UK: Rwandan Refugees Warned of Elimination Plans

UK Exiled Rwandans Protesting in Front of Embassy

From The Proxy Lake by Claire Umurungi
Rwandan government allegedly might be planning a series of eliminations and acts of division within the Rwandan exiled community in UK by means of assassinations, poisoning and false accusations.
Newspaper Umuvugizi claims to have received intelligence materials that, following a meeting between military and intelligence authorities in Kigali, there are plans to eliminate exiled dissidents currently living in United Kingdom. The article containing the allegations was published on Saturday, 8^th January 2011.
(Read Umuvugizi Newspaper full article translation here)
According to Umuvugizi newspaper, on this meeting, a Rwandan military officer, Colonel Mupenzi might have received approval and budget to carry out his proposed plan.
A list of UK local representatives and supporters of FDU-Inkingi, RNC and Imvura political parties might have been drawn.
Umuvugizi also revealed that Rwandan officials might be concerned over the involvement of BBC Journalists with the opposition.
Harassment of Rwandan ex-soldiers is also claimed. It is alleged that two days after his return, officer Mupenzi instructed the Rwandan Embassy to call a certain lady Lieutenant Jeanne D’Arc Umulisa, a former Rwanda Defense Force servicewoman now in exile in UK since 2000. She was called in a meeting in a Nandos Restaurant in Huston, London where they met at around 17h30.
The article said that the meeting was led by Rwandan Ambassador Ernest Rwamucyo and was attended by Intelligence officer Jimmy Uwizeye and Mr. Murego also an intelligence officer.
It is claimed that Mr. Murego had fled his country in the past as did Lieutenant Jeanne, but he has been brought back to work under Kagame’s umbrella. Lieutenant Jeanne is a founder of “Wariyo Baka”, an association of Rwandan exiled ex-soldiers living in UK, Umuvugizi revealed.
Allegedly, Lieutenant Jeanne d’Arc was instructed to dissolve the association and to join RPF party or, otherwise, she would face serious consequences and soon realise her mistakes, in case she refuses to apologize and rejoin the ranks.
According to Umuvugizi, the Ambassador Rwamucyo might have warned her that, if she fails to dissolve the association of exiled RDF servicemen and to apologize, he would take steps to dissolve it and prove her wrong.
Umuvugizi’s exiled Chief Editor Jean-Bosco Gasasira claims that the Rwandan Embassy’s intelligent officers are currently tasked with locating certain refugees in the UK and to lure them into the plan. Other refugees will have to be watched closely to know where they live and what they do.
The plan also include silencing dissidents by ways of false accusations, using hired English people to be sent to wherever they are or in their homes, according to the Newspaper.
The newspaper Chief Editor claims that one of the main secret agents is a certain Mrs Abera, who resides in UK as a refugee. Abera allegedly is acting under the Diaspora initiative in locating Rwandans through her association with their wives.
Mrs Abera might have transformed her home into a pub to allegedly offer a place of meeting to the embassy agents and other refugee-disguised agents who are living off the UK taxpayer’s money.
The Umuvugizi article goes on to say that Rwandan embassy is using some of the defected soldiers who had exiled into UK and now living poverty. These young men have joined the intelligence network of spies and are targeting relatives of the late former President Habyalimana, supporters of Rwanda National Congress, United Democratic Forces as well as local BBC journalists.
“This intelligence Network has a deep hierarchy with different branches in the country. At the top of the largest branch is intelligent officer Jimmy who is an experienced spymaster” says Jean-Bosco Gasasira.
“Another branch of the network is the so-called Diaspora initiative. They use this organisation to locate Rwandans, learn what they do and what their political aspirations are that may be opposed to Kagame’s and to RPF policies.”
Umuvugizi warned “Rwandans living in UK especially those who are opposed to Kagame to be vigilant. They should avoid attending diner parties or same restaurants frequently“.
Full article translation here
Original Article in Kinyarwanda language

Related articles

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• You: Rwanda: Kagame's dilemma (search.japantimes.co.jp)
• Tony Blair defends support for Rwandan leader Paul Kagame (guardian.co.uk)
• Rwandan opposition leader Ingabire denied bail (reuters.com)
• Rwandan Refugees Forcibly Returned from Uganda (immigration.change.org)
• French judge files charges against Kagame allies (sfgate.com)
• Rwanda genocide archive unveiled (bbc.co.uk)
• French judge files charges against Kagame allies (foxnews.com)
• French judge files charges against Kagame allies (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
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UN agency deplores forced returns of Rwandan refugees from Uganda

Rwandan refugees return to shore after fishing in Uganda

UN agency deplores forced returns of Rwandan refugees from Uganda

16 July 2010 – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today deplored the forced returns of Rwandans from Uganda, with reports of police brutality being used to deport the asylum-seekers. On Wednesday, Ugandan police carried out an operation to round up and force out some 1,700 Rwandan refugees from the Nakivale and Kyaka camps in southwestern Ugandan.
In the Nakivale settlement, Rwandan asylum-seekers were assembled under the pretext that they would be told of the results of their asylum claims, with panic breaking out among the group when police fired shots.
“Force was used to push people onto trucks,” with the refugees then being driven across the border to Rwanda, UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming told reporters in Geneva today.
Meanwhile in the Kyaka camp, police and armed men surrounded a UN World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse filled with refugees who believed they would receive food supplies.
“Those who did not manage to escape were forced onto waiting trucks,” Ms. Fleming said, adding that many were not allowed to take their personal belongings with them.
Two men who jumped out of trucks en route back to Rwanda died, and some children were separated from their parents.
More than two dozen people who were not deported sustained injuries, some from police beatings. Among the injured were 6 pregnant women who were treated at a local hospital and then released.
UNHCR is interviewing those injured in the round-ups and tracing those separated from their families in the deportation.
“Although UNHCR was broadly aware of an agreement between the two countries to return failed asylum-seekers, we were not informed of the timing and the nature of this operation,” Ms. Fleming said.
She added that the agency staff at the settlements at the time of the incidents were asked to leave the scene.
The operations were targeted at failed asylum-seekers, but UNHCR has received confirmation that recognized refugees were among those returned to Rwanda.
In Kyaka, a woman told the agency that her two children were among the group sent back despite the fact that she and her family were recognized as refugees.
“UNCHR remains concerned about further deportations amid reports from refugees that police had threatened to return to Navikale and Kyaka to deport all those who escaped,” Ms. Fleming noted.
She stressed that the return of refugees and asylum-seekers whose asylum applications have not properly and finally been ruled on should only be taken voluntarily and in conditions of safety and dignity.
“We called upon the Ugandan authorities to halt the operation as soon as we became aware that it was under way,” the UNHCR spokesperson said.
“We have reiterated that there should be no further such returns contrary to the principles of national and international refugee law,” she added. “We have underlined that anyone deserving international protection should be allowed to remain in Uganda.”
Since the start of this year, more than 3,300 Rwandans have filed for asylum in Uganda, with 98 per cent of claims having been rejected in the past six months.
“UNHCR is concerned that asylum applications are not being determined properly and fairly,” Ms. Fleming stated. “We have been and will continue to address this issue with the Ugandan authorities.
Once in Rwanda, those deported this week were taken to Byumba province’s Rukomo transit center, which can only hold 500 people, has not been used for a year, and lacks water and adequate sleeping space. UNHCR is seeking access to the returnees are reportedly sleeping out in the open and do not have food or clean water.
As of this January, the agency estimates that there are nearly 128,000 refugees and more than 11,500 asylum-seekers in Uganda.

Mass removal of Rwandans from Ugandan refugee settlements

Mass removal of Rwandans from Ugandan refugee settlements

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/action/6596

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Reports reaching IRRI and RLP indicate that on the morning of Wednesday 14th July 2010, OPM Directorate of Refugees and Police officers in Nakivale (Isingiro District) and Kyaka II (Kyenjonjo District) began rounding up Rwandans and forcing them against their will to board trucks to return them to Rwanda.

Reports indicate that those targeted in this manner were lured with the promise that they would be granted refugee status and food. Instead they were met by a large number of Ugandan police who rounded them up and forced them onto trucks. Shots were fired by police. Some individuals appear to have been injured during the process, and in some cases parents were separated from children. Reports further suggest that Rwandan security agents and authorities were present at the scene.

By removing settlement-based Rwandans in this manner, the Ugandan government is in breach of its own Citizenship and Immigration Act, which outlines the due processes by which failed asylum seekers who have exhausted their right of appeal should be deported. It has also violated the obligations created by domestic and international law, including the Constitution, the Children’s Statute and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These breaches come just days before the African Union Summit on ‘Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa’ is due to begin in Kampala.

IRRI and RLP condemn this forcible removal of Rwandans from Ugandan refugee settlements.

We further note that this comes barely a month after our drawing public attention to the fact that many Rwandan refugees and asylum seekers fear persecution if returned to their country of origin (see report titled, “A Dangerous Impasse: Rwandan Refugees in Uganda” available on www.refugeelawproject.org and www.refugee-rights.org) The report made a number of recommendations to the governments of Uganda and Rwanda, and to UNHCR, in order to improve protection for this group of refugees. In particular, it stated that the Ugandan government must scrupulously uphold its international and national legal obligations with regard to the protection of refugees and to the truly voluntary nature of any repatriation.

We therefore call for an immediate halt to the current removal process. We also call on the Ugandan government to ensure that any failed asylum seekers are able to exhaust the appeal processes provided for under the Refugees Act, and, where these routes have indeed been exhausted, that the Government follow due process for deportation as provided for under the Citizenship and Immigration Control Act.

For further information or comments, please contact;
Dr. Chris Dolan, Director, Refugee Law Project,
dir@refugeelawproject.org, +256 414235330/ 343556

or

Dismas Nkunda, Co-Director, International Refugee Rights Initiative,
dismas.nkunda@refugee-rights.org +256 782310404 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +256 782310404      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Spanish PM changes plans, will not meet Rwandan president Kagame

Spanish PM changes plans, will not meet Rwandan president

(AFP) – 6 hours ago

MADRID — Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has decided not to go ahead with a meeting on Friday in Madrid with Rwandan President Paul Kagame which had been contested by charities, a government spokesman said.

Zapatero and Kagame, who is targeted in a Spanish probe into the 1994 genocide, had been scheduled to meet Friday, during a the first meeting of a group set up last month by the United Nations to advance the fight against poverty.

The meeting, which was due to be held at Moncloa palace, the seat of the Spanish government, will instead be held at a downtown Madrid hotel and Spain will be represented by Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, the spokesman said.

Zapatero will meet with UN chief Ban Ki-moon separately, he added.

Last month the UN chief named Zapatero and Kagame as the co-chairs of the advocacy group pushing for progress on the Millennium Development Goals that set the aim of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

Earlier on Thursday the Coordinating Committee for Development NGOs in Spain (CONGDE) said in a statement that the UN's choice of Kagame for the post was "questionable."

It criticised "Zapatero's passivity for accepting without objection to work beside someone accused of genocide".

Asked about the statement, the government spokesman said only that the decision to move the meeting to a hotel was taken on Thursday and the the government felt that Moratinos' presence at the meeting was "sufficient".

In 2008 Spain's High Court announced its intention to prosecute 40 Rwandan army officers for genocide, crimes against humanity and terrorism related to events that took place between 1994 and 2000, including under the Kagame's rule.

Kagame's then rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front in July 1994 put an end to the 100-day slaughter of at least 800,000 people, mostly from his Tutsi minority, by Hutu extremist militias and government troops.

But the Spanish judiciary accuses Kagame of fomenting the ethnic clashes in a bid to seize power. The Rwandan officers are accused, among other things, of murdering missionaries and Spanish expatriates who were allegedly witnesses to massacres.

Under Spanish law, a court can prosecute human rights crimes even if the alleged offences took place abroad.

But Kagame is immune from prosecution because of his status as head of state. His government has formally rejected the judge's accusations.

Others in the so-called MDG Advocacy Group, named after the Millennium Development Goals, include Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, CNN founder Ted Turner and Jeffrey Sachs of The Earth Institute and Columbia University.

Rwanda Refugees In Zimbabwe Refuse Repatriation

he refugees said Rwanda is not yet safe for them to return.

The Rwandans have also accused the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Harare for working in cahoots with the Kigali government to force them to return.

The UNHCR has cleared Rwanda as safe for refugees to return.

Last week the Zimbabwean government said it hopes to repatriate all Rwandans by December 2011.

Minister of Public Service and Social Welfare Paurina Mpariwa said on World Refugees’ Day: “We are doing the best we can to ensure the provision of shelter, water sanitation and shelter. Like any other country in the region, Zimbabwe will soon embark on repatriation of Rwandan refugees by December 31 2011.”

But Joseph Habineza, a Rwandan refugee at Tongogara Refugee Camp in Chipinge said recent events in Rwanda were clear for anybody to see the country was not safe.

The majority of the Rwandans stay at Tomgogara Refugee Camp.

Habineza said: “Just look at how Kagame is arresting and killing opponents. Returning refugees are being arrested or killed. We will not go back.”

He said a former top army general who has fled to South Africa was almost murdered and a journalist shot and killed outside his Kigali home.

"All these incidents can tell you Rwanda is not safe," Habineza said.

Human Rights Watch, an international human rights watchdog, has accused Rwandan leader, Paul Kagame of human rights abuses in the run up to a presidential poll next month. Kagame has rubbished the claims.

The Rwandan refugees in Zimbabwe have also written to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the government informing them of their unwillingness to return to Rwanda.

They accused the UNHCR of collaborating with the regime in Kigali in hatching “a plan to kidnap” and forcefully repatriate them.

U.S. Woman Falsely Accused of Rwanda Genocide Rape Crimes

U.S. Woman Falsely Accused of Rwanda Genocide Rape Crimes

Millions of U.S. Taxpayers Dollars Fund Fabricated Rwanda Genocide and Asylum Cases

by Keith Harmon Snow / June 29th, 2010

On June 24, 2010, U.S. agents in Manchester, New Hampshire arrested Rwandan genocide survivor Beatrice Munyenyezi, a Hutu and a U.S. citizen since 2004. Charged with lying on her immigration documents to conceal her alleged major role in genocide in Rwanda, Ms. Munyenyezi is also charged with rape as a war and genocide crime. Meanwhile, a federal prosecutor for the case is known for misconduct, falsification of evidence and perjury. Is it a crime to have a Facebook profile? Is it a crime to use a computer?

“If the road would speak, then I wouldn’t be scared, if the birds would sing, then I would vow to never vanish,” wrote Beatrice Munyenyezi, “I wouldn’t be lost in the woods, a place where sound and noise is unheard of, and the sky, the sky is not even there to guide you, to guide me.”

So begins Beatrice Munyenyezi’s personalized account as a refugee who survived the slaughter of millions of people in Rwanda, in Zaire/Congo, and in neighboring countries, between 1990 and 1998—always erroneously defined as “the 1994 Rwanda genocide” where brutality is universally attributed to the Hutu ethnic group and Tutsis are always the only victims.

Ms. Munyenyezi has been transforming her ordeal of unspeakable brutality and terror into a book tentatively titled Life in the Middle of Nowhere: Surviving Genocide in Rwanda and Zaire. It is her version of Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire (2004) a renowned non-fiction book published in Europe and written by Marie Beatrice Umutesi, a Hutu and genocide survivor.

On Thursday June 24, 2010, this project abruptly came to a halt when Federal agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confiscated all of Ms. Munyenyezi’s texts, notes, documents, computers and other personal items. (ICE is the largest investigative agency in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.) Now her private testimony as a refugee and survivor will likely be used against her in another case of politically motivate genocide charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice has suggested that Beatrice Munyenyezi might be deported to face genocide charges in Rwanda. But Ms. Munyenyezi will be a milestone case: the first international legal proceedings in the United States involving a female of any ethnicity or nationality charged with rape as a genocide and war crime.

On June 24, 2010, Beatrice Munyenyezi (MOON’-yen-yezi) was arrested in Manchester, New Hampshire (USA) and charged, according to U.S. prosecutors, with “procuring U.S. citizenship unlawfully by misrepresenting her activities during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.”

According to the government of Rwanda, Beatrice Munyenyezi, 40, allegedly “participated in, committed, ordered, oversaw, conspired to, aided and abetted, assisted in and directed persecution, kidnapping, rape and murder during the Rwandan genocide of 1994.”

These are generic genocide charges used by the Rwandan military regime against all Hutus.1