Call for arms embargo on Rwanda and freezing of Kagame’s assets

By Staff Writer The London Evening post November 4, 2011 RPP-Imvura President John Karuranga (left) with The London Evening Post Managing Editor Henry Gombya (file photo) A Rwandan opposition political party is calling for an arms embargo on the government of President Paul Kagame and the freezing of his personal assets including those of 57 of his key military security officers. In a statement released Wednesday, the London-based Rwandan Peoples Party – Imvura (RPP-Imvura) is also demanding for the imposition of travel visa bans to members and families of President Kagame’s administration. Signed by RPP-Imvura President John Karuranga, the statement accused President Kagame of failing to react in any way to calls for peace talks with those opposed to him in an effort to stop another civil war that now looks more likely.  Karuranga said: “We believe President Kagame in neither in support of peace nor the interests of the people of Rwanda,” he added: “Instead he is clinging onto power for his own self-serving and self-seeking interest of himself, his associates and business executives whose vicious characters continue to vandalise and exploit the Rwandan people. Karuranga warned of a possible new civil war surpassing that of 1994 when tens of thousands of Rwandans were massacred after then President Juvenal Habyalimana was killed after his presidential jet was shot down on approach to Kigali Airport. He revealed that his Party had received credible information that President Kagame was prepared to ‘take the Gaddafi route’ and happily oversee Rwanda sink back in the ‘hell of 1994’. “The probability of a new civil war breaking out in Rwanda becomes more real day by day,” the RPP-Imvura statement said. It went on to say: “Unless our Road Map to Peace is adopted, it is likely that [the RPP-Imvura] and other opposition [Rwandan] parties may get drawn into a civil war against [their] wishes and collective wisdom.” “We believe that a regional ‘earthquake’ is inevitable should the international community insist on interventionism rather than preventive mechanism.” Claiming that the people of Rwanda are currently suffering a great deal at the hands of President Kagame’s Rwanda Patriotic Front ruling party, Karuranga said that his party believes it is only an arms embargo, a travel ban, the freezing of Kagame’s personal assets as well as those of his associates that could help bring them to their knees. He however ruled out the overthrow of Kagame through a military coup. But he seemed to be contradicting himself when he said the opposition was against going back to the era of civil war. “We do not believe these are solutions to Africa’s problems,” his statement read. “What we want in Rwanda and in Africa are free and fair elections. We want democracy and we appeal to the international community to help us achieve this objective by peaceful means.” The RPP-Imvura leader said the best way the international community could easily help the Rwandan people avoid another civil war was by ending uncritical support to ‘a brutal dictatorship’ whose violent behaviours were getting worse say by day.  He appealed to the international community to end what he called ‘their complicity in the continued bulldozing of the innocent, the defenceless and the downtrodden ones by the RPF regime’.