[Nigeria’s powerful labor unions suspended a strike on Monday that had paralyzed Africa’s third-largest economy for more than a week, after President Goodluck Jonathan offered to partially reinstate a contentious subsidy for motor fuel.]
BURUNDI :
Burundi: Grève illimité dans le secteur de la santé publique
Pana /16/01/2012
Santé publique – Le personnel de la Mutuelle de la fonction publique (MFP) au Burundi a déclenché, lundi, un mouvement de ‘grève illimitée’ pour protester contre une récente mesure gouvernementale portant ‘suppression temporaire’ de la distribution des gratifications, primes de présence et autres primes de bilan dans les entreprises à économie mixte ou à participation publique, a appris la PANA de source syndicale à Bujumbura.
La grève risque de pénaliser plusieurs catégories d’affiliés à cette institution à caractère social chargée de gérer leurs cotisations mensuelles et prendre en charge, en cas de maladie, les frais de consultation, soins et médicaments des agents publics en activité ou à la retraite, ainsi que leurs ayant-droits à concurrence de 80%.
Les principales catégories d’affiliés sont les fonctionnaires, magistrats, enseignants, agents des établissements publics et des administrations personnalisées, les corps de défense nationale et de sécurité, les pensionnés et rentiers de la fonction publique et de l’Institut national de sécurité sociale (INSS), les membres et le personnel d’appui des institutions politiques, les agents municipaux, les étudiants de l’université publique du Burundi, le personnel de l’enseignement privé, ou encore le personnel des associations sans but lucratif et organisations non gouvernementales qui ont demandé l’adhésion.
La mesure gouvernementale a été mal accueillie de manière générale dans le monde du travail qui avait l’habitude de fêter la fin d’année avec les gratifications et autres primes de bilan en poche.
Les conjonctures économiques nationale et internationale difficiles ont été évoquées par le gouvernement burundais pour justifier cette mesure austère.
L’austérité a encore poussé le chef de l’Etat burundais, Pierre Nkurunziza, à annoncer, lors de son message de nouvel an à la nation, l’annulation de toutes les lois et dispositions qui dispensaient jusque-là d’impôt sur le revenu certains cadres et hauts fonctionnaires de l’Etat.
Burundi : la consommation de la drogue prend une ampleur inquiétante à Muyinga
Lundi 16 janvier 2012 /Xinhua
BUJUMBURA (Xinhua) – La consommation de la drogue prend une ampleur inquiétante dans la province de Muyinga, dans le nord-est du Burundi, a rapporté lundi la radio Isanganiro citant une source policière.
Selon cette source, le trafic du chanvre serait facilité par la perméabilité de la frontière entre le Burundi et la Tanzanie d’où il proviendrait.
Un jeune homme élève au lycée de Rugari en province de Muyinga (nord-est) est l’un des personnes appréhendées au cours de la semaine dernière en possession du chanvre.
Cette élève ne nie pas qu’il consomme du chanvre mais précisant qu’il a l’habitude d’en prendre comme médicament contre la diarrhée.
Un autre homme, originaire de Marangara en province de Ngozi ( Nord du pays), arrêté mercredi passé au chef-lieu de la province Muyinga en possession de 5 kg de chanvre, est actuellement incarcéré dans ce même cachot de la police judiciaire de Muyinga.
En provenance de la Tanzanie, ce chanvre transiterait au Burundi pour être vendu au Rwanda.
Au cours de la même semaine, plus de 15 kg de chanvre ont été saisis dans un véhicule de transport de Muyinga vers Bujumbura.
Le trafic de ces stupéfiants est une réalité dans cette province de Muyinga, indique-t-on par ailleurs, ajoutant que cette drogue serait vendue également au marché de Bubagano en commune Mwakiro, en province de Muyinga.
La police locale appelle la population à rompre avec le trafic et la consommation des stupéfiants, rappelant que le code pénal burundais réprime sévèrement les contrevenants en la matière.
Burundi : les poursuites judiciaires ne sont pas exclues contre un opposant arrété en Tanzanie
Mardi 17 janvier 2012 / Xinhua
BUJUMBURA (Xinhua) – Le gouvernement burundais, qui avait appelé les leaders de l’opposition à rentrer pour entamer un dialogue politique, a réagi lundi face à l’arrestation, le 11 janvier à Dar-es-Salam d’Alexis Sinduhije, à Dar-Es-Salam par la police tanzanienne et déclaré que le dialogue n’exclut pas les poursuites judiciaires.
“Le dialogue politique n’exclut pas le fonctionnement des institutions judiciaires ou de police. Chacun est responsable de ses actes devant la police ou la justice. Au niveau du gouvernement, les portes pour le dialogue restent ouvertes, ce qui ne signifie pas que c’est une amnistie ou que les gens sont couverts par l’impunité”, a déclaré à Xinhua Philippe Nzobonariba, porte-parole du gouvernement du Burundi.
Pour lui, le comportement infractionnel reste individuel et si quelqu’un commettait une infraction même en plein dialogue (le jour où il commencerait), rien n’empêcherait à la police ou à la justice de le poursuivre.
Toutefois, le porte-parole du gouvernement n’a pas fait de commentaire sur l’arrestation d’Alexis Sinduhije, président du Mouvement pour la solidarité et le développement (MSD, opposition), ni sur l’infraction qu’il aurait commise, avançant le principe de non ingérence du pouvoir exécutif dans les affaires judiciaires ou de police.
RWANDA :
Rwanda: un rapport balistique qui fait péter les plombs
•Par Jean-Hervé Bradol, membre du Crash /humanitaire.blogs.liberation.fr/16/01/2012
L’expertise balistique au sujet de l’attentat commis en 1994 contre l’avion qui ramenait à Kigali les présidents du Rwanda et du Burundi a fait la Une de Libération. Elle a également provoqué de nombreux commentaires dans la presse, actant comme Le Monde d’une «vérité à la portée historique et diplomatique». De quoi s’agit-il ? D’un rapport dont les conclusions sont interprétées comme mettant définitivement hors de cause les amis de Paul Kagame, dans cet attentat précédant de quelques jours le déclenchement du génocide des Rwandais tutsis.
Le fait que ce rapport n’ait pas été lu par ceux qui commentent ses conclusions ne les décourage pas de formuler des opinions définitives sur l’identité des commanditaires du crime. La conclusion de l’étude technique, du moins sous la forme rapportée par la journaliste Colette Braeckman sur son blog, est présentée comme reposant sur une double expertise, balistique et acoustique: « Analysant la distance à laquelle le bruit du départ des missiles a pu être entendu, les experts ont conclu que le lieu du tir était très proche, entre 1000 et 3000 mètres du point d’impact. » Pour reconstituer le trajet du missile, la balistique seule s’emploierait à relever les traces matérielles de la présence du missile en au moins deux points pour pouvoir calculer sa trajectoire. Or dans ce cas, dix-sept ans après les faits, ces traces matérielles ne peuvent plus être relevées.
Afin de pallier l’absence d’éléments matériels, la balistique passe la main à une autre discipline: l’acoustique. En fait les conclusions de l’enquête qui nous est présentée comme balistique reposent en bonne partie sur l’analyse acoustique du souvenir des bruits d’explosion entendus par des témoins au moment où l’avion a été abattu. D’un point de vue méthodologique, les conclusions de l’enquête dite balistique reposent avant tout sur des témoignages et non sur des éléments matériels. En ce sens, cette expertise ne ramène pas des faits plus solidement établis que ceux mentionnés dans d’autres procédures, notamment celles du Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda. Dans ces procédures, on pouvait déjà lire à partir des dires de témoins, que certaines personnes et objets (les missiles) étaient présents sur les lieux de l’attentat (les alentours de l’aéroport de Kigali) et à un moment précis (le 6 avril 1994 au soir). Le seul caractère marquant de cette expertise balistique mâtinée d’acoustique est l’utilisation de ces supposées conclusions pour dédouaner Paul Kagame et ses amis.
A l’instar de Colette Braeckman, plusieurs observateurs s’autorisent en effet en s’appuyant sur « un rapport technique qui fait basculer l’histoire » à innocenter ceux qui étaient encore peu de temps auparavant présentés comme les principaux suspects : « En écartant la colline de Masaka comme le lieu de l’attentat, les experts ont automatiquement exonéré le FPR, qui était dans l’incapacité de pénétrer dans le camp présidentiel. » Le monde serait merveilleux si pour se permettre d’émettre un jugement aussi définitif il suffisait pour connaître la vérité d’évoquer la mémoire auditive et visuelle d’un événement de quelques secondes survenu dix-sept ans plus tôt devant un expert en acoustique. La manipulation de l’information au sujet des éléments techniques de l’enquête du juge Trévidic est si grossière qu’elle pourrait produire un effet comique si elle ne concernait pas l’assassinat de deux chefs d’État et l’extermination de centaines de milliers de personnes.
Rwandan facing deportation to remain in custody
les perreaux /MONTREAL— Globe and Mail Update /Published Monday, Jan. 16, 2012
A philosopher accused of inciting mass murder in Rwanda will remain in detention until a hearing Friday that may put an end to his 19 years in Canada – or may keep him here for months.
The order Monday by the Immigration and Refugee Board keeping Léon Mugesera in custody cleared up a long weekend of confusion about the next steps in the long-running case.
For the first time Monday, federal officials publicly stated Ottawa would abide by a Superior Court order putting a hold on Mr. Mugesera’s deportation so it could consider whether Ottawa is legally bound to allow the UN to assess the risk that Mr. Mugesera might be tortured.
The IRB ruling also puts an end to fears among federal officials and some in the Rwandan community that Mr. Mugesera might flee or seek church sanctuary if he loses the next key hearing on Friday.
On Monday, IRB adjudicator Dianne Tordorf found Mr. Mugesera is a flight risk after he refused to answer questions about the mysterious illness that struck him down last week, hours before he was to be deported. He spent three days in hospital before he was arrested Saturday.
Mr. Mugesera was reported to have intentionally overdosed on medication.
Ms. Tordorf sided with a federal lawyer who argued the overdose showed the lengths to which Mr. Mugesera will go to avoid deportation.
“I don’t know if you will make a similar gesture, and you refuse to answer questions. You need to be supervised,” Ms. Tordorf said.
Mr. Mugesera’s lawyer, Mai Nguyen, argued the only evidence of an overdose came from media accounts provided by the Canada Border Services Agency, the federal department trying to deport Mr. Mugesera. But Ms. Nguyen refused to allow her client to answer questions, partly on the grounds he might incriminate himself.
“There is no right to remain silent in this hearing. In fact, the law allows me to impose sanctions for refusal to answer,” said Ms. Tordorf, who only imposed the continued detention on Mr. Mugesera.
Mr. Mugesera came to Canada as a refugee in 1993, months after giving an invective-filled speech urging Hutu followers of a political party to attack their enemies in the Tutsi population. The Rwandan genocide started about 18 months after the speech.
Mr. Mugesera, who settled in Quebec City and raised five children with his wife, has lost before several levels of immigration adjudication and court. He opened a new defence late last week when a UN committee agreed to examine the risk of torture he faces.
Canada has signed on to the UN convention, but disputes that it is obliged to follow it.
A similar case in Ontario in 2002 involving an alleged Iranian assassin ended after six months, with the court of appeal allowing Ottawa to deport him. However, unlike Mr. Mugesera, the Iranian was considered a threat to Canadian public safety.
Rwanda will never be the same, after Victoire Ingabire’s return
January 16, 2012/by Ambrose Nzeyimana/sfbayview.com
The U.S. Congress called Rosa Parks “the first lady of civil rights” and ”the mother of the freedom movement.” What made her an icon for the American Civil Rights Movement was not mainly her act of defiance of white authority, but the impact it had by prompting the Montgomery Bus Boycott and its transformation of the racial scenery in America. In fact, before her there had been many acts of disobedience against unjust and racist laws of the U.S. government.
On Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her defiance was thereafter an important symbol of the movement. Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation.
