwanda, trying against all odds to register her party in order to challenge the redoutable RPF candidate Paul Kagame.

February 8, 2010   No Comments

Rwanda Opposition Leader Victoire Ingabire Demands Protection Ahead of Presidential Elections

Victoire Ingabire

Victoire Ingabire

Kigali – After escaping the militia-like attack against her yesterday, the leader of Rwanda�s opposition United Democratic Forces (UDF-Inkingi), Victoire Ingabire, asks the Rwandese government to protect her ahead of the scheduled August general election.
Here is how Victoire Ingabire, the leader of Rwanda�s opposition United Democratic Forces recounts her story through an interview by Peter Clottey of Voice of America News:
�Today, I received a call from the mayor of the sector where I live, Kinyinya, and he told me that I have to return my ID. And when I arrived in his office, there were younger people who began to batter us, me and one of my colleagues. And they took my bag. (Then,) I went back quickly to my car, but my colleague stayed back and they battered him. And after (that, I) took him to hospital,� she said.

Ingabire accused the police of failing to stop the attack:
�When they battered us, the police were there and they didn�t do anything. They watched us (as) the young people battered us,� she contended.

Ingabire said the ruling party wants to undermine her campaign ahead of the forthcoming presidential elections.

�We see that the government of General Kagame does not accept all political activities in our country. You know that I have been back to the country now three weeks ago, and they are doing everything to prevent (me) from participating in the election. They know that the population needs the change and they know that the population wants (me) to participate in the election, and they want me as the leader of them. This is why they (will) do everything that people will be afraid to come to me,� Ingabire said.

Some Rwanda�s opposition groups have condemned the attack and accused President Kagame�s ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front party (RPF) of masterminding it. After visiting Ingabire�s injured assistant at the King Faycal Hospital, they have vowed to defeat the ruling party in the upcoming election.
Listen to what Victoire Ingabire says.
Source: VOA News

February 4, 2010   No Comments