Rwanda: arrests, assassinations, and Pentagon intervention

Saturday, June 26th, 2010, memorial service for Rwandan journalist Jean Leonard Rugambage, assassinated in Kigali, Rwanda on Thursday, June 24th.

KPFA News on Rwanda and Africa, 06.26.2010: 

Kagame arrests Rwandan presidential candidate Bernard Ntaganda

Bernard Ntaganda, presidential candidate of Rwanda's P.S. Imberakuri Party before it broke into two factions, and still the presidential candidate of one wing.  He has called for postponement of the elections until all viable candidates can register, and today he called for protest as President Paul Kagame registered his candidacy with the National Electoral Commission, saying "Silence is acceptance."   He was arrested at his home this morning, 06.24.2010, before he could leave to attend the protest.

Bernard Ntaganda, Rwandan opposition presidential candidate, and Didas Gasana, Editor of Rwanda's banned newspaper, Umuseso, spoke to KMEC Radio on April 18th. Gasana has since fled to Uganda and Ntaganda was arrested in Kigali this morning.

Last night Ntaganda put out an urgent message that his assistant, Mr. Sibomana Rusangwa Aimable, had disappeared at 8 p.m., after a meeting held at the head office of P.S.Imberakuri in which the Party had decided to organize demonstrations today, June 24th, 2010.

Read more at Digital Journal: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/293800.

Rick Warren presented his second International Medal of P.E.A.C.E. to Rwandan President Paul Kagame on September 26, 2009, at Saddleback Church in Southern California. 

By Ann Garrison

May 5, 2010

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, presidential candidate of the Rwandan FDU-Inkingi Party, is going on trial in Rwanda.  Ingabire is charged with “genocide ideology,” a statutory speech crime unique to Rwanda, and of an “association crime,” associating with terrorists.

Eight days after Ingabire’s arrest on April 21 in Rwanda’s capital,  Kigali, a team of U.S. lawyers filed acivil lawsuit against Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Oklahoma City alleging Kagame ordered the political assassinations that triggered the Rwanda Genocide, costing one million Rwandan lives, and that he engaged in racketeering to control the vast natural resources of eastern Congo across Rwanda’s western border at a cost of six-million Congolese lives.

The international legal strategies and geostrategic implications of these parallel, competing courtroom dramas, are huge and historic.  Like any trials of such import, they will become trials in the court of pubic opinion.

And, California’s most famous Proposition 8 anti-gay marriage campaigner, Reverend Rick Warren, will stand trial in that court as well.  Warren has staked his reputation as an international humanitarian on his alliance with Kagame, and on his Rwandan and Ugandan HIV/AIDS ministries, which are infamous for hijacking PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in service to his abstinence-only-until-heterosexual-married -monogamy-for-life agenda.

Full story at Fog City Journal, http://goo.gl/L4Yh.

Umuseso Editor Didas Gasana grilled by Rwandan Police

Didas Gasana, Editor of Kinyarwanda language newspaper Umuseso, now banned by Rwanda's High Media Council. 

On Monday, 04.27.2010, Police detectives in Kigali, Rwanda interrogated Didas Gasana, Editor of the weekly African language newspaper Umuseso for eight hours. Gasana now fears extrajudicial abduction or a prison sentence of up to 25 years.


Read at http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/291281

Rwanda accuses Hotel Rwanda hero of 'Double Genocide Theory'

Hotel Rwanda - Trailer | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

Rwanda's government has accused Paul Rusesabagina, the Rwandan exile played by actor Don Cheadle in the movie Hotel Rwanda, of being a "revisionist" who "harbors the Double Genocide Theory."

A "revisionist," in Rwanda, is someone who dares to challenge the received history of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. The "Double Genocide Theory" is the belief that Hutus, as well as Tutsis, were victims of genocidal violence in 1994. 

Read more at Digital Journal, http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/289105

KPFA News Rwanda: 256.com correspondent Godwin Agaba says government responsible for Kigali bombings

KPFA Radio News Update on Rwanda, 03.07.2010

Election Rwanda 2010: party leaders remain in Rwanda, despite threats

On Friday, February 22, 2010, independent Rwandan newspaper Umuseso reported an assassination plot against Frank Habineza, leader of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, who is now a member of the Permanent Consultative Council representing the three major opposition parties in Rwanda. Habineza responded, however, that neither he nor Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza, of the FDU-Inking Party, nor Bernard Ntaganda, of the Parti Social-IMBERAKURI, intend to leave the country in fear, because they feel they are not only more effective but also safer in Rwanda, where their assassination would be an international incident. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both called for an end to political repression and human rights abuse in the run up to Rwanda's August 9th election, and Reporters without Borders has called for an end to repression of the press, particularly Umuseso, the newspaper that reported the assassination threat against Habineza.


