World News Journal

Somali National Consultative Constitutional Congress-Garowe Principles: 21-23 December 2010

2012-01-05T06:51:00.001+02:00

Update on Arrested FDU-Inkingi Party Member.

2012-01-05T03:36:00.001+02:00

FDU-Inkingi
Press Release

In our last press release, we alerted the public about Mr. Gratien NSABIYAREMYE, FDU-Inkingi Interim Executive Committee member in charge of Youth, who was abducted by Marine unit soldiers led by Captain RUTABURINGOGA on 02 January 2012. After over 8 hours in an unknown location he was taken to RUBAVU police station for interrogation. Yesterday, Colonel Joseph NZABAMWITA, the army spokesperson, misrepresented the situationand pretended a marine patrol unit pursued a criminal who resisted arrest after he robbed three mobile phones that night. This once again shows the true nature of the regime in Kigali, specialized in the fabrication of criminal charges in order to silence the opposition and any other dissenting voices. The army spokesman's story is a "reconstruction" that is covering up thearmy's interference in politics, weaving it with a "fabric of lies".

The army spokesperson stated: “The true facts of the case are that on 1 January 2012 at 23:00hrs, Marine patrol in Rubona Cell, Nyamyumba Sector pursued criminals who robbed Hakizimana JMV of three mobile phones and 160000Frw. The criminal who was identified as Gratien Nsabiyaremye was pursued up to his house where he resisted arrest. The case was handed over to police who arrested Gratien Nsabiyaremye in the morning of 2 January 2012 and is in police custody at Rubavu Police Station as they complete the case for prosecution”.

This is another fabric of lies: Why was a marine unit was patrolling a civilian residential area? Since when have they replaced the police and carried out late night arrests without a legal warrant? How did they identify the opposition leader as a “criminal” that same night at 23:00? Why were they trying to arrest an opposition leader in the middle of the night knowing that the person is a regular resident known to everybody in the area? Where did they keep him before the transfer to the police station? During the morning arrest, Mr. Gratien NSABIYAREMYE was severely beaten by
Captain RUTABURINGOGA from the marine unit based in Gisenyi.

The army statement is silent on the arrest of Felicien KAYIRANGA, the younger brother of Mr Gratien NSABIYAREMYE, on 03 January 2012 after he explained that they refused to open the door to armed strangers in the middle of the night because eight years ago, one of their brothers was shot dead by military personnel as he opened the door to people in military uniform and no investigation was ever carried out.

We believe this is just a continuing intimidation campaign because threats and attacks to opposition leaders and members have been on the rise both inside and outside the country. Reports of armed people in military uniforms abducting civilians in the night are still occurring. For example,
Onesphore BENDANTUNGUKA (59 years old) was kidnapped in the same Rubavu
district (Nyamyumba sector, Rubona cell, Buharara location) on 13 December 2011; Jean-Pierre HUBATSWENIMANA (42 years old) and Moise HAKESHIMANA (35 years old) were abducted in Musanze district (Muhe village, Ruhengeri) on December 2011 as well. There whereabouts remain unknown.

Last night, the capital city KIGALI was again a scene of grenades attacks that killed 2 and injured 20 civilians. We call upon the government to investigate these incidents and give accurate information on these attacks and those that rocked the capital Kigali last year.

We demand the immediate liberation of Mr. Gratien NSABIYAREMYE, his brother Felicien KAYIRANGA and all other political prisoners.

For the FDU-Inkingi,

Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice President

4 January 2012

FDU-Inkingi Executive Committee Member Said Detained by Rwandan Military.

2012-01-02T21:59:00.002+02:00

FDU-Inkingi Press Release2 January 2011

Last night, a platoon of Gisenyi-based marine unit attacked the residence of Mr. Gratien NSABIYAREMYE, member of the Interim Executive Committee of FDU-INKINGI in charge of youth and resident of Rubavu District (Nyamyumba sector, Rubona cell , Kabiza village). Military personnel invited him to follow them to unknown location but he declined because they failed to display an arrest warrant or any other legal document allowing them to carry out arrest. The house remained under military siege for the rest of the night. In the early morning he was forcibly abducted.

We don't know whether this kidnapping is related or not to a motorbike accident that occurred yesterday in his direct neighborhood. Because that time, to residents insisting to impound the motorbike themselves, he advised them to get in touch with local security staff.

FDU-INKINGI has engaged Gisenyi senior police authorities and the national police spokesperson with no help. Eyewitnesses reported Mr. Gratien NSABIYAREMYE was severely beaten by a military officer named Captain RUTABURINGOGA.

FDU-INKINGI is seriously concerned by the unrelenting persecution of our leaders and party members. We are ashamed by this behaviour of members of the army involved in the brutal kidnapping of an innocent citizen. We call upon the government to ensure Gratien NSABIYAREMYE is safe and to investigate this case.

Done in Kigali,

Boniface TWAGIRIMANA
FDU-INKINGI
Interim Vice-President

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Editor's Note: Rwandan Marines have been trained by the US through the IMET program, most recently on record in 2008. 16 Marine officers and 8 students completed the course. The US promised to extend their support of the Marine forces by providing "combat equipment," boat parts, and motors. The stated goal of the training was to help Rwandan-DRC border security. Col. Firmin Bayingana, head of the Marine force at the time, was arrested in Rwanda on April 19 2009 for allegedly trying to sabotage a judicial process, a charge he denied. He was tried at the Military High Court. He is one of the individuals indicted in the Spanish arrest warrants. As a major in the Rwandan army at the time, Col. Bayingana is accused of committing crimes against humanity in the area around Ruhengeri during 1997-1999.

Rwanda: Unsafe to Speak Out

2011-12-31T18:20:00.002+02:00

INGABIRE POLITICAL TRIAL ADJOURNED AGAIN.

2011-12-08T03:04:00.001+02:00

Press Release
FDU-Inkingi

Yesterday, the political trial of the opposition leader Madame Victoire INGABIRE, FDU-INKINGI head, resumed. The hearing has been postponed since 25 November 2011 due to the presiding judge's sick leave. Today, it was adjourned to 13 December 2011 due to extra-court activities of judges. For both days, the high court heard defence conclusions on the contradictions and inconsistencies observed in the oral answers from prosecutor's key witnesses and the defence submissions on 5 counts of the indictment. The life of another opposition leader, Mr. Bernard NTAGANDA, incarcerated in Kigali Central Prison as well and serving a politically motivated 4 year sentence is supposedly in danger. His political party, - Parti Social IMBERAKURI - informed the public that he was tortured last week inside the penitential premises. Our government is continuously crippling democracy. A nightmare usurping people's freedoms, eavesdropping on phones or any other communications means and keeping the judiciary under its control.

The status of the proceedings is still. The High Court denied the defence the right to a direct cross-examination of the prosecutor's key witnesses. They were given all the questions in order to revise them, prepare their answers beforehand and filter which one they wanted to take or not. Still their statements contradict in many parts both the arranged police and prosecutor's interviews or accounts of the modus operandi. Most of the police interrogations of the pleading guilty co-accused Tharcisse NDITURENDE which occurred during the first 7 months of his detention in a military isolation confinement are no where in the dossier. The prosecutor stated that the 21st April 2010 first arrest of Madame Victoire INGABIRE came as a result of overwhelming evidence provided by Lt Colonel Tharcisse NDITURENDE. Curiously the first police written statement related to this co-accused are dated after the arrest of INGABIRE. How could the prosecutor base the arrest warrant on statements that did not exist that time? The defence analysis of all the statements of the key witness Vital UWUMUREMYI, co-accused pleading guilty in this case, reveal that he was closely working for intelligence services under the supervision of CSP Tony KURAMBA of the Criminal Investigation Department.

The evidence on the allegations - of genocide negation; discrimination and sectarianism; and willingly disseminating rumours aimed at inciting the public against the existing leadership - is based on the rights to political activities, freedom of speech and freedom of association. The legal instruments which the Prosecutor is founding his case on are controversial and the government has already acknowledged the need to review them.

“The prosecutor's case is full of flaws. From its inception to the indictment, it shows a clear determination to silence the political leader . The constitution of the Republic grants her the right to challenge governmental policies. The criminal investigations did not precede but it seems they have been initiated to justify or cover up the imprisonment of an opposition leader. The presumption of innocence has been violated during the making of this case against my client”, explained the lawyer GATERA GASHABANA. The defence has given details on the lack of jurisdiction of the High court in this case to non avail: over 75% of evidence is based on allegations that pre-dated the criminal laws in force. The Rwandan criminal procedure does not accept any retro-activity of the criminal law. The court does not have territorial jurisdiction to try the accused on the counts of the indictment.

Your silence actually condones this injustice.

Boniface Twagirimana
FDU-INKINGI
Interim Vice President
T: (+250) 728636000
E: Fdu.inkingi.rwa@gmail.com.

DR Congo Goverment: Rein in Security Forces Committing Political Violence.

2011-12-07T06:56:00.001+02:00

Human Rights Watch2 December 2011

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo should immediately rein in its security forces, especially the Republican Guard, and prevent the targeting of political opponents and their supporters in the aftermath of the November 28, 2011 presidential and legislative elections, Human Rights Watch said today. Electoral violence between November 26 and 28 left at least 18 civilians dead and 100 seriously wounded, Human Rights Watch has confirmed.

According to Human Rights Watch research, the majority of those killed were shot dead by Republican Guard soldiers in Kinshasa. Other civilians were killed and wounded during clashes between rival political parties, attacks by armed groups, and mob violence. The announcement of results on December 6 could prompt further unrest, Human Rights Watch said.

“Tensions are running high given the logistical complications of organizing the election,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Security forces should be protecting people, not fueling the violence.”

The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials state that security forces shall apply nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force and firearms. They may use lethal force only when it is strictly necessary to protect life. The Basic Principles state that, “Governments shall ensure that arbitrary or abusive use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials is punished as a criminal offence under their law.”

The attacks were confirmed by seven international and national Human Rights Watch staff in Congo accredited as election observers, working with 17 Congolese human rights activists trained as election observers and deployed across the country.

Human Rights Watch also called on the government to take urgent steps to investigate and hold to account individuals, including members of the security services, who sought to intimidate voters, political party witnesses, and election officials engaged in compiling the results. The government should also hold to account those who attempted to commit election fraud.

Violence in Kinshasa

The worst incident occurred on November 26, the last day of the election campaign. Supporters of the opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party had gathered at Kinshasa’s N’djili airport to escort their leader, Etienne Tshisekedi, to an election rally. Just across from them were supporters of Joseph Kabila, the incumbent president, also awaiting their candidate’s arrival. Police tried to control tensions between the groups by firing teargas at the crowd of UDPS supporters. When the presidential convoy arrived with the Republican Guard to escort Kabila into town, some soldiers fired into the air while others fired directly at the crowd of opposition supporters.

At least 12 opposition supporters and bystanders were fatally shot and 41 others suffered gunshot wounds during violence at the airport and as the Republican Guard drove back into the city center – without Kabila, who had changed his plans and landed at another airport. The soldiers fired indiscriminately into crowds of opposition supporters along the road near Arret Kingasani, Arret Pascal, Marché de Liberté, Pont Matete, and in the Limeté neighborhood.

Some witnesses said the soldiers may have been provoked by UDPS supporters along the road who threw rocks at the Republican Guard accompanying the presidential convoy.

Ndelela Aminata, a 27-year-old mother of five, was shot in the head and killed by alleged Republican Guard soldiers near Petro-Congo in Masina commune while she was walking home from the shop where she worked. Bukasa Tshimpanga, 22, was killed when alleged soldiers shot him in the head while he was outside the manioc granary where he worked in Kimbaseke commune, near the airport.

Republican Guard soldiers also shot and wounded a 21-year-old pregnant woman while she walked home from the market near Arret Pascal in the afternoon. “They [the soldiers] began shooting at everyone in the crowds on the side of the road,” she told Human Rights Watch. “I tried to run, but the soldiers shot me in the foot.”

Dozens of other people were wounded on November 26 when supporters of opposing political parties clashed in the streets of Kinshasa, attacking each other with machetes, rocks, and wooden bats.

“Elections don’t give soldiers an excuse to randomly shoot at crowds,” Van Woudenberg said. “The authorities should immediately suspend those responsible for this unnecessary bloodshed and hold them to account.”

Also on November 26, four armed men who have not been identified attacked a parliamentary candidate, Dieudonné Lowa Opombo, at his home in Kinshasa in the early morning hours. He is running with the opposition coalition led by Vital Kamerhe’s Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC). The assailants attacked him with knives and hammers, injected him with an unknown substance, and then dragged him to a waiting jeep. According to Opombo and other witnesses, noise from a neighboring house may have frightened the assailants, who left Opombo unconscious in a sewer a short distance from his home. He was hospitalized with serious wounds to the head, chest, and arms.

Violence against UDPS supporters and others continued in Kinshasa on voting day, November 28. At around 10 p.m. security forces fired into a crowd of opposition supporters in Matete neighborhood. Leandre Minga Mikobi, 18, was fatally shot in the chest.

A 13-year-old boy was wounded in the shoulder. One of the assailants emerged from a police jeep, came up to the boy, pointed his gun at the boy’s head and told him he was lucky to still be alive. The assailant then got back into the police jeep and drove off. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the assailants were Republican Guard soldiers wearing police attire over their uniforms.
In total, at least 14 civilians were killed in Kinshasa during election-related violence on November 26 and 28.

Violence Related to Suspicions of Fraud

Across the country, suspicion of electoral fraud triggered anger that in a number of cases escalated into violence. People attacked polling places, election officials, or people they believed responsible for fraud. Confusion about voter registration lists, which had been distributed very late by electoral authorities and which did not reach many voting places or were incomplete, contributed to the suspicions. In many areas, voters and even electoral officials were uncertain whether people could vote if their name did not appear on the voting list. The late arrival of voting materials in many polling places also fed these suspicions.

Police stationed at polling places were either insufficient in number to deal with the violence or stood by and did nothing. In some instances they fired into the air, dispersing the crowd.

In Kananga, Kasai Occidental province, a Congolese election observer was badly beaten by a mob that accused her of carrying fraudulent ballots and had to be hospitalized. Three men were attacked and later hospitalized following similar incidents in other voting centers in Kananga. Also in Kananga, at least 15 polling places were burned with election materials inside because voters suspected the ballot boxes had been stuffed with ballots for Kabila.

In Matadi, Bas-Congo province, voters became suspicious and attacked a polling place and election officials after a political party candidate forced UDPS political party witnesses to leave. Angry voters beat the polling place director, who had to be hospitalized.

Also in Bas-Congo, in Lukula, residents stopped an election official carrying ballots on the back of a motorcycle. Suspicious that the official was attempting to commit fraud, the residents beat him severely. The police intervened and took him to the hospital.

At a polling station in Bamanya, Equateur province, armed assailants attacked voters and electoral staff in an apparent effort to subvert the results.

In some cases when election officials or others tried to stop apparent fraud, they were threatened or attacked by those committing the fraud, some of them members of the security forces.

Human Rights Watch also received credible reports about other election related violence in Kasai Occidental and Kasai Oriental provinces, including in Mbuji-Mayi, although further verification is required to determine the exact circumstances of the events.

“Suspicions of fraud, whether true or not, illustrate the growing concern among many voters about the credibility of the electoral process,” Van Woudenberg said. “As the vote counting continues, it is crucial for police to take added measures to protect election officials and stop fraud. Mob justice is no way to deal with election irregularities.”

Intimidation of Voters and Political Party Witnesses

In some areas there were attempts to intimidate voters to select a particular candidate. In Mpati and in neighboring villages in Masisi territory, North Kivu province, observers reported that a local strongman, Erasto Ntibaturama, compelled voters to vote for Kabila and for the strongman’s son, Bahati Ibatunganya, a parliamentary candidate from the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), a former rebel group now registered as a political party.

Local observers said that Ntibaturama blocked the delivery of election materials at Busumba destined for voting offices in Mpati, Nyange and Kivuye, saying he would release them only on the condition that people agreed to vote as he had instructed. On November 30, the materials for Mpati and Kivuye remained in Busumba. The materials for Nyange were released on November 29, after Ntibaturama received assurances that voters would do as he had instructed.

In Bweru village, near Mpati, Ntibaturama also sought to intimidate voters. He addressed a crowd on November 29 when the vote was still under way via a telephone attached to a loudspeaker instructing them to vote for Kabila and Ntibaturama’s son. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that a local government official accompanied by soldiers under the command of another of Ntibaturama’s sons, Lt. Col. Justin Gacheri, a former CNDP rebel, directed voters to follow Ntibaturama’s instructions.

In other parts of Masisi territory, North Kivu, former CNDP rebels who are now Congolese soldiers were at polling places in civilian clothes, acting as political party witnesses or even providing security, numerous witnesses told Human Rights Watch. Some voters told Human Rights Watch that they felt intimidated by their presence.

Political party witnesses, especially from opposition parties, accredited to monitor the electoral process, were also intimidated in a number of areas. Observers in Masisi territory said some partisan electoral officials and police barred opposition UNC witnesses from entering polling places on election day. Local observers and party witnesses also reported to Human Rights Watch that soldiers, some in uniform and others in civilian clothing, tried to intimidate or directly threatened opposition party witnesses.

Rebel Groups Impact Elections

Rebel armed groups also caused problems for voters on election day. Near Faradje, Orientale province, the Lord’s Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group, attacked a small group of voters on their way to the polling place. Three men were killed, and ten women and three boys and young men were abducted. One of the women, who was six months’ pregnant, was raped and later released. She was taken to the hospital but lost her baby.

In Lubumbashi, Katanga province, armed assailants with reported links to a separatist movement attacked a polling place in the Belair neighborhood. One female voter was killed in the firefight between the assailants and the police and Republican Guard soldiers. Two policemen and seven of the assailants were also killed. Earlier that day, a group of assailants burned two vehicles with voting materials destined for polling places.

In the Waloayungu and Waloaluanda areas of Walikale territory, North Kivu province, thousands of people fled the threat of clashes in the days preceding the elections between the rebel armed groups Mai Mai Sheka and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a largely Rwandan Hutu militia group. It is not clear how many voters in the area were able to cast their ballots.

In Mutakato, also in Walikale territory, the reported arrival on election day of a senior militia commander of the Mai Mai Sheka, Commander Guidon, caused fear and panic. Hundreds of people fled the polling place to take refuge in the forest. Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, the leader of the Mai Mai Sheka, is running for the national parliament. Sheka is wanted on a Congolese arrest warrant for crimes against humanity for mass rape committed in August 2010. On November 29, the UN Security Council added Sheka to the UN sanctions list, freezing his assets and imposing a worldwide travel ban.

“The Congolese people who turned out in large numbers to exercise their democratic rights deserve to have their votes count,” Van Woudenberg said. “As the announcement of election results nears, it is crucial for all leaders to act responsibly and peacefully, win or lose.”

How Dare you Accuse our Client of Genocide.

2011-12-07T06:53:00.001+02:00

The Independent7 December 2011
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rwanda-how-dare-you-accuse-our-client-of-genocide-6273284.html
By Melanie Newman and Oliver Wright

A public relations firm whose senior management has close links to the Liberal Democrats said they had created an internet "attack site" for the government of Rwanda over accusations it had been involved in genocide.

A public relations firm whose senior management has close links to the Liberal Democrats said they had created an internet "attack site" for the government of Rwanda over accusations it had been involved in genocide.

Mark Pursey, head of BTP Advisers, was secretly recorded saying that the site was targeted at people who "over-criticised" over "who did what in the genocide". A 2009 report from the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative said Rwanda's "excellent public relations machinery" had succeeded in hiding "the exclusionary and repressive nature of the regime".

Mr Pursey, who was the voluntary head of the Liberal Democrats' National Media Intelligence Unit during the 2010 election, suggested his firm could create a similar site for the Uzbeks – who were in fact undercover reporters working for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Such a site, he added, could be "aggressive" in terms of putting across figures showing that things were "moving in the right direction". Also at the meeting was Edward Lord, a member of the City of London Corporation, who attended at Mr Pursey's request.

As part of its investigation into lobbying for The Independent, reporters from the BIJ posed as agents for the government of Uzbekistan and representatives of the country's cotton industry, to discover what promises British lobbying and PR firms were prepared to make when pitching to clients. Mr Pursey said his firm was working for the government of Azerbaijan, which he described as having "its own set of very complex issues" and appeared to revel in the controversial nature of his accounts. "We already work for other governments as well ... Azerbaijan, Rwanda, we also do work for the Ivory Coast – the new one, not the old one . We also do work for – just started, in fact – the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe.

"The issues of what's happening for instance in Ivory Coast is very controversial with accusations of genocide on both sides. The government of Rwanda is itself enormously controversial, it's very uncertain what their role was in the deaths that occurred around the time of the genocide."
He later added: "If I wanted an easy life I'd do PR for housing associations."

Mr Pursey suggested setting up an internet site "like an Uzbek fact-check about the industry", adding that he could also create attack sites aimed at critics. He said: "I think articles saying how marvellous everything is [is] jumping the gun because it's not true and they [people] won't accept it. So I think that things such as working through the internet, setting up things like an Uzbek fact-check about the industry, could be a resource for people online that could render better articles.

"Then a separate site, this is a similar sort of work we've done with the Rwandans, for instance. We had a very controversial issue over who did what in the genocide. So the second site being much more a kind of attack site on people who over-criticise."

Mr Pursey suggested recruiting Uzbek students to comment on articles critical of the regime. "What we would need to do is find a group of people who have an interest in this subject that would include us, that would include Uzbek students living in London ... who, when an article comes up that's wrong, could be alerted about it. We could suggest to them what they might want to say in response to an article through a post, a suggestion." He added that this could affect newspaper coverage.

"Once we've started to nudge up some of the stories to become not so damning, more positive, then we can start looking at addressing issues such as going to the newspapers and saying that people are saying rather different things about this issue than they were six months ago."

Contacted by the Bureau yesterday, Mr Pursey said: "We helped create a site that outlined facts about the government of Rwanda, and most governments have them. This [sic] UN published a report that many academics and commentators agreed was extremely poorly researched yet made very alarming allegations ... its accusations towards others should be scrutinised."

On the company's work in Azerbaijan, he said: "An issue such as the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh that cost 80,000 lives and the internal displacement of over 1 million refugees is one of these very complexities, yet rarely reported. Rebuilding the lives and families of the survivors has been a massive financial and social challenge, and one that should be given the understanding and support it deserves."

No thanks: Firms that rejected the job

During the undercover investigation into lobbying, 10 firms were contacted. Two of these, Morris International Associates and Ogilvy, immediately refused to accept the business from the Uzbek regime, which is responsible for grave human rights abuses.

An hour-long meeting with Ann Morris, director of Morris International, where the undercover reporters tried to convince the company it should represent Uzbekistan, ended in a formal rejection.
No official response to The Independent's exposé yesterday was made by Morris International. But an account of the meeting by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveals that it took less than 10 minutes for the firm to make it clear that they were unwilling to take on the regime as their client.
It was explained during the hour-long meeting that one ofthe requirements was online "reputational management" – to which Bell Pottinger agreed in its own meetings with the reporters. Morris International made itclear this was something theywere not prepared to engage in.

The approach to a second firm, Ogilvy PR, never turned into an actual meeting. An initial connection was made by email and subsequently followed up with a telephone call. This lasted less than two minutes and the rejection of the request was quick and clear.

The BIJ said that at no point did either of the two companies make it known that they felt a "sting" was in operation. Their rejection was based on what they were being asked to do.
James Cusick

Uganda/Rwanda: Investigate Journalist’s Murder.

2011-12-07T06:51:00.001+02:00

Human Rights Watch6 December 2011

The Ugandan authorities should open an effective and transparent investigation into the murder of a Rwandan journalist on November 30, 2011, and identify and bring those responsible to justice, Human Rights Watch said today. The Ugandan government should also provide protection for Rwandan journalists and other critics of the Rwandan government who are living in Uganda, Human Rights Watch said.

Charles Ingabire, editor of the online publication Inyenyeri News and a vocal critic of the Rwandan government, was shot twice in the chest as he was leaving a bar in the Bukesa-Kikoni Makerere area of Kampala late at night. Friends told Human Rights Watch that he frequently went to that bar and had gone there that evening to meet some friends.

A spokesman for the Ugandan police told the media that the police had opened an investigation into Ingabire's death and that two people were being held for questioning.

“The persecution of government critics can reach beyond Rwanda’s borders,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “We fear for the safety of other exiled journalists and government opponents in the aftermath of Ingabire's murder.”

The Ugandan police should explore every lead in the search for Ingabire's killers and intensify protective measures for other Rwandan refugees, Human Rights Watch said.

Ingabire, who was 31 years old, was a survivor of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. He had worked as a journalist in Rwanda, but left in 2007 and obtained refugee status in Uganda. While in Uganda, he contributed to Umuvugizi newspaper, one of Rwanda’s most outspoken publications.

Umuvugiziwas suspended in 2010 by the Media High Council, a Rwandan government-controlled institution. Jean-Léonard Rugambage, another Umuvugizi journalist, was murdered in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, in June 2010. Its editor, Jean-Bosco Gasasira, fled Rwanda in 2010 after numerous threats to his safety.

After the suspension of Umuvugizi, Ingabire became the editor of an online newspaper, Inyenyeri News, which often published articles critical of President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and of the Rwandan government and army. Within a short time, the website appeared to have been infiltrated, and its contents suddenly changed, portraying the government in a favorable light. Ingabire's friends said they suspected it had been taken over by elements close to the government. Ingabire and his colleagues moved Inyenyeri News to a new web location and it resumed its critical reporting.
Ingabire confided to friends that he had been threatened several times in the months leading up to his death, they told Human Rights Watch. About two months before his murder, he was attacked and beaten in Kampala, and his computer stolen. The assailants – whom he did not recognize – told him they wanted him to close down his website. He also received anonymous telephone death threats warning him to stop writing articles critical of the government.

While it is too early to draw conclusions about the motive for Ingabire's murder, his death takes place in the context of a well documented pattern of repression of independent journalists, opposition party members, and civil society activists in Rwanda, Human Rights Watch said. Several journalists, critics, and opponents of the government in Rwanda have been arrested and detained or prosecuted in 2010 and 2011, and others outside the country have been threatened repeatedly.

Rwandans living in Uganda are at particular risk, given the geographical proximity and close links between the two countries, Human Rights Watch said. Rwandan refugees in Kampala frequently report being threatened and followed by people they believe are Rwandan intelligence agents.
Attacks on opponents and critics have also taken place further afield. In June 2010, General Kayumba Nyamwasa narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in South Africa. Nyamwasa is a former chief-of-staff of the Rwandan army and was once a close ally of Kagame, but is now an outspoken government opponent in exile. In May, two Rwandans living in the UK were warned by the London Metropolitan Police that there were threats to their safety emanating from the Rwandan government.

“The Rwandan government frequently states its commitment to democracy and free speech,” Bekele said, “but such statements are hollow when critics are threatened and attacked. The Rwandan judicial authorities should cooperate fully with their Ugandan counterparts in unearthing the truth about Ingabire’s murder.”

Rwandan exiled journalist gunned down in Kampala.

2011-12-02T18:28:00.001+02:00

Reporters Without Borders
2 December 2011

Reporters Without Borders is stunned to learn that Rwandan journalist Charles Ingabire, an outspoken critic of the Rwandan government and editor of the Inyenyeri News website, was gunned down in the early hours of yesterday in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, where he had lived in exile since 2007.

“We offer our sincere condolences to his fellow journalists in Rwanda and in exile, who are shocked by this terrible news,” Reporters Without Borders said. “While it is still too soon to say who is responsible for his murder, we point out that exiled Rwandan journalists are often in danger, especially in Kampala, where several of them have been physically attacked this year.

“This is the second murder of a Rwandan journalist in the past 18 months, following that of Jean-Léonard Rugambage in Kigali in June 2010.”

According to initial reports, Ingabire was shot at point-blank range by an unidentified person in a Pajero car at around 2 a.m. as he left a Kampala bar to which he had gone four hours earlier to meet a friend. He was hit in the chest and died on the spot. His body is now in the Mulago morgue, where an autopsy is to be carried out.

The Ugandan police are investigating the murder and, according to the Kampala-based Daily Monitor, have arrested two persons in order to question them.

Before fleeing Rwanda and launching Inyenyeri News (www.inyenyerinews.org), Ingabire worked for the Kigali-based newspaper Umuco.

He had been threatened several times in phone calls and comments left on his website. He was also physically attacked about two months ago in Kampala by unidentified assailants, who said they wanted his website closed down.

US Senate Briefing on the Democratic Republic of Congo.

2011-12-02T17:51:00.001+02:00

Evaluating the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 2011 Elections and the Implementation of the United Nations Mapping Report

Date: December 6, 2011

Time: 02:30 PM to 04:00 PM ES

Who: African Great Lakes Advocacy Coalition (Africa Faith and Justice Network, African Great Lakes Action Network, Friends of the Congo, Foreign Policy in Focus.

Event Location:

US Capitol Visitor Center
First St and East Capitol, NE
Washington, DC

Directions:

Room SVC 202-203

Please allow enough time to be processed through security.

The US government requires a list of attendees--You must register first in order to attend.

For questions, e-mail: Bahati, Jacques at bahati@afjn.org or call +1-202-884-9780

Speakers:

Federico Borello - Former United Nations coordinator of the Transitional Justice and
Anti-Impunity Unit at the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC); was part of the UN Mapping Team in Congo

Nii Akuetteh - Nii is a long-time activist, founder of the Democracy & Conflict Research Institute (Accra, Ghana)

Ntama Bahati - Policy Analyst, Africa Faith and Justice Network

Claude Gatebuke - Rwandan genocide survivor; Executive Director and Co-Founder of the African Great Lakes Action Network (AGLAN)

Fidele Lumea - Executive Director of Congolese American Council for Peace and Development focus on Humanitarian Assistance, Peacebuilding and Development

Emira Woods - Co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies

Kambale Musavuli - Friends of the Congo Spokesperson & Student Coordinator

Ngwarsungu Chiwengo - Professor of English at Creighton University

Rwanda journalist shot dead in Kampala.

2011-12-02T17:37:00.003+02:00

Daily MonitorBy Andrew Bagala
December 2 2011

The editor of Rwanda’s Inyenyeri news, Charles Ingabire, who had sought refuge in Uganda for political reasons, has been shot dead at a Kampala pub. Ingabire was shot dead past midnight on November 30 at Makies 2 Bar in Bukesa-Kikoni Makerere in Kampala. Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson, Mr Ibin Ssenkumbi confirmed the murder of the journalist. Two people have so far been arrested to help the police investigate the killing.

"The body had two bullet wounds. We have also recovered five cartridges of a sub-machine gun (SMG) rifle at the scene and we are still hunting for the prime suspect," Mr Ssenkumbi said. The investigators say that the suspects may not be directly linked to the murder but their information will be very vital to their investigations since the deceased often frequent the bar with his colleagues.

According to investigators, the two suspects in the police custody told them that Ingabire and a male friend remained drinking in the bar gardens past midnight but after they had just paid their bills, the waitress heard gunshots. Ingabire was a vocal critic of President Paul Kagame.

"After the gunshots, the waitress and the guard went to the scene only to find Ingabire on ground injured and his friend fleeing the scene," an investigator said. The body of Ingabire is still in Mulago Hospital where police are carrying out a post mortem.

The relatives of the deceased are still waiting at Mulago Hospital to receive the body but security agencies are still holding the body for more investigations.

INGABIRE TRIAL - DEFENCE “CROSS-EXAMINATION” AFTER REHEARSALS.

2011-11-10T22:53:00.001+02:00

Press Release
10 November 2011

After a one week postponement to allow the prosecutor's «witnesses» to review the “cross-examination” of a pre-submitted questionnaire, the show resumed today in Kigali Court. The judges are now pushing for a speedy trial to wrap the case as soon as possible. This raises a big question: Can Rwandan courts really handle international criminal cases? According to the presiding judge and the Prosecutors, cross-examination is not allowed in Rwanda.

The opposition party leader's political trial continues to attract the attention of the public, media, and key diplomats. His Excellency Ben Llewellyn-Jones, the British High Commissioner and the Embassy's Political Affairs councillor spent some time today following the debates in the courtroom.

Suspect Tharcisse Nditurende responded to some defence questions relating to the charges of Complicity in acts of terrorism (arts. 21(3°), 75 and 76, Law N° 45/2008 of 9/9/2008); Attempted attacks on the established powers and constitutional principles by terrorism or armed force (arts. 164, 21, 22 and 24 of the Penal Code, Law N° 21/1977 of 18/08/1977); recruitment into an armed force. The trial will continue tomorrow.

Though he had a whole week and all the necessary assistance to prepare his answers, he surprised the audience when he confessed that he never knew the names used by his courier to Kinshasa, allegedly sent to meet with Madame Victoire Ingabire. This complicates the whole tracking of their travel
data. Apart from their stories and a visibly made up script there is no other evidence that the real witness KARUTA even travelled to Kinshasa that time. The suspect stated he never received the oral mission report and it was extremely dangerous to carry written documents. He forgot that, immediately upon the arrest of Madame Victoire Ingabire, the prosecutor created the opinion that the arrest was prompted by evidence found in a bunch of written documents seized on suspect Vital
UWUMUREMYI when he was fleeing back to the DRC.

According to Barrister Iain Edwards, the co-accused never met the key defendant face-to-face during their adventures in the Congo. «Their trips to Kinshasa or elsewhere, if they really occurred, have no direct link to my client. Nothing shows they actually had an agenda to meet or do any
business together».

