When the former Minister of Justice Tharcisse Karugarama was sacked from the cabinet few people thought that the regime he has served and defended even in indefensible circumstances will hunt him the same way he used his office to hunt the innocent people under the orders of his boss president Kagame.
For those who know very well the way RPF operates will forgive Mr. Karugarama but for those who don't know will hang him with insults and other curses, because he headed the Ministry which in the last couples of years has watched or powerlessly or ignored judgments passed by his courts against innocent people. Indeed, it is in his tenure that many Rwandan politicians have been incarcerated simply because they do have different political views with his RPF Party.
Again, it is during his tenure that the Vice President of the Green Party Andrew Rwisereka Kagwa was decapitated and his body thrown in the swamp and his killers have never been brought justice. Indeed, many Politicians like Deo Mushayid, Bernard Ntaganda, Victoire Ingabire have been locked up on concocted charges and are serving long sentences including life.
This is the kind of justice this honorable Minister has been on steering wheel for almost 7 years being used by his boss to lock or unlock people the regime want or don't want not because theiy are guilty of any offence but because the regime don't like that individual to see the next rising sun.
Will Karugarama get justice in the Kangaroo courts he knows very well? Why is he then referring the journalist of the Izuba Rirashe which in fact is the sister news paper of the government mouth pieces the New Times that he is ready to go to court? Many political commentators who know very well RPF have argued that Karugarama is in hot waters since he has refused to go and kneel down and apologize for the crimes of suggesting that the president should not stand after his term of office expires in 2017.
President Kagame has built the system on the foundation of fear, intimidation, killing, and sideling. Indeed, RPF history has seen all the former senior military and civilian officials sidelined, killed, or made politically impotent. The regime has run out of ideas and the only way of survival is to intimidate all the people perceived to have independent mind and Karugarama is the new victim of what we have all along been saying that RPF has created a monster that will not spare anybody even its own. What are the remaining options for Karugarama if he wants save his own skin?
Fortunately Mr. Karugarama is not new in the RPF; he knows that it's just a blink of an eye for the system to assemble some people who will come out and accuse him of stealing money from the government, abuse of office and behaving in a manner incompatible with the good code of conduct of a leader of his caliber. Actually they have already done it; her former permanent secretary has already come out accusing him. All the government institutions have started giving a pre – trial testimony, what is now remaining is to order the prosecution to bring charges against him. This is exactly how he has indifferently or helplessly been sitting on the volcano of life and death which is likely to blow him into pieces in the same way many Rwandans have been blown out.
It is in this regard that Mr. Karugarama could go and kneel in front of the RPF cadres in the secretariat under the chairmanship of Francis Ngarambe, Christopher Bazivamo, Edward Bamporiki, just to mention a few in the same way his colleagues have done or he could come out and say enough is enough, lets stand up for the tyrant once and for all. President Kagame is also a man who has tasted too much blood; indeed, he has become a political vampire he will not waste time in ordering his killing squad of Dan Munyuza, Jack Nziza and others to do something for him (kumufanyiya). We have witnessed Kagame's brutality, where he has killed both enemies and friends, just recently he told his Tanzanian counterpart that he will wait for him at the right place and time, and then hit him. If he can say such undiplomatic words to a president of another country, what about a man he thinks is a fly which could be hit with even a hammer if necessary?
The French have an adage that not every true thing should be said, it is not therefore surprising that Mr. Karugarama has been pushed from the RPF system in the same way his many colleagues have found themselves on the wrong side of RPF just because in his own judgment and belief Kagame should not seek another term come 2017. This is the only crime Mr. Karugarama has committed which could land him in jail and come out after the elections. Mr. Kagame should listen to his true friends, I mean those who tell him the truth or will be like his colleagues the likes of Mobutu of former Zaire, Hussein Mubarak of Egypt, Hissène Habré of Chad, Col. Kaddafi of Libya just to mention a few who lost their senses of smell and eventually missed in action or are in custody for the crimes against humanity they committed during their rule.
Jacqueline Umurungi
Brussels.