Victoire Ingabire, as leader of opposition political party FDU-Inkingi, went back to Rwanda two years ago, on Jan. 16, 2010. Upon her arrival, she paid a visit to the Genocide Memorial in Kigali at Gisozi. At the memorial she made the following statement to journalists and the general public:
“I would like to say that today I came back to my country after 16 years, and there was a tragedy that took place in this country. We know very well that there was a genocide, extermination. Therefore, I could not have returned after 16 years to the same country after such actions took place. They took place when I was not in the country. I could not have fallen asleep without first passing by the place where those actions took place. I had to see the place. I had to visit the place.
“The flowers I brought with me are a sign of remembrance from the members of my party, FDU, and its executive committee. They gave me a message to pass by here and tell Rwandans that what we wish for is for us to work together, to make sure that such a tragedy will never take place again. That is one of the reasons why the FDU Party made a decision to return to the country peacefully, without resorting to violence. Some think that the solution to Rwanda’s problems is to resort to armed struggle. We do not believe that shedding blood resolves problems. When you shed blood, the blood comes back to haunt you.
“Therefore, we in FDU wish that all we Rwandans can work together, join our different ideas so that the tragedy that befell our nation will never happen again. It is clear that the path of reconciliation has a long way to go. It has a long way to go because if you look at the number of people who died in this country, it is not something that you can get over quickly. But then again, if you look around you realize that there is no real political policy to help Rwandans achieve reconciliation. For example, if we look at this memorial, it only stops at people who died during the Tutsi genocide. It does not look at the other side – at the Hutus who died during the genocide. Hutus who lost their people are also sad and they think about their lost ones and wonder, ‘When will our dead ones be remembered?’
“For us to reach reconciliation, we need to empathize with everyone’s sadness. It is necessary that for the Tutsis who were killed, those Hutus who killed them understand that they need to be punished for it. It is also necessary that for the Hutus who were killed, those people who killed them understand that they need to be punished for it too. Furthermore, it is important that all of us, Rwandans from different ethnic groups, understand that we need to unite, respect each other and build our country in peace.
“What brought us back to the country is for us to start that path of reconciliation together and find a way to stop injustices so that all of us Rwandans can live together with basic freedoms in our country.”
“It is important that all of us, Rwandans from different ethnic groups, understand that we need to unite, respect each other and build our country in peace.” – Victoire Ingabire
Immediately after making this public statement, Ingabire was subjected to intimidation and her movements were restricted. She was finally put in prison on Oct. 14, 2010. Despite her imprisonment, her stand and determination have irrevocably shaken the foundations of Paul Kagame’s autocratic military regime.
Just as the American Civil Rights Movement wanted to end segregation and discrimination, Ingabire and her coalition of Rwandan opposition parties want to end discrimination against Rwandan Hutus and against Rwandan Tutsis who were not in Uganda prior to 1994. For the sake of all Rwandan people, she has faced Paul Kagame and his government of core Tutsi extremists, calling for freedom and democracy, and for almost a year and a half now, she has been in prison. Her courage and unrelenting will have immensely inspired many of her compatriots to seek peaceful political change in their country, more than at any other time of its recent history.
As with the path that the U.S. Civil Rights Movement took after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, nothing in Rwanda will ever be the same after Victoire Ingabire’s defiance of the Rwandan government’s unjust laws. She sparked a spirit of resistance.
Nothing in Rwanda will ever be the same after Victoire Ingabire’s defiance of the Rwandan government’s unjust laws. She sparked a spirit of resistance.
On Jan. 16, Rwandans will from now on remember Ingabire’s homecoming. They, in Rwanda and in the Rwandan Diaspora, must now help her carry out the peaceful revolution she started on that day, Jan. 16, 2010, until all Rwandan citizens share the same rights, including freedom of association and speech and the right to elect their leaders and until political prisoners are released.
Ambrose Nzeyimana, coordinator of Organizing for Africa, can be reached at theblogaboutafrica@gmail.com. His website is The Rising Continent: Lions on the Move, where this story first appeared.
Victoire Ingabire engages Rwandan Senate on the plight of political prisoners
by Boniface Twagirimana
On Friday, Jan. 6, 2012, some members of Rwanda’s Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Security accepted a few live questions from prisoners inside the Kigali Central Prison. Political prisoner Victoire Ingabire, chair of the FDU-Inkingi coalition of parties, engaged the senators on the plight of political prisoners in Rwanda and urged them to promote laws granting more freedoms and democracy in the country before they finish their term in the Senate.
“What do you think about the issue of political prisoners here? My visitation right has been restricted. I don’t have rights to attend church service or pray with others and was told that no change is to be seen until Easter. You have been appointed for eight years. Rwandans expect your mandate to abolish vague laws that generate political prisoners. People need more freedoms and democracy in this country. Otherwise, there will be no real reconciliation, no sustainable development and no political stability,” she stated, inspiring a wave of applause through the crowd of prisoners.
“People need more freedoms and democracy in this country. Otherwise, there will be no real reconciliation, no sustainable development and no political stability,” Ingabire told the senators.
“She is a bad influence here,” murmured a security officer to a member of the delegation, who whispered, “They are just prisoners.” The visiting members of the Senate promised to discuss the issue.
The delegation was chaired by Sen. Jean Damascene Bizimana, head of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Security. This is no special event, as the committee has been touring various prisons. On Nov. 29, 2011, they visited Nyagatare Prison and the Gabiro community service program for prisoners (TIG).
Before his appointment to the Senate, Dr. Bizimana, a former minister of infrastructure, held other positions in the government, including executive secretary of the so-called Travaux d’Interêts Générales (TIG), a controversial post-genocide institution that acknowledged that the whereabouts of 27,000 prisoners remain a mystery (Igihe.com, Jan. 4, 2012).
In 2010, a study commissioned by the Rwandan Senate on political pluralism and power sharing in Rwanda revealed that 69 percent of those surveyed believe the fear of authority is the major obstacle to freedom of speech and political space, followed closely by nepotism and the legacy of genocide.
FDU-Inkingi, the coalition of Rwandan political parties led by Victoire Ingabire, welcomes the liberation of an executive member of the party, Gratien Nsabiyaremye, who was abducted and beaten by Capt. Rutaburingoga of the marine unit in Gisenyi on Jan. 2, 2012. Prosecutor Chantal Uwamahoro issued a release order, but Nsabiyaremye is required to report to the local police station every Tuesday.
The impunity granted to Capt. Rutaburingoga, even after he has raided the homes of innocent civilians in the night and beaten people in public, contributes to a climate of terror and uncertainty among the population. This is one of the faces of the current judiciary in Rwanda.
Boniface Twagirimana, interim vice president of the FDU-Inkingi coalition of Rwandan political parties, can be reached at fdu.inkingi.rwa@gmail.com. He concludes this dispatch with a quotation by Victoire Ingabire: “Don’t give up; he will never jail a whole nation.”
U.N. genocide court moves first case home to Rwanda
By Graham Holliday/ Reuters/ Mon Jan 16, 2012
KIGALI (Reuters) – The Tanzania-based U.N. war crimes tribunal for Rwanda has handed over prosecution material for the first case to be heard in Rwanda, its prosecutor said on Monday, adding that genocide defendants can now get a fair trial in their own country.
Some see the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)’s action as a vote of confidence in the Rwandan judicial system nearly 18 years after the genocide. Others question the chances of a fair trial in the Central African country still scarred by the slaughter.
“With significant law reform, we’ve been able finally to convince the judges that the legal framework in this country adequately provides fair trial for any of the accused who is sent over to this country,” ICTR prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow told a news conference in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
The ICTR, plagued by constantly rising costs and excessive bureaucracy, was supposed to conclude all work by the end of 2010, 16 years after it was set up. Its mandate was extended until 2014 to clear a backlog of trials.
The prosecutor said the case of Jean Uwinkindi, a pastor arrested in Uganda in 2010 and indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity, would be heard in Rwanda. Uwinkindi led a group of killers to look for and exterminate Tutsi, in particular Tutsi civilians from Kanzenze commune, the prosecution says.
Previous Rwandan attempts to have the court hand it some of the cases were unsuccessful. Rwanda’s parliament scrapped the death penalty for genocide suspects in 2007, and has introduced a number of legal reforms required by the court.
“Our justice system has come of age,” Rwanda’s Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga said. “For us, this is more than just transferring one case.”
“It is opening doors for many other cases to flow in. It is time to bring Rwandan cases home to Rwanda.”
Highlighting the concerns about access to a fair trial in Rwanda another genocide suspect, Leon Mugesera, is currently fighting a deportation order in Canada.
The United Nations Committee Against Torture has requested that he not be deported until a group of ten experts has time to review the case.
Carina Tertsakian, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the transfer of Uwinkindi’s case risked setting a precedent as the ICTR moves to shut down.
“We don’t believe that there are guarantees that Rwanda can provide a fair trial,” said Tertsakian. “The government of Rwanda does have the ability to influence what goes on in the courts, especially on political or sensitive cases.”
During the genocide, some 800,000 members of the minority Tutsi ethnic group and moderate Hutus were butchered in 100 days of killings.
(Editing by Richard Lough)
International court sends Rwanda genocide suspect to face trial in Kigali
Heather Murdock /www.globalpost.com/January 16, 2012
Jean-Bosco Uwinkindi is the first suspect to be sent to Rwanda by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Former pastor and Rwanda genocide suspect Jean Uwinkindi is going home.
More than six months after the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda announced its decision to send him to Rwanda to stand trial, Uwinkindi has lost his last appeal and will face a Kigali courtroom, according to a statement issued by the Rwandan government.
The ICTR was created 17 years ago, when Rwanda lay in ruins after the civil war and the fastest genocide in history.
Uwinkindi was arrested in Uganda in 2010 and is the first genocide suspect to be sent back to Rwanda by the United Nations-backed court. In a statement on its website, the court says the Rwandan justice system is now ready to give him a fair trial.
“Rwanda had made material changes in its laws and had indicated its capacity and willingness to prosecute cases referred by the ICTR adhering to internationally recognized fair trial standards,” reads the statement.
The Rwandan government has declared the transfer a victory, saying it “shows the world how far we have come.” Critics have accused the Rwandan courts of being politicized, and under the thumb of the ruling party, the Rwanda Patriotic Front party of President Paul Kagame.
In the past, the court has refused Rwanda’s previous requests to transfer genocide suspects to Kigali, saying the country did not have the capacity to hold a fair trial. Observers will be sent to monitor Uwinkindi’s trial, and the court reserves the right to bring him back to Tanzania if things go awry, according the court statement.
Uwinkindi is accused of crimes against humanity including planning, instigating, ordering and committing acts of genocide, according to his ICTR profile. The prosecution says that after the former pastor fled Rwanda in 1994, about 2,000 corpses were found near his church.
The Rwandan genocide was the fastest in history, with roughly 1 million people slaughtered in 100 days. The genocide was planned and executed by Hutu extremists, with intent of exterminating Rwanda’s Tutsi minority. The victims were Tutsis and sympathetic Hutus attempting to protect their neighbors.
The genocide ended in 1994, as the Rwandan Patriotic Front took over the country ending the slaughter and the ongoing civil war. Once a rebel army, the RPF remains the country’s ruling party and has overseen the trials of more than a million genocide suspects in community-based courts in Rwanda.
Human Rights Watch criticized the community-based courts, saying the system was flawed, partially because the courts would not hear crimes allegedly committed by RPF soldiers during the war or in retaliation for the genocide.
Rwanda News: FDLR commander Leodomir Mugaragu killed in Congo
Tristan McConnell /www.globalpost.com/January 16, 2012
Blogger reports that Rwandan special forces recently assassinated a senior FDLR commander named Leodomir Mugaragu.
NAIROBI, Kenya — For nearly 18 years some of the Hutu commanders responsible for organizing and orchestrating the Rwanda genocide have been hiding out in eastern Congo, preying on local villagers and plotting the downfall of President Paul Kagame’s Tutsi-led government.
The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) have not posed much of an existential threat to modern Rwanda for more than a decade yet they persist, and their survival is an affront to Kagame whose rebel forces halted the 1994 genocide.
A court in Rwanda recently convicted 22 people of having links to the FDLR and being responsible for a spate of grenade attacks in the capital.
Read more on GlobalPost: FDLR attack kills 26 people
The FDLR spends much of its time nowadays battling other militias for control of lucrative mines in eastern Congo or carrying out horrific attacks of rape and pillage.
