Open Letter

23/01/2001

To H.E.Paul Kagame,

Also RPF CHAIRMAN,

and Chairman RPA Command

Kigali , Rwanda

Your Excellency,

Ref : RPF/RPA Performance in the last ten years (1)

Justification

Twenty years ago, the Rwandese Alliance For national Unity (RANU) was formed. It is

about thirteen years ago since we transformed RANU into the " Rwandese Patriotic

Front " and the "Rwandese Patriotic Army" ( RPF/RPA).

It is about ten years ago since we launched the armed struggle against the dictatorship

of Juvenal Habyalimana and about six years since the RPF/RPA Government was

sworn in, while for four years now, Rwanda has military intervened In the Democratic

Republic of Congo .

After all these years of work members of RPF/RPA needed to have sat together like it

used to be, to share achievements, appreciate

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1.I shall continue to avail more detailed information on major issues raised in this letter.

__________________

failures, share experiences and chart out the way forward. Unfortunately such

opportunities no longer exist, if they do you only share them with around you, whose

pre-occupation is to tell you what they know you would like to hear.

However we must hear in mind the fact that there are millions of Rwandese who are not

members of the RPF/RPA and who out of no noise of theirs have been subject to

RPF/RPA policies for the last six to ten years.

There are also our Neighboring Countries, which have and continued to feel the direct

impact of that happiness on our soils day by day. This is not to mention the Democratic

Republic of the Congo in which our forces have been operational for several years.

There is also the International Community, which for obvious reasons we cannot afford

to ignore.

To all these, to all of us and for all the years, the RPF/RPA leadership must be

accountable.

Background

I am sure you will remember that post independent Rwanda had a problem of

successive un democratic regimes, which among other things had deliberately denied

sections of the population fundamental rights.

You will also recall, that when : we conceived and launched the RPF/RPA way back in

1987, we had the task to build a mass based political movement and a pro-people

national army. The RPF/RPA Apolitical program, constitution and code of conductor all

clear testimonies to our vision of the struggle we wanted to wage and the kind of society

we wanted to build.

We all know that it was in this spirit that the RPF/RPA continued to work up to 1990,

whether in recruitment of cadres, recruitment of soldiers, in mass mobilization, in

fundraising or any other activity.

Indeed, I am reliably informed that in the same spirit that the RPF in the region and

abroad continued to work up to July 1994 when the RPF /RPA led Government was

sworn in.

However, allow me to state very categorically that with the on set of the armed struggle

in Northern Rwanda , the strategy of forging a genuine broad based movement, the

building of a pro-people army, mass empowerment and popular participation all become

things of the past.

On the contrary, as the years passerby, militarism, terrorism, killings, elimination of

political opponents, systematic looting and economic plunder, finally assumed

dominance over what should have been our pro-people political ideology and propeople

military doctrine.

After the capture of State Power, the negative tendencies and practices become

generalized, institutionalized and regionalized.

There is also the personality cult that has been created around you. In typical

Rwandese ancient fashion culture, you have y omission or commission allowed your

self to be taken and all knowing and infallible.

This mystification combined with your terrorist methods, has reduced Somme of our

people to silence and passivity ; rather than staying up to meet their daily challenges,

rather than raising up to challenge some of your excesses, they simply sit out the days

waiting for some one to miraculously come to their rescue. Some even naively believe

that without you and your regime, their lives would come to a sudden and tragic end.

The situation therefore demands that you personality and your regime become publicly

demystified as part and parcel of the process of empowerment of our people.

The purpose of this letter is to highlight the fundamental weakness and failures

of the RPF/RPA leadership over the last ten years.

Early years

It has over the years surgically been observed that the RPF/RPA current leadership

only pays lip service to the RPF/RPA Political Program and the Programs of the

respective Governments of National Unity. It indeed appears that the RPF/RPA leaders

shared with the rest of the members only one of the several points of 5 the RPF/RPA

Political Program ; the point concerning statelessness but as the events continue to

prove, even this seems to have been purely from as the events continue to prove, even

this seems to have been purely from a selfish point of view.

It has in fact been established beyond any reasonable doubt, that your leadership has

no fundamental differences with previous dictatorial regimes ; and that the differences if

any, are only quantitative.

By the fall of Kigali , only a handful of Hutu leader were members of the RPF/RPA.

Evidence bears witness to the fact that the opportunities were deliberately limited , the

pretext being that every Hutu could be an enemy. This parochial approach created

mobilization and recruitment difficulties from as way back as 1997. To date the Hutu

who are members of the RPF/RPA can still be counted off on ones fingertips.

The new Hutus, who braved it into the RPF/RPA and survived execution, remained un

trusted and marginalized. The long time RPF Chairman Hon Colonel Alex Kanyarengwe

was similarly treated. He was through out all his years as the Chairman of RPF to know

no secrets, leave alone having any access to operational information, his rich political

and military experience in Rwandese affairs not withstanding.

While he was in the know of the things, which were going on, he was wise enough to

only keep a silent opposition, thanks to which, it was never found necessary to

eliminate him.

However, in typical RPF/RPA reshuffle style, he was eventually striped off his

Ministerial post and RPF Chairmanship. In essence his Chairmanship had been

ceremonial and shrewdly intended to give the RPF/RPA a Hutu face.

When we freed political detainees from Ruhengeri Prison in the initial years of the

struggle you treated Hutus with suspicion and did not assign the appropriate duties.

This was particularly true in the case of the Senior Army Officers, who could not trusted

with command responsibilities, their superior military training and experience

notwithstanding.

One of the Hutu Senior Officers, who had in fact become an the RPA Member of High

Command ; the dynamic Command Muvunanyambo, who had provided so popular

within the RPF/RPA rank and file, was mysteriously murdered by armed people

suspected to the High Command Some Officers later quietly confirmed he had been

eliminated.

Another Hutu Officer who had much earlier defected from the then Rwandese armed

forces and whose had played a crucial role in interception of Government military radio

communication was similarly executed. There are RPA officers who could testify to

these cases if assured of their security.

In the RPF/RPA operational areas, the silent but official policy was elimination and / or

displacement of Hutus. There was no serious effort to mobilize the population and

popularize the struggle. Neither was there any serious effort to recruit and develop

combatants and political workers from the local population.

This is exactly why the so-called RPF liberated zones literally zones literally had no

people. The new people, who appeared in the Camps in the political program,

constitution and code of conduct are all clear testimonies to our vision of the struggle

we wanted to wage and the kind of society we wanted to build.

We all know that it was in this spirit that the RPF/RPA continued to work up to 1990,

whether in recruitment of cadres, recruitment of soldiers, in mass mobilization, in

fundraising or in any other activity.

Indeed, I am reliably informed that it was in the very same spirit that the RPF/RPA

continued to work up to July 1994 when the RPF/EPA Led Government was sworn in.

However, allow me to stade very categorically that with the on set of the armed struggle

in the Northern Rwanda , the strategy of forging a genuine broad movement, the

building of a pro-people army, mass empowerment and popular participation all become

things of the past.

On the contrary, as the years passed by, militarism, killings, elimination of political

opponents systematic looting and economic plunder, finally assumed dominance over

what should have been our pro-people political ideology and pro-people military

doctrine.

After the capture of State Power, these negative tendencies and practices become

generalized, institutionalized and regionalized.

There is also the personality cult that has been created around you. In typical

Rwandese ancient fashion culture, you have by omission or commission allowed your

self to be taken as all knowing and infallible.