On March 2nd, Frank Habineza was summoned by the Criminal Investigations Division of the Rwandan Police, which released him after interrogation. 

Rwandan political update, including claims of a plot to murder Frank Habineza

Posted 02.24.2010, via World News Journal, 02.23.2010

The President of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, Mr. Frank Habineza, yesterday's (Mr. Habineza's birthday) edition of Umuseso published claims of plot to kill him by the RPF. A translation of part of the article follows below. This issues follows yesterday's Nyarugenge Primary Court ruling that handed various jail sentences to editors of Umuseso after they were found guilty of defaming and invading the privacy of Cabinet Affairs Minister Protais Musoni. They will be allowed a chance to appeal. Charles Kabonero, the former Managing Editor and his predecessor, Didas Gasana, were given one-year and six months jail sentences respectively. They were also each ordered to pay a fine of 1 million Rwf. Richard Kayigamba was sentenced to six months and a fine of 1 million Rwf in a verdict that was pronounced in the absence of all defendants. The Rwandan government has threatened to close the newspaper permanently. While the paper has been accused many times of defamation and publication of inflammatory articles by various Rwandan officials, Reporters Without Borders has documented the Rwandan Government's repeated oppression of Umuseso and shown the government has often violated the right of freedom of speech to independent Rwandan periodicals in general. The well-known organization ranked Rwanda as one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom. Last year, they ranked 157th out of 175 countries and is the 4th worst country in Africa.

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UMUSESO NEWSPAPER No.396 of 22nd February-01 March 2010

BAD PLANS-HABINEZA TO BE KILLED IN 60 DAYS

Translation of some text from Page 2.

………………. While Victoire Ingabire is in the process of being sent to prison, another opposition politician Mr.Frank HABINEZA will be killed within 60 days.

One of the security operatives who gave us the information had this to say Frank is going to be killed within 60 days, they have no case against him. They can’t charge him with harboring genocide ideology.

They have been trying to frame him up but have not yet succeeded, yet he is the one fully supporting (giving courage) to Victoire Ingabire.

Frank Habineza, who was physically threatened by an unknown person while at a Kigali Hotel known as Le Printemps admits having received this information but says he does not believe that this Government can do such a thing “I do not believe that RF can stoop so low by killing a person just simply because he/she has different views, but from what aim hearing anything is possible”

Arrangements are being made to kill Frank Habineza, the party he is reading is at road blocks, still struggling to get registered.

Election Rwanda 2010, including voices of Frank Habineza and Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza

 

Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza, presidential candidate of the Rwandan FDU-Inkingi Party expects to be arrested after interrogation by Rwandan Police on February 22, 2010, or within the next week.

February 21, 2010 net radio report on heightening tension and violence leading up to Rwanda's scheduled August 2010 presidential election:

Rwanda Election 2010, including the voices of Frank Habineza, Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, and Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza, Presidential Candidate of the FDU-Inking Party

To urge press coverage, contact;

Democracy Now, +1 (212) 431-9090, http://www.democracynow.org/contact

New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, http://www.nytimes.com/gst/emailus.html

NPR, http://help.npr.org/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=5670&task=ticket

The San Francisco Bay View, National Black Newspaper has collected some of my own reporting, for Digital Journal, the OpEdNews, Global Research, and KPFA Radio/Youtube, on Rwanda's 2010 election, in Rwandan Opposition Parties Condemn Attacks in Kigali.

See also:

FDU-Inkingi
Democratic Green Party of Rwanda
Parti Social-IMBERAKURI 

Human Rights Watch, Rwanda: End Attacks on Opposition Parties
Amnesty International,  Intimidation of Rwandan Opposition Parties Must End

Professor Peter Erlinder, Rwanda Documents Project
Keith Harmon Snow, All Things Pass , Conscious Being Alliance
David Barousky, Z Magazine and World Journal
Jean Christophe, Survivors Network
H. Vincent Harris/Ann Garrison, Colored Opinions

Election Rwanda 2010: Who will be allowed to run?

On February 10, 2009, Human Rights Watch issued a news release, "Rwanda: End Attacks on Opposition Parties," but the attacks haven't ended.  FDU-Inkingi candidate Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza was facing another interrogation, by the Criminal Investigation Division of the Rwandan Police, at the time I recorded this KPFA Radio News including some of my most recent conversation with her.  She was once again released, though still unable to register the FDU-Inkingi Party.

On February 18, 2010, Amnesty International joined Human Rights Watch by issuing a release titled "Intimidation of opposition parties must end."

Meanwhile, Kigali's Gasabo District has once again refused to give the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda a permit to hold the convention that it must hold to field a presidential candidate, because the police have not given them a "clearance," even though nonviolence is one of the 10 key values of Green Parties worldwide.