Victoire Ingabire's lawyer says her trial will not end in Rwanda

http://coloredopinions.blogspot.nl/2012/10/victoire-ingabires-lawyer-says-her.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+coloredOpinions+%28%3A%3AColored+Opinions%3A%3A%29 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2012 Victoire Ingabire's lawyer says her trial will not end in Rwanda Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire  and her British lawyer Iain Edwards confer in a  Kigali court room. KPFA Evening News, October 20, 2012  On Tuesday Reuters broke the news of a 44-page UN Panel of Experts report that Rwandan Defence Minister Jams Kabarebe is commanding the M23 militia in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.  The report also accuses Rwanda and Uganda of arming the militia and sending its own troops to help it launch a deadly attack on UN peacekeepers. Three days later, on Friday, a Rwandan court postponed the verdict in the related trial of Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire for the third time. KPFA spoke to Ingabire's British lawyer Iain Edwards.

http://www.examiner.com/article/rwanda-military-used-electric-shock-to-force-confessions-from-people Rwandan military used electric shock to force confessions from people RWANDA OCTOBER 8, 2012 BY: ROBERT TILFORD Subscribe Rwandan military accused of beating and electrocuting prisoners in order to get them to talk. Credits:    bbc.co.uk A new report by Amnesty International states that Rwandan military used electric shock to force confessions from people. Electric shocks are used as a method of torture, since the received voltage and current can be controlled with precision and used to cause pain and fear without physically harming the victim's body. "I was taken to another office. Everyone was there when they put this electric thing on my back and forced me to accept that I worked with the people throwing the grenades […] When I got to the point of dying, I told them to bring me a piece of paper [to sign], but they continued to torture me", said one detainee. Another man described being subjected to an electric shock during an interrogation. "There are other rooms where they put you and you lose your memory. They ask you a question and when you find yourself again they ask you a question. When you return to normal, they sting you […] The electric thing they use is like a pen and they put it under your arms. It is like charcoal. When they sting you, all your body is electrolyzed and the entire body is paralyzed" (source:http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR47/004/2012/en/ca2e51a2-1c3f-4bb4-b7b9-e44ccbb2b8de/afr470042012en.pdf). -3.583300113678 ; 29.983299255371 Former detainees at Camp Kami and Mukamira military camp allege that they had been forced to confess to crimes or to sign statements under duress due to beatings or other forms of torture. See video: Rwandan civilians tortured into making false confessions, says Amnestyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND_zNvgIlBk

Rwanda Gains Seat at the UN Security Council, But They May Not Deserve It

http://www.policymic.com/articles/17095/rwanda-gains-seat-at-the-un-security-council-but-they-may-not-deserve-it Rwanda Gains Seat at the UN Security Council, But They May Not Deserve It Therese Postel in World, Africa 1 day ago Mic this!2 4 0 8 Rwanda Gains Seat at the UN Security Council But They May Not Deserve It Earlier this week, Rwanda was elected to a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. They ran uncontested as the representative from the African continent, but their election and term on the Council will not be without significant controversy. While many still regard Rwanda as a triumphant story of successful reconciliation after unspeakable tragedy, troublesome allegations of political suppression and illegal support of rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have recently marred the reputation of Rwanda in the international community. President Paul Kagame has been lauded around the world for his efforts in moving Rwanda past the genocide and civil war that ravaged his country eighteen years ago. Kigali, the Rwandan capital, is quickly becoming known as the "safest" city in Africa. Rwanda has made impressive strides toward the UN Millennium Development Goals in the past decade, especially in education and child mortality, and the country touts the highest percentage of female parliament members in the world. The resounding applause for the Rwandan government under President Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), however, seems to be dying down as of late. In 2010, President Kagame won reelection with an unbelievably high 93% of the vote, but this landslide election was secured only through the exclusion of the three major opposition parties. The leaders of two of these parties were sentenced to prison, and the third remains in exile. There also has been a concerted campaign against journalists throughout the country. Most ominously, a new report has been compiled by the UN Group of Experts detailing support from Rwanda and Uganda for M23, a rebel group that operates in eastern DRC. Rwanda has roundly dismissed the allegations, but if they are true, it is a serious violation of the UN arms embargo on insurgent groups in eastern DRC. The report accuses Rwanda and Uganda of directly supplying troops to M23 for assaults in July. These charges are not new — in fact, the United States, United Kingdom, and other European Union members suspended military aid to Rwanda in June as these allegations surfaced in the first report by the UN Group of Experts. Understandably, there is concern regarding Rwanda's election to the Security Council. The Democratic Republic of the Congo vociferously objected to Rwanda joining the Council, given the accusations that Rwanda supplies M23 and harbors rebels that continue to destabilize the DRC. Many countries, especially the DRC, believe that Rwanda will use its position on the Security Council to "argue its case," and that no action can be taken to halt outside support of rebel groups such as M23. However, there is an optimistic lens through which to look at Rwanda's position on the Security Council. As Richard Gowan of NYU suggests, it will more difficult for Rwanda to continue to "hide its activities," both in the DRC and domestically. Rwanda would be reluctant to play a "spoiler" role in the Security Council with the eyes of the United States, as well as the international community, on it. Perhaps a stint on the UN Security Council, its first since the Rwandan genocide in 1993–94, is exactly what Rwanda and President Kagame need to root out the corruption, political suppression, and human rights abuses that have plagued the country over the past few years. This article was first published by The Century Foundation at the Blog of the Century.

http://thinkafricapress.com/rwanda/procedural-justice-trial-ingabire-case The Ingabire Trial: Rwanda's Contempt of Court? Opposition activist Ingabire has been denied a fair trial by expedient judges, improperly gathered evidence and a disregard for procedural justice. ARTICLE | 9 MAY 2012 - 12:27PM | BY ZACH WARNER More Sharing ServicesShare|Share on printShare on email Select Language​▼ The trial of Victoire Ingabire getting underway in the Kigali Supreme Court. Photograph by Graham Holliday. Since her arrest in October 2010, the trial of Rwandan opposition figure Victoire Ingabire has been followed intently. Eighteen months into the proceedings, Ingabire is now awaiting a verdict on six counts relating to terrorism and genocide denial, and her case has come to symbolise the ongoing struggle over the legacy of the genocide and the future of judicial independence in Rwanda. The partisan national press was declaring Ingabire a 'divisionist' even before the arrest, while international observers have been keen to expose the trial as a sham. But without direct access to documents presented to the court, this is not the place to assess Ingabire's guilt or innocence. What we can assess here, however, are the judicial processes that govern the case and that will decide Ingabire's fate. And examining these suggests that the prosecution has virtually guaranteed that regardless of whether an acquittal or a conviction is handed down, justice will have been denied to the defendant. The case background Ingabire, chair of the diaspora opposition group The United Democratic Forces (FDU-Inkingi), had been living in the Netherlands from 1993 until January 2010 when she returned to Rwanda to contest the national elections the following August. Ingabire was first placed under house arrest in April, three months after giving a speech at theKigali Genocide Memorial Centre in which she questioned why Hutu victims of the genocide were forgotten while also insisting on the need for national reconciliation and justice for the many Tutsi who were murdered. She was eventually released on conditional bail and repeatedly interrogated over the summer. Meanwhile, the FDU's petition for official status as a political party was rejected, effectively excluding the group from the polls. Ingabire's re-arrest in October was on suspicion of "threatening national security and public order" and of "buying and distributing arms and ammunitions to the terrorist organisation" the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a rebel group operating out of Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Also implicated in this "plot to destabilise the country" was Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of Mille Collines Hotel, whose heroic protection of refugees during the 1994 genocide were depicted in the film Hotel Rwanda. In the end, the state decided to charge Ingabire alongside alleged co-conspirators Colonel Tharcisse Nditurende, Lieutenant Colonel Noel Habiyaremye, Lieutenant Jean Marie Vianney Karuta and Major Vital Uwumuremyi. As the hearings began in Kigali High Court, further charges were added relating to "genocide ideology" and "divisionism". "Fruit of the poisonous tree" The first set of procedural troubles in the trial relate to the procurement and application of the prosecution's evidence. Before Ingabire's case began, her alleged co-conspirators appeared in court for a string of pre-trial confessions. All four pleaded guilty and asked for clemency. Yet despite Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga's claim that "there is not a single allegation they are making against her that is not supported with documentary evidence", the facts of the case rely to an extraordinary extent on their respective stories. Uwumuremyi's testimony is of particular importance to the prosecution. He alone "explained" the "coded language" of the emails he allegedly exchanged with Ingabire, as well as the Western Union money transfers of $7,000 that (he claimed) she sent for the purchase of weapons. Thus, without the guilty plea of a confessed rebel politician, the phone records and money transfers do little to condemn Ingabire. Moreover, at least two of the co-conspirators were produced for the trial through irregular means: namely, being arrested in Burundi, involuntarily repatriated, and incarcerated for seven months in extrajudicial detention. During this time, they were denied access to counsel and family, and subjected to frequent interrogations by Rwandan intelligence services. And the prosecution does not deny this story: queried about the matter, Prosecutor General Ngoga simply replied, "those are arguments meant to avoid [the] real substance of the case". In addition to the difficulties of producing evidence, the prosecution also seems to have ignored the rules governing its use. Most notably, papers collected at Ingabire's home in the Netherlands were released to the Rwandan government by the Dutch Foreign Ministry after a protracted legal battle, and only with the guarantee that the 600-page portfolio would be used to prosecute the charge of terrorism. Yet it is unclear to what extent this evidentiary dividing wall has been maintained; prosecutors, for example, claim that the Dutch documents prove involvement in the FDLR and therefore conspiracy against the government. Formal use of the files to prove these charges would be flatly illegal, but even informal consideration (for instance, influencing the court's opinion of her character) is clearly prejudicial. Making things difficult The second dimension of procedural injustice follows the general means by which the state has allegedly impeded Ingabire's defence. Such problems appeared from the start: in the days following her re-arrest, FDU officials claimed that Ingabire was forced to wear handcuffs while in detention for at least two days without respite, a charge denied vehemently by the police. Outside the courtroom, biased coverage of Ingabire's trial signals the breakdown of judicial independence, especially in the pages of government-aligned dailies that dominate the national press. In one case, President Paul Kagame explicitly asserted Ingabire's guilt. More directly, officially-sanctioned reporting often borders on defamation. Throughout her trial, media outlets have compared her to Osama bin Laden, Hamas, and the Nazis – the presumption of innocence notwithstanding. Furthermore, the state has reportedly applied extra-constitutional pressure on Ingabire and her defence. Not only was Ingabire allegedly denied access to her legal team and FDU colleagues, but when she was allowed to see them, it was (party officials claimed) under prosecution surveillance. Her Rwandan defence lawyer, Gatera Gashabana, also reported that the state had failed to provide Ingabire's team with all of the prosecution's evidence, hindering adequate preparation of her defence. This April, the defence also claimed intimidation of a key witness. Testifying that state intelligence services had manufactured Uwumuremyi's story, Colonel Michel Habimana was allegedly improperly interrogated by police under the direction of the Prosecutor General. Already serving life in prison, Habimana was subjected to a cell search and had important documents relating to the case seized. Whilst prosecutors maintained that this transpired within the bounds of the law, they gave no reason for the intrusion. "Fitting" the law Most troubling, however, is the third category of procedural faults which contravene both Rwandan and international law. Such problems first arose in May 2011, when Ingabire asked for and was granted a postponement. As a British lawyer (alongside Gashabana) was leading her defence team, Ingabire was granted one additional month to translate the 2,500 documents delivered by the prosecution from Kinyarwanda into English. The presiding judge refused the request of four months for further study, claiming it would unfairly delay the trial of the her co-accused. But Ingabire and her alleged conspirators face charges deserving of separate trials. Firstly, the defendants were apprehended entirely independently of one another. Secondly, while the men are FDLR commanders accused of physical violence, Ingabire is a politician charged with only economically and rhetorically supporting their military campaigns. Thus, while falling under the broad aegis of 'terrorism', their alleged crimes are fundamentally different. The government implicitly recognised this when it divided the six charges against Ingabire into two blocs, trying her for three of the charges (divisionism, genocide ideology, and inciting revolt) as an individual – but then extra-legally swapping evidence between the two sets of crimes. Collaborators' testimony on monetary transactions, for example, has been smuggled into an entirely separate case on Ingabire's alleged 'divisionism'. And the possibility of having separate trials has been denied despite substantial objections against linking the cases. In other instances, the prosecution has openly manipulated the law. During pre-trial formalities in September, Ingabire's defence lodged two motions. The first was against the territorial jurisdiction of the High Court for acts allegedly committed while Ingabire was resident in the Netherlands – this contention was dismissed the following week.  Justice Rutazana decided that the relevant statute should be interpreted to grant the High Court jurisdiction over any crime, irrespective of where it was committed, as long as the offence in question constitutes an international crime such as terrorism or genocide denial. Though the law is radically out of sync with international standards for 'universal jurisdiction', Rutazana appears here to have followed the letter of the statute. Troubles emerged, however, in the dismissal of the defence's second motion – the contention that Ingabire's prosecution under the 2008 'genocide ideology' law amounted to retrospective application. All evidence provided dated from before 2007.  For instance, a book published in 2000 (to which Ingabire was connected) motivated the prosecution's charges of divisionism and incitement to revolt, while statements she made in July and October of the same year formed the basis on which the genocide ideology charge was levied. Ingabire asked for all such documentation relating to events before the law's enactment be removed from her file, which the judge denied. The legal basis of Rutazana's decision was flimsy: the case had simply gone too far to grant the request, he explained. At the time of this dismissal, the trial had not yet officially begun. Finally, this April, the court rejected Ingabire's petition for a partial suspension of the trial pending the ongoing revision of the 'genocide ideology' law. Justifying this move, the Supreme Court cited her failure to attach a copy of the statute. The case that could potentially imprison a leading opposition figure for life thus proceeded on the grounds that she had neglected to paperclip to the file a copy of a law to which, in any case, the justices have easy access. Method matters Ingabire may well be guilty of some, if not all, the charges levied against her. It is possible that she directed FDU monies to the FDLR for the purpose of inciting violence against the state. It is also possible that she supports 'divisionism' and 'genocide ideology' as defined by Rwandan statute. Although her guilt appears unlikely to this author, it is a challenge that can at least be countenanced in Rwanda's courts. This legal battle, however, is constrained by a bevy of laws guaranteeing Ingabire a fair hearing. Article 19 of the Constitution provides, inter alia, that "every person accused of a crime shall be presumed innocent until his or her guilt has been conclusively proved in accordance with the law in a public and fair hearing". Additionally, Rwanda affirms its commitment to enforcing numerous international agreements such as the African (Banjul) Charter of Human and Peoples' Rights of 27 June 1981, which containsextensive provisions for due process. It is clear from the foregoing analysis that none of these appear to have exerted any influence over the prosecution of this case. Evidence has been gathered and deployed improperly. Strong-arm tactics have repeatedly hindered Ingabire's defence, while a government-controlled media has gleefully convicted her in the court of public opinion. Most worryingly, however is that the presiding judges have adopted legal interpretations according to expedience in a number of instances. Substantial challenges to the prosecution of Ingabire's case have been allowed to lapse, and the numerous safeguards for procedural justice have been violated in principle if not in statute.  Awaiting a verdict Ingabire's verdict is slated for June 29. As she is now boycotting the trial entirely, she seems likelyto receive life in prison.  Looking beyond this case, however, such violations of due process may lead the international community to row back on cooperation with the Rwandan judiciary. This is of growing concern for Western policymakers. Prior to Ingabire's trial, there had been numerous indications of growing trust in Rwanda's legal system. In January, Canada deported Leon Mugesera, allegedly one of the genocide's masterminds, for trial. The same month, the United States turned over Jean-Marie Vianney Mudahinyuka, reportedly a former interahamwe leader. Furthermore, April saw the first-ever transfer from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to the national courts, in the case of genocide suspect Jean Bosco Uwinkindi. As long as the West continues to willingly transfer such suspects to Rwanda, it will be complicit in gross miscarriages of justice.  Rwandans are correct to assert the right of trying genocide suspects at home, and it is incontestable that justice depends on those responsible – particularly such unsavoury characters as Mugesera – being held to account. But even those most guilty of atrocities should receive fair trials. Procedural justice must be pursued with equal vigour as the outcomes of justice are currently. Rwanda must ask herself whether commitments to individual human rights are worth sacrificing in support of Rwandan sovereignty and communal justice. Think Africa Press welcomes inquiries regarding the republication of its articles. If you would like to republish this or any other article for re-print, syndication or educational purposes, please contact: editor@thinkafricapress.com

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/africa/263917-obama-targets-warmongers-in-congo-as-un-weighs-sanctions Obama to renew sanctions against those involved in DRC conflict By Julian Pecquet - 10/24/12 04:25 PM ET    President Obama on Wednesday said he would renew sanctions against people involved in the longstanding conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  President George W. Bush in 2006 ordered the Treasury Department to block the U.S. assets of people contributing to the conflict under a law that allows the president to declare an "unusual and extraordinary threat ... to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States."  The sanctions must be renewed every year to stay in force and can be terminated by Congress. Obama announced the action in a message to Congress as the United Nations Security Council mulls new sanctions itself against a rebel group in the DRC. "The situation in or in relation to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been marked by widespread violence and atrocities that continue to threaten regional stability, continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States," Obama wrote in a letter to Congress. "For this reason, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency to deal with that threat and the related measures blocking the property of certain persons contributing to the conflict in that country." The conflict in the DRC, which continues to simmer despite a 2003 peace deal, has left more than 5 million people dead since 1998, making it the bloodiest confrontation since World War II. The conflict has returned to the headlines recently, with the U.N. Security Council declaring its intention to impose sanctions on the rebel movement M23, which is allegedly backed by U.S. ally Rwanda.