This mystification combined with your terrorist methods, has reduced some of our

people to silence and passivity ; rather than standing up to meet their daily challenges ;

rather than rising up to challenge some of your excess, they simply sit out the days

waiting for some one to miraculously come to their rescue. Some even naively believe

that without you and your regime, their lives would come to a sudden and tragic end.

On your part, you have exploited this weakness of our people by turning your self into a

" de facto " dictator in all matters of national life. You have become the executive, the

legislature and the judiciary ; you have become the complainant, the prosecutor and the

judge.

The situation therefore demands that your personality and your regime become publicly

demystified as and part and parcel of the process of empowerment of our people.

The purpose of this letter is too highlight the fundamental weakness and failures of the

RPF/RPA leadership over the last ten years.

Early years

It has over the years tragically been observed that the RPF/RPA current leadership only

pays lip service to the RPF/RPA Political Program ; and the Programs of the respective

Governments of National Unity. It indeed appears that the RPF/RPA leaders shared

with the members only one of the several points of the RPF/RPA political Program ; the

point concerning statelessness but as the events continue to prove, even this seems to

have been purely from a selfish point of view.

It has in fact been established beyond any reasonable doubt, that your leadership has

no fundamental differences with previous directorial regimes ; and that the differences if

any, only quantitative.

By the fall of Kigali , only a handful of Hutu leaders were members of the RPF/RPA.

Evidence bears witness to the fact that the opportunities were deliberately limited, the

pretext being that every Hutu could be an enemy. This parochial approach created

mobilization and recruitment difficulties from as way back as 1997. To date the Hutu

who are members of the RPF/RPA can still be counted off one ones fingertips.

The few Hutus, who braved it into the RPF/RPA and survived execution, remained un

trusted and marginalized. The long time RPF Chairman Hon Col Alex Kanyarengwe

was similarly treated. He was through out all his years as the Chairman of RPF to know

no secrets, leave alone having any access to operational information, his rich political

and military experience in Rwandese affairs not with standing.

While he was in the know of some of the things, which were going on, he was wise

enough to only keep a silent opposition, thanks to which, it was never found necessary

to eliminate him.

However, in typical RPF/RPA reshuffle style, he was eventually striped off his

Ministerial post and RPF Chairmanship. In essence his Chairmanship had been

ceremonial and shrewdly intended to give the RPF/RPA a Hutu face.

When we freed political detainees from Ruhengeri Prison in the initial years of the

struggle, you treated Hutus with suspicion and did not assign them appropriate duties.

This was particularly true in the case of the Senior Army Officers, who could not be

trusted with command responsibilities, their superior military training and experience

notwithstanding.

One of the Hutu Senior Officers, who had in fact become an RPA Member of High

Command ; the dynamic command Muvunanyambo, who had proved so popular within

the RPF/RPA rank and file, was mysteriously murdered by armed people suspected to

have been escorts from the High Command. Some Officers later quietly confirmed he

had been eliminated.

Another Hutu Officer who had much earlier defected from the then Rwandese armed

forces and who had played a crucial role in interception of Government military radio

communication was similirly executed. There are RPA officers who could testify to

these cases if assured of their security.

In the RPF/RPA operational areas, the silent but official policy was elimination and /or

displacement of Hutus. There was no serous effort to mobilize the population and

popularize the struggle. Neither was there any serious effort to recruit and develop

combatants and political workers from the local population.

This is exactly why the so-called RPF literally had no people. The few people, who

appeared in the Camps in the RPF/RPA rear, were survivors of such a naïve politicomilitary

policy.

Prisoners of war were routinely tortured and executed. Even those who were kept alive

for jounalist to see, were all finally executed. The only exception being a handful of

prisoners of war who were delliberately kept and exchanged with RPA soldiers in the

Arusha Peace Agreement framework. This is the very reason why by July 1994, there

was no single RPA prisoner of war alive.

The RPA continues to kill tortured prisoners of war up to day. The international

Committee of the Red cross (ICRC) witnessed cases in June 2000, in the DRC.

All along in the armed struggle, Military Intelligence which was your personal creation

and which directly reported to you, tortured and killed civilian suspects. Military

Intelligence bases everywhere were associated with graves for such victims.

Some of these graves like the ones at commune Kinyami HQs, had to be exhumed

after Government fears that Human Rights groups had been tipped off about them.

Late Hon Burakari Evarist ; a progressive politician from Commune Rutare and a

Member of Parliament for the Liberal Party, was murdered in cold blood by one of your

soldiers so to destroy evidence concerning many civilians from the Communes of

Byumba who were arrested, interrogated, interrogated, tortured, killed and buried in a

mass grave at that Commune Hqs.

When his killer pretended to escape and a mock arrest and trial were stage managed,

the killer was sentenced to a few moths imprisonment. When this appeared so

ridiculous you personally ordered for a retrial, which only added a few more months to

his sentence. I shall not be surprised if more witnesses of the Kinyami massacres

disappeared.

From the time Arusha Peace Agreement was being negotiated up to as late as 1996,

you carried out a deliberate policy of using all means possible to reduce the Hutu

Population in the Umutara, Kibungo and Bugesera regions.

These areas were deliberately resettled by old caseload returnees from Uganda ,

Tanzania and Burundi respectively. Families of many top RPF/RPA leaders are among

those who were resettled in this manner.

Certainly all Rwandese deserve to be settled but your Government could have carried

out these resettlements without violating the spirit of the Arusha Peace Agreement and

without having to terrorize, displace or kill fellow Rwandese.

Having signed the Arusha Peace Agreement, the RPF/RPA, supposedly to maintain the

Hutu-Tutsi power sharing equation, found it convenient to liquidate the only few Hutu

fighters who had been previously recruited from the demilitarized zone. You remember,

these criminal operations were code-named " fanyiya ". Some of those who survived

could give evidence if given certain guarantees.

When the RPF/RPA launched the Offensive to stop genocide, every Hutu was assumed

to be a killer. For moths and from one boarder to another, Hutus were chased and

massacred on sight.

Where it was not possible to kill, there was no opportunity lost to arrest, torture and

detain a Hutu at the slightest provocation. There was thus every raison for every reason

for even the moderate Hutus to find it safer to flee the country with the killers.

Indeed some of the bodies, whish continued to float in the Akagera River towards the

end and shortly after the genocide, included those of Hutus massacred by some

RPF/RPA elements.

Some RPF/RPA members originating from various parts of Rwanda are known to have

made revenge killing in their respective home areas.

Similarly some RPF administrators are known to have used security agents to eliminate

prominent Hutus in their respective areas of control.

Some of these killings which were carried out in broad daylight and witnessed by

relatives and neighbors of victims were reported to you and yet most of those

responsible for these crime still hold senior Government posts and some have since

been promoted.

As the war resumed during the genocide, your ordered the RPA Field Engineers to

launch a campaign to destroy by mining all premises ; residential, commercial or

industrial, identified as belonging to Hutus. The Towns of Kibungo, Kigali city, and

Gitarama serve as very good examples.

The 1st RPF Government was confronted with not only a country without a population,

but also a country totally looted and ransacked by the RPF/RPA. By the end of the war,

in what was called " secured property operations ", the RPF/RPA had systematically

looted or destroyed all movable household, private or public properties Countrywide.

Likely enough the RPF/RPA leaders who were under instructions to execute the

plunder are still with you to day and also holding very responsible offices. They too

could tell us why they did so, under whose instructions and where they put the loot.

In Towns and Urbain Centers , returned Including RPF/RPA Senior members, without

any restraint or order took over residential, commercial and industrial premises of those

who had fled.

In rural areas returnees similarly took over homes, lands, banana and coffee plantations

as well as cattle belonging to those who had fled. The struggle to recover these

properties by the rightful owners rages on up this day.

In the meantime, in the high echelons of the RPF/RPA leadership, scrambles for

political offices had heightened ethnic as well as Anglophone tensions. These conflicts

continue to date and have in fact been compounded by inter party rivalries, personal

ambitions and intrigue, to extent that in high offices heads roll regularly.

While it may be appreciated that the RPA had operational difficulties in the first phase of

the armed struggle, it must also be said that it has always had very little concern for

preservation of own forces. This is how we lost an un known number of comrades in

very many poorly planned operations.

This is how we lost too many due comrades due to preventable and /or controllable

diseases like dysentery at a time we did not exactly lack, medical personnel and

medical supplies.

Similarly this is how we lost many comrades due to a combination of hunger and cold

when we could have better utilized available food and clothing.

Yet during the entire struggle, the families of these late comrades, in addition to having

sent their children to the frontline, also regularly sent you funds to by their children arms

and ammos, to feed them, to dress them and to purchase medicines to treat the sick

and wounded.

All in all your leadership tended to handle human lives as if they were factory products,

which could be replenished indefinitely. Unfortunately this inhuman way of managing

human beings continues to date in the DRC. You should be kind enough and show the

families of these late comrades where the remains of their children lie. You should also

account for the funds they sent to you over the years.

After April 1994

You will remember the crisis your Government was confronted with concerning

management of the hundreds of suspected genocide perpetrators. In the public, in

Parliament and in the Executive people held extreme positions some calling for mass

sentencing of detained genocide suspects, while others felt there was need for

individual trials, categorization of the suspects of genocide and use of

traditional/community courts.

The rest of the RPF/RPA leadership did not come out clearly to signal the way forward

out of this crisis. It was only the wise leadership and initiative of this H.E. President

Bizimingu that saved the day through the "Urugwiro Village Saturday Meetings".

During the Counter Insurgency Operations some of your Commanders did not only

deliberately use excessive force to victimize innocent civilians caught up in the armed

conflict, but they in fact, on occasions to kill the populations for example in revenge for

an attack on soldier or a group of soldiers. The case of commune Kanama is well

known to those familiar with Rwanda .

Similarly, there is an un known number of displaced people who were blown up by your

bombs and mines while hiding in the cases of Ruhengeri/Gisenyi. The remains of these

victims to date have been recovered by relatives for appropriate burial. That these

people had been made captives by the rebels, should not have been the pretext to use

such a force and means as was used, resulting into massive deaths of non military

personnel.

The deliberate military attack on Kibeho ; as known refugee Camp with thousands of

people, resulting into heavy loss of civilians life including women, children and the aged

could have been avoided too. The sorting out of armed elements from the Camp could

have been better resolved through negotiations with the relevant UN Agencies and

NGOS in charge of the Camp.

You will no doubt obviously remember that in all such cases, it was only when Human

Rights Groups/Observers/Monitors stepped in to investigate that you personally ordered

for ceremonial arrests and mock trials. On your express orders such Officers were

normally redeployed immediately the dust settled down. These cases are just too many.

From 1995, the RPF/RPA Government has imposed up on Rwandese an illegal, ill

conceived and un sustainable program of Villagization, which involves taking over of

land previously owned by some families, which is then shared out with other families

without even due consideration for property and cropslost. This program could have

been better planned and executed to avoid creation of un necessary ethnic tensions.

You and some of your Senior Government Officials including Police and Army Officers

have illegally acquired large stretches of land for modern diary farming by displacing

innocent peasants using force, intimidation, money or any other means. Some of the

very many cases of complaints by peasants have been brought to you personally.

RPF Governments it must be said have been characterized by total anarchy as greedy

Ministers quickly try to get as much loot as possible, as if the Government is not there

to stay, or as if the Ministries are only under their control for a few days.

Some Ministers are on record for having deposited Ministerial funds on personal

accounts. In record time, some of these Ministers and their business allies are busy

buying and their business allies are busy bying and raising Mansions in Kigali City and

abroad.

Those among them who have been close to you, have been shielded from being

queried by the Parliament, as you have always managed to have them transferred to

other Ministries, while others are given Ambassadorial posts or assigned other national

responsibilities.

The RPF/RPA has so degenerated that it has no room for auto evaluation. The

Government of Prime Minister TWAGIRAMUNGU was dissolved because of these

issues. Several Hutu Ministers including those of justice had to resign for similar

reasons.

Former RPF Ministers and especially Seth SENDASHONGA could not compromise

their positions. Consequently he was forced resign, fled to Nairobi , where he was

assassinated to destroy evidence concerning deliberate Hutu killings.

The Parliament also got divided over the issues and finally Hon Col LIZINDE

MUGABUSHAKA (2) resigned his RPF Parliamentary Seat, fled to Nairobi via

Kinshasa , where he was similarly assassinated to destroy evidence. He had been the

Administrator of Byumba Prefecture from the time of its capture and had documented

RPF/RPA Human Rights violations countrywide.

How Jean Baptist MBERABAHIZI of the Rwandese Socialist Party resigned his Seat in

protest over the excesses of the 1st RPF/RPA Government and went for further Studies

in France .

2. It is often alleged that some of these Hutu Politicians associated with the old regimes

have criminal Records. The RPF/RPA Government should have had them tried and

convinced , or cleared of such crime allegations

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Silence or exile

Instead of transforming the objective condition into subjective conditions through mass

mobilizing, the RPF/RPA has instead resorted to intimidation and has enforced upon

the population a silence worse than that imposed by previous regimes. While every

body sees and many understand what is happing, no body dares to talk, political

parties, news papers, radios, human rights groups and even churches.

If you are a Hutu and you dare criticize the Government, you are treated as a genocide

perpetrator. If you are a Tutsi and you talk your mind, you are treated as a negative

element and sidelined, while if you are a soldier and you make any criticism you are

charged with subversion and treason.

The RPF/RPA has stifled all other political forces, the Legislature the Judiciary,

individual members of the Executive, as well as the Media and Human rights

Organizations Country wide.

The new private newspapers operating in Rwanda , have also been crippled by the

terror of the RPF/RPA Government and none can dare raise any criticism of your Office

or your Government

You will remember John the Chief Editor and owner of the News Line was detained for

months for merely having published a story of the Helicopter deal . Ignasius MUGABO

a Columnist with the same Newspapers had to flee the Country in connection with

same story. MUGABE, a long time RPF cadre fled to America in Similar circumstances

for his bold publications in the "La Liberité" Newspaper about your dictatorial regime.

News Line columnist KANUMA has been similarly harassed for his been similarly

harassed for his publications.

You have deliberately restricted the etablishment of independent radios and Televisions

yet you boast of having opened up the doors for liberalization. Finally Rwandese have

no choice; they have been narrowed down to the National Television, and

RPF/RPA Newspapers, which only reproduce what ever you have fed them on.

You have ensured enforcement of this silence thanks to the deployment of the coercive

instruments of the state. Military Intelligence Detention Centers are normally full of

military and civilian suspects, Republican guard killer squads have become the

nightmare of those who do not exactly speak your language, while similar External

Intelligence personnel roam Regional Capitals In search of political dissidents. Parties

have in turn become victims of these killers and Rwadese have become familiar with

frequent mysterious deaths.

