On Rwigara's Assassination and Subsequent Harassment of his Family

Yesterday, Aristide Rwigara reached out to me to publicise his family's version of events surrounding his father's assassination. I am reposting the letter he sent to me verbatim and with his permission. I agreed to post because the targeting of RPF loyalists is one of many worrying signs coming out of Kigali. In addition to assassinations, the RPF has wrongfully imprisoned presumed enemies, including Kitizo Mihigo. Rwanda's culture of impunity reigns supreme, just as it did before the 1994 genocide. Publicising regime excesses is now imperative.

For the record, I have not verified the facts of the following statement. I publish them for your consideration, and with concern. Politicials scientists know that when authoritarian elites turn on their own, the risk of political violence intensifies. Journalists wishing to write about the Rwigara case, please let me know and I'll put you in touch with Aristide: sthomson@colgate.edu.

"Hello. My name is Aristide Rwigara. I am the son of Assinapol Rwigara, who was one of Rwanda’s most prominent businessmen. My father was assassinated on February 4, 2015, and my siblings and I petitioned the Rwandan president for an investigation into his death in the month of March. I would like to bring attention to the tragic events that have been unfolding in the aftermath of my father’s assassination.

A few days ago, the city of Kigali ordered my family to demolish our hotel located in the neighborhood of Kiyovu, in Kigali. They ordered us to demolish it by August, 15 of this year. They said that our hotel was built without the proper permits, and that it presents a safety problem. They ordered my family to destroy the building ourselves, and also to pay over 7 million Rwf to the company that performed the bogus study about the safety issue.

This is just part of their plan to ruin our family after my father’s assassination. Indeed, we built our hotel with all the proper permits and are still in possession of those permits.

Moreover, to say that the building was built without following rules of safety is an incredibly brazen lie given the conditions in which it was built. Indeed, the city monitored every single step of the construction since they ceaselessly harassed my father in order to make him abandon the project. For example, they would grant him the permit to build only to stop him immediately after work had begun, with new and invented reasons for the halt.

The hotel being one of the most valuable buildings in the area, they even illegally took it at one point. My father went to court over the matter and won his hotel back. The city then offered to buy the hotel from my father, which he refused to do.

It is unbelievable that the mayor of Kigali would now say that our hotel is not safe, when the city’s own officials and experts were sent to test the solidity and safety of the building, and emphatically asserted that everything was according to regulations. Moreover, observers of the situation are wondering how the city of Kigali could have allowed for the construction to happen until completion without the permits (the construction took very long because of all the tribulations my father faced).

Last week, my mother, Adeline Rwigara, was approached by branches of the media over this matter. She publicly denounced the authorities for harassing our family. Indeed, the hotel matter is just one of a long series of actions to thwart my father’s ventures and smother us economically.

The city has gone after three other of our plots in Kiyovu. One of them was grabbed with the sole explanation being that the land was not being used productively. But the city had, without cause, refused to grant us the permit to build on it. So really we could not use it at all.

We are not being given information on whether we are allowed to build or not on another one of our plots; so despite the fact that we own the property, that building remains under the city’s control.

There is a third plot that my father had acquired by paying the residents of that land so that they would move. But the city of Kigali then told him that they were taking possession of that land. My father told them that they then had to reimburse him for the payments he had given to the former residents so that they would move. The city refused to pay so my father took them to court. He won, and the city was ordered to pay him close to a billion Rwandan Francs. But the city refused to pay my father. Shortly thereafter, he gave an interview to a newspaper in Kigali where he discussed the injustices he was being subjected to. Ten days later, he was assassinated.

My father was assassinated because he is the only businessman in Rwanda who would not allow the state to enter into his businesses. He refused to comply to the usual model of doing business in Rwanda, which is to forcibly give shares of one’s companies to the state, and then watch them take over the entirety of one’s hard earned assets. Many other businessmen have fled the country to save their lives once their companies went under assault from the state. The others who remain have no control over their own businesses.

My father refused to be intimidated , which is why he was continuously targeted since 1995, enduring many other persecutions unmentioned here. Ultimately, he paid with his life because he stood up for his economic rights.

The state has now gone after my mother for publicly speaking out about this latest attack against our family, and telling the media the truth of the matter, which is that my father was assassinated so that they could take his possessions.

Last Friday, August 7, more than 30 police and military officers jumped over the gate of our house in Kiyovu, Kigali, threatened to smash open the doors and arrested my mother. They took her to the CID (Criminal Investigation Department). But the media learned about it almost instantly and the story immediately spread over the internet . Given the attention her unlawful arrest was receiving, the CID had to let her go after hours of interrogation. But she was ordered to come back the next morning.

She went back to the CID a third time on Monday morning, August 10, and was there again this morning of August 11. It bears repeating that she has not committed a crime, other than talking about the never-ending persecution of our family by the state of Rwanda.

The Rwandan police released a statement on Sunday night intended to justify the authorities’ recent actions against our family, and which contained, among many other blatant lies, the following incensing assertion concerning our request for a thorough investigation following our father’s assassination: “Even when the family raised other concerns surrounding the incident later, further systematic and thorough investigations were conducted and findings were also shared with the family, who expressed that their concerns were addressed and revealed that their accusations were just based on hearsay.”

My family wants to set the record straight about the so-called thorough investigation by the police. There was no investigation at all! The whole thing was a farce in which my family was called at the CID where we were grilled for hours as if we were the ones on trial. During this mockery of an investigation, they attempted to discredit each one of the proofs we put forward concerning our father’s assassination. Their ultimate finding was that the man driving the truck involved in the fictitious accident that night was not at fault, and that our accusations against him did not hold up. Actually, that man was never even once mentioned while we were at the CID ! So the police produced findings that were not even related to the facts we put forward!

Our family also never expressed that our “concerns were addressed” or that our “accusations were just based on hearsay”. That is simply a lie! Our concerns certainly were not addressed by the police’s sham investigation, and our accusations were based on what members of my family witnessed themselves, not hearsay!

I would like to insist that the only political party my father was ever part of was the RPF. He had been a major financial contributor since 1990, and remained one until his death.He had absolutely no political ties to any other party.

It is also important to know that the night of his assassination, my father was carrying, among other things, a blue folder with a great number of documents concerning all the plots his family is still being embattled over. He had been requested to bring those documents over by the people he was meeting that night, under the false promise of helping him solve the issues we are still dealing with. After the assassination, we were never allowed to recover those documents.

The usual result of denouncing the authorities in Rwanda for an injustice is death, torture, imprisonment, or exile ; which is why our family's situation requires urgent attention.

I strongly hope that you will publish this story, in order to expose this great injustice.Thank you very much."

New and Valuable Resource: Rwanda Witness Website

For those of us that have researched and written on/in Rwanda for a while (in my case for the last 18 years or so), it is a rare delight to have a new cautioned, considered and independent voice on which to rely. This person, fellow Canadian and journalist Judi Rever, has recently come into my orbit. I am writing this blog post to let folks know about her writing and research, most of which is published on her blog, Rwanda Witness.

Two things stand out for me about Judi Rever's work. One, it seeks to centre, through oral and witness testimony, the experiences of ordinary Rwandans and Congolese. The daily hardships and victories of these lives are generally absent from what we think we know about Rwanda since the 1994 genocide, thanks to a carefully crafted whitewash of the successes of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Her writing foregrounds these experiences and for this reason is an invaluable resource.

Second, Judi Rever's work places socio-political realities in Rwanda in broader context, mostly notably through events in Zaire/DRC as well as the American failure to protect civilians lives in Rwanda, both during and since the 1994 genocide.

Given the recent assassination of Patrick Karegeya, and the gloating that some senior members of Rwanda's ruling RPF have engaged in on various social media platforms, Judi Rever's reporting on the role of the RPF/A in perpetrating mass violence is all the more urgent. It seems to me that the RPF is well aware that it can flaunt its human rights abuses with no fear of international repercussion or prosecution. This culture of impunity reigned pre-1994 and Karegeya's murder suggests it is alive and well as at the dawn of the 20th anniversary of the 1994 genocide. We'll likely never know what Karegeya knew about the mass violence of the early days of the RPF government, nor the violence that he likely oversaw or participated in to make sure the RPF took power in July 1994. What is clear that the mantra "never again" rings rather hollow for many Rwandans.

To get you started thinking about the pattern of human rights abuses perpetrated by the RPF/A, I recommend reading Rever's investigative reporting on the role of senior members of the Rwandan Patriotic Army in perpetrating mass murder, and the ways in which it has been able to whitewash its crimes for a largely uneducated Western audience. Happy reading.

On Karegeya's Assassination: Dying by the Sword

Quite a few people (activist bloggers, and journalists based in Nairobi and Kampala) have been asking for my opinion on Patrick Karegeya's assassination.

My position is quite straightforward. It is too early to accuse Kigali but it is also too early to think that Kigali is not involved. It is possible that folks within Karegeya's inner circle killed him; it is also possible that Kagame or someone close to him ordered the killing. At this stage, there is a sizeable lack of independently verified information. I look forward to learning more about the circumstances as well as the individuals involved in Karegeya's death in the coming days and weeks.

I also want to make this clear. I do not think Karegeya is a Rwandan hero. While is always a moment of sadness and reflection when a life is lost, particularly one lost to violence, it bears mentioning that Karegeya lived by the sword. He has blood on his hands from the early days of the (then rebel) RPF drive into Uganda in the late 1980s. Yes, he fell out with Kagame in 2007, but he was the head of military intelligence in Rwanda from 1994 to 2004. Karegeya oversaw the killings in Kibeho in April 1995 (which the UN tried to report in the Gersony Report but the US had its publication suppressed), among others including in a second report the US tried to suppress - the UN Group of Experts reports on DR Congo, published in 2010. Most recently, in 2013, the UN GOE published another report, which details the M23 rebellion and Rwanda's role in financing it. Many Rwandans, of all ethnicities, died at the hands of RPF/A soldiers. This is but one example of the brutality that those in the RPF ordered or directly perpetrated.

It is also important to keep in mind that men like Karegeya operate in service of other elites like him. The majority-- some 85% of the population are rural Rwandans who make their living as subsistence farmers-- are subject to the machinations of political and military elites.

Karegeya was a founding member of the Rwandan National Congress, along with other once-close allies of Rwandan president Paul Kagame. The political goals and aspirations of the RNC, for those who wish to carefully read its policy platform, is not significantly different from the current policy programs of Kagame's ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front. My analysis suggests that many of the men like Karegeya, who have fallen out with Kagame and the RPF, did so because they questioned the ways in which Kagame began to hoard political and economic power, not because they had deeply held moral views about the heavy-handedness of the RPF leadership, but rather for economic reasons.

Rwandans who have lost their lives, or their loved ones to the violent machinations and/or complicity of Karegeya, deserve better than to have him lionised as a Rwandan hero.

On Genocide Anniversary, Rwanda Needs Political Reform

This Thursday, April 7, 2011 marks the seventeenth anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where more than 800,000 lives were lost when Hutu-led, state-based militia goaded neighbours to kill neighbouring Tutsis. The anniversary is a time to pause and reflect on the progress the country has made since the genocide, and to ask if mass political violence could again happen in this East African country.

By most accounts, Rwanda is a nation rehabilitated. The institutions of the state have been rebuilt and infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and airports have been restored and in some areas, upgraded. Rwanda is a leader on the African continent in terms of service delivery in education and health. The Rwandan government and a coterie of friends that include Hollywood celebrities, professional athletes, western philanthropists, diplomats and donors project this message of rehabilitation and dismiss any critical accounts to the contrary as absurd. The Rwandan government and these “friends of Rwanda” also dismiss the notion that Rwanda’s post-genocide reconstruction and reconciliation policies could be setting the stage for another round of political violence.

Most outsiders fail to recognize the lack of political freedoms and economic inequalities that confront Rwandans who are not members of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The vast majority of Rwandans—Hutu and Tutsi alike—who survived the genocide remain politically marginalized, extremely poor, and in many cases, traumatized by what they have lived through. Daily life for many is characterized by lack of food, clean water, and affordable and proximate health services, while the elite enjoy European coffee houses, wireless internet hotspots, new housing and shopping malls, accessible health care and other services. The gap between urban elites and the rural citizenry – some 90% of Rwandans live in rural areas – has never been larger.

It is this growing socio-economic inequity between the ruling elite and average Rwandans that makes another round of political violence possible. In order to maintain the peace, international actors active in Rwanda, and the broader Great Lakes Region of Africa, must push the RPF towards a real democratic opening. They must press President Paul Kagame to create space for national dialogue, meaning an open and safe space where all Rwandans can meet to discuss the genocide, and to strategize ways to move forward from the hurt of the past. This is particularly important after the recent release of a UN report detailing allegations of systematic killings of Rwandan Hutu by the RPF in eastern Congo before, during and after the 1994 genocide.

There are two things that the “friends of Rwanda” can do to encourage a more open and peaceful political culture until Paul Kagame is expected to step down in 2017.

The first is to question the current government's ability to manage Rwanda's people and natural resources. The US State Department estimates that by 2020, Rwanda will be home to 13 million people—up from the 11 million in 2011—making it the most densely populated country in Africa with 225 people per square mile. Over 90 percent of Rwandans are subsistence farmers and will be the first to suffer when the central government is unable to respond to their daily needs. The government requires rural farmers to grow coffee and tea for export instead of subsistence crops. A new land policy has decreased peasant holdings to less than a half-acre making it difficult for farmers to feed their families. The RPF does not allow peasant farmers to voice concerns about the agricultural policies and the inequitable distribution of land among government loyalists.

An underfed and disaffected local population is hardly a good starting point toward building a sustainable peace and democracy. The friends of Rwanda, led by Rwanda’s international donors, will need to pressure the RPF in order to ensure that agricultural and land policies are aimed to developing long-term peace and security, not quick gains for party loyalists.

Second, Kagame will need encouragement to engage the diverse political views of the Rwandan diaspora. Kagame must be made to acknowledge that criticisms exist alongside the positive involvement of the diaspora in Rwanda's economic development. As incentive, he can take note of the diaspora’s contribution of nearly US$130 million to Rwanda's economy in 2010 (second only to tourist receipts). To date, Western donors have failed to seriously push Kagame to engage dissident opinion within the diaspora. For Kagame, sincere dissidents who criticize RPF policy are lumped with political extremists such as the FDLR (Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda) rebel group, making it easy to justify their exclusion from the Rwandan political sphere. A sincere distinction should be made, and Friends of Rwanda and donors can encourage government engagement with all sectors of the diaspora as part of the broader strategy of political openness and dialogue.

Indeed, encouraging openness among Rwandans at home and in the disapora is a necessary ingredient to Kagame’s continued reign. The RPF is now under increased scrutiny from its core constituency—educated, urban Tutsi. Many of these individuals, especially Anglophone Tutsi who had returned after the 1994 genocide, have lost faith in the post-genocide reconstruction and development vision of a government that they now consider corrupt and nepotistic. It was significant, and perhaps most worrying for Kagame, that this group of vocal critics includes several senior military officers—among them former army chief Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa and Théogene Rudasingwa, a former major and ambassador to the US, who have both joined hands and formed the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) in December 2010. Analysts believe that Gen. Nyamwasa commands considerable sympathy among the military rank-and-file, making the threat of a coup a possibility for the first time since 1994. Indeed, Gen. Nyamwasa has intimated in recent press appearances that he is prepared to unseat Kagame by force if necessary.

It is critical on this seventeenth anniversary of the genocide that friends of Rwanda begin to push their governments and other international actors to revisit their support for Kagame in order to avoid future violence.

On the Opposition and Insults

One of the pitfalls of keeping a blog, and a research-centred Facebook page means that all kinds of people feel compelled to comment on my thoughts on politics in Rwanda. I welcome all kinds of viewpoints from all kinds of people, even though some folks are prone to personal attacks, and other non-substantive remarks that don't actually help me think through my evidence and subsequent arguments. Quite the opposite, in fact. Personal attacks leaving me scratching my head in puzzlement because, thanks to and because of technology, I have never met face-to-face with most of my detractors (or my allies, for that matter). How can someone launch a personal attack on someone they have never met? At the same time, when I make such binary statements like, "my detractors" and "my allies", it leads a lot of people to conclude that I am firmly in one camp or another when the reality is that I keep a blog and an open Facebook profile so that I can learn about what people who care about peace and justice in Rwanda think, whether they are Rwandan or not, and whether I agree with their viewpoints or not.

I think its absurd that a non-Rwandan cannot comment on Rwandan society for a number of reasons, not least of which is that in an interconnected and globalised world, we all have a stake in a peaceful Rwanda that sees no more genocide or similar political violence and one that is committed to socio-economic equality. For me, Rwanda's ever increasing gini co-efficient is a direct threat to peace in the country and the region more broadly. In addition, critique is part and parcel of any democratic country, and since Rwanda claims to be a consolidated democracy after two Presidential election (2003 and 2010), then how am I misbehaving? Indeed, I would suggest that by my own standards, Rwanda gets off pretty easy -- you should hear me critique the policies and programmes of my own Prime Minister, Stephen Harper!

All this commentary on insults and opinion to segue into the real purpose of this posting. I have had some very interesting email conversations with individuals (mostly Rwandans, some Congolese and a few foreign academics) about the article I co-authored that compares the rhetorical leadership styles of Habyarimana and Kagame. Unfortunately, the Rwandans I am engaging with are outraged. Those loyal to Kagame are offended that I dare compare him to Habyarimana, and those who long for a return to the days of Habyarimana are offended that I compare the Father of their nation to the likes of Kagame. So I am inadvertently in the middle of a debate I never expected. I want to say to anyone who is interested that I welcome these discussions but will not react at all to personal attacks or similar diatribes. If you want to talk about our methodology, our analysis, our tools of interpretation, or correct this mistake or that, I can't wait to talk to you. If you want to tell me that I am a flaming idiot, and that I should be burned at the stake, then don't be stunned when I don't get back to you.

Now, lest you think that this article has only attracted negative attention, I want to share that I learned something meaningful that is food for thought for Rwanda scholars in particular and GLR scholars more broadly. It seems that the current political opposition (Ingabire, Habineza, and so on) is a threat to Kagame because urban and/or educated Tutsi who were in the country during the genocide and survived it are largely supportive of their politics. Thus, the main constituency that the RPF claims to the international community (and commentators like Kinzer in his recent Guardian article) represent do not actually support its government. So this is a direct threat to the broad-based and grassroots legitimacy that Kagame claims his government holds among Rwandans. This is also an interesting development in the context of Rwandan history. When there are divisions within the ruling elite (in this case not only between RPF elites as evidenced by the recent allegations of treason against former insiders Nyamwasa, Karegeya, Rudasingwa and Gahima but between the RPF and its presumed core consitutency), the odds for politically motivated violence are increased. And this is the point that my co-author and I wanted to make -- Kagame is replicating, perhaps even unconsciously, the power structures that made genocide an option for threaten Hutu elites. And it is here where my research is located, to revealing the power structures that exclude a portion of the population, and the implications of socio-political exclusion.

Rwanda's Response to the UN Mapping Report on the DRC

Yesterday, I received a copy of the Rwandan governments response to the Draft UN Mapping Report on the DRC. It is divided into five sections, all of which warrant reaction. I'll just make a few points as the Report is best read as a statement of the extent to which the RPF is losing international legitimacy.

Before going into some of the substance, I want to point out one consistent reaction from members of the Rwandan government. They do not deny that there its army killed civilians in the DRC, only that these killings do not constitute genocide. Indeed, the government's ineptitude at handling its response is uncharacteristic of its usual deft skill in "managing" bad press. It may be that so much negative yet accurate press has emerged in international sources the last year as the RPF cracks down on political opponents (both with its own party and outside challengers) human rights activists, journalists and other segments of civil society that there are serious cracks within the party machine. Time will tell.

There is a great deal in the government's rhetoric, both formally through the UN, and statements from government representatives in the regional and international media, that the fractures and fissures within the ruling RPF are becoming more apparent. At the same time, we see the lengths to which Kigali will go to defend its version of how the genocide happened, how the RPF stopped it and the successes of post-genocide reconstruction and reconciliation process.

I want to say too, that the RPF's emotive and excessive reaction to the UN Report seem to be the reaction of Kagame himself. He is known to be allergic to criticism while maintaining the moral authority of conviction (RPA were stopping genocide, not continuing it!) and insisting ad nauseum that his army was only doing what it had to do because of the inaction of the international community. I think the RPF's reaction is also reflective of a government that is losing its grip on power, and has little legitimacy among most Rwandans. The RPF is a party of factions, and only a few are reaping the benefits of power at the moment. This is the most worrying trend....

