Public protests held on 8/3/10 and 9/3/10 in London by the Rwandan community against RPF policies

By Initiative Victoire 2010
March 9, 2010

The public transport in Central London was not on its best as protesters had to take diverted routes to get to the rendez-vous. The total number of participants was 24. Comparatively, this is a good turn out for Londoners who don’t support Kigali. Of course there were a few people from Belgium and other cities in UK. The message as initially announced was to call for democracy and justice in Rwanda.

Besides our location, the police had given space to our Rwandan compatriots who support Paul Kagame. As the time passed, members from our two groups started interacting. Though we have different views on the policies of Paul Kagame, some know each other.

Paul Kagame arrived in an escorted car and entered the premises of the Commonwealth Secretariat past 9.00 am. We had been placed a bit far away from the main building where the event was taking place. Consequently, we were not seeing what was happening inside.

Passed 11.00 am, Paul Kagame’s escort came out. After his departure, there was an opportunity to talk to the media: BBC Gahuzamiryango, Vox Africa, and Voice of America. We also gave a short interview to a reporter of the Commonwealth Newsletter.

Overall everything went well. We hope the message is reaching out to the targeted audience.

Tuesday 9/3/10: Rwandans and Congolese against RPFMuch colder than it was the day before when the protest was in front of The Commonwealth Secretariat, even the number of protesters had dropped a bit to 15 people. Instead, our compatriots from RPF were in a much higher number. Coaches had brought many of them from different parts of the UK.

With the help of the police, when tensions seemed to rise between our two groups, they managed to get them down, asking people to remain in their reserved areas and not shouting at others.

Paul Kagame arrived by the back door of the hall where he was meant to give his talk. With some insiders in the conference room, we got a brief of what he said which is of interest to our grievances regarding his handling of the democratic process back home.

Among the six questions which were allowed after his talk, the representative of Amnesty International asked him if the people who had attacked Victoire Ingabire and her Assistant, had been taken to court, judged and punished for what they did. He replied saying that people had taken what happened to that lady out of context. The president pursued explaining that, (of course lying on this) Victoire, as a Rwandan doing politics, she was no different from any other citizen. As President he cannot control what ever happened to every Rwandan at any single given time. The institutions are there to care for similar incidents, he concluded.

After his talk he left the place by the same entrance he used to get in the building. Neither of our antagonist groups got a glimpse of him. But his entourage passed closer to where we were, either for getting in or leaving the building.

We left in a good spirit agreeing on the fact that we would be much more on the 7th of April in front of the BBC here in London. We asked every one to bring at least one person to next protest. We thank people who came from Belgium to support our action.

During that protest we learned from some RPF protesters that they were there because they needed to defend their positions and were not very convinced of the reasons they were there. Some even went further to say that in the future we may exchange roles, us supporting and them being against.

Note:
Initiative Victoire 2010 is a Party-independent Group supporting Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.

Related Materials:
Rwanda President Kagame Vs Journalists

AI:Intimidation of opposition parties must end

Human Rights Watch: End Attacks on Opposition Parties

Rwanda splurges on luxury jets