Evode Uwizeyimana aiming for the top job

Watching an Empire Program on Aljazeera TV hosted by Marwan Bishara, he describes Hollywood as the world’s place where Americans’ perception of the US and its culture is shaped; you don’t fail to see Me Evode playing the same role. According to Mr. Marwan, Hollywood is shaping people’s perceptions of the US and world history.

The Parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15:11-32 where Jesus illustrated how sinners can come back to God

“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.  “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

Therefore the long trek from Rwanda to Canada might have been too long for Me Evode to spend what he had and he is genuinely playing the prodigal son to come back and ask for forgiveness as he appeared yesterday in most of the Rwandan media.  On the other hand Me Evode knows very well how the Media shaped him and made him a movie actor in the legal theater. Indeed, Evode might be playing the same tactics to induce the appetite of the RPF to renewal his contract which is now 3 months away to expire or to get a permanent employment.

RDI members with Evode Uwizeyimana prior to his departure

Whichever way, Evode is playing a cat and mouth game, he is being watched by his game mates and at a right place and time he will never know what will hit him.  There is a saying that If you are 50 and you keep reasoning like somebody who is 20, then the 30 years are not only wasted but leaves a lot to be desired. Does Me Evode reflect on the history and may be the path of RPF on the journey of consolidating power? A good example is a testimony of Mr Abdul Ruzibiza on how mistakes by both the Rwandan Government and the RPF led to the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Ruzibiza having narrated in his book Rwanda: L’Histoire Secréte and later tried to retract what he had said both in his book and in the international media like BBC and VOA ,he forgot that he was being watched by his play mates in the Kigali playing field.

Cat Mouse game

No sooner had he played the games of cat and mouse than the co-players on the opposite side had exterminated him, the rest is history. Does Me Evode remember the way he described the entire RPF leadership as “a gang of bandits” who disregard the rule of law? Indeed, he said that it is one of the reasons that made him leave Rwanda when he was a judge. On one occasion in the case of the brother (Rugigana Ngabo) of the former Rwandan army Chief Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa he described the Rwandan legal system as people who are controlled by the remote control from the President’s Office who will only use political reason rather than the legal reason.

RPF establishment knows very well the venom of Me Evode he injected in the Rwandan people which is had to treat, besides the status quo of the violations of Human Rights, lack of judicial independence, extra-judicial killings, suffocation of the media, and incarceration of the political opponents of the regime in Kigali. Despite the rhetoric of repentance by Me Evode, he defiantly defended his opposition to the regime in Kigali, he argued that his position was constructive but he quickly added that if it was not well perceived by (RPF) then he begs forgiveness.  This sounds defiance not only to the people who delve into the Hollywood theatrical staged political movies but also to the RPF who knows very well how dangerous  people or those perceived to be should be given the dose of eternality. But the History of RPF is clear; it’s not necessarily what you do but what you are perceived to be, the likes of Muvunanyambo, one of the soldiers released from the prison   during the Ruhengeri attack by the RPF in 1991 or Cpt. Frank Tega one of the RPF comrades were killed not for what they had done but what they were perceived to do.

This is just a tip of iceberg, but as we approach the end of the tenure of the Kagame regime many people will disappear especially those perceived to harbor butterfly colors or those perceived to switch sides like billboards, in fact many political assassinations of  many Rwandan politicians like Emmanuel Gapyisi, a prominent political leader from the south and vice president of the MDR party at the time  and other  selected murders  nationwide  like businessmen, mayors, parliamentarians, and leading up to the assassination of Gatabazi, Bucyana, and finally President Habyarimana are a vindication of what is waiting for many politicians who not  only oppose the RPF regime but those perceived  to be potentially  capable to give RPF and Kagame a bloody nose in the elections of 2017.

Whether Evode is playing the prodigal son or just opportunistically trying to reap in both fields remains to be seen, but what is clear though,   he is being monitored every inch of his movements and Jack Nziza or Dan Munyuza at any given opportunity would they perceive him to be a potential threat he will be dealt in the same way many Rwandans have been dealt with.

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels