Photos: YouTube Screenshots

Rwanda stepped up its bid to host a Formula 1 race by welcoming the global racing community for the FIA Annual General Assembly, a gathering of the sport’s top decision makers.

The event, held from Dec.10-13, brought together officials, drivers and sponsors in the capital, Kigali. It was the first time it had been staged in Africa.

President Paul Kagame, while opening the event, officially confirmed Rwanda’s bid to host the first Formula 1 race in Africa since 1993, saying the country was making “good progress” in its discussions with Formula 1.

Four-time Formula 1 Champion Max Verstappen was among those in Kigali, and will undertake community service in the city. A spot on the Formula 1 race calendar would be a major boost to the country’s plan to use sports to drive tourism. The country will host the cycling world road championships next year and already has partnerships with the NBA’s Basketball Africa League and top-flight European football clubs Arsenal and Paris St. Germain.

— Martin K. N. Siele

The post Rwanda Revs Up Its Formula 1 Bid appeared first on Black Star News.

Photos: YouTube Screenshots

Rwanda is pushing ahead with its bid to be added to the lucrative Formula 1 race calendar as part of a wider plan to double down on sports events as a central plank of its economic growth plan.

Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told Semafor Africa Rwanda is still in talks with Formula 1 concerning its bid to host the sport’s first race in Africa since 1993. He said Rwandan authorities were working with other countries that already host races to learn from their experiences. He said “We’re interested — it would be a good thing for the sport itself and Rwanda.”

Nduhungirehe said multimillion-dollar investments in facilities, partnerships with sports federations like NBA’s Basketball Africa League, and sponsorship deals with top European football teams including England’s Arsenal and France’s Paris St Germain were driving tourism.

The minister said hosting sporting events helped to drive tourism revenue, which stood at $636 million in 2023 — a 36% increase on the previous year.

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Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons

Rwanda is a nation very familiar with repetitive cycles of tragic dramas, often punctuated with unpleasant comedies. The latest three decades act has been dominated by no other than General Kagame, who once again has subjected Rwanda’s predominantly impoverished 13.5 million citizens to a costly sham election on July 15, 2024. Taking a short break from his usual extensive and expensive foreign tours, he has been seen dressed in the blue and white party colors, addressing large crowds of peasants forced to attend his rallies. He deceives them by saying he is the hero who liberated them, the invincible ruler who has made their lives more secure and prosperous. He promises more war to his domestic, regional, and international opponents. Traumatized by cycles of violence, civil war, and genocide, the crowds sing and clap.

He does not need their votes, for he rules Rwanda like an absolute monarch, the richest, cruelest, and ruthless in the nation’s centuries-old history. As in the previous three unfree and unfair elections, he decides beforehand what perfect score he wants. In 2017, he decided he was loved by 99% of the electorate. Predictably, in 2024, he has again awarded himself a perfect score. These unfair and unfree elections are in the catalog of countless crimes he commits daily against Rwandan citizens, like killings, exile, kidnappings, and imprisonment, which he publicly brags about as ‘flawless operations.’

Rwanda remains a nation haunted by its past, imperiled by intergenerational trauma, and threatened within by despotic rule that polarizes, impoverishes, imprisons, kills, disappears, exiles and marginalizes the citizens.  General Kagame seeks to rule indefinitely while he continues to wage an unjust war of aggression to plunder the natural resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Oblivious to the death toll among the young Rwandans who he sacrifices as cannon fodder in this war of self-enrichment, he pursues an endless war that has decimated and displaced many millions of Congolese people.

We are a nation and a people at a dangerous crossroads again. The promise and opportunity of a Hutu revolution of 1959, political independence from Belgian colonial rule in 1962, a Hutu military coup of 1973, and the RPF capture of state power in 1994 have successively been lost as each regime change left ever more increasing streams of tears, sorrow, lies, and blood on the nation’s desecrated hills.

We must rediscover our patriotic duty and obligation to choose an alternative pathway to the lies, deception, and evil deeds of General Kagame’s authoritarian rule. While we cannot stop him from staging this latest abuse as a comical election exercise, we must reflect and act on its implications for our shared future.

First, General Kagame is a brutal dictator in denial, unable and unwilling to read the writing on the wall. Having thrived on impunity for three decades, he is a captive within the bubble of wealth, power, fear, and violence he has built. Under pressure from within and without, the bubble will burst sooner than he thinks, with catastrophic consequences for Rwanda and the Great Lakes region.

Before that happens, the national crisis will widen and deepen, causing him to use more coercive, draconian, and violent methods of suppressing a desperate population in revolt.

Second, as the national crisis intensifies, the beleaguered general will double down on taking even riskier gambles in his war-making effort in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As Rwanda’s human and material costs mount, with limited and ever-dwindling replenishment means, the Congolese people and their allies will gradually mobilize to stop and reverse his military adventures.

Third, as the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo intensifies, so will Rwanda’s self-proclaimed dictator become isolated regionally and internationally, making him more paranoid and erratic in his one-man-dominated micro-managed decision-making. The recent decision by the new UK Labor Government to ‘kill and bury’ the UK-Rwanda human trafficking project, the now more frequent questions from the USA and Europe about Rwanda’s war in DRC, and the increasing exposure of the regime’s global transnational crime syndicates are danger signal on Rwanda’s horizon. These pointers, albeit weak for now, will increase in tempo and scope, highlighting that the general’s benefactors may be developing second thoughts about their guy’s capacity to deliver.