The Executive Summary of the Report says that its findings are unacceptable to the RPF, and that the allegations of mass murders are the result of the UN manipulating the true facts of the role of the RPF in eastern DRC. In particular, the Response notes that the publication of the Mapping Report might reignite conflict in Rwanda and in the Region. I think if any one actor is going to reignite conflict in the Region, it is the RPF itself.

The RPF's reaction to the historical context, and what happened during the 1994 genocide, are unoriginal. Anyone who has read Pottier (2002), Re-imaging Rwanda, particularly its chapter on how the RPF manages it public relations machinery will agree. The government has made similar assertions in public fora with interested audiences. It appears that the RPF is worried about losing face "in the court of public opinion" (para 5, p. 7). Yet its allegation that the UN leaked the Report out of spite (what it calls asymmetry) is false as it was a reporter with Le Monde that leaked the Report.

In the section The 1994 Rwandan Genocide is equally reactionary. First, there is sufficient empirical evidence to show that the RPA did not stop the genocide as early as it could of (para. 6, p. 7). Instead, it made calculated military moves to assure that it took power in Kigali while Tutsi (and Hutu and Twa) died. Two excellent books, Sibomana's Hope for Rwanda (1999) and Umutesi's Surviving the Slaughter (2004) provide sufficient counter-evidence to the RPF assertion that it directed all of its resources to stopping the genocide. Indeed, anyone aware of how the RPF acted in bad faith during the Arusha Accords will scoff as this section of the Response.

The section Mass Participation in the Genocide downplays the role of the RPF in helping to create the conditions for genocide. I want to make one thing clear. I do not buy into claims that have been circulating recently that the RPF organised the genocide. Instead, I take the argument of Straus (2006) in his The Order of Genocide that the civil war between the RPA and the FAR provided the necessary context of fear and insecurity that made the possibility of genocide by neighbours against neighbours possible, and indeed likely (as we now know with hindsight). I disagree with the assertion of the RPF that mostly young men committed acts of genocide. This is not a new assertion as the government's justice policy follows a logic of maximal prosecution (prosecution of all Hutu men of a particular age). This claim is, in my opinion, revisionist as it neglects the different motivations for killing as well as the strength of network and kinship ties in deciding who lived or died (Fujii, 2009, Webs of Violence).

The Response goes on for another 15 pages in which the RPF defends and justifies its actions in the DRC. I will end simply with this, the RPF doth protest too much.

Two senior military officials arrested

I interpret the arrest of both Lieutenant General Charles Muhire and Major General Emmanuel Karenzi Karake on allegations of corruption and immorality, respectively, as cracks in the facade of RPF power. See the BBC article here.

In his speech in commemoration of the 16th anniversary of the genocide, President Kagame issued a thinly veiled threat against his political opponents, saying that there would be "chaos" if they continued to call for democracy in the language of genocide ideology. It is not at all clear that they are using the language of genocide ideology, not only because the law is unclear and arbitrarily applied, but also because the opposition is choosing its words carefully, in efforts to respect the law. Kagame is using the word "chaos" as a substitute for violence, that the RPF would be perpetrating. Anyone who represents a challenge to Kagame's power in seen as a threat, and must be dealt with harshly.

Muhire and Karake are two long-standing, loyal and senior military men. Is their arrest a sign of a coup? I don't think so; but it does call into question the extent to which Kagame is willing to go to protect his political power, and is perhaps even a sign of unrest in the military.

There is at present not enough information at present to assess accurately the situation on the ground.

Rwanda's Ethnic Card: Who is manipulating whom?

On 10 February 2010, Human Rights Watch called on the Government of Rwanda to end attacks on opposition parties. Read the press release for the full commentary. Reuters reported that Rwanda's political opposition (meaning Mme. Ingabire) will likely face criminal charges for playing the ethnic card.

I would like to add a layer of context to these two reports. On the BBC Africa Service on 10 February (Focus on Africa), Carina Tertsakian of Human Rights Watch spoke correctly when she said that attacks on opposition politicians were intensifying.

I agree with her 100%. Such attacks are not new, they are only more intense in this round of elections. I am pleased to learn that the Government of Rwanda has agreed to accept Commonwealth election monitors. I only hope they actually consider more than the bare basics of electoral democracy (ballot stuffing, padding voter lists, etc) to consider the ways in which the ruling RPF plays the ethnic card that it accuses Ms. Ingabire of manipulating.

