Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

Will the real Kagame please stand up?

By Herman
African Dictator
July 3, 2011

In various newspapers yesterday (Sat 2 July 2011), the President of Rwanda Paul Kagame was featured in five stories and in five different locations.

What was also striking is how radically the stories differed from each other – from an inspirational and accomplished leader to a killer. Which leads to a key question: of the sharply different portrayals of the Rwandan President, which one is the real Mr. Kagame?

Kagame 1: an “outstanding leader”?

In his home country, Rwanda, The New Times’s main headline read: “Kagame receives Humanitarian Award from Chello Foundation.”

A smiling Mr Kagame is shown receiving the award from the Foundation’s chairman Mr Shane O’Neill and CEO of Liberty Global Mr Mike Fries in London, UK.

The award was bestowed on the President for his “outstanding leadership of the Republic of Rwanda since 1994.” Former British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, who introduced Mr Kagame described him as “an inspirational leader in Africa.”

Kagame 2: the missing head of state


In Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, the news coverage was still largely about African heads of state and the just concluded African Union Summit.

Most notable absentees from the AU Summit as reported, were Mr Paul Kagame, Colonel Ghaddafi of Libya, and General Bashir of Sudan.

Kagame 3: the suspect in killing an exiled Ugandan colonel


In Kampala, Uganda, one of the main headlines in Daily Monitor of Saturday 2 July 2011 was “Rwanda refutes role in Muzoora’s death.” Mr Kagame’s Ambassador General Frank Mugambage was quoted saying: “Rwanda has absolutely nothing to do with Muzoora’s death. I want to make it clear that he has never passed through Rwanda.”

Kagame 4: suspect in an attempted assassination of an exiled Rwandan general


In Johannesburg, South Africa, Mr Kagame featured in various newspapers including News24.com.
Kagame’s current prominence is due to the trial of Rwandan and other foreign nationals on the attempted assassination of General Kayumba Nyamwasa. Prior to the trial, telephone conversations between General Jack Nziza, the Permanent Secretary of Rwanda’s Ministry of Defence, and hired operatives hired to plan and execute the killing of General Kayumba were leaked to the media.
In the headline story for 2 July 2011 titled “SA Trial raises concerns over Rwanda,” Jennifer Cooke of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a US think tank spoke for many when she said: “The fact is that these kinds of allegations are mounting.”

Here are new leaked audio recordings between Kagame’s henchmen discussing assassination plans (Sourced from Umuvugizi):

– Recording 1
- Recording 2

Kagame 5: the mastermind in elimination of Rwandan hero General Rwigema

On the same day 2 July 2011, a blogger on the internet named Kananga was making extraordinary charges against the Rwandan President Kagame.

Kananga describes in a chilling account of how Mr Kagame, at the time with a military rank of Major, manipulated Ugandan and Rwandan leaders with one central goal: removal of General Fred Rwigema. Mr Kagame is also shown to have wiped out Rwandan senior commandants he used to eliminate General Rwigema.

Which is the real Kagame?

The most curious portrayals in the above 5 is Kagame as an outstanding leader.

• The Chello Foundation is a charity that currently works with NGOs in Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and South Africa on education of orphans. The Foundation has never worked in Rwanda – it says at some point “in the longer term, we plan to work in Tanzania and Rwanda.”
• Liberty Global is a cable operator offering video, telephone and broadband internet services with no presence in Africa.

How then would the Chairman of the Chello Foundation and CEO of Liberty Global determine if Mr Kagame has provided an “outstanding leadership of the Republic of Rwanda since 1994”?

One thing is for sure. The Kagame1 is pure PR fantasy concocted by Tony Blair and other Kagame hired apologists. The real Kagame is a composite of 2, 3, 4, and 5 that is unfolding daily in front of our very eyes – in a court of law in South Africa; in inter-state conflicts with neighbours such as Uganda; and inside Rwanda itself where reportage of Mr Kagame’s bloody history is surfacing with vengeance on internet, his repressive machinery notwithstanding.

It is from these accounts that the real Kagame will shortly become exposed. And the emerging picture of the Rwandan president is not of an outstanding leader but a ruthless predator. The real question is: why has it taken the world so long to discover this fact.

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posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 10:51 PM