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Kigali – In an article published today under the title “NGO exposed after infighting”, The New Times, mouthpiece of Paul Kagame’s ruling party RPF, labels the Rwandan Human Rights Organization ADL as a “‘negationnists’ network“. For anybody who knows Rwanda, this is an accusation which has to be taken seriously.
ADL stands for Association Rwandaise pour la d�fense des Droits de la personne et des Libert�s publiques.
These accusations reveal how fragile the ADL is now. It is pointed out that the ADL is not properly registered and that its temporary authorization to operate expires in September this year. What does that mean?
Here is what The New Times writes about ADL.

An imminent �negationists� network� operating in Rwanda suspected of coordinating Genocide convicts with fugitives abroad and posturing as a local Human Rights organization, has been exposed by its members after a fall out.

Rwandan Association for the Defence of People�s Rights and Public Liberties (ADL) was formed in 1991 and receives funding from some groups in France.

Its activities involve conducting �shaddy� surveys on Genocide convicts to come up with reports that strongly criticize and abuse government policies.

Recently, members of ADL fell out over management of funds which led to some of them ganging up against the association�s chairperson, Cassien Kasire, and deposing him because he questioned how money was spent.

�It is an extremely negative association operating with outside negative groups against the government and posing as a human rights organization,� Kasire said in an interview with The Sunday Times.

Kasire has been heading the association for the last three years.

�Before I joined this association, people tried to close it and actually there were plans to plot for its closure, but I refused. My aim was to join it and change the radicals in the association,� said the embattled Kasire.

�Things turned out to be different when I got there. I realized that I was working with a team of extremists that could not easily be changed.�

Malicious reports

The association recently released a report on Local Government Performance Contracts and strongly criticized the whole practice.

The report, a copy of which The Sunday Times has obtained, brands the contracts as a �slavery� (uburetwa)
According to Kasire; �When I received a copy of the report I realized that the team that had compiled it had termed the whole exercise as slavery. I immediately called for an executive committee meeting and asked them to change the wording.�

�During the meeting, my deputy, Leonard Ngerageze, stood up in protest and accused me of having a double mission in the association claiming that I am taking the association to the RPF (party).�

�I told him (Ngerageze) that the aim of the association is not to destroy the country but to help in its construction through promoting human rights,� he added.

He said that the meeting of the Executive Committee ended without a consensus.

The association had received Rwf 5 million from the Great Lakes Human Rights body (LDGL) to conduct the survey.

Another organisation, Forum d�Aide Juridique (FAJ) according to Kasire, recently gave the association Rwf 28 million to conduct a survey on the situation of prisons in the country.

He said that members of the association were divided into different groups to conduct the survey.
�I learnt that Leopold Hakizimana who was working on Kibungo prison was actually doing something different from what we had agreed on;�

�He was gathering information from prisoners, manipulating it and sending reports to France through a friend called Andr� Barth�lemy who heads an association called AGIR Ensemble that is a strong critic of Gacaca,� said Kasire.

AGIR Ensemble released radical reports after the Nyamirambo Gacaca court sentenced a human rights activist, Francois Xavier Byuma, to 19 years in jail for his role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Barth�lemy is said to be Hakizimana�s brother-in-law-to. Kasire claims that Hakizimana used to send information from prisons to his sister who would pass on the information to the husband.

�I had to stop Hakizimana by removing him from the surveying team. He was working with Beata Uwimpambere who strongly protested on behalf of her colleague. This was a clear indication that there was something fishy going on,� said Kasire.

He added that later, on February 20, Kasire called for a General Assembly to review an audit report on how funds meant for the prison survey were used.

�During the meeting, members of the committee admitted that they had misused the funds and I ordered them to refund the money.

My deputy, Ngerageze acknowledged that he embezzled about Rwf 210,000 but after this meeting, I was surprised to receive a text message from Ngerageze calling for an extra-ordinary meeting,� said Kasire.

He added that he never attended the meeting since it was not important for him and this is the same meeting that resolved to suspend him.

�The committee is organizing a general assembly to lobby for my eviction and I insist the intentions of these people are not promoting and defending human rights. Authorities should investigate this association,� said Kasire.

The Sunday Times learnt that ADL is currently not registered and still uses documents they acquired in 1991.
Recently, it acquired a temporary document from Nyarugenge District which will expire in September this year.

When contacted, Ngerageze refuted the allegations and instead blamed Kasire for being a dictator and �the reason why the association was failing�.

�I am surprised he is the one making those claims. He endorsed the performance contract report himself,� Ngerageze said.

�We sent him the report and asked him to make changes which he did not do,� Ngerageze charged.
He also refuted claims that he embezzled and diverted funds of the association.

�I have proof that all the funds were properly used. He should produce evidence against me because the audit report clearly shows how we effectively used the money,� he said.

�I personally don�t find any problem with talking to prisoners. We sought permission and got it. This man has a problem that we could not tolerate.�

Ngerageze however could not clearly state the differences between him, the committee and Kasire.
He instead claimed that Kasire is a dictator and that he was not going to tolerate him.

Dr Susan thomson

For most ordinary Rwandans, life since the genocide has not been as pleasant as the country’s authorities would pretend.

That is what clearly appears in the article “False Reconciliation” published by Susan Thomson (SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa). Here is what she writes:

As Rwanda gears up for Presidential elections in August, it is a good time to reflect on the progress the country has made since the genocide in 1994, both in image and in reality.

By most popular accounts, Rwanda is a nation rehabilitated. Diplomats and journalists talk of President Paul Kagame�s phenomenal success in rebuilding the once-shattered country.

The capital, Kigali, boasts a modern airport, several international hotels, a modern ICT infrastructure, and countless new residential and commercial properties. Numerous caf�s and nightclubs have opened, catering to the city�s growing middle class of bureaucrats and businesspeople. Kigali�s crime rate is low and its streets are clean.

In the Rwandan Parliament, women hold 56 per cent of seats, the highest proportion of female representation in the world. Tony Blair is a presidential advisor and international dignitaries, including Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and Howard Schultz of Starbucks, frequent the country.

Kagame is praised as a benevolent and thoughtful leader who cares deeply about his people. His policies have reconciled the Hutu perpetrators of the genocide with Tutsi survivors. Community-based gacaca courts have processed more than 100,000 Hutu accused of acts of genocide with most successfully reintegrated into society.

But most foreign visitors do not see the deep poverty and daily hardships that confront ordinary Rwandans. For most of them, Hutu and Tutsi alike, life since the genocide is not as bright and shiny as the authorities in Kigali would pretend.

Some 90 per cent of Rwandans are peasants who rely on subsistence agriculture. Few of them have benefited from the country’s rapid reconstruction. The gap between the wealthy urbanites and the poor rural dwellers is on the increase. Government policies favour the urban elite, many of whom are Tutsi who returned to the country after the genocide.

The vast majority of Rwandan women and men who survived the genocide remain extremely poor, politically marginal, and, in many cases, traumatised by what they lived through. Almost 95 per cent of Rwandans in the country during the genocide have post-traumatic stress disorder. Few receive government-sponsored counselling or support.

With rare exceptions, Rwandan peasants are thin, their eyes lacklustre from continued hunger, with weathered hands and faces, giving them the appearance of being older than their actual age. Some have orange hair, a telltale sign of malnutrition. Many go barefoot and dressed in ragged clothes � often the extent of their wardrobe.

Most of the Rwandans I spoke to lamented the constant struggles of everyday life since the genocide. For them, there is a lack of food, clean water, and affordable and proximate health services.

Increasing levels of authoritarianism by the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) stifle any attempts to address these inequalities.

Public space for free and open political expression is limited. The media and civil society operate at the behest of the RPF. Any individual or group that challenges the official government version of Rwanda as a rehabilitated nation, peaceful and secure, is harshly dealt with.

Opposition politicians, journalists, and ordinary folk alike who criticize the government are all subject to harassment, intimidation, disappearance, and, in extreme cases, death. Just ask Joseph Sebarenzi, the former Speaker of the House. Kagame forced him into exile in 2001 for his efforts to constitutionally limit the powers of the president. He writes about his experience in his recent book “God Sleeps in Rwanda“.

Instead of allowing for frank and open discussion of the genocide, the RPF has forced reconciliation upon the people. They make Hutu tell the truth about what they did during the genocide, and make Tutsi forgive them. Reconciliation is not a sincere affair of the heart; it is an administrative matter.

The ordinary Rwandans I talked with are more than just skeptical about the government�s commitment to reconciliation; they also recognise it as a form of social control.

As Olive, a Hutu widow whose Tutsi husband died during the genocide told me, �All these confessions are a program of the government. Hutu confess to get free. But we know what happened! We were there in 1994. Not all who killed get justice � the government pardons them for reconciliation. Not all who didn�t kill go free � the government puts them in prison for reconciliation. What kind of peace is this? It is not from the heart.�

Local officials harass and intimidate those who fail to embrace this reconciliation; anyone who questions the sincerity of it can be imprisoned.

This is not a process grounded in an enlightened vision of peace and security. Instead, it forces Rwandans to remain silent and to not question the RPF version of peace and security. Rwandans are only simulating reconciliation as a means of coping with the demands of their government. As Jeanne, a Tutsi widow, said, �There can be no peace in the heart if there is no peace in the stomach.�

For many ordinary Rwandans, this has been an alienating, oppressive and sometimes humiliating experience � something that could, paradoxically, crystallize and create stronger dissent in the future, perhaps erupting into violence as early as August 2010 when Rwandans go to the polls again.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Less than 12 hours after Victoire Ingabire’s arrival in Kigali, a campaign of attacks, interpretations and intimidation tactics has already been launched by those who are not used at seeing the other side of the recent Rwandan tragic history. In its editorial yesterday, The Sunday Times has accused Mrs Victoire Ingabire, FDU Inkingi chairperson, of desecrating the memory of genocide victims.
The editorial reads:

FDU�s Ingabire desecrates memory with Double Genocide theory

Opposition politician, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, could not have started her homecoming on a more vicious note.

There are some who had thought that her arrival to compete for the highest office, in a country where women have assumed a leading role in governance, would be a welcome addition to national politics. Instead, she revealed a very disturbing side of her.

As soon as she left the airport, she made it straight to the Gisozi Genocide memorial site to pay homage to victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, or so it seemed.

It must have been a shock to her to come to Kigali, after an absence of close to two decades, to see the huge changes.

Any well-intentioned person would easily notice that this country has not been sleeping in the last 15 years. The post-Genocide Rwanda amazes everyone; the reconstruction efforts, and especially the reconciliatory approach by the government has been acclaimed the world over.

But this is not what Ingabire sees. She sees desolation where there is none and slams Gacaca as unjust as if the thousands who took part in the Genocide are angels.

To add insult to injury, she stuns the Rwandan people by echoing every revisionist and Genocide deniers� favourite line: espousing the Double Genocide Theory.

This is the first time, since 1994, that a Genocide denier has chosen to articulate this level of revisionism on the Rwandan soil.

She utters all this right where hundreds of thousands of innocent souls are laid to rest, victims of similar inflammatory statements. She could not have chosen a better moment and place to desecrate the memory of the victims.

Ends

Source: The Sunday Times – Rwandas First Daily :: Issue 14143 :: FDU�s Ingabire desecrates memory with Double Genocide theory.