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
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see....Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed.
By TRICIA L. NADOLNY Monitor staff
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
(Published in print: Wednesday, February 13, 2013)
(Published in print: Wednesday, February 13, 2013)
A federal court judge criticized prosecutors’ handling of Beatrice Munyenyezi’s trial yesterday, calling their case “unbalanced” and accusing them of eliciting 40 minutes of rambling testimony for every 5 minutes of evidence.
Judge Steven McAuliffe’s harsh words came as the fifth day of testimony, in a trial the judge is trying to cap at two weeks, came to a close. Munyenyezi is accused of helping identify Tutsis to be killed at a roadblock during the 1994 genocide, then lying about her involvement when she applied for U.S. citizenship.
But several of the Rwandan witnesses who have already taken the stand have given substantial testimony about Munyenyezi’s husband and mother-in-law, who have each been convicted in an international court of helping organize and carry out the genocide.
McAuliffe decided to remind the lawyers who they’re prosecuting.
“Shalom is not on trial here, okay?” McAuliffe said, naming Munyenyezi’s husband.
One of the prosecutors said he was aware of that fact.
“Well you don’t seem to,” McAuliffe continued. “Your opening statement was all about, ‘This is not about genocide. It’s about lying on forms.’ And yet all the questions are about the mother-in-law” and the husband.
McAuliffe has been critical of the prosecutors before, but this was the first time the judge hit at the substance, not just the delivery, of their case.
As he spoke to the lawyers after the jury at U.S. District Court in Concord was dismissed, McAuliffe again asked them to pick up the pace and spend less time going over the same details with each witness, such as the political affiliation of Munyenyezi’s family members and the precise location of the hotel where they lived together.
The prosecutors, though, have argued that they need to show each witness has a deep and personal knowledge of the topic because the defense is intent on attacking their credibility. Munyenyezi’s lawyers say she’s innocent and argue her accusers are relaying a story promoted by the Rwandan government.
But McAuliffe said the testimony is painfully repetitive.
“The jury is giving me looks like, ‘Can’t you stop this?’ ” he said.
McAuliffe reminded the lawyers that he can.
“The jury has heard this over and over and over and over,” he said before suggesting a more direct approach for the prosecutors. “ ‘Do you live in Butare? How old were you? Are you familiar with the town you grew up in? Do you know the (Hotel Ihuriro)? Great, tell us about it.’ You don’t need to spend 30 minutes on, ‘Did you walk by it every day or every other day?’ ”
Part of the machine?
Prosecutors have described Munyenyezi as a piece in the “machinery” of Rwanda’s genocide, 100 days of turmoil in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis, 80 percent of the population, were killed. She’s accused of checking identification cards at a roadblock outside her family’s hotel in Butare and sorting out those who would be murdered or raped.
As each Rwandan witness has described that roadblock, they’ve first pointed out the hotel on a set of grainy, gray satellite photos taken in June and July 1994, in the midst of the genocide.
Yesterday, the prosecutors zoomed in on the images. And an expert described details not visible to an untrained eye, like two dozen items clustered in the backyard of a school next to the hotel.
Department of Defense image analyst Eric Benn said those items weren’t there on a satellite photo taken four days prior.
“Some are light. Many are quite dark,” he said, describing the marks. “Some of them are almost too big to be individuals. If they are people they could be pairs of people or multiples of people.”
He called them “features.” And beside the features, he described what appeared to be a mound of dirt.
Benn’s assessment of the images from June and July 1994 also appeared to support what witnesses have already said about a roadblock where Munyenyezi is accused of working. A man who testified last week that he passed through the barricade on foot described it as a series of items in the roadway that cars had to swerve around to pass. Benn yesterday, reviewing the image, pointed out several cars that appeared to be curving around items in the roadway.
But defense attorney David Ruoff questioned why the government only produced photographs showing the area around the hotel during a small portion of the genocide, which started April 6, 1994, and spread to Butare about two weeks later. Ruoff showed Benn another satellite image, which the prosecutor hadn’t shown the jury, that was taken in late May of that year. That image, while blurry, didn’t appear to show any obstacles in the road, Benn said.
