Recently, sections of the press in UK published a story about the British Police warning two Rwandan exiles that they were at risk of being assassinated by the Rwandan government sparked more questions than answers as to the motive behind handling such kind of unsubstantiated serious allegation on another state through the media.
Secondly, though there is no account of evidence indicated by the British Police, the mention of a possible assassin being stopped and later let free by the UK Police at the Eurotunnel terminal on England’s South Coast is another hair rising allegation.
What kind of ammunition was this person carrying to execute his assassination plan, and what was the evidence that he was on the government of Rwanda assassination mission? Nothing!
Common sense tells me that if the alleged assassin had any of the above incriminating evidences, he would not be left free to go back where he had come from, but he would be kept to aid police get more information on the assassination plot and also be questioned to name his associates.
Plot by Rwandan dissidents
Early May, a political organization of Rwandan dissidents called Rwandan National Congress (RNC) circulated a document in Europe and North America asking Rwandans in Diaspora in those regions, to do all they can to deny the Rwandan government the existing good relations with outside countries more especially the UK and USA considered to be giving Rwanda considerable aid.
The document written in the local language by the defacto leader of RNC, Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa also called on elements opposed to the Rwandan government in the Diaspora, to report to the Police allegations of assassination attempts and harassment.
The UK police I am sure cannot fail to trace copies of the letter I am talking about which is enough evidence to show a systematically calculated build up of the alleged assassination attempt by the Rwandan government that never was.
An online newspaper known as Umuvugizi which was banned in Rwanda and now operating from Sweden and a mouth piece of RNC has persistently fed its readers falsehoods that the Rwandan government dispatched hit squads around the world to kill President Kagame’s opponents.
Last month, the paper specifically mentioned UK as one of the countries where hit squads were sent. It is therefore very likely that the UK police fell victim to such malicious propaganda manufactured intentionally by Rwandan dissidents and genocide fugitives with the sole intention of tarnishing the image of Rwanda and that of President Kagame.
The paper further mentioned names of Rwanda Government officials who were allegedly in London and held meetings to implement the plot of assassination. I am sure the UK police can easily verify if this is true, and my take is that again, such accumulated and consistent romours were eventually believed by the police.
Who are the alleged assassination targets and why?
The two individuals mentioned namely Rene Mugenzi and Jonathan Musonera are hardly known individuals both in the UK and in Rwanda, leave alone qualifying as Rwandan dissidents or critics.
What is known is that the duo arrived in the UK in search of green pastures but as most people from the African continent, do, they claimed to be asylum seekers which usually permits them to be granted legal stay given that they hailed from a country that had just come out of war and genocide.
Musonera served in the Rwandan army and by the time he left, he was a non-commissioned officer contrary to media reports that he had the rank of Captain. He served in the anti-smuggling unit as a driver, a job that cannot be assigned to a military Captain.
What threat can such a simple being cause to any government on earth? The UK police can easily establish that while in the UK, Musonera frequently visited Rwanda, where if the assassination allegation was anything to be believed could probably be executed there, rather than spending time and money dispatching a hit man to a friendly country with good bilateral relations.
In his interview on Aljazeera Rene Mugenzi claimed that he is convinced he is targeted by the Rwandan government simply because he has been working with Rwandan opposition groups, and, “…I asked questions to Kagame on BBC World Service, asking him if what’s happening in North Africa can happen in Rwanda”. What a naïve statement! Can we then assume that the British journalist Ian Birrell who recently while enjoying the privilege of twitting with President Kagame and called him names is on a wanted list?
Media stories unashamedly also portrayed Mugenzi as a CEO of a non-existent think tank. People who know him in London testify that he is a character associated with lots of forgeries and one of such is that he has in the past forged a marriage certificate for his associate Jonathan Musonera.
Rwandan Diaspora in UK know very well how Musonera shamelessly disowned his family and ran away from his official wife and children with whom they lived together in London and arranged to invite a ‘new wife’.
Because he could not be married to two wives at the same time, his friend Mugenzi helped him to forge a marriage certificate. The UK authorities were then duped that Musonera was reuniting with his family! This is the real business a man portrayed by the UK media as a CEO of an unknown think tank is actually engaged in.
On another occasion, Mugenzi authored a document that he gave to a journalist by the names of Keith Herman Snow with false claims that the Rwandan Embassy in London had plans to assassinate refugees.
Keith Harmon Snow is well known to be a disciple of the genocidaires’ narrative denying and trivializing genocide. This is a clear indication that both Mugenzi and Musonera are men of witty characters who cannot be relied on for any least kind of truth.
The UK police issued letters of alleged assassination plot to Musonera and Mugenzi which I am informed under the British law is a constitutional obligation; granted. However, mentioning the involvement of a foreign state, by name, without tangible evidence and the courtesy of cross checking the ‘relied on evidence’, indeed raises more questions than answers.
There seem to be no sense of logic in the entire assassination claim. The whole thing simply looks like a fiction–movie set up scenario by the Rwandan dissidents and fugitives to give Rwanda a bad image abroad.
If the UK police cared to dig out the evidences, I am sure they have the required expertise to do so rather than sliding their feet in a Rwandan dissidents trap.
The author is a Rwandan analyst based in Kigali, and he filed this report as part of his response to the recent UK’s media reports about the alleged plans to kill the so called Rwandan dissidents living in England. some parts were borrowed from UK’s Guardian