Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

INTIMIDATION, BRIBERY, BLACKMAIL, EVEN ASSASSINATION WILL NOT DETER NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS IN ITS QUEST FOR A DEMOCRATIC AND JUST SOCIETY IN RWANDA

By Dr. Augustin DUKUZE
Spokesperson
National Democratic Congress
November 28, 2010

Over several months, the National Democratic Congress, NDC, a coalition of RUD-Urunana and RPR has been receiving reliable information that several members of its constitutive organizations have been consistently targeted by operatives of the Kagame regime both in Rwanda and outside Rwanda. Such covert and/or overt actions have intensified after the publication of the UN report that has incriminated Paul Kagame and his army in horrendous crimes perpetrated against Rwandan refugees and Congolese citizens in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The information at our disposal indicates clearly that the Kigali regime has dispatched score of operatives throughout our homeland as well as in foreign lands with specific mission to recruit, bribe, blackmail, intimidate, even kill anyone deemed to openly denounce the deeds of Paul Kagame and his cronies. The modus operandi is simple: approaching the targeted person directly or via the relatives and/or acquaintance of the person of interest. Once the contact is made, he/she is offered either money and/or political favor in exchange of either joining the regime camp and/or turning against his/her former companions. In the latter case, the individual is required to trumpet publicly fabricated charges concocted by the regime. If the person were to refuse, he/she becomes instantly a target of a well orchestrated campaign of character assassination, intimidation, blackmail, and/or imprisonment.

In the wake of the recent UN report that mapped the crimes committed in the DRC and the unflattering “Rwanda Briefing” made public by Kagame old friends, the regime operatives have even been asking some members to testify against the report and/or to stay away from the recent RPF dissidents under the premise that the briefing authors were under investigation for “serious crimes”.

Our organization would like to strongly denounce such tactics of the Kigali regime that has been using taxpayers’ money of donor countries to target its own citizens who only want to exert their fundamental rights and basic freedoms. After the sham election that Paul Kagame won with a Stalinist result, after assassinating independent journalists and throwing in prison leaders of opposition political parties, the Kigali regime has shown its true colors: a criminal, oppressive, and dictatorial regime.

Instead of pulling together all the little resources the country has, the regime has been sending all over the world political representation with the aim to downplay the findings of the UN report as well as the statements contained in the Rwanda Briefing dossier. While the regime is not helping the great majority of Rwandans who do not have enough to feed their own families, who can not afford to send their children to school, Kagame and his cronies are living opulently and spending huge sums to bribe, blackmailing, and silencing their political opponents.

Currently, there are reports stating that the Rwandan embassies throughout Europe have been spending undisclosed sums of money to entice few members of Rwandan Diaspora to attend Kagame’s propaganda rally that will take place in Belgium on Dec. 4/10. To put it simply, this is symptomatic of a regime that is out of touch of the real challenges the ordinary Rwandan citizen is facing on daily basis.

Our coalition would like to unequivocally denounce and strongly condemn the climate of fear, terror, assassination, and repression that is prevalent in the country mainly against those suspected of dissent.

Therefore, we ask the regime to proceed immediately and unconditionally to the release of all the political prisoners, those of opinion as well as innocent citizens who have been and still are languishing in Kagame’s notorious prisons. In case of refusal, we would like to call upon the International Community to take appropriate actions in denouncing and isolating the Kagame’s dictatorial regime. This could be in form of stopping or at least putting conditions on the bilateral aid to force the regime to engage without delay with the Rwandan opposition in order to find common grounds that would spare our country another tragedy.

As our organization has always pointed out, the Rwandan problem is political in nature and requires political solutions. In order to build a genuine democratic society in our homeland, the root causes of the rampant political instability must be genuinely and fairly addressed. It is our firm conviction that as long as the underlying causes of the

Rwandan political problem would not be tackled the seeds of instability and devastation will always be lurking in Rwanda as well as in the region.

In order to foster a reconciliatory Justice system, the only foundation of genuine Reconciliation, we urgently ask to hold, under the auspices of the International Community, an Inter-Rwandan Dialogue. In addition, our organization calls for the organization of a "Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation" Commission in our homeland that would help heal a traumatized society.

It is our firm conviction that it is only such a Dialogue that would lead to lasting peace, stability, and cement the foundation of a truly democratic system in which new political, judiciary, and security institutions would be the reflection of the legitimate aspirations of all the constitutive groups of the Rwandan society.

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posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 12:14 AM