Lack of Inclusiveness in Rwanda Could Breed Potential Conflict
Saturday April 7, 2012, marks the 18th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. In 1994, Hutu militias and civilians targeted their Tutsi neighbours, friends and colleagues, killing at least 500,000 Tutsis in just 100 days. It was the worst case of genocidal violence since the Nazi holocaust.
Because it must never again happen, now is a good time to reflect on the lives of the Rwandans that lived through the genocide—the 85 percent of the population that lived in the country during the civil war (1990-1994).
It is worth noting that Rwandans of all ethnicities—Tutsi, Hutu and Twa—were caught up in the maelstrom of violence in 1994. Undeniably, the Tutsi were targeted solely because of their ethnicity. That the Tutsi died in great numbers is well established in both the academic and policy literatures. Lesser known, in part because the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government denies their experiences, are the countless stories of survival and succour of ordinary peasant Rwandans of Hutu ethnicity who took extraordinary risks to protect Tutsi they knew. These stories include instances where notorious killers protected Tutsi they knew personally, ushering them safely through roadblocks, warning them of the whereabouts of marauding groups, and even hiding them at their homes. Some individuals killed during the day, but at night, they would shelter and hide Tutsi friends and relatives. In this way, many Tutsi survived because of help from a Hutu family member, friend, colleague, neighbour, or stranger.
To acknowledge that Rwandans of all ethnicities suffered various forms of violence during the genocide does not diminish the horror, gravity, or the meaning of the genocide against the Tutsi. Instead, it situates the events of 1994 in a larger landscape of violence, one in which peasant Rwandans were disproportionately affected when they were targeted by armed groups and militias. It also highlights the injustice that many peasant Rwandans feel in the face of government efforts to impose a single version of how the genocide happened and what needs to be done to recover from it. This government version does not take into account the various standpoints of genocide survivors, perpetrators, survivors of atrocities led by the RPF rebels (who now hold power), bystanders, Rwandans in the diaspora, and so on. In addition, the government presents a simplistic version of the cause of the 1994 genocide; identity politics grounded in decades of bad governance resulted in deep-rooted ethnic hatred of all Tutsi by all Hutu.
Eighteen years after the genocide, the silencing of the physical and emotional violence that the majority of Rwandans experienced during the genocide do more than erase their suffering; it also allows their economic and political grievances against the ruling RPF to accumulate. The vast majority of peasant Rwandans who survived the genocide are poor, politically marginal, and traumatized by what they experienced during the genocide. Many lack clean water, adequate food, affordable health care and education. To add insult to injury, the government does not allow for frank and open discussion of the genocide. Discourse on the genocide is reduced to making the Hutu tell the truth about what they did during the genocide, and make the Tutsi to forgive their Hutu aggressors. In essence, reconciliation is not a sincere affair of the heart; it is an administrative matter.
As Rwanda marks the 18th anniversary of the genocide, there are two things that the ruling RPF can do to encourage a more open and inclusive political culture that both brings in peasant experiences of violence while creating a more economically equal society. First, President Kagame should create space for national dialogue – an open and safe space where Rwandans of all ethnicities, and from all walks of life, can meet to discuss what happened to whom during the genocide, and to strategize ways forward from the hurt of the past. As Olive, a Hutu widow whose Tutsi husband died during the genocide said, ‘Hutu confess to get free. But we know what happened! We were there in 1994. Not all who killed get justice – the government pardons them for reconciliation. Not all who didn’t kill go free – the government puts them in prison for reconciliation. What kind of peace is this? It is not from the heart.’
Second, the government needs to develop policies to equitably manage Rwanda's natural resources (its people and its land). The U.S. State Department estimates that by 2020 Rwanda will be home to some 13 million people. With 225 people per square mile, it has the highest population density in Africa. Land pressures in rural Rwanda are intense. The government requires rural farmers to grow coffee and tea instead of the crops needed to feed their families. A new land policy has decreased peasant holdings to less than a half-acre. The RPF does not allow peasant farmers to voice their concerns about its agricultural policy and the inequitable ways in which land is distributed into the hands of government loyalists.
On this 18th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, it is imperative that the lived experiences of peasants before, during and after the events of 1994 be incorporated into government policy and practice, lest the toll of growing socio-economic inequity and the daily injustices that many peasants experience make another round of mass political violence possible.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
On the Munyenyezi Trial
I was listed as an 'expert' witness on the trial of Beatrice Munyenyezi, a Rwandan woman living in New Hampshire. Her trial, like that of Lazar Kabagoya in Kansas, resulted in a hung jury. Jason McLure wrote the following article, and it's an excellent read for anyone keen to understand genocide trials in American courts.
"U.S. trips in Rwanda prosecution
Who to believe, when the African government uses genocide memories as political tool?
During her rape by a militiaman, the nun screamed and spit at the face of the woman they called "Commander Beatrice," the witness recounted from the stand. "If you don't want to be like other women, let me take you somewhere else," the militiawoman responded. She took the nun to an open pit and shot her with a pistol.
The alleged rape and murder took place in Butare, Rwanda, during that country's 1994 genocide. The testimony was by Jean-Damascene "Saddam" Munyanyeza, a slight Rwandan wearing leg shackles and a blue work jacket that looked three sizes too large. He spoke not before an international tribunal, but through a translator to a federal jury in New Hampshire. The defendant, Beatrice Munyenyezi, 41, was on trial not for murder or genocide, but for immigration fraud.
Her trial was part of a multimillion-dollar effort by the U.S. Department of Justice and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prosecute and deport U.S. residents suspected of involvement in Rwanda's 100-day slaughter, 18 years after it ended.