But Kigali has not forgotten the FDLR nor especially its few remaining commanders who were directly involved in the genocidal attempt to wipe out the Tutsis.
More on GlobalPost: On-the-ground look at Rwanda now (PHOTOS)
According to Jason Stearns writing on his influential CongoSiasa blog a squad of Rwandan special forces recently assassinated a senior FDLR commander named Leodomir Mugaragu:
“On Wednesday, 11 January, a group of soldiers — some reliable reports claim they were a unit of Rwandan special forces, guided by the FDC – penetrated into the FDLR headquarters in Walikale and ambushed FDLR leaders around a fire. They killed the FDLR chief of staff Brigadier Leodomir Mugaragu. The overall FDLR commander General Mudacumura was also apparently present but was able to escape.
“Mugaragu, aka Leon Manzi, was one of the only remaining FDLR commanders with concrete allegations against him of involvement in the 1994 genocide. According to one report, he was a major and battalion commander in 1994 in Ruhengeri, where he was involved in mobilizing militias and setting up roadblocks to kill Tutsi.”
If true, the killing of Mugaragu is another serious blow to the increasingly weak FDLR but the downside, as Stearns points out, is the FDLR’s tendency to exact revenge on local people who it accuses of supporting its enemies.
RDC CONGO:
RDC : Faut-il annuler les législatives ?
afrikarabia2.blogs.courrierinternational.com/ 2012/01/16
Les critiques fusent autour des résultats des élections législatives en République démocratique du Congo (RDC). Après l’Eglise catholique, c’est au tour de la mission nationale d’observation électorale de dénoncer les nombreuses irrégularités du scrutin et de demander son annulation. Comme lors de l’élection présidentielle, la mission relève plusieurs cas de “fraudes et de tricheries”.
Après une élection présidentielle contestée, les législatives en République démocratique du Congo (RDC) subissent un impressionnant flot de critiques. Jeudi, l’Eglise catholique avait déjà qualifié la compilation des résultats des législatives “d’inacceptable”. Aujourd’hui, c’est au tour de la mission nationale d’observation électorale de dénoncer les irrégularités du scrutin. Et la liste est impressionnante : documents “incomplets ou raturés”, bulletins de vote “perdus”, transports de résultats laissés sans supervision, écarts de données entre les différents d’un document à l’autre, plusieurs cas bourrages d’urnes…
Sur le site de la BBC, Léonie Kandolo, responsable de la mission qui regroupe quatre ONG, explique qu’au “regard des irrégularités constatées, l’éloignement des observateurs et des témoins des opérations de compilation des résultats des élections législatives procède d’une volonté délibérée de fraude et de tricherie”. Elle explique également que la mission “a du renoncer à publier les résultats de façon indépendante”, “ce qui la pousse à remettre en cause l’ensemble du processus”.
Comme pour la présidentielle, fortement contestée par l’opposition, le scrutin législatif s’est déroulé de manière chaotique, voir anarchique. Les deux élections ayant lieu le même jour, les observateurs estiment que ces scrutins sont entachés des mêmes soupçons de fraude massive. Joseph Kabila a pourtant été donné gagnant par la Commission électorale (CENI). L’opposant Etienne Tshisekedi qui est arrivé en seconde position dans une élection à un seul tour, s’est autoproclamé “président élu” après avoir rejeté les résultats et dénoncé de nombreuses irrégularités, constatées par plusieurs missions d’observation, comme le Centre Carter, l’Union européenne ou l’Eglise catholique congolaise.
Les premiers chiffres provisoires donne une nette avance à la majorité présidentielle du président Kabila, ce que conteste l’opposition… Une situation qui risque de plonger la RDC dans une crise politique et institutionnelle profonde. La mission, qui a déployé plus de 2.700 observateurs uniquement pour l’observation de la compilation des résultats, recommande “un dialogue politique pour résoudre la crise de légitimité des résultats des scrutins présidentiel et législatif”.
La CENI a retardé l’annonce des résultats de deux semaines. Des résultats attendus le 26 janvier 2012.
Christophe RIGAUD
————————————————————————————-
Lire suite du document : bur17012012.doc
