Another crisis in diplomatic relations between Rwanda and France

Dr Theogene Rudasingwa has his own views on the situation currently prevailing between the two countries. “Accepting Kagame’s belligerent diplomatic gambles is not only an unsustainable basis for bilateral Franco-Rwanda relations; it is an extremely dangerous policy. It has far reaching and negative consequences for Rwanda, the Great Lakes region, Africa and international peace and security,” he explains.

Please read more from The Africa Global Village where the story first appeared.

Continuous inhuman treatment of Rwandan political prisoners

In a recent interview to The Chronicles, Senator Tito Rutaremara, one of the founders of the political regime in power in Rwanda since 1994 stressed to the journalist interviewing him that their Rwandan Patriotic Front [RPF] had developed, “The structures [that] will remain for more than 200 years, but we will never create a president who will remain for 200 years. We are not God.”

Unfortunately, among these many implicitly pointed at structures that the senator mentioned, there are continuous inhuman mistreatments of Rwandan political prisoners, such as the most recent case that the leader of PS Imberakuri, Me Bernard Ntaganda, was victim of. Let’s not forget the plight of other political prisoners including Victoire Ingabire, Deo Mushayigi, Charles Ntakirutimana, and hundreds more.

Please read below, as reported by PS-Imberakuri party, the full details of how the political leader currently imprisoned in Rwanda since June 2010 was treated by prison’s supervisors, certainly at the request of RPF structures, with the purpose of breaking the prisoner’s resistance to the political system that senator Rutaremara referred to.  

Africa Union and us [Africans]

From the perspective of those in power and with reference to those who are ruled [my emphasis], “Ignorance is strength,” said George Orwell. As long as those that leaders in any area of life claim to represent remain ignorant of critical issues that impact on their lives through decisions taken without their knowledge, obviously ignorance will be a means to an end for beneficiaries of the status quo.

It’s time we recognised the Blair government’s criminality

John Pilger writes, “It’s time we recognised the Blair government’s criminality.”

In an article published on his blog, John Pilger, points on state crimes committed against other nations under Blair government and how they were handled to fall under impunity.

He highlights, among other things, Blair’s links to the Rwandan government.

Deploying sinecures of “peace-making” and “development” that allow him to replenish the fortune accumulated since leaving Downing Street, Blair’s jackdaw travels are concentrated on the Gulf sheikhdoms, the US, Israel and safe havens like the small African nation of Rwanda.  Since 2007, Blair has made seven visits to Rwanda, where he has access to a private jet supplied by President Paul Kagame. Kagame’s regime, whose opponents have been silenced brutally on trumped-up charges, is “innovative” and a “leader” in Africa, says Blair.

To read the whole article, which is not about Rwanda only, please click here.

Somalia: a Western humanitarian intervention in preparation

A colleague I talked to recently asked me to suggest him some innovative ideas that could be of particular interest for discussion between young and older people and enable to bridge the generational gaps. Since I don’t watch Western television programmes because of their biased views on a number of world issues that serve their diverse and multiple interests – economic, political, cultural and others, I came up with the concept of debating the role of media in society. The discussion would be led by young people where they would interview/ discuss with older people on their views on bad and good reporting, and what policy changes they would want to see applied to the media industry.

Hassan El Ghayesh: a protester’s first-hand account of Tahir Square

This month is almost a year since Hosni Mubarak, president of Egypt until February 2011, was forced to leave power after a popular uprising which brought millions of Egyptians out of their homes and asked him persistently to go. Though the revolution was experienced in different parts of the country from Alexandria to Cairo and other smaller cities of lesser importance, Tahir Square in Central Cairo became the focal point from where the world witnessed the fall of the dictator.

Where are dissent voices inside Rwanda?

This seems to be a question only an alien creature, not familiar with Rwanda, could ask. But let’s pretend to be strangers to the country and find out where voices which don’t or didn’t dance to the tune set by the Rwandan Patriotic Front [RPF] could be.

Coming change to the country of people of integrity: Burkina Faso

The late president Thomas Sankara, after his military coup in 1984, renamed his country, previously called Haute Volta, Burkina Faso, or the country of people of integrity. As his short lived life would show, he was on a transformative journey for his nation and compatriots into a complete different society. His revolution comrade and friend soldier Blaise Compaore, would betray the ideals their group pursued and got him assassinated in October 1987. Since then he has been leading the country until today, this means for almost 25 years.

Africa: dispossession across the board

There are many happenings we don’t notice because of multiple and diverse reasons, some that we have control over and others that we don’t. But whatever our position towards those occurrences, they impact on us either directly or indirectly. Dispossession across Africa is one of them.

Firoze Manji, in the first article [The courage to invent the future] of the book – Africa Awakening The Emerging Revolutions -, explains the context and scale of that phenomenon of dispossession on the African continent. If you are African, relatively informed of what is happening in your own country, you will certainly be able to relate easily to what Manji is highlighting in the following extract of the mentioned book.

Rwandan Democracy Day removed from official celebrations

On January 28th, 2012, it was normally the 51st anniversary of the proclamation of democracy as a principle of governance in Rwanda. Unfortunately, apart from the spirit which inspired the national celebrations held on January 28th, 1961 at Gitarama, as times tell us, the country was going to fall into autocratic regimes, first under Kayibanda [president 1962 – 1973] and Habyarimana [president 1973 – 1994], and even criminal, under Kagame, each one with their own specificities. All these regimes left a narrow space if any to dissent voices, contrary to what usually prevails under democratic institutions.

But what really happened on that day of 1961 which has made the Rwandan Patriotic Front of Paul Kagame, which is today ruling Rwanda, go all the length to destroy everything, – historic references including desecrating graves of Hutus nationalists of that time, related to the first ever Democracy Day in Rwandan history ? F. Rudakemwa explains the context and significance in the following article which was published in French in Rome on 22 January 2008. Its English translation is mine.

January 28, 1961: Democracy Day