Rwanda: U.S. Lawyers to Defend Rwandan Opposition Leader Victoire Umuhoza

NEWS ADVISORY
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza for President
April 22, 2010

Contact:
The International Humanitarian Law Institute, St. Paul, MN, USA
Director, Prof. Peter Erlinder,
Assoc. Director, Gena Bergland
651-290-6384
peter.erlinder@wmitchell.edu

U.S. Lawyers to Defend Jailed Rwandan Opposition Presidential Candidate Victoire Ingabire

KIGALI, RWANDA/ST. PAUL, MN, USA – April 22, 2010-- Rwandan opposition presidential candidate Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza was released on bail one day after being jailed by the Kagame government of Rwanda . General Paul Kagame, her would-be opponent in an apparent re-run of the 2003 sham “elections” that brought Kagame to power with 95% of the vote, when opposition parties were outlawed and opposition candidates jailed or exiled, according to: EU election monitors and confirmed by Human Rights Watch and the British Commonwealth Human Rights Institute. According to Ingabire’s U.S. lawyer Peter Erlinder:

"Ingabire was arrested on trumped-up, political thought-crimes, including: association with a terrorist group, propagating the genocide ideology, genocide denial, revisionism and divisionism, all arising from the “crime” of publicly objecting to the Kagame military dictatorship, and Kagame’s version of the Rwandan history."

Erlinder is Professor of Constitutional Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law at Wm. Mitchell College of Law, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger’s Minnesota alma mater. Erlinder is also Lead Defense Counsel in the Military-1 trial at the UN Tribunal for Rwanda , the case in which it found four former top military leaders acquitted of conspiring or planning to commit genocide or any other crimes, and the highest ranking defendant was acquitted of all charges on December 18, 2008 . Erlinder is also President of ICTR-ADAD (Association des Avocats de la Defense), past-President of the National Lawyers Guild, NY, NY and Director of the International Humanitarian Law Institute, St. Paul, MN. According to Erlinder:

“the arrest of Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza in the run-up to the 2010 election is a carbon copy of Kagame’s tactics in 2003 when all serious political challengers were jailed or expelled from the country, including former Kagame loyalists, like former Rwandan President and Prime Minister Pasteur Bizimungu and Faustin Twagiramungu. In 2003 Kagame declared all opposition political parties illegally divisionist, which he has recently repeated with Rwanda ’s Green Party and Madame Ingabire’s UDF-Inkingi…” Kagame pioneered the same election tactics in Rwanda that earned international condemnation for Zimbabwe ’s Mugabe.”

Hundreds of hutu and tutsi former Kagame supporters have gone into exile in the recent past, including: the former Speaker of the Rwandan Parliament; the Rwandan Ambassador to the Netherlands (who granted Madame Ingirabire’s visa to return to Rwanda in January); numerous senior military officers and political figures, and Paul Rusesabagina, the Don Cheadle role in the movie Hotel Rwanda .

In late February 2010 notes reported to reflect Kagame’s meeting with Rwandan ambassadors (who had not yet gone into exile) targeted seven non-Rwandan lawyers, journalists and academics for discrediting or assassination. Erlinder’s name was one of those on the list. Erlinder expressed concerns for his own safety when he travels to Rwanda to defend Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. With this history we all have to take Kagame’s threat seriously. The Ingabire Defense Team insists that: “the Obama administration; President Dennis Byron of the UN Rwanda Tribunal and the Kagame government provide safe-passage guarantees for Madame Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza and all defense team members, while we are defending democratic principles and human rights in Rwanda.”

Recently, U.S. political scientists, Dr. Alan Stam of the University of Michigan, and Dr. Christian Davenport of the University of Notre Dame have documented all reported crimes committed in Rwanda during 1994 and have concluded that both warring sides committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Now that Ingabire has been released, Erlinder insists that Kagame’s Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama ensure respect for democratic principles, and the Rule of Law, by: (a) the immediate return of all computers, political or personal documents and other items seized from Madame Ingabire’s home; (b) removal of all restrictions on Madame Ingabire’s ability to campaign among the Rwandan people, including the return of her passport and elimination of police reporting requirements; (c) full-recognition of her political party, the UDF-Inkingi, and other Rwandan opposition political parties; (d) full access to the press and the media, and an end to intimidation tactics against opposition political activities; (e) safe passage for members of Ingabire’s defense team.

Contact:
The International Humanitarian Law Institute, St. Paul, MN, USA
Director, Prof. Peter Erlinder,
Assoc. Director, Gena Bergland
651-290-6384
peter.erlinder@wmitchell.edu