Ruoff asked if any images were taken in April. (Several of the witnesses have testified that is when they saw the roadblock in front of the hotel.)
Benn responded that those in his office who had worked on the case hadn’t produced images from April; he couldn’t confirm that none existed. He said the Department of Defense was asked to review satellite images and look for any showing obstructions in the roadway, not images showing a lack of obstructions.
That prompted McAuliffe to ask Benn if he could get a definitive answer one way or the other.
“The basic problem is the defense wants to know, ‘Are there images of this road in April that may show no obstructions?’ ” McAuliffe said.
But U.S. Attorney John Capin said he asked for any images taken during the genocide. Defense attorney Mark Howard then asked Capin to provide that initial written request.
The prosecutors said they would look for it. The issue was not taken up again yesterday.
Eyewitness?
While the defense questioned the existence of a roadblock outside the hotel in late April 1994, another Rwandan witness testified yesterday that he saw that blockade with his own eyes.
Jean Paul Rutaganda, who was about 15 years old during the genocide, said he hid with other Tutsis at the school next to the hotel while Hutus canvassed the city looking for people to kill. Rutaganda said from the school he could see Munyenyezi at the roadblock, writing in a notebook. And he said that from one corner of the compound he could hear screams and cries of people who were being killed in the nearby woods.
But at times during Rutaganda’s testimony it was unclear if he was talking about things he had actually witnessed during his three days at the school, which is several hundred feet from the hotel, or things that he inferred to have taken place. At one point, Capin asked what he saw Munyenyezi doing at the roadblock.
“She was counting, registering dead Tutsis and others who were not yet dead,” he said, testifying through a translator.
Capin asked how he knew that.
“Tutsis that would die at that time had been already registered and counted,” Rutaganda responded.
The prosecutor asked if he could see what Munyenyezi was writing.
“I couldn’t see the words,” he said. “But you could see exactly what the action she was doing.”
Ruoff, though, questioned just how well Rutaganda could see the roadblock. Reading an investigation report from when U.S. agents interviewed him about the genocide, Howard asked if Rutaganda had claimed to have seen Munyenyezi wearing a pin with the president’s picture on it.
The witness agreed that he had.
Rutaganda also testified yesterday that he had spent much of his time at the school in the corner of the compound farthest from the hotel. Pointing to that space on one of the satellite photos, Ruoff asked if he had seen Munyenyezi writing down Tutsis’ names from there. Rutaganda said he had.
When Capin again questioned the witness, he asked Rutaganda whether he had moved around the school compound and been in spaces where the roadblock was more easily seen.
The man agreed that was the case.
(Tricia L. Nadolny can be reached at 369-3306 or tnadolny@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @tricia_nadolny.)
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, February 8, 2013
by
Published in:
Foreign Policy
In this new world, standing up for human rights reflects not only America's values but also its interests. It should be at the heart of U.S. policy, not an option of convenience. If Obama wants to bolster his legacy in his second term, he can and should get tough on some of the United States' most unsavory friends and allies. Here is a good start:
Afghanistan: As the Pentagon bows out, it is counting on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to see through the planned 2014 transition. But the Obama administration hasn't used its considerable leverage to dissuade Karzai from undermining women's rights, appointing an alleged torturer as intelligence chief, tolerating rampant corruption, and blocking efforts to hold accountable his warlord allies.
Uzbekistan: During
the 2005 uprising in the town of Andijan, President Islam Karimov
ordered troops to surround the demonstrators and shoot everyone in
sight. Hundreds were slaughtered. His government routinely tortures
dissidents and imprisons them for 15 or 20 years. Some have even been
boiled alive. Yet the Obama administration soft-pedals his brutality --
and waived restrictions on selling him military equipment -- because
Uzbekistan provides an alternative to Pakistan for resupplying the
troops in Afghanistan. Especially as this rationale disappears, the
Faustian bargain should end.Cambodia: In 28 years as prime minister, Hun Sen has presided over the killing of countless political opponents while increasing his control of the army, police, and courts. But the Obama administration has done little to discourage him from building a one-party state, such as insisting that exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy be allowed home without fear of arrest, and has placed no conditions on increased military ties or aid. Cambodia is where Obama should demonstrate that his Asian "pivot" isn't a competition with China for the loyalty of autocrats but a vision for Asian democracy.
Rwanda: Led by President Paul Kagame, the Rwandan government has long benefited from Washington's genocide guilt (Bill Clinton's administration sat on its hands during the 1994 massacre of more than half a million people) and admiration for its progress rebuilding the country. But the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which became the national army, itself murdered tens of thousands of civilians in the 1990s; the government uses detention and violence to shut down political opposition; and the military, despite persistent government denials, has actively supported a succession of rebel groups in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the U.S. Congress's insistence, the Obama administration has finally suspended some military aid to Rwanda, but it continues to run political interference for the government and downplay its crimes, most recently its military support for the murderous M23 rebellion in eastern Congo.
Ethiopia: Washington had a blind spot for growing repression under the late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who died in August. In return for Ethiopia's help fighting terrorism and battling al-Shabab militants in Somalia, the Obama administration muffled its criticism of the security forces' war crimes and the government's restrictions on civil society, detention of journalists, violence against demonstrators, and pursuit of development policies that penalize political opponents.
Saudi Arabia: Yes, it has lots of oil. But the Saudis, who need cash to fuel their welfare state, are going to sell it regardless of how Obama treats them. Meanwhile, the Saudi monarchy holds thousands in arbitrary detention, imposes archaic restrictions on women, suppresses most dissent, mistreats its Shiite minority, and insists that the neighboring Bahraini monarchy crush its pro-democracy movement. Obama has been silent.
Bahrain: Saudi Arabia's next-door neighbor is the most glaring exception to Obama's generally supportive posture toward Arab Spring demonstrators. The ruling Al Khalifa family uses lethal force, torture, and arbitrary detention to crush protests. Yet out of deference to Saudi sensibilities and fear of losing the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet base, the Obama administration has allowed its security relationship with Bahrain to trump its concern for the rights of Bahrainis -- a selectivity that undermines its broader support for Arab freedom.
Mexico: The country's drug cartels have committed horrific crimes, but so have the security forces that former President Felipe Calderón sent to combat them. Obama routinely praised Calderón's "great courage" in fighting the cartels with nary a word about widespread military and police abuses. Instead, the administration has sent some $2 billion to support Mexico's counternarcotics efforts, despite ample evidence of human rights violations and security forces so corrupt that the Mexican government has turned to its navy to crack down on the cartels.
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
- Paul Kagame, the necessary Evil?
- The Clintons dole out protection to select humans and has taken to defending the rights of the bloody Rwandan dictator
- Forget Gaddafi. Blair's NEW best friend is a despot guilty of even bloodier slaughter
- From Rwanda to Benghazi, Susan Rice's Record of Political Cronyism
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[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, 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, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
When speaking about the Rwanda Crisis, Bill Clinton called it his worst failure. What about Hilary R. Clinton? Does she call it her failure?
We often read this:
"Eighteen years ago, President Bill Clinton watched passively as the Hutu extremist regime in Rwanda oversaw the murder of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis". Do you believe that? We also read this "275 United States Marines had been flown to Bujumbura to OFFICIALLY assist with the evacuation of U.S. citizens from Rwanda."
In a quote for a 2002 book written by Samantha Power, Ms. Rice stated, in her attempted defense of the Clinton Administration’s inaction in response to the genocide that was taking place in the tiny African Nation of Rwanda in 1994, “If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November congressional election?" It was later revealed that President Clinton, along with Madeline Albright, Anthony Lake, Warren Christopher, and Ms. Rice were all part of a coordinated effort not only to block U.N. action to stop the genocide, but to work behind the scenes to craft public opinion on the issue by removing words such as "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" from official State Department and CIA memos.
......
