USA-RWANDA: OPEN LETTER TO ANN M. FIELDS, PRESIDENT OF WILLIAM PENN UNIVERSITY

Washington DC, April 27, 2012.

Ann M. Fields, Ph.D.,

President

William Penn University

201 Trueblood Avenue
Oskaloosa, Iowa 52577

Tel: 641-673-1076

Fax: 641-673-1390

Email: fieldsa@wmpenn.edu

Re: President Paul Kagame’s invitation to speak at William Penn University 2012 Commencement.

Ms. President:

While we praise William Penn University for entering a cooperative agreement with the Rwandan Ministry of Education to help Rwanda educate its citizens, we cannot help but regret the University leadership's mistake to invite President Kagame to come and address William Penn University graduating class of 2012, ignoring his worldwide reputation as a human rights outcast.

It is ironic at best that William Penn University leadership is also planning to bestow the honor of Doctor Honoris Causa in Humane Letters on that same man who has shined from his cruelty, his mockery of human rights and his mass murdering record, not only against his own people but also across the borders in the Democratic Republic the Congo (DRC). Beside his well documented mass murdering record before, during and after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 (Gersony report¹, Garreton report², and others),  Kagame is also credited to have exterminated more than 200,000 unarmed Rwandan refugees in DRC, mostly women, children, the sick and the elderly.  He invaded DRC more than three times with the help of his co-conspirator, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, and caused the death of over 5 million Congolese citizens in a killing spree that is extensively documented and classified by the UN Mapping Report³ as a possible genocide pending the ad-hoc confirmation in the court of law.

For these reasons and for many others for which we don't have neither the room nor the time to report here, we respectfully request that President Kagame's inhumane record be kept out of William Penn University's graduation ceremonies and that such a record be kept out of the University’s reputable Alumni membership, especially the one in Humane Letters, an area that is contrary to Kagame’s record as a renowned inhumane tyrannical leader.

Your informed understanding and your proper action in this matter will save William Penn University, its faculty and its student body from the embarrassment of associating with one of the most notorious human rights abuser and mass murderer of the 21st century.

  

Sincerely,

Theophile Murayi, FDU-Inkingi/USA: 443-980-4676
Providence Rubingisa, RNC-Ihuriro/USA: 630-401-4719

Celestin Muhindura, IDD/USA: 682-203-7948

CC: 

Mr. Steven Noah, Vice President for Advancement, 

noahs@wmpenn.edu

William Penn University, Marketing Media Director 

lakea@wmpenn.edu

References:

1)    The Gersony Report to the UNHCR, December 03, 2007.

http://www.whale.to/b/gersony_report1.html

2)    The UN Report by Roberto Garreton,

http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0811fcbd0b9f6bd58025667300306dea/8e3dbacbae51ce60802567460034073d?OpenDocument#IIB

3)    UN Mapping Report on Human Rights Abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1993-2003             

http://www.ohchr.org/en/Countries/AfricaRegion/Pages/RDCProjetMapping.aspx

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Related Materials:

USA-RWANDA: OPENLETTER TO ANN M. FIELDS, PRESIDENT OF WILLIAM PENN UNIVERSITY

Call for Action: Tell William Penn Universityabout Paul Kagame