Police say she is implicated in an investigation into the activities of an ex-commander of a Hutu militia group.


Ms Ingabire returned from exile in January to challenge President Kagame but she was barred from standing in the August election. Ms Ingabire has spent 5 months under house arrest since April 2010. Since Ms Ingabire returned from exile in January to challenge President Kagame, she was barred from standing in the August presidential election as RPF and Paul Kagame know she has all support of the majority of Rwandans.

Three months ago, Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza has always been subjected to constant threats and humiliation; she got the shock of her life after being released from detention on bail. After arriving at her home, she reportedly found her house ransacked by Rwandan state security personnel. Her personal documents and other items including computers and telephones were missing. Mrs. Ingabire s passport was also confiscated by police. It was reported that there was tight security deployed at her home located in the Gacukiro, a Kigali suburb inhabited mainly by the upper class of Rwanda.


African SurViVors International is calling on the Security Council, the UN and the world community to draw their attention and especially the attention of the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, and Netherlands from the intolerable conditions that the RPF regime has created for the Rwandan people. Taking into consideration of what is going on in Rwanda, there is no denying that the opposition leaders and all Rwandans are legally deprived of the right to elementary rights. The freedom of speech and freedom of the press are indispensable tenets of democracy. The RPF regime and government are decided to repress the Rwandan Opposition leaders, the civil society and massively violate human rights against Rwandans.


African SurViVors International organization expresses its deepest concern about the appalling health conditions of Me Ntaganda Bernard the founding president of the PS Imberakuli detained since 3 months in retaliation to his political activities.

Her second detention, and that several political prisoners throughout the country including hundreds of thousands prisoners mainly from the Hutu ethnic group wrongly accused of genocide and genocide ideology , contravenes international human rights law and casts a long shadow over reconciliation in the country. African SurViVors International urges the RPF military junta and Kagame’s government to release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally, and respect the human rights of Rwandans’ people.


As we call on the perpetrators for Ms Ingabire Umuhoza Victoire immediate-unconditional release, she has made clear her commitment to working with all parties to achieve national reconciliation. It is high time the regime released her and accepted her offer of dialogue instead of fabricating charges of terrorism while linking her to inexistent terrorist organizations.
ASI foundation reminds the UN Security Council, the European Union and world community in particular that, after the crimes of Rwandan and the genocide in Congo, there is more than a human tragedy, a tragic waste of talent, vision and leadership for a country that desperately needs all three.
Since 1990, the Rwandan people have suffered enough. A genuine transition to civilian and accountable government is long overdue. African SurViVors International is committed to making sure the European Union plays a part in helping Rwandans to achieve this so that Rwanda can be part of countries thriving democracies.

African SurVivors International is also inviting people around the world to post the illegal arrest messages for Ms. Ingabire Umuhoza Victoire on its Facebook wall.


African SurViVors International has received alarming information about the health condition of Mr. Bernard Ntaganda detained in Kigali prison.
Mr. Bernard Ntaganda is suffering a serious deterioration of his health due to the poor conditions of detention and the ill-treatments he has been subjected to in prison. However, his family and PS Imberakuli leadership and members reported to BBC that his health continues to deteriorate and notably reported that he had lost weight, he feels constantly tired and has difficulty to walk.
African SurViVors International further recalls that a number of Rwandan political leaders remain arbitrarily detained because of their legitimate political activities.


African SurViVors International is calling for immediate and unconditional release of Ms. Ingabire Umuhoza Victoire together with all detained political leaders and journalists.
African SurViVors International joins in the vehement condemnation of Ms.Victoire Ingabire abduction in the highest terms, we are very much saddened by the fact that, the condemnation of the oppression, murder and intimidation of the political opponents inside Rwanda has remained inefficient to protect and preserve the safety of the citizenry whether Hutus or Tutsis. The abduction of Ms. Ingabire Victoire is a classic example of this, as it happens at the very heart of Western supporters and backers of the dictator Kagame where democracy and freedom are supposed to be fully respected.
The people of Rwanda are experiencing difficult times domestically: Criminals and genocidaire on power, the RPF military junta, a despotic state which  is – through constant and organized repression – sending to prison all the proponents of freedom and democracy. In this particular case, Ms. Ingabire Umuhoza Victoire has been arbitrary arrested before yesterday on the pretext that she is organizing acts of terrorism aimed to destabilize the country. However, all Rwandans and the world observers remain convinced that Ms. Ingabire Umuhoza Victoire is arbitrarily detained because of her legitimate political and human rights activities.

More recently, Me Ntaganda Berndard has been accused for the same baseless charges. We have recieved reliable and alarming information that she does not receive appropriate medical care, as the Rwandan prison serves bad, insufficient food and salted water to the detainee.


African SurViVors International is extremely worrying about daily intimidations by the police and RPF and government agents against its members. To make more pressure on the West, the RPF regime and President Kagame have made internal conditions very difficult for the opposition leadership and members together with the proponents of freedom and human rights throughout the country.


The European Union, for its part, by approving a fund for the recent August 2010 elections in Rwanda, which has in fact being largely spent on RPF and Paul Kagame’s campaign, has made it easy for the RPF junta to make pressure, torture, send to prison and refuse to investigate assassinations of journalist and the VP of the Rwandan Greens, crimes that are done with total impunity.


We believe that RPF creation of the permanent enemy inside and outside Rwanda, the imprisonment of Ms Ingabire Umuhoza Victoire, the oppression of the Rwandan people, the physical and moral torture of the political opponents (FDU, Rwandan Greens, PS Imberakuli) and journalists will fuel, widespread and prolong tensions between Rwandans.
At the same time, even speaking about “the coup d’état” , the terrorist acts in Rwanda make things extremely difficult for us as the opponents of the current RPF regime and of course much more difficult for all of those human rights and pro-democracy activists in and outside Rwanda. No single Rwandan from all ethnic groups wants to see what happened to Rwanda in the February 28th 1993, April 6th 1994, 1995 Kibeho extermination of Hutus,1996 up to 1998 extermination of Rwandan and Congolese Hutu repeated.

We want Justice, democracy and peace for Rwanda and for all Rwandans... In order to help the process of democratization in this country, the western countries should best help by promoting dialogue between all parties in the conflict and pave the way for the creation of a truly stability in Rwanda through reconciliation. The impunity and repression should not be the basis of economic development in any country nor in Rwanda.


The opposition leaders are facing more deplorable conditions with every passing day. We do hope that the world community and all the forums that defend democracy and human rights will be unflinching in their support for such a regime quest for freedom and democracy.

The Rwandan people are entitled to freedom, democracy, reconciliation and human rights respect.

Therefore, we demand the immediate release of the FDU-Inkingi chairperson whose detention has only served to show the RPF’s intolerance of real democratic debate. It is prime time for the Kagame and RPF government to show leadership and to end the climate of fear, intimidation assassinations and imprisonment, which still surround the work of the opposition and of all Rwandans who differently think otherwise about the current socio-political situation in Rwanda.
Thank you for your attention to this pressing issue. We trust that you and appreciate its importance and that you will help to do what is right. The rest of world is watching.

Adopted and signed in Amsterdam this 16th October 2010


Very sincerely,

Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana
Founding Chairperson
African SurViVors International
Email : contactsurvivors@yahoo.com
Tel.: +31684030562



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

They also refused to register the United Democratic Forces-FDU Inkingi and many of its members have been imprisoned or released on bail.


The Social Party Imberakuri had managed to get registered in July 2009, but was later broken up into several factions, one of them now in the Government’s Political Parties Forum. Its Founding President, Maitre Bernard NTAGANDA is in prison since 24th June 2010, he is reported to be in a very critical healthy situation at King Faycal Hospital after Kigali Central Hospital was unable to treat him.
URGENT CALL FOR ACTION:

• We urgently call for the immediate release of Ms. Victoire INGABIRE UMUHOZA with no further conditions.


• We demand an immediate release from Prison of Mr. Bernard NTAGANDA, who was detained since 24th June 2010 and is now facing serious health conditions, which may claim his life.


Issued at Kigali, 15th October 2010

Ubu, agashya muri ubwo bwicanyi ni uko mu cyegeranyo cyashyizwe ahagaragara ku itariki ya 1 z’Ukwakira 2010, LONI yerekanye uburyo perezida Kagame n’abasirikari be bakoresheje bica Abanyarwanda b’impunzi z’abahutu barenze ibihumbi 200.000 bari mu makambi ya Congo. Babishe umugenda, bakoresheje ubugome bwabo busanzwe, busa n’ubwo bakoresheje mu Rwanda : bararashwe, baratemwe, bamenwe imitwe (n’iy’ abana) bakubiswe udufuni cyanga inyundo. Abandi imibiri yabo yaratwitswe bagisamba, abandi bakavanwamo amara maze imirambo yabo ikajugunywa mu migezi, abenshi bajugunywe mu byobo (bimeze nk’ingarani) barenzwaho ubutaka. Abenshi muri bo uduhanga twabo n’amagufa yabo biranamye, binyanyagiye nk’amabuye muri ayo mashyamba ya Congo . Dutegereje ko Kagame, ubumuntu bwamuzamo, we, n’abamushyigikiye bakemeza ku mugaragaro ko abo Banyarwanda bishwe ako kageni bakorerwa imihango y’ikiriyo, bakibukwa, bagashyingurwa mu cyubahiro.

Igihe Perezida Paul Kagame na Ministrikazi we, Louise Mushikiwabo, bavuzaga induru ndede, bakangata ko bazavana ingabo zabo muri Darfour (Soudan), bagiraga ngo batere Loni ubwoba, kugira ngo (nkuko yari isanzwe ibikora) idashyira ahagaragara icyo icyegeranyo cyerekana ko Paul Kagame yakoze jenoside. Ubwo barasakuje cyane ko ngo Kagame n’ingabo ze bahagaritse jenoside, ko byonyine bisa n’aho byabahaye uruhusa rwo kwica abahutu igihe bashakiye.
LONI yasanze urwo ruhushya ( permis, cyanga licence) rwo kwica abahutu rushaje. Bateye imbabazi biratinda, ariko ntibyabuza LONI kwitandukanya na bo, yerekana amarorerwa n’amahano yakorewe abahutu muri Congo , ubu hashize iminsi 10 isi yose imenye ko Paul Kagame ari umwicanyi. Ariko si bariya bahutu b’impumzi yishe gusa, hari abandi LONI izi kandi nabo bagomba gutangazwa kugira ngo niba Kagame agomba kuregwa, aregerwe rimwe, acirwe urubanza rimwe, afungwe rimwe, kandi afungirwe ahantu hamwe. Niba kandi asabye imbabazi, abikorere rimwe, nabwo aziherwe rimwe.

Ubundi ntibisanzwe ko LONI yatetesha perezida Paul Kagame, kuva yica perezida Habyarimana, dore hashize imyaka 16, yamurega ubwicanyi ndengakamere yakoreye muri Congo gusa. LONI yahishe ibyegeranyo bitatu bindi byerekeranye ubwicanyi Paul Kagame n’abasirikare be bakoreye Abanyarwanda. Turasaba LONI ko yashyiraho URUKIKO RWIHARIYE byose bikajya ahagaragara:

LONI yahishe icyegeranyo kw’iyicwa rya Perezida Habyarimana na mugenzi we perezida w’Uburundi, Cypriano Ntaryamira, cyari cyakozwe na “enqueteur” witwa Hourigan wakorera ga LONI, kandi niwe ubyivigira;

LONI yahishe icyegeranyo cyakozwe n’umugabo witwa Gersony w’umunyamerika, cyerekeye abantu bishwe na Kagame mugihe cya jenoside na nyuma y’aho gato, barenga ibihumbi mirongo. Ibi biravugwa n’ikinyamakuru gikomeye cyo muri Amerika, cyitwa The New York Times cyasohotse tariki ya 30 z’ukwa Nzeli, 2010.

LONI yaburijemo icyegeranyo cyerekana ubwicanyi bwa Kagame i Kibeho mu kwa kane 1995. Ni ngombwa ko LONI yakoresha indi ankete, ikerakana neza uruhare rwa Perezida Kagame muri buriya bwicanyi bwakorewe hagati mu gihugu LONI ibireba, ibishyigikiye, bigakorwa ku bwende bwa Kagame n’abasirikare be, gouvernement itabizi.

