Rwanda President Kagame Says International Rights Groups Should ‘Get Lost’

By Heather Murdock from BLOOMBERG
 Rwandan President Paul Kagame rejected reports this month by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that accused the government of denying basic freedoms, saying the organizations should “get lost.”
“I don’t give a damn what they say or what they do,” Kagame told reporters in the East African capital, Kigali, today.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch report criticized Rwanda’s community gacaca courts, which have heard more than a million cases in the years since at least 800,000 people were killed in the 1994 genocide. The courts denied some suspects a fair trial, it said. Amnesty accused the government of using out-dated laws against genocide denial and sectarianism to stifle free speech and punish journalists, human rights workers and the opposition.
The East African nation’s elections last year, where Kagame won with 93 percent of vote, was “marked by a clampdown on freedom of expression,” London-based Amnesty said.
“There is no freedom of expression?” Kagame said. “If you don’t want to express yourself, it’s not my problem. I have given you the tools. Express yourself.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Heather Murdock in Kigali via Nairobi at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.

Rwanda days in Chicago / Local budget as per Ambawashington and AmbaOttawa suggestions

Look, how RPF is wasting millions and millions for Kagame's trading in USA, while Students in Rwandese Universities do no longer get the scholarship!

 

  Chicago, from the LE PROPHETE

 

To : Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, Ambassador James Kimonyo,   Mbaine, Ambassador Mukabagwiza Edda,Senator Munyabagisha,  Justine Niyibizi Mbbabazi,Gahamanyi Parfait

 

I hope this finds you well, As promised in yesterdays update, Please find attached, the Program for the event, budget (see below)for mobilization team, and proposed budget for transport and accomodation.

 

We have made head way, and are in the process of securing the Venue, Amba. Kimonyo is on his way from Chicago, and we will be comunicating this to you in our update tomorrow.

 

We had another meeting today with Sanotor Munyabagisha and although the attachment offers a detailed information, Here is a summery of our discussion and the areas we addresed. 

 

On the mobilization,(people form different states)  we continue to strategize on the best scenarios that would help us best draw in the largest number of participants, The scenario highlighted as number six is our recomendation,( sorounding Chicago-also refered to as Zone 1) 

 

Another area under mobilization is for theThe embassy team of 8 people who are going to mobilize people in the different states. three groups came up for consideration in our resouce allocation, 

 

1)Others delegates on ground, we need to provide them air tickets and hosting meetings.

 

2)      27we have 27 individuals as our go to people also refered to to as, Focal points. There is a needt to facilitate transport and allowances.

 

3)      10also Identified are  Delegates from Kigali who will need facilitation(communication and hosting meetings) we culculated this in terms of groups and believe that $ 500 is enough to cover this making a total of $ 1,000 for communication.

Another area we looked at was setting up structure of command that will over see different section of the event,for example event managers,security, protocal etc. We suggested each have 3 people, one from the Embassy, other form the diaspora and the third one from Kigali, We request that the all concerned parties start planning on who will be allocated to the specific area and that they meet on sunday 15th to confirm the choices.

We also brainstormed on the invitation and who to be invited, the Embassy has already sent out some invitations, we suggested that these invitations be followed by an E-invite and posiibly a phone call from Amba. Kimonyo. We also highlighted inviting Chicago's top Officials.

Currently, there are Approximately 80-90 students from Arkansas consortium group who have confirmed attendence with transportation and accomodation provided by university. The final list will be available by 16th May.

The University of Oklahoma is sponsering30 students and they will provide a van for transportation. we are waiting to find out if they will help them with accomodation as well. There are 10 Oklahoma students who will be in GE for internship , they will attend but would like discounts on accomodation.

 4 students from William penn university will attend they can drive but will let us know by end of this week if the university will assist them.We have 6 private students from BVU in IOWA who would love to attend if they are facilitated. About 29 students from CBU are espected to attend but they will need facilitation which i will be able to determine by Friday. We are expecting  these numbers to increase if facilitation is provided.

Lastly, In our mobilization process, senator Munyabagisha, has reached out to  one of the focal point intending to mobilize more than 500 people,we will updating you on the out come of his communication with him tonight.,Kayinamura of RINA is preparing a package that will also  help in the mobilization process. 

We look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Kind regards

 

Catherine Rwivanga Mubangizi
Cell: 443-955-1742
Email: cathy.rwivanga@rwandaday.org

 

  

Eminent scholar exposes legal flaws in military verdicts against exiled Rwandan politicians

From NewslineEA

►Military court has no personan jurisdiction over defendants
►Gen. Kayumba and Major Rudasingwa were, by implication of the law, discharged from the army
►Why Interpol can’t intervene to have the quartet extradited

In a paper titled: “REPUBLIC OF RWANDA v. FAUSTIN KAYUMBA NYAMWASA and others, High Military Court of Rwanda, January, 2011: An Analysis of Jurisdiction, Substance of applicable Law and Policy Issues of the case; internationally renowned Rwandan legal scholar Charles Kambanda describes numerous legal flaws in the recent sentencing of Lt. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, Col. Patrick Karegeya, Major Dr Theogene Rudasingwa and Gerald Gahima; reports Didas Gasana.

The sentenced are, respectively, Rwanda’s former Chief of staff and Ambassador to India, former director of external intelligence, former director of Cabinet in the Office of the President and Rwanda’s first post genocide Ambassador to the US and Rwanda’s former Prosecutor General and Vice President of the Supreme Court.

Kayumba and Rudasingwa were each sentenced to 24 years behind bars where as Karegeya and Gahima were each sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In the paper, published January 23, 2011, Professor Charles Kambanda, Public Policy Analyst and International Human Rights Lawyer, LLM Center, School of Law at the New York-based St. John’s University, argues Rwanda’s military high court acted in vain by sentencing the quartet because it has no jurisdiction to try them since by the time they committed the crimes they are accused of, they were refugees; beyond the jurisdiction of Rwandan courts. Most of the alleged crimes stem from a policy paper the convicts co-authored, dubbed Rwanda Briefing, in which they articulated Rwanda’s current political stalemate, President Kagame’s role in the political crossroad and suggested policy recommendations.

“The legal impact of refugee status is, inter alia, termination of any personal contacts between the refugee and his native country. No personal contact exists between the defendants and Rwanda. Due process requires that any State court’s exercise of jurisdiction be founded on legal contact between the state and the defendant(s). In criminal cases, there must be personan jurisdiction. By virtue of the defendants’ refugee status, Rwandan courts lost legal contact with the defendants. The convention relating to the status of refugees bars the defendants from appearing, in person or through an agent (attorney), in any Rwandan court. The defendants’ countries of refuge are prohibited, under the principle of non-refoulement, from sending the defendants to appear in a Rwandan court,” he argues.

Similarly, the former National University of Rwanda law and philosophy lecturer argues that charges of deserting the institution of the army, which Kayumba and Rudasingwa were convicted of, are devoid of any matrix of legal reasoning because, by law, the two were duly discharged from the army when President Kagame appointed them to civil service.

Citing the case of Gen. David Tinyefuza Vs the Attorney General, the scholar argues Lt. General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa and Major Theogen Rudasingwa were civil servants at the time they fled the country, as Nyamwasa was Rwanda’s ambassador to India where as Rudasingwa was Kagame’s director of cabinet.

“Being a soldier in Rwanda is a full-time job. Civil service is also a full-time job. In any democracy, one cannot be a soldier and public servant at the same time. The issue is whether the defendants were discharged from the army by virtue of being appointed into civil service positions. The answer is in the affirmative. In General David Tinyefuza v Attorney General, the Constitutional Court of Uganda reasoned that: the Army is a continuing full -time job and a member of the Army is liable to be employed on active service any time. Similarly […] a public servant is engaged on full time basis. It follows that an Army Officer cannot be a public servant at the same time. And so when […] the President appointed the petitioner to a public service job […] he thereby took him out of the Army. There is no doubt that the President's power to appoint Army Officers include[s] power to remove them from the Army … the petitioner ceased being a member of the Army […] when he was appointed.”

Therefore, he reasons, when the President appointed Lt. Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa and Major Theogen Rudasingwa into civil service, the two were effectively, by implication of law, discharged from the army. The Military High Court of Rwanda wrongly assumed that the defendants disserted the army. At the time they fled Rwanda they had been duly discharged by virtue of their appointments into civil service.

Kambanda further argues the International Police, as per its constitution, can not intervene in effecting the red notice against the four convicts. “If INTERPOL intervened, the institution would be getting involved in a political enterprise which would be contrary to the spirit of Article 3 of INTERPOL constitution,” he argues.

Unedited, The Newsline re-produces Professor Charles Kambanda’s paper below

Introduction:

The defendants are President Kagame’s former military and political inner circle. The first defendant is Lt. General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, former army chief of staff. March 2010 he sought political asylum in South Africa (SA). The General survived assassination near his home in Johannesburg, SA. General Kayumba’s supporters, family and some individuals within SA government linked the government of Rwanda to the attempt on the General’s life. South Africa recalled its ambassador. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have since remained strained. Major Dr. Theogene Rodasingwa, former ambassador to the US and former Director of cabinet in President Kagame’s office sought political asylum in US, April 2005. Dr. Gerald Gahima is former prosecutor general of the Republic of Rwanda. He sought political asylum in US, July 2004. November, 2007, Col. Patrick Karegeya the former intelligence Chief sought asylum in SA.

The four were prosecuted for, and convicted of, disturbing public order, threatening state security, making insulting and defamatory statements to the person of the president and sectarianism. Lt. Gen. Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa and Major Dr. Rudasingwa were, in addition, each convicted of disserting the army. All were tried, convicted and sentenced in absentia.

Facts of the Case:

While in their respective countries of refuge, the defendants wrote and publicized a joint mouthpiece “Rwanda Briefing”. The document detailed the authors’ concerns over Kagame’s government and the reasons why the four fled Rwanda. They jointly or individually elaborated on their Rwanda Briefing through articles and interviews with the media. The defendants accused the president of, inter alia, destabilizing Congo (DRC), corruption and discrimination. The government of Rwanda alleged that through the defendants’ mouthpiece, interviews and articles, the defendants committed crimes that are punishable under Rwanda laws. Prosecution relied exclusively on the defendants’ publicized documents. The government of Rwanda circulated arrest warrants seeking the defendants’ extradition immediately after judgment.

Jurisdiction:

The Military High Court of Rwanda had no personan jurisdiction over the defendants. At the time they gave the contentious interviews and/or wrote their mouthpiece and articles, the defendants were refugees. Refugees are protected under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The convention provides:  “Refugees shall be governed by the law of the country of his domicile or, if he has no domicile, by the law of the country of his residence”.

The legal impact of refugee status is, inter alia, termination of any personal contacts between the refugee and his native country. No personal contact exists between the defendants and Rwanda. Due process requires that any State court’s exercise of jurisdiction be founded on legal contact between the state and the defendant(s). In criminal cases, there must be personan jurisdiction. By virtue of the defendants’ refugee status, Rwandan courts lost legal contact with the defendants. The convention relating to the status of refugees bars the defendants from appearing, in person or through an agent (attorney), in any Rwandan court. The defendants’ countries of refuge are prohibited, under the principle of non-refoulement, from sending the defendants to appear in a Rwandan court.

Rwanda, like any other sovereign has a legal right and duty to enforce their domestic laws and to punish domestic crimes. However, where there is conflict of law between an international convention and domestic law, the convention prevails. The scenario and level of analysis might be slightly different if a refugee is accused of international crimes and the country of refuge fails to prosecute. In this case, the defendants were not prosecuted under the principle of universal jurisdiction. It was an outright error, in fact and law, for the Military High Court judge of Rwanda to reason that Rwanda’s domestic law supersedes the International Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. A refugee is entitled to all legal rights not reserved to citizens of his country of refuge. At the time the defendants publicized their mouthpiece and interviews, they were exercising the constitutional rights they are entitled to in their countries of refuge. The kind of speech for which the defendants were convicted by the Military High court of Rwanda is protected speech in the defendants’ countries of refuge. Rwanda has a legal duty to respect the legal rights other countries accord to their people.

Substance of the Law:

Prosecution and conviction for “disturbing public order, threatening state security, making insults to the person of the president” was based on Article 166 of Rwanda’s Penal Code which provides that: Anyone who through speeches made at meetings or public places, or by written or printed material, images or emblems of any kind displayed, distributed, sold, offered for sale or for public view, either by knowingly spreading false reports, in order to incite or try to incite people against the established powers, in order to incite or try to incite citizens against each other, to alarm people and thus in order to bring unrest in the territory of the Republic, will be punished with imprisonment from two to ten years and a fine of 2000 to 100,000 francs or one of these penalties, without prejudice to more severe penalties under other provisions of this Code.

Article 160 of the same Penal Code also provides that: It is punishable, in times of war, with imprisonment from ten to twenty years, in peacetime, with imprisonment from five to ten years, someone who: (1) by hostile acts not approved by the government, exposes
the Republic to hostilities from a foreign power, (2) by acts not approved by the government, exposes Rwandans to reprisals,[emphasis added] (3) meets with intelligence agents of a foreign power so as to harm the military or diplomatic situation of the Republic or its essential economic interests. It is punishable, in times of war, with imprisonment from eight days to two years and a fine of one thousand to five thousand francs, and in peacetime, to imprisonment from eight days to two months and a fine of 500 to 2,000 francs (1) the offer or the proposal to commit an offense under this article; (2) the acceptance of this offer or proposal.

Prosecution and conviction for “sectarianism” was based on Rwanda’s law that punishes discrimination and sectarianism. The law number 47/2001 provides: Every oral expression, writing, every action based on ethnicity, origin, nationality, skin color, physical features, sex, language, religion, or opinions intended to deprive one or more persons of their rights under the laws in force in Rwanda and in the International Conventions to which Rwanda is party. As for partisanship, it is defined as "any oral expression, writing or any act of division, which can generate conflict within the population, or cause disputes based on discrimination as provided in this Article."

Prosecution argued that in their “Rwanda Briefing”, the defendants accused the President of institutionalizing Tutsi minority oppression over the Hutu majority. All the defendants are said to be Tutsi. The authors of Rwanda briefing called on Rwandans to fight what the defendants called inequality. The defendants underlined that President Kagame is a dictator. In their documents, the defendants are emphatic that fighting a dictator is a difficult venture all Rwandans ought to undertake. The Military High Court of Rwanda found these and similar assertions in the defendants’ mouthpiece, “Rwanda Briefing”, to constitute “disturbing public order, threatening state security, making insults to the person of the president and Sectarianism.”

The law on “disturbing public order, threatening state security, making insults and Sectarianism” in Rwanda have one major characteristic; creating speech/expression crimes. The laws create a unique set of political crimes. The rationale of these apparently medieval laws in contemporary Rwandan society appears to be a methodical synergy to foster undue restrain on people’s freedom of speech and right to opinion. These laws contravene Article 33 of the 2003 Constitution of Rwanda and are inconsistent with Article 19 of the ICCPR and Article 9(2) of the African Charter.

We contend that freedom of speech and the right to opinion in both the Constitution of Rwanda and the ICCPR are not absolute. Article 34 of Rwandan Constitution subjects the enjoyment of the right of freedom of press and information to: “respect of public order and good morals, the right of every citizen to honour, good reputation and the privacy and family life and the protection of the youth and minors”. Article 9 (2) of the African Charter on human and people rights stipulates that every individual shall have the right to express and disseminate his opinion within the Law.

It is a settled legal tenet that the law restricting fundamental rights and freedoms must be accessible, unambiguous, drawn narrowly and with precision. The Rwandan laws under which the defendants were convicted of “disturbing public order, threatening state security, making insults to the person of the president and Sectarianism” are ambiguous, overbroad and lack precision. Article 160 of the Penal Code literally targets every form of expression and opinion. Any speech can be interpreted as “alarming people and bringing unrest in the territory of the Republic”. Rwanda’s Law number 47/2001 defines sectarianism as "any oral expression, writing or any act of division, which can generate conflict within the population, or cause disputes based on discrimination as provided in this Article." This definition sanctions any speech or opinion that may not be popular or favorable to politicians.

Any restriction on people’s right of expression and opinion must be subjected to the twin principles of necessity and proportionality. The principle of necessity requires that restrictions on the people’s right of expression and opinion serve permissible purposes and are necessary to protect those purposes. First, these laws confuse genuine incidents of harmful speech and legitimate freedom of thought and expression. Second, the laws do not strike a balance between prohibiting harmful speech and supporting freedom of opinion and expression. Consequently, the laws paralyze any meaningful debate on social and political issues that have any bearing on political or economic realities of the people of Rwanda. These laws prohibit discourse on any controversial aspect of Rwandan’s society. Ultimately, the purpose of these apparently out-of-fashion laws is to ban meaningful debate. This is not a permissible purpose.

Laws, like law number 47/2001, articles 160 and 166 of the Penal Code of Rwanda that restrict people’s freedom of expression because the subject matter is controversial are inconsistent with the demands of protecting people’s freedom of speech as required by Article 33 of Rwanda’s constitution. The US Supreme Court is categorical: “Even though the Government’s purpose be legitimate and substantial, that purpose cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle fundamental
personal liberties when the end can be more narrowly achieved.”

Ideally, Rwanda’s laws should seek to prevent the country’s unremitting violence, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and hatred. The root cause of these social evils is failure for Rwandans to co-exist with “others” they consider “bad” people. It is failure to embrace pluralism, diversity and other democratic values. The narrowest way of preventing such social perils is institutionalizing co-existence of people with diverse views. In Organization for a Better Austin v Keefe, the US Supreme court observed that: Criticism of public measures or comment on government action [definitions] however strongly worded is within reasonable limits and is consistent with the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression. This right is not confined to informed and responsible criticism but includes the freedom to speak foolishly and without moderation. So long
as the means are peaceful, the communication need not meet standards of common acceptability.

All these laws fail to recognize that freedom of opinion and expression cannot be limited to information and ideas that are favorably received or regarded as complementary, but also to those that offend and shock or disturb the state or any sector of the population. Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no democratic society.

Policy issues

Criminal defamation in Rwanda

Rwanda’s decision to maintain criminal defamation on their laws is a practical challenge to ideals and aspirations of good governance and democratic values. In this case, the defendants were found guilty of “defaming” the President of the Republic of Rwanda. It is an issue of general acceptance in democratic societies that people are free to inquire into their political leaders’ public, and even private, transactions. The rationale is that political leaders are custodians and agents of the body politique. A principal has a right to know everything his agent does even when the agent would feel uncomfortable to, or does not want to, report to the principal. In democracy, the people are the principal. The president is an agent. A principal ought to have unlimited access in the process of inquiring into what the agent does on his behalf. It is immaterial that the result of the principal’s inquiry is a mistake, provided the motive was to do his legitimate task. Criminalizing defamation is premised on intimidating people (the principal) from inquiring into what their political leaders (agents) do, or omit to do, with the powers and authority entrusted to them by the citizenry. The defendants’ conviction for criminal defamation is a red flag within this paradigm.
In any democratic society, whenever defamation involves a matter of public concern, the burden of proof is on the public official to prove that the statement was made with knowledge that it was false. The Bill of Rights gives people absolute unconditional privilege to criticize official conduct despite the harm which may flow from excess and abuses. In New York Times co v Sullivan  the supreme court of the United States held that: It is prohibited for a public official to recover damages for defamation falsehoods that relate to his official conduct [business] unless he proves that
the statement was made with actual malice. It was erroneous to prosecute the defendants for their legitimate inquire into the country‟s administrative style and system.

Disserting the Military

Lt. General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa and Major Theogen Rudasingwa were each convicted of disserting the army. At the time he fled Rwanda, Lt. General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa was Rwandan’s ambassador to India. Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa was Director of work in the president’s office. The two defendants were therefore civil servants at the time they fled the country. Being a soldier in Rwanda is a full-time job. Civil service is also a full-time job. In any democracy, one cannot be a soldier and public servant at the same time. The issue is whether the defendants were discharged from the army by virtue of being appointed into civil service positions. The answer is in the affirmative. In General David Tinyefuza v Attorney General, the Constitutional Court of Uganda reasoned that: the Army is a continuing full -time job and a member of the Army is liable to be employed on active service any time. Similarly […] a public servant is engaged on full time basis. It follows that an Army Officer cannot be a public servant at the same time. And so when […] the President appointed the petitioner to a public service job […] he thereby took him out of the Army. There is no doubt that the President's power to appoint Army Officers include[s] power to remove them from the Army … the petitioner ceased being a member of the Army […] when he was appointed..

When the President appointed Lt. Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa and Major Theogen Rudasingwa into civil service, the two were effectively, by implication of law, discharged from the army. The Military High Court of Rwanda wrongly assumed that the defendants disserted the army. At the time they fled Rwanda they had been duly discharged by virtue of their appointments into civil service.

Fair hearing, fair play and justice

Absence of fair hearing, fair play and injustice is presumed in any case where an incompetent court assumes power over the case or person. A court that indicts a person over whom it has no jurisdiction is arbitrary and acts in vain. To the extent the Military High Court of Rwanda lacked personan jurisdiction in this criminal case, there was no fair hearing, no fair play. The court was inherently unjust.

Effect of the arrest warrants issued against the defendants:

No democratic jurisdiction would give effect to an arrest warrant that emanates from a flawed court case. The preliminary discussion, whenever extradition is in issue, is whether the court in which the defendants were prosecuted and convicted had jurisdiction. This case fails on the preliminary test. The Military High court did not have jurisdiction. Rwandan government declared that the defendants are now on Red Notice. The issue is whether INTERPOL can intervene in this case. Article 2 of the INTERPOL Constitution and General regulations, provides for the role of INTERPOL as:
To ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police authorities within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

INTERPOL is not allowed to intervene in any venture that would encourage breach of the minimum human rights standards in the Universal Declaration of Human rights. The case in question is a typical example where the state is using its excessive powers to curtail people’s basic human rights. This is inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. INTERPOL is barred from intervening in such cases. If INTERPOL intervened, the institution would be getting involved in a political enterprise which would be contrary to the spirit of Article 3 of INTERPOL constitution. However, the government can use extrajudicial and/or illegal means to subject the defendants to Rwanda’s jurisdiction. All the possible legal extrajudicial means are inapplicable in this case. Kidnapping the defendants is a possible illegal means to subject the defendants to Rwanda’s jurisdiction. However, this method is unacceptable among democratic countries, Rwanda inclusive.

Conclusion

The Military high Court of Rwanda did not have jurisdiction over the defendants because of the protection the defendants have under the international convention on the protection of refugees. At the time the defendants wrote the documents in issue, they were exercising their constitutional rights in the countries of refuge. The Rwandan court failed to appreciate that the facts of the case presented a genuine conflict of laws. Rwanda has a right to enforce its domestic law. However, where enforcing such a law would be inconsistent with an international convention to which Rwanda is state party, the convention supersedes domestic law. It was an outright error, in fact and law, for the Rwandan court to believe that domestic law prevails in such case. Most of the laws that were applied contravene Rwanda’s constitution and are inconsistent with the relevant international legal instruments to which Rwanda is still a state party. The “crimes” for which the defendants were prosecuted are “speech crimes‟. None of the defendants appears to have disserted the army. Each of the defendants that were convicted of disserting the army was duly discharged from the army, by implication of law, when the President appointed them into the civil service. The case is manifestly a political battle sneaked unto the sanctuary of justice; the court. The defendants may not be extradited because of the jurisdiction huddles the court failed to address. INTERPOL is, as a matter of their constitution and regulations, barred from executing the arrest warrants that were issues against the defendants. The Military High court of Rwanda probably acted in vain.

Done on this 23rd day of January of the 2011th year of the Lord,
.
Prof. Charles KM KAMBANDA, Dip.Ph., BA., LLB, MBA, MA.ETPM., MA.HRTs., LLM, PhD
Public Policy Analyst and International Human Rights Lawyer
LLM Center
School of Law
St. John’s University
New York, United States of America

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THE FREEDOM AND PEACE SPEECH KAGAME SHOULD HAVE READ: THE REAL STATE OF THE NATION

Image via Wikipedia

By:  Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa

Fellow Citizens, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Last night as I thought about what to tell you today, it was humbling to me to think about the long journey that our nation has taken for many centuries. I remembered those who have led this nation before me. Ndahiro Ruyange. Ndoba. Samembe. Nsoro Samukondo. Ruganzu Bwimba. Cyilima Rugwe. Kigeri Mukobanya. Mibambwe Mutabaazi. Yuhi Gahima. Ndahiro Cyamatare. Ruganzu Ndori. Mutara Seemugeshi. Kigeli Nyamuheshera. Mibambwe Gisanura. Yuhi Mazimpaka. Karemera Rwaka. Cyilima Rujugira. Kigeli Ndabarasa. Mibambwe Seentaabyo. Yuhi Gahindiro. Mutara Rwogera. Kigeli Rwabugiri. Mibambwe Rutalindwa. Yuhi Musinga. Mutara Rudahigwa. Kigeli Ndahindurwa. Gregoire Kayibanda. Juvenal Habyarimana. Sindikubwabo. Pasteur Bizimungu. As I contemplated the lives and fate of those before me, I realized that the only constant in our history has been change and this nation called Rwanda. I now realize that like them I came, and like them I will go, leaving behind this nation.
Like you Rwandan people, each one of us leaders had abilities to do constructive things. Like all humans beings, we also make mistakes, some of them costly.  Each had something positive to offer to this nation and her people and each one had flaws. Sometimes, the flaws outweighed the strengths and the nation suffered as a consequence. Colonial conquest was possible in Rwanda, as elsewhere, because we were weak compared to foreigners. They had guns, money, and ideas. It survived in Rwanda for long because we were a divided house. We have remained a divided house till today, and some of the consequences are the repeated violent conflicts, death destruction, and genocide. Because of repeated trauma we have inflicted on each other, we have become the sick nation, with a chronically sick people that desperately need healing at home and abroad.
I am very concerned about this nation as you all are, and as my predecessors were. Often we, your leaders, and the elite that has governed Rwanda, have decided to see a small part of Rwanda. A Rwanda of Bahutu or a Rwanda of Batutsi. Actually, we rarely think about Batwa. It seems difficult to us to imagine a whole Rwanda, of Bahutu, Batwa and Batutsi. We have tended to cater for our own interests by making sure that most power is in our hands. We live in today, hardly looking at the long term impact of our present actions. Our habit of seeing a small part of Rwanda, vesting absolute power in our hands, and to have short term interests, have caused much damage to this country, especially in recent years.
Last night I was thinking about how many people have died or fled the country from 1959 to 2011 as a result of conflict and state inspired violence. Innocent Bahutu, Batwa, Batutsi have become victims of state violence, human rights abuses, civil war, or genocide. I thought about life in refugee camps and the jungles through which ordinary people, including myself, had to move through. Mushiha. Kigamba. Ngara. Nyakivara,.Cyangwari, Nshungezi,. Gahunge. Goma, and others. I thought about the humiliation of statelessness, and the lost dreams and opportunities. I recalled the loss of life in the civil war that pitted RPF against the regime of the late President Habyarimana. Each side in the conflict lost many lives of young Rwandans. Each side believed they had a patriotic duty to defend a nation or a cause they loved. In the opening stages of the civil war RPF lost the charismatic General Fred Rwigyema. In the final stages Rwanda lost its President General Juvenal Habyarimana in circumstances that we as a nation are still to come to terms with. For this level of sacrifice, what do we owe Rwandans? Can we stop the trauma we inflict on each other? Can Rwandans heal? Can we Bahutu, Batwa and Batutsi imagine and create a common future in peace, rule of law, freedom, democracy, and shared prosperity?
I was almost tempted to give a speech talking about RPF’s victories from 1990 to 2011, and especially since 1994. As I reviewed the speech written by my advisers, I recognized its usual arrogant tone and deceptions. Some of RPFs victories are facts. So are the facts about victories of my predecessors. It is not my intention to repeat them here. You have heard them from me, RPF, and by other government officials. What bothers me is that we have become an organization that has become insensitive to the damage we have caused to the Rwandan people.
If there is one failure that stands out since 1959 up to now, it is the inability to place the sanctity of human life, and basic freedoms, at the center of everything we do as a nation. On behalf of RPF members and the Rwanda Government, I apologize to the Rwandan people where RPF under my leadership have caused additional trauma to the Rwandan people. On their behalf I ask for your forgiveness. Today I would like to propose a one-point program. Today I am announcing a program for freedom, on which all other national endeavors must be anchored, and against which actions must be prioritized, and performance measured. There must be freedom, first, or nothing else.
In this regard, I am proposing the following measures, which I hope will change the course of our nation in the next several years.
First, with regard to Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF)/Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA, now Rwanda Defense Forces, RDF):  As RPF Chairman, I am ordering,
1) A full and independent investigation on party finances since 1990
2) A report on all RPA deaths, and lessons learned, from October 1990 to 2011
3) I further propose commissioning a committee to come up with proposals on how RPF can re-dedicate itself to freedom, internal democracy, and innovations to champion democracy in Rwanda
4) An investigation of the RPA human rights abuses in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, including the Mapping Report,
5) An immediate international investigation into the death of Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprian Ntaryamira,
6) The creation, out of RPF finances, of RPF Widows and Orphans Fund to support the welfare of widows and orphans of RPF’s fallen comrades
7) creation, out of RPF finances, of RPF Scholarship Fund, to get RPF cadres into education, training and employment opportunities and 8) creation of a Small and Medium Enterprises Fund from RPF finances, to support growth of small businesses.
Second, I propose creation of a Coalition Transitional Government to undertake the necessary reforms prior to holding genuinely free and fair Presidential and Parliamentary elections within the next 36 months. I am inviting all credible opposition leaders in and outside Rwanda to unconditional talks, leading to the creation of the coalition transitional government, the full opening of the political space, freedom for the media and civil society, the repatriation of all refugees, and the re-integration of armed groups and demobilized soldiers into RDF and civilian life.
Third, I propose a comprehensive national dialogue, with local and international chapters, that goes beyond justice to talk about our society’s struggle for healing. Among other things, the national dialogue will attempt to construct a national “balance sheet” from 1959-2011. Among other things, it will produce a candid general assessment of how many people Rwanda has lost from state-inspired terror, civil war, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. These chronicles will be published as a National Black Book. This will be a basis of having a National Day of Remembrance, Forgiveness and Healing. When we celebrate this day for the first time, we’ll release all prisoners in Rwanda, and institute discussions with the international community to free even those who are being tried  (or have been convicted) by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. There will be a day in our history when all Rwandans are free. The national dialogue will have the freedom to recommend a way forward on other substantive challenges facing the country. Such issues will include a “History of Rwanda Project,” to produce a harmonized approach to writing and teaching history in Rwanda’s institutions of learning, and a “Constitution Project”, to recommend revisions that are commensurate with this new agenda for freedom, reconciliation and healing.
Fourth, with effect from today, I am disbanding all the informal security networks and ordering immediate cessation of harassment of opponents at home and abroad. I am also instructing forthwith that the Rwanda Defense Forces, the National Security Service and the Directorate of Military Intelligence be brought under full Cabinet/Parliamentary oversight.
Fifth, I am ordering the immediate release of all political prisoners.
Sixth, I am initiating a special bill, The Rwanda Defense Forces Integration, Education, Training and Employment Bill, to put every man and woman of the RDF into school, training and employment programs. Through this bill every barracks should function as a school. All schools must be expanded to accommodate educational and training needs for soldiers and former combatants, including Ex-FAR, FDLR and other armed groups operating out of eastern DRC. In connection with this, and under the auspices of the coalition government and help of the international community, Rwandan armed groups will be integrated into a new reformed RDF that reflects the character of the Rwandan nation.
Seventh, I am ordering cessation and review of all unpopular policies that the RPF government has undertaken, including:
a) A policy on French as a language of instruction in Rwanda
b) A policy on scholarships in the institutions of higher learning
c) A policy on vasectomies for Rwandan men as a family planning tool and
d) A policy on housing for the Batwa.
Seventh, I am asking the entire government to review and come up with innovative policies that will help us tackle the problem of poverty and hunger in an equitable and sustainable way. While we have been praised by foreigners on social and economic development, the truth is that our economic growth is confined to the small urban elite. Too many of our people are still poor and hungry. This is not acceptable.
Eighth, it might sound a bitter pill to swallow for me and my fellow partisans in RPF, but I am forced to declare the last elections of 2010 null and void. I am concerned that having rigged the 2003 elections, as well as the last one, the RPF is setting a corrupting effect on its cadres and RDF’s officers and men. I apologize for the deception, and the waste of time and resources that have gone into the elections of 2003 and 2010. I am sure that all of you citizens agree with me that it is better to admit mistakes, so as not to repeat them, rather than to continue on a path of deception that will inevitably lead to civil war and more bloodshed.
We are in need of a fresh start. Let this be the day we re-dedicate ourselves to trying new and bold things. Free and fair elections, under the new coalition of transitional government, must take place no later than 36 months from its formation.
Ninth, I would like to assure all our neighbors that from now on Rwanda is genuinely interested in good neighborliness, and will stop policies which in the past have destabilized the region.
Tenth, I am announcing today that I will not stand in the next elections. I leave it to you and history to judge my performance while in power.
Make no mistake about this; the task before us is a Rwandan task. Only Rwandans can build Rwanda for the benefit of Rwandans. However, we need the help of our elders, our neighbors, our African brothers and sisters, and the rest of the international community. In this regard, to face these difficult tasks before us, I will be seeking the advice of my fellow Rwandan leaders currently in exile and those within the country.
In the next few weeks, I will be requesting my colleagues President Museveni of Uganda, President Kikwete of Tanzania, President Kibaki of Kenya, President Kabira of the DRC, President Pierre Nkurunziza and President Zuma of South Africa to an urgent summit to discuss how best these proposals can be supported by the region, the African Union and the international community. I will also be reaching out for advice from eminent personalities like former Presidents Arap Moi, Benjamin Mkapa, Al-Hassan Mwinyi, Pierre Buyoya and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. I am also counting on the support of my allies, the United Kingdom and United States to support this peace process towards Rwanda's freedom and democratization.
I realize that the proposals I have highlighted are ambitious and difficult. However, this is not the first time we have faced a challenge of this magnitude. We have to count on our own imagination, hard work, and collective will to enable freedom to thrive in our country. Rwanda can only break away from its dangerous habits of violence, coercion; politics of exclusion, mistrust, and fear if its citizens embrace freedom, with all its rights and obligations. I know that freedom is what every one of us needs to live a full life. This is what the blood of departed Rwandans, the aspirations of the present generation, and the future generations demand from us. We cannot afford to offer them anything less. We cannot wait for another seven years.
Will you join me in implementing these proposals to make freedom and healing a reality?
Thank you very much and may God bless you.

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THE UNRAVELLING OF KAGAME'S CRIMINAL NETWORK

FROM LONDON NOW TO CHICAGO

by Theogene Rudasingwa

Join us in Chicago (10-12 June, 2011) to protest Kagame's continuing effort to kill Rwandans and Congolese, and seek his accountability for the war crimes he has committed, an end to his brutal dictatorial rule and scandalous corruption, call for release of Victoire Ingabire and all political prisoners, and seek US, UK and international support to Rwandans for peace, freedom and democracy. To all Rwandans, Congolese, Africans, Americans, Canadians and peace loving people, we say this: it is the beginning of the end for the war criminal, the corrupt ruler, and the blood-stained dictator. A few months of RNC's work, together with other pro-democracy forces, is producing the momentum towards Kigali regime's inevitable downfall. The world is finally waking up to know who the real Kagame is. Let us be vigilant. It is no time to be complacent. It is time to mobilize and organize. Call your representative. Talk to the media. Call Hyatt (Tel:             +1 312 565 1234          Fax: +1 312 239 ) and tell them a war criminal and his henchmen are coming to use the hotel as the North American operational headquarters of their criminal syndicate.

DO NOT BE AFRAID! CHEER UP! WE SHALL OVERCOME!

Call us or send us an email :

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa
Co-ordinator
Interim Committee
Rwanda National Congress

Contact:

RNC International HQs
Chicago,
Illinois
001-510-717-8479
ngombwa@gmail.com

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Kagame's hold on Rwandans

Andrew Harding

The crowds head towards the hilltop - thousands of Rwandans streaming in from the surrounding fields and villages. They are ushered, efficiently, into smaller groups; searched, given flags, and then guided towards orderly clusters of roped-off areas. It is all done neatly, and without fuss.
Then come the speeches. First a local man, then a woman, stand on the podium and tell the crowd how they have become rich - quickly. The woman started with one goat. Now she has two hundred cows and seven staff. The crowd roars.
I have been to my fair share of election rallies in Africa. They do not normally start like this. They are certainly never on time. The subtext is always power, not prosperity. In Kenya, the guest speakers are usually defectors from rival parties who grovel and confess.
The cheering from the back of the crowd signals the arrival of President Paul Kagame.
Tall, thin, slow to smile - he walks down the aisle like a university professor dutifully acknowledging his students' approval, but concerned that some of their essays are not up to scratch.
On the podium, Mr Kagame claps awkwardly and briefly to the music, then he launches into a peevish lecture about unnamed forces that are trying to destabilise Rwanda. His style may be donnish, but his language is that of a soldier.
"Those who give our country a bad image... can take a rope and hang themselves," he says, peering at the television cameras.
It seems an odd line of attack.
Paul Kagame has good reason to feel as pleased as that lady with her cows.
In 1994, his rebel army ended Rwanda's genocide. Since then his government has worked to transform a shattered nation into one of Africa's least corrupt, fastest-growing, most competent countries. It is an extraordinary achievement, and most Rwandans are quick to credit their president.
But there are complications.
Rwanda may be the poster child of international development. The UK certainly thinks so - pumping huge sums into the country's impressive struggle against poverty.
But the politics here are less straightforward - still warped by the legacies of the genocide.
Frank Habineza sits at his desk in the capital, Kigali, staring at a photo on a laptop. It shows his friend and former politically ally, Andre Rwisereka, lying on his front, with his severed head facing the wrong way.
Both men used to be members of President Kagame's ruling party. But they broke away and formed Rwanda's Democratic Green Party.
They tried to register for next week's presidential election but got nowhere. Then last month, Mr Rwisereka's body was found.
"Of course I'm scared," says Mr Habineza with a shrug.
There is no evidence to link the government with the murder or to two other recent attacks - against an exiled general and a journalist investigating his case.
But there is a pattern of intolerance here - of newspapers closed down, critics arrested, and democracy curtailed.
The three candidates running against President Kagame are all his political allies. It is a coronation more than an election.
To some extent, that is understandable.
The forces that led the genocide are still intact and in exile - waiting for the chance to exploit any instability.
Mr Kagame has good reason to tread carefully and to police the political landscape closely.
And while he is doing that, his plan is to unite Rwandans - partly by rescuing them from poverty and partly by trying to rid them of the old ethnic mindset - of a downtrodden Hutu majority and their Tutsi masters, turned victims.
In speech after speech, the president urges people not to use those labels - to think of themselves purely as Rwandans.
It is a bold plan. It may well be working. But it is hard to be sure in a country where reticence and repression are woven into everyday life.
The fact remains here that 85% of the population is Hutu. The government is dominated by Tutsis. It is an uncomfortable reality that speeches alone will not change.
Still, this is an extraordinary place. I lived for a while in Singapore - and the government here has that same sense of drive and vision - and yes, the same mania for control.
I am staying now at a Chinese-built hotel overlooking the centre of Kigali. There is an African fashion-show here at the weekend and the lobby is full of long-limbed models.
Deborah is 18, and studying economics. Sure, a few years back we were divided at school, she says. Tutsis sticking together. But now it is just not an issue. It is all about making money, working hard. Rwandans love to follow orders.
She pauses, and her friend Craig sits forward. Of course we do not forget what happened, he says. We all lost people in the genocide. But we are doing fine. My worry is what happens when Kagame goes. He is what is holding this country together. Without him, I would give this place two years, then there will be another war.
This entry first featured as a report on Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent.

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Kagame sends his killing machines to the UK

From African Dictator| Posted by: Herman

AfricanDictator can reveal that The London Metropolitan police warned some key Rwandan opposition figures about imminent threats to their personal safety. The alert came on the eve of a meeting convened by Rwandan opposition to Kagame dictatorship in London.
Scotland Yard have issued a “threats to life warning” notice to at least two organisers of the meeting. AfricanDictator is in possession of the warning issued by the London Metropolitan Police dated 12 May 2011. The warning reads in part as follows:
“Rwandan Government poses an imminent threat to your life. The threat could come in any form. You should be aware of other high profile cases where action such as this has been concluded in the past. Conventional and non-conventional means have been used.”
Rwandan opposition leaders arriving in London have been warned of the danger and advised to contact the police regarding any suspicious incidents associated with this threat. Hotels where they are staying are under police surveillance.
The Metropolitan Police adds that all steps will be taken to minimise the risk, but declined to provide a 24-hour protection to those threatened.
Speaking to the BBC, Jonathan Musonera, one of the organisers, confirmed he has been advised to take all remedial actions necessary to increase his own safety measures including the option of leaving his own neighbourhood for the foreseeable future.
Kagame: We are watching you, Scotland Yard says
Evidently Kagame dictatorship is totally out of control. Only last month did British M15 warn the regime’s High Commissioner Ernest Rwamucyo about his constant harassment and intimidation of Rwandans living in the UK.
M15 warned that Rwanda stands to lose some 83 Million Pounds per year of taxpayers’ money that props Kagame dictatorship. Still, the Rwandan leader has deployed his killing machines on British soil, disturbing the very people who feed him and damaging the reputation of Britain, ahead of the Olympic Games.
Kagame’s audacity was already shown by his assassination attempt against General Kayumba, former Rwanda army chief of staff, in South Africa during last year’s Soccer World Cup. That is why. South Africa pulled its ambassador from Rwanda. Likewise, several European countries have warned the Kagame regime of dire consequences if it continues to harass Rwandan residents.
The Scotland Yard notice is clear as it is chilling: ”Conventional and non-conventional means have been used” by the Kagame regime to kill his opponents.
Reports from the UK say that  the  Rwandan Ambassador who called  for a counter-gathering of Rwandans in the town of Coventry this Saturday to coincide with the opposition meeting in London, had nothing to say when contacted by the media on the latest unbecoming Rwanda behaviour in UK.
It is time for UK and other countries that prop up the Kagame menace to tell the dictator in Kigali in no uncertain terms that “enough is enough.”

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Rwanda: 10 THINGS TO READ FROM KAGAME'S LATEST RESHUFFLE: SHUFFLING CHAIRS ON A SINKING TITANIC!

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa, Adapted from Africa Global Village

1. Kagame is in a deep crisis and would like to give the impression to Rwandans and the international community that things are changing.

2. Kagame is responding to pressure f from pro-democracy voices, notably Rwanda National Congress (RNC), FDU-Inkingi and other pro-democracy voices.

3. Aloysea Inyumba is being retrieved from a long period of marginalization, as a reward for her recent redeployment to counter RNC and lure Hutu into Kagame's RPF fold. Her European trip has paid her handsomely. She is on her way to the United States to pay more dues to Kagame's reward.

4. Dr. Charles Murigande, now to be posted to Japan as ambassador, begins his final journey to complete retrenchment after a long period of marginalisation. The Burundi factor in RPF politics that has saved Murigande before no longer matters to Kagame, who now must punish those who are not "adequately" loyal even among the Tutsi.

5. Claver Gatete, formerly ambassador to UK ( during which tenure he oversaw Kagame"s financial misdemeanors in that country) and Vice Governor at Central Bank, now elevated to Governor Central Bank. With the Finance Minister John Rwangombwa, the two are Kagame's most obedient servants who will help in continuing to siphon off public resources into Kagame's pockets.

6. Vincent Karega, now posted to South Africa as ambassador, has been chosen to specifically deal with Gen. Kayumba and Col. Karegeya ( read this as a mission to complete a previously abortive operation to assassinate both). He has no diplomatic skills to mend diplomatic relations between SA and Rwanda, now at their lowest. The most important credential he has is that he will execute orders unquestioningly.

7. Solina Nyirahabimana, now posted to Switzerland as Ambassador, is being deployed to sweet-talk Hutu into RPF, and to deal with the growing opposition to the Kigali regime in Europe, notably from RNC and FDU-Inkingi and other pro-democracy voices.

8. It does not matter that Kagame has included Hutu and women to put on a facade of an ethnically balanced and gender sensitive government. Rwanda remains a police secretive state, firmly in the hands of a violent and corrupt dictator who marginalises mainly the Hutu, as well as Tutsi and Twa. The structure of power remains intact.

9. Ideas are a very powerful force, just as the power of organised and mobilized citizens are a potent force whose time has come. It has been a few months since Rwanda Briefing was written, and RNC was born. Clearly, ideas about a shared future among Rwandans ( Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa), anchored on truth telling, justice for all, the rule of law, freedom, democracy and sustainable prosperity for all has thrown Kagame and the state he has criminalised into panic. Now resources ( money, time, talent..) are being squandered left and right to stop the unstoppable---Rwanda's match to freedom!

10. Finally, the Prime Minister Bernard Makuza has been handed a sweet formality to sign the statement on the cabinet reshuffle, that he rarely, if ever, has anything to do with! Kagame is trying to deceive Rwandans that the formal government works. The truth is that his informal network of a few Tutsi military officers and RPF civilian cadres run the secret state behind the scene. Still, Makuza must be grateful that this small token has finally been extended to him thanks to the efforts of pro-democracy voices.

What is needed in Rwanda is not shuffling chairs on the sinking Kagame-RPF ship. Rwandans need to work together to prevent their motherland from sinking into more civil war and bloodshed, and chat a new direction in durable peace and freedom. Kagame can deceive some people, for some time. But he cannot deceive us all for all the time.

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Forget Gaddafi. Blair's NEW best friend Kagame is a despot guilty of even bloodier slaughter

By Paul Scott from the Mail Online

One morning a month ago, amid the kind of hearty backslapping and synthetic bonhomie at which he is so adept, Tony Blair played host to a select group of bankers for what is known in the business as a ‘billion dollar breakfast’.
As is so often the case these days, the principal criterion for gaining admission to the event at a luxurious Swiss hotel — and some much sought-after ‘face time’ with the great man himself — was that you should be very seriously rich.
Mr Blair, tight-grinned and tanned in a trademark open-necked white shirt and dark suit teamed, oddly, with a pair of Australian riding boots, was in his element, holding court as red-waistcoated staff poured Buck’s Fizz and coffee for the invited international money men.

Scene of horror: The skulls of victims of the Rwandan massacres

At the former Prime Minister’s side throughout was a rake-thin and bespectacled black man whom Blair was conspicuously keen to introduce to the assembled movers and shakers. Not surprising, perhaps, given that the event — at which Mr Blair was officially the chairman — was arranged in sole honour of Paul Kagame, the president of the African state of Rwanda.
And this being Mr Blair, the subject on his lips throughout the stylish meeting, held during the World Economic Forum in Davos, was cold, hard cash. Or, more to the point, how much he could persuade the super-rich investment bankers to plough into businesses in his close friend Mr Kagame’s emerging economy.
It is a task to which Mr Blair is devoting much of his time. Both he and his wife Cherie are regular guests of Kagame, flying in on a fabulously luxurious private jet (of which more later) and staying in a smart suite at the Rwandan capital Kigali’s finest lodgings, the Serena Hotel.
Their relationship, it has to be said, is something of a love-in. Mr Blair describes Kagame, a former rebel soldier in the once war-torn country, as a ‘visionary leader’ and ‘great friend’. For his part, the grateful Kagame has called on his people to name their children after his new English chum.
Meanwhile, Mrs Blair recently paid a misty-eyed tribute to his regime’s promotion of the rights of women.
Which, one imagines, must have put an ironic smile on the face of one of Rwanda’s leading female journalists, Agnes Nkusi Uwimana, now languishing in Kigali’s grim Central Prison.
Last month, the newspaper editor began a 17-year sentence for publishing critical articles in the run-up to the country’s blatantly fixed presidential elections last August that saw Kagame — the country’s leader since 2000 — returned to office with a 93 per cent majority.

Friends: Tony Blair greets Rwandan President Paul Kagame inside No 10 in December 2006 while he was still Prime Minister

Another writer on her paper was jailed for seven years. Meanwhile, their paper was summarily closed down by presidential order. Indeed, the increasingly dictatorial Kagame has now closed down all the independent media outlets the country once had.
No wonder Amnesty International has condemned the jailing, while the White House recently attacked Kagame’s growing political suppression.
Even so, Miss Uwimana and her journalist colleague can count themselves lucky. Others have suffered much worse fates.
The sham elections, at which 53-year-old father-of-four Kagame banned the two major opposition parties from standing and stood against three members of his own ruling coalition, were marred by the mysterious deaths of some of his political opponents and critics.
In June, the acting editor of another newspaper was shot in the face and killed. The journalist, Jean-Leonard Rugambage, was silenced because he exposed corruption involving Kagame and claimed he had uncovered the government’s involvement in the attempted murder of a former Rwandan army general exiled in South Africa.
Worse was to come. A month later, the vice-president of the country’s Democratic Green Party, which had been due to stand against the president’s Rwandan Patriotic Front ruling party, went missing before his almost decapitated body was discovered. Kagame’s government denied any involvement.
In October, the woman leader of the central African country’s most prominent opposition party, FDU-Inkingi, was jailed under new defamation laws brought in by Kagame to stifle opposition.
Then, two months ago, four exiled political rivals who used to be part of Kagame’s inner circle, but now accuse him of corruption, were jailed by a court for up to 24 years in their absence.
Which makes Mr Blair’s congratulatory letter to Kagame, hailing his ‘popular mandate’ after the vote, seem a bit of a sick joke.
Blair’s robust backing for his latest dodgy friend bears striking similarities to his long-time support of Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi, to whom he shamelessly cosied up during his time as PM, and to whom he has remained close ever since.

Presidents Robert Mugabe, centre of Zimbabwe and Paul Kagame, right, at an African Union summit in 2007

But could Kagame prove to be even more of an ill-advised friend?
Damning evidence is beginning to emerge that he ordered the systematic genocide of tens of thousands of rival Hutu civilians in revenge for the massacre of up to 800,000 of his Tutsi people in three months of bloodshed in 1994.
In October, the United Nations published a damning 550-page report which detailed the mass rape and torture of Hutu civilians after the Tutsi army, led by Kagame, chased fleeing Hutus into the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Witnesses to the atrocities claim there were ritual beheadings, while women and children were set alight, bludgeoned with hammers and shot. The UN has said that Kagame may face trial for war crimes.
Even so, Blair remains defiantly behind the increasingly despotic leader. Two months ago he launched a passionate defence of him, saying: ‘I am a believer in and a supporter of Paul Kagame.’
At the same time, he is said to have rolled his eyes when a Washington-based journalist questioned him about the scathing UN report into the Rwandan regime.
Blair has installed a team of handpicked advisers from his personal charity, the African Governance Initiative — which he set up in 2008 to assist three African countries — at the very heart of the corrupt president’s administration.

Massacre: A Rwandan soldier looks at hundreds of skulls displayed at the Bisesero memorial in the west of the country

The young team of between eight and ten aides, led by a Yale graduate, have taken up key roles in the President’s personal office, working for the country’s prime minister, in the cabinet office and on the Rwanda Development Board.
Which does rather invite the question — just what is in all this for Blair himself? Well, as is so often the case with the former Labour leader, the line between charity and personal aggrandisement is often more than a little hazy.
Take, for example, those flights Blair has made into Rwanda on a sumptuous private jet. The plane is one of two blue-and-white Bombardier BD-700 Global Express jets — costing  £30 million each — owned by the ruler of a country where 60 per cent of the people live in poverty.
In a bid to cover up the millions he has splurged on the aircraft, Kagame’s government set up a private investment company, registered in South Africa, as a front.
However, official records reveal that all the directors of the company, founded in May 2008, work for the president.
Just to make the whole thing even more fishy, the planes, whose registrations are ZS-ESA and ZS-XRS, are piloted by South Africa crews and operated by a private jet company based at Lanseria airport near Johannesburg.
Blair, who has amassed an estimated £50 million fortune since leaving Downing Street in June 2007, is said to have made at least three flights across three continents in one of the planes.

Friends: Blair with Gaddafi at his desert base outside Tropoli while he was Prime Minister in 2007

As long ago as 2009, he was spotted using one of the jets to attend meetings in Israel, Zurich and Abu Dhabi, before being flown into Kigali for a meeting with President Kagame.
At the time, Blair had personally corralled a group of European investment bankers in a bid to persuade them to speculate in Rwanda’s emerging IT and bio-fuels industries. Quite what Blair was doing accepting the flights, which would have cost in excess of £500,000 if he were paying himself, is anyone’s guess.
His trips to Israel can be explained by his duties as the West’s unpaid Middle East peace envoy. But his regular trips to Switzerland and Abu Dhabi are usually about further lining the pockets of his well-cut trousers.
For three years, Blair has acted as £500,000-a-year adviser on ‘development and trends in the international political environment’ for Swiss insurer Zurich. Meanwhile, he is often required to fly to Abu Dhabi in his £1 million-a-year capacity as consultant to the United Arab Emirates’ super-rich sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. None of which sounds exactly charitable.

Kagame casts his vote at a polling station in elections last year

And there is also further reason to suspect the lines between Blair’s twin roles as money-maker and the new self-appointed saviour of Africa are being stretched to something approaching breaking point. Last August, Blair, who pumped millions of pounds of aid into Rwanda during his time as PM, published a lengthy self-congratulatory article about his African charity work — which involves him helping to secure investment — on his personal website.
As one of many such glowing tributes to himself, it was, understandably, barely noticed at the time. But hidden away in a question and answer session is a fascinating admission about the structure of his charity, the Africa Governance Initiative. Describing how the charity works in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Mr Blair stressed first that he deals directly with each country’s leader.
Then he added: ‘The second thing is that AGI then hire a team of young people to come and live in the country — from JP Morgan, or they may have been in Downing Street or in the American system.’
Seasoned Blair watchers will know, of course, that he is a senior adviser to JP Morgan, a major U.S. investment bank, which pays him a reported £2 million a year to brief it on ‘the political and economic changes that globalisation brings’.

No doubt his paymasters at the bank are grateful that Mr Blair is able to put its young executives in on the ground floor of the fast-expanding Rwandan economy.
In recent months, Mr Blair has come in for flak over the ‘opaque’ nature of a complex network of companies set up to control his business interests, because they exploit a loophole that means he can keep his earnings from his business interests and his appearances on the international lecture circuit a secret.
Figures from one of his charities, however, reveal the scope of his influence. Three months ago, a Sainsbury family charity, the Gatsby Foundation, declared it had paid £992,000 into Blair’s Windrush charity. The money was, it said, for charitable projects in Rwanda.
Meanwhile, The Gates Foundation, set up by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, says it paid £1.5 million to Windrush in 2008 for similar projects in Sierra Leone.
Friends of the former Prime Minister defend him by saying he personally likes Kagame and believes his country’s brutal recent history means allowances must be made for him.
But one source close to Mr Blair told me this week: ‘Tony’s got a blind spot when it comes to this guy. He is surprisingly easily charmed, and Kagame has gone out of his way to be a very generous host with plane rides and things.
‘But Tony’s credibility has taken an absolute kicking over Gaddafi and, frankly, he can ill afford to get tied up with another dangerous nutcase.’
Surely, even the discredited and morally dispossessed Mr Blair can see that getting into bed with one bloodthirsty tyrant is regrettable, but two starts to look downright careless.

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