If Ms. Rice does receive the appointment of Secretary of State, it will be with even more blood on her resume, as President Clinton rewarded her after misleading the public on the issues of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Africa. This time, her record of shameful political cronyism is now covered in the blood of four Americans, and that is why her defenders are trying to make this about her race and gender – because loyalty to the public is trumped by loyalty to a President and his party.
Their relationship, it has to be said, is something of a love-in. Mr Blair describes Kagame, a former rebel soldier in the once war-torn country, as a ‘visionary leader’ and ‘great friend’. For his part, the grateful Kagame has called on his people to name their children after his new English chum.
Meanwhile, Mrs Blair recently paid a misty-eyed tribute to his regime’s promotion of the rights of women.
Which, one imagines, must have put an ironic smile on the face of one of Rwanda’s leading female journalists, Agnes Nkusi Uwimana, now languishing in Kigali’s grim Central Prison.
The success of nonviolent conflict relies on this principle: Even the most repressive dictator needs the consent of the governed and the obedience of his security forces. "Sometimes, the more brutal a dictator is, the more brittle he is," said Ackerman, chairman of the Washington-based International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. "The more brutal he is, the more he depends on his own security forces to commit acts of repression." Repression can drive more citizens into the resistance, strengthening it in the struggle to spread disobedience to the security forces themselves....."
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
Monday, February 4, 2013
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, 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, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
I am reproducing here a comment that Mark Forest wrote after reading and watching CNN presenter Christine Amanpour’s interview of Paul Kagame. One of the focuses of the exchange between the journalist and the Rwandan president is when he intends to step down.
This first sentence that seems to guide Western countries policies toward Rwanda is already false:
“Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has been a darling of the West ever since he led his country out of the terrible 1994 genocide that left up to one million people dead.”
At the scene of a CRIME, any crime, when looking for the criminal, there are always few questions:
(1) the beneficial of the crime;
(2) the modus operandi or how the criminal operates;
(3) who are the potential victims and so on…
Second, if you look carefully on how criminals operated, you will find one single trend taking you to authors of the genocide. Through the UN “Mapping Report”, there is no doubt, Rwandan army under Tutsi minority committed a genocide in DRC. Then, if you look at how the massacres were done in DRC, you compare the killings to those done early in Uganda just before Museveni came to power in 1986, you will see a common actor.
Finally, if you see similarities in these killings, you compare them to those which happened in Rwanda, you will find that Kagame and his men are mostly responsible for crimes committed in the Great Lake Region of Africa from 1980ies to now.
But, some western leaders such as Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and the UN share the responsibility. The international system tends to cover these Big Fishes and the smaller benefit from the whole situation.
Yes, Kagame is a big liar, but the international system covers his actions.
To read the full interview of Paul Kagame and other comments please click here
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, January 31, 2013
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, 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, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
JANUARY 2013 COUNTRY SUMMARYRWANDA
Rwanda has made important economic and development gains, but the government has
continued to impose tight restrictions on freedom of expression and association.
Opposition parties are unable to operate. Two opposition party leaders remain in prison
and other members of their parties have been threatened. Two journalists arrested in 2010
also remain in prison, and several others have been arrested. Laws on “genocide ideology”
and the media were revised, but had not been adopted at this writing.
Community-based gacaca courts set up to try cases related to the 1994 genocide closed in
June 2012. The trial of Jean Bosco Uwinkindi, the first case transferred to Rwanda by the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), opened in Kigali.
Several governments have suspended part of their assistance to Rwanda in response to
Rwandan military support for the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Political Opponents
Bernard Ntaganda, founding president of the PS-Imberakuri opposition party, remained in
prison after the Supreme Court in April upheld charges of endangering state security and
divisionism, and confirmed his four-year sentence handed down in 2011. The charges
related solely to his public criticisms of the government.
Several other PS-Imberakuri members were threatened, intimidated, and questioned by
the police about their political activities. On September 5, Alexis Bakunzibake, the party’s
vice president, was abducted by armed men in the capital Kigali, blindfolded, and
detained overnight in a location he could not identify. His abductors questioned him about
the PS-Imberakuri’s activities, its membership and funding, and its alleged links to other
opposition groups. They tried to persuade him to abandon his party activities, then drove
him to an undisclosed location before dumping him across the border in Uganda.
The trial of Victoire Ingabire, president of the FDU-Inkingi party, which began in September
2011, concluded in April. She was charged with six offenses, three of which were linked to
“terrorist acts” and creating an armed group. The three others—“genocide ideology,”
divisionism, and spreading rumors intended to incite the public to rise up against the
state—were linked to her public criticism of the government. On October 30, after a flawed
trial, she was found guilty of conspiracy to undermine the government and genocide denial,
and sentenced to eight years in prison. There were doubts about the reliability of some
evidence after a witness called by the defense undermined the credibility of one of
Ingabire’s co-defendants. The co-defendant may have been coerced into incriminating
Ingabire while in military detention. The witness (a prisoner) was subjected to intimidation
after making his statement. Prison authorities searched his cell on the orders of the
prosecution and seized his personal documents, including notes he had prepared for his
court statement. In court, the prosecution confirmed the search by producing the notes.
In September, eight FDU-Inkingi members were arrested in Kibuye and accused of holding
illegal meetings. They were charged with inciting insurrection or public disorder and held
in preventive detention. Also in September, Sylvain Sibomana, secretary-general of the
FDU-Inkingi, and Martin Ntavuka, FDU-Inkingi representative for Kigali, were detained
overnight by police near Gitarama after they made critical comments about government
policies during an informal conversation on a bus. They were released without charge.
Frank Habineza, president of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda who had fled the
country in 2010 following the murder of the party’s vice president, returned to Rwanda in
September to re-launch his party and register it before parliamentary elections in 2013.
The party had to postpone its congress planned for November because the government did
not grant the necessary authorization.
The trial of six men accused of attempting to assassinate Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, a
former senior army official who became an outspoken government critic, in Johannesburg
in 2010, continued in South Africa.
Journalists
Parliament approved new media laws, which in theory could increase the scope for
independent journalism. The laws were awaiting adoption at this writing. In practice,
journalists continue to be targeted for articles perceived to be critical of the government.
Agnès Uwimana and Saidati Mukakibibi, journalists writing for the newspaper Umurabyo,
who were arrested in 2010, remained in prison. After being sentenced in 2011 to 17 years
and 7 years, respectively, in connection with articles published in their newspaper, they
appealed the verdict. On April 5, the Supreme Court reduced their sentences to four and
three years, respectively. It upheld charges of endangering national security against both
women, and a charge of defamation against Uwimana. It dropped charges of minimization
of the 1994 genocide and divisionism against Uwimana.
In August, Stanley Gatera, editor of Umusingi newspaper, was arrested and charged with
discrimination and sectarianism in connection with an opinion article published in his
newspaper about marital stability and the problems posed, in the author’s view, by the
supposed allure of Tutsi women. He was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment in November.
In April, Epaphrodite Habarugira, an announcer at Radio Huguka, was arrested and
charged with genocide ideology after apparently mistakenly, during a news broadcast,
mixing up words when referring to survivors of the genocide. He spent three months in
prison before being acquitted in July. The state prosecutor appealed against his acquittal.
Idriss Gasana Byringiro, a journalist at The Chronicles newspaper, was abducted on June
15, questioned about his work and his newspaper, and released the next day. In the
following days, he received anonymous threats, warning him to abandon journalism. He
reported his abduction and threats to the police. On July 17, the police arrested him. Two
days later, he was presented at a press conference where he retracted his earlier
statements and claimed he had faked his own abduction. Initial information indicated he
may have been coerced into making this “confession.” He was released on bail and was at
this writing awaiting trial for allegedly making a false statement to the police.
In June, Tusiime Annonciata of Flash FM radio was beaten unconscious by police and
security personnel outside parliament after they accused him of trying to enter a
parliamentary committee session without authorization.
