Danger and Volatility in Rwanda

By Khante
March 27, 2010

On March 25, 2010, President Paul Kagame said that he is ready to do whatever it takes to protect the nation from ill-intentioned people.

He made such remarks while officiating at the swearing-in ceremony of two new Members of Parliament: Hamidou Omar and Athanasie Gahondogo, as well as the Deputy Ombudsman, Bernadette Kanzayire.

Kagame assured the country of full protection and security, and that he will not tolerate anything that causes insecurity, adding that the recent incidents were minor.

Kagame also said that those who fought for the country are still there and are ready to fight once again for the security of the country. Nobody should play with the security of the Rwandan people, he added.

However, the RPF mouthpiece newspaper, The New Times, intentionally failed to mentione such a statement in their article, probably in order to fool the international donors.

When Kagame talks about Rwandan security, nobody should get confused because he is only talking about his own security. He wants to stay on power to avoid to face justice. He knows that when he will lose his presidential immunity, he may face justice for several crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by his troops in Rwanda and in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He is not willing to open up the political space in Rwanda because he already knows that he will surely lose any free and fair election. This is why he will try to maintain himself on power by all means until he dies in office. He will always attempt to cause chaos and put the blame on his opponents when his security could be in danger.

In his 7 April 2007 commemoration of genocide, delivered in Murambi , Rwanda , President Paul Kagame said that the RPF Army made a mistake: they should have finished off all the Hutus before they fled to Congo ( Zaire ), and they should have finished off all those who returned, when they had the chance. Kagame’s supporters, both emboldened and embarrassed by his words, issued a sanitized version of this speech; the original version has disappeared from public view.

On April 30, 2003 in Bwisige, Rebero-Byumba, President Paul Kagame said similar thing in Kinyarwanda warning those who claim to have corn or sorghum harvest that he already has grinding machines specifically designed to grind such a harvest.

Should violence erupt anytime soon in Rwanda, President Paul Kagame along with his army and Local Defense militia (Intore) might bear full responsibility of such a chaos. As Mrs. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the leading figure of the Rwandan opposition and chairperson of the United Democratic Forces (UDF-Inkingi) has always claimed, there is no need for more blood shed to implement democratic principles in Rwanda.

However, without US and UK pressure on the Kagame's regime, violence may indeed erupt once again anytime. As the major donors and supporters of post-genocide Rwanda, the US and UK need to be involved to make sure there is smooth transition to democratic governance, which in turn will provide more stable institutions and economy.

Otherwise, the millions of taxpayer dollars that we used to help rebuild Rwanda would have gone to waste since war might erupt again.