The travesty of Ian Birrell’s attacks on Andrew Mitchell, British MP, friend of Rwanda

In the global north media, journalists like Ian Birrell wrongly believe that mud-slinging Rwandan President Paul Kagame is a steppingstone to fame.

Birrell's recent article: “Andrew Mitchell’s friends in Rwanda,” should be seen in the same light as a series of his coverage of Rwanda. His goal is character assassination.

His latest article published - by a shadowy British online tabloid called Unherd - on December 2 is an attempt at sanitising terror kingpin Paul Rusesabagina and vilifying Kagame, and a great friend of Rwanda, Andrew Mitchell, a member of the UK Parliament for Sutton Coldfield whom he wrongly accuses of being in the pockets of the Rwandan government.

Birrell has made a career publishing vile articles on Kagame. So, his latest article didn’t surprise at all. He’s a distinguished hater, a man who repeatedly throws around allegations against the Rwandan leader.

On the other side, Birrell seems to be the latest victim, having been ‘conned’ by the Rusesabagina family and its army of lobbyists who move around the world hoodwinking gullible people including Baroness Kennedy that he is an innocent man, whose sole crime was to be a fierce critic off Kagame.

It’s interesting how some Western writers start by recanting Rusesabagina’s heroics, as “a real-life hero of the film Hotel Rwanda”, “a recipient of the presidential Medal of Freedom” but show total amnesia about his other, real, side: a terrorist financier and mastermind.

For the victims of the vicious attacks by Rusesabagina’s armed FLN militias in Nyabimata and Kigeme sectors in the Southwest of Rwanda, describing Rusesabagina as a rights campaigner is rubbing salt in their wounds.

Rusesabagina may have collected all those accolades but this does not erase the fact that he was found guilty of funding and condoning acts of terror against Rwanda and its people.

I find it strange that Birrell would suggest that after investigating the charges of terrorism levelled against Rusesabagina, Baroness Kennedy, the Labour peer and rights lawyer, “concluded there were serious concerns over the rendition and the trial.”

This is the same propaganda pushed by Rusesabagina’s family and supporters with the aim of whitewashing his crimes.  How come that this honourable Lady, who is also director of the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute preferred to ignore evidence against Rusesabagina provided by FBI and the Belgian Prosecution, proving beyond any doubt that he was involved in funding terrorist activities? This is very worrying.

During his trial which was open to the public, it was proven that Rusesabagina transferred huge sums of money to terror groups in the Great Lakes Region. How could she ignore the lives of people who were killed by his armed militias, the MRCD/FLN, and the loss of property?

Note that under the UK counter-terrorism law, it is a crime to provide financial support to any terror entity.

I would like to remind the honourable lady the case of a couple in Oxford, Jack Letts and Sally Lane, who were given suspended jail sentences after being found guilty of sending money to their son while living under the Islamic State. They had sent him a mere £223. Compare that to the thousands of Euros sent by Rusesababagina, our so-called “human rights campaigner,” to different terror groups in the region, including the FDLR which was involved in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.

The tired claim of “rendition”, “kidnapping” of Rusesabagina often claimed by Rusesabagina’s stepdaughters and other so-called human rights organisations smacks of total hypocrisy. Are Birrell and Baroness Kennedy annoyed by the fact Rwanda did what the West does: luring a wanted criminal into a situation where he can face justice?

Rwanda did what Belgium did when, in 2014, it carried out a sting operation to arrest a Somali pirate called Mohamed Hassan. Under cover agents had persuaded him and an associate that they wanted to make a documentary about their pirate exploits. He accepted the invitation, or bait, and boarded a plane from Nairobi, Kenya, to Brussels where he was arrested upon landing.

It's interesting to see how Birrell and another diehard Rwanda government hater and begot, Michela Wrong quote each other to discredit both Mitchell and the distinguished Donald Kaberuka, a man renown worldwide for his professionalism and integrity in the world of international  banking and financial businesses.

In attacking Kaberuka, Birrell is surely barking to the wrong tree. It’s also not dignifying to use a woman who published an anti-Kagame book to avenge her former lover and chief spy, Patrick Karegeya. She threw a lot of mud around and none did stick. Birrell is trying too.

Mitchell was the first British politician to denounce the campaign to maliciously clear Rusesabagina of his crimes. He said that if Rusesabagina did a tenth of what he did in Rwanda in Britain, he would be behind bars. But because the attacks on Kagame by the global north media didn’t yield the expected results, Birrell and his ilk have resorted to attack friends of Rwanda.

Like all Rwanda’s detractors, in his article Birrell sought to validate his criticism of Mitchell by quoting another discredited character, David Himbara, a mouthpiece for the terrorist group, Rwanda National Congress. This does show to what extent these Western journalists will go to validate their groundless attacks, and their connection with anti-Kagame groups.

Opportunists like Birrell, Wrong and their cabal of Rwanda government haters will go on misleading public opinion about Rusesabagina’s evil deeds.

But no matter how much noise they make, it won’t change anything. Rusesabagina was tried and sentenced for 25 years in prison, a verdict the Prosecution appealed. Unless    there is Presidential clemency, which I doubt given the gravity of his crimes, Rusesabagina will remain behind bars for a long time.

As the French saying goes, the dogs bark but the caravan passes.