Dear Mrs. Greening:

Justine GreeningWe are writing to you today to thank you for restoring development support to be channelled through aid agencies in Rwanda. There are no stronger and more resilient people than those of Rwanda and the population should not have to suffer to do the negative impact the Rwandan Government has had on the Central African region.  Providing this support through aid agencies will ensure that those who need this support the most will certainly be able to receive it. Thank you Honourable Greening for continuing to follow you initial decision of not supporting the Government of Rwanda directly with any foreign funds due to the questions that surround the human rights abuses of the Rwandan Government.

Rwanda is a society that is governed with an iron fist under a cloud of impunity and oppression. While there are many that will say they are a free society but the reality is that they are forced into silence of anything regarding critical discussion of this ruling party.  Political opposition groups are barred from holding meeting inside the country and if any of these groups gains any substantial following or become a realistic democratic threat to the ruling party then they are arbitrarily arrested, disappeared or forced to flee the country in fear of their lives. For example Mdm Victoria Ingabire is serving an unwarranted and arbitrary eight year sentence on false charges due to the fact that she was a real threat to President Paul Kagame in the 2010 presidential election. Her charges were falsified and the entire judicial process she endured proved that Rwanda continues to be a police state with no independent judiciary.  For of President Paul Kagame’s top officials fled Rwanda in succession throughout the first 10 years of the 21st century for various reasons. Col. Patrick Karegeya, former head of military intelligence under Paul Kagame, General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, former Army Chief of Staff, Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa, former chief of staff and Dr. Gerald Gahima, former Attorney General in Rwanda following the Genocide all were sentenced in absentia to prison sentences ranging from 20-25 years a piece on trumped up charges that were only brought up against them after all four formed the Rwandan National Congress (RNC) in order to oppose the Rwandan Government. Andre Rwiserka, Vice President of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, was found beheaded just months before the August 2010 elections forcing the entire party into exile for safety concerns. No credible or conclusive investigation was ever conducted into this heinous murder and I am certain none ever will be.

There is no freedom of the press in Rwanda because dictators do not want to be judged, discussed or questions when they are not controlling the conversation. Any Rwandan journalist that had the bravery to do so has either found themselves in prison, forced into self-imposed exile for their safety while other have been found dead. Any closed society, such as Rwanda, will control the media because when one controls the media they control the population by denying them information while force-feeding them on pro-government propaganda.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the UN Group of Experts have all published more than ten years of reports detailing the unflinching impunity that Paul Kagame and his top officials enjoy throughout the region of Central Africa with some of the most heinous crimes being committed in Easter DRC where he heads a rebel group from behind that kills, rapes, plunders and destroys communities with disregard for the local leaders in order to loot the minerals from the region that put money into the pockets of President Paul Kagame’s RPF. President Kagame is known to have invaded the DRC twice with the reasons being to hunt down genocide suspects but if that were the case then why did this hunt take them so far into DRC when the FLDR is known to only occupy the region around the Kivus? Further, why would President Kagame need the assistance of Victor Bout, who is currently imprisoned in the US on terrorism charges, during the second invasion who is known for his supply of weapon to numerous terrorist groups around the world including Al-Qaeda? President Paul Kagame’s list of questionable activities has gone on long enough and it is time for the international community to hold him accountable without harming the millions of innocent lives in Rwanda.

“The time is always right to do what is right.”

MLK, Jr.

We humbly ask you Hon. Greening to continue to support the people of Rwanda while holding the Rwandan Government accountable to their actions of impunity in the Central African region. In a region plagued with wars, geo-strategic conflicts and oppression the international community needs to support efforts to stabilize the region while holding those who have been working tirelessly for 19 years to destabilize the region accountable for their mass atrocities. With over 6 million lives lost in the DRC since 1994 once has to wonder where is the reaction of the world, who will intervene to save any more people from being brutally raped and murdered for the minerals in the region? The world has turned a blind eye to these atrocities while the people of DRC have been living a nightmare.

 

Noble Marara

Dip/HND

Dip/HE

BSc (Hons) Inter-professional learning

Jennifer Fierberg, MSW