Michela Wrong gets it wrong again in supporting Rwanda terror kingpin

After failing to impress with her anti-Rwanda mudslinging campaign in the UK and Europe, Michela Wrong, who earns a living writing racist books about Africa and Africans, took her insidious vilification of Rwanda’s leadership to the American press.

Her op-ed titled “This appeal in Rwanda is more performance art than revisiting justice,” published on February 11, 2022, in The Tampa Bay is an audacious piece of defence for Rwanda’s terror kingpin that she misleadingly calls “former Rwandan hotel manager and human rights activist.

Note the extent to which Wrong goes to exculpate Paul Rusesabagina of his proven terrorism crimes, which are well-documented. She reminds readers of Rusesabagina’s fake heroics, by describing him as a man who inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, and a recipient of the Medal of Freedom bestowed to him by former president Georges W. Bush.

Where is “human rights” in Rusesabagina’s militia group attacking and ransacking villages, killing innocent peasants, plundering, and destroying their properties?

All this sounds hollow to the families in south western Rwanda who bore the brunt of the attacks of his armed MRCD-FLN militia. Like many in the global north, the plight of the victims of Rusesabagina’s militia attacks means nothing. They will always portray him as a victim of a regime which is eager to quash its fierce critics.

This op-ed portrays a woman desperate to whitewash Rusesabagina of his crimes, and who at the same time is committed to tarnishing the image of President Paul Kagame.

By the way, it’s misleading to make people believe that the prosecution appealed against its own verdict. The prosecution was not happy about the verdict by the High Court which handled Rusesabagina and his co-accused. What’s wrong with that?

Another glaring illusion which permeates through her op-ed is that the appeal against the jail sentence given to Rusesabagina “is particularly puzzling when one considers the reputational impact Rusesabagina’s original capture and trial.”

This is an inane argument. Rwanda as a sovereign nation has the right to combat any threat, domestic or foreign, to its integrity and to the lives of its people. During the trial, it was proven how Rusesabagina used his hollow fame to garner financial support for different armed militias including his MRCD-FLN.

He was recorded on video declaring his unreserved support for the overthrow of the legitimately elected government of Rwanda.

The fact that Rusesabagina’s backers in the West, including the very people and organisations which catapulted him to ‘fame’ were up in arms against his arrest – that Wrong wrongly labels as kidnapping – doesn’t mean the whole world disapproves of it.

Wrong’s piece is also full of rehashed criticisms about the process, often propagated by Rusesabagina’s family and supporters, which included a suspect’s right to choose his lawyer. Rusesabagina wanted to bring foreign defence lawyers who didn’t have appropriate accreditation to work in Rwanda.

No matter how much pressure from the US and EU parliamentarians or several Western rights organisations, Rwanda will not budge and justice will take its course.

But what is extremely outrageous is to refer to President Kagame as an “accidental president.” This is one more proof of Wrong’s arrogance. It’s also an insult to the more than 13 million Rwandans who are proud of their President. Wrong is a nobody compared to President Kagame who is admired at home and abroad.