Last week the Rwandan leader ordered the shutdown of the BBC FM in Rwanda. The continued dispute on the Untold Story Documentary which implicates the Rwandan ruler of the war crimes and triggering genocide against the Tutsis in 1994, has left President Kagame bruised.

The Documentary exposes what the world believed in silence because of the many supporters and Kagame’s lobbying machinery that has not only protected Kagame from investigation and prosecution but has kept the continued flow of aid from the West.

Kagame ‘s anger for the BBC Documentary has been directed to its subsidiary  Program that is aired in the Great Lakes region in Kinyarwanda and Kirundi. Amazingly the Program that was shutdown had nothing to do with the BBC Documentary. Indeed, the BBC Documentary was aired on BBC TWO in English and in UK.

Why then Kagame transfers the anger from BBC TWO to BBC Gahuzamiryango? This is the remaining radio that is the life line of the Rwandan people because the rest of the Radio stations or media is either pro the RPF government or are too intimidated to be free and independent.

The Minister of the Rwanda Justice Mr. Johnston Businge was asked by the Voice of America why the BBC FM in Rwanda was shut down by the government regulatory body (RURA), but as vague as he sounded, it showed that he was either confused or was under duress. Paradoxically, the Rwanda Media Council (RMC) that is responsible for the media has condemned the decision of the RURA as not only illegal but disproportionate.

The Rwandan Justice Minister knows very well that his boss was not happy with the documentary and this was vindicated by the Kagame’s speech in the swearing in ceremony of the Senator President Bernard Makuza recently.  Mr. Jonhston Businge is a very good carder of RPF and a good student of History from his predecessor Mr. Karugarama who was sacked for saying that President Kagame will step down in 2017.

When Businge was appointed the Minister of Justice, he was instructed by President Kagame to overhaul the entire Ministry and remove all the employees that Kagame wrongly perceived to be employees of Karugarama. As always Kagame, he does not tolerate those perceived to challenge his authority, therefore those who were in the Ministry of Justice, many were illegally transferred to the Rwanda Law Reform Commission.

Similarly, when the former Speaker of Parliament Mr. Joseph Sebarenzi Kabuye was dropped Kagame ordered the destruction of what he perceived as Kabuye’s work empire at the parliament.

This reminds me of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin who in 1974 apart from shutting down the British, American and Israel Embassy in Uganda, he staged what he called the Save British Fund. And so it was in December 1973 when Her Majesty’s diplomatic staff in the Ugandan capital of Kampala telegrammed London to pass on an offer to save the UK from financial ruin from General Idi Amin Dada.

Gen Iddi Amin

By the end of his reign Amin had fallen out with Britain and given himself the title of Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. Before President Kagame shutdown the BBC FM in Kigali, he was here on the 20th October attending what was called the African Investment Summit and later to the Chatham House where he delivered a key note speech on Rwanda as a role model for Development in post conflict countries. Unfortunately he had ordered the shutdown prior to his departure but he never wanted to jeopardize his trip knowing the hostile environment by the Rwandans and Congolese human rights activists in London.

President Id Amin too after failing to deliver his message for the collection of what he called contribution to save UK economy, not content with offering to save Britain’s economy, he later suggested he could broker peace in Northern Ireland.  Amin fell out with UK after expelling the country’s Asian citizens – many of whom resettled in the UK amid government fears of race riots.

Amin sent a telegraph to London and he wrote: “In the past months the people of Uganda have been following with sorrow the alarming economic crisis befalling on Britain.

“The sad fact is that it is the ordinary British citizen who is suffering most. I am today appealing to all the people of Uganda who have all along been traditional friends of the British people to come forward and help their former colonial masters.”

Kagame is behaving in the same manner because all the time the BBC Aires what he doesn’t like, he orders the shutdown, this is the second time the BBC is shutdown in Rwanda. Why should the British Government still handle Kagame with soft gloves despite the fact that he is more brutal than Idi Amin Dada? The British government of the time put Idi Amin on the watch list for human rights violations.

Does Kagame want the BBC to broadcast what he wants? This is the vindication of what the Rwandan media and the human rights organizations have been saying. This is   beyond reasonable doubt for the UK government to act. What remains to be seen though is what the British government should tell to his friend Kagame in the private, because in public it seems they tend to play hide and seek.  The Kagame government has now ordered the immigration to reinstate the visa fee that was waived for the British, Americans, Israel and other countries which have come to warn Kagame that business will not be as usual if he doesn’t change his behavior.

As a dying horse kicks its final leg, so is Kagame likely to shut down may be the British Embassy and the Americans? For many who know Kagame , it would not be surprising if he wakes up in the morning with a dream that all the British and Americans are no longer welcome in Rwanda. He has already integrated his son Cyomoro in the army, so he can play his remaining cards to consolidate his power.

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels.