Court ruling a major step forward for case against Canadian mining company

Montreal. The Superior Court of Quebec has ruled today that the case against Canadian corporation Anvil Mining Limited in relation to alleged involvement in a 2004 massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo can proceed to the next stage.

The class action against Anvil Mining was filed in the District of Montreal on 8 November 2010 by The Canadian Association against Impunity, an organization representing survivors and families of victims of the Kilwa massacre. Anvil Mining is accused of providing logistical support to the Congolese army who raped, murdered and brutalised the people of Kilwa in a massacre in 2004. According to the United Nations, over 70 civilians died as a direct result of the military action, including some who were executed and thrown in mass graves

In his decision, Judge Benoît Emery dismissed Anvil Mining’s attempt to have the case thrown out and concluded that there were sufficient links to Quebec to found the Quebec court’s jurisdiction over the case. Judge Emery also dismissed Anvil Mining’s argument that Quebec was not the appropriate forum and that the case should rather be brought in the DRC or Australia. Judge Emery stated:

(translation) "In fact, at this stage of the proceedings, everything indicates that if the Tribunal dismissed the action on the basis of article 3135 C.C.Q.[which allows the court to decline jurisdiction if another forum is more appropriate], there would exist no other possibility for the victims to be heard by civil justice”

Patricia Feeney, President of The Canadian Association against Impunity, said “We strongly welcome this decision. It represents a significant step forward in the process of trying to hold Anvil Mining to account and to bring some justice to the victims of the massacre and their families”.

The court will now consider whether the case should be certified as a class action, allowing all those who suffered in Kilwa to bring claims against Anvil Mining. A hearing on the class certification is scheduled for June.

The Canadian Association against Impunity is represented by the Montréal based firm Trudel & Johnston.

Additional materials can be found here.

For more information, please contact Members of the Canadian Association against Impunity:

* Matt Eisenbrandt, Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ), (English): +1 613 218 9909 (in Canada)
* Tricia Feeney, RAID, (French, English): +44 (0) 7796178447 (in the UK)
* Andie Lambe, Global Witness, (English): +44 (0) 7809 616 545 (in the UK)
* Denis Tougas, L’Entraide missionnaire, (French, English): +1 514 270 6089 (in Canada)

CEO of Rwandan Intelligence Media, New Times, Joseph Bideri Flees to Canada

SOURCE:Afroamerica

Joseph Bideri, the Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief of Rwandan Intelligence Services’ news media group, New Times, has fled to Canada, sources from Rwanda tell AfroAmerica Network.

The New Times is an umbrella of news media controlled by Rwandan Intelligence services. It  includes,  the New Times English daily newspaper, the  Sunday Times English weekly newspaper,  Izuba Rirashe Rwanda newspaper, The New Times English Online, and Izuba Rirashe Rwanda Online. They all serve as a mouthpiece of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front and the Rwandan Dictator Paul Kagame. Joseph Bideri was a front man, while the Rwandan Intelligence Chief, Dr. Emmanuel Ndahiro is the “eminence grise”,  the behind the scenes boss.

Officially Joseph Bideri is accused of mismanagement, tax evasion, mail fraud, and money laundering. His actions have allegedly caused financial strains within the New Times group. However, sources say his problems rather come from long term differences with the Rwandan Intelligence chief, Dr. Emmanuel Ndahiro and the current tension within Paul Kagame’s  inner circle.

Last year, Emmanuel Ndahiro fired the Zimbabwean Grace Kwinjeh, a member of the MDC party of the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai from the position of Managing Editor. She was unceremoniously fired when she refused to publish some of the propaganda pieces submitted to her by Dr. Emmanuel Ndahiro and Joseph Bideri. Some of the pieces accused the Zimbabwean Government of harboring Rwandan accused criminals. Grace Kwinjeh was replaced by Collin Haba.

The rivalry between Dr. Emmanuel Ndahiro and Joseph Bideri date from when they were both special advisors to  the Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame (see our article “Rwanda: Mbaraga divides Kagame’s top advisors of August 29, 2002 here). At that time,  the conflicts and fights for influence were frequent among the four advisors: Emmanuel Ndahiro, Theogene Rudasingwa, Kagame’s Chief of Staff and Joseph Nsengimana.

Eventually Theogene Rudasingwa fled the country  and has been a vocal critic of Paul Kagame. Now it appears to be Joseph Bideri’s turn.

©AfroAmerica Network,  2010. All Rights Reserved.

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100 Hutu Refugees Died of Suffocation in a Train in Kisangani:Los Angeles Times Once Wrote

Dear Edotor
Today I am surprised that as I was browsing I came across this article which were talking about us when we were the forgotten species brandes as criminals in the DRC jungle 13 years ago. I never knoew that I will ever have a chance to read anything written about us when Kagame and his men majority of them Tutsis with some young men hutus forced to hunt their relatives, were hunting us like a Guinean fowls. No one wanted to hear about us but I thank you that you published this article though I do not believe it made alot of impact on the ears of people whose eyes were blinded by the 3Ts in DRC.

Kagame came killing the guilt and innocents, there was no distinction between a genicidaire from a baby child as long as there was some Hut blood flowing through your feabble veins you were destined to die either by a bullet, grenade if you were like but by a hammer. I remember they used to hit the forehead then you could see the brain coming out from the back of the head. Soldiers both from RPF and DRC could start laughing celebrating their brutal systematic killing. This day, for sure I knew we were destined to died that is what Sadako Oghata told us when she came to Tingi Tingi. She stood in front of these weak and malnourished kids whose bones stood out as barricades then she pointed at us and said, "YOU, YOU ALL, YOU ARE GENOCIDAIRES, AND YOU MUST PAY FOR IT,... THEN A 4 YEAR BOY ASKED...."I am a 4 year boy who has spent most of his time in a refugee camp far away from where the genocide took place,,, if I may ask, when did I commit genocide? either your mother or father cimmitted,Sadako replied...I knew we were all as hutus destined to die because Clinton had said so.

On October 1, 2010 that is when I heard something like justice in my ears. When the UN MAPPING REPORT was finally published. I just cried and I couldnt stop crying. I did not go to school as usual, I did not read any other article or any academic paper except reading the UN MAPPING REPORT letter by letter word by word because it was like reading myself when I was a boy. Then I took a deeper breath than I have ever taken since the RPF spray killing of South Kisangani at Ubundu in 1997. When the RPD masquerading as red cross staff they come and start shelling at us and over 500 people took their last breath there.

I always wonder, who brings jutice to the world if the mighty decides the fate of the weak. I always believed and I still believe that Tutsis were murdered in 1994. I still believe it was wrong for the Hutus to attack innocent human beings simply because one of their tribesmen was going around the country killing any living being on his way. I still believe that those who killed innocent Tutsis should be brought to justice and punished. But I always wonder why all people start from April 7, and end July 28, and not from Apirl 6, 1994 and 2004.

I remember in Mbandaka when a priest of Mbandaka gave Hutu refugees a ship to help them cross over Lukolela in Congo Brazaville and after around 1500 refugees had boarded the ship exploded because of the bomb that RPF had put inside the ship. the ship sunk with all my friends at the tributary of river Ubangui and River Congo. No body talked about it, why, because those who died there were Africans, to make the matter worse, Hutus from Rwanda. We were unwanted species that is why Clinton wanted us to die all.

Just without going too far,I just wanted to thank the Los Angeles Times to have covered us in this terrible moment when no one wanted to hear about us. When we were eating roots, walking 50 miles a day on foot to keep a good distance from RPF led by Kagame, when every body had turned the back on us...when we were all destined to die... you covered our miseries and apocalypse.
http://articles.latimes.com/1997-05-05/news/mn-55705_1_u-n-refugee-agency

UN report to accuse Rwanda army of DRC massacres

UN report to accuse Rwanda army of DRC massacres

Rwandan Hutu refugees on the road to Kisangani in March 1997

AFP

By RFI

Hutu Refugees on their way to Kisangani

A UN report to be issued on 1 October will accuse the Rwandan army of massacring Hutus who had fled to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the 1990s. It will also point an accusing finger at the DRC’s own army, as well as troops from Burundi and Uganda.

And it has infuriated Rwandan leaders by declaring that a court could find that the killings were genocidal.
The 516-page report details the findings of an inquiry into “the most serious human rights violations” in the DRC, formerly Zaire, from 1993 to 2003.

It says that tens of thousands of Hutu civilians were murdered in the DRC, after they had fled Rwanda following Paul Kagame’s Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front's seizure power.

In a chapter on killings in 1997-1998, it describes an attack on about 120,000 Hutu refugees by armed Congolese rebels backed up by soldiers from the Rwandan army at a camp in Tingi-Tingi in Maniema province.

On the morning of 1 March, soldiers from both armies raided the camp, which had been deserted by most of the refugees, “indiscriminately killing its remaining occupants”, the report says.

Witnesses told the investigators that most of the victims were stabbed to death. Hundreds more are reported to have been killed in the afternoon when soldiers opened fire on columns of fleeing refugees.

In April of the same year, the investigators report that 200 refugees were massacred in the Kasese camp in Kisangani region in the presence of senior officers from the Rwandan Patriotic Army, the report states. A bulldozer was requisitioned from a local logger to dig mass graves, it adds.

The victims seem to have been chosen on the basis of their ethnic group, and not to have been limited to those held responsible for atrocities against Tutsis before Kagame took power, the report says.

On the basis of some of the incidents described, a court could conclude that there was an intention to destroy part of the Hutu ethnic group in the DRC, leaving the way open to charges of genocide, it concludes.

The report also documents massacres perpertrated with the involment of the Ugandan and Burundian armies.

Sympathy for Rwanda begins to fade

SOURCE: The Globe & Mail by Geoffrey York

For years, Rwanda’s government was assured of loyal sympathy from around the world. Everyone remembered the horrors of the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed by Hutu extremists while the world idly watched.
For 16 years, that sympathy has muted any misgivings about Rwanda’s authoritarian government. World leaders from Tony Blair to George Bush have heaped praise on Rwanda, touting it as an emerging African leader, a business-friendly nation with an impressive record on environmental protection and women’s rights.

But this year, as evidence piles up of Rwandan abuses in Congo and other African locations, the sympathy is fading.
On Friday, the United Nations will release a report that documents how the Rwandan military rounded up and massacred tens of thousands of Hutu refugees in Congo in the late 1990s. The murders were so widespread and systematic that they could be classified as “crimes of genocide,” according to a leaked copy of the report.
This is evidence of a new willingness to criticize Rwanda’s human rights violations, its crackdowns on dissent, and even its suspected involvement in an attempted assassination in South Africa.
Criticism has come from many other quarters, too. After a landslide victory by Rwandan President Paul Kagame in an election last month, the U.S. administration said it was “concerned about a series of disturbing events” during the Rwandan election campaign.
Mr. Kagame has ruled Rwanda since taking power by military force in 1994 after the genocide, and he has allowed few opposition leaders to challenge him. He was declared the victor of last month’s election with an overwhelming 93 per cent of the vote.
But the Obama administration in Washington said it was alarmed by the events in Rwanda before the election, including the suspension of two independent newspapers, the expulsion of a human rights researcher, the decision to prohibit two opposition parties from participating in the election, and the arrest of a number of journalists. Rwanda’s stability will be difficult to sustain “in the absence of broad political debate and open political participation,” the White House said in its statement.
Human rights groups have echoed those concerns. Human Rights Watch, the independent U.S.-based group, said the election last month was marked by “increasing political repression and a crackdown on free speech.”
In the six months leading up to the Rwandan election, there was “a worrying pattern of intimidation, harassment and other abuses – ranging from killings and arrests to restrictive administrative measures – against opposition parties, journalists, members of civil society and other critics,” Human Rights Watch said.
Meanwhile, there is mounting evidence that the Rwandan government may have been involved in the attempted assassination of a former Rwandan army leader who fled to South Africa this year. The incident has prompted South Africa to recall its ambassador from Rwanda, a clear indication of South Africa’s anger over Rwandan involvement in the case.
The target of the assassination attempt was Lieutenant-General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, former chief of staff of the Rwandan army and a former close ally of Mr. Kagame. He fled to South Africa in February after a falling out with Mr. Kagame and has become a vocal critic of the Rwandan government.
Gen. Nyamwasa was shot and seriously injured in front of his Johannesburg home on June 19. While recovering in hospital, five suspects tried again to kill him, according to South African authorities. They allegedly planned to pose as hospital visitors and then strangle him with a piece of string.
A wealthy Rwandan businessman, Pascal Kanyandekwe, has been charged with involvement in both attempts to kill the former army chief. The South African government has publicly stated that foreign “security operatives” – presumably from Rwanda – were involved in the attempted assassination.
A South African magistrate, who denied bail to Mr. Kanyandekwe last week, said the suspect had “the backing of the government of a country” – another clear reference to the Rwandan government. Evidence placed before the court suggests that the suspects “were acting on the instructions of the Rwandan government,” the Johannesburg Star reported.
A Rwandan journalist, Jean Leonard Rugambage, was shot dead in June after his newspaper reported that the Rwandan government was involved in the assassination attempt in South Africa. He was one of the few remaining independent journalists in Rwanda.
The Rwandan government has fiercely denied every allegation against it. It denies any involvement in the attempted assassination in South Africa. “We find these insinuations very alarming,” Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said in July. “Naturally, there is no truth to this.”
She also rejected the UN report and its allegations of Rwandan involvement in the massacre of tens of thousands of Hutu refugees in Congo. She said the report was “fatally flawed” and “incredibly irresponsible.”

Judgment Day for Rwanda

Paul Kagame is proving to be a pliant Western ally. But a shocking new U.N. report shows why the Rwandan president can no longer claim to be a victim -- and it's time to hold him accountable.

BY JAMES TRAUB |SOURCE:Foreign Policy

In the middle of the explosive U.N. report on human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was leaked to the French press last week, the reader finds a map of that vast country with red arrows branching from east to west. The arrows trace the twisting path taken by tens of thousands of starving Hutu refugees across the immense, trackless jungle as they fled before Rwandan troops and their local surrogates, who kept catching up to them and killing as many as possible. The idea of a relentless campaign of murder carried out by Rwanda's Tutsi government, which came to power in the aftermath of the 1994 Hutu-led genocide, is both sickening and shocking. But the report, whose formal publication Rwanda has succeeded in postponing until Oct. 1, is unequivocal: "The massacres in Mbandaka and Wendji, committed on 13 May 1997 in Équateur Province, over 2,000 kilometres west of Rwanda, were the final stage in the hunt for Hutu refugees that had begun in eastern Zaire, in North and South Kivu, in October 1996." "Hunt" is a terrible word when applied to humans.

