Rwanda: Is our Judiciary aware of the cover-up and accomplice it is doing for Kagame?

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As the Chilean Judges apologize for the Pinochet crimes, is our Judiciary aware of the cover-up and accomplice they are doing for Kagame?

September 6, 2013 by Mugisha Alex with Rwema Francis Leave a Comment

 

Chile's judges have apologised for their actions after the coup on what role they Played during the the 1970s and 1980s when Gen. Augustine Pinochet overthrew the elected government of President Salvador Allende. The body representing judges in Chile has made an unprecedented apology for the actions of its members under during the military rule in the 1970s and 1980s, in their statement; they said that the judiciary at the time had abandoned its role as protector of basic rights. "The time has come to ask for the forgiveness of victims… and of Chilean society," said the judges. It is believed that More than 3,000 people were killed under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet between 1973 and 1990. The statement further reads that its members, and in particular the Supreme Court, had failed in its duty to protect victims of state abuse.

 

The magistrates' association acknowledged that the Chilean judiciary could and should have done much more to safeguard the rights of those persecuted by the dictatorship.  The statement further acknowledged the Supreme Court, which is the highest court of the land for having failed in its duty to protect victims of state abuse. The Chilean courts rejected about 5,000 cases seeking help on locating missing loved ones abducted or killed by the authorities. It is in this regard that this article compares the Rwandan Judiciary with the above Chilean judiciary where many Rwandans have been let down by their own judiciary.

Rwandan Politicians, who are in prison or disappeared, killed are  leading the list on the continent, during the last eighteen years, timing and lying have been for the Rwandan government some of the defining characteristics of its policies in many areas of the country's institutions. How many political prisoners are in Rwanda? Nobody knows. How many overall prisoners have died through the horrible Rwandan imprisonment system since RPF taking power in Rwanda? Only speculators can guess.

And knowing exactly how many or when is not always as important as the motives behind their incarceration or disappearance. When the Rwandan president Paul Kagame declared in March 2010 that he decided not to imprison Victoire Ingabire, Chairperson of FDU-Inkingi, immediately after she arrived in Kigali on 17 January 2010, he explained that he did not want to give her a national or international political status that she did not deserve. He however terribly failed on this ground and Ingabire is serving 8 years for the fabricated offences by the State using the remote control of its judiciary. Among the other most well known political prisoners, there are Deogratias Mushayidi, PDP-Imanzi chairperson, Bernard Ntaganda, chairperson of PS-Imberakuri, and Dr Theoneste Niyitegeka, the unlucky runner of 2003 presidential elections.

Similarly  the families of those who have been killed like Major Alex Ruzindan, Asiel Kabera,  Hitimana Leonard, Ingabire Charles, just to mention a few, have  been desperately  yarning for justice. Indeed, some judges from Argentina who were notoriously known for covering up the regime of the former military rule in 1976-1983 have been extradited from Chile to Argentina and the prominent judge known as the 'Dirty War' judge Romano was extradited to Argentina, he was extradited from Chile late Wednesday in the north-western city of Mendoza and was taken into Argentina custody.

The Rwandan RPF led government using its courts are using the same tactics like Genocide Ideology and to combat " terrorism" to make draconian laws to justify the cracking down on the opposition and those perceived to have different political views.  Rwandan judges like their counterparts in the above nations are an accomplice of the atrocities and other RPF government human rights abuses. As I have mentioned above the Kagame regime have been accused by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch of numerous human rights violations, notably extrajudicial killings, indeed the judiciary has never brought the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to book, below is a chronological order of the murders which will give the reader of this article how our judiciary has let us down.

 

• Critics of the Rwandan government dead or  missing

 

• 1995: Journalist Manasse Mugabo disappears in Kigali; not seen again
• 1996: First post-genocide Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga  and businessman Augustin Bugirimfura shot dead in Nairobi
• 1998: Journalist Emmanuel Munyemanzi  disappears from Kigali; body spotted in city but not returned to family
• 1998: RPF MP and government intelligence chief before the genocide Theoneste Lizinde assassinated in Nairobi
• 2000: First post-genocide President Pasteur Bizimungu 's adviser, Asiel Kabera shot dead in Kigali
• 2003: EX-RPF officer and top judge Augustin Cyiza  and magistrate Eliezar Runyaruka  disappear from Kigali; not seen again
• 2003: Opposition MP Leonard Hitimana  disappears from Kigali; not seen again
• 2010: Ex-RPF officer and RPF Military Chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa shot and wounded in Johannesburg
• 2010: Journalist Jean-Leonard Rugambage gunned down in Kigali
• 2010: Reporter Dominique Makeli survives abduction in Kampala
• 2010: André Kagwa Rwisereka deputy leader of the Democratic Green Party, found beheaded
• 2011: Charles Ingabire, a journalist and "outspoken critic of the Rwandan government", gunned down in Kampala.

Just recently Kagame's former Presidential Guard Officer Lt Joel Mutabazi was kidnapped by Kigali Security forces using their Ugandan counterparts with fake international arrest warrant. It is in this regard that I urge our judiciary to work independently otherwise history is not on their side.

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels.