Kigali-based lawyer Edward Murangwa has petitioned the Supreme Court to examine the constitutionality of the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB)'s powers to conduct investigative searches in people's homes and other premises without a court warrant.
Article 10 of the law establishing RIB grants investigators the power to search a person or premises without a warrant if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a criminal act is being committed or the premises contain an object used in committing a crime.
A search warrant is an order in writing commanding a law enforcement officer to search a specified person or premises. In some countries such a document is issued by a judge or magistrate.
Murangwa's petition is mainly based on the claim that investigative searches infringe on human rights and thus, the judiciary – the government organ assigned with human rights oversight – should approve the searches first.
According to the petition, investigative searches without a judicial warrant violate the 43rd article of the Constitution, which reads, "The Judiciary is the guardian of human rights and freedoms. This duty is exercised in accordance with this Constitution and other laws."
Murangwa argued that RIB is part of the Executive branch of the Government, not the Judiciary, and if investigators issue search warrants for themselves, they violate article 61 of the Constitution, which provided that the Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary are separate and independent from each other but are all complementary.
Murangwa also cited article 23 of the Constitution, which protects people's homes from infringement unless under circumstances determined by the law. It reads,"A person's home is inviolable. No search or entry into a home shall be carried out without the consent of the owner, except in circumstances and in accordance with procedures determined by the law. Confidentiality of correspondence and communication shall not be waived except in circumstances and in accordance with procedures determined by the law."
Meanwhile, as part of the petition, Murangwa also prayed to court to order the police and RIB to stop parading suspects before the media and "forcing" them to talk to journalists.
The practice, he argues, contravenes article 29 of the Constitution, which provides that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a competent court.
He also asked court to order media houses or social media users who took pictures and videos of paraded suspects to delete them.
The Supreme Court set May 24 as the date when the petition will be heard.
### "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence", George Washington. ###
Amakuru ava mu ahantu hizewe avuga ko RPF yahawe itariki ntarengwa ya le 24 Septembre 2023 ikaba yasimbuje Kaaga!
FYI...
Après 23 ans passés à la tête de l'Etat, le président rwandais Paul Kagame a exprimé son désir de se retirer et de céder le pouvoir à un nouveau dirigeant.
He's a Brutal Dictator, and One of the West's Best Friends
April 11, 2023, 1:00 a.m. ET
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.Pool photo by Ludovic Marin
By Anjan Sundaram
Mr. Sundaram is a journalist and the author of "Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime."
His grip on power is nearly unassailable. Since becoming president over two decades ago, he has extended constitutional term limits, shut down the free press and clamped down on dissent. Reporters have been driven into exile, even killed; opposition figures have been imprisoned or found dead. His country has been reduced to tyranny.
But this dictator isn't a pariah, like Vladimir Putin of Russia or Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Instead, he's one of the West's best and most reliable friends: Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda. Since coming to power in 1994, Mr. Kagame has won his way into the West's good graces. He's been invited to speak — on human rights, no less — at universities such as Harvard, Yale and Oxford, and praised by prominent political leaders including Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and the former U.N. general secretary Ban Ki-moon.
It doesn't end there. Mr. Kagame's Western friends include FIFA, which held its annual congress at a shiny sports complex in Kigali in March, and the N.B.A., whose African Basketball League plays in Rwanda. Europe's largest carmaker, Volkswagen, runs an assembly plant in Rwanda, and major international organizations such as the Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum are close partners. Western donors finance a whopping 70 percent of Rwanda's national budget.
But perhaps Mr. Kagame's greatest endorsement is a deal with the British government to receive asylum seekers deported from Britain. This controversial bargain, which may contravene international law, has cemented Rwanda's reputation as a steadfast partner of Western countries. Far from the authoritarian holdout it is, Mr. Kagame's Rwanda is now hailed as a haven for people fleeing dictatorship.
Mr. Kagame owes much of his success to his skilled political rhetoric, an art form Rwandans call "ubwenge." In news conferences where Rwandan journalists, aware of the risks faced by less pliant colleagues, throw him softball questions, Mr. Kagame shines. Often, his target is the West. He consistently voices an anti-imperialist message about how Europe is "violating people's rights" and berates the West's "superiority complex."
This posture makes him a leading avatar of a new type of postcolonial ruler. Other populist nationalist presidents such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico and Narendra Modi of India also rally their populations behind similar sentiments, elevating themselves as world leaders no longer beholden to the West. Often at the heart of their defiant speeches are references to old crimes — massacres, genocides and expropriations committed by European empires that date back as far as the 16th century.
Such appeals work because Western leaders still offer only grudging "regrets" for such atrocities and rarely apologize, partly out of fear that their nations will have to cough up huge sums in reparations. This allows the grievances to live on. Many in former colonies still feel those past humiliations as viscerally present, manifest today in institutions that are dominated by Western interests, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, or in international trade and aid negotiations. Postcolonial leaders such as Mr. Kagame find much popularity in their insistence that the West should atone for its history, however improbable that might be.
The price of avoiding apologies, though, is that Western leaders find their moral authority diminished. Instead, they engage in placatory behaviors — offering praise and partnership, rather than condemnation. Perhaps nowhere is this dynamic clearer than in Rwanda, where Mr. Kagame's leverage with Western leaders is particularly strong because the country's grievances are recent. He is very adept at guilt-tripping the West, and his jabs hit home hard.
Rwanda's 1994 genocide — during which nearly one million Rwandans, many of them ethnic Tutsis, were killed — was perpetrated under the noses of United Nations peacekeepers, who diligently filed reports on the killings while seemingly impotent to prevent them. Although Mr. Kagame's former ambassador to the United States and other political allies have accused him of "sparking" Rwanda's genocide and doing little to prevent it, he has cast himself as the hero who ended it.
In the event of criticism, Mr. Kagame's tried-and-tested tactic is to rebut any Western leader who has the temerity to sermonize to poorer nations about democracy, human rights and the rule of law. His rhetoric resonates in a world desperate for African success stories, not least in the West. Back in 2011, the journalist Tristan McConnell described how Western support for Mr. Kagame was driven by "a genuinely felt desire to fight the image of a basket-case continent." The year after, Time magazine called Mr. Kagame "the embodiment of a new Africa."
Behind the lionization lies a darker truth. Since taking power in 1994 as commander in chief of the Rwandan military, and later as president, Mr. Kagame has all but rigged elections, taking almost 99 percent of the vote in 2017. Many of his opponents have disappeared, in some cases found murdered, in one case virtually beheaded. The self-styled hero who supposedly ended the Rwandan genocide was also in command of an army that the U.N. has alleged was responsible for killing tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Hutus and for potential acts of "genocide" after twice invading the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Yet no matter the historical record, Mr. Kagame creates an alternate reality in which the West is to blame for his country's ills and he is its brave champion. This anti-imperialist narrative trumps reports of dissidents and journalists being harassed, imprisoned or forced into exile. It doesn't help that accurate information about the country is hard to come by: Mr. Kagame bans critical foreign reporters, ensuring that the international media often repeats government propaganda.
The hunger for postcolonial leaders who stand up to the West is perfectly understandable, rooted in the ways that imperialism continues to structure relations between former colonies and former colonial powers. Justice for colonial-era crimes would be welcome to many in the world, too, even if it is unlikely to come anytime soon. At the very least, Western leaders — beginning in Britain — should do something simple and stop rewarding authoritarians like Mr. Kagame.
### "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence", George Washington. ###
-- ________________________________________________________________ -Ushobora kohereza message yawe kuri : rwandaforum@googlegroups.com -Ushobora kwiyandikisha kuri iyo groupe wandikira: rwandaforum+subscribe@googlegroups.com -Ushobora kwikura kuri iyo groupe wandikira: rwandaforum+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com -Archives z'iyi groupe ushobora kuzisoma kuri: https://rwandaforumonline.blogspot.com/ -Contact: rwandaforumonline@gmail.com ____________________________________________________ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Rwanda Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rwandaforum+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rwandaforum/F3DD1DEC-4922-4262-936E-36DFB70A8756%40yahoo.com.