Fourth, pressure will mount for Rwandan people to mobilize and organize themselves into a networked social movement whose agenda is a peaceful transformation of Rwanda from dictatorial rule to a full-fledged democracy under the rule of law. The rebirth of such a new political, economic, and social dispensation will require broad-based negotiations for a national social contract among all Rwanda stakeholders. Positive outcomes from such a social contract, entered by free Rwandan citizens, buffeted with full rights and obligations, and followed by a discourse with East African stakeholders, will ensure sustainable peace, security, justice, and prosperity for Rwanda and the region.

All Rwandans are wounded citizens. To heal and bind our wounds, we must first think and act as a wounded healer, inviting a neighbor to this pathway of personal, family, community, national and regional healing. We must dedicate ourselves to a life-long, intergenerational commitment to healing, with all citizens and leaders partaking in this process as wounded healers.

Rwandans must, therefore, reject General Kagame, the self-appointed Serial-Killer-in-Chief, and embark upon seeking and finding wounded healers among themselves to lead them.

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa

Chairman, Rwanda Freedom Movement-ISHAKWE

Co-Founder, Rwanda Truth Commission

Washington, D.C.

USA

E-mail: ngombwa@gmail.com

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The State Department has praised “members of civil society in Uganda working at the forefront to raise awareness and seek an end to ongoing human rights abuses,” while separately, another official deflected blame for the invitation to dictator Yoweri Museveni to the D.C. summit with President Biden to the African Union, since the country is in “good standing” with the organization.

Museveni is one of Africa’s most corrupt rulers, his human rights abuses and militarism has led to the deaths of millions across East Africa—in Uganda and in the countries he’s invaded, Rwanda, Congo, and South Sudan.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/dec/20/congo.uganda

Gen. Museveni has also made very ugly statements in the distant past about slavery and once praised Hitler, according to a Ugandan publication.

Before the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit kicked off this week, after a meeting with State Department officials, one of the diaspora leaders of the National Unity Platform (NUP), the party headed by Robert Kyagulanyi, a.k.a. Bobi Wine, who’s widely believed to be the winner of the 2021 presidential election, said in a video statement, “We want abductions to stop in Uganda…We want equal justice under the law in Uganda…We want to make sure that when we have elections they are free and fair…”

Ugandans in the D.C. area also organized protests and were joined by those in Boston, New York, New Jersey, and other parts of the U.S. to protest at the White House and in front of the State Department.

In the run-up to the 2021 vote which was rigged by Gen. Museveni, more than 100 Bobi Wine supporters were massacred by Museveni’s security forces between Nov. 17 and 18, 2020. Secretary of State Blinken later rejected the results of the Jan. 14, 2021 vote as “neither free, nor fair,” and announced sanctions against unnamed Ugandans.

https://www.state.gov/imposing-visa-restrictions-on-ugandans-for-undermining-the-democratic-process/

Yet here was dictator Museveni, who is directly responsible for the killings, being allowed to pose for a photo-op with Biden here in the U.S. this week. Ugandans have taken to social media and to the streets in Washington D.C. this week to condemn the presence of Gen. Museveni amongst the dozens of African presidents invited by the Biden administration to the summit from Dec. 13 to Dec. 15.

Gen. Museveni seized power in 1986 when Ronald Reagan was still U.S. president. Four years ago, a U.S. court convicted a Chinese wheeler-dealer, Patrick Ho, for bribing Museveni and his then foreign minister Sam Kutesa $1 million, on behalf of CFC China Energy, a Chinese conglomerate seeking rights to oil blocks and other businesses.

The U.S. gained jurisdiction over the case when Kutesa insisted that his cut be wired to a Ugandan account he’d created for a foundation; when an FBI agent went to Uganda he discovered that the charity was fake. Ho wired Kutesa’s $500,000 using a New York bank, landing both of them in hot waters. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Museveni’s $500,000 was delivered wrapped as a “gift,” Mafia-style, when Ho flew in a Gulf-stream jet to Uganda in May 2016, to attend the dictator’s swearing-in after he’d stolen the election from then challenger Dr. Kiiza Besigye. Ho was accompanied by top CEFC China executives where they met with Museveni and other senior officials to
discuss the returns-on-the-bribe (ROB). CEFC China also promised a private joint-venture business between the company and the families of Kutesa and Museveni, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/patrick-ho-former-head-organization-backed-chinese-energy-conglomerate-sentenced-3

Ho was arrested at JFK airport in New York nearly 18 months after meeting Museveni. (Ironically, Ho also reported had business dealings with Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son—at the time of the deals Biden was former vice president and was no longer in the White House—and made payments of about $3.8 million. Ho also paid Hunter Biden $1 million to represent him in his criminal case after his arrested according to media reports in YahooNews and The Washington Post. Biden never represented Ho during the trial which led to his conviction and a prison sentence of three years although he served a shorter sentence for good behavior).

The Ugandan dictator in the past has made highly offensive comments about slavery and praised Hitler in comments he made before the legal fraternity in East Africa.

“I have never blamed the whites for colonizing Africa: I have never blamed these whites for taking slaves. If you are stupid, you should be taken a slave,” Museveni, perhaps playing the race-card in reverse in order to ingratiate himself to white conservatives in the U.S. told The Atlantic magazine in September, 1994.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/09/an-african-success-story/670697/

In April 1998, The Shariat, a Ugandan weekly no longer in publication quoted Museveni saying, “As Hitler did to bring Germany together, we should also do it here. Hitler was a smart guy, but I think he went a bit too far by wanting to conquer the world.” Just “a bit too far,” according to the Ugandan tyrant; never mind the gas chambers that exterminated millions of Jews and a war that led to the deaths of an estimated 50 million people.

David Duke, the neo-Nazi KKK leader would be impressed with such ugly comments.

It’s unclear whether senior officials like U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, responsible for the invitations to African presidents, including the Ugandan dictator, were aware of the Ugandan tyrants remarks.

Reacting to questions about the appropriateness of Biden inviting Museveni to the White House this week, a U.S. official said, in a statement, “President Biden extended invitations to leaders of African Union member states who are currently in good standing with the African Union. Currently four countries Burkina Faso, Guinea, Sudan and Mali—are suspended by the AU and were not invited.”

As if good standing with the AU makes it okay for anyone to denigrate the legacy of slavery and praise Hitler.

Separately, in the statement to Black Star News, a State Department spokesperson said, “The United States remains focused on addressing racial discrimination, inequity, xenophobia, and intolerance worldwide, and this Summit is an important opportunity to reaffirm with African partners our shared commitment to respect human rights and strengthen democratic institutions. The United States will continue its efforts to advance democracy and promote respect for human rights and commends the members of civil society in Uganda working at the forefront to raise awareness and seek an end to ongoing human rights abuses.”

The post U.S. Praises Ugandans Fighting Human Rights Abuses; Another Official Blames AU for Museveni Invitation appeared first on Black Star News.

Ugandan dictator Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa traveled 50 miles by road from Kabale to Kigali, Rwanda the other day for the Common Poverty Heads of Government Meeting, a.k.a. Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm). 

There was excitement among the Rwandans who had lined up by the roadside, and others stood on the verandas and balconies of their houses to catch a glimpse of the Ugandan dictator. 

In reference to the photographs captured and videos recorded, the throngs of mortals were chirpy and capering about while cheering as the septuagenarian’s convoy wound through the scrubbed and squeaky-clean city.

Museveni’s chamchas ensconced in different offices back in Kampala capitalized on such a temporary moment to spin on social media the whole day— shoving it into our throats—about how Gen. Museveni is so great that he’s even loved by Rwandans. Some of his acolytes even likened the moment to biblical Jesus’s grand entrance into Jerusalem. You can imagine how patronage, a paycheck, and witchcraft can turn some individuals into vacuous beings bereft of any modicum of reasoning.

On the other hand, other Ugandans took to their social media accounts and joked that the dictator should remain in Rwanda since he is loved there. He would not need to hire crowds to cheer for him as he does in Uganda wherever he goes to patronize poor people with envelopes and other empty promises and threats.

This reminds me of several years ago at our rural primary school in Rukungiri when a parliament of about five monkeys and their ambling infants wandered into our school compound and began to play around on the heap of sand. It was nearing lunchtime and the school was quiet except for the voices of teachers from different classes.

I was the first to see the monkeys and I pinched Vincent and Patience’s ribs, my seat-mates, and furtively showed them the creatures. My mates couldn’t hide the excitement and soon the entire class was tickled. Soon everyone scampered out of class to catch a glimpse at the playful monkeys.

Of course we’d seen monkeys before. Yet we still longed to catch a glimpse of these marauding primates that had been stealing and vandalizing our fruits and bananas in the school garden. What had brought them to the school compound that day? No one knows, but I remember some incandescent pupils soon picked up stones and chased the playful visitors. 

We failed to arrest the thieves and vandals yet we had the golden opportunity to thwart these primates from assailing our garden further. They would not return to the school compound but our garden remained their field to showcase vandalism and pilfering.Back to the Rwandans getting excited about dictator Museveni making his grand entry into Kigali.

Some Rwandese might have seen a convoy of 40 armored sleek vehicles carrying one man going to attend the conference and wondered at such a hombre enjoying luxury amidst harsh economic times. I can imagine the hubbub and ululation of a Rwandan villager who had never seen such a convoy with a mobile toilet for the dictator.

Even if it were me, I would, at indescribable rapidity, scoot off to have a look at how a mobile toilet looks or a penchant for luxury superannuated dictator who moves with it looks or how a person who has been in power for almost 40-years looks. This is the same liar who when he seized power in 1986 declared that Africa’s problem was leaders who overstay in office. 

These Rwandans must have thought of our dictator as an immortal usuofia.

In this case, our beloved dictator became a tourist attraction in Rwanda. Right now, if Idi Amin or Adolf Hitler miraculously shows up anywhere in the world, I am sure thousands of people would all caper about the streets in the same manner as Rwandans, if not to welcome them, to see how exactly they look.

Rukirabashaija, author of “The Greedy Barbarian,” “Banana Republic, Where Writing Is Treasonous,” and “The Log Cabin,” is on the Scholar on Writers in Exile Program of PEN-Zentrum Deutschland. The 2021 PEN International Writer of Courage honoree is a survivor of torture at the hands of the Museveni regime. 

Full profile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakwenza_Rukirabashaija

The post If Rwandans Cheered For Dictator Museveni Why Did he Come Back to Uganda? appeared first on Black Star News.

On March 2, 2022, the UN General Assembly held a vote on a Resolution deploring Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine” and  141 countries voted on the Resolution. In all, 35 countries abstained including several African nations. 

In the wake of this the African Union has rightly asked Russia to respect International Law and Ukraine’s sovereignty. It is well within the right of each country including those on the African continent to vote or abstain from any Resolution presented to the General Assembly; to suggest otherwise or coerce any country directly or indirectly is an infringement on International Law and the sovereign right of the respective country. That basic fundamental fact seems to be lost on some legislators when it comes to parroting the imperialist narrative of the United States.

U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Democrat representing the 5th Congressional District in Queens, New York, and Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, on March 31 introduced H.R. 7311 titled “Countering Malign Russian Activities In Africa.” 

The bill, in part, would direct the U.S. Secretary of State, using “detailed intelligence” to identify, in Africa, “local actors complicit in Russian activities.” This Resolution if passed seeks to monitor Russia’s relationship and interaction with African countries. This would be flagrant infringement on the sovereignty and independence of Africa. This  is an attempt by the United States to coerce independent countries into participating in America’s neocolonial and geopolitical design for spheres of influence. It also exposes the desperation of an empire that sees its world economic and political hegemony threatened and now wants to bolster its imperialistic ideology and position at all costs. 

The entire African diaspora must resist the Meeks Resolution, a colonial assault on self-determination and national sovereignty; the African Union must immediately enter actively into analyzing this Resolution and immediately develop a plan for resisting and defeating this neocolonial action.

Any call by any party elected or otherwise, or individual, to place sanctions against those African countries that abstained from the UN General Assembly vote on March 2, 2022 for Russia’s incursion into Ukraine is reactionary, hypocritical and a double-standard. 

It is self-serving policy and plays along with the United States’ hegemonist foreign policy. Since the United States is so concerned and supportive of sovereignty and justice in Ukraine, why aren’t there any sanctions against the genocidal and apartheid policy of Israel and its atrocities against Palestine? Why aren’t there sanctions against Saudi Arabia for its devastating war against Yemen where war crimes are committed against an entire nation? Why aren’t there sanctions against the despotic regimes of Uganda, Chad, Sudan, and Rwanda? 

Ever since February 24, 2022 we have been barraged by the corporate media with anti-Russian platitudes that have seen no equal; it has reached hysterical levels. The “reports” are unbalanced, irrational and lacks history and context. The intent is to shape public opinion into Ukrainian victim syndrome and bolster the pro-war expansionist and militaristic psychosis of NATO and continue the “encirclement” of Russia, much like the Western alliance did during the Soviet era.

War by any standard is devastating on human lives and property. The territorial integrity of every country is to be respected and not encroached upon by another country. It is reckless and irresponsible to encourage NATO to push towards the Russian border, knowing that Russia would understandably feel threatened leading to some type of retaliation, which was foreseeable. The civilized world would have preferred if the conflict were resolved through dialog and negotiations. In the current situation there are no winners. Both sides will experience irreparable loss.

Some African countries have had longstanding and non-adversarial relations with Russia. Many recall the soviet era of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) when African Liberation Movements received material support—weapons, finance, military training—in the struggles against western colonialism. 

Today approximately 40% of Africa’s wheat and fertilizer imports are from Russia and Ukraine; and African countries have students studying in both countries. The call for denouncing Russia is not only self-serving and hypocritical but disguises the imperialistic and hegemonist intent of the United States. It’s continuation of the 

historical encirclement psychosis of NATO since after WWII, even after the collapse of the USSR.

Not all countries believe in the warmongering and militaristic rhetoric of the US/NATO alliance. African countries are well within their rights as sovereign states, to exercise their right of self-determination and non-alignment not only in socio-economic matters but foreign policy as well. 

The continued push towards the Russian border by the NATO countries is provocative and retaliation was inevitable; the war was avoidable if the US/NATO alliance acted responsibly and did not pursue this path of opportunism and adventurism. As a result, it has plunged the already vulnerable countries of Africa further into socio-economic devastation including continent-wide famine and premature deaths due to the global consequences of the conflict—food and fuel prices have escalated.

OXFAM has reported that every 48 seconds one person across Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya is dying of hunger today. With the reduction or lack of imports of wheat and fertilizer and draught—which has also affected some regions in West Africa—combined with the Covid pandemic, the impact has been catastrophic. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reports that as many as 30 million people in West Africa alone face hunger.

Even here in the U.S., people are feeling the pain. Blaming Russia for the current domestic problems, is a smokescreen for an inept and limping Administration that lacks vision and a viable plan to ease the socio-economic burden facing the working class. 

The OXFAM report of May 23, 2022, “Profiting From Pain” states that a new billionaire has been created every 30 hours since the start of the pandemic. How does Russia figure into this capitalist greed and inhumanity?

It would have been better for Rep. Meeks to table a Resolution calling for an immediate cease fire and the beginning of meaningful and respectful negotiations between the warring parties to put an end to this conflict. 

Ostracizing and demonizing Putin and Russia does nothing to ease the tension between the conflicting parties. It does nothing to address the critical issues of expansion and provocation. Sanctioning African countries that abstained from participating in this militaristic madness does no good for foreign relations and further isolates the United States ideologically even from some of its so-called allies. 

The punitive Resolution which will bring more harm to Africa which is already struggling must be withdrawn. It is reactionary, hypocritical and double-standard.

Richard Dunn can be reached at: richarddunn75@gmail.com

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The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame have now concluded a devious and evil plan to ship asylum-seekers in the United Kingdom to Rwanda. This has sparked a frenzy of deserved public and international outrage. 

A group of 160 U.K. charities have called it “inhumane, cruel, immoral, and a breach of the international Refugee Convention.” In his Easter sermon, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Reverend Justin Welby called it the “opposite of the nature of God”, and that the principle behind the plan “cannot stand the judgement of God”. 

Former British Prime Minister Theresa May questions the “legality, practicality and efficacy” of the Johnson-Kagame deal. Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary at the UK Home Office has said he is not sure the plan will provide any value for the taxpayer’s money. 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees stated “UNHCR remains firmly opposed to arrangements that seek to transfer refugees and asylum seekers to third countries in the absence of sufficient safeguards and standards…contrary to the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention”.