Whether or not that seven-month killing spree constitutes genocide will, as the authors note, be a matter for competent courts to decide -- though they present a plausible case that it does. Even if some future tribunal concludes that the dreadful acts amount "only" to crimes against humanity, this meticulous document offers a powerful rebuke both to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has adroitly and cynically used his country's suffering as a shield behind which to advance its regional interests, and to his backers in Washington and London, who have unquestioningly accepted the country's unique victim status.
Of course that assumes that the report is accurate. Israel and its supporters denounced the United Nations' Goldstone report, on the 2009 war in Gaza, as a hatchet job. Rwandan officials have responded with, if anything, greater fury, threatening to withdraw all the country's peacekeeping troops from U.N. missions should the document be published. Rwanda, like Israel, also has advocates whose credibility is not to be lightly dismissed. Journalist Philip Gourevitch has derisively noted that the investigative team "consisted of thirty-three people, only half of whom worked, for half a year, in the provinces where the crimes were committed." Gourevitch also threw an elbow at former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had supported the project. Since Annan's failure to sound the alarm on the Rwandan genocide deeply harmed his reputation, Gourevitch infers, "his interest in blaming others is hardly surprising."
The fact that so exacting a student of genocide -- Gourevitch wrote the book  on the Rwandan tragedy -- can offer up such feeble defenses is a sign of the powerful hold Rwanda continues to exercise over the sympathy and moral imagination of its defenders. I spoke to three regional experts who had read the report, and all praise its professionalism, care, and balance. And Annan approved, but in no way initiated, the "mapping exercise," as it is formally called. The study, which covers the period from 1993 to 2003, documents acts of mass murder, torture, gang-rape, plunder, and even cannibalism by the Congolese Army, Angolan and Ugandan forces, local warlords, state officials, and ethnic and tribal groups. In this carnival of killing, the Rwandan Popular Front (RPF) and its local allies constituted the best organized, most mobile, and most persistent force.

The RPF was also hunting a legitimate target -- the genocidaires who had fled across the border, reconstituted themselves as the ex-FAR/Interahamwe, mingled with refugees in the giant, ill-governed camps of eastern Congo, and found fresh recruits among them. But the report finds that each time they routed the genocidaires, the soldiers turned on civilians. In one typical episode, after killing a number of ex-FAR in the vast northeastern province of Orientale, RPF forces kidnapped refugees, many of them women and children, and brought them to a camp, allegedly under the pretext of returning them to Rwanda. The refugees were then brought out in small groups. From the report: "They were bound and their throats were cut or they were killed by hammer blows to the head. Their bodies were then thrown into pits or doused with petrol and burned. The operation was carried out in a methodical manner and lasted at least one month."
What has enraged the Rwandans, of course, is the claim that the victims of genocide became its perpetrators. The report offers no evidence of political control, though the Rwandan army is a famously disciplined, top-down force. But the study does adduce extensive evidence that RPF forces targeted all Hutus, including the Congolese Hutu known as Banyarwanda. The report notes that soldiers erected barriers that allowed them to separate Hutus from other groups, sparing the latter and slaughtering the former. Without in any way diminishing the unique monstrousness of the 1994 genocide, the report essentially puts an end to Rwanda's victim status. The Great Lakes region, comprising Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo, has been engulfed since the 1970s in a politics of genocide, in which groups seek to gain and retain power by destroying their rivals. Kagame's RPF, and perhaps Kagame himself, drank from this poisoned stream.
And this is not, like the Turkish genocide against the Armenians, a matter of strictly historical significance. Since the 1990s, Rwanda has played a dangerous game in Congo, backing brutal warlords and helping raise ragtag armies, siphoning off natural resources, even trying to rearrange borders to seize Congolese farmland. All of Congo's neighbors have nibbled at this vast carcass, but Rwanda gets away with it. In the late 1990s, the United States and Britain blocked efforts, largely by France, to raise the issue of Rwanda's behavior in the Security Council. Carla Del Ponte writes in her memoirs that in 2003, Annan refused to reappoint her as chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda when she outraged Kagame by investigating allegations of Tutsi crimes against Hutu civilians after the genocide (so much for Annan's alleged blame-shifting campaign). Kagame has refused to permit the tribunal to interview Rwandan witnesses.

Anneke Van Woudenberg, an authority on the Great Lakes region with Human Rights Watch, told me that, thanks to allies like the United States and Britain, "any attempt to present the information contained in this report has been blocked, subverted, or really discouraged." And that, in turn, has emboldened the Rwandans. "The report starkly shows the consequences of a culture of impunity," she says. "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." For this reason, Van Woudenberg views the report as a document of "immense historical importance."
It is not simply Rwanda's suffering that has bought it the protection of powerful states. "They have made themselves indispensable," says Fabienne Hara, a vice president of the International Crisis Group with long experience in the region. Washington has come to regard Rwanda as a "little military machine" to provide peacekeepers throughout the region (thus the seriousness of Rwanda's threat to withdraw its troops) and as a friendly "entry point" for intelligence and regional diplomacy -- a Central African Ethiopia. What's more, Kagame has turned Rwanda into an extraordinary success story, with a bustling economy, sound finances, and a highly effective military. And all he has asked in exchange -- like Israel -- is protection from international judgment as he makes his way in his very dangerous neighborhood.
There is disagreement among experts about how policymakers should wield the study. Hara and Van Woudenberg would like to see Washington and London press Kagame to limit his meddling in eastern Congo. Phil Clark, an Oxford University researcher and regional scholar, fears that the report's publication will widen fissures within the ruling elite in Kigali and thus imperil Kagame's hold on power. Whoever succeeds Kagame is likely to be a less-stabilizing figure, he argues.
Perhaps the report should have appeared a year from now, or a year ago. What matters is that the United Nations will place its imprimatur on allegations that have been circulating for years. Rwanda's friends have allowed the country, quite literally, to get away with murder. That tidy transaction must now come to an end. Rwanda is an important U.S. ally -- but allies, too, need to be held to account.

CANADA TO PRESS KAGAME AND UN

SOURCE: AFROAMERICA

The Canadian influent caucus of members of parliaments (MPs) from Quebec has asked the Canadian Federal government to put pressure on Rwandan Dictator Paul Kagame to respect Human Rights and on the UN Secretary General to publish the UN Human Rights Report on the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN Human Rights Report on the DRC, also known as “DRC Mapping   Exercise- Mapping of the most serious human rights and international humanitarian law violations committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 1993 and 2003,” affirms that the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) led by the Rwandan extremists Tutsi minority conducted a campaign of systematic massacres against civilian Rwandan refugees and congolese from the ethnic Hutu majority; crimes amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity  and, from the overwhelming evidences, to genocide.

Already in April 2010 there was a heated debated in the Canadian Parliament regarding the appalling human rights violations in Rwanda, with the MP asking the government to take action against the Rwanda government. Here is the extract of the exchange:

Question: MP:  Francine Lalonde (Quebec Caucus - La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC) : Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, we were astounded to learn that Victoire Ingabire, who is running in the presidential election scheduled for August, was being held arbitrarily in Rwanda. Despite police harassment, she was trying to get recognition for her party, the FDU, which was founded in exile. More and more, the Rwandan authorities are acting in an authoritarian rather than a democratic way. Canada cannot stand idly by once again.Will the Minister of Foreign Affairs take advantage of the Governor General's trip to Rwanda to strongly protest this arbitrary detention?

Answer: Deepak Obhrai Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs:  Mr. Speaker, the visit of the Governor General to Rwanda was a highly successful visit. We will continue monitoring the events in Rwanda as they move forward, and we will get back to the member with more information on that issue.

Question: Johanne Deschamps (Laurentides—Labelle, QC):

Mr. Speaker, Victoire Ingabire is unjustly accused of downplaying the 1994 genocide. This charge is possible under a so-called “genocide ideology” law, a vague and ambiguous statute that makes certain forms of freedom of speech offences, according to Amnesty International.

In view of the recent disturbing abuses by the Rwandan authorities, will the government take action by protesting the arbitrary arrests and demanding that freedom of speech be protected?

Deepak Obhrai Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Mr. Speaker, as I have just mentioned, we will continue monitoring this case and if it requires intervention, the Government of Canada will intervene. I wish to state again that Canada and Rwanda have a very good relationship and the visit of the Governor General to Rwanda was highly successful.

Below is the letter from the Canadian MPS, in French:

LE BLOC QUÉBÉCOIS EST INQUIET DE L’ÉTAT DE LA DÉMOCRATIE AU RWANDA

Ottawa, jeudi 2 septembre 2010 – La porte-parole du Bloc Québécois en matière d’affaires étrangères et députée de La Pointe-de-l’Île, Francine Lalonde, a fait part au ministre fédéral des Affaires étrangères, Lawrence Cannon, de ses vives inquiétudes concernant le respect des droits de l’homme et de la démocratie au Rwanda. La députée du Bloc Québécois a demandé en outre au ministre de tout mettre en oeuvre afin que le gouvernement de Paul Kagamé réexamine ses lois sur l’idéologie du génocide et le sectarisme à la lumière du rapport d’Amnistie internationale et qu’il permette au Haut-Commissariat aux droits de l’homme de l’ONU de présenter son rapport final sur les crimes et exactions commis en République démocratique du Congo (RDC).

« L’honorable Lawrence Cannon,

Ministre des Affaires étrangères,

Chambre des communes,

Ottawa

Monsieur le Ministre,

La situation postélectorale au Rwanda est hautement préoccupante pour l’avenir des droits et de la démocratie dans ce pays. Malgré l’élection du 9 août 2010, le Rwanda est sous observation et en accusation.

Alors que le président rwandais, Paul Kagamé, a été réélu le 9 août avec 93,2 % des votes, la publication par le journal Le Monde du 27 août d’« une version quasi définitive » d’un rapport du Haut-Commissariat aux droits de l’homme (HCDH) de l’ONU vient questionner la nature de l’ordre strict maintenu par une main de fer au Rwanda, de même que la responsabilité du Rwanda dans les événements dramatiques qui se sont passés en RDC voisin depuis 1993.

« Redoutée par les principaux acteurs régionaux de l’interminable drame humain dans la région des Grands Lacs, la radiographie sans précédent des crimes jalonnant dix ans de guerre en République démocratique du Congo (RDC, ex-Zaïre) que vient d’établir le Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies aux droits de l’homme (HCDH) est accablante, principalement pour le Rwanda voisin ».

Ainsi commence l’article du Monde avant de conclure « La compilation des rapports existants et la collecte de nouveaux témoignages menée par le HCDH fournissent une base pour des poursuites judiciaires à venir contre les auteurs de ce que le HCDH qualifie de "crimes contre l’humanité, crimes de guerre, voire de génocide"». Et Le Monde ajoute : « Le Rwanda ne s’y est pas trompé. Depuis des semaines, Kigali déploie ses réseaux et son énergie pour tenter d’étouffer ce rapport qui risque d’atteindre le coeur du régime du président Paul Kagamé, l’homme fort du Rwanda depuis 1994. »

Même si le Rwanda a réélu son président Paul Kagamé avec un pourcentage qui rappelle les belles années du régime soviétique et malgré le succès économique du pays, des voix de plus en plus nombreuses se sont fait entendre pour souligner la dérive antidémocratique dans laquelle il s’enlise. Comme si ce n’était pas assez, Amnistie internationale vient de rendre publique, à la fin août, une étude sévère sur les conséquences effrayantes des lois rwandaises sur l’« idéologie du génocide » et le « sectarisme » intitulée Rwanda : il est plus prudent de garder le silence.

