Category: News

Though, David Cameron has been pressed to say why the government unfroze aid to Rwanda, during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons.

Cameron replied that Rwanda has been, and continues to be, a success story of a country that has moved from genocide and disaster to become a role model for development and lifting people out of poverty in Africa.

Cameron told BBC “And I’m proud of the fact that the last government and this government have continued to invest in that success”.

“……. but I continue to believe that investing in Rwanda’s success as one of those countries in Africa that’s showing you can break the cycle of poverty, you can improve conditions for people, is something that we are right to do.” Cameron said.

Earlier this month, the Rwandan High Commissioner to the UK, Ernest Rwamucyo has said, the basis for suspending aid to Rwanda is not justified particularly because the aid goes to development and has nothing to do with the allegations of fuelling conflict in Congo.

Rwamucyo also said that Rwanda put a very comprehensive response to the accusations leveled by the UN report.

“Our response was very clear where the facts were wrong, and also the fact that the report was submitted without allowing Rwanda to respond to the allegations”.

The High Commissioner also talked about Rwanda Peace Keeping and Support Operations in other parts of the world.

Rwandan peace keepers are deployed in Darfur, South Sudan, Haiti, Chad, and Liberia and were involved in stabilizing the Comoro’s.

“This is a conscience and deliberate decision Rwanda took because of our immediate history of the genocide and suffering, that we feel others shouldn’t endure if conflict can be mitigated,” the envoy continued to explain.

Rwanda has handed over to Uganda the chairmanship of the Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation (EAPCCO).

The Inspector General of Police, Emmanuel K. Gasana on October 17th handed EAPCCO chairmanship to his Ugandan counterpart, Lt. Gen Kale Kayihura after successfully completing his one-year term.

IGP Gasana called for member states to invest in IT and scientific led policing and the need for a law enforcement school for Africa to harmonize policing standards.

Ngororero district officials have resolved that the views of the community must take center stage in the implementation of the district performance contracts.

Officials said that this will enable residents to own and fully participate in the 2012-2013 performance contracts.

This was one of the resolutions taken by the district officials during a meeting with sector leaders on the implementation of community development programs.

Emmanuel Mazimpaka, the vice mayor in charge of economic affairs, said that the performance contracts must be elaborated to the community in order to stimulate ideas from the residents on how to implement the set targets.

Mazimpaka noted that this is one way of giving value to residents and encouraging them to be responsible over their community’s development.

Sector officials say that the mindset of residents towards developing the community has changed over the years and despite that some of the targeted activities in the performance contracts require more funding.

Police in Gicumbi District have arrested a 25-year old woman identified as Mukandayisenga Devota accused of starving her 12-year old step daughter Diane Ingabire, for about a month.

Mukandayisenga who was arrested on October 15 is detained at Mulindi Police Station.

It is reported that while Mukandayisenga’s husband, Mbonyinshuti was in Kigali for his usual work related activities, the indicted Mukandayisenga locked up Ingabire in her house, tied and denied her anything to drink or eat for a period of one month.

Police says local residents together with village leaders while on a communal work near Mukandayisenga’s house heard someone groaning inside the house and had no option but to break into the house and rescued the girl.

Her body already decomposing,she was rushed to Byumba hospital.
Rwanda National Police (RNP) Spokesperson in the Northern Region Superintendent Francis Gahima condemned this criminal act and urged the public to play their role in protecting children rights.

Rwanda’s foreign minister today expressed disappointment that the UN Group of Experts on the DRC continued to engage in a determined political campaign to indict Rwanda.

“The leak of the final report of the Group of Experts confirms what Rwanda has maintained ever since Hege’s incendiary anti-Rwanda writings came to our attention: he is pursuing a political agenda that has nothing to do with getting at the true causes of conflict in the eastern DRC.”

Mushikiwabo pointed out that any effort to engage constructively with Hege has been twisted out of context and used against Rwanda.

“Rwanda will not allow itself to be dragged any deeper into this farce by responding to the Group’s far-fetched but fact-free assertions.” said Minster Louise Mushikiwabo

“Every UN member-state should find cause for concern that these expert panels feel entitled to treat sovereign states in such an appalling fashion.

