PRESS RELEASE N° 015/PS.IMB/NB/ 2022: '' BY EXCLUDING THE RWANDAN OPPOSITION LEADERS FROM MEETING WITH HIM THE US SECRETARY OF STATE ESPOUSES THE PRINCIPLE OF ''NO INTERFERENCE IN INTERIOR AFFAIRS'' AS DEVELOPED BY CHINA AND RUSSIA REGIMES THAT THE USA LABELS AS AUTOCRATIC ''
The Social Party Imberakuri is closely following the visit of the US Secretary of State and would like to inform the public opinion, particularly American opinion, its great concerns.
According to the public statement from the office of the US Assistant Secretary in charge of Africa Affairs, the US Secretary of State; Antony J.Blinken will soon travel to Rwanda where he will meet with government officials and civil societies' members to discuss various issues.
To our utter astonishment, the Rwandan opposition leaders are not included among people who will meet with him while the latter are the vibrant actors who play a great role for the better of any modern society and the US Department of State is in a good position to know this.
As a matter of fact, if the Rwandan opposition leaders are excluded from his agenda, we are of the view that the Secretary of State will never get deep and balanced information about what is going on in Rwanda, particularly regarding issues of human rights abuses, lack of democracy, opposition leaders and journalists' repression and lack of good governance.
It is not a secret. All these people who will meet with him are not from independent institutions since those institutions are under full control of the ruling party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front and it is obvious that they will have fear to tell him the truth. Besides, excluding opposition leaders from meeting with the Secretary of State would create a bad precedent that can undoubtedly tarnish the image of the USA as the country that champions democracy but also it belittles the Rwandan opposition leaders and this will encourage the Rwandan Government to continue its repression against them. More important, meeting with the opposition leaders would be a golden occasion for the US Secretary of State to hear directly the testimony from Rwandan opposition leaders regarding their pathetic story of unmerited suffering that they are currently undergoing.
The Rwandan opposition leaders believe that the USA is a role model in respect of democracy and to maintain this privileged status it should always behave differently from the autocratic regimes which only deal with dictatorial leaders and totally ignore opposition leaders as well as turning a blind eye to gross violations of human rights whenever they pay visit to those dictators in order to maintain what they call bilateral cooperation and doing so under the pretext of their self-made principle of ''no interference in interior affairs''. Consequently, in our humble opinion, if the US Secretary of State won't meet with the Rwandan genuine opposition leaders this may imply that the USA espouses in practice this principle developed by the regimes of China and Russia that it labels as autocratic. What hypocrisy!
From the above concerns, we are calling on the Secretary of State to revise his agenda in order to include the Rwandan opposition leaders among people he will meet with during his stay in Rwanda. Obviously, it is a big discrepancy to plan to discuss issues regarding limiting space for dissent and political opposition and exclude the Rwandan opposition leaders from discussion while they are direct victims of these heinous action from the Rwandan Government.
Done at Kigali, on August 5, 2022
Maître NTAGANDA Bernard
Founding President of the Social Party Imberakuri Candidate for Presidential Elections of 2024 (Sé)
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"Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate. Only Love Can Do That", Dr. Martin Luther King.
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