A Candle For Remembering
May this memorial candle lights up the historical past of our beloved Country: Rwanda, We love U so much. If Tears could build a stairway. And memories were a lane. I would walk right up to heaven. To bring you home again. No farewell words were spoken. No time to say goodbye. You were gone before I knew it And. Only Paul Kagame knows why. My heart still aches with sadness. And secret tears still flow. What It meant to lose you. No one will ever know.
Why did Kagame this to me?
Can't forget. He murdered my mother. What should be my reaction? FYI: the number of orphans in Rwanda has skyrocketed since the 1990's Kagame's invasion. Much higher numbers of orphans had and have no other option but joining FDLR fighters who are identified as children that have Lost their Parents in Kagame's Wars inside and outside of Rwanda.If someone killed your child/spouse/parent(s) would you seek justice or revenge? Deep insight: What would you do to the person who snuffed the life of someone I love beyond reason? Forgiving would bring me no solace. If you take what really matters to me, I will show you what really matters. NITUTIRWANAHO TUZASHIRA. IGIHE KIRAGEZE.If democracy is to sell one's motherland(Africa), for some zionits support, then I prefer the person who is ready to give all his live for his motherland. Viva President Putin!!!
RPF committed the unspeakable
The perverted RPF committed the UNSPEAKABLE.Two orphans, both against the Nazi world. Point is the fact that their parents' murder Kagame & his RPF held no shock in the Western world. Up to now, the Rwandan Hitler Kagame and his death squads still enjoy impunity inside and outside of Rwanda. What goes through someone's mind as they know RPF murdered their parents? A delayed punishment is actually an encouragement to crime, In Praise of the ongoing Bloodshed in Rwanda. “I always think I am a pro-peace person but if someone harmed someone near and dear to me, I don't think I could be so peaceful. I would like to believe that to seek justice could save millions of people living the African Great Lakes Region - I would devote myself to bringing the 'perp' along to a non-happy ending but would that be enough? You'd have to be in the situation I suppose before you could actually know how you would feel or what you would do”. Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana, Libre Penseur
Hutu Children & their Mums
Look at them ! How they are scared to death. Many Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi, Foreign human rights advocates, jounalists and and lawyers are now on Death Row Waiting to be murdered by Kagame and his RPF death squads. Be the last to know.
Almighty God :Justice for US
Hutu children's daily bread: Intimidation, Slavery, Sex abuses led by RPF criminals and Kagame, DMI: Every single day, there are more assassinations, imprisonment, brainwashing & disappearances. Do they have any chance to end this awful life?
Killing Hutus on daily basis
RPF targeted killings, very often in public areas. Killing Hutus on daily basis by Kagame's murderers and the RPF infamous death squads known as the "UNKNOWN WRONGDOERS"
RPF Trade Mark: Akandoya
Rape, torture and assassination and unslaving of hutu women. Genderside: Rape has always been used by kagame's RPF as a Weapon of War, the killings of Hutu women with the help of Local Defense Forces, DMI and the RPF military
The Torture in Rwanda flourishes
How torture flourishes across Rwanda despite extensive global monitoring
Fighting For Our Freedom?
We need Freedom, Liberation of our fatherland, Human rights respect, Mutual respect between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority
Monday, July 5, 2010
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination with an iron hand, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus), mass-arrests and mass-murder by the RPF criminal organization.
So long as justice and accountability for past crimes are ignored and delayed, peace and stability will remain illusive and impossible in Rwanda=>ASIF]
Sunday, July 4, 2010
July 4, 2010
When Blaise Gakwaya learned a fellow Rwandan in Manchester had been accused of participating in the country's 1994 genocide, he saw in the charges evidence of the long reach of a government he distrusts.
"You're going to tell me someone's been here for 10 years, then tell me she did something?" Gakwaya said. "Maybe tomorrow they will accuse me, too."
Beatrice Munyenyezi, a U.S. citizen who came to the country as a refugee in 1998, was arrested June 24 on charges she had lied on her immigration papers. In an affidavit, a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Munyenyezi had denied crimes she had committed during the Rwandan genocide of spring and summer 1994.
The agent reported that in Rwanda he had found witnesses who saw Munyenyezi direct the murder and rape of numerous people, mostly members of the minority Tutsi ethnicity, in front of a hotel where she was living. One witness said Munyenyezi had ordered the witness gang-raped while Munyenyezi and her husband watched. Another described watching Munyenyezi kill a boy by hitting him in the head with a wooden club. She would have been 24 at the time.
Members of central New Hampshire's small Rwandan community have watched the case, and for some it has reinforced their suspicion of the government that has led Rwanda since the genocide. Acquaintances of Munyenyezi, like Gakwaya and his father, who was a government minister in Rwanda, are quick to say that anyone who committed a crime should be punished.
But they believe the charges against Munyenyezi were more likely motivated by her opposition to the Rwandan government, as seen at protests in Boston and Washington, D.C., as well as the fact of her Hutu ethnicity. They claim the government of Rwanda steered the investigation of the American agent so that he unknowingly interviewed people bribed to frame Munyenyezi.
"From the moment you land in Rwanda, there are so many people who look like they don't know you but who follow you every hour," said Theobald Gakwaya, a former Minister of Internal Affairs. "When you went there, your investigation is flawed and oriented for the issue the government wants."
Gakwaya, a Hutu, said he was hunted during the genocide because he opposed the Hutu Power call to kill Tutsis and was later imprisoned for criticizing the government.
Sixteen years after the genocide, the events and their aftermath remain a difficult topic for Rwandans, even in New Hampshire. When the 100 or so Rwandan people living in the Concord and Manchester area get together, both Hutus and Tutsis attend, said Augustin Ntabaganyimana, a Rwandan of both Hutu and Tutsi heritage who works with refugees at a social services agency in Concord. But people avoid speaking about the genocide, he said, because they have different views of what happened and why.
People who are Hutu sometimes say the government disregards killings of their own people before and after the genocide, while people who are Tutsi sometimes feel the prosecution for genocide lags.
"It doesn't really matter whether you are in Rwanda or abroad, you are connected to the events of 1994," Ntabaganyimana said. "People in the community still live that, because we are connected to people who have died in the genocide or the deaths that happened in the refugee camps in Congo, in Tanzania."
After losing nearly all her family to the genocide, Chantal Kayitesi moved to New Hampshire in 1999. Kayitesi, who now lives in Massachusetts, does not know Munyenyezi personally, and she said she does not know whether the accusations against the Manchester woman are true. But for Kayitesi, who lost her husband, a teacher named Joseph, when their son was only a few months old, along with her parents and two siblings, the prosecution of genocide is essential.
"By bringing people to justice, you tell a survivor, 'We are not ignoring your suffering,' " Kayitesi said. "And you are telling the world, you are telling Rwanda, that you can't just kill your neighbor. It's not acceptable to kill people in Rwanda or anywhere in the world, and we care."
Investigations by the United States are all the more important because political distance gives the results credibility, she said.
Kayitesi, the Gakwayas and others said the ethnic conflict between Tutsis and Hutus has been spurred by governments seeking to maintain their own power.
"It wasn't Hutu and Tutsi killing each other," Kayitesi said. "It was a government-sponsored genocide, when regular peasants who used to be our neighbors and our friends, our teammates and our colleagues, were manipulated by the government."
Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, a brother of Munyenyezi, said today's Rwandan government continues to exploit that division. Like other Hutu residents interviewed, Higiro, a professor at Western New England College in Massachusetts, said the government ignores historic killings of Hutus and labels its opponents as deniers of genocide to stifle dissent. Human Rights Watch said a week ago that political repression was increasing in Rwanda in advance of the country's August presidential elections.
"When the Rwandan government wants to go after a person, they use the word genocide because it has resonance in Western cultures because of the Jewish Holocaust," Higiro said.
Higiro said his sister has been accused because of her family ties. He is the chairman of an opposition party based abroad, and he said the government of Rwanda has asked the United States to extradite him. Munyenyezi's husband and mother-in-law are imprisoned in Tanzania, where they are defendants at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Higiro said he is sure the accusations against his sister were fabricated, and he dismissed the immigration agent's conclusion, in the affidavit, that Hutu extremists have spread throughout the world with the intention of returning home to kill every remaining Tutsi.
"That's exactly the propaganda of the Rwandan regime," Higiro said. "Once you criticize the current regime, once you say, 'Look, the way you tell the story of the genocide in Rwanda is distorted,' you are labeled a Hutu extremist who would like to go back and finish the genocide."
Higiro said that his political party is allied with a Tutsi party that also opposes the government, and he said both are fighting for an open political space.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
By Timothy Kalyegira
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination with an iron hand, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus), mass-arrests and mass-murder by the RPF criminal organization.
So long as justice and accountability for past crimes are ignored and delayed, peace and stability will remain illusive and impossible in Rwanda=>ASIF]
Kampala - The June 19 attempt on the life of the former Rwandan Chief of Defence Forces, Lt. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, was the final event in a slowly gathering cluster of incidents, trends, and question marks over Rwanda since 2006. That was when the now-retired French anti-terrorism Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere issued arrest warrants for nine top Rwandan army officers (including Nyamwasa) whom he implicated in the shooting down of the Rwandan presidential jet on April 6, 1994.
Since the attempt on Nyamwasa’s life, story after story in the Western news media have focused on nothing but the theme of a country once on the path to recovery from genocide in 1994 and now headed for self-destruction.
As if to snub Rwanda, the deputy director-general in South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs, Jackson McKay, said last week, on June 24, that Nyamwasa had applied for political asylum and had been granted it, despite earlier appeals by the Rwanda government for him to be extradited to stand trial.
“It is hard to imagine that a shooting in Johannesburg could spell instability in the distant heart of Africa,” commented London’s The Economist -- one of the world’s most influential news publications - on June 22. “But that is what has happened…opposition within Mr [Paul] Kagame’s own set may be brewing…Rwanda has had a number of unexplained killings. For example, Seth Sendashonga, a moderate Hutu who served as interior minister after the genocide, was shot dead in 1998 in Nairobi…Dozens of Rwandan army officers are thought to have been shot, have disappeared or have had accidents. Some harboured secrets and knew about cover-ups of government revenge killings after the genocide.”
For the first time, a major Anglo-Western publication, reported on the assassination of Sedashonga at all or in a sympathetic light and with a subtle hint at who might have ordered that shooting in Nairobi.
Erlinder arrest
Erlinder arrest
The Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper in the United States, in its June 23 edition echoed this new air of suspicion over President Kagame after the arrest of Peter Erlinder, the lawyer of the opposition leader Victoire Ingabire: “Civilised nations don’t throw defence attorneys into prison. That Rwanda did suggests that Kagame has something to hide…”
The African Bulletin of June 30 suggested a reason that Nyamwasa could have been targeted: “[T]he arrests, the leaks and assassinations abroad, successful or not, accumulate…General Kayumba [Nyamwasa] is potentially the main rival of Paul Kagame. The two men first met in Uganda and they worked together in the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Between them, they know all about big and little secrets of the Rwandan authorities…Paul Kagame begins to irritate even his biggest supporters…”
The Associated Press published a story with this headline on June 29: ‘Rwanda’s Hutus live in fear of attacks, repression’ and the BBC World Service, in its main world news on June 28, broadcast a news item on a new report by a human rights group on the flight of Hutu refugees in Uganda who are being hunted down, arrested and some even killed.
This marks the first time since the ruling RPF government took power in Kigali in 1994 that the mainstream media in the English-speaking Western nations has portrayed the Hutu of Rwanda as victims. On June 29, the Rwanda government fought back. Radio Rwanda, in a news broadcast, said: “President Paul Kagame has criticised the international rights groups like the Human Rights Watch which have continued to tarnish Rwanda’s image by publishing baseless information aimed at undermining the country’s efforts of the last 16 years.”
The Western media largely ignored Kagame’s press conference and the barrage of criticism has continued. The question then is: Has Rwanda been making concrete strides in these 16 years, as Kagame said, or was it a case of 16 years spent glossing over dark, sensitive secrets and unresolved conflicts within the ranks of the elite in power in Kigali?
Because the RPF was an English-speaking group at the time it invaded Rwanda in 1990 and its mentor, President Yoweri Museveni was still admired by the West, this aura rubbed off on the RPF and it received consistently positive coverage from the Anglo-West’s news media right through to and after the RPF’s victory in July 1994.
But, as an exiled Rwanda journalist Charles Kabonero told KFM’s Hot Seat show on Friday, June 25, there was never press freedom in RPF’s Rwanda from the beginning in 1994.
So while the regional and world media focused on the genocide and Hutu’s role in it, there was never sufficient attention given to these highly sensitive reports and rumours of Tutsi-on-Tutsi assassinations and mysterious deaths.
The recent attempt on Lt. Gen. Nyamwasa’s life, the exiling of the former foreign intelligence director Col. Patrick Karegyeya, several journalists gunned down or in exile, ambassadors fleeing into exile from their posts in Europe -- and most of these being Tutsi -- have puzzled many in the English-speaking West. The truth is, had the West not romanticised the RPF and had the RPF not muzzled the media, none of the recent developments would have surprised anybody.
RPF founding
The RPF from its founding in Uganda in 1989 was always steeped in intrigue. When President Museveni praised the late Maj. Gen. Fred Rwigyema at the Liberation Day ceremonies at Kigali’s Amahoro Stadium on July 4, 2009, a mummer went through the crowd and tensions rose within the Rwandan army.
This seemed strange to observers, as this was the equivalent to praising Nelson Mandela and it stirs controversy in South Africa’s ANC party. Barely had the RPF’s guerrilla war started in October 1990 than four of its top officers Maj. Gen. Rwigyema, Maj. Peter Bayingana, Maj Chris Bunyenyezi and Maj. Frank Munyaneza were dead, murdered in still unexplained circumstances but the killings clearly a work from within the Tutsi rebel ranks.
A Tutsi from Mbarara in western Uganda and former FRONASA soldier, Maj. Adam Wasswa, was the deputy commander of the RPA to Rwigyema at the time of the Rwanda invasion.
On July 28, 1991, as Maj. Wasswa was travelling in a Toyota Land Cruiser with Kagame for an RPF High Command meeting in Rwanda, the vehicle is said to have been involved in an accident. Wasswa died. An RPA Captain Kairangwa in the vehicle also died. To this day, the facts of this accident have never been explained.
On July 28, 1991, as Maj. Wasswa was travelling in a Toyota Land Cruiser with Kagame for an RPF High Command meeting in Rwanda, the vehicle is said to have been involved in an accident. Wasswa died. An RPA Captain Kairangwa in the vehicle also died. To this day, the facts of this accident have never been explained.
For the last 10 years, President Kagame has focused Rwanda and the eyes of the West on economic growth, fibre optic Internet cables, laptop computers to schools, and creating an image of effective, disciplined government and the making of an African Singapore. Swept under the carpet were all the dark skeletons of the RPF dating back to 1990.
© Daily Monitor
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© Daily Monitor
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The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Saturday, July 3, 2010
(Nairobi) - Increasing human rights violations could undermine Burundi's electoral process unless the government takes immediate action, Human Rights Watch said today. Leaders of the ruling party and opposition groups should also issue clear instructions to their members that acts of violence will not be tolerated.
The situation began deteriorating in May, after 13 opposition parties rejected the results of Burundi's landmark district elections, claiming massive fraud. Twelve of them formed a coalition, the Alliance of Democrats for Change (ADC-Ikibiri), in early June and announced a boycott of the presidential elections of June 28, 2010. The government promptly declared the boycott "illegal." Incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza was left as the sole presidential candidate. The coalition has also threatened to boycott legislative elections, scheduled for late July.
Rona Peligal, Ph.D
Deputy Director
Africa Division of Human Rights Watch
In the weeks leading up to the presidential election, the government imposed severe restrictions on the freedom of movement of opposition leaders, arrested dozens of opposition activists, and banned all opposition party meetings. Arrests continued after Monday's elections.
The elections were further marred by political violence that escalated with the kick-off of the presidential campaign on June 12, including nearly 100 grenade attacks, the killings of at least two ruling party activists and an opposition activist, and arson attacks on at least 35 local offices of the ruling party.
While the grenade attacks and fires have mostly targeted the ruling party, the targets of the arrests and restrictions of movement are all members of the political opposition.
"Burundi is at a dangerous crossroads and clearly ill-intentioned people on both sides of the political divide are seeking to exploit recent tensions," said Rona Peligal, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The government should end unnecessary restrictions on basic freedoms, and those fomenting violence should stop."
The government of Burundi should immediately restore civil and political rights to opposition members who are not charged with any crime, including the right to hold meetings and to travel, Human Rights Watch said. It should ensure the prompt release of opposition members against whom there is no evidence of criminal activity.
Human Rights Watch also called on the Burundian authorities to investigate all incidents of political violence and ensure that those responsible, regardless of their political affliation, are brought to justice.
Three prominent politicians - Pascaline Kampayano of the Union for Peace and Development (UPD), Charles Niyungeko of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD), and Alice Nzomukunda of the Alliance for Democratic Renewal (ADR) - have been prevented from leaving Burundi since the opposition boycott began. Kampayano and Niyungeko were stopped at land borders by local border police, who gave no explanation other than that they had orders from their superiors. Nzomukunda was stopped at Bujumbura International Airport on June 27 when boarding a flight to Nairobi; her passport and ticket were confiscated. She said the police director general informed her that she could not travel because she was suspected of planning an illegal protest.
Several credible sources in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, told Human Rights Watch that the government had ordered the police to restrict the movement of all major opposition leaders. Police officials contacted by Human Rights Watch would neither confirm nor deny these reports.
According to United Nations observers, at least 55 opposition activists were arrested between June 25 and June 28, including high-ranking members of the opposition National Liberation Forces (FNL) and Movement for Solidarity and Democracy (MSD). One journalist monitoring arrests told Human Rights Watch that as of June 29, at least 74 opposition activists were behind bars.
Some have been charged with serious crimes, such as "threatening state security," including Edouard Misago, a member of the FNL executive committee detained by the National Intelligence Service. Others have been accused of playing a role in the recent grenade attacks, which have killed at least 7 people and wounded at least 55 since June 11, or of possessing weapons, even though opposition parties have claimed that in some of these cases, no weapons were found.
Still others were accused of participating in "illegal meetings," including MSD Executive Secretary Odette Ntahiraja, who was held for several days, then freed. This followed a June 8 decision by Interior Minister Edouard Nduwimana that only parties participating in the presidential election could hold meetings or rallies, effectively only allowing the ruling party, National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD), to meet. Burundian law requires parties to provide advance notice of meetings to local officials; failure to do so can result in a fine, but does not provide grounds for arrest.
At least one detainee, in Ngozi province, has been charged simply with being "FNL." Another common charge is "inciting the population not to vote," which is not a crime under Burundian law.
"The opposition boycott and the recent grenade attacks don't justify this crackdown on human rights," Peligal said. "Nor is denying the basic human rights of opposition members likely to produce a solution to the political impasse. The authorities should free those who have been detained unless there is specific evidence linking them to a recognizable crime."
In the communal elections on May 24, the ruling party won 64 percent of the vote. International and national election observers stated that despite "irregularities," the elections were largely free and fair, while opposition parties claimed fraud. Those parties filed 36 distinct complaints with the provincial electoral commissions, including accusations of multiple voting, failure to publish vote tallies, and failure to follow required procedures for counting ballots. Most such complaints were dismissed by the provincial electoral commissions on the grounds that they did not significantly impact electoral outcomes.
In a June 1 news conference, the ministers of public security and defense accused "those contesting the election results" of "disrupting public order and security, in blatant violation of the law and the electoral code," the Burundian Press Agency (Agence Burundaise de Presse) reported. Nduwimana announced on June 8, "Every citizen has the right to elect and be elected, so for us, a political party which asks people not to take part in a vote is offending the law." During the following week, several ADC-Ikibiri members were arrested in Bujumbura after holding meetings with their members in the southern town of Rumonge.
As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, Burundi is required to respect basic civil and political rights of all people, including the rights of free association, peaceful assembly, and freedom of movement, which encompasses the right to leave one's country. Such rights can only be restricted by clear laws, for a legitimate reason, and in the least restrictive way possible, and without any discrimination, including with regard to political beliefs.
"Donor governments that have underwritten Burundi's peace process should engage urgently - but even-handedly - to prevent a further deterioration of the situation," Peligal said. "International diplomats have publicly criticized the opposition's decision to withdraw from the elections, but few have spoken out with equal vehemence against the government's draconian response."
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Friday, July 2, 2010
Just like in Cambodia
On 24th June 2010, a police crackdown arraigned hundreds of opposition members in Kigali. This is the tone for the looming presidential election as the mass arrests coincide with the opening of nominations of presidential candidates.
Since then, the victims are day and night in handcuffs in police cells. Critical cases of torments have been recorded:
Office
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) is wrapping up nominations for Presidential Candidates today, as opposition politicians arrested last week when it started receiving nominations are still imprisoned, under torture and suffering inhumane torments in police cells. The victims are in agony and have been denied medical care.
The Permanent Consultative Council of Opposition Parties in Rwanda (PCC) is deeply concerned with this inhumane treatment from state organs. There are persecuted because they are opposed to the ruling party and were demonstrating for their civil and constitutional rights, since the National Electoral Commission in complicity with other Government institutions have blocked the genuine opposition from participating in the upcoming August presidential elections.
The planned demonstration on 24th June 2010 was sabotaged by the Government when Maitre NTAGANDA Bernard, founding president of PS Imberakuri was violently grabbed from his home by agents of the National Police. Since then he has been day and night in handcuffs in different police cells. The Party Secretary General, Theobald MUTARAMBIRWA and several Imberakuri members are still held up.
The same day several members of FDU Inkingi were arrested. Though some have been released others are submitted to severe tortures and denied medical attention. Ms. Alice MUHIRWA, the party treasurer, is still bleeding due to boots kicks into her stomach. Mr. Sylvain SIBOMANA, the party secretary general, needs an urgent x-ray as he was hardly beaten several times while his legs and arms were tied behind his back. Mr. Theoneste SIBOMANA (party leader in Kigali) needs a concussion evaluation after head injury which was bunged on wall many times during torture. The medical condition of the following prisoners is not known: the party lawyer Maitre Theogene MUHAYEYEZU, and the party member Martin NTAVUKA. They all have symptoms of torture and degrading treatments.
How can the incumbent President Paul KAGAME, his regime and police explain the arbitrary arrests, torture, inhuman and cruel treatment of the opposition leaders?
We call upon the Rwandan Government to immediately release these political prisoners without any further delay and investigate the reported cases of torture and barbaric martyrdom.
Issued at Kigali, 2nd July 2010
Mrs. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza
Chairperson, United Democratic Forces
Mr. Frank Habineza
Chairman, Democratic Green Party of Rwanda
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
On 24th June 2010, a police crackdown arraigned hundreds of opposition members in Kigali. This is the tone for the looming presidential election as the mass arrests coincide with the opening of nominations of presidential candidates.
Since then, the victims are day and night in handcuffs in police cells. Critical cases of torments have been recorded:
- Ms. Alice MUHIRWA, the party Treasurer, is still bleeding due to boots kicks into her stomach. She has been denied access to a medical doctor.
- Mr. Sylvain SIBOMANA, the party Secretary General, needs an urgent X-Ray as he was hardly beaten several times legs and arms tied behind the back.
- Mr. Theoneste SIBOMANA (Party leader in Kigali) needs a concussion evaluation after head injury, bunged on wall many times during torture.
- Maitre Theogene MUHAYEYEZU, the new defence lawyer of Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the party Chair, has been tortured after arrest and detention incommunicado.
- The medical condition of the party member Martin NTAVUKA is not known.
Office
The Permanent Consultative Council of Opposition Parties in Rwanda (PCC)
C/O. B.P. 6334 Kigali , Rwanda , Tel: +250 788563039,+250 728636000, +250 788307145
Press Release: Detained victims of the last police crackdown on opposition still in agony.The National Electoral Commission (NEC) is wrapping up nominations for Presidential Candidates today, as opposition politicians arrested last week when it started receiving nominations are still imprisoned, under torture and suffering inhumane torments in police cells. The victims are in agony and have been denied medical care.
The Permanent Consultative Council of Opposition Parties in Rwanda (PCC) is deeply concerned with this inhumane treatment from state organs. There are persecuted because they are opposed to the ruling party and were demonstrating for their civil and constitutional rights, since the National Electoral Commission in complicity with other Government institutions have blocked the genuine opposition from participating in the upcoming August presidential elections.
The planned demonstration on 24th June 2010 was sabotaged by the Government when Maitre NTAGANDA Bernard, founding president of PS Imberakuri was violently grabbed from his home by agents of the National Police. Since then he has been day and night in handcuffs in different police cells. The Party Secretary General, Theobald MUTARAMBIRWA and several Imberakuri members are still held up.
The same day several members of FDU Inkingi were arrested. Though some have been released others are submitted to severe tortures and denied medical attention. Ms. Alice MUHIRWA, the party treasurer, is still bleeding due to boots kicks into her stomach. Mr. Sylvain SIBOMANA, the party secretary general, needs an urgent x-ray as he was hardly beaten several times while his legs and arms were tied behind his back. Mr. Theoneste SIBOMANA (party leader in Kigali) needs a concussion evaluation after head injury which was bunged on wall many times during torture. The medical condition of the following prisoners is not known: the party lawyer Maitre Theogene MUHAYEYEZU, and the party member Martin NTAVUKA. They all have symptoms of torture and degrading treatments.
How can the incumbent President Paul KAGAME, his regime and police explain the arbitrary arrests, torture, inhuman and cruel treatment of the opposition leaders?
We call upon the Rwandan Government to immediately release these political prisoners without any further delay and investigate the reported cases of torture and barbaric martyrdom.
Issued at Kigali, 2nd July 2010
Mrs. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza
Chairperson, United Democratic Forces
Mr. Frank Habineza
Chairman, Democratic Green Party of Rwanda
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Datum nieuwsfeit: 01-07-2010Drs. M.J.M. Verhagen
Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken
Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken verzoek om informatie over de politieke situatie in Rwanda
Kamerbrief inzake Uw verzoek om informatie over de politieke situatie in Rwanda
Kamerbrief
1 juli 2010
Graag bied ik u hierbij mijn reactie aan op het verzoek van de vaste commissie voor Buitenlandse Zaken van 24 juni 2010 (kenmerk 2010Z09878/2010D26900) om informatie over de politieke situatie in Rwanda in aanloop naar de verkiezingen.
In deze brief treft u een overzicht aan van de opvolgende gebeurtenissen en omstandigheden in Rwanda gevolgd door een appreciatie mijnerzijds.
De verkiezingen en kieswet
Op 9 augustus 2010 worden in Rwanda presidentsverkiezingen gehouden. Tot op heden hebben zich hiervoor President Kagame (Rwandan Patriotic Front); Jean Damascène Ntawukuliryayo (Social Democratic Party); Prosper Higiro (Liberal Party); en Alivera Mukabaramba (Parti pour le Progrès et la Concorde) officiëel kandidaat gesteld. In aanloop naar en ten tijde van de verkiezingen zal een EU verkiezingsexpertmissie het proces volgen. Nederland en een aantal andere EU partners hadden eerder aangedrongen op een volwaardige EU-waarnemingsmissie, maar de Europese Commissie is hier niet op ingegaan. Een Commonwealth waarnemingsmissie zal de verkiezingen monitoren en een officieel rapport uitbrengen. De Rwandese autoriteiten hebben overigens de aanbevelingen van de EU waarnemingsmissie naar aanleiding van de Rwandese parlementsverkiezingen in 2008 bijna in hun geheel opgenomen in de nieuwe nationale kieswet.
Oppositiepartijen
Twee van de drie nieuwe oppositiepartijen, de United Democratic Forces-Inkingi (UDF-Inkingi) en de Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) zijn er tot op heden niet in geslaagd zich te laten registreren voor deelname aan de presidentsverkiezingen. Volgens de Rwandese regering voldoen de betreffende partijen niet aan de wettelijke voorwaarden waaraan partijen moeten voldoen om in aanmerking te komen voor registratie. De UDF-Inkingi van mw. Victoire Umuhoza Ingabire, ondervindt problemen bij de registratie nu zij zelf wordt verdacht van het overtreden van de wet op ontkenning van de genocide van 1994, divisionisme en het onderhouden van banden met de Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), een rebellenbeweging in Oost-Congo waar ook verdachten van de genocide in Rwanda deel vanuit maken. Als gevolg hiervan zal mw. Ingabire niet kunnen deelnemen aan de presidentsverkiezingen. Mw. Ingabire is op borgtocht vrijgelaten maar mag vooralsnog Kigali niet verlaten in verband met verder onderzoek. De Amerikaanse advocaat, Peter Erlinder, werd op 28 mei j.l. gearresteerd op verdenking van genocide ontkenning maar is inmiddels ook op borgtocht vrijgelaten en teruggekeerd naar de Verenigde Staten.
De DGPR lijkt na enkele eerdere pogingen geen initiatief meer te nemen om geregistreerd te worden. De derde nieuwe oppositiepartij, de Social Party-Imberakuri (PSI), is weliswaar geregistreerd, maar heeft te kampen met grote interne problemen. De afgezette leider van de PSI, de DGPR en UDF- Inkingi hebben de Permanent Consultative Council of Opposition Parties (PCC) gevormd om gezamenlijk als oppositie hun stem te laten horen. Daarin worden zij niet gehinderd door de Rwandese overheid.