-- ________________________________________________________________ -Ushobora kohereza message yawe kuri : rwandaforum@googlegroups.com -Ushobora kwiyandikisha kuri iyo groupe wandikira: rwandaforum+subscribe@googlegroups.com -Ushobora kwikura kuri iyo groupe wandikira: rwandaforum+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com -Archives z'iyi groupe ushobora kuzisoma kuri: https://rwandaforumonline.blogspot.com/ -Contact: rwandaforumonline@gmail.com ____________________________________________________ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Rwanda Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rwandaforum+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rwandaforum/1619922174.2588115.1681270341776%40mail.yahoo.com.
Amerika yongeye gusonga Abanyarwanda yitwaje filimi yagize Rusesabagina igitangaza
IGIHE
Ambasade ya Leta Zunze Ubumwe za Amerika muri Lesotho yakoze Abanyarwanda mu nkovu, ivuga ko igiye kwerekana filimi yitwa "Hotel Rwanda" isingiza Paul Rusesabagina nk'intwari, iranarenga yanga kuvuga ko mu Rwanda ari Abatutsi bishwe muri Jenoside.
Filimi "Hotel Rwanda" yakinnye kuri Paul Rusesabagina nk'uwarokoye abantu 1268 muri Hôtel des Mille Collines. Ubutwari bwamwitiriwe buhabanye n'ukuri, bwatumye benshi bayoba batangira kumuhundagazaho ibihembo kugeza kuri 'Presidential Medal Award of Freedom', yahawe na Perezida George W. Bush wa Amerika mu Ugushyingo 2005.
Ubutumwa Ambasade ya Leta Zunze Ubumwe za Amerika muri Lesotho yashyize kuri Twitter, buvuga ko ku wa Gatanu tariki 14 Mata saa Munani z'Amanywa, hazerekanwa iyi filimi "igaragaza ubutwari bwa Paul Rusesabagina mu kurokora impunzi".
Ni filimi igiye kwerekanwa nyuma y'igihe kitageze ku kwezi Rusesabagina afunguwe n'u Rwanda ku mbabazi za Perezida wa Repubulika nyuma y'uko ahamijwe ibyaha by'iterabwoba bishamikiye ku Mutwe w'Iterabwoba wa MRCD-FLN yashinze ndetse akaba yari awubereye umuyobozi.
Ni mu gihe kandi u Rwanda rumaze igihe runenga uburyo Amerika yinangiye mu gukoresha imvugo iboneye ya Jenoside yakorewe Abatutsi. N'ubu mu itangazo rya Ambasade ya Lesotho, nta na hamwe havugwamo ko ibyabaye mu Rwanda ari Jenoside yakorewe Abatutsi, ahubwo bayise "Jenoside yo mu Rwanda".
Abanyarwanda bakoresha Twitter bibukije Ambasade ya Amerika muri Lesotho ko inkuru ivugwa muri Hotel Rwanda ari impimbano, idahuye n'ukuri ku buryo abantu bajya kuyisingiza.
Uwitwa Mugenzi Félix yagize ati " "Hotel Rwanda" ni filimi mpimbano. Paul Rusesabagina nta bantu 1.200 yarokoye. Ni filimi ya Hollywood. Ni nk'uko Sylvester Stalone atigeze arokora Abanyamerika muri Vietnam, Bruce Willis na we ntiyigeze arokora Isi ngo ntigwirwe n'ikibuye kinini [astéroïde]."
Mugenzi we witwa Fabrice Rugumire yagize ati "Ibi ni igisebo. Ntabwo mwari mukwiriye kubikora, hari filimi zivuga ukuri kw'ibyabaye zitari nk'iyi y'impimbano yuzuye ibinyoma."
