Rwanda: Mrs. Ingabire and collaborators in prison?

By Gaspard Musabyimana
February 6, 2009

Also available in French.

In its issue of February 6, 2010, The New Times newspaper reported that Mr. Joseph Ntawangundi who is the assistant of Mrs. Victoire Ingabire, the challenger of Paul Kagame in the 2010 presidential elections, was convicted by the Gacaca courts to 19 years in prison for killing two students at the High school where he was director in 1994. On February 3, 2010, Mr. Joseph Ntawangundi has been beaten up by RPF militia men inside the administrative building of the Kinyinya Sector within the outskirts of Kigali City.

As indicated in today’s UDF-Inkingi press release, Mr. Ntawangundi was not in Rwanda in 1994. He left Rwanda in 1986 for university studies at Wroclaw in Poland. He returned to Rwanda in 1992 and worked for the Workers Union (CESTRAR) in Kigali. In 1993, Mr. Ntawangundi was hired by ICFTU- AFRO (International Confederation for Free Trade Unions-African Regional Organization) based in Nairobi, Kenya until 2002. During the 1994 genocide, Mr. Ntawangundi was attending, on behalf of the ICFTU – AFRO, a 2-month training course in Sweden (GANGNEF) after which he returned back to Kenya. He has never been in the Rwandan education sector as claimed by The New Times newspaper.

Since the arrival of Mrs. Victoire Ingabire in Rwanda, this pro-Kagame daily newspaper has been recklessly issuing fabricated stories against Mrs. Ingabire without giving her any right of response, in total disregard of media ethics. The New Times newspaper channeled lies after lies. This pure fabrication against Mr. Ntawangundi is not last because the RPF lie propaganda machinery is expert in this area.

The article in The New Times clearly points out what has been repeatedly denounced by many NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, the Center for the Fight against Impunity and Injustice in Rwanda (CLIIR) or Rwandan political opposition in exile. They all showed how, over the years, the Gacaca courts have been particularly hijacked by Rwandan authorities in order to get rid of their opponents.

This case against Mr. Ntawangundi adds up to the one targeting Mrs. Ingabire’s mother whom The New Times reported that she was sentenced by the Gacaca courts for killing babies when she was a nurse. All of these big lies designed to bar the road to a political challenger.

The Gacaca courts are a disgrace to justice in Rwanda. They condemned the younger brother of late President Juvenal Habyarimana “for having plundered and eaten cows belonging to the Tutsis” despite the fact he died in 1989. They also condemned the former university official, Anastase Nkuranga, when he was dead for several months in exile in Brussels.

Shame also goes to the journalists of The New Times newspaper who are still willing to perform this dirty work and publish such nonsense. Where is the media ethics? They should think about the future of their profession because of these successive RPF blunders are a harbinger that Kagame’s era is coming to an end.

As I was writing this article, I learnt that the residencial home of Mrs. Victorr Ingabire and her staff was surrounded by the police. The group has been picked up by the police and taken to the police station.

Note:
This article has been translated from its French original version by Mamadou Kouyate. Only the French version shall prevail.

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