Rwanda's Bad Press: Police Report State Assassins on British Soil

KPFA Radio News, 05.29.2011: British and U.S. reactions to Scotland Yard's report of Rwandan state assassins on British soil.

Transcript: 

Click Here to Watch the BBC Video about Kagame hitman in UK
KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest:  And in news from Southeastern Africa, the BBC reported this month that British Police had contacted two Rwandan exiles living in London to say that they were in danger of being assassinated by agents of the Rwandan government.  KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  BBC Newsline reported the London Metropolitan Police warning to two Rwandans living in London during the third week of May.

BBC Newsline:  The Metropolitan Police have taken the extraordinary step of warning two British citizens from Rwanda, living in London, that they’re at risk of being assassinated by the Rwandan government.  Legal notices were sent to a former Lib Dem candidate, Rene Mugenzi, and Jonathan Musonera.  We’ve spoken with both men.  Now it’s understood that a Rwandan suspected of being part of the plot against the exiles was prevented from entering Britain last week.

KPFA:  Mugenzi went to Amnesty International last year with evidence that Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Army was guilty of massacring 8,000 Rwandan Hutu people in an Internally Displaced Persons, or IDP, Camp in Southwestern Rwanda, in 1995, while UN peacekeepers stood by.  Their allegations add to the body of evidence challenging the official Rwandan government history of the Rwanda Genocide and its aftermath.
BBC Newsnight
BBC Newsline’s host asked British MP Malcolm Bruce, Chair of British Parliament’s International Development Select Committee how he could continue to justify the British government’s plan to extend another $83 million pounds in aid to Rwanda:

BBC Newsline Host:  We heard from the commentator there that there’s worsening repression, that rivals have been killed, that there’s a climate of fear, and we continue to give $83 billion pounds of aid to this country.   Can we justify that?

KPFA:  Rwandan are refugees and exiles in the U.S. repeated the same question, as did their Congolese refugees and exiles, who hold Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his Rwandan Patriotic Front regime responsible for invading, occupying, and plundering the resource rich eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the ongoing conflict that has cost upwards of six million lives since 1996.

The U.S. is, like Britain, a major donor to Rwanda, one of its principle military partners on the African continent.
Rwandan American Law Professor Charles Kambanda
St. John’s University Law Professor Charles Kambanda, a Rwandan dissident, exile, and former member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, says that the Rwandan Army is the most influential institution in Rwanda, that most of its top officers are trained by the U.S., and that the U.S., as the “brain of the Rwandan army,” will bear primariy responsibility for whatever happens next in that country.
For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.
(See the BBC Newsline report at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zXN4eZO2_g .)

Related articles

• British Police Warn Rwandan Dissidents of Threat (nytimes.com)
• You: British police warn Rwandan exiles in the UK their life is in danger from Rwandan government (washingtonpost.com)
• UK police: Rwandan government threatens exiles (foxnews.com)
• UK police: Rwandan government threatens exiles (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Rwandans in UK 'threatened by hitman' (bbc.co.uk)
• UK police: Rwandan government threatens exiles (sfgate.com)
• Rwanda 'forced exhumation' claim (bbc.co.uk)
• Interview: Rwandan farmer Samuel Gatembeyi goes to Washington (one.org)
• Rwanda's Paul Kagame hits back at Twitter critic (upfrontmenblog.wordpress.com)
• Rwandan ex-paramilitary officers convicted of genocide (macleans.ca)