Dieudonné Rusanga yasabye Ambasade ya Amerika muri Lesotho kwirinda kuyobya abantu.
Iyi filimi ibeshya ko Rusesabagina yabaye intwari akita ku mpunzi zari zahungiye muri Milles Collines. Ni mu gihe abari bayihungiyemo, nta bufasha na buke bahawe, ahubwo bose bibeshejeho, bakajya baniyishyurira ibikenewe byose mu gihe filimi ivuga ko Rusesabagina yabitayeho nta kiguzi.
Odette Nyiramirimo uri mu bahungiye muri Milles Collines, yigeze kubwira IGIHE ko mu cyumba kimwe bakibagamo ari abantu barenga 27.
Ati "Abafite amafaranga barishyuraga, abatayafite bagasinya, natwe ni ko twabigenje ntayo twari dufite, ahubwo nasanze nari mfite n'agasheki mu mufuka, nagasinyeho k'amadolari $400, bayankuyeho hariya muri BCR nyuma ya Jenoside, Hôtel des Mille Collines."
Abandi bahungiye muri Hôtel des Mille Collines barimo abakomeye nka Rubangura, Bernard Makuza (wabaye Perezida wa Sena), Makuza Bertin wari umunyenganda, Ambroise Murindangabo, Habiyakare wabaye Minisitiri n'abandi.
Ubwo muri Werurwe 2008 hamurikwaga Igitabo 'Hotel Rwanda – or the Tutsi Genocide as seen by Hollywood', cyanditswe na Dr Alfred Ndahiro afatanyije Privat Rutazibwa; Bernard Makuza wari Minisitiri w'Intebe yashimangiye ko nta muntu Rusesabagina yarokoye ku bwe.
Ni igitabo kivuga neza amateka y'abarokokeye muri Hôtel des Mille Collines, bitandukanye na Filimi 'Hotel Rwanda' yashyizwemo umunyu ikagira Rusesabagina intwari ku bikorwa bitigeze bibaho.
Makuza ati "Twese twishyuye amafaranga ngo tugume muri iyi hotel kandi nta muntu yagiye hanze kurokora. Abantu barazaga bakaguma hano kuko bishyuye amafaranga."
Icyo gihe yanibukije ko ubwo yahuraga na Rusesabagina muri iyo hoteli, ati "yantunze urutoki avuga ko nka njye wari umujyanama wa Agathe Uwilingiyimana ndi mu bantu bazanye ibibazo."
Makuza yabaye Umujyanama mu by'Amategeko wa Uwilingiyimana wari Minisitiri w'Intebe wabaye umwe mu bantu bishwe Jenoside igitangira.
Gasamagera Wellars wageze muri iyi hoteli iminsi ibiri mbere y'uko Rusesabagina ahakandagira, ubwo yari senateri mu 2011 ni umwe mu bashimangiye uko batswe amafaranga kugira ngo bahabwe icumbi.
Join the Embassy & American Corner for a screening of 'Hotel Rwanda' on Fri, April 14th at 2pm. The movie tells Paul Rusesabagina's heroic story of saving 1,200 refugees during the Rwandan genocide. Let's promote peace and stand against hate. #NeverForget#HotelRwandapic.twitter.com/YKqUGzI1S3
Rwanda : l'histoire écrite par le FPR du président Paul Kagame, c'est fini !
Trente ans après les massacres génocidaires, la journaliste britannique Michela Wrong déconstruit pierre à pierre la propagande du Front patriotique rwandais de Paul Kagame. En articulant son livre comme une enquête policière, elle embarque le lecteur dans les coulisses, humaines et politiques, du FPR et de ses principaux chefs tutsi. Explications.
