Rwanda: 8 years for Victoire Ingabire

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/8-years-victoire-ingabire 8 years for Victoire Ingabire Published on : 30 October 2012 - 2:55pm | By ((C) AFP) More about: Hutu   Paul Kagame   Rwandan genocide   Tutsi   Victoire Ingabire Rwandan opposition politician Victoire Ingabire has been sentenced to 8 years in prison by the Rwandan High Court, according to local journalists in Kigali. A relatively mild sentence as the prosecutor was demanding life imprisonment. Sophie van Leeuwen and Saskia Houttuin Ingabire, the president of UDF-Inkingi, has been found guilty of treason and genocide denial. She was convicted of financing a terrorist group, the FDLR rebels in eastern DRC, but cleared on several other charges. Not happy The verdict has clearly been influenced by international pressure on the Rwandan government, says Ingabire's daughter Raissa. "Without that, my mother's situation would be worse, much worse." Raissa, who lives in the Netherlands, is not happy with the 8-year sentence and continues to insist her mother is innocent. In Rwanda, the vice president of UDF-Inkingi, Boniface Twagirimana, is not satisfied either. Ingabire deserves to be a free woman, he says. "Just like all political opponents in this country who have been accused of similar crimes." President of Rwanda After spending years in exile in the Netherlands, Victoire Ingabire, who is part of the Hutu community, returned to Rwanda with the intention of running in the 2010 presidential elections. When she arrived in Kigali, as chairman of the Unified Democratic Forces (UDF), she called for the prosecution of those responsible for crimes against Hutus. Shortly after making her statement, she was placed under house arrest. Meanwhile, incumbent President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi and leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), was re-elected. Ingabire was arrested in her Kigali home on 14 October 2010 for allegedly collaborating with a terrorist organisation, dividing the people of Rwanda and denying the 1994 genocide, during which an estimated 800,000 mostly ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed over a 100-day period. Fair trial? Detained in a prison in the Rwandan capital, Ingabire had boycotted her trial since April of this year. The opposition leader and her supporters accuse Kagame of trying to eliminate all political opponents. Human rights activists and foreign politicians have expressed doubts as to whether Victoire Ingabire was given a fair trial. Rwandan Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama told RNW, "it's after the trial that we should be able to say whether it was fair or transparent". Dutch MPs have also repeatedly raised questions about the rule of law in Rwanda. The Dutch authorities have assisted the Rwandan government several times by authorising searches of her home near Rotterdam and dispatching documents to be used as evidence at the trial in Kigali. Rwanda and the Netherlands have a judicial assistance agreement. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in documents published in 2011, wrote that it had no reason to doubt that Ingabire was being given a fair trial. "There is no clear and solid ground to reject Rwanda's request for assistance in the trial of Victoire Ingabire", the Ministry wrote.