Only the government didn't succeed. The jury deadlocked, and U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe declared a mistrial on March 15. It was the second failed prosecution of someone accused of genocide during the past year.
Although international legal experts and human rights groups have praised the attempts to ensure justice for genocide victims, many question whether witnesses like "Saddam," provided by Rwanda's authoritarian, ethnic Tutsi-dominated government, are reliable. And almost no one claims that once deported to Rwanda, defendants will face a fair trial.
"The Rwandan government is making it impossible to tell false accusations from real ones, because they use genocide allegations as a political tool to silence dissent," said Brian Endless, a political scientist at Loyola University Chicago who studies Rwanda and advised Munyenyezi's defense.
Rwanda's government drew a different conclusion. "Some of these Western jurisdictions can't just understand the gravity of cases before them," Martin Ngoga, the country's prosecutor general, told Rwanda's The New Times following the mistrial. "They handle these cases in a very simplistic way. We have, in the past, applauded trials abroad because we thought they would substitute extradition. But this isn't happening; some countries have abused this process."
Defense attorneys David Ruoff and Mark Howard argued much the same point, but from the opposite perspective. "The approach that the federal government has taken is to apply Western norms and carve out witnesses from the heart of Africa and think the same norms will apply," Ruoff said. "That just doesn't apply here, and the government hasn't addressed that."
Carmen Ortiz, the Massachusetts U.S. attorney whose office prosecuted the case, in a formal statement called the outcome "unfortunate" and said the Justice Department was reviewing its options. The department noted its successful immigration prosecutions in the past of suspected former Nazis and people linked to massacres in Guatemala and Bosnia.
"The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that human rights violators from any region of the world are not granted safe haven in the United States," the department said. "As in every type of case, we conduct thorough investigations and bring charges we believe are supported by evidence sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction."
COMING TO AMERICA
Rwanda's genocide was preceded by four years of civil war between a Hutu-dominated government and Tutsi guerrillas. The spark was the shooting down of an airplane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, on April 6, 1994 — possibly by radical Hutus who feared he would make peace with the rebels. For 100 days, Hutu extremists in Rwanda's interim government directed soldiers and members of the Interahamwe militia to slaughter an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus out of a population of about 7 million people. The killings ended with the Tutsi rebels seizing power. Hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled to neighboring countries; several thousands of those who remained fell victim to reprisal killings.
Munyenyezi and her three children moved to the United States in 1998. Since the genocide, she had shuttled among refugee settlements in east Africa, but once in this country found an apartment, a car and a job with the Manchester Housing and Redevelopment Authority, where she became an advocate for refugees, according to Manchester's New Hampshire Union Leader. In 2003, she became a U.S. citizen in the same federal courthouse where she later would stand trial. By that time, she'd bought a home and was working on a memoir, Life In the Middle of Nowhere.
In 2005, she gave an interview about fleeing Rwanda. "I escaped, I locked up my house," she told New Hampshire Public Radio. "At some point, I thought I would go back in a few weeks, and I never knew that it was for good. And you know, I left everything, especially my wedding dress that I wish that I could have."
Munyenyezi's July 1993 marriage into a politically connected Hutu family has proven problematic. Her husband, Arsène Shalom Ntahobali, became a feared Hutu militia leader during the slaughter. Her mother-in-law, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, was the minister of women's affairs in the government that oversaw the killings. Both were convicted for their roles in the genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and sentenced to life in prison.
In 2006 Munyenyezi, traveled to Tanzania to testify during her husband's trial; she told the court that Shalom hadn't participated in any crimes. At about that time, her life in the United States had begun to unravel; she lost her job to city budget cuts, according to the Union Leader. By 2008, she was working as a nurse's aide, making less than $1,000 a month. She declared bankruptcy and lost her home. That same year, her sister, who had also testified in Tanzania, was indicted on 10 counts of perjury and immigration fraud for allegedly lying under oath during her immigration proceedings about her membership in Habyarimana's political party (which before the peace talks sanctioned persecution of Tutsis).
According to Ruoff, immigration agents opened an investigation into Munyenyezi after someone sent investigators a transcript of her tribunal testimony.
Prosecutors Jon Capin and Aloke Chakravarty of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts attempted to prove at trial that Munyenyezi played a role in the genocide. Ruoff and Howard argued in turn that the government's case was built on unreliable witnesses, some of whom had admitted to mass murder themselves — "Saddam," for example, testified that he couldn't recall how many children he'd killed. They argued that Munyenyezi, who was pregnant with twins at the time, sheltered with other female family members from the carnage around her. Her relatives backed up that argument at trial, although eight Rwandan prosecution witnesses insisted that she was deeply engaged in the slaughter.
"It's the face I saw during the genocide, and it's a face I will never forget," testified Aleysia Mukankuriza, who described surviving by walking to Burundi despite a head wound. "A person who has done wrong to you, you will never forget."
"Saddam" accused Munyenyezi not only of killing of the nun, but also of procuring Tutsi girls to be raped, instructing him and other militiamen to construct a roadblock and making a radio speech warning Hutus not to shelter Tutsis.
By some estimates, as many as 80 percent of the Tutsis living in Rwanda were murdered in three months. Killing at that scale requires the participation of a wide swathe of the population. "I think anyone in Rwanda at that time has some stain on them," said Susan Thomson, a Hampshire College professor who has spent much of her career researching the genocide, and who was listed as an expert witness for Munyenyezi's defense but did not testify.
INVOLVEMENT NEVER MENTIONED
Munyenyezi's lawyers noted that in hundreds of pages of testimony before the international tribunal and in reports by Human Rights Watch and other groups, Munyenyezi's involvement is never mentioned, including by witnesses who would later testify at her trial. Moreover, a growing body of evidence suggested that the Rwanda's government is using genocide allegations to silence exiled political opponents and discourage defense witnesses from coming forward — as Munyenyezi did for her husband.
During the past 18 years, President Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front government has been widely credited with rebuilding a country in ruins and restoring some form of normalcy. Since 2001, it has tried more than 1.2 million genocide-related cases before community courts known as gacaca. But it's also a country where questioning the official version of the genocide has been criminalized, opposition party leaders are jailed and attacked, and Kagame won the last two elections with more than 90 percent of the vote against no real opposition. The government has blocked the international prosecution of its own members for revenge killings.
During last year's trial of Lazare Kobagaya, an 84-year-old asylum-seeker in Kansas accused of charges similar to those against Munyenyezi, the jury deadlocked on one immigration fraud charge and convicted on a lesser charge. That conviction was dismissed after prosecutors acknowledged failing to share exculpatory evidence with the defense. Jurors in that case, which involved more than 80 witnesses and $1 million in costs, told The Associated Press that they unanimously rejected the genocide allegations, which were largely based on the testimony of Rwandans — even though most of them believed that Kobagaya had lied on his immigration paperwork.
Kobagaya had been reported by the Rwandan government to U.S. authorities after he testified via video for a Rwandan genocide defendant on trial in Finland, said Kurt Kerns, a Kansas lawyer who defended him. "We learned if you become a defense witness, you do so at your own risk," he said. "Nothing comes out of Rwanda without the Rwandan government's say-so. If the Rwandan government has a particular interest in prosecuting someone, they'll find the witnesses to say so."
Similarly, Leopold Munyakazi, a Rwandan exile and professor at Goucher College in Maryland, found himself accused of genocide by the Rwandan government and under investigation for immigration violations soon after claiming in a 2006 speech that the events in 1994 were not genocide but "fratricide."
Claims that the Rwandan government is using genocide accusations to silence defense witnesses or political opponents has been a common defense before the international tribunal and within Rwanda itself. A 2011 Human Rights Watch report on the community genocide courts found that "some defense witnesses were afraid to testify for fear of being accused of genocide themselves, and there were numerous allegations that gacaca courts sacrificed the truth to satisfy political interests."
Said Carina Tertsakian, a senior Rwanda researcher at Human Rights Watch: "It's a government that controls people very well and that has a strategy and knows quite well how to get what it wants. If it decides that it really wants this particular woman to be found guilty or sent back to Rwanda, it can quite easily find ways of rustling up witnesses and sending them over."
Balancing such doubts with the need to bring to justice to perpetrators is not likely to get easier. "Did she or didn't she? That's the million-dollar question," said Thomson, the Hampshire College researcher. "I wouldn't be surprised if she did. And I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't. But there's no way to know.""
--
Jason McLure
Office: (202) 370-6905
Mobile: (603) 991-4511
"U.S. trips in Rwanda prosecution
Who to believe, when the African government uses genocide memories as political tool?
During her rape by a militiaman, the nun screamed and spit at the face of the woman they called "Commander Beatrice," the witness recounted from the stand. "If you don't want to be like other women, let me take you somewhere else," the militiawoman responded. She took the nun to an open pit and shot her with a pistol.
The alleged rape and murder took place in Butare, Rwanda, during that country's 1994 genocide. The testimony was by Jean-Damascene "Saddam" Munyanyeza, a slight Rwandan wearing leg shackles and a blue work jacket that looked three sizes too large. He spoke not before an international tribunal, but through a translator to a federal jury in New Hampshire. The defendant, Beatrice Munyenyezi, 41, was on trial not for murder or genocide, but for immigration fraud.
Her trial was part of a multimillion-dollar effort by the U.S. Department of Justice and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prosecute and deport U.S. residents suspected of involvement in Rwanda's 100-day slaughter, 18 years after it ended.
Only the government didn't succeed. The jury deadlocked, and U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe declared a mistrial on March 15. It was the second failed prosecution of someone accused of genocide during the past year.
Although international legal experts and human rights groups have praised the attempts to ensure justice for genocide victims, many question whether witnesses like "Saddam," provided by Rwanda's authoritarian, ethnic Tutsi-dominated government, are reliable. And almost no one claims that once deported to Rwanda, defendants will face a fair trial.
"The Rwandan government is making it impossible to tell false accusations from real ones, because they use genocide allegations as a political tool to silence dissent," said Brian Endless, a political scientist at Loyola University Chicago who studies Rwanda and advised Munyenyezi's defense.
Rwanda's government drew a different conclusion. "Some of these Western jurisdictions can't just understand the gravity of cases before them," Martin Ngoga, the country's prosecutor general, told Rwanda's The New Times following the mistrial. "They handle these cases in a very simplistic way. We have, in the past, applauded trials abroad because we thought they would substitute extradition. But this isn't happening; some countries have abused this process."
Defense attorneys David Ruoff and Mark Howard argued much the same point, but from the opposite perspective. "The approach that the federal government has taken is to apply Western norms and carve out witnesses from the heart of Africa and think the same norms will apply," Ruoff said. "That just doesn't apply here, and the government hasn't addressed that."
Carmen Ortiz, the Massachusetts U.S. attorney whose office prosecuted the case, in a formal statement called the outcome "unfortunate" and said the Justice Department was reviewing its options. The department noted its successful immigration prosecutions in the past of suspected former Nazis and people linked to massacres in Guatemala and Bosnia.
"The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that human rights violators from any region of the world are not granted safe haven in the United States," the department said. "As in every type of case, we conduct thorough investigations and bring charges we believe are supported by evidence sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction."
COMING TO AMERICA
Rwanda's genocide was preceded by four years of civil war between a Hutu-dominated government and Tutsi guerrillas. The spark was the shooting down of an airplane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, on April 6, 1994 — possibly by radical Hutus who feared he would make peace with the rebels. For 100 days, Hutu extremists in Rwanda's interim government directed soldiers and members of the Interahamwe militia to slaughter an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus out of a population of about 7 million people. The killings ended with the Tutsi rebels seizing power. Hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled to neighboring countries; several thousands of those who remained fell victim to reprisal killings.
Munyenyezi and her three children moved to the United States in 1998. Since the genocide, she had shuttled among refugee settlements in east Africa, but once in this country found an apartment, a car and a job with the Manchester Housing and Redevelopment Authority, where she became an advocate for refugees, according to Manchester's New Hampshire Union Leader. In 2003, she became a U.S. citizen in the same federal courthouse where she later would stand trial. By that time, she'd bought a home and was working on a memoir, Life In the Middle of Nowhere.
In 2005, she gave an interview about fleeing Rwanda. "I escaped, I locked up my house," she told New Hampshire Public Radio. "At some point, I thought I would go back in a few weeks, and I never knew that it was for good. And you know, I left everything, especially my wedding dress that I wish that I could have."
Munyenyezi's July 1993 marriage into a politically connected Hutu family has proven problematic. Her husband, Arsène Shalom Ntahobali, became a feared Hutu militia leader during the slaughter. Her mother-in-law, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, was the minister of women's affairs in the government that oversaw the killings. Both were convicted for their roles in the genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and sentenced to life in prison.
In 2006 Munyenyezi, traveled to Tanzania to testify during her husband's trial; she told the court that Shalom hadn't participated in any crimes. At about that time, her life in the United States had begun to unravel; she lost her job to city budget cuts, according to the Union Leader. By 2008, she was working as a nurse's aide, making less than $1,000 a month. She declared bankruptcy and lost her home. That same year, her sister, who had also testified in Tanzania, was indicted on 10 counts of perjury and immigration fraud for allegedly lying under oath during her immigration proceedings about her membership in Habyarimana's political party (which before the peace talks sanctioned persecution of Tutsis).
According to Ruoff, immigration agents opened an investigation into Munyenyezi after someone sent investigators a transcript of her tribunal testimony.
Prosecutors Jon Capin and Aloke Chakravarty of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts attempted to prove at trial that Munyenyezi played a role in the genocide. Ruoff and Howard argued in turn that the government's case was built on unreliable witnesses, some of whom had admitted to mass murder themselves — "Saddam," for example, testified that he couldn't recall how many children he'd killed. They argued that Munyenyezi, who was pregnant with twins at the time, sheltered with other female family members from the carnage around her. Her relatives backed up that argument at trial, although eight Rwandan prosecution witnesses insisted that she was deeply engaged in the slaughter.
"It's the face I saw during the genocide, and it's a face I will never forget," testified Aleysia Mukankuriza, who described surviving by walking to Burundi despite a head wound. "A person who has done wrong to you, you will never forget."
"Saddam" accused Munyenyezi not only of killing of the nun, but also of procuring Tutsi girls to be raped, instructing him and other militiamen to construct a roadblock and making a radio speech warning Hutus not to shelter Tutsis.
By some estimates, as many as 80 percent of the Tutsis living in Rwanda were murdered in three months. Killing at that scale requires the participation of a wide swathe of the population. "I think anyone in Rwanda at that time has some stain on them," said Susan Thomson, a Hampshire College professor who has spent much of her career researching the genocide, and who was listed as an expert witness for Munyenyezi's defense but did not testify.
INVOLVEMENT NEVER MENTIONED
Munyenyezi's lawyers noted that in hundreds of pages of testimony before the international tribunal and in reports by Human Rights Watch and other groups, Munyenyezi's involvement is never mentioned, including by witnesses who would later testify at her trial. Moreover, a growing body of evidence suggested that the Rwanda's government is using genocide allegations to silence exiled political opponents and discourage defense witnesses from coming forward — as Munyenyezi did for her husband.
During the past 18 years, President Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front government has been widely credited with rebuilding a country in ruins and restoring some form of normalcy. Since 2001, it has tried more than 1.2 million genocide-related cases before community courts known as gacaca. But it's also a country where questioning the official version of the genocide has been criminalized, opposition party leaders are jailed and attacked, and Kagame won the last two elections with more than 90 percent of the vote against no real opposition. The government has blocked the international prosecution of its own members for revenge killings.
During last year's trial of Lazare Kobagaya, an 84-year-old asylum-seeker in Kansas accused of charges similar to those against Munyenyezi, the jury deadlocked on one immigration fraud charge and convicted on a lesser charge. That conviction was dismissed after prosecutors acknowledged failing to share exculpatory evidence with the defense. Jurors in that case, which involved more than 80 witnesses and $1 million in costs, told The Associated Press that they unanimously rejected the genocide allegations, which were largely based on the testimony of Rwandans — even though most of them believed that Kobagaya had lied on his immigration paperwork.