Who are these unelected, unaccountable individuals to abuse the authority granted to them by the UN to pursue political vendettas and deny even basic procedural fairness to a country like Rwanda, a member of the United Nations for half a century?” Mushikiwabo said.

A DC-based law firm, Akin Gump, agrees with Rwanda’s assessment that the UN Group of Experts has abused its powers in the course of pinning blame on Kigali for the DRC conflict. Among other shortcomings, the law firm found that the Group of Experts were guilty of ” lack of transparency, the reliance on questionable sources and the complete lack of analysis of witness bias, motivation, or contradictory evidence.”

Mushikiwabo pointed out that Rwanda was focused on engaging with other countries of the region, including the DRC, to bring about a lasting solution to the crisis – a peace process that has already led to a two- month cease-fire.

“We are fully committed to the ongoing ICGLR process — the problems in DRC didn’t emerge overnight and can’t be fixed overnight, but there is a strong belief that a regional solution is not only the best way forward — it is the only way forward.”

The government of Rwanda has confirmed to Metro that it may pursue legal action against a United Nations-appointed Group of Experts that has accused the small central African nation of stoking a military rebellion in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said in an exclusive interview yesterday that the expert panel has been “hijacked” by the political agenda of its coordinator, Steven Hege, who Rwanda says has a long history of opposition to the nation’s government.

“We will not take this kind of treatment lying down,” Mushikiwabo told Metro.

You have vigorously criticized not only the U.N. reports compiled by the Group of Experts accusing Rwanda of supporting the M-23 rebel militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but also the methodology employed in these reports — and, above all, “bias” on the part of the group’s coordinator.

We have endeavored to be objective in our assessment of Mr. Hege. To this end, we employed the Washington, D.C., law firm Akin Gump to review Mr. Hege’s prior writings on Rwanda as well as the genocidal army and militia which killed more than 1 million people in a veritable Holocaust over three summer months in 1994.

The fact-based evidence, which was vetted by Akin Gump and submitted to the Security Council, in the case of Hege, is damning in the extreme and should have disqualified him from taking the position as coordinator of the Group of Experts in the first place.

What has Hege written prior to taking up his position as coordinator?

First and foremost, Hege has served as an out-and-out apologist for the remnants of the very genocidal forces who, after committing their genocidal crimes, became known as the FDLR after taking refuge into the eastern DRC when they were chased out of Rwanda in 1994.

Hege characterizes the FDLR militia, whose leaders are either under indictment at the International Criminal Court at the Hague or on trial in Germany, as if its members are somehow victims, and not perpetrators, of mass atrocities.

In this “fact sheet” written in 2009 and entitled “Understanding the FDLR,” Hege also described, falsely, the current Rwandan government as made up of illegitimate outsiders, a “Ugandan Tutsi elite,” and that peace in our region is only possible “when international opinion eventually sours on the Rwandan regime.”

With this objective in mind, Hege’s hatchet job, on the platform which the UN report has accorded him, becomes frighteningly clear.

The reports which he and the Group of Experts have submitted to the UN Sanctions Committee wouldn’t pass muster in the lowest imaginable court of law.

As Akin Gump concluded, “The lack of transparency, the reliance on questionable sources and the complete lack of analysis of witness bias, motivation or contradictory evidence in the conclusions reached [make] those conclusions highly unreliable.”

Are you saying Mr. Hege isn’t entitled to his point of view?

Of course, Mr. Hege is entitled to his views as a private citizen. But his extremist views are now well known in Africa because of the platform he has been given by the United Nations.

Referencing Hege’s call, in a 2010 issues paper, for ethnic minority groups to preference their economic and other interests in favor of the majority population, regardless of circumstance; according to perhaps the leading newspaper in East Africa, Hege’s writing that certain ethnic groups “must clear a higher bar of citizenship is central to racial ideology everywhere, whether in the form of anti-Semitism of the persecution of Japanese Americans in World War II.”

Hege knows that he is exposed on the matter of his prior writings. When this publication was discovered by the media in July, Hege pulled it from the Internet.

I want to put the entire matter with Hege into its proper perspective. Yes, the methodology employed by the Group of Experts is wholly flawed. But, above all, what we have here is the moral disgrace committed in the name of the U.N. A sympathizer or, more accurately, apologist of genocide perpetrators has been put in a position to sit in judgment of the victims, the Rwandan people.

Are you suggesting a bigger U.N.?problem here?

Yes, I am. It is clear that the U.N. process for the appointment and vetting of “experts” is broken and in desperate need of repair. The failed expert selection on Congo, which has somehow turned into an indictment of Rwanda, is but one of a number of recent miscarriages of justice of the same kind hurting African countries, including expert panels on Cote d’Ivoire and Somalia-Eritrea.

The time has now come for the international community to know about the treatment being meted out to powerless countries like Rwanda through unjust, outdated and punitive international mechanisms such as the U.N. Group of Experts when it falls into the hands of individuals with a personal political agenda.

What is the status of the conflict in the eastern Congo?

Eleven countries of the region, including Rwanda and the DRC, are joining forces to bring about a lasting solution to the crisis. This includes deploying a neutral force to monitor the borders between the eastern DRC and its neighbors.

It also includes a “joint verification mechanism,” which is a way to test the truth or otherwise the many claims and counter-claims that circulate during periods of instability.

The regional peace process has led to a two- month cease-fire, and there is overwhelming consensus that the only way out of the mess is a political solution, not a military one. It is a complex part of the world.

There are dozens of armed groups running riot, and the state of governance is weak. The prob­lems didn’t emerge overnight and can’t be fixed overnight, but there is a strong belief that a regional solution is not only the best way forward — it is the only way forward.

Official statement

Metro contacted the U.N. for comment. The organization’s official statement is: Until all of Steve Hege’s findings on Rwanda are final and published, the U.N. has no comment on the matter.

Nearly 870 million people worldwide are suffering from hunger and chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012, with 98% of this number living in developing countries and 27% to be found in Africa.

The official World Food Day theme, announced each spring by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), gives focus to World Food Day observances and raises awareness and understanding of approaches to ending hunger.

“Agricultural cooperatives – key to feeding the world” is the formal wording of the 2012 theme. It has been chosen to highlight the role of cooperatives in improving food security and contributing to the eradication of hunger.

Interest in cooperatives and rural organizations is also reflected in the decision of the UN General Assembly to designate 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives.

This year’s celebration comes at a critical juncture when a part of the continent is recovering from the devastation wrought by the drought in the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel braces for severe food shortages in the coming months.

It is clear that the role of cooperatives and community organizations are critical in the fight for food security in Africa. Cooperatives satisfy their members’ needs while pursuing profit and sustainability.

They are often a key institution in rural life and for the marketing of farmer inputs and produce. Cooperatives are also crucial for fostering democracy and good governance at the local level.

With increasing threats to the use of Africa’s natural resource base and the growing foreign direct investment in land in the continent, cooperatives can play a significant role in defending farmer interest in the long term by fostering sustainable agricultural practices that ensure these natural resource assets are safe for future generations.

The African Development Bank, through its agriculture, governance and private sector departments, is well placed to support the renaissance of the cooperative movement towards truly profit seeking entities working for agricultural transformation in Africa.

The Bank undertakes to channel, where feasible, the use of local development funds in projects and programs through existing and credible agricultural cooperatives on the continent.

Six (MONUSCO) UN Peace Keepers in DRC have been seriously wounded after they fell in an ambush mounted by FDLR rebels.

The Incident happened October 16, in Buganza Village between Nyamilima and Ishasha in Kivu North. The Peacekeepers had gone to rescue villagers attacked in an ambush.

Five villagers killed were fish traders who carry their purchases on bicycles local sources said. They were killed on their way to lake Edward in Nyamilima. They fell into an ambush of suspected FDLR who shot them. All died on the spot.

The MONUSCO peacekeepers on patrol, were alerted by the gun shots and hurried to the scene of the tragedy.

It is said, the attackers opened fire on them. Local sources report there was an exchange of fire for about 30minutes. Six peacekeepers and an interpreter were wounded.

All the wounded were evacuated to Goma for care.

Bodies of the victims are still left on the road at the scene of crime.

Families of the victims are afraid to retrieve the bodies of their parents, fearing they would be targeted by Rwandan rebels.