Tag: President Paul Kagame

Supporters of Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire marched in Brussels, Belgium, today to denounce the Rwandan Supreme Court’s December ruling, which increased her sentence on appeal. British lawyer Iain Edwards said that he is still waiting for a translation of the ruling before saying whether or not they will appeal beyond Rwanda to a regional court or to the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Today, as President Paul Kagame has finally decided to go to pay his last respects to the freedom and reconciliation hero Nelson Mandela, his Supreme Court sentenced political prisoner Madam Victoire Ingabire to 15 years in prison on final appeal, almost double the eight-year High Court sentence of Oct. 30, 2012. This is a very strong message to the whole opposition.

The 17-year quest for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken a significant step in the right direction; however, many concerns remain. Last week the Congolese military routed the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 and declared an end to its reign of terror against the Congolese people.

Rwanda’s M23 has finally been defeated in DR Congo, but what are we to make of DR Congo negotiating with M23, not Rwanda’s Kagame and Uganda’s Museveni? M23 was commanded by Rwanda’s top military officers and officials, but its collaboration with Uganda is clear to anyone who gives the Great Lakes Region any attention, as is Rwanda and Uganda’s collaboration with the Western powers.

This week the Congolese army, backed by the U.N. Force Intervention Brigade, was widely reported to be driving the last of Rwanda’s M23 militia from their positions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s most war ravaged province, North Kivu, on eastern Congo’s border with Rwanda. At the same time, Western elites stepped forward to tell the world what’s best for Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo now.

Supporters of Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire will hold an all day sit-in outside the Rwandan Embassy in Brussels on Friday, Nov. 1, the day that Rwanda’s Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on her appeal. Ingabire has been behind bars in Rwanda’s 1930 maximum security prison for three years, since October of 2010.

Rwandan opposition leader Bernard Ntaganda is reported to be in perilous condition after going on a hunger strike to protest inhumane conditions in Rwanda’s Mpanga Prison, which is also known as Rwanda’s Guantanamo. Rwanda has been a close ally and military partner of the U.S. since President Kagame and his Rwandan Patriotic Front seized power in 1994.

On Aug. 7, Paul Rusesabagina, president of the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, sent an open letter to international political and civil society leaders asking them not to bother with the upcoming Rwandan parliamentary elections. The letter follows: Please ignore Rwanda. Parliamentary elections are coming up in Rwanda this September, and the world should ignore them.

Ingabire returned to her native Rwanda from the Netherlands in January 2010 to stand for the presidency against incumbent President Paul Kagame, but she was not allowed to run and was imprisoned on charges of terrorism and genocide ideology. A court sentenced her to eight years, and her lawyers have filed an appeal with the Rwandan Supreme Court.

Imprisoned Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire and her supporters await a Kigali court’s verdict in her case this coming Friday, Sept. 7. Ingabire has been in prison for nearly two years, charged with giving financial support to a terrorist group, planning to cause state insecurity, and divisionism, a violation of Rwanda’s “genocide ideology” statute.

In Rwanda, which has received over $1 billion in U.S. foreign aid in the past 10 years, Mrs. Victoire Ingabire made every attempt to participate in the political process that Rwandan President Paul Kagame insists is democratic, but instead she now stands in the dock in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, facing charges that could keep her behind bars for 30 years to life.

Faculty members at Carnegie Mellon University's Marianna Brown Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences have signed a petition questioning the university's partnership with Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, as they plan to open a branch campus in Kigali in 2012. The petition cites charges that his government has committed gross human rights violations in Rwanda and in the Congo. It also cites increased repression of the press and political freedoms.

Kagame refers to the former Rwandan soldiers who took refuge in Congo as “genocidaires.” He says he is going after them every time he invades the Congo and he has used them as his excuse to occupy and plunder Congo’s resources, with the blessing of the international community.

The 2010 U.N. Mapping Exercise Report, U.N. Prosecutor Del Ponte’s 2009 exposé of Rwandan Patriotic Front crimes, and the 2008 Spanish genocide indictment of President Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front tell the real story.

Law professor and legal scholar Charles Kambanda and Rwanda Genocide survivor, writer and activist Aimable Mugara spoke about the truth of the Rwanda Genocide story, as more and more lobbying groups push for Pentagon campaigns to stop genocide, even with Predator drones.

On Jan. 20, Rwanda’s High Court once again rejected the bail appeal of Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, chair of Rwanda’s FDU-Inkingi coalition of opposition parties.

Rwandan President Kagame denied the accusations in the new U.N. report, most of all the accusations of genocide, and then responded by arresting Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the second of three opposition presidential candidates to be jailed since attempting to contest this year’s presidential election against Kagame.

Frank Habineza, leader of the opposition Democratic Green Party, told VOA all three opposition candidates who challenged President Kagame’s ruling Rwanda Patriotic front (RPF) during the recent presidential vote have undergone what he said are serious and dangerous trials.

The leaked U.N. report to be officially released Oct. 1 is not the first such report to have been drafted by the U.N. – nor is it the first one to be covered up. On Oct. 11, 1994, Robert Gersony of USAID reported that Kagame's RPF army had been committing systematic massacres of the Hutu population in Rwanda starting in April 1994.

Before the recently leaked damning U.N. report, many believed the apex of Rwandan self-destruction was the 1994 genocide, but fresh investigations indicate the Rwanda Patriotic Front-led government also committed genocide against the Hutu in the Democratic Republic of Congo.