Veiligheid
In de aanloop naar de verkiezingen heeft zich een aantal ernstige veiligheidsincidenten voorgedaan. Sinds februari 2010 hebben vier granaataanslagen plaatsgevonden in Kigali met een aantal dodelijke slachtoffers tot gevolg. De laatste vond medio mei plaats. De aanslagen zijn tot op heden niet opgeëist, maar zijn volgens de Rwandese regering het werk van de FDLR. In Burundi zijn enkele personen opgepakt die in verband worden gebracht met de aanslagen. Op 19 juni jl. werd in Zuid-Afrika een aanslag gepleegd op oud-generaal Kayumba Nyamwasa, de voormalige Rwandese ambassadeur in India. Deze vluchtte eerder dit jaar naar Zuid-Afrika, nadat hij was ondervraagd naar aanleiding van de granaataanslagen. Kayumba, voorheen een vertrouweling van president Kagame, geldt thans als zijn grote criticaster. De Zuid-Afrikaanse overheid heeft vier verdachten aangehouden, wier nationaliteit nog niet bekend is gemaakt (maar geen van hen heeft de Zuid-Afrikaanse nationaliteit). De Rwandese autoriteiten hebben zich van de aanslag gedistantieerd. Op 24 juni j.l. werd Jean-Leonard Rugambe, onderzoeksjournalist van de verboden krant Umuvuzigi, met pistoolschoten om het leven gebracht. De mogelijke dader werd reeds aangehouden en zou hebben bekend. De moord zou een persoonlijke wraakactie zijn.
Vrijheid van meningsuiting
Medio april van dit jaar werd door de Hoge Raad voor de Media twee onafhankelijke kranten, de Umuseso en de Umuvuzigi een publicatieverbod opgelegd voor een periode 6 maanden vanwege opruiende teksten. Inmiddels is volledige sluiting van de kranten geëist, hetgeen via de rechter zal moeten worden bekrachtigd.
Ook neemt de kritiek onder de Rwandese oppositie en diaspora op enkele ruim geformuleerde wetten toe. Zo zouden vooral de wet op divisionisme en genocide-ontkenning als vehikel worden gebruikt door de autoriteiten om oppositie en kritische media monddood te maken. De Rwandese minister van Justitie heeft daarom besloten om aan de hand van de relevante veroordelingen te onderzoeken of de wetten terecht zijn toegepast en uitgevoerd. Het onderzoek is thans nog gaande.
Begin dit jaar kwam de jaarlijkse herregistratie van Human Rights Watch (HRW) tijdelijk in gevaar vanwege een geweigerde werkvergunning voor de HRW-medewerker ter plaatse. HRW zal een vervanger sturen en het werk op het gebied van mensenrechten voortzetten. Samen met een aantal gelijkgezinde landen zoals het Verenigd Koninkrijk en de Verenigde Staten heeft Nederland zich actief ingezet ten behoeve van HRW.
Appreciatie
Het politiek landschap in Rwanda ziet er in aanloop naar de presidentsverkiezingen op 9 augustus 2010 onrustig uit. De vrijheid van meningsuiting staat onder druk en de registratie van politieke partijen wordt nauwgezet gecontroleerd. De Rwandese oppositiepartijen hebben herhaaldelijk geklaagd over de ondervonden tegenwerking van de Rwandese autoriteiten bij de registratie van de partijen. Hoewel Nederland begrip heeft voor het standpunt van de Rwandese autoriteiten dat de genocide van 1994 een streng beleid rechtvaardigt tegen het aanzetten tot (etnische) verdeeldheid, bestaat er tegelijkertijd zorg over het politieke klimaat voorafgaand aan de verkiezingen. Op 28 juni jl. heeft dan ook een EU-démarche plaatsgevonden waarin bij de Rwandese regering is aangedrongen op het belang van vrije en eerlijke verkiezingen, een tijdige registratie van oppositiepartijen en het het faciliteren van een open politieke samenleving waarin de vrijheid van meningsuiting en persvrijheid worden gerespecteerd.
Tijdens het recente bezoek aan Rwanda van 19 tot 21 juni jl. heeft collega Hirsch Ballin met leden van de Rwandese regering gesproken over de ontwikkeling van de rechtsstaat en het belang van een transparant democratiseringsproces. Met zijn collega Karugarama heeft hij afgesproken om de samenwerking tussen Nederland en Rwanda op justitieel gebied te versterken. Doel is een situatie te creëren waarin een uitleveringsverdrag kan worden gesloten.
Nederland zal bij de Rwandese regering zowel in EU-kader als in bilateraal verband aandacht blijven vragen voor het belang van politieke ruimte voor de oppositie, van persvrijheid in het land en van versterking van de rechtsstaat.
De Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken,
Drs. M.J.M. Verhagen
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Thursday, July 1, 2010
So long as justice and accountability for past and current RPFcrimes are ignored and delayed, peace and stability will remain illusive and impossible in Rwanda=>ASIF]
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