Tom Ndahiro

 

Ally Yusufu Mugenzi

Since the BBC GAZUMIRYANGO aired the Maina Kiai Human Rights report on Rwanda, the man who calls himself a cadre of RPF Tom Ndahiro has been attacking Mugenzi Yusuf the editor of Imvo n’invano labeling him one of those who not only have what the Kigali government calls genocide ideology but also hobnobbing with those who they accuse of genocide ideology.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Tom Ndahiro deliberately attacks Ally Yusuf Mugenzi   for a human rights report that exposes what the government of Rwanda is doing. This report is made by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. If Tom Ndahiro could be frank and honest what did he expect the BBC to say? The findings of Mr. Maiana Kiai are not new to Rwandans, BBC, and the whole world. Indeed, the former US Ambassador to UN Susan Rice who is a personal defender of the dirty games of Kagame without mincing words she said the same things Mr. Maina Kiai discovered in Rwanda.

Susan Rice argued that as a friend of Rwanda she will be frank as someone who finds a disturbing behaviour from a neighbour, with whom they share much, or whose attitude could jeopardise their long term interests.  Although she praised the Kigali Government during her official speech at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in 2011, she pointed to the closed Rwandan political space. She said

“Rwanda’s economic vitality has moved the country forward. Social progress has been substantial, yet the political culture in Rwanda remains comparatively closed. Press restrictions persist, civil society activists, journalists and political opponents of the government often fear organizing peacefully and speaking out. Some have been harassed, some have been intimidated by late night callers, and some have simply disappeared.”

“Yet, the world is moving rapidly in a different direction. Across the globe, including in societies where a common system rose that freedom would never arise, we’re seeing people demand the right to chart their own future. To organize peaceful demonstrations and to criticize their own governments. From Tunisia, the demand to be heard has spread across North Africa and the Middle East…”

“…They will keep speaking out because they have a universal right to do so. And they know it. These rights: freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, freedom to organize peacefully, are just as valid, just as inherent in Asia, in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa as they are in Europe, America or the Middle East.”

This is exactly what the Maina Kiai report was referring to, why then Tom Ndahiro is attacking  BBC and in particular Ally Yusuf Mugenzi? Does Tom Ndahiro expect or want BBC to say what he wants to hear?  Probably that Deo Mushyaidi was not sentenced to life for telling the RPF that the killings have crossed the borders of Rwanda and must stop.  Or, the brave and courageous lady Ingabire Victoire who left her family, husband and children to come to Rwanda was not sentenced to 15 years just for advocating for freedom and human rights? The list of those who have been killed or detained disappeared is needless. Who does not know that Kagame is the one who kills them and later says through his media like Rushyashya and Tom Ndahiro that they disappeared?  How on earth living human beings disappear?  Does he want us to believe that these are semi-gods as we know in history that the Bachwezi dynasty disappeared?

There is no doubt that Tom Ndahiro is  using his extremism  and opportunism  to intimidate BBC in the same way they did to all the local media to succumb to their demand to cover up their atrocities.  The genocide Tom Ndahiro is talking about is well known and nobody can deny it, however, the extremists and opportunists like Tom Ndahiro always will use it to deny other people who demand the alienable right to know the fate of their loved ones during and after genocide. Indeed, if there is someone with sectarian ideology, it’s Tom Ndahiro.   The UN Mapping report on Congo contains a detailed accounting of the breakup of Hutu refugee camps in eastern Congo at the start of the First Congo war in October 1996, followed by the pursuit of hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees and Hutu population across the country’s vast hinterland by teams of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda soldiers and their Congolese rebel surrogates, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo.

Does this report in anyway deny the Tutsi genocide? In fact it is the same UN that established the ICTR which Tom Ndahiro refers to when he is making his point. Interestingly a UN report that supports them saying how they have promoted women in the whole world, they will always welcome it and will always be referred to, but when they are criticized, they will curse it as biased  or working for the genocidaires.  Does Tom Ndahiro try to convince the world that Hutus were not killed? Who killed them? Did they kill themselves? How do you call this death?  Don’t the relatives of these people have a right to know their death and who killed them?

Similarly, the international community has a duty to find out the killers and bring them to justice. Why should Tom Ndahiro develop stomach upsets when they talk about the atrocities committed by RPF? Tom should be aware; the UN Mapping Report recommended the creation of a mixed judicial mechanism made up of national and international personnel as one of various transitional justice measures to be considered to address the numerous international crimes committed in the DRC.

Indeed, these are the same mandate that was given to the ICTR to try both sides of the conflict, but because of the same intimidations, the war crimes committed by RPF security forces were shelved in UN drawers. The RPF regime has suffocated the independent media, all civil societies that are not linked to RPF have been harassed and forced to flee, the remaining local media have either succumbed to the government and they always sugarcoat their publications or are indirectly working for the regime. Therefore the remaining source of balanced and impartial information is BBC and VOA. If Tom does not want to listen to BBC and VOA, the only advice he should switch it off, but many Rwandans who he does not talk to, love BBC and if he wants to prove me wrong, let me him go outside Spots View Hotel or Serana where they always sit for a drink with his RPF cadres, he will find that the majority of Rwandans are listening to the BBC. Please Tom leave alone BBC and Ally Yusuf Mugenzi, your continued intimidation will not clean RPF.

Jacqueline Umurungi