Prime Minister Johnson and his Home Secretary Priti Patel have falsely argued that the US $156 million plus down-payment to Rwanda is a “migration and economic development partnership” that will break the illegal business model of people-smuggling. Both Johnson and Secretary Patel describe Rwanda as “one of the fastest growing economies of Africa which is recognized globally for its record on welcoming and integrating migrants”. Perhaps here Mr. Johnson and Ms. Patel are referring to similar cruel deals in which Israel has deported Eritreans and other African migrants to Rwanda. The Libyan authorities are also under a European Union-Rwanda deal. Denmark will soon embark on a similar inhumane course of shipping its asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

Mr. Johnson has blatantly criticized those who have questioned his deal with Mr. Kagame, saying they should be more vocal against Putin and his war in Ukraine.

Who are these asylum seekers that are not wanted and being rejected in the U.K.? What kind of country are they being sent to? What is the nature of Rwanda’s government and the man who has ruled it for the last 28 years? What does Mr. Johnson hope to get out of the deal? What does Mr. Kagame want out of it? Who are the winners and losers in the deal?

For some of us who are, or have been refugees, it is clear that Prime Minister Johnson’s whole life in a protected bubble has not led him to fully appreciate the hell asylum-seekers have to go through to be uprooted and seek refuge in distant lands. However, Home Secretary Patel’s Ugandan-Indian heritage should have taught her that brutal Ugandan dictator, Gen. Idi Amin, overnight made many of her kith and kin homeless refugees in 1972. That’s how Ms. Patel’s family ended up in Britain. When Amin summarily expelled Ugandans of Asian ancestry and other Asians residing in the country. 

An asylum seeker’s journey is a high risk, high-stakes, one-option-only life and death undertaking. It is indeed inhumane and cruel to reject asylum-seekers on the basis that they have been smuggled into your country. Rejecting asylum-seekers and shipping them to Rwanda is analogous to jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. 

As for conditions in Rwanda, on July 8, 2021, the U.K. International Ambassador, Rita French, stated: “We regret that Rwanda did not support our recommendation, which was also made by other States, to conduct transparent, credible and independent investigations into allegations of human rights violations including deaths in custody and torture.” 

In its “2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Rwanda,” the U.S State Department went further:

“Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings by the government; forced disappearance by the government; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary detention; political prisoners or detainees; politically motivated reprisals against individuals located outside the country, including killings, kidnappings, and violence; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on free expression and media, including threats of violence against journalists, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, and censorship; serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on the organization, funding, or operation of nongovernmental and civil society organizations; serious and unreasonable restrictions on political participation; and serious government restrictions on or harassment of domestic and international human rights organizations.”

This characterization tells part of the tragic state of governance in Rwanda, a country and a people who have witnessed multi-generational trauma from civil wars, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The costly regime change of 1994, like those that preceded it in the 1973 military takeover and the 1959 violent revolution, put in place an absolute dictator unwilling to lead the nation to mutual healing, reconciliation and shared prosperity in a deeply divided society. The whole Rwandan nation is now hostage to him, closely resembling a detention or concentration camp.

Rwanda, just over 10,000 square miles and with a population of over 13 million, is one of the most densely populated countries on planet earth. By comparison neighboring Uganda is over 93,000 square miles with a population of over 46 million. The majority of Rwanda’s citizens are poor rural peasants living on less than $2 per day. This does not match the imaginary country that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Patel are echoing from Mr. Kagame’s official catechism.

In President Kagame, successive U.K. and U.S. administrations have placed enormous financial, diplomatic, and geo-political capital in supporting the regime’s false narrative of “political rebirth” and “economic miracle.” Out of guilt—for failing to do more to help halt the 1994 genocide—and bare-knuckle geo-strategic considerations, the U.K., U.S. and recently France, have shielded President Kagame from accountability for despotic rule, well documented human rights abuses, war crimes, crimes against humanity and even possible acts of genocide in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In London, Washington D.C, and Paris, the true nature of President Kagame is a public secret. Yet, in the secret chambers of statecraft they most likely admit, “Yes, he is another Putin, but he is our African Putin. He is the sole richest oligarch in Rwanda, but he serves our interests. Who cares about those Black people”. Realpolitik 101.

The losers in this unholy scheme are the asylum-seekers being banished to the concentration camp of a nation, the British taxpayers who have to finance the Johnson-Kagame sinister gamble—thus enriching an African despot to entrench himself in power by violent means—and the Rwandan people who have to bear the extended years of repeated trauma.

Suffice it to say that the Johnson-Kagame deal is the latest, but not the first nor the last, in a pattern of unethical transactions that span 28 years. Mr. Johnson has blatantly gone the extra mile, hoping against hope to regain political capital out of his domestic woes. Mr. Kagame is richer and expects from Mr. Johnson that no questions will be asked about accountability for governance in Rwanda, human rights abuses, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

The asylum-seekers are the hapless pawns. 

When British Royalty and Prime Minister Johnson grace the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) being hosted by President Kagame on June 20, 2022 in Kigali, Rwanda, it will be an occasion for the partying elite to once again ignore the interests of asylum-seekers, the British people, and the ordinary Rwandan people who will not be seen or heard at the event venues.

The celebration will be premature. The Johnson-Kagame asylum seekers deal is doomed to fail because it is evil.

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa, a physician, is Rwanda’s former Ambassador to the United States

The post How Asylum-Seekers Lose Out In Johnson-Kagame Unholy Alliance appeared first on Black Star News.