Kobagaya had been reported by the Rwandan government to U.S. authorities after he testified via video for a Rwandan genocide defendant on trial in Finland, said Kurt Kerns, a Kansas lawyer who defended him. "We learned if you become a defense witness, you do so at your own risk," he said. "Nothing comes out of Rwanda without the Rwandan government's say-so. If the Rwandan government has a particular interest in prosecuting someone, they'll find the witnesses to say so."
Similarly, Leopold Munyakazi, a Rwandan exile and professor at Goucher College in Maryland, found himself accused of genocide by the Rwandan government and under investigation for immigration violations soon after claiming in a 2006 speech that the events in 1994 were not genocide but "fratricide."
Claims that the Rwandan government is using genocide accusations to silence defense witnesses or political opponents has been a common defense before the international tribunal and within Rwanda itself. A 2011 Human Rights Watch report on the community genocide courts found that "some defense witnesses were afraid to testify for fear of being accused of genocide themselves, and there were numerous allegations that gacaca courts sacrificed the truth to satisfy political interests."
Said Carina Tertsakian, a senior Rwanda researcher at Human Rights Watch: "It's a government that controls people very well and that has a strategy and knows quite well how to get what it wants. If it decides that it really wants this particular woman to be found guilty or sent back to Rwanda, it can quite easily find ways of rustling up witnesses and sending them over."
Balancing such doubts with the need to bring to justice to perpetrators is not likely to get easier. "Did she or didn't she? That's the million-dollar question," said Thomson, the Hampshire College researcher. "I wouldn't be surprised if she did. And I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't. But there's no way to know.""
--
Jason McLure
Office: (202) 370-6905
Mobile: (603) 991-4511
Thursday, January 5, 2012
FDLR behind Tuesday's Grenade Attack in Kigali?
On Tuesday, 4 January, grenade attacks rocked Remera, Kigali at approximately 640pm in the evening. Two died, at least 18 people required hospitalisation to treat their wounds. Graham Holliday of Reuters tweeted that he saw people missing limbs when he visited the hospital (his report here), but none of that news has been reported by the Rwanda authorities. Follow him at @noodlepie. A doctor treating some of the victims estimated at least 32 injury cases.
The statement of the Rwandan police firmly states that those individuals behind the blast will be brought to book. Grenade attacks were common in the run up to the 2010 presidential elections. These blasts are the first we've heard of in eighteen months (the last being in July 2010, in western Rwanda, not in Kigali).
According to the BBC's report on the blasts, Rwandan security forces believe the Kivu-based FDLR rebel group is responsible for the attacks.
Yet, the evidence from the ground does not directly point to the FDLR as security forces claim. The target of vegetable sellers in Remera, on the opposite side of Kigali from the Presidential Palace, and the homes of senior members of the government in Kivoyu, does not match up. True, Remera is not far from the Ministry of Justice and the Parliament, but the target was ordinary Rwandans at they shopped for their evening's dinner on the way home from work, not government installations. Surely the FDLR leadership would target a more impactful location for the blasts if he had the intention of destabilising the government? As Kigaliwire reported, 'Nyabisindu [in Remera sector] is like many non-descript, dirt track areas of Kigali. The kind of place where local folk sell fruit and vegetables in front of shops and houses and workers sit outside for a Primus or a Fanta in the evening'.
If is is the FDLR, why did Rwandan security forces round up vegetable sellers and beat them for information on who planted the blasts. If the government knows it is FDLR, then why target sellers? Perhaps because it thinks that vegetable sellers in Remera are collaborating with the FDLR?
That makes little sense. If Rwanda is as peaceful and secure as the government claims, how could FDLR operatives make it all the way to Kigali, while winning over the hearts and minds of ordinary Rwandans selling their wares at market.
I don't know who is behind Tuesday's grenade attacks. I hope that a blind insistence on the culpability of the FDLR does not blind analysts and security forces to the possibility of other actors carrying out the deed. Whoever is behind the blasts, the effect at the local level is likely the same: striking fear into residents of Kigali.
The statement of the Rwandan police firmly states that those individuals behind the blast will be brought to book. Grenade attacks were common in the run up to the 2010 presidential elections. These blasts are the first we've heard of in eighteen months (the last being in July 2010, in western Rwanda, not in Kigali).
According to the BBC's report on the blasts, Rwandan security forces believe the Kivu-based FDLR rebel group is responsible for the attacks.
Yet, the evidence from the ground does not directly point to the FDLR as security forces claim. The target of vegetable sellers in Remera, on the opposite side of Kigali from the Presidential Palace, and the homes of senior members of the government in Kivoyu, does not match up. True, Remera is not far from the Ministry of Justice and the Parliament, but the target was ordinary Rwandans at they shopped for their evening's dinner on the way home from work, not government installations. Surely the FDLR leadership would target a more impactful location for the blasts if he had the intention of destabilising the government? As Kigaliwire reported, 'Nyabisindu [in Remera sector] is like many non-descript, dirt track areas of Kigali. The kind of place where local folk sell fruit and vegetables in front of shops and houses and workers sit outside for a Primus or a Fanta in the evening'.
If is is the FDLR, why did Rwandan security forces round up vegetable sellers and beat them for information on who planted the blasts. If the government knows it is FDLR, then why target sellers? Perhaps because it thinks that vegetable sellers in Remera are collaborating with the FDLR?
That makes little sense. If Rwanda is as peaceful and secure as the government claims, how could FDLR operatives make it all the way to Kigali, while winning over the hearts and minds of ordinary Rwandans selling their wares at market.