Done in Kigali,
Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice President
FDU-Inkingi

More Inconsistencies and Injustice in Victoire Ingabire's Trial.

2011-11-03T19:20:00.000+02:00

Press ReleaseNovember 2, 2011

Yesterday, at the request of the National Prosecution Authority, the High Court of Kigali denied the defence counsel of Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, Chairperson of the FDU-Inkingi opposition party, the right to cross-examine the prosecution's “key witnesses.” The court ordered the defence counsel to pre-submit a list of questions in order to decide on their relevance and allow adequate time for the preparation of witnesses' responses. Today, Barrister Ian Edwards, one of the lawyers for Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, submitted to the court a list of questions but stressed his worries
about a covering up the truth mostly owing to the court's decision not to allow witnesses to respond directly in open session. There is a high risk of making them rehearse their answers. This gives an impression to encourage their lies confirmed by several contradictions in their statements before the court.

Fearing those questions will create difficulties for his protégés, the prosecution demanded the court to grant them the right not to respond to the questions, allegedly because the cross-examination of the
co-accused witnesses is not allowed under te Rwandan law. They will prepare only for the questions the court will allow.

Defence counsel Gatera Gashabana described the prosecutor's fears as unfounded if the protégés are honest and committed to reveal the truth. “If they really decided to tell the truth without any pressure, nothing explains this amount of fear as the prosecution claims they are trustworthy”? He also wondered why the prosecution is acting in-lieu of the defence counsel for the co-accused. In response, the prosecutor insisted he had the responsibility to defend those pleading guilty for the sake of justice, especially to make sure they avoid alleged traps set by thedefence counsel.

The court order to pre-submit cross-examination questions for adequate preparation is not backed by any legal aspect obligating the defence counsel to do so. Barrister Ian Edwards asked why the cross-examinees could not take a few questions right away since they insisted they knew the truth. He also
asked why the prosecution was preventing the witnesses from answering a few questions to which they already had direct answers so that the court could filter questions for preparation with regard to those they did not have direct answers for.
The presiding judge overruled the objection and confirmed that such a system of cross-examination is not a must in Rwandan law. The defence may only ask questions about topics discussed in this hearing if they need more information.

As a result of the court and prosecutor’s behaviour throughout these proceedings it is impossible to believe Ms. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza will recieve a fair trial.

For the FDU-Inkingi,

Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice-President

Ingabire Trial - Defense Denied the Right to Cross-Examine.

2011-11-02T01:45:00.000+02:00

Press Release
November 1, 2011

On the request of the National Prosecution Authority, the High Court retracted its previous authorization and denied defense counsel the right to cross-examine the prosecutor’s witnesses on terror charges. The presiding judge ordered the defense team to pre-submit a list of all the questions in order to decide which one could be discussed in open court and allow sufficient time for preparation by ”the witnesses”. This is another slap in the face of the lawyers who believed that some fairness was possible in this kangaroo trial. ”This process is a circus, it’s not fair and the international community needs to know the truth”, said one foreign analyst based in Kigali.

Since the 27th October 2011, political prisoner Victoire Ingabire exposed the terror charges. All the prosecutor’s witnesses in this trial are officially ”co-accused pleading guilty”. Rwandan criminal law procedure in Article 59 is clear on this: “Persons against whom the prosecution has evidence to suspect that they were involved in the commission of an offence cannot be heard as witnesses”. (LAW N° 13/2004 OF 17/5/2004 RELATING TO THE CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, O.G SPECIAL Nº OF 30/07/2004). Questioned on this blatant violation and disdain of the law, the National Public Prosecution Authority claims that, “Those people are criminals just pleading guilty and helping justice to halt a terrorist leader. Their information is used only for investigation and completion of pieces of evidence. They are not witnesses and could not be treated like that”. The terms of this blind plea are not clear as all the co-accused don’t seem to care about their freedom.
The whole file on the counts of forming an armed group with the aim of destabilising the country, complicity to acts of terrorism, and conspiracy against the government by use of war and terrorism are based on arranged statements from the so-called co-accused. Now the direct cross-examination procedure is being refused.

The terror charge evidence can’t be challenged in open court any more. “This is not a common-law system, the defence lawyers can not just ask direct questions to those people. They could just give them to the court that will screen their relevance before giving people enough time to prepare their responses”, warned Mr. Bonaventure Ruberwa, one of the pleading prosecutors.

The prosecutor justified the arrest of political leader Victoire Ingabire by documents and material seized after the arrest of suspect Vital Uwumuremyi on 13 October 2010. Later on, the cases of 3 other ex-soldiers already in military detention were adjoined. The first contradiction is that she was previously questioned on the content of the evidence before they were officially obtained. The arrest warrant of the key witness Vital Uwumuremyi is posterior to the arrest of the political leader. The material produced in front of the High Court is comprised of emails, a small number of money transfer forms and interrogations. The prosecution has failed to get any of those documents authenticated. The e-mails dates are contradicting. For example, the headers of a response to one email written by Vital Uwumuremyi show that it was sent before the actual mail it was responding to. Some have clearly been written by the same suspect to himself using different pseudonyms he confessed are his during the identification process. The name of Madame Victoire Ingabire is not mentioned anywhere on money transfer forms.

The key witness of the prosecution is known as Major Vital Uwumuremyi, an ex-member of the Forces Armées Rwandaises (ex-FAR), and ex- FDLR. He stated himself that he was repatriated early 2009 after he reached the rank of Major. He does not have an FAR identification number (matricule), and he does not have any officer's identification number given by the former army simply because, until the end of genocide, he was a civilian driver. The information that he was promoted to the rank of Major in Rwanda or in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or in the FDLR is nowhere confirmed.

If there is no serious correction, we are absolutely and irrevocably convinced that the continuation is a validation of flawed proceedings in a kangaroo trial.

Done in Kigali,

Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice-President
FDU-Inkingi

US court dismisses lawsuit against Rwanda's Kagame.

2011-10-29T19:12:00.004+02:00

International Business Times29 October 2011

A federal court in Oklahoma on Friday dismissed a lawsuit against Rwandan President Paul Kagame brought by the widows of two assassinated African presidents, ruling that he had immunity in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Lee West ruled that as a head of state recognized by the U.S. government, Kagame was immune from the wrongful death civil suit. The Obama administration had urged the court to recognize Kagame's immunity.

Juvenal Habyarimana, then president of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, president of neighboring Burundi, were killed in a rocket attack on their plane at Kigali airport in 1994. The attack triggered the Rwandan genocide.

The widows had sought $350 million in damages, arguing that Kagame, leader of the Tutsi rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, had ordered the assassination of their husbands.

The lawsuit was filed in Oklahoma in April 2010 during a visit by Kagame to speak at the graduation of 10 Rwandan students at Oklahoma Christian University.

The plaintiffs had argued the lawsuit against Kagame should go ahead, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's 1997 ruling in Clinton v. Jones that the sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton could proceed while he was still in office.

"We are pleased that we were able to win this matter on the long-standing doctrine of head of state immunity," said defense attorney Pierre-Richard Prosper, who served as a war crimes prosecutor for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 1996 to 1998.

"We are confident, however, that had we been forced to address this matter on the merits we would have prevailed," Prosper said in a statement by his law firm, Arent Fox.

PS-Imberakuri party member shot by Rwandan police

2011-10-22T20:00:00.000+02:00

Sylvain Sibomana, FDU-Inkingi interim Secretary General has been released.

2011-10-21T16:05:00.004+02:00

Press Release21st October 2011

Mr Sylvain Sibomana, the FDU-Inkingi party's interim Secretary General, who was arrested in
Gisenyi yesterday, has been released. The Rubavu (Gisenyi) police station returned all his belongings including identity card, digital camera, and GSM phone today at 10:00 AM (Rwanda Time). He is on his way back to Kigali. He told his colleagues that he is safe and sound and has not been harmed nor beaten. A police station officer informed him last night that they have been misinformed about his identity and that he was now free to go.

Done in Kigali,

Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice-President
FDU-Inkingi

URGENT! Sylvain SIBOMANA, FDU-Inkingi Secretary General is missing in Rwanda after being detained.

2011-10-20T17:24:00.005+02:00

Press Release
20 October 2011

Mr. Sylvain Sibomana, the FDU-Inkingi party's interim Secretary General disappeared around 12:40 today in Kanama, Nyundo Sector, Rubavu District (Gisenyi), in the Western Province. His last contact was made by mobile phone whilehe was assaulted by security personnel for unknown reasons before he was taken to a unknown destination.

The Rwandan national police spokesperson, who was alerted in real time, advised us to discuss the matter with the local police station. All our attempts to locate him in local police and military detention facilities have been fruitless.

This happened when the court has just postponed until next Monday , at the request of the defence, the trial of FDU-Inkingi party leader Madame Victoire Ingabire due to intensive court harassment and threats to the defendent and her lawyers by the presiding judge, Alice Rulisa.

Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice-President
FDU-Inkingi

Alleged assassination attempt against Rwandan opposition party leaders.

2011-10-12T05:18:00.004+02:00

PRESS RELEASE N° 018/P.S. IMB/011

Recalling the assassination attempt by firearm against the PS IMBERAKURI party leader in the District of KICUKIRO on September 15, 2011;

Referring to the persecutions towards the imprisoned party leaders, the PS IMBERAKURI would like to inform the people of Rwanda, friends of Rwanda, and the IMBERAKURI in particular of the followings:

ARTICLE 1

Recalling our letter dated September 27, 2011, addressed to the highest authorities of the country, where we expressed PS IMBERAKURI's deepest concerns regarding the alarming detention conditions of Mr Eric NSHIMYUMUREMYI, party leader in the Kigali District of KICUKIRO who was shot by Rwandan police during the day. The information at our disposal states he is in very critical condition. The area in his chest where a bullet is still present has started rotting. In addition, he is being tortured and beaten dailyby his guards at the police hospital where he is being detained.

ARTICLE 2

The PS IMBERAKURI party has also been informed there is a conspiracy to assassinate Me. Bernard NTAGANDA, President and founder of the party, in his detention cell in the Maximum Security Prison of Kigali since June 2010. This assassination scheme is being led by one GAHIMA Fred, a prisoner in charge of the RPF Task Force inside the Maximum Security Prison of Kigali. The conspiracy to assassinate our leader will start by the murder of Mr. Donatien MUKESHIMANA, who is in charge of NTAGANDA’s security.
To that end, Mr. Donatien MUKESHIMANA, also detained with Me NTAGANDA, was transferred into a solitary confinement cell with no light, not enough space to lie down, and where he is continuously sprayed with sewage water day and night. Mr. MUKESHIMANA Donatien is in very critical condition. His legs and eyes are severely swollen and he can barely stand and get out on his own.

The P.S. IMBERAKURI party implores all people of goodwill to speak out on behalf of our party leaders and other detained politicians and denounce the inhuman persecution by the government of Rwanda towards its political opponents.

Done in Kigali on October 10, 2011,

BAKUNZIBAKE Alexis (Signed)
First Vice President, PS IMBERAKURI

Website : http://www.imberakuri.org
E-mail : imberakuri5@yahoo.fr
Tel: +250.788.81.49.06

Former Chief of Staff Says Pres. Kagame Admitted he Ordered Shootdown of Pres. Habyarimana's Plane on Apr. 6, 1994.

2011-10-01T16:46:00.001+02:00

On August 4, 1993, in Arusha, Tanzania, the Government of Rwanda and the Rwandese Patriotic Front signed the Arusha Peace Agreement. The provisions of the agreement included a commitment to principles of the rule of law, democracy, national unity, pluralism, the respect of fundamental freedoms and the rights of the individual. The agreement further had provisions on power-sharing, formation of one single national army, and a new national gendarmerie from forces of the two warring parties; and a definitive solution to the problem of Rwandan refugees. On April 6, 1994, at 8:25 p.m., the Falcon 50 jet of the President of the Republic of Rwanda, registration number “9XR-NN”, on its return from a summit meeting in DAR-ES SALAAM,Tanzania, as it was on approach to Kanombe International Airport in KIGALI, Rwanda, was shot down. All on board, including Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, their entire entourage and flight crew died. The death of President Juvenal Habyarimana triggered the start of a genocide that targeted Tutsi and Hutu moderates and the resumption of civil war between the RPF and the Government of Rwanda. The RPF’s sad and false narrative from that time on has been that Hutu extremists within President Habyarimana’s camp shot down the plane to derail the implementation of the Arusha Peace Agreement to find a pretext to start the genocide in which over 800,000 Rwandans died in just 100 days. This narrative has become a predominant one in some international circles, among scholars, and in some human rights organizations. The truth must now be told. Paul Kagame, then overall commander of the Rwandese Patriotic Army, the armed wing of the Rwandese Patriotic Front, was personally responsible for the shooting down of the plane. In July,1994, Paul Kagame himself, with characteristic callousness and much glee, told me that he was responsible for shooting down the plane. Despite public denials, the fact of Kagame’s culpability in this crime is also a public “secret” within RPF and RDF circles. Like many others in the RPF leadership, I enthusiastically sold this deceptive story line, especially to foreigners who by and large came to believe it, even when I knew that Kagame was the culprit in this crime. The political and social atmosphere during the period from the signing of the Arusha Accords in August 1993 was highly explosive, and the nation was on edge. By killing President Habyarimana, Paul Kagame introduced a wild card in an already fragile ceasefire and dangerous situation. This created a powerful trigger, escalating to a tipping point towards resumption of the civil war, genocide, and the region-wide destabilization that has devastated the Great Lakes region since then. Paul Kagame has to be immediately brought to account for this crime and its consequences. First, there is absolutely nothing honorable or heroic in reaching an agreement for peace with a partner and then stabbing him in the back. Kagame and Habyarimana did not meet on the battlefield on April 6, 1994. If they had, and one of them or both had died, it would have been tragic, but understandable as a product of the logic of war. President Habyarimana was returning from a peace summit, and by killing him Kagame demonstrated the highest form of treachery. Second, Kagame, a Tutsi himself, callously gambled away the lives of innocent Tutsi and moderate Hutu who perished in the genocide. While the killing of President Habyarimana, a Hutu, was not a direct cause of the genocide, it provided a powerful motivation and trigger to those who organized, mobilized and executed the genocide against Tutsi and Hutu moderates. Third, by killing President Habyarimana, Kagame permanently derailed the already fragile Arusha peace process in a dangerous pursuit of absolute power in Rwanda. Kagame feared the letter and spirit of the Arusha Peace Agreement. As the subsequent turn of events has now shown, Kagame does not believe in the unity of Rwandans, democracy, respect of human rights and other fundamental freedoms, the rule of law, power-sharing, integrated and accountable security institutions with a national character, and resolving the problem of refugees once and for all. This is what the Arusha Peace Agreement was all about. That is what is lacking in Rwanda today. Last, but not least, Kagame’s and the RPF’s false narrative, denials, and deceptions have led to partial justice in Rwanda and at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, thereby undermining prospects for justice for all Rwandan people, reconciliation and healing. The international community has, knowingly or unknowingly, become an accomplice in Kagame’s systematic and shameful game of deception. I was never party to the conspiracy to commit this heinous crime. In fact, I first heard about it on BBC around 1:00 am on April 7, 1994, while I was in Kampala where I had been attending the Pan-African Movement conference. I believe the majority of members of RPF and RPA civilians and combatants, like me, were not party to this murderous conspiracy that was hatched and organized by Paul Kagame and executed on his orders. Nevertheless, I was a the Secretary General of the RPF and a Major in the rebel army, the RPA. It is in this regard, within the context of collective responsibility and in the spirit of truth-telling in search of forgiveness and healing, that I would like to say I am deeply sorry about this loss of life, and to ask for forgiveness from the families of Juvenal Habyarimana, Cyprien Ntaryamira, Deogratias Nsabimana, Elie Sagatwa, Thaddee Bagaragaza, Emmanuel Akingeneye, Bernard Ciza, Cyriaque Simbizi, Jacky Heraud, Jean-Pierre Minaberry, and Jean-Michel Perrine. I also ask for forgiveness from all Rwandan people, in the hope that we must unanimously and categorically reject murder, treachery, lies and conspiracy as political weapons, and eradicate impunity once and for all, and work together to build a culture of truth-telling, forgiveness, healing, and the rule of law. I ask for forgiveness from the people of Burundi and France whose leaders and citizens were killed in this crime. Above all, I ask for forgiveness from God for having lied and concealed evil for too long. In freely telling the truth before God and the Rwandan people, I fully understand the risk I have undertaken, given Paul Kagame’s legendary vindictiveness and unquenchable thirst for spilling the blood of Rwandans. It is a shared risk that Rwandans bear daily in their quest for freedom and justice for all. Neither power and fame, nor gold and silver, are the motivation for me in these matters of death that have defined our nation for too long. Truth cannot wait for tomorrow, because the Rwandan nation is very sick and divided, and cannot rebuild and heal on lies. All Rwandans urgently need truth today. Our individual and collective search for truth will set us free. When we are free, we can freely forgive each other and begin to live fully and heal at last. Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa Former RPF Secretary General, Ambassador of Rwanda to the United States, and Chief of Staff for President Paul Kagame. E-mail: ngombwa@gmail.com; Washington, DC. October 1, 2011

Angry judge adjourns Ingabire trial.

2011-09-27T00:55:00.001+02:00

FDU-UDF-InkingiPress Release26 September 2011Kigali, 26 September 2011While the Rwandan opposition is still traumatised by the gun attack against one member, Eric Nshimyumuremyi, who survived police chest bullet on 15 September 2011, the first three weeks of the politically motivated case against the opposition leader Madame Victoire Ingabire left the trial in a tailspin. Today, Justice Alice Rulisa, lost her cool and furiously decided to postpone the hearings until 04 October 2011, in order to allow the prosecutor to prepare his response to defence submissions on the principle of non-retroactivity of criminal law, and on the territorial jurisdiction of the high court.What appeared to the regime as a straightforward life sentence for a key opposition figure is becoming fraught with rancour, contradictions and threats. The presiding judge is siding too closely with the prosecutor and could no longer be considered even handed. She said the defence motion is “choking and presented in a barbarian manner”. She refused the defence the right to respond to her angry comments. In the interest of a fair trial, Justice Alice Rulisa needs to recuse herself. She betrayed her feelings, making the unfairness of this show trial very obvious.According to the defence submissions, over 75% of the evidence presented by the national public prosecution authority has no legal basis. The High Court does not have jurisdiction to try the Accused for any act or omission which the Prosecutor suggests amounts to genocide ideology done prior to the publication of Law N° 18/2008 of 23 July 2008 in the Official Gazette on 15 October 2008. The High Court does not have jurisdiction to try the Accused for any act or omission which the Prosecutor suggests amounts to complicity in terrorist acts done prior to the publication of Law N° 45/2008 of 9 September 2008 in the Official Gazette on 6 April 2009. The High Court does not have jurisdiction to try the Accused for any act or omission which the Prosecutor suggests amounts to discrimination or sectarianism done outside the territory of Rwanda. Therefore, the Accused cannot be held criminally responsible for any such act or omission done prior to 16 January 2010. The High Court does not have jurisdiction to try the Accused for any act or omission which the Prosecutor suggests amounts to willingly disseminating rumours aimed at inciting the public against the existing leadership etc. done outside the territory of Rwanda. Therefore, the Accused cannot be held criminally responsible for any such act or omission done prior to 16 January 2010. The High Court does not have jurisdiction to try the Accused for any act or omission which the Prosecutor suggests amounts to recruitment etc. into an armed force done outside the territory of Rwanda. Therefore, the Accused cannot be held criminally responsible for any such act or omission done prior to 16 January 2010.From the 05 to 23 September 2011, Madame Ingabire in maximum security since 14 October 2010 was not yet given an opportunity to make a statement. The prosecutor's key witnesses muddled their visibly rehearsed guilt pleas and begged for mercy. Serious contradictions on the modus operandi were discussed in court until the prosecutor warned his backups to stick only on their written police statements. All the witnesses confused locations' names, meeting dates, travel information, hotels, logistics and operational details or agents. The role of Ingabire in their criminal activities has not been established.Threats to the defence counsel were noticed. They have been thoroughly searched and the confidentiality of their documents sometimes violated. They were denied to bring in the courtroom their own drinking water. The lawyer Mr. Gatera was verbally abused and kept 30 minutes outside the premises. The prosecutor surprised the public when he asserted that defence counsels are defending criminals and should not be trusted. This was a serious reminder because two lawyers of Ingabire were incarcerated last year: US Professor Peter Erlinder and Mr. Theogene Muhayeyezu.Supporters of Madame Ingabire are intimidated too. Security personnel have been busy taking photographs and tailing on a daily basis most of the opposition members following the court case.FDU-InkingiBoniface TwagirimanaInterim Vice PresidentF: (+250) 728636000 E: Fdu.inkingi.rwa@gmail.com------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Buitenpost De Wereld 26 September 2010By Anneke VerbraekenToday the Dutch lawyers of opposition leader Victoire ingabire are starting a quick procedure to prevent the sending to Rwanda of the three documents, confiscated during the house search in Zevenhuizen last year. They are summoning the Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs, Uri Rosenthal, not to send the documents to Rwanda. Because if he does send the documents, the Dutch government gives aid to a trial which is not fair. This is in violation with the European Convention on Human Rights (EHCR). Jurisprudence says if The Netherlands are helping Rwanda with it's trial, it's responsible for that trial. Meaning the Dutch can't give legal aid if the trial is in violation with the ECHR. According to the Dutch lawyers they already have 2 A4's with violations on the convention.The prosecution is playing a bizarre game by the way with the confiscated documents. In april this year a delegation visited The Netherlands, to take a look at all confiscated documents. In the end 9 documents were selected to be sent to Rwanda. They could be used again Ingabire in her trial according to prosecution. Because prosecution tampers with proof, the husband of Ingabire started a procedure to prevent the sending to Rwanda. The judge decided that 9 of the 3 documents could be send to Rwanda.Meanwhile in parliament questions were asked by Joel Voordewind (Christen Unie). The dutch minister of Foreign Affairs promised only to send the documents after informing parliament.People were surprised the first day of the trial of Ingabire, because of the prosecutors statement. In it he mentioned 15 documents and a summary of their contents. The statement was read aloud. People were surprised because officially, Rwanda was not in possession of the documents. So how could they be used as proof?And what about the number of 15 documents? Only 9 documents were brought to the attention of the Dutch judge in the procedure of the husband of Ingabire, And the judge decided in the end, that only 3 documents could be send to Rwanda.Defense was at disadvantage because prosecution knew the contents of the documents, while defense had no idea which documents were meant.Plus, through this the prosecutors statement, Rwanda is rebuffing the Dutch legal system. The appeal against the judges decision of the husband of Ingabire was of no use: contents were already known at the trial of Ingabire. The Dutch lawyers however continue with their procedure against the Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs. Every piece of paper, however small, can be manipulated and used as evidence in court against Ingabire.

Fahamu Mounts Petition Drive, Releases Report Opposing Cessation of Protection for Rwandan Refugees.

2011-09-22T01:20:00.002+02:00

PRESS RELEASE
September 22, 2011

Fahamu Mounts Petition Drive, Releases Report Opposing Cessation of Protection for Rwandan Refugees

Fahamu Refugee Programme has mounted a campaign to oppose States and UNHCR withdrawing the protection of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees from tens of thousands of Rwandan refugees currently in exile. “These are not people escaping retribution from the 1994 genocide,” said Director Dr. Barbara Harrell-Bond OBE. “They are those who have been fleeing Rwanda since, some quite recently, including large numbers of genocide survivors, who were never refugees before, as well as government officials and army officers, because of instability, ethnic strife, arbitrary judicial procedures, indiscriminate retaliation, political violence, intolerance of dissent, impunity, and lack of accountability.” Fahamu has been gathering the endorsements of hundreds of individuals and organizations in Africa and around the world to a petition opposing exercise of the Convention’s “cessation clause,” and will present the statement and advocate for them at the upcoming meeting of the UNHCR’s Executive Committee October 3-7, in Geneva.

Today, Fahamu released a Memorandum of Fact and Law compiling devastating conclusions from major human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on the general human rights situation in Rwanda, dozens of specific recent examples of persecution of various targeted groups in the Country, the stringent requirements of international law for cessation, and compelling personal testimonies of several Rwandan refugees and their protectors.

Cessation is a drastic measure that would strip refugees of their legal rights and expose them to forcible repatriation and the risk of persecution. It can also split up families and break economic and social ties of years’ duration and put those whose ‘political opinion’ differs from that of their government at serious risk. It should therefore only be invoked rarely and with extreme caution when there has been 1) a fundamental and profound change in country conditions such that they no longer have a well-founded fear of persecution, 2) the change is demonstrably enduring and not merely transitory, and 3) the change enables refugees to enjoy the protection of the government.

Rwanda has made much progress since the genocide but it did not do so through reliable constitutional, democratic, and peaceful means. It remains a fragile, volatile, authoritarian regime with little tolerance for dissent, freedom of speech, or independent human rights observation, reporting, or advocacy. Social and political fissures remain unresolved and the Government of Rwanda maintains an overtly hostile attitude toward its citizens who have fled. Positive changes need time to consolidate and genuine national reconciliation remains untested. Now, as both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have warned, is not the time to revoke protection from Rwandan refugees.

Recent Conclusions from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Experts on the Situation of Human Rights in Rwanda(Full citations supplied in the Fahamu Memo)

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented a longstanding pattern of intimidation and harassment of human rights defenders by Rwandan officials, including threats to their security, administrative obstacles, public and personalized attacks, and allegations that they are complicit with political opponents. Several human rights organizations, once active in Rwanda, have also been silenced through infiltration by people close to the government who have taken over these groups’ leadership.

Also according to HRW,

Independent civil society in Rwanda has been seriously decimated. It is one of the areas in which state intimidation, threats and infiltration have succeeded in silencing criticism. In the aftermath of the genocide, a number of independent Rwandan human rights organisations were still able to investigate and report on human rights violations, albeit at great risk. Over the subsequent years, they have been silenced one by one. In 2011, there are barely two or three active human rights organisations left in Rwanda, and even they are struggling to remain active.

According to Amnesty International,

Rwanda’s vague and sweeping laws against “genocide ideology” and “divisionism” under “sectarianism” laws criminalize speech protected by international conventions and contravene Rwanda’s regional and international human rights obligations and commitments to freedom of expression. The vague wording of the laws is deliberately exploited to violate human rights. …These broad and ill-defined laws have created a vague legal framework which is misused to criminalize criticism of the government and legitimate dissent. This has included suppressing calls for the prosecution of war crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). In the run-up to the 2010 elections, legitimate political dissent was conflated with “genocide ideology”, compromising the freedom of expression and association of opposition politicians, human rights defenders and journalists critical of the government.

Also according to HRW,

Freedom of expression, more broadly, continues to be severely restricted in Rwanda. A variety of laws have been used to prosecute critics -- in particular, a law on "genocide ideology" adopted in 2008. Ill-defined, vague and open to abuse, this law has been used, among other things, to target critics of the government or of the RPF. [c] Critics have also been charged with other serious offences such as endangering national security. …[T]he media environment in Rwanda is still extremely restrictive. Two journalists are in prison after being sentenced in 2011 to 17 and 7 years respectively for writing articles which were viewed as critical of the government and the president; several other independent journalists have gone into exile; and most others are afraid of investigating sensitive issues. Almost all active media outlets in Rwanda are now either controlled by the government or compliant with its directives.

Anneke Van Woudenberg, a HRW authority on the Great Lakes region, declared in 2010 that any attempt to present the information contained in [the UNHCR-commissioned draft report by Richard Gersony detailing horrific atrocities by Rwandan government affiliated forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo] has been blocked, subverted, or really discouraged. The report starkly shows the consequences of a culture of impunity. You see the same crimes being committed again and again. And we're continuing to document those same abuses today. This is the kind of horrific cycle you get when you bury the truth, when you don't hold perpetrators to account.

Also according to Amnesty International,

The mandate of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was extended until the end of 2011 for first-instance trials and to the end of 2012 for appeals. Ten suspects subject to arrest warrants by the ICTR remained at large. The ICTR Prosecutor made new applications in November to transfer cases to Rwanda. Past applications failed after Trial Chambers decided that the accused would not receive fair trials. Judicial proceedings against genocide suspects took place in Belgium, Finland, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the USA. Sweden consented to extradition in 2009, but the case has yet to be decided before the European Court of Human Rights. No country extradited genocide suspects to Rwanda due to fair trial concerns.

Member of Rwandan opposition party PS-Imberakuri shot in Kigali.

2011-09-20T03:30:00.001+02:00

Press Release

by Boniface Twagirimana.

On 15 September 2011, Eric Nshimyumuremyi, a member of the opposition party (Parti Social-Imberakuri) was gunned down and seriously injured by plain clothes military intelligence officers manning the unfamous “Kwa Gacinya” illegal detention facility. The incident occurred around 17:00 in Gikondo location, while he was heading home after a whole day at the High Court attending Victoire Ingabire trial. The police arrived to the scene, and despite the serious chest gunshot, they just tied his hands behind his back and left him bleeding for about two hours before taking him to the hospital. A police spokesperson told the media that he is a dangerous criminal and that an investigation for “unlawful possession of weapon” was open.

Those reasons are baseless. There was no warning before the shooting. We strongly believe that the rules of engagement have not been observed by the officer. No firearms was found neither on him nor in his house.

Death threats against opposition leaders have increased during Ingabire trial. For example on 05 September 2011, Nyarugenge District Police chief Bertin Mutezintare threatened to kill Mr. Sylvain Sibomana, FDU-Inkingi Secretary General. On 15 September 2011, the same police chief renewed his threats and told him face-to-face that he will handcuff him soon.

We call upon the government to make sure that security personnel does not use their positions to intimidate people; to prosecute the life attempt against opposition members and to ensure that rules of engagement are clear and respected.

For FDU-Inkingi,
Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice-President

Detained Rwandan Political Opposition Members Have Been Freed.

2011-07-11T04:03:00.003+02:00

On 8 July 2011, 8 opposition members were arrested by Rwandan police
from a bus staging area minutes after an attempted visit to a political
prisoner in the Kimironko detention facility. They were finally released
late night The police spokesperson told the BBC Great Lakes service that
it was suspected they were going to abuse police and call for a prison mutiny if allowed entry.

VISITORS TO RWANDAN POLITICAL PRISONERS SAID TO BE KIDNAPPED NEAR KIMORONKO PRISON.

2011-07-08T20:33:00.004+02:00

FDU-Inkingi
Press Release
8 July 2011

Today, 13 visitors registered with the Kigali maximum prison for a chance to visit political prisoners Madame Victoire Ingabire (Chairperson of FDU-INKINGI); Bernard Ntaganda (PS-Imberakuri); Deo Mushayidi (PDP-Imanzi); and Charles Ntakirutinka (PDR-Ubuyanja). They were ignored for several hours until they eventually decided to leave.

Other opposition party members went to Kimironko prison where another political prisoner, Mr. Sylvère Mwizerwa (Permanent Secretary of PS-Imberakuri) is
detained. On the route to the prison, they were rammed by tailing intelligence operatives. 5 visitors, including Mr. Martin Ntavuka, (FDU-Inkingi Kigali city leader), were detained from the Kimironko bus station area. His wife, Mrs. Illuminée Iragena, rushed over to the Kimironko detention facility to inquire about the whereabouts of her husband and was arrested together with an old mother.

A lawyer who followed up on the case with Kimironko prison administrators was told that all the suspects were moved by the police for further investigations. Their whereabouts and the charges against them are unknown. In total, 7 opposition members and one other person have been transferred to unknown destination(s): Alexis Bakunzibake (Secretary General of PS-Imberakuri in charge of youth); Jean-Baptiste Ikitonderwa (PS-Imberakuri); Martin Ntavuka (FDU-Inkingi) and his wife Illuminée Iragena; Ngwabije; Tite Joyeux; Eric; and Madame Collette who is over 60-years old.

After the Rwandan government decided to isolate all political prisoners in April 2011, their visitors have been intimidated and threatened during every single visit. These arbitrary arrests are a signal intended to demoralize and defame opposition members so they can leave their leaders in the lurch.

We urge the government to release all political prisoners and put an end to the arbitrary detention of innocent people.

For the FDU-INKINGI,

Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice-President

Witness in Rwandan General's Assassination Attempt Fears for Family's Life.

2011-07-01T16:55:00.006+02:00

SAPA-AFP
1 July 2011

The state's lead witness in the trial for the shooting of Rwanda's exiled former army chief broke down Friday describing how he feared for his family's lives after the failed hit in South Africa.

Rwandan national Kalisa Mubarak told the court he fled Johannesburg after the June 19, 2010 shooting of former top general Faustin Nyamwasa, which he believes his friend helped arrange.

The friend, Rwandan national Amani Uriwani, is one of six men standing trial for the shooting. The accused - three Rwandans and three Tanzanians - deny the charges.

Mubarak, who is now in a witness protection programme, has testified that his friend Uriwani had told him about his involvement in a plan by Rwandan soldiers with lots of cash and cars “to shoot at a military person”.

He told the court Friday that when he learned Nyamwasa had been shot, he phoned Uriwani and said, “Do you see what you've done?”

“He said 'Please Mubarak, don't tell anyone',” he said of his friend's reaction.

“He was just like very scared.”

Mubarak said he later returned home and found Uriwani and another person waiting there, in a white Nissan truck with no license plates.

“I see that maybe I can be killed to not show the evidence,” he told the court.

Mubarak described fleeing to Cape Town after the shooting, then returning to Johannesburg and hopping from hotel to hotel, worrying his life was in danger.

He broke down on the witness stand telling how he feared for his pregnant wife, lifting the dark sunglasses he has worn throughout his testimony to wipe his eyes with a scarf.

Mubarak said after he helped police find and arrest Uriwani, five gunmen attacked his beauty salon in Johannesburg.

The trial will resume on October 24 and run through November 4, when defence attorneys will cross-examine Mubarak.

Nyamwasa, a former key ally of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, fled to South Africa in February.

‘Rwandan general shooting orchestrated in Europe.'

2011-06-30T04:08:00.002+02:00

IOL News
29 June 2011

The attempted killing in Johannesburg of Rwanda's exiled former army chief was orchestrated by well-heeled Rwandan soldiers living in Europe, a witness told a South African court on Wednesday.

Six men went on trial Wednesday for the shooting of Kayumba Nyamwasa, Rwanda's former top general, at his home in Johannesburg in June 2010.

Nyamwasa had arrived in South Africa four months earlier, after abandoning his post as ambassador to India, amid allegations of corruption and a falling-out with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

A week before the shooting, one of the accused, Rwandan national Amani Uriwani, said that Rwandan “military men” from Europe with lots of cash and cars had asked for his help “to shoot at a military person”, according to witness Kalisa Mubarak.

“He said they are Rwandese from Europe. They also want to shoot another Rwandese,” said Mubarak, an immigrant who runs a hair salon in central Johannesburg.

Mubarak told the court that Uriwani said he had been offered 10,000 rand ($1,500, 1,000 euros) to take part in the attack.

Three Tanzanians and three Rwandans have been charged with attempted murder. All six have pleaded not guilty.

The case has strained relations between South Africa and Rwanda, which wants to bring Nyamwasa home to serve a 24-year prison sentence after a military court tried him in absentia on charges of desertion, defamation and threatening state security.

Britain Suspends President Kagame’s Visit.

2011-06-30T03:48:00.003+02:00

Umuvugizi
29 June 2011

The British government has surprisingly suspended President Paul Kagame’s planned visit which was schedule to take place between July 18 and 24th, 2011. During the same visit, Pres. Kagame was expected to be featured as the guest of honour at a Rwandan youth convention known as Itorero.

Reliable sources claim that the Rwandan Diaspora in the United Kingdom is preparing to foot the expenses incurred in organising the halted presidential visit to the UK.
The suspended planned visit comes days after the British government warned Kigali authorities against political activities carried out by Rwanda’s ruling party the RPF on British soil which are said to be targeting Rwandan refugees living in the country.

Recently, the British Scotland Yard Police and M15 sent a warning notice to members of the Rwandan opposition living in UK, warning them of possible security threats. The same police sent a warning to Rwanda’s Embassy in the UK informing them that tough diplomatic measures would be taken if members of the mission don’t stop in activities incompatible with their status.

A former Rwandan military intelligence official living in Belgium was suspected of involvement in similar incidences and was prevented from entering the UK. Another Rwandan spy, one Rubagumya was also arrested in Uganda on related Incidences.

All these events follow a series of meetings held by Rwanda’s key security officials around Europe. One of such meetings was held on January 15 in London chaired by the Chief Spy, Colonel Dr. Emmanuel Ndahiro. Also in attendance was Rwandan Ambassador to Britain Ernest Rwamucyo. Others allegedly at the meeting were Rwandan security operatives Jimmy Uwizeye, Col. Mupenzi, Linda, Lt. Tom Rwabugiri, and the representative of the Rwandan Diaspora in Britain, Mr. Mugabo.

Despite different pieces of evidence attained by British secret services implicating the Rwandan Government in dubious activities against its critics in UK, President Kagame recently strongly denied his Government’s involvement in these allegations and instead accused respected British security services of not being professional.

Although the UK is one of Rwanda’s key donors, it has maintained that it’s support is strictly based on mutual interests of respecting universal jurisdiction, freedom of press, freedom of expression and respecting the rights of citizens.

Suspending President Kagame’s visit sends a strong warning that the donor community and the entire European continent that it is interested in seeing a responsible government in Rwanda that is accountable to the citizens rather than one that is bent on using the donors’ money to expand the spy network that is cracking down on its own citizens in exile.

Rwandan Embassy in South Africa implicated in Gen. Kayumba case.

2011-06-30T03:46:00.002+02:00

Umuvugizi
29 June 2010
By Jean-Bosco Gasasira

A South African court hearing a case where the prosecution accuses over ten suspects in the June 2010 attempted assassination of Rwanda’s former Army Chief General Kayumba Nyamwasa that opened Tuesday June 28, in Johannesburg has implicated Rwandan embassy.

Appearing before the West Gate court, one of the key witnesses in the case surprised the court which was packed with diplomats, Military personnel from different countries, Rwandans living in South Africa and international journalists when he mentioned one of the senior staff at Rwandan Embassy in the plot to murder the general.

Responding to the grilling questions from the prosecution, the witness explained how the team had planned to carry out the assassination; mentioning the embassy staff Jean Paul Nyirubutama as a key player in the failed plot to end Gen Kayumba’s life.

The witness who is a close associate of the key suspects referred to as 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the trial also the ones who carried out the shooting explained what he had communicated with the said suspects but could not know what other suspects 5 and 6 had communicated noting the fact that they could have been working with the top most planners of the plot.

The case was adjourned to today (Wednesday) owing it to a poor interpreter who could not speak perfect Kinyarwanda as he was a Burundian the prosecution opted to get a different trusted interpreter who can speak Kinyarwanda, the language the key witness uses.

The case, which opened at 9:00 o’clock went up to 2:00 o’clock due its involvement of many issues that include attempted and conspiracy to murder, unlawful possession of arms and ammunition and trying to bribe police with one million US dollars by one Pascal Kanyandekwe.

The court which was highly guarded by South Africa’s security personnel proved that it was a security sensitive case that may provide more secrets over the role by the Kigali government in the attempted assassination of Kayumba Nyamwasa in June last year considering the fact that Rwanda refused to lift the diplomatic immunity of its embassy staff to allow investigations.

Rwandan soldiers behind SA assassination attempt, court told.

2011-06-29T19:20:00.002+02:00

Mail & Guardian
by DONNA BRYSON
June 29 2011 16:20

One of the men accused of trying to kill a former Rwandan general exiled in South Africa said that Rwandan soldiers with plenty of cash and cars were behind the plot, a friend testified on Wednesday.

The testimony came on the second day of trial in the June 2010 shooting of Lieutenant General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa. The former Rwandan military chief went into exile just months before he was attacked in Johannesburg.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame's government has denied allegations of involvement in the case. However, witnesses in the trial have asked for special protection, saying they fear the Rwandan government.

Kalisa Mubarak, a 36-year-old Rwandan who immigrated to South Africa in 2003, testified on Wednesday that he has known one of the six suspects since they were children.

He said that former Rwandan soldier Amani Uriwani told him about being recruited by some European-based Rwandans to help with a job in Johannesburg.

Mubarak said his friend would only say the target was also a soldier, and he tried to talk Uriwani out of taking part. Uriwani was offered R10 000 for his part in the attack, according to his friend's testimony.

Prosecutors say Mubarak has been moved with his wife and three children to a secret location under a witness protection programme.

Two body guards sat nearby as he testified in English and Kinyarwanda. He wore dark glasses and sat in the witness stand with his chin sunk in a black-and-white checked scarf draped around his neck.

Three Rwandans and three Tanzanians are accused of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and other charges in Nyamwasa's shooting.

Nyamwasa and other Rwandans living abroad have accused the president of crushing dissent and democracy after he helped to end the 1994 genocide.

In danger

In May, British police warned some Rwandan exiles living in the UK that their lives were in danger, and the threat is believed to have emanated from the Rwandan government.

Human rights groups say opposition politicians, journalists and civil society activists have been subjected to crackdowns inside Rwanda as well.

The key suspect in the South Africa case is Pascal Kanyandekwe, a Rwandan businessman. He's also accused of plotting to kill Nyamwasa while the general was hospitalised after the shooting.

Kanyandekwe and four men not linked to the shooting are to stand trial in the hospital plot later this month. He also is accused of bribery after two police officers said he offered them $1-million to let him go when they arrested him in July 2010.

Plot to strangle Rwandan General in SA hospital after failed assasination attempt.

2011-06-28T17:58:00.003+02:00

June 28 2011 at 05:03pm
By Donna Bryson
Pretoria News

First a gunman shot an exiled Rwandan army general. When he survived, prosecutors say the people who wanted him dead plotted to strangle him in his South African hospital bed.

Prosecutors won't say whether they believe Rwandan President Paul Kagame's government was behind the attack carried out in another corner of the continent.

But on Tuesday as the trial began, prosecutors disclosed that key witnesses are now under special protection in South Africa because they fear the Rwandan government.

Rwandan authorities have angrily denied the allegations of involvement in the June 2010 attack on Lt. Gen. Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, and have even hired a South African lawyer to monitor the court proceedings this week in Johannesburg.

“The government of Rwanda doesn't have anything to hide. They're not involved in this,” their lawyer Gerhard van der Merwe told The Associated Press.

Prosecutor Shaun Abrahams refused to say Tuesday whether his case would implicate the Rwandan government. He said the evidence will speak for itself during the complex trial, which is being conducted in English and translated into three other languages: French, Swahili and Kinyarwanda.

The shooting victim, who has kept a low profile since the June 2010 attack, also faces international war crimes charges linked to the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide - allegations he denies.

Nyamwasa was once Rwanda's military chief before he fell out with the president and went into exile in South Africa last year. He and several other top Kagame aides have since been convicted in absentia on charges that include threatening state security.

Now three Rwandans and three Tanzanians are accused of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and other charges in Nyamwasa's shooting in South Africa. They each pleaded not guilty to the charges Tuesday.

Nyamwasa and other Rwandans living abroad have accused the president of crushing dissent and democracy after he helped to end the 1994 genocide that left more than 500,000 people dead in Rwanda.

In May, British police warned some Rwandan exiles living in the UK that their lives were in danger, and the threat is believed to have emanated from the Rwandan government.

Human rights activists also charged last year that Rwanda's Tutsi-led government was pursuing Hutus in neighboring Uganda. Rwanda's government denied involvement in a series of attacks on Hutu Rwandans in Uganda.

Human rights groups say opposition politicians, journalists and civil society activists have been subjected to crackdowns inside Rwanda as well. Earlier this year, in a case Human Rights Watch said was politically motivated,

Rwanda's High Court sentenced an opposition leader to four years in prison on charges of endangering national security, attempting to organize unauthorized protests and inciting ethnic divisions.

The key suspect in the South Africa case is Pascal Kanyandekwe, a Rwandan businessman. He's also accused of plotting to kill Nyamwasa while the general was hospitalized after the shooting.

Kanyandekwe and four men not linked to the shooting are to stand trial in the hospital plot later this month. He also is accused of bribery after two police officers said he offered them $1 million to let him go when they arrested him in July 2010.

The other two Rwandans accused in the case are Nyamwasa's driver and a former Rwandan soldier, according to prosecutors.

While Nyamwasa portrays himself as a champion of democracy and is a victim in the trial that opened Tuesday, he also faces serious criminal charges.

He and other senior Tutsis are accused of waging an extermination campaign against Hutus in the chaotic aftermath of Rwanda's genocide -charges that Nyamwasa denies.

A Spanish judge in 2008 charged Nyamwasa and 39 other members of the Rwandan military with the mass killings of civilians after they seized power in Rwanda.

A U.N. report last year echoed the 2008 Spanish charges, accusing invading Rwandan troops of killing tens of thousands of Hutus in 1996 and 1997 in neighboring Congo.

South African refugee and human rights groups have gone to court to try to have Nyamwasa's asylum status stripped because of the allegations.

In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, the groups acknowledge it might not be safe for Nyamwasa to return to Rwanda and instead proposed that he be tried in South Africa.

Sapa-AP

Rwandan Police allegedly on manhunt for FDU-Inkingi member in Gisagara District, Southern Province.

2011-06-28T01:00:00.004+02:00

Done in Kigali
27th June 2011

On 6th June 2011, the FDU-Inkingi informed the public about a spree of night gun murders in parts of Rwanda, particularly in Gisagara District (Southern Province). The police accused the opposition party of trying to rush to the media before officially reporting the incidents. Since then, a police manhunt began for FDU-Inkingi member, Mr. Jean-Bosco Hanganimana, a resident of Gisagara District.

From the 25th June, deployments of mobile police forces and night army patrols sent residents of the Higiro location (Sector Nyanza, Gisagara District) into a panic.
The same day, the Executive of Higiro location, Madame Niwebasa Assumpta, expelled Mr. Jean Bosco Hanganimana, an FDU-Inkingi member, from the Umuganda community work in Nyanza sector and stated that “nobody should worry about what will happen to that FDLR supporter and to those opposed to the ruling RPF”. At 16:00, the police searched his house but failed to arrest him. At 20:00, without a search warrant, 6 soldiers, a local defence forces' staff and a civilian night patrolman stormed his house, searched it and arrested his wife who was later released.

Many months before on 12th November 2010, the police abducted Mr. Jean-Bosco Hanganimana from the hospital and detained him for 19 days on unknown charges. There were allegations he was abused and tortured in detention. He was reportedly attacked because he belongs to the FDU-Inkingi.

The FDU-Inkingi party is calling on the Rwandan government to impartially investigate these incidents and ensure all local authorities and security services respect the basic rights of all Rwandan citizens.

For the FDU-Inkingi,

Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice-President

U.S. Hosted Alleged Rwandan War Criminal for Military Visit.

2011-06-20T19:59:00.003+02:00

The Atlantic
20 June 2010
By Armin Rosen

In late May, a handful of modestly sourced news accounts, few of them in English, reported that a Rwandan military official had been arrested in the United States, possibly even in Washington, DC, for alleged war crimes committed during the 1990s --only to re-appear in his home country a few days later. The truth of what happened would turn out to be far more complicated and surprising. An investigation by TheAtlantic.com reveals that the Rwandan official, who is currently under international indictment for the suspected killing of Spanish non-government organization (NGO) employees in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, visited a U.S. military facility while on official business for the Rwandan government, and with the specific permission of the U.S. government. Though it's still unclear whether he was actually arrested or just briefly detained while entering the United States, the case exposes the complexity of a U.S.-Rwandan relationship in which human rights and strategic interests are coming into increasing conflict. It also underscores how little reach international law has within U.S. borders, at times compromising the possibility of bringing suspected war criminals to justice.

According to multiple European media reports, including a May 25 article in Spain's El Pais newspaper, Justus Majyambere, a major in the Rwandan Defense Forces, was arrested during a visit to the United States. In 2008, Majyambere had been indicted in absentia in Spain for his alleged role in the killing of nine Spanish NGO workers in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the years following the 1994 Rwandan ethnic genocide.

Since the genocide ended and rebel leader Paul Kagame took over as president, a post he has now held for 11 years, Rwanda and the United States have enjoyed close relations. Kagame's Rwanda is often described as the most politically stable nation in central Africa; for a time, Kagame himself was seen as a potential savior for a region riven with conflict. But Kagame's human rights record has come under increasing scrutiny, particularly after his purported 93 percent victory in last year's presidential election. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton conspicuously avoided Rwanda during both of her trips to Africa.

The arrest of a Rwandan government official on ostensibly friendly foreign soil would have dealt a blow to the U.S.-Rwanda relationship. The Rwandan government is extremely sensitive about the international justice system. A number of Rwandan officials are currently under foreign indictments, making travel for them difficult and undermining the government's international legitimacy. Many, including Kagame himself, were indicted in absentia in France in 2006, an incident that imploded relations between the two countries.

For Spain, the stakes are hardly lower. According to Leonardo Marcos, an official at the Spanish embassy in Washington, DC, Majyambere is currently under an Interpol "red notice," a worldwide bulletin that is roughly equivalent to an arrest warrant in much of the European Union, but is treated with less authority in the United States. As far as Spain is concerned, Majyambere is a fugitive from justice, and a war criminal responsible for the murder of Spanish citizens.

A few days after the initial reports of Majyambere's arrest, the story died. It wasn't mentioned in a single American newspaper. In light of Rwandan denials and a lack of official confirmation of Majyambere's arrest, the story seemed more like an online rumor than cause for a diplomatic showdown between the U.S., Spain, and Rwanda. Even Marcos said that the Spanish government's official position on the matter is that the media reports are a case of mistaken identity. "Maybe the American police detained or arrested somebody with a similar or the same name," said Marcos. "But this person, Justus Majyambere, has been not arrested yet."

Even for the Spanish embassy, reports of Majyambere's arrest are based on unsubstantiated reports -- little more than rumors. But those rumors have turned out to be grounded in fact. According to a memo from Spain's National Central Bureau of Interpol to Spanish Judge Fernando Andreu, on May 15, the U.S. Central Bureau of Interpol sent an urgent message to their Spanish counterparts. Somewhere in the United States, border police had run a background check on an individual suspected of "illegal immigration." The check returned Majyambere's red notice, producing a flurry of communication between Spain's Interpol office and Judge Andreu, whose court had indicted Majyambere, along with 39 other Rwandan military officers, in 2008.

Interpol told Andreu that the U.S. had detained an individual named Justus Mayambere, who was born in Mbarara, Uganda in 1966. According to Jordi Palou-Rognoni, a Spanish lawyer who was instrumental in pushing for the 2008 indictments, Andreu later intimated to the Americans that they had, in fact, detained an individual who his court had indicted three years earlier. "The Judge confirmed the international arrest warrant to the U.S. authorities," Rognoni said in an email, "and that [Majyambere] was active under a red code (confirming the suspect was born in 1966 in Mbarara, Uganda)."

Yet Rognoni added that Spanish officials lacked a photograph of the suspect. The letter from Interpol to Andreu, obtained by TheAtlantic.com, expressed a certain muted frustration at the U.S. authorities. "Despite what has been stated," the letter reads, "the American authorities can not confirm that this person came to their country." In any event, a Rwandan radio station in Kigali reported on May 25 that Majyambere had safely returned to Rwanda.

None of the officials who spoke on or off the record for this article have been able to confirm whether the person detained on May 15 was in fact Majyambere. But a body of circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that he was. Military officials in both the United States and Rwanda and law enforcement officials in the U.S. confirm that Majyambere did in fact enter the United States on May 15. He had left Rwanda the previous day, later boarding a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

RDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jules Rutaremara confirmed that Majyambere visited, saying that he was traveling in his official capacity as a staff director at Rwanda's military academy, along with two other RDF officers. They were interested, Rutaremara said, in starting a Rwandan war college, modeled in part after those in the U.S. The U.S. Army has an internationally respected military staff college at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, where the Rwandan delegation stayed from May 15 to 21, according to Leavenworth media relations official Rebecca Steed. Despite the Spanish indictment, the Interpol red notice, and what reports suggest may have been temporary arrest upon landing in the U.S., Majyambere was able to travel freely throughout the country. He even met with Brigadier General Sean McFarland, the fort's deputy commandant.

The United States and Spain share an extradition treaty, which enables both countries to detain and extradite anyone indicted by the other country's justice system. It's unclear why, then, the Rwandan government would risk sending Majyambere to the U.S., knowing that the extradition treaty compelled his arrest. But the RDF says they weren't concerned, and that Majyambere's case never came up during preparations for his visit to the United States. "You secure a guarantee [not to arrest] after discussions and negotiations," said spokesperson Rutaremara over email. "RDF did not discuss or negotiate with anyone regarding Majyambere's case."

That the U.S. government would choose not to object to an accused war criminal's official presence in the United States -- tolerating his presence even after law enforcement learned of the red notice, and allowing him to return home unmolested -- reveals the U.S.'s complicated relationship with the Rwandan government and with international law itself.

Majyambere's case stands at the center of two interrelated diplomatic subplots: the U.S.'s growing wariness of Rwandan president Paul Kagame, and its longtime ambivalence towards international legal mechanisms, like the International Criminal Court or the still-controversial idea of universal jurisdiction for human rights-related crimes.

Both stances are fraught with contradictions. On Rwanda, the United States supports the Kagame government for its stability and overall competence, although human rights concerns have caused the relationship to cool. In the years after the Rwandan genocide, "The view was, 'Look, this is a rough neighborhood and the value of having a stable ally that actually has control over territory is worth kind of looking the other way,'" Laura Seay, an assistant professor of political science at Morehouse College with an expertise in Central Africa, told me. "What we've seen in the last couple years is a shift away form those policies," and a shift towards not being as congratulatory and not discussing Rwanda as one of the 'golden boys of Africa.'" Seay said that, significantly, the United States did not even congratulate Kagame on his reelection last year, which he won with 93 percent of the vote amid allegations of fraud.

U.S. policy on international law is even murkier. The U.S. still hasn't signed on to the Rome Statute to participate in the International Criminal Court, despite its heavy rhetorical support for human rights. This isn't quite as hypocritical as it would seem: incidents like former vice president Richard Cheney's indictment in Nigeria last year demonstrate that universal jurisdiction has its setbacks. Jeremy Rabkin, a law professor at George Mason University, explained that an overly-broad concept of legal jurisdiction could undermine global diplomacy and sew more chaos than it prevents. "Criminal prosecution is the most severe thing you can do short of unleashing troops or cruise missiles," Rabkin said. "There's a whole range of things you can do before you get up to that."

In May of 2008, Rwanda, international legal theory, and even Majyambere himself converged in a meeting between then-U.S. ambassador at-large for war crimes issues Clint Williamson and Spanish officials -- a meeting documented in a Wikileaks cable. "Ambassador Williamson urged the Spanish government to reach out to the Rwandan government at the political level to try to ease tensions over the Spanish judiciary's indictment of 40 Rwandan officials in connection with the deaths of nine Spanish citizens between 1994 and 2000," the U.S.-authored cable says. Later in the meeting, Spanish officials admitted that the indictment had strained relations with Rwanda; the Spanish Director General for Africa even implied that Judge Andreu had been reckless in indicting scores of high-ranking members of the Rwandan military:

Deputy DG for Africa Sanchez-Benedito told Williamson May 19 that the family and associates of the nine Spanish victims had convinced the Spanish judge to take on the case and that all of the testimony and evidence gathered pointed to forces within the RPF as responsible. He said the judge therefore decided to expand the prosecution to include nearly the entire Rwandan military and senior government apparatus with the exception of Kagame, noting that he was exempted solely because of his immunity as head of state.

The indictment -- which included Majyambere -- had apparently become a diplomatic burden to Spain, Rwanda, and the United States. And, according to a human rights researcher who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the indictment is "not very well put together," and "too wide-ranging in the number of cases it's trying to cover."

But the case did not go away. Rwanda was forced to recall defense attaché Rugumya Gaginya from its embassy in Washington, DC after Andreu's court indicted him. Last year, Stop Impunity in Rwanda, a Spanish organization which also helped push for the indictments, led a campaign to extradite former RDF official Kayumba Nyamwasa from South Africa.

The indictments still carry the force of law, putting the U.S. government in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between international legal norms that it has yet to fully embrace, and a problematic relationship with a regional ally -- an ally whose human rights record is getting increasingly more ominous.

In October of 2010, the Kagame government suffered one of the worst setbacks in its 11-year history. That month, the United Nations released a mapping report cataloguing human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 1993 and 2003. The report documented the heavy toll of Rwanda's 1996 and 1998 invasions in the Congo, singling out the Rwandan army and its proxies for "the apparently relentless pursuit and mass killing ... of Hutu refugees, members of the former Armed Forces of Rwanda and militias implicated in the genocide of 1994 (Interahamwe).". While Majyambere himself is not mentioned in the report, he was a high-ranking officer during the period it covers -- if the Rwandan military did pursue a policy of targeting Hutu civilians, he likely would have been involved in implementing it.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania is only empowered to prosecute crimes committed during the 1994 genocide. This effectively gives the Kagame government a pass on human rights violations it might have committed in the years after the conflict, during its attempts at weeding out Hutu genocidaires who had taken refuge in eastern Congo. That could now change. "The mapping report definitely provides a basis for legal proceedings," Seay said.

But what kind of legal proceedings? And by whom? Rognoni, the Spanish lawyer, views his country's prosecution as a chance to establish legal accountability for human rights violations like the ones described in the mapping report. "When we talk about crimes against humanity or genocide or war crimes we're talking about the most severe crimes," he said. The Spanish indictments have at least limited officials' ability to travel in Europe; if it weren't for the Spanish court system, Rognoni said, the accused might enjoy total impunity. Seay said that she is more reticent about the effects of judicial activism on human rights. "It can make a difference at least in finding people and tracking them down," she said. "But, does it reek of neo-colonialism and overreach into an independent country's affairs? Absolutely. Can we trust that that country is one that will ensure that justice is done no matter who the perpetrators are? Right now, the answer is no."

The Spanish indictment broadly accused Majyambere and 39 other Rwandan officers of war crimes committed in Rwanda and the Congo in the late 90s. . Yet it specifically accuses Majyambere of plotting to kill Spanish NGO workers. Rognoni told me that a "protected witness who was part of Rwandan Patriotic Army" places Majyambere at a meeting in which an attack that resulted in the deaths of three Spanish doctors was planned. "That witness knew that Captain Majyambere was in charge of that operation together with another person, there that was a mixed team of gendarme and the military," said Rognoni. The indictment itself says that Majyambere "would have been one of the members who participated in the attack on the headquarters of Medicos del Mundo and in the murder of Manuel Madrazo, Flores Sirera and Luis Valtuena."

The U.S. didn't take these accusations very seriously, even though they involve the alleged murder of a close ally's citizens at the hands of a government with a troubling human rights record. According to the Ft. Leavenworth press office, any foreign visitors to a U.S. military installation are subject to a rigorous background check. "Foreign officer requests to visit are worked through appropriate Defense and State Department channels to include embassies in the requesting countries and military commands with responsibility for the country and region," wrote Steed in an email. The Rwandan request for this particular trip was "processed through US AFRICOM, and all travel was coordinated through the US Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda." According to Steed, military officials at Ft. Leavenworth had no idea that Majyambere was an accused war criminal, or that there was an active Interpol red notice out on him.

By all accounts, Majyambere's visit was a routine one, his alleged detention (which at this point remains unconfirmed) an easily ignored hiccup, rather than a full-blown international incident. Faced with a choice between upholding international law and maintaining good ties with an ally whose human rights record is questionable enough to attract UN investigations and international indictments, the U.S. chose the latter.

NIA hunts Rwandan death squads in South Africa.

2011-06-20T18:09:00.003+02:00

City Press
19 June 2011
By Jacques Pauw

Local intelligence operatives are hunting down Rwandan death squads operating in South Africa.

The hitmen have been dispatched to South Africa to assassinate an exiled general who is allegedly plotting to overthrow the regime of President Paul Kagame.

City Press has learnt that the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has over the past year thwarted several attempts by Rwandan intelligence operatives to find and kill Lieutenant-General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, the former Rwandan army chief.

Nyamwasa, once one of the most powerful men in Rwanda, was shot and wounded in Joburg in June last year when a Rwandan agent came to South Africa and hired Tanzanian gunmen.

City Press can also reveal that the presence of Rwandan death squads in South Africa has triggered a diplomatic crisis between Kigali and Pretoria.

The latter recalled its high commissioner in Rwanda a year ago and has not returned him, while the Rwandan high commission in Pretoria is also without a high commissioner.

The South African secret service chief, Moe Shaik, has over the past year been dispatched to Rwanda several times to dissuade Rwandan intelligence commanders from sending their hitmen to South Africa.

Approached for comment, Shaik referred City Press to NIA spokesperson Brian Dube, who did not respond to questions.

Gen. Nyamwasa was last year granted political asylum in South Africa.

City Press was told that further evidence emerged of Rwandan death squads operating abroad last week when an alleged agent was arrested in Kampala, Uganda.

The agent had a large amount of money on him, carried a gun and had three passports, one of which included a South African visa.

The Rwandan government did not respond to any requests for comment.

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South African Security Services Hunt Down Rwandan Operatives
AfroAmerican Network
by James Tish
19 June 2011

Sources close to South African Police tell AfroAmerica Network that South African Security Services have been on alert after several Rwandans, believed to be intelligence operatives and assassins, were arrested. Security services seized multiple passports, including fake South African passports, on Rwandans traveling across Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. The seizure of the fake passports follow a disclosure by South African police of recorded communications between alleged Rwandan high-ranking intelligence officials and Rwandan operatives based in South Africa.

Based on the translations by AfroAmerica Network partners and the confirmation from South African sources, the conversations are allegedly among the Rwandan external intelligence Chief General Jack Nziza, General Paul Kagame’s security advisor Emmanuel Ndahiro, Captain Francis Gakwerere and Pascal Kanyandekwe, the alleged assassins, and General Kayumba Nyamwasa’s personal driver.

In the taped phone conversations, one hears Rwandan intelligence and security services chiefs organizing the assassinations of General Kayumba on his hospital bed, after he had survived an earlier assassassination. The Rwandan operatives propose to use South African killers dressed in either doctor or police uniforms to get into hospital and shoot the Rwandan dissident General. They said South African killers have asked to be paid US $500,000 with the first half to be paid before the assassination. In one tape, the Rwandan intelligence chiefs agree to the price but asked to be swift given that the assassination must coincide with the opening of the World Soccer Cup tournament in South Africa.

In another tape, Rwandan intelligence propose to rather use an innovative poison that the Rwandan security services have developing and testing on dogs and inmates. The Rwandan intelligence chiefs says that the poison kills the victim within two months and does not leave any traces, which would be critical in this case and insisted that this time they should not miss.

The Rwandan operatives agree with the position and say that if necessary, they would physically eliminate the South African “white” policeman guarding the injured general and shoot and injure themselves to give impression of an attack by outside assassins. (The alleged recordings can he heard in Kinyarwandan at http://youtu.be/dJyrw64XSxQ and http://youtu.be/2DtJoatr8VM)

The tapes and the arrests of operatives with fake passports have created an upheaval within the South African security services, especially the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

NIA head Lizo Gibson Njenje and NIA chief Moe Shaik have personally decided to handle the sensitive case, Moe Shaik has made several trips to Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe over the last months to ask for their cooperation to apprehend the operatives and warn local intelligence services. According to AfroAmerica Network sources, the conversations among Rwandan intelligence and security chiefs, General Nziza and General Emmanuel Ndahiro and Moe Shaik were so tense that Moe Shaik asked to meet General Paul Kagame to warn him of the consequences. Instead, he met the Rwandan Foreign Affairs minister, Ms. Louise Mushikiwabo, who repeated the diplomatic denial of the implications of Rwanda in assassination plots against Rwandan dissidents in South Africa.

South Africa recalled its High Commissioner in Rwanda last year to protest the assassination attempts. So far, the South African High Commissioner has not returned to Rwanda and Rwandan high commission in South Africa has reduced its high ranking staff.

Rwandan Constitutional Law and the Oppression of Political Opposition and Dissidents.

2011-06-20T06:29:00.006+02:00

Rwandan Constitutional Law and the Oppression ofPolitical Opposition and Dissidents.

By David Barouski

Originally published 11 November 2010. Revised on 19 June 2011.

Adapted from the article "Leaked: Rwandan Secret Services’ Plan toEliminate Victoire Ingabire" posted on "The Proxy Lake," blog on17 October 2010.(1)

Introduction

The Rwandan Department of Military Intelligence [DMI], in collaboration withthe Rwandan national police, allegedly masterminded a conspiracy to indict andeventually eliminate Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, Chairperson of theUnited Democratic Forces [FDU]-Inkingi, an unregistered Rwandan oppositionparty. The alleged plan was initiated by leveling a new criminal charge againstMadame Ingabire. The charge claims that she collaborated with a newly formedarmed group affiliated with her political party. This information comes fromUmuvugizi, a Rwandan local newspaper that recently had its six-monthgovernment-imposed ban lifted after the suspension’s time period expired.(2)The article containing the allegations was published on Sunday, 17 October2010.

Based on a tip-off from an informant allegedly inside Rwandan President PaulKagame’s DMI, Umuvugizi’s exiled Chief Editor Jean-Bosco Gasasira(3) claims thealleged plot against Madame Ingabire was engineered by Colonel Dan Munyuza ofthe Rwandan Defense Forces [RDF]. He was allegedly assisted by General PaulRwarakabije, a former senior officer of the Rwandan gendarmerie during theregime of the late President Juvenal Habyarimana. After fleeing to [then] Zairein 1994, General Rwarakabije eventually became a senior commander in theDemocratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda [FDLR], a non-state armed groupthat opposes the Rwandan government. After defecting and repatriating back toRwanda, he became a commissioner in Rwanda's Demobilization and ReintegrationCommission, which deals with repatriating and reintegrating Rwandan citizenswho were members of opposing non-state armed groups.

General Rwarakabije was allegedly asked to find Hutu former FDLR soldierswilling to play a role in the alleged plot by acting as witnesses to affirm theallegedly false accusations against Madame Ingabire in court and secure herconviction. The article claimed, “General Rwarakabije picked one of his menfrom FRDL [sic!], a certain Major [Vital] Uwumuremyi, who arrived in Rwanda afew months ago with his group. Once in Rwanda, he was given a mission to returnto Congo to spy on his comrades. He carried out his secret mission on severaloccasions before they were able to trust him. Information we have confirms thathe received a large amount of money to convince him and be confident.”(4)

Original Targets?

The article also said it is believed that after former RDF General KayumbaNyamwasa and the former head of the external division of the DMI, ColonelPatrick Karegeya, defected and fled Rwanda for South Africa, the DMI decided toaccuse them both of being accomplices to acts of terrorism in Rwanda. Theseaccusations followed a series of grenade attacks in Kigali, the capital ofRwanda. With domestic criminal charges leveled against them, the Rwandangovernment demanded they be sent back to Rwanda to stand trial.

Allegedly, the plan was to isolate and demonize them because both men stillmaintain strong support within the RDF and with some civilian members ofPresident Kagame’s political party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front [RPF].President Kagame perceives this as a direct threat to his rule because theirpolitical influence could divide the RDF and military institutions, creatingthe possibility of an internal coup. There are soldiers in the army and somecivilians in the Rwandan government who have grown disillusioned with PresidentKagame’s rule and/or cultivated close personal ties with General Nyamwasaand/or Colonel Karegeya from their days as fellow refugees in Uganda and/or byserving with them when they were members of Uganda’s army in the late 1980sand/or when they were together in the Rwandan military.

To try and stop internal divisions from growing, several key RDF officials werearrested. Other soldiers suspected of having loyalties to General Nyamwasaand/or Colonel Karegeya were shipped away from Rwanda to serve in the jointAfrican Union/United Nations Mission in Darfur [UNAMID].(5) Leadershippositions in the RDF and civilian government posts were reshuffled. Somecivilian government officials related to the arrested soldiers and soldierssuspected of sympathizing and/or collaborating with General Nyamwasa andColonel Karegeya were removed from their positions. Most of the civiliangovernment positions were filled by aspiring politicians that were eager to actas proverbial “Yes Men” for President Kagame in order to advance their personalpolitical careers. The higher-ranking RDF soldiers who were not imprisoned butsuspected of collaboration or dissent were transferred to new appointments thatrequired more administrative work and often reduced their amount of directcontact with fellow RDF soldiers, especially those sympathetic to them. Thehigher-ranking soldiers given new positions were separated from each other. Areduction of direct contact impaired their ability to politically socializesoldiers under their command and the new incoming soldiers, reducing the chancethat dissent in the army [the most powerful institution in Rwanda] would grow.This arrangement also allowed President Kagame and his loyal members in the DMIthe opportunity to keep a closer eye on their activities. President Kagameraised the salaries of his presidential guard as an extra safety precaution andhas become more aggressive in indoctrinating Rwandan youth.

A Recycled Plan?

The Umuvugizi article goes on to say, “When this strategy did not work asplanned as South Africa refused to extradite both generals,(6) the plan wasredirected at Mme Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza’s arrest, using agent MajorUwumuremyi, especially because her earlier accusations were widely seen asfalse.” Other commentators and analysts believe the re-arrest is a case ofdiversionary scapegoating politics intended to deflect attention away from therecently released UN Mapping Report that details widespread, systematic crimescommitted by various state and non-state armed actors in the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo [DRC] over the time period of 1993-2003. The Rwandanarmy, allied with the late Laurent Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces forthe Liberation of Congo-Zaire [ADFL-CZ], was singled out as committing the mostserious international crimes; crimes the report clearly states may evenconstitute genocide.(7) Another potential factor in the targeting of MadameIngabire is simply the regime's long-standing penchant for retaliating againstall those who oppose them.

Madame Victoire Ingabire’s Crisis

Very shortly after Madame Ingabire returned to her home country of Rwanda inJanuary 2010, she visited the Gisozi genocide memorial. Before she left thememorial, she publicly called for the prosecution of war crimes and crimesagainst humanity committed against Hutu in 1994, which is part of theInternational Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s [ICTR] mandate.(8) She also saidthere should be a commemoration of Hutu victims killed during 1994.(9) As aresult of her comments, she was arrested and accused of genocide ideology,divisionism and genocide denial as well as collaborating with the FDLR. She wasgranted bail on these charges but put under strict house arrest and constantsurveillance. She could not leave Kigali by order of the judge. She also had toreport to the local police headquarters regularly for interrogation.

In her re-arrest, the charges against her were amended. She is now also accusedof participating in the formation of a new armed group to oppose the Rwandangovernment, the Coalition of Democratic Forces [CDF], alleged to be the armedwing of her political party. Mr. Jean-Bosco Gasasira claims this new charge isfabricated. He says the DMI conspired to invent the CDF and even issued fake“official” press releases to give the charges perceived legitimacy. Thesedocuments will be used as evidence against her in court.

According to Umuvugizi, “Secret services carefully planned Victoire Ingabire’scase. When the conspiracy was properly set, the plan was submitted to Kagamewho accepted it. He immediately started to stress that it is not illegal toindict an opposition figure when they are guilty. He passed on the plan to thepolice and the prosecutor’s office so that they can start acting on it. AgentUwumuremyi was already prepared to falsely accuse Victoire Ingabire ofparticipating in the formation of the army group.”

Umuvugizi’s alleged inside source even stated that, “Victoire Ingabire will begiven a slow killer type of poison that will put an end to her politicalcareer. At the same time, agents of special intelligence in diplomatic missionsin Rwanda are working hard to convince ambassadors that Victoire Ingabire waspart of the terrorist army group.”

Elections, the 2003 Constitution and Rwanda’s Democratic Deficit

Some of the original charges against Madame Ingabire stem from controversialamendments to the 2003 Rwandan constitution. The RPF has a pattern ofconsolidating their power during election years. They accomplish this bypassing key legislative initiatives prior to the elections in order to createnew laws that can be used as a means to further close off political space andcontrol political discourse.

The 2003 presidential electionlegitimized Paul Kagame's position as Rwanda’s president in the eyes of theinternational community despite numerous elections observers uncoveringwidespread evidence of various forms of electoral fraud and rigging.(10) The2003 elections formally established what some political scientists would terman “illiberal democracy,” which is a common trait of emerging multi-partyelectoral systems in Africa.(11) The RPF now had anofficial mandate to further consolidate its power over state institutions. TheRwandan state increasingly exhibited several traits scholars find relativelycommon among African states: Concentration rather than separation of power;control rather than facilitation; and compliance rather than deliberation.(12)

Shortly after the 2003 presidentialand parliamentary elections, the RPF-dominated government replaced the 1991Rwandan constitution by referendum on 26 May 2003. The new constitution made"revisionism," "negationism," and "trivialization" of the 1994 genocide a crimepunishable by law. "Propagation of ethnic, regional, racial, or discrimination of any other form of division," was also deemed punishable by law. All references to ethnicity were removed. Henceforth, there were no more Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa, only Rwandans, which, in principle, was a government-forced adoption of a nationalist identity, which comprised one element of the government's national reconciliation program. Additionally, any politicalparty based on ethnicity, race, tribe, clan, region, sex, religion, and/or "any other division which may give rise to discrimination" was prohibited under Article 54. A precident for such constitutional party bans was already present. Article 57 of the 1992 Burundian constitution institutionalized a ban on political parties based on ethnicity, regionalism, xenophobia and/or "genocide ideology."
The 2003 Rwandan constitution's crime of "divisionism" is often leveled againstdissidents and political opponents who specifically reference or talk aboutissues in the context of ethnicity. Terms used in the constitution such as "divisionism," "trivialization," and "revisionism" are all very vaguely defined,allow for a great deal of subjectivity, and provide a potential soft power toolof oppression for the regime. To avoid realization that the new laws could potentiallybe used to restrict freedom of speech, they were legitimized through publicdiplomacy that put the new laws in a gain frame. Rwandans and the international community were told that such laws were needed because they were a necessary part of the country’s national reconciliation strategy and by extension would help prevent another genocide from taking place. The "genocide credit" and the guilt it invoked in many nation-states and the United Nations helped keep international criticism low initially. As a domestic supplement, the often harsh penalties passed down by the judiciary on those who were found guilty, as well as violence committed against journalists, civil society members, and officials make many Rwandans risk adverse and leads to self-censorship, allowing the government to control the discourse. It is noteworthy that the newconstitution was adopted by referendum during the same general time period the[then] Chief Prosecutor of the ICTR, Ms. Carla del Ponte, was being forced outof her position at the United Nations due to political pressure applied by theUnited Kingdom and the United States. She was conducting investigations intocrimes allegedly committed by the RPF in 1994 so that she could bring theperpetrators to trial at the ICTR.(13)

Rwanda’s State Institutions

In 2008, the RPF scored a resounding victory in parliamentary elections. TheRPF-controlled alliance won 42 of the 53 directly elected seats in the lowerhouse, the Chamber of Deputies. The remaining directly elected seats went tothe Social Democratic Party, or PSD [seven], and the Liberal Party, or PL[four]. Of the 27 seats that are not directly elected, 24 are set aside forwomen appointed by the National Women's Council, two to youth representativesappointed by the National Youth Council, and one to represent the disabledchosen by the National Disabled Council. The voting record of the PSD, PL, andthe various appointed members of the lower house in matters of presidentialpolicy show consistent voting with the RPF-led coalition. As a result, there isno opposition to any legislation designated as important by the president andthe RPF's legislative agenda is easily instituted.

The members of Rwanda's upper house, the Senate, are not directly elected by Rwandancitizens. 12 are elected by provincial and sector councils, eight are directlyappointed by the president [officially to ensure representation formarginalized communities], four are appointed by the Forum of PoliticalFormations and two are elected by the staff of the Rwandan universities. Mostindividuals, members of the organizations and government institution officialsthat appoint/elect senators are either RPF party members or follow RPFrecommendations. Naturally, the RPF currently holds the majority in the Senateand a democratic deficit in the legislative branch is apparent.

Rwanda has a semi-presidential system with a directly elected president andindirectly elected cabinet headed by a prime minister. However, executivepower, officially and unofficially, lies firmly with the Head of State, thepresident. The current Rwandan government system is highly authoritarian [someargue totalitarian]. The president has the sole authority to appoint the primeminister and has executive power to dissolve the parliament. The presidentformulates executive legislation with or without the advice of his cabinet andtrusted advisors and then introduces it into parliament. As a result of theRPF-alliance majority, the fact RPF party members are bound by the Oath ofOneness and some parliament members’ fear the consequences of opposing RPFlegislation, RPF power-holders, especially President Kagame, have the abilityto push through legislation that tightens their grip on power and erodes theseparation of powers with relative ease. Parliament members are deterred fromdebating bills and developing their own independent legislation, resulting in alack of representation for the needs of all the Rwandan people, especially theprimarily agriculturalist rural population, which is predominantly Hutu.

2008 Constitutional Amendments

In 2008, the RPF further solidified its grip on power by passing constitutionalamendments that created the infamous and vague "genocide ideology"law which is largely disconnected from the crime of genocide itself. Thenon-governmental organization [NGO] Article 19 claims the law is renderedillegitimate by international law on the grounds Rwanda ratified theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.(14) However, the covenant'sprotection can be lifted if there is a threat to national security, publicorder, and/or public health.(15) This is why individuals accused of genocideideology are also charged with "divisionism" [the prosecutor claimsthe accused poses a danger of inciting ethnic-based political violence and thusconstitutes a national security threat] and/or a charge that pertains directlyto national security [aiding a terrorist group, etc.] to prevent the defensefrom using this argument in court. The law is also fundamentally flawed becauseit has been used to charge people based on the logical fallacy of negativeproof.

Some elements of the international community are very critical of Rwanda'sgenocide ideology law because of the fact it can be so easily used as a way tostifle political opposition and dissidents. It was this law that was applied tosome of the charges leveled against Madame Ingabire, opposition figure Mr.Deogratias Mushayidi,(16) and also against Professor Peter Erlinder, anAmerican defense attorney who went to Rwanda to defend Madame Ingabire and wassubsequently arrested. He was charged with genocide denial and posing a threatto national security. He was eventually released on medical grounds followingenormous international pressure placed on the Rwandan government. However,Rwanda’s Prosecutor General, Mr. Martin Ngoga, has threatened to call uponProfessor Erlinder to return to Rwanda and stand trial for genocide denial nowthat the exact terms of the immunity extended to him by the ICTR as a defenseattorney are known.(17)

Due to international criticism, President Kagame’s government accepted a reviewof the genocide ideology law by international human rights organizations.Amnesty International, one of the reviewers, wrote a report heavily criticizingit as fundamentally flawed. Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama has statedthat the government is going to alter the genocide ideology law, but as of thiswriting the Cabinet has yet to follow through.(18)

There is a rapidly growing realization by many countries that some Rwandans whosought political asylum abroad and are now accused of crimes and indicted bythe Rwandan government back home are really innocent victims ofpolitically-motivated charges. In many cases, the Rwandan government's requestsfor trial extradition have been refused on grounds that the accused will notreceive a fair trial in Rwanda. For the same reason, the ICTR has, thus far,refused to transfer the cases of indicted individuals to be tried in Rwandandomestic courts.(19) However, the ICTR’s Chief Prosecutor, Hassan BubacarJallow, recently filed new applications for the transfer of three accusedindividuals to stand trial in Rwanda.

The Rwandan constitution was also amended so that the 1994 Rwandan genocidemust henceforth be referred to specifically as the "Genocide of theTutsi" and thus entrenched in constitutional law the government's versionof exactly what they claim happened: There was only a pre-planned and state-coordinatedgenocide committed against the Tutsi by the former government, its security apparatus,and allied militias.(20) A basic template for this amendment was provided bythe ICTR's judicial notice of 2006.(21) By defining the events of 6 April to 4July 1994, in such a specific way, the Rwandan government can stifle differingviewpoints on the subject and deter discussion and debate, especially on thealleged crimes against humanity committed by the RPA during the time period thegenocide was taking place; the belief some hold that there was allegedly a "doublegenocide" against Hutu; and that not all the violence committed bynon-RPA perpetrators was genocidal in nature. Other forms of political violenceoccurred as well as criminal activity.

The amendment also promotes self-censorship and aides in the closure of somepolitical cleavages and discourse opposition parties could exploit. Anyone inRwanda who claims that something happened or did not happen according to theRwandan constitutional version of history can be charged with genocidalideology, revisionism, negationism, and/or other related charges. This isexactly what happened to Victoire Ingabire after she arrived in Kigali. Theamendment also deters would-be Rwandan witnesses testifying against the RPF incourts and has impeded some investigations conducted in the country for courtcases.(22) Further implications of this amendment on Rwandan society and itseffect on the country’s national reconciliation program are many and beyond thescope of this article.

Another constitutional amendment in 2008 extended diplomatic immunity to allformer presidents of Rwanda. This is intended to protect President Kagame frominternational prosecution via the French and Spanish arrest warrants thataccuse President Kagame of crimes by international law. The French and Spanishcourts are currently unable to try him due to his diplomatic immunity as asitting president.(23)

Media and Rwandan Constitutional Law

In 2002, prior to Rwanda's first presidential election, the Rwandan governmentpassed a law and presidential decree to regulate domestic media. They imposedvaguely defined guidelines and heavy restrictions on media outlets and providedthe legal foundation for the RPF's institutionalized oppression of domesticmedia. The Rwandan government justified the so-called 2002 Media Law by remindingeveryone of the role the media played during the genocide, singling out theinfamous Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines [RTLM] and the periodicalKangura.(24) The country's lack of a political norm for open debate with thegovernment on its policies contributed to a lack of discussion on theramifications of the law and it was enacted without much protest.

The law stated that anyone who writes articles, commentaries, makes caricaturesor statements on broadcast media in public places and/or meetings that incite"divisionism" and/or "discrimination" will be punished witha fine and/or prison sentence. The law also imposed strict penalties on mediaoutlets that publish statements which subjectively endanger law and order, aredefamatory, deemed a threat to army morale, said to incite army disobedience,hold the president in contempt, are "unfounded accusations" and/orconsidered propaganda. Under the law, a state judicial body can force ajournalist to reveal their sources.

Finally, the law created the Media High Council [MHC], [then known as the HighCouncil of the Press, which was created by the 2003 constitution] to act as the oversight body for domestic media. Today,the MHC is mandated to enforce penalties, suspend media outlets, and set therules that allow media outlets to register and operate in the country. The MHCis comprised of a Board of Directors and an Executive Secretariat appointed bythe Prime Minister and is "supervised" by the Ministry ofInformation. Both bodies are comprised primarily of RPF party members loyal tothe party's Chairman, President Paul Kagame. The MHC's suppression of thefreedom of speech was considered so flagrant and abusive of power that theUnited Kingdom recently suspended all of its funding for the MHC.(25) However,the United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] still provides funding.(26)

After passing the 2008 constitutional amendments, the RPF pushed through a newmedia law in May 2008. It was designed to apply the new amendments to the 2002Media Law and supplement the constitution. Very strict penalties for media outlets and/or their workers wereimposed on those found guilty of spreading "divisionism" and/or"genocidal ideology" in their writings and/or verbal statements. Thenew law caused a greater increase in media self-censorship, further restrictedopposing viewpoints from being made public, deterred criticism of governmentpolicies, led to the suspension of media outlets critical of the Rwandangovernment, and stifled freedom of speech. It provided the Rwandan governmenteven tighter control over the framing and discourse of Rwandan ethnicidentities, Rwandan history, political space, reconciliation, and news throughthe pro-RPF and state-owned media outlets that dominate Rwandan communicationmediums. Most truly independent media in the country limits its reporting touncontroversial stories and issues to avoid any problems.

In 2009, a media law was passed, officially to replace the 2002 Media Law inresponse to the changing media industry. However, the restrictions andpenalties from the 2002 Media Law, reinforced by the 2003 constitution and itssubsequent amendments, remained. Foreign journalists now have to get permissionfrom the MHC to work in Rwanda. Domestic journalists are required to getauthorization from the MHC to legally operate in Rwanda. The requirements forauthorization set by the MHC deprive the largely illiterate Rwandan populationof qualifying and many independent journalists cannot meet the requirementseither. The entry level requirements are even higher than those required ofsenior officials in public administration. In addition, the new law does notconform to international standards for freedom of expression.(27)

In the run-up to the 2010 elections, overt government oppression of independentmedia reached new heights. Several government-critical newspapers, includingUmuseso and Umuvugizi, were given a six-month suspension by the MHC and theMinistry of Information, officially for "defaming" President Kagame.The ban's length ensured these newspapers would not be able to publish duringthe elections period. Mr. Jean-Bosco Gasasira set up a website for Umuvugizi tocircumvent the ban of the physically printed paper, but it was quickly andinexplicably shut down. A week prior, MHC Executive Secretary Patrice Mulamawas quoted by the BBC Kinyarwanda service as saying that the paper could be“blocked” if it attempted to publish online. The BBC Kinyarwandan serviceitself was temporarily suspended from April 25 to Jun 23, 2009, afterbroadcasting speeches and a trailer that the Rwandan government deemed deniedthe 1994 genocide as defined by Rwandan constitutional law.

Some journalists from the government-critical media outlets, like Umuseso andNewsline Chief Editor Didas Gasana, fled the country following a policeinterrogation on April 26th and after receiving numerous threats. His deputyeditor, Mr. Jean-Leonard Rugambage, bravely stayed in the country and continuedto report news critical of the RPF. After writing a story alleging the Rwandangovernment was directly responsible for the attempted assassination ofself-exiled General Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa, Mr. Rugambage was gunneddown in front of his home on 24 June 2010. Rwandan police arrested two suspectsfor the murder. One confessed in court while the other man who allegedly plannedthe murder was set free in August following an appeal. However, some peoplestill believe the arrests and trial were a staged affair and the real killersstill roam free with impunity.

Other independent media figures were also targeted. The managing director ofthe Rwanda Independent Media Group, Mr. Charles Kabonero, also fled the countryfearing arrest. Mrs. Agnes Uwimana Nkusi, editor of Umurabyo, was arrested oncharges of sectarianism, discrimination, genocide denial and inciting hatred.She was captured trying to flee to the DRC after being informed Rwandanauthorities planned to arrest her. It was the second time she was arrested onsimilar charges. She was first arrested in 2007 and sentenced to one year inKigali's main prison, locally known as "1930," on charges of ethnicdivisionism and libel after she published an op-ed on the topic of ethnicviolence in Rwanda. A former Rwandan journalist, Mr. Dominique Makeli, waskidnapped by four Kinyarwanda-speaking men in Kampala who claimed to be policemen.Rwandan sources claim he was forced into a car and told they were taking himback to Rwanda. Mr. Makeli served several years in a Rwandan prison for beingaccused of genocide-related charges. However, he was never formally charged,denied habeas corpus, and eventually released due to lack of evidence. Shortlyafterwards, he fled to Uganda. Few independent newspapers operated during theelections period. The few that did included Rushyashya, Umusingi, and Gasabo,but they increasingly practiced self-censorship according to local journalists.Reporters Without Borders ranked Rwanda 169th out of 178 countries in pressfreedom for the year 2010.(28)

The 2010 Presidential Election and Recent Legislative Initiatives

In the context of this article, Rwanda’s political climate in 2010 is not muchdifferent from 2003 and 2008 as it appears the RPF seeks to deepen its hold onpower through the legislative system once again. In the pre-election period,members of parliament sought to pass a bill that would allow them powers tointerpret the law instead of the Supreme Court. This legislation was tabledafter a constitutional amendment was proposed that would allow "theauthentic interpretation of laws shall be done by both Chambers of Parliamentacting jointly after the Supreme Court has given an opinion on thematter..."(29)

According to research done by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative [CHRI]prior to Rwanda’s admittance into the Commonwealth, few of Rwanda’s judges areindependent and a constitutional amendment to Article 162 of 2008 put theNational Prosecuting Authority under the Minster of Justice's purview andallows him to directly intervene in the prosecution process by giving specificorders if he wishes.(30) Most judges are members of the RPF party bound toloyalty by their Oath of Oneness. Supreme Court judges are appointed by thecabinet and approved by the Senate. In 2008, a constitutional amendment removeda Supreme Court judge's life tenure. As stated earlier, the Senate majority isheld by the RPF. Rwandan sources claim that President Kagame, in his capacitiesas Chairman of the RPF and chief executive, is able to push through thecabinet's nominees with ease. Additionally, Rwandan sources who wish to remainanonymous claim judicial independence is also often compromised by the outsideinfluence of President Kagame and other influential RPF members, especiallywhen the case is a politically-related trial.

The Rwandan parliament currently has a full schedule of legislation. Theschedule includes a debate over how to establish Rwanda’s Military University.There will also be a bill to amend the constitution that will be introducedinto the lower house by two deputies of the small Ideal Democratic Party [PDI],Mr. Abbas Mukama and Mr. Omar Hamidou, that will abolish presidential termlimits. His party is also tabling another amendment that would reducepresidential terms from the current seven year mandate to five years. The PDIis led by Sheikh Musa Fazil Harelimana, who was Vice President of the ElectoralCommission during the 2003 presidential polls. Sheikh Harelimana was eventuallyappointed Governor of the Western Province and is currently the InternalSecurity Minister.(31) PDI member Al-Hajj Andre Habib Bumaya fled Rwanda inMarch after a long-standing falling out with President Kagame.

Other Opposition Parties

The major difference between the 2003 and 2010 presidential elections was thepresence of real opposition parties who, although two of them were unregisteredbecause of political maneuvering by Rwandan state institutions,(32) openlychallenged the RPF on several key domestic and regional issues. Following the2010 election, many Rwandans expected the RPF to retaliate in some way againstthose who opposed them. Given the events that occurred during the run-up to theelections, there was great fear about how this retaliation would manifest,especially given that the retaliation is usually carried out with theprinciples of collective guilt and collective punishment.

The FDU-Inkingi was not the only party to challenge the RPF. The DemocraticGreen Party of Rwanda, comprised of many former RPF members, has manyindividuals that allegedly continue to receive threats from Rwandan securityforces post-election. The party's leader, Mr. Frank Habineza, was forced topublicly appear weak as the result of a plan to humiliate and discredit him andthe party. Rwanda's former Minister of Education, Dr. Charles Murigande,threatened to take legal action over certain statements that were made if Mr.Habineza did not issue a public apology.(33) Dr. Murigande demanded Mr.Habineza publicly say the statements were false and he also had to ask allmedia outlets to immediately retract the corresponding statements he gave. Withno political leverage and fearing harsher retaliation against himself and otherparty members if he did not cooperate, Mr. Habineza complied fully with Dr.Murigande's request.

Bernard Ntaganda Allegedly Approached by President Kagame

Another opposition leader, Mr. Bernard Ntaganda, Chairman of the SocialistParty [PS]-Imburakuri, is in a similar situation to Madame Ingabire. He is alsoin prison charged with genocide ideology, divisionism, terrorism, andorganizing illegal public gatherings. He was denied bail. As the internationalcommunity began putting pressure on President Kagame to stop oppressingopposition parties, Umuvugizi’s informant claimed that President Kagameallegedly devised a plan to approach Mr. Ntaganda and convince him to characterassassinate Madame Ingabire. The alleged plan was to lure Mr. Ntaganda to thegovernment's side as they allegedly did with other opposition politicians suchas Senator Stanley Safari, who the paper claimed helped discredit members oftheir own parties in exchange for government posts. In the case of Mr. Safari,the RPF eventually turned against him. He was dismissed from his post as asenator after a gacaca court sentenced him to life imprisonment for allegedlykilling Tutsi in Butare during 1994. He fled before the trial sentencing and iscurrently in exile.

The article stated Mr. Ntaganda was originally approached while he was inprison. He was asked to sign official statements apologizing to PresidentKagame and to publicly disown Madame Ingabire. The PS-Imberakuri party isallied with the FDU-Inkingi and the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda in thePermanent Consultative Council of Opposition Parties. In exchange, he allegedlywas to be released from prison and rewarded with an important post in the newlyelected government. The informant claimed that Mr. Ntaganda was called to the“1930” prison director’s office one night to meet with those in charge ofconvincing him. It is claimed that he was taken outside the prison severaltimes as coercion to try and convince him. However, Mr. Ntaganda categoricallyrefused to sign the statements. As punishment, he was transferred to solitaryconfinement under atrocious conditions.(34) He went on a hunger strike toprotest and quickly fell gravely ill. Sources claim he was admitted to Kigali’sKing Fasial Hospital.

Rwandan Politics

President Kagame constantly repeats to the press that it is not illegal toarrest and bring someone before a court of law who allegedly threatens nationalsecurity. This statement was heard in his speech during the recent cabinet swearing-inceremony. President Kagame seeks to convince the international community thatthe unregistered opposition parties are comprised only of individuals withquestionable backgrounds that pose an imminent and serious threat to Rwandannational security and reconciliation efforts. He also feels that some countriesare hypocritical for asking him to allow space for political opposition whilethey, in their own respective democratic countries, punish politicians who holdcertain political views. Using the example of Dutch politician Geert Wilders,President Kagame said, “We know that they [The Netherlands] arrested a memberof parliament because of his anti-Muslim views, but they condemn our arrest ofthose with genocide ideology?”(35)

In Rwanda's political arena, one man, the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda'sVice President Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, paid the ultimate price for hisoppositional political beliefs and convictions. Mr. Rwisereka’s nearlydecapitated body was found near Butare on 14 July 2010. As with Mr. Rugambage'smurder case, a suspect was arrested by Rwandan police but many people areskeptical of the investigation’s integrity. A number of official statements theRwandan police made about Mr. Rwisereka's murder investigation have been soundlyrefuted.(36)

Whether Madame Ingabire and/or Mr. Ntaganda also end up paying the ultimateprice for their respective political beliefs remains to be seen and the outcomeis partially dependent on the actions [or lack thereof] taken immediately byindividuals of good will, associations, NGOs, multilateral institutions andsovereign governments who categorically value freedom, democracy, and the ruleof law. Now that the presidential election is over and the initial fervorcaused by the release of the UN Mapping Report has seemingly passed, theso-called mainstream press no longer seems to be much interested in the smallAfrican country that is so-often described in a flattering way. However,political opponents and critics of the regime continue to be oppressed. It isnot just experienced by an American lawyer and professor with the NationalLawyers Guild and several law associations behind him. The majority of victimsare Rwandan nationals who have limited to no resources. The internationalcommunity and Rwanda's key donor/allied states have been shamefully silentpost-election about the situation in Rwanda. Many donor/allied states stillcontinue to support the regime in various capacities, allowing the state ofaffairs described in this article [the current status quo in Rwanda] tocontinue with impunity, sending the regime a message that they can continue toengage in these practices out of sight without fear of penalties. This isextremely problematic because sustaining the current political climate in Rwandawill sow the seeds for future conflict on a potentially large scale,perpetuating the cyclical violence that has plagued Rwanda.
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(1) http://www.theproxylake.com/2010/10/leaked-secret-services-to-eliminate-victoire-ingabire/.Accessed 24 October 2010.

(2) The original Uvuvugizi article written by Mr. Jean-Bosco Gasasira inKinyarwanda is available at: http://www.umuvugizi.com/artviewer.php?ArtID=0000000303.

(3) Mr. Gasasira was acquitted by the Kigali High Court in absentia ofdefamation and invasion of privacy in September following an appeal. He hadalready fled the country when the verdict was given.

[4] There have been numerous allegations that the Rwandan government hasproduced coached witnesses for trials. For some further information, see:International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda. “ICTR-ADAD Submissions as AmicusCuriae.” Case No. ICTR-2000-551. The Prosecutor vs. Ildephonse Hategekimana. 10April 2008. pg. 10-11; Reyntjens, Filip. “Expert Report for the InternationalCriminal Tribunal for Rwanda.” Case No. ICTR-96-15-I. The Prosecutor vs. JosephKanyabashi. 19 October 2007. pg. 15-16; International Criminal Tribunal forRwanda. “Joseph Nzirorera’s Motion to Recall Witness BTH.” Case No.ICTR-98-44-T. The Prosecutor vs. Joseph Nzirorera. 3 March 2008; InternationalCriminal Court for Rwanda. “Decision on Witness GFR’s Recantation of HisEvidence.” Case No. ICTR-00-56-T. The Prosecutor vs. Augustin Ndindiliyimana,Francois-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, Innocent Sagahutu and Augustin Bizimungu. 10February 2010; International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. "Notice ofExculpatory Evidence and Potentially False Testimony." Case No.ICTR-98-44-T. The Prosecutor vs. Edouard Karamera, Mathieu Ngirumpatse, andJoseph Nzirorera. 22 February 2008. [Documents available upon request.];"Rwandan Indicted for False ICTR Testimony," Hirondelle News Agency.13 June 2007; "Filip Reyntjens Brings up the 'Syndicates of Informers' inRwanda," Hirondelle News Agency. 25 September 2007.

(5) Rwanda is the second largest troop contributor to UNAMID. They have over3,200 soldiers and police on the ground. Rwandan General Patrick Nyamvumba is themission’s Force Commander. [African Union – United Nations Mission in Darfur.“Rwandan President Receives UNAMID JSR.” Press Release. UNAMID PR/010-2010. 2March 2010.]http://unamid.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=899&ctl=Details&mid=1072&ItemID=7929.Accessed 25 October 2010.

(6) South Africa does not have an extradition treaty with Rwanda and bothindividuals have official refugee status in South Africa.

(7) The "leaked" and "official" versions of the report,along with the official responses of the governments of Rwanda and theDemocratic Republic of the Congo, can be found at http://www.friendsofthecongo.org/resource-center/united-nations-report.html.

(8) United Nations Security Council. “Resolution 955.” S/RES/955. 8 November1994. pg. 2.

(9) “Rwanda Urged to Ensure Opposition Leader Receives Fair Trial.” AmnestyInternational. 28 April 2010.http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/rwanda-urged-ensure-opposition-leader-receives-fair-trial-2010-04-28.Accessed 24 October 2010.

(10) Mr. Kagame first became president in 2000, after [then] President PasteurBizimungu, a Hutu, endured a vicious “whisper campaign” and was heavilypressured to resign after becoming increasingly critical of [then] VicePresident and Minister of Defense Kagame’s policies. [Sebarenzi, Joseph. “GodSleeps in Rwanda.” 2009. Atria Books, NY. pg. 148-149, 158-160, 207, 209.]Since he was appointed to the presidency of a transitional government, Mr.Kagame was not yet an officially-elected president with a government that hadpopular sovereignty [real or perceived] by the international community.

The following are important reports on the 2003 presidential/parliamentary orthe 2008 Rwandan parliamentary elections:

A. Darby, Orrvar and Ingrid Samset. “Rwanda: Presidential and ParliamentaryElections 2003.” Norwegian Institute of Human Rights [NORDEM]. December 2003.
http://www.cmi.no/publications/file/1770-rwanda-presidential-and-parliamentary-elections.pdf.Accessed 24 October 2010.

B. “Rwanda: Run-up to Presidential Elections Marred by Threats and Harassment.”Amnesty International. AFR 47/010/2003. 21 August 2003.http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR47/010/2003. Accessed 24 October2010.

C. “National Democratic Institute [NDI] Assessment of Rwanda’s Pre-electionPolitical Environment and the Role of Political Parties.” National DemocraticInstitute. 22 September 2003. http://www.ndi.org/node/14548. Accessed 24October 2010.

D. “Preparing for Elections: Tightening Security in the Name of Unity.” HumanRights Watch. May 2003.http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2003/05/08/preparing-elections. Accessed 24October 2010.

E. “Republic of Rwanda – Final Report: Legislative Elections to the Chamber ofDeputies 15-18 September 2008.” European Union Election Observer Mission toRwanda. 26 January 2009. http://www.eueomrwanda.org/EN/PDF/Final_Report/EUEOM_Rwanda_Final_Report_EN.pdf. Accessed 24 October 2010.

(11) Van de Walle, Nicolas. “Presidentialism and Clientelism in Africa’sEmerging Party Systems.” Journal ofModern African Studies 41:2, 297-321. 2003.

(12) Hyden, Goran. “African Politics in Comparative Perspective.” 2006. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK. pg. 230-231.

(13) Del Ponte, Carla and Chuck Sudetic. “Madame Prosecutor: Confrontationswith Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity.” 2009. OtherPress: New York, NY. pg. 223-239.

(14) The full text of the Covenent can be viewed at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm.

(15) Article 19. “Comment on the Law Relating to the Punishment of the Crime ofGenocide Ideology in Rwanda.” September 2009.http://www.article19.org/pdfs/analysis/rwanda-comment-on-the-law-relating-to-the-punishment-of-the-crime-of-genocid.pdf.Accessed 24 October 2010.

(16) Mr. Mushayidi was acquitted of genocide ideology, divisionism,revisionism, and collaborating with a terrorist group [FDLR]. However, he wasconvicted of being a threat to national security, inciting violence, and usingforged documents. He was sentenced to life in prison on 17 September 2010.

(17) International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. “Decision on Aloys Ntabakuze’sMotion for Injunctions Against the Government of Rwanda Regarding the Arrestand Investigation of Lead Counsel Peter Erlinder.” Case No. ICTR-98-41-A. TheProsecutor vs. Theoneste Bagosora, Aloys Ntabakuze and Anatole Nsengiyumva. 6October 2010. [Document available upon request.]

(18) “Rwandan Cabinet Reviews Genocide Ideology Law,” Radio France Internationale.11 August 2010.

(19) The Amnesty International report is available at:http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/vague-laws-used-criminalise-criticism-government-rwanda-2010-08-31.An earlier report on the current shortcomings of the Rwandan judicial systemwritten by Human Rights Watch can be found at: http://www.hrw.org/node/62098.

(20) Government of the Republic of Rwanda. “Genocide.” http://www.gov.rw/page.php?id_article=19.Accessed 24 October 2010.

(21) International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. “ICTR Appeals Chamber TakesJudicial Notice of Genocide in Rwanda.” Press Release. ICTR/INFO-9-2-481.EN. 20June 2006. http://69.94.11.53/ENGLISH/PRESSREL/2006/481.htm. Accessed 24October 2010.

(22) Some of the Rwandan national ICTR defense investigators carrying out theirofficial mandates were either intimidated or arrested and rendered unable tocontinue their work. [International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. “ICTR-ADADSubmissions as Amicus Curiae: The Prosecutor vs. Ildephonse Hategekimana.” CaseNo. ICTR-2000-551. 10 April 2008. Pg. 9-10.] Document available upon request.

(23) Government of the Republic of Rwanda. “Ex-presidents Given Immunity.” 18July 2008. http://www.gov.rw/sub.php?page=print&id_article=23. Accessed 24October 2010.
Note: Mr. Gasasira’s positive comments were made while he was not in exile andfeared for his life if he challenged the regime.

(24) Note: For an important quantitative analysis on the effect RTLM had on theonset of the genocide and the mobilization of perpetrators of politicalviolence during the period from April 6th-July 4, 1994 see: Straus, Scott."What is the Relationship Between Hate Radio and Violence? RethinkingRwanda's "Radio Machete." Politics and Society 35:4, pg. 609-637.2007.

(25) House of Commons Debate. 7 July 2010. c353.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2010-07-07a.353.1. Accessed 24October 2010.

(26) United Nations Development Programme. “Rwanda: Programme for StrengtheningGood Governance.” 2007.http://www.undp.org.rw/Democratic-project46259.html?id=112. Accessed 24 October2010.

(27) Article 19. "Article 19's Submission to the UN Universal PeriodicReview." January-February 2011. http://www.article19.org/pdfs/submissions/rwanda-article-19-s-submission-to-the-un-universal-periodic-review.pdfAccessed 19 June 2011.

(28) “Press Freedom Index 2010.” Reporters Without Borders. October 2010.http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2010,1034.html. Accessed 24 October 2010.

(29) "MPs Seek Powers to Interpret the Law,” Edwin Musoni. The New Times.11 February 2010.

(30) Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. “Rwanda’s Application for Membershipof the Commonwealth: Report and Recommendations of the Commonwealth HumanRights Initiative.” August 2009. pg. 46.http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/publications/hradvocacy/rwanda's_application_for_membership_of_the_commonwealth.pdf.Accessed 24 October 2010.

(31) “PDI Wants Presidential 7-year Term Reduced.” Rwandan News Agency.http://www.rwandagateway.org/spip.php?article797. Accessed 24 October 2010.

(32) The PS-Imburakuri is an officially registered political party in Rwanda.

(33) Permanent Consultative Council of Opposition Parties in Rwanda. “RwandanOpposition Calls for a Transitional Government of National Unity.” PressRelease. 31 August 2010. http://rwandagreendemocrats.org/spip.php?article103.Accessed 25 October 2010.

(34) For further information on conditions inside Rwandan prisons, see:Tertsakian, Carina. “Le Chateau: The Lives of Prisoners in Rwanda.” 2008. ArvesBooks: London, UK.

(35) “Leaked: Rwandan Secret Services’ Plan to Eliminate Victoire Ingabire.”The Proxy Lake. 17 October 2010.http://www.theproxylake.com/2010/10/leaked-secret-services-to-eliminate-victoire-ingabire/.Accessed 24 October 2010.

(36) “Rwanda: Allow Independent Autopsy of Opposition Politician.” Human RightsWatch. 21 July 2010.http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/07/20/rwanda-allow-independent-autopsy-opposition-politician.Accessed 24 October 2010.

GRATIEN KABILIGI SHOULD BE GRANTED A FRENCH VISA.

2011-06-10T18:27:00.001+02:00

Hirondelle News Agency
9 June 2011

The administrative tribunal of Nantes (West of France) requested in a decision released on June 6 that the French Minister of Interior reexamines its decision to refuse Gratien Kabiligi a visa.

A former Rwandan military officer, Brigadier General Gratien Kabiligi was acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in December 2008.

Since then, he has been living in a safe house in Arusha, waiting for a resettlement in another country. Most of western countries are hesitant to host genocide-acquittals, arguing that their presence may threaten public order.

For this same ground, French Embassy in Tanzania refused in November 2010 to grant Gratien Kabiligi a visa despite the fact that his wife and children live in France.

According to Nantes' court, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs had said that "M. Kabiligi's presence in France would reinforce Rwandan authorities concern that France hosts "alleged genocidaires" and " Hutu power" members, hence would affect diplomatic relations with Rwanda".

In his decision, Nantes tribunal requests that the Minister of Interior "take a new decision within a month".

« Gratien Kabiligi should get his visa in the coming month », his lawyer Alexandre Varaut told Hirondelle News Agency.

"He his yearning to join his family. He has no intention to be involved in any controversy or political activity in France", he added. "He has had it up to here with justice and all kind of problems. He won't believe it's over before the flight takes off".

Kabiligi's wife and two daughters settled in France in June 2008, were they were then granted the French citizenship

Kabiligi was arrested in 1997 and his trial started in 2002. He was acquitted in 2008. The prosecution did not appeal the case.

Somalia: The Kampala Accord

2011-06-09T21:13:00.002+02:00

AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT OF THE TRANSITIONAL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF SOMALIA AND THE SPEAKER OF THE TRANSITIONAL FEDERAL PARLIAMENT OF SOMALIA MADE IN KAMPALA ON 9TH JUNE 2011(THE KAMPALA ACCORD):

1. Recognizing the Transitional Federal Charter as the basis for the legitimacy of all Transitional Federal Institutions.

2. The President of the Transitional Federal Government and The Speaker of the Transitional Federal Parliament met in Kampala Uganda under the auspices of His Excellency President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and the facilitation of the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations Ambassador Augustine P. Mahiga to address the issues and agree the way forward on bringing to an end the transition in a spirit of cooperation and harmony in accordance with the Djibouti Agreement and in line with the Transitional Federal Charter.

3. All parties were cognisant of the counsel from the United Nations Security Council in their meeting of the 25th May 2011 to reach an agreement on ending the transitional phase. Cognisant of the counsel of the ICG Meeting of June 3rd, 2011. Cognisant of the concerns of the Troop Contributing Countries not to squander significant military progress and the readiness by the Regional Heads of State (IGAD and EAC with the participation of the United Nations (UNPOS) and the African Union) to oversee and monitor and guide any agreement by the Transitional Federal Institutions on bringing to an end the Transitional Phase on 20 August, 2011 and thereafter bringing in a new dispensation.

4. The parties meeting in Kampala agreed to the following parameters:

a. We agree to defer elections of the President and the Speaker and his deputies for twelve months after August, 2011 in order to adequately prepare and complete priority transitional tasks.

b. Elections for President and Speaker of Parliament will have to take place prior to August 20, 2012.

c. Within thirty days of the signing of this Agreement, the Prime Minister will resign from his position; and the President will appoint a new Prime Minister.

d. Parliament will endorse the new Prime Minister within 14 days of the submission of the PM Nominee by the Office of the President.

1e. The New Prime Minister will appoint his cabinet within 30 days of his approval and submit it to President.

f. Parliament will endorse the new cabinet within 14 days of the submission of the cabinet list by the Office of the President.

g. While ensuring the new government reflects the 4.5 formula for power sharing. These appointments will be done in the spirit of collaboration and mutual confidence between the leaders of the TFIs in accordance with their respective mandates.

h. All Ministers are to possess the education, experience and integrity to discharge their ministerial duties.

i. The new Government and Parliament will work closely with each other through joint committees and their respective mandates to complete important priority tasks, including on security, Parliamentary reforms, constitution-making process, preparation for elections, and greater political outreach.

j. Both Government and Parliament will endeavour to create an environment to that is conducive to a cooperative working relationship and shall refrain from media recrimination, threats of impeachment of the President, Speaker and two deputy speakers of Parliament, and the dismissal of Parliament.

k. The government should also not be subjected to motions unless that motion has been justified and substantiated with strong evidence of a breach of the TFC.

l. In its oversight role, Parliament should facilitate the smooth functioning of government business in Parliament. Each branch of the TFIs will operate within the confines of its respective mandate to ensure harmonious and complimentary working relations. Government will initiate needed legislation in a timely manner and Parliament shall consider and act on proposed and pending legislation expeditiously.

m. Both Government and Parliament shall work together with the international community to establish a roadmap with benchmarks, timelines and compliance mechanisms for the implementation of the priority task. Details of the mechanisms to be agreed by 20 August 2011.

n. The Heads of State of the Region (IGAD and EAC) shall constitute a Political Bureau with participation of the UN (UNPOS) and the AU, similar to the Burundi Regional Peace Initiative. The Bureau shall oversee and monitor compliance of the TFIs with agreed benchmarks and timelines to implement the transitional tasks and to advance the Somali Peace Process.

o. The international partners and the Regional Bureau reserve the right to evoke appropriate measures with consequences to ensure compliance with the benchmarks and timelines by the TFIs including the application of appropriate sanctions against spoilers.

p. A mid-term review of performance of the TFIs to take place in six months time.

q. The international community shall undertake commitment to provide timely support for these efforts in line with agreed benchmarks and timelines.

r. The planned Mogadishu Conference will be convened by the TFG and TFP and facilitated by the SRSG to be held at a mutually agreed date as soon as possible.

5. The parties agreed that support for the current military operations and completion of the rebuilding of the Security forces are fundamental to the success of the transitional period and agreed that a reformed Joint Security Committee will sit permanently in Mogadishu.

6. All parties to this agreement should seek the support and reach out to all the Somali stakeholders.

7. All parties to this agreement agreed to the creation of a new Anti-Corruption Commission to safeguard the public wealth.

8. We invite the international community and the regional actors to guarantee this political undertaking. The parties to this agreement will seek the support and reach out to all Somali stakeholders.

9. HE President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda will Guarantee the implementation of this agreement and sign below as a witness.

10. This Agreement will come into effect when signed. Signed this day 9th June 2011
by:

HE Sharif Sheikh Ahmed - President of the Transitional Federal Government,

Hon Shariff Hassan Sheikh Aden - Speaker of the Transitional Federal Parliament

Witnessed by:

H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni - President of the Republic of Uganda,

Dr Augustine P Mahiga Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations

Detained: Bus Driver Suspected of Being Hitman for Rwandan President.

2011-06-04T15:03:00.002+02:00

The Independent
4 June 2011
By Yoletta Nyange and Cahal Milmo

With his Belgian passport and job as a Brussels bus driver, Norbert Rukimbira would not have stood out as a suspected international assassin as he sat on board the Eurolines coach that pulled into the passport control building at Folkestone’s Eurotunnel terminal three weeks ago.

But within moments of his arrival on British soil, the 43-year-old teaching graduate found himself surrounded and being quietly taken aside by counter-terrorism officers, and questioned about his suspected involvement in an assassination squad allegedly sent to London by the Rwandan government to kill two critics of the increasingly authoritarian regime of President Paul Kagame.

Acting on information supplied by Scotland Yard, the Kent Police detectives knew that while Mr Rukimbira is now a public transport worker in a glittering European capital, he was until 2001 an officer in Rwanda’s intelligence services with 20 years of experience in the small east African country’s military and police.

After six hours of questioning during which his baggage was searched and a mobile phone SIM card confiscated, Mr Rukimbira was sent back whence he came – put on a late-night coach back through the Channel Tunnel. Yesterday, he spoke for the first time to strongly deny any role in the alleged plot, saying it was an “insult” to his knowledge of the shadowy world of national security.

The interception at Folkestone had its roots in a six-month investigation which last month led the Yard to serve extraordinary notices to two Rwandans living in the UK, stating that police had “reliable intelligence” that the Rwandan government posed an “imminent threat” to their lives.

Rene Mugenzi, a 35-year-old community worker, and Jonathan Musonera, an opposition political activist, were warned to improve security at their homes, change their daily routines and never walk unaccompanied.

Mr Rukimbira, who was travelling to London he says to attend a conference for the Rwandan National Conference, a new political party co-founded by Mr Musonera, was removed from the coach taking him from his home in the Belgian capital at the Channel Tunnel terminal in Folkestone by Kent Police officers on 13 May – the same day that Scotland Yard officers visited Mr Mugenzi and Mr Musonera to warn their lives were in danger.

The disclosure of the alleged assassination plot on British soil is the latest incident that threatens to cool the hitherto close relationship between Rwanda and Britain, which is the single largest aid donor to Kigali with an annual package worth £82m.

The Independent revealed in April that the High Commissioner to London, Ernest Rwamucyo, had been warned by MI5 to halt a claimed campaign of harassment against critics of Mr Kagame among Rwandan expats and MPs called for Britain to review its relationship with Kigali in the light of the Yard’s latest investigations.

Police sources told The Independent that Mr Rukimbira, a former investigator in a special intelligence unit of the Rwandan police who fled the country in 2001 and now works as a driver for the Brussels bus service, was stopped under counter-terrorism legislation because of a suspected link with the alleged assassination plot. He was served with a document, known as a Schedule 7 notice, stating that he was being questioned to determine whether he “is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism”.

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: “At approximately 7pm on 13 May, a 43-year-old man was stopped by Kent Police. He was not arrested and subsequently left the UK.”

Mr Rukimbira, who is currently sitting exams to become a taxi driver, insists that he was the victim of misinformation about the purpose of his visit London, where he had been due to stay in the home of Mr Musonera, a childhood friend and former comrade in the Rwandan Patriotic Front – the army led by Mr Kagame which stopped the 1994 genocide.

Speaking in a Brussels tea salon after insisting that he wanted to clear his name, Mr Rukimbira dismissed the idea that he had been sent to assassinate Mr Musonera, describing him as a “brother” because “we grew up together and served in the same army”.

In a remarkable statement, the tall, balding former police inspector said: “I wasn’t going to carry a weapon and risk being searched on entry to the UK. As a former member of Rwandan intelligence, that would be an insult to my 20 years of career experience.

“When you’re planning an operation like that, I would have taken all the precautions, not leaving anything. I wouldn’t have used my own mobile number, [I] would have used a public telephone. I’m not an idiot, I am a cop, and you can imagine I wouldn’t have brought my contacts with me.”

While working as a lieutenant in the Rwandan intelligence services, Mr Rukimbira was named by relatives of Assiel Kabera - a former ally of Mr Kagame shot dead in 2000 - as a suspect in the killing. Mr Rukimbira strongly denies the allegation and insists that he fled the country a year later after refusing money to investigate the defection of eight colleagues.

He said: “Since leaving Africa, the way I see life has changed. Here I am free man, I love music and do other things. What I do is drive a bus, I work in a public company, I am known. I cannot do anything bad.”

The image of hit squads roaming London was denounced by the Rwandan government, which has now asked the Metropolitan Police to provide details of its allegations. In a statement, a spokesman for Mr Kagame said: “Never does the Government of Rwanda threaten the lives of its citizens, nor use violence against its people wherever they live.”

Mr Musonera said he had no view on the reasons why Mr Rukimbira had been stopped by police. He added: “I’ve faced death a million times.”

For his part, the bus driver said he was dedicated to finding a peaceful solution to Rwanda’s political problems. He said: “My motivation is that I am a person who hates persecution. And I love peace because I know its price. And even here, I will try to make sure that among all the people they have peace because I like it. There can be problems but these need to be solved through dialogue.”

Journalist Jean-Bosco Gasasira of Rwandan Newspaper Umuvugizi Sentenced to 2.5 Years of Jail in Absentia.

2011-06-03T22:26:00.003+02:00

AFP
3 June 2011

Rwanda’s highest court this Friday June 3 sentenced a journalist in exile to two years and six months in jail, after finding him guilty of inciting civil disobedience and insulting the president.

The journalist, Jean-Bosco Gasasira, editor of the bi-monthly newspaper Umuvugizi was acquitted by a lower court in September but the prosecutor appealed against the acquittal and asked for a 10-year sentence.

“The supreme court found him guilty of inciting civil disobedience, and insulting the head of state and sentenced him to two years and six months in prison,” a source at the court told AFP by telephone.

The verdict was confirmed by human rights activists who attended the hearing.

Reporters without Borders said it was “appalled” by what it said was Rwanda’s determination to hound an exiled journalist from an anti-government paper.

The Paris-based media rights watchdog called on the supreme court, whose rulings cannot be appealed, to uphold the earlier acquittal.

RSF said Gasasira has been harassed and prosecuted on several occasions over the past years.

Umuvugizi was suspended for six months on 13 April 2010. As tension mounted in the run-up to the August 2010 presidential election, Gasasira went into exile in order to continue working and avoid harassment, and launched an online version of the newspaper.

In June 2010, Jean-Leonard Rugambage, Umuvugizi’s deputy editor, was shot and killed at the gate of his home in Kigali.

Two men have been jailed for life for the killing but rights groups have charged that the authorities were behind it.

Dutch Minister to decide on evidence against Rwandan opposition leader Ingabire.

2011-06-03T22:15:00.001+02:00

Radio Netherlands
by Ruben Koops
1 June 2011

Will the Netherlands assist Rwanda in its case against jailed opposition leader Victoire Ingabire? That is the question after a Dutch court ruled today that three documents belonging to Ingabire can be handed over to the Public Prosecutor’s office in Kigali. But despite the ruling, those documents won’t be mailed just yet. The Dutch minister of Security and Justice is responsible for making the final decision and he is under mounting political pressure not to give the documents away.

On 13 December last year, Victoire Ingabire’s house in the Netherlands was searched by Dutch police. She has been accused of collaborating with a terrorist organisation – intent on dividing the people of Rwanda – and denying the genocide of 1994.

The search was conducted under the instruction of the Rwandan authorities that are working on a criminal case against Ingabire. Several documents and computers were seized, and the Rwandan government officially requested that they be in possession of the information.

Most of the seized items have already been given back to relatives of Ingabire, but today’s ruling has decided that there are no legal objections against sending three documents to Kigali.

Political decision

But the Dutch Minister for Security and Justice, Ivo Opstelten, will not base his decision on whether to send the documents to Rwanda or not solely on the court ruling. He will have to request advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – a ministry that decided in 2010 to partially cut funding to Rwanda owing to the African country’s changing stance on human rights. Opstelten also faces pressure from the Dutch parliament where several MPs are very concerned, with suggestions that the Ingabire trial is politically motivated.

“We are helping with the reconstruction of the Rwandan judicial sector, but why hand over evidence to a body that is still under construction?” ChristenUnie MP Joël Voordewind told RNW this afternoon. “Even if this is not a politically motivated trial as the Minister says, why would we coöperate with a criminal case in a country with a far-from-perfect legal system?”

Last week, Voordewind demanded that the Dutch parliament should be informed before the Justice Department hands over any evidence to the Rwanda government regarding the Ingabire trial. If the Justice Department decides to do so, the matter will have to be approved by Parliament.

Supreme Court

Ingabire was arrested on 14 October 2010, and has been awaiting her trial in custody since. The Ingabire trial is scheduled to start on 20 June.

Todays court ruling has not been made public yet. According to an official court spokesperson, the “sensitivity surrounding this case” is an important reason why. And then there is the two week period in which either the Dutch public prosecutor’s office or the Ingabire legal team could decide to take the case to the Supreme Court. A source has confirmed that Victoire Ingabire’s lawyer in the Netherlands considers the current ruling “unsatisfying”.

Rwandan Opposition Claims 'Forced Exhumations' of 1994 Victims.

2011-05-28T07:53:00.005+02:00

BBC News
27 May 2011
By Mary Harper

A Rwandan opposition party has accused the Rwandan government of forcing people to exhume the bodies of relatives killed during the country's 1994 genocide.

The authorities say the remains should be brought together at memorial sites so people never forget the killings.

Despite repeated requests by the BBC neither the information minister nor Rwanda's Commission Against Genocide Ideology have responded to the allegation.

'No choice'

A representative of the newly-formed opposition Rwandan National Congress, Jonathan Musonera, said that he had personally been affected by the government's order.

"The authorities issued instructions for us to dig up the remains of our relatives and take them to the genocide memorial sites," he said.

"My family refused, but the government said if we didn't do it, they would send prisoners to exhume the remains.

"We had no choice. My relatives dug up the bodies and gave them to the authorities who took them to the memorial sites."

Mr Musonera said exhuming the remains of his family has haunted him and that he believes they deserve to be buried with dignity at a place where they can be visited by those who survived.

The Rwandan Genocide Survivors Association, which is close to the government, supports the policy of exhuming the remains.

"All the remains should be kept at memorial sites so that we can keep showing that the genocide happened," said Jean-Pierre Dusingizemungu, head of the association.

He added that the bodies should be preserved properly so that they can be displayed in this way for a long time.

There are several genocide memorial sites in Rwanda. The biggest, in the capital Kigali, displays the skulls and other remains of some 200,000 people.

Authorities want the remains of every victim to be shown in public in order to emphasise the scale and horror of the genocide.

But many of those being asked to dig up the remains of those they lost 17 years ago would prefer them to rest in peace.

Editor's Note: Rwanda's National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) and IBUKA have denied the claims.

ICTR REFUSES TO IMPOSE RESTRICTIONS TO GENERAL NDINDILIYIMANA'S LIBERTY.

2011-05-27T18:11:00.002+02:00

Hirondelle News Agency
26 May 2011

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has declined to impose conditions on the liberty of former Rwandan Chief of Staff of the Gendarmerie, General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, pending the prosecution's decision to appeal against the judgement delivered in his case a week ago.

On May 17, 2011, a Trial Chamber convicted Ndindiliyimana of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, but ordered his immediate release after sentencing him to the time he already spent in detention since his arrest on January 29, 2000 in Belgium.

In its decision dated May 20, 2011, on a motion seeking restriction measures against the general pending the appeal process, the Chamber found that the prosecution's reasons in support of its request were without merit.

"The Chamber is not satisfied that the prosecution has provided reasonable basis to support its claim that there was a high risk Ndindiliyimana could abscond should the prosecutor file an appeal," it said.

According to the Chamber, the right to liberty is a fundamental human right, the infringement of which must be justified and proportionate.

It noted that Ndindiliyimana was already subjected to significant "de facto" restrictions on his movement and consultations with the registry revealed that he was currently residing in a Tribunal safe house.

"In these circumstances, the Chamber considers the prosecution's requests for further restrictions on his liberty to be unreasonable and without merit. The Chamber is not satisfied that there is sufficient justification to order any restrictive conditions on Ndindiliyimana's liberty," it further said.

However, the Chamber found advisable and in the interest of justice for Ndindiliyimana to be available and accessible in the event the prosecution files its notice of appeal.

"The Chamber, therefore, advises that should Ndindiliyimana seek to change his present residence before the expiration of the period for filling a notice of appeal, or should he wish to travel outside Arusha or seek to obtain travel documents, he should inform the Tribunal as well as his counsel immediately and in advance," it said.

In its motion, the prosecution had sought for restrictions on Ndindiliyimana's liberty to ensure his availability to respond should the prosecutor decide to appeal.

The prosecution claimed that Ndindiliyimana did not surrender voluntarily to the Tribunal and it was a difficult process to arrest him in Belgium. Hence, the prosecution alleged, without conditions, there was a high risk for him to escape.

However, the defence was opposed to the motion, submitting that there was no basis to impose any restrictions on Ndindiliyimana's liberty. Contrary to the prosecution's assertions, the defence showed that Ndindiliyimana surrendered to ICTR authorities of his own volition and refuted the claims he would flee.

BRITISH FOREIGN MINISTER VISITS ICTR.

2011-05-25T18:44:00.002+02:00

Hirondelle News Agency/WNJ
24 May 2011

British Foreign Office Minister, Henry Bellingham Tuesday visited the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

According to an ICTR press release, the Foreign Minister, who was accompanied by the British High Commissioner to Tanzania, Diane Corner, held talks with ICTR senior officials including President Dennis Byron and Chief Prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow.

ICTR administrators, ‘'Briefed the minister on the current development at the ICTR and in particular on the Tribunal's completion strategy and the establishment of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.''

Minister Bellingham on his side commended the work of the Tribunal in promoting international criminal justice and fighting culture of impunity as well as bringing to justice those who played leading role in the genocide in Rwanda.

He also visited the United Nations Detention Facility (UNDF) which houses a total of 35 detainees.

Rwandan government official admits force used in anti-thatch hut "nyakatsi" campaign.

2011-05-25T17:27:00.002+02:00

Survival International
25 May 2011

The official in charge of Rwanda’s controversial policy to eradicate all thatched roofs in the country by the end of this month has admitted that ‘sometimes we apply some force’.

The admission came after hundreds of Twitter users responded to Survival’s condemnation of the destruction of Batwa (Pygmy) houses, which has left many of Rwanda’s most marginalized people without shelter.

The government, which is also active on Twitter, has tweeted that the anti-thatch programme ‘is about decent housing for all, no one is left homeless.’

The official overseeing the anti-thatch programme, Augustine Kampayana, told journalists, ‘for anyone to still be in nyakatsi [thatched houses] up to now only means that it is in their general attitudes to prefer to live in grass thatched houses. Some of them just do not want to change, but we cannot let these drag everyone else back.’

One Batwa man, whose house has been destroyed and who is living in cramped conditions with ten other families, said last week, ‘it’s a catastrophic life which resembles that of a refugee.’

The UN’s Racial Discrimination committee last month urged the Rwandan government to ‘facilitate access to adequate housing for the Batwa, particularly by avoiding forced evictions without consultation and without offering alternative housing.’

Although some Batwa families have been given new houses, many are still waiting and are forced to live in the open, according to COPORWA, Rwanda’s Batwa organization. Rwanda’s Batwa continue to face racism and discrimination on a daily basis. Most eke out a meager living as wage laborers or potters after their communities were forced from their forest homes to create national parks free from human habitation.

Inspection of Ingabire's Netherland's belongings causes great worry over precident.

2011-05-23T23:34:00.002+02:00

Radio Netherlands
23 May 2011
By Anneke Verbraeken, Rotterdam

Will Ingabire’s belongings be sent to Rwanda or not? This question was raised during a session at the Court of Rotterdam on 20 May 2011. And will the fact that a Rwandan prosecutor has been through Ingabire’s documents in the Netherlands, have consequences for people mentioned in it?

The British newspaper 'The Independent' reported last week that Rwanda is preparing attacks against at least two members of the Rwandan opposition living in the United Kingdom.

In mid-December of 2010, Ingabire’s home in Zevenhuizen was searched upon Rwanda's request. Two computers and documents - amongst others - were confiscated. The house search provoked surprised reactions because, in the same week, the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs cut aid to Rwanda. The decision was based on the fact that the country lacks political freedom and freedom of speech.

According to the prosecutor’s spokesperson “inspection is normal procedure. An inspection does not mean that the documents are authorised to be distributed/copied.”

Dutch parliamentarian Joël Voordewind of the small Orthodox Christian party (Christen Unie), has questions over the issue in parliament. He did not know Rwanda was going to check on Ingabire's belongings. Now, he feels frustrated. "This goes beyong all rules. Unacceptable! The promises of the minister are not respected."

After the search in December, Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal promised MP Voordewind that parliament would inform him if Ingabire's belongings are sent to Rwanda.

The recent threats against Rwandan opposition members in the United Kingdom show the urgency of this affair, Voordewind says. "These kind of threats could also take place in The Netherlands, after the search of Ingabire's house."

Ingabire’s husband Lin Muyizere also warned the Ministry of Justice that inspection by Rwanda could have big consequences for opposition members, in and outside the Netherlands. The Dutch public prosecutor has not reacted until now. The judge will decide before the 1st of June whether Ingabire's possession will be sent or not to Rwanda.

Witness in US Trial of Rwandan National Testifies to Rwandan Government and IBUKA Witness Tampering.

2011-05-20T20:50:00.005+02:00

AP/WNJ
20 May 2011

The name of a Kansas man accused of participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide was on a list of people whom Rwandan prosecutors and a government survivors' organization wanted prisoners to accuse as a condition of their release, a former inmate testified Thursday.

The ex-inmate took the stand for the defense Thursday in the federal trial of Mr. Lazare Kobagaya, 84, who faces deportation if convicted of lying to U.S. immigration officials in a case prosecutors have said is the first in the nation requiring proof of genocide. The Topeka man is charged with unlawfully obtaining U.S. citizenship in 2006 and with fraud and misuse of an alien registration card.

Jean de Dieu Maniraho told jurors the inclusion of Kobagaya on the list of those people to be accused caused "a lot of trouble" at the prison in 2005, triggering fights and arguments that divided prisoners from Nyakizu Commune into two groups.

"Some were saying this is an old man. We don't need to accuse him of something he did not commit," Maniraho told jurors through an interpreter. "And the other group ... said we have to do what the government wants us to do and what IBUKA wants us to do," a reference to a Rwandan Tutsi survivors association.

Among those in the latter group, Maniraho testified, was a key prosecution witness in the trial, Valens Murindangabo, a former teacher. Murindangabo had testified earlier in the trial that Kobagaya ordered the killing of Tutsis and the burning of their houses in Nyakizu Commune, where he lived at the time.

Maniraho told jurors on Thursday that IBUKA members would come to transitional camps where prisoners who had confessed to genocide would be held for 30 days before they were allowed to go home. One of the things the inmates would be taught would be to accuse "people of means" of genocide, he said.

"People of IBUKA wanted them to be arrested and put in prison so they can show proof to the whole world that genocide was done and that it was done by people who are educated," he said.

At the time, Maniraho said he was president of a type of community court system known as a gacaca that was held within the prison walls. He spent a total of 10 years in prison.

Under cross-examination questioning, prosecutor Steven Parker got Maniraho to acknowledge that he and Murindangabo had gone to one of those transitional camps after confessing to their crimes, but both men were still sent back to prison to serve two more years despite their confessions.

Maniraho also testified that he had to flee Rwanda after he was identified as a defense witness for Kobagaya's trial because Rwandan police were telling people that he was wanted and were asking for anyone who had seen him to hand him over to Rwandan prosecutors.

Any further testimony on that, however, was cut off because U.S. District Judge Monti Belot had ruled earlier in the day that the defense could not present any evidence related to the current political situation in Rwanda.

"This is a pure and simple, straightforward case: whether the jury believes the government's witnesses from Rwanda or the defense witnesses from Rwanda — who were there at the time," Belot told lawyers outside the jury's presence. "Either Mr. Kobagaya did what he is alleged to have done or Mr. Kobagaya didn't do what he is alleged — at the time."

The defense had argued in a court filing last month that the testimony being offered by government witnesses is being done at the behest of the Rwandan government through an unfair court system and the use of re-education camps to "brainwash individuals into regurgitating the official government position" for the sake of the current power maintaining its rule.

On Thursday, Belot barred a defense expert who would have testified about the "re-education" camps.

The events at issue in Kobagaya's trial allegedly occurred in the Rwandan village of Birambo, where Kobagaya lived at the time, and at Mount Nyakizu where hundreds of Tutsis were massacred.

Earlier in the day, the defense called to the stand Francois Patrick Tuyisabe, who was an 18-year-old student home on vacation at the time of the genocide. Tuyisabe said he did not participate in those events because his father told him not to do so.

Tuyisabe told jurors that during attacks on Tutsis who had fled to Mount Nyakizu that no Hutu children or elderly people were allowed to participate for fear they could be killed in a fight.

Tuyisabe — who testified he too stayed behind in Birambo during the attacks at Mount Nyakizu — was asked whether he saw Kobagaya in Birambo during the Mount Nyakizu attacks.

He replied, "I saw the old man at his home."

British Police Warn 2 Rwandans in Britain of Rwandan Government Threats on their Lives.

2011-05-20T02:48:00.002+02:00

New York Times
19 May 2011
By Josh Kron and Jeffery Gettleman

The British police have warned two outspoken Rwandan dissidents living in London that their lives are in danger because the Rwandan government may be plotting to kill them, according to British officials and documents.

In hand-delivered letters dated May 12, the Metropolitan Police Service warned the dissidents that the threat on their lives “could come in any form” and that “unconventional means” had been used before.

“Reliable intelligence states that the Rwandan government poses an imminent threat to your life,” the warning letters read. They added, “Although the Metropolitan Police Service will take what steps it can to minimize the risk, the police cannot protect you from this threat on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour basis.”

British officials confirmed the documents’ authenticity on Thursday.

Human rights groups have increasingly criticized the Rwandan government as being repressive and intolerant of any dissent, and several Rwandan dissidents living abroad have been mysteriously killed.

Last year, a former Rwandan general who had broken with the government was shot in South Africa, and assailants later tried to kill him while he was recovering in the hospital. Western diplomats contended that was evidence of a government plot to kill him.

The Rwandan government has rejected such accusations, including any threats in London.

“The government of Rwanda does not threaten the lives of its citizens wherever they live,” it said in a statement. “The Metropolitan Police have not approached us with evidence of allegations, but we are ready, as always, to work with them to ensure that nobody, be they Rwandan or not, is the victim of violence on British soil.”

The form letters, signed by a member of the Metropolitan Police Service, did not vouch for the accuracy of the threat but said it came from a source whose account the police had “no reason to disbelieve.”

One of the recipients of the warning, Rene Claudel Mugenzi, has been actively working with Rwandan opposition groups in London and said he was contacted by the British police late on May 12. “They said it was important,” Mr. Mugenzi said, “that I should not leave home.”

Mr. Mugenzi, 35, said he was aware that the Rwandan government did not appreciate his political views. But when two police officers showed up at his door in east London around 10:30 p.m. and told him and his wife of a threat to his life, he said he was speechless.

“I did not think they could think to kill me here in the U.K.,” he said.

Mr. Mugenzi says that in March he asked a pointed question to Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, during a BBC call-in show about whether Mr. Kagame believed an Egypt-style revolution could happen in Rwanda.

He also helped organize a recent meeting of exiled Rwandans in London. The Rwandan government has accused many opposition officials of working with a rebel group in eastern Congo that has been classified as a terrorist group by the United States and linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Mr. Mugenzi, who says he holds British as well as Rwandan citizenship, also works as a director at the London Center for Social Impact. He ran with the Liberal Democrats in local London elections last year and lost.

He has been living in Britain since 1997 and has frequently criticized Rwanda’s government for rights abuses.

“Take such remedial action as you see fit to increase your own safety measures, e.g. house burglar alarms, change of daily routines, always walk with an associate,” said the warning letter. “It may even be that you decide that it is more appropriate for you to leave the area for the foreseeable future.”

He said he had no plans to leave, but he was not ruling it out.

The other recipient of the warning, Jonathan Musonera, said he was a former Rwandan Army captain who fled to Britain in 2001 after defecting while the army was fighting in Congo. He said he was subsequently tortured by the Rwandan government. Now a critic of the government, he said the British police visited his home about an hour before the visit to Mr. Mugenzi.

“They told me about the Rwandan government,” Mr. Musonera said, “that they put my life in danger and they were trying to kill me.”

Critics of the Rwandan government have been killed or have simply vanished. Seth Sendashonga, a former member of the governing party, was fatally shot in Kenya in 1998. Augustin Cyiza, a former vice president of Rwanda’s Supreme Court, disappeared and is believed to have been killed in 2003. Leonard Hitimana, an opposition politician, disappeared the same year.

A Rwandan journalist covering the apparent assassination attempt of the general in South Africa was shot dead the day his story was published. The shooting strained relations between South Africa and Rwanda, with South Africa recalling its ambassador in August.

Last month, The Independent, a British newspaper, reported that Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, had warned Rwanda’s high commissioner in London that a harassment campaign against Rwandan dissidents must be stopped or more than $100 million in foreign aid to Rwanda could be cut.

The Rwandan government has repeatedly denied that it represses its citizens or has had a hand in any of the attacks on high-profile dissidents.

ICTR's Military-II Trial Verdicts Given.

2011-05-17T18:00:00.003+02:00

ICTR
Press Release
17 May 2011

Trial Chamber II of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda today convicted Augustin Bizimungu, François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, Innocent Sagahutu and Augustin Ndindiliyimana in the ‘Military II’ trial. It subsequently sentenced Bizimungu to 30 years in prison and Nzuwonemeye and Sagahutu each to 20 years imprisonment while Ndindiliyimana was sentenced to time served since he was arrested in Belgium on 29 January 2000.

Following this the Chamber ordered Ndindiliyamana’s immediate release and requested the Registry to make the necessary arrangements.

In reaching its judgement, the Trial Chamber, composed of Judges Asoka de Silva, Presiding, Taghrid Hikmet and Seon ki Park, stated that it had limited its analysis to considering whether the Prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt whether any of the accused were criminally responsible for the crimes that are alleged in the Indictment.

All the accused were acquitted on the count of conspiracy to commit genocide. The Trial Chamber ruled that it was not satisfied that the Prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the four accused in the case were implicated in such a conspiracy.

Ndindiliyimana was Chief of Staff of the Gendarmerie Nationale while Bizimungu was Chief of Staff of Rwanda Armed Forces, Nzuwonemeye was Commander of the Reconnaissance Battalion (RECCE) within the Rwandan Army and Sagahutu was the second-in-command of the RECCE and the “A” company commander of the Battalion.

The Trial Chamber convicted Ndindiliyimana on four counts of genocide, crimes against humanity (murder and extermination) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II ( murder). It acquitted him on the count of conspiracy to commit genocide and dismissed the count of complicity in genocide.

However it noted that the mitigating factors, which warranted mention, and the lesser sentence handed down to him, included his limited command over the Gendarmerie after 6 April 1994, his consistent support for the Arusha (peace) Accords and a peaceful solution of the conflict between the Rwandan Government forces and Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), and his opposition to the massacres in Rwanda.

The Trial Chamber found Bizimungu guilty on six counts of genocide, crimes against humanity for murder, extermination and rape and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II ( murder; rape, humiliating treatment). He was however acquitted on the count of conspiracy to commit genocide while the count of complicity to commit genocide was dismissed.

Nzuwonemeye was found guilty on two counts of crimes against humanity (murder) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II (murder). He was however acquitted on three counts of conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity (rape) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II (rape, humiliating and degrading treatment).

Sagahutu was found guilty on two counts of crimes against humanity (murder) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II (murder), and acquitted on three counts of conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity (rape) and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional protocol II (rape, humiliating and degrading treatment).

Further, Nzowunemeye and Sagahutu were also found to have ordered the killing of Prime Minister Agathe Uwingiliyimana and also were criminally responsible as superiors for the killing of the Belgian UNAMIR soldiers.

Bizimungu was arrested on 2 August 2002 in Angola and on 14 August 2002 he was transferred to the UN Detention Facility (UNDF) in Arusha, while Ndindiliyimana was arrested on 29 January 2000 in Belgium and transferred to the UNDF on 22 April 2000. Nzuwonemeye was arrested in the town of Montauban in the south of France on 15 February 2000 and was transferred to the UNDF on 23 May 2000 while Sagahutu was arrested in Denmark on 15 February 2000. He was transferred to the UNDF on 24 November 2000.

The trial opened on 20 September 2004 and closed on 26 June 2009 after 395 trial days. The Prosecution presented a total of 72 witnesses, while the defence produced a total of 134 witnesses.

Bizimungu is represented by Gilles Saint Laurent and Ronnie MacDonald (Canada); Ndindiliyimana is represented by Christopher Black (Canada) and Vincent Lurquin (Belgium); Nzuwonemeye is represented by Acheleke Charles Taku (Cameroon) and Beth Lyons (USA); and Sagahutu is represented by Fabien Segatwa (Burundi) and Seydou Doumbia (Mali).

Victoire Ingabire not represented on first court day.

2011-05-14T03:29:00.003+02:00

Radio Netherlands
By Sophie van Leeuwen and Ruben Koops, Hilversum
13 May 2011

“On Monday we want to start the cross-examination in the Kigali High Court at eight in the morning” says Ruberwa, who is the leading prosecutor in the Ingabire case. He also confirmed that Ingabire will be transported to the court on Monday.

But there she won’t be represented by her legal team. “No, the trial won’t be proceeding on Monday and the prosecution knows this!” says Edwards. “We told the court that the defence won’t be ready to start this Monday.”

According to defence attorney Edwards there are several reasons for the delay. A very practical one is that none of Ingabire’s legal advisers are going to be able to make it to Monday’s session, he says.

“Her Rwandan lawyer Gatera Gashabana will be out of the country, and so are the international members of her team.” The court date was fixed without the consultation of the international members of the team, says Edwards.

Another problem is the translation of the case file, which counts over 2,000 pages written in Kinyarwanda, the local language. “Two out of three members of the defence are not able to read the file,” says Edwards.

“The prosecution chooses not to provide the file in English, so the responsibility of translating the file has fallen on us exclusively.”

The Dutch embassy in Kigali has confirmed that it will have a staffer present at the trial in order to monitor the proceedings.

The Rwandan opposition leader, arrested in her Kigali home on 14 October 2010, has long been awaiting trial from a prison in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. Ingabire is the chairperson of the United Democratic Forces, and is charged with collaborating with a terrorist organization, divisionism, and denying the 1994 genocide.

2011-05-03T04:03:00.002+02:00

International Humanitarian Law Institute
Press Release
2 May 2011

Contact:
Dr. Christine Schoettler, PhD. (fr) cschoettler@comcast.net
Andrea Palumbo, JD (eng) andrea.m.palumbo@gmail.com

In a Kigali press release, Rwandan Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga announced his intention to renew the false "genocide denial" thought-crime charges lodged against IHLI Director, Prof. Peter Erlinder, in Rwanda for his writings in the United States. On his behalf, the Institute issues the following statement:

* As Prof. Erlinder has publicly stated on numerous occasions in the
past, he does not dispute that tens of thousands of Rwandan Tutsis perished
between April and July 1994, in circumstances that fit the definition of the
Genocide Convention and that tens of thousands of Hutus were also victims,
during and after April- July 1994. Institute research notes evidence in the
public record shows that;

* Former ICTR Prosecution expert witnesses, Prof. Allen Stam at the University of Michigan and Prof. Christian Davenport of Notre Dame University, analyzed all reports from the Rwandan government, NGO's and the UN, and determined twice as many Hutus were killed as Tutsis between April and July 1994. See: www.genodynamics.org;

* The ICTR Military-1 Judgment (full version: Feb. 8, 2009) found insufficient evidence to convict the former military leadership of a long-planned conspiracy to commit genocide against Tutsi;

* The US Ambassador to Rwanda at the time and declassified US documents from 1994 establish that: the assassination of the President of Burundi in October 1993; a
"genocide of 150,000 Hutus;" hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees pouring
into Rwanda; the displacement of at least 1 million primarily Hutu Rwandans by RPF military aggression in early 1993; and the RPF assassination of the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi in April 1994, were the actual causes of the Rwandan genocide. The U.S. Ambassador personally warned General Kagame in November 1993 that, if he resumed the war, he would be responsible for mass violence in Rwanda in 1994, like that in Burundi in 1993;

* UN documents show that the RPF was militarily dominant as of February 1993 and, according to UN Gen. Romeo Dallaire in his cables to the UN in April-June 1994, General Kagame refused to stop the violence because he was winning the war;

* Former ICTR Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte's 2009 memoirs document
then-Gen. Kagame's culpability for the assassination of the Presidents that began the Rwandan genocide, as does the Spanish indictment issued by Judge Abreu Merelles in 2008;

* The Spanish indictment also describes, prefecture-by-prefecture, 325,000 murders of Hutus and Tutsis for which Kagame and the RPF are responsible, not considering the massive killing in Rwanda and the Congo, after 1994;

* Shortly after Erlinder's release, the UN issued the 600-page "Mapping Report" documenting RPF Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes 1993-2003. UN Sec. Council Reports document RPF resource rape of the Congo in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2008 of at least $250 million/year resulting in some 6-7 million deaths;

In October 2010, Pres. Kagame allgedly issued orders to RPF leaders for Prof.
Erlinder's return to Rwanda "dead or alive." Given the hundreds if not thousands of assassinations and disappearances of his opponents, he has no doubt that Kagame would like to add his name to that list if he could. Prof. Erlinder is under medical treatment for PTSD since he returned from detention in Rwanda. is doctors and lawyers will determine the proper response, should he be summoned to return, as Prosecutor General Ngoga is threatening.

Rwanda Criminalizes Suicide Attempts

2011-05-03T03:53:00.002+02:00

The New Times
by Edwin Musoni
3 May 2011

Any person attempting to commit suicide but survives will be liable to a prison sentence of two to five years.

According to lawmakers, failed suicide is categorised as attempted murder.

Article 162 of the penal code, which was passed by the Senate, indicates that suicide is not punishable, however, the same article adds in its next paragraph that any person who tries to commit suicide but fails, due to circumstances beyond his or her control, shall be liable to imprisonment between two to five years.

Although the article was passed by the majority of Senators, Agnes Kayijire expressed her reservations over the article claiming that it was not in order to charge someone who attempts to take his or her life.

“There is contradiction in this article, I don’t understand how someone survives suicide and then that person is charged. There should be a special way to treat this person,” said Kayijire.

In an interview with The New Times, Dr. Joseph Iyakaremye, a social psychologist, who is also a lecturer at Kigali Institute of Education (KHI) said that a jail sentence may not make any impact on suicide survivors since that person has already taken extreme measures.

“The best way to handle a suicide survivor is to give that person special care and take him or her to a therapist. The person who attempts suicide is no longer thinking straight,” said Iyakaremye.

In his legal interpretation, the Minister of Justice Tharcisse Karugarama defended article 162 sustaining the augment that suicide is closely related to attempted murder.

“Globally, suicide is interpreted as not just someone killing himself but killing a human being. Someone who attempts to kill himself has a problem mentally, physiologically and otherwise; that is why the sentence is so light, you can’t keep that person in prison for so long,” said Karugarama.

“Normally, the judge may instruct the testing of the mental stability of the survivor. These details are stated in the criminal procedure code.”

Meanwhile, the 674-article penal code is in its final stages in the senate, where senators are expected to approve the proposed amendments.

Rwandan Prosecutor General Claims he will Charge US Lawyer Soon.

2011-05-02T21:26:00.003+02:00

AP/WNJ
2 May 2011

Rwanda's Prosecutor General said Monday that he is ready to file charges against an American law professor and force the U.S. citizen back to Rwanda to face court proceedings. Rwanda's Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga said he has been strengthening his case against Peter Erlinder since the U.S. lawyer and professor was released from a Rwandan prison last year on medical grounds. Erlinder was jailed on domestic charges in Rwanda last year on allegations he denied the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi and was an alleged threat to state security. Erlinder was a lead defense attorney for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and was in Rwanda at the time of his arrest acting as a defense lawyer to jailed Rwandan opposition party leader Victoire Ingabire.

"We have built a substantive case against Peter Erlinder and we will file this case very soon," Ngoga said. "When we summon him to Kigali to attend the criminal proceedings we expect him to heed the summons. If he doesn't do so we will ask Interpol to intervene. Mr. Erlinder's security is assured and a fair trial is guaranteed."

Erlinder, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., has said in the past that he would return to Rwanda if charged. He also said he has "no doubt" he will be killed if he returns.

Ngoga has said he would charge Erlinder with genocide denial based on articles Erlinder wrote that were published on the Internet.

Erlinder told The Associated Press on Monday that he agrees "many, many Tutsi Rwandans" were killed in a ways that meet the definition of the Genocide Convention.

"I have great sympathy for that loss," he said.

Erlinder also said it's inaccurate to blame only one side. He said killings by Hutus of Hutus who were protecting Tutsis would not be genocide under the Convention, but may count as war crimes or crimes against humanity. He also said the tribunal ruled last year that there was insufficient evidence to support the view that the genocide was a conspiracy planned long in advance. The court acquitted the four military officers in the trial Erlinder was involved in, including his client, of "conspiracy to commit genocide."

ICTR Spokesperson's Public Statements Regarding Erlinder Sanction said to be Incorrect.

2011-04-29T01:49:00.004+02:00

International Humanitarian Law Institute
NEWS ADVISORY
4/28/2011

Contact:

Dr. Christine Schoettler, PhD. (fr) cschoettler@comcast.net

Andrea Palumbo, JD. (eng) andrea.m.palumbo@gmail.com

St. Paul, MN - A 4-hour ICTR Appeal Chamber hearing will complete the 8-year case against Maj. Aloys Ntabakuze, who was acquitted of conspiracy to commit genocide and all incidents but four, which were committed by others and as the Prosecutor concedes he was not told about before or after the crimes. Ntabakuze's Lead Counsel, Peter Erlinder, was sanctioned by the Chamber on April 21. Statements reported by ICTR spokesperson on April 27 have not been factually accurate. These are the facts in the Appeal Chamber record:

. Dec. 17, 2010 - Notice that threats to Counsel and Co-counsel's life
by the Rwandan government created a conflict with the client's interests
provided in Motion for Stay of Proceedings;

. Feb. 1, 2011 - Notice that Co-counsel Andre Tremblay sought to withdraw
for fear for his own safety, U.S. bar rules permit waiver, Quebec bar rules
do not;

. Feb. 13 - Notice of Tremblay's road accident prevents appearance at
March 31 Arusha hearing;

. Feb. 22 - Request for Replacement Co-counsel and Motion for Video
Appearance because of Counsel's safety concerns;

. March 15 - Replacement Co-counsel and video appearance requests both denied: Erlinder's PTSD symptoms related to his detention in Rwanda become increasingly acute;

. March 15-25 - ICTR refuses to provide security/No assurances from
Rwanda re: security or arrest;

. March 25 - Erlinder provides Chamber with confidential medical
report confirming PTSD medical emergency;

. March 31 - Waiver of Presence of Counsel filed in Appeal Chamber;
NO HEARING DELAY REQUESTED.

. April 15 - Erlinder requests to complete the 4-hour hearing by
video or at The Hague, as is common at the ICTR, sometime after May 1 or
Tremblay can complete the hearing sometime after June 1 in Arusha.

Rwanda's RPF government seized Erlinder in May 2010 and threatened to
imprison him for life for writing critical articles, based on ICTR evidence
that acquitted his client of conspiracy to commit genocide. He was released
for medical reasons in June after personal appeals by Hillary Clinton and an
international campaign. The Rwandan government claimed he was "suicidal
from guilt." In October 2010, the same month the UN issued the 600 pp.
Mapping Report that documents RPF Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against
Humanity between 1993-2003, Rwanda's President Kagame issued "dead or alive"
orders for Erlinder's return to Rwanda. He has been threatened with INTERPOL
arrest warrants continuously since his release and harassed at U.S. law
school speaking events by Rwandan agents.

According to Erlinder, "Evidence of RPF culpability is no secret. former ICTR
Prosecutor Carl Del Ponte's 2009 memoirs, "Madame Prosecutor," and UN
documents in the Military-1 Trial confirm that the assassinations of the
Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi; the military superiority of the RPF; and
Kagame's refusal to use that superiority to stop the civilian killings,
played a major role in the genocide."

"But, by sanctioning me, the Appeal Chamber has revealed more about the
duplicity of the Tribunal than my conduct as counsel. History will judge
whether a completely one-sided Tribunal, now obviously complicit in cover-
up massive RPF crimes that are being exposed daily, or my role in exposing
that Tribunal for what it is, a sham, reflects the "highest standards of
the profession" to which I ascribe."

"History, and my profession, will absolve me rather than the ICTR Appeal
Chamber's manipulation of the facts. With the evidence now before it, the
Appeal Chamber has reason to be ashamed of its professionalism, not me."

ICTR Defense Attorney Sanctioned by Court Despite Documented Medical Symptoms Resulting From Rwandan Detention.

2011-04-28T04:24:00.002+02:00

NEWS ADVISORY
4/27/2011

Defense Attorney Sanctioned Despite Documented Medical Symptoms Resulting From Rwanda Detention: Consistent with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Cover-up of Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) Crimes.

Contacts:

Dr. Christine Schoettler, PhD. (fr) cschoettler@comcast.net

Andrea Palumbo, JD. (eng) andrea.m.palumbo@gmail.com

St. Paul, MN - A 4-hour Appeals Chamber hearing will complete the 8-year case against Maj. Aloys Ntabakuze, who was acquitted of conspiracy to commit genocide and all incidents but four that the Prosecutor admits he was not told about. His appeal case was separated from former co-defendents in the Military-I Trial, Col. Bagosora and Col. Nsengiyumva, on March 31, 2011.

Ntabakuze's Lead Counsel, Peter Erlinder, was sanctioned by the Appeals Chamber on April 21, 2011, after it received: (1) medical verification that, after March 15, Erlinder was experiencing acute medical symptoms directly related to his detention in Rwanda that prevents his travel to Arusha; (2) Erlinder's request to complete the 4-hour hearing by videoconference or at The Hague, as is common procedure at the ICTR; (3) to permit his Co-counsel, who had been ill, to argue the case in Arusha this June.

Rwanda's government imprisoned Erlinder in May 2010 for writing articles critical of the RPF based on ICTR evidence and threatened him with life in prison. He was released for medical reasons in June after personal appeals by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and an international advocacy campaign. In October 2010, "dead or alive" orders for Erlinder's return to Rwanda allegedly went out from Rwanda's President Paul Kagame. Erlinder has been threatened with INTERPOL arrest continuously and has also been threatened at his U.S. speaking engagements by Rwandan
Ambassadors and agents in February 2011.

In December 2010, Erlinder requested the Appeals Chamber suspend its proceedings against Ntbabakuze in light of: conflict-of-interest created by Rwandan threats against defense counsel; the 600-pg United Nations report released in October 2010 detailing RPF crimes in the Congo during 1993-2003; and former ICTR Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte's revelations.

The ICTR offered no security in Arusha. Rwanda gave no assurances it would
respect UN immunity for ICTR lawyers. When the Chamber rejected Erlinder's appearance by videoconference request on March 15, his medical symptoms returned. The Chamber was informed on March 25, 2011, that Erlinder had suffered a relapse of his acute medical symptoms arising from his detention and the pressure of the impending risk to his life. Prior to March 31, Erlinder: (1) requested to appear by videoconference for the 4-hour hearing; (2) requested a substitute co-counsel not facing any threats; (3) on March 31, Ntabakuze waived the presence of Counsel and was prepared to proceed pro se. All of these requests are in public documents and no hearing delay was requested. (Editor: The documents were provided to me and are available upon request.)

According to Prof. Erlinder, "Imposing sanctions in most jurisdictions takes place only after a notice and a hearing based on facts produced before the court. The Appeal Chamber decided on another method for its own reasons, but it is not grounded in simple fairness. But by sanctioning me, the Appeal Chamber has revealed more about the quality of fairness before the Tribunal than my conduct as counsel. History
will judge whether a wholly one-sided Tribunal, complicit in covering up massive RPF crimes that are being exposed as we speak, or my role in exposing that Tribunal for what it is, actually reflects the 'highest standards of the profession.' I believe that history, and my profession, will absolve me, not the ICTR or the Appeal Chamber. With the evidence now before it, the Appeal Chamber has reason to be ashamed, not me."

Note: The Rwandan government's viewpoint on this matter. The Press Release is, in part, a rebuttal of this article:

Erlinder banned from ICTR

By Edmund Kagire
The New Times
27 April 2011
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?issue=14608&article=40603

The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has banned controversial American attorney, Prof. Peter Erlinder, from appearing before the tribunal as a lead counsel, over misconduct and disregarding tribunal orders.

The ruling made by the appeals chamber that sat at the Hague on April 21, means that Erlinder, who had earlier been served with several warnings, will be immediately replaced as lead counsel for genocide suspect, Aloys Ntabakuze.

According to the ruling seen by The New Times, Erlinder who has been the lead counsel for Ntabakuze, had been served with several summons to appear in his client’s appeal, but he remained elusive.

This prompted the court to impose a ban on the American lawyer, who had earlier claimed that he feared travelling to Arusha for his personal security, but later cited his medical condition as the reason for not travelling.

However, a panel of Judges led by Judge Patrick Robinson found Erlinder’s actions amounting to contempt of court and rather “unprofessional conduct,” because he never took the initiative to inform the tribunal.

“Considering that Lead Counsel’s conduct amounts to a failure to act diligently and in good faith and does not demonstrate the highest standards of professional conduct,” the ruling reads in part, “Considering further that Lead Counsel’s failure to inform the Appeals Chamber in a timely manner of his inability to attend the appeal hearing due to non-emergency medical reasons amounted to an obstruction of the proceedings and was contrary to the interests of his client.”

The ruling further recalls that pursuant to Rule 46(A) of the Rules, the Chamber may, after a warning, impose sanctions against a counsel, if, in its opinion, his conduct remains “offensive or abusive, obstructs the proceedings, or is otherwise contrary to the interests of justice”.

It also noted that the Appeals Chamber had warned Erlinder twice about his duty to adhere to his professional obligations as Counsel assigned by the tribunal but he failed to do so, hence the need to impose sanctions.

“The Appeals Chamber hereby sanctions Ntabakuze’s Lead Counsel, Peter Erlinder, by refusing him audience before the Tribunal and instructs the Registrar, pursuant to Rule 46(C) of the Rules, to replace Peter Erlinder as Ntabakuze’s Lead Counsel as soon as possible.”

The chamber noted that Erlinder’s multiple efforts to avoid travelling to Arusha suggest that he had no intention of appearing at the appeals hearing since at least January 2011.

Efforts to contact the ICTR spokesperson Roland Amoussouga were futile as he could neither pick his calls nor reply his emails.

Erlinder has been on record for promoting Genocide denial, minimising and trivialising the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi through his recorded speeches and publications.

Last year, Erlinder was arrested and charged with Genocide denial when he travelled to Rwanda.

The American attorney is part of a network of genocide deniers from the United States, Belgium, Holland and other countries where he has held conferences, aimed at promoting revisionism and denying the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Jambo News Video on the "Leaked" Mapping Report on the DRC.

2011-04-13T06:34:00.001+02:00

The Leaked UN Report: The contradictions of the official narrative
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Rwandan Nyakatsi campaign leaves thousands of Batwa homeless.

2011-04-02T05:27:00.002+02:00

Survival International
1 April 2011
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/7154

A Rwandan government programme to destroy all thatched roofs in the country is leaving thousands of Batwa ‘Pygmies’ homeless.

Hundreds of Batwa families have seen their homes destroyed in recent months, forcing them to live in the open during the rainy season.

The authorities plan to destroy all thatched roofs in the country by May this year. Under the destructive scheme, families with means are meant to build new houses at their own expense.

The very poor (which include almost all Batwa) are supposed to be provided with sheets to replace the thatch, and the sick and elderly should be given completely new homes. But many huts have been destroyed without new homes being provided.

Among the most affected are the Batwa, the most marginalized people in Rwandan society. Rwandan Batwa are subjected to deep-seeded racism and discrimination on a daily basis.

In Rwanda’s Southern Province, 30,000 thatched huts are said to have been destroyed in the last three months. Thousands of families have been left homeless.

The Governor of the Southern Province has justified the demolitions by saying ‘people were seemingly happy to stay in their thatched houses and showed no commitment to leave them.’ Survival has protested to the Rwandan authorities.

Stephen Corry, Survival’s director, said today, ‘Destroying Batwa’s homes, against their wishes, leaving them drenched by the rains, sounds like a sick joke, or the action of an enemy force. That their government is doing this ‘for their own good’ is deplorably arrogant. You don’t improve people’s housing by demolishing their existing homes and leaving them with nothing.’

ICTR Rules Not All MIL-1 Appeal Cases are Legally Linked, Medical Symptoms Prevent Defense Lawyer's Attendance.

2011-04-01T22:28:00.006+02:00

International Humanitarian Law Institute [IHLI]
A non-profit, independent research and policy center:
St. Paul, MN USA 55105

News Advisory
March 31, 2011

Contact:

Asst. Dir. Christine Schoettler (fr)
cschoettler@comcast.net

Asst. Dir. Andrea M. Palumbo (eng)
andrea.m.palumbo@gmail.com

ARUSHA, TZ -- The Appeal Chamber of the UN Tribunal for Rwanda [ICTR]
confirmed top Rwandan military officers were not legally connected when it
legally-severed the ICTR Appeal of Major Aloys Ntabakuze from the cases of
Theoneste Bagosora and Anatole Nsengiyumva on Wednesday March 30. Ntabakuze
was originally indicted with General Gratien Kabiligi, who was acquitted of
all charges in the Military-1 Trial Judgement on 18 December 2008. *

The ICTR Appeal Chamber rejected a severance of Major Ntabakuze’s case in
late 2009, before it had all of the evidence. Medical conditions prevented
defense counsel Andre Tremblay, and Prof. Peter Erlinder, Director of the
IHLI, from attending the hearing. Major Ntabakuze waived the presence of
counsel and did not request a delay in the proceedings.

Prof. Erlinder is unable to attend proceedings because of ongoing treatment
for PTSD, the condition common among prisoners of war and hostages,
resulting from his detention by the Rwandan government and continuing
threats from Rwanda, because his of academic articles and research
conclusions. (See 3/30 ICTR filing [Available upon request-WNJ Editor]) Erlinder’s research has reached conclusions similar to those of the October 1, 2010 UNHCHR “mapping report,” that reported Rwanda war crimes, crimes against humanity and
genocide between 1993 and 2003.

A final Appeal Hearing in June or July will challenge Major Ntabakuze’s
conviction involving crimes committed by soldiers in four incidents, despite
the Trial Chamber finding that the Prosecutor had no direct evidence the
troops were under Ntabakuze’s command, or had received reports his troops
had committed crimes. Ntabakuze was acquitted of direct involvement in any
crimes; of giving troops orders to commit crimes; and, of conspiracy to
commit genocide or other crimes.

Rwanda Government admits Lambert Havugintwari in Police Custody.

2011-03-31T19:19:00.002+02:00

WNJ
30 March 2011
Original Post and information provided by:

http://newsrwanda-nkunda.blogspot.com/2011/03/rwanda-government-says-havugintwari.html

Police spokesperson Mr. Theos Badege revealed yesterday that Mr. Lambert Havugintwari, a lecturer at the National University of Rwanda (NUR), is in police custody after being reported missing for close to two weeks. This was announced through a statement by the Rwandan National Police released via The New Times, a Rwandan English-language news outlet.

According to the statement, Mr. Havugimana “is part of the racket,” presumably a reference to the four exiled Tutsi dissidents formerly of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front Party and/or the military: Gerald Gahima, Theogene Rudasingwa, Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa and Col. Patrick Karegeya.

The official version further claims that Mr. Havugimana was nabbed on February 9th and that his family was fully aware of this, a claim vehemently refuted by his wife, Christine Ingabire. In her open letter to President Paul Kagame, she complains of her husband’s disappearance requesting the latter’s help. This clearly implies that she had not seen her husband following his disappearance.

National University of Rwanda Professor Goes Missing, State Security Forces Blamed.

2011-03-28T17:43:00.005+02:00

The Baltimore Guardian/WNJ
27 March 2011

Mr. Lambert Havugintwari, a professor at the National University of Rwanda (NUR), has reportedly been missing for over a month. There are fears circulating that the government might have participated in eliminating him. This was claimed by his wife, Christine Ingabire, in her letter to Rwandan President Paul Kagame. In the letter, she requests the president intervene so she can know, “whether the husband is dead or alive.”

What seems odd about the case is that her husband’s cars, along with his other possessions, were all found at the police station, but only after she went there to seek assistance. According to her, the police department failed to give her a satisfactory explanation, only mentioning that the military had taken her car to the police station and taken her husband to the capital Kigali. So far, neither President Kagame nor his office have responded to the letter.

There are increasing claims that individuals are being targeted and killed, especially in Cyangungu, located in the Southern province. This was reported by Umuvugizi, a Kinyarwanda-language publication that is now operating from exile after being banned in Rwanda.

Note: This article was previously published at http://newsrwanda-nkunda.blogspot.com/2011/03/disappearance-of-university-don-in.html

Mrs. Ingabire's letter to President Kagame can be viewed (in Kinyarwandan) at: http://rwandinfo.com/kinya/umugore-wumwarimu-lambert-havugintwari-wo-muri-kaminuza-washimuswe-ningabo-za-kagame-aratabaza/

Rwanda in Six Scenes.

2011-03-27T20:17:00.001+02:00

London Review of Books
Vol. 33 No. 6, pages 3-8.
17 March 2011
by Stephen W. Smith

A number of memories connected with Rwanda play in my mind like scenes from a movie, although I don’t pretend they add up to a film. In 1994 a genocide was committed against the Tutsi minority in Rwanda. All else about this small East African country, ‘the land of a thousand hills’, is open to question and, indeed, bears re-examination. ‘Freedom of opinion is a farce,’ Hannah Arendt wrote in 1966 in ‘Truth and Politics’, ‘unless factual information is guaranteed and the facts themselves are not in dispute.’ The problem with Rwanda is not only that opinions and facts have parted company but that opinion takes precedence.

