Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

Rwanda: Silencing Dissent

BY A BOMBASTIC ELEMENT
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Want a study in slant? Compare Rwanda's New Times report on opposition leader Victoire Ingabire, which uses words like "interception" and "attempted escape" to pile on her "guilt," to the AFP report which insists Ingabire "was not arrested but required to remain in Rwanda for further questioning, police spokesman Eric Kayiranga told AFP." This comes as no surprise since New Times editor already, point blank, told everyone in that Geoffrey York's Globe and Mail piece that:

"The managing director of the New Times, Joseph Bideri, confirmed that the newspaper refuses to give any “space” to Ms. Ingabire's responses. He wrote a personal letter to her on Jan. 22, vowing she would never get a “platform” in the newspaper because she is a “genocide denier.” In an interview, however, Mr. Bideri was unable to provide any evidence that Ms. Ingabire denies the genocide. In fact, in her public speeches and in a lengthy interview with The Globe and Mail, she repeatedly acknowledged and condemned the 1994 genocide. She draws a distinction between the slaughter of the Tutsis – which she calls a genocide – and the killings of many Hutus, which she describes as a "crime against humanity."

Texas in Africa thinks the Tutsi suppression is a blockhead strategy:

"I hope (but doubt) that the donor governments will have the good sense to call Kagame out on these abuses of his power. The fight over whether any of Ingabire's comments constitute "genocide ideology" or genocide denial will serve as a front for what this is really about: the fact that Kagame doesn't want to allow a significant challenge to his power. I think this is an irrational stance. The RPF could stand on its record of re-establishing security and rebuilding the economy against an opposition that has no accomplishments to speak of. This strategy might actually overcome the problem of ethnically-based voting in which citizens vote on the basis of ethnicity along. But by continuing to silence dissent and pretend that ethnicity doesn't matter to most Rwandans, Kagame lets resentment of the RPF's rule fester".

AllAfrica puts all the pieces together - here.

posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 7:59 PM