US unyielding in opposing third term for Kagame
Rwandan President Paul Kagame. PHOTO | FILE
IN SUMMARY
- Washington said in regard to the move to enable Mr Kagame to run again that “democracy is best advanced through the development of strong institutions, not strongmen.”
The United States on Wednesday reiterated its opposition to a third term for Rwanda President Paul Kagame.
The US comment, made in response to a query from The EastAfrican, follows the Rwandan Parliament’s vote to amend the country’s constitution to remove a provision barring a president from serving more than two terms.
“The United States has consistently called for African leaders across the continent to respect term limits,” said Rodney Ford, spokesman for the State Department’s Africa Bureau.
“We do not support changing constitutions to benefit the personal or political interests of individuals or parties.”
Washington said last month in regard to the move to enable Mr Kagame to run again that “democracy is best advanced through the development of strong institutions, not strongmen.” The State Department added in June: “We are committed to support peaceful, democratic transition in 2017 to a new leader elected by the Rwandan people.”
Despite apparently broad support in Rwanda for Mr Kagame remaining in office beyond 2017, the Obama administration’s disapproval is likely to carry weight for the country dependent on development aid from the US.
State Department officials have also criticised Rwanda’s human rights record under President Kagame, who first took office in 2003.
“Alongside Rwanda’s remarkable development progress, there have been equally consistent efforts to reduce space for independent voices and to diminish the ability of the media, opposition groups and civil society to operate,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steven Feldstein recently told the US Congress.
The Rwandan Parliament’s move to change the constitution is the first step in a process that also must also involve a national referendum. But the outcome of such a vote would generate little suspense.
More than half the country’s enrolled voters are reported to have signed a petition calling for revision of the article in the constitution limiting a president to two terms
Hutu Militiamen Kill 3 Spanish Aid Workers in Rwanda
Published: January 20, 1997
RUHENGERI, Rwanda, Jan. 19— In what appeared to be a calculated attack against foreign aid groups here, Hutu militiamen shot and killed three Spanish aid workers and seriously wounded an American in an overnight raid in northwestern Rwanda, survivors said today.
Three Rwandan soldiers were also killed in the attack, aid workers said.
The Spaniards, shot through the head at close range, were members of the Spanish branch of the international charity Doctors of the World. In Paris, the parent group announced that it was suspending all aid activities in Rwanda pending further information about the killings.
The American, identified by aid workers as Nitin Madhav, 28, of the Pittsburgh area, was a program director for the organization. He was shot in the leg, which was later amputated at the local hospital at Ruhengeri, about 140 miles northwest of the capital, Kigali.
Mr. Madhav was later flown to the capital and evacuated for further treatment. The bodies of the three Spaniards — two men and a woman — were still in the aid workers’ house today.
”These people were executed,” Javier Zuniga, the director of the United Nations Human Rights Operation in Rwanda, said. ”Clearly these attacks were aimed at aid workers and expatriates generally.”
The attack occurred weeks after six workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross were slain in their beds in Chechnya, a secessionist region of southern Russia. Those killings reverberated deeply in the network of international aid groups, prompting the Red Cross and others to begin re-examining the ways they protect vulnerable workers in conflict areas.
In the attack here, Hutu militiamen stormed into the house and first demanded the Spaniards’ passports, an American diplomat said. The attackers were then disturbed by gunfire outside the house, and began shooting the three aid workers.
Mr. Madhav, the American, was shot in the leg as he dived behind a table in an effort to escape.
In Madrid, Doctors of the World identified the dead as Dr. Manuel Madrazo Osuna, 42, of Seville; Maria Flores Sirera Fortuny, 33, a nurse from Lerida, and Luis Maria Valtuena, 30, a photographer from Madrid who was working as an administrator here.
The killings spurred most other expatriate aid workers in the Ruhengeri area to leave for the capital. ”Most of the expatriate in Ruhengeri have already reached Kigali,” a Western diplomat said. ”The mood is very somber.”
In Kigali, the United Nations, international relief groups and the Government will hold an emergency meeting on Monday to decide whether the aid groups should formally suspend work in parts of Rwanda on security grounds.
”U.N. people have been told to stay put and not go out,” a United Nations official said. ”And as soon as we have talked to the army we will be discussing whether or not to suspend operations.”
The United Nations had already warned on Saturday that intensifying violence in Rwanda could force the suspension of humanitarian operations in some areas.
The attack was the latest in a series involving expatriates in the area, which is near the border with Zaire. The house was in a compound also used by the French branch of Doctors of the World and by workers for Save the Children.
”These attacks are deliberately mounted to scare away expatriates,” a senior Rwandan military officer said. ”We know these people are now operating from inside Rwanda. They think if they can drive out the expatriates now working here they can mount such attacks more easily.”
He said the gangs responsible for recent attacks on aid workers had returned from neighboring Zaire with other Rwandan Hutu refugees late last year. They were now becoming bolder, he said.
”The fighting appeared to have started in the slum areas of town among returnees who have come back from Zaire,” a senior United Nations official said of the overnight attack. ”There were two other incidents during the night during which a grenade was thrown into an aid worker’s house.”
$(The attack was apparently coordinated with three others in the area, in simultaneous raids by Hutu militants on the aid agency compound, the home of an appeals court judge and a police station, The Associated Press quoted Mr. Zuniga as saying.
$(It said the three Rwandan soldiers were killed when the troops responded to the attacks.$)
Hutu militiamen, Government army troops and mobs killed about half a million people, mostly Tutsi and moderate Hutu, in a genocidal campaign here in 1994.
Many of the militiamen along with more than a million refugees fled to neighboring countries after Tutsi rebels seized power and ended the three-month killing spree.
Nearly a million Hutu refugees, including some militia members, returned from eastern Zaire and Tanzania at the end of last year. Their return has once again heightened ethnic tensions in many parts of the country.
Photo: The bodies of two Spanish aid workers killed by Hutu militiamen lay yesterday in the house that they shared in Ruhengeri, Rwanda. (Associated Press) Map of Rwanda shows the location of Ruhengeri: Killings in Ruhengeri may end aid efforts in some parts of Rwanda.