HRW out of touch with reality, in new attacks on Rwanda

Old habits die hard, the saying goes. So does Human Rights Watch’s perennial smear campaign against the Rwandan government and its leadership. This organisation was at it again in a recent article written by Lewis Mudge, in Mediapart, titled “Justice is Unfinished Business in Rwanda.” Mudge is HRW Central Africa Director. His organisation's relentless and unwarranted attacks on the Rwandan government since July 1994 are well known. Therefore, Mudge’s criticisms did not come as a surprise.

Obscene is his clear propensity to embracing genocide revisionism, and attacking Rwanda’s institutions, including the police and judiciary. It is as if whatever Rwanda does in those areas of governance to be acceptable, must first seek a seal of approval from the West.  One trait of genocide revisionism and denial is belittling the number of victims. That is exactly what Mudge does. Talking about the genocide against the Tutsi, he wrote: “The root of these tensions goes back to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Orchestrated by ethnic Hutu political and military extremists primarily against ethnic Tutsi, it claimed at least half a million lives and was exceptional in its brutality, meticulous organization, and the speed with which the killings were carried out.”

This senior HRW officer does not want to use the correct wording by calling it the “genocide against the Tutsi” as was agreed upon by the UN General Assembly in April 2020. Where does he get the “half million lives?" Rwanda's Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC)  carried out a census village by village and found that more than one million Tutsi were massacred in 1994. To date, mass graves are still being found countrywide.

Mudge also uses the arrest of Aimable Karasira, a controversial Youtuber who was arrested by Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) on May 31, to castigate the Rwandan government for not allowing everyone to talk about one’s suffering during that dark past.  He wrote: “On May 31, Aimable Karasira, an academic, genocide survivor, and government critic, was placed under arrest, accused of denying and justifying the genocide, instigating divisions, and fraud.”

Maybe Mudge should have taken time to read the Rwandan Constitution. If he did, he would have realised that Karasira pronouncements on social media platforms violated Article 10 that Constitution which criminalises minimisation, and justification of the genocide. As for fraud, like in the US, it is not a crime to possess goods or any amount of money, but one must justify its sources. In the case of Karasira, the matter will be placed before the courts, and he will have his chance to justify how he accumulated huge sums of money by Rwandan standards.

Why can’t he wait for the judicial process to take its course and see where the chips fall? The HRW has already made its opinion known. Karasira, a genocide survivor and critic of the government should have been allowed to continue to poison the public with his revisionist theories about the causes of the genocide.

In this article, Mudge also attempts to resurrect the defunct draft UN Mapping Report. And he attacks President Paul Kagame’s responses during interviews in his recent visit to France. It is worth reminding Mudge that this report was never published but was leaked by its authors to embarrass the Rwandan government.

The swift reaction of the Rwandan government, with truth and facts, forced the UN to shelf this draft report indefinitely. But there is a concerted campaign by enemies of Rwanda, composed of self-seeking Congolese politicians and their backers in the international community to resurrect it.

The draft Mapping Report was unacceptable as a United Nations (UN) document. Rwanda’s concerns related to the entire report and were not limited to narrow definitional issues or specific allegations. The report represented an effort by organisations and individuals -- both inside and outside of the UN -- to hijack the UN’s processes for the purposes of rewriting history, to improperly spread blame for the genocide that occurred in Rwanda, and to reignite the conflict in Rwanda and the region. The report had flawed methodology. It relied entirely on the use of anonymous sources, hearsay assertions, unnamed, un-vetted and unidentified investigators, and witnesses, who lacked any credibility, and alleged the existence of victims with no certainty as to their identities.

It is also absurd that in the same article, Mudge calls for an international investigation into singer Kizito Mihigo’s death in police custody in April 2020. This is ironic because when convicted American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein died in a New York cell, HRW – which is NY-based - never called for such a move.  Can Mudge tell us how many inmates commit suicide in the US penitentiary and how many times it has called for independent investigations?

The last stick Mudge tried to beat Rwanda with is the arrest of alleged terrorist Paul Rusesabagina, former hotelier, and Hollywood hero. This man who is accused of forming and financing a terrorist organisation, the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD) – National Liberation Front (FLN) never underwent rendition, nor any enforced disappearance.  He was enticed to come to Rwanda to answer for the crimes committed by his terrorist organisation which killed innocent civilians and caused a lot of damage to property.

His trial alongside 20 other co-accused by the High Court in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, is in its final stages. The hearings have been held in the full glare of the media and the international community representatives. Mudge and other critics, like him, should wait for its outcome. The HRW and other global north so-called human rights organisations should respect Rwanda’s institutions. Whatever the Rwandan government does, it is not accountable to them but to its people.