Byaba ibyo muri Congo , byaba iby’iyicwa rya perezida Habyarimana na mugenzi we perezida w’Uburundi, byaba iby’Abahutu bishwe muri jenoside y’abatutsi, na nyuma ya ho, byaba iby’abavanywe mu byabo n’intambara (les deplacés) biciwe Ikibeho, byose birahama Perezida Kagame. Kugira ngo azabivemo abe umwere biraruhije cyane, mbese bizamugora. Mbona n’inshuti ze z’abazungu ntacyo babikoraho. Nta Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Clara Short, Baroness Chalker, Roger Winter, Donald Payne, Philip Gourevitch, Rick Warren, n’abandi benshi ntacyo babikoraho. Ahubwo bagiye kumwitaza, bamugendere kure . Ntabwo abazungu bajya bemera gusangira ibyaha n’Abanyafurika. Iyo biba bibaho, abazungu benshi b’Ababiligi n’Abanyamerika baba barapfanye na Mobutu Sese Seko wa Zaire, bashutse ngo niyice LUMUMBA, igihugu bakakinyunyuza, hanyuma bakaza kumuvanaho bakoresheje les fameux “Leaders de la nouvelle génération africaine”. Ubwo rero Kagame niyumvire ho.

Muri ibi bihe bikomereye umuyobozi w’igihugu cyacu, ni byiza ko twamugira inama ya kigabo. Jye iyo mbona ni uko yasaba Abanyarwanda imbabazi yarangiza akegura. Imbabazi akazihabwa, ndetse akabafasha gushyiraho uburyo bushya bwo kumvikana ku miyoborere mishya y’Urwanda.


Aramutse atabyemeye ni uko twese twafatanya, twese Abanyarwanda, tugasaba ko afatwa agacirwa imanza z’ubwicanyi yakoze, cyangwa yakoresheje mu Rwanda no muri Congo .

None se byakumvikana bite ko Slobodan Milosovic wo muri Serbia, waregwaga kuba yaricishije abantu ibihu bitandatu (6000) by’Abayislamu, mu mujyi wa Srebrenica ho muri Bosnia-Herzegovina, yafatwa agafungwa, uwitwa Charles Taylor wo muri Liberia agafatwa agafungwa, naho Kagame wakoze ibyaha by’ubwicanyi bw’imbaga y’Abanyarwanda, agakomeza kuzerera mu bihugu by’Uburayi na Amerika nk’aho ari umwere. Niba ateguye nafatwe.

Ese irya anketi ikorwa n’uriya mujuji w’Umufaransa, ko izashyirwa ahagaragara bitarenze ukwezi kwa gatatu 2011, yo izamusiga ubuhoro? Icyaha kizamuhama. None se azabigenza ate? Azakomeze ategeke ku ngufu? Nzabandora.

Bikorewe i Burusseli, tariki ya 11 Ukwakira 2010

Fawusitini Twagiramungu

Wahoze ari Minsitiri w’Intebe mu 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

So long as justice and accountability for RPF past and current crimes are ignored and delayed, Peace and Stability will remain illusive and impossible in Rwanda=>ASIF]



Read more: No International Justice for Congo

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

Yesterday, I received a copy of the Rwandan governments response to the Draft UN Mapping Report on the DRC. It is divided into five sections, all of which warrant reaction. I'll just make a few points as the Report is perhaps better read as a statement of the extent to which the RPF is loosing international legitimacy.
Before going into some of the substance, I want to point out one consistent reaction from members of the Rwandan government. They do not deny that there its army killed civilians in the DRC, only that these killings do not constitute genocide. Indeed, the government's ineptitude at handling its reaction/response is uncharacteristic of its usual deft skill in "managing" bad press. It may be that so much negative yet accurate press has emerged in international sources the last year as the RPF cracks down on political opponents - both with its own party and outside challengers -- human rights activists, journalists and other segments of civil society that there are serious cracks within the party machine. Time will tell.

There is a great deal in the government's rhetoric, both formally through the UN, and statements from government representatives in the regional and international media, that the fractures and fissures within the ruling RPF are becoming more apparent. At the same time, we see the lengths to which Kigali will go to defend its version of how the genocide happened, how the RPF stopped it and the successes of post-genocide reconstruction and reconciliation processes.

I want to say too, that the RPFs emotive and excessive reaction to the UN Report seem to be the reaction of Kagame himself. Hi is known to be allergic to criticism while maintaining the moral authority of conviction (RPA were stopping genocide, not continuing it!) and insist ad nauseum that his army was only doing what it had to do because of the inaction of the international community. I think the RPF's reaction is also reflective of a government that is losing its grip on power, and had little legitimacy among most Rwandans. The RPF is a party of factions, and only a few are reaping the benefits of power at the moment. This is the most worrying trend....
The Executive Summary of the Report says that its findings are unacceptable to the RPF, and that the allegations of mass murders are the result of the UN manipulating the true facts of the role of the RPF in eastern DRC. In particular, the Response notes that the publication of the Mapping Report might reignite conflict in Rwanda and in the Region. I think if any one actor is going to reignite conflict in the Region, it is the RPF itself.
The RPF's reaction to the historical context, and what happened during the 1994 genocide, are unoriginal. Anyone who has read Pottier (2002), Re-imaging Rwanda, particularly its chapter on how the RPF manages it public relations machinery will agree. The government has made similar assertions in public fora with interested audiences. It appears that the RPF is worried about losing face "in the court of public opinion" (para 5, p. 7). Yet its allegation that the UN leaked the Report out of spite (what it calls asymmetry) is false as it was a reporter with Le Monde that leaked the Report.

In the section The 1994 Rwandan Genocide is equally reactionary. First, there is sufficient empirical evidence to show that the RPA did not stop the genocide as early as it could of (para. 6, p. 7). Instead, it made calculated military moves to assure that it took power in Kigali while Tutsi (and Hutu and Twa) died. Two excellent books, Sibomana's Hope for Rwanda (1999) and Umutesi's Surviving the Slaughter (2004) provide sufficient counter-evidence to the RPF assertion that it directed all of its resources to stopping the genocide. Indeed, anyone aware of how the RPF acted in bad faith during the Arusha Accords will scoff as this section of the Response.

The section Mass Participation in the Genocide downplays the role of the RPF in helping to create the conditions for genocide. I want to make one thing clear. I do not buy into claims that have been circulating recently that the RPF organised the genocide. Instead, I take the argument of Straus (2006) in his The Order of Genocide that the civil war between the RPA and the FAR provided the necessary context of fear and insecurity that made the possibility of genocide by neighbours against neighbours possible, and indeed likely (as we now know with hindsight). I disagree with the assertion of the RPF that mostly young men committed acts of genocide. This is not a new assertion as the government's justice policy follows a logic of maximal prosecution (prosecution of all Hutu men of a particular age). This claim is, in my opinion, revisionist as it neglects the different motivations for killing as well as the strength of network and kinship ties in deciding who lived or died (Fujii, 2009, Webs of Violence).

The Response goes on for another 15 pages in which the RPF defends and justifies its actions in the DRC. I will end simply with this, the RPF doth protest too much.

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

Join ASI foundation to call on academics and xperienced practitioners around the world to work with and help Rwandan organzations to elucidate the Tragic Rwandan genocide so that the world can fully understand what REALLY happened in Rwanda. Nowhere in the world, the cosmetic economic prosperity of a country should replace human rights and justice.

NEVER STOP QUESTIONING: How president Paul Kagame - the presumably mastermind of the Rwandan genocide and the key destabilizing factor of the region - successfully abused the trust of the international community by manipulating the Rwandan genocide?

Nothing seems plainer than the fact that Paul Kagame has not only orchestrated mass murder of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwandan but also, and most importantly, took part in it.

 We do have plenty of proven facts, reliable information, eyewitnesses from both Tutsi and Hutu communities members repeating the cruelty of Paul Kagame, RPF and his advisers. Actual assassinations, assassinations attempt around the world, the use of poison to kill all of who denounce or know better about Kagame's crimes should open the very blind person, organization still supporting Kagame.

Paul Kagame’s War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and Crimes of Genocide

There is a Rwandan genocide and the mastermind of it is Paul Kagame (RPF liars, advisers & Kagame's backers). Ilt's bloody clear that Paul Kagame didi it to take power and stay there. While Paul Kagame and his advisers use evil and malicious lies to cover the truth about the Rwanda genocide, they forgot one important thing: They cannot lie all the the time !

Rwandans deserve better than a criminal regime, a bloody criminal dictator.

Last thing: Paul Kagame should withdraw Rwandan forces from peacekeeping missions and operations around the world : I've spoken to Mr. Dallaire at that time when he was here in The Netherlands about this issue and he and the entire audience totally agreed with me about this issue regardless years of support of the bloody rebels and criminal RPF leadership.

Read more: Rwanda army carried out genocide in Congo: UN - The Times of India

By Ann Garrison
Colored Opinions
The official Oct. 1 release of the U.N. Report on Human Rights Abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1993-2003, documenting the Rwandan and Ugandan armies’ massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, should be a defining moment for President Barack Obama. How will the USA’s first African American president respond to the detailed and widely publicized U.N. documentation of genocide in the heart of Africa, committed by the USA’s longstanding military proxies, the armies of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni?

Find out more Here
By FRANK JORDANSGENEVA -- On Nov. 14, 1996, armed men surrounded the Mugunga refugee camp in eastern Zaire and began shooting indiscriminately at its inhabitants as they huddled for safety or tried to flee.
The Associated Press
Friday, October 1, 2010; 4:42 PM


Hundreds of men, women and children died over a three-day period, according to eyewitnesses and forensic evidence later gathered from mass graves.

A report published Friday by the U.N. human rights office says the killings at Mugunga may have been one of many instances that qualify as crimes against humanity or even - taken together - genocide by the Rwandan army, which at the time was hunting down Hutu rebels in neighboring Zaire, now called Congo.

In a written riposte to the United Nations, the Rwandan government said its troops "never fired any weapons into the camp" at Mugunga and civilians only were killed when armed rebels inside the camp tried to stop people from fleeing. Later, civilians who were held as human shields by the rebels died in the crossfire, it said.

The Red Cross and other organizations cited in the report refused to comment on it, saying the subject was too sensitive in light of ongoing human rights abuses in the region. The U.N. says more than 500 rapes have been committed in eastern Congo since late July.

Previous reports have described massacres and indiscriminate killings in Congo. But the latest report's depth will make it harder to ignore, experts say.

The report cost $3 million to produce and details 617 incidents from 1993 to 2003, when a five-year civil war that killed millions through disease and neglect ended. It concludes that tens of thousands of people - mostly women and children - were slain in attacks by the many armed groups roving eastern Congo.
Martin Nesirky, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, backed Pillay's statement, saying "it's about helping them to fight impunity and avoid perpetuation of this cycle of violence which we have seen even in the past month."


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

Navanethem Pillay is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. A South African, she was the first non-white woman on the High Court of South Africa, and she has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her four-year term as High Commissioner for Human Rights began on 1 September 2008.

Background

Pillay was born in 1941 in a poor neighbourhood of Durban, South Africa. She is of Tamil descent and her father was a bus driver. She married Gaby Pillay, a lawyer, in January 1965.
Supported by her local Indian community with donations, she graduated from the University of Natal with a BA in 1963 and an LLB in 1965. She later attended Harvard Law School, obtaining an LLM in 1982 and a Doctor of Juridical Science degree in 1988.

Legal career

In 1967, Pillay became the first woman to open her own law practice in Natal Province. She says she had no other alternative: "No law firm would employ me because they said they could not have white employees taking instructions from a coloured person". As a non-white lawyer under the Apartheid regime, she was not allowed to enter a judge's chambers.


On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her action was not the first of its kind.
She received her Bachelor of Arts and her Bachelor of Law degrees from Natal University in South Africa and later a Master of Law and Doctor of Juridical Science at Harvard University, U.S.A.



As Judge Pillay said in an Occasional Paper she delivered in 2002, the jurisprudence on gender issues emanating from the UN criminal tribunals both in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia “provides a precedent in the ways in which international and regional bodies view and treat sexual violence.” The evidence coming out of these trials so horrified the world community that in 1998 the Statute for the International Criminal Court became the first international treaty “to recognize a range of acts of sexual and gender violence as among the most serious crimes under international law. Most of these crimes had never before been explicitly articulated as crimes in any international instrument or domestic criminal code.”

