 The Dutch government has cut off its aid to Rwanda. The Netherlands has until recently been one of Rwanda’s main donor nations.The Rwanda News Agency reported on Dec. 15 that “The Dutch government on Wednesday decided to completely stop development aid for Rwanda - despite last minute efforts from the Rwandan Parliament and Foreign Affairs Ministry to plead for the continued flow of the cash.” Rwanda has been getting about 44 million Euros of aid from the Netherlands since Dec. 2008 but the Oct. 1, 2010 United Nations report detailing atrocities against civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo by the Rwandan army caused an uproar in much of western Europe. Since then, Dutch members of parliament have been putting their government under pressure to free all aid to the government of President Paul Kagame. “In Rwanda we have some concerns about the judicial system and the way politics and democracy are carried out. We've voiced our concerns. We had good talks. But we haven't seen enough improvement,” said MP Klaas Dijkhoff of the liberal party VVD referring to pleas by Rwandan government officials for the aid not to be cut off. President Kagame returned to Kigali after attending the European Development Days (EDD) meeting in Brussels during which he faced major protests from various European pressure groups denouncing Rwanda’s human rights record. Kagame canceled several scheduled meetings with Belgian government and European Union officials and he also skipped the keynote speech he was slated to deliver to the EDD conference, a clear signal of his anger at the way he was treated in Brussels. Kagame left the Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo to deliver a speech in his place. The main Rwandan opposition leader, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who is still in jail in Rwanda, lived for several years in the Netherlands and holds Dutch citizenship. Muhuhoza is accused by the Kagame government of funding and supporting armed anti-government forces based in Congo an allegation she and her supporters say is politically motivated. Sweden has already cut off aid to Rwanda. Meanwhile, in yet another round of the unending investigation of the April 1994 shooting down of the Rwandese presidential jet, a French investigative Judge Marc Trevidic has opened a new inquiry into the circumstances in which the falcon-50 jet was shot down as it approached landing at Kanombe International Airport in Kigali in which President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira were killed |
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