Regional
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.