Charles Ingabire, editor of the online newspaper Inyenyeri News and a vocal government
critic, was shot dead in the Ugandan capital Kampala on November 30, 2011. He had been
threatened in the months leading up to his death. Ugandan police stated they were
investigating the case, but no one was prosecuted for Ingabire’s murder.
Civil Society
Independent civil society organizations remained weak due to years of state intimidation.
Few Rwandan organizations publicly denounced human rights violations. The Rwandan
government and pro-government media reacted in a hostile manner towards international
human rights organizations and attempted to discredit their work.
Genocide Ideology Law
In June, the Council of Ministers approved an amended version of the 2008 genocide
ideology law, which has been used to silence critics. At this writing, the revised law was
before parliament. The revised law contained improvements, in particular a narrower
definition of the offense and a reduction in prison sentences. However, it retained the
notion of “genocide ideology” as a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment and
contained vague language that could be used to criminalize free speech.
Justice for the Genocide
Community-based gacaca courts, which were set up to try genocide-related cases, closed
in June, after trying almost two million cases, according to government statistics.
In the first case to be transferred from the ICTR, Jean Bosco Uwinkindi was sent from
Arusha, Tanzania, to Rwanda in April to stand trial for genocide. Preliminary court hearings
took place in Kigali. The ICTR agreed to transfer seven other cases to Rwanda.
In January, academic and former government official Léon Mugesera was sent back to
Rwanda from Canada to face charges of planning of and incitement to genocide.
Preliminary court hearings took place in Kigali.
Court proceedings against Rwandan genocide suspects took place in several other
jurisdictions, including Canada, Norway, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands.
Unlawful Detention and Torture
On January 13, the High Court in Kigali, ruling in the trial of 30 people accused of
involvement in grenade attacks in 2010, sentenced 22 defendants to prison terms ranging
from five years to life imprisonment, and acquitted eight defendants. The judges did not
take into account statements by several defendants that they had been detained
incommunicado in military custody and tortured.
Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa’s brother, Lt-Col. Rugigana Ngabo, who was arrested in 2010
and held incommunicado in military custody for five months, was tried by a military court
behind closed doors and sentenced in July to nine years’ imprisonment for endangering
state security and inciting violence. In response to a habeas corpus application by his
sister in 2010, the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) ruled in December 2011 that Ngabo’s
incommunicado detention without trial had been illegal. The Rwandan government
appealed this decision, but it was upheld by the EACJ’s appellate division in June.
Rwandan Military Involvement in the DRC
The Rwandan military provided support to the Congolese rebel group M23, which launched
a mutiny against the Congolese army in March. The M23 committed serious abuses in
eastern Congo, including killings of civilians, summary executions, rape, and forced
recruitment (see chapter on the DRC). In violation of the UN arms embargo on non-state
actors in eastern Congo, Rwandan military officials supplied the M23 with weapons,
ammunition, and new recruits, including children. Rwandan troops crossed into Congo to
assist the M23 in military operations, including a November offensive in which the M23
took control of the town of Goma. The Rwandan government denied any involvement in
supporting the M23.
Key International Actors
Several governments—including those of the United States, the United Kingdom,
Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the European Union—suspended or
delayed part of their assistance programs to Rwanda in response to Rwandan military
support to the M23. In September, the UK government resumed half the aid it had
suspended in July, despite continued Rwandan military backing for the M23. Expressions
of diplomatic concern intensified in November as the M23 took control of Goma.
In October, Rwanda was elected to the United Nations Security Council, raising concerns
about a conflict of interest in view of Rwanda’s breaches of the UN arms embargo and the
involvement of its troops in 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
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, 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, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
Rwanda - It has been difficult to fully understand the nature and causes of conflicts in the Great Lakes region because much
information is kept away from public view or distorted in favor of
Nilotic Tutsi and against Bantu Hutu.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
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SurViVors SPEAK OUT - Rights of Victims Seeking Justice and Compensation for the RPF Genocide. This is an Exciting Collaborative Project launched by The AS International Founder Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana, Economist and Human Rights Activist. Join US and Be the First to know about the Mastermind of the Rwandan Genocide Still At large and enjoing Impunity.