UK rethinking budget support to Kagame’s Rwanda

[Includes audio] http://sfbayview.com/2012/uk-rethinking-budget-support-to-kagames-rwanda/ UK rethinking budget support to Kagame's Rwanda October 31, 2012 2 by Ann Garrison KPFA Evening News for Oct. 27, 2012 In a Sept. 11, 2012, story headlined "HRW confirms today Kagame's ongoing and unscrupulous support to M23" on Africa Global Village, Ambrose Nzeyimana writes: "Young people without official employment across Rwanda are being rounded up. On Aug. 23, 2012, this group was taken into police custody (near) the Rwandan capital. Sources in the country confirm that some of these young people end up forcibly given accelerated military training with the ultimate purpose of sending them into DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to reinforce M23 contingent of fighters. And this appears unfortunate knowing that recent cuts or delays of aid from donor countries were a consequence to Rwandan support to that Congolese rebel movement." KPFA Evening News Anchor Cameron Jones: The International Development Committee of the British Parliament's House of Commons has announced that it will examine the controversial decision to disburse budget support to the government of Rwanda after first withholding it in response to U.N. investigators' reports that Rwanda is behind the M23 militia fighting and seizing territory in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story. KPFA/Ann Garrison: Outgoing British Department of International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell made the decision to restore 16 million pounds in unrestricted budget support to the government of Rwanda. But the London Guardian reported that the decision actually came from 10 Downing Street, meaning from Prime Minister David Cameron himself. Budget support, a term more readily understood in Europe than in the U.S., means unrestricted foreign aid that takes the place of tax revenue the government does not have. The U.N. Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo asked whether such aid was not being used to finance Rwanda and Uganda's war in Congo. Defenders of budget support to Rwanda say that the U.K. is obliged to help poor Rwandans, but many Congolese and Rwandan activists say that the billions of dollars, pounds and Euros that Rwanda has received since the 1994 Rwanda Genocide have strengthened a repressive regime, corrupted the elite of Rwandan President Paul Kagame's party, and enabled Rwanda's war and resource plunder in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ambrose Nzeyimana, a Rwandan exile, activist and journalist, who writes about this on his blog, "The Rising Continent," spoke to KPFA today from London. Ambrose Nzeyimana Ambrose Nzeyimana: Effectively, the Rwandan government has received a lot of money after the Rwandan Genocide, and the Rwandan people need international support. But what has happened with all that support? The Rwandan Patriotic Front regime – which has been ruling the country since then – they used that money to oppress the population, restrict every sort of human rights that you can imagine. The country has been really like a prison. That's why you see all political leaders in prison: Victoire Ingabire of FDU, Bernard Ntaganda of PS-Imberakuri and Deo Mushayidi. All that has been happening because the regime has received full support financially, even political support. But all those who are praising the regime, they forget that at the same time Paul Kagame has been involved in Congo, since 1996, when, in partnership with Uganda and Burundi, they invaded the Congo. And since then Rwanda has created militia groups, many in the eastern part of Congo, and there they have used those groups to plunder mineral resources – in fact to steal the wealth of Congo for their own benefit. KPFA: And that was Ambrose Nzeyimana, Rwandan exile and blogger in London, who will be submitting evidence in argument against British aid to Rwanda at the British Parliament's International Development Committee. For more on Rwanda's war in Congo and on Rwanda's Western backers, see the San Francisco Bay View,sfbayview.com. For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison. Afterword The deadline for submitting evidence in support of the argument against U.K. budget support to Rwanda is Nov. 1. The instructions for submitting evidence are at this link: New inquiry: UK Aid to Rwanda. The committee has not said when it will complete its review and respond. Nor have they indicated how much authority their conclusion or recommendation will have. The United States is also a major donor to Rwanda, not only of budget support, but also of weapons, military training, military facilities, and military intelligence and logistics, but it has withdrawn no more than a nominal $200,000 in aid to a Rwandan military academy and is not known to be considering further cuts in any sort of aid to the current Rwandan regime. Rwandan "peacekeepers" on the African continent and in Haiti serve in accordance with NATO foreign policy objectives. San Francisco writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions,Black Star News, the Newsline EA (East Africa) and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces forAfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, Weekend News on KPFA and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison's independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.   You may also like - Verdict pending: Victoire Ingabire and D.R. Congo Africans call on the ICC to investigate Rwanda's Kagame Obama could end Congo's human catastrophe Share on tumblrShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailMore Sharing Services Related Posts Verdict pending: Victoire Ingabire and D.R. Congo Sanford Weill and Paul Kagame: Doctors of Humane Letters? White man's burden: Affleck and Prendergast in Congress for Congo No funds for tasers or war criminals: Stop state violence in San Francisco and Congo Obama take heed: French judge files charges against Kagame allies

Implicated in Congo crimes, Rwanda’s Gen. Kagame has bigger headache than silencing Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, opposition chief

