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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.

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.

by Geoffrey York – Globe and Mail (theglobeandmail.com)

Victoire Ingabire dared to speak of Hutus victims of genocide

Kigali � The symbolism was incendiary. In front of the mass graves where 250,000 genocide victims are buried, a Rwandan politician dared to speak of the Hutus who were killed in those same terrible months in 1994.

Perhaps more astonishingly, Victoire Ingabire was not imprisoned for her taboo comments � not so far, at least, although the police have interrogated her three times and accused her of the crime of spreading �divisionism.�

Her challenge is posing an uncomfortable dilemma for the minority Tutsi-led government that dominates Rwanda. Sixteen years after the genocide of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis by Hutu extremists, can the authorities tolerate a political candidate who appeals openly to the Hutus who still comprise 85 per cent of Rwanda’s population?

How long can the government use the genocide as a justification for strict controls on the political system? And who decides the official history of the genocide?

The woman at the centre of the storm is an unlikely politician: a cheerful 41-year-old emigrant who has worked as an accountant at a U.S. company in the Netherlands for the past decade.

She wears a frilly-strapped dress and giggles merrily when she is asked about the barrage of wild attacks on her in Rwanda’s state-controlled media.

But she is backed by many of the Hutus who fled to Europe and North America during the Rwandan wars of the 1990s. She clearly has money and resources. She rents a large house in one of Kigali’s most exclusive neighbourhoods, where she has a Land Cruiser parked in the driveway.

Ms. Ingabire’s decision to return to Kigali this year has sent shock waves through Rwandan politics. In a country where ethnic divisions are officially never discussed, she has dared to raise Hutu grievances � especially the killing of thousands of Hutus in 1994 and 1995, which she describes as a �crime against humanity.�

It’s a potent appeal. Many Hutus feel excluded from power, excluded from the best jobs and schools, and afraid to speak out. It was to them that Ms. Ingabire was deliberately appealing when she returned to Rwanda in January � after 16 years in exile � and made her controversial comments at the genocide memorial.

Ms. Ingabire has carefully couched her appeal in diplomatic language. She condemns the genocide, calling for reconciliation and dialogue. She denounces �extremists� on all sides. She urges the authorities to bring all criminals to justice, regardless of ethnicity. She pledges to work for a peaceful country, united in mutual respect.

Yet merely by talking of Hutu victims, she has triggered a firestorm of reaction. She and her assistant were assaulted by a gang of young men in a government office. Her assistant, who was badly beaten, has been jailed for �genocide� crimes. She is facing a police investigation for her alleged �genocide ideology.� And even the country’s powerful President, Paul Kagame, has warned that �the law will catch up with her� � a clear threat that she will be arrested.

At the heart of the battle between Ms. Ingabire and Mr. Kagame is a stark disagreement about Rwanda’s identity. The President argues that any talk of ethnicity must be suppressed because Rwanda is still in a fragile post-genocide period, where hatred and violence could rise again. His opponent sees this as an excuse for repression, leading only to resentment and bitterness among those who cannot speak out.

It is unclear whether the government will permit Ms. Ingabire to challenge Mr. Kagame in the presidential election in August. The President won the last election with an official margin of 95 per cent, and he has brooked no real opposition since 1994, when he led the Tutsi rebels who defeated the genocidal Hutu regime.

So far, Ms. Ingabire has been denied permission to gather the 200 signatures that she needs to register her political party. She is routinely subjected to fierce attacks in the pages of Rwanda’s only daily newspaper, the state-connected New Times, which refuses to publish her responses to the attacks.

�I don’t know why the government is so afraid of me,� she says. �They watch me and follow me all the time. I know anything can happen to me � they can arrest me, they can kill me.�

The managing director of the New Times, Joseph Bideri, confirmed that the newspaper refuses to give any �space� to Ms. Ingabire’s responses. He wrote a personal letter to her on Jan. 22, vowing she would never get a �platform� in the newspaper because she is a �genocide denier.�

In an interview, however, Mr. Bideri was unable to provide any evidence that Ms. Ingabire denies the genocide. In fact, in her public speeches and in a lengthy interview with The Globe and Mail, she repeatedly acknowledged and condemned the 1994 genocide. She draws a distinction between the slaughter of the Tutsis � which she calls a genocide � and the killings of many Hutus, which she describes as a �crime against humanity.�

Although she emigrated to the Netherlands shortly before the genocide began, Ms. Ingabire’s own family suffered in the genocide. Her brother was killed in 1994 because he was mistaken for a Tutsi.

�When people talk about the pain they feel, they need to understand that everybody feels pain,� she says. �We have to understand the pain of others. When I condemn the genocide, I’m also thinking of my brother. Not all Hutus are killers, and not all Tutsis are victims.�

International human-rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have criticized the Rwandan government for attacking and harassing opposition leaders such as Ms. Ingabire. Amnesty says the Rwandan law on �genocide ideology� is so vague and ambiguous that the authorities can use it to suppress dissent.

There is strong evidence to support Ms. Ingabire’s allegations of war crimes against Hutus. For example, a United Nations investigator in 1994 estimated that 25,000 to 45,000 civilians, primarily Hutus, were killed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front � the army of Mr. Kagame, now the governing party. Many other civilians, including thousands of Hutu refugees, were killed in further attacks in later years. Only a small handful of RPF members have been prosecuted for the Hutu deaths, which remain a taboo subject in Rwanda.

Ms. Ingabire says she doesn’t know how many Tutsis died in 1994, how many Hutus died, or even whether the number of Tutsi victims was larger than the number of Hutu victims. Some observers say she is leaving the impression of an equivalency between the two sides, despite historical evidence that the Tutsi victims were far more numerous and were the only ones subjected to a deliberate campaign of attempted extermination.

But even the Rwandan government has struggled with how to write the history of the genocide. At the memorial where 250,000 victims are buried, a guide says it commemorates only the Tutsi victims of the genocide. Yet he distributes an audio guide that calls it a memorial to the �Tutsi and moderate Hutu peoples� who were killed.

Didas Gasana, editor of a weekly newspaper whose staff is often harassed and threatened by the authorities for its independent views, says the government needs to provide justice and truth to the Hutu victims. �There needs to be debate and justice and openness,� he says. �It’s a part of history that can’t be denied.�

Mr. Gasana is himself a Tutsi. And despite the official view that ethnicity has disappeared, he says he is often told privately by government officials that he should not write such critical articles � because he is a Tutsi.

Geoffrey York – http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/rwandas-blood-soaked-history-becomes-a-tool-for-repression/article1487568/.

CHRI Press Release-6 March 2010.
CHRI (Commonwealth Human Rights Initiatives) is deeply concerned at the continued restrictions and threats to opposition parties in the run up to Rwanda�s Presidential elections on 9 August 2010 and urges the Rwandan Government to take immediate steps to ensure respect for the basic, universal rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association and peaceful assembly of opposition parties. The absence of these rights is tantamount to breaches of the Commonwealth’s fundamental political principles that insist on free and fair elections (Harare Declaration 1991).

On Commonwealth day, 8 March 2010, CHRI once again brings to the notice of the Commonwealth Secretary General the growing number of concerns surrounding political freedoms in Rwanda. Despite grave representations by CHRI and others about the appropriateness of Rwanda�s readiness for membership, given its record on human rights and its questionable role in the conflict in the Congo, Rwanda was unconditionally admitted to the Commonwealth as its newest member at the Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago last November.

Rwanda�s membership requires that it honours and complies with the Commonwealth�s fundamental political principles which include respect for civil society and human rights. The Chair of a new opposition party, United Democratic Forces (UDF) has written to the Secretary General of the Commonwealth alleging state orchestrated harassment, describing violence against herself and colleagues as well as outlining the restrictive environment facing opposition parties in their electoral challenge to the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

Under Article 13 of the Rwandan constitution it is an offence to engage in �revisionism� or �negationism� (denial of the genocide). These are so broadly defined to include anyone who disagrees with the ruling RPF�s account of the Genocide. On the 25th of February the Ministry for Security in Rwanda issued a statement saying that any politician who �slanders the country� or is �against public unity� would be punished. In addition the Minister for Local Government has reportedly threatened to crackdown on unregistered political parties who are members of the Permanent Consultative Council of Opposition Parties. Further opposition parties have alleged that the government is making it hard to register by continually changing registration rules; the National Electoral Commission which regulates these matters is controlled by the members of the RPF. A number of opposition parties have also complained that they face repeated harassment from government officials and the members of the RPF.

It is imperative that the Government of Rwanda thoroughly investigates, in a manner satisfactory to opposition parties, the many incidents of intimidation and bring those responsible to justice. It should also ensure that its electoral processes are consistent with UN and Commonwealth standards for free and fair elections.

CHRI urges the Commonwealth Secretary General to insist that the Rwandan government makes every effort to create genuine democratic political atmosphere in the country prior August 2010 elections. We call upon the Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma, in his meetings this week with President Kagame, to urge him to ensure that in these first Rwanda elections as a Commonwealth member, the standards are patently free and fair and in compliance with Commonwealth values.
Maja Daruwala
Director, CHRI
Website: http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/

Stephen Kinzer

In his article titled ‘The limits of free speech in Rwanda’, Stephen Kinzer, former New York Times, goes to great lengths to justify the limitations of Freedom of Speech in the post-genocide Rwanda led by Paul Kagame’s RPF ruling party. After all, why should Paul Kagame allow open debates on genocide and social problems in Rwanda? Stephen Kinzer argues that even in a country of free speech as the Us, it is not allowed to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre.

Here is what he writes in the London Guardian (guardian.co.uk), on March 2, 2010:

The country’s president claims that laws against disseminating ‘genocide ideology’ are necessary to stop a return to violence

Sixteen years after genocide, Rwanda is facing a new test. President Paul Kagame, who is seeking re-election, is widely admired abroad. Among his fans are some of the world’s most famous do-gooders, from Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to Rev Rick Warren and Dr Paul Farmer. His enemies hope to use this election campaign to tarnish his image and show these admirers that he is no democrat.

Rwanda is more stable and prosperous than many would have predicted following the 1994 genocide. The reconciliation process has been at least partly successful. Yet beneath the surface, Rwandan society remains volatile. Hatreds are unexpressed, but no one believes they are gone.

Kagame’s government has passed laws against disseminating “genocide ideology”, meaning views that could inflame communal hatreds. People are supposed to describe themselves only as Rwandan, never as Hutu or Tutsi. Kagame claims these laws are necessary to keep Rwanda back from the abyss of violence. If he enforces them during the political campaign, though, critics will accuse him of suppressing free speech.

Last month, a Rwandan-born businesswoman who has spent more than a decade in the Netherlands, Victoire Ingabire, arrived in Rwanda and announced that she was a candidate for president. Her party is based abroad and not recognised in Rwanda. According to a UN report (in French), she is supported by leaders of the principal Hutu insurgent group, which is among factions terrorising the eastern Congo.

Ingabire’s first statements after landing in Rwanda were thinly veiled appeals for Hutu solidarity. “There is no shame in saying I am Hutu or am Tutsi; there’s nothing wrong with that,” she told one interviewer.

Appealing to ethic identity this way is illegal. The official press launched a sharp campaign against Ingabire, and her campaign group has been attacked at least once. She has been interrogated by police and warned that she will be arrested if she continues preaching “genocide ideology”. Amnesty International responded by accusing the government of “intimidation and harassment”.

Nonsense, replies President Kagame. 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.”

Kagame won the last presidential election, in 2003, with a reported 95% of the vote. Critics complained that the campaign was unfair, but Kagame emerged relatively unscathed because few outsiders were paying attention.

Seven years later, Rwanda is in the midst of a promising transformation and Kagame is a darling of the global development community. His enemies know they cannot defeat him in this election; he is the strongman and will do whatever is necessary to win. Their strategy is to bait him into taking actions � like arresting a rival candidate � that would make him look bad abroad and thereby weaken his regime.

Many people in developed countries look suspiciously, as they should, on leaders who impose restrictions on free speech. Even in the US, though, it is illegal to cry “fire!” in a crowded theatre. That is what Rwandan leaders accuse the foreign-based opposition of doing � fanning hatreds that could explode into another genocide. The opposition, in reply, insists it is merely speaking truths Kagame does not wish to hear.

Kagame, who was called the “Napoleon of Africa” during his march to power in the early 1990s, is acknowledged to have great military skills. His political skills are less tested. Between now and the election on 9 August, he must navigate a delicate course that will assure him three things: re-election, national stability and minimum damage to his reputation. This is to be his last campaign, since the Rwandan constitution limits presidents to two seven-year terms. How he conducts it will shape both his legacy and Rwanda’s future.

Victoire Ingabire

On 24th February, Mr Andrew Mwenda (independent.co.ug) published an article titled �Will Ingabire be Rwanda�s saviour?�.
I do not share the view of Mr Andrew Mwenda on Mrs Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Mrs Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza is a very responsible politician, keen to take the bull i.e. Rwandan tragic past, by its horns in order to forge a better future.

The line of argument developed by Andrew M Mwenda that Mrs Ingabire political stand is irresponsible, rests on questionable assumptions and wrong historical comparison, a false interpretation of the statements made by Victoire on her arrival in Rwanda and a limited understanding of the terms of the debate that Victoire presents as opposed to the political discourse imposed by the incumbent regime.

Questionable assumptions and comparisons.

The statement that it is irresponsible for Victoire to �say that those who ended genocide should stand with those who orchestrated it� and �that victims of genocide should be tried alongside its architects� is based on a misinterpretation of her statement and underlying denial of justice to all Rwandans irrespective of ethnic affiliation. As far as I heard and read Victoire stated that those who committed genocide against Tutsi should be brought to book according to the law and added that for genuine reconciliation to take place once each Rwandan�s pain need to be acknowledged and those who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against Hutus be tried. I find this to be a normal demand to end impunity which is the root cause of the instability in the Great Lakes region. Denying justice to thousands of people who lost their loved ones is divisive, discriminatory and undermines reconciliation. Crime of genocide, however horrendous, should not give a blank cheque to commit other crimes with impunity especially when the crimes were committed in a coordinated, systematic and premeditated manner. It beats my imagination to equate the call for justice to thousands of Hutus to denying genocide against Tutsi.
What Victoire is saying is no different from what the public is asking, the international community and well wishers for stability in Rwanda have been advancing.
The UN Commission of Experts concluded in its preliminary and final reports (S/1994/1125 and S/1994/1405) on which the Security Council Resolution 955 that set up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) point out that �during the war that followed the assassination of President Habyarimana

“Individuals from both sides to the armed conflict in Rwanda during the period from 6 April 1994 to 15 July 1994 perpetrated serious breaches of international humanitarian law, in particular of obligations set forth in Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions and relating to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts of 8 June 1977 and that Individuals from both sides to the armed conflict perpetrated crimes against humanity;�.

A report by UNHCR Team headed by Robert Gersony estimated that from April to August 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Front systematically killed between 25,000 and 45,000 Hutus as it made its way toward Kigali.
According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International:

“The crimes committed by RPF soldiers were so systematic and widespread and took place over so long a period of time that commanding officers must have been aware of them.”
…
“RPF soldiers massacred unarmed civilians, many of them women and children, who had assembled for a meeting on their orders”

(Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno1-3-03.htm#P86_35545).

These killings are not just spontaneous anger because in doing so one would excuse the killings carried out by the presidential guard after learning that their President was killed by a Tutsi led rebel movement.

The RPF army is accused of having killed at least four thousand unarmed civilians in Kibeho camp for the internally displaced. See Witness to Genocide — A Personal Account of the 1995 Kibeho Massacre.

In addition, during its invasion of what was then called Zaire, it is estimated that the Rwandan soldiers killed more than 200,000 Hutu refugees. A report by a chillean Roberto Garreton who led investigation was diluted on orders of some powerful members of the Security Council, and forced to remove any suggestion that what happened was genocide, for fear that it would bring trouble to the RPF regime.

In a letter written to the Security Council on the 6th of June 2006, FILDH (F�d�ration Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l�Homme), Human Rights Watch, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and Rencontre Africaine pour la D�fense des Droits de l�Homme, drew the attention of the Security Council to the fact that in 1994, the RPA killed thousands of civilians, in the process committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, crimes well documented, including by a U.N. Commission of Experts which concluded that the RPA had

�perpetrated serious breaches of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity.� They warned that �only if the ICTR dispenses justice fully, impartially, and to all parties will it fulfil the purpose for which the Security Council established it, contributing to peace and reconciliation in the region�.

Calling statement made by Victoire Ingabire

Calling for the prosecution of elements of the RPF who committed crimes against humanity should not be construed as asking that �victims of genocide should be tried alongside its architects�. Victims of the genocide are different from criminals who killed Hutu in their thousands. RPF is a political military organisation with a political programme and those who committed crimes should answer them individually. Besides, though it was dominated by Tutsi elite it is not synonymous with Tutsi ethnic group, in the same way that the Hutu led government or the Hutu who killed Tutsi are not synonymous with Hutu ethnic group. Criminals are criminals independent of their ethnic affiliation and should face the law. The International Tribunal for former Yugoslavia has tried criminals from all sides. There is no reason why RPF should be an exception. Double standards based on ethnicity is unacceptable not whistle-blowing to end injustice.

The RPF does not deserve the moral high ground of having stopped genocide.

The UN report that set up ICTR pointed out that the shooting down of the plane that had on board the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi and their suite triggered the genocide. Though nothing can justify the heinous crime of genocide, the person or persons who carried out that terrorist act are partly responsible for the genocide for they would have known the grave consequences of such a heinous act.

The former U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda, Robert Flatten, testified in June 2005 at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda that he personally warned Gen. Kagame and Pres. Habyarimana that if either resumed war by breaking the Arusha Accords cease fire, they would be responsible for thousands of civilian casualties from retaliatory killings that U.S. State Department documents predicted should the war resume…similar to killings that swept Burundi/Rwanda in 1988.

There is a strong suggestion that the RPF is responsible for it and therefore shared responsibility in the genocide. A French anti terrorist judge Jean-Louis Brugui�re has confirmed this and issued international arrest warrants against the culprits. A Spanish judge, Fernando Andreu, has come to the same conclusion.

Even when the catastrophe struck, the RPF deliberately blocked all attempts to intervene to stop the genocide.

The RPF rejected the invitation made by the military crisis committee, set up on the 7th April 94, for a meeting on the 8th April 1994 with committee, through the UN troops Commander General Dallaire, to discuss how to handle the new crisis. RPF responded by starting a full-scale war on all the fronts, 4 hours before the planned meeting.

The former Deputy UN troops commander in Rwanda Col. Marshall made it clear when testifying before the Criminal International Tribunal for Rwanda on 2/12/2006 that the RPF main preoccupation was military victory at any cost and not to save Tutsi in Rwanda:

�From my experience, my conclusion is that the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) had one goal, seizing power by force and keeping it to themselves�,
�For me, it is the Rwandan Patriotic Front which has perpetrated the attack (shooting the presidential aircraft). Not once, never have I sensed the desire to make concessions, to smooth rough edges, to reach a consensus�.

On the 8th April 19994, the RPF asked all foreign troops to quit within 48 hours declaring they would be considered as enemy combatant if they stayed longer. The Security Council under the pressure of the US, the UK and Belgium, decided to reduce dramatically the UN troops.

On the 12th of April 1994 the RPF rejected a truce offered by the governmental forces in order to fight those who were carrying out massacres of civilian population. Army communiqu� calling on RPA dialogue was signed by Ntiwiragabo, Muberuka, Kanyamanza, Murasampongo, Rwabalinda, Hakizimana, Rwamanywa, Kanyandekwe and Gatsinzi Marcel, now Minister of Defence in Rwanda.
On the contrary the RPF dispatched Dusaidi and Muligande to New York to prevent any foreign intervention.

On the 15th April, a meeting organised by Jacques Bobooh, UN representative, failed to broker a ceasefire because the RPF was deliberately putting forward impossible preconditions, one of which was to ask the army to denounce the interim government and to immediately prosecute those who had committed massacres.

According to Human Rights Watch, on the 30th of April the RPF made a statement opposing UN initiatives for a deployment of international forces in order to help curb the massacres of civilians. Human Rights Watch reveals

�When the Security Council discussed sending a larger peacekeeping force to Rwanda with a broader mandate to protect civilians, the RPF feared that the force might interfere with its goal of military victory. Its leaders may have been particularly concerned that the French might use the force to protect the interim government. Instead of welcoming the move and urging speedy implementation, the RPF spokesman in Brussels opposed it and asserted that there were no more Tutsi to be saved�.

But as HRW testifies thousands of Tutsi were still hiding or in churches calling for help (1999 annual report).

On May 5, 1994, The Washington Times wrote:

“The rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) commander said yesterday a U.N. force cannot bring peace to his blood-soaked country and only a guerrilla victory will end the massacres”.

It took another two months for the RPF to take over the country.
Gen. Dallaire, commander of the UN forces in Rwandan (UNAMIR), testified under oath before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, that Gen. Paul Kagame told him that those civilian killings are “collateral damage” for his war plan.

On 12 November 2005 the RPF spokesman Mr Severian Sebasoni told BBC Great Lakes radio that RPF objectives was not to be like Red Cross saving people but to take the power.

The issue of ethnicity in Rwanda

Andrew M. Mwenda points out that �given the emotive power of ethnicity especially in Rwanda, it is easy to rally a political following by making ethnic claims, something that is �also extremely dangerous�. If a claim to justice for all is �extremely dangerous� in a society, then there must be something fundamentally wrong that must be addressed for such society to survive.

My view is that the Rwandan society must take the bull by its horns by accepting its past looking at it critically and accept each one�s responsibility. Throwing the bucket at each other for what went wrong in Rwanda does not help nor does the story line of the good and bad guys portraying Hutus as �Hutus extremist killers, while the Tutsis of the RPF are portrayed as avenging angels, who swooped in from their bases in Uganda to stop the genocide�

I believe that ethnicity is not a problem in itself; the problem is lack of the rule of law, democracy and equal opportunity. Once the three conditions are present, the importance of ethnicity will disappear.

It is an open secret that the RPF has used the slogan on national unity to prevent any criticism of its policies and to stifle dissenting voices. This cannot augur well for the future of the country. It can only push dissenting voices underground.

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.

Kagame, angry and upset!

Kigali: President Paul Kagame has angrily dismissed any criticism of the Genocide ideology law coming from donors, rights groups and exiled opposition, saying nobody has the right to undermine what happens in Rwanda, RNA reports.

Since the passing of a law in 2007 criminalizing negating the Genocide � described here as �Genocide Ideology�, fierce critics have claimed that it has been used to stifle free speech and squeeze the opposition. The harshest attack came last year from the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, which was opposed to Rwanda�s admission into the British Commonwealth block.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as the US government in its annual human rights reports, have repeated the same attacks. The latest came when York-based Human Rights Watch claimed Wednesday that government was using the law �as a way of targeting and discrediting its critics�.

Amnesty International has also argued that the terms of the law criminalizing �genocidal ideology�, are �vague and ambiguous�. The group also says this law could potentially restrict the ability of the accused to put forward a defence in criminal trials. The offence is punishable by 10 to 25 years� imprisonment.

President Kagame on Friday seemed to have had enough. Addressing the judiciary, senior government officials and diplomats at the Parliamentary building at the start of the judicial year, Mr. Kagame described the criticism as �complete nonsense�.

The President wondered why international media and diplomats accredited to Kigali repeatedly claim the Genocide Ideology law is not clear.

�Sometimes a person wonders��but how come your laws criminalizing divisionism and others against negating the holocaust are not ambiguous?� How come you implement them? What specialty do you have that others cannot have?�, said Mr. Kagame, in a mixture of English and Kinyarwanda.

�What they are trying to say is that all of you here seated with huts and robes have no brains,� he said, amid muted laughter from the audience. The President also accused the west of consistently undermining �Rwandans and Africans� by always being suspicious of everything done on the continent.

With an unusually high tone, suggesting that he was angry and also not reading from the prepared speech, Mr. Kagame fired in English: �We�ve lived this life. We�ve lived the consequences. So, we understand it better than anyone from anywhere else.�

�Apart from this over-bearing attitude of always wanting to decide for others what they should do, what do these people have in their brains�heads that we don�t have?. What is it? Why almost everyday question what people do for themselves?�

Turning to Kinyarwanda, President Kagame told his audience that critics can only be found to be wrong depending on how the country�s institutions are built.

�We ensure all is done with ultimate courage�explain to whoever doesn�t understand�such that even if we remain with some who do not want to understand, just like we even have them,� he said.

Mr. Kagame said criticism from the outside should not make those implementing policies internally to lose morale because they are doing it all for themselves and the country.

�This is the only way that we will silence those who are always speaking nonsense,� he summed.

The judiciary had earlier presented several achievement attained over the past year, and President Kagame was on hand � thanking them. He also promised to avail them with his contribution at anytime �because it is my responsibility�.
Source:rnanews.com.

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