In February 2003, Judge Pillay was elected by the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute, as one of the 18 Judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Judge Pillay’s commitment to human rights and to women’s issues extends beyond her work on the bench. She is currently honorary chair for Equality Now and serves on the Board of Directors for Nozala Investments, the women’s component of the National Economic Initiative. She has also held key positions with the Women Lawyers Association, the Advice desk for Abused Women, Lawyers for Human Rights, the Women’s National Coalition, Black Lawyers Association and many other groups. She also lectures widely on legal and social issues of equality and human rights.
A Black Woman Who Changed a Nation
Judge Pillay received awards from the IBA for outstanding international woman lawyer, from the National Bar Association for excellence in the pursuit of human rights and was elected honorary member of the American Society of International Law.

A widow, Judge Pillay has two daughters, Isvari Pather and Kamini Pillay. (See the rest on Peter Gruber Foundation).
… It is very difficult to introduce Judge Pillay as she has done so much, and has been the first in so many fields, that it would take up the time that really should go to her, to enumerate them. She has been an attorney for 30 years. She was the first black woman from South Africa to get a doctorate in Law from Harvard. She defended and represented liberationists and activists in South Africa before the changes that happened in that country. She is now sitting on the international – the UN Tribunal for Rwanda – and actually the tribunal is located in Tanzania – the tribunal for Rwanda. She has had an extremely active life with regards to gender and gender issues and women’s activism. She is now the chair of Equality Now, an important women’s human rights organization that brings attention to cases of abuse against women in powerfully effective alerts. I’m also very honored to have her as a member of the advisory group of the Sisterhood is Global Institute. (See the rest of this article on State of the World).

She says: As a child, and even as an adult in South Africa, I never thought that I would see the end of apartheid in my lifetime. And so now I wonder whether children born today in my country will ever really know what apartheid was like for those of us who lived through it. After 300 years, apartheid became history in – relatively- a short period of time. So what I want to look at, in keeping with the theme of the conference, are some of the actions that made a difference in our struggle and some of the other ongoing struggles I’m still engaged in, and how we can apply some of the lessons we have learned to accelerate the pace of social change.
The United Nations compared to The Infamous US Bus
Ban Ki-moon - Pillay's driver
I remember, as a child, being asked to, for instance, pronounce the word ‘water’ at school. And when I did so, properly, then they labeled me, and said, ‘Well, you think you’re a black European.’ Because I said ‘water’ instead of ‘watER’ or something. So the message that came from the community was, ‘Know your place and don’t even try to aspire to be something else. Don’t even try to change.’ So they don’t tell you what your place is and why.
I think, as children, we all start off with the presumption that we are as good as anyone else and then we are trained to be deferential. And in South Africa, we were trained to see ourselves as second class citizens. Those of you who’ve read Nelson Mandela’s book Long Road To Freedom, would see in the first few chapters he said that, for instance, Nelson is not his name. But when he entered school, the teacher assigned them Christian names, and that’s how he was assigned the name Nelson. This is the kind of non-status that we all labored under. Black was a non-person, and you never were proud of being black. For instance, you know, there was a lot of prohibition and banning and one of the things they banned was Black Beauty, because they thought it’s praising black people, and then they realized that this is the name of a horse.

When I was at Harvard, I was there with my children, so my daughter, [Carmony] was ten years old, so she had a year’s schooling at Cambridge, near Harvard. When we went back, I think the school asked her to speak and the teachers called me to say that what she said to the assembly was, “In the United States I was treated as a person, and here I am treated as a thing.” So, this kind of non-status was instilled in the law, but we didn’t know that. We grew up thinking that it was THE way of life to be classified European and non-European – the non-person. And we grew accustomed to accepting that facilities such as park benches, beaches, housing, schools, were reserved for Europeans only. And so we were very amused when some Americans thought, when they visited, that they couldn’t enjoy these European-only facilities.

Feb. 26, 2010 - Navanethem Pillay - 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty - ECPM from ECPM on Vimeo.

Read on news India-Times online: Durban – A South African Indian woman who has excelled in international law is the country?s candidate for election to the International Criminal Court. Judge Navanethem Pillay is currently the president of the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda.

The United Nations appointed her as a judge in 1995. Her tasks involve presiding over the trial of scores of people accused of genocide in the fighting that left thousands dead in Rwanda and Burundi. Pillay, 62, obtained a masters of law and doctorate of juridical science at Harvard University. She was the first Indian woman attorney in South Africa to be appointed as an acting judge. Positions of judges were previously reserved for whites only under apartheid.

Her book: A Society of Mankind, Not States – Law and Policy, Federation Press.


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