The RPF has outlawed public reference to ethnicity. It justifies its intolerance of political dissent in the name of eliminating the ideology of genocide and ethnic divisionism which it claims drove all Hutu to kill all Tutsi. My own research reveals the extent to which the RPF has instrumentalised the genocide to protect and consolidate its own political power. The RPF claims that the ultimate blame for the 1994 genocide rests with the colonial powers who promoted divisive politics that resulted in the ethnic hatred of ALL Hutu for ALL Tutsi. This simplistic interpretation of events works to mask the crimes against humanity and war crimes that the RPF itself committed before, during and after the genocide.

This simplistic interpretation of all Hutu killing all Tutsi does more than overlook the myriad ways in ordinary Rwandans, irrespective of ethnicity were caught up in the maelstrom. It also hides from view, in the name of ethnic unity, that many Hutu died including those who died trying to protect Tutsi. Equally, there are Tutsi who put themselves on the line to protect Hutu family and friends. Many Tutsi survived because of the aid and succor of a Hutu family member, friend, colleague, neighbour or strangers. There are also stories of Twa and Hutu who died because of their Tutsi features (for more see Des Forges, 1999; Fujii 2009; and Straus 2006 for the various forms of killing and the attendant motivations).

These different forms of killing and surviving are not accounted for under the current government. It is recognition of what Fujii (2009) calls "webs of violence" that I think Mme. Ingabire is asking the RPF to allow. The ferocity of the government's reaction -- threats, harassment, and physical violence -- to her request to take into consideration and account all the lives lost in 1994 is revealing. It reveals the insecurity of the current government as it expects deference and compliance to its directives. Those who dare break the facade, or try to peek behind the veil of peace and security, are treated harshly.

A good example of the lack of legitimacy that the RPR-led government has among ordinary Rwandans is its politicisation of individual mourning. The RPF seeks to control the ways that ordinary Rwandans -- Tutsi, Hutu and Twa -- mourn their lost loved ones.

First, only official survivors are recognised, and the RPF represents their trauma symbolically through the image of a lonely, wounded survivor as the personification of the 1994 genocide. The RPF invokes this image of the traumatised survivor to silence criticism from the international community. The lives lost -- Tutsi, Hutu and Twa -- in the violence before (1990-April 1994) and after (July 1994 to September 1999) are not memorialised.

The government uses the official mourning period (7 to 14 April every year to assert its official version of what happened during the genocide. Survivors (read Tutsi) are clearly distinguished from the killers (read Hutu). This single version of events hardly captures the multiplicity of individual experiences.

The genocide means more to ordinary Rwandans than just the idea that all Hutu killed all Tutsi; some Tutsi killed, some Hutu protected Tutsi; Twa also participated; just as some joined in, others stood by. Despite this, the government requires that Rwandans of all ethnicities attend mourning week events, notably the exhumation of mass graves and reburial of bodies, and listening to the speeches of government officials that remind the population of the need to “never again” allow genocide in Rwanda.

Many ordinary Rwandans that I spoke with in 2006, both in formal interviews and through participant observation, said that they felt the RPF was manipulating the way the genocide is remembered to maintain their positions of power and wealth rather than truly seeking to unify the country.

As Gaston, a released Hutu prisoner, told me, “We dig up bodies for reburial at the national ceremony but how do we know those remains are even Tutsi bodies? We [Hutu] died as well, but nothing is mentioned about how we suffered during the genocide. Not all of us killed you know. Instead we go because our new government says we must; we were told this very clearly at ingando (citizenship re-education camp)”. (I write about the humiliation of ingando here).

Others, particularly Tutsi survivors, acknowledged the reburials as “a little bit necessary for national healing” but would prefer to do it in private, “away from the spotlight”. In homogenising the diverse individual lived experiences of victims of the genocide – Hutu, Tutsi and Twa – as well as those of individuals who lived through the violence of the 1990-1994 civil war, and the emergency period after the genocide (1995-2000), the RPF is stage-managing and politicizing individual mourning.

I think the RPF harassed and harmed Mme. Ingabire because she spoke out against this stage-managing and politicization of individual mourning.