I don't know who is behind Tuesday's grenade attacks. I hope that a blind insistence on the culpability of the FDLR does not blind analysts and security forces to the possibility of other actors carrying out the deed. Whoever is behind the blasts, the effect at the local level is likely the same: striking fear into residents of Kigali.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Where will Kagame's Rhetoric Take Rwanda?
It has been a wild couple of weeks for Rwanda's President, Paul Kagame. American Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, offered a speech full of glowing praise for the country's institutional and economic development on 23 November 2011. In the final few paragraphs of the speech, Rice, who believes 'friends should speak frankly to friends', encouraged Rwanda to open up its political space so that 'the deepening and broadening of democracy can be the next great achievement of this great country and its remarkable people.' Word from folks resident in Kigali states that President Paul Kagame was so angry about Rice's nudge for greater political expression that he did not receive her as a diplomatic guest at Urugwiro Village. An insult to one of Rwanda's biggest donors? Perhaps. This is the least interesting part of the story.
I thought Kagame's immediate reaction to the speech showed his true stripes. He is the embodiment of Rwanda and to insult the country is a direct and personal attack on Kagame himself as father of the nation. A clear sign of his increasing megalomania is the outrage he showed for Rice's gentle words. Indeed, she could have come out much stronger against many of the regime's current oppressive practices, not least of which is the farcical trial of Victoire Ingabire. The government is so clearly involved in this trial that I hear from foreign journalists on the ground that even they can't cover it, for free of ending up in 1930 prison themselves! Leaving aside whatever you may feel about Ingabire and her culpablity, she still deserves a free and fair trial.
It wasn't until days later, allegedly during Kagame's participation in a Kigali-city umuganda clean-up that he began to rant about 'so-called friends or those among us who consider themselves extraordinary'. A quick diversion: If you look at these photos of Kagame at his Flickr site at umuganda you'll readily suspect that none of the people in images are peasant Rwandans (e.g., abakene (poor, living on less than $1/day) or abatindi (vulnerable, living on less than $0.50/day). Notice the western style of dress, the covered shoes and new rubber boots, wrist-watches, and other trappings of success. The audience members in these images reflect nothing of the peasantry I consult in my own research -- poorly nourished with weathered faces and bodies that belie their actual age, dressed in threadbare clothes, with little if any opportunity for socio-economic mobility. My guess is that the folks we see in these Flickr photos are part of the entourage of sycophants (willing, delusional or otherwise is another matter) that travel around, in the employ of the ruling RPF, to put the best possible spin on everything Kagame says and does. Word on the street in the US is that Rwandan sycophants, some of whom are on RPF-sponsored scholarships, receive between $250 and $1500 per protest. (These numbers taken from Rwandans resident in the US who protested at the HQ of the Lantos Foundation in early November because of its prize for Paul Rusesabagina; folks spoke openly to me about this, expressing themselves freely I suppose although we both know Kagame would definitely not approve!)
Back to the task at hand. During umuganda, Kagame spoke only in Kinyarwanda, meaning that Susan Rice may yet know about his anger towards her remarks in Kigali just a few days before. Key excerpts from Kagame: 'If you promote equality among people, and you are the first in the world in terms of gender equality -- by lifting up women who had never before reached such a level, if you tell me this is not democracy, if you tell me this is not respect of human rights, you certainly are sick' I guess I am also 'sick' (meaning sick in the head, i.e., deranged) as the equality of women in parliament has yet to trickle down to women in the hills. Indeed, I think it remains fair to say, as I did in an editorial published in The Guardian (co-authored with Erin Baines and Stephen Brown) in 2008 that 'even as women's visibility in politics is at an all-time high, their ability to shape the future of the country, ironically, has not improved. Parliamentarians – be they male or female – actually have very little power to legislate on behalf of their constituents. They have little room to develop policy or even to debate openly; space for free and open political expression is limited'. Instead, what I think we are seeing from Kagame is his an acknowledgment that his gender policy is only for elite women, and for elite women who toe the RPF line. Susan Rice surely knows this, but said nothing about it, opting instead for a more diplomatic statement of 'friends talking to friends.' Someone who is receptive to criticism sees it for what it is, considers the advice, reflects upon, perhaps seeks counsel from others, and finds ways to improve the situation. We see none of this emotional or political moderation from Kagame, and that is the worrying aspect of his leadership at the moment. Indeed, his rhetoric is reminiscent of the ramping of political language we saw before the 1994 genocide. Surely, this is food for thought for anyone concerned about peace in Rwanda.
President Kagame continued with his vitriolic reaction to Ambassador Rice. He said,'every person among the eleven million of Rwandans can speak whenever he/she wants and whatever he/she wants, because we continuously empower them in terms of freedom of speech. But I cannot accept you saying that there about hundred or hundred fifty people that we prevent from speaking – and to whom the right of reply is not allowed. What type of people are those? Why [should we allow them to speak]? Among them there are those who say useless things, and some of them even say destructive things. If you say things that destroy the Rwanda we are building, we shall destroy you. We don’t need to apologize to anyone about that; the only problem is that we don’t do it [destroy them] sufficiently (my emphasis).
Is this thinly veiled threat not worrying to anyone in the international community? Do we not remember the many warning signs, both rhetorical and programmatic, that presaged the 1994 genocide? I believe we are at a critical juncture in Rwanda's postgenocide evolution. President Kagame has entered a phase of political extremism. Threats to 'destroy you' if you speak out need to be take seriously. Indeed, the word on the street among Rwandans at home at abroad is that the murder exiled journalist Charles Ingabire in Kampala on 2 December 2011 was to send a message to silence critics. I am not entirely convinced of this myself as the Kagame regime has been killing its own since it took office in July 1994. One only need to consult the writings of Filip Reyntjens to learn of the killing machine that supports the Kagame regime (see in particular his excellent January 2011 article in African Affairs). Either way, Ingabire is dead, and a full independent investigation is needed.
At any rate, we know that Kagame is furious with the international community (and perhaps Susan Rice in particular). He made a speech at Rwanda's 9th National Conference on 15 December 2011. The tone is his voice is chilling as he tries to equate the press freedom that the international community desires to letting the planners and implementers of the genocide 'to go scot free'. Please email me and I will send you the .mp3 file. The last eight to ten minutes are in English. Listen for yourself. I am keen to hear what others think. To my ear, Kagame is throwing down the gauntlet in a veiled battle cry. It is the spectre of renewed conflict that is worrying, and this is something those of us working for peace in Rwanda, and the region, need to think about as the 2017 elections are less than five year away (and Kagame has already started posturing -- my money is on his running for a third term).
What can be done at this stage to not only avoid conflict, but open up freedoms of expression and assembly while reducing socio-economic inequalities in pursuit of sustainable peace?
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Rudasingwa's Political Aspirations?
For the past several months, one of the founders of the Rwanda National Congress (RNC), Theogene Rudasingwa. has made a number of statements about both his falling out with President Paul Kagame, and a series of RNC Strategies for Reforming Rwanda. All of these statements, and supporting documents can be found in Rudasingwas's Facebook page.
I am personally skeptical about Rudasingwa's sincerity and integrity. His various pleas and calls to actions are long on rhetoric and short on concrete steps to enact the necessary steps to return Rwanda to its former glory. His most recent post (cut-and-paste in full below) prompts me to write this post, as it is nothing short of a call for regime change, and is perhaps the most revealing of Rudasingwa's main posts, and media appearances. Just google his name. Much will come up. Little will be learned except insights into an individual who clearly has an axe to grind with Kagame and who manipulates international audiences in much the same way as the man he hopes to overthrow. It is a very worrying time in Rwandan politics as its elites are sabre rattling while the population starves.
"WHAT IS IN A NATIONAL ANTHEM: CAN WE FIND A SYNTHETHISED FLAG AND NATIONAL ANTHEM OF THE FUTURE RWANDAN NATION?
Both anthems are beautiful. Both evoke strong passions. Each speaks to the passing away of the old order, and the establishment of the new. Both extol the beauty of this ancient nation of Rwanda. Rwanda is our only home that we love so much that we sometimes want to deny others the right to love it. It is ok to love Rwanda Rwacu. It is ok to love Rwanda Nziza. It will be ok to love a possible Rwanda Rwacu, Rwanda Nziza, a synthesised anthem of the future free, democratic and prosperous Rwanda.
Today I am announcing two prizes, each worth 5,000 $:
1. A concept of a new Rwandan flag that incoporates some themes from the old and new Rwandan flags.
2. A new concept of lyrics and music of a new national anthem that incorporates some themes from the old and new national anthems.
Rwandans and non-Rwandans free to compete for one or both prizes.
The winners will be announced on 1st January 2013.'
I am personally skeptical about Rudasingwa's sincerity and integrity. His various pleas and calls to actions are long on rhetoric and short on concrete steps to enact the necessary steps to return Rwanda to its former glory. His most recent post (cut-and-paste in full below) prompts me to write this post, as it is nothing short of a call for regime change, and is perhaps the most revealing of Rudasingwa's main posts, and media appearances. Just google his name. Much will come up. Little will be learned except insights into an individual who clearly has an axe to grind with Kagame and who manipulates international audiences in much the same way as the man he hopes to overthrow. It is a very worrying time in Rwandan politics as its elites are sabre rattling while the population starves.
"WHAT IS IN A NATIONAL ANTHEM: CAN WE FIND A SYNTHETHISED FLAG AND NATIONAL ANTHEM OF THE FUTURE RWANDAN NATION?
Both anthems are beautiful. Both evoke strong passions. Each speaks to the passing away of the old order, and the establishment of the new. Both extol the beauty of this ancient nation of Rwanda. Rwanda is our only home that we love so much that we sometimes want to deny others the right to love it. It is ok to love Rwanda Rwacu. It is ok to love Rwanda Nziza. It will be ok to love a possible Rwanda Rwacu, Rwanda Nziza, a synthesised anthem of the future free, democratic and prosperous Rwanda.
Today I am announcing two prizes, each worth 5,000 $:
1. A concept of a new Rwandan flag that incoporates some themes from the old and new Rwandan flags.
2. A new concept of lyrics and music of a new national anthem that incorporates some themes from the old and new national anthems.
Rwandans and non-Rwandans free to compete for one or both prizes.
The winners will be announced on 1st January 2013.'
Friday, November 25, 2011
Rice has Left, the Round Up Begins?
From the RNC Africa Chapter Facebook page. My comments are in [square brackets]
Breaking News. Early hours of this morning [25 November, following the departure of American Ambassador Susan Rice], the suburbs of the capital City of Rwanda, Kigali, residents were woken up by soldiers and police deployed by the defense minister James Kabarebe and his boss President of Rwanda Paul Kagame. The deployment of more that 2000 soldiers and policemen took place mid night in suburbs mostly habituated by Hutus and Moderate Tutsis [are there areas where government opponents congregate?], whom the government rebelled “ Bagati Mujisho”. The term “ Bagati Mujisho” refers to people who don’t side with government’s ideals. “We don’t know what police are searching for, but the fabricated roomers are that people are hiding Rwanda National Congress operatives as well as ammunition in their houses” said Mukanoheri. This comes after the visit of the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Susan E. Rice. In her speech, at the Kigali Institute of Technology, she said “Yet, the political culture in Rwanda remains comparatively closed. Press restrictions persist. Civil society activists, journalists, and political opponents of the government often fear organizing peacefully and speaking out. Some have been harassed. Some have been intimidated by late-night callers. Some have simply disappeared” You can tell the fear in the eyes of the people in the street. “We are not certain of what might happen tomorrow. People are kept in the dark, we are treated like animals”. Said Vicent Kimenyi as he was boarding a taxi for work in Nyamirambo tax rank. Stay tuned as more and more stories keeping coming in. Uwera – Kigali-Rwanda.
[Can anyone corroborate this account?]
Breaking News. Early hours of this morning [25 November, following the departure of American Ambassador Susan Rice], the suburbs of the capital City of Rwanda, Kigali, residents were woken up by soldiers and police deployed by the defense minister James Kabarebe and his boss President of Rwanda Paul Kagame. The deployment of more that 2000 soldiers and policemen took place mid night in suburbs mostly habituated by Hutus and Moderate Tutsis [are there areas where government opponents congregate?], whom the government rebelled “ Bagati Mujisho”. The term “ Bagati Mujisho” refers to people who don’t side with government’s ideals. “We don’t know what police are searching for, but the fabricated roomers are that people are hiding Rwanda National Congress operatives as well as ammunition in their houses” said Mukanoheri. This comes after the visit of the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Susan E. Rice. In her speech, at the Kigali Institute of Technology, she said “Yet, the political culture in Rwanda remains comparatively closed. Press restrictions persist. Civil society activists, journalists, and political opponents of the government often fear organizing peacefully and speaking out. Some have been harassed. Some have been intimidated by late-night callers. Some have simply disappeared” You can tell the fear in the eyes of the people in the street. “We are not certain of what might happen tomorrow. People are kept in the dark, we are treated like animals”. Said Vicent Kimenyi as he was boarding a taxi for work in Nyamirambo tax rank. Stay tuned as more and more stories keeping coming in. Uwera – Kigali-Rwanda.
[Can anyone corroborate this account?]
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Five College Africa Day 2011 November 5, Smith College Campus Center
For immediate release: October 26, 2011
Five College Africa Day 2011
November 5, Smith College Campus Center
From drumming and dance to panel discussions and stories, Five College Africa Day offers something for everyone. The sixth annual Africa Day will take place on November 5 at Smith College’s Campus Center.
Dr. Joseph Sebarenzi, former speaker of the Rwandan Parliament and survivor of the Rwandan genocide, starts off the day’s events with his keynote address entitled “Healing After Hardship: Survival and Forgiveness in Post-Genocide Rwanda.”
The address is followed by an afternoon of dance performances and panel discussions that examine African development and studying and working in Africa. There will also be an Africa study abroad and student activities fair.
The day is capped off with a party, featuring music, food and dance with the Smith College African and Caribbean Students Association and Five College colleagues.
Africa Day, now in its sixth year, is organized by the Five College African Studies program. The program, which publishes the highly regarded African Studies Review, is committed to building a better understanding and appreciation of Africa. This popular annual event is one means for spreading that understanding.
Africa Day 2011 takes place at the Smith College Campus Center from 1:00 p.m. into the evening. For more information, visit www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/African.
Also on November 5, the Smith College Art Museum is holding “World Art Day” featuring African art from the exhibit “Crosscurrents: Art of the Southeastern Congo.” On Africa Day the museum is free and open to all from 10 a.m.—3 p.m.
Based in Amherst, Massachusetts, Five Colleges, Inc., is a nonprofit educational consortium created in 1965 to advance the extensive educational and cultural objectives of its member institutions—Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
For more information, contact
Kevin Kennedy
kkennedy@fivecolleges.edu
413-256-8316
Five College Africa Day 2011
November 5, Smith College Campus Center
From drumming and dance to panel discussions and stories, Five College Africa Day offers something for everyone. The sixth annual Africa Day will take place on November 5 at Smith College’s Campus Center.
Dr. Joseph Sebarenzi, former speaker of the Rwandan Parliament and survivor of the Rwandan genocide, starts off the day’s events with his keynote address entitled “Healing After Hardship: Survival and Forgiveness in Post-Genocide Rwanda.”
The address is followed by an afternoon of dance performances and panel discussions that examine African development and studying and working in Africa. There will also be an Africa study abroad and student activities fair.
The day is capped off with a party, featuring music, food and dance with the Smith College African and Caribbean Students Association and Five College colleagues.
Africa Day, now in its sixth year, is organized by the Five College African Studies program. The program, which publishes the highly regarded African Studies Review, is committed to building a better understanding and appreciation of Africa. This popular annual event is one means for spreading that understanding.
Africa Day 2011 takes place at the Smith College Campus Center from 1:00 p.m. into the evening. For more information, visit www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/African.
Also on November 5, the Smith College Art Museum is holding “World Art Day” featuring African art from the exhibit “Crosscurrents: Art of the Southeastern Congo.” On Africa Day the museum is free and open to all from 10 a.m.—3 p.m.
Based in Amherst, Massachusetts, Five Colleges, Inc., is a nonprofit educational consortium created in 1965 to advance the extensive educational and cultural objectives of its member institutions—Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
For more information, contact
Kevin Kennedy
kkennedy@fivecolleges.edu
413-256-8316
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