The first scene: I’m walking beside Paul Kagame, the current president of Rwanda and then a rebel leader, past low picket fences and small prefabricated houses in a residential suburb of Brussels. It’s cold and our breath mingles in the air as we speak. Kagame is swaddled in a thick coat. Even so, he remains a spindly figure with a birdlike face. I can’t warm to him, but I know him well enough by now to hazard the question that has been preying on my mind for a while: ‘Why is it always you, the vice-president, whom I meet when I have dealings with the Rwandan Patriotic Front, and not Alexis Kanyarengwe?’ Kanyarengwe was the movement’s president. ‘Don’t worry,’ he chuckles. ‘You’re seeing the boss. Kanyarengwe is only our front man. You’d be wasting your time.’

This was in 1992. The RPF had been set up in 1987 in Uganda by Tutsi exiles. Kagame’s parents had fled with him to Uganda when he was four. At the time of our meeting in Brussels, Kagame was avoiding the French. A few months earlier, in 1991, he’d just returned to his hotel near the Eiffel Tower from a meeting with officials at the Elysée when the French police called him in for interrogation. They were inquiring into a murky incident that was never entirely elucidated. Police sources claimed that members of Kagame’s delegation were ‘roaming around town with bags full of cash to buy weapons’; Kagame claimed the police were trying to discredit him. Tensions were running high between the rebel movement and France. The French were providing military support – 150 soldiers, later increased to 300, plus significant arms shipments – to the Hutu-dominated Habyarimana regime in Kigali, which the RPF was fighting to overthrow. Rwanda was a former Belgian colony, with eight million subsistence farmers jostling for a livelihood in a territory smaller than Haiti, and with little in the way of mineral wealth. It was a place where France felt obliged to assert itself as a tutelary power in Africa, if only to maintain its credibility as a guarantor of its local ‘friends’ and protégés and to defend ‘la Francophonie’ in Rwanda against the RPF, which operated from English-speaking Uganda. As for Kanyarengwe, the RPF figurehead, events would soon show that Kagame was telling the truth: he, Kagame, was the main man of the insurgency. Kanyarengwe, the nominal leader, was a Hutu defector: as head of the Rwandan secret services, he had helped Habyarimana to power in a coup d’état in 1973, but they later fell out and in 1980 he fled Rwanda. Ten years later – and two months after the RPF’s military campaign was launched from Uganda – Kagame offered Kanyarengwe the helm of the rebel movement to deflect the charge that the RPF was a Tutsi organisation. Kanyarengwe accepted in order to spite Habyarimana.

In the 1990s I was the Africa editor of the French daily newspaper Libération. The combination of the paper’s independence from the notorious Franco-African networks and my US passport represented Kagame’s best chance of an unbiased hearing in France, where government officials routinely referred to his rebel forces as the ‘Khmers noirs’. At the time, French public opinion made short shrift of small-scale military interventions in Africa. In June 1992 I alerted readers to what the Libération headline called ‘The Elysée’s Secret War’ in Rwanda – a deployment which had not been debated in parliament and had received almost no attention. In May 1993, 11 months before the extermination of the Tutsis began, I warned that ‘genocide’ was looming. But I also fell victim to the RPF’s manipulation of the press: I wrote about the supposed activities of the so-called Zero Network – presidential death squads – as well as the akazu, literally the ‘small house’, said to be the command structure responsible for pre-genocidal killings of Tutsis. Habyarimana’s in-laws were said to run the akazu and while I didn’t accuse President Habyarimana himself, I did point an incriminating finger at his wife, Agathe, and her brothers, accusing them of organising massacres of the ‘Tutsis of the interior’, as the oppressed minority inside the country was known. It was their way of retaliating against the Tutsis of the diaspora who had invaded the country from Uganda.

There were indeed massacres of Tutsis before the genocide – but they were organised by other people and at different levels of the state apparatus. Today, with hindsight, I know that the Zero Network didn’t exist and I’ve come to refer to the akazu, which continues to be used as a default category in journalistic and academic writing, as au cas où – French for ‘in case’ – as in ‘in case we find no master plan for the genocide in Rwanda’. I can’t say whether there was or wasn’t a master plan for the extermination of the Tutsis, some Rwandan equivalent of the Wannsee Conference. Historians must lay that question to rest’; the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the special UN court based in Arusha and charged with trying genocidal planners and killers, has found no one guilty of ‘conspiracy to commit genocide’ since it started its proceedings 16 years ago.

The Zero Network was first mentioned in an open letter published in 1992 by another defector from the Habyarimana regime, Christophe Mfizi, who had been the head of the government’s propaganda office in Kigali. As he later explained, he was anxious to avoid a libel suit. So he used ‘Zero’ as a way of fingering Agathe Habyarimana’s brother, Protais Zigiranyirazo, the prefect of Ruhengeri, the presidential family’s home province. Without giving his full name, Mfizi accused ‘Mister Z’ of running a network of hit squads, a charge a Rwandan journalist called Janvier Afrika wrote up in elaborate detail the following year.

Afrika has since recanted his testimony, explaining in similarly abundant detail how it was suggested to him by the RPF. Whether or not this is true, it’s perhaps significant that he recanted only after the RPF had taken power in Kigali, in November 1994, by which time he had fallen foul of the new regime. He fled to Cameroon, where I lost his trail in 1998. The ICTR has never summoned him as a witness. For his part, Mfizi obtained political asylum in France in September 1996, having resigned as the RPF’s first ambassador to Paris. Ten years later he submitted an exhaustive report on the Zero Network – nearly 50,000 words – at the request of the ICTR’s Office of the Prosecution. He repudiated the term akazu, which, he wrote, could not take the measure of ‘the political reality, and even less so the criminal reality … of the period between 1980 and 1994’. However, he reiterated his accusations against Zigiranyirazo, whom he now named, although his evidence did not bring a conviction: in November 2009, ‘Mister Z’ was acquitted on appeal by the ICTR.

The second scene etched on my memory is set in a sombre living-room with a low ceiling 40 kilometres south of Paris. It is 1998; I’m sitting on a couch opposite Agathe Habyarimana, now the widow of the former Rwandan president, whose plane was shot down on 6 April 1994, triggering the genocide. Photographs of the slain general cover the walls. Next to Mrs Habyarimana, now in her mid-fifties, sit four of her eight children: Jeanne and Marie-Merci; Léon and Bernard. I’ve been seeing Bernard for some time and he has persuaded his mother to meet me on her return to France after two years in Gabon. There are many grandchildren underfoot; eventually they’re banished from the room.

What do you ask ‘the Lady Macbeth of the Rwandan genocide’, as Philip Gourevitch called her? How do you approach a conversation with someone who’s been portrayed as the latter-day incarnation of a legendary sorceress in Rwandan dynastic history? Or as the ultimate ‘Hutu power’ extremist, who some believed was behind the assassination of her own husband for accepting a power-sharing agreement – the Arusha Peace Agreement signed in August 1993 – with the Tutsi rebel movement? What can you say to someone who’s generally presented by journalists, human rights activists and academics as the engineer of the 1994 extermination campaign? I ask myself a simpler question: would her grown-up children huddle around her if there were grounds for suspicion that she conspired to murder their father?

Agathe Habyarimana recounts what she saw in Rwanda during the genocide, from the moment she and her family heard the explosion of the presidential jet, which was hit by a missile right above their heads at 8.25 p.m., with debris raining into their garden, until her evacuation by the French army three days later. ‘We collected the body parts and gathered them on plastic sheeting or carpets. We were able to identify my husband, Elie’ – she’s referring to one of her half-brothers – ‘and several other members of the delegation. But our efforts were hampered as we were under constant gunfire. I didn’t speak to any civilian or military authority, still less issue orders.’ In addition to her only brother, ‘Mister Z’, Agathe Habyarimana had two half-brothers. Elie Sagatwa was one of them; he was also her husband’s private secretary. If the akazu really was the nerve centre of the genocidal project kick-started by the president’s assassination, would Sagatwa and his sister have hatched a plot that involved Sagatwa’s own death, in order to kill a man they were both intimate with, and could easily have eliminated in some other, simpler way?

A few months and several meetings later, I published an interview with Agathe Habyarimana in Libération. The interview was a scoop, but the prospect of providing a platform for a notorious génocidaire had prompted a ruckus in the newsroom. One of my colleagues had described my piece as ‘revisionism’. I told the editor-in-chief that I was always eager to revise what I or others had got wrong and suggested my colleague should write a profile of Agathe Habyarimana containing all the incriminating facts he could muster, which could be printed alongside my interview. After ten days, the face-off ended with a bad compromise. There wouldn’t be a profile but my interview had to be kept short. So in fewer than a hundred words, headlined ‘I’m not afraid of the truth,’ Mrs Habyarimana said that she was ready to appear before the ICTR at any time, that the akazu was a portmanteau word, a term of convenience, and that her son Jean-Pierre had never been a ‘pal’ of Mitterrand’s son, Jean-Christophe, who was his father’s Africa hand at the Elysée in the 1980s and early 1990s. ‘So much has been invented without ever giving me a fair chance to reply.’ That was the only sentence I felt uncomfortable about publishing.

In the same year, 1998, the French judiciary opened an investigation into the downing of Habyarimana’s plane at the request of relatives of the French crew members who had died in the crash. This marked the beginning of a long legal tug-of-war between Paris and Kagame’s RPF regime in Kigali. Relations between the two reached their nadir in November 2006, when a French judge issued international arrest warrants for nine key members of Kagame’s entourage. Rwanda severed diplomatic ties with France. Much was written about the self-aggrandising investigative magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, and about France’s hostility to the RPF regime. The Spanish judiciary, widening an investigation into the murder of some Spanish missionaries, reached even more grievous conclusions. In 2008, a judge in Madrid, Fernando Andreu Merelles, issued international arrest warrants for 40 RPF leaders on counts of ‘acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and acts of terrorism’. The Rwandan leaders, first among them Paul Kagame, were held responsible for ‘the attack on the life of President Juvénal Habyarimana … with a view to preparing the final offensive to seize power and to create a situation of civil war’.

The Kagame regime fought back. In August 2008 it accused France of having played an active role in the ‘preparation and execution of the 1994 genocide’, and threatened to issue 33 arrest warrants targeting French politicians, including three former prime ministers – Balladur, Juppé and Villepin – and the army top brass. Since then relations have improved; France and Rwanda restored diplomatic ties towards the end of 2009. In February 2010, President Sarkozy spent four hours in the Rwandan capital to seal the reconciliation. He admitted to France’s ‘errors’ and, more specifically, ‘a form of blindness when we failed to discern the genocidal dimension’ of the Habyarimana regime. Speaking about the génocidaires still at large on French soil, he mentioned the government’s decision to refuse asylum to ‘one of the persons concerned’ – a transparent reference to Agathe Habyarimana, whose request had been definitively rejected by the Conseil d’Etat four months earlier. Only days after Sarkozy’s return to Paris in March, she was briefly taken into custody as a result of an international arrest warrant issued against her by Kagame’s government in October 2009. It was an event staged for the media. She was released the same day on condition that she report regularly to the police. Nine months later, in December 2010, a formal request for extradition had still not been submitted by the Rwandan judiciary.

The rejection of Agathe Habyarimana’s asylum request in France was largely based on akazu-linked charges brought against her brother before the ICTR. The ruling was made a month before the ICTR acquitted Protais Zigiranyirazo. As for Mrs Habyarimana’s surviving half-brother, Séraphin Rwabukumba, both the UN tribunal and the courts in Belgium, where he lives, have abandoned proceedings against him. It’s just possible that the akazu was a women-only conspiracy, or that Agathe Habyarimana acted on her own. But if so, why hasn’t the ICTR indicted her? And why did the RPF regime wait 15 years before issuing an international arrest warrant in 2009? It could be that there are simply no legal grounds for prosecution, or that Rwanda’s tardy arrest warrant was just a way of intensifying the pressure on France. It could also be that no one – least of all the RPF leadership in Kigali – is interested in a trial in which the downing of Habyarimana’s jet in 1994 would inevitably come under scrutiny.

A third scene, May 1994: I reach Butare, the biggest town in southern Rwanda, by car from neighbouring Burundi. On the way, I’m stopped at numerous Hutu roadblocks. The barriers are manned mostly by young people with clubs, hammers or machetes. At one, a small boy is holding a nail-studded cudgel with tufts of bloody hair. The smell of putrefying bodies by the roadside is sickening. The starter of my dilapidated car is defective and the militiamen lay down their weapons to give me a push. Being French – or French enough – I’m regarded as a friend. ‘Vive la France!’ They wave their hands, which I’d just shook, as I make for the next roadblock.

In Butare, the Catholic bishopric is a safe haven. The priests allow me in and provide me with a room for the night. From my window, I can see the imposing red brick cathedral built by the Belgians just across the street. I walk over there, knock at the presbytery door, stay for a while and then return to my room. The last surviving Tutsis in Butare hiding out in these two buildings, the cathedral and the bishopric. Whichever of the two they’re in, they believe the one across the street is ‘safer’. A young woman in tears begs me to hide her in the boot of my car and drive her out of the country. ‘I really can’t. We wouldn’t even reach the edge of town.’ ‘You want me to die.’ Throughout the night, I hear noises in the streets – drunken militiamen – and also above my head, when from time to time the Tutsis hiding in the double ceiling drag their numb bodies across the floor in an attempt to stretch or get a breath of fresh air. Twice in the night, furious fists batter at the wooden entrance door and coarse voices vow to return in search of ‘cockroaches’. When they finally go away, the ceiling weeps.

In the morning, over breakfast, I talk to the priests. They’re prepared to die with their ‘guests’ at the hands of the militia; they describe the militia as ‘God’s children who’ve lost their way’. I don’t like to leave without a modest offer of hope. ‘The RPF is advancing rapidly. Soon they’ll reach Butare, and it’ll all be over. Just hold out for a few more days!’ I stare into bitter smiles. ‘That’s no solution,’ someone says. ‘Why not?’ ‘Because they’ll kill us.’ ‘But why on earth would they want to kill you? You’ve stuck together, Hutus and Tutsis!’ ‘Precisely for that reason.’ I drive away dispirited and bewildered. It’ll take me a long time to grasp that, for many of the exiled Tutsis who are now returning, especially the generation raised or born abroad, the genocide is not only what happened over the hundred days between April and July 1994, but an entire history of violence, discrimination and hardship that began with the so-called Social Revolution of the Hutus in 1959. In their eyes, Hutus and Tutsis can’t live together on equal terms because, unless the minority keeps the majority in check, Tutsis will always be humiliated or killed. To pretend otherwise, as the ‘Tutsis of the interior’ did when they stayed in the country after 1959, is to betray the dead among your kith and kin.

A change of location: Nairobi, February 1996, two years into the new RPF dispensation in Rwanda. As I speak to Seth Sendashonga, his vivid eyes are glazed with sadness. I have just spent several weeks in Rwanda, and have returned bearing notepads full of crimes. It isn’t as if he doesn’t know what happened: on the contrary, I’d leaned heavily on Sendashonga’s contacts in Rwanda. In 1991, when he joined the RPF, Sendashonga was the only eminent Hutu-turned-rebel who was not a defector from the Habyarimana regime. He undertook to rewrite the rebels’ political platform, to explain to the children of exile what the land of their fathers was like and, more important, to build bridges with opposition parties in Rwanda. ‘Our agenda is not revenge but true democracy,’ he assured them. Under the new regime, Sendashonga became Kagame’s minister of the interior. But he could not accept the RPF’s reprisals for the genocide, including planned massacres and systematic killings. Kagame failed to respond to any of the 700 letters documenting abuses which Sendashonga sent him. Eventually, Sendashonga had to face the fact that he was only another front man. Six months before we met in Nairobi, he resigned and went into exile.

Poring over a table strewn with papers, Sendashonga and I compare two independent lists of people killed in Gitarama province, central Rwanda, during the first 11 months after the RPF took power. We move forward line by line, name by name, address by address, cross-checking dates. One list has been compiled by parish priests throughout the prefecture; the other established at neighbourhood level for 11 of the 17 communes in Gitarama. The two lists largely tally. The first comprises about 25,000 dead, the second 17,000. Assuming RPF reprisals were equally severe everywhere in Rwanda this leads to an extrapolated figure of 150,000 people killed between July 1994 and April 1995 in the entire country. Based on research completed in August 1994 in 41 of the 145 Rwandan communes, Robert Gersony, a UNHCR consultant, estimated that ‘between 25,000 and 40,000 persons’ were killed during the first 100 days of RPF rule. The Gersony report – in fact just briefing notes – was leaked to the press. Under intense pressure from Kigali and its allies, the UNHCR went on the record denying its existence. No Gersony report, no dead.

In February 1996, Libération published my investigation into the killings allegedly committed by the post-genocide regime. I estimated that ‘more than 100,000’ Hutus had been murdered during the RPF’s first year in power. Libération also published an interview with Gérard Prunier, a specialist on the Great Lakes region, and the eyewitness account of a Rwandan nurse who had described to me two sites where he claimed he had been forced to work: one near Kigali where, he said, prisoners were put to death (their skulls were crushed), and another in a game reserve, the Akagera National Park, where scores of Hutus were cremated. There wasn’t much of a reaction to the dossier, though the Rwandan embassy in Paris issued a strongly worded denial. The wire services picked up the story but it disappeared very quickly. It was just a sour note in a concert.

Seven months later, in October 1996, the Rwandan army dispersed the Hutu camps in eastern Zaire, today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo. More than a million Hutus streamed back into Rwanda, while 300,000 fled deeper into Zaire. Of that 300,000 nearly two-thirds died over the next six months, according to a field study by Médecins sans frontières. They were killed or died of disease, exhaustion and hunger as they made their way across the African interior. The UNHCR spoke of ‘crimes against humanity’, but, again, there was hardly any response. Twelve years later, in August 2010, a fresh investigation by the UN put the number killed at ‘probably in the several tens of thousands’:

The extensive use of edged weapons (primarily hammers) and the apparently systematic nature of the massacres of survivors after the camps had been taken suggests that the numerous deaths cannot be attributed to the hazards of war or seen as equating to collateral damage. The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick … the apparent systematic and widespread attacks described in this report reveal a number of inculpatory elements that, if proven before a competent court, could be characterised as crimes of genocide.

The new regime in Kigali went after Sendashonga in exile. In 1996, the day before Libération published the dossier on the RPF killings, he was ambushed and sustained two bullet wounds. He identified one of the two attackers as his former ministry bodyguard in Kigali. The other was Francis Mgabo, an official from the Rwandan embassy in Nairobi, who attempted to dispose of his firearm in the toilet of a nearby petrol station. The Kenyan authorities asked Rwanda to lift Mgabo’s diplomatic immunity, so that he could go on trial, but Kigali refused and for a time the two countries broke off diplomatic relations. On 16 May 1998 in Nairobi, during the evening rush hour, gunmen armed with AK-47 assault rifles opened fire on Sendashonga’s car, killing him and his driver. As his wife later revealed, he had been scheduled to testify before the ICTR. He had also set up an armed opposition group (Forces de résistance pour la démocratie), which attracted both Hutus and Tutsis. His wife claimed that the acting Rwandan ambassador in Kenya at the time, Alphonse Mbayire, had organised Sendashonga’s assassination. Mbayire was recalled by his government, only to be shot dead by unidentified gunmen in a bar in Kigali a month later.

The fifth scene: Kigali, January 2002. For six years, I’ve been persona non grata in Rwanda. Finally, I managed to persuade the foreign ministers of France and Britain, Hubert Védrine and Jack Straw, to take me on their plane as they make a joint tour of four African countries – the DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda – and to drop me off in Kigali. Though it means they have to give up a seat for a reporter covering their entente cordiale, they agree. For the Rwandan authorities, it is tricky to deny me a visa as part of a Franco-British delegation. Védrine is the first French minister to visit Kigali after the genocide. The UK accounts for half of Rwanda’s foreign aid. So here I am, an unwelcome visitor, on sufferance and under surveillance after the ministers’ departure. To meet ordinary people means putting them at risk while RPF officials, many of whom I knew when they were still rebels, won’t return my calls. Finally, Charles Murigande, who is in charge of foreign affairs, comes to my hotel. I launch into a lengthy profession of good faith. He replies with a Rwandan proverb: ‘There’s no use drinking milk on a stomach full of hatred. It’ll throw up blood.’ With this, he draws his chair back and leaves.

In a town you know, there’s sure to be someone who wants to see you. Not that Pasteur Bizimungu and I are especially close, but the former head of state badly needs a friend. Before joining the RPF in 1990, he was the director of Electrogaz, a coveted post in Habyarimana’s dispensation. He gave up the position to become the rebels’ spokesman and then a member of their negotiation team in Arusha. Finally, the RPF picked him as the Hutu figurehead for the post-genocide government of national unity. He became president while Kagame effectively ran the country. The pretence came to an end in 2000, when Kagame took the top job for himself. Bizimungu created his own political party, Ubuyanja (‘Renewal’). It was a more ambitious idea than the RPF could allow: he was accused of rekindling ethnic hatred and placed under house arrest. So I am sure to find him at home.

The soldiers at the gate are taken by surprise: a white man, tailed by security agents in a car – probably from the Directorate of Military Intelligence – nervously fingering their cell phones. ‘M. Bizimungu doesn’t want to see anybody!’ But I’d already rung the bell. Pasteur Bizimungu shoots out and welcomes me. ‘Yes, I want to see him, absolutely!’ he tells the soldiers and whisks me inside. He locks the door and leans against it, breathing heavily. A volley of accusations about Kagame follow; I remember the expression ‘the dark side of power’. When it is clear that no one will order me out, Bizimungu leads me into his library. We talk until we are both exhausted. ‘You know, they were right,’ he says finally. ‘The explorers, the missionaries, the colonisers, about the Tutsis being liars. They are liars.’ I am thrown clean off balance. Bizimungu climbs a stepladder to reach down a book from a high shelf. In no time, he finds the passage he’s looking for, about the ‘Tutsi culture of duplicity’, which he reads out, stressing key words. I make my excuses and leave. Bizimungu has been driven mad.

After my visit, he was entirely cut off from the outside world. Two years of solitary confinement at home preceded his sentence, in 2004, to 15 years in jail. In 2007, the former president was pardoned by Kagame, who had by then won his first election with 95 per cent of the vote. No one could have mistaken the poll in 2003 for an exercise in democracy. After the legislative elections of 2008 even the RPF found the machine score – 98.39 per cent – embarrassing and lowered it to 78.76 per cent. The EU electoral observers duly documented this self-restraint, but the head of their mission, Michael Cashman, agreed with the EU delegate in Kigali, David MacRae, not to go public about it – it might have raised uncomfortable questions. For his re-election in August 2010, Kagame approved a slight erosion of his Soviet-style popularity, allowing his vote to drop to 93 per cent. Rwanda’s burgeoning Democratic Green Party had lobbied against the country’s admission to the Commonwealth, citing the regime’s gross human rights violations. Its vice-president was found decapitated but that didn’t stop Rwanda joining the postcolonial club, the 18th African Commonwealth state and – after Mozambique – only the second member that is not a former British possession. In 2008 Kigali had made English – instead of French – the official teaching language at all levels of the Rwandan educational system.

Rwanda, as a recent document has it, is a one-party authoritarian state, controlled by President Kagame through a small clique of Tutsi military officers and civilian cadres of the RPF from behind the scenes. The majority Hutu community remains excluded from a meaningful share of political power. State institutions are as effective as they are repressive. The government relies on severe repression to maintain its hold on power … Rwanda is less free today than it was prior to the genocide. There is less room for political participation than there was in 1994. Civil society is less free and effective. The media is less free. The Rwanda government is more repressive than the one that it overthrew.

This is not the preamble to a new Hutu manifesto but an excerpt from the ‘Rwanda Briefing’ published last year by four senior figures in the Kagame regime who’ve now fled abroad: the former secretary general of the RPF Theogene Rudasingwa; his brother Gerald Gahima, one-time prosecutor general and vice-president of the Rwandan Supreme Court; the erstwhile chief of external security services Colonel Patrick Karegeya; and General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, the ex-chief of staff of the Rwandan army. Nyamwasa survived an attempt on his life last June, when a commando opened fire on him in Johannesburg, where he now lives in exile. The South African authorities laid the blame with the government in Kigali.

The authors of the ‘Rwanda Briefing’ may not be trustworthy advocates of freedom and democracy, or paragons of ethnic inclusiveness, but they describe a system they’re familiar with and a leader they know well. To his many Western admirers they have this to say: ‘President Kagame is a very polarising figure. His policies continue to divide Rwandan society along the lines of ethnicity and to fuel conflict. The likelihood of a recurrence of violent conflict, including even the possibility of genocide, is very high.’

A final scene: on 21 September 2006, President Kagame lectures on ‘Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development in Africa: The Rwandan Experience’ at Princeton. The country he describes – ‘different from the old system which plunged Rwanda into mayhem’, with ‘checks and balances’ in place after a ‘decisive break with exclusivist practices’ – is not one I recognise. Even in a packed auditorium, I have the same unsettled feeling in Kagame’s presence as I’ve had in the past. He seems unchanged: taking questions from the audience, he refers to ‘the genocide in the 1960s, the 1970s and 1980s’, as if ‘the one in 1994’ were merely one in a series – a hair-raising denial of the singularity of events between April and July 1994. But Goethe was right: ‘Everyone hears only what he understands.’ The students ask questions about gender equality in Rwandan politics, the fight against corruption and atrocity – a genocide? – in Darfur. How many of them have been moved by Hotel Rwanda, and how many know that Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life hero played in the film by Don Cheadle, is now a thorn in Kagame’s side? Rusesabagina continues to speak out for the ideals that led him to save more than 1200 lives during the genocide in Kigali. For Kagame, however, he is a ‘fabricated hero’ and a collaborator of the die-hard Hutu génocidaires exiled in Congo.

I am not arguing that we should all know everything there is to know about Rwanda. My point is that we don’t seem to want to know what happened in 1994, or what’s happening now. We’ve learned the wrong lesson from the organised massacre of 800,000 people, which we failed to prevent. Eager to pay off our moral debt, we’re blinded by guilt. The near total lack of media coverage of the ICTR trials and findings suggests that we’re happy to waive our best chance of grasping the inner workings of the genocide. We clamour for international justice but the detailed proceedings of the tribunal don’t interest us. At the same time, the denial of freedom and rights under the previous regime in Rwanda impels us to shower Kagame with leadership awards and aid money even as he denies them again. We are hypnotised by the 1994 genocide, and oblivious to the atrocities of a regime we regard as exemplary. Aid, we say, must be conditional on good governance – but post-genocide government is an exception. La Francophonie is at best ridiculous and at worst a vector of France’s influence, but the Commonwealth is honourable as it embraces a dictator who favours English over French. Democracy is a precondition of peace – but not in a post-genocidal state. Justice, truth and reconciliation heal – but not the wounds of exterminatory hatred. The invasion and plunder of eastern Congo are criminal – but not when they’re carried out by genocide survivors. Hutu power is bad, but Tutsi chauvinism is acceptable. We hold these opinions not because they’re right but because they put us on the right side. This makes Rwanda a more tragic place than it needs to be.

AMERICAN LAWYER FEARS TO TRAVEL TO ICTR HEADQUARTERS BECAUSE OF THREATS ON HIS LIFE.

2011-03-24T14:10:00.002+02:00

Hirondelle News Agency
23 March 2011

American lawyer Peter Erlinder, the lead defence counsel for convict Major Aloys Ntabakuze is worried to travel to Tanzania to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for the appeal hearing of his client, allegedly because of threats on his life.

The appeal hearing occurs alongside two other former military officers on December 18, 2008 is scheduled to be conducted in Arusha, Tanzania at the Tribunal's seat between March 30 through April 1, 2011.

Backing the alleged safety threats for his lead counsel, Major Ntabakuze filed a motion before the Appeals Chamber seeking for his counsel to participate in the appeal hearing by video-conference but the Chamber denied the motion.

‘'The Appeals Chamber finds that Ntabakuze has failed to demonstrate that the grant of a video-conference is warranted in this case and that the request for Lead Counsel's appearance by way of video-conference should therefore be denied,'' reads part of the ruling.

‘'It recalls that failure by Counsel to appear before the Tribunal may be a ground for the imposition of sanctions or may constitute contempt of the Tribunal,'' warns the decision.

ORDINARY RWANDANS FEAR TESTIFYING AT ICTR FOR FEAR OF RWANDAN GOVERNMENT REPRISALS.

2011-03-22T19:15:00.003+02:00

Hirondelle News Agency
21 March 2011

Chief investigator in the case of former Rwandan Minister of Youth Callixte Nzabonimana, Fernand Batard, Monday alleged before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) that he could not easily get ordinary Rwandans neither in the country nor abroad to testify for the defendant for fear of reprisal by the authorities.

‘'I did not meet a single potential witness who did not express fear to testify for the genocide accused persons,''Batard, a retired French Lieutenant Colonel and lawyer told the Chamber during examination in-chief conducted by lead defence Counsel, Vincent Courcelle-Labrouse.

He said a three-man team of investigators under his control including himself and two Rwandan nationals could easily get cooperation with the would be defence witnesses from prisons but not from ordinary citizens whom were engulfed with fears.

‘'I met with one of the would be witnesses outside Gitarama town trying to persuade him testify for Nzabonimana but in less than 15 minutes, district authorities came to find out what was happening in the area,'' he narrated adding that the potential witness, code-named T22 later refused to testify for the accused for fear of reprisal.

The witness who also worked in Rwanda between 1986 and 1989 at a Training College of Gendarmerie National as an Instructor and Technical Advisor, explained that he faced same problems when recruiting witnesses from Rwandans living in Diaspora in Europe saying ‘'they feared their own Rwandan authorities and the authorities of the host countries for reprisal.''

‘'This deprived us and you, your honors, of information we needed to provide for the defence of our client,'' he said, insisting that even people who worked with Nzabonimana before, including the clergymen refused to cooperate with the defence team.

MONUSCO denounces fraudulant use of UN Mission in Congo and UN Security Council's (UNSC) Names.

2011-03-17T18:27:00.001+02:00

MONUSCO
Press Release
15 March 2011

It has been brought to the attention of the United Nations Organization Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic epublic of the Congo, (MONUSCO) that some individuals have been using the name of both the United Nations Security Council and MONUSCO to fraudulently obtain money from mining companies doing business in the Congo.

In their bid to dupe their victims, the individuals have presented documents bearing fake letterheads of both the UN Security Council and the Mission as well as a forged seal of the UN Security Council.

They go at length to explain that the United Nations is working together with a Congolese Ministry and that we issue licences for the exportation of mining products.
MONUSCO and indeed the UN Security Council wish to make it abundantly clear that they do not provide clearances for commercial transactions of any kind.

Victoire Ingabire's Former Residence Attacked with Molotov Cocktail.

2011-03-17T02:33:00.004+02:00

FDU-Inkingi
Press Release
16 March 2010

In Kigali today, at around 19:50, a Molotov cocktail was hurled by an unknown assailant(s) into the former residence compound of jailed FDU-Inkingi Chairperson, Ms. Victoire Ingabire. Nobody was injured in the attack.

The police were immediately informed. First, the Gasabo District DPC visited the scene and ordered an overnight police patrol. Later, other police officers came to find out what happened. After a cosmetic fact-finding exercise, one of the officers ironically suggested the cocktail might have been thrown by the house residents in order to draw the attention of the media.

According to the watchman, a few minutes before the attack a suspect was first seen scouting the area around the compound and was spotted glimpsing a look over the compound wall. A local female journalist who interviewed the watchman got into a short argument with a police officer who wanted to smooth and preview her report before she broadcast it.

The leadership of FDU-Inkingi condemns this coward attack and calls for a thorough investigation in order to bring the culprits to book. Every government is duty-bound to ensure security for its citizens, irrespective of their political orientation.

For the FDU-INKINGI,

Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice-President

2011-02-21T20:16:00.001+02:00

Amnesty International - Rwanda: Reveal whereabouts of disappeared businessman.

2011-01-28T19:43:00.001+02:00

27 January 2011
AI Index: AFR 47/001/2011

The Rwandan government should immediately reveal the whereabouts of Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza, not seen since his enforced disappearance in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, on 26 March 2010, Amnesty International said today. Amnesty International believes that Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza is detained in military custody in Rwanda. The organization is calling on the Rwandan authorities to promptly charge or release him.

Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza, a dual citizen of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was living in Gisenyi and working as a businessman and on the Ecumenical Programme for Peace, Conflict Transformation and Reconciliation (PAREC) demobilisation programme in the DRC at the time of his enforced disappearance. He was the leader of an armed opposition group, the Front patriotique congolais, in eastern DRC in the late 1990’s. The group disbanded and later reformed before being integrated into the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC).

Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza was last seen on 26 March 2010 around 6am when he dropped a family member at Nyabugogo Bus Station in Kigali. On that morning, he was driving a silver grey Toyota Vista registration number RAA 060Y. He never reached his brother’s home in Kigali, as planned. Family members tried to contact him by telephone later that morning. At first, he did not answer and by mid-morning, his phone was switched-off.

Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza’s family reported him missing to the Rwandan National Security Service (NSS) on 27 March 2010, but have not received further news from the NSS about his whereabouts. On 7 May 2010, Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza made a phone call saying that he was detained at an unknown location in Rwanda. No-one has heard from him since.

In October 2010, Amnesty International received credible information suggesting that Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza was detained in Rwandan military custody.