« Prohiber le discours haineux est un objectif légitime, mais l’approche retenue par les autorités rwandaises viole le droit international relatif aux droits humains. Les dispositions législatives réprimant l’"idéologie du génocide" et le "divisionnisme", relevant des lois sur le "sectarisme", rédigées en termes vagues et ayant une large portée et qui érigent en infraction l’expression orale ou écrite protégée par des traités internationaux, sont contraires aux obligations régionales et internationales du Rwanda en matière de droits humains ainsi qu’à ses engagements en faveur de la liberté d’expression. La formulation vague de ces lois est délibérément utilisée pour violer les droits humains. »

C’est pourquoi, s’appuyant sur les déclarations de l’ONU, de l’Union Européenne, des États-Unis, de l’Espagne, de la France, sans ignorer celles de Human Rights Watch et d’Amnistie internationale, je me suis inquiétée des conditions ayant régné au Rwanda jusqu’aux élections présidentielles du 9 août dernier causant la détérioration continue de la liberté de presse, de la liberté d’expression et d’opinion, de la liberté d’association ou de réunion expliquant l’intimidation constante dont ont été victimes les membres de partis d’opposition rwandais y compris l’avocat Peter Erlinder, citoyen américain qui a été emprisonné après s’être rendu à Kigali pour prendre la défense de Victoire Ingabire, rwandaise revenue des Pays-Bas, à la tête d’un parti d’opposition, pour se présenter à la présidence du pays et offrir aux citoyens une alternative. Elle n’a jamais pu le faire, victime, comme d’autres, d’un harcèlement qu’on ne trouve pas dans un pays démocratique.

Ainsi, malgré les nombreuses pressions internationales et, comme l’ont déploré les observateurs du Commonwealth, les élections rwandaises se sont tenues avec « un manque de voix critiques ». Tant vous, Monsieur le Ministre, que le National Security Council des États-Unis, ont noté que des « évènements troublants » avaient marqué ces élections : la suspension d’une trentaine de médias, les arrestations de candidats d’opposition et de journalistes, l’assassinat d’un membre de l’opposition, le vice-président du parti Vert, André Kagwa Rwisereka et l’assassinat du rédacteur en chef adjoint d’Umuvugizi, Jean-Leonard Rumbambage, pour ne nommer que ces évènements.

Pour moi, la situation postélectorale n’augurerait rien de bon si ce n’était des rapports de l’ONU et d’Amnistie internationale qui peuvent donner une prise à la démocratie. Plusieurs membres de partis de l’opposition demeurent en prison et d’autres sont en liberté provisoire en attente de leur procès. Ainsi, par exemple, Bernard Ntaganda, président et fondateur du parti Social-Imberakuri est toujours détenu en prison depuis le 24 juin. Quant à Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, la présidente du parti FDU-Inkingi, elle est maintenue en résidence surveillée, son passeport confisqué, elle ne peut pas sortir du pays pour aller visiter sa famille aux Pays-Bas. L’interdiction de quitter le territoire est motivée par une enquête judiciaire ouverte notamment pour « négationnisme ». Et, toute la lumière doit être faite sur l’assassinat d’André Kagwa Rwisereka par le biais d’une enquête indépendante et transparente.

Face à ces constats et sachant que votre gouvernement est un des gouvernements qui a appuyé Paul Kagamé, je vous exhorte à tout mettre en oeuvre, de concert avec vos homologues de la communauté internationale, afin que le gouvernement de Paul Kagamé réexamine ses lois sur l’idéologie du génocide et le sectarisme à la lumière du rapport d’Amnistie internationale et qu’il permette au Haut-Commissariat aux droits de l’homme de l’ONU de présenter son rapport final, transparent et indépendant sur les crimes et exactions commis en RDC.

Sachant que vous accorderez à la présente toute l’attention qu’elle mérite, je vous prie de recevoir, Monsieur le Ministre, l’expression de mes sentiments distingués.

Francine Lalonde,

Députée de La Pointe-de-l'Île

Porte-parole du Bloc Québécois en matière d’affaires étrangères »

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Renseignements : Isabelle Monette, attachée de presse

Aile parlementaire du Bloc Québécois

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