Paul Kagame (avec les lunettes), chef militaire du FPR, et ses hommes, au Rwanda, en 1993. CHARLIER/SIPA
Il s'appelle Paul Rusesabagina. À défaut de connaître son nom, des milliers de spectateurs de par le monde ont vu Hôtel Rwanda le film inspiré par l'action de ce Hutu modéré ayant sauvé d'une mort certaine des centaines de compatriotes – tutsi et hutu – en leur offrant un refuge à l'hôtel des Mille Collines, à Kigali, en 1994. Malgré ces faits de gloire, alors que les massacres génocidaires ensanglantaient la capitale, Paul Rusesabagina vient de passer 939 jours dans les geôles rwandaises. Officiellement pour « terrorisme ». Plus sûrement pour un crime de lèse-majesté ayant consisté en la dénonciation répétée de l'autoritarisme – un euphémisme – de Paul Kagame, maître de facto du pays depuis 1994. Le dictateur a finalement gracié l'impudent, lequel a promis de ne plus jamais se mêler de politique, trop heureux de pouvoir retourner sain et sauf aux États-Unis, où il est résident permanent.
### "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence", George Washington. ###
-- ________________________________________________________________ -Ushobora kohereza message yawe kuri : rwandaforum@googlegroups.com -Ushobora kwiyandikisha kuri iyo groupe wandikira: rwandaforum+subscribe@googlegroups.com -Ushobora kwikura kuri iyo groupe wandikira: rwandaforum+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com -Archives z'iyi groupe ushobora kuzisoma kuri: https://rwandaforumonline.blogspot.com/ -Contact: rwandaforumonline@gmail.com ____________________________________________________ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Rwanda Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rwandaforum+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rwandaforum/B268DBC4-732D-48A4-BB9A-20F970D346CC%40yahoo.com.
-- ________________________________________________________________ -Ushobora kohereza message yawe kuri : rwandaforum@googlegroups.com -Ushobora kwiyandikisha kuri iyo groupe wandikira: rwandaforum+subscribe@googlegroups.com -Ushobora kwikura kuri iyo groupe wandikira: rwandaforum+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com -Archives z'iyi groupe ushobora kuzisoma kuri: https://rwandaforumonline.blogspot.com/ -Contact: rwandaforumonline@gmail.com ____________________________________________________ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Rwanda Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rwandaforum+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rwandaforum/641410518.3144781.1681355977899%40mail.yahoo.com.
Under Kagame's rule Rwanda made significant progress in key areas, but this does not excuse the president's authoritarianism, writes Mhaka [Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images].
In December, New African, a leading Pan-African news magazine, published the 2022 edition of its immensely popular 100 most influential Africans list.
Advertising the year-ender as the "most authoritative, respected and consulted list on the continent and in the diaspora", the monthly magazine claimed those who appear on this list will "enjoy the adulation that is their due".
I clicked on the link thinking I would get to learn a few names worth knowing and browse through the most recent accomplishments of the continent's best and brightest. I was, however, quickly disappointed.
There was a well-known – and in my opinion highly misplaced – name at the very top of the list: Paul Kagame.
Kagame is undoubtedly an important name in African politics. He has been the president of Rwanda since 2000 and does not appear to have any intention of leaving power soon. But it is highly questionable whether he can or should be described as "influential" and included in a list that presents itself as proof that "Africa rules" and "the world of Wakanda is alive and kicking!"
Sure, in many ways, Rwanda is an African success story. Since the civil war and the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the tiny landlocked nation of 13 million made significant progress in key areas, from education and agriculture to healthcare and security. It has a majority-female parliament and is considered a world leader in gender equality. Despite taking a hit from COVID-19 like the rest of the world, its economy is now largely stable. It is hoping to achieve Middle Income Country status by 2035.
All this, however, does not mean Rwanda is an African utopia and Kagame a "pioneer" worthy of "adulation".
As detailed in the yearly report published by Human Rights Watch in December, in 2022, Kagame's administration continued "to wage a campaign against real and perceived opponents of the government". It cracked down on political opposition and restricted the people's right to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Critics were arbitrarily arrested and some even said they were tortured in state custody. There were many forced disappearances and suspicious deaths that were not investigated by the authorities.
Kagame signed a controversial asylum seeker deal with the United Kingdom that the United Nations refugee agency believes is "contrary to the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention". In August, a UN group of experts said they obtained "solid evidence" that Rwandan troops attacked soldiers inside the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and provided support to the M23 rebel group. The years-long conflict between the DRC government and the M23 rebels, which Kagame is reportedly fuelling by providing support to the armed group, has caused widespread hunger and displaced more than two million people.
Backed by a long history of authoritarianism and political repression, this poor report card should have categorically prevented Kagame from being included in a list that marks and celebrates African achievement and progress.
However, the editors of New African not only placed Kagame at the top of their "authoritative" list but described him in the accompanying write-up as someone who is helping to "restore African pride and dignity". There are passing mentions of "a general lack of democratic culture" in Rwanda and the conflict in the DRC which may "stain [Kagame's] legacy", but overall, the Rwandan president is praised as a "standard bearer" in African politics.
What gives?
As someone from Zimbabwe, I am saddened but not surprised that Africans are turning a blind eye to the democratic shortcomings of Kagame.
In the 1980s and 90s, Zimbabwe was regarded as a success story just like Rwanda. At the time, our president was liberation war icon, Robert Mugabe. He was respected across Africa and beyond as a revolutionary who fought for the dignity and pride of his people. He was admired and praised for his commitment to Zimbabwe's socioeconomic development and for his passionate critiques of Western imperialism.
Mugabe's many admirable qualities and accomplishments, however, were clouded by his predilection for violence and unrestrained power. In the early 1980s, his administration paved the way for and openly encouraged countless rapes, enforced disappearances, mass beatings and nearly 20,000 civilian deaths collectively known as the "Gukurahundi" massacres. And after the end of Gukurahundi, hundreds of opposition party supporters were intimidated, tortured and killed in episodes of electoral violence that Mugabe openly stoked, or refused to take action to stop, for years.
Mugabe's violence and political thuggery often played out in the open. His government rarely bothered to hide away the abuse and the oppression. Anyone who dared to resist, oppose or raise the alarm was punished. To the dismay of long-suffering Zimbabweans, however, our African brothers and sisters did not support our struggle. They always gave Mugabe a hero's welcome at continental gatherings. They did not ostracise him for repeatedly violating our human rights. They did not condemn him for killing us. After his death in 2019, South Africa's former President Thabo Mbeki and former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta rushed to sing his praises.
Back then, Africans refused to see the murderous dictator hiding under the facade of an anti-colonial hero in Zimbabwe. Today, they are making a similar mistake in Rwanda.
I can see how someone may fall for Kagame's projected persona. When I hear him condemn the West's neocolonialism and endless hypocrisy on human rights, I too cannot help but be impressed by his forthrightness. But whenever I find myself in awe of Kagame's principled stance against the West, I always remind myself that Mugabe's fierce critiques of the West were equally as impressive. Eventually, it became obvious that Mugabe hated Africans who criticised his policies as much as – if not more than – the former colonisers of his country. I am afraid time will prove the same about Kagame.
It is perhaps easy to ignore Kagame's authoritarianism today because his country is still doing relatively well. But Rwanda will not remain a success story if Kagame continues to crush all dissent and ignore all criticism.
Zimbabwe went from being the "breadbasket of Africa" to a socioeconomic and political basket case in a decade. Our vaunted health and education sectors went from world-class to dilapidated in no time. All because Mugabe thought his revolutionary credentials gave him the right to govern with an iron fist and Africans – bedazzled by the liberation icon before them – chose to ignore his crimes against Zimbabweans. I am afraid the same will happen to Rwanda if Africans remain under Kagame's spell.
Zimbabwe's recent history is a cautionary tale about how unchecked power and unconditional adulation can transform an imperfect hero into a tyrant and spell disaster for an entire nation.
So editors should stop declaring Kagame a "pioneer", calling him "inspirational" and claiming he is a "standard bearer" in African politics. He cannot be considered any of those things until dissenting Rwandans stop being threatened, arbitrarily jailed or forcibly disappeared. Rwanda and Africa deserve much better.
As Africans come to expect more civil liberties from their postcolonial governments, human rights and democracy are at a crossroads in Africa. The continent's self-proclaimed opinion makers must cease their attempts to whitewash liberation icons-turned-tyrants, and instead endeavour to hold them accountable for failing to responsibly fulfil their political mandates.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
### "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence", George Washington. ###
Bonnes feuilles "Rwanda. Assassins sans frontières" : une plongée au cœur du système Kagame
Pour avoir « osé critiquer et dévoiler » la nature du régime de Paul Kagame, Michela Wrong a fait l'objet d'une campagne de « diffamations incessantes » venant de Kigali et de ses trolls. À la lecture de ces extraits, on comprend mieux pourquoi le livre de notre consœur britannique a si fortement fâché le kaiser des Grands Lacs… Voici quelques passages marquants de son ouvrage.
Farouche opposant de Kagame, Paul Rusesabagina, qui a inspiré le film "Hôtel Rwanda", a passé 939 jours en prison, officiellement pour "terrorisme". Gracié par le dictateur, il a pu retourner sain et sauf aux États-Unis en promettant de ne plus jamais se mêler de politique. Muhizi Olivier/AP/SIPA
« Rares sont les élites plus soudées que celle-là. C'est l'enchevêtrement le plus naturel du monde. Ayant grandi dans une communauté banyarwanda introvertie, qui avait toutes les raisons de craindre les étrangers, ils ont été obligés de se faire mutuellement confiance, en dépit des rivalités sourdes et des méfiances internes. Un diagramme de Venn montrerait une série de cercles multigénérationnels se chevauchant. Le général Kayumba deviendra le parrain de l'un des fils de Kagame. Jeannette Kagame et Rosette Kayumba fonderont la Green Hills Academy, le premier lycée du Rwanda à proposer le baccalauréat international, et siègeront ensemble à son conseil d'administration. La fille de Sam Nkusi, Jolie, épousera le neveu de Patrick [Karegeya], David Batenga, tandis que la sœur de sa femme est mariée à Théogène Rudasingwa, secrétaire général du FPR.
### "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence", George Washington. ###
Rwanda : l'histoire écrite par le FPR du président Paul Kagame, c'est fini !
Trente ans après les massacres génocidaires, la journaliste britannique Michela Wrong déconstruit pierre à pierre la propagande du Front patriotique rwandais de Paul Kagame. En articulant son livre comme une enquête policière, elle embarque le lecteur dans les coulisses, humaines et politiques, du FPR et de ses principaux chefs tutsi. Explications.
Paul Kagame (avec les lunettes), chef militaire du FPR, et ses hommes, au Rwanda, en 1993. CHARLIER/SIPA
Il s'appelle Paul Rusesabagina. À défaut de connaître son nom, des milliers de spectateurs de par le monde ont vu Hôtel Rwanda le film inspiré par l'action de ce Hutu modéré ayant sauvé d'une mort certaine des centaines de compatriotes – tutsi et hutu – en leur offrant un refuge à l'hôtel des Mille Collines, à Kigali, en 1994. Malgré ces faits de gloire, alors que les massacres génocidaires ensanglantaient la capitale, Paul Rusesabagina vient de passer 939 jours dans les geôles rwandaises. Officiellement pour « terrorisme ». Plus sûrement pour un crime de lèse-majesté ayant consisté en la dénonciation répétée de l'autoritarisme – un euphémisme – de Paul Kagame, maître de facto du pays depuis 1994. Le dictateur a finalement gracié l'impudent, lequel a promis de ne plus jamais se mêler de politique, trop heureux de pouvoir retourner sain et sauf aux États-Unis, où il est résident permanent.
### "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence", George Washington. ###