Given no option many Rwandese, some of whom have invested all their lives in the

struggle for positive change find themselves fleeing their homeland like they have done

before. Ministers, Members of Parliament, Army and Police officers, Journalists,

Businesspeople , students in Higher Institutions of learning and ordinary civil servants

are leaving the Country one by one.

Brutalized Students flee

Students in Institutions of Higher Education, continue to be victims of an all conceived

and poorly implanted bi-lingual program. While the idea of making the Institutions bilingual

is excellent, there was need to stream lime modalities of how the program could

have been successfully implemented.

Whether we like it or not, it is relatively easier at least in Rwanda to day, to change from

French use to use of English. In any case it is not possible under Rwandese conditions

to study a language a language like French for a period of less than one year and you

sit for University examinations with classmates who have studied the same language

for many years and vice versa.

Unfortunately some of those around you did not have the guts to tell that the program

needed some middle modifications to make it more appropriate to all beneficiaries. The

University Rector and Vice Rector for Academic affairs can bear witness to this ; they

even appreciated the fact that the Anglophone Students would indeed have difficulties

as compared to their counterparts in the Francophone Section.

You did not take the trouble to have an objective view of the situation. As often

happens, you harried to believe that the young boys and girls had become confused

and misguided by opportunistic elements. However even if this was true, the solution

should not have been to unleash the Military Police, Military Intelligence and the

Gendarmerie to harass and brutalize the students, when they made a peacefully

demonstration.

Ironically, some of these students with relatives close to your in Governments, were

advised to flee the country while others were provided with overseas scholarships.

When the students got frightened and fled and you failed to have them back you took it

personally and you make regular and ferocious attacts, calling them opportunists and

alluding to their being manipulated by enemies inside and outside the country. You

have made these children home less. Many more students in our Institutions continue

to be victims of this rigid educational approach.

RPF/RPA Constituency

The RPF/RPA used to be a mass based and pro-people movement, receiving in puts of

ideas and resources from the population and in turn, it remained accountable to the

people . Lt was an organization that greatly depended on the work of large number of

politicized, disciplined and dedicated cadres deployed in Rwanda , in the Region and

abroad.

These Cadres are the ones who carried out the many tasks to support the RPF/RPA

war effort. Over the years, the cadres by virtue of their work and relationship with the

various leader under who they served, developed substantial influence and powers

especially of even senior leaders.

When the RPF/RPA Government was sworn in, there was a big international debate as

to whether all cadres should be integrated in Government or whether some senior

cadres should remain in RPF Secratariat, monitoring and reinforcing Government

Performance.

The later idea was defeated and the institution of cadreship was indirectly dissolved and

attempts were made to integrate cadres into various Government organs.

I clearly remember the proceedings of RPF/RPA meetings in Kanombe Officers Mess ;

all members of the Government Executive, you inclusive, ganged up against the

possibility of a strong RPF Secretariat. Why the fear ?

Anyway, some of us sited there then, and watching the subsequent circus of Job

lobbying, quietly concluded that the RPF/RPA had in fact not taken over the

Government, but rather that the Government had taken over the RPF/RPA.

However since most cadres did not boast of necessarily very high academic

qualifications, they were substituted in leadership positions by professional bureaucrats

who un fortunately ended up as mere rubber stamps for their bosses in the perspective

services.

This created a wide gap between the RPF/RPA leadership in Kigali and the RPF/RPA

support up Country. This gap has never been covered to date. Indeed the RPF/RPA

leadership has finally been completely taken over by the Government ; what remains is

the RPF Secretariat ; Dr Charles MULIGANDE's Office ; an Office whose sole purpose

of existence is to enforce on other political forces in the Government the whims and

wishes of the RPF/RPA leadership.

You misconceive a feeling that all Tutsi's by inclination belong to your RPF/RPA and

that while Hutus may not be "transformed" and trusted fully, some are all the same

needed to give the RPF/RPA Government a Hutu face.

I do not have to mention names, but you very well know how many Hutu Ministers,

Senior Civil Servants, Prefecture and Commune Administrators have supposedly been

recruited into the RPF/RPA under this bizarre program. These incidentally are the ones

supposed to lead your RPF/RPA to victory, come the Parliamentary and Presidential

Elections in the year 2003. But as many previously recruited Hutus are now leaving the

RPF/RPA. What a strategy!

You should come to terms with the reality that the RPF/RPA you lead, has no support

any where in Rwanda ; not even among the old caseload returnees in the Umutara,

Kibungo, Bugesera Regions and else where.

These have most frustrated by the fact that while they offered their children and

financial resources to the RPF/RPA during all these years of fighting, they remain

poverty stricken and without even the bare minimum of services and infrastructure.

Many are busy fleeing to Uganda and Tanzania in the search for a better life. The case

of cattle keepers fleeing back to Uganda from drought and disease in the Umutara,

Kibungo and Bugesera Regions are a case in point.

But what have you done for the rest of the Rwandese peasants in the hills ? Production

levels are declining as farmers have lost morale and have restored to trying to produce

just enough for themselves.

In other areas relative and absolute hunger continues to take lives season after season.

No wonder many peasants are now fleeing from this rampant seasonal hunger to

Uganda .

In Towns, hunger is biting too, and yet your Government blocks cheap milk, fish and

other food staffs from neighboring Uganda , in a distinguished effort to protect the

market for your personal diary farms and milk plants.

Trade Commerce and Industry are on the decline too, due to a combination of high

taxation, high cost of imports and declining consumption. The MAGERWA Ware

Houses are empty and so are the shops.

RPF/RPA Historical treated as disposable commodity

Your leadership has not only betrayed the traditional RPF/RPA constituency, but it has

in fact treated the historical leaders of the RPF/RPA as responsible commodities

Where are those patriotic individuals, who initially conceived the necessity to launch a

progressive organization to struggle for the restoration of rights of all Rwandese ?

Where are the initial RANU members who kept RANU going in Uganda , in Kenya and

Burundi in those very difficult years, when even fellow Rwandese Refugees thought of

resistance to Habyalimana as sheer madness ?

You should know that it was RANU, which mobilized and facilitated the mass influx of

its Cadres and members from Kenya , Uganda and Burundi to join the NRM/NRA in the

early 1980s.

You know that by 1986, RANU, was not only the only viable Rwandese political

organization opposed to the Habyalimana regime, but it also boasted of many Officers

and Men in the rank and file of the NRA.

You will recall that it was essentially these Cadres, Officers and Men who in fact

initiated and ensured the transition from RANU to RPF/RPA and that it was the same

Cadres, Officers and Men who carried out recruitment and political training of the initial

RPF Cadres ?

Don't you remember that it is these former members of RANU, who sustained RPF/RPA

activities in the region and abroad up 1994 ?

What right do you have therefore to deny the RPF/RPA of its historical membership and

to treat the founding members of our struggle as responsible commodity ?

Similar treatment is extended to the surviving founder members of the RPA. Without

mentioning names you very well know how you have gradually marginalized these

senior commanders including those who were members of the RPF/RPA High

Command.

It is certainly not honorable to chase out into the cold our one time top Commanders,

their historical limitations notwithstanding ! Have you ever thought their could be

honorable retirement ? What do you think goes on in the minds of serving officers when

they see their seniors treated like disposable commodities ?

I do not have to mention that it is a shame that the orphans, windows and parents of

late comrades, particularly those who served in senior position should continue to

languish in abject poverty while you and your Government officials continue to live in

the luxury our poor nation can least afford.

It is as if the historical mission of all these comrades was to propel you and those

around you to State Power !

Survivors of Genocide

Programs to support the victims of Genocide whether in terms of shelter, education,

medical care, economic, physical, and/or psychological rehabilitation remain a shame.

Widows, orphan and the handicapped, remain isolated and neglected. The highly talked

about Fund for Genocide Survivors has lost construction funds to companies owned by

some top Government Officials.

The funds for education have been diverted to educate relatives of top Government

Officials while needy survivors all over the country are not even able to reach its Offices

and present their cases.

This is one reason why the RPF/RPA is most un popular with survivors of Genocide. It

is for the same reason that survivors of Genocide have lost hope and have despaired ;

whenever there is any opportunity they flee Rwanda to seek political asylum especially

in Europe and America .

A more genuine reason however is the fact that as survivors they are not ready to be

caught up again in another round of genocide or a similar tragedy.

Contradictions in the National Police

The National Police of Rwanda was formed out of pressure of the "Funders" of Rwanda .

Whereas it is the agenda. Whereas it is the agenda of RPF/RPA to militarize as much

as it can, the idea of the "Funders" was to help build a democratic government

characterized by the Rule of Law, which among others is ensured by a professional

Police.

You hesitantly accepted to dissolve the former paramilitary Gendarmerie and integrated

it with the Communal, Urbain Police and the Civilian Judicial Police (IPJ) not at will. As

a result your National Police mentors, under your instructions, have sought recourse in

building a disguised Paramilitary National Police, not very different from the disbanded

Gendarmerie.

There has not been any effort to encourage professional needed in all sectors of a new

Police like ours. On the contrary, fifteen Military Cadet Officers who recently graduated

from Rwanda Military Academy were quickly integrated in National Police and assigned

leadership roles, yet the military science skills acquired from their training do not in any

way provide any better police skills than those possessed by those they lead.

Former officers from the communal Police have been marginalized yet they posses

better skills acquired from the police cadet training schools they underwent in Uganda

and Zimbabwe . They are considered by former Gendarmerie and other officers from

they army as inferior and have as such been allocated inferior responsibilities in the

Police Services.

The Police force continues to operate without crucial legal instruments like the Police

Act and the Police Code of conduct. It goes without saying therefore, that injustice are

eminent in handling police complaints and act of undisciplined and insubordination. The

cause for delaying these legal instruments is none other than the reason why the Army

doesn't have them either.

You are busy trying to concretize your agenda of building a paramilitary police in RPA

style, where the terms and conditions of service are not streamlined and the members

of the force are kept in a bondage of silence and fear to query the running of the

institution and are detained and reased without fair hearing.

It is reliably alleged that you personally objected to the more realistic salaries proposed

by the National Assembly, which would have gone a long way in safe guarding the

police service from

Your logic is ironically characterized by the bush hangover of sacrifice by the common

man, while your leadership is on the rampage plundering the county's scarce resources

for self-enrichment. So no wonder hundreds of former Gendarmerie have refused to join

your paramilitary police ; I mean the ones still detained at Gabiro Training Wing . No

wonder also that some of the new Police Officers and Men are already fleeing from the

same paramilitary police.

Partisan Security Institutions

While I personally believe in politicized Security Institutions like the Police, the Army

and other Security Organs and while I believe that such Institutions could make positive

political contribution s in Parliament or else where, I certainly condemn security organs

which abandon their national responsibilities and become royal to individuals and

cliques.

This is one of your greatest failures in the last ten years; the total failure to transform

the RPF/RPA Government security organs into patriotic and national security

institutions defending the rights of all citizens.

Clearly the RPA, the Police and all intelligence agencies have all been basically built

from a Tutsi population. It was also early explained how elements from the RPA were

ordered to deliberately kill innocent civilians or to commit revenge killings or use

excessive force against sections of our population.

I must tell you in the strongest possible terms, that you have hijacked the RPF/RPA

Security Institutions and turned them into instruments serving you and those around

you. You have given these institutions the false belief that they stand for RPF/RPA/

Tutsi interests as opposed to the interests of the nation.

The RPF/RPA Representatives to the Parliament serve the purpose of only spying on

fellow Parliamentarians for you, but also lobbying according to your instructions.

When ever necessary you use these army representatives to intimidate fellow

Parliamentarians into supporting this or idea.

You have even as often as you have found necessary involved the RPA field

commanders in administrative matters to protect your narrow interests.

It is a shame that in the entire Country to day, the RPF/RPA Security Institutions like the

army, police and intelligence organs are being used to intervene in preparations for the

coming elections by openly manipulating and /or intimidation the population into voting

for candidates favored by the RPF/RPA leadership in Kigali . In essence, these organs

have been sent to unleash terror on the population and non- RPF candidates.

Sham Institutions Just like in the case of the National Police, the Government have

correctly insisted that your Government must show serious commitment to good

governance ; democratization, human rights and rule of law, transparence in the use of

national finances, justice, national unity and national reconciliation and like.

You have responded by setting up the Auditor Generals Office, the Human Rights

Commission, the National Reconciliation Commission, The Electoral Commission, the

National Police, the appointed an Inspector General of Government and shamelessly

placed him in your Office.

I wonder whether your financiers are impressed. Rwandese are not . Just like you have

reduced the Transitional National Assembly and the Judiciary to a status subservient to

your Executive, we know and it is clear that right from the word go, these institutions

can never deliver because they have been set up and structured, financed and staffed

to ensure that they have no independence and powers of their own and are to remain

subservient to your Executive and therefore to you in person.

However may be you have a point in as far these institutions will shield you from the

International Community and give you the license to do what you wish to do at home,

while using them to silence any voices of dissent.

For example we have for years now lived with the toothless Auditor General's, the

Human Rights Commission and the National Reconciliation Commission, they have all

not gone beyond so called " National Seminars" and shallow media propaganda to give

the impression they are operational. In this way indeed, these institutions rather than

promoting good governance, serve you by covering up the mismanagement of state

affairs by your team.

While the RPF/RPA Intervention in the DRC was justified, we know that our noble

mission in the DRC has been and continues to be sacrificed at the expensive of

individual interests, leave alone associated military blunders which have cost so many

dear lives.

The RPA approach it must be stated has been purely militaristic and opportunistic.

Despite several years of support, the RCD Goma forces remain small in number, poorly

supplied and trained, poorly equipped, commanded and undisciplined. Political work in

the RPF/RPA Goma controlled areas has never taken off. The soldiers and politicians

only have casual contacts with the

population at airports, by the roadside or on mines.

Because Kabila has continued to infiltrate better-equipped and more organized rebels in

the RPA rear, thereby threatening to bring the war arena back to Rwanda , it has just

downed on you that you have no capacity to sustain fighting along so many fronts. Is it

not rather late that that you have just dispatched training teams with the objective of

raising sixty thousands Congolese soldiers.?

RPA attack on the UPDF in Kinsangani

Why did you hurriedly resort to the use of military means against a long standing ally

like Uganda , to resolve what after all did not even amount to tactical political

differences, which in any case were still under discussion ?

You certainly owe an apology to the people of Uganda and the DRC for having started

the fighting in Kisangani .

I know most Rwandese including many RPF/RPA officers and men do not know this,

but some of us had the opportunity to ,have been on the ground in Kisangani .

Given the historical links between the peoples of Uganda and the peoples of Rwanda ,

was it not most treacherous on your part that on more than one occasion, you

deliberately allowed your forces in Kisangani , to violate the MWEYA Lodge Cease-fire

Agreement on which you had just put your signature ?

It was most tragic that throughout the fighting in Kisangani III, and despite so many

appeals from the MONUC, the RPA under your orders, refused to cease-fire so as to

allow, deployment of JCC/MONUC Cease-fir Monitors as well teams to facilitate

humanitarians work.

Why have you up to now not taken responsibility for your due share of the mistakes in

Kisangani ? Why do you continue to deceive the RPA , the Rwandese and the World

about what actually happened in Kisangani and on the causes of failure to reconcile

your differences with the Government of Uganda ?

Appropriation of DRC wealth

What mineral wealth and cash was secured from Congo I ? How much was kept by

individuals and how much was handed over for Army use ? What is sure is that

commanders in that operation had enough of their share of the spoils of war in Congo I.

You do not have to ask any body ; they are a distinct class of their own distinguished

among other things by the number of houses they have purchased in Kigali and abroad,

thriving business enterprises and healthy bank accounts some of them in US dollars.

They have good reasons for being the hard-core supporters of your regime !

How much money is contributed monthly and directly to the RPF/RPA by foreign

Companies operating in the DRC? How much money is raised from all the mining and

trading operations carried out directly by the RPA in the DRC like coltan mining at Punia

and other locations.?

How much money is raised by the Congo Desk department of External Intelligence from

its monopoly handling of minerals and other commodities in the RPA/RCD-Goma

controlled territory?

May be you could also could also shed light on how much wealth has been

accumulated by the RPF/RPA Commodity companies.

I know that the they operate indirectly using the strategy of forming partnerships with

reliable and financially strong business people, who in most cases provide the capital

and expertise while the RPF only provides protection and profits eventually getting

equally shared out.

How much direct cash payments does the RPF-Goma monthly remit to the RPF/RPA,

whether for purchases or for any other purpose ?

Leoming Security Crisis in the Kivu Provinces

The world must know that despite Rwanda 's security concerns the RPF/RPA conduct of

the war in the DCR and particularly in North and South Kivu , has given rise to the

formation of more Congolese militias some of them with improved military skills and

military supplies.

One such a group in South Kivu is led by Intellectuals who regularly articulate their

cause one mobile radio station, as being liberation of the two Kivus from Rwandese

occupation.

You know that the Kinshasa Government supplies some of these groups in the Kivus by

airdrops. They have substantial arms and ammos, modern communication equipment

including satellite telephones and they are not lacking in manpower and minerals.

You very well remember that from operational reports of late last year, Rwandese

Armed Groups in North Kivu , made several successful attacks on the RPA.

Since the RPA went to the DRC, these groups have not finally become smaller, fewer

or even necessarily less effective. While they are not fighting just across the Boarder.

All this means that Rwanda 's presence in the DRC is not exactly resolving Rwanda 's

security concerns. On the contrary, we may be heading for an another round of violent

ethnic conflict, involving more organized and better armed Rwandese, Congolese and

even Burundi Armed Groups.

The dimensions, magnitude and implications of this round of ethnic violence may not be

easy to predict and manage. In particular given the volatile situation of Burundi , this

crisis could shed blood with in and across several boarders.

This is why Rwanda should not drug her feet in supporting the peace initiatives in

Burundi and the implementation of the Lusaka Cease fire Agreement as the only viable

and sustainable solutions to the Region.

Mineral and arms trafficking

For how long are you going to continue to facilitate the bursting of UN Sanctions on

INITAS ? For how long is Kanombe International Airport going to continue to service as

a link in the delivery of these minerals and in their exchange for the supply of arms,

ammos and other military supplies.

The fact that these aircraft's land, off load, load and take off at night does not mean we

do not know !

What is your personal or may be Rwanda 's cut in cash or in military hard ware, for

facilitating these transactions ?

I would wish to take the liberty to inform you that more and more Rwandese, have

started doubting your honest among other things over the war in the DRC ; we believe

that finally, the war has less to do with our security concerns and more to do with

individuals making money; that it has finally become a high value export commodity for

you and those around you.

Crisis within the RPA

Rwanda 's Treasury is certainly not able to finance your operations in Rwanda and in the

DRC. The Ministry of Defense is not even capable of financing 30% of the recurrent

needs. Salaries of soldiers in the DRC are not paid out until when they come home one

by one.

You know that billions of Rwandese francs have been borrowed from these un paid

salaries and have been diverted for other purposed. What will happen when all these

soldiers demand for their salaries at ago or when they may have to return from the DRC

all of a sudden.

I know some of these funds are the ones used to feed about twenty thousand arregular

soldiers ; local defense forces, former rebels and Ex-Far who are not on the official pay

roll, but who are now fighting along the RPA, both at home and in the DRC.

The Ministry has acute transport and accommodation problems and allocations have

been marred with nepotism. The whole of last year for example the RPA never made

any purchase of any military equipment. No Uniforms were purchased. There are less

than ten operational troop carriers in the entire Army. There are no food reserves.

There are no medical reserves. What ever is purchased has a least a 70% contribution

from the famous invisible hand ; revenues from the DEC.

Are you aware of the suffering of your soldiers at home and in the DRC ? Soldiers RCA

is often diverted to hire planes to deliver food supplies to troops in the DRC; Do you

know that soldiers often go hungry or feed so poorly that malnutrition is rampant ?

How many hospitals are you going to take over as to accommodate your casualties

from the DRC ? Recent fighting in the Tanganyika Sector resulted into about three

thousand casualties (how many dead ?) ; do you think this kind of fighting is sustainable

? Why do you allow these casualties drugs to be so congest, why do they lack facilities

and drugs to the extent that the sick have to purchase their own food and medicine ?

Do you know the brutality of some of your most royal Officers like for example in the

Republican Guard and the Directorate Military Intelligence, where mistreatment and

torture of soldiers often results into desertion and even suicide ?

Are aware of the volume of requests for demobilization by a cross section of officers

and men including some of your Senior Officers who are totally disgusted by the current

state of Affairs ? Saying no to applicants is certainly not the solution. How do you intend

to go about financing the demobilization of the listed ten thousand officers and men ?

And this is just the beginning !

Military Justice is a sham. It is public knowledge that you and you alone appoint and

direct both the military Prosecutors and the Judges on who to handle specific cases.

You give instructions on those to be released, those to be imprisoned and for how long

as well as those to be discharged from the armed forces or those to be hanged.

How many military and civilian detention centers are you going to open up ? Who gives

you the right to detain in un human conditions so many Officers and Men for so long

and trial and some of them without even charges ?

How do you intend to go about mending the cracks which have developed in your army

over problems of ethnicity, welfare, failure to pay salaries, Anglophone/Francophone

biases, nepotism, conduct of the war in the DRC, property relations, and more recently

political outlook vis avis the way forward for Rwanda ?

Particularly interesting is the growing lift at the middle and higher levels of Command,

between the officers personally and other officers, who have risen through the ranks out

of their own competence and who therefore tend to look at situations more objectively !

Why do you promote and demote, discharge often with disgrace, force into premature

retirement, or unjustifiable demobilization of your officers and men at will, as if the

Rwandese armed forces are your personal estate ?

RPF/RPA Sustainability

While the above-mentioned contradictions within the RPA seriously undermine its

operational efficiency, some of these factors and others combine to greatly undermine

the sustainability of

* Narrow recruitment base, since your preferred source of recruitment is the RPF/Tutsi,

* Discriminatory tendencies and practices in the RPA leadership especially as

pertaining to appointments, promotions an facilitation,

* Limited human and financial resource capacity vis avis your militarism in handling

national and regional security issues ;

* Anti people ideology characterized by intimidation, coercion, elimination of political

opponents and killing of unarmed populations,

* Continuous failure to preserve own forces associated with military adventurism and

gross welfare deficiencies resulting into high death and casualty rates,

* Partisanship of the army; the RPA often kinds itself pitted against political parties and

sections of population not towing the RPF/RPA line.

Coup d'état against Pasteur BIZIMUNGU

The RPF declaration, which is part of the Constitution among other things changed the

composition of members of Parliament (See Arusha Peace Agreement) in such a way

that the RPF/RPA directly influences who goes and stays in Parliament and finally who

is appointed an Executive Post and who serves in the Judiciary.

Your leadership has often abused these provisions, so as to destabilize and manipulate

all the Institutions, of Government to own advantage.

You and those to you, have for along time silently wished to have a Tutsi RPF

Chairman and eventually a Tutsi President of the Republic. The only candidate for

these two Offices was none other than you.

The first step in this direction was achieved in 1997, when in typically RPF/RPA

manipulated so-called elections, Col Alex KANYARENGWE resigned the RPF top post

for you and H.E. President Pasteur BIZIMUNGU settled for the post of Vice-Chairman.

At this stage allow me to take the liberty to inform you and the world that H.F. President

Pasteur BIZIMUNGU is a person who commands the respect of Rwandese of all walks

of life. Most of us see him as a man with vision and capacity to conceive and implement

programs, which would go along way in alleviating the challenges facing the Rwandese

people to day and tomorrow.

In any case it was with his guidance that Rwanda managed to move from the state of

chaos of Jurly 1994 to the relatively stable situation of today, RPF international

contradictions notwithstanding.

By the year 199, you felt it was time to overhaul all the Institutions of Governance, so as

to make them compliant with your long-term agenda to peacefully take over the

Presidency and finally pave the way for your sole presidential candidature, come the

elections in the year 2003. Incidentally not many people believe you will even allow

these elections to take place !

You treacherously created the "Forum for Political parties, a club of sycophants of the

RPF/RPA and allied political parties, which is one thing that has no vocation in the laws

of Rwanda .

It is appalling that it bears the unconstitutional, arbitrary and outrageous powers to

subjugate independence of the Parliament ; an institution that is vested with the

legitimate authority and power to exercise checks on the Executive Government.

The first institution to be tackled was the Judiciary. However, while it is during this

period that it was reshuffled and without any problems, it had indeed always been

submissive to the extent that it could not turn down any thing sponsored by RPF/RPA

leadership.

It is in this sense that the Judiciary could not reverse the election of Major General Paul

Kagame as President and instead went ahead to swear him into Office contrary to the

Arusha Peace Agreement.

The former Speaker of Parliament Hon Joseph Sebarenzi Kabuye, had previously

opposed the intervention of the "Forum for Political Parties" into National Assembly

affairs.

The RPF/RPA in the person of Dr Charles Muligande, engaged the former Speaker

over the Radio and Television under the cover of the chairman of the " Forum for

Political Parties". Insults were thrown at the Speaker irrespective of his status as head

of the Transitional National Assembly and finally, the Speaker was battered into

submission.

There after, the Parliament was swept according to instructions from your RPF/RPA. All

independent minded M.PS irrespective of party affiliation were removed by the

RPF/RPA manipulated " Forum For Political Parties". This was so that subsequent

activities would not be blocked by the Parliament.

The current Speaker of Parliament is indeed a man who takes instructions from you

rather religiously. Did you know that like several other top leaders in your Government,

he is also busy looking for a home for his family members abroad ?

Removal of Senior Cabinet Minister via the Parliamentary censure however became

difficult as H.E. President BIZIMUNGU intervened in his defense of some of some of his

competent Cabinet Ministers.(3)

Next was removal of the Parliamentary Speaker, Joseph SEBARENZI, a man with a

clean record, who had aspired to become Chairman of the Liberal Party and who given

his mass mobilizing activities and themes, was suspected of having presidential

ambitions. This would have made him the only Tutsi rival to you.

As mentioned earlier, he had also conflicted with the infallible RPF/RPA leadership over

Parliamentary reshuffles and so was no longer in any good book any way.

3. The case of Prime Minister Celestin RWIGEMA is reported as one of a genuine

attempt to censure a member of Executive by Parliament.

____________________________

According to Arusha Peace Agreement(Constitution) the Speaker is the, the successor

to the President in case the latter is unable to complete his term of Office. This may be,

was the strongest reason for the Speaker of Parliament to have gone out Office before

you coup d'état. You team very well knew he was not going to see the Constitution

violated and find himself lined without putting up a fight.

The last obstacle to be removed was H.E. President Pasteur BIZIMUNGU who indeed

remains the Presidential popular choice of most Rwandese.

Parliament was instructed by the RPF/RPA to use all types of fabricated reasons to

pass a vote of no confidence in the President. But many Rwandese knew that you had

wished to get rid of the President for many months and finally when it happened, some

of us were not so surprised. We were more surprised by the lies and the viciousness of

your apostles !

However, even after you completed the coup d'état against the President, you remained

with a Constitutional obstacle for you to be able to take over the Presidency without

appearing to have violated the Constitution are in conflict.

While it is this true that the RPF declaration prevails in the hierarchy of laws of

Rwanda , this is only correct when two parts of the Constitution are in conflict. In this

case however there was no conflict.

The RPF declaration established the post of Vice Presidency but is silent on its powers

and responsibilities as well as on possibilities and modalities of succession to the

Presidency.

On the other hand Arusha peace agreement is clear about the replacement of the

President and provides for the Speaker of National Assembly as the successor.

What is appalling however is that the International Community , political parties in the

Country, the Media and the civil Society groups all remained silent, when the

intimidated Constitutional Court declared Major General Paul KAGAME the rightful

successor to H.E. President Pasteur BIZIMUNGU.

Thanks to all the manipulations, you now appear set as the incumbent President, to

finally push your way through the coming election as the sole presidential candidate

come the year 2003.

However, it should be clear to clear to all that what the RPF/RPA you lead has actually

done is to a carry gradual and peace full coup d'état against H.E. President Pasteur

BIZIMUNGU and to violate the Constitution.

Sham elections.

Your Excellency, you are making Rwandese and the International community to believe

that you have finally opened up the way for democratization. But you and me very well

know this is yet an an other wild goose chase for our people.

You and your team have planned, and you are executing sham elections aimed at

bringing to Office members of the RPF/Clique around you, and come the year 2003, the

sham elections must give you, and come the year 2003, the sham elections musty

give you an election landslide presidential mandate.

The sham Electoral Commission has not as yet come up with guidelines on the

elections to come. Neither has the Parliament passed any electoral laws and yet your

Government has gone ahead to fabricate electoral procedures and constituencies

deliberately demarcated to favor the RPF/RPA supported candidates.

You have barred all political forces in the Country from campaigning and yet your

RPF/RPA has launched a clandestine national compaign program that is now several

months old. Candidates in all communes have been identified, compaign resources are

being supplied and rival candidates are being intimidated.

The RPF/RPA is busy intimidating and /or bringing candidates so as to make them join

the RPF/RPA camp or to simply keep away. This applies to most Communal Leaders

who are members of other political parties.

The RPA has been brought in to give full support to the RPF/RPA candidates

countrywide. The RPA Army Hqs, Brigade and Battalion Commanders as well as

Intelligence Officers, have all been briefed and facilitated to ensure RPF/RPA victory at

any cost.

Dictatorial Leadership Style

You will no doubt he existing power vacuum in the RPF/RPA, to gradually and unfairly

strengthened your position by distancing those you were not sure of and dividing others

by crating artificial conflicts.

In the process you developed your own personal style of leadership ; a dictatorial type

of leadership, in many ways akin to the rule of Rwanda ’s pre-colonial despotic kings.

You surround your self with and only trust your childhood friends, former classmates

those who have ever served under you or in any case those who have served under

you or in any case those willing to bringing you information about others however

biased the information may be .

You coerce, intimidate and even physically assault those who work with you. Extreme

out of anger ; some times even on national radio and television are common

occurrences in your day to day running of state affairs.

In military circles such moods are some times accompanied by physical assault of

those close to you. Indeed senior army officers, military assistants and escort have

often become victims of your moods by for example being slapped, punched, whipped

or at least insulted and threatened in the process of executing their duties or even in

meetings. You remember one senior officer recently escaped to Brussels after such

treatment in an Army Council meeting.

You believe you know and understand every thing much better than all other people

and consequently you assume you do not be advised by any body. You do not entertain

debate and those around you do not dare venture into raising controversial matters.

Your word irreversible. You kill and save at will !

You entertain meetings only to monitor tendencies and people’s inclinations with a view

to assessing how to enforce your positions. You take all the important decisions in the

RPF/RPA Government. Any body else’s initiative, which indeed is a very rare

occurrence, must carefully be sold to you to have it approved.

The entire Rwandese Community is aware of this kind of leadership style and this is

why none dares cross your way even in words.

Those close to you what they know for sure you would like to hear. Those in your

company only dare laugh when it is your pleasure and who they raised provocative

questions.

This being the case, there is no simple program, policy or major activity that has been

carried out in the RPF/RPA and in the respective Governments of National

Reconciliation without either your personal initiative or direct approval. I therefore give

you credit for good that the RPF/RPA has achieved and hold you responsible for its

omissions and wrong actions.

What went wrong ?

While there is not doubt that the RPF/RPA struggle in Rwanda and in the war in DRC

were justified, and despite apparent military victories, there is overwhelming evidence to

the effect that in the conduct of the armed struggle against the Juvenal

HABYALIMANA’s regime and the war to stop genocide, the management of State

Affairs in Kigali , the conduct of the on going war in the DRC, there has been continuous

failure to evolve a correct political line, a correct organizational line and a correct

military line.

Over the years the RPA has militarily been guided by trial and error and as situations

change there is no serious efficient to adopt a military line that is in harmony with

situation ; that ensures the harmony between our aims and available resources ; that

avoids militarism and adventurism.

In particular, our experiences in late 1990, 1991, and early 1992, are clear illustrations

of this point. The RPF/RPA wars in the DRC have continued to follow the same

pattern, thereby proving that the RPF/RPA has not up to day not appreciated the

necessity to adopt scientific and tested approaches to war.

As a consequence the RPF/RPA has always paid dearly in human life (4) You of course

let no body know your death and casualty rates. But these rates we know any way and

may be you should endeavor to know, the amount of bitterness among your senior

officers whenever there is talk about those who «perished» and those who «survived».

You will remember that despite the RPF/RPA political program ; which is progressive

and patriotic ; which supports the right and condemns the wrong , which aspires to work

with and for the masses, the RPF/RPA leadership had by the end of 1990, totally given

up the necessity to follow a broad, patriotic, nationalistic, progressive and anti-sectarian

political line.

The weakest link in this connection is the sectarian character of the RPF/RPA

leadership, which is based on the assumption that all Tutsi must be allies, all Hutus

must not be trusted and other nationalities in the region are politically and militarily

inferior. In the DRC for example, we developed the naïve belief that all Congolese are

politically useless and born cowards. We have consequently refused to empower the

Congolese people so as to transform them into self-sustaining political and military

fighters.

4 . When time comes, this shall be discussed in amore detailed form and giving specific

example

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We naively think we can substitute them in their own liberation struggle. Or may be as

some quarters have always suggested, the RPF/RPA has a hidden agenda for the DRC

The RPF/RPA organizational line ; the ability to maintain the equilibrium between

various military, political, economic and other forces and factors, whether at home or in

the DRC, whether in the military , in Government or else where has and remains most

haphazard.

The internal and inter-institutional contradictions and problems highlighted earlier, serve

as clear illustrations of the RPF/RPA failure to evolve a correct organizational line over

the years. The instability characteristic of the RPF/RPA organizational plane.

Lack of political education and political work.

It is unbelievable that with the RPF political program by the side, and with flesh

NRM/NRA experience, the presence of intellectuals among its ranks not withstanding,

that the RPA leadership could have failed to appreciate the necessity to adopt a correct

military line, a correct organizational line as the sine qua non for waging a successful

liberation struggle.

However to the RPA insiders, this was and is no surprise. The culture of study whether

of political matters, military strategy and tactics, organizational problems and

opportunities was never given a platform.

In particular political education was slowly stifled and political work in the armed forces

was reduced to welfare issues, while political work among the population was the

exception rather the general rule.

This is how you destroyed political education and marginalized political work in the

RPF/RPA is dead. On the contrary , people joke about your intelligence service to effect

that you will soon have an operative for every citizen.

The fact that you personally believe in mechanical discipline rather than conscious

discipline was no justification for you to marginalize political education and political

education and political work both in the armed forces and among the population.

Indeed the RPF/RPA survives, thanks to much weakens enemies !

Observations

What ever has been described above has evidence. If you or anybody else in your

regime wishes to challenge any one of these facts, it shall be ready to provide names,

numbers, dates and places.

All of us who were in the RPF/RPA know the above as facts. Some NGOs and UN

Agencies witnessed and some of these atrocities.

Even the RPF/RPA Hutu members could not be shielded from these realities

irrespective of how much those concerned tried to hide evidevence. (5) In any case

there are survivors of these killings who could give evidence if they were given security

guarantees.

Here above-mentioned tendencies and practices were at some stage or another raised

and discussed in appropriate fora. Those who raise the issues were considered as

negative elements and treated as enemies.

It is regrettable that paving the way to the Presidency should have n ccitated the

destabilization of Institutions of Governance and t.. se of all types of dirty stricks even

within the RPF/RPA. In popular it is a shame that attempts should have been made by

RPF/RPA elements to unfairly tarnish the image of H.E. President Pasteur

BIZIMUNGU.

T…se Rwandese what matters is not whether the next President is Tutsi or a Hutu, or

whether he/she shall be from this party or that other party, but rather whether the next

President shall have an appropriate program and the capacity to champion the

i..mentation of such a program .

You have turned the RPF/RPA into monolithic institutions serving individual elements at

the detriment of the people of Rwanda and neighbors. The RPF/RPA has narrowed

down rather than buriened out. It has finally turned out to be an RPF/RPA clique raser

than a mass organization. It has ended up top heavy rather true grassroots based.

The RPF/RPA should not only apologize to the people of Uganda and the DRC for

having made the initial military attack on the Uganda Peoples Defense Forces in

Kisangani , but individuals resensible should be tried for crimres against humanity.

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Mots à moitié lisible sur la copie traitée p.48)

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The RPF/RPA leadership should be investigated for having illegally appropriated DRC’s

wealth. The same leadership must declare and account for what ever funds that have

been siphoned out of the DRC.

The RPF/RPA leaders must account to families for all RPA soldiers who have died and

got buried in the DRC since the RPA entered Congo . The remains of these late

comrades should be brought back home and given appropriate burial.

Rwandese soldiers cannot continue to be sacrificed in the DRC, so as to enrich

individuals in the RPF/RPA leadership. Rwanda must support fully the Lusaka Cease

Fire