The Rwandan Ministry of Defence did not respond to a letter from Amnesty International requesting information on Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza’s whereabouts in November 2010. In October 2010, two months after a written request for information, the Rwandan police confirmed that Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza was not in police custody. They suggested that Amnesty International instead direct enquiries to the Ministry of Defence.

Amnesty International calls on the Rwandan authorities to:

•Immediately reveal the fate or whereabouts of Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza.

•Promptly charge Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza with a recognizable criminal offence and transfer him from military to civilian custody or release him.

•If charged, grant Robert Ndengeye Urayeneza with all the legal safeguards available under Rwandan law, including the right of regular access to a lawyer and a prompt and fair trial which meets international standards.

•Immediately release or else reveal the whereabouts and charge any other individuals subjected to incommunicado detention or enforced disappearance.

•Bring any individuals subjected to incommunicado detention promptly before a court to review the legality of their detention.

•Bring to justice all those responsible for ordering or carrying out enforced disappearances, regardless of rank, in proceedings which meet international fair trial standards.

Background

Enforced disappearances, abductions and incommunicado detention, rare in Rwanda in recent years, increased in 2010, as the Rwandan authorities investigated a spate of grenade attacks before the presidential elections.

Amnesty International received information of three other persons who disappeared in March and May 2010 in Rwanda. All were former supporters of Laurent Nkunda, the former head of the armed opposition group, the National Council for the Defence of the People (CNDP), operating in North Kivu, eastern DRC. For example, Sheikh Iddy Abbasi, a former supporter of Nkunda, has not been seen since his disappearance outside his home in Gisenyi in March 2010.

Lieutenant-Colonel Rugigana Ngabo, the brother of the former Rwandan army chief, Kayumba Nyamwasa, was held in incommunicado detention without access to a lawyer, family or independent medical care from August 2010 to January 2011. The Rwandan authorities are investigating allegations that Ngabo may have threatened state security. Following a habeas corpus request by Ngabo’s family addressed to the East African Court of Justice in November 2010, the Rwandan authorities are believed to have produced Ngabo in the past week before a military court in Kigali.

FDU-Inkingi Delegation Visits Political Prisoners in Kigali.

2011-01-28T18:11:00.002+02:00

FDU-Inkingi
Press Release

Today, the Executive Committee and only 30 party members managed to
meet Ms. Victoire Ingabire, the Chair of FDU-INKINGI for about 10 minutes, on her 107th day in Kigali maximum prison. She praised the FDU Committee and party members for their courage and dedication.

“I am strong, let everybody remember that together we shall overcome and
that there is no place for exclusion. TWESE HAMWE TUZATSINDA is our
motto”, she said.

The visiting team saw two other political prisoners, Deo Mushayidi and
Bernard Ntaganda, who both expressed their interest in discussing ways to
support the ongoing talks with Rwanda National Congress and other opposition
organisations.

Done on 28 January 2011,

Boniface Twagirimana
Acting Vice President
FDU-INKINGI

Western Countries Slam Rwanda for Lack of Press Freedom in UN Human Rights Council Meeting.

2011-01-25T03:31:00.004+02:00

SAPA/AFP/WNJ
24 January 2010

Western countries in the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday urged Rwanda to protect journalists after raising several concerns about numerous attacks and restrictions on freedom of speech.

“While acknowledging Rwanda's painful history with the misuse of the media to foment violence, we note that the suppression of free speech has also led to bloodshed and violence,” US delegate John Mariz told the council.

“We remain concerned with the lack of progress in allowing media organs to speak freely without fear of punishment,” he added during a review of Rwanda's human rights record in the 47-member body.

Britain's representative talked about the role of some media outlets in the 1994 genocide and stated the country is currently “concerned about restrictions on freedom of speech” including the “suspension of independent newspapers”.

British ambassador Peter Gooderham also called for investigations into numerous reports of journalist harassment, while France appealed for information on the probe into the murder of newspaper editor Jean-Leonard Rugambage in June.

Rugambage, the deputy editor of Umuvugizi newspaper and an outspoken critic of the Rwandan government, was shot outside his home in Kigali.

Rwandan authorities are accused of having ordering the murder but they have denied any implication.

A human rights group reported in October that two men were jailed for life for the killing, which allegedly occured over a dispute about the 1994 genocide.

Switzerland and Canada also joined the defence of media freedom, amid concern that recent laws which prohibit denial of genocide and “genocide ideology” could easily be misused or misinterpreted.

Earlier this month, Rwandan state radio reported that a prosecutor sought a 33-year prison sentence for the editor of a local independent newspaper, Agnes Uwimana, who was accused of denying the 1994 genocide and allegedly defaming senior officials including President Paul Kagame.

In Geneva, France described the sentence as “severe."

Victoire Ingabire's Bail Appeal Denied.

2011-01-21T14:05:00.002+02:00

Press Release
FDU-Inkingi
21 February 2011

Today the High Court rejected the bail appeal of Madame Victoire Ingabire,
Chairperson of the FDU-INKINGI, on the grounds that even though her detention order
expired over the Christmas holiday, the case was transmitted to the Court for
the evidential stage thereafter.

The judge's decision was not a surprise as Rwandan President Paul Kagame stated during a press conference on 18 January 2011, two days before the verdict was read, that Mrs.Victoire Ingabire will face the law up to the exhaustion of the judical process.

In front of the High Courthouse, an AFP reporter, Mr. Steve Terril, was
assaulted by Rwandan security officers and a CID officer for taking photos of the
defendant.

Boniface Twagirimana
Interim Vice-President
FDU-INKINGI

DEBATE ON AMERICAN LAWYER'S ARREST IN RWANDA HITS BACK AT ICTR.

2011-01-14T19:49:00.000+02:00

Hirondelle News Agency
12 January 2011

Aloys Ntabakuze has revisited the debate on arrest of his American lead counsel, Peter Erlinder, by requesting for permanent stay of proceedings in his appeal against life imprisonment sentence rendered by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) two years ago.

However, the prosecution vehemently opposes the request by the former Rwandan army officer, submitting that what he was trying to advance to support his current move have already been conclusively determined by the Appeals Chamber in its decision dated October 6, 2010.

In this new development, Ntabakuze has filed what he called "Exceptional public motion for permanent stay, to uphold the rule of law and appearance of justice in proceedings before the Appeals Chamber."

He is seeking for stay of proceedings for his case, claiming he would not get fair trial following threats to personal safety, arrest and subsequent prosecution of his lead counsel, Erlinder, by Rwandan government.

"The appellant is deprived of a fully effective representation, violating his right to a fair trial. This case has arrived at the regrettable, but irretrievable, position that a permanent stay of proceedings is the most appropriate course of action open to the Chamber, to uphold (its) integrity and the ICTR itself," Ntabakuze said in his motion published on the ICTR website.

However, the prosecution seeks dismissal of the motion. "The appellant's request for a permanent stay of proceedings of the appellant's case is unwarranted and his motion should be dismissed in its entirety. The prosecution requests the Appeals Chamber to find that the appellant's right to a fair trial would not be impended," it submitted.

The prosecution states that the appellant was attempting to re-litigate issues which have already been adjudicated by the Appeals Chamber after going through several documents, including those the appellant has relied upon in supporting the present motion.

According to the prosecution, the Appeals Chamber had reviewed the documents involved before the arrest of Erlinder and found that except for one item, all others constituted private commentary by the counsel on the case rather than words or written statements made in the course of representation of the appellant.

Final determination of the debate is yet to be delivered.

Erlinder was arrested in Rwanda on May 28, 2010 and was later charged with genocide denial. He went to Rwanda to defend opposition leader, Victoire Ingabire of unregistered political party, the United Democratic Forces (UDF-Inkingi) who wished to run for presidency alongside President Paul Kagame and ended up been charged with genocide denial.

Rwandan prosecution said Erlinder would be summoned any time to face prosecution and if he would jump bail and not respond to the summons, it would use the Interpol to track him down for his arrest.

Al-Jazeera English Holds Panel with Mr. Joseph Sebarenzi and Ambassador Kimonyo on 2010 Presidential Elections.

2011-01-14T01:30:00.002+02:00

Interview with Col. Luc Marchal by Jambo News.

2011-01-12T08:16:00.001+02:00

Point de vue de Luc Marchal 1/2 from JamboNewsTV on Vimeo.

Point de vue de Luc Marchal 2/2 from JamboNewsTV on Vimeo.

Interview with Gerald Gahima by Jambo News.

2011-01-10T20:39:00.004+02:00

Point de vue (Interview with Gerald Gahima) part1 from JamboNewsTV on Vimeo.

Reporters Without Borders Shocked at Prosecution's Extreme Sentencing Request in Journalists' Trial.

2011-01-07T20:19:00.002+02:00

Reporters Without Borders
6 January 2010

Reporters Without Borders is extremely shocked by the long jail sentences that a prosecutor requested yesterday for two newspaper journalists who, after six months in pre-trial detention, are being tried before a Kigali high court on a range of charges including genocide denial and inciting public disorder.

The prosecution requested 33 years in prison and a fine of 800,000 Rwandan francs (1028 euros) for Agnès Uwimana Nkusi (photo), the editor of the privately-owned bimonthly Umurabyo, and 12 years in prison and fine of 200,000 Rwandan francs (257 euros) for one of her reporters, Saidath Mukakibibi. A verdict is expected on 4 February.

“After a 2010 election year that was very trying for independent news media, these proposed sentences show that the government is not being guided by any desire for change,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Anyone who freely expresses an opinion or is critical of the authorities risks not only arrest but also a severe sentence.”

The press freedom organization added: “We urge the Rwandan judicial authorities not to convict these two journalists, and we call on the government to stop using legislation such as the ‘genocide ideology’ law to suppress the free expression of opinions. Charges such as defamation or insulting the president are too often inflated to ‘genocide denial’ or inciting public disorder.”

When requesting the harsh sentences, prosecutor Augustin Nkusi said: “Their articles, for example in their issue 29, clearly show the intent and motive of the two, which was to incite the people against an elected government. It is deliberate from the language they use, and the fact that they never bothered to speak to both sides in the story, clearly demonstrates their intentions.”

The prosecutor added: “Article 12 of the Media Law indicates that while journalists have exclusive rights and freedoms of speech and expression, there are laws that they cannot break.”

Agnès Nkusi’s lawyer pointed out that her client was seropositive and that her state of health was incompatible with a long stay in prison.

Nkusi and Mukakibibi have been held in supposedly “provisional” pre-trial detention since their arrest on 8 July 2010 on charges of inciting civil disobedience, insulting the president, spreading false rumours and denying the genocide of the Tutsis. More information

Nkusi has had run-ins with the authorities before. She was sentenced to two years in prison on similar charges in 2007, but went back to work as a journalist after serving the sentence. The Media High Council, a government body that oversees the press, gave her two warnings last year before her arrest in July. Although pleading not guilty, Uwimana acknowledged mistakes in her articles and breaches of professional conduct.

Rwanda was ranked 169th out of 178 countries in the 2010 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. This was Africa’s third worst ranking. Only Eritrea and Sudan were below it in the index. President Paul Kagame has been on the Reporters Without Borders list of “Predators of Press Freedom” for several years.

Northrop Grumman given US$8M Contract to train Burundian, Rwandan, and Kenyan Army in ACOTA Program.

2011-01-05T21:01:00.004+02:00

The US Department of State's Office of Acquisition Management has awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation three one-year task orders worth about US $8 million for multinational military training work in Rwanda, Kenya and Burundi under the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) programme, whose stated purpose is to train foreign armies for multinational missions with an stated emphasis on African-led missions. The Kenya and Burundi task orders both have a six-month option period, Northrop said in a statement.

Rwandan Priest Arrested.

2010-12-30T17:38:00.002+02:00

MISNA/WNJ
30 December 2010

Yesterday, a 45-year old priest, Father Emile Nsengiyunva, the parish priest in Karenge was arrested by police in Rwamagana, central Rwanda. The ‘New Times’ government daily reports that Father Nsengiyunva was arrested for allegedly being involved in “destructive policies” and allegedly obstructing some recent government campaigns in the area. According to the 'New Times', the priest refused to administer communion during Eucharist celebrations, to some of the worshippers in his parish because they were actively engaged in carrying out some government plans in the area related to the demolition of the living quarters of poor Rwandans and of unspecified family planning campaigns. Having been detained at the Rwamagana police station, Father Nsengiyunva will have to appear within 10 days before a court to respond to the accusations.

VICTOIRE Ms. INGABIRE PRE-TRIAL DETENTION COURT ORDER HAS EXPIRED.

2010-12-27T16:28:00.002+02:00

FDU/UDF-Inkingi
PRESS RELEASE

Today, Ms. Victoire INGABIRE's lawyer has requested an immediate release
order from the Intermediate Court of GASABO because her pre-trial
detention order expired on 25th December 2010. The case has not yet been
transmitted for evidential trial. Therefore, her detention is illegal. President Paul KAGAME's government has no legal basis to keep her in jail after the
expiration of the ordinance. This is another proof of the politically
motivated background of this case.

We call upon Rwandans and the international community to send calls and
letters demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Ms. Victoire INGABIRE UMUHOZA, Chair of FDU-INKINGI, a political prisoner illegally incarcerated in RWANDA in violation of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Rwanda is a signatory.

She is detained in violation of Articles 18 and 19 of the Rwandan
Constitution and Article 100 of the Rwandan Criminal Procedure Law. “An
order authorising for preventive detention remains in force for 30 days
including the day on which it was delivered. After the expiry of that
time, it can be renewed for one month and shall continue in that manner”
(Art. 100, Sub-section 3, Preventive Detention, LAW N° 13/2004 OF
17/5/2004 RELATING TO THE CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, O.G SPECIAL Nº OF
30/07/2004).

“The person's liberty is guaranteed by the State.” (art.18,
Constitution). “Every person accused of a crime shall be presumed
innocent until his or her guilt has been conclusively proved in
accordance with the law in a public and fair hearing in which all the
necessary guarantees for defence have been made available. Nobody shall
be denied the right to appear before a judge competent by law to hear
his or her case”. (Art. 19, Constitution).

It is time to see if there is any institution or authority in Rwanda
enforcing the law or the national constitution.

Done in Kigali,
27 December 2010

Sylvain SIBOMANA
FDU-INKINGI
Interim Secretary General

French judge files formal charges against six individuals in Rwandan President Kagame's regime.

2010-12-16T17:27:00.001+02:00

By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 16, 2010; 9:38 AM

PARIS -- A French judge has filed preliminary charges against six people close to President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, including the current defense minister, over the 1994 assassination of the country's then-president in a missile attack on his plane, their lawyers said Thursday.

The six - some ranking Rwandan army officials - were charged last week over the assassination of then Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, they said. The assassination was widely seen as the trigger to the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Investigating Judge Marc Trevidic visited the Burundi capital of Bujumbura from Dec. 5 to Dec. 15, when the six agreed to be placed under investigation, said Bernard Maingain and Lev Forster, who represents all of the men.

Preliminary charges give officials time to pursue a probe before deciding whether to send suspects for trial or drop the case, and give suspects access to court files.

France is investigating the Rwanda case because the plane's crew was French and were killed with President Habyaramina, along with the then-president of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira.

Among the six people in question are ranking Rwandan army officers, including General James Kabarebe, who has been Rwanda's defense minister since April, General Charles Kayonga and General Jackson Nkurunziza, the attorneys said. The remaining three were identified as Jacob Tumwine, Sam Kaka and Franck Nziza.

In November 2006, a now-retired anti-terrorism magistrate, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, delivered nine arrest warrants against people close to President Kagame, all accused of participating to various degrees in the April 6, 1994, attack.

The warrants triggered a break in diplomatic ties between France and Rwanda - re-established only in 2009. President Nicolas Sarkozy visited the Rwandan capital of Kigali last February, the first visit to Rwanda by a French leader in 25 years.

Police Raid of Victoire Ingabire's Home Gets Angry Reactions.

2010-12-15T17:00:00.001+02:00

Radio Netherlands
by Sophie van Leeuwen
15 December 2010

The search of the premises of Rwandan politician Victoire Ingabire on Monday morning in Zevenhuizen, the Netherlands, has shocked politicians in the political capital The Hague. MPs from Dutch parties PvdA (Social-Democrats) and the ChristenUnie (Christian Union) demand an explanation from Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten.

“This raises many questions,” said Jeroen Recourt, PvdA MP and judiciary spokesman. “How can it be that the Department of Justice obediently conducts a search, upon Rwanda’s orders, while at the same time the Netherlands has serious doubts whether the Ingabire lawsuit will result in a fair trial? The Justice Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs haven’t communicated with one another properly.”

“Of course, the Netherlands complies with foreign judicial requests. But in this country this is a very sensitive case. In the Netherlands we don’t want to participate in political persecution,” said Recourt.

Mrs Ingabire, leader of the Rwandan opposition party UDF, is imprisoned in the capital Kigali, where she is awaiting trial. The Justice Department in Rwanda suspects her of terrorist activities and is looking for evidence.

After the 1994 genocide, Ingabire left with her husband and children for the Netherlands, where they started a new life. On Monday, Dutch detectives searched the family house in Zevenhuizen, near Rotterdam.

Joel Voordewind, MP for the ChristenUnie, is upset. “Why would the Dutch government carry out orders from Rwanda, while that very same government is cutting the direct financial support to Rwanda out of concern for the human rights situation in the country?”

Rwanda and the Netherlands don’t have an extradition treaty, but they are entitled to mutual legal assistance. “A request for a search can be a kind of legal assistance,” says Gert-Jan Knoops, Dutch lawyer and an expert in international law. “The Justice Minister needs to approve every single request.”

Christian-Democrat MP Cortuz Coşkün is opposed to politically-fuelled lawsuits. Still, in this case he exercises much restraint. “Any request from Rwanda or China could turn into a license not to conduct a judicial inquiry. Even if the suspect might have misbehaved. You don’t know what’s behind this search, and neither do I!”

Both PvdA and ChristenUnie will raise questions on the issue in Parliament on Tuesday afternoon.

Victoire Ingabire's home in the Netherlands searched by Dutch Ministry of Justice.

2010-12-14T01:48:00.001+02:00

Radio Netherlands
13 December 2010

Victoire Ingabire’s home in the village of Zevenhuizen, close to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, was raided on Monday morning around 9 am (local time) by 12 officers of the Rotterdam Department of Justice. Both Mrs. Ingabire’s husband, Lin Muyizere, and the Department of Justice confirmed the news to Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

According to Mr. Muyizere, the officers did not show a search warrant, although they said they were in possession of one. They searched the entire house and a vehicle.

Several documents and computer equipment were taken away by police for further investigation. In case of any relevancy, the equipment and documents will be sent to the prosecutor's office in Rwanda.

A spokesman for the Rotterdam Department of Justice said the search has been conducted under the instruction of the Rwandan authorities. A second search party was carried out in the Dutch town of Bilthoven.

"Why would the Dutch government execute orders from Kigali while cutting direct aid to Rwanda because of violations of human rights?" asked Joel Voordewind from the Dutch political party ChristenUnie today in parliament.

Mrs. Ingabire's lawyer Jan Hofdijk, who reported the incident at the police station, is furious.

WNJ Editor's Note: Mrs. Ingabire's daughter has stated that the Dutch courts produced a warrant that was presented in person 3 hours after the Dutch police began searching the house. The search began at 6 AM and the warrant was produced at 9 AM Dutch time. Until 9 AM, family members present at the home did not know why the Dutch police were searching the home.

Son of Murdered Rwandan Opposition Politician Calls On UN for an Independent Investigation.

2010-12-08T05:55:00.002+02:00

Open Letter To His Excellency, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

CC: Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch

Your Excellency,

I write to request your assistance in having an independent investigation in connection with the death of my father, Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, which took place on July 13th, 2010, in the city of Butare, Rwanda. I am the eldest son of the late Andre Rwisereka and I am responsible for speaking on behalf of my family.

One week before his death my father told me he was concerned that he might be harmed for his political views and activities. It is because of these reasons that I believe his assassination was politically motivated. I have concerns over the medical autopsy and investigation done by Rwandan police to date and would like an independent investigation done by independent foreign experts.

To our knowledge, the Rwandan authorities have stopped all investigations into his death. The suspects implicated in my father’s assassination have been released from custody without court appearance. Eyewitnesses report having seen dozens of marks on my father’s body, suggesting torture, but the Rwandan Police have denied such allegations.

Your Excellency,

I sincerely believe an independent investigation will determine whether my father was the victim of politically motivated assassination so that those responsible for this heinous crime can be brought to justice. Furthermore, such an investigation and its findings will provide a much-needed closure to a tragic chapter in our lives. I would greatly appreciate any assistance that you may provide to me and my family.

Luc Rwisereka
7 December 2010

EXCLUSIVE to WNJ - Lt. Aloys Ruyenzi, Pres. Kagame's Former Bodyguard, Makes Public New Testimony.

2010-12-07T00:12:00.002+02:00

In July 2004, Lieutenant (Lt.) Aloys Ruyenzi, who once served as current Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s bodyguard when he was the commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), publicly released a written statement revealing startling information about the RPA. In 2005, he followed up with further testimony in another written statement. In 2007 and 2010, he testified at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. In two recent interviews with exiled Rwandan newspaper editors Didas Gasana and Charles Kabonero, Lt. Ruyenzi revealed new details about events in Rwanda. In this new and exclusive testimony, Lt. Ruyenzi reveals even more new information about events in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He also expands on some of the issues he raised in his past statements.

Lt. Ruyenzi wrote the original draft of this testimony. After receiving it, I edited his document for spelling, syntax, and structure. After re-drafting it, I sent the revised document to Lt. Ruyenzi for his approval. Any changes he requested were made. The text seen below is the final version of his document approved personally by Lt. Ruyenzi. My wording of his testimony was directly approved by him and therefore accurately represents his direct testimony. Publication of this testimony was done with his direct consent. The text itself is his intellectual property; I am only the editor of his document. Therefore, I cannot lay claim to any of the statements contained herein nor be held liable for any of them. Additionally, my participation in the editing of his document does not represent a categorical endorsement of his testimony contained herein. All information, views and statements contained herein is his and his alone.

Any version of Lt. Ruyenzi’s testimony contained in this document that is changed in any way from the version written below is an infringement of his intellectual property rights. Any version of his testimony in this document that is altered in any way does not represent Lt. Ruyenzi’s testimony unless any such change(s) has his direct permission. He cannot be held liable for any testimony that was altered without his direct consent.

David Barouski
6 December 2010

http://webpages.charter.net/jabdmb/RuyenziTestimony2010.pdf

Ingabire Denied Bail.

2010-11-12T23:18:00.005+02:00

AFP/WNJ
12 November 2010

Rwanda's high court on Friday rejected an appeal against detention by opposition politician Victoire Ingabire, one of her lawyers said.

She is the leader of the Unified Democratic Forces (FDU) party, which has not been officially registered. Mrs. Ingabire was arrested again in Kigali in October, while she has been under house arrest and surveillance since April.

Her appeal "has just been rejected," lawyer Gatera Gashabana told AFP. "The first ruling is upheld. All that remains now is for us to fix a date for the substantive trial, as soon as possible."

Rwanda's prosecutor general, Martin Ngoga, claims to have evidence of Mrs. Ingabire's alleged illegal activities, including financial transfers to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu rebel movement based in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, and supporting a new armed group.

Mrs. Ingabire's FDU-Inkingi party says the Rwandan authorities are fabricating all the evidence with the goal of preventing her from participating in the political life.

Gen. Kagame's Former Bodyguard says Interhammwe President Worked for RPF/A in 1994.

2010-11-10T21:19:00.003+02:00

Hirondelle News Agency
9 November 2010

Former close Protection Officer for Rwandan President Paul Kagame alleged before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Tuesday that President of Interahamwe militia of the ruling MRND party in 1994, Robert Kajuga worked for the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) now in power in Kigali.

‘'It is not only Kajuga who worked for the RPF but there were many others from the government.'' Aloys Ruyenzi, former close protection officer to President Kagame told the court in the defence case of the former MRND President, Mathieu Ngirumpatse.

When asked by Don Webster, the Prosecuting counsel to say more about Kajuga, Ruyenzi responded ‘'he was Tutsi working for the RPF to kill members of the population.''

Earlier during examination in chief by defence co-counsel, Frédéric Weyl, the witness explained ‘'RPF did not care to kill members of the population when they infiltrated Kigali town.''

He told the court that members of the RPF were sent to Kigali town to infiltrate into the population, at roadblocks and in the public transport where they carried out killings against the population in a bid to hold power by force.

‘'All the crimes perpetrated by RPF were attributed to the Rwanda government. They were people who lived and worked with me and when they come back from missions they would tell me about the killings they committed,'' Ruyenzi explained.

The trial continues Wednesday.

Serious Questions on Credibility of Evidence Presented in Court Against Victoire Ingabire.

2010-11-08T22:07:00.001+02:00

FDU-Inkingi
Press Release
8 November 2010

Today, on her 26th day in prison, Ms. Victoire INGABIRE, FDU-INKINGI
Chair, was brought to the High Court for an bail appeal hearing. The
Prosecutor admitted that the copies of mails adduced as evidence were
printed many days after the arrest and that the 14th October
PRO-JUSTITIA statements related to the arrest of the key witness and the
defendant contain inaccurate details and troubling inconsistencies. In
this case , the first paragraph of article 102 of the LAW N° 13/2004 OF
17/5/2004 RELATING TO THE CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, O.G SPECIAL Nº OF
30/07/2004 should apply: “When a Magistrate or Judge does not find
sufficient evidence for prosecution, an accused person shall be
immediately released”.

The Defence Counsel is composed by the Bâtonnier GATERA GASHABANA
(Kigali), Barristers Robert Alun JONES (London) and Iain EDWARDS
(London) . They challenged the Prosecutor's submission and especially
the accuracy of the judiciary statements justifying the arrest of the
opposition leader. The interrogation of the key witness was backdated.
The official information that the arrest of the defendant was prompted
by allegations made by the key witness upon his arrest is misleading.
The allegation that he was found with bunches of mail copies is a fake
too. They were printed and edited in collaboration with the key witness
on 19th October 2010 while the defendant was already in detention. The
prosecutor struggled to persuade the Court and instead produced “fresh
evidence” that has never been mentioned any time before. This looks
like an endless state persecution. There is no doubt that new fake
evidence will be produced every week. In this particular case, no
chance to have a fair trial in Rwanda. This is a blatant violation of
international conventions on human rights. The submission of petition to
the Security Council and to the Human Rights Commissioner in this
respect is to be seriously considered.

Since February 2010, Paul KAGAME's government has been using the
judiciary apparatus to thwart the opposition and to keep opposition
leaders in prison. All the bilateral partners of Rwanda have recently
received a 6 page justification of the overwhelming evidence linking Ms.
Victoire INGABIRE to a terrorist organisation and no serious grounds
have been established. The verdict will be known on Friday, at 15:00.
There are no further doubts about the political dimension of this trial.
We call for the immediate release of Ms. Victoire INGABIRE and other
opposition leaders.

Sylvain SIBOMANA
FDU-INKINGI
Secretary General

NEW TWIST IN THE HARASSMENT OF THE FDU-INKINGI.

2010-11-04T05:53:00.000+02:00

FDU-Inkingi
Press Release

This Tuesday afternoon, the FDU-Support Committee confirmed reports that the Rwandan police drifted again into Mrs. Victoire INGABIRE’s house for the umpteenth time for a search. This operation turned out to be all its own. As a matter of fact, after digging in all directions a cesspool near the house destined for rainwater drainage attracted all the attention. Pictures were taken and sketches drawn up for unknown purposes. All 3 present members of the FDU Executive committee, Vice-president Boniface TWAGIRIMANA, Secretary General Sylvain SIBOMANA, Treasurer Alice MUHIRWA and other staff were arrested and taken for grilling. This information was later confirmed by the prosecutor Bonaventure RUBERWA on the BBC. They were all released at 23:40.

The FDU-Support Committee condemns in the strongest terms these acts of harassment of the opposition leaders concocted and put into execution by General Paul KAGAME dictatorship. Through these actions, the regime aims to silence for ever the democratic opposition.

Today, the situation is all the more worrisome that an information leakage from trustworthy Rwandan secret services unveils an assassination plan targeting the opposition leader, Mrs. Victoire INGABIRE UMUHOZA, already incarcerated since October 14th.

It is high time that the International community broke its silence and came to rescue the Rwandan people.

Done in Brussels,
November 3rd, 2010

For FDU-Support Committee,
Eugene NDAHAYO
Chairperson

Chronology of the Plight of Victoire Ingabire.

2010-10-25T03:13:00.001+02:00

KIGALI OCTOBER, 24- 2010
9TH DAY IN JAIL.

Please find here below appending a short chronology of events
Re: the second arrest and detention of madame Victoire INGABIRE, FDU-INKINGI Chairperson.

- 08th October - 04:00- Police siege. Until the arrest on 14th october, Victoire INGABIRE remained indoor.

- 09th October: Victoire asked the police spokesperson what was going on and she was told there was nothing to worry about.

- 11th October: Victoire reached the Prosecutor RUBERWA on phone and asked whether the bail conditions have changed because of the police siege. The prosecutor seemed to be surprised and promised to ask the Criminal Investigation Department.

- 14th October- 12:50: a police team entered the property, put Madame Victoire INGABIRE under arrest, and took her to CID headquarters. The police spokesperson informed the public that she is arrested because of new evidence implicating her in the formation of a terrorist organisation and that a key witness was arrested the day before along the DRC common border with documents and details implicating her.

- 14th October - evening: She is transfered to KICUKIRO police detention facility.

- 14th October - evening: the FDU INKINGI team brought her a mattress, clothes, blanket and hygienic items. The food was taken to the detention center as well. All the items are given to the guards and never to the detainee.

- 15th October: two lawyers visited her, and noticed she was still in handcuffs since the arrest. She slept in a seated position on the floor, and no personnal item was provided. She did not eat. The lead lawyer discussed the detention conditions with the security officers and was told that they did not make decision. He rushed to the CID headquarters and left with no assurance that the situation will improve.

- 16th October: the jailers decided to give only the blanket. She is still in handcuffs. No mattress, no clothes, no hygienic stuff. The lawyer discussed the situation with the hierarchy. In the evening, the handcuffs were removed for the night.

All the food provided is returned untouched. No member of the party or nobody from her house is allowed to see her, nor to talk to her. Total blackout on her status. At this stage there was no doubt, she was not eating. We did not know whether she was given food or if she was unable to eat because of 24-hour handcuffs.

18th October: she is taken to GASABO Court House for the Prosecutor's interrogation. She is in the same outfit she had the time of her arrest. Her hair is undone, she is in handcuffs and weak.

18th October - late night, a Medical Doctor is rushed to her cell: The blood pressure has dropped dangerously, and some medication is given. The Police accepted this time to give the mattress and hygienic items.

On 19 October, the lawyer asked in a letter to the Police Commissioner to allow the client to go to hospital or to be seen by an independent Doctor.

18th - 21st October: Prosecutor's interrogations at the Gasabo Court House. She is always brought in in handcuffs. She is looking weak, exhausted and under duress.

21st October: Morning hours, the police rushed in again some medical staff and some medication is given again before the afternoon Prosecutor's confrontation exercise with the state-prepared key witness Major Vital UWUMUREMYI.

During the confrontation, the key witness claimed that he was given in 2008 - 2009 at least 1,000 USD to create, train a rebel group and to purchase weapons. He informed that since his repatriation in Rwanda in February 2009, he has never been involved in any other rebel activity. This gives an impression that the terrorist allegations are over 2 years old and that police statements in this respect are not accurate, for a reason.

22nd October: She is again seen by police medical doctor.
Until now, people from our political party are not allowed to see her.

A bail hearing is supposed to happen on the 25th October at the GASABO Court House

For more information on her status please don't hesitate to be in touch with the FDU INKINGI Executive members or the lawyer.

Sylvain Sibomana
FDU INKINGI
Secretary General

Update on Victoire Ingabire's Detention from the FDU

2010-10-22T00:13:00.002+02:00

Press Release
21 October 2010

The health status of Ms. Victoire INGABIRE, FDU-INKINGI Chairperson, is still worrying. She was seen again by a police paramedic this morning who provided some medications.

The confrontation with the state-prepared key witness took place in GASABO COURT HOUSE between 14:30 and 18:00. From contradiction to contradiction, the key witness, Major Vital UWUMUREMYI, is pleading guilty, begging for mercy and forgiveness and volunteering all the information used by the Prosecutor to keep Mrs. Victoire INGABIRE in jail. The witness revealed that he has been using many fake identities and passports but has been continuously living in Rwanda since early 2009. The police information that he was arrested alongside the DRC common border with documents and evidence involving Ms. Victoire INGABIRE in subversive activites is just fake. In normal circumstances, a person with multiple identities is not reliable in Rwandan courts. Why is a government relying on only one witness with questionable credibility now?

Article 59 of the code of criminal procedure stipulates: “Persons against whom the prosecution has evidence to suspect that they were involved in the commission of an offence cannot be heard as witnesses”. (LAW N° 13/2004 OF 17/5/2004 RELATING TO THE CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, O.G SPECIAL Nº OF 30/07/2004).

There is no clear information on the bail hearing despite the fact that the lawyer submitted a formal request since the arrest.

This is clearly a politically motivated trial and there will be no relief unless serious pressure is maintained on General Paul KAGAME. He seems to be the only person to make decisions in her case. We remind that since the previously granted bail in April 2010, the opposition leader has never been a flight risk nor a threat to the community. We call again for a medical parole without any further delay.