Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

IBUKABOSE INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST APARTHEID IN RWANDA

By JMV Ndagijimana
France-Rwanda Tribune
December 15, 2009

[-Translated from its original French version by Mamadou Kouyate. Only the French version shall prevail.]

The political system established in Rwanda by the regime of Paul Kagame is characterized by systematic discrimination in all aspects. The most sophisticated form of this exclusion appears on a daily basis in sectors (local municipalities) where all citizens should freely enjoy equal opportunities.

- Memorial Apartheid: the right to remember one’s victims is prohibited to most of the Rwandan population on the basis of their ethnic origins. Only citizens from Tutsi ethnic background have the right to commemorate the memory of their loved ones who were tragically lost during the 1994 genocide.

Citizens of other ethnic backgrounds i.e. Hutu and Twa who are victims of massacres of genocidal character committed by RPF soldiers do not have the right to honor the memory of their murdered relatives under the penalty of criminal prosecution. These discriminatory practices have been repeatedly denounced by Rwandan citizens from all ethnic backgrounds who see in such practices a serious infringement of the constitutional principle of equal opportunity for all citizens.

- Judicial Apartheid: the right to fill a complaint to the infamous Gacaca tribunals and/or the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is officially refused to victims and survivors from Hutu and Twa backgrounds apparently regarded as second class citizens. This medieval apartheid system de facto grants impunity to members of the RPF ruling party who are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of our compatriots.

In other places and other times such a system used to be called Apartheid.

IBUKABOSE rejects this apartheid system of another age and calls upon all Rwandan Democrats and Friends of Rwanda to support the International Campaign IBUKABOSE against this new form of racism strangely supported by some foreign powers for reasons that are contrary to genuine Rwandan national reconciliation.

The realpolitik alone does not suffice to explain such a criminal complicity with the Kagame’s regime which has institutionalized ethnic discrimination in a system of terror and oppression against its own people.

TOGETHER, WITH IBUKABOSE CAMPAIGN, LET’S PLEDGE TO BRING DOWN THE WALL OF FEAR, SILENCE AND APARTHEID IN RWANDA. YES WE CAN!

Note:
-Ibukabose is a Rwandan word that closely translates into "remember all" in English.

-Rwanda did not suffer from “ancient hatreds” between Hutu killers and Tutsi victims. “It suffered from modern demagogues, from the ex-FAR [Forces Armees Rwandaises], from the Interahamwe, from Radio Mille Collines. It suffered from those who were willing to kill in the warped name of ethnic difference, from those who saw division and death as a path to power. And it suffered from an international community, international institutions, and individual governments -including my own-that failed to act in the face of a vast, unfolding evil.”-Susan Rice's speech on April 7, 2009.

-I know that all Rwandans, be they here or scattered worldwide, do not necessarily feel welcomed in the ceremonies of remembrance organized by the Rwandan authorities during this week. The reasons are many and some are quite understandable. But in my message addressed today in priority to all Rwandans, I just want to say that the time is not to argue but to only remember all the victims. This time is not for division but for rallying the "never again!” slogan.-Karel De Gucht's speech on April 7, 2009.

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posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 9:22 AM