This article was originally published in German. The author, Andrea Barron translated it to English for non-German speakers to read this important story. The original article in Germany can be found on this link: https://gewaltsames-verschwindenlassen.de/laenderberichte/afrika/ruanda/gewaltsames-verschwindenlassen-in-ostafrika-ruanda-und-uganda

In Rwanda and Uganda, voices critical of the government are systematically silenced – including by the violent disappearance of the critics. In other cases, their family members disappear without a trace. For this article, the author spoke to those affected in both countries.

Andrea Barron, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) International, April 07, 2022 (Translation from English: Kristina Stier)

Enforced disappearances first came to the attention of the broader international public during the military dictatorships in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s. In Argentina, the mothers of the disappeared regularly gathered in front of the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires, becoming known as the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. Since 1977, they have become a symbol of resistance to enforced disappearance and the demand for the truth about the whereabouts of the disappeared.

Enforced disappearance is defined in the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), which came into force in 2010, as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty, or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.”

The reasons behind enforced disappearances are varied. The aim is often to intimidate and silence the voices of political dissidents or those deemed to be dissidents. Armed non-state actors are also sometimes involved, victims are frequently tortured and killed –few ever reappear. Family members often do not receive any information about what happened to the missing person – they are left in a state of uncertainty, not knowing whether their loved ones are even alive, unable to bury their relatives or begin the grieving process. Once a common practice in military dictatorships, people are now being systematically disappeared in both authoritarian and formally democratic systems, such as Mexico.

The International Convention obliges the contracting states, among other things, to search for the missing person, investigate the circumstances of the disappearance, appropriately punish those responsible and take measures to prevent the crime. So far, the Convention has only been ratified by 68 states (as of April 1, 2022), including 18 countries in Africa.

Two East African countries, Rwanda and Uganda, have not yet ratified the Convention. Enforced disappearances have been reported regularly from both countries.

Rwanda

Paul Kagame has been President of Rwanda since 2000. His rebels ended the 1994 genocide that killed more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Rwanda has since turned into a de facto centralized dictatorship. Since 1994, scores of government critics, including former members of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) party, political opposition leaders and genocide survivors, have been imprisoned and there have been reports of enforced disappearances. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) is currently investigating around 25 cases of enforced disappearances in Rwanda.

One such case was reported by Noël Zihabamwe, a Rwandan human rights activist who arrived in Australia as a refugee in 2006. His two brothers, Jean Nsengimana and Antoine Zihabamwe, disappeared on September 28, 2019 after Noël rejected an “offer” from the Rwandan government to spy on the Rwandan diaspora in Australia. As reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation , Rwanda has a network of agents across Australia collecting information about the refugee community.

Noël’s brothers, Jean and Antoine, were both married with children and were not involved in any political activity. Their disappearance has had a severe psychological and financial impact on their families. As Noël tells the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) International, an anti-torture human rights organization based in Washington DC, he and his brothers’ wives and children have “lived in a climate of uncertainty and great fear” ever since. He adds: “The children keep asking where their fathers are. No one can give them an answer. If my brothers had been murdered and we found their bodies, at least we could bury them with dignity and have a memorial service for them every year.”

In order to represent the families of Rwandans who have disappeared from the Kagame regime, Noël founded the Rwandan Accountability Initiative: an organization that – like similar initiatives in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe – works to ensure justice for the relatives of the disappeared. His organization represents a new kind of initiative in sub-Saharan Africa. Since his case became public, hundreds of people have reached out to Noel.

A similar fate befell Innocent Bahatibefell Innocent Bahati, a prominent young poet and teacher who was disappeared in February 2021 after publishing poetry on sensitive issues such as poverty and state oppression. Over 100 writers and artists then wrote a letter to President Kagame asking about what happened to Innocent. Rwandan authorities did not respond.

According to Claude Gatebuke, a well-known human rights activist and genocide survivor now based in the United States, there have been other disappearances of Rwandan dissidents. However, so far they have received less international attention than the cases of Innocent Bahati and Noël Zihabamwe’s brothers.

Uganda

In Uganda, north of Rwanda, people were systematically kidnapped, tortured and enforced disappearances before, during and after the presidential election of January 14, 2021. President Yoweri Museveni came to power in a military coup in 1986. Now 77, he rules the country with an iron fist, relying on the security forces to repress opposition supporters, often with violence. As reported in Human Rights Watch’s recent report, “I Only Need Justice,” Unlawful Detention and Abuse in Unauthorized Places of Detention in Uganda, the kidnappings began in 2018 and increased dramatically with the January 2021 elections. The election was particularly controversial as Museveni had a strong challenger – Robert Kyagulanyi, a popular musician who became a politician. He is also known by the stage name Bobi Wine.

State agents have kidnapped hundreds of government critics and opposition supporters. The agents abduct people from their homes or workplaces in unmarked vehicles called “drones“ and take them to so-called “safe houses,” where they are illegally detained, interrogated and often tortured.

The kidnapping and torture operations in Uganda are directed by the domestic intelligence agency. The head of this agency was recently was appointed as Uganda’s ambassador to Angola for his “good work.“

Human rights defender and torture survivor Ismael Serunjogi fears that repression in Uganda could increase this year despite all the international attention on human rights abuses there. This is so Museveni can prepare his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba, a major general in the Ugandan army, to replace him. In order to facilitate Kainerugaba’s transition, Museveni must silence as many opposition supporters as possible.

Appeal to the international community

Human rights activists such as Ismael from Uganda and Noël and Claude from Rwanda are calling on the international community to pressure the governments of these countries to end kidnapping, torture and enforced disappearances. The two countries must ratify the International Convention against Enforced Disappearance and hold accountable those who seek to silence dissident voices and threaten brave human rights defenders and their families.

Andrea Barron is Advocacy Program Manager at the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC ) International, a Washington DC-based human rights organization working against torture that empowers torture survivors, their families and communities.

The post Enforced Disappearances in East Africa: Rwanda and Uganda appeared first on Black Star News.

[My Free Thoughts]

One of the high-ranking officers of the Special Forces Command (SFC) who participated in my grievous torture threatened me. I was told the only option I was left with was to accept their job offers and other material benefits. I would live peacefully in my country like other critics who had been encapsulated in patronage and co-optation. 

I was about to ask whether my peers who capitulated had also been tortured like me before joining the dinning table but you know I had to swallow such words out of fear. The officer sounded like a Mukiga satisfied with porridge and Irish potatoes. 

“If you cannot accept and then go out there and begin from where you stopped in criticizing the government, we shall kill you, your immediate family members and that stupid lawyer of yours,” he said, presumably referring to my lawyer Eron Kiiza. “Even if you go out of the country, we shall find you.” He then summoned another person through a radio call to take me back into the filthy cold cell. I couldn’t see him because I was blindfolded. 

Lt. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, commander of the Uganda People Defense Force (UPDF) land forces had no such fears of being seen. Sometimes arrogance is good. He let me see him three times; twice while I was still in detention and the third time when, after my release had been ordered, I was abducted before I had left the prison grounds and taken to Gen. Muhoozi. 

Bobi Wine examines the permanent torture souvenir on Kakwenza’s back.

It is as though my dehumanizing abuse was comeuppance for having turned down the numerous job offers since April 2020 when my horrendous woes with my torturers began. Five times I have refused political appointments and gifts.

It was around January 9, 2022 or so, when Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba brought me new clothes—pants, a shirt, a sweater, a vest and boxers. My own clothes had been bloodied and shredded during the course of the torture sessions. “You know you are an important person. You have to appear in public since we have forgiven you,” Gen. Muhoozi said, handing me the blood-free clothes.

I had hatched my plan to flee to exile immediately. A day before, I had been taken to Special Investigation Unit (SIU) in Kireka where I slept. Bill Ndyamuhaki, who is attached to Kibuli CID, picked me up and drove me to court with a lead car screaming and flashing sirens for right of way as though I was a VIP, not a regime torture-victim. 

When I was finally given bail and then re-arrested from the prison gate, taken to Makindye Military Barracks, the treatment this time was different. I was even lifted with care by six men who emerged from a maize plantation over yonder, and deposited in a numberless grey double cabin like a delicate egg or glass.

The details of my torture will be for another day. Today is about getting away from my tormentors. 

Let me first tell you about the events that followed after being dropped at my gate at 3:30 a.m. by a convoy of two Military Police trucks full of soldiers. Mind you this is me and my only weapon is a pen, or better, laptop. 

After the regime armed-men left, I called our family driver to take me to Kampala. My wife wife understandably protested. She 

wanted me around considering I had been away for a month. She missed me, but I had to rush to the hospital for treatment for the injuries from the torture. I left home at 4:30 a.m., phone-less, and with some cash in my wallet.

Upon arrival in Kampala, I asked the driver to go back home. I limped across the road where I bought a phone but failed to get a sim card. I got a cab by the roadside and asked the chauffeur to take me to Kyanja and then International Hospital Kampala (IHK). In Kyanja, I knew a friend who would get me a sim card and then proceed to the hospital. When we reached Kyanja, the friend offered to take me to the hospital. 

While at IHK, I remembered that I had forgotten my phone in the cab so we drove to town to look for the chauffeur. We found him. He gave me a look of disgust. He narrated how, immediately after he’d dropped me off, two men riding on a boda-boda —the ubiquitous Ugandan motorcycle taxis— intercepted him and detained him at the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) for five hours of interrogation. The CMI is the notorious agency whose former commander Gen. Abel Kandiho was sanctioned by the United States on Dec. 7, 2021 for torture, sexual torture, and killings. The driver said at CMI he was asked how he knew me, and what I had discussed with him. He was released upon proving that he was merely a chauffeur in town for hire and that we’d never met before. 

So I was under 24/7 surveillance. In the days that followed, I moved in my lawyer’s car, from different Airbnb’s, until I left the city, while my trackers believed I was still inside a certain house. I had noticed them following us all the time, lurking around like ghosts at eateries, different hospitals, and hotels—I pretended as though I wasn’t seeing them. 

On the day of escape, I tried a ploy. My trackers were used to seeing my lawyer Eron Kiiza picking me up and dropping me at various locations. I asked another person to pick me up. Driving with this person, we actually drove by my trackers who were awaiting Eron Kiiza’s car at their usual junction so they could start tracking. 

Nine hours later, my lawyer announced that I had fled the country. The unintelligent intelligence officers are still wondering how I made it out. Up to now, my friend in the security circles wonders how I managed to escape. I even went through Rwanda, something former Uganda Police Chief Gen. Kale Kayihura failed to accomplish, when he too was placed under surveillance as captured during his attempted exit. 

When I made it into Rwanda I felt like I was sticking the a big and long middle finger to Muhoozi and his chamchas. When word got out that I had escaped, Gen. Muhoozi grabbed the phone and asked the tall, lanky and suave president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, whether he had seen me. Of course, he could not have. I entered Rwanda illegally and I slipped through to another country before I could get nabbed. 

Considering my distinctive lanky figure, and fluency in Kinyarwanda, no one would have doubted that I appeared like a Rwandese. How ironic. The SFC crooks beat me and tortured me severely—plucking off flesh from all over my body with pliers—while also accusing me of being a Rwandan spy living in Uganda and bankrolled by President Kagame. I proved to them that my father, grandfather, great grandfather, and other ancestors are buried in Rukungiri. 

Ugandans know there is a certain prominent Ugandan who can’t say the same.  

To add salt to the injury, the regime believed that by confiscating my passport, I would not be able to travel abroad.

I write this article from Germany where I arrived safely. 

Editor’s Note: Please consider signing the petition for the ICC to hold Gen. Muhoozi accountable for Kakwenza’s torture.

The post Kakwenza Rukirabashaija: How I Escaped Uganda Through Rwanda, And Another Country, Before Landing In Germany appeared first on Black Star News.

[The View From Uganda]

Today is Archbishop Janani Luwum Day. The theme is “Hope beyond Affliction”, which is borrowed from biblical scripture Romans 12:12  which reads, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

Janani Luwum was born in 1922 in Mucwini, Chua, Kitgum District, in Uganda to Eliya Okello and Aireni Aciro. He lived in perilous times. The reign of Gen. Idi Amin—1971 to 1979—was marked by extra judicial killings, kidnappings, illegal detention and Amin’s unquenchable desire to rule by decree. That pattern of state violence sadly remains entrenched in today’s Uganda. 

In the midst of Amin’s terror, famously captured in the appropriately titled book, “State of Blood,” by former minister Henry Kyemba, Luwum kept his spiritual counsel and preached the Word of God. In doing so, he reflected Romans 12: 12 by living a full Christian life: by rejoicing in hope, staying patient in tribulation and being constant in prayer. 

As he lived The Word, Luwum found joy in Jesus, discovered hope for humanity in Jesus, and patience in trying times through the love of Jesus. He knew that, with Jesus, tribulation was a storm that would not last long and so with constant prayer through Jesus he, Luwum, connected to God, the Father.

In 1974 Janani Luwum became Archbishop of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga-Zaire which is the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. This was two years into the misrule of Amin, when terror began to become a cultural digest in Uganda. 

President Milton Obote had been overthrown by Amin three years earlier in 1971 and Amin had enacted repression as state policy, arresting anyone suspected of not supporting him. Obote hailed from Lango, so Amin trained his sights on people from the Lango and Acholi people and soldiers from that region were shot dead in their barracks.  

Archbishop Luwum was from Kitgum, which is one of the seven Districts in the Acholi sub-region in the northern part of Uganda. At independence in 1962, Kitgum was part of Acholi District. In 1974, under the provincial administration the then Acholi District was divided into two districts, West Acholi and East Acholi.

Over the next few years, Amin widened his terror and started killing Christians. It was like the biblical story of Daniel and the lion’s den. In this story, King Darius enacted a law in which people could worship and pray to only the king and if they worshipped or prayed to other gods, they would be thrown into the den of lions. 

The starving lions would eat “lawbreakers” alive. 

Instead of being afraid, however, Archbishop Janani Luwum often went personally to the lion’s den, which was also known as the State Research Bureau, Amin’s torture house, to help secure the release of prisoners. By doing this, Archbishop Luwum was obeying Romans 9-11 of the bible which instructs us to “Let love be genuine.” 

We are told to hate only evil, not evil doers and hold fast to what is good in the bad as something that is essential to love. “Love one another with brotherly affection,” the book of Romans says. 

Jesus also said, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). Archbishop Luwum bore his own cross as he said in his own words: “I face daily being picked up by the soldiers. While the opportunity is there I preach the Gospel with all my might, and my conscience is clear before God that I have not sided with the present Government which is utterly self-seeking. I have been threatened many times. Whenever I have the opportunity I have told the President the things the churches disapprove of.”

In 1977, Archbishop Luwum took on the suicidal mission of making Amin see reason after an army rebellion that was put down and Amin went crazy, killing thousands of Ugandans. The archbishop delivered a note of protest, signed by nearly all the bishops of Uganda, against Amin’s arbitrary killings and the many disappearances of Ugandans.

Instead of listening, however, Amin accused the archbishop of treason and then pulled out a document supposedly written by former President Obote showing that the archbishop was in league with Amin’s opponents in trying to overthrow the government. Luwum was then arrested and held for military trial.

On February 16, the archbishop and six bishops were tried on the charge of smuggling arms into the country on behalf of Obote-led rebels. 

Archbishop Luwum was not allowed to defend himself, but shook his head in denial. Then, we saw history repeat itself. When trying Jesus, according to the Gospel of Matthew, the fifth governor of Judea Pontious Pilate washed his hands in front of the crowd before announcing, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” 

The crowd shouted in response, “His blood be on us and our children.” Amin also called out to a crowd of soldiers: “What shall we do with this traitor?” 

The soldiers shouted, “Kill him now, Kill them today.” 

The archbishop was separated from the bishops and taken away. His final words were: “Do not be afraid. I see God’s hand in this.” He was reportedly murdered by Amin himself. Amin was overthrown and driven into exile in 1979 by the Tanzanian military after he’d launched an ill-conceived war against our neighboring country. 

The book of Romans agreed with Luwum: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance.” Today, we come together to remember that whatever we are going through, God’s Hand will guide us to salvation in the same way it has spread the loving spirit of Archbishop Luwum across the nation.

Columnist Matogo can be reached via mugashop74@gmail.com 

The post Uganda’s Archbishop Janani Luwum: A Tribute And Remembrance appeared first on Black Star News.