http://sfbayview.com/2012/implicated-in-congo-crimes-rwandas-gen-kagame-has-bigger-headache-than-silencing-victoire-ingabire-umuhoza-opposition-chief/ Implicated in Congo crimes, Rwanda's Gen. Kagame has bigger headache than silencing Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, opposition chief October 30, 2012 5   Because of Rwanda's support of M23 terrorists in Congo, the U.S. cut some aid to Rwanda as have some European countries Editorial by Milton Allimadi, Black Star News The sham treason trial of Rwanda's top opposition leader, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, has finally ended with her expected conviction. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, unbowed by tyranny, looks regal despite her pink prison garb and shaved head. The U.S., which recently cut aid to Rwanda for its role in Congo atrocities, must call for Umuhoza's release. She has been sentenced to eight years in prison by a kangaroo court. Her conviction by the kangaroo court must be set aside. And what was her real crime? Umuhoza, an ethnic Hutu, had declared that genuine reconciliation in Rwanda can't occur until the authorities acknowledge that in addition to Tutsis, Hutus were also massacred during the 1994 ethnic killings. For taking this honest position, Umuhoza was arrested and charged with historical revisionism, inciting ethnic hatred and also "genocide denial." She never had a chance at a fair trial. Her chief counsel, Peter Erlinder, an American law professor, was arrested earlier during the trial, imprisoned and also threatened with charges of "genocide denial" before being expelled from the country after an international outcry. In truth, the charges against Umuhoza and the trial were convenient ways to prevent her from participating in Rwanda's last presidential elections, which many observers believe she would have won. Rwanda's dictator, Gen. Paul Kagame, was declared the winner with unheard of margins – the kind of election results that used to be associated with leaders of the Soviet Union. Umuhoza was convicted for being brave and daring to challenge the Gen. Kagame regime. In truth, the charges against Umuhoza and the trial were convenient ways to prevent her from participating in Rwanda's last presidential elections, which many observers believe she would have won. But Gen. Kagame himself has a much bigger headache. For years Kagame was granted a blank check by Western countries that credited him with halting the ethnic killings of 1994. That conventional narrative of Gen. Kagame as Rwanda's savior has been under increasing scrutiny lately. On Nov. 17, 2006, a French investigative judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière, indicted several senior Rwanda military officers for the assassination of Rwanda's then President Juvenal Habyarimana and for sparking Rwanda's 1994 massacres. The judge said Kagame should stand trial for ordering the April 6, 1994, downing with missiles of the plane that carried Habyarimana; he perished with Burundi's President Cyprien Ntaryamira, who was traveling with him. According to the French judge, Gen. Kagame's plan was to cynically use the chaos and mass killings that he knew would follow the assassination to seize power and be hailed as a liberator. At the time of Habyarimana's assassination, Kagame's Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), which had launched a war of aggression in October 1990 from Uganda, backed by Yoweri Museveni, was inking a peace deal to stop four years of warfare. For years Kagame had dismissed the charges by the French judge as a cover-up by France to mask that country's own role in backing Habyarimana's regime for years. Yet Gen. Kagame's alleged involvement in subsequent atrocities now make it harder to maintain the conventional narrative's fantasies. In 2010 the United Nations so-called "Mapping Report" documented the massacres of Hutu refugees inside the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by Kagame's army. More recently, in June, Gen. Kagame's army was implicated in a new United Nations Group of Experts' report in the on-going massacres of civilians in Congo by a Rwanda backed group called M23. Rwanda's Gen. James Kaberebe, Rwanda's defense minister who is implicated in the June U.N. report, was also indicted by Judge Bruguière in 2006 for the assassination of Habyarimana. It's possible the regime may have announced Umuhoza's conviction – after several delays – to deflect attention from Gen. Kagame's own crisis and as a negotiating carrot with his Western sponsors. As a result of the United Nations' findings, the United States has cut some aid to Rwanda as have some European countries. Congo's government has called on the United Nations Security Council action against Rwanda; meanwhile Congolese and Rwandan activists want war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Gen. Kagame, a prospect that doesn't seem totally unlikely anymore. Given this backdrop, it's possible the regime may have announced Umuhoza's conviction – after several delays – to deflect attention from Gen. Kagame's own crisis and as a negotiating carrot with his Western sponsors. Nevertheless, a sham trial is a sham trial. Umuhoza must be released unconditionally or granted an impartial fully-monitored trial, with counsel of her choice. Her conviction by the kangaroo court must be set aside. Milton Allimadi, publisher and editor in chief of The Black Star News, New York's leading Pan African weekly investigative newspaper, where this story first appeared, can be reached at Milton@blackstarnews.com. Allimadi has also worked for The Journal of Commerce, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The City Sun.   You may also like - Free African political prisoner Victoire Ingabire Africa advocates to Obama: Don't recognize Kagame's election Paul Kagame's desperate days Share on tumblrShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailMore Sharing Services Related Posts Rwanda is no excuse for the U.S. to intervene in Sudan Bill Clinton, the genocider who just might get away Need to examine U.S. complicity in Africa Genocide African Union threatens withdrawal from United Nations Rwanda's